Blue in the Face (1995)

Lou Reed: Man with Strange Glasses

Photos 

Quotes 

• Man with Strange Glasses : I'm scared 24 hours a day, but not necessarily in New York. I actually feel pretty comfortable in New York. I get scared like in Sweden. You know, it's kind of empty. They're all drunk. Everything works. If you, you know... If you stop at a stop light and don't turn your engine off... people come over and talk to you about it. You open the medicine cabinet and there'll be a poster saying... "In case of suicide, call..."

• Man with Strange Glasses : Yes, I am smoking cigarettes and some of my friends have died of them, but I am not downing a quart of Scotch in fifteen minutes. Looked at that way, cigarettes are actually a health tool!

• Man with Strange Glasses : I don't know anyone in New York who doesn't say 'I'm leaving'. I've been thinking of leaving New York for... uh... thirty-five years now.

• Man with Strange Glasses : My childhood was so unpleasant that I absolutely don't remember anything I think before, ah... age thirty-one.

• Man with Strange Glasses : My glasses represent probably the future of glasses for a certain segment of the population. I've approached, ah... I went to the patent office first about my glasses, that was because... let me explain what the glasses are. The glasses only have lenses on top. I went to a space shuttle launch and as then shuttle was taking off I could put binoculars right in, straight through my frames, because there's no lenses there. So the space scientists were all huddled around me, "how can I get a pair of glasses like that, how can I get a pair of glasses like that?" Because they were all standing there with these tacky little strings around their necks, with glasses hanging, or they've got them on their bald heads. Or, I'll be in a restaurant, and when I go to read the menu, I flip the lenses up and people come over and say "how can I get a pair of glasses that do that?" So I saw what my future was... that perhaps my future lay in eye-glass frame manufacturing, or being sponsored by a frame manufacturer. And I was going to call it 'Lou's Views.'