Real Music & Real Estate . . .

My father, Toby, was never shy about discussing money— who had it and who didn’t.  He never hid his salary.  On our street he topped all the Italian bricklayers.  Toby excluded polka star Frankie Yankovic from the calculations.  Yankovic was several streets over, where the big houses were.

Our neighborhood was Levittown-plus living: 3-bedroom/1½ bath colonials.  The paradox was our neighbor, right across the street. He had a freaking airplane (Piper Cub).  And six kids too.  This neighbor, Mr. Cermak, was a second- or third-generation drugstore owner.  (Odd: a Christian with a drugstore.  All the other pharmacists my family knew were Yidn.)

You could make big money before the Revcos came in, particularly if you were the storeowner and the pharmacist.  Mr. Cermak was both.  Mr. Cermak was his own boss.  My dad took note of that.
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Where are they now? . . . Mr. Cermak lives in the same house.  He has been there 60 years.  The plane is gone.  So is Yankovic.   So is my father.

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A couple of my musicians freaked out when a critic called Yiddishe Cup’s first CD “schizophrenic.”  (Or was it the second, third, or fourth CD?)  The reviewer, who said a ton of nice stuff, said we were schizophrenic because we attempted so many different styles.

That’s all the band members could think about: we’re schizos.

You need the skin of a rhino to be a performer.

I mean, I’ve had two death threats in the real estate biz.  That bothered me. “I’ve got a gun” stuff.  One guy was pissed because I was a Jewboy born with a silver spoon in my mouth.  (He didn’t say “mouth.”)  The other guy was just pissed — pissed at everybody.  Tenants hate landlords.  We know that.  You need the skin of a rhino.

Everybody has an opinion. Particularly in the arts.   If you don’t have one, here are a couple:

The quickest way to knee-cap a jazz group: “They don’t swing.”

A blues band: “No soul.”

A klezmer band: “Dorks in vests.”

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Wedding clients never forget you. You’re in their video.

When I run into an old wedding client, he says, “Abigail and Isaac, this is Mr. Stratton.  He played Mommy and Daddy’s wedding.”

I say to the kids, “You weren’t there.”   (I’m not good with kid chat.)

Some of these weddings were 15-20 years ago.

In real estate, that kind of long-term psychic pay-off  is minimal.  Last decade I got a letter from a recovering alcoholic who said I saved her life when I kicked her out of her apartment for being drunk and not paying her rent.

I’ve rented to a lot of drunks.  The “not paying her rent” part had been the problem.

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Nobody tells you why they aren’t renting. Nobody says the apartment smells like a rugby team slept there, or the fan blades have cat hair on them.

When I go into an empty apartment and it smells — even after being painted — my guys attack the unit with over-the-counter air fresheners.  The spray kind, oil kind, waxy kind. Odor-eaters too.

Odor is a deal killer.

Another deal killer is gray, the color.  Gray around the tub.  Gray caulk.

Also, if the apartment bathroom is not totally white — like a decent hotel suite — the apartment won’t rent.

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I’m an official “old guy” now. An arts agency made a documentary about roots music in Ohio, and a bunch of  baby-boomers, including me, was the subject.  We were the old fogies on the porch picking away at authentic instruments.  Meanwhile, my “old guys” — Muddy Waters, Dave Tarras, Mickey Katz — are dead.

I saw a 92-year-old piano player recently.  He wasn’t dead.

I still get nervous when I play.  Good, I’m not dead.

I played at Nighttown, a local club, for the “old guy” DVD-release party.  Something like my 1,028th Yiddishe Cup gig.  I played “Nelika” in 7/16 and stopped halfway through it.  I didn’t take the repeat.  Man, I was playing it in 9/16 or 10/16.  I was so ahead of the game.  I was freaked out by my fellow musicians in the room.

Always good to be nervous. Me and nervous go way back.  My first couple recitals at Victory Park elementary school were debacles.  I had memorized the tunes and then forgot where I was.  Let’s take it from the top again, shall we? Those grade-school gigs are hot-stamped on my brain.  Worse, a violinist prodigy always followed me.  Philip Setzer.  He wound up in the Emerson String Quartet.

[For goys only: “A.K.” in this post’s title stands for alter kocker (old cocker).  An A.K. is anybody 10 years older than you.]
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Tomorrow:
No more of  these “tomorrow” teasers.

