Living with Legends: Hotel Chelsea Blog

Chelsea Newsmakers

April Barton, of Suite 303, is no longer content just to be part of the Chelsea scene.  She plans to set up shop at the historic Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood.

By fall, the Roosevelt will house even more star attractions. Prominent Southern California chef Tim Goodell and his wife, Liza, who recently opened the restaurant Dakota at the hotel, will add a hamburger stand called 25 Degrees. The couple are also revising the hotel's room service and poolside menus. Demme will open another, more exclusive, club named Teddy's and New York hairstylist April Barton, whose clients include U2 and Elvis Costello, will cater to VIPs from a space overlooking Hollywood Boulevard. A spa, a gym and newly updated rooms are in the works.

It's a Chelsea morning at Tanglewood, where William Bolcom and Arnold Weinstein are the gurus. From the Boston Globe, July 29, 2005.

Studying Bolcom's works
Singer Joan Morris and composer/pianist William Bolcom gave a master class on Bolcom's cabaret songs to the vocal fellows of the Tanglewood Music Center late last week.

Bolcom's songs, written to texts by Chelsea Hotel Resident Arnold Weinstein and tailored to the voice and personality of Morris, have become repertory pieces for most American concert and opera singers, as well as for cabaret performers.  (Photo shows Arnold, William and Arthur Miller at the Chelsea Hotel.)

Both artists had significant musical points to make, but they also emphasized the visual aspect of communicating. At one point, they asked a singer to perform a song on nonsense syllables, while still delivering its full meaning.

Sally Singer tells us why Madonna & children are on the cover of Vogue.  "These are pictures of a happy family at home and that's what is so surprising to see with Madonna."

10 Cops Nab Candy World Bandit

The crime rate on our block went through the roof last night.  At about 8:30, when I was coming home from dinner, I noticed more than the usual number of rubber neckers hanging out in front of the Chelsea.  Their attention was focused on Candy World directly across the street where the cops were bringing out a wanna be bad guy. 

From across the way I spied Sayeed, who works at the neighboring Pita Hut, gesturing wildly and pacing back and forth.  So I walked across the street to find out what was going on.  According to eye-witness Sayeed, the wanna be bad guy tried to rob Candy World, but the quick thinking store clerk escaped and locked him inside of the store.  He was trying to break out of Candy World when the cops arrived. 

I got a look at the guy after he had been placed in an ambulance.  In answer to your question, yes, the guy was overweight.  Not obese, but he had probably spent quite a bit of time casing those candy stores.

November 1969

A fascinating November 1969 interview with Jimi Hendrix in the recent issue of RollingStone.

Fingering through his record collection (extensive and catholic; e.g., Marlene Dietrich, David Peel and the Lower East Side, Schoenberg, Wes Montgomery), he pulls out Blind Faith; Crosby, Stills and Nash; and John Wesley Harding. The Dylan plays first. Jimi's face lights: "I love Dylan. I only met him once, about three years ago, back at the Kettle of Fish [a folk-rock era hangout] on MacDougal Street. That was before I went to England. I think both of us were pretty drunk at the time, so he probably doesn't remember it."

First Podcast from the Chelsea

A brilliant idea.  As far as I know, this is the first podcast from the hotel.  I haven't checked it out yet, but I intend to.  Hopefully, I'll have more info to post about the podcaster(s) later.

Interviews and music from the Chelsea Hotel in New York City or here.

As promised, here’s what the caster(s) had to say about setting up the first ever podcast from the Chelsea.  Personally, I can’t wait for the second episode. 

Not an easy thing to say when it comes to the Chelsea considering that anything worth anything worth mentioning was either done or done first inside those hallowed walls. This is not to say that it was done well. And there we come to the first chelseahotel podcast by me, a 12 year resident, and really just a bit of mockumentary farce in the hopes of learning this podcast thing from the ground floor up and getting something out there. Not to say it aint funny and the music aint hip but it's a bit of a first stab at mild pod like entertainment. Oh yea, and that's not really Arthur C. Clarke reading from the 2001 script. The next episode's gonna be a doozy though. We've got Rene Ricard, live music, more seances to Sid, great tunes and a slicker format and audio quality. So stay tuned!

