Real Music & Real Estate . . .

When Mel, the bride’s father,  inquired about Yiddishe Cup’s fees, he said his grandmother had baby-sat Joel Grey (Mickey Katz’s son).  Mel asked if Yiddishe Cup knew any Mickey Katz tunes.

I said, “We play more Mickey Katz songs than anybody in the world! You’ve heard us, right?”

No, he hadn’t.

I said, “Have you been under a rock for twenty-one years?”

Mel was from Cleveland.  Where had he been hiding?  Mel said he didn’t get around much.  He used to get around.  He said, “Where did you go to high school?”

“Brush,” I said.

Mel graduated from nearby Cleveland Heights High — a rival — but, nevertheless, he was OK with Brush High.  He had played softball with Brush boys in a JCC league.  Mel was six years old than me; I didn’t know any of his Brush buddies.

Mel’s daughter — the bride — was 31 and living in Brooklyn — Yiddishe Cup’s target demographic.  I said, “Has your daughter checked out Yiddishe Cup’s Web site? It doesn’t matter if you like Mickey Katz.  She’s calling the shots. ”

“Do you know Joel Schackne?” Mel said.  (Schackne had been a champion tennis player at Heights High.)

“I know of him.  Whose idea is the Jewish music?”

“Schackne is in Florida.  He’s still playing tennis.”

“What does your daughter think about Jewish music?”

“What AZA were you in?”  (AZA: a B’nai B’rith boys’ club.)

“I was in a JCC club.”

The Great Schackne

A week later, I met Bob, a cleaning supply man, and also a Heights High grad.  I met him at an AIPAC meeting.   Bob was not OK with Brush.  He said, “Brush was a bunch of greasers and Italians!”

The AIPAC speaker, a Brush grad by the way, had left Cleveland years ago to attain multiple Ivy League degrees and become a weapons analyst with the government, maybe the CIA.  He was an old friend of mine.  I wanted to talk Iranian nuclear capabilities with him.  The inside story.  He didn’t.

Ron, a Brush graduate living in Connecticut, phoned to say he was in Cleveland at a nursing home, visiting his dying mother.  Ron asked if anybody was still in town.  (“Anybody” meant “Our Crowd.”)

I said, “Nobody is here.” Most of our gang had left.  The Jewish guys still in town were, for the most part, entrepreneurs and family-business owners.  A couple local guys had even made serious money.  One, who built cell phone towers, was a playboy with femme fatales poolside.

Howard, a Brush grad in New York, called.   He was coming through Cleveland.  His parents were moving to assisted living.  He said we should get together.

Did I have a post–high school life?

I think so.  I’m not stuck on high school.  But the subject does come up.  I live in my hometown.  What can I say?

Go Arcs.
—-
1. Mel didn’t hire Yiddishe Cup for his daughter’s wedding.
2. The Arcs is the nickname of Charles F. Brush High School.  Brush, a Cleveland inventor, developed the arc light, which illuminated streets prior to the incandescent bulb.

—-
A version of this post appeared in the Heights Observer online on April 26, 2011.

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The first three digits in your Social Security number mean something. For instance, 545-573 and 602-626 indicate you are a native Californian. 268-302, an Ohioan.

That’s history. Effective Saturday, newly issued Social Security numbers (SSNs) will have no geographical significance. The “Social Security Number Randomization” policy hits.

New Gavins, Emmas and Destinys will get random SSNs.

I read about the randomization policy in the Social Security Administration/IRS quarterly newsletter to employers.

I look at Social Security numbers a lot because I’m a landlord. One apartment applicant wrote his SSN as 900-. There are no 900-999s. I turned him down on the spot. Likewise, there are no 000s-. And I don’t rent to 666-; that’s the devil’s number, and the Social Security Administration (SSA) doesn’t stock it.

The SSA website says, “If your [SSN] concerns are firmly rooted in your religious beliefs or cultural traditions, Social Security will review your request.”

The new randomization policy will extend the number of available SSNs. There are 435 million unused numbers. Dead people’s numbers go to the grave with them.

What about a vanity SSN? Are the feds thinking of that?

They should. Parents might pay $100 for a snazzy SSN — say, a 999-. Something that would stand out on Baby Emma’s college application 17 years from now.

Just say no to randomization.

Baby Emma is not a random number. And Gavin is an Ohioan — a proud Buckeye. Destiny, she is a California girl (602-).

Joe Buckeye

—-

Due to a computer glitch, this post (“Just Say No to Randomization”) didn’t go up on Wednesday June 22. It went up today, Saturday June 25.

—-

Here’s an op-ed I wrote for the Cleveland Plain Dealer last Sunday. “Harvey Pekar’s Hollywood Hustle.”

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Gratz College in Philadelphia offers an online course called Comparative Genocide.

The teacher, Sean Martin, lives in Cleveland.

I said to Sean, “I think Don DeLillo wrote about Hitler Studies in a novel, but that was a novel.  Comparative Genocide, is it real?”

“Gratz named the course,” Sean said. “I didn’t.  It’s a real course.”

Sean also teaches classes on ethnicity and the Holocaust in Cleveland.  He speaks Yiddish and Polish, and has a PhD.

Sean, from Weirton, West Virginia, is of Italian and Appalachian descent. (There is also a Yiddish scholar from Japan.)

