New Year Junkie

My teenage sweetheart turned to WBCN during our heavy petting session. We might not have had sex, but on several occasion I thought that we might have come close enough to having achieved the 2nd immaculate conception. Janet and I were into the Jefferson Airplane, although she was more SURREALISTIC PILLOW while I loved the uncommercialism of AFTER BATHING AT BAXTER'S.

JJ Johnson was the station's prime time DJ. Teenagers around Boston depended on his taste to determine our cool. We were suckers for a black man with good reason. JJ Johnson knew his music and one night while Janet and I were naked on her mother's couch he played the Velvet Underground ROCK AND ROLL. The song opened with a slick guitar riff. I had heard better, but I was more prepared for the words of Lou Reed.

Jenny said when she was just five years old
There was nothing happening at all
Every time she puts on a radio
There was a nothin' goin' down at all, not at all
Then one fine mornin' she puts on a new york station
You know, she couldn't believe what she heard at all
She started dancin' to that fine fine music
You know her life was saved by rock 'n' roll

The song made me realize that I had to move to New York.

It took me 8 years.

CBGBs, Max's, Hurrah, Studio 54, the Mudd Club, and the Jefferson.

No Lou Reed.

He was in hiding as were the other members of the Velvet Underground. Their 15 seconds of fame had lasted a lifetime. They wanted to be anonymous. I gave up on ever meeting them, then new year's eve 1980 I was drinking industrial strength cough syrup and snorting cocaine with a bunch of friends on West 10th Street. I don't snitched out names of the guilty. Only the innocent can handle the light of day and this was the deepest of night. The door was unlocked and John Cale from the Velvet Underground entered the apartment. Fucked up as only a demi-rock star can be fucked up.

He said nothing as he chugged half the cough syrup. Hard speaking behind Robitussin. The pianist wiped his mouth and gave us each a monster line of cocaine. Real cocaine.

"Merry New Year." John Cale walked to the fireplace and pissed on the ashes of a Christmas fire. He left without saying goodbye.

The cough syrup was too strong to allow any comment on his intrusion.

We nodded out to the aroma of his pee and it smelled like rock and roll.

"And it was all right."