As a kid in 1979, I would scream when I heard the chords to my favorite song off “Transformer” jangle out of the eight track player in our yellow Datsun. I’d join in the chorus of “Keep me hanging on” by extending my legs to the roof, holding onto the safety straps, pretending I was upside down and thereby hanging on.
He sang about some of my favorite things, “….catching a movie, hanging out in a park, feeding animals in the zoo.” None of the haunting sadness of his words translated. Perfection was good, and it seemed attainable.
At 10 years old, I would sing “High in the City” off my stepdad’s “New Sensations” record. I loved the picture of Lou in all leather with a red joystick. I pictured myself floating above New York City. I arrived in the city four years later, missing his concert by a couple weeks.
Lou Reed and New York City were synonymous to me. We walked around the city at night, eating Lebanese food after getting up close to some mafiosos hanging out in Little Italy. They were filming a Robert De Niro movie (GoodFellas I think) and some of the wiseguys were trying to get a look, standing threateningly in the street smoking cigars. My stepdad took us to galleries filled with art shouting a narrative of AIDS and death. It was the mixture of danger, adventure and beauty that Lou Reed had been singing about.
In 2000, I made NY my home. The city had changed, wiped clean by Giuliani. I was still enamored. In 2002, I was studying film at the School of Visual Arts. My friend Kembra Pfahler offered me a chance to film her playing a concert in Los Angeles with Lou Reed. I jumped on it. In what felt like a minute later, I was sitting down in a velvet theater seat across from Lou and Antony while they rehearsed.
It was a perfect day.
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