I said to Sean, “You’re interested in everything you’re not, is that it?”

“Exactly,” he said.

“In the Comparative Genocide class, does everybody try to top the Jews’ story? ” I said.  “The Jews are the gold standard?”

“There’s some of that going on,” Sean said.  “But that’s not the intent.  Let me repeat, I didn’t pick the name of the course.  Gratz has got to change that.”

—–

Here’s an original Klezmer Guy movie,  “Nine Days to Die.”   It’s funny.   My “bro” — Stuart — has followed me my whole life.  Or I’ve followed him.

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The Challah Fame announced its lecture series today:  The Art of Klezmer . . . How to Make it Hypnotic, Bruising and Revelatory.

Klez Mezzrow, lecture series curator

The lectures are free, but attendees must bring doctors’ permission slips. Some lectures might be dangerous, according to the brochure.

The first lecture is June 15, featuring Hankus Netsky, bandleader of the Klezmer Conservatory Band.

6/15  Hankus Netsky HOW DO I STOP THIS THING?

Should a klezmer song end with a “squirt” (quarter note) or a “pop” (eighth note)?   Or how about a simple  I-V-I chord tag?  Or  should the bandleader just scream, “It was all a mistake!”

Netsky is clear and emotive.  Expect audience participation, including hummus-smearing and firearms.

6/22  Sarah Gordon WEATHER THAT KILLS

Sarah, a singer and third-grade teacher in New York, will talk about corporal punishment.  Gordon’s punk-klez band, Yiddish Princess, is best known for “Painkiller” and “Weather That Kills.”   Gordon gives us an insider’s look at the combative multivalent New York klezmer scene.  Bring knives.  Sarah  is going to recreate the West Side Story switchblade scene in Yiddish.  Volunteers needed.

7/9  Don Friedman PRAISED BE KLEZMER!

Yiddishe Cup’s drummer, Don Friedman,  is the spiritual leader of The Churchagogue in Twinsburg, Ohio.  Donny invented the Jewish freewill offering; it isn’t free.  Donny was the recipient of Sweden’s “Little Drummer Boy” prize ($753,000) last year and invested much of that in upgrading The Churchagogue, which attracts more than 2,000 worshippers on a typical shabbes morning.  Free refills on the Mogen David through “Eyn Keloheynu.”  Donny delivers his most famous sermon tonight: “Time. Sometimes it passes slowly. Sometimes it flies by.”

7/29  Alice Stratton OLD-SCHOOL MATH

Alice talks about pacing and musical symmetry.  She takes us back to the days when hora tempos were T-120 (120 beats/minute) and veteran pianist Pete Sokolow‘s blood pressure was under 120.  Alice, a dance leader with Yiddishe Cup, makes her second Challah Fame appearance tonight.  In 2000 she debuted her dance “Some Kind of Cheesy Orgy” at The Challah Fame grand opening.

8/6  Daniel Kahn SLACKIN’ WITH DANNY K

Daniel Kahn, a.k.a. Danny K, chants the trope of recuperative klezmer here.  No worries, it’s all good.  How to enjoy life by playing music, singing, or just listening.  Kahn, from Berlin, does mixed-genre exploring, using ketchup, sauerkraut and clarinets.  Samples afterward.

9/15  Michael Winograd THE 2011 KLEZMER MANIFESTO

Wino, the 28-year-old klez clarinet phenom, delivers the first klez manifesto since Alicia Svigals wailed her “Against Nostalgia” rant at the 1996 Wesleyan University Klezmer Conference.

Here are some of Winograd’s key points:

1. It’s a lonely world.  Hi, everybody.
2. I’ve done many things wrong.  Sorry about that.
3. I get paid to eat at weddings. Why?
4. A scrap of paper in my wallet says I owe you.  Shut up, scrap!

10/3 Ted Stratton MUSIC THAT REPELS

Stratton focuses on life’s basics: dirt, worms, aphids, flies and klezmer music. What’s real, what’s not? What’s fake, what’s authentic? What’s cool, what’s dumb? Stratton looks at the avant-garde in his rearview mirror; he’s way ahead of you. His latest book is The Limbo: Still Rockin’ at 50. How Long Can It Go?

10/13  Mark Rubin THE IN-N-OUT BURGER IN IASI, ROMANIA

Rubin leads us on a virtual eating tour deep into Europe, a la Borat.  Rubin focuses primarily on risk-taking in eating.

Rubin will be barbecuing ribs throughout the lecture and not washing his hands.  Some spitting too. Samples afterward.

11/2 Daniel Ducoff AQUA-KLEZMER

Daniel Ducoff, a swimmer and Yiddishe Cup dance leader, talks about the awe-inspiring aspects of the Jewish water experience.

What is “difficult” will be “not difficult” after Daniel’s lecture.  You will not be afraid of  the 10-meter board or the mikvah.

Mystical, glorious and powerful mayim (water). Heartbreaking too.  Bring a suit.  There will be a baby pool and high board. Expect some broken bones.

11/19 Walt Mahovlich SITUATION REPORT: THE GYPSIES AND THE JEWS

Walt‘s lecture is a split-perception event.  Half the audience wears “I ♥Yiddish” buttons, and the other half  gets
“I ♥ Roma”  badges.  Challah Fame staffers are the U.N. observers.  Let’s see what happens.  Situation report to follow.

