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.


 
 

FOR NY TIMES READERS ONLY!

by Bert Stratton

Re: my op-ed in today’s NYT (8/17/13)

Welcome, New York Times readers.

I know you’re busy. You have other things to do.  Like working out  . . .

Guys, give me a New York minute!

Please enter your email in the space on the LEFT and click “submit.”  (TMI: Scroll down on the LEFT to a pink button that says “Yiddishe Cup Home.” You’ll see  “join the mailing list” there.)  You’ll get one email a week, every Wednesday morning.  Just one email a week.  And I won’t sell your email address to anybody.

I’ve written a lot about real estate.  Check out the stories here.

I’ve written a lot about music too.

Byliner chose one of my essays as a top non-fiction magazine article of 2012.

I’ve been in the Times op-ed section four times lately.  Who else can say that?  (Friedman, Brooks, Dowd.  They don’t count! They’re not freelancers.)

Subscribe to this blog.

At minimum, buy this album from my son the musician!  (I’m a stage dad, today only.)  My son has 100,000-plus hits on some of his YouTube videos. His pic was recently in Rolling Stone.

My op-ed today is a lot about family, so you might be interested — you still reading this? — to learn more:

My son Jack’s band, Vulfpeck, will be in New York  on October 4.

My son the lawyer, Ted, is a two-time Jeopardy! champion. The Times left that out!  Ted is a top-notch lawyer.  Ted, sue somebody for me.

Yes, I’m a proud dad.

My daughter, Lucy, and her husband,Tim, didn’t make the op-ed. (Lucy said, “Thank goodness.”) Here’s an equal opportunity addendum: Tim is a first-grade teacher, and Lucy is a corporate event planner in Chicago. Check out Lucy’s  event at the White House.

Shabbat shalom ( for those who celebrate).

See you here every Wednesday, or else!

P.S. I bought the paper — the Times.  The whole freaking Times.  That’s why I’m in it so much.  Bezos and me, we’re partying right now.

Stratton (white cap) surrounded by minority investors in NYT

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11 comments

1 Richard Goldstein { 08.17.13 at 8:34 am }

Maybe am blind but I can’t find the place on the left to add my email and click on submit. I would like to subscribe to your Wednesday email.

2 Bert Stratton { 08.17.13 at 8:50 am }

To Richard Goldstein:

Scroll down on the LEFT to a pink button that says “Yiddishe Cup Home.” You’ll see the “join mailing list” there.

I’ll add the above info to the body of my post, in case other people have the same trouble finding the sign up list. Thanks for letting me know.

3 Larry Chamblin { 08.17.13 at 10:14 am }

I love the story of your family business–a light touch with deft humor about a serious situation. I almost forgot stories I have read about the lasting effects long-term un- or underemployment can have on people as your article made me laugh. Hope your sons avoid those lasting effects.

4 Richard Grayson { 08.17.13 at 10:35 am }

Your NY Times pieces keep getting better and better. I wish they ran your columns twice a week instead of David Brooks’. I tweeted and linked on FB and emailed to several landlord friends.

5 The Wifely Person { 08.17.13 at 10:44 am }

I read your piece in the NYT and found my way here. I had to laugh….this Jewish mother doesn’t have a lawyer and a rock star…..I have a bluesman (http://www.reverbnation.com/mishasiegfried) and a clarinet playing mechanical engineer. (At least neither one is an actor, b”h!) Cousin Richard B. the tax lawyer is the Klezmer guy in this family.

Yes…I am subscribing.

6 Peter Scott { 08.17.13 at 3:40 pm }

Given the weak economy, I’m sure you’re right that your son’s efforts to do something productive with their lives will ultimately fail. And because they’ll inherit your “good job,” which depends upon the income of others who may also trying to do something productive, they will not be on the receiving end of an eviction notice when their inevitable failure comes to pass.

7 Todd Berman { 08.18.13 at 2:20 am }

Loved your piece about family business. My father was heartbroken, I think, that his three sons didn’t go in to his scrap metal business in Jacksonville. We became rabbis instead and two moved to Israel. Life is complicated and I often feel guilty that we “abandoned” my father. But living in Jax. would have been difficult. Financially, we did not make the more guaranteed and lucrative choice. But alas, we had a different calling.

8 Bert Stratton { 08.18.13 at 9:18 am }

I got a lot of comments on the Times op-ed. Not all here. Somebody from Japan — no, not my friend and writer Mark Schilling — checked in. A lit agent. A photographer. A couple machers in real estate. Some lawyers, musicians. Beaucoup high school buddies. A crank or two.

I had a good time watching my “numbers” climb on the NYT most-emailed page. I made it to #13 for “most-emailed within past 24 hours.”

I find it fascinating, and affirming, that the NYT repeatedly puts my stuff on their op-ed page — the most coveted real estate in all journalism. Thanks, Times. And thanks to all you readers.

9 jack { 08.18.13 at 4:20 pm }

shouldn’t you be more concerned with most-U.S.-mailed? ZIIIIIING

10 David Korn { 08.21.13 at 10:44 am }

I loved the NYTimes piece. Great picture, too.

11 Bill Jones { 08.21.13 at 2:50 pm }

Mazel tov, Bert, and may you continue to get a crack at more NYT OpEd real estate in the future.

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