January, 2005. It had been just over two months since I’d given up my job at The Times-Standard, left America and resettled in Prague. In that time there had been many adjustments to make, not least navigating Prague’s snowy streets in search of schools looking to hire a newly qualified English teacher who was down to his last few hundred dollars of savings.

By a chance referral, I’d managed to ingratiate myself with Andy Markowitz, who was then the Culture Desk editor of The Czech Business Weekly. Markowitz, a veteran of East Coast newspapers, had settled in Prague with his wife, Barbara, who was also a journalist.

“The only reason I agreed to meet with you,” Markowitz said, as we sat over a couple of pints of Pilsner-Urquell at the Marquis de Sade pub just off Old Town Square, “is that you worked at an actual newspaper for four years.”

Most expats, he informed me, came to Prague with no experience, having read and re-read “A Moveable Feast,” and dreamed of becoming Hemingway in Prague – and expected editors at Prague’s English publications to just amiably take them on.

Grateful that Markowitz was giving me a shot, I was willing to take whatever freelance work he had. The pay was modest, but at least there was some money – although the delivery of the actual cash upon filing of the story could be maddeningly slow. Even better was the chance to be published abroad, a neat feather in any young journalist’s cap.

So I picked up concert previews, festivals, profiles – “the light stuff.” For a time, before the teaching work came, the money from those stories was about all that kept me afloat.

Then came that January morning. I got a text message from Markowitz. Lou Reed, rocker and leader of the revolutionary 1960s band Velvet Underground, was coming to Prague. He was scheduled to host a series of talks with Vaclav Havel, dissident playwright and hero of the 1989 Velvet Revolution, which ended decades of Communism in Czechoslovakia. Havel had then become the last president of Czechoslovakia and, following the break-up, first president of the Czech Republic in 1993.

The two icons were scheduled to hold a press conference at the Hotel Andel in Prague. That same evening, the two were to have a stage discussion about the progress of democracy in the former Eastern bloc at the Svandovo Theater.

There was just one catch. The Czech Business Weekly, as its name states, was a weekly publication. Because of the timing of the press conference, it would be too late for us to run.

“So we can’t use it,” Markowitz told me. “But I thought you might want to go anyway. I mean, just for the experience. We’ll get you a press pass.”

Well, since I was at the time still technically unemployed, I had nothing else to do. So what the hell? Lou Reed and Vaclav Havel, together in the same room.

The day of the press conference I took the tram to Andel, a slender district that runs alongside the Vltava on the southwest side of the city. In Communist days, it was an industrial zone, but had in the years since become home to flats and shopping centers. The Hotel Andel, with its sleek black-glass exterior, was a typical example of the revamped district.

Upstairs in the conference room, a number of journalists were already assembled. Along with a number of Czech print, radio and TV journalists, there were also correspondents from CNN and the BBC (including Rob Cameron, who remains the BBC’s Prague correspondent even today) as well as a few others. I stood a little off to the side, quietly a bit abashed that I was first of all freshly arrived from America and thus largely ignorant of Czech politics, secondly merely a freelancer and finally, I didn’t even have a proper assignment. I was just there “for the experience.”

Vaclav Havel arrived, with an interpreter and an assistant or two in tow. He was a short man, with a quiet, shy air. The suit he wore was very modest, and when he spoke it was in a low voice, his eyes seeming to look either at his hands or at the floor.

Lou Reed arrived a little bit late. He looked tired, and it wouldn’t have surprised anyone had he been out late at the bars in Old Town. Sitting down next to Havel, adorned with his own personal interpreter, Reed wore a leather jacket and jeans, and spoke in a distinct, somewhat jaded way.

The first questions were asked by an attractive young woman from one of the Czech TV stations. I don’t remember her exact questions, but she welcomed Lou Reed to the Czech Republic and asked something along the lines of how it felt to be back in Prague.

Reed’s response to the question, which consisted of the expected pleasantries, all of it quickly translated, was not as memorable as what he said afterward. He finished his reply, then let stared at the attractive young Czech TV journalist, with the room full of reporters from all over, and said:

“You are incredibly beautiful, by the way.”

For a moment the room was silent. The woman blushed, expressed her thanks. Then, as if having inhaled, the room let out a rush of suppressed air and the buzz of questions came forth.

A bearded, bespectacled man from The New Presence or one of the other magazines leaned forward. He peered at his notebook, reciting lyrics from the Velvet Underground classic “Heroin” in choppy English:

“So Mr. Reed, in one of your songs you wrote about ‘all the politicians making crazy sounds.’ Do you still agree with those words?”

The respondent, with his famous heavy-lidded weariness, addressed the question as if he had been asked such questions far too many times.