12/1 Moshe Berlin THE BOUNDARIES OF BLUR

Israeli clarinetist Moshe Berlin lectures in Hebrew on the differences between Israeli and American klezmer music.  Free Holy Land yarmulkes to all who attend. Also, Moshe will pass out learsi refrigerator magnets afterwards. “Learsi”  is “Israel” spelled backwards. The Learsi Project encourages you to read everything — even English —
right-to-left.

—
Footnote: 1.3 percent of the words in this post are stolen from the Poetry Project Newsletter #226.
—

Enjoy the “Klezmer Guy” blog, accompanied by beer, food
and music . . .

Nighttown
Tues. (June 14)
7:30 p.m.
$10

Spoken word, klezmer, rock, pop, Tin Pan Alley and alley.

Bert Stratton, clarinet, spoken word
Alan Douglass, piano, vocals
Jack Stratton, drums, beat-box

Lots of new material in this show. Your name might pop up in the script.

Nighttown
12387 Cedar Rd., Cleveland Hts.
216-795-0550
www.nighttowncleveland.com

—

Yiddishe Cup — the whole band — is at Parade The Circle, Cleveland, 11 a.m. Sat. (June 11). We’re playing a pre-parade concert.

We’ll also be at Temple Israel (Akron, Ohio) Sat. night (June 11), 8 p.m., for a concert. 330-762-8617.

—

Check out this funny and good 1970 Kickstarter video by Yiddishe Cup’s alternate drummer, Jack Stratton.

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Drug Mart is a dollar store/drugstore on Cleveland’s West Side. I buy shampoo and cough drops there.  Also, shoehorns, Gorilla tape and off-brand Cheerios (formerly Tasteeos, now Toasted Oats).

Drug Mart sells the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, but I never see anybody buy the papers except for an elderly man in a suit and tie. 

What is this guy doing on the West Side?

I stood in back of him in line, and had time to kill.   I said, “I wouldn’t normally bring this up — like if we were on the East Side [where the Yidn live] — but you look like my uncle.  You have to be a landsman.” [Paisan]

He smiled and said, “I’m Charlie Lichtman. And what are you doing here?”

“I own property here.”

“Houses?”

“Buildings, like the old Armed Forces Recruiters building.”  Which was two blocks away.

Charlie said, “I live in the new Armed Forces building.” The fancy condos — with recruiting offices underneath — across the street from my building.

“You aren’t from around here?” I said.

“I’m from New York,” he said, handing me a card: Charles M. Lichtman Jr., attorney at law, Cleveland and
New York.

“I had an article in the New York Times yesterday,” I said. I was just waiting for somebody — anybody — to say “New York,” or “times” or “new.”

“I read the article,” Charlie said.

I Googled Charlie when I got home. He had graduated from Harvard University and Harvard Law School, and so had his father (Harvard ’14, Harvard Law ’16).   His father had been the president of the Harvard Menorah Society (a precursor to Hillel) in 1915.

Charlie was apparently old German Jewish money (“Our Crowd” division, NYC). And he was at the Drug Mart on the West Side of Cleveland.

Why?

An attractive woman stood next to him.  “That’s why I’m here,” Charlie said, pointing to her.

—
“Charles M. Lichtman Jr.” is a pseudonym.

—

Enjoy the “Klezmer Guy” blog, with w/ beer, food
and music . . .

Nighttown
Tues. June 14
7:30 p.m.
$10

Spoken word, klezmer, rock, pop, Tin Pan Alley and alley.

Bert Stratton, clarinet, spoken word
Alan Douglass, piano, vocals
Jack Stratton, drums, beat-box

Lots of new material in this show.  Your name might pop up in the script.

Nighttown
12387 Cedar Rd., Cleveland Hts.
216-795-0550
www.nighttowncleveland.com

—

Yiddishe Cup — the whole band — is at Parade The Circle,  Cleveland, 11 a.m. Sat., June 11.  We’re playing a pre-parade concert.

We’ll also be at Temple Israel (Akron, Ohio)  that night (June 11), 8 p.m., for a concert.  330-762-8617.

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A Jew Grows in Brooklyn, Jake Ehrenrich’s one-man Broadway show, was unadulterated nostalgia.  Jake even flashed photos of his bar mitzvah on the big screen on stage.

The show came through Cleveland recently.  The audience, for the most part, loved the sentimentality and obviousness of the play.  Did you know Jake and other Brooklynites played stickball?  Did you know Irving Berlin was born Isadore Balin?  Did you know Jews wrote many popular Christmas and rock songs?

This just in: Jews like baseball.

What about bark mitzvahs?  (Bar mitzvahs for dogs.)  Aren’t those (fake) events outrageous and cute?  Jake projected dogs in yarmulkes and tallism (prayer shawls) onto the screen.

There are acceptable levels of schmaltz and shtick.  Jake exceeded those levels.

I know, Yiddishe Cup is not exactly schmaltz-free.  And Yiddishe Cup gets negative reviews too.  We’re schmaltzy. We play “Romania” at the end of most of our shows.  That is the imprimatur of a klez shtick band.  But we also play original comedy tunes and regularly rip off the great Mickey Katz.

We would gladly add more high-brow material to our shows if we could play our instruments better.  But we wouldn’t add too much high-brow.

Some high-brow bands are monotonous, repetitive and monotonous.  No names here; I don’t want to alienate any of my musician friends.  OK, I’ll name one group . . .

