Real Music & Real Estate . . .

Charlie Broeckel was the Silver Fox or The Creep. He went by both names. He was a burglar and hit-man in Collinwood –- a neighborhood in northeast Cleveland.

Charlie Broeckel, Plain Dealer drawing by Dick Dugan, 7/7/74

I’m not sure where Broeckel is now. Maybe he’s dead. Or maybe he’s in a safe house in Ada, Oklahoma. For a while he was “John Bradford” (federally protected) in the Pacific Northwest.

Broeckel and Phil Christopher — another Collinwood burglar — did a bank heist at Laguna Niguel, California, in 1972. It was supposedly the biggest bank burglary of all time. Charlie and Phil flew to California from Cleveland for the job. California didn’t have quality bank burglars back then, I guess. Collinwood did.

I saw Broeckel and Christopher at trials in Cleveland. They would periodically come in from their federal prison cells or witness protection program locations. One trial was for murder: Christopher and accomplices took a pimp, Arnie Prunella, out on a boat, shot him and drown him.

Collinwood was “think ethnic”-to-the-10^th power. There were four distinct neighborhoods in Collinwood: Slovenian (St. Mary’s parish), Italian (Holy Redeemer), black (west of the E. 152nd Street, aka the DMZ) and Lithuanian (Our Lady of Perpetual Help). Broeckel’s ethnicity was indeterminate. Maybe German, maybe Slovenian. Christopher was Italian.

Broeckel and his fellow burglars stored nitroglycerin — used for blowing up safes — on a Lake Erie beach. In 1983 a Cleveland policeman operated a backhoe at the local beach, searching for old, very unstable nitro. Traffic cops kept reporters and passersby at a distance. Charlie was supposedly in bad health and wanted brownie points for helping the cops find old explosives.

The chief cop in the neighborhood — Capt. Ed Kovacic — had a warm spot for highly skilled crooks. These thieves would drill out safes and jump burglar alarms. They weren’t entirely stupid. Kovacic often said, “If there was a hall of fame for burglars and safecrackers, it would be in Collinwood.”

In 2006, Lyndhurst police chief Rick Porrello wrote a book, Superthief, about Christopher. Then Tommy Reid, a Hollywood entrepreneur, made a documentary movie –- also Superthief — which came out in March. The movie is mostly talking heads: old cops and old thieves sitting in living rooms, reminiscing about old days.

The documentary ran exclusively in theaters in Euclid and Lake County — where many former Collinwood residents moved to. There were three people in the Lakeshore Cinema.  One elderly man, with a walker, said on his way out, “Phil is a thief!” His wife said, “I like Phil!”

Christopher, 66, is out of jail. He has spent nearly half his life in prison. What if Broeckel — the creep, the silver fox, the rat — comes out of hiding and puts Christopher back in prison?

Just like old times.

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I was a police reporter in Collinwood for Sun Newspapers in the 1980s. (Last time I’m going to mention this factoid for a while. So please remember.)

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SIDE B

Here is the annual “inside baseball” post.  Your name might be in here . . .

NAMING NAMES

We interrupt this blog to tell you this blog is three years old.

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

Hooray for him.  I wrote every word.

A blog reader said, “You found your subject — your father, Toby.”

No, you did.  I’ve had Toby on the brain for decades.

A woman said, “I look forward to your posts every Wednesday morning . . . I don’t do comments.”

Here’s my comment: Nine-tenths of Klezmer Guy readers don’t do comments.  They want to protect their animosity.  Listen, you are not above comments; you are not paying for this; chip in the occasional enlightening, humorous or really stupid comment.

Several other readers claim to have read every word of the blog.

What was the first word?

Special thanks to our major donors (commenters).  I could have done it without you, but it wouldn’t have been as much fun.

In no particular order, thanks to Marc Adler, Jessica Schreiber, Gerald Ross, Seth Marks, Ted, Adrianne Greenbaum, Bill Jones, Mark Schilling, Harvey Kugelman, Ellen, Susan Greene . . .

David, Margie, Irwin Weinberger, Jane Lassar, Zach Kurtz, Alice Stratton, Alan Douglass, Steve, Jack, Don Friedman, Kenny G, Steven Greenman . . .

Charlie B, Don Edwards, Garry Kanter, Jack V, Ari Davidow, Emilie, B Katz and Richard Grayson.

Get your name on this list next year by contributing at least $2,500 or writing comments.

Special thanks to Ralph Solonitz, the blog’s illustrator.  He adds a lot.  I encourage him to throw in as many pics as possible.  Works out well.  Ralph had a Klezmer Guy illustration in The Forward recently.

I met Ralph about 21 years ago when he designed Yiddishe Cup’s logo.  That’s still your best logo, Ralph.

Sometimes I send my stories to the media before posting here.  This past year Klezmer Guy articles were published throughout the planet: the International Herald Tribune, New York Times, City Journal, Ann Arbor Observer, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Jerusalem Post.  Did I miss any continent?  I’ve started to link to some of the newspaper articles.  Please see the right side of this blog, under “Articles.”  Also, check out “Categories” there.  “Categories” is particularly useful if you want to read 68 posts in a row about real estate. 

Google Analytics — a spy op — says there are Klezmer Guy readers in every state and many foreign countries.  Ohio has the most Klezmer Guy readers, followed by New York, California, Michigan and Massachusetts.  The top foreign countries are Canada, United Kingdom, Israel, Germany and Australia.

Google Analytics, for your information, zeroes in on readers by their hometowns, not their names.  For instance, somebody in Chico, California, reads this blog.

The bell rings, round four.

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I wrote this op-ed, “The Impossible Dream,” for Mother’s Day for the Cleveland Plain Dealer (5/13/12).  It’s about listening to the radio with my mother.

Illustration by Ted Crow, Plain Dealer

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One dog isn’t enough.  When I walk around Horseshoe Lake by my house, I see a lot of people with two dogs.

On my last walk, I saw five people with two dogs, and one schnook with a schnauzer.