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Not too many sidemen care about the contract.  They just want to know their cut.  And that’s the way it should be.  The sidemen aren’t dealing with the kvetching bar mitzvah moms and uptight brides.  And they aren’t having meetings at their houses discussing whether the bride is going to circle the groom or not.  (The bride often circles the groom seven times at a Jewish wedding.)  Or is the dad going to do the welcome toast before or after the challah blessing?

I always try to get paid at the gig — take the client over to a corner table and have him sign the check. I get at least a double portion for being the bandleader. Why?  Because Yiddishe Cup is not just a club-date band. (Club date means private party band.)   Yiddishe Cup is a concert-playing band that rehearses and has ongoing expenses — like advertising and travel expenses.  And I want to recoup that.

In Cleveland if a top-flight musician gets $200 per night, he’s happy.  That’s $50 an hour.  I pay my guys more.
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Tomorrow:
AT THE A.K. LODGE . . . Where the old guys hang out.

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Yiddishe Cup’s singer, Irwin Weinberger, wrote a sweetly nostalgic song about attending baseball games with his father, who was a Holocaust survivor.  Irwin even mentioned The Rock in the song: Rocky Colavito.  (Next up, a song about Harvey Kuenn for the Detroit market.)

Nowadays Irwin is laissez-faire on sports — unless the Indians get hot again.

Guys are supposed to talk about sports, and drink when they get together.  I know this isn’t always a fact.  One Yiddishe Cup musician calls sports a “cult.”  This musician is proud he doesn’t know a thing about pro sports.

The whole town went ape-wire over the Cleveland Cavaliers. He didn’t care.

Some of the other guys did.

The previous time Yiddishe Cup was sports batty was 1997, when the Indians were in the World Series, and Yiddishe Cup was playing Simchat Torah gigs.  (Goys: Simchat Torah is right after Succot.)  We hid in the temple’s cloak room and caught bits of the action on a small portable TV.

Yiddishe Cup is not sports adverse. Yiddishe Cup plays a variety of fight songs, including The Yiddishe Cup Fight Song, which is a major-key freylekhs (hora) interspersed with the verbal chants of  “Go Cup Go” and  “De-feat Maxwell Street.”  Maxwell Street, from Chicago, is our archrival.  They probably don’t know that.

Here are other fight songs you need to know in our part of the Midwest:

1. Ohio State.  Use “Hang On Sloopy” or “Fight The Team Across the Field.”  Sometimes we hold off on “Hang On Sloopy” until the Buckeyes score.  That’s the protocol.  Be aware of this if a guest is listening to the game at a gig.  If you play “Hang on Sloopy” before the Bucks score, it’s bad luck.

2. Michigan’s “The Victors” is a biggie. This tune is one of the most insipid tunes of all time.  Or greatest — depending.

Other requests: Michigan State, “On Wisconsin,” and the Pitt fight song, which is not the same as the Steelers’ song.

Forget about Notre Dame unless they get a Jewish quarterback again.

Be flexible.  For instance, Yiddishe Cup knows “Are You From Wooster?”:

If you’re from Oberlin or Denison or Wesleyan U.,

The Scots will take good care of you before they’re through.

Wooster has many international students and a lively Hillel.  Check out The COW (The College of Wooster) with your 16 year old.  Great school.  Yiddishe Cup has played there a half dozen times.

Another good, small Ohio school is Kenyon, which Yiddishe Cup has played a few times.   Kenyon has a Medieval dining hall out of Hogwarts.  The school’s swim team dines there wearing big purple capes and eats tons of priceless food.  Swipe that college ID card.  Free food to students, $50,000 to Dad and Mom.
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Tomorrow:
DOUBLE PORTION OF MANNA . . . Bandleaders’ pay.

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The band biz is a fraction of the real estate money, but the time commitment is about the same.  And as for the psychic payoff, the band is several times higher than the real estate biz.  Nobody is going to give you credit — at least long-lasting credit — for fixing a toilet.  Nobody is going to write on your tombstone: “This guy provided heat for many apts.”

The real estate biz — that is humble stuff.  The arts — one big ego trip.  My dad said that.  He was probably right.  Where did he come up with the word ego?   That wasn’t his style.