Los Muñequitos de Matanzas.

These drum-crazed Cuban dudes play rhythm patterns on four drums for 45 minutes.  And that’s just the first set. Very little melodic or harmonic variation.  No chording instruments.  No talking between songs.

Yiddishe Cup talks.  We explain our tunes and ad lib asides. I might say, “Ladies and gentlemen, on keyboards, Winston Churchill.”  That’s class.

Jake Ehrenrich, in his show, lifted many old Jewish jokes. That was the best part of his show — his Catskills routine.  (And he’s a good singer and musician.)

Jake’s best joke:

Two Jewish men are walking by a church sign:

Abe says, “I’m thinking of doing it — converting.”

Murray says, “What? Are you crazy?”

Abe goes into the church and comes out ten minutes later.

“So?” Murray asks. “Did you get the $500?”

Abe says, “Is that all you people think about!”

Hurray for Oy Vey.  There’s a market.  And I want the T-shirt concession in the lobby.

—

For “inside baseball” blog talk, please check out the post below.

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Been doing this blog for two years.

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

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

David, Margie,  Irwin Weinberger, John Urbancich, Jane Lassar, Zach Kurtz, Ben Cohen, Alice, Alan Douglass, Diddle, Steve, Dan, Jack, Don Friedman, Kenny G,  and Steven Greenman.

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

"Substandard paragraphs! Ten cents!"

Also, a special thanks to Ralph Solonitz, the blog’s illustrator.  He adds a lot.  When I write substandard paragraphs, I encourage Ralph to throw in as many pics as possible.  Works out well.

I first met Ralph about 20 years ago when he designed Yiddishe Cup’s logo.

Several people have recently asked when they’re going to get in the blog.  They want in!

On the other hand, many more people say, “Don’t put me in your blog, whatever you do.”

Google Analytics — a spy op — says there are “Klezmer Guy” readers in every state except South Dakota, plus many foreign countries.  (The five most popular countries are Canada, Israel, Germany, the United Kingdom and France.)

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

Thanks for hanging in with this blog.  Without you — the reader — I’d be writing for the drawer, which I’ve done and it’s no fun.

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You aren’t going to read this entire blog.  I know that.  You have other things to do. Like working out . . .

Mr. Mentsh benches the Sunday NY Times

Here’s a good idea.  Check out this “best of” list:

1. The three best blog posts are . . .

SEARCHING FOR GALICIA, about the Alter Heym (Old Country); has a photo of my mother;

FECES HAPPENS, about a building manager cleaning up excrement;

and YID LIDS, about a yarmulke collection.

This  site — Klezmer Guy — is primarily an amusing word pile, accompanied by Ralph Solonitz‘s illustrations, original Klezmer Guy videos and Yiddishe Cup music.   And no recipes.

2. The best video is about a beat-boxing drummer (guy in yellow shirt with tie):

3. The best Yiddishe Cup recording is Meshugeneh Mambo — a klezmer comedy album. You can buy and/or listen to it at CDBaby, Amazon, or iTunes. (Yiddishe Cup’s Web site is www.yiddishecup.com. We play all over the country. We also do a duo act.)
Here’s our best song:

Meshugeneh Mambo (Crazy Mambo) by Yiddishe Cup

4. The blog’s illustrator, to repeat, is Ralph Solonitz. His best work is Yiddishe Cup’s logo at the very top of this page.

5. Please sign the mailing list at the lower left of the screen. You’ll get a fresh post delivered to your door every Wednesday morning by herring boat. You will receive one — just one — email a week. (We don’t sell your email address to others.) Or you can “like” us on Facedeath and get a weekly blog post there.

Once again, welcome. Please read the posts below and come back here on Wednesday mornings. Nobody — and that includes the New York Times — covers the klezmer/
landlord scene like we do.

Lox on,

Bert Stratton

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Bialy’s Bagels in University Heights, Ohio, was my bagel supplier for years.  I would go swimming; go to Bialy’s; buy 15 bagels; eat two; drive to my mother’s, give her three; and take the rest home.

I was on a bagel diet; I actually thought eating sesame and poppy seed bagels was a good thing.

My back-up bagel purveyor was Amster’s at Cedar Center.  The counter woman there, Marilyn Weiss, volunteered for school levies, racial integration projects, and did a ton of schlep work at my shul.  Amster’s was all about Marilyn’s personality.  Unfortunately, she died in 2000, and the place closed a few years later.

I also went to Better — as in “Better Bagel” — on Taylor Road.  The owners were New Yorkers who wore kippot (yarmulkes) and Brooklyn Dodgers shirts.   I figured they knew bagels.

They didn’t. Their bagels were too doughy and not crispy enough on the outside.   Better Bagel changed its name to Brooklyn Bagel.  No better.

Go to Bialy’s.  If Bialy’s ever closes, we’re in bagel trouble in Cleveland.

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I write “landlord/bandleader” for occupation on my taxes.

“Real estate/musician” would be too boring.  I want the IRS to think of me as more than just another number.

QUALIFIED DIVIDENDS.  Every year I try to remember what qualified dividends are.  They are qualified for lower capital-gains tax rates.

ALIMONY.  My lazy ex-wife thinks I’m her personal ATM.  Alimony shouldn’t be on the tax form.  It’s a big distraction.  (I don’t have an ex-wife — lazy or otherwise — but still, the thought of it is scary.)