My family was a one-dog family for 13 years.  This was before the two-dogs-are-mandatory rule in the Heights.  My family’s dog, Sammy, was a meshugenner who liked to play in traffic and bark a lot.

Sammy

I Hate Barking Dogs was my bumper sticker, so I had a problem.  The barking dog was my dog; I couldn’t call the cops.

The other day I called my cousin Howard in Colorado; he told me he had been up since 5 a.m. because of barking dogs.

My wife, Alice, is bugged by our neighbors’ barking dogs.

We have new neighbors on the other side.  The day they moved in, I said, “Give me the bad news.  How many dogs do you have?”

The neighbor said, “None.  My daughters are allergic to dogs.”  I couldn’t believe it.   Even if he turns his house into a crack den, I’m ahead.

Years ago –- when I lived on Oak Road — I approached a neighbor and said, “Your dog is barking.”

The woman stared at me, at her dog (who was yapping 24/7 on a chain in her backyard) and said, “No, he isn’t.”

She didn’t “hear” the dog barking, and she certainly didn’t hear me.

Our dog, Sammy, was a standard poodle.  Supposedly poodles are smart and non-allergenic.  Doubtful on both counts.

My kids in particular loved Sammy, who died exactly when the youngest kid went off to college.

I knew the pediatrician John Kennell.  He should have had two dogs.  Him.  Nobody else.

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This clip is “Critters” . . .

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Yiddishe Cup plays tonight (Wed. 4/25) at Fairmount Temple, 6:40 p.m., Beachwood, Ohio.   Free. The community-wide Yom Ha’atzmaut celebration.

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Lakewood International News, a magazine store, carried the Paris Review, Partisan Review, Kenyon Review and porn.  About half the store was porn.

The proprietor, Gil, was a part-time railroader.  He and several railroad buddies manned the elevated counter, which was a lookout tower for nailing shoplifters and pervs.

I went to Lakewood News.

Where else could I read an interview of William Styron in the Partisan Review, and Bustin’ Out in the same visit?

Gil lost his lease.  (I wasn’t Gil’s landlord.)  I had a vacant store.  Maybe Gil and I could do business together.  A bank tenant had bailed on me down the street.  I thought I was good for 30 years with the bank, but then all banks in the world started merging in the late 1980s.

The bank owed me rent until the bank was re-leased.  The bank, through back channels, quickly found a new tenant — the city.  The city planned to open a health-department annex.  Fine.  Cockroach inspectors would be my new tenants.

Except the city didn’t move very fast.  There were various “readings” at various city council meetings.  Meanwhile, Gil, the magazine store owner, told a couple people he was getting the bank store.  A Plain Dealer reporter called me.

Possible PD headline: “Stratton New Porn Czar.”

The old porn czar was Reuben Sturman, a local-boy-made-good and the nation’s largest porn distributor.

I got scared.  I hand-delivered a media package to the Plain Dealer reporter.  I did a Q&A with myself.  I answered: “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.”  I wanted the city to hurry up, so I had created a little tension, via the press.

Plain Dealer, June 21, 1989. See text below.

The Plain Dealer story came out.  (Nothing too horrible.)  But suddenly the city fast-tracked the legislation and rented the space.

That was the only time I ever spun the press.

Don’t believe half what you read in the papers.  For the real story, go to the memoirs 20 years later.

But by then, you probably won’t care.  But maybe you care in this instance; you read this.
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Here’s the beginning of “Adult store’s Detroit Ave. move thwarted” by Paul Shepard, Plain Dealer, 6/21/89:

“My only goal is to rent the store.  Whoever signs a lease first gets it, but I think both would be fine tenants for me.”

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I wrote an op-ed, “The Old Seder Table,” for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, online, Friday (4/6/12).  The op-ed is the only Passover story ever to mention Yazoo City, Mississippi.

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Rabbi Samuel Benjamin — from my synagogue — was arrested by the cops and beat up by congregants.  Then he got fired.  He went off to Jerusalem.

He resurfaced stateside in Jacksonville, Florida.

This was in 1926.  Rabbi Benjamin fought the great Conservative-Orthodox civil war at the Cleveland Jewish Center, East 105^th Street, in the early 1920s.

Rabbi Benjamin oversaw the construction of a huge new sanctuary, complete with a swimming pool, and was supposed to keep the shul Orthodox.  He tried.  But the Conservatives wanted him out.  Punches were thrown.  One of the punchers was a certain Philip Rocker.  Check it out.*  The rabbi left town.

The Cleveland Jewish Center, aka the “Polish synagogue,” aka Anshe Emeth Beth Tefilo, stayed at East 105^th Street for a couple decades, then moved to a park-like setting in Cleveland Heights.

I belong to the Heights shul — Park Synagogue.  I do not see any signs of civil war.  Very few congregants know about Rabbi Benjamin.

Rabbis don’t get in fights like they used to, either.  Does any rabbi don boxing trunks with the Jewish star?  I think there is a Russian rabbi in New York who does.  [Yes, Yuri Foreman. Photo: Foreman taking a punch from Miguel Cotto.]

My rabbi doesn’t fight — my guess.  If he does, he’s a welterweight.  He’s not big.

Some rabbis play basketball.  Several Cleveland rabbis played an exhibition basketball game at the Cleveland Cavaliers pre-game this month.  There was no score in ten minutes.

Next year for the pre-game, the rabbis should reenact the Conservative-Orthodox civil war of 1921.
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* “Near [Rabbi Benjamin’s] house was Philip Rocker, son of Samuel Rocker of The Jewish World. He waited for the rabbi and when he saw him he attacked him and beat him up quite severely.”  From Jewish Life in Cleveland in the 1920s and 1930s by Leon Wiesenfeld, 1965. 
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SIDE B
Jumping ahead about 90 years . . .

THE JEWISH WEDDING BAND WARS, 2009

The Orthodox Jewish (OJ) music scene is centered in New York City, where most of the OJ gigs are.

