On The Occasion Of The Death Of Mr. Lou Reed

I spent my teenage years lugging The Velvet's 1969  from house party to house party, trying to get someone to play it, but with little luck.  Then in 1980 I met my buddy Dave.  He was a few years older, and known as something of an intellectual; or at least he'd swiped The Anarchist's Cookbook from UVIC's library and was using it to make smoke bombs and home-brewed chloroform.

Dave had lucked out.  He had managed to rent a small cabin on an acre of land right in the middle of down-town Langford.  The previous owner had died, and Dave was promised the place until the developer finally decided what would happen to it.  The property bordered a couple of strip-malls, so after closing you could play your stereo as loud as you wanted without attracting complaints or police attention.  It was a great  place to hang out.  But the previous owner, an old eccentric, had killed himself by sealing up the windows and running his lawnmower in the living room until he passed out from the gas and asphyxiated.  When Dave wanted you to know he was tired of you and it was time to leave, he'd bring out the same lawn-mower and fire it up until  the last kid was off his property.

Anyway, one day I had him throw on this song from the album...

...and got him to open all the doors and windows, and then I herded everyone onto the roof, where we lay on our backs and stared up at a clear, moonless night.  Pretty soon his house began vibrating in time with the guitars, and for ten minutes it seemed as though we were riding a giant space-ship, sailing just under the stars.

Later Dave decided that his life needed structure, and joined the armed forces.  Last I heard (mid 80s) he was off to Kingston to work on computers for them.