A Reader Writes...

A reader and former resident writes to ask if I knew that this notorious meeting in labor union history had occurred at the Hotel Chelsea as indicated by a recent article. “…John L. Lewis, President of the United Mine Workers, launched his famous right jab straight across the chops of Big Bill Hutcheson, President of the Carpenters' union. After Hutcheson crashed across a collapsing table, Lewis famously straightened his tie, lit a cigar, and walked out of the convention. Taking along key allies in the cause of industrial unionism, he went on to launch the CIO—an acronym that would forever be connected in to the unprecedented growth of membership, power, and mission of organized labor…” My research indicates that the scene above occured at a Hotel Chelsea which once existed in Atlantic City, New Jersey.  Too bad.  This definitely sounds like something that could have happened in the Hotel Chelsea.

Other Bloggers Visit...

This is a hotel afterall and sometimes other bloggers check in and blog about their experience.

Blogger Jen is Famous stopped by room 222 this week.  Unfortunately, she did not get any pics from inside the room where Leonard Cohen and Janis Joplin knew each other well.

Blogger Robert Paterson stayed in room 822.  A room known to both Madonna and Isabella Rosselini.  He captured a nice image.

Finally, this confused blogger thought that he was headed to the famed Hotel Chelsea, but he ended up at “The Chelsea – a short term executive housing complex.” I’ve noticed this happens a lot, other hotels and apartment complexes use photos of the “Hotel Chelsea” in their promotional materials to convey a relationship to the real thing.

A Second Chance

Stanley Bard says that getting into the Chelsea is harder than getting into an Ivy League college.  He says he does extensive research on each potential resident.  And while I’ve no doubt that this is true, it sometimes happens, even at the best of schools, that the Registrar loses your transcript.

A man in his forties was moving into the Hotel.  He wore his gray hair cropped short, and was slightly overweight.  Seemed respectable enough—in the Chelsea sense, that is: he wasn’t wearing a suit or anything.  He had his van parked out by the curb, and in between carrying in boxes, he stopped up at the desk to say hi to the manager, a tall Hispanic man named Harvey.
         “I used to live here before, back in the eighties,” our new neighbor said.  “Stanley says he doesn’t remember.  ”You remember me, don’t you Harvey?” 
          “Yeah, I remember you,” Harvey said, though he didn’t sound too convincing, and I thought maybe he just said it to make the guy feel better.
          “I lived here for almost a year, and Stanley doesn’t even remember me!”
          “We get a lot of people passing through here, you know,” Harvey said.  “And sometimes it’s hard to keep them all straight.”

“I was worried about that, whether he’d remember me.”

“Well, he let you in anyway, so he must’ve liked you.”

“Back then I was a drug-addled 18-year-old,” the newcomer said.  “Partied all night.  Totally irresponsible.  Never even paid my rent.  Maybe I paid it once.  Stanley kicked me out himself.”
            Harvey didn’t say anything.  He looked on impassively.
            “But now it’s cool,” the new guy said.  “Blank slate, you know.  Now it’s all good.”

Ed Hamilton

All Tomorrow's Parties - July 25 - August 1

Monday, July 25, 5:00 - 9:00 p.m.
The opening reception for "Hung," will feature, for one night only, the work of Cynthia Plaster Caster.  Cynthia is famous worldwide for her plaster casts of rock's most well known penises.
Cynthia Plaster Caster's most famous subject was guitarist and former Chelsea Guest, Jimi Hendrix, immortalized in plaster Feb. 25, 1968. The 5 3/4-inch cast shown in the photo below was to be exhibited this month at Cambridge's Club Passim but was nixed by club officials concerned about upsetting kids and families. 