Right after I started Yiddishe Cup, in 1988, I told the Cleveland Jewish News, “We’re not in it for fame and fortune.”

That lasted about six months.  After our first concert, we began dining regularly at The Big Ego, which is next to The Big Egg, W. 51^st Street and Detroit Avenue.  Figuratively speaking.
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Tomorrow:
The Yiddishe Cup Fight Song . . . Go Cup Go

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My father made money with leverage. He took $13,000 in 1965 and bought an apartment building — The Marlowe in Lakewood, Ohio.  Then he bought another building the next year, St. Ed’s, and a year after that, Lakeland.  He was flying.  Leverage works — if you’re lucky.  And he was lucky.

My dad’s mantra was “just make the deal.”  Pull the trigger.  Which is what he did — often.

I, on my own, pulled the trigger a few times. For instance I bought the Riverview building from the Chisling family.  Interesting name.  Maybe they were trying to tell me something.  I bought the Roycroft building from a man who was dying of cancer, he said.  He was “dying” like we’re all dying.  He’s still around, years later.
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Tomorrow:
“OVER EASY”AT THE BIG EGO . . . Musicians lunching at the Big Ego diner.

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When you’ve done more than a thousand gigs, you can safely tell the brides’ moms what’s what.  Only once in a while will you run into a “play this, play that” mom.   Or  “My sister wants to sing.  Don’t let her!  And why are you taking a break right now?”  Micro-managers.  Don’t they have anything better to do on the big day?

All in all, simcha (weddings and bar mitzvahs) work is pure pleasure. Most everybody is there to have a good time, and you can sound awful and nobody will notice.  You can even rehearse new tunes on the bandstand.  As long as you play “Sunrise Sunset” — or don’t play it, as the case may be — everybody is happy.
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Tomorrow:
PULL THE TRIGGER . . . Make the Deal.  Do it.

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Some music school grads are prima donnas. The worst are violinists.  They’re very concerned about intonation.  When I played in a trio with a couple Cleveland Orchestra members, I kept a tuner on my music stand the whole time.  I tuned each note as I played.  I was scared.

What’s a little intonation problem if you’re playing klezmer music?  None.

These music school grads, they put in 10,000 hours in little practice rooms and want some respect for their prison time.

In Yiddishe Cup we occasionally get into squabbles on the bandstand about intonation, but nobody bugs me about being flat or sharp because I’m writing the checks.
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Shabbat shalom
Tomorrow:
HOLD THE SUNRISE . . . If you play “Sunrise,” you’re sunset.

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Odds are actuaries have interesting jobs. What could be better than figuring the odds on everything.

For instance, what are the odds I’ll rent a store to somebody more substantial than a tattoo parlor if I hold out?  What are the odds I’ll get the gig if I reduce the size of the band?  (I rarely do that.  The guys who get “reduced” don’t like it.)

We’ve turned down a lot of gigs.  Takes guts.  Musicians like to play.  But you have to say no to low-paying gigs.  Sometimes the client will counter with “it’s good exposure.”  You’re supposed to respond with the old saw: “Many musicians have died from exposure.”

I’ve had stores empty for three years.

I had a barber who wanted to put photos of “fades” in her window.  No, it was more than fades.  Tonsorial art — artistic designs cut into hair.

I let her in.  She was a Puerto Rican Lesbian cage fighter.  She had a couple tattoos on her face, like Mike Tyson.  She said she was part Jewish.  Maybe she was looking for lower rent.

The odds are you’re not Jewish if you say, “I have some Jew in me.”
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Where are they now . . . The cage fighter, Roman, still rents from me.  She’s solid — pays on time and has a great business.  She was my building manager for a while but had to quit because she had no place for her dogs.

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Chag sameach
Tomorrow:
INTONATION OPTIONAL . . . What’s tuning?

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I always read the seating placards at parties. I’m there first, so I know everybody’s names – all my old customers.  “Jon and Carol [Weinstein], how are you?” . . . I played your son’s bar mitzvah a million years ago and remember your names.

Also, I  write down the bride and groom’s names before I  introduce them.  That way I’m less likely to screw up.  I’ve never messed up, but once a guy in my band did.  He called the bride Mindy instead of Michelle, or something like that.  To remedy the situation he called out the tune “Michelle.”  The bride — named Michelle — made him stop the music cold.  She hated that song.

