Category — Miscellaneous

 
Michael “Moon” Stevens has an almost photographic memory for jazz facts. Moon gets most of his information from reading jazz bios and LP liner notes. Moon grew up in Flint, Michigan, and knew John Sinclair, a well-known jazz aficionado. I’m not sure why Moon is “Moon.” I see him about once a year, when he visits family in Cleveland. Moon is a painter at the Los Angeles airport. Moon was talking to his brother-in-law, Lewis, and me about Albert Ayler, Pharaoh Sanders, Joe Maneri, Charlie Parker, Roland Kirk and Bill Evans. Lewis mentioned Bill Evans was Jewish.

“How do you know Evans is Jewish, Lewis?” I said. “Do you wake up in the morning and wonder who’s Jewish, and who isn’t?” I do. But why would Lewis, who isn’t Jewish. Neither is Moon.

“I grew up in Greenwich Village,” Lewis said. “New York was a very Jewish town when I grew up.”

“If somebody shoots somebody, or if somebody wins the Nobel Prize, I wonder if the guy is Jewish,” I said. “That’s my M.O.”

Moon said, “Bill Evans wasn’t Jewish. His father was Welsh and his mother was Russian Orthodox.”

Lewis corroborated this on Google.

Impressive, Moon.

—-

Was Dave Brubeck Jewish? Here’s that one . . .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaWvixN_a9Q

share

1. Wear a bike helmet (even though nobody in Holland does).
2.  Put air in your car tires regularly.

In my thirties, I kvetched about not living in New York, or someplace else equally glamorous. Now, who cares where you live. When I was young, I judged people by their tastes in music and their bumper stickers. I don’t care about that now.

In my twenties, I sometimes wore a tool belt, thinking I was blue-collar. I did some brick pointing, painting, whatever. I didn’t like it.

I annoyed old people for fun. For instance, when my mother-in-law said, “They’re wearing their hair high in the 1940s look,” I would answer, “Who’s they?”

She would say, “I don’t have any shoes to wear tonight to the party.” I would say, “You going barefoot?”

Harvey Pekar

I hung around with the comic-book writer Harvey Pekar — a bitter guy. He said, “I’m hateful. I’d like to have a cool way to slip my George Ade article [published in a local magazine] to my ex-wife [an academic]. She’s small-minded.” Pekar was more cynical than me. I liked that.

Getting married and staying married was one of my better moves. Starting the klezmer band was another good play. Having kids was a good move. Basic stuff.

share

Two of my friends’ parents died the same week. The first funeral was a massive Catholic Mass, and the second was a small Jewish affair. At both funerals, mourners chit-chatted about wrongful death. The Catholic man had gone into a local satellite hospital for a fairly routine matter, then went to “code blue,” and died. The Jewish woman had a procedure on her trachea and died. They were both in their 80s.

When my father died, he was treated first by a Mt. Sinai Hospital doc, then a Cleveland Clinic doctor. My dad thought he might get better care at the Clinic. Nope.

Marc Jaffe, a comedian, once told me that he wants to interview people regarding the best way to die. Like he will go up to a guy impaled on a picket fence and say, “Hey, is that a good death?” You don’t know till you try it. (The interview and the death.)

People I know — and know of, in a fanboy way — who have died recently:

From my gen . . . Lillian Goldberg, a friend; David Ariel, former head of the Cleveland College of Jewish Studies.

Older gen . . . Philip Roth, Tom Wolfe, Donald Hall.

[I should convert “my gen” to “older gen” right after I post this. The older crowd — the Silent Gen and WWII folk — is tapped out.]

—

I wrote a tribute to Donald Hall, who died Saturday. He was a mentor to me. “The Freelancer” in City Journal.

Donald Hall (L) and Bert Stratton, New Hampshire, 2000

—-

I wrote “Me and my Lawnmower” for Belt Mag. This one is not about anybody dying, but it does touch on the subject.

share

The odds are actuaries have interesting jobs. What could be better than figuring out the odds on everything? For instance, what are the odds I’ll rent a store a month sooner if I reduce rent $50? What are the odds I’ll get a gig if I reduce the size of the band?

I’ve had stores empty for years. I had a barber who wanted to put photos of “fades” in her window. I let her. It was a tough store to rent. She was a Puerto Rican Lesbian cage fighter. She had a couple tattoos on her face, like Mike Tyson. She said she was part Jewish. The odds are you’re not Jewish if you say, “I have some Jew in me.”