SCHEDULE C. Business income. The government looks closely at artists’ expenses on this schedule.  In the band biz, how does one list the candy bars for the band’s sleep-deprived, van-driving keyboard player? Is the MilkyWay a “meal”?  The MilkyWay seems more like “maintenance.” The MilkyWay is not a “meal.”

SCHEDULE D. Capital gains (losses). When I met my wife-to-be, Alice, she owned a mutual fund. Nobody except John Bogle, the founder of Vanguard, owned a mutual fund in 1977.  Smart move — my marrying Alice.

SCHEDULE E. Income from royalties.  Yiddishe Cup sells CDs from the trunk of a car, so to speak.  That’s not a big royalty situation.  But now that Yiddishe Cup is on Sony Germany’s Balkan Basics World Tour II CD, maybe we’ll get some royalties.   Royalty checks are often a joke, I’m told.  Like $0.31.  Still, I’d like one.

IRS Climbing Wall

DEPRECIATION. Form 4562.  Buildings have lives.   For instance, apartment buildings live  27½ years.  Buildings-with-stores last 31 years or 39 years; the laws keep changing. And buildings on the Alternative Minimum Tax form last 40 years.

SELF-EMPLOYMENT TAX.  Schedule SE. The Social Security and Medicare tax is effectively 14.13 percent for a self-employed person.  A salaried person pays only 7.65 percent.  That’s worth knowing if you’re starting a business.  (For 2011 only: reduce the above figures by 2 percent.)

THE FLAT TAX.  There is a 31 percent tax on 31-year-old buildings; a 23 percent tax on 23-year-old sons; and no tax on klezmer bands, which the president has declared national treasures.
—–
Happy Passover!  Here’s a funny Klezmer Guy video, “Irregular Passover Humor” . . .

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Yiddishe Cup does the occasional Torah march.  We escort Torah scrolls and marchers in a parade from a “desanctified” synagogue to a newer synagogue.

We’re doing a Torah march Sunday, going from tiny Congregation Bethanyu in Pepper Pike, Ohio, to B’nai Jeshurun Congregation (BJ), a half mile away.

BJ is a shul-eater.  It eats guppy shuls.

BJ is one of two “big tent” Conservative synagogues in Cleveland.  The other is Park Synagogue.  Park is bigger, but BJ is working on its mergers and acquisitions.

Two of BJ’s “guppy” meals were temples that had split off from BJ and — after decades of independence — re-docked with the mother ship (BJ).

Jewish unity: Jewnity. Jewnity means all Jews under one roof.

Rabbi Milton Rube, the emeritus rabbi at Bethanyu — the tiny shul that is closing — had been an assistant rabbi at BJ in the 1970s, when he and a group of young congregants split off.   That’s how it goes; the young rabbi and young congregants think the stodgy old rich members are running the show too much.

March of the Torahs, Pepper Pike

Last month, in the Cleveland Jewish News, Rabbi Rube said he personally won’t re-dock with BJ.  He’s joining Park — the competition.

This is newsworthy, but not everybody thinks so.  I tried to discuss Rabbi Rube at shabbes dinner (because temple gossip is a shabbes tradition at my house), but my friends at the shabbes table didn’t know what I was talking about.  Did they even read the Cleveland Jewish News?  No.  Did they think the Jewish News was only for their parents?  Yes. And their parents are mostly dead.

What if some day there is only one “big tent” Conservative shul left in Cleveland?  Which will it be, Park or BJ?  Who’s interested in that discussion?

If you are, please bring a challah (preferably from On the Rise bakery), a side dish and terrific chocolate dessert to my house this Friday night.
—-
THIS BLOG IS UPDATED every Wednesday morning.  No more Friday morning updates. (Nobody was checking in then anyhow.)

Please stop by here every Wednesday morning for the latest.  That’s probably what you’re already doing.

The Wednesday-morning tan email reminders will continue to go out, as usual.

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The florist, who had a shop in Linesville, Pennsylvania, said he knew the DeBartolo family of Youngstown and had provided flowers for Clint Eastwood’s godfather’s funeral.

I know machers too, man! I felt like saying. I know, through gigs, the family that wants to rebuild Brooklyn and move in the New Jersey Nets. The boss of that family likes to hear “Oyfn Pripetchik” (On the Hearth).  I play that tune even before the boss can request it.

I’ve done a lot of fancy gigs (by Cleveland standards), Mr. Linesville Florist.  I did one where the bride’s dad bulldozed his back yard to put up three tents.  Then he put in a quarter-mile road to his front door.  Yiddishe Cup played for 15 minutes, after which a Nashville band took over.

I’ve seen clients back up A/C trucks to the old federal building to cool off guests.

I haven’t seen that sort of extravagance lately.

The florist considered renting a store from me.

He liked to talk, and not about utilities or lease terms.  He talked about Clint Eastwood’s godfather — “a simple western P.A. man whose coffin had a flower spray that floated on Styrofoam over the casket.”

The florist said he had spent the past 30 years in Linesville, where ducks walk on carp at the Pymatuning Reservoir spillway.  “That is the second biggest tourist attraction, to the Liberty Bell, in Pennsylvania,” he said.

He showed me the bee stings on his arms. “There are a lot of yellow jackets because I live out in the country,” he said.

