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.


 
 

THE WEIGHT OF PAPER

by Bert Stratton

I have three file cabinets. That’s more than you. A 24-year-old man told me, “The whole history of twentieth century Cleveland real estate is in these file cabinets.” I cull the files periodically, like I recently threw out several 1974 W-2 forms and a 1980 old records filing cabinetsboiler manual. I have a particularly hard time throwing out stuff my dad scribbled on.

I have kept some of my father’s old financial statements. He used to inflate his car and furniture values  — and add some stocks he didn’t own — to look richer than he  actually was. He noted he had $17,000 in Emerson Electric, GTE, GM, and IBM, and a life insurance policy worth $78,000. He needed to look richer on paper to get more mortgages from banks. He leveraged a lot.

I use a computer, but I’m partial to paper. My dad died in 1986. He’s still going strong on paper. That says something. He’s not up to Shakespeare’s 400 years but my dad is making progress.

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3 comments

1 Joey { 05.04.17 at 2:30 pm }

Paper will have a comeback. I go through a whole legal pad twice a month.

2 David Rowe { 05.09.17 at 2:26 am }

Shakespeare probably had an accounting firm working for him.

3 Seth { 05.13.17 at 9:47 am }

I live in the house my dad built. Over the years as I’ve updated and remodeled, I come across my dad’s handwriting on the walls. Beneath the removed wallpaper, a drawing on how he wants the windows to look…a measurement for the size of the chute…a note to the carpenter. I hate covering them up with paint but I don’t think I could convince my partner to let them remain visible as a touchstone to the past. I’d treat each as a mezzuzah.

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