Thursday, February 5, 2015

Stephen Gianelli, Leonard Cohen Fan Susanne Walsh, Kelly Green, & Fellow Cyber-Terrorists



Michelle Blaine, Spector Former Assistant, Worked With Stephen Gianelli (Blogonaut) To Target Kelley Lynch's Blogs & Email Accounts.  Susanne Walsh, Leonard Cohen's Fan, Targeted Phil Spector's Innocent Facebook Page, and Kelly Green (who was posting on a blog devoted to demonizing Phil Spector in 2007) was one of Gianelli's most frequent blog posters.  In fact, these individuals coordinated attacks on the internet as well.


kellygreen said

September 3, 2007 at 2:15 am

The evidence will show, the evidence will show Cutler is a fucking pig, a fucking pig!
The man really loves to repeat himself.
So much of Cutler’s OS makes me angry–but I find it truly disgusting that he never refers to Lana Clarkson by name, he always refers to her as the decedent–he is a fucking pig, a fucking pig.


February 6, 2007 10:56

Phil Spector to receive $900,000 settlement

Legendary producer’s former assistant has to pay up

Read more at http://www.nme.com/news/phil-spector/26263#5crif3ytRxzZpDbh.99 


Michelle Blaine's Formerly Public Vile & Repulsive Blog About Phil Spector.  mControl is Blaine.


mControl Blogs

http://mcontrolblogs.blogspot.com/
Updates
Something kinda interesting... Henry Lee does NOT list the Spector case in his 'Famous Cases' listing.

Updated! Kelley Lynch Blog Is GONE! Blogger finally listened and has pulled the flagged blog. Thanks to all who flagged and especially to Blogonaut for initiating the pull.

Blog has been removed
Sorry, the blog at philspectorandkelleylynch.blogspot.com has been removed. This address is not available for new blogs.
June 21, 2009 3:16 PM

Blogonaut, posting on Michelle Blaine's Blog, IS Stephen Gianelli

Blogonaut said...
DING DONG THE WITCH IS DEAD

http://blogonaut-blogonaut.blogspot.com/2009/06/ding-dong-witch-is-dead.htm
We have confirmed that the spam/hate blog of the person currently living in Boulder, Colorado, has been removed by Google.

We consider this the end of the matter, and unless and until there are actual additional criminal or civil court filings related to this matter, we will not be reporting further on this sadly demented person.
June 22, 2009 3:05 PM

mControl said...
Well I am pleased that this saga is finally put to bed. Now we can all get a bit of rest from her constant diatribes and rants.

Peace be with her...
June 22, 2009 5:29 PM



New comments have been disabled for this post by a blog administrator.


About mControl
Some days, I fall off the face of the planet and forget to brush my teeth and, more importantly, even forget to tell my kids to brush their teeth, because holy shit there are people inside my computer that are calling for me day and night, longing for me to write, thinking, sometimes mistakenly, that I am witty and funny! I can’t let them down!So here I am, neglecting my real life, one blog at a time.


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mControl Blog Disclaimer (ya know - the legal mumbo jumbo)
This is a personal weblog. The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of any other people, unless otherwise noted. This is a blog. That fact means nothing. It is not a peer-reviewed journal, a final archive of my writing, a sponsored publication, or the product of gatekeeping and editing. That does mean something…it means that while the ideas and thoughts are often vital and the product of a long gestational period, the writing itself is not. It is essentially as it came from the keyboard: spontaneous, unproofed, unrevised, and corrected afterward only when necessary to address mistakes that grossly effect the intent.
All data and information provided on this site is for informational purposes only. Michelle Blaine and mControlblogs.blogspot.com makes no representations as to accuracy, completeness, currentness, suitability, or validity of any information on this site and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its display or use. All information is provided on an as-is basis.
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Thank you,
Michelle B. (blog master)


Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Kelley Lynch's Email To DOJ Re: Pauley Perrette & Leonard Cohen Perjury; City Attorney Of Los Angeles



From: Kelley Lynch
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2015 12:09:11 -0800
Subject:
To: ASKDOJ <ASKDOJ@usdoj.gov>, "Criminal.Division" <Criminal.Division@usdoj.gov>

Hi DOJ,

Speaking of celebrities, perjury, and corruption at the Los Angeles
City Attorney's Office, here's a new article on the Coyote Shivers
matter.  There is clearly a pattern and practice at the City
Attorney's Office and, it appears, before LA Superior Court.
Evidently, Larry Stein bullied Radar Online.  In any event, DOJ should
review this article online as it includes legal documents and video
footage.  It's very clear that Perrette perjured herself.  However,
Leonard Cohen literally confessed to committing perjury and the judge
didn't seem fazed.  The City Attorney, of course, attempted to protect
his perjured testimony.  Obviously, an extensive investigation is
warranted.

