Gwen Loved Leonard Cohen and It Almost Killed Me

Leonard Cohen has passed away. 

The New York Times called him, “...an unlikely and reluctant pop star, if in fact he ever was one.”

For the record?   I tried. I really tried.
You see... 

Years ago, I dated a girl named Gwen. Gwen adored Leonard Cohen. She was determined to help me get into  his music, so she asked me over to her apartment for what she said would be a very special night.

Gwen lived in a second floor walkup just off Downer Ave., walking distance from UWM.  I found her in the bedroom rummaging thru the perpetual pile of clothes and filled up sketch books strewn about on the floor. Upon finding my old brown corduroy bell bottomed Levis she said, “Here, wear these!" (I wondered where those were).  For the record she was wearing her hippy-earth-mother dress - the one she made from a McCalls pattern. 

I changed and walked into the tiny kitchen in time to see her dumping a can of Chock Full 'O Nuts coffee into her coffee urn. As it brewed, she asked me to get the bottle of Amaretto from the cupboard.  I knew it was going to be some kind of special night because there was a lentil stew simmering in the crock pot (hell, the entire building knew it!)  Gwen turned off the lights, lit the few candles she had stuck in Mateus bottles and we sat down on throw pillows strewn around her living room floor. 
For the next three hours we ate bowls of thick lentil stew, drank cups of black coffee with Amaretto and listened to Leonard Cohen on the Lear Jet 8 track stereo, (for the record, it was MY tape deck!)  Over and over again he droned on.  “It’s like having our own NBC!”, she giggled, “Nothing But Cohen!” 

Three and one half hours later, I ran screaming from her apartment - I couldn’t take it any longer!  I got back to my place, put on a pair of  earphones and listened to Abbey Road, flushing the sounds of Leonard Cohen out of my head!  Adding injury to insult, I didn't sleep for two days on account of  that damn black coffee. Good thing too, because that lentil stew combined with the Amaretto wreaked total havoc on my lower GI system!  

It was three weeks later that I happened to walk past Gwen's building one evening coming back from the UWM law library and stopped dead in my tracks!  The smell of lentil stew hung like a fog below her apartment window.  In my head I could picture some poor schlep sitting on the floor on her throw pillows, pretending to like Leonard Cohen’s god awful drone, while all the while hoping that Gwen would let him touch her perfect body with more than just his mind.  I shuddered and hurried by. 

A few years later the inevitable happened -- I bumped into Gwen in Lake Park. She had her  new, Leonard-loving hubby in tow.  We chatted for a few awkward minutes, exchanging pleasantries.  I managed to snap this photo just after asking her if it would be OK if I stopped by to pick up my eight track player.  

Gotta say this for Gwen, she looked great in a romper and never took a bad picture.

Gwen flips me off while wearing a romper