Category — Miscellaneous

 
“Side Project”: A musician breaks away from his band and does his own thing. Almost all musicians do it, at least on occasion. But because my axe is clarinet, I can’t break away easily. Nobody wants to hear solo clarinet. I’m chained to my farkakte bandmates!

Not true. Last month I was hired at the last minute — a day prior to the gig — for a Holocaust survivors’ luncheon. My accompanist, pianist Alan Douglass, couldn’t make it. But Alan had fortuitously produced some backing tracks for me a while back, just in case.

And this was the case: Alberto Solo. I played “Besame Mucho,” “Di Grine Kusine” and “Moscow Nights.” I even blew shofar, clarinet-style. This was during the High Holidays.

Nineteen people, total. I reached all 19, I think. I sat with them; I ate with them; and played clarinet while seated at various tables. There was some sort of chicken roll, courtesy of the kosher caterer. “You Are My Sunshine,” “Misty,” klezmer instrumentals, and “Tumbalalaika,” of course.

I talked to a Romanian woman about her granddaughter, who plays drums in Broadway shows. A Polish woman jokingly said she has a German brother and an Italian brother. Her brothers were born in DP camps.

Former bandmate Irwin Weinberger, and his father, Herman, 1966. Herman was a Holocaust survivor from Poland.

I got paid by the Jewish Family Service Association and Germany, via an understanding called the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany — a worldwide Holocaust-reparations cultural-enrichment program.

I’ve previously played this gig with Alan. Two years ago I wrote about it: “Holocaust Remembrance at Cafe Europa. Everybody in the audience had an astonishing story.” (link, no paywall: Wall Street Journal.)

I needed Alan two years ago. Who needs him now?

Alan Douglass, 2011. He’s one of the best musicians in Cleveland. Ask anyone.

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You are precious. You suck.

You are overrefined and inauthentic.

A cappella music is precious. All of it. A friend once told me that. Harvey Pekar called Willio & Phillio precious. (Willio & Phillio were a talented 1980s-era Cleveland comedy/music group.) Maybe Harvey called Willio & Phillio precious because they were not anti-social like he was.

Willio & Phillio — the name  — was certainly precious, and they should have changed it. Eventually Will Ryan (Willio) went out to Los Angeles to work for Disney, and Phil Barren (Phillio) became a cantor in Los Angeles.

2004

Yiddishe Cup — hate to say it — is precious. But only occasionally, like when we say “oy vey” followed by “olé.” Maybe we should disband.

Peter Laughner, the Cleveland guitarist, died from drug and alcohol abuse at 24. He was not precious. (He was part of the Pere Ubu underground scene.)

One last thing: You’re precious!

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This essay was in the Cleveland Plain Dealer last week.

The Cost of Living

LAKEWOOD, Ohio — Some older folks like to regale young people with stories about how matinee movies cost 25 cents, circa 1960. These old folks rarely mention 25 cents in 1960 equals $2.66 in today’s money. And Coca-Cola was a dime. Give me a break; I always try to reference the Consumer Price Index (CPI) whenever I do historical flashbacks.

The CPI is a big part of my life and job. I’m a landlord. I don’t go ballistic with annual rent raises, but enough to stay in the game. An efficiency apartment in Lakewood goes for about $700/month. That’s a bare-bones, 1920s-era apartment — no dishwasher, no air conditioning, no elevator. Academics call these apartments “workforce housing.” Tenants get a kitchen, bathroom, and a living room that doubles as a bedroom. About 350 square feet. You don’t throw big parties. If you lay out your efficiency tastefully, you can call it a studio. I’ve seen studios that look like sleek Pullman cars, with everything in just the right place. I’ve seen expensive folding bikes hanging on racks along walls. An efficiency can be a work of art, or just a huge mound of dirty clothes in the center of the room. Depends on the tenant.

Bill rented an efficiency in Lakewood. His apartment was clean, small and cheap, period. Nothing fancy. Bill told me his rent check had been stolen. He had never been late with his rent before. I went to the Lakewood police station with him. A police officer asked his name. Bill said, “Bill.”

“William?” the policeman said.

“Bill . . . Bill R. Hunter.” Bill had moved to Cleveland from Kentucky decades ago and was a retired factory worker. He smoked a lot, and his right hand had no fingers. We repainted Bill’s apartment walls nearly every year because the government wanted the walls to not look like the color of Bill’s lungs. Bill’s rent was partially subsidized by the government.

Eventually Bill was reimbursed for the stolen rent payment by a money-order company. A crook had knocked Bill down on Detroit Avenue and cashed the money order. The cops nabbed the robber several weeks later. Lakewood police are good.

