To Know, Know, Know Him

. . . Is to love love love him

Just to see him smile

Makes my life worthwhile.

Phil Spector, a good friend to L. Cohen, wrote it. He took the words off his father’s tombstone. Good to know, right? I gathered that information from "I'm Your Man," a 533-page book on the life of Leonard Cohen. Just one of the books I read on la Isla Mujeres during a two-week visit starting Febrero first. 

We heard you had a snow event in Boston. Lo siento. We missed the whole thing.

Today's Boston Sunday Globe says that Shadow Morton died. He wrote two major hits for the girl group the Shangri-Las. “Remember (Walking in the Sand)” 1964 . . .

What ever happened to,

The boy that I once knew  

Could it be, could it be ??  

and "Leader of the Pack." That was # 1 in 1965.

That's when I fell for

The leader of the pack

Vroom vroom !  

Where were you in 1965? I spent three months during the winter in Navy Seabee Construction Electrician School in California, and from there had orders to report to the N.A.S. South Weymouth Massachusetts.

More on Leonard . . .

It was March 2008; the tour, if there was going to be one, was just two months away. Leonard meanwhile was in New York, being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame -- the American hall of fame, the big one, the greatest honor the once-dismissive U.S. music industry could bestow on him. Leonard had always been popular in Europe and Canada, he was born there, but not in the States. Lou Reed was there to introduce Leonard and present his award. "He just gets better ....We're so lucky to be alive at the same time Leonard Cohen is."

 Leonard, silver hair and dignified in his tuxedo and black bow tie, came on stage, bowed deeply to Reed and thanked him for reminding him that he had written a few decent lines. This was such an unlikely event," Leonard said, and it was not just modesty; he meant it. It brought to mind, he said, "the prophetic statement by Jon Landau in the early 1970's: ‘I have seen the future of Rock and Roll and it is not Leonard Cohen.’ ” Leonard was making a joke; what Landau, the head of the Hall of Fame's nominating committee, had actually said back in the days when he was a journalist for Rolling Stone was that he had seen the future of rock 'n roll, and it was Bruce Springsteen. 

Just before vacation I finished a biography on Bruce.

Leonard left the stage to Damien Rice to sing "Hallelujah," a song that at that time was No. 1 on the iTunes chart -- the late Jeff Buckley's version. That it had been propelled back into the nation’s consciousness had nothing to do with Leonard's finally taking his official place among the popular music pantheon, but through the sheer numbers of online discussions that had followed  Jason Castro's performance of "Hallelujah” on American Idol.  K.D. Lang would sing it at the Winter Olympics in Canada. Olympics -- I had to look up the spelling. Before I left Adams Massachusetts, the longest word I knew was mayonnaise, but it was hard to fit it into conversations.

The very first concert of the tour took place on May 11, 2008, in Fredericton, New Brunswick. The joke at the time was first we take Fredericton then we take Berlin. For you non-believers, the original words to the song were “first we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin.” There were only 709 seats and they sold out in minutes.

Chapter Twenty-four: Here I Stand, I'm Your Man.

The applause was deafening. It bounced off the walls of the small theater and resounded in Leonard's ears. The whole room was on its feet. A minute ticked by. Then another. Leonard had not sung a word and no one had played a note, but they still applauded. Leonard smiled shyly. He took off his hat and held it over his heart, in a gesture of humility, but also as armor.

But there he stood in the spotlight in his sharp suit, fedora and shiny shoes, looking like a Rat Pack rabbi, God's chosen mobster. He often commented that he was born in a suit. He was flanked by three female singers and a six piece band, many of whom also wore suits and hats, like they were playing in a casino in Vegas. The band started up. Leonard pulled his fedora down low on his forehead, and cradling the microphone like it was an offering, he began to sing, "Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin . . . " His voice a little rough on the edges, but deep and strong

Dance me through the panic

till I'm gathered safely in

Dance me

to the end of love

On this small crowded stage, shoehorned with musicians and instruments and equipment, the women so close to him that if he felt the need he could reach out and hold on to them so he would not fall, Leonard sang as if he had come to this place alone to tell all these people in the seats, individually, a secret.

He told the audience, as he would go on to tell hundreds of thousands more, that the last time he had done this he was "sixty years old, just a kid with a crazy dream.” 