An OJ band not based in New York is called an “out of town” band, even if the band plays its own hometown.  There are a couple home-grown “out of town” OJ bands in Cleveland.

The Barry Cik Orchestra dominated the Orthodox Jewish Cleveland music scene in the 1980s.  Cik had yikhes (lineage), coming from a long line of distinguished Hungarian musicians.  I played a couple gigs with him.  His talented son Yehuda became an Ortho pop star.

Barry Cik was superseded in Cleveland by the Kol Simcha Orchestra in the 1990s.  Some bridal couples perceived Cik as not being frum (religiously observant) enough.  The Orthodox world, in general, was becoming increasingly more ritually observant.

Cik placed an ad in the Cleveland Jewish Times (no longer in existence) in 1991 that read in part: “I am as scrupulous in shimras Shabbos [guarding the Sabbath] as I can be, and I don’t believe that I’m any less Shomer Shabbos [Sabbath-observant] than most anybody else.”

Cik sometimes played for non-Orthodox Jewish simchas (celebrations) with mixed dancing — men and women dancing together.  Kol Simcha — the new band– typically didn’t play for mixed dancing.  Kol Simcha picked up a chunk of Cik’s frummer gigs.

Kol Simcha’s drummer got in trouble for using treyf (non-kosher) meat at his kosher Chinese restaurant, so he left town.  Still, Kol Simcha — the band — stayed in business.  The lead singer, Rabbi Simcha Mann, was a very good singer.

Several years later Simcha Mann’s expert keyboard player, Yosef Greenberger, put together a one-man band, which cut into Kol Simcha’s full-band wedding business.

Simcha Mann and Yosef Greenberger took their dispute to an unofficial beis din (house of judgment), where three rabbis decided Greenberger could keep his one-band and Rabbi Mann could have the full-band scene.  The two musicians agreed not to cut into each other’s turf.

This ruling held for 13 years, 1996 to 2009.

In 2009 Greenberger and Mann remembered the ruling differently.  Greenberger recalled the rabbis saying the ruling was void if new competition came to town.  Greenberger’s Jewish-law counsel, his toyan, backed him up in writing.  Mann disagreed.

New bands were playing Cleveland.  Yosef expanded to a full band.  Orthodox bands from Columbus, Ohio, and Detroit came through.  A young Orthodox musician started a new Cleveland Ortho band.

Yiddishe Cup joined the fray!  But Yiddishe Cup had three major flaws:

1. Yikhes (lineage/pedigree).  We had none.
2. We didn’t know the OJ repertoire very well.
3. Yiddishe Cup’s name was unorthodox.

For Ortho purposes, Yiddishe Cup became Shir Perfection.  (Shir is Hebrew for song.)   We had an Ortho singer who knew all the Ortho tunes.  We  held a couple rehearsals.  These get-togethers were secretly called Project O.  (‘O” for Orthodox.)  One musician called our project “Project Zero”; he didn’t like OrthoRock music and dropped out.

We didn’t get any gigs.  We thought we might get a couple.  For instance, Yiddishe Cup once played an OJ wedding for the daughter of an Orthodox blues harmonica player.  The dad, who didn’t blow on shabbes, sat in with us.

We were looking for Ortho gigs like that.

Still looking.

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Daniel Ducoff, Yiddishe Cup’s dance leader, is the all-in-one-machine: booking agent, valet and shrink.

Daniel has a social-work master’s degree and does free counseling.  For instance, when the musicians go out — like to CVS for candy bars and clubs for drinking — Ducoff hangs back with me  and says:  “What’s a couple extra bucks for beer and Snickers for the boys to to keep them happy?  Don’t fret. ”

Daniel handles all contract negotiations.   It’s not right for the bandleader to yak on the phone about “wiggle room” for the Oshkosh Opera House contract.  That’s Daniel’s job.

Ducoff handles the press too.  Reporters ask, “Why is this klezmer band different than all other klezmer bands?”  Daniel’s  answer: “Yiddishe Cup plays naked.”   The reporters — shlubs who sit in cubicles all day — buy it.

Daniel, who swam competitively in high school, calls ahead for dimensions on  pools at hotels.  Nobody likes to pull up to an “Olympic pool” that is four raindrops.

Daniel knows his way around snack shops.  Sun-baked chips are popular with the band.  Daniel says, “Sun baked chips are still chips, guys. You think the sun zapped the calories out?”

Daniel Ducoff

Daniel knows how to find exquisite — by Midwest standards — sourdough pretzels at all Pilot and Duke truck stops.

Ducoff is also the enforcer.  For example, Yiddishe Cup’s drummer, Don Friedman, occasionally blasts hard-bop jazz, like Art Blakey, inside the van.   This is borderline acceptable; it gives the band a certain panache when we pull into Bob Evans in Celina, Ohio, with  “Moanin’” blaring.   But, Don, turn the jazz off already!  That’s Ducoff’s job to tell Don.

Daniel Ducoff is the all-in-one machine.

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This post, “He Gets Paid Extra,” is 49-percent true. It’s klez fiction.

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SIDE B

More klez fiction.  Readers demand it.  Certain readers, that is.  Pete Rushefsky, a NYC klezmer musician, told me, “I don’t read any of your real estate stuff.  I skip that and read the klezmer.”  There are 398 klez fans in the world.  They read this blog.  Enjoy.

GREEN MAN GROUP

I auditioned for Green Man Group at the Cleveland home of klezmer violinist Steve Greenman.

I didn’t play clarinet for Greenman.  I played my eyes.  I looked maniacally Jewish, then playfully Jewish and, finally, soulfully Jewish. I thought “Einstein” the whole time.

I got a callback!   Me and five other guys.

At the callback, Greenman sprayed us green and had us play fiddle patterns in E minor.  This was awkward for me because E minor is a bad key for my axe — clarinet.

But I did OK.

I made it to the final audition.  Me, Pete Rushefsky, tsimbl; and Jeff Warschauer, mandolin.  Greenman knows us all personally.  (That’s show biz.)