The florist wanted to move back to the city, he said.  He winked at me. “We are going to be partners in crime!”

He began talking about the DeBartolos of San Francisco. Then Clint Eastwood’s floating  sprig again.  Maybe the florist had talked only to ducks and carp in 30 years and was lonely.

After a half hour, I interrupted, “Give me a call when you’re ready to put down a deposit.  I have to go.”

“You’ll be hearing from me!”

I didn’t.

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TAKE ONE:

How did you start Yiddishe Cup?

I got a gig, which other musicians wanted in on.

I made $10 on the gig, and paid the other guys $60 each.  We played for the Russian immigrants’ club at the  Mayfield Road JCC. The Russians liked our waltzes.  Screw klezmer.  I hired two musicians who had played with the Kleveland Klezmorim, and a Swiss jazz bass player.

On our next gig, I lost money. I used a black jazz guitarist.  All his Dm chords came out like Dm7’s (jazz chords). His name was Jewish, though:
Larry Ross.

How did you get your first gig?

We played for free on John Carroll University’s Jewish hour.  The radio show’s host — a cantor, my cantor — couldn’t easily turn down a fellow congregant. Also, he often requested Jewish musicians stop by John Carroll to play on his show, and few did.  (John Carroll is a Jesuit school.  Does Yeshiva University have a Celtic hour?)

The Yiddishe Cup radio gig impressed our first paying client.

The rest is video . . .

TAKE TWO:

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My basement — where Yiddishe Cup rehearses — smelled like a skunk.

The skunk was under the stoop by my front door, next to the basement.

I could hardly breathe in the basement.  How was I supposed to play clarinet?

Skunks are bad people.  The city won’t deal with them.  So I hired a private company, Critter Control.

The Critter Control  “technician” liked my collection of Jewish-star necklaces — Purim bling — in my basement.  He said he was Jewish. (I run into Jewish handymen more often than most people, I think.)  He said, “I don’t know much about the ritual and all that, but my mother was Jewish.”

“If you say you’re Jewish, that’s good enough for me,” I said.  And get rid of the skunk, please. He set a trap under the stoop.

And he sold me a can of Odor Assassin for $15.  Just three squirts of the spray got rid of the skunk smell in the basement.

When the Yiddishe Cup musicians came over for rehearsal that night, the basement smelled tangy and lemon-lime fresh, courtesy of the Odor Assassin.

But the skunk decided to spray, counterattacking during rehearsal. I thought Yiddishe Cup would disband.  I said, “Let me get out my Odor Assassin.  It’ll only take five years off our lives, at most.”

The guys agreed to the chemical battle.

Odor Assassin saved Yiddishe Cup’s rehearsal.  (No small thing. Some Yiddishe Cup musicians drive up to 35 minutes to rehearsal.)

Yiddishe Cup rarely endorses products.  To date: Golden Herring and all sardines.  Add Odor Assassin.

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My father, Toby, was a lot like his mother.  One of Toby’s mother’s favorite expressions was “Geven-zhe nit a yold.”  (Don’t you be a chump.)  Toby’s mother owned a candy store, raised four kids almost singlehandedly, buried a three-year-old daughter, and during her retirement years, owned a four-suite apartment building.  She was nobody’s sucker.

Anna Soltzberg (née Seiger) occasionally called her grandchildren — like me — foyl (lazy).  She lived at our house for a while. I called her Bub — short for bubbe (grandmother).   I wasn’t going to call her Bubby. Too effeminate.

Bub was not into baseball; she was into casino (a card game), the television show Queen for a Day; borscht, boiled chicken and cows’ feet.  She could eat. She had sugar diabetes.   Bub wore bubbe shoes.

Anna Soltzberg (1884-1964). Circa 1951.

I couldn’t figure out where Bub was from.  I couldn’t even find her hometown on a map.

Bub said she was from Galicia, a province in Austria-Hungary. She was from the shtetl (village) of Grodzisko.  She came to America at 20.

In junior high I told my friends, “My grandmother is from Austria.”  That was dead wrong, but it made sense.

In her old age, Bub lived at my aunt’s house before she moved in with us.  At my aunt’s, Bub complained about the level of kashrut (kosher observance).  Bub wanted my aunt to not keep kosher.  Keeping kosher was too expensive.  Bub was an apikoros (non-believer), socialist and cheap.

Bub, circa 1904.

At Bub’s funeral — at the shiva (mourning) meal — the question of kashrut came up again.  My two aunt Lils (Lil from Delaware and Lil from Washington), plus my Uncle Itchy, were at our dining room table.

Uncle Itchy, sitting next to Delaware Lil, asked, “You keep a kosher house?”

“Yes,” said Delaware Lil.

Itchy, slapping his hand down on the table, said, “Then why are you eating this meat?  It’s not kosher!”

Washington Lil, also slapping her hand down, said, “Ain’t that a hypocrite!”

Washington Lil (left), Julia Stratton, Delaware Lil. 1964

“In other words, it’s either everything or nothing?”  said Delaware Lil.

“Yes,” said Washington Lil.

“That’s a very simple philosophy,” said Delaware Lil.

“Yes, it is,” said Washington Lil.

My mother, Julia, interrupted with: “Pass the treyf meat.” (Non-kosher meat.)   Mild laughter.  My mom was the peace-maker.

