Real Music & Real Estate . . .

I have a cottage by Lake Erie. Before coronavirus, I’d invite everybody over — friends from high school, musicians, my wife’s schoolteacher friends. People liked the lake.

Funny thing, in Cleveland few people live by the lake. For instance, Cleveland Heights is six miles from the lake. One guy came to my parties from Indiana. Jeff left Cleveland twenty years ago and returned just to see the lake. He liked to toke down on pot. Am I saying that right — “toke down on pot”? It’s been a while for me.

The water on the lake is rarely blue. It’s usually green. We drink beer until the lake turns blue. Then we play klezmer, “Louie Louie” and “Mustang Sally.” One guy, Dave, always wants to sing “Mustang Sally.” He’s in Thailand most of the time, thankfully. He goes over there for the girls, I think.

I wonder if anybody would show up at my parties if not for the beer and lake. I’m not a big draw. I’m taciturn to the extreme. I talk in a monotone like a depressive. Maybe they like my hot dogs. I get the best: Vienna. Also, I serve some veggie stuff. I wonder: What if I threw my next party in the Heights? Would anybody show up? I’m afraid to think about it.

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Steve, an apartment painter, had more words for white than Jews have for fool. Steve talked about antique white, Navajo white, pearl white, bone white and white. [Fool in Yiddish: nar, shlemiel, shmendrik, shmegege, yold.]

“Oil or latex?” — that was the first question at Lakewood Paint and Wallpaper back in the day. Also: “Is Dutch Standard the same as Dutch Boy?” No, Dutch Standard was from Canton, Ohio. Dutch Boy is the nationally known subsidiary from Sherwin-Williams, Cleveland.

Bill, a paint salesman, made regular stops at Lakewood Paint. He told me to use an “alkyd” (oil). He cornered me and asked, “Are you a Yehudi?”

“Yes.”

“What are you doing over here?

“I’m working for my old man.”

“Four years of fun and games at college. Now look!” Bill said. “There are only two Yehudis at Dutch Standard. Me and another guy.”

Bill wandered the aisles of Cleveland paint stores in the 1970s. I traveled a similar circuit. Still do. The other day I paid a man for painting a stairway camel white, which is a Behr color from Home Depot. Lakewood Paint and Wallpaper is long gone.

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I used to box. I listened to Johansson-Patterson fights on the radio. I boxed at the Ukrainian Club, AAU and Junior Golden Gloves. My parents were all for it. Weird: everybody was into tennis and golf and bowling, and I boxed. My father encouraged boxing. In my dad’s day, Jewish fighters sometimes hit the top: Jackie Davis, Benny Leonard. Locally, Harry Levine was a good light heavyweight. Levine fought with his face out front. If he got hit, his head would shake like a bobblehead. He kept hitting though.

My last fight was in 1972. Very old school: the Italian versus the Jew. Johnny Montello had been a cook in ‘Nam. He was punchy and foggy-headed. Maybe he boxed too much in the Pacific. Johnny got into my face verbally, Ali-style, saying: “You’re always talking about Jewish shit.” Johnny pointed at the Star of David on my trunks.

I said, “You should know one thing about me, Montello. Being Jewish is who I am. Everything I do is a part of that.” I had just graduated college. I used to box in Waterman Gym at Michigan — with myself mostly. Existential stuff.

Everybody came to the Montello fight. My friends looked like Hair extras. Montello’s friends were like from Grease. Montello broke my nose and gave me a concussion, and I was done. I got a real job right after that.

I miss the ring. I play tennis now, and contrary to what Agassi says, tennis is not boxing. I still dream about boxing: Babe Triscaro, Jimmy Bivins, Tony Mulia, Herbie Becker. Unfortunately the Senior Olympics is not happening this year.

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Lakewood International News carried the Paris Review, Partisan Review, Kenyon Review and Bustin’ Out. About half the store was porn. The proprietor, Gil, was a part-time railroader. He manned the elevated counter, which was a lookout tower for nailing shoplifters and pervs. I went there.

