DR FAUCI (counselor): Poetry Epidemiology Line, what is your public health crisis?
LEONARD COHEN (caller): If you want a lover, I’ll
do anything you ask me to.
FAUCI: Will you get vaccinated?
COHEN: And if you want a different kind of love, I’ll wear a mask for you.
FAUCI: That’s what I’m asking everyone to do, yes.
COUNSELOR: Rock & Roll Crisis Line, what is your emergency?
LEONARD COHEN (caller): They sentenced me to 20 years of boredom
COUNSELOR: That sounds cruel & unusual. What was the charge?
COHEN: For trying to change the system from within.
COUNSELOR: Which administration?
COHEN: I’m coming now
COUNSELOR: Oh. That should just be 4 to 8 years of boredom.
COHEN: I’m coming to reward them.
COUNSELOR: That sounds premature. What are you getting them?
COHEN: First we take Manhattan
COUNSELOR: I thought they had New York locked down.
COHEN: Then we take Berlin!
COUNSELOR: But that’s not–…oh, wait. Do you mean the cities? Or, like…a cocktail and a jelly doughnut?
LEONARD COHEN:
I saw you on the other side
And crossed the road—it wasn’t wide,
But I’d’ve crossed a 6-lane highway to ya.
Cock-a-doodle-doodle-doo-yeah
Cock-a-doodle-doodle-doooo, yeah.
Happy birthday to Leonard Cohen, who would have been 86 today.