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  • 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. Huncke 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.
    2bokris

  • 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.

  • For the Love of Money

    Writer Joe Ambrose has always loved the outré culture associated with the building,  so much so that he wrote, Hotel Chelsea, Manhattan, a book that includes interviews with William Burroughs, Paul Bowles, Herbert Huncke, Richard Hell and numerous Warhol collaborators. Ambrose is also the author of Moshpit Culture (2001), an investigation of covert punk culture from inside the moshpit, and Gimme Danger (2002), a biography of punk icon Iggy Pop.

    What do you do?

    I do all kinds of things within the arts. I work as a DJ and member of experimental hip hop group Islamic Diggers.  Islamic Diggers produced the Dutch East India/Sub Rosa 2CD, 10%; File Under Burroughs which features tracks by Brion Gysin, Bill Laswell, Herbert Huncke, Chuck Prophet, Marianne Faithfull, John Cale, and William Burroughs.  In 2000 Islamic Diggers organised NO EXPECTATIONS, an evening of 60s Super 8 movies by Anita Pallenberg. These films, featuring Pallenberg’s pals like Keith Richards, Allen Klein, Marianne Faithfull, Mick Jagger and Brian Jones were shown at the  ICA and The Chamber of Pop Culture in London. I write regularly for www.outsideleft.com and www.thehandstand.org

    When did you live in the Chelsea?

    2001 and 2002.

    What inspired you to live in the Chelsea?
    After reading in the Protestant Times a dodgy piece which managed to make one of the most fascinating places in the world seem like the most boring, I thought about the Chelsea.  Despite the soporific nature of the article it reminded me all over again that the Hotel existed and, since I had to go to New York anyway, I decided to give the Chelsea a shot.  Frank Rynne reminded me that Miles, the counterculture activist and Allen Ginsberg biographer, had said to mention his name to Bard, who would then fix me up with someplace decent. Miles said Bard was an old sweetheart about whom he had nothing but good things to say.

    Miles was right. Bard told me on the phone that he wouldn’t give me a reduced rate but that when I got there he’d charge me their lowest rate and ensure that I had a good suite. He was as good as his word, I got good rooms in the heart of Manhattan and was properly looked after. 

    I stayed at the Chelsea Hotel as a sort of whimsical joke to, and on, myself. All my life I’ve loved the outré culture associated with that building, everything from the queer/junk-orientated Beat Generationers (principally Burroughs and Huncke) through to the punk rock mythology of the Ramones, Blondie, Patti Smith and Richard Hell – scenarios also well tinctured with touches of junk and queerness. It would be fair to say that, insofar as I can be said to stand within any movement, I am happy to make my stand within the broad parameters of culture as defined by early Seventies New York punks.

    What is your favorite Chelsea Hotel story?
    This is one of my own Chelsea stories, from the book on the place which I’m working on.

    Suicide King and One Eyed Jack, who lived in reduced circumstances in small rooms alongside one another on the Chelsea’s teneth floor, were the best of friends.  Every Friday night they tried their hands at the poker game that Hannah Reed ran on the third floor.  So, when Suicide needed money one day, One Eyed Jack pulled out a roll of tens.

    Later they fought because Suicide King refused to pay back the loan, though his circumstances had greatly improved.

    "Un hombre duro!" Suicide King said sarcastically about his old pal, when Jack got annoyed and threated to do something about it.
    "Despotico!" One Eyed Jack replied, sad to have lost his friend over so very little money.

    Would you move back to the Chelsea?
    Yes, when I move to Manhattan, which I will, though not in the immediate future.

  • The Stage (Continued from 6/14 & 6/21)

               III. A Threat.

    It was inevitable that The Umpire should eventually run afoul of Magda.  A ballet dancer in the forties and fifties, now elderly, Magda was a tough old broad who had cultivated a life-long habit of never taking any shit from anyone.  Magda was famous for threatening junkies—with a pistol—who attempted to shoot up in her shared bathroom.

                I was sitting there in the lobby when Magda came walking through, dressed jazz-age cool, her hair in a snow white bun.  Though she wasn’t frail, she walked with a cane, perhaps for defensive purposes.  As soon as she caught sight of Magda, The Umpire began running through her usual repertoire of signs, unambiguously disparaging this time.

                Most people just ignore The Umpire, or else, if they’re feeling cruel, they make a series of their own gestures back at her.  Magda, on the other hand, advanced right up to where she was standing, and said, “Something bothering you, honey?”

    Though showing, I thought, some distress, The Umpire continued to alternately hold her nose and give the old heave-ho.

    “You got something to say to me?” Magda asked.

    The reply was another series up hand signals. 

    I cringed, half expecting her to assault the Umpire with her cane.  Instead, showing remarkable restraint, she marched up to the front desk, and said, “You better keep that woman away from me, or I’m gonna kill her.”

                “Ah, come on, Magda,” the manager said, in his Brooklyn accent.  “Give her a break.  She’s crazy.”

    The Umpire had followed, either unafraid, or, more likely, compelled by her madness, and now stood nearby, making her signals behind Magda’s back.

                “I know damn well that bitch is crazy,” Magda said.  “I’m gonna kill her crazy ass.”

    Ed Hamilton