Forum Friends Part II - Leonard at the Beacon

Ask and answer questions about Leonard Cohen, his work, this forum and the websites!
Post Reply
User avatar
Mabeanie1
Posts: 2782
Joined: Mon Mar 17, 2008 12:03 am
Location: UK

Forum Friends Part II - Leonard at the Beacon

Post by Mabeanie1 »

This time last year I was clearing US Immigration in Dublin in preparation for my Aer Lingus flight to JFK and Leonard's show at the Beacon. I can't tell you how excited I was - I had been to a lot of shows in 2008 in the UK and Eastern Canada but there was something different about this one. It was Leonard's first show on US soil and at the refurbished Beacon no less. I had a great seat thanks to someone on this forum and I was a veteran of several previous overnight trips from the UK to New York so what could go wrong?

Needless to say the show was great and the pre-show reception was great too. I had the opportunity to meet several people from the forum for the first time, including Jarkko, Maarten and Lizzy and my abiding memory of the day (apart from the thrill of seeing Leonard again of course) was the kindness of my new forum friends, particularly Diana who changed her post show plans to walk down to the "Meet" venue with me. Alas I was much too tired to do justice to the post show socialising in the crowded bar but my memories of my brief time there are all very warm ones.

The Beacon was a very bitter sweet experience for me as I arrived home the following day to the news that a neighbour had managed to put his car in reverse instead of forward, get his foot jammed on the accelerator, shoot backwards across the road, turn 90 degree and climb a small wall to clip the back of my son's car before writing off my brand new car and pushing the wreckage in to our other car causing serious damage to that one. From 3 cars to zero in about 30 seconds though fortunately no one was hurt. We've lived opposite each other for more than 25 years and the guy hasn't spoken to ME since .....

The bad memories of all this (and of the months of negotiations with insurers and financial losses that followed it) have faded over time. However, the positive memories and the friendships made at the Beacon live on and I am proud to be a member of this wonderful community.

Wendy
ladydi
Posts: 2325
Joined: Tue Jul 22, 2008 11:14 pm

Re: Forum Friends Part II - Leonard at the Beacon

Post by ladydi »

Wendy, I am SO glad you started this thread! For the last couple of days I've been living in the past...not the long ago past, but the one-year-ago past and wondering if others might be feeling the same way.

Right about this time last year I was making a much shorter trip, but I was on a flight from Detroit to LaGuardia and took the shuttle to the Beacon Hotel. My stomach was full of butterflies and every moment seemed a little brighter than it really was (expanded conciousness or something like that). There was the anticipation of meeting so many Forum people, the anticipation of a midnight news release concerning a future tour, but of course, most of all was the anticipation of Leonard's concert in a beautiful theatre!

Every moment stands out still. Nico coming up to my room to say hello, meeting with MarieM and Lizzy in the hotel lobby, Denise trying to sell an extra ticket, Ken looking for an extra ticket, shivering in the entranceway of the theatre and talking to others (are you Mike Waldman?..yes..you look just like your wife's sketch!), meeting up with Mary and George in the lobby and my first encounter with Mary's very full tote bags 8) , chance meetings (Thelma, and John K). Saying hello to Sharon Robinson! Then once I was seated (Maarten's parents on one side, Denise on the other) realizing that Wendy was almost right in front of me!

The concert was awesome! Unfortunately my great seat created a new passion of "having-to-have" great seats from that mmoment on :roll:

The trek to O'hurley's post concert and a blur of faces for hours but what fun! Briefly meeting so many who I now think of as friends. What a year! There have been many other concerts, and even though there was a concert for me prior to the Beacon, somehow, that night will stand out forever as a turning point for me. Leonard was the catalyst that brought us all together, but that evening in New York began for me the wonderful sense of "community" that encompasses not just us on the Forum, but also everyone on stage....and what a special community this is!
GinaDCG
Posts: 440
Joined: Wed Jul 29, 2009 2:26 am
Location: West Virginia, USA

Re: Forum Friends Part II - Leonard at the Beacon

Post by GinaDCG »

Wish I had made that concert.

But Mabeanie1, I am trying to wrap my head around your description of the car mess back home. At what point did your neighbor's car stop? (I guess he didn't think to throw the car into neutral.) Was he driving one of these ill-fated Toyotas?
Glad no one was hurt -- sorry about your automotive loss. Hope your neighbor gets around to apologizing vocally.
User avatar
Mabeanie1
Posts: 2782
Joined: Mon Mar 17, 2008 12:03 am
Location: UK

Re: Forum Friends Part II - Leonard at the Beacon

Post by Mabeanie1 »

GinaDCG wrote:Wish I had made that concert.

But Mabeanie1, I am trying to wrap my head around your description of the car mess back home. At what point did your neighbor's car stop? (I guess he didn't think to throw the car into neutral.)
I didn't tell you the whole story - after he'd written our cars off, he threw his car in to "drive", shot forwards back across the road at high speed in to the back of his garage (he'd been trying to put the car away when this "fiasco" started apparently). The car came to a stop when it became embedded in the back wall of his garage. His car was virtually unscathed ....

Wendy
ladydi
Posts: 2325
Joined: Tue Jul 22, 2008 11:14 pm

Re: Forum Friends Part II - Leonard at the Beacon

Post by ladydi »

Wendy,

If it didn't end up so costly for you, not to mention inconvenient....and if you could think of looking at the scene as though they are all someone else's vehicles...this would have made an incredible video, especially ending up with him in the back wall of his garage! You didn't mention his age....or if he was slightly inebriated...but this person should have had their license to drive taken away permanently!