When Gil lost his lease, I told him about a store I had for rent. A Plain Dealer reporter called me about all this. How’d he hear about it? Who knows. Possible PD headline: “Stratton, New Porn Czar.” The old Cleveland porn czar was Reuben Sturman. I got scared. I hand-delivered a media package to the Plain Dealer reporter. I did a Q&A with myself. I wrote: “I believe in the First Amendment and the bookstore would be an asset. It isn’t just porn. Ever heard of the Paris Review? I’ll rent to the magazine store.”

The deal didn’t happen. Lakewood News moved to a different location, about a mile south, then folded. I rented my vacant store to a bank, and I figured the bank would stay for 20 years. That’s what their lease said. But the bank bailed in a couple years. Banks were merging and consolidating like crazy in the 1980s.

I miss the bank. I miss the porn-and-lit store, too.

—
On Monday I had an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. “The Rent Collector’s Dilemma.”

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Holy grail level? Yes. You are about to see vintage footage of Mickey Katz playing klezmer clarinet on TV in 1973. (Details below.)

For newbies: Katz — besides playing terrific clarinet — wrote and sang comedic songs like “Duvid Crockett,” “How Much is that Herring in the Window?” and “16 Tons (of Hard Salami).” He was a huge success. OK, make that “a moderate success,” but big with yids in the 1950s and 1960s. Katz played on the Goodtime boat in Cleveland. He played at the gambling casinos in suburban Cleveland in the 1930s and at the Alpine Village — Herman Pirchner’s downtown club — during the World War II. Katz moved from Cleveland to Los Angeles after the war. Joel Grey is Mickey Katz’s son.

Katz melded klezmer music with Jewish comedy. He almost single-handedly popularized that shlub-genre. My band, Yiddishe Cup, is, in a way, a Mickey Katz tribute band. Mickey Katz is my Mickey Mantle.

The 3:27-minute video, below, is the totality of all Katz klezmer footage on the internet. There ain’t none else. It’s as if somebody suddenly came up with film of Naftule Brandwein. (Ah, forget it — unless you’re a klezmer musician.) Ladies and gentlemen, this is the missing link. This clip is a musical and cultural lodestone. It’s the visual link between pre-war klez and the klez revival of the late 20th century.

This vid was sequestered in my closet for 17 years. It escaped today!

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

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I used to go to Haber the Dermatologist. He didn’t like small talk. He carried a mole-zapping heat gun. He sizzled me a couple times and collected his check. Then I switched docs because Haber wasn’t taking my insurance anymore.

I wound up with a doctor who was very, very cautious. She saw a cyst on my head, which she wanted to get rid of — my cyst, not my head. She scheduled me for a seven-stitch deep dig. Not a quicky zap job. This was a “procedure” in hospital jargon, but “surgery” to me.

The surgeon  — a specialist — didn’t look too seasoned. I said, “How old are you?” She answered, “Old enough to be your doctor.” I liked that. She offered a discount package: three stitches, and she’d go back in for more only if warranted down the road. A deal.

It was a benign cyst. I didn’t need any more work.

How’s that for an upbeat medical story?

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I’ll tell you one thing. I had this old car, couldn’t get it to do nothing. I pushed and pulled and beat on it. Then I throwed it over a cliff. I said, “Let’s throw over a car.” Me and my boys done it. My old lady was against it. She thought she was better than me.

She was something else. The biggest woman for churchgoing you ever seen, and full of crap. She wouldn’t eat things like, hey, meat. She was skinnier than a stick. Totally emancipated. And ornery. And when that heifer got a few bucks from her rich daddy, watch out. I didn’t dig her. She came at me with a mouth full of beer. Got all over me, the floor, and walls. She got claws. They all do.

There’s a lot of good-looking heads out there just waiting to nail you to the cross, I’ll tell you. She made me sick, just thinking of her. I got ferocious of the liver, and that’s a bad situation. Nobody comes between me and my beer. That broad tried.

It’s all in the numbers. I ain’t asking for much, just a little. This upcoming repression is going to be so bad it’ll shake your teeth loose. I want to be reborn the poodle of a rich lady.