And the Lils didn’t talk to each other for a long time.  Years.

. . . Grodzisko, Galicia, Austria-Hungary.  I found it about 20 years later, in the mid-1980s, on the Shtetl Finder map. The village’s Yiddish name was Grodzisk (pronounced GRUD-zhisk), about 60 miles west of Przemysl.  The various shtetls (villages) had so many different names.  That was the trick.  And there were several Grodziskos.

Mili Seiger 1939

During my research, I came across a family postcard, postmarked “May 1, 1939, Grodzisko.”  It was from cousin Rachela Seiger.  It was in Polish and said, in brief, “How are you?”  On the flip side was a photo of  Rachela’s  sister Mili.

The Germans invaded Poland four months after the postcard was mailed.

I looked up “Mili Seiger” and “Rachela Seiger” on the Yad Vashem (Israeli Holocaust museum) online archives.  There were so many Seigers, Siegers, Zygers, Zaygers and Zeigers, I couldn’t find Mili or Rachela.

There are three types of Jews.  Not Reform, Conservative and Orthodox.  Try American, Israeli and victims of the Holocaust.  Each about a third.  These are my people.

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This story was cross-posted on  The Forward, online, last month.

Thanks to Yiddishist Lori Cahan-Simon for help on the expression “Geven-zhe nit a yold.”

Footnote . . .  Plotting Grodzisko by Teddy Stratton, 1998:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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1. EAST DIVISION

The ping-pong season started several months ago, when violinist Steve Greenman called and said “I want to play ping-pong tonight.” He got tilapia out of it.  Not a bad night for a single guy (soon to be married).  My wife, Alice, cooked.

Ping-pong is predominately a winter sport in Cleveland. The Jewish ping-pong dean here is Valeriy Elnatanov.  He’s a Russian pro who used to teach ping-pong and pilpul at Green Road Synagogue, an Orthodox shul.  [Not sure about pilpul (a Talmudic study method) but he did teach Hebrew to Russians.]

Valeriy moved on to other training facilities.  I saw him at the Shaker Heights community building playing top-notch Asians.

Valeriy said the best way to develop a top-spin forehand is to turn a bicycle upside-down and swat repeatedly at the spinning tire with your paddle.  I never did that, but I thought about it.

When Valeriy practiced, he used dozens of balls.  That’s the way to go.  You bend down less.

My wife, Alice, has a good forehand slam.  Steve Greenman has a steady backhand.  Neither cheats.  Many ping-pong players don’t toss the ball up high enough on the serve.

2. WEST DIVISION

How come documentaries about California musicians — Hal Blaine, the Sherman brothers — have poolside shots, but no outdoor ping-pong shots?

I played ping-pong on a patio in Los Angeles. You don’t forget that if you’re from the Midwest.

In the Cal movies, the musicians are sunbathing poolside.  Are they embarrassed to show their ping-pong moves?  (The Kids Are All Right, set in California, had an outdoor ping-pong table.  No musicians playing, though.)

My father, Toby, had a childhood friend in Los Angeles, Irv Drooyan, who taught school, wrote math textbooks and played outdoor ping-pong.  Toby kept in touch with Irv and one other Clevelander in California, Sol of San Diego.  In the 1950s, California was just an extension of Cleveland.

These friends of my dad occasionally switched their first names — maybe to dodge anti-Semitism.  Irv was Red.  Sol was Al.  Toby was Ted.

My introduction to outdoor ping-pong was on Red Drooyan’s patio in Woodland Hills, California, in 1962.  Unforgettable because a) it was outdoors, and b) I didn’t know my dad had any friends.  In Cleveland, my father had hung around exclusively with my mom’s friends and their husbands.

California was about a) stippled paddles — with a woody sound, and b) my dad with friends.

Good vibrations. Got to get back there.

To 1962 or California?

To the ping-pong table.

Your serve.

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[For goys only.  In Ralph Solonitz‘s ping-pong table illustration,  “milchidike” refers to dairy and “fleishidike” means meat.  The two major divisions in the Kosher League.]

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Please see the post below too.  It’s raunchy and new.
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Yiddishe Cup celebrates Purim this Sat. (March 19), 7:45- 9 p.m., Park Synagogue, Cleveland Heights.  Open to all.  Free.

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Larry Morrow, a retired Cleveland DJ, has a memoir out, This is Larry Morrow . . . My Life On and Off the Air: Stories from Four Decades in Cleveland Radio.

Is there a market for that sort of thing?

If so, I’m typing.  I’ve changed a couple facts but the rest here is true . . .

Every Sunday the Stratton family gathered around the piano and jammed.  They had a seven-piece band.  Neighbors stood on the sidewalk and listened.  The Strattons played klezmer, which wasn’t called klezmer in the 1960s. It was called “playing Jewish.”  Nobody listened for too long, because the neighbors wanted to get in their cars and cruise to Chubby Checker, The Ventures or Paul Anka.

By age 10, Bert was supporting the family, playing clarinet and sax at the Roxy Burlesque, where he saw naked women before he was even bar mitzvah age.  Like Tarzana and Morganna — who, by the way, were at Stratton’s bar mitzvah party at the Shaker House Motel.  Stratton’s buddies crammed into the gals’ motel room like it was the Ringling Brothers’ clown car.  (At Stratton’s twentieth high school reunion, his bar mitzvah was voted the best of all time.)