Censorship didn't slow Cynthia down.  She  was recently in the Chelsea casting about for another model.
"Last month I had the pleasure of staying there for the first, and hopefully, not the last time.  I'm in LOVE with that place!  The people hanging out in the lobby, the stairwell, the lovely, unpretentious-but-comfortable rooms..I want to CAST that hotel itself!!
    But I only have a brief story to tell about my stay: I was sitting in the lobby at 2 a.m., reading my E-mail when Ethan Hawke strolled in with a blonde girl (Not Uma).  They walked into the elevator before I could give him my calling card.  Sigh...I'm not always on my toes at a late hour..."
Club Passim
47 Palmer Street in Harvard Square, Boston MA 

Monday, July 25, 7:00 p.m.
Chuck Klosterman will sign copies of his book, "Killing Yourself to Live," a travel book with pit stops at famous rock and roll death sites.  First stop, Hotel Chelsea.
Borders Books
10 Columbus Circle, NY NY

Wednesday, July 27, 7:00 p.m.
Stop by and hoist a drink with Elisa Albert, Rania Marie Kelly and Judy Sheehan as they read from their forthcoming books at The Kettle of Fish reading series.
59 Christopher St., NY NY

Singing for her Supper

French actress Julie Delpy, who I've often seen living the Bohemian life at the Chelsea, has recently been dumped by her agent.  Perhaps that explains why I've seen her in the halls and elevator of the Chelsea, dragging a guitar along behind her and humming John Denver's "Sunshine." She was trying to keep her spirits up. 

"My agent dumped me when I was writing Before Sunset, because he thought I was wasting my time."

Delpy, who went on to get an Oscar nomination for co-writing Before Sunrise with co-star ETHAN HAWKE and director RICHARD LINKLATER, admits her agent-less years were very tough.

She adds, "I couldn't get hired and even when I did a good job, no one would notice it.

"I went from agent to agent and it didn't really work with anyone, and people would tell me terrible things. It was very difficult."  (Source: contactmusic.com)

Or, perhaps she wanted to be at the ready in case her pal Ethan were to burst into a rendition of Elton John's "Daniel."  If Ethan is such a superstar, can't he help Julie get an agent.

Fourth?

Andy Warhol's family home doesn't have the cache of William Burrough's home, which received a historic designation in Lawrence, Kansas last month.  Warhol's home is fourth on the Young Preservationists Association of Pittsburgh's list of the "Top Ten Best Historic Preservation Opportunities in the Pittsburgh Area for 2005."  Oakland Planning and Development Corporation (OPDC) recently purchased the home for $1,000, plus related costs.   The intention, says David Blenk, director of OPDC, is to restore the home and lease it to art students studying at Carnegie Mellon University.

Rene Ricard and Victor Bockris, former members of Andy's posse, continue to make their home at the historically land marked Chelsea Hotel.

In a December 2003 interview Bockris discusses Andy.
Bockris Now and Then!       

Rene Now and Then!
   

Rock Bottom

In a recently published interview, Brett Smiley, the subject of Nina Antonia's book "The Prettiest Star: Whatever Happened to Brett Smiley?" divulges that when the going got tough, he went to the Chelsea.

There was so much distrust and intrigue between the label at the time, Anchor Records, the distributors, and myself with Andrew. I didn't trust him, he didn't trust me. I just got to a point where I was living in London and just left. I came to New York and was living in the Chelsea Hotel for a long time. I hit a bottom of sorts there and moved to the west coast. After there you've got to swim. Stayed at the Chateau Marmont, got thrown out of there. I had an apartment at the Sunset Tower (a beautiful Art Deco hotel on Sunset Boulevard popular with movie stars of the '30's and '40's). I hit a series of bottoms but kept showing up in the L.A. glitter, glam rock scene. I was popular but wasn't doing anything productive. I did a coupla films. Worked around Hollywood. A series of love affairs. It was a very dramatic time. That's why these interviews can be very hard for me. They really can. I was there trying to hold on to what I could but yet my life was a real mess. A lot of drugs, a lot of drinking. I saw a thing in the paper last night about the Sunset Tower. It's now called The Argyle. I remember I was there, but I also remember I was carried out on a stretcher and taken to the neuro-psychiatric institution. When I get real about it, it was very tragic actually. Getting the silver platter of a deal and then everything just screwing up righteously. Not all entirely my fault but definitely I had my part in it. Just the nature of the business.

All Tomorrrow's Parties Continued...

