NEW YORK. The rock star living the wild side of life at age seventy still has it nightmare than any beginner. «I’m in the desert: and I forgot my shoes. I’m going to take the bus: and I can’t find the ticket. I’m on the bus: and that’s it forgotten guitar. I finally arrived at the concert: and it was all over. Well, this is what happens most often.” Here it is Lou Reed. His ex-girlfriend who at the age of fourteen experienced the horror of electric shock, to cope with what they later called “homosexual disorder”on March 2 seventy yearsbut his wife Laurie Anderson (“The most brilliant artist I know: but maybe I’m a little biased”) had to throw him a surprise party to overcome his reluctance to celebrate Big Birthdays.
A long and provocative career like real rock: come on Underground Velvet founded by Andy Warhol until Metallica was insulted by critics, only he could reinterpret it together Luluexpressionist masterpiece Frank Wedekind“And their fans hate me now” he says in his office-studio in the heart of the West Village, walls exposed and parquet (“No shoes please”), a guitar in one corner and a 22-inch mega-iMac in the other. “Crazy: they hate me – they must have the intellectual brilliance of a chair.”
Lou Reed he is seventy years old: and how does he feel? “Lucky. I can’t move in a wheelchair and I can stand on my own.”Woody Allen say it when you look mirror he saw the same twenty year old kid again. “That’s right: for me too. After all, he got an Oscar for the screenplay: leave the jokes to him.” Do you follow cinema? His first and last time in the film is Blue on the Face by Paul Auster: eighteen years ago. “Actually I want to do it actorAnd why did you change your mind? “Because my memory was always bad. And I didn’t think I was good enough. So I started writing myself monologue in music: a small comedy with me as the protagonist.”
Velvet Underground seems to be the fruit of a secret marriage between the two Bob Dylan and the Marquis de Sade.” “Who said that?”Richard Goldsteinhistoric gay rights reporter, New York Magazine1967. But listen to this: “Three months earlier Sergeant. belongs to pepperThe Velvet Underground closed the gap between rock and avant-garde.” And they did Alex Ross2010, very famous New Yorker critic. Which definition do you choose? “I didn’t think much about it. Compare and comparison I don’t like them. Only journalists do that. They give you grades: just like at school.”
This fame do not tolerate journalist: but didn’t you study journalism? All biographies say it… «I learned to write. Directing».No journalism.«Just one semester: and I’ve had enough. They teach you how to lay out all the information at the beginning of the article. They said: that opinion keep it to yourself. Dropped immediately. But I don’t think that category escapes my attention.” But he’s a col journalismonce famous, still trying: is it true that famous magazines rejected his articles? “Of course: Rolling Stones. They want to make some corrections. And me: do you want to make a correction on me? Maybe some suggestions. “A number of suggestionsure: but I don’t want advice. They say they corrected your grammar and suddenly you sound like someone else.When Andy Warhol he founded Interview the interview is full of “Oh!”, “Uh!”, “Ah!”. He wanted it to be written the way people spoke.”
Andy Warhol is his hero. “I I don’t have a hero. Meaning: an extraordinarily great man. And how lucky I am to have met him. Very bad there are no geniuses around us today.” Today we have the digital world, the internet, YouTube: a very different world. «I have to remember to clean up my profile on Google: new privacy rules came into force recently. But they didn’t amazing? I mean: I’m the first person to spend time there all the time – but what right do they have to store my data? Or YouTube: everything is on YouTube now. Interviews from fifty years ago, that you wanted to burn, when you were at your worst: oh my God! Does that scare you? “Look Amy Winehouse: very young and persecuted to death by the press. Without running away.”
He accused his media death. “Oh yeah. I mean: he doesn’t stand a chance. All the attention is on him. You’re over there vomiting, and soon there’s a nice photo on the internet of you vomiting. Good luck.” But this is not the fruit of rock ideology cursed? “Perhaps I was destined to die young: after all, all the great blues singers died young.” Lou Reed wrote it: in 1970. «Did I write it? Ah yes, after death Brian Jones by the Rolling Stones. But what did I say? I don’t remember any more.” That there comes a time in every rocker’s life when public pressure forces you to respond hope created by the mask. “No one has to live up to anyone’s expectations. Then: but what pressure? So who works in the mines? You breathe all that bullshit, the terrible wages. Only expectations: get beaten to death – like dogs. While the Wall Street moguls get bailed out by the government and cheat you as best they can. By the way: where do our people go? Barack Obama…».