 Leonard at this time was actually 74.

There were eighteen of these dates in Eastern Canada. "You pick up a rock, says Robert Hallet, and there's a town under it. One place I remember had a sign with those clip on letters, advertising a local brass band on Monday, Leonard Cohen on Tuesday, and on Wednesday an Elvis impersonator."

At another of the concerts, two young women rushed the stage, prompting Leonard to comment wistfully or wryly, or both, as security gently led them off, “If only I were two years younger."

He was quite a ladies’ man throughout his life, but only married once to a woman named Suzanne. It didn't stick. She was not the same Suzanne for whom who he wrote his very first hit. His date for the Academy Awards in 1992 was Rebecca DeMornay. From “Risky Business,” remember? She was up for "Hand That Rocks the Cradle." They were together for some time. YCMTSU.

He played this three-hour show in London, Ireland, Germany, New Zealand and Australia, Israel, Serbia, Turkey and Monaco. On his 75th birthday he played a three-hour show in Barcelona. There were many, many more dates. In Colorado he played at Red Rocks. Ever been?

The book is written by Sylvie Simmons. Everyone from Judy Collins to Janis Joplin to Jackson Browne to David Crosby is mentioned in this book.

My next read was only 135 pages. I almost said pesos. Hey, we were there only two days ago, cut me some slack, por favor. Google says about the novel, 100 Years of Solitude that if you only read one book this year, read this one. But I had already read it twice, so I purchased another written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez with the sweet title Memories of my Melancholy Whores. Sandy and Tom both read it on the playa. They both loved it, and so did I. It whisks you away to another time and place. I think it was his last book. He is 85 now and -- sadly -- living with dementia in Mexico City. I will say that Mexico is the tie here to the rest of this blog.

But I mentioned Turkey. General Ulysses S. Grant did a world tour after his second presidency, which included Istanbul.

Sandy and I were there two years ago. It was like being in a foreign country. 

We were gone for three weeks. Grant was gone for two and a half years. U.S. Grant died in a cottage in New York State, just as he finished his memoirs. There is a small brown wooden sign on the thruway, or the North Way, that simply reads, “Grant’s Cottage.” It is near Lake George, New York. Prue Stoddard, a history buff, has never been, and it is less than an hour from her Brant Lake houses. Grant’s brother stopped the clock on the day and the exact minute that he passed. General Grant died, and the house -- they called it a cottage -- was closed and left as a memorial to him. The cottage is just outside the gates of a prison and the area is spooky to say the least. Why don't you stop on your way to Montreal or Lake George?  

I read Around the World with General Grant right before I read Bruce Springsteen. One of the reasons that I read it was because Grant was supposed to tell his innermost feelings about the Civil War. He does mention Garfield on page 374. He also says that his toughest opponent was not Lee or Jackson or Longstreet but Joe Johnston. Have you read that Garfield book? Fascinating story. It was in Kathy Gregory and Eileen Hickey’s book club. 

Mom's favorite joke was "Who's buried in Grant’s tomb?" It cracked them up in Adams, but you are a tougher crowd and I know that.

Turkey again. Turkey seems to be the main theme. Sheridan went there while checking out the war between Germany and France. T.P. Egan sent me Terrible Swift Sword for Christmas.  

It's the story of Phillip Sheridan of the big three Union officers, with Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman being the other two. You thought that the weird names were only with the children being born today? Yes. I knew how to spell it.

Sheridan was quite a man. Did you ever experience Sheridan, Wyoming? Don't.

Little Phil lost his memoirs in a big Chicago fire, the one with O'Leary's cow, so little has been written of him until Joseph Wheelan's terrific book. The Civil War is only one half of this book. The other half is about the wild west. Upon the conclusion of the Civil War, Sheridan was stationed out west during all the Indian trouble including Little Big Horn, the Washita and Lonesome Dove and Adobe Walls and Wounded Knee. Characters such as Gall, Crazy Horse, Bill Cody, Sitting Bull, the Troggs, Dull Knife, Wild Bill Hickock, and George & Libby Custer, to name a few of the people you may have heard about. Very exciting times indeed. Sheridan died at his summer house in Nonquitt, Massachusetts which is down near New Bedford, on the water. Have you found any fibs yet? Sheridan saved Yellowstone from contractors and stationed troops there to protect it. Teddy made it official, but it would not have happened except for Little Phil.