Detroit Avenue, Lakewood, Ohio

But then Bill missed two rent payments in a row. I found out he was in a nursing home. I wondered, “How creepy would it be for me to try to collect the rent at a nursing home?” Bill’s distant relatives didn’t answer my calls, and the government stopped paying its portion of the rent. I went to the nursing home, which was right across from Bill’s apartment. Bill — with oxygen tubes in his nose — muttered to me, “You’ll get paid.” Flat on his back, he balanced a wallet on his chest. He counted out the rent. “Here you go, buddy.” He called a lot of people buddy.

Then Bill’s wallet vanished, and so did Bill. He wasn’t at the nursing home, and he wasn’t in the hospital. And he wasn’t in the obits. And he owed rent. The housing agency eventually gave me a “case closed” green light to enter Bill’s apartment. We pitched Bill’s belongings into the dumpster, except for his TV, which another tenant took.

Bill’s wooden floors hadn’t been re-sanded in19 years. That’s how long he had lived in the efficiency. The cost of re-sanding floors was up 94%. Inflation was up 53%. Bill’s rent was up 64% in those 19 years.

I called the Ohio Bureau of Vital Statistics. A clerk said she had many dead Bill Hunters on file. I said “Bill R. Hunter. Lakewood.” She said he had died shortly after leaving the nursing home.

I doubt Bill ever checked the cost of living. He didn’t need to. He lived it. He used to write “rant” in the subject line on his checks.

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“I’ve read every word of your blog,” a musician told me.

Hooray for him. I wrote every word.

At shul, a reader told me, “You found your subject. Toby.”

No, you did. I’ve had Toby (my father) on the brain for decades.

Toby Stratton, 1938. OSU graduation.

A woman told me, “I look forward to your Wednesday-morning posts. I don’t do comments.”

My comment: 95% of readers don’t do comments. They’re above that.

Several readers claim they’ve read every word of this blog. OK, prove it:

1. What was the name of Yiddishe Cup before it was Yiddishe Cup? A. Wild Horses  B. Funk a Deli  C. Kosher Spears.

2. Who invented klezmer? A. The Jews  B. The Klezmorim (Berkeley)  C. Henry Sapoznik.

3. What was Toby Stratton’s legal first name? A. Toby  B. Theodore  C. Wayne.

4. What did Toby want buried with him in his coffin? A. Chlortrimeton allergy pills  B. An Indian-head nickel  C. The Wall Street Journal.

5. How do Yiddishe Cup musicians refer to their bandleader? A. Ding-a-ling  B. Pissant  C. Sir.

6. Yiddishe Cup has played: A. Brooklyn, N.Y.  B. Brooklyn, Ohio  C. Neither.

7. A landlord’s biggest problem is: A. water leaks  B. bugs  C. tenants.

8. Toby’s favorite sport was: A. tennis  B. counting Jews in Chinese restaurants  C. depositing rent checks.

9. Most often a working musician’s main interest is: A. music  B. the food situation.

10. Does Jack Stratton play with Yiddishe Cup? A. Depends on what decade you’re talking about.

11. Which group can you make fun of in Cleveland?: A. Slovenians  B. Blacks  C. Orthodox Jews  D. Slovenians.

12. Which is the hardest to find? A. A plumber  B. roofer  C.  electrician  D. door-buzzer guy.

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I was putting away my tenor sax. I was seated. The wooden chair leg snapped and I fell into a bunch of flower bouquets stage-side. Wet flowers. Luckily I had on a heavy tux jacket. I landed on my shoulder. I wore the heavy tux because it was cold out (earlier this month); the wedding gig was in a tent with no heat. Good news. I didn’t injured anything.

When an old person tumbles, it’s newsworthy, at least to the tumbler. I see falls occasionally on gigs – old people doing the hora and tripping. Once a young woman tripped and broke her ankle. She was scheduled to run a marathon. It’s all about the shoes.

Seven steps in Michigan. (Camp Michigania)

Seven steps in Michigan . . . I was walking down some steps in Michigan last month. The stairs were outside, it was dark and everybody was saying “Look at the blue moon — the super moon!” I did, and I went flying. I had just seen the Olympics on TV; maybe that’s why, in mid-air, I decided to “plant” like a gymnast and then roll on my right shoulder. I had on a polar fleece jacket. Again, nothing happened. 2-for-2.

A friend sprained her ankle hiking in Colorado on vacation. An acquaintance broke her hip in Cuba on a trip (literally); she wound up staying down there a couple extra weeks. In Mexico I fell off a mountain bike and injured my ribs. That was five years ago. I’d like to blank that out. I bruised my ribs. Not broken, not fractured, just bruised. At least I think I was just bruised; I never got an X-ray to find out. I could breathe. It was a little difficult to play the clarinet but I could.

