clap clap blog: we have moved


Wednesday, April 23, 2003
LOU turns to TANK. REED: I know kung fu, baby.
Lou Reed in a fucking gold lame jumpsuit doing some kung fu shit

Yes, that's Lou Reed. Yes, this is an interview with him about kung fu. Goddamn Lou, that's some Elvis Presley shit right there.

Reed now studies privately with America’s top tai chi master, Ren Guangyi. Ren himself immigrated from a poor province in Mainland China to New York City a decade ago, surviving in various menial jobs and gradually making his name as top tai chi teacher in the field. Ren’s own rags-to-riches American dream immigrant story has made him a “superstar” of tai chi here in the States, strangely paralleling Lou Reed’s musical superstardom. Together they have an easy friendship, a real camaraderie, a mutual respect, and a drive to perfect their art that forms an intimate connection between them. It is also a great New York story, a tai chi story, an accidental but somehow fated destiny. While Reed is modest about his kung fu and pays traditional deference to his master, his story sets an example for all students of the martial arts. Read on, and discover how an artist becomes a martial artist.

Lou Reed? Modest? Damn, Master Ren.