David Goodwillie Discovers His Muse at the Chelsea

We seem to have stumbled upon a trend here. David Goodwillie is the third author we've interviewed who got into the Chelsea via a sublet arrangement.  It sounds like David's arrangement turned out OK. He met Anna Wintour down in Serena's and he scored a room with a view: "When I woke up and looked outside, I saw this gorgeous girl walking around topless in her apartment.  She was getting ready for work, but must have known I could see her.  I've never seen anyone take so long to get dressed.  And right in front of the window the whole time.  It was a good writing day..."  You can hear David read Friday at 7:00 p.m. at the Astor Place Barnes & Noble.
What do you do?
I've done all kinds of things since moving to New York City eleven years ago.  I've been a minor league baseball player (in Ohio, actually), private investigator, Sothebys auction house expert, investigative reporter, Internet entrepreneur, and finally, settled down to write books, which is the only occupation I've been successful at and is clearly what I should have been doing all along.  That said, my first effort, a memoir called Seemed like a Good Idea at the Time (it came out June 2nd), chronicles everything I did on the way to becoming a writer, so I suppose it wasn't a waste.  It's a generational story about what it was like coming of age in New York in the late nineties, the exact moment when the past--the history of the city that hangs heavy around us all the time--was overtaken by the future, by endless possibility--in the form of technology and the Internet boom.  Thankfully, it was something of a mirage, though it's scarred a lot of us who lived through it.  I'm writing a novel now.
When did you live at the Chelsea?

I never lived at the Chelsea, but I did write part of my book there.  I wrote in a friend (and fellow-writer's) room for parts of 2002-03.  It was something of a sublet arrangement, I suppose, though I sometimes rented my own room as well.  It's a great place to work.  The thick walls keep the outside world away.

What inspired you to move into the Hotel Chelsea?

I'd always loved the place, or at least revered it, been awed by the history of it, and it seemed to me--and still does--a kind of anomaly, even in New York City.  It was a place where art--and the varied lifestyles that word produces--came first.  Being offbeat is almost a prerequisite at the Chelsea, and in a rapidly homogenizing world, that's quite alluring. 
Do you think the Chelsea has a creative spirit?

Yes, of course, in the way that any historically intriguing place has a certain spirit.  It's funny: for all the hubbub about celebrities and artists forever roaming the halls, the actual halls, once you get up and out of the lobby, are usually incredibly quiet.  Even at night.  The heavy guestroom doors can seem like barriers protecting the secrets inside.  When I was stuck on something, I used to get up and walk around--up and down the big central staircase--wondering whose room was whose.  What had happened in this one, in that one?  Where did Leonard Cohen live?  Which room did Edie set on fire.  I was always too shy to actually ask anyone.  I never wished walls could tell stories until I spent some time in the Chelsea Hotel. 
Has your writing been influenced by any current or former Chelsea Hotel residents?

My writing is influenced more by the city than any one person living in it.  And in that way the city--at least my version of the city--has a lot to do with the Chelsea Hotel.  When I was writing an early draft of my book, I got really frustrated one night and asked my then-girlfriend what she thought the theme of the book really was: Careers? Coming of Age? Commitment?  Relationships?  She thought about it for a minute and the said something I'd never considered before.  She told me I'd written a love story, an ode to my ongoing affair with New York, the city itself.  And she was right.  Within that city, there are a few epicenters, symbols of the place and its living past.  The Chelsea Hotel is one of them.   

Who, among contemporary authors, do you most admire?

James Salter, Adam Gopnik, Phil Gourevitch, Joan Didion, Martin Amis, Zadie Smith, David Gates, Colson Whitehead, Amy Hempel, Jay McInerney.  Language, the way words work together, is important to them.  And they all, whether writing fiction or non-fiction--have an incredible ability to place you in a vivid setting (yes, often New York), before strapping you in and taking you for a ride.   

What was the best/worst thing that happened to you while living at the Chelsea?

I had rented a room on the far right side of the hotel (the left if you're facing it), and the windows looked across a "courtyard" (one of those urban wastelands between buildings) and into the apartment building across the way.  When I woke up and looked outside, I saw this gorgeous girl walking around topless in her apartment.  She was getting ready for work, but must have known I could see her.  I've never seen anyone take so long to get dressed.  And right in front of the window the whole time.  It was a good writing day... 

The worst?  I got stuck in one of the elevators for twenty minutes.  Alone.  In mid-summer.  Not that fun.    
Did you meet any famous folks while living at the Chelsea?