Roll with it. Hope your luck holds.

—

Yiddishe Cup plays the University Heights Fall Fest 12-1 pm this Sunday (Aug. 29) at Walter Stinson Park, 2301 Fenwick Rd, University Heights, Ohio. The event is free.

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English novelist Howard Jacobson described himself as a “stomach Jew” in an interview. He’s a bagel-and lox guy. He doesn’t go to synagogue. He’s a stomach Jew. How about a lung Jew? A vein Jew?

I bumped into Jacobson in London. Former Yidd-Cupper Irwin Weinberger and I ran into him on the street. Irwin and I were over in Londres in 2016. Irwin feigned a British accent while we busked. We did “When I’m 64.” Nothing much happened when we played it. London is big; people ignore you.

Howard Jacobson

I recognized Jacobson’s punim from his book dust- jacket head shots. He won the Booker Prize in 2010. I said to him, “Are you the English Philip Roth?” I couldn’t remember his actual name when I bumped into him. Jacobson acknowledged he was, in fact, the English Philip Roth. Some American book reviewers call him that.

Irwin and I told him we play klezmer and some Catskill’s comedy tunes, and Jacobson said, “Like ‘Bar Mitzvah Ranch?’” (Mickey Katz used to dress up as a Bar Mitzvah rancher in cowboy boots and chaps.) Katz, the musician, was from Cleveland. Jacobson said, “You play for ranchers?” Ohio is ranches.

Goodbye. Jacobson had places to go. A half hour later we ran into him again. What are the chances of that in London? He was with his wife. I should have asked about the “stomach Jew” quote. In America we say “deli Jew.” My dad, Toby, was the king of deli Jews — borscht, halvah, corned beef. He grew up in a deli.

I was once a bagel Jew. I’d go to Bialy’s in University Heights, buy 15 bagels, eat two bagels right away, and drive to my mother’s and give her three, and take home 10. I was more than a bagel Jew. I was a bagel. Next time I run into Jacobson we’ll talk bagels.

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Some of my friends and relatives are extremely cheap. I know two people who reuse dental floss. I’m not like that, but the one thing I do like to save money on is postage stamps. I won’t use two first-class stamps on a two-ounce letter. I go with one first-class, 73-cent ‘forever’ stamp, plus one “additional-ounce” forever stamp, 24 cents.

I’m a former philatelist. I have a U.N. souvenir sheet from 1965. United Nations stamps were a hot item back then. I got the souvenir sheet as a gift for my Confirmation. It cost my parents $75 ($749 in today’s dollars). The sheet is worthless now. U.N. stamps tanked just like the org.

I made a trip to the P.O. to buy “additional ounce” stamps. Also, I decided to get some extra 2-centers, too. Yes, I use Quickbooks and Venmo, but I use the USPS as well. The P.O. clerk handed me the 2-centers  and informed me she had no “additional ounce” stamps.

“Do you sell milk?” I said. “This is a post office. You sell stamps! You don’t have stamps? Where can I get the stamps?”

She said try another branch.

I left. I’m not doing any more runs to the P.O. for “additional ounce” stamps. I’ll simply put two first-class stamps on two-ounce mail from now on. So it’ll cost me an extra 49 cents each time. (Maybe my son Ted will get me some additional-ounce stamps if he reads this.) I’ll be spending about $10 more per year by not using the additional-ounce stamp.

—

By the way, I didn’t say “Do you sell milk?” at the P.O. I dreamt that retort up in the P.O. parking lot, post-visit. But the dialogue looks good here, in writing, so pretend I said it.

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Every two years I prune my library. My wife insists. If you want any of these books (see list below), stop by my tree lawn before Tuesday — garbage day.

Glenn E. Schembechler

Bowl Game Disasters by Glenn E. Schembechler

Stupid Bastard: The Life of Harry Purim by Meier Meier

10 Days to a Hairless Body by Anne Greune

The Whim of Grit by Malcolm Bolivia

So You Want to Be Jewish? by Miriam Roth

The Story of the Harlem Cooperative Bakery by Rose Lee Pak

Cover Your Lawn with Green Sheet Metal by Jennifer Budzowski

Throw Away Your Truss by Jon Kades

So You Want to Dance, Act, and Play the Clarinet! by Pippi

Kreplach in the Congo by Reb Yellen

Amusing Car Sales by Sid Halpern

Spelling Made EZ by Jaimi Michalczyk

The Peacock Invasion by Morry Corriendo

Good Riddance, Chancres! by Rodney Benton

Cryptic Tokens of Praise (poetry) by Del Spitzer

Whoring in Milan, Rome and Naples by “Lilly”

Goldwater by William E. Miller

The Streets of San Francisco and Richmond, California by Cindy L. Barbour

The Man: Susan B. Anthony by Janice Kugelman-Sugerman

Milk Will Kill You by Len Saltzberg, M.D.

