Your heart races. You aren’t sure if you’re
breathing. Your legs move under you, but that’s more from
desperation than strength. You are trying to shake hands with, talk
to, and make any form of contact with a legend ““ Lou
Reed.
Unfortunately for you Reed has mastered that age-old celebrity
mantra, “Keep your distance.”
So as you walk by his side, he walks faster. As you try to keep
your gaze aimed directly at his pale blue eyes, he looks stolidly
straight ahead; he has tunnel vision and you’re stuck on the
outside. Quickly, he makes his move into the next room, cleanly and
effectively breaking from you, the erstwhile fan.
This is not the stuff of fiction. In fact it happened to a
certain blonde (sadly for him not female in this case) friend of
mine. Drunk off a glass or two of free red wine, my friend, wanting
Reed to sign anything he could find, approached the former Velvet
Underground frontman at an after party. But Reed never gave him the
chance to ask even once, and he was left, jaw hanging, on the other
side of the legendary threshold.
Meeting people isn’t easy. What most people don’t
realize is that what happened to my musical theater-loving friend
was the best thing possible. “Keep your distance,”
should be the credo for fans and legends alike.
After the after party my friends and I were still able to talk
about the mysteriousness of Lou Reed. His status as a legend in our
mind was solidified by the fact that we were able to get close to
him, but not that close. Lou Reed is still enshrouded in the guise
of stand-offish genius.
What would have happened if my friend had actually been able to
engage in an intimate conversation with Reed?
“Hey, Lou how’s it going?”
“Well, actually I’ve got a corn on my left foot
that’s really killing me, and jeez I’ve just had the
biggest fright, one of my mutual funds dropped a point.”
To demystify the legendary writer of songs about heroin,
cocaine, lust and self-destruction couldn’t be a good thing.
I don’t want to know whether Lou Reed wears boxers or briefs,
prefers Captain Crunch with berries or without. I want to picture
him as a sunglasses and leather wearing untouchable rock star.
Not to say that meeting celebrities can’t be great if you
can handle it. I’ve gotten the chance to talk with many of my
favorite musicians from Grant Lee Phillips to Travis Morrison, and
they were cool guys just reinforcing my admiration for their
talent. But a legend is a legend. If mystery is part of the appeal
of genius then a mystery it needs to remain.
No one wants to see Paul McCartney (a former Beatle) make a jerk
out of himself on television. And believe me you don’t try
and justify meeting these legends to yourself by saying they could
give you good life advice. Imagine meeting Bob Dylan, probably the
greatest genius of the 20th century, and asking him the meaning of
life. Then having to try to make sense of the gravelly mumbled
answer you get that sounded something like “fake fish jam
boots.”
These people are legends because of their art. Dylan and Reed
put any answers they have in their songs.
Besides, actually talking to celebrities is just like talking to
anybody else. Take the rest of that after party. My tee-totaling
fair-skinned friend rambled on with Howard Hessman (of “WKRP
in Cincinnati”) for 15 minutes about some play. Genial, yes.
Life changing, no. While that was going on, an inebriated Karen
Black (of “Five Easy Pieces” fame) asked my girlfriend
how old she was.
“Twenty.”
“You must get carded all the time because you look like
you’re fifteen.”
“No, I get carded because I’m not of age.”
“Oh, well you’ll appreciate looking young
someday.”
Well, they give you some good anecdotes, anyway.
Bromberg’s column runs Thursdays.