Perrette's testimony about what schmoozing the police means is rather
interesting.  But what is more interesting is Deputy City Attorney Gertz's
attempt to protect Perrette.  Schoozing the police (meaning LAPD's
TMU) means getting them to do whatever you want them to do.  Leonard
Cohen can probably relate to that.

I have evidence that Leonard Cohen testified that I never "stole" from
him.  I did raise that fact with Judge Hess, as it completely
undermines Cohen's entire fraud lawsuit against me, but he didn't seem
interested.

I do hope DOJ has listened to Paulette Brandt, Ann Diamond, and my
interviews re. Leonard Cohen and Phil Spector.

All the best,
Kelley


EXCLUSIVE: Top NCIS Star Caught Perjuring Herself To Harm Ex-Hubbie,
RadarOnline Censorship

FEBRUARY 4, 2015 BY CHARLES C. JOHNSON


NCIS STAR PAULEY PERRETTE CAUGHT LYING UNDER PENALTY OF PERJURY! TRIES
TO SUPPRESS INFORMATION!

GOTNEWS HAS THE EVIDENCE RADAR ONLINE WAS SCARED TO PRINT!
EVIDENCE TO BE EXAMINED AT FEB 20th COURT HEARING!

GotNews.com has the evidence Pauley Perrette doesn’t want NCIS fans to
see, and that RadarOnline was afraid to print: Pauley Perrette’s
signature under penalty of perjury, falsely declaring “I called it
Star Crazy. There was no treatment and no script.”

Perrette’s signed Declaration is directly impeached by her videotaped
testimony that RadarOnline published earlier today, in which Pauley
admits numerous times to the existence of a script called Star Crazy.

GotNews also has evidence indicating Perrette’s attorney Larry Stein
bullied RadarOnline into suppressing the evidence of Perrette’s false
declaration. RadarOnline was originally going to publish the damning
evidence, and sent an email stating so, asking for a comment.

But instead of commenting, Perrette has attorney Larry Stein trying to
cover it all up. They introduced the RadarOnline letter into Los
Angeles Superior Criminal Court. Subsequently, RadarOnline went ahead
and released the video as planned, but suddenly backed off from
publishing Perrette’s declaration signed under penalty of perjury.
GotNews.com is not similarly intimidated. We have published it right
here, above, and will go one step further. GotNews also has the
transcript of Perrette testifying about Star Crazy to have her
ex-husband Francis Coyote Shivers wrongly jailed. It too contradicts
her earlier video testimony. Watch as Pauley Perrette gets defensive,
angry, and vehemently denies when asked if Star Crazy “is about an
actress who gets obsessed with a character and winds up stalking him:
Compare that to her more recent testimony under penalty of perjury,
below, when she was surprised on the witness stand with her
handwritten notes about an “actress” who “gets obsessed” with a guy
and “stalks him.”

STARCRAZY-PerretteTrialTestimony

The evidence shows not only is Pauley Perrette caught lying under
penalty of perjury in her recent Declaration, but was also lying in
her earlier deposition video. Not surprising since the subject matter
of her Star Crazy plan is eerily disturbing: a story about television
actress who gets restraining orders against an innocent man who she
then stalks and falsely accuses of stalking her. The hearing date has
been set for February 20th. The issue will be whether Pauley Perrette
should be prosecuted or punished for lying under penalty of perjury,
or whether she can claim it is “harassment” for people to basically
call her out on it.

http://gotnews.com/exclusive-top-ncis-star-caught-perjuring-harm-ex-hubbie-radaronline-censorship/

Tuesday, February 3, 2015

Kelley Lynch's Cease & Desist Emails To Criminal Stalker Stephen Gianelli & Steven Machat Re. Leonard Cohen's Statements That He Was Part Of CIA/MKULTRA Program