Keren Ann is at the Bowery Ballroom this evening.  Her recent release, "Nolita" contains “Chelsea Burns” and “Song of Alice,” which tell the story of a homeless woman rumored to have started a fire in the Chelsea Hotel.  Those of us who live in the Chelsea are all too frequently confronted with the presence of fires, but it is reassuring to know that fires are fodder for the poetically minded.

Keren Ann speaks of the hotel in a recent interview with the London Times.  "...Nolita is definitely her New York record. "It's a very intimidating city. You can easily get lost, which is good if you are a songwriter. It is a very comforting place for solitary people. This record was written with New York's mistresses in mind, female characters like Lily Langtry and Nico. You can visit places like the Chelsea Hotel and their perfume is still there."

THE LONG BLACK HAIRS

            Hiroya was a fat Japanese man, friendly, gregarious, with long, wild, black hair, that hung in a tangle in his face.  He was an artist, and used to show his graffiti-based paintings in the hall.

            Hiroya shared a bathroom with us on the third floor.  Every day he would flood the bathroom floor, and every day the maid would argue with him about it.  Hiroya would swear up and down that it hadn’t been him, that a junky or a homeless person had broken into the bathroom and done it.

            I was coming down the hall one day when I heard them outside the bathroom, arguing:

            “Every day there be two inches of water standin’ on the floor!” the maid was screaming in her thick Jamaican accent.  “Every day I be havin’ to mop this floor!  Every damn day!  I be tired of it!  Next time you mop yourself.”

            “It the homeless,” Hiroya said in his broken English.

            “I know it not be no homeless!” the maid yelled.  “I know it be you, Hiroya, because the long black hairs be a swimmin’!”

Copyright 2006 Ed Hamilton

All Tomorrow's Parties - July 18 - 24

Monday, July 18, 6:00 - 8:00 p.m.
Opening reception and book signing for, CBGB and OMFUG: Thirty Years from the Home of Underground Rock. Photographs of former Chelsea Hotel regulars such as the RAMONES and PATTI SMITH are featured in "CBGB: A Place That Matters," an exhibit based on photographs and text from the book.
New York Municipal Art Society
457 Madison Ave. New York

Wednesday, July 20, 7:00 p.m.
Kirby Gann, reads from his newly released novel, Our Napoleon in Rags.  The book's main character spends a lot of time hanging in a dive bar called Don Quixote.  Unfortunatley, Kirby has never been to Chelsea's famed bohemian bar El Quijote.  However, on his last visit to New York, he made a specific trip to see the facade of the grand Chelsea Hotel building.  We'll invite him to have a drink at El Quijote this time around.
McNally Robinson
50 Prince Street NY NY

Thursday, July 21, 6:30 p.m.
Charlie Huston will read from his new thriller Six Bad Things.  Charlie has never stayed at the Chelsea either, but he has made it to the inside.  "I've really only been inside once or twice.  One of those occasions was to meet the man who officiated at my wedding.  He's a J.O.P. and a close friend of my father in law.  He and his wife were in town a month before our wedding and my wife and I picked him up at the Chelsea.  We took him out and got a little lit.  He and his wife are pretty bohemian and had always wanted to stay at the Chelsea.  Mission accomplished."
Coliseum Books
11 W 42nd St., NY NY

Friday, July 22
"The Ballad of Greenwich Village," a 70 minute documentary features interviews with literary figures Edward Albee, Norman Mailer, and Maya Angelou.  Directed by village resident Karen Kramer, the documentary opens at the Quad Cinema on Friday, July 22.
Quad Cinema
13th Street

Love Secrets from the Chelsea

Chelsea Hotel resident and author Susan Swan dishes out some advice to the wannabe Casanovas at match.com.

Born in Venice in 1725, Giacomo Casanova was a soldier, adventurer, spy, novelist—and perhaps the most famous ladies’ man in history. Men often assume Casanova was so successful with women because he possessed some secret knowledge of the female body or was a master of 18th-century aphrodisiacs. Casanova did like to feed oysters to his companion with his lips, but his reputation as one of the world’s greatest lovers was built not on secret potions or bedroom tricks, but on the fact that he adored women and devoted himself to them, heart and soul. Here are some reasons women loved Casanova as ardently as he loved them:
He thought every woman was special.
He loved listening to women talk.
He treasured and respected women as friends.
He lived life to its fullest.

