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.


 
 

RUNNING OUT

by Bert Stratton

A “run-out” is when a band plays out of town and doesn’t stay overnight.  The group drives back the same day.

Cleveland is within 200 miles of Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Columbus and Detroit.  That’s a lot of “run out” possibilities.

running-out

Running-out is similar to the regional airline pilot’s life. You sleep in a semi-reclining seat, eat junk food and hope you don’t crash.

My wife, Alice, went on a road trip with Yiddishe Cup to Buffalo, New York.   That was her first one — after what, 20 years?  She had always refused road trips.  (She’s a dance leader.  Daniel Ducoff, our other dance leader, couldn’t make the Buffalo gig.)

The whole undertaking was 13 hours: four hours of playing, seven hours of driving, and two hours of  setting up and tearing down.

Alice aged a year that day, she said.  She had been “hit by a truck,” she said.

Pace yourself, Alice.  Take catnaps.  Drink a lot of fluids.  Eat an apple every day at 4 p.m.; if you do, you will be on Yiddishe Cup’s 2025 gig in Buffalo.

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3 comments

1 Steven Greenman { 03.23.11 at 9:56 am }

Cleveland-Buffalo-Cleveland in one day? Big deal. Try Fuerth-Geneva-Copenhagen, three concerts in three different countries in three consecutive days! Tons of fun though :)

2 Bert { 03.23.11 at 10:25 am }

To Steven Greenman:

Yiddishe Cup is ready for Fuerth-Geneva-Copenhagen.

Tell us when you need a sub.

3 Marc { 03.23.11 at 4:05 pm }

Regarding Bub, my grandmother was similar, yet different. She was from near Kiev in the Ukraine.

She kept a kosher house. She could be tough when she needed to be. Her distinguishing characteristic — one that many of her generation had — was street smarts.

They don’t make them like that anymore!

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