Sheridan's men chased Geronimo into Copper Canyon. Geronimo was finally captured in the Sierra Madre Mountains in old Mexico the first time. The final surrender was in Arizona. Last year we toured the Gila Wilderness where Geronimo and Cochise roamed, just north of the Sierra Madres in Nuevo Mexico with our friends the Gregorys from Albuquerque.

This leads us to yet another book I read in Mexico called God’s Middle Finger. This book is about a writer who tours the currently dangerous, drunken, lawless, drug-growing area. Some of Geronimo's Apache tribe were still living here in 1939. The book mentions the famous long distance Tarahumara Indian runners who live deep in Copper Canyon. They started running the 100-mile Leadville Colorado Ultramarathon way back in 1928. More recently they came up a few years ago and blew all the GoreTex-dressed, backward-hatted, white Americans away, smoking homemade cigarettes and drinking Bud while running in truck tire Tevas shoes that they had made with their very sharp knives from the Leadville dump . . .throwing their gift Nikes on the side of the trail. 

The favorite most popular beer in this part of Mexico is Tecate. Sierra Madre has six canyons deeper and longer than our Grand Canyon. Sandy and I have the Copper Canyon Railroad trip on our agenda to do in a couple of years. Right now the banditos are still robbing, raping and killing white gringos, so we are holding off. Although some how I think Tocino would be safe.

Books books books. C.H.G. got me the book "The Captured" for Christmas at the store at the Alamo. It is in Texas. Remember ? YCMTSU.

Are you starting to see all the connections with all these books? Last Christmas Tom Egan got me Empire of the Summer Moon. Basically it is about the Comanches of Texas. The lead person in the story is none other than Quanah Parker, who was a half-white Indian chief, his Mom Dorothy being white, who was also a captive. "Captured" says that if you didn't get the white person back within six months, which the Army or a posse or the Texas Rangers rarely did, that the prisoners would not want to leave their captors, and in that short time would lose their language of English. One white boy returned to Gruene (pronounced Green), Texas never lost his taste for raw meat. His hands were so rough that he could pick a coal out of a fire with his bare fingers to light his pipe. He slept outdoors, outside the cabin under a tree, for the balance of his life.

A settler’s life was pretty tough in the 1850s. They lived in drafty wooden shacks with dirt floors and the whole family worked from sunrise to sunset. Living with the Indians for a boy was a lark. He did exactly what he wanted all day. He didn't have to bring in firewood or cook, and slept in a very comfortable teepee inside a buffalo robe, fur turned in, and smoked and drank as much as he wanted to. He also had more than one esposa, and they waited on the man as slaves would. This is exactly how my life is at my house, and the reason that I will never leave.

I still had three books left and decided to read Politics and Pasta by former criminal and Mayor of Providence Rhode Island. It is my very first Kindle book. There is talk that you do not think that I am a modern man -- well here’s proof. Can you start a fire with a Kindle? Buddy Cianci also is a good read, but so far I have not found a way to tie it into this story.

On the nonstop flight down with Jet Blue we watched the movie “Lincoln.” Wow! On the way back, only three hours and fifteen minutes nonstop, we watched "Trouble With the Curve." We had seen it with the Egans in Wildwood last fall, but still Sandy and I giggled through the whole movie.

Marnie and Kezia picked us up at Logan Express and drove us to El Sarape. Todd and his daughters Sasha and Sydney were waiting. Patron welcomed us. We gave Pepe his Mexican candy from Isla's supermercado. Rogelio gave Kezia a hug. She had not been there in a while.

Patron had given me a donation when we helped the victims of Hurricane Wilma on Isla in 2007. He was born and raised in Mexico, and after arriving in Massachusetts, he worked as a chef for Senor Oscar Romero at Casa Romero in Boston. He asked me if I could give him information on la Isla Mujeres, because he has heard so much about it and wants to go for a visit. I told him that I would think about it and get back to him.

- Roberto Francisco Tocino

I ran out of time and did not read Paul Simon or The Greatest Generation or Texas Rangers or Spain or A World on Fire or Timothy Egan's book on Edward Sheriff Curtis. Next year, three weeks on Isla.

Gracias for tuning in.