Now that she has your attention, buy her book, What Casanova Told Me.

Chelsea Hotel Fashion Victim

The fashionistas over at Gawker "...want Nick to be less Chelsea Hotel and more Soho House..."  Frankly, Nick's look screams Soho House to me. (Photo credit: Jake Chessum)

The post did get me to thinking.  What is Chelsea Hotel style?  I conducted an informal survey in the elevator last night to see if I could discover any hot Chelsea Hotel style trends.

Chelsea Boys Prefer:
Pork Pie hats (a mistake for both tall and short men)
Anything that is paint splattered to prove bohemian street cred.
Pink Seersucker suits

Chelsea Girls Prefer:
Vintage mumu's of the variety worn by Mrs. Roper on Three's Company.
The tourists favor jeans (not Levi or Wranger) with an artfully ripped Ramones tee shirt.
The 6th floor residents prefer Commes des Garcons.
The 8th floor sirens lean toward Narciso Rodriguez.

Last night, Chelsea Hotel style ran the gamut from bohemian cliche to high-end avant garde to total class.  The main thing that I learned about Hotel Chelsea style is that you can look like a left over from Club Land or an angle with clipped wings and nobody will bat an eye.  More about Chelsea Hotel style later.

A resident in Narciso Rodriguez                                  

Gown designed by former resident Charles James

Chelsea Hotel style as captured by Helmut Newton

Since I don't have an author interview to post today, I checked out the new Google video search technology and found a BookTV interview with Sarah Vowell from a few months ago.  Apparantly, the author was asked if anyone had ever got mad at her because of what she had written.  And her answer:

"have I had anyone mad at me. I wrote about the Chelsea hotel where history not as hygienic as I would have liked. And the lovely people who run it and they were lovely, I talked to them, they seemed upset about my honesty there."

There Was a Debate?

In Lawrence, Kansas, the city commissioners debated and ultimately decided to place William Burrough's home on the register of historic places.

Burroughs was also fond of the Chelsea, which served as his first stop when he returned from Europe in 1964.  In an essay in Claudio Edigner's book Burroughs wrote, “Every room in this hotel is different.  You can find rooms from almost any period you want – the twenties, the thirties—or anonymous air-conditioned rooms that could be from anywhere.” 

Forget ambiance, those anonymous air-conditioned rooms are highly prized as the temperature reaches into the 90s.

The Bunker vs Chelsea?

Nothing is True Everything is Permitted: The Life of Brion Gysin, is being billed as the first-ever biography of the painter, poet, piper who died in 1986.  In the 1960's Brion spent some time at the Chelsea carrying on a love affair with John Giorno in room 703 among other things.   John Geiger, the book's author, regrets that he has never stayed at the Chelsea, "but last few trips have bettered it: crashed at the Bunker!"

Excerpted with permission From: Nothing Is True Everything Is Permitted: The Life of Brion Gysin, John Geiger, The Disinformation Company, 2005.

Gysin and Giorno were drunk or stoned, or both, and shared an immediate, extreme attraction. Gysin asked the young man to call on him at the Chelsea Hotel, and a few days later they became lovers. Giorno felt emotionally and intellectually attached. At twenty-eight, he was just coming into his own creatively, and he considered Gysin a "great teacher," not only in terms of art but the spirit. Said Giorno: “Before I met them I was just this dumb American. At that time in spring of 1965 I took my first 34 LSD trips with Brion Gysin at the Hotel Chelsea in Room 703. I was in my mid-twenties but it didn’t matter, I was like a 14 year old. I had come out of the 1950’s. My mind was blown in the context of those LSD trips, which we took one or two times every week. The Chelsea was the only safe place for us to do that. I was living on 9th Street and Brion lived in the Chelsea in this nice big room. At those times [on LSD] you don’t want to be outside. We were lovers so we fucked all the time as well. Brion was not a Buddhist or Hindu but he was doing his own sort of meditation that he never told me about, some kind of magic. On those acid trips I would also sit. The mind being a wild elephant, we’d both sit on the bed in meditation, resting our minds. They were my first experiences with real meditation in terms of trying to deal with my mind.”

