My friend Lou Reed just died

Magic & Loss: Lou Reed dies at 71



Reed in a detail from the cover of "Magic & Loss," his 1992 rumination on death, guilt, and hope.

The death of Lou Reed — songwriter, guitarist, singer, poet, Warhol-Factory fixture, devoted t’ai chi student, cultural critic, curmudgeon, husband and creative partner of Laurie Anderson, inspiration to countless musicians and artists — was in the news everywhere yesterday. The story of his demise, some said, was greatly exaggerated — but it turned out that the idea of Reed’s death being a hoax was a hoax itself; Reed, who had had an emergency liver transplant in May, had indeed passed. He was 71.

Reed was not a Buddhist — “But I’d like to be,” the Telegraph’s Mick Brown quotes him — but he did study meditation with Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche. “He teaches Buddhist philosophy,” Reed told the London Times, acknowledging the connection, “so I’m a student of Buddhist philosophy. If he was teaching table tennis I would learn that.” Despite the lack of label, Reed helped to raise funds for Mingyur-related programs and also Tibet House, contributed his voice to the narration of the film Brilliant Moon: Glimpses of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, and even once played “Perfect Day” for the Karmapa. He was also a serious practitioner of t’ai chi, and made an album of music specifically for meditation and meditative movement. But even putting these things aside, and perhaps, too, his legendary cantankerousness (when I insisted on shaking my idol’s hand at an in-store event years back, it was like holding a handful of limp green beans — and he made a face to match), he had the kind of frankness and fearlessness that many a dharma student would admire.


That frankness and fearlessness was evident, for example, on harrowing later-Reed works like Magic & Loss, an album-length reflection of the loss of two dear friends (one being the legendary songwriter Doc Pomus), and Set the Twilight Reeling, an unflinching look by Reed into his own mirror as he tries to find his way in his autumn years. (The album also includes “Adventurer,” a tribute to Anderson, his then-newish love, who would prove to be not just his muse but his equal.) Standoffishness and petulance may have been Reed hallmarks in public and in the press. But in his work? Aging, illness (Reed was famously indulgent with narcotics in the first half of his career), death, identity, gender identity, the meaning of art, the meaning of life — he was never afraid to address these things there. All of it was fair game.

“There’s a bit of magic in everything / and then some loss to even things out”
– Lou Reed, 1992.

A lot of living in his 71 years. Blessings and peace to him, and to those dear to him.

Here he comes, he's all dressed in black
PR shoes and a big straw hat
He's never early, he's always late
first thing you learn is that you always gotta wait
I'm waiting for my man

Laurie Anderson's Farewell to Lou Reed: A Rolling Stone Exclusive
'For 21 years we tangled our minds and hearts together'
by Laurie Anderson
NOVEMBER 06, 2013

Rolling Stone pays tribute to Lou Reed, the outsider who changed the course of rock & roll, on the cover of our new issue. In an exclusive essay for RS, Laurie Anderson reflects on her 21-year relationship with Reed and his final moments.

Mick Jagger, Michael Stipe, Thurston Moore and more friends and followers pay tribute to Lou Reed

I met Lou in Munich, not New York. It was 1992, and we were both playing in John Zorn's Kristallnacht festival commemorating the Night of Broken Glass in 1938, which marked the beginning of the Holocaust. I remember looking at the rattled expressions on the customs officials' faces as a constant stream of Zorn's musicians came through customs all wearing bright red RHYTHM AND JEWS! T-shirts.

John wanted us all to meet one another and play with one another, as opposed to the usual "move-'em-in-and-out" festival mode. That was why Lou asked me to read something with his band. I did, and it was loud and intense and lots of fun. After the show, Lou said, "You did that exactly the way I do it!" Why he needed me to do what he could easily do was unclear, but this was definitely meant as a compliment.

I liked him right away, but I was surprised he didn't have an English accent. For some reason I thought the Velvet Underground were British, and I had only a vague idea what they did. (I know, I know.) I was from a different world. And all the worlds in New York around then – the fashion world, the art world, the literary world, the rock world, the financial world – were pretty provincial. Somewhat disdainful. Not yet wired together.

As it turned out, Lou and I didn't live far from each other in New York, and after the festival Lou suggested getting together. I think he liked it when I said, "Yes! Absolutely! I'm on tour, but when I get back – let's see, about four months from now – let's definitely get together." This went on for a while, and finally he asked if I wanted to go to the Audio Engineering Society Convention. I said I was going anyway and would meet him in Microphones. The AES Convention is the greatest and biggest place to geek out on new equipment, and we spent a happy afternoon looking at amps and cables and shop-talking electronics. I had no idea this was meant to be a date, but when we went for coffee after that, he said, "Would you like to see a movie?" Sure. "And then after that, dinner?" OK. "And then we can take a walk?" "Um . . ." From then on we were never really apart.

