In Praise of an Older Man (Leonard Cohen @ Oakland's Paramount)

Leonard Cohen is 78 years old and still giving everything he's got.

I was learning how to ask a girl out for a date in high school when this unkempt Canadian with a gravelly voice was strumming a guitar and singing about Suzanne.

If you said Leonard Cohen wasn't the coolest man alive, I'd say you were wrong.

Cohen gave two shows this weekend before two sell-out crowds at Oakland's priceless art-deco Paramount Theatre, treating 3,000 fans each night to more than three hours of his gracious, intimate and inspiring poetry and music. He was here in 2010 for a series of concerts at the same venue.

By all accounts, he is even more energized and more gracious. In the intervening two years, of course, he had to testify against his former manager, Kelley Lynch, before she was jailed for stealing more than $5 million from his accounts while he was in a Zen monastery.

That's him there, on the left, I think.

So this is a singer, entertainer and cult icon who is back to work on a 19-city tour with nine musicians and a big back-up team, and he is gracious, tender and generous in giving himself to his audience in marathon performances such as the two he gave in Oakland this past weekend.

He opened Sunday night's concert with a tilt towards his mortality and an affirmation of his state of mind: "I don't know, friends, when we’ll ever meet again – no one can know that – but tonight we'll give you everything we've got."

If you have a chance, between now and April 21, Cohen will appear at 17 venues across North America.

We in Oakland have been so fortunate to be on his radar. Rolling Stone pretty much has got it right in its write-up of Leonard Cohen singing here in Oakland.

Should Oakland Downsize First Friday?

First Friday & Art Murmur are good. Shootings are bad. When those two issues collide...

I watched several Oakland City Councilmembers the other week debate whether to cut back on First Friday street fairs (also known as Art Murmur) after a young man was fatally shot and three others wounded on February 1 at the end of what had been another crowded and busy monthly downtown festival.

Councilmembers Larry Reid and Desley Brooks said the street fair should be scaled back to the art walk it once was for neighborhood galleries, and that Oakland can't afford to shift 30 officers from their regular neighborhood beats to provide beefed up security for the monthly event. Lynette Gibson McElhaney defended the First Friday, pointing out the positive publicity it has brought Oakland and warning councilmembers not to throw the baby out with the bath water.

These monthly events bring thousands of people to the city's uptown and downtown districts - the music, the food, the dancing and street theater - and the economic activity is vibrant and spreading. The Trib reports that the next First Friday event will be smaller - but I hope the city's reaction will be moderate. I always have time for Robert Gammon at the East Bay Express, who says no one called for an end to football at Candlestick Park when two fans were shot in 2011. He believes it would be a mistake for Oakland to downsize or eliminate First Fridays, and I agree with him.

What do you think? Should we downsize First Friday in the name of preventing crime and other mishaps?

Foot-Stomping Gospel in Oakland Honors MLK Jr.

Gospel music often conjures up images of Southern Baptist churches like West Hunter Street in Atlanta, not necessarily downtown Oakland and the hallowed art deco hall that is its massive Paramount Theater.

Foot-stomping, hand-clapping, soaring gospel music made an evening of sharing the dream for the exuberant crowd that filled 3,000 seats at the Paramount to celebrate and honor Martin Luther King Jr with a tribute aptly called, "In the Name of Love".

Jennifer Holliday headlined the evening on January 19 - the 11th year that Oakland and Living Jazz have given a musical tribute to MLK Jr. Her passion was steamy and the performance electrifying. Holliday is a Grammy Award winner best known for her Broadway hit Dreamgirls, and to its credit Oakland produced an ad hoc group of local musicians - two back-up singers, three brass horns, drummer, pianist, two guitarists and a synthesizer - to rock the Paramount with a world-class singer like Holliday. The musicians had one three-hour rehearsal with her, and together it was an amazing event.

Holliday capped an evening with Terrance Kelley leading the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir and the Oakland Children's Community Choir. A special treat was the veteran jazz duo of Tuck and Patti, her velvet voice and his mellow guitar closing out the first half of the program and setting the stage for Holliday.

For those of you who were staying in to prepare for the NFL conference playoffs, or those who just felt it was not worth making the trip downtown, it's your big, big loss. A wonderful and amazing, uplifting evening for Oakland and everyone who could share the dream.