We didn’t get sprayed green this time, nor perform. Greenman interviewed us separately.

GREENMAN: A deer jumps on stage while you’re performing.  What do you do?

STRATTON: I play “Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer” in E minor, then shoot the deer.

GREENMAN: A customer in a wheelchair says, “Stop talking and start playing!”

STRATTON: I say, “I’ll start playing when you stand up.”

GREENMAN: Can you make hot hors d’oeuvres pop out of your instrument?

STRATTON: Yes, and candy apples on Simchat Torah.

GREENMAN: What is the most creative thing you’ve ever done on stage?

STRATTON: I tore up a $100 bill on stage at the Omaha JCC while the audience screamed at me:  “Stop, I’ll take that!”  It was art.

GREENMAN: What if nobody showed up at your gig?

STRATTON: I play hard for zero people just like I play for 6,000, which is what I’m used to.

Jeff Warschauer got the job.  Greenman and Warschauer are both short.  Greenman didn’t want anybody taller than him on stage.  That’s why I didn’t make it.

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I have a piece, “For Cleveland Jews, Schvitz is Must,” in The Forward (online) this week.  Check it out, or read an extended version here in a few weeks.   The longer version should be better; it will contain profanity-laced, schvitzian dialogue.
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A word from Yiddishe Cup’s bandleader:

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When I got rid of my LP record abums, my friend Carl said, “How can you do that?”

The LPs were heavy, for one thing.  And I hadn’t listened to them in 20 years.  “Carl, in 10 years I might not be  able to physically pitch them, ” I  said.  “I’ll be pointing at each one from my La-Z-Boy and making my kids choose between Bob Dylan and Charlie Parker.  So I’m doing it now for my kids’ sake.”

I could have put my records on the treelawn (Cleveland-
speak for the grass strip by the curb).   I could have taken the LPs to a record store.  Or a record store could come to me.

A record store came to me.   Pete the Record Guy showed up at my house.

Just prior to Pete, Carl took five LPs for a wall montage.  He liked Coltrane Plays the Blues, Volunteers by Jefferson Airplane, and Archie Shlepp’s Four for Trane — all good cover art.  Carl, a roots-music maven, said I was in the top 5 percent of respectable record collections.

My record collection was my former identity.  It was my Facebook persona, circa 1975.

I found a receipt in a Stuff Smith Black Violin album — $1.50 from Mole’s.   Where was Mole’s?  I don’t remember.  [It was on Coventry Road in Cleveland Heights.]

Harvey Pekar

Harvey Pekar used to rifle through my albums.  The only album he ever wanted was my Charlie Parker Memorial Album, Vogue Records, England, 1956.  I didn’t sell it to Harvey.  I figured, If Pekar wants the record that badly, it must be worth something.

I checked on the Charlie Parker Memorial on the Internet.  Today it’s worth £5.40 to an Englishman on eBay.  That’s about $9.  Nothing.  Pekar was always into small numbers.

My kids didn’t want my albums.

I wanted to play Lenny Bruce’s “Lima, Ohio” bit (from The Best of Lenny Bruce) for Carl, but I didn’t have a record player handy.  Carl said, “It’s probably on YouTube.”

Right.  That’s why I got rid of my records.

Pete the Record Guy went through my albums three times.  Adiós Aretha Live at the Fillmore West, John Handy’s Carnival, Paul Butterfield . . .

Let it go.

Three-hundred dollars from Pete for 100 records.  Not bad.  Pete didn’t care about the condition of the records.   Pete said young kids –- his main customers — “won’t buy the reissue LPs, they want the originals, like yours.”

I said, “What jumped out at you? Is there any album worth 90 percent of what you paid me?”

He said, “I like your two Fred Neil’s, Everybody’s Talkin’ and Sessions.  You don’t see those often.”

“Let me take a photo.  Don’t worry, Pete, I’m not taking the records back.”

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SIDE B
(This flip side is a little something extra for readers arriving on the A train from New York Times Square. Northerners, let’s trash the Sun Belt . . .)

ATLANTA: NOT SO HOT

Atlanta is not far enough south for some Atlantans. Right next to the Atlanta airport is a billboard “Beach Bummed?” Meaning, go to Florida.

Atlanta isn’t very good for sunbathing unless you want to tan your left elbow in traffic for several hours.

I was at Atlanta airport, going through nine time zones to get to my gate.  The TSA clerk, glancing at my ticket, said, “So you’re going back to beautiful Cleveland?”

Yes, sir, and it’s a lot better than Atlanta.  (I didn’t say anything.)  Cleveland is not Paris — or Pittsburgh, for that matter — but it’s a step up from a Southern-sprawl traffic crawl.

I’m going to Atlanta this month for a family bat mitzvah, and I have a summer gig there with Yiddishe Cup.  I’ve been to the Coke Museum twice.  Is there a rum-and-Coke museum in Atlanta?  If so, where?

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Atlanta relatives, nothing personal!
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My best writing is “The Landlord’s Tale” in the latest City Journal.  Please check it out.   Must read long amusing essay about real estate now!

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re: my op-ed  in today’s NYT (2/29/12).

Do you want to read more landlord stories?  I have millions.  Here are two good ones: “Diving for Dollars” and “Tossed Out.”  Or just scroll down to the next post.

Best idea: Read my piece in the latest City Journal mag.  This article is my best writing.  If you are looking for top-quality real-estate lit, the City Journal article is the way to go. 

Must read long amusing article about real estate now.  Yes, you must.

I do a two-man music/prose show, “Dear Landlord: Real Music and Real Estate.”  You — or your real estate group —  should hire “Dear Landlord.”  We’re ready for the real estate conventions.

My band, Yiddishe Cup, plays all over the country.

I post up here every Wednesday morning.  Please subscribe to this blog.

Thanks.

–Bert Stratton

P.S.  Regular blog readers,  please read the post below too.  It’s fresh.

