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.
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.
