Good Fortune

It was a hectic sort of rush heading out the door for work tonight. I was late, really late. My day had started off badly what with being awake and up for the day before noon; maybe four hours sleep. Not good. The afternoon was spent quaffing coffee after coffee, wandering the yard smoking ciggie after cig, keeping an eye on the pooches, and sitting head in hands wondering how I would make it through this night. Lynda arrived home late from an appointment after work and we had a simple dinner of leftovers - always better it seems the day after even if it was good the first time. I had planned to come in later than usual but Lynda had some plans for me - she had arranged for the painter to come in later today - so we wound up moving some furniture, shutting down the power for the room and disconnecting the overhead fixture. All said and done, it took longer than expected. I rushed to get dressed, kissed Lynda goodnight, jumped in the car and remembered I had to get gas if I expected to make it to work at all. Damn!!

Flipping on the radio, tuning into CBC Radio2 and *Shazzam*!!, everything changed. Already in progress was a pre-recorded concert of Leonard Cohen performing last summer in London. During the ride to work I heard 4 or 5 songs including a couple of my favourites - 'Hallelujah' and 'Democracy'. Arriving at work, slightly late, I sat in the car for a few moments so I could hear the final bars of a song. Sighing with regret I turned both the radio and car off. I got updated on the days events by the duty counsellor and talked a bit with a couple of the clients before settling in to doing up some paper work. Then it occurred to me; the audio stream is broadcast via the net and you can timeshift it according to time zone!! Brilliant!! I pulled it up and set it for the Pacific zone and heard almost the entire concert, missing about 15 minutes at the beginning of the show. It turned out to be a good thing I was running late otherwise I'd likely have missed it as I'd forgotten it was airing tonight.

The broadcast coincides with the CD / DVD release of that concert. It is also available in a downloadable version from iTunes at this link. http://www.cbc.ca/radio2/spotlight/ If you're a fan of the man, his words and his music this is prime Cohen showing how to put on a show.

I'm good to go for the night. Thanks for perking me up Leonard.

Oh! An interviewer asked Cohen what he thought made 'Hallelujah' such a great song. He replied, deadpan, 'It's got a great chorus.' (Rimshot!!)