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Retirees usually make good tenants.  Unfortunately, I don’t get many retiree tenants, because most old folks don’t want to live in pre-war hardwood-floor apartments with no dishwasher or A/C.   Been there, done that.

I had an application from Joe, 71, a retired factory worker.
He made $1600/month.

Welcome, Joe.

I ran a criminal search on him as a formality. Aggravated arson, forgery and sexual battery.

Pre-Internet, I would have rented to him.  Pre-Internet,  it was hard to run background checks.  I once rented to a rapist/murderer because I wasn’t schlepping to county records, and the rapist wasn’t volunteering he was a rapist/ murderer.  (The man got picked up on a parole violation and moved out of my apartment without killing or raping.)

I rented to a retired nurse whose previous landlord followed her to my place.  He told me the old lady was a forger and felon.

But she already had the keys to my place!  My building manager had given her the keys in exchange for a dime store ring.

My custodian, Buck, always subverted me.  For example, he thought junk mail should stay in perpetuity; watering outdoor plants was ridiculous; and accepting fake rings was part of the job.

I helped Buck move the retired nurse’s belongings into the basement.  I locked the basement door.

“Give me my meds!” she said.

She had a point.

I gave her meds, plus her toothbrush.

This cost me.

I was young.  I learned two things: a) Don’t ever do a “self-help” eviction.  Lawyers love self-help evictions.  b) Screen all tenants like crazy on the way in.

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Cleveland is in the middle of the cereal belt.  Shredded Wheat of Niagara Falls, New York, is to the east, and to the west is Kellogg’s of Battle Creek, Michigan.

Shredded Wheat moved from Niagara Falls years ago, but the cereal belt remains.  Cleveland is the buckle.

Clevelander Marty Gitlin just published a cereal encyclopedia, The Great American Cereal Book  (Abrams Images), featuring “hundreds of images of vintage cereal boxes and spokes-characters — Tony the Tiger, Snap, Crackle, Pop, and Lucky the Leprechaun.”

Test-marketed in Cleveland

I had a prospective store tenant who wanted to open a cereal store.  He opened down the street and went under almost immediately.  He was Cereal Central, aka Cerealicious.   Nobody in Cleveland wanted to eat cereal in a store.  (He also had a store in Columbus near Ohio State.  Apparently,  OSU students were willing to eat cereal in a restaurant.)

Most people like to eat cereal alone and not talk about it.  That’s my guess.

In my temple bulletin, no bar mitzvah kid’s profile reads: “Jacob is interested in cereal.”  More often it’s “Morgan enjoys  Sudoku and chatting online, and is a member of the recycling club.”

What is Morgan’s cereal?

Marty Gitlin and I want to know.

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Musicians — at least one — eat cereal at home after late-night gigs.  Musicians can’t fall asleep after gigs.  Musicians’ heads are filled with fruit loops of “Simon Tov” and “Hava Nagilah.”  (Klezmer musicians’ heads, that is.)

Shredded wheat choices at 1 a.m.: Barbara’s shredded wheat or Quaker shredded wheat.  (Shredded wheat is not trademarkable.)  I mix Barbara’s with Autumn Harvest (Kashi).

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I wrote an “advice column” for the Ann Arbor Observer (February 2012).  Check it out: “Hit the Road, Jack . . . A dad’s advice.”   

Click here to hear what junior (Jack) is up to today:  “Louder Naftule.”  The latest in klezmer.

Drummer Jack Stratton, backed by clarinetists Merlin Shepherd and Lucy Stratton. KlezKamp, 1993. (Photo by Al Winn)

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If I didn’t lead a klezmer band, I might not hire one.  Yiddishe Cup might be too Jewish for me.

“Too Jewish” means anything — or anybody — more Jewish than oneself.  Example: Franz Rosenzweig, a German Jewish intellectual, said nothing Jewish — no matter how far out — was alien to him.  I tried Franz’s approach: I davened (prayed) with the yeshiva buchers in Boro Park, Brooklyn; drank schnapps at Telshe Yeshiva, Cleveland; and soaked in the mikvah (ritual bath) in Cleveland Heights.  Also, I read Rabbi Sherman Wine’s God-is-dead books.  I covered a lot of humentashn (bases).

Would I hire a klezmer band?

Yes.

I did.  I hired Yiddishe Cup three times — for my kids’ b’nai mitzvot parties.  (And I got a decent price.)

1. For my daughter’s bat mitzvah party, I also hired a troupe of hospital-therapy dogs for the cocktail hour.

2. For my younger son, we had a DJ party, plus the klez band party.  My son organized the DJ party.  He hired the DJ — himself.

3. My older son had a trivia quiz, plus the klezmer band. That worked out well.  He wound up on Jeopardy!

Yiddishe Cup plays, at minimum, 15 minutes of Jewish music, and we use a dance leader, so everybody knows what to do.

Naturally, the goys like us best.  Jews have hang-ups.

I know about Jews and hang-ups.  I have belonged to more shuls than the Pope.  I was Reform, then Conservative, then Reform, and now Conservative again.

My friends and relatives don’t always hire Yiddishe Cup.  But I go to their parties and have a good time.  The weddings are enjoyable; the bar mitzvahs are sometimes difficult.  The DJ and his “dance facilitators” can be loud and obnoxious.  The DJ announces, “The young adults will gather on the dance floor for a group photo.”

Get in the picture yourself, DJ.  You look 18.   And the “young adults” are not young adults, they’re animals.  Stow the glow sticks.  Bring out the cattle prods.

The optimal level of Jewishness is Yiddishe Cup with therapy dogs.

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Yiddishe Cup plays  The Ark 8 p.m. Sat (Feb.4), Ann Arbor, Mich.   Here is an unrepresentative video from last year’s  show:

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Every January I spend a day filling out employer tax forms.

My favorite is the Federal Unemployment Tax Act (FUTA) form.

I did my first FUTA Form 940 in 1978, when my dad went to Florida for the winter.  He and his high school buddies golfed in Boca Raton, and I filled out FUTAs in Cleveland.