Lou and I played music together, became best friends and then soul mates, traveled, listened to and criticized each other's work, studied things together (butterfly hunting, meditation, kayaking). We made up ridiculous jokes; stopped smoking 20 times; fought; learned to hold our breath underwater; went to Africa; sang opera in elevators; made friends with unlikely people; followed each other on tour when we could; got a sweet piano-playing dog; shared a house that was separate from our own places; protected and loved each other. We were always seeing a lot of art and music and plays and shows, and I watched as he loved and appreciated other artists and musicians. He was always so generous. He knew how hard it was to do. We loved our life in the West Village and our friends; and in all, we did the best we could do.

Like many couples, we each constructed ways to be – strategies, and sometimes compromises, that would enable us to be part of a pair. Sometimes we lost a bit more than we were able to give, or gave up way too much, or felt abandoned. Sometimes we got really angry. But even when I was mad, I was never bored. We learned to forgive each other. And somehow, for 21 years, we tangled our minds and hearts together.

It was spring in 2008 when I was walking down a road in California feeling sorry for myself and talking on my cell with Lou. "There are so many things I've never done that I wanted to do," I said.

"Like what?"

"You know, I never learned German, I never studied physics, I never got married."

"Why don't we get married?" he asked. "I'll meet you halfway. I'll come to Colorado. How about tomorrow?"

"Um – don't you think tomorrow is too soon?"

"No, I don't."

And so the next day, we met in Boulder, Colorado, and got married in a friend's backyard on a Saturday, wearing our old Saturday clothes, and when I had to do a show right after the ceremony, it was OK with Lou. (Musicians being married is sort of like lawyers being married. When you say, "Gee, I have to work in the studio till three tonight" – or cancel all your plans to finish the case – you pretty much know what that means and you don't necessarily hit the ceiling.)

I guess there are lots of ways to get married. Some people marry someone they hardly know – which can work out, too. When you marry your best friend of many years, there should be another name for it. But the thing that surprised me about getting married was the way it altered time. And also the way it added a tenderness that was somehow completely new. To paraphrase the great Willie Nelson: "Ninety percent of the people in the world end up with the wrong person. And that's what makes the jukebox spin." Lou's jukebox spun for love and many other things, too – beauty, pain, history, courage, mystery.

Lou was sick for the last couple of years, first from treatments of interferon, a vile but sometimes effective series of injections that treats hepatitis C and comes with lots of nasty side effects. Then he developed liver cancer, topped off with advancing diabetes. We got good at hospitals. He learned everything about the diseases, and treatments. He kept doing tai chi every day for two hours, plus photography, books, recordings, his radio show with Hal Willner and many other projects. He loved his friends, and called, texted, e-mailed when he couldn't be with them. We tried to understand and apply things our teacher Mingyur Rinpoche said – especially hard ones like, "You need to try to master the ability to feel sad without actually being sad."

Last spring, at the last minute, he received a liver transplant, which seemed to work perfectly, and he almost instantly regained his health and energy. Then that, too, began to fail, and there was no way out. But when the doctor said, "That's it. We have no more options," the only part of that Lou heard was "options" – he didn't give up until the last half-hour of his life, when he suddenly accepted it – all at once and completely. We were at home – I'd gotten him out of the hospital a few days before – and even though he was extremely weak, he insisted on going out into the bright morning light.

As meditators, we had prepared for this – how to move the energy up from the belly and into the heart and out through the head. I have never seen an expression as full of wonder as Lou's as he died. His hands were doing the water-flowing 21-form of tai chi. His eyes were wide open. I was holding in my arms the person I loved the most in the world, and talking to him as he died. His heart stopped. He wasn't afraid. I had gotten to walk with him to the end of the world. Life – so beautiful, painful and dazzling – does not get better than that. And death? I believe that the purpose of death is the release of love.

At the moment, I have only the greatest happiness and I am so proud of the way he lived and died, of his incredible power and grace.

I'm sure he will come to me in my dreams and will seem to be alive again. And I am suddenly standing here by myself stunned and grateful. How strange, exciting and miraculous that we can change each other so much, love each other so much through our words and music and our real lives.

This story is from the November 21st, 2013 issue of Rolling Stone.
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/laurie-andersons-farewell-to-lou-reed-a-rolling-stone-exclusive-20131106

What a great piece of writing , so open moving and touching.

Reading this on the forum is a little unusual , but it highlights for me that there are many touching true moments in life, for everyone in all walks of life, Buddhism has always been for me a gateway to one's heart, Sometimes maybe many times' buddhism' has gotten in the way of my heart, For me dropping all the ramifications of 'buddhism' walking away from what we walked away from has been such a good thing to do.
Our hearts are always here, I hope he visits her in her dreams

attended a rather wondrous memorial celebration of Lou Reed's life tonight at the famous Apollo Theater in Harlem.  Lots of folks shared very moving stories about his life, songs sung, poems.  His Tai Chi teacher and fellow students did a demonstration, and Laurie Anderson talked a great deal about meditation and mindfulness and how it impacted their lives.  She even lead the crowd in an spontaneous short meditation - with no instruction.  She just went into quiet and stayed present for some minutes.  Paul Simon and Patti Smith both sang some great songs....