Gysin had not abandoned the practical application of magic, either. He always had a good supply of hash and, at the Chelsea Hotel, even received a slab in the mail. It had been sent from France, and was so badly packed that the hash had eaten through the walls of the flimsy wrapping paper. Rather incredibly, it had simply been re-sealed by a customs agent, and sent on to him. Burroughs was deeply impressed with this demonstration of practical magic, and the fact that, as he put it, "some Johnson had put it back in and sealed it with tape." To Burroughs, a Johnson is someone who refuses to join in when everyone else is on their way to the Commissariat to denounce a neighbor.

Brion Gysin, March 1957.

The Transient Room

The Chelsea is a mix of permanent residents and transients—who could be tourists or businessmen, or prostitutes or junkies.  For the past few years we’d been lucky, and the room next door to us was rented by a dancer—exotic or otherwise, she never did say—who kept weird hours but was reasonably quiet.  But then she found a boyfriend and moved to New Jersey.

About a week later we heard a commotion outside. Someone was rattling all the doors on our floor, trying them to see if they were open.  He rattled ours—locked, thank God.  He seemed to get into the dancer’s room, and then things settled down for perhaps two minutes.  Then somebody banged on their door and we heard Bart, the security man, say, in a loud voice, “If I had known it was you, I would have never rented her this room!”  What had happened was that an old junkie (I had stuck my head out for a look, and seen a thin, toothless, older man), had got his slightly younger girlfriend to rent a room for them, and then he had tried to sneak in past the front desk.  “You were trying to trick me, Tony!” Bart said.

“Ah, no I wasn’t,” Tony said, in a thick Brooklyn accent.

Bart seemed ready to let Tony and his girlfriend stay.  Referring to the bathroom we were to share with them, Bart said, “Be sure to keep this door locked at all times.”  He left them in the room and went back downstairs.

“You told me this was gonna be OK,” I heard the woman say.

“It’s gonna be OK, baby, just let me handle it,” Tony said.  He’s letting us stay, you see?”

But in a flash, Bart was back.  He had talked it over with the night manager. “Sorry Bro, nothing personal, but you got to go.  You’re 86ed from the list, bro.  You want a room you’ll have to talk to the owner, Stanley Bard, he’s the only one who can rent you a room.”

“Stanley’s my friend.  He’ll rent me a room.  Just talk to him.”

“You talk to him,” Bart said.  “Stanley ’s in at six in the morning.”

Then Tony’s true feelings toward Stanley seemed to surface, as he exclaimed: “That fucking bastard!”

“So you gonna make it easy or do I have to call the cops.” 

“Yeah, go ahead and call them,” Tony said.  But then he immediately thought better of it and agreed to go.  He was probably well known to the police, and who knows what kind of contraband he was holding.  “We’ll be down in a few minutes,” he said, but Bart wouldn’t leave him for even a minute. 

“Don’t worry, baby,” Tony said as they left, “we’ll go over to a place I know on east 23^rd.  It’s much better than this dump.  They have a weight room and everything, and they’re thirty dollars cheaper.”

The woman wasn’t having any of it.  As they walked out to the elevators, she said, “I didn’t know they would call the cops on you!”

We were relieved to be rid of them.  Sharing a bathroom with junkies is no picnic.

Fifteen minutes later somebody was down on the street, yelling hysterically, “I’m done with you!”  He yelled the same thing, over and over, for about a half and hour.  Then he moved on down the street, still yelling, and his voice trailed off and finally died away he rounded to corner.

Later that night I asked the night manager, “Was that Tony yelling in the street?”

“Yeah,” he said.  “He was yelling in the lobby too.  I just wish people would keep that shit upstairs so I didn’t have to deal with it.”
Copyright 2006 Ed Hamilton

More Honors for Patti

Former Resident Patti Smith received one of France's top cultural honors on Sunday.