Pet Insurance for Dummies by Buster

Guess Your Friends’ Net Worth by James Kirston

Barbados: Our Key Ally by Cecil Hernandez

Thinking is the New Smoking by Amos The Bison

No Mo’ Boca: A Baby Boomer’s Guide to Retirement by Esther Palevsky

Cuckoos and Grosbeaks by Nancy Dubick

Carolina: The New Promised Land by Irv Weinberg

Visceral Robotics by Suellen Montague

Garbage: A History of Waste Management Inc. by Lake Koonce-Katz

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There are three types of Jews. No, not Reform, Conservative and Orthodox. Try American, Israeli and victims of the Holocaust. Each about a third.

The Israeli contingent is top of mind right now, with Iran and its proxies wanting to turn Israel into dead Jews. In America — in Cleveland — what is a Jew to do? I called my friend Shelly Gordon, who moved to Israel after college to become a tennis pro. He played for Ohio State. He still gripes about my childhood private lessons; I violated the South Euclid Tennis Court Oath, which was Don’t Be a Tennis Snob. Shelly‘s strokes are bad but he’s good. He never took a private lesson.

He said, “Ninety percent of Israel is business as usual — going about our lives. I play tennis.” Shelly is a sports nut. He follows the Browns, Buckeye, Cavs and Guardians. In Israel he logs on at 3 a.m. to catch Cleveland sports scores. He once had a yarmulke that read “Cleveland Cavaliers.” On his off days, he visits his children and grandchildren and hopes they don’t get killed.

What‘s a Cleveland Jew to do? Here’s an option. Yiddishe Cup plays a benefit concert for Magen David Adom — the Israeli emergency blood and medical services operation.

The concert is 7 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 28, at the outdoor, covered Wain Pavilion, Park Synagogue, 27500 Shaker Blvd, Pepper Pike, Ohio.

Magen David Adom is like an Israeli Red Cross. The concert is free but donations are encouraged. Money from the concert — along with gelt from other Cleveland-area contributors — will go toward buying an ambulance.

Yiddishe Cup will play songs from Holocaust-haunted Eastern Europe, America, and songs from Holocaust-avoiding Israel.

Cleveland stands (and sits) with Israel. There are chairs.

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When I traveled in Latin America in the early 1970s, I was constantly on the lookout for American culture. American culture, not Latin American culture. I was homesick. In Mexico City I heard Kurt Vonnegut give a lecture. I went to American movies. I remember Paper Moon. I attended a Charlie Byrd concert in Bogota. Bryd — a jazz guitarist — had played with Stan Getz. Byrd introduced his band in Spanish, saying “en la batería” for “on the drums” and “en el bajo“ for “on the bass.” Byrd connected linguistically and I admired that. His concert was part of a U.S. State Department tour.

I did an Charlie Byrd imitation last week. I introduced Vulfpeck in Spanish at a concert in Madrid. I spoke Spanish to 3,500 Spaniards!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8P-e3bGDSak

Outdoor concert, Vulfpeck, Madrid, 7/21/24.

I told my son Jack that my intro would take a minute. It took 4:19 minutes. While I blabbed on, Jack became slightly agitated stage-left, in the wings. He signaled me to speed it up but I didn’t see him.

I hate it when a musician says he’ll do a minute and then solos for two minutes. In my defense, re Madrid, some of my stage-hogging time consisted of applause and laughter.

Here’s a translated joke from my intro: “Ladies and gentlemen, I was so excited when I first heard Vulfpeck was going to play Madrid that I immediately went on the internet and checked out the lineup for tonight’s show — Apertura de puertas 7:30 pm, Judith Hill 8:45 pm, Vulfpeck 10:15 pm. I wondered, What is this band Apertura de Puertas?”

“Apertura de puertas” means “Doors open.”

Maybe you had to be there.

—

I had a terrific Spanish teacher, Judith Worth, at Brush High. She wrote me in 1980: “Bert, I was glad to have news of all your classmates, and to know that they are doing well — and have used their Spanish. I was very attached to all of you, as if you were my own kids.” I’ll send her this post. (According to the internet, she’s 87 and living near Austin. I last talked to Mrs. Worth four years ago.)

Charles F. Brush High yearbook, 1968.

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When Trombone Shorty played last month at Cain Park, in Cleveland Heights, he was loud. I didn’t take out a decibel reader but the show was ear-splitting. And I was wearing earplugs. Trombone Shorty frenetically ran around saying, “Let’s get crazy!” and “How you feeling? Feeling Good!” He played mostly super-loud funk and not much New Orleans brass-band music.