While working the Roxy, Stratton met mobsters.  He became a regular at the Theatrical Grill, at the table of Shondor Birns.  Shon particularly liked Hungarian Rhapsody #3, which wasn’t that easy to play on clarinet.

As most Cleveland history buffs know, Shon was blown up by a car bomb on the West Side.  Then Danny Greene, another mobster, was blown up by a car bomb at the Cedar-Brainard medical building parking lot.

After those explosions, Stratton became head of The Mob in Cleveland.  That, plus his music gigs, was a living.  Every Friday morning Stratton baked casatta cakes for his Italian friends and challahs for his Jewish buddies.  A mentsh.

The big question:  Are readers in, say, Peoria, Illinois, ready for a book — or film? — about Cleveland mobsters, strippers and klezmers?

Mobsters, yes. (Kill the Irishman, opening tonight.) Strippers, of course.  Klezmers?

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Note: The Roxy Burlesque ad is from the Plain Dealer, Feb. 27, 1966.
Text: “Continuous 11 A.M. to 11 P.M. 2 Shows in 1 — Live Burlesque Plus Adult Movie — Midnite Show Sat. Nite . . . Also Scarlette Dare . . . Minette Darcel . . . Michelle Starr. On Screen . . . Very “Adult” . . . A Drama of Violent Passions.”

And one more illustration by Ralph Solonitz . . .

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When I was home for college vacation, my mother suggested I go to the West Side with my father. (“West Side” meant the apartment biz.)

My mother never went to the West Side.  She didn’t go once!  I listened to my dad talk about boiler additives and sump pumps.  My dad carried an Allen wrench to adjust boiler controls.

I nearly died on the West Side.  I had seen Roland Kirk at the Eastown Motor Hotel, East Cleveland; Sonny Stitt at Baker’s Keyboard Lounge, Detroit; Ben Webster at Ronnie Scott’s Club, London.  And now I was on the West Side talking about radiator vents.

I watched the Dick Cavett Show and hung out with old high school buddies, who were also home for vacation.  One bastard was applying to medical school.  Another was studying for the CPA exam.  One was a cub reporter.

In Ann Arbor, my college friends were mostly still listening to the MC5 soundtrack:  “You must choose, brothers and sisters, if you want to be part of the problem or part of the solution!”

I didn’t want to be part of the problem or the solution. My worst hometown scenario: a high school acquaintance was studying nursing home administration.  How did he come up with that one?  He didn’t.  His mother did.

I gave my parents tsuris.  College was nonsense, I said.  And I quit.

I wound up in front of the draft board.  The whole nine yards: bend over, touch your toes, spread your cheeks.  I had a low number (42) in the draft lottery.

At the Selective Service office, I pondered the mechanical aptitude exam, which had drawings of carburetors and brake shoes.  This test pretty much stumped me.  Some of the other test-takers loved it.  The test-takers were from my neighborhood.  (The draft board went by neighborhoods.)  Finally, a test about GTOs!

I handed the draft board doctor a list of my allergy medications and shots, and got out.

My parents didn’t go AWOL on me.  They could have.  My dad was bemused by my work boots and jeans jacket, but he didn’t go Archie Bunker on me.  My dad took his marching orders from columnist Walter Lippmann, who called Vietnam a “quagmire.”

My parents waited.  My mother insisted I was still a good boy.  She had been saying that since I was in kindergarten.

I graduated college in due time. And I eventually went to the West Side — a lot.  You’re a good boy.  I can still hear my mother saying that.
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Please see the next post too.  It’s new.

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1. My father had a game idea Let’s Blow Up the World.  I apportioned the megaton bomb ratings to various countries.  What kind of bomb did Paraguay deserve?  An M-80 firecracker?  Let’s Blow Up the World never made it past “high concept.”

2. Alan Douglass, Yiddishe Cup’s keyboard player, was a klezmer-revival pioneer.  He could have called klezmer “anchovy pear music” in Cleveland in the 1980s and people would have believed him. Alan let other musicians start the klez bands.  These others musicians got the extra money for being bandleaders.  What can a gentile do?  It wouldn’t have looked right for a goy — Alan — to lead a klez band.

3. Len Gold, a Cleveland ad man, wanted to make a Yiddishe Cup exercise video, Stretch ‘n’ Kvetch, to sell at temple gift shops.  Never happened.

4. Don Friedman, Yiddishe Cup’s drummer, was on What’s My Line in 1966. Don’s line (job) was testing drums for the Rogers Drum Co. in Cleveland.  (He was a drum tester, not a rum tester.)  Don probably could have had several more minutes of fame if he had asked Bennett Cerf to explain his name.

Don Friedman (L) with host John Daly

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5. Yiddishe Cup had a gig lined up for Fuerth, Germany, but the klezmer festival organizers there changed directors, or something, and we got canned.  I heard years later, through the klez grapevine, that Yiddishe Cup will never play Fuerth.  “They don’t like you!”  That’s the word on K Street.

Why don’t they like us? Maybe because I wrote the festival committee: “For three years we think — with good reason — we will be playing a concert in Germany.  Then, boom, it all goes kaput!”  I ended with a string of rage: “unscrupulous,” “shameful” and “dirty.”  I did not play the race card.  I did not call the klez-festival organizers anti-Semites.

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