What a story!
User avatar
Mabeanie1
Posts: 2782
Joined: Mon Mar 17, 2008 12:03 am
Location: UK

Re: Forum Friends Part II - Leonard at the Beacon

Post by Mabeanie1 »

ladydi wrote:Wendy,

If it didn't end up so costly for you, not to mention inconvenient....and if you could think of looking at the scene as though they are all someone else's vehicles...this would have made an incredible video, especially ending up with him in the back wall of his garage! You didn't mention his age....or if he was slightly inebriated...but this person should have had their license to drive taken away permanently!

What a story!
I believe it would, especially with all the emergency services, police, fire and ambulance, in attendance,complete with blue flashing lights. Or so I'm told anyway; remember, I was in New York at the time ... I believe he passed a breathalyser test. He must be in his late 60s now and is still driving. I still cringe when he drives round the corner to put his car in the garage ...

There was a positive side to it all. It suddenly became incredibly easy to justify spending money on trips to see Leonard as I reckoned I would rather enjoy spending my inheritence than have it "stolen" off me by careless neighbours.

W
MaryB
Posts: 4017
Joined: Sat Mar 08, 2008 5:40 am
Location: Columbus, Ohio USA

Re: Forum Friends Part II - Leonard at the Beacon

Post by MaryB »

Mabeanie1 wrote: There was a positive side to it all. It suddenly became incredibly easy to justify spending money on trips to see Leonard as I reckoned I would rather enjoy spending my inheritence than have it "stolen" off me by careless neighbours.
W
So you experienced that 'Life's too short' moment 8) :D
1993 Detroit 2008 Kitchener June 2-Hamilton June 3 & 4-Vienna Sept 24 & 25-London RAH Nov 17 2009 NYC Feb 19-Grand Prairie Apr 3-Phoenix Apr 5-Columbia May 11-Red Rocks Jun 4-Barcelona Sept 21-Columbus Oct 27-Las Vegas Nov 12-San Jose Nov 13 2010 Sligo Jul 31 & Aug 1-LV Dec 10 & 11 2012 Paris Sept 30-London Dec 11-Boston Dec 16 2013 Louisville Mar 30-Amsterdam Sept 20
User avatar
lizzytysh
Posts: 25503
Joined: Thu Jun 27, 2002 8:57 pm
Location: Florida, U.S.A.

Re: Forum Friends Part II - Leonard at the Beacon

Post by lizzytysh »

Oh, G~d, forgive me, PLEASE, Wendy, but I am rolling with laughter!! It may still be painfully too soon for you to find even a speck of humour in all of this, since it's been clearly shrouded in a variety of pain[s] for so long... but this is some kind of Lucille Ball Goes Saturday Night Live skit if I ever read one! Your descriptions only leant to it, I'm sorry... maybe, your sheer directness. I laughed some and felt a shimmer of guilt when I read Part I... but when I got to Part II and "the rest of the story... ," I burst out laughing. Give this a couple years and then reread what you've written. By then, you might find yourself laughing, too. I mean 3 cars reduced to none... and HE'S not speaking? Guilt-ridden he is, yes ma'am.

So, back to your GOOD memories and to everyone else's. Yours were clearly a mix. Thank you for sharing all this. It takes me back in such good ways. Meeting Sharon Robinson was a highlight for me, from a band standpoint. Meeting so MANY Forum people was pure pleasure! And, seeing my dear friend, Thelma, and her great New York sister... they are both so New York, each in their own way. Meeting Diana for the first time, seeing Marie again, the Waldman moments with him and his lovely wife... and Denise singing her "Box of Rain" song a capella, at my request, in the crowded bar. By Denise's design, only I could hear her. The CLASSIC meeting with Mary in the ladies room, with Esther, Leonard's sister, as witness :lol: . Sweet conversation with Mollydog Mary. Spending long overdue time talking with John Kloberdanz. Meeting Marsha ;-) . And SOOOooooo worthy of mention... meeting Partisan/James :shock: ... and both of us coming out alive ;-) . Actually enjoying each other it seemed... missed seeing Thelma at intermission for talking to James and his lovely wife. And Grecian Man :) . That Irish thing goin' on, y'know. Walking the empty streets of New York in the frigid cold at 4 AM with the ever kind Vern Silver, retracing my steps searching for a thought-to-be-lost, but-not-lost necklace. Breakfast with Jarkko and Eija the next morning, then meeting up again with Sheila [Imaginary Friend] ~ as I recall, she and John both offered to buy me a birthday drink ~ and her lovely daughter and going to the Museum of Modern Art. And meeting lovely IrishMar Marie for the first time, as she was sharing with Marie her experience with meeting Leonard. So many memories.

A quick flight in and a quick flight out... and my memory bank getting many new, overnight deposits, the interest always compounding.

Thanks for the memories surrounding Leonard's phenomenal show in an exquisite theatre. So good to see him in New York... after I heard about it, I was so worried about his continuing his tour; I have since abandoned those fears. This man knows what he wants and will do it if he pleases. He is the captain of his ship and he continued to sail the waters and the high seas with the all-time greatest credulity. I pray I'll see him again.


~ Lizzy
"Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken."
~ Oscar Wilde
Post Reply

Return to “Comments & Questions”