A Walk On the Mild Side

It was the spring of 1978 in a land without the Internet, iPhones, personal computers, and even fax machines. While attending classes at N.Y.U., I found time to work for a private tax firm. Was I assisting in crunching the numbers and divining financial loopholes? Not even remotely. But when all the amounts were calculated and then transferred to legal documents, guess who walked the paperwork over to the various clients? I was a foot messenger and the streets of Midtown Manhattan were my true office. (And I mean walk, bicycle messengers were few and far between back then.) It was a sweaty job, but I was young, ambulatory, and certainly in need of scratch.

The plus factors were the affable co-workers I became friends with and the colorful and diverse clientele who would come to the firm to discuss their fiscal woes face to face with one of the tax hotshots. Among the celebrities looking for good news were Tony Bennett and Al Pacino. And, oh yes, Lou Reed.

The Lou Reed image —circa the start of the new millennium— was one that the public seems to hold dear these days —that of the sober, happily married reborn heterosexual, dispensing hard-won wisdom with the gravitas of a sage who had crawled through the dirt of the past four decades but had put all that behind him. This was the Lou Reed you could take home to your parents, because, basically, he was now your parent, albeit a cool one still sporting dark sunglasses.

Let’s just say the Lou Reed who drifted up to the taxman in 1978 was a different guy altogether. With his transgender lover in tow and, if I remember correctly, a small dog, Lou was usually decked out for the season in an eye-grabbing white suit and matching white hat. He didn’t look healthy, and he didn’t look as if he had spent the morning turning down any intrusive substances. If you could appear elegant, sepulchral, otherworldly, pathetic, and scary all at the same time, he did. Which was just the way we in 1978 imagined the lugubrious Lou to be. You couldn’t turn your eyes from him, but you might not want to get all that close.

I never spoke to him (would you?) when he dropped by, until that fateful time I finally did. Let me set the scene. In February 1978 Reed had released his album Street Hassle. I can’t give an opinion on it, because I was not a Reed fan then and I’m not one now. I respect him as a pop culture patriarch—I know how important the Velvet Underground is, etc.—but I never warmed to Reed’s transgressive bad-boy image and deliberately primitive musicianship. He may very well have been a genius, I just need yet more time to confirm it for myself.

Street Hassle seems to have gotten mixed reviews, and by spring it must have been obvious to Reed that he didn’t have a Transformer-like hit on his hands. What the album did have, which I was unaware of at the time, was a spoken-word cameo by Bruce Springsteen on the extended title track. (Note that detail, please.) At the time I was a Springsteen fan. The Boss had also released an album, Darkness on the Edge of Town, that year—in fact, just that spring. It had gotten great critical press and was climbing the charts fast.

So there I was, waiting at the elevator that auspicious day, clad in sneakers and documents in hand, ready to hit the streets. And who should be standing near me but the natty and dissipated Reed. Now was my chance. I knew what I wanted to ask him, and I also knew precisely how he was going to answer. Still, I had to hear him say it. I approached—it was like standing on the deck of the Titanic seconds before it kissed the iceberg. “Mr. Reed” —I was such a nerd I may even have addressed him that way—“Bruce Springsteen just released a new album. What do you think of it?”

Did he turn to face me? I doubt it, but I heard his words clear enough. “It’s SHHHHHIT,” he hissed.

I don’t remember our ride down to the lobby, but something tells me we didn’t exchange any additional pleasantries. We didn’t need to. Lou Reed had just given me a totally predictable yet consummate and completely priceless Lou Reed moment. All I can say is, well, thanks.

P.S. : Turns out I really missed my moment. Decades later I discovered that the maiden name of Lou Reed’s mother was Futterman! Can you imagine the verbal kick-into-the-mud I undoubtedly would have received if I had implied that we might be related? Another bullet dodged.

For those unwilling to endure the entirety of Reed’s twisted sonic epic, Bruce enters around the nine-minute mark.