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In the early 2000s most everybody in the real estate biz was not hitting the long ball. But what was better? My late father, who was a stock broker for about six months in the 1950s, taught me the stock market was legalized gambling. John Bogle, former chairman of the Vanguard Group, said, “The investor in America sits at the bottom of the food chain.” You have to be lucky twice with stocks: when you buy and when you sell. In March 2009 the New York Times business-page headline was “Are We There Yet?” There meant the stock market’s bottom.

In March 2009 the price/earnings ratio was at its lowest in more than 20 years: 13. (Shiller trailing 10-year figure.) The worldwide P/E was even lower, down to 10. It was a good time to invest, but scary.

***

My Uncle Lou and Uncle Al drove a truck, delivering wholesale items to stores. They sold me a carton of baseball cards — 24 packs — at a deep discount. I immediately ripped open all the packs. I was 9. This investment was my first speculation. I got a lot of Humberto Robinsons (a nobody, an Indians relief pitcher) and no Mickey Mantles. Maybe my uncles were teaching me dollar-cost averaging: better to buy a pack a week (dollar-cost averaging) than go all in.

Am I ready to jump into the stock market again? No, I’m not scared enough yet.

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Joseph Fagen — the father of Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen — used to approach strangers and say, “Would you, by chance, be a Steely Dan fan?” I do that, too, except I ask about Vulfpeck. I query Uber drivers and baristas if they’ve heard of Vulfpeck. Every time I do that, I have to spell out Vulfpeck. I wish Vulfpeck was Hello There. Every fifth barista has heard of Vulfpeck. Uber, longer odds.

At Vulfpeck’s recent Madison Square Garden concert, I spoke Spanish with a Puerto Rican guard at the artists’ entrance and got in through the back door of the Garden. The first performer I ran into back stage was Dave Koz, the smooth-jazz saxophonist. He gave me a “mazel tov.” He said “mazel tov.” Koz told me he remembered how meaningful it was when his parents came to his first mega gig and “they’re dead now.” Right. Show up.

I was backstage looking for backstage passes — about 50 passes. I had relatives coming from all over the country for the show. I was throwing a bar mitzvah party with a really good band.

Here’s the Fagen quote from the Cleveland Jewish News (Feb. 28, 2001). [“Bringing up Steely Dan” by Susan Rezpka]:

“Would you, by chance, be a Steely Dan fan?” Beachwood resident Joseph “Jerry” Fagen inquires wryly. It’s an unlikely question coming from an 80-year-old, but Fagen’s ‘favorite conversation starter’ affords the opening he needs to do what any parent would do in his shoes: kvell a little.

Vulfpeck. That’s V, U, L, F . . .

————

Madison Square Garden video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rv4wf7bzfFE

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There’s a lot I don’t like about you. For one thing, you are rude, like you fist-bump everybody — even before coronavirus — and way too hard. Also, you insist on driving a red car so everybody will notice you. You eat too fast. You’re done before anybody else starts. Disgusting. That word has your name on it. Nothing transformative is going to happen to you. Another thing, you’re too macho. Try an ounce of femininity. Watch half a whole football game instead of a whole game. What are you doing for sports during this shut-down?

You know who you are. I probably shouldn’t post this.

—

A remedy for you, right here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvQvkpD2idc&feature=youtu.be

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I’ve been to two weddings in Middletown, Connecticut. How many have you been to? People told me to fly to Providence, Hartford, White Plains, Whatever. Middletown is hard to get to from Cleveland. Drive 10 hours? Not my thing.

One time I flew to LaGuardia and rented a car. Getting a rental from LaGuardia is a supreme hassle, with all the construction, and then driving up the interstate through Connecticut is no picnic either, because drivers on the East Coast either speed or crawl. And one time I took a train to New Haven from Manhattan, and then an Uber to Middletown. Also, rough, at least for a Midwestern guy.

