This morning I am going to diverge from the usual partisan politics to pay a visit to art. As most anyone who reads this site knows already, Lou Reed - the iconic NY musician/poet, died yesterday at the age of 71. His raw lyrics and grungy music were inspirations to countless musicians who came after him. He was not known for the beauty of his singing voice, but like Bob Dylan before him, his voice matched the gritty realism of his words.

I was a teenager in the 70s, living in a small upstate NY town, surrounded by farmland, apple orchards, and woods. I lived a rather sheltered life, and listened to the Rochester radio stations. In my younger years, it was mostly top 40 and soul, but later on the FM rock station showed up. It was the usual FM rock from that time, and they'd occasionally play "Take a Walk on the Wild Side". It took me a while to figure out it was about "alternative lifestyles", but it and his grotty speak-singing were intriguing.

I was also starting to play guitar, so I was exploring music to see what I could play. I was also interested in songwriting, so I studied both the music and lyrics of the popular songs to see how they were put together. Because radio tended to play hits and not deeper album cuts, I had to really look around to see what else Lou Reed was putting out there. He was all over the music magazines I read.

When I finally listened to "Heroin" and "Rock and Roll" and "Sweet Jane", it was like a revelation. These weren't lyrics about love and sex - it was about the type of people I had never met in my little town, and their dirty lives. I realized there was a whole world out there I knew nothing about, but these denizens of the streets he sang about seemed to be really living life, taking chances, and sacrificing the comforts I took for granted to pursue their dreams. It was fascinating and inspiring and awakened something in me that the "safe" music I had been listening to had not.

When I learned the chords to "Sweet Jane", I played them for hours. I broke out of my shell and began taking chances, experimenting with drugs, doing things I shouldn't have (we'll leave it at that)... I discovered Iggy Pop and the Ramones and the Sex Pistols and found I connected with the raw energy. Had I not embraced Lou Reed first, I would have found them simplistic and off-putting. Instead, they reflected my frustrations and disaffection with a polite but insincere society.

When I was nearly 19, I moved to Atlanta. It was a much bigger city than Rochester, and we were much closer to it. I found like-minded musicians, found the blossoming gay scene, the blossoming punk scene, and after the initial jarring reality of it (versus the romanticized version I had created in my head due to my lack of experience), I found it all to be a wonderful - if oddly southern - hedonistic garden that my rebellious soul had been seeking. I went to the punk clubs as often as I could, and crisscrossed with all the strange and odd people out there.

That was over 30 years ago. Like Lou Reed, I grew older. I also became a little more sedate, more mainstream, and lost a lot of that "edge". I've held onto my long hair, and still have the denim jacket that used to be festooned with safety pins and buttons. I still take a perverse thrill in tweaking the uptight. I still feel an affinity to those who live on the margins of society, even though they would probably consider me to be "establishment".

Were it not for Lou Reed, I don't know how my life would have unfolded. Perhaps another street artist would have found his or her way into my psyche, perhaps not. But Lou Reed did, and my life has been a wonderful strange trip (to quote some other poets) because of it. The world is a little more superficial without him in it. Sure there have been loud, boisterous, angry, and anti-social musicians that have come and gone. Lou Reed never really "went", because he was honest and spoke with almost a compassion about those in society that most people avoid. They have lost their biographer, and that I think is the greatest shame.

R.I.P. Lou Reed...