Trombone Shorty

Why did I go? Because I like the name “Trombone Shorty.”  If Shorty had been Joe Smith, I probably wouldn’t have gone. [What’s Shorty’s real name? . . . Troy Andrews.] I like New Orleans brass-band jazz. I don’t like rock-level blasting. Two guitars, electric bass, loud drums, no sousaphone.

Eleven years ago I was in New Orleans on vacation,  and I sat in with some pro musicians on Jackson Square. Trumpeter Kenny Terry had a slick ensemble which entertained tourists on the square. I went back to my hotel room, got my axe, and — heads-up, Kenny — here I am!

Terry said, “Where you from — Kansas?” Close enough. He announced to the crowd: “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a special guest from Cleveland!”

Cleveland was good business for Terry; eyeballs focused on the white guy with the clarinet. Tip-jar activity increased. There were about 100 people.

We did a Bb blues. I didn’t project enough; I had a thin sound, at least for outdoors. Kenny said, “You got to play with some balls!” That hurt.

I said, “I have this cheap plastic reed!”

The word in New Orleans is “If you’re loud, you’re loved.” (Phil Frazier, of Rebirth, said that.)

Back home in Cleveland, I bought a new, louder clarinet barrel so I could played with “some balls.” Trombone Shorty, at Cain Park, played with a lot of balls. He should have stuck with two.

—

I’ve disliked loud music for a long time — way before I became an old crank. My freshman roommate at college was into the MC5. I convinced him to move out of our room. Then I got a roommate who liked Jefferson Airplane. That didn’t work out well, either. Pure jazz — that was my thing. The blues, too. My third — and final — roommate was into nothing musically, and we got along fine.

So I had three roommates my freshman year. Does that say anything about me? Nothing! (Screeched at a high decibel.)

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Dick Feagler, the late Cleveland newspaper columnist, wrote about World War II, the Korean War and similar good-old-days topics. When he ran out of material, he made stuff up. He invented a fictitious West Side coffee shop where he and his buddies would hang out and reminisce. He didn’t tell his readers the coffee shop wasn’t real. The coffee shop’s non-existence was revealed on Feagler’s last day of work, in 2008, via the Cleveland Plain Dealer ombudsman.

Dick Feagler

I wrote the ombudsman: “Dick Feagler has been writing fiction all these years about characters in a made-up coffee shop on the far West Side? Hey, is there a real Heinen’s in Bay Village, or did Feagler make that up, too? I’m an East Sider. I need to know.”

The omsbudsman wrote back: “No matter what you think of the way he handled the boys in the coffee shop, Feagler has been the Mike Royko of Cleveland for longer than Royko was the Dick Feagler of Chicago, and we have been lucky to have him.”

True.

Royko, in Chicago, telegraphed his made-up columns with character names like Slats Grobnik and Dr. I.M. Kookie. Feagler’s coffee-shop people were Jim, Frank, and Loraine — a waitress. Funny, those names weren’t funny. Feagler should have asked one of his made-up character, Mrs. Figment, to nickname the gang in the coffee shop.

This major criticism aside (about Feagler making stuff up), he was very readable, good at nostalgia, and amusing. I miss the man’s writing. He died in 2018 at 79.

I ran into an alter kocker former journalist the other day who started name-dropping PD writers like they were old car models. (DeSoto, Packard, Studebaker) . . . Mary Strassmyer, Karen Sandstrom, Dick Feagler, Doug Clarke.

Here’s my addendum: Tom Green, Alfred Lubrano and Jim Parker. These guys weren’t around long but they could write. Terry Pluto is my favorite these days.

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Uncle Bob sat in his backyard in Athens, Georgia, and talked about Cleveland. He told me he had had dreams about long-gone Cleveland streetcars. And he said he periodically checked out the Cleveland obits to see who died. (Bob was born in Cleveland in 1924 and died in Atlanta in 2011.)

Bob Kent, 1962, Mill Valley

Bob said he had wanted to join the Haganah. But for some reason that never happened. He did, however, serve during World War II and Korea. Bob was an artist and one of the first gringos to head down to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico — around 1949. San Miguel was an artists’ colony packed with former GIs. Then Bob taught art at Tamalpais High School (Mill Valley, California) in the 1950s and early 1960s. He said he saw Kesey in the Haight but never saw Kerouac in North Beach.

In his youth, Bob was a bit of a brawler and had a broken nose to prove it. He said he had regularly crashed Jewish weddings at the Cleveland Jewish Center on East 105th Street and the Temple on the Heights on Mayfield Road. High-class shuls. Bob grew up in Kinsman — working class. He married my mother’s sister Celeste Zalk, also of Kinsman.