From: Kelley Lynch <kelley.lynch.2010@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Feb 3, 2015 at 6:59 PM
Subject: Re: Your preposterous email to Steven Machat about the book you claim to be writing; some facts of life
To: Stephen Gianelli <stephengianelli@gmail.com>, "Division, Criminal" <Criminal.Division@usdoj.gov>
Cc: Steven Machat <smachat@gmail.com>, "irs.commissioner" <irs.commissioner@irs.gov>, Washington Field <washington.field@ic.fbi.gov>, ASKDOJ <ASKDOJ@usdoj.gov>, MollyHale <MollyHale@ucia.gov>, nsapao <nsapao@nsa.gov>, fsb <fsb@fsb.ru>, "Doug.Davis" <Doug.Davis@ftb.ca.gov>, Dennis <Dennis@riordan-horgan.com>, rbyucaipa <rbyucaipa@yahoo.com>, khuvane <khuvane@caa.com>, blourd <blourd@caa.com>, Robert MacMillan <robert.macmillan@gmail.com>, moseszzz <moseszzz@mztv.com>, a <anderson.cooper@cnn.com>, wennermedia <wennermedia@gmail.com>, Mick Brown <mick.brown@telegraph.co.uk>, woodwardb <woodwardb@washpost.com>, "glenn.greenwald" <glenn.greenwald@firstlook.org>, lrohter <lrohter@nytimes.com>, Harriet Ryan <harriet.ryan@latimes.com>, "hailey.branson" <hailey.branson@latimes.com>, "stan.garnett" <stan.garnett@gmail.com>, sedelman <sedelman@gibsondunn.com>, JFeuer <JFeuer@gibsondunn.com>, "kevin.prins" <kevin.prins@ryan.com>, "USLawEnforcement@google.com" <USLawEnforcement@google.com>, Feedback <feedback@calbar.ca.gov>


Gianell,

I am advising you to cease and desist again.  I'm not interested in your gossip with Machat.  His father is dead and cannot speak for himself so Steven might want to take that into consideration - particularly as Cohen slandered his father after he passed away.  Talk to Machat privately.  I could care less what he thinks about my relationship with his father.  Perhaps he should care that i believe I saw the bearer bonds he mentioned at Cohen's house made payable to R&M Productions.  I'm only interested in whether Machat has any information re. Cohen's statements that he was part of the CIA/MKULTRA program.  I have evidence supporting everything else - including my attorney's notes of their conversation with Machat.

DO NOT CONTACT ME AGAIN.  You also continue to criminally harass Paulette Brandt who contacted LAPD's celebrity stalking unit about that fact and spoke to LAPD detectives about you at her home.  She also confirmed your harassment with "Investigator William Frayeh" and I introduced her to Investigator Brian Bennett.

Kelley Lynch


On Tue, Feb 3, 2015 at 6:56 PM, Kelley Lynch <kelley.lynch.2010@gmail.com> wrote:
Steven,

Since you communicate with this criminal, Gianelli, would you mind responding to his latest harassing email about you.  I'm not interested in ancient gossip.  So far, Gianelli has only been accurate about Lindsey having a blotter acid picture of Alice In Wonderland around my then minor son.  I have said I view him [Stephen Gianelli] as a potential sexual predator since he attempted to lure my then minor son into privately community with him.  Ray then advised Gianelli and Walsh, who continued to criminally harass him, that their emails made him physically ill.  Rutger told these lunatics to SHUT UP and just weighed in on their psychotic emails to my "City Attorney."  Gianelli has been repeatedly advised to CEASE AND DESIST.  I just want you to be aware of this.  My sister's attorney spoke to him personally.  

Anyway, let me know if you have any information on Cohen and his stories about CIA/MKULTRA. 

Thank you.

Kelley


On Tue, Feb 3, 2015 at 6:11 PM, Stephen Gianelli <stephengianelli@gmail.com> wrote:

I just spoke to Matchat recently.

STALKER'S PSYCHOTIC RANT REDACTED.

