Though we usually don’t report on the movements of celebrities on this blog, it’s hard to let this one pass. On this past Saturday we saw former Chelsea Hotel resident Ethan Hawke walking down 8th Avenue with a very suspicious looking jacket. It was a old brown Carhartt, or something similar and on the back, slightly off center, was stenciled the legend: DD821. Now, to those of us in the Chelsea Hotel community this could be seen as a clear reference to Dee Dee Ramone, who lived for a time with his wife Barbara in room 821 of the Chelsea. But the really weird thing about it is that it appears to have been either created by, or more likely inspired by, the Japanese artist Hiroya, who often put his graffiti-inspired designs on clothes.
Hiroya, of course, was the wacky and obnoxiously self-promotional painter who died in 2003 after checking into the Gershwin and finding the accommodations lacking. He often wrote his name on his paintings with his room number appended, as in: Hiroya 820; and he would do the same for other residents.
The “DD” is also a plausible Hiroya construction (as is the off kilter placement of the slogan), but one of the reasons we think that the jacket is a fake is that Hiroya usually spelled Dee Dee’s name as DeDe. Another thing is that Hiroya would never use a stencil, and furthermore, the jacket would be liberally spattered with paint. So what gives? Did Ethan just haul out an old jacket and stencil it himself in an homage to Hiroya? Only his tailor knows for sure. Or maybe we’re just really too deep into this blogging thing and the answer is here!
The same day we were walking on 23rd Street and a girl looked up at the hotel and said, “Who the hell is Bard?” “Who knows?” said her unconcerned male companion. Maybe next time we see Ethan he’ll be wearing an equally cryptic Bring Back the Bards jacket. -- Ed Hamilton
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