Bob got a PhD while teaching high school in California and wound up as an art-education professor at the University of  Georgia. Athens — in the mid-1960s — was no San Francisco, but it was a job. Bob was adept at slinging the prof lingo: “existential,” “seminal,” and “cognitive.”

Bob changed his last name from Katz to Kent. I don’t know when. I think my father had something to do with the name change. Speaking of Kent, I knew a Winston who had previously been a Weinstein. Are there other Jews named after ciggies? Old Gold? (Herb Gold.) I miss cigarettes — the names. Tareyton, Benson & Hedges.

This isn’t the whole story of Bob. Bob’s children — my first cousins — know more, and they ain’t going to tell it!

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My parents stopped hanging around with  rich people because my parents couldn’t afford to. One of my dad’s childhood buddies built shopping centers. My father was not going to spend money at fancy restaurants with him for no good reason. My parents socialized mostly with self-employed business people — a hardware store owner, the sewing machine guy and a shoe store guy.

(R) Alex Kozak, 1962. Stratton backyard.

The sewing machine person, Alex Kozak, sold record albums to me. Appliance store owners used to sell records. Mr. Kozak was a World War II Red Army veteran — a Hungarian Jew who escaped the Nazis and fought with the Russians. I borrowed his cavalry boots for my high school Canterbury Tales presentation. Mr. Kozak was a big man — one-and-a-half Isaac Babels. Mr. Kozak sold me Bechet of New Orleans and Be-Bop Era., both RCA Vintage Series LPs.

My dad liked hanging around with the Holocaust survivors; many of the men knew baseball, and they were for the most part no-nonsense. What was there to talk about — the good old days?

—

Yiddishe Cup gigs for Holocaust survivors’ luncheons were difficult. The crowds often wouldn’t pay attention. They would kibitz during the music. Another thing, the organizers would sometimes say “just a short program for the survivors.”  How long was a “short program” exactly?

I had a classmate, Gary (not his real name), who re-told his parents’ Nazi horror stories for the Cleveland Press. This was in the 1960s — pre-“Holocaust,” the term. Gary’s father worked at a kosher poultry market. Gary was religious. He often stayed home for obscure (to me) Jewish holidays, like Succot. Some of the Jewish kids teased him when he came back. The non-Jews were oblivious.

I emulated Gary’s “Let’s go, Jews!” writing style. I wrote a letter to the Cleveland Press protesting the first U.S. Christmas stamp with a religious symbol (Madonna and child), 1966. I said the stamp violated the separation of church and state. I got letters. One reader said, “Go to Vietnam where men are men and not homosexual like you.” That motivated me — not to go to Nam but to write more letters. I wrote about Poland expelling its last Jews in 1968. What would the Poles do when they ran out of Jews? That letter, too, got some play. I vied with Gary for champion Jewish teenage letter writer. All I had to do was write “Jew” and I would get half-baked, vitriolic feedback. I had been through so little and wanted to experience World War II (without the pain). Then go home and eat some Jell-O.

Sewing machine guy:  About 20 years ago, at a klezmer concert in Detroit, I ran into Mr. Kozak’s older daughter for the first time in decades. She told me her nephew had the cavalry boots now — the ones Mr. Kozak had worn as he rode through Prague with the Soviets in 1945, and the ones I had worn in high school English class.

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I employed a building manager who loved the Weather Channel and thought the end of the world was coming daily via tornados or snowstorms. I don’t think she ever went outside in the winter. She said winter was too gray for her.

Bad weather is no excuse for a bad attitude. If you don’t like gray, move or get a sun lamp. More gets accomplished in gray weather. The Scots and New Englanders didn’t invent stuff sitting at the beach.

Another employee was fixated on the weather, too. He did a lot of  interior apartment painting and wanted it to be 74 degrees, like Costa Rica, so he wouldn’t sweat.

My parents had a condo in Florida. So did my in-laws. In fact, my folks and Alice’s parents lived in the same development (Boca Lago, Boca Raton) and got along better than Alice and I.

I’m not a Florida fan. Too hot. I know a klezmer musician — a bushy-haired baby-boomer — who moved to Florida and took up golf. Maybe he played a freylekhs (hora) by the water fountain on the 16^th hole at Boca Lago. (Mickey Katz did that, although not at Boca Lago. His band got paid to surprise a golfer on his birthday at a golf course somewhere.)

Arizona versus Florida – that’s the question here in Cleveland in the winter. Alice and I went to a wedding in Florida, where a guest asked us, “Are you still in Cleveland?” That meant: “Are you nuts? Do you like snow, gray skies, slush and potholes?” Don’t mind those things. I went walking yesterday in very cold weather. As they say, there’s no bad weather, just bad clothes. I think a Scandinavian said that.