Not bad.  I like tax forms better than golf.

Toby Stratton (far L) w/ friends at Boca Lago CC, 1983

The treasurer of Ohio likes his W-2 reconciliations promptly.  The Ohio Bureau of Employment Services also likes its money quickly.  The  Ohio Workers  Compensation bureau has rachmones (pity) and bugs me only twice a year, not quarterly like everybody else.

I used an IBM Selectric-style typewriter for tax forms until the machine died last year.  The A key wouldn’t work.  That was its main drawback.
“ lbert
Str tton”  didn’t cut it with the government.  I threw out the typewriter and several boxes of Ko-Rec-Type.

Now I use IRS computer forms, except for my Yiddishe Cup 1099s, which I do by hand.

Last year I used blue ink on Yiddishe Cup’s 1099s.

The gobierno prefers black ink, I’ve learned.  I’ll get with the program this year.

What are you in jail for?

Blue ink.

No thanks.

***

I wore a camping headlamp and crawled around the attic, culling old manila folders, making room for new files.

The old files weren’t read by anybody.

Why did I save all this stuff?

Because the government wanted me to.

I got insulation flecks on my fleece jacket.  It was freezing up there.  And there were mouse droppings and desiccated rubber bands.

My dad used to recycle manila folders.  For instance, he would reuse the file “1975 Plumbing” in 1981.

I threw out 30 pounds of paid invoices, checks and rent rolls.  I do this every January.

Should I feel nostalgic?

I don’t.

—-
Here’s an op-ed, “From Soltzberg to Stratton,” from last week’s Jerusalem Post (Jan. 17).

Theodore “Toby” Stratton (ne Soltzberg), 1938, age 21

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Louise Stevenson, an elderly tenant, plastered 3- and 4-cent stamps on her rent envelope.  This was in the 1980s.

Miss Stevenson was an old maid and very old school.  She patrolled the building  in a nightgown — a house coat — whatever women wore in the 1950s.  My mom wore one too.  Yes, a house coat.

Miss Stevenson didn’t like the custodians.  These workers never met her standards.  One custodian showed off too much butt crack when he scrubbed the floors.  Another manager supposedly broke into Miss Stevenson’s apartment and stole a book.  A third custodian went barefoot “like a hillbilly” in the hallway.

Miss Stevenson could guess whenever I was coming by; she stood guard by the building’s front door.  I listened to a lot of her diatribes about the decline of the West (Side).

I had a stamp collection too.  I should have talked stamps with her.  But I didn’t.  Miss Stevenson was a bit frightening, and my dad had always taught me: Don’t get personal with the tenants.

Miss Stevenson claimed she was related to Robert Louis Stevenson.  (The stolen book was an autographed Stevenson, she said.)

She carried a shopping bag and took the bus downtown every day, wearing her house coat.

Miss Stevenson died in 1992.   That year a first-class letter was 29 cents.

I hope I get a letter today with eleven 4-cent Lincolns on it.  I won’t, unless Miss Stevenson sends this . . .

—

Postage goes to 45 cents Sunday (January 22).  Add:

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I maintained records on my bike, like car owners keep track of oil changes.  Like when I last greased the hub.

I stopped with cleaned power chain in 1983.  I have winged it since.

My bike has  miles on it.  I bought it at Heights Furniture & Toy for $169 in 1978.  ($586 in today’s dollars.)  It’s a 10-speed Kabuki Superlight, which is not super light.  The bike has been to both oceans and several foreign countries.

It’s my wife’s fault.  When I met her, she was training to be an American Youth Hostels bike trip leader.  On our honeymoon, we biked in the Yucatán, where we sucked high-sulfur Mexican truck fumes on jungle roads.  It sucked.  We parked the bikes in Mérida and took the train to Palenque.

The bike and skipper, 1978, Mexico

These days — particularly on weekends — my bike goes automatically to Chagrin Falls, 12 miles east of my garage.  Chagrin Falls is very pleasant.

Chagrin Falls has ice cream shops, a popcorn shop and a bookstore.   Along the way, there are hills and valleys.  Novelist Don Robertson called Chagrin Falls “Paradise Falls.”  The town is, except when I can’t get a free cup of  water at Dave’s Cosmic Subs.   Lighten up, Dave.   How many stores do you own already?

When I’m in southern Ohio on the Great Ohio Bicycle Adventure (GOBA), my Kabuki bike is the source of  ribbing from bike geeks.

I don’t mind their kidding.

My bike doesn’t mind either.

Ask the bike.  Go ahead, ask the bike . . .

***

Chagrin Falls, January 10, 2012.  Endless summer . . .

—
Jack Stratton’s Funklet made Kickstarter’s list of Top 12 Videos of 2011. See the videos here.

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The sign at the McDonald’s on Lake Shore Boulevard read: 30-minute time limit while consuming food.  The manager must enforce these rules.  Your cooperation is appreciated.

Several retired cops sat beneath the sign, drinking coffee all morning.

Ex-cop Bill Tofant said to me, “I used to work out every day at the YMCA. You know what that stands for?  The Yiddishe Meat Cutters Union.”

I didn’t know that.  (I was with retired cops because I was a police reporter in the 1980s.)

“I can still run a mile at 73 and hold my own in fisticuffs, and I can turn my head to see if traffic is coming,” Tofant said.

Tofant liked me — or put up with me — because my Great Uncle Itchy Seiger had owned a deli on Kinsman Road, which all the cops used to eat at.   “Your uncle would throw his arms around me every time I came into the restaurant,” Tofant said.  “I couldn’t spend a nickel there.  They had corned beef, turkey, you name it, gherkin pickles.”

The cops at McDonald’s decided to rate pawnbrokers — most of whom were “good sharpYidls.”

I knew one of the Yidls: Larry Botnick of Euclid Loan at East 59th and Euclid.  Larry had played tennis with my father.  Larry got shot and killed in a stick-up.  A couple streets over, there had been another stick-up . . .