Me the Landlord? (No, late coroner Lester Adelson)

I rented to a tattoo parlor the other day. I used to not rent to tat shops. We call the new business a “tattoo shop and art gallery” in the lease. I think it’ll work. Tats are mainstream now. Times change. What are the odds an old Jewish landlord would be OK with tats? 55-45.

—
Funk a Deli, aka Yidd Cup, is at Cain Park, Cleveland 7 p.m. Sun. June 24. Free. No tix necessary. Michael Wex is the emcee. Guests artists are Steve Greenman, Kathy Sebo, Shawn Fink and Greg Selker. We’re gonna burn down Cain Park with klez and soul.

Gonna burn down Cain Park with klez and soul.

share

I knew a Cleveland comedian who moved to Florida and did impressions of Joan Rivers and Carol Channing, and even affected a New York accent. She was on the condo circuit. Yiddishe Cup and she shared the same booker, Suntan Stu.

The first time Stu called me, he said, “Vos machst du, man?” (How’s it going, man?)

“Remind me, Stu, how do you know my band?”

“When a band is as good as Yiddishe Cup, the word gets around!”

I lost $900 to Stu. He booked us at a Florida showcase (a talent show for bands) that never happened. I had to pay $900 in airline cancellation fees. Stu’s website said he had worked with Dolly Parton, Johnny Mathis and the Bee Gees.

Why did I fall for Stu? Because I thought Stu would get us a lot of gigs. We got gornisht.

If you ever hear “Vos machst du, man,” run.

share

You know how Mrs. Maisel in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel bribes the Gaslight Cafe booker with brisket to get a good performance slot? This video (below) outlines how Yiddishe Cup operates, food-wise:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqCfaTHilcA

—
Funk a Deli (formerly Yiddishe Cup) is at the Bop Stop 8 pm this Sat. (March 3), Cleveland. We’ll play klezmer and soul music.

—
Want something to read?  Read my recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, “Need Emotional Support? Ruff.”

—
A git Purim, yidn! Hope to see some of you tonight (Feb. 28) at the Purim service at Park Synagogue East, Pepper Pipes, Ohio. Free and open to the public. 7:15 p.m. Funk a Deli gits down.

share

Yiddishe Cup calls its act “neo-Borscht Belt klezmer comedy.” That’s been done before — the Borscht Belt schtick. For starters, about 60 years ago.

Yiddishe Cup can half-fill a golden age center in Miami. Then what? They’re not getting any younger. Has Yiddishe Cup ever toured for weeks, developing a solid groove, establishing decent ensemble chops? On weekends the band passes out inflatable guitars at bar mitzvahs, eats baked salmon, and watches “reflections” videos.

Does Yiddishe Cup research Yiddish tunes at YIVO? Does anybody in Yiddishe Cup even know what YIVO is?

One more thing: dynamics. Try it, Yiddishe Cup.

–I can’t remember who wrote this. I’m blocking.

—

Glowing reviews — so far — for Funk a Deli (formerly Yiddishe Cup), performing 8 p.m. Sat., March 3, at the Bop Stop, Cleveland.

share

Yiddishe Cup did a month-long tour. We had the bus, the lighting guy, the sound guy and a tour manager. We even had a masseuse. We had hot meals. We had screaming fans. But it wasn’t about us. We weren’t even billed as “Yiddishe Cup.” We were just “Cup”  — a somewhat amorphous, competent band of old Jews.

I jogged a lot during that tour to keep my sanity. The young fans drove me nuts. We sold just 10 Yiddishe Cup CDs, total. Not our crowd, I’ll admit.

We were the “support” band, and we supported the star well. The idea of a pop icon touring with a bunch of old Jews was novel, and it worked. But I wouldn’t do it again.
—

Funk a Deli (formerly Yiddishe Cup) is at the Bop Stop 8 p.m. Sat., March 3. $20.

—
And please check out my essay about Cleveland real estate at Belt Mag. The essay was posted the other day.

share

The pawn shop had a lot of flat-screen TVs, fishing poles, amps, guitars and power drills. The store was a man cave, basically, and it was in the inner city. I went there to pick up my band’s sound equipment. I gave the cashier $774.25 cash. No credit cards or checks accepted. The cashier was behind a bulletproof window. I wore a tie and jacket to impress the shop owner, who I ran into. I said, “I knew your brother. Sorry to hear he passed away.”

“My brother is alive,” the owner said. Oops.