The first wedding in Middletown was a cousin’s daughter. It was in a barn — a catering-hall barn with chandeliers and wooden decks. My second Middletown wedding was also in a barn — a different one. Simply, The Barns. Middletown must be wedding-barn central. (The second wedding was for the son of a childhood friend of mine.) I knew very few people at the second wedding. I met a guy who was a reporter, who hung out with me. He said, “Why didn’t you leave Cleveland?” Why did I stay in my hometown? Never leave? Good question. He followed with: “Why are you at this wedding?”

I said, “Because there are a lot of guys my age who aren’t here.” That’s why. I’m not dead. I wanted to show up.

After my friend’s kid’s wedding, a guest drove me back to the hotel, but the guest was so worried about driving at night, I offered to drive her car. She said her insurance wouldn’t cover me driving. On that 10-minute drive to the hotel, she slammed on her brakes several times and couldn’t read the road signs clearly. I saw the sign for “Portland” about 50 feet before she did. She then offered to drive me to LaGuardia the next day, but I opted for an Uber, which was expensive (about 1 1/2 hours).

My cousin doesn’t live in Middletown, and neither does my high school friend. I wonder if I have more Middletown barn weddings in me.

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The taxicab supervisor, smoking a stogie, asked me, “Where’s Charity Hospital?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Where’s the Federal Building?”

“Ninth Street.”

“The Pick-Carter Hotel?”

“I don’t know.”

“The Hollenden House?”

“Downtown — St. Clair.”

“People want to know where their hotel is,” he said. He hired me. He worked for Universal Cab, a division of Yellow Cab. I drove welfare recipients with vouchers to hospitals, and workers to Republic Steel Works #4. I didn’t drive rich people; I thought I was going to drive rich people but it was mostly poor people. I picked up one rich guy, downtown. He said, “Severance Hall.”

I asked, “Are you Claudio Abbado?”

“How do you know!” he said. I told him I’d seen his photo in the Plain Dealer that morning. Afterward, I told a friend John I had driven “a conductor from Italy.”

“So why did he come here?” my friend said. John’s favorite expression was “Cleveland is the armpit of the nation.” (This was in 1970.)

My taxi-driving job went downhill after Abbado. A cabbie told me to carry a bat. He said, “A bat isn’t a concealed weapon. It’s legal.” One time I thought I was being followed by robbers. I got boxed in around St. Luke’s Hospital and escaped by going in reverse. Maybe I was imagining it. I was skittish. To understand, you have to have been around in 1970.

My cab stalled at Fairmount Circle. The engine smoked. I left the cab and hitchhiked back to the Noble Road garage. The supervisor said, “You mean you left your cab, son?”

“I knew I could get back here.”

“You mean you left your cab unattended?”

“Yes.”

Dead end.

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I moved to L.A. 25 years ago today: February 19, 1995. I still don’t take the weather for granted. Everyday I wake up and say thank you, even if it’s only 50 degrees. I live near a gelato store, smoothie shop and three vegan restaurants. I can order a tofu bratwurst at 2 a.m.

Everyone here is in the industry. I live across the street from the “Shameless” guys. I’m not sure what that is. A TV show? A band? I started off by writing celebrity profiles for Us and People. I wrote for Wings. I wrote for Cheers. I wrote for Seinfeld. After Seinfeld shoots, we would hang at Jerry’s Famous Deli in Studio City. Jerry — Seinfeld, that is — once told me he liked working in L.A. because, since we had such long hours, he didn’t feel he was missing much, like he would have in New York.

I bought my house here in 2002. My sister from Cleveland is visiting me right now. She can’t believe my sitch — my weather, my cuisine, and my net worth. My bungalow, which would go for $100,000 in Cleveland, is worth a million.

My first couple years here I could barely make the rent nut, but I hustled. I never turned down a gig. Now I let the other guys hustle. Last week I invested $100,000 in a gangster love story. Rob, a friend — also from Cleveland — directed and wrote it. Hopefully, we’ll get it into Sundance. Then there’s Toronto. Even if the movie goes nowhere, so what. I didn’t refinance my house for this. The movie was shot in Cleveland. Rob gets great press back home: “hometown boy makes it in Hollywood.” Right now Rob needs about 30,000 Clevelanders to “like” his movie trailer. (Please search “Bloody Vista Boulevard” on Facebook and click “like.”)