Smith, 58, was presented with the insignia of Commander of the Order of the Arts and Letters by Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres.

The ministry, in a statement, noted Smith's appreciation for 19th-century French poet Arthur Rimbaud, and praised her as "one of the most influential artists in women's rock 'n' roll."

Smith said she accepted the award "from the most spiritual side of me. I have vowed to live up to this honor in my work and my conduct. ... It has uplifted me, and I will work very hard to earn it."   Photo Source: AP

Larry Brown July 9, 1951 - November 24, 2004

Novelist Larry Brown would have celebrated his 54th birthday today.  In honor of his birthday, I'm going to share some advice I received from Brown nearly 14 years ago.  First, some background.

After money had been stolen from my apartment, the building manager instructed me to file a report with the police.  The money had been stolen from inside of a copy of Brown's book, BIG BAD LOVE, which is where I had placed it for safekeeping.  When the cops arrived to investigate the complaint, their first question was "Is this pornography?"  Anyone who has read the book will know that the collection of stories feature male protagonists of the beer-drinking, pick-up driving persuasion.  Just the way I like'em I might add.

I shared with Brown the cop's impression of his book.  In return, I received this advice from Brown.

Halloween, 1991
I'm much distressed and chagrinned to find out that BIG BAD LOVE attracted pilfering worker-thieves and enticed them to violate your bookshelf.  Those big bad boys need a big bad spanking.  I'm further distressed to discover that the D.C. police department thought it might be pornographic.  You shoulda told'im you had DIRTY WORK too.  I guess maybe the landlady might be right. (she suggested that I hide my money in the Bible)  Next time tape it under your microwave.  They'll never think to look there.
all best, signed Larry Brown

Brown's stories were later made into a movie starring Debra Winger.  The cops never found my missing money.  About a month later I got a call from the video rental store saying that I had several tapes overdue.  The thief had been using my video card to rent porno movies.  The cops were on the right track after all.

Cult Fiction

The Rough Guide To Cult Fiction, is billed as a guide to over 200 cult authors including genre benders, beats, gurus, drunks, junkies, sinners, and surrealists. According to the editor, in the entry for Herbert Huncke the book discusses how he spent his last years in the Chelsea financially supported by the Grateful Dead.  Photo: Huncke in his room at the Chelsea © Laki Vazakas

Other Chelsea authors who made the Cult Book:
Charles Bukowski -- Stayed in 1010, Janis Joplin's room, when he came to town to read at St. Mark's on the Bowery.
Arthur C. Clarke -- On Sept. 29, 2004, a new plaque was added to the front of the Hotel Chelsea, to commemorate that Clarke wrote “2001: A Space Odyssey,” while living in room 1008 at the hotel.
Leonard Cohen -- Do I really need to spell out what went down with Leonard & Janis?
Allen Ginsberg -- In 1973, Ginsberg recorded songs & poems on a Wallensack tape recorder in Harry Smith's room on the Third floor.  Many of these were later released by the Smithsonian Institution on the Folkways label.
Brion Gysin -- Took a few hits of acid with his pal John Giorino in room 703 and they both lived to tell about it.

The Cult Guide also covers Sarah Bernhardt's little known fictional efforts. Perhaps the next time, they'll include the famous picture of her asleep in a coffin in the lobby of the Chelsea Hotel.  Source: Turn West on 23rd: A Toast to New York's Old Chelsea.

Charlie Has Never Stayed at the Chelsea -- but his JOP did

Charlie Huston is the author of Caught Stealing and the recently released Six Bad Things. Since Charlie had the bad guys in Caught Stealing stop in the Chelsea for a visit, I asked him for his favorite Chelsea story.

Why did you decide to have your bad guys visit the Chelsea?

First off, the Chelsea has all this great punk cache.  It's hard to create a fictional place that's going to evoke Warhol, The Velvet Underground, Leonard Cohen, Sid Vicious and so on.  So why bother trying?  Also, I'm sure the security is all very up to date these days, but it still feels like a wild west kind of place.  The kind of place where a couple desperados on the run could hole up.  Short answer: the  Chelsea is cool.

