Rick Rasmussen won the 1974 United States Surfing Championships at more or less the exact moment Lou Reed's 

 went to the front of my small but not-unworthy record collection, and I've come to believe that the two men, together, planted a seed from which my fascination and love for New York would sprout, grow, and blossom. Rasmussen was 19 and a total unknown to us West Coast grems when he won the USSC. But we liked what we saw. He surfed hard and aggressively. Had a lot of flair. You could see it in his red-on-yellow board, in the big white-toothed grin, in the swagger that came through even in the small number of photos printed in the mags. Plus he had the coolest nickname—"Raz." (I happen to think that USSC juniors division winner Mark Levy could have taken Rick in a two-out-of-three throwdown. That's hometown bias talking, as Mark and I went to the same high school, and were as friendly as a senior and a freshman could be, teenaged social protocols being what they were. Then again, I'd surfed in a hundred or more amateur contests by that time, and it was understood by all that the junior division guys were better surfers than men. Yes, Raz was hot. But Levy was almost Wayne Lynch hot.)

is a monster of a live album, thick and heavy, gorgeous and grim, filled with addicts and queers and black humor ("Despite all the amputations, you could dance to the rock and roll station") and druggy isolation ("All you sweet girls with all your sweet talk, you can all go take a fucking walk"), and I spent some time yesterday morning trying to figure out how a teacher-obeying parent-loving 14-year-old in the warm lily-white suburbs of Manhattan Beach came to love it so. Then remembered that "Sweet Jane," 

 opening track, was used in a surf movie—

 if memory serves. "Sweet Jane" of course is the gateway drug to Lou Reed; that long, soaring, twin-lead intro, dropping you smartly off at that famous Mount Rushmore riff. That must have hooked me. The

 LP cover—Reed, eyes closed, dog collar, black lipstick—would have given me a minor thrill, too, just the way 

 did, not the sexual fluidity exactly, just the transgression, and I was off to the races. 

Lou Reed Live—Rock and Roll Animal II, 

basically—came out a year later and was almost as good. And then 

 which by comparison was mellow, slight even, and featured Lou on the cover dressed in some kind of mime outfit, with a bowler hat and bow-tie. You want 

, and you get a mime. It took me a long time to warm up to that one.

, with the violins and cellos and whatnot on the title track, and forget it. I gave up on Lou Reed. Dumb kid that I was. It took a few years but eventually I returned, and now and then over the past three decades I have rediscovered and reloaded my appreciation, my love, for Reed.

And thus it was last Sunday night, soaking in a bath, as a man of my age and station is wont to do, with a finger of bourbon balanced on the tub rail. The Echo Dot my son got for Christmas had been commandeered and was on the floor, just out of splash range. "Alexa, play some Lou Reed." A few seconds, and the "Street Hassle" intro begins, spare, formal, gorgeous, almost a lullaby. Then here comes the vocal, and welcome home Lou: male hooker, sex, crime, drugs, death.

I didn't get around to visiting New York until 1988. It was beautiful, thrilling, hard, and filthy—just as promised by Lou Reed. And as lived, to an extreme and fatal conclusion, by Rick Rasmussen. After his '74 US title run, Rick mined all the beauty there was to be had from the waves of Long Island, then did the same at Pipe, Padang, and G-land. He also collected drug thrills by the armful and died at age 27 from a gunshot to the head during a 4:00 AM coke deal in Harlem.

I have never much been moved or carried away by what might be described as the artistic spirit. I march. I grind it out. But before the tub drained, before the whiskey was gone, before the song ended, almost without conscious thought, the clip you see here was already roughed out in my head.

STREET HASSLE: LOU REED'S ODE TO RICK RASMUSSEN

Subscribe or Login

Subscribe or Login

Encyclopedia of Surfing

History of Surfing

Interviews

Features

The Sunday Joint

Videos

Contests