Li'l Red by PhillyBoyWonder (print image)

U.S. Judges See 'Epidemic' Of Prosecutorial Misconduct In California



Federal judges accuse California bar of turning a blind eye to an 'epidemic' of prosecutorial misconduct

The hearing seemed largely routine until a state prosecutor approached the lectern.
Deputy Atty. Gen. Kevin R. Vienna was there to urge three judges on the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to uphold murder convictions against Johnny Baca for two 1995 killings in Riverside County. Other courts had already determined that prosecutors had presented false evidence in Baca's trial but upheld the verdicts anyway.
Vienna had barely started his argument when the pummeling began.
Judge Alex Kozinski asked Vienna if his boss, Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris, wanted to defend a conviction "obtained by lying prosecutors." If Harris did not back off the case, Kozinski warned, the court would "name names" in a ruling that would not be "very pretty."
Judge Kim Wardlaw wanted to know why Riverside County prosecutors presented a murder-for-hire case against the killer but did not charge the man they said had arranged the killings.
"It looks terrible," said Judge William Fletcher.
The January hearing in Pasadena, posted online under new 9th Circuit policies, provided a rare and critical examination of a murder case in which prosecutors presented false evidence but were never investigated or disciplined.
The low-profile case probably would have gone unnoticed if not for the video, which attorneys emailed to other attorneys and debated on blogs.
In a series of searing questions, the three judges expressed frustration and anger that California state judges were not cracking down on prosecutorial misconduct. By law, federal judges are supposed to defer to the decisions of state court judges.
Prosecutors "got caught this time but they are going to keep doing it because they have state judges who are willing to look the other way," Kozinski said.
Santa Clara University law professor Gerald Uelmen said the judges' questions and tone showed they had lost patience with California courts. State judges are supposed to refer errant lawyers, including prosecutors, to the state bar for discipline, but they rarely do, Uelmen said.
"It is a cumulative type thing," Uelmen said. "The 9th Circuit keeps seeing this misconduct over and over again. This is one way they can really call attention to it."
A 2010 report by the Northern California Innocence Project cited 707 cases in which state courts found prosecutorial misconduct over 11 years. Only six of the prosecutors were disciplined, and the courts upheld 80% of the convictions in spite of the improprieties, the study found.
The case that sparked the court's recent outrage involved the killing of John Adair and his live-in partner, John Mix, two decades ago. Baca, a friend of Adair's adopted son, was working as a houseboy for the couple.
A jailhouse informant testified that Baca had confided the son planned the killing. The two were going to split Adair's inheritance, the informant said. Other witnesses testified that Adair was planning to disinherit his son, who was never charged in the case.
Baca was tried twice and found guilty both times. A state appeals court overturned the first verdict. The second withstood an appeal, even though the state court found the informant and a Riverside County prosecutor had given false testimony.
The informant falsely testified he had asked for and received no favors. The prosecutor falsely corroborated that on the stand, according to court records. Baca was sentenced to 70 years to life.
Patrick J. Hennessey Jr., who has represented Baca on appeal for nearly two decades, said he had never seen such an "egregious" case of prosecutorial misconduct.
"That is what bothered me," Hennessey said. "There was never a fair discussion of how serious the issue was."
A U.S. magistrate who next examined the case said Baca might not have been convicted of first-degree murder but for the false testimony. He said the federal court nevertheless was supposed to defer to the state courts.
"Sadly, this informant's lies were bolstered by a Deputy District Attorney, who also lied," wrote Magistrate Judge Patrick J. Walsh. "What is obvious … is that the Riverside County District Attorney's Office turned a blind eye to fundamental principles of justice to obtain a conviction."
Armed with the magistrate's report, the three judges on the 9th Circuit panel appeared incredulous about the facts of the case.
Wardlaw, a Clinton appointee, complained that California's courts were "condoning" prosecutorial misconduct by upholding verdicts, a rare public criticism of her fellow judges. She suggested that state judges, who must be approved by voters, fear inciting the public's wrath. Federal judges are appointed for life.
"I understand why they do that," Wardlaw said. "They are elected judges. They are not going to be reversing these things."
Fletcher, another Clinton appointee, observed that the state's attorney general had fought "tooth and nail" more than a decade ago to prevent a court from seeing a transcript that revealed the false evidence.
"It would look terrible in an opinion when we write it up and name names," Kozinski, a Reagan appointee, told the government lawyer. "Would your name be on?"
Vienna said he was not involved in the case at the time, but named others in the office.
Kozinski demanded to know why the informant and the testifying prosecutor were not charged with perjury. He suggested the state bar should pull the law license of the prosecutor who presented the evidence.
Retired Deputy Dist. Atty. Paul Vinegrad, who prosecuted Baca in both trials, said in an interview that he did not suspect deceit. He said he has since learned that his colleague who falsely testified — former Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert Spira — had memory problems and may have been confused. Spira, who no longer practices law, could not be reached for comment.
Vinegrad also said he believed in the murder-for-hire case he presented, but that there was not enough evidence to charge the son. The informant's testimony against the son would not have been admissible under legal rules at the time, Vinegrad said.
Kozinski, who in the past has spoken out about an "epidemic" of prosecutorial misconduct, asked Vienna whether Harris was aware of the case. Vienna indicated she probably was not. Kozinski told him to get her attention within 48 hours. Harris would need to take action if her office wanted to avoid an embarrassing ruling, Kozinski said.
"Make sure she understands the gravity of the situation," Kozinski said, adding that the case "speaks very poorly for the attorney general's office."
Harris, a candidate for U.S. Senate, changed course. Her office decided last week not to oppose Baca's challenge.
Mike Hestrin, Riverside County's newly elected district attorney, did not concede that the prosecutors' "misconduct" was intentional, but said his office would investigate the prosecutors' actions and retry Baca.
It will be Baca's third trial.
http://www.latimes.com/local/politics/la-me-lying-prosecutors-20150201-story.html#page=1

