There's a blaze of light in every word

I'm good at Love, I'm good at Hate
It's in-between I freeze
Been working out but it’s too late
It's been too late for years
But you look good, you really do
They love you on the street
If you were here I'd kneel for you
A thousand kisses deep.
--- Leonard Cohen, "A Thousand Kisses Deep"

I went in to talk to Max about 74's daughter's chances of getting into Prestigius. I did what I could, which wasn't much, but at least I can say I tried. For lunch my assistant and I ordered from a sandwich shop. I tried their much-vaunted five-dollar peanut-butter and grape jelly sandwich. Goddam! I don't know if it's worth five dollars, but it's pretty fuckin' good.

But who cares? The Friar and I went to see mister LEONARD FREAKING COHEN in concert tonight! On tour for the first time in fifteen years and $150 a ticket. Worth it. Seriously, one of the top five concerts of my experience. And I've seen the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan (several times) and Paul Simon and Arlo Guthrie and Tom Waits (have I talked about that show? It was one of the worst shows of all time) and Steve Wynn and Rancid and the Hold Steady (and you know how much I loves me some Hold Steady) and David Bowie and Devo and Jonathan Richman and Guns and F'ing Roses and even that ridiculous soft-rock band America.

But now, now my concert-going life is complete if I never see another show, for I have seen The Golden Voice live. He wore a fedora and he skipped onstage like a man twenty years younger than his actual seventy-four and he knelt on stage and he flirted with his backup singers with canned patter that he never changes from night to night and he even did a sort of decrepit Chuck Berry duckwalk, and he made those songs a religious fucking experience is what he did. "Hallelujah." "Tower of Song." "A Thousand Kisses Deep." "Chelsea Hotel." Every one alone was worth the price of admission.

Oh, and two people around us told us to stop talking during the show. What? I know he's a literate singer-songwriter, but this a concert, not a prayer function. Take your overly-reverent slack-jawed silence back home and sit in rapt mute wonder in front of your CD player, fella. One guy was nice about it, one told us "if you want to keep up the fuckin' narration, go in the fuckin' hall." Ha ha! What a dork! We ignored him. Hey, man, you're harshing my Buddhist vibe.

Afterwards we met 74 and Courtney at the Hangout. It was fun talking to them --- 74 is almost never allowed out by Zaftig --- but a band on the bar stage was making the most horrible noise I've ever heard anyone make who had the intention to impress rather than repel, and I had to run away and go home, rocked gently to sleep by the comforting arms of Morpheus and vodka.