One of Us Cannot Be Wrong

Kids, when Holly was gettin' her comeuppance back in the ol' skool, there were two givens: Charles Bukowski and Leonard Cohen were obligatory heroes for every hipster. I never bought into it for some reason. I'm not even lazy enough to have seen the film Barfly (1987), let alone read anything by Bukowski. I think he's mentioned in the film Sideways. Now Leonard Cohen I can deal with, but I've never been compelled to want to get a greatest hits collection or read one his novels like Beautiful Losers (1965). Following his deep-voiced prominence on soundtracks in the early 1990s--particularly Natural Born Killers (1994)--some of the hipsters turned their back on him because he was seen as going "big time." Yet, he still maintains a loyal following. Apparently he was a converted Buddhist monk for sometime in the late 1990s ... but not anymore, it would appear. Could that explain how this happened?

Leonard Cohen is broke. As two people on a rateyourmusic.com messageboard recommend, maybe we should all throw a benefit concert for him: LeonardAid. What lineup would be cool enough to raise money for Lenny's legal staff? A (once-again) reunited Big Star? Bob Dylan? Jandek? Bloc Party? Fugazi? Perhaps Cat, who has some law connections, might be able to get him an attorney at a cut-rate.

Well, Holly (and, I'm sure, the Paper Cat) send out our condolences to Leonard Cohen, and will do whatever we can to help him survive these trying times. Cohen, a notorious womanizer and fan of high quality illegal narcotics (well, I'm making that part up!), cannot possibly live on $150,000 for the rest of his life and continue produce state-of-the-art albums like Dear Heather (2004).