Volatile songs: “Sunrise Sunset” and “YMCA.” Songs from Fiddler on the Roof make some Jews nervous.  (Russian Jews love Fiddler; American Jews — at least klezmer aficionados — often hate it.  They think it’s not the real thing.  Hey, it’s been around 45 years.  It’s old-time music.)
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Tomorrow:
JEW OR NOT A JEW? . . . Puerto Rican Lesbian cage-fighting barber.

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Instrument cases, they’re like coffins. Red velvet.  Often musty.  Occasionally mildewy.

A clarinet is a chopped-up piece of African granadilla wood, stained black.  It’s just a big wooden flute with a lot of hardware.  It takes a minimum of seven years’ practice to sound decent.  Kids sound horrible on clarinets.

When some schmuck calls and yells at me about no heat, I just fire up my clarinet.

You need gigs, or you’ll quit practicing.  Playing for oneself, that lasts only about six months. I hung with a community band once; the conductor ranted at us like we weren’t good enough to park cars at Severance Hall [home of the Cleveland Orchestra].  I dropped out.

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Tomorrow:
TWO GUYS JAMMIN’. . . Fritz Kreisler and Fritz the Cat.

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The Lakewood, Ohio, police chief offered me 20 percent less than the going rent to put in a police mini-station.  Fine.  No, Great.  There were apartments above, and single women love living near a police station.  Some women are fixated on intruders crawling through their windows.

A Jewish museum wanted to change a date, but I couldn’t accommodate them because one of my guys was leaving town for vacation.

Then a private garbage hauler wanted me to lock in for another year.  Not great.  The city was making all landlords pay for hauling; it used to be free.

A nurse wanted to rent an apartment. Great.  Nurse is top of the line.  Once every five years I’ll even get a doctor — usually a 28-year-old doc without a ton of cash.  My apartments have no garbage disposers or dishwashers.  Barebones.  But at $500 a month, or so, that’s the deal around here.

A woman from the Boca Raton, Fla., JCC called me “darling” and said we were her favorite klezmer band, so I gave her two comp tickets to our South Florida show.

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Happy Memorial Day
Tomorrow:
MY CLARINET NEEDS TILEX . . . How to keep your axe smelling fresh.

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One day you’re a real estate slumlord, and the next you’re signing autographs at a concert.  The first time I signed an autograph, I couldn’t fathom it.  I am not Bob Feller.

About 10 percent of CD-buyers want your autograph.

They are the well-wishers after the gig.  “Great concert” is the standard greeting.  Some of these people try to hog the musicians’ time with stories about their grandkids’ clarinet playing, or their memories of Mickey Katz – which is actually interesting.

Sometimes I’m the autograph hound. I was talking to Josh Dolgin (Socalled) of Klezmer Madness after a concert — and I know the guy, I mean he has stayed at my house — when a concertgoer cut in front of me and started flashing his business card, and I backed off.  I was looking forward to going out for a drink with Dolgin maybe.  Who knows.  Maybe David Krakauer, the star of the show, would have come along.

Instead I went to a coffeehouse with Irwin Weinberger, Yiddishe Cup’s guitar player,  and we rehashed the Klezmer Madness show.  We decided Krakauer was a clarinet player beyond belief, but 90 minutes of non-stop clarinet — no matter how good — was too long.

Keep it 30 minutes or under.  We’re in a hurry.  We grew up on Sesame Street.  (Howdy Doody in my case.)

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Tomorrow:
PO-PO AS RENTER . . . The police pay on time.

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Jazz improvisation is fun to do and not fun to watch.  I’ve taken four-minute solos and wondered if anybody was still alive afterward.

The good thing about klezmer is there isn’t much room for long solo flights.

Most of the guys in the band can play in any key at any time.  Not me.  That’s why I’m the leader.  Then again, most musicians don’t know how to negotiate.  I do.  I think my whole adult life has been one big negotiation.

I have sat at the negotiating table with wildlife. Years ago I played avant-garde sax licks in the Rocky Mountains for birds.  “Avant-garde” because I didn’t know what I was doing.  You blast an alto from mountaintop to mountaintop, and you feel like Joshua with a shofar.