I said, “Could you make it so I don’t have to pay interest on my band equipment? It was brought here without my permission.” The owner said no.

The owner disappeared into the backroom but then waved me back to the counter. Reconsidering? “I just read your blog,” he said. “I want that shit down in three hours or I’m fucking suing you.”

He had read my blog? In a pawn shop in inner-city Cleveland! Apparently he was doing due diligence on his fellow Jew — me. I had written about pawnshops and cops a couple years ago and said some pawn shops kept sloppy records. This pawn shop owner was thorough. Maybe he would sue me. I deleted the pawn-shop reference as soon as I got home.

share

I’ve been blogging for almost nine years. I sometimes get cranky letters: “You ain’t shit . . . Honestly, why don’t you take your blog and . . . Glorified Larry David.” [I made those up. I think I received two cranky letters, but I forgot what they said.]

Follow me @Klezmerguy. I tweet every five years. I try to be cool but I need help from the Urban Dictionary. I fire myself and rehire myself.

share

I have eight heel lifts. Each is 5/8 inches. I’ve alternated between lift and no lift. I first got a lift in my thirties. The physical therapist said I was leaning too much. Then a doc said forget it — the lift.

A PT said put the lift back in. I did recently. My lift is like a security blanket; it makes me feel better, even though it  doesn’t do anything. I’m reluctant to even walk to the bathroom without a lift.

A different doc just said forget the lift.

I have these extra lifts . . .

share

Phil Hart, a resident at Wiggins Place assisted living, sometimes wears a Navy baseball cap. I know another WWII Navy veteran, Al Gray, who lives at Stone Gardens assisted living. Phil used to teach aerobics/calisthenics-of-some-kind at the JCC. For decades. He also was an architect, city councilman and photographer. Now he says he’s an “inmate.” I hear “inmate” occasionally from other nursing home residents. (I don’t think I’d mind a top-quality nursing home. We’ll see.)

I remember seeing Phil kneeling, shooting photos, at an Elderhostel about five years ago. I was jealous because at the time I couldn’t kneel due to meniscus surgery.

One thing about hanging around nursing homes, I’m under no illusion anybody gets out of this painlessly. Phil is doing pretty well, I think, for 95. His mind is all there.

Phil Hart, about 2014

share

Here’s a short video about the power of the internet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAAQ_qtgp78

share

What is the meaning of life? Viktor Frankl says it has to do with 1) good works 2) loving somebody 3) responding well to your suffering.

When I first read Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, I was just taking over my dad’s business and wondering if I would acclimate to life in real estate. I figured I would, for my family, but I wasn’t going to make “real estate” my meaning.

Frankl talks about “Sunday neurosis” — “that kind of depression which afflicts people who become aware of the lack of control in their lives when the rush of the business week is over and the void within themselves becomes manifest.” I’ve had that Sunday void off and on for years. I’ve tried the arts. I have some friends in the arts. We talk about commerce versus art. We’re mostly in Cleveland, so we talk about commerce and the arts a lot. We sometimes talk about fame and success. At Heinen’ grocery store, a neighbor  said to me,  “We’re still talking about the bar mitzvah you played for us eight years ago.” I think that’s important. I’ve provided quality music to the Cleveland Jewish community. I’m not that great of a musician (I’m a better writer!) but I’m envisioning a drawing of a clarinet on my tombstone. And an apartment building?

What is the meaning of life?

share

I attended my late mother’s cousin’s funeral. I didn’t know the cousin. There were about 80 Jews at the funeral home. I didn’t know any of the mourners, except the professional Jews — the rabbi and cantor. Buddy Kassoff, the cousin, had died. He got a nice eulogy. A daughter said he had no vices, never swore, was always cheerful, and never passed judgment on anybody. When I got home I told my wife about the eulogy, and she said, “You must not be related.”

Buddy had owned a car wash for fifty years. His father had been a musician, and I had once phoned Buddy, maybe 10 years ago, to get the inside musical scoop on his dad, but there wasn’t much scoop – no musical memorabilia, for instance. I don’t recall meeting Buddy in the past fifty years.

I should have gone to the shiva instead, where I would have had a proper conversation with someone. In any event, I don’t regret I went to the funeral. Like I tell my kids: go.

share

I advise two young men. They are my advisees. One is a student of real estate, and the other is a pop musician. The pop musician says “cats” a lot, and the real estate guy says “cap rates” a lot.