Have you ever stayed at the Chelsea?

I've never stayed at the Chelsea.  I've really only been inside once or twice.  One of those occasions was to meet the man who officiated at my wedding.  He's a J.O.P. and a close friend of my father in law.  He and his wife were in town a month before our wedding and my wife and I picked him up at the Chelsea.  We took him out and got a little lit.  He and his wife are pretty bohemian and had always wanted to stay at the Chelsea.  Mission accomplished.

Yes, That Gene

In an interview with The Independent, actor Gene Wilder, who was born Jerome Leiberman, reveals that he chose the name "Gene" to honor Thomas Wolfe's autobiographical character Eugene Gant.

"...He spent a year in England, where he trained at the Bristol Old Vic and became the all-schools' fencing champion, then he enrolled at Lee Strasberg's Actor's Studio in New York.
It was there that he took his surname, in homage to the playwright Thornton Wilder.  He says Gene was the name of a character in a work by author Thomas Wolfe..." 

Factory People Around the Chelsea

The upcoming documentary, Factory People, is the first major documentary on the Warhol era since the release of Andy Warhol: The Complete Picture in 2002.  The new documentary will be broadcast on French television in autumn 2005. 

Among the Warhol era folks interviewed by the producers was Victor Bockris, the author of numerous books including Beat Punks,  Warhol: The Biography,  With William Burroughs: A Report from the Bunker, Patti Smith: An Unauthorized Biography.  Bockris was interviewed in his room at the Chelsea in May 2005.   Other photographs from the interview sessions are also available online.

The Paintah

            I was walking through the Chelsea lobby one day.  The owner, Stanley Bard, a small, dapper older man in a suit and tie, was standing up by the desk talking to a younger man with a beard and paint-stained overalls--a common type at the hotel.  The man had obviously come to inquire about getting a room.  “So what do you do?”  Stanley inquired.

    “I'm a paintah,” the bearded man said, in a heavy Brooklyn accent.

“That's great,”  Stanley said, visibly excited. 

Stanley was always happiest when given an opportunity to speak of the glory of the hotel.  “This is just the place for you.  We have lots of painters living here.  Famous painters.  You’ll get along fine.  What kind of stuff do you paint?”

The man gave Stanley a quizzical look.  “I paint houses, whadaya think?”

“Oh,”  Stanley said, obviously disappointed.  “What I meant was, abstract or figurative?  I thought maybe you painted pictures.”

“Nah, I said I was a paintah, not an ahtist.”

Ed Hamilton

All Tomorrow's Parties - July 4 - 10

July 1 - August 24
Former Chelsea Hotel resident Robert Mapplethorpe is featured in "Robert Mapplethorpe and the Classical Tradition: Photographs and Mannerist Prints."  Robert Mapplethorpe and Patti Smith moved into the Chelsea in July 1969 and immediately felt at home in the creative chaos that is the Chelsea.
Guggenheim Museum, 1071 Fifth Ave.

July 9, Saturday at 6:00 p.m.
Resident and author Michael Rips reads from his widely reviewed memoir, Face of a Naked Lady.
Caino's Books
Sag Harbor, New York

Bohemians Get Thirsty

Celebrate the holiday weekend. Join the legions of Bohemians and literary figures who have hoisted a glass at El Quijote. The El Q is conveniently located in the Hotel Chelsea.

Pulitzer Prize winning American poet John Berryman finds the cafeteria like vibe of the watering hole unwelcoming.

Artist Robert Filliou enjoys a beer and conversation with William Burroughs.

Painter Julian Schnabel declares his greatness.

Dylan Thomas stops in for a pick me up before heading over to the White Horse.

Boxer Jose Torres grants an interview to journalist Jack Newfield.

The Toxic Bachelor gets a lecture from his mother.

The detective meets his co-conspirator in F. Paul Wilson's Legacies.

According to Dee Dee Ramone, "they drink rubbing alcohol in"  El Quijote.
Tasha discovers drugs in her drink at El Q in Sara Davidson's Loose Change.
Valerie Solanas of I Shot Andy Warhol fame enjoys a cold one there.