Lake Erie

Another Cleveland woman at that Florida wedding said, “The day I hit 62, I had to leave Cleveland.” She now spends her winters in Scottsdale. A third Clevelander — originally from South Africa — said she preferred Florida over Arizona because of the water. “I like the ocean,” she said.

Lake Erie is the “ocean.” Look it up. Cleveland is doable.

One last word: layers.

—

Here’s my op-ed from the 1/11/24 Wall Street Journal. (No paywall)  “Wait a Minute, Mr. Postman.” 

a blue-ish mailbox

P.S. re: mailbox story . . . Yesterday I got a FedEx gift of a carton (12 cans) of USPS spray paint from a mole deep in a paint factory. The mole’s note read, “Always paint with the correct color.” (If you need a can of Postal Blue, let me know. But I don’t ship.)

Please read my WSJ article if this is all Greek to you.

The real stuff

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If you’re going to lose something, lose a ski cap. When I lost my ski cap, I retraced my steps along Taylor Road. I figured nobody would pick up a used ski cap. But some jerk did! The cap was gone. Coincidentally, my wife had lost a ski cap the day before.

I like a cap that isn’t too snug.

I always have a couple ski caps in storage. I need various weight caps. I reinspect my inventory every December for the impending winter. I like a ski cap with some color in it in case I drop it.

Discount Drug Mart has good ski caps for $2 each.

If this post is too Larry David, so be it. The guy is always ripping me off.

Stay warm.

(Illustration by Ralph Solonitz)

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I held a party last month in a dumpy part of New York, at a winery/bar in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, right near a pedestrian foot bridge. The Scott Avenue pedestrian foot bridge — a steel-and-concrete structure — was built by Republic Steel, circa 1952, so that steelworkers could safely cross the Long Island Rail Road tracks to get to the then-extant mill.

The Scott Avenue foot bridge.(Photo by Mitch Waxman)

My party was a Vulfpeck pre-concert “tailgate” for friends and relatives. After the party we were going to walk en masse over the bridge from the winery/bar to the concert venue, which was in a nearby Flats-like former warehouse/factory.

I was concerned my guests wouldn’t take to the bridge. For one thing, the bridge had a lot of graffiti and there was garbage all over. I thought my sister would bail and take an Uber from the winery/bar to the concert. My sister has never been big on filth. But she and everybody else didn’t complain about the hike or the bridge! It helped that it was dark out. The litter on the bridge was less apparent. On the far side of the bridge, several Latinos were finishing up a volleyball game. Other than that, nothing.

I had read stories in the Brooklyn Paper about crime in the neighborhood of the bridge. But those stories mostly had to do with concertgoers leaving rave shows at 2 am, drunk or stoned, and getting robbed or just plain dying of overdoses.

That Scott Avenue pedestrian foot bridge held its weight.

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I went to about three bar mitzvahs. Just three. That’s nothing. My family lived on the wrong side of the tracks, with a bunch of Italeyners (Yiddish for “Italians”). The tracks were a South Euclid public park — Bexley Park. The Yidn lived on the south side and the ‘Taleyners — plus my family and assorted other ethnics — lived on the north side. “Assorted other ethnics” meant PIGS: Polish-Italian Greek Slovenians. This was during the dying days of white ethnicity.

The fact my parents lived with ‘Taleyners is an accident of history. My parents were shopping for their first house, in 1951, and the realtor told them the house was in the Jewish elementary school district, but it was actually in the ‘Taleyner district.

It was like I grew up on Kinsman or in Lower Manhattan. Italians everywhere. I got in a couple fist fights. “Kike” and stuff like that. The trouble with “kike” was I couldn’t figure out what to yell back. My nadir was when I called a kid a “Big L,” for Lutheran. He wasn’t offended.

Genug with the Italians. Move on . . .

We had a Slovenian king, Yonkee, in our neighborhood.

“My father is the poker king,” Yonkee’s son told me.

“What’s that?”

I had misheard him. “My father is the polka king.”

Frankie Yankovic was the king of Slovenian-style polka. Yonkee  lived on the-somewhat-grand Belvoir Boulevard. He had a pool in his back yard. Yonkee was Hollywood. He had played a club in Los Angeles where Sinatra and Doris Day had hung out.

I rarely saw Yonkee. He was on the road more than B.B. King . . . Wausau, Wisconsin; Edna, Minnesota; Muskegon, Michigan. I read his bio. In 1983 Yonkee was arrested for stealing a pound of bacon from a grocery store. He settled out of court. Who stole the kishke?

I’m settling this; I was part of the last generation that featured white ethnic rivalry.