I used to see Ethan Hawke and Rufus Wainwright coming in and out all the time.  Ethan was usually alone, Rufus with a group.  I was friends with Sam Schaeffer, who along with his mother Serena Bass, were the original owners of Serena, so I spent a lot of time at the bar down there after long days of writing.  Sam knows everyone, so it was always quite a parade coming in and out of that cavernous basement.  I had my 30th birthday party at Serena (in 2002), and when I went in one afternoon to plan the thing with Sam, his then-stepmother Anna Wintour was there.  When I met her, she told me she liked my shoes.  I don't think I took them off for a month after that.

The marketing materials for "It Seemed Like A Good Idea at the Time," doesn't promote that part of the book is set in the Chelsea, why?

The time line of the book (1994-2001) takes place before my time at the Chelsea.  That said, the place affected me so much that I had to include it.  So I wrote a prologue (attached) that takes place at the Chelsea.  It's at the beginning of the book, though it takes place sequentially after the book is done.  I think it serves to root the story in New York, because the first chapter (which immediately follows) actually takes place in Ohio, at a tryout for the Cincinnati Reds.  You can probably guess how that went.   

Are you currently working on any projects you can tell our readers about?

A political novel about modern-day America and the two sides of my generation--those who care too much, and those who care too little.  I'm trying to figure out which is worse...

Read an excerpt from Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time.

SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA AT THE TIME

Here he is again, the man from across the hall.  He doesn’t care that my door was closed, that I was working, or trying to.  He comes in, takes a seat in the corner, and produces a cigar from the depths of his crumpled jacket.  It’s one of those skinny hybrid cigars, the type smoked by street kids and men who no longer fit in the world.  He rolls the thing around in his fingers, then lights it and sighs. 

“I’m here to save you,” he says. 

He says the same thing every time.  He talks without breathing, streams of words rushing past thoughts.  Today it’s Edie Sedgwick and the fire.  It was candles, he tells me, candles and coke and too much confusion.  He says he was here in the hotel that night and I believe him.  The names are what get me, so many famous names that I wonder if he ever knew anyone ordinary.  Back when he knew people. 

Arnold at the front desk laughed when I asked about him.  Said he’s some kind of writer, been here almost 40 years, one of their permanent transients.  He’d been a talent once, a voice of his generation and all that.  There were a few published stories in the sixties, heady comparisons, soft fame, but then a book deal went wrong, addictions emerged, and the spotlight moved on.  The requisite poetry came next, bitter and unreadable, and then nothing.  Two decades of silence.  For a while, in the mid-eighties, he’d started work on a new book, a history of everything left unsaid. But then his wife left him for a banker and he withdrew again, became the Joe Gould of 23^rd Street—a sad loner spinning tales that never were. Arnold said I shouldn’t listen.

            But I can’t help it.  The man looks past me out the window and speaks of ghosts. Heroes of that New York.  Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan, William Burroughs and toothless Gregory Corso.  He was here the night Sid stabbed Nancy, the night Mapplethorpe met Patti Smith.  Leaning forward he describes Edie’s skin, how the pills made it pale, how all that speed had her running in circles.  He talks with his hands, conducts a symphony with every sentence, and when he’s done, when the only story left to tell is his own, he gets up, looks solemnly at the pages piled on my desk, and walks out.

            I’ve been toying with the idea of turning him into a character.  But the thing is, I can’t remember what the hell he looks like when he’s gone.  He vanishes into these thick silent walls and I’m left with a vague impression of a Vonnegut gone to seed, a beard framing cracked yellow teeth.  Anyway, this is no novel.  He’d have to play himself.  And I don’t want the story to end like that. 

            My room was once a servant’s quarters.  There’s just enough space for a desk, two chairs, and a bookcase full of dusty essays on the nature of things.  On sunny days like this I open the window and let the city in.  A half mile north the silver towers of Midtown push against the sky.  Beckoning, even now.  My father, my brother, my friends, they’re all up there somewhere, surrounded by infrastructure.  There is safety in numbers, wealth in billable segments.  But I’ve learned I can’t live like that.   The hours fall too lightly. 

Mine is a crowded city of loners and opportunists.  Street level music, played out of tune.  I’m chasing the clunky promise of a life with a purpose.  But it’s risky.  Live too fast and you end up running in circles too.  You tell unending stories to strangers, mumbling names from liner notes.  Forgotten people from some other New York.

So I keep my head down, focus on the page.  This is a haunted hotel.  It’s a beautiful place.  I’ve been trying to get here a long time.    

Copyright 2006 David Goodwillie