“Three colored guys went in back of East 63rd and St. Clair,”  said Bill Lonchar, an ex-cop.  “One guy had a horse pistol yea long. It stuck out like a sore thumb.  It was a military weapon.”

Re: the pawnbroker at East 79th and Hough . . .  1.) not shot at,  and 2.)  “not so good.”  “He would buy a stove [gun] that was red hot and smile.”

The cops  rated Italian.   Not pawnbrokers.  Burglars.  Hardly worth talking about.  “If you’re not Italian, you’re nobody.  All that goddamn bullshit.  All that Italian camaraderie bullshit.”

The Lithuanians were worth talking about.  “The Lits will eat soup for twenty years, three times a day, and save their money, and all of a sudden they buy apartment buildings,” Lonchar said.

The Irish: dunderheads.

The blacks: no comment.

The Slovenians:  “Very respectable.”  Top of the line.   “There was a safecracker, Charlie Broeckel,” Lonchar said.  “He went out to Laguna Niguel, California, and hit a bank there.  Burned [spent] seven-mill worth of shit in negotiable papers.  Charlie always found his way out.  He might have been German, not Slovenian, actually.  His mother held a very respectable job.  She was beyond reproach, nothing like a stumblebum. The Broeckels lived at 8815 St. Clair.”

Put up a plaque.  Lonchar was Slovenian.   [So were the district police commander, the ward councilman and the mayor, Voinovich.  All lived within a mile of  McDonald’s.  (Voinovich was half  Slovenian, half Serbian.  Good enough.)]

—–

Footnote:  “Thank God I’m Slovenian” was a popular bumper sticker in Cleveland in the 1980s.  Cleveland has more Slovenian immigrants than any American city.

The top-selling ethnic  bumper stickers in Cleveland were “Thank God I’m Polish” and “Thank God I’m Irish.”    I know,  I  interviewed the bumper-sticker maker in Broadview Heights.  Special-order: “Thank God  I’m Transylvanian Saxon.”  No market: “Thank God I’m Jewish.”

Check out this vid, Who’s Cheaper: Slovenians or Lithuanians?

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I was back from Las Vegas, attending a Shaker Heights brunch.  Several people asked, “Did you play?”

Did Yiddishe Cup play Vegas?

I wish Yiddishe Cup had played Vegas.

I had been in Las Vegas on vacation with my wife, Alice, and older son, Teddy.   I had played blackjack.

Monaco Motel. The Strattons stayed here in '62. Caught Red Skelton at the Sands nearby.

That was my second trip to Vegas. My first trip was in 1962, when a Vegas waitress predicted I (then-12 years old) would return to Nevada for my honeymoon.  That waitress was very wrong.

I prefer outdoorsy vacations.

On my latest trip I won $7.50 at blackjack at the Jokers Wild, then quit.  I could hardly breathe in the Jokers Wild –- or in any other Nevada casino — because of the cigarette smoke.  I hung around the casino parking lot, waiting for Teddy and Alice to finish up.

My favorite Las Vegas attraction is the Red Rock Canyon, which is similar to Zion National Park, but only 17 miles from Vegas.

The Red Rock performs daily in an original revue that is F’n Crazy!   Be a Part of  It!  Best Show in Vegas for the Past 900 Years!

***

Scouting locations for a Las Vegas School of Klezmer

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It wouldn’t cost much for me to open a klezmer store.  I have several vacant storefronts.

I could put my store — call it the Klezmer Shack — next to the Bass Shop.  The Bass Shop doesn’t sell basses, but string players brake for it anyway.  The Bass Shop is a bait and tackle store.

Some of my  merchandise:

The Jewish Fake Book by Velvet Pasternak. Useful for anybody who wants to pass as a Jew.  You’ll learn your way around seltzer and freylekhs (horas).  Plus you’ll learn the Hebrew lyrics to  “Jerusalem of Gold”  and “Bashana Haba’a.”

Yiddishe Cup latkes.

Dave Tarras’ Freilachs, Bulgars, Horas — 22 clarinet tunes, handwritten by the master himself.  I got my copy in Delray Beach, Florida, from the widow of Harold Branch, the late New York bandleader.

Irwin Weinberger’s autoharp.  Please buy it!  (Irwin is Yiddishe Cup’s singer.)

Harold Branch’s Club Date Handbook.   You’ll learn what to play when the caterer wheels in the Viennese dessert cart at a 1968 New York bar mitzvah party.   For the flaming jubilee, play “Funiculi, Funicula.”   (For the main course — the roast beef — play “I’m an Old Cowhand.”)

Clarinet neck straps.  Hard to find.  We have them.

Clarinet travel bags.  Ours are imported from the Pilot truck stop, Lodi, Ohio.

Two Twistin The Freilach LPs, 1961.  Used.

Seven Kleveland Klezmorim Sound of the World’s Soul LPs, 1985.  Never opened.

Klezmer gum.

 —

Footnote:  There  is a Klezmer Shack website,  run by Ari Davidow, who is allowing me to use the name for my store, I think.
—
Yiddishe Cup plays First Night Akron (Ohio) 6:15 p.m. Sat., Dec. 31.
—
Here’s a video by Kasumi,  who teaches at the Cleveland Institute of Art.  She won a 2011 Guggenheim Fellowship for her vid work.  This video is Yiddishe Cup.

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An Asian Indian asked me if he should buy a motel.

Why ask me?  Why not ask Patel? I thought.  Forty percent of American hotels are owned by Indians, and many are Patels.

The Asian Indian was a tennis pro who had invested in Cleveland real estate and lost money.  He thought maybe I knew some tricks about investing.

I knew this: Most everybody in the real estate biz in the 2000s was not hitting the long ball.

He asked me about stocks.

