Ken Schaffer has lived in the same two-bedroom penthouse apartment on West 58th Street in New York for 49 years. A label on the door frame of his building reads, “DOORBELL BROKEN. Shout DINGDONG very loudly.” After I pound on the door for several seconds, Schaffer finally answers, holding his cat, Squeaker: “You were supposed to shout ‘Ding dong!’”

It’s unlikely he’d have heard me given the window-rattling volume at which he is blaring the Velvet Underground. Schaffer, who still looks boyish despite a little gray threading through his dark hair, isn’t a recluse, but considering that he’s a former rock-and-roll publicist whose clients have included Todd Rundgren, Alice Cooper, and Jimi Hendrix, he’s wary of interviews. “Usually, I can only come up with all my stories even in my own memory if I’m with a girl,” he says, bemused. “Then, I can go all night with stories.”