Disappointed? “I think he’s trying his hardest to get a second mandate. But you see opposition? Rick Santooooorum? Oh my God: that’s amazing. If I were one of those paranoids, I would say that Obama orchestrated everything to get re-elected. But where has he been so far? One day he gave a speech in front of the statue Martin Luther King: but Martin Luther King would be with the Occupy Wall Street kids that day. That’s why we chose it. But no: Obama was missing in action. Lost in battle.”
When they asked him about the revolution of the 60s, Ralph Metzerthe professor who along with Timothy Leary gave rise to psychedelic culture, said today: “But what a revolution. The 60s were just a fraction of what we see now.” “By force. Today the whole world a burn. Look at Syria. In Egypt everything is still unclear. And what will happen to Iran? Does he have the right to have an atomic bomb? OK, they will be gods very stupid – and they might think how wonderful it would be to screw up the whole world. I don’t know: it’s up to minds greater than mine. And Syria? Why doesn’t this guy just take it and leave? Now, here’s all the money you want, but take your beautiful trophy wife and disappear. But it’s up to us to keep doing it police world? Are we going to let Israel do it?”
What do you think? “My friend said we should just take it Israel and move him to Utah: enough guys, get out of here. In short: what happened to me was terrible Palestine». He says very dubious and politically incorrect things: Israel is a threatened country. And then, sorry, he didn’t Jewish? “Jew of Russian-Polish origin. I consider myself a democrat without borders.” He said, “I want to embody the Great American Novel in my music.” «Each note is a chapter». Many are set in New York. “No Vidal headbuttssitting in his beautiful Italian villa writing about Italy.”
And how has your New York changed since it started? “We have to keep talking about it for five days… It’s a lot gentrificationall young professionals. Artists can’t stay there anymore. Very very very much more expensive. People are moving to Brooklyn and Brooklyn is expensive now too.” He was born in Brooklyn: do you miss him? “I miss a lot of things.” “I think life is too short to focus on the past. Instead I look to the future”: Lou Reed, 1988. What does he see in the past? future ? «It’s true: I’m not interested in repeating the past. I like it better now.”
Yes, but what about the future? “I live in the present: or at least I try. Then: what future? For God’s sake: now I don’t want to do hasty philosophy. I’m just a musician of rock’n’roll.” Maybe something more. “Say I’ve got some other things too.” Satisfied? “Never know what that means.” “It would be nice to have a baby to carry around”: so he sings New York1989. He lost a son? «It would be very nice: but I don’t have any. I love imagining it there. The key word is: will be.” Just a fantasy. «But who would have thought, for example, that someone like me should have office? I’ve done everything in my life not to end up in the office: so in the end you need a place to take all your stuff and here I am. In the office. Of course it’s in a tower block artist: and I don’t feel too bad about it.”
A rock star in the office. “But I slept on trains, in hotel lobbies, there were cinemas open all night: many had no place to sleep.” “There celebrity demanding all kinds of advantages.” This was the beginning of Great Jones Streetrock novel by Don DeLillo. And this is 1973: one year later Walking on the Wild Sidesong symbol of a lifetime sex, drugs and rock’n’roll. “Celebrities don’t require anything. And what you do with your life and your body is up to you. Nobody asks you anything. And there are no clauses to honor in contracts.”
Never feel burdened celebrity? “I repeat: you feel real pressure in the mine. Deal with this nonsense celebrity is not pressure: it’s a game.” Regrets? “None”. Nothing to complain about? «There are beautiful Japanese scrolls from four centuries ago. Show one framework sitting in the lotus position trying to gain good karma: after living a dangerous life. I showed it to Laurie who made me a copy – beautiful. But did you know? Skulls looking for positions to gain good karma: maybe a little late, right?
