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.


 
 

I’M AROUND

by Bert Stratton

This blog has been around 10 years. Sometimes I think of hanging it up, but then I post a rerun and carry on. Over all, I enjoy writing the blog.

If I hadn’t started the blob, I wouldn’t have had any op-eds in national publications. My first New York Times piece  — about my mom shopping at Heinen’s — was written for this blog, but then I figured, hey, why not first send it to the Times for Mother’s Day. I sent it to “oped@nytimes.com,” and bingo, millions of people read the op-ed, including my ex-girlfriends, long-lost college and high school friends, Obama, Kissinger, and Dylan (or so I imagined).

My mother and father at Ohio Stadium, 1959. Julia and Toby Stratton.

My mother and father at Ohio Stadium, 1959.
Julia and Toby Stratton

Some people don’t want to be in this blog. I once showed a friend a rough draft about him, and he said, “I’m a private person. Please don’t run that.” And the piece was all flattery, too. Another time, a woman asked me to delete a post about her because she didn’t want me to be remembered the way I remembered her.

I started the blob to leave footprints in the sand, as the great Mileti said about his arena at Richfield, Ohio. I wonder if my kids, after I’m gone, will pay GoDaddy to keep the electricity on at this site. I doubt they will, and I don’t blame them. I might quit this blog at any time. Just a heads-up. I don’t owe you a 30-days’ written notice.

Thanks to everybody who write comments. Have you noticed how it’s 90-percent guys who comment?

The hard-boiled reason I started the blog: to promote Yiddishe Cup’s 2009 CD, Klezmer Guy. (Buy the CD here.) What’s a CD? What’s a blog?

 

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7 comments

1 Mark R Schilling { 05.22.19 at 9:33 am }

Blob? But thanks for keeping it going!

2 Don { 05.22.19 at 11:18 am }

Yes – thanks!
Actually, I bought the CD before I knew about the blog.

3 MARC { 05.22.19 at 12:45 pm }

I read it every week religiously….my head is covered.
Happy anniversary.

4 Mike Madorsky { 05.22.19 at 9:11 pm }

Bert, please don’t quit with the blog. Its my mid-week escape into the mind of one of the great writers of early 21rst century northeastern Ohio!
by the way, that picture of your folks looks like your Dad just lost some money on a Football bet that went wrong. Was he a compulsive gambler?

5 Kenneth Goldberg { 05.23.19 at 7:02 am }

MARC – Speaking of heads, mine has been swimming uncontrollably after I open my e-mail every Wednesday morning for the past ten years….

6 Arnie Berger { 05.24.19 at 3:49 am }

I don’t understand why more women aren’t reading this blog and commenting. Wouldn’t they be drawn by stories of deadbeat/quirky tenants and clogged sewer pipes?

7 Dave Rowe { 05.24.19 at 3:59 am }

So what do you get when you write comments? – well, you see your name in print, once in a while if you send one really good you get an E-Mail from the blogger. Worthwhile.

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