Real Music & Real Estate . . .

Yiddishe Cup’s bandleader, Bert Stratton, is Klezmer Guy.
 

He knows about the band biz and – check this out – the real estate biz, too.
 

You may not care about the real estate biz. Hey, you may not care about the band biz. (See you.)
 

This is a blog with a gamy twist. It features tenants with snakes and skunks, and musicians with smoked fish in their pockets.
 

Stratton has written op-eds for the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Washington Post.


 
 

BRILLIANT UNCIRCULATED

by Bert Stratton

1964 . . .
Maybe I  should buy Canoe for Stone’s bar mitzvah. No, I think I’ll go with a proof set.

The guys outside the Coin Shop at Cedar Center are sharp dressers. Schwartz has a built-in watch in his ID bracelet. Levin is twitching — a nervous thing. Stern has a heart murmur. The Twitch says, “I wish Cotton was a monkey.” That’s from the Little Rascals. Schwartz asks if I’m going to Stone’s bar mitzvah.

Yes, I’m going, but I’m not dancing at the bar mitzvah!

bar mitzvah

Canoe?

Proof set? I don’t know. BU set? (Brilliant uncirculated.)

Mint set?

I don’t want to go.

—
 This is half-true fiction.

—
I wrote “At Harvey Pekar’s Pad” for the Cleveland Plain Dealer (7/12/15).

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4 comments

1 Mark Schilling { 07.15.15 at 11:40 am }

I was more of an English Leather guy myself at age thirteen, but I also collected coins. My father would bring them home every night from the store and I’d sift through them, looking to fill in obscure gaps in my 20th Century coin books. I had mint sets and other rarities, but someone nicked them all from the house in Newark after my mother’s death. Keep it in the family, what?

2 David Korn { 07.15.15 at 12:54 pm }

I remember that in 1964 there was a myth about bar mitzvah gifts, that English Leather was déclassé, having been out-cooled by Canoe. So, if a girl gave you Canoe she liked you. Any truth to that (ask your wife)? Another cologne myth, maybe true but probably not: The real (or cool) pronunciation wasn’t like the little boat, but was ‘can-oo-way’. Stupid, right?

3 Dave Rowe { 07.16.15 at 11:40 am }

At Lutheran weddings the majority of the dancing is done by fingers – too much coffee.

4 Ken Goldberg { 07.16.15 at 4:20 pm }

Wow – this is a strange one, Bert. I can barely comprehend even one sentence. In-jokes and double entendres? Here’s something that might make at least a slight dent into comprehensibility here:
https://vimeo.com/47630104
And don’t forget: Target + “Tarjay!” [accent on second syllable]

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