My brilliant and troubled friend Lou Reed Music“People always say to me, ‘Why don’t you get along with critics?’” Lou Reed told me one night in 2. I tell them, ‘I get along fine with Anthony De. Curtis.’ Shuts them right up.” We were sitting in the dining room of the Kelly Writers House at the University of Pennsylvania, where I teach creative writing. I’d brought Lou down to do an interview with me in front of 5.

As with so many things with Lou, it was touch and go until the very end. I always felt that one of the reasons Lou and I got along well was that we met socially before we ever met as artist and critic. Watch White Island HD 1080P. In June of 1. 99. I got stuck at the airport in Cleveland, where I had gone to cover the concert celebrating the opening of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. My flight back to New York was delayed for hours, and I was settling in for the wait when I ran into a record company friend, who introduced me to Lou and Laurie [Anderson, musician and Reed’s partner].

IMDb went to New York Comic Con 2017 to learn crucial tidbits about Marvel's anticipated new series, "Runaways." Watch to find out what we discovered. · With a light snow falling outside, Katherine Heigl exchanged vows with musician Josh Kelley in scenic Park City, Utah. The private reception was witnessed. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Soundtrack: The King's Speech. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart grew up in Salzburg under the regulation of his strict father Leopold who also was a. THE APARTMENT by Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond THE APARTMENT A DESK COMPUTER A man's hand is punching out a series of figures on the keyboard. BUD (V.O.) On.

There’s nothing like an interminable flight delay to grease the gears of socialisation.“You reviewed New York for Rolling Stone, right?” Reed asked, referring to his classic 1. Right.”“How many stars did you give it?”“Four.”“Shoulda been five,” he said. But he was smiling. The ice had been broken. So we sat and chatted in the airport lounge. The subject of the Hall of Fame’s list of the 5.

Team four star I have been a fan of dragonball abridged and I have waited season after season movie after movie to see what you would come up with for Broly the. Misc funny quotes gathered on the Net about sex and marriage, like: 'The sex was so good that even the neighbors had a cigarette'. (May be offensive to tight-asses).

Lou asked if Walk on the Wild Side was on it. It was, and he seemed pleased to be represented. Then, in a sweet gesture, he asked if Laurie’s O Superman had been included. It had not, but at that moment I got a sense of how important she was to him.

He didn’t want to make the moment all about him. On tour with his wife, artist and musician Laurie Anderson, in Girona, Spain, 2. Photograph: Robin Towsend/EPA. Though I subsequently interviewed Lou a half dozen times or so, I remember those more casual moments with the most affection. I recall talking with him at length about Brian Wilson, whom he greatly admired, at a party for Amnesty International. Another time, I ran into him outside Trattoria Dell’Arte on 7th Avenue when he and Laurie were heading to Carnegie Hall to see the Cuban musicians who had been part of the Buena Vista Social Club phenomenon. Encountering him around the city that way always made me proud to be a New York native.

An artist of incalculable significance, Lou was also, as one of his song titles put it, the ultimate NYC Man as inextricable a part of the city as, say, the Twin Towers. Now he and they are gone and the city still stands, however much diminished.*****“That was the bad move,” Lou Reed said jokingly, decades later, about following Transformer with Berlin.

That’s one of those career- ending moments. They said, ‘You want to do what?’”Lou and [producer] Bob Ezrin decided that Reed should write a suite of musically and thematically connected songs based on the disintegrating marriage of the two characters in Berlin. That Reed’s own marriage to Bettye Kronstad was falling apart would only lend the project additional force.

It would be something like a film in song form, a “film for the ear”, as RCA’s movie- style promotional posters for the album described it, or a “movie without pictures”, in Ezrin’s terms. Those literary and cinematic strategies also served to distance Reed from the visceral power of the material he was drawing on. Watch Epicenter Dailymotion. Berlin was real close to home,” he would say later.“People would say, ‘Lou, is that autobiographical?’… Jesus. Autobiographical? If only they knew!”The working notion was for Berlin to be a double album, complete with an elaborate booklet filled with lyrics, accompanying text, and photographs illustrating the record’s grim story. Setting aside the darkness of Berlin’s narrative, record companies shiver whenever the notions of double albums and elaborate booklets are mentioned.