Kelley Lynch, Paulette Brandt, & Ann Diamond Interviews Re. Phil Spector & Leonard Cohen - Truth Sentinel

Kelley Lynch, Paulette Brandt, & Ann Diamond Interviews - Phil Spector & Leonard Cohen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVXTY0ATTR8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PB1WMxTwnHg&list=UU7t908Rfern-QMwmk__aCnQ

Monday, February 2, 2015

Kelley Lynch's Email To CIA Re: Leonard Cohen


From: Kelley Lynch <kelley.lynch.2010@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Feb 2, 2015 at 5:40 PM
Subject: 
To: "irs.commissioner" <irs.commissioner@irs.gov>, Washington Field <washington.field@ic.fbi.gov>, ASKDOJ <ASKDOJ@usdoj.gov>, "Division, Criminal" <Criminal.Division@usdoj.gov>, "Doug.Davis" <Doug.Davis@ftb.ca.gov>, Dennis <Dennis@riordan-horgan.com>, MollyHale <MollyHale@ucia.gov>, nsapao <nsapao@nsa.gov>, fsb <fsb@fsb.ru>, rbyucaipa <rbyucaipa@yahoo.com>, khuvane <khuvane@caa.com>, blourd <blourd@caa.com>, Robert MacMillan <robert.macmillan@gmail.com>, a <anderson.cooper@cnn.com>, wennermedia <wennermedia@gmail.com>, Mick Brown <mick.brown@telegraph.co.uk>, woodwardb <woodwardb@washpost.com>, "glenn.greenwald" <glenn.greenwald@firstlook.org>, lrohter <lrohter@nytimes.com>, Harriet Ryan <harriet.ryan@latimes.com>, "hailey.branson" <hailey.branson@latimes.com>, "stan.garnett" <stan.garnett@gmail.com>, sedelman <sedelman@gibsondunn.com>, JFeuer <JFeuer@gibsondunn.com>, "kevin.prins" <kevin.prins@ryan.com>


Hello CIA,

How insane.  "Sieg Heil."

All the best,
Kelley

SUNDAY, APR 6, 2014 12:30 PM PDT

Leonard Cohen’s worst tour ever: “I want to play mental asylums”

Naked people, acid trips, asylums. Welcome to Leonard Cohen's off-the-rails 1970 concert tour

LEONARD COHEN (CREDIT: AP/KAI-UWE KNOTH)

