Are Leonard Cohen Fans Being Gouged?

An old colleague I know on the west coast had an unwelcome surprise when he tried to get some tickets for the Leonard Cohen concert tour I mentioned a few days ago.

He went online the moment tickets went on sale and found that they were sold out, and that the only tickets available were from scalpers at absurd markups.

Evidently this is not a new problem. See this article about a lawsuit against Ticketmaster in Canada involving Bruce Springsteen, and this post on the Leonard Cohen message board.

Cohen himself, I surmise, doesn't get a nickel from this kind of price gouging, which takes advantage of his amazingly loyal fan base (which includes moi). The irony is that Cohen himself is a ripoff victim, as his manager made off with his life savings. Indeed, that's why he has to go on tour.

© 2009 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.

The Bard of Our Great Depression

Our bard

Every Depression needs a Bard, and for that I nominate somebody who was born during the last Big One, Leonard Cohen.

Here's an NPR link that takes one to an hour of Cohen's phenomenal recent concert in New York.

He's touring the U.S., by the way. Tickets can be purchased here. He's coming back to New York in just a few months, fortunately. We need him!

© 2009 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.

Does Everybody Know?

Until the market spasm today, I was beginning to think that the stock market was acting in sync with Leornard Cohen's "Everybody Knows."

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
Thats how it goes
Everybody knows

Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died

Today I told a professional investor of my acquaintance that I was heavily invested in index funds, and he started talking to me like my dog just died. That (and the Sundance Channel) reminded me of the Leonard Cohen song.

See, that's the market for you. Everybody knows the boat is leaking, even if today there seems to be a patch.

© 2008 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.