Is it snowing in Cleve today?

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What happened to Sylvia Rimm? She used to be on public radio, dispensing childrearing advice. Rimm told my wife and me to subsume our individual personalities and create a united front to raise our kids. We didn’t. My wife, Alice, quoted Sylvia Rimm endlessly. Alice also quoted Eleanor Weisberger, Spock, Braselton and every other childrearing guru.

Alice wanted our kids to acquire a “sense of mastery” — of everything. Like going to Disney World was garbage, according to Alice, because our kids wouldn’t learn anything there. Actually, the kids learned a lot there. Teddy single-handedly planned the whole Disney World itinerary.

Our kids had so many lessons. I mean, ping pong lessons, tumbling lessons, Hebrew lessons, accordion lessons . . . Capoeira. What’s that?

My wife now gives lessons in everything.

Our youngest kid, Jack, learned to juggle by age 10. Our daughter, Lucy, became a Division 3 college athlete in diving. We didn’t allow much TV, except Mr. Rogers and once in a while The Simpsons. When our kids grew up, they immediately got TVs and watched every show made in the past 40 years.

I liked Bettelheim’s A Good Enough Parent. I liked the title. I swore at my kids. Was that so horrible? Probably hit my kids. Blocking it. One of my teenage kids took my car to an SAT test, and I needed the car for a gig because my music gear was in the trunk. I went to the SAT site and swore at the kid. An adult said to me, “Hey, ease up.” My outburst cost my child at least 30 points.

I snitched on some delinquent neighborhood kids who were very loud and rowdy. I called the police. The cop said, “Hey buddy, you’ve got a pretty short fuse.”

Are you perfect? Are you “slightly imperfect,” like my underwear? Are you good enough? Or are you a complete failure?

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This month started out with incredible weather. On Saturday (Feb. 1) I decided to bike out to shul — the eastern branch of my shul, about four miles away. I mean, it was about 49 degrees and sunny. Also, I was attracted by the “light lunch” come-on in the temple bulletin. Then, just as I was about to get on my bike, a friend texted me and asked if I wanted to go to the Chabad shteibel in Cleveland Heights for cholent. That was tempting, but not enough exercise. Too close. So I scheduled the cholent shabbes for later this month.

At my shul, the sermon was about how you can’t pick your family, like you do your friends, so it’s a good idea to hang with family to get different perspectives. Next, the rabbi announced the light lunch. He said — and this is tragic — “fish sticks and french fries.” I biked to Pepper Pike for this? I was expecting humus, tuna fish, egg salad. Fish sticks? What? Who?

Give it up, Bert.

My point here, I biked on Feb. 1. That was the first time I’ve biked in Cleveland in February. There was a trace of snow on the bike path — an inch or so in places  — so I took my time. I didn’t want to skid out and bruise another rib. The following day, Sunday Feb. 2, was even warmer, and less snow on the ground. So I biked out to shul again, except not to pray, just to bike. I didn’t go in the shul.

Monday was even better weather. One of my kids was in Hawaii that day, and that kid had nothing on me. Finally, yesterday stunk weather-wise. Irwin Weinberger and I played “You Are My Sunshine” at a nursing-home gig, but no sun came out. And today is nothing to write home about. But those first three days of February were unforgettable.

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I’ve made millions in gambling. You know that because I’ve written about it. Even so, some blog readers still believe I inherited my money. Wrong! I work hard. I play video poker. I play the Vegas casinos that offer the best margin. I demand a 99.5 JOB (jacks-or-better) edge. I tip well and live well. Do I play video poker all day? Yes, and I love it! My ex-wife didn’t love it. She tried to control my bankroll. Nobody controls my bankroll!

I’m a quantity in Vegas. I even had a radio show there for a couple years. I coughed so much on the air, I got fired. I was in smoky casinos 12 hours a day; I was lucky I could breathe.