In the spring of 1970, the suits at Columbia Records, looking for a way to make some money off of the strangest artist in their stable, came up with a smashing idea: they would send Leonard Cohen on a European tour.
Stateside, the 36-year-old singer-songwriter wasn’t much of a chart-topper. His two albums have enjoyed modest success, and a few of his songs—“Suzanne,” say, or “Sisters of Mercy”—were covered by folk stalwarts like Judy Collins, but a decade older than the Hendrixes and the Morrisons and all of rock n’ roll’s younger and more alluring gods, Cohen was no one’s idea of a traditional rock star. On the Old Continent, however, his melancholy music and literary lyrics were celebrated; a European tour, went the record label’s logic, would help to widen Cohen’s fan base and give this poet-turned-singer just the career boost he needed. Cohen himself strongly disagreed. “The risks of humiliation,” he told an interviewer years later, “were too wide.” The label, however, insisted, and by May Cohen and his entourage were on the road.
Trouble brewed overnight. The tour’s second performance, a May 4 concert at the Musikhalle in Hamburg, was about to begin when news came of the shootings in Kent State University, which left four dead and nine wounded. Stage fright, Mandrax, and political violence proved a heady cocktail. Cohen took the stage, played a few songs, then goose-stepped and Sig Heiled. His outstretched arm drove the crowd mad. There was shouting. Some stormed the stage, which Cohen seemed to encourage. Someone thought someone had a gun. The police grew jittery. Peace was barely restored. Members of the band threatened to quit. None did, and Cohen’s entourage, feeling more like a military unit than a band of touring musicians, nicknamed itself The Army.
Cohen, its commander, was on the attack. Everywhere he went, he challenged the local police. At the Olympia, Paris’s celebrated concert hall, he urged the thousands in attendance to defy security and join him on stage. In Copenhagen he had them follow him back to his hotel. But if the local security guards were easy to overcome, the critics were less so. In London, Cohen sold out the Royal Albert Hall but failed to win over the press; his concerts, went the consensus, left “deep impressions of a sad and tortured wasteland.”
But if Cohen appeared uninterested in communicating with his listeners, his listeners sometimes seemed to return the favor. Everywhere he went, young men and women huddled together in what organizers billed as music festivals and expected something transcendent to happen. When it didn’t, when nothing but men and women with guitars took the stage and admission fees were charged and sanitation was failing, they often curdled. Rock stars arrived at gig after gig to find themselves booed for being mere performers and not legislators, gurus, or prophets. Sometimes, like the Rolling Stone concert at the free festival in Altamont, it ended in murder. Things were considerably calmer in Aix-en-Provence, but the same rancor was in the air: the naked people in the mud expected a revolution, and all they got was a lousy rock concert.
The Army realized the Aix festival would be trouble from the very drive up: the road leading to the bucolic field where the concert was to be held was blocked by dozens of cars, some having been abandoned by their owners, some occupied by irate and honking youth. It was the perfect visual representation of the festival’s contentious mood, an ongoing skirmish between the organizers and the audience. On one side were Jean-Pierre Rawson, a noted Paris music impresario, and Claude Clément, a French army general who was forced to resign his post because of his association with the Organisation de l’armée secrete, a paramilitary group that opposed France’s withdrawal from Algeria and tried to assassinate President Charles De Gaulle. His ultra-nationalist views aside, Clément was a patron of the arts and a member of the board of Aix-en-Provence’s celebrated opera festival, and he believed that the hippies’ love of music could, if cultivated, cure them of their boorish manners and their disdain for law and order. The local municipality was far from thrilled with the idea of throngs of young people, many of them still in the throes of the radical politics that had seized so many French students two years earlier, descending on the staid country town, but Clément had pull; he and Rawson, he promised, would produce a festival that would be to Woodstock what a fine baguette is to packaged sliced bread. The festival, its two producers announced, would be held on a 75-acre lot of privately owned land, and will feature three open-air stages, 22 bands and solo artists, 50 hostesses, 200 tents, a 20-line telephone center, and mobile surgical and maternity units. All these amenities were expected to serve 150,000 concert-goers, each paying the steep price of 55 francs per ticket.
Somewhere between seven and thirteen thousand people showed up. Clément’s involvement had turned many cold to the festival, especially when someone started a rumor that the general had hired harkis—native Algerians who had fought on the French side during that country’s war of independence—as security guards.  Those who did try to make it to the festival’s grounds were greeted by a massive police force that encircled the venue completely and made access a challenge and traffic unbearable. All this was too much for the young concert-goers to take. The festival, recalled rock critic Paul Alessandrini, felt like a “caricature of all that (and all those) which we refuse: recuperators who carry around with them the fetid odor of commerce, ‘officials’ who ‘understand the problems of youth.’” Even more vocal were a band of Maoists who had forced their way onto the grounds and demanded that the organizers forfeit the admissions charge and turn the festival into a free public event. Clément refused, and, every bit the general, he stormed the stage and gave a stern speech and said that the real youth had spoken and what the real youth wanted wasn’t politics but rock n’ roll. Whether this was the case remained unknown, as the only voices audible throughout the festival’s three-day run belonged to the Maoists who yelled and did their best to shame the performers into stating support for their revolution.