Consider your audience.  I jammed on the first few notes of “Hatikvah.”  It’s natural minor.

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Shabbat shalom
Tomorrow:
I AM NOT BOB FELLER . . . Signing autographs at a concert.

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The numbers on running a band: you can’t make a living at it.  At least not a decent living.  The Klezmatics former drummer, David Licht, had a business card that read “percussion, painting, plaster,” and he was with the top band.

Real music, real estate, real numbers . . .

The Consumer Price Index has averaged 4 percent the past 30 years.  The Dow Jones, 8 percent; U.S. bonds, 6 percent; and my real estate, more than those.

What’s a measly percent point or two? A lot.  This has to do with large numbers.

People think, “Wow, I got a 40 percent discount at Marc’s.”  Yeah, 40 percent on a loaf of bread.  Big deal.   If you can get 40 percent off on a piece of property — that’s something.  Doesn’t usually happen.  But if you can get an extra percentage point or two on a large number, over, say, 30 years, you’re making thousands and thousands more dough.

You can’t get more than the Dow Jones without a lot of risk.

My father took a lot of risks. He had postal machines, a door-to-door cosmetics company and a foot powder company.  He went broke on all of them.

I was an artiste. My father dragged me into the real estate biz; he blindfolded me and led me before a firing squad of prima donna plumbers, pissed-off tenants and youse-guys garbage haulers.

Hey, no biz is all fun.  You do certain things to eat.  You do other things so you’re not just eating.

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Tomorrow:

ONE BIG NEGOTIATION . . . My adult life.

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The band rarely plays for famous people. There is nobody famous around here unless you count Harvey Pekar, the comic book guy.  Take that back . . . LeBron James.

Once we played for the president of Tulane University.  At another bar mitzvah, Flory Jagoda, the queen of Sephardic music, was there.  At another simcha (celebration), we ran into Max Herman, a trumpeter who used to play with Mickey Katz in Los Angeles.

Nobody has heard of these people. That’s the Rust Belt.  We’re OK with it.  What’s our option?  Move to Florida?

We like it here.

At private parties, we’re asked if we travel.  Will we come to Minneapolis?  Yes, pay us 7 grand and we’re there.  These folks never come through; they’re just caught up in the excitement of the party.  Well, one time we missed a for-real gig.  That was from the frozen chicken king of California.  A Mr. Zacky.  He saw us at a wedding in Akron and asked us to play his wedding in L.A.   Too bad we were already booked.

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Tomorrow:

LARGE NUMBERS . . . How to beat the Dow Jones.  Gamble.

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Garbage men and coin-op laundry men . . . the biggest sleazeballs.

Particularly coin-op guys.  Some of these men are descendants of mobsters.  (Landlords use coin-operated washers and dryers in apartment laundry rooms.)

I got locked into a 20-year contract with a coin-op guy and could never get out of it.  The opt-out clause was to send a certified letter 60-90 days in advance of expiration, with a $2 ochre stamp with sprinkles on it, or something.

Contracts — with my band and in real estate — they’re basically worthless.  If the client is a creep, you should figure that out in advance.  (Easier said than done.)

An upholstery-shop owner told me he was going to rent forever and die there, and then he bailed in two years.  He left several truck loads of stinky, stained foam in the store.

Immigrant storeowners, that’s what I often deal with.

The Korean man is raising his kids at the dry cleaners.  Maybe he has beds in the basement.  One of my Chinese guys put a shower in his basement.  I caught him but let it go.  Against city code.  He said he was a descendent of  nobility.

A lot of foreigners say they’re nobility. One man from Azerbaijan had a last name with 17 letters in it.  I told him to change his name.  He didn’t like that.  He said he was royalty.

My father changed his name in 1941 from Soltzberg to Stratton.  He couldn’t get a job even though he was a Phi Beta Kappa chemistry grad from Ohio State.

Immigrants, in negotiations they’ll bring their wives and  kids — whatever it takes to get a low-ball price on a lease.  The archetypal Korean wife . . . ballistic – basically histrionic – in negotiations.  But once the lease is signed, the Koreans are golden.

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Tomorrow:

WHERE HAVE ALL THE FAMOUS PEOPLE GONE? . . . About Harvey Pekar, Flory Jagoda and LeBron James

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