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Ted Budzowski had two Stratoloungers in his living room. One for him and one for his wife. Also, Ted had a stuffed mongoose-and-cobra souvenir from Okinawa, and a tree-stump occasional table, which his son had made. The son lost $8,000 on tree stump tables, which never caught on big in Cleveland. The good news was the son also was a retired career soldier. (Note, I’m not knocking Stratoloungers. I have a La-Z-Boy.) My daughter says I shouldn’t discuss recliners, but I’m a fan of recliners.

Ted Budzowski, 1978, age 63.

Ted grew up in Youngstown, Ohio, near Cow Shit Hill (a real place). Ted and his kids made it out. Ted’s second son worked for the phone company.

Ted worked at Republic Steel. Ted and his wife, Sophie, managed a building for my family. When Ted retired to Texas in 1984 — to live near his soldier son — I hired a tougher hombre — a guy named Buck — who had grown up in a Tennessee orphanage. Buck didn’t like me and people like me (sons of bosses). Buck didn’t cotton to cleaning up after tradesmen and watering outdoor plants. Not part of his job. Buck often got “porky” with me. (That meant “argumentative.”)

Ted, on the other hand, had always treated me kindly. I had counted on Ted to tell me when my tire pressure was low, for instance. He had an eye for low tire pressure. (This was before cars had low- tire-pressure warning lights on the dash.) Ted knew cars; he said, “I might be a dumb Polack but I know when a nut on a steering column has been messed with.”

For his last 15 years, Ted’s Stratoloungers were in San Antonio, where he lived. He didn’t check back with me except for an annual holiday card. Meanwhile, Buck — who was working for me — raised prices on me unilaterally for odd jobs. He never asked what I thought a job was worth; he just charged me. Who was bossing whom?

I was young and had a hard time bossing old people. That eventually changed. One, I got old. I should  take a picture of me in my La-Z-Boy. Nah, Lucy, my daughter, wouldn’t approve. Just picture it. I look something like Ted in his photo.

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My 2019 Subaru Legacy is the safest car in the world. I know you don’t care, but bear with me. The car has many blinkers and warning signals, and that’s why I bought it. Five years ago I fell asleep at the wheel of my Ford Fusion and drifted across a two-lane road into an oncoming car. I was tired. It was 2:30. Two-thirty pm, not 2:30 am! I was going about 25 mph and hit a Greek immigrant’s car head on. The accident happened on Larchmere Boulevard, right on the Cleveland-Shaker Heights line. Efficient Shaker cops showed up. Nobody got hurt! The accident was in front of Shaker Auto Body. I just wheeled my wrecked car right into the shop. Beautiful.

My red Ford Fusion and a Greek man on his phone

I bought the 2019 Subaru with all the bells and whistles shortly after the accident. The car is good, but the battery not so good. The battery recently went dead for the second time in four months. There’s a class-action suit against Subaru for bad batteries. I’m taking the car to the dealer, or maybe I’ll pay my son Ted to take it. I can’t stand going to car dealerships.

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More car talk (and some sax talk) . . .  Last month I was at a family wedding in a town halfway between San Diego and Los Angeles. (The wedding was at a winery. Nobody gets married at synagogue anymore, have you noticed? It’s always at a winery or a barn.) Uber — which my son Jack reserved ahead of time — didn’t show up at the hotel the morning after the wedding to take Alice and me to the airport. Instead, Uber sent us a message at 6 am: “Sorry.” Uber couldn’t find a driver. I should have hired a car service but I didn’t think of that. My daughter, Lucy, did, but too late, I guess. My son Ted booked Alice and me a flight out of Palm Springs because we couldn’t get to LAX on time. Ted drove us to Palm Springs and got a flat tire.  Can you believe we got a flat on the way to the airport? I lent Ted my AAA card; he hung around the  car; and Alice and I got an Uber.

Our flight out of Palm Springs was delayed, so I baggage-checked my saxophones. (My band had played the wedding. Terrific celebration, by the way.) The airlines could mangle my axes, but I didn’t care; I didn’t want to lug the heavy instruments around Palm Springs airport all afternoon.

My alto sax is student-level, so no big loss if it got destroyed. My tenor, however, is a classic, The Martin Tenor. I bought it around 1964 from a music teacher. When I first got that axe, it reeked of ciggy smoke, and its pads were brown from phlegm. That’s why I never took up smoking. At the Palm Springs airport, I plastered the tenor case with “Fragile” stickers. My clarinet, I kept in my backpack. It’s not heavy.

The saxes arrived in Cleveland about 11 hours later in fine shape. Better shape than me, actually. I’ve kept a couple “Fragile” stickers on the tenor case to remind me of my adventure.

By the way, the Subaru guys didn’t fix the “parasitic drainage” on my car battery. I might get a trickle charger. whatever that is.

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