As these small battles raged on, Leonard Cohen and the Army stood staring at a knot of automobiles. They were still far from the festival’s site, and had heavy equipment with them. Walking was out of the question. A native of Hillsboro, Texas, the tour’s manager and keyboard player, the legendary producer Bob Johnston, suggested horses. Some were procured from a stable nearby, and the Army rode on, stopping only for a prolonged visit to a nearby bar. Now fortified by drink, Cohen decided to take the western motif as far as it would go and ride onto the stage atop the white stallion he’d been assigned. The horse, angular, its golden mane flowing down to its midsection, looked regal; Cohen, his eyes glassy and his hair unkempt, looked confused.
As soon as Cohen and his steed mounted the stage, the booing began. To the young leftists seething on the grass, the rich Canadian entertainer riding a white horse was a grotesque display of might and arrogance. Those steeped in Cohen’s biography shouted that he was a sympathizer of Greece’s fascist regime—why else would a foreigner maintain a home on the Greek island of Hydra?—while the rest just demanded that he say something about ticket prices and condemn the bourgeoisie. Drunk, and most likely stoned, Cohen addressed the crowd. “I’d like to say something about the link between the festival and money,” he said in his hesitant Quebecois French. “When the festivals will be yours, they will not belong to others. If you call me, I will already be there. But the thing is, there is not a revolution. When others talk about the revolution, it is their revolution. Leave the revolution to the owners of the revolution. They are like any other owners. They’re seeking profit.” He was incoherent, but the message got through regardless: talk of revolution was a sham, a fantasy that concealed the fact that earthly achievements required earthly labor and deserved earthly rewards, and that the people cultivating this fantasy were themselves, like everybody else, in it for fun and profit. Then he played “Bird on the Wire.” The catcalls went on.
The politics, the police, and the frenzy exhausted Cohen. When the whole world was going mad, where did you go for shelter?
“I want to play mental asylums,” Cohen told Bob Johnston. The producer was no stranger to such requests; just two years earlier, Johnny Cash had approached him with the task of arranging a gig at Folsom Prison. But Cash had intended for his prison concert to be recorded and released as an album. Cohen seemed drawn to asylums for entirely personal reasons. He never explained them to Johnston or to the other members of his band. Four years later, speaking to a reporter, he recalled his request and suggested that the “experience of a lot of people in mental hospitals would especially qualify them to be a receptive audience for my work.”
In a sense, he continued, “when someone consents to go into a mental hospital or is committed he has already acknowledged a tremendous defeat. To put it another way, he has already made a choice. And it was my feeling that the elements to this choice, and the elements of this choice, and the elements of this defeat, corresponded with certain elements that produced my songs, and that there would be an empathy between the people who had this experience and the experience as documented in my songs.”
On August 28, the Army drove up to the Henderson Hospital, just south of London; “it was all talking therapy,” a former nurse at the hospital told Cohen biographer Sylvie Simmons, “no medication, no ‘zombies.’” Cohen was led up to the institution’s imposing and narrow tower, where his impromptu performance would take place. “Oh boy,” he told Johnston as they made their way in, “I hope they like ‘So Long, Marianne.’” Most of those in attendance were young, and many were Leonard Cohen fans. The band quickly set up, and Cohen took his place at the front of the makeshift stage, underneath one of the “tall, narrow windows that gave the room the feel of a chapel.” He looked at the audience. “There was a fellow I spoke to last night,” he said, “a doctor. I told him I was coming out here. He said, ‘They are a tough bunch of young nuts.’” There was some applause, and Cohen started playing “Bird on the Wire.” But then he stopped. “I feel like talking,” he said. “Someone warned me downstairs that all you do here is talk. That’s psychotic, it’s contagious.”
During 80 minutes, he played only 11 songs. The rest of the time, he told the audience about his relationship with Marianne and how it had dissipated, about how “You Know Who I Am” was written after taking 300 acid trips and “One of Us Cannot Be Wrong” was composed while coming down from amphetamine, about the Chelsea Hotel and life in New York and making love and sharing lovers and feeling inconsolably sad. Each time he finished a song or a speech, the audience applauded rapturously.
And then it was time to leave. “I really wanted to say that this is the audience that we’ve been looking for,” Cohen said as the Army was packing up to go. “I’ve never felt so good playing before people.”
Adapted from “A Broken Hallelujah: Rock n Roll, Redemption and the Life of Leonard Cohen” by Liel Leibovitz. Published by W.W. Norton and Company. Copyright 2014 by Liel Leibowitz. All rights reserved.