The Last Great American Whale

I was channeling Lou Reed this week.

It actually started a month ago with a book on the Velvet Underground at my work, a complete discography of the group plus their solo output and all that. I read that thing during my lunch breaks an pretty soon I was feeling like I hadn't indulged in their music for a spell, so I browsed through the DVDs and found a live concert performance of Berlin directed by Julian Schabel. I took it home with me but hadn't opened it to watch it until a few days ago. As I watched it, I realized how unfamiliar I was with this album, so I looked up a review of it in my own Lou Reed/VU bio book. I got the lowdown on it: underappreciated masterpiece, scorned when first released but cult status has grown with time... the same thing with lots of Reed's music. Probably will happen for Lulu in about five or ten years...

Back at work the next day, I remembered that I had a vinyl copy of Berlin on my stash shelf, so I bought it. Took it home but didn't give it a spin, because I wanted to watch the rest of the DVD. Kept reading my Reed bio book and thinking about the collection of songs I'm finally getting around to releasing and how much debt I owed to Reed.

Then, on a train ride in Noblesville, my wife gasped aloud. She was checking her e-mail via her smart phone when she got the news about Lou Reed's death. My wife became a huge fan when we made the cross-country drive to Indianapolis; Lou Reed was her John Lennon, as she put it. I was in a state of shock, so much so that even our son got the hint when I told him to be quiet.

I realized how much Reed had been in the air this past week: I'd hear mentions of his name or hear someone covering a song of his (David Bowie doing "I'm Waiting For My Man" over the speakers at work) or see him on the TV (a special feature on the Berlin DVD included an episode of that Elvis Costello program-- Spectacle, I think it's called --with Reed and Julian Schnabel; I wanted to hear Lou speak but Schnabel just wasted all their time with his drivel, and you could see on Lou's face how bored he was with the director. Just because the guy loved the Berlin album enough to make it into a movie doesn't mean that Lou has to put up with his pretentious grandstanding.

I also realized that, with the exception of Prince, I own more Lou Reed/Velvet Underground albums and books and DVDs than anything else. I've had more Velvets/Reed stuff on my stash shelf at work than anything else (even prince, mostly because I already own a lot of hiss stuff) and never put any of it back when it came time to make purchases.

I remembered how my parents gave me such a small allowance that I could only afford clearance/marked down music at The Wherehouse store. All the stuff that eventually turned out to be the best stuff anyway-- Velvet Underground, Stooges, New York Dolls --was cheaper than the rest, so I bought them. That's how I got into that kind of music: economics. My personal situation dictated my tastes, so thank God for poverty!

But there was no poverty of taste when it came to Lou Reed. I can understand if people don't like his music or don't "get" what it's about. That's fine. But I instantly get suspicious of anyone who isn't hip to what he was about, because they tend to not like a lot of other good things and also tend to embrace flashes-in-the-pan regularly. And so far, in this life, that's been a great indicator of who to avoid or not take too seriously.