They are expensive to produce, and therefore the album needs to be priced higher, which tends to diminish sales. Reed had only just established himself as a commercial artist, so this expansive concept for Berlin was by no means an easy sell to his label. The album is tough going for even the most objective listener. For Lou's wife Bettye Kronstad, it was devastating. Besides that, according to Kronstad, conceiving what the album should be turned out to be much easier than writing it.“Lou had become abusive on our last US tour, when I got him on to the stage as clean as I could… He gave me a black eye the second time he hit me,” Kronstad wrote. Then I gave him a black eye, too, and that stopped him from using his fists. Everybody knew he was abusive – abusive with his drinking, his drugs, his emotions – with me.

He was incredibly self- destructive then.”The problem Reed had finishing the songs for the album, she sarcastically explained, “might have had something to do with all the fucking drugs and drinking he was doing. With Lou, people that he love become part of him, so I got to be part of that incredible self- destructiveness.”Things had gotten so bad that Kronstad flew to Santo Domingo to get a 2. Reed. The legal standing of such a divorce is complicated, but Kronstad’s action is more significant as an indication of how desperate she had become in her marriage. She was frightened and she wanted out. Kronstad remained in their apartment, on which she held the lease, and Reed moved out.“I don’t know where,” she said.

Then, one night, Reed called her from a local restaurant that had been one of their favourites, the Duck Joint, on First Avenue between 7. Streets. “He was, like, ‘Can you meet me here?’” Kronstad said. I was in a pretty good mood because I’d basically gotten my name back and I was no longer legally attached to him.

So I went. He was there with two other people; I don’t remember who they were. They were having a wonderful time, and he was so positive… He said, ‘I’ve stopped. Watch In Lieu Of Flowers Online Full Movie. I’ve quit it. I won’t do that stuff.

I’ll play it straight. We can do this. I need you. Can I just come over and talk about it?’” Kronstad let herself believe him. I had invested a great deal of my life in him, so I guess there was a part of me that wanted to be convinced.”But even when Reed finally did complete writing the album’s 1. I remember the morning I woke up and found him in the living room next to a mostly consumed bottle of Johnnie Walker Red,” she wrote. It was 8. 3. 0 in the morning and I became upset. His drinking didn’t usually begin until at least the afternoon.” Reed explained that he had completed writing the album.

He handed her his notebook with the lyrics in it, picked up a guitar, and sang the songs he had written. The songs on Berlin trace the disintegration of a couple, Caroline and Jim, through infidelity, violence, and suicide. Caroline is portrayed as unfaithful and promiscuous; Jim swings from yearning for her to icy contempt and malevolence.

He beats her and, in the song The Bed, describes her cutting her wrists and her subsequent death with a truly eerie detachment. The album is tough going for even the most aesthetically objective listener. For Kronstad, listening to it was a devastating experience. Scenes from her marriage and other details of her personal life are woven into the songs. Even when treated as composites or fictionalised in other ways, they were clearly identifiable to her and hit with intense force.

It’s hard to imagine why Reed would have chosen to play her those songs without any explanation, and even harder to fathom how he expected her to respond. Kronstad’s mother, who had been living in Queens, had recently died.

Having Survived a Tumor and The Jazz Singer, Neil Diamond Eases His Life Back into Shape‘He likes composing ‘because it’s something you do alone’For years Neil Diamond shrugged off a numbness in his right leg. Then in February 1. San Francisco’s Cow Palace and couldn’t get up. Less than two days later he underwent 1. I knew there was a good chance I would spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair,” says Diamond, 4.

I am lucky to have survived. As it was, I had to learn to walk again.”Given his reputation for determination, it’s not surprising that Neil not only is walking, but was high- stepping before mostly sell- out crowds during his recent concert sweep. I feel stronger than ever,” he explains, “and it was time to see my fans and for them to see me.” By year’s end Neil plans to appear in at least 2. American cities, plus others in Europe and Asia. On tour or off, Diamond remains an enormously popular international star.

His record sales are approaching 5. LPs worldwide, including 1. On the Way to the Sky. His commercial reputation is not unblemished, however. The 1. 98. 0 remake of The Jazz Singer, which marked his Hollywood debut, cost $1. U. S. (foreign sales and videocassettes took it far past breakeven, however).

