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.


 
 

TWO BERTS AT CORKY & LENNY’S

by Bert Stratton

I had lunch at Corky & Lenny’s with Bert Dragin, the owner of a local furniture store chain. He was looking for a movie script. This was in 1980. He said, “I’ve got money. Everybody will talk to me in L.A. Right now I have something in the Best of the New York Erotic Film Festival.” He asked if I would consider writing a screenplay about a fire at a gay nightclub in Atlanta. Not my thing, I told him.

Bert Dragin eventually sold his business and moved to Hollywood. He produced Suburbia (1983) and directed Summer Camp Nightmare (1987) and Twice Dead (1988). Dragin said, “You heard of Erotic Salad? It’s got a soft-X rating.” I said no.

This was my Hollywood lunch. The meeting was Hollywood-style (like kosher-style) because it was not actually in Hollywood, but Dragin did run a tab at C&Ls. That was pure Hollywood.

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Footnotes: The lunch was at C&L’s Cedar Center, not the “new” C&L’s. “Run a tab” means Dragin didn’t have to pull out his credit card or cash every time he ate at the restaurant.

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2 comments

1 Dave Rowe { 12.19.19 at 1:58 am }

A guy with those plans and accomplishments is probably from the east side, well, maybe not. –

2 Arnie Berger { 12.19.19 at 3:36 pm }

Possibly all that remains from the Corky & Lenny’s at Cedar Center is the painting by David Kutchko, depicting owners Sanford (Corky) Kurland (right), Leonard (Lenny) Kaden (left), and plenty of food. Painted in the late 1950s. Leonard Kaden gave it to the Western Reserve Historical Society in 2003. It still hangs in the library of the Cleveland History Center. Here’s the link to the picture you would have seen there.

https://www.clevelandjewishhistory.net/gallery/gal-cal.htm

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