{"id":1051,"date":"2013-10-28T21:02:58","date_gmt":"2013-10-29T01:02:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/musicalurbanism\/?p=1051"},"modified":"2013-10-28T23:45:03","modified_gmt":"2013-10-29T03:45:03","slug":"a-lou-reed-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/musicalurbanism\/2013\/10\/28\/a-lou-reed-story\/","title":{"rendered":"now I have a Lou Reed story"},"content":{"rendered":"

Driving my 7-year-old daughter home from her gymnastics class tonight, we’re listening to the radio.\u00a0 Bruno Mars’ “Gorilla” comes on, and I use the confused irritation she expressed the last time we heard this ode to intoxicated sex (“Why is he singing about gorillas<\/em>?!”) as excuse to turn the station.\u00a0 I’ve discovered recently that I’m not very good as a sociologist in explaining the facts of life to my daughter and her younger brother \u2014\u00a0not because I want to protect my already sheltered kids from adult realities, but because I lack a finer sense of knowing when not to go down there<\/em> when a topic offers no tidy conclusion without threatening more childhood anxieties and sleepless nights.<\/p>\n

I turn the dial to WDST<\/a>.\u00a0 “Hey, this is a great song,” I say as I turn up the Allman Brothers’ “Midnight Rider.”<\/p>\n

“Dad, don’t go that way,” my daughter directs me from the back seat.<\/p>\n

“Okay.\u00a0 Sometimes when it’s dark, it’s good not to drive down that windy forest road.\u00a0 I don’t want a deer to dart out of nowhere.\u00a0 Going this way, you can see much further ahead,” I explain, offering an unsolicited driving tip eight years too early.<\/p>\n

We’re about four minutes from home when Lou Reed’s “Dirty Boulevard” comes on.\u00a0 Uh oh<\/em>, I think, I’m going to get emotional<\/em>. \u00a0I keep quiet, listening to those simple three guitar chords frame Lou’s story of Pedro living out of the Wilshire Hotel:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/youtu.be\/7z3TPwOT31g<\/a><\/p>\n

He looks out a window without glass
\nAnd the walls are made of cardboard, newspapers on his feet
\nAnd his father beats him ’cause he’s too tired to beg<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I begin to realize that these lyrics may be even harder to explain to my daughter than Bruno Mars’ body full of liquor, but I’m too focused on Lou’s story of Pedro ending up on the dirty boulevard, too busy trying not tearing up, to do anything but keep listening.<\/p>\n

Outside it’s a bright night
\nThere’s an opera at Lincoln Center
\nMovie stars arrive by limousine
\nThe klieg lights shoot up over the skyline of Manhattan
\nBut the lights are out on the mean streets<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“Dad, what traffic is he talking about?”<\/p>\n

Inaudibly choking up: “He’s talking about the traffic in Manhattan.\u00a0 This song is about how New York City can be a really hard place,” I note, entering the realm of About To Say Too Much.\u00a0 “It’s not as nice for everyone as it is for Grandma and Grandpa.”<\/p>\n

“It’s not?”<\/p>\n

“No, honey.\u00a0 This is a story about an immigrant boy who lives with his nine brothers and sisters.\u00a0 They have it really hard, and he has to beg instead of going to school. \u00a0Do you know what beg<\/em> means?”<\/p>\n

“No.”<\/p>\n

“It means you have to ask people to give you money. \u00a0Or he has to sell flowers to make a living.”<\/p>\n

“What’s an immigrant?”<\/p>\n

“It’s someone who comes from another country, maybe because they’re really poor and this is the only place they can make a living.\u00a0 It’s really hard for him, and he just wants to fly, fly away.”<\/p>\n

Fly, fly away<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Song over, the DJ comes on, announcing in a serious tone that Lou Reed passed away last night at the age of 71.<\/p>\n

“He died at 71?\u00a0 Isn’t that too early to die?”<\/p>\n

“Well, it’s an old age.\u00a0 Mom’s dad died at that age, didn’t he?”<\/p>\n

“Mom’s dad died at 71.”<\/p>\n

“Yeah. \u00a0Lou had a hard life<\/a>, but it all ended up okay.\u00a0 He ended up being a great artist.\u00a0 He changed music.”<\/p>\n

As our car pulls into the garage, she has to ask: “How did he die?”<\/p>\n

“Oh, honey…” \u00a0Sniff<\/em>.\u00a0 “I’ll tell you some other time.\u00a0 I love you.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Driving my 7-year-old daughter home from her gymnastics class tonight, we’re listening to the radio.\u00a0 Bruno Mars’ “Gorilla” comes on, and I use the confused irritation she expressed the last time we heard this ode to intoxicated sex (“Why is he singing about gorillas?!”) as excuse to turn the station.\u00a0 I’ve discovered recently that I’m not very good as a sociologist in explaining the facts of life to my daughter and her younger brother \u2014\u00a0not because I want to protect my already sheltered kids from adult realities, but because I lack a finer sense of knowing when not to go down there when a topic offers no tidy conclusion without threatening more childhood anxieties and sleepless nights. I turn the dial to WDST.\u00a0 “Hey, this is a great song,” I say as I turn up the Allman Brothers’ “Midnight Rider.” “Dad, don’t go that way,” my daughter directs me from the back seat. “Okay.\u00a0 Sometimes when it’s dark, it’s good not to drive down that windy forest road.\u00a0 I don’t want a deer to dart out of nowhere.\u00a0 Going this way, you can see much further ahead,” I explain, offering an unsolicited driving tip eight years too early. We’re about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":308,"featured_media":1053,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[43678,43653],"class_list":["post-1051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-alienation","tag-new-york-city"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/musicalurbanism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/musicalurbanism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/musicalurbanism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/musicalurbanism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/308"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/musicalurbanism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1051"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/musicalurbanism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1051\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1058,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/musicalurbanism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1051\/revisions\/1058"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/musicalurbanism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/musicalurbanism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/musicalurbanism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/musicalurbanism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}