The sound track did sell four million copies, and while his performance hardly dazzled critics (one reviewer critized him for “looking glum and seldom making eye contact with anyone”), Diamond earned a reported $3. He says now, “We made the film for fans, not critics.”A decade ago he scored the feathery flop Jonathan Livingston Seagull and ended up in a lawsuit with author Richard Bach against producer- director Hall Bartlett over plot and sound track changes. After Jonathan,” says Neil, “I vowed never to get involved in a movie again unless I had complete control.” He tested for the leads in Lenny and Taxi Driver, but lost the roles to Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro. I jumped at the chance to do The Jazz Singer because it had been one of my favorites growing up,” says Neil, who kept a portrait of Al Jolson, star of the 1. Still pursuing his movie career, Diamond hopes to appear in an all- dramatic role next year in the story of a devoted public school teacher, Death at an Early Age, or a thriller, The Unknown Man. I learned I can act, work comfortably on a collaborative effort and get a great deal of satisfaction,” he says.

He’ll host his own CBS- TV musical special later this year. Music is still the nucleus of his life.

When I’m not writing, I’m dying,” Diamond says, with the melodramatic flair that imbues his songs. Personally, he says he was thrilled by the marriage of Prince Charles and Lady Diana: “I’m a hopeless romantic and they are such perfect romantic symbols.”)Diamond works out of a West Hollywood bungalow elegantly furnished with a tortoiseshell desk- and- chair set, Indian rugs and plush cream- colored couches. His private office is a Neil Diamond memorial, with pictures of himself everywhere, walls aglitter with gold and platinum records, and the top of a grand piano stacked with awards, including his Seagull sound track Grammy. He oversees his own career even down to concert- booking minutiae, nourished by a steady flow of coffee and Camels. He says his voice is not affected by his two- pack- a- day smoking habit. I lose a few notes at the top, but since I’m the writer, I just don’t write notes I can’t reach.”Diamond says his home life is vital to his stability.

My wife keeps me alive,” he says of Marcia, 3. When you are a star, you get used to being taken care of. I remember one time Marcia had left to go somewhere and I wanted to eat but didn’t know what to do in the kitchen. I was helpless, so I stayed hungry until she returned.” Neil, Marcia and their sons, Jesse, 1.

Micah, 4, live in a seven- room Malibu beach house. His two daughters from a previous marriage, Marjorie, 1. Elyn, 1. 4, live with their remarried mother in New Jersey and visit during holidays.) “The best thing I can do for my kids is give them a normal life, be supportive, and let them find their own way,” he says. The plan is reminiscent of his own upbringing.

Born to a dry- goods merchant in Brooklyn, Neil won 2. The Marriage of Figaro. I was a lonely, withdrawn kid,” he recalls. He took up singing as a teenager, in part to meet girls. His big break came when the Monkees made his I’m a Believer a 1.

Cherry, Cherry. Tom Catalano, who produced many of Neil’s early records, observes, “He went from a nervous, uncertain novice to the exacting, self- disciplined performer you see today.”As suggested by his song Solitary Man, Neil values privacy. His personal security has included, at times, a force of 1.

My private detective bill is phenomenal,” he admits. There are a lot of crazies out there.”Security consciousness, however, doesn’t stop him from driving his 1. Porsche to visit his only brother, Harvey, or his parents, who live part of the year in L. A. “Neil is not a recluse, but he is private,” reports former employee Jerry Paonessa. Adds Catalano, “He’s not known as a big party- er, but he does socialize with the top echelon like Sinatra and Streisand.” Neil explains, “I chose writing as a profession because it’s something you do alone. Even now when I’m in a group of people, I feel alone.”He has approximately 2. He’s known as a benevolent, if exacting, boss.

When he says something’s going to happen, it does,” says one member of his band. Then, too, some things don’t happen. One former Diamond trouper notes, “I kept asking where all of the drugs were, and the only thing I could come up with was a shot of vitamin B- 1. Diamond has detractors. Seagull producer Bartlett snips, “He’s too slick now, and it’s not as much from his heart as it used to be.” Bartlett adds, however, “Neil is extraordinarily talented. Often his arrogance is just a cover for the lonely and insecure person underneath.”While other critics suggest Diamond should paint white lines on his records to warn of middle- of- the- road content, his fans are undaunted.

Jazz Singer screenwriter Stephen Foreman, who has attended several Diamond concerts, observes, “When you see a crowd of paunchy, middle- aged auto executives in Detroit get up and start dancing in the aisles, you realize something pretty unusual is going on.”Neil accepts his place in the music pantheon. After years of working with a psychiatrist,” he says, “I have finally forgiven myself for not being Beethoven.”.