Waitin' for My Man (Lou Reed)

Maybe Lou Reed's comment to Rolling Stone writer David Fricke in 1987, "I hate cheap sentiment," was the reason for Mr. Reed's confused facial expression in response to my comment when we first met. It was on the set of a tongue-in-cheek rock n' roll farce called, Get Crazy. We were both in the film, and I said, "the only reason I said yes to this movie was to meet you!"

Our second, and final crossing, was at a New York book party. Lou had just returned from Czechoslovakia where Vaclav Havel had requested to be interviewed by Mr. Reed as a thank you for the Velvet's music feeding him while he was in jail for his writing. When a president calls, you answer. Lou was excited to have been asked, and the feeling coming from him was palpable.

Thanks for being "my man," Mr. Reed, and at the risk of cheap sentimentality, you broke on thru to the wild side.

Love,
John Densmore

p.s. And thank you Laurie (Anderson) for such a heartfelt tribute in Rolling Stone to "your man." I give back the Pulitzer poet Galway Kinnell's line: "The wages of dying, is love."