Sounds a great memorial

V. jealous, wish I had been there too. It sounds like goodbye to an era by a lot of it's heroes. My heroes of course too.

December 17, 2013 - New York Times
Lou Reed’s Complex Spirit Is Invoked at a Reunion of His Inner Circle
By JON PARELES
Video of some of the event:  Amateur, poor video, but OK sound - https://youtu.be/a9Wie9U7ggM

Righteous guitar noise began and ended the memorial for Lou Reed on Monday night at the Apollo Theater. It was a celebration, for an invited audience of family and friends, of what more than one speaker called his “complexity”: his kindness and his asperity, his spirituality and his earthiness, his groundbreaking music and his silent meditations.

“He lived for beauty,” said his widow, the performance artist Laurie Anderson. “Lou knew what he was doing and what he was going for. His incredible complexity and his anger were part of his beauty.”

Early arrivals heard Marc Ribot and Doug Wieselman, with their electric guitars cranked up, playing a dissonant, pealing, improvisational duet that eventually resolved into “When the Saints Go Marching In.” At the end, Patti Smith led a band in the Velvet Underground’s “Sister Ray,” adding more-uplifting lyrics to its tale of drugs, sex and murder, as Ms. Anderson and members of Mr. Reed’s tai chi class demonstrated graceful moves.

Through three hours of music and remembrances, the songs Mr. Reed wrote for the Velvet Underground and through a constantly changing solo career — hard-nosed and unflinching, unguarded and tender, ferocious and delicate — were set alongside his dedication to tai chi and Buddhism and his 21 years with Ms. Anderson. “There was never a single doubt that we loved each other beyond anything else, from the time when we first met until the moment he died,” she said.

The memorial took place 50 days after Mr. Reed’s death on Oct. 27, Ms. Anderson explained, at the end of the 49 days of what Tibetan Buddhists call the bardo, a transitional state after death.

She also noted that the Apollo is on 125th Street, a few blocks from the corner where, in a definitive Velvet Underground song, the narrator waits in “I’m Waiting for the Man.” Mr. Reed’s longtime producer, Hal Willner, and Paul Simon cited Mr. Reed’s lifelong admiration of African-American music, from doo-wop to Ornette Coleman to Nicki Minaj.

Ms. Anderson said that Mr. Reed wrote songs in single bursts. “He would wake up in the middle of the night and just write the song down and it was complete,” she said. “He never changed a word. He thought, ‘First thought, best thought.’ ”

Mr. Simon sang the Velvets’ “Pale Blue Eyes,” marveling at its beauty and admitting there were lines he never understood. Emily Haines, from the Canadian band Metric, sang “All Tomorrow’s Parties,” and Jenni Muldaur sang the pensive “Jesus.” Deborah Harry rocked through “White Light/White Heat.”

Ms. Smith chose “Perfect Day” for what she called “Lou’s most poignant lyric”: “You made me forget myself/I thought I was someone else, someone good.” The a cappella doo-wop group the Persuasions reworked Mr. Reed’s “Turning Time Around.” Antony Hegarty, who appeared in the stage production of Mr. Reed’s album “Berlin,” performed a slow, poignant, tremulous “Candy Says.” Julian Schnabel, who filmed “Berlin,” calmly recited the patricidal, carnage-filled “Rock Minuet.”

The saxophonist John Zorn represented Mr. Reed’s improvisational side with a squealing, scurrying, exultantly perpetual-motion yawp of a solo. And Philip Glass, on piano, accompanied a recitation of the Kaddish prayer.

Maureen Tucker, the Velvet Underground’s drummer, read a message from John Cale, its keyboardist and violist, saying: “Regardless of our differences, we never really drifted too far from what initially brought us together. I guess that’s what real friendship is, and I miss my friend.”

Mr. Willner recalled that Mr. Reed’s albums, including “Berlin” and “Metal Machine Music,” were venomously reviewed at first, only to be acclaimed later. The tai chi master Ren GuangYi gave a silent demonstration.

Videos of Mr. Reed showed him performing as a bleached-blonde rocker, deadpanning his way through droll interviews and popping up in films. And at the end, Ms. Anderson spoke about life together as a couple. “We talked nonstop about everything conceivable for 21 years,” she said. “We talked about how to make something beautiful, what to do when you fail, and how to make something supremely ugly.”

She added: “Almost every day we said, ‘You are the love of my life,’ or some version of that, in one of our many private and somewhat bizarre languages. We knew exactly what we had, and we were beyond grateful.”

Mr. Reed’s last words, Ms. Anderson said, were “Take me out into the light!”