I play craps. If you play craps long enough, you lose everything, which I did once. Just once. I’ve filed W-2Gs over $300,000 for many years. The ex-mayor of San Diego lost $13 million on video poker. Don’t be her. Be me. Lots of royal flushes, everybody! My website, Video Poker Millionaire, is here.

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I blame my cousin Brian. He’s a 59-year-old mountain biker who posts Facebook clips of himself biking over streams and rocks. So I tried mountain biking in Mexico. There are no laws there. You can do whatever you want. I did off-road level-3 stuff, and I wound up on my side. I bruised my ribs. Not broken, not fractured. Just bruised. Or at least I think so. I’m not going to get an X-ray to find out. I can breathe. It’s a little hard to play clarinet, but I can do it. I think I’ll be OK in a month or so.

I’m through with misadventure traveling. I need to remember that. I shouted “I fell, Teddy!” but my son was far ahead of me, as was the guide. Mexico — do your own thing. Also, I couldn’t yell too loudly because I had the wind  knocked out of me. It could have been worse, yes, I know. I was wearing a puffy-down jacket, which made for good padding.

My cousin Brian is a daredevil. I’ve never been a daredevil. Also, Brian is 10 years younger than me. I should cool it. I will. No more white-water rafting, zip-lining, mountain biking, moped rental, scuba, or horseback riding. In fact I’m not getting out of bed again, on purpose.

Sneezing is the worst (for sore ribs). You know what I’m talking about.

P.S. No sympathy cards, please. I’m 90 percent better.

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My dad admired bankers. In my dad’s pantheon of great Cleveland families, the number one clan was the Bilskys, who started out making bagels, then went into medicine (#1 son), bowling alleys (#2 son, Mayflower Lanes, Cedar Center), and ultimately started a bank (#3 son, Metropolitan Savings). My grandmother used to say “The Bilskys make big bagels out of little bagels.”

Scott Bilsky — who is a young man — called my klezmer band to book us for a temple event. He said 12 Bilskys would be at the event. Dr. Harold Bilsky (#1 son)? Nope. He died in 2007. Harold had grown up with my dad on Kinsman. Leo (#2 son) wouldn’t be there either. He had died in 1998. I asked Scott. “What about the banker [#3 son]?”

“That’s my grandfather Marvin, He’ll be there.” Marvin was 90.  (This was in 2011.) At the temple gig, I cornered Marvin during the band’s break to schmooze. He told me, “Everything I ever did began with a B — baker, banker and builder.” I already knew that. “And brewer,” he said. That, I didn’t know.

Bilsky, a brewski?

Marvin said, “My father bought Cleveland-Sandusky Brewing in 1955. There were very few Jews involved in the brewing business. In the 1960s, Israel came to us for brewing tips and equipment.” Bilsky bottled Gold Bond beer and Olde Timers Ale. Marvin said there had only been five Cleveland breweries in the 1950s: Bilsky, Carlings from Canada (“very nice people”); Standard Brewing, Erin Brew (Irish); Leisy’s (German); and Pilsener’s P.O.C. (Czech). “We all used to meet on Mondays. I didn’t have any trouble with anybody,” Marvin said.

I didn’t know about breweries and still don’t. My father rarely drank; it would have interfered with his worrying. (A Jewish joke.) I knew something about Carlings from Cleveland Indians’ broadcasts; that was about it. I drink a Miller Lite once in a while now. I’m mostly a seltzer guy. Bilsky’s brewery was a blip in the Bilsky family history. Move on to the main subject, coconut bars . . .

The preeminent Bilsky business was Bilsky’s Bakery, which started on Kinsman Road and moved to Cedar Center in 1948. Who invented the Cleveland coconut bar? I should have asked Marvin Bilsky. I didn’t. I called Marvin the next day and said, “Marvin, this is Bert Stratton from Yiddishe Cup, the klezmer band. We played for your family.”