“You’re talking about a lyric I wrote back in 1966,” he said. “But OK – yeah, sure. I think it still has relevance today.” He turned then to Vaclav Havel, his “personal hero,” and patted his shoulder.

“However,” he said to Havel. “I would never insult you by calling you a politician.”

The reply was translated, and a ripple of laughter arose from the packed room. Even Havel, generally an introverted man who was nervous at such press conferences, let a smile peek from beneath his trimmed mustache.

My memories of much of that press conference are blurry. I’ll admit to being more than a bit star-struck, and feeling out of my league standing alongside members of the global press corps. Here are a few scraps that I wrote down that day in the notebook:

Havel and Reed first met during an interview in 1990. They met again in 1998, when then-President Havel was invited to the Clinton White House. Havel brought Reed along as a musical guest.

While Reed said he couldn’t comment in detail about the current Czech political situation, he said his overall impression is that the country has made tremendous progress in terms of promoting personal freedoms since his visit in 1990.

“When I first came here (in 1990), it was explained to me that on the Charles Bridge if two teen-agers were seen talking and playing music they would be stopped because it was considered dangerous to the government,” Reed said. “That’s the way things used to be here. For me it’s just fanstastic to see the difference in the Czech Republic, how far it’s come, in the basic freedoms to express yourself. Before the government was so afraid that if people talked to each other something terrible would become of that – which turned out actually to be true. People did start talking to each other and they said goodbye to the government.”

Looking back now, I wish I’d recorded more of what Havel himself said. He spoke through an interpreter, and I think I was more interested at that point in just observing the man himself in person. Years later, I would end up teaching a woman named Misha at the Office of the Government who at one point worked as Havel’s personal secretary at Prague Castle.

Misha and I would talk often of her days working with Havel. She had fond memories of his “high water” pants, his Rolling Stone t-shirts, fellow writers like Bohumil Hrabal who would walk into the castle unannounced, with a beer in hand, calling out “Vashek!” He would always receive such visitors with customary humility, joy and respect.

But that was what I found out later. Recalling that morning at the Hotel Andel, he struck me as serious, focused on the task at hand, courteous and to the point. He was quite a contrast to Lou Reed, who to some extent, struck me as more or less a typical rock star, a bit up his own arse.

Anyway, the press conference ended. The reporters, having gotten their fill, rushed off to file their stories. Cameras were packed up, notebooks shut, and with a great din the room quickly emptied. I stood there, still a bit dazed by all the crush. I found myself standing right beside the table where the two principals had sat. Vaclav Havel stood up, gathering up his papers. I reached out to shake his hand. He looked up, saw my outstretched hand and, with a modest smile, shook it and went about his business.

A few minutes later, I noticed the room was empty, except for Lou Reed and a single remaining reporter. They finished talking, the reporter left, and then suddenly it was just Lou Reed and myself. I couldn’t believe it. Having accepted my nervous introduction with a quick, automatic nod, Reed waited, seeing a question hovering on my lips. In my pocket was a small digital tape recorder. On it, I had recorded some songs that I’d written.

I produced the tape recorder. Hastily, feeling my temperature rise, I asked Lou Reed the question that I’d tempted myself to ask. It was the reason I’d stayed behind after all the other reporters, even after Havel, had left. Would he listen to some of my songs?

He took one look at me and said –

“No.” He didn’t even blink. It was simple and final answer.

Mortified, but nevertheless understanding, I left. Christ, I thought, how could you be so foolish? Don’t you realize how often people must come to Lou Reed with such demands? After all, maybe he wanted to teach you a lesson about the realities of the music business, about how you got to be tough. Maybe that’s how he got started all those years ago.

All those thoughts, and others, went through my head as I headed downstairs and out into the street. Well, it wasn’t the end of the world. Perspective! You just met the leader of the Velvet Revolution and the leader of the Velvet Underground on the same morning. That counts for something, right? Put that in you pipe and smoke it.

Anyway, long story short: This past week Lou Reed died at age 71. Vaclav Havel is already gone, having died in December 2011 at age 75. It seems to me that the passing of Lou Reed and Vaclav Havel marks the end of something. The end of what? An era? I suppose more qualified writers, or political scholars, would have the answer. They would remark perhaps on an innocent era, sometime in the mid-Eighties to early Nineties, when rock stars and politicians felt that by joining together they could solve all of the world’s problems. Or a time when, just after the collapse of Communism, that it seemed that all the walls were coming down and a democratic utopia lay ahead. Certainly, the Czech Republic, which is at the moment without a formal government for and where political corruption is still commonplace, still is anything but perfect.

For me, their passing means something else. Maybe the answer is a lot simpler than I’m making it out to be. Maybe it was just a perfect day.