This is what I knew:  My late father, who was a stock broker for about six months in the 1950s, taught me the market is 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.  (Trailing 10-years 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 offered me a carton of baseball cards — 24 packs — at deep discount.  I was in.  I immediately ripped open all the packs.  I was 9.  This was my first speculative investment.  I got a lot of Humberto Robinsons (an Indians relief pitcher) and no Mickey Mantles.  Maybe my uncles were teaching me dollar-cost averaging: better to buy a pack a week (i.e., dollar-cost averaging) than go all in.

The Asian tennis pro moved to Florida.  His wife and kids couldn’t stand Cleveland winters, for one thing.  He didn’t have a job down there.  He didn’t have a house.  I hope he knew Patel.

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Here’s “Beer and Coconut Bars,” which I wrote for the CoolCleveland website.  Went up a week ago.  The story is definitely full Cleveland, if not cool Cleveland.

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The title of Maury Feren’s autobiography is almost book-length: Wheeling & Dealing In My World, Including World War II Memories, by Maury Feren, Cleveland, Ohio’s Produce King.

Maury Feren, 2010. (Photo by Ron Humphrey)

Lettuce and tomatoes aren’t that compelling to me, but World War II is,  so I read the book.

Maury fought the war on two fronts: 1.) Europe and 2.) Europe  — against his fellow American soldiers.

Here are some chapter titles: “Another Bigot,” “I’ll Show You What a Dirty Jew Can Do,” “Anti-Semitism at Home and Abroad” and “More Anti-Semitism.”

An American soldier called Maury a “rag peddler.”  Maury “gave him a lesson in boxing that he might never forget.”

A mess hall server said to Maury, “Vot vould you lick? A piss of this, and a piss of that?”

Maury grabbed him by the throat.  “If you ever talk like that again to me, I’ll close your windpipe so you’ll never be able to talk again.”

Maury Feren (shirtless), 1944, w/ friend

Maury encountered German soldiers and civilians in Essen, Germany.  “I screamed at them in a Yiddish-kind-of-German about how despicable they were . . . ‘You are murders, baby killers, women killers . . . I am a Jew.  Look at me and see whether you want to kill me too.’”

Maybe I’ll read Maury’s chapter on chives.

Probably not.  Is there any ass-kicking in chives?
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Footnote: Maury, 96, is still kickin’.  Biz a hundert un tsvantsik, Maury.  (You should live to 120, Maury.)

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Jack Stratton, Yiddishe Cup’s alternate drummer, as Mushy Krongold:

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The Intakes, a JCC boys’ club, should have met at the old Council Educational Alliance on Kinsman Road.  The Intakes was a throwback to a Depression-era settlement-house boys’ club.

The purpose of the Intakes was to keep teenage boys off the streets, which wasn’t too hard because we studied so hard we rarely went out.

The club president had a regular Saturday night excuse:  “I’ve got too much homework.  I can’t go out.”  On Saturday night?   One summer the club president landed a grant to write a report on the crystal structure of molecules.

The Intakes Club didn’t “intake” girls.  We were for the most part afraid of girls.  We played poker, miniature golf, bowled and held meetings.

Our advisor was a social worker from New York.  He often called us “schmucks,” which we found endearing.

We debated where to spend our money, which we earned by selling salamis and Passover macaroons.

Should we go to New York or Washington?

We went to both, on the Hound.  (Two different trips.)

In New York we went to the Statue of Liberty, saw Jeopardy! live and ate at Katz’s Deli.  I bought Existentialism Versus Marxism in a Village bookstore.  I haven’t finished it yet.

In Washington we met our congressman and pantsed an Intake back at the hotel.  We tried to post his pics on the ’net, but got an error message: Internet not invented yet.

Our congressman, Charles Vanik, had an administrative aide, Mark Talisman,  a small smart Jew who was just eight years older than us.  He seemed to know everything about the government.  He gave us a private meeting.  He was the puppet master for the entire suburban east side of Cleveland.

Talisman was an inspiration.  He made it out of the tough Harvard-Lee neighborhood to Harvard U.

We should have made Mark Talisman an honorary Intake.

We shouldn’t have taken those naked pictures.

The Intakes, 1967, poker game

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Why do nursing-home administrators request 100-percent peppy music from performers?  Some residents want to hear contemplative tunes.

Why do eyeglass-frame adjusters have so much power over us?  Did they all get PhDs?  From where?  I.U.?

How come newspaper columnists don’t write about pet peeves anymore?  That’s annoying.

My wife took the electric toothbrush to Columbus, Ohio, on a business trip. The electric toothbrush — and the seltzer machine and Bose radio — are permanent attachments to the dwelling, Alice.

Why does Zagara’s grocery in Cleveland Heights sell only 12-packs of shabbat candles and not the 72-candle jumbo box?  Zagara’s Jewish Lites.

What about those phone solicitors from yours kids’ colleges who ask for money.  What are you supposed to say?   “Here’s another $50.  No problem.”

Why do “highly sensitive” people insist on telling you what bothers them?  That’s irritating.

When your computer crashes, why do you feel like your right hand fell off?  Why can’t you feel like a mosquito bit your ankle.

Who is nostalgic for mimeo machines?  Somebody should be.

Why do “sophisticated” Clevelanders brag about not reading the Plain Dealer?  They say, “I’ve lived in Cleveland for 20 years and never subscribed to the PD.  I read the New York Times. ”  Go home.

People who grow vegetables always serve arugula.  Why don’t they grow dates or figs?

Why do concertgoers at the Cleveland Orchestra applaud maniacally after every single piece?  The listeners nap for 54 minutes (Mahler Symphony #1), then give the conductor three curtain calls.  Applaud this!

If you want to talk about cars, first ask: “Do you want to talk about cars with me?”  Same goes for sports, TV shows and politics.

Which is preferable:  a) “He passed away.” or b) “He passed.”  Answer: “He passed away.”  Best answer:  c) “He died.”

Who was the curmudgeon — Harvey Pekar or Andy Rooney?  Coin toss.

Don’t complain about lousy cell phone service and long lines at the post office.  That’s modern life.   You wouldn’t get upset by a house sign that said the smith’s, would you?

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