Lou Reed - RIP

Lou Reed. RIP. One of the great rockers for sure, and a great writer. To my mind he was someone who gave thought and feeling to important things. He didn’t patronize the listener or suck up to crass business interests. He was an original, a sound artist, something like that. 

Quick story:  I’ve bothered to get one autograph in my lifetime past the age of fifteen. It was Lou Reed’s. I was in Manhattan, staying around the corner from where he was debuting the tour for the album “New York,” doing a five-night stand at the St. James Theater. So, I was walking by the side of the theater, but on the other side of the street, with a couple of friends, around midnight. We didn’t go to the show, but noticed a limousine parked outside the stage door. There were maybe one or two people hanging around the limo, and my friends and I deduced it was Lou’s ride. So we walked over to the limo just as a guy comes out of the stage door and says Lou will be out in a few minutes. My friends and I were like, “WOW.” We were only just starting to appreciate Lou Reed’s music at the time, but he was quickly vaulting up into something like VIP status in our estimation. We thought it strange there weren’t more people waiting for him.

Anyway, Lou comes out – his eyes fried wide open – almost like he was recently electrocuted. He moves past us and into the car, and then rolls down his window to chat, which basically meant trading one or two word responses to handful of questions and comments like… I can’t even remember – stupid stuff, probably. Somebody gave me a pen and I grabbed a napkin off the street for Lou to sign. He grabbed my napkin, and just as he did that, a random passerby on the other side of the street was shouting to someone else named Steve – “Steve – Steve – Steve!” Lou Reed returned the napkin to me with the words “Best of luck, Steve.” Ha-ha.
 
I still have the napkin somewhere. Coincidentally, the next night I was riding in an elevator of the hotel where I stayed. I shared the elevator with a stranger who was in the city with a church group. When this person had free time, he proceeded to tell me, he wandered around taking pictures of celebrities like an amateur paparazzi. He was in the background on the night I met Lou Reed and he recognized me from there. He took a great picture of Lou sitting in the car, and he gave it to me (since he didn’t know Lou Reed from Mr. XYZ, he had no reason to keep the picture for himself). So, not only do I have best wishes to Steve from Lou Reed, I have a picture of Lou sitting in his limo from that night given to me by a random dude – some kind of youth minister no less – that I met in an elevator.
 
That is not all… The night after that, I was walking down that same street across from the stage door of the St. James Theater. I noticed the stage door was cracked a little bit… so I went over and let myself in. Yes, I did. There were a couple roadie-looking guys, maybe sound techs, who saw me, but didn’t care. It was Lou Reed’s encore of the fifth and last night at the St. James… I got to watch him do – if memory serves - White Light/ White Heat, Satellite of Love and Sweet Jane.  I remember it being absolutely incredible. 
 

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