“Thanks for the concert last night. You did as well as you could,” he said. “No, seriously, we enjoyed it. And to answer your question, I’ve always said my father invented the coconut bar, but — and I have to tell you this — I went to Sydney, Australia, and I went down into the subway there. They have a small subway system. They had coconut bars down there. They didn’t call them coconut bars. Where did they get them? Maybe from England. Australia used to be part of England.” [Australians call coconut bars lamingtons.]

“Marvin, I have a friend, Seth, his grandfather was a Kritzer of Kritzer Bakery on Kinsman. Seth says his grandfather invented the coconut bar.”

“It was my father!” Marvin said, groaning. “Who knows.”

I dialed my cousin George, whose father had owned Heights Baking on Coventry. George said his father didn’t  invent the coconut bar, but hey, maybe. Scott Raab, a former Clevelander, wrote in Esquire (July 2002): “Ask for coconut bars in any Jewish bakery from New Jersey to Los Angeles and you’ll get some version of this: ‘So, you’re from Cleveland …We don’t have ’em.’”

Nowadays Seth buys his coconut bars at Davis Bakery. I get mine at Zagara’s grocery store. I once asked the Zagara’s clerk where the grocery store got their bars, but the clerk didn’t know. I even looked at the shipping box, which was unmarked.

I invented the coconut bar.

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I look for my musical roots wherever I can. My grandmother played piano at a Baptist church in Yazoo City, Mississippi. Not bad. Not good, either: 1) it was a white church and 2) she was reading sheet music. My Mississippi bubbe, Ida Kassoff Zalk, had a brother, Earl Kassoff, in Cleveland. Earl was a drummer, xylophonist and house painter. He led bands in Cleveland under the name Earl Castle.

Because I’m a musician, people sometimes ask me, “Did your parents play? Is your family musical?” Not particularly. That’s why I looked so hard for lineage. I couldn’t find much info on Earl. I talked to a couple relatives. Earl didn’t leave behind sheet music or tune books. He died in 1969. At a gig, an elderly musician/guest and I schmoozed, and I asked him if he remembered Earl Kassoff. The schmoozer was Harold Finger, age 77. He, himself, had played clarinet and sax professionally during the 1930s and 1940s.

I went to Harold’s apartment in Lyndhurst and interviewed him in 1992. He said there had been “four or five bands that got the Jewish work back then.” I asked him what bands. He didn’t remember any names. “What were the most popular Jewish tunes?” I asked. He said, “The Kammen book. That was the big thing.” The Kammen book was the Kammen International Dance Folio, published in 1924, and it is still around. The book is for musicians who don’t know many Jewish songs and have been asked by clients, “Can’t you play something besides ‘Hava Nagila’?”

Uncle Earl’s band did mostly “dance work” — American music, Harold said. Earl had worked the downtown theaters, as well as the Golden Pheasant — a Chinese restaurant where Artie Shaw started out. Harold said he, himself, didn’t stick to the melody all the time. He did some “faking” (improvising). Now he played clarinet in a community orchestra. “I don’t do much jobbing anymore,” he said. Jobbing was gigging.

Harold died three years after the interview. Harold’s wife was on the interview tape, teasing Harold about how he loved his saxophone and clarinet more than her. Harold said, “I quit playing music for you!”

Recap: I come from a piano-playing grandma in Mississippi and a house-painting xylophonist great uncle in South Euclid, Ohio.

—
Here’s something I wrote for City Journal: Latke Blues.

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My son Teddy had his birthday party at Putt-Putt on Northfield Road in 1990. I think that’s the last time I played Putt-Putt — official Putt-Putt. There are only 23 Putt-Putt courses in the United States.

There was a Chinese miniature golf course on Libby Road at Broadway Avenue. It had a Buddha that went up and down. My high school friends and I couldn’t get enough of that course.

Arnold Palmer Miniature Golf  . . .  Just had to say that.

I would like to live long enough to play Putt-Putt with my grandchildren. First, I need grandchildren. I want to stay healthy enough to bend down and pick up the ball. That’s the hardest part of miniature golf.

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