The real estate student and I hiked suburban Cleveland. We found a Norfolk & Western right-of-way in Solon that my advisee contemplated buying. We saw a couple great blue herons. Herons and land. How much?

The musician advisee wondered whether he should move to L.A. or New York. He said everybody in L.A. was trying too hard to be famous and attend the right parties, but there was a lot of opportunity in L.A., particularly for music licensing. In New York, he said, it was more about “wearing a weird hat and playing in the subway.” I was lost; L.A., NYC — it’s all Ohio to me. He asked me about Roth IRAs; that was more in my strike zone.

The real estate student moved away. He’s buying and selling around the country. Once in a while he’ll email me, but not so much these days. The musician moved to L.A. He checks in around tax time.

The Advisor

Footnote: No, the advisees are not children.

share

I helped shut down the O’Jays, the Grammy-winning soul band, last summer. The O’Jays were playing at a neighbor’s. The homeowner, who pays $107,343 per year in taxes (true), apparently thought he could do whatever he wanted, party-wise. He hired the O’Jays for a backyard party.

Lying in bed, I didn’t know it was the O’Jays. I knew it was loud music at 11:30 p.m. I called the Shaker cops, who said the homeowner had a permit. I said, “I’m a musician! I’ve played in Shaker outdoors and been shut down at 10 p.m. I think it was on Rocklyn Road at a bar mitzvah, in fact.”

“The officer on the scene reports it’s not loud,” the police dispatcher said.

I walked over to the scene, a quarter-mile away. There were several off-duty Shaker cops working the party. On my cell phone I called the police station and asked, “They have a permit to play to when?”

“One-thirty a.m.”

“You’re kidding!”

“All neighbors are invited to go in,” the dispatcher said.

I stood outside the house (the Halle mansion, by the way) next to an old black woman who told me I was listening to the O’Jays. She was on her way home from the ER and felt lousy, but then heard the music, stopped, and felt better. I asked her if she wanted to go in – to the party in the backyard. She said yes. We got to checkpoint, where the off-duty cop said, “Is your name on the list?”

“No, but I called the station and complained, and they said all neighbors are invited.” The cop walked us over to the bandstand, and the woman got to meet a personal hero, Eddie Levert, the bandleader. Then the band shut down. The off-duty cop said, “Too many neighbors are complaining.”

—

Yiddishe Cup marches in Parade the Circle noon this Saturday (June 10), Wade Oval, University Circle, Cleveland.

Parade 2012

share

“Ali” is a favorite word in crossword puzzles. So are “Mel” and “Ott.” So is “Esai” — as in “Esai Morales,” an actor. Abba “Eban” is big too. A mountain in Italy . . . “Etna”  or “Etta”?  The first name of  Finnish architect Saarinen: Eero or Erno? “Una” Thurman or “Uma?” . . . Judge “Ito.”

New York klezmer trumpeter Jordan Hirsch posted on Facebook that he successfully completed the Friday New York Times puzzle. Mazel tov. My friend Brit Stenson gets the whole week. He’s been doing crosswords for decades.

If I get the Wednesday puzzle, I’m doing good. I started crosswords in 2006, after the documentary movie Word Play. When I started, I didn’t know you could use run-together words, such as “Leerat,” which is to “eye lustfully.” Leer at. Sometimes the crosswords clues are off-kilter and unfair. Clue: “Anonymous one, in court.” Answer “Jane Roe.” Doh.

share

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsUsO1g0pJQ

Watch this video if you want to know too much about “Bay Mir Bistu Sheyn.”

—-

If you want to read, read this (from the Los Angeles Times). On Mother’s Day I wrote about buying my mother, Julia, a pre-need funeral package.

Julia Zalk Stratton (L) and sister Celeste Zalk Kent. Mississipppi, 1928.

share

Facebook goes like this: cat pic, dog pic, anti-Trump stuff, then a death notice.

For the death notice, I wrote in the comments section: “Rick was the first person to tell me to take a baby aspirin every day. He was always looking out for everybody. ” Rick was a doctor. I knew him from Camp Michigania, where we used to  vacation together.

From now on, every death will be on Facebook — or whatever Facebook becomes. Rick was always friendly. Who wouldn’t be on vacation? Rick was into sailing. I played tennis. For some reason, Rick’s baby-aspirin advice stuck with me, not the sailing tips. Nowadays a lot of doctors swear by the old 81 mg/day. Rick was on that case years ago.

Cat pic, dog pic, anti-Trump stuff, death notices on Facebook. Rest in peace, Rick.

share