Dee Dee Ramone was a Chelsea Hotel institution, coming and going, moving in and moving out, through the better part of three decades. At once likable and obnoxious, Dee Dee had a rock star’s charisma and a child’s insecurities, which he dealt with by by self medicating on whatever he could get his hands on. Though he let his emotions run away with him sometime, at bottom he had a generous heart and is missed by his friends at the Chelsea.
On the fifth anniversary of his untimely passing, we offer this video as a tribute to our old Chelsea comrade. Life was an adventure for Dee Dee, and we hope this film exemplifies the excitement he brought to many an otherwise mundane situtation. Always in motion, Dee Dee was fated to be constantly in search of rest. We hope he has finally found what he was looking for. https://legends.typepad.com/sidsroom6012.mov
Credits: Legends of the Chelsea, Snap Films
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Monday, June 4, 6:15 p.m.
Andy Warhol’s rarely screened film Chelsea Girls is getting a workout this week. It’s being shown all week long at MoMA. (195 minutes)
The Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53 Street, between Fifth and Sixth avenues NY, NYTuesday, June 5, 8:00 pm
FIAF (French Institute Alliance Française) will present Satie and the Cinema, a special evening of
music, film, art and poetry featuring renowned pianist Bruce Levingston performing and discussing the works of Erik Satie.The program will focus on the remarkable collaboration between the brilliant and eccentric composer
Satie and the great director René Clair with a screening of their 1924 silent surreal masterpiece Entr’acte. "The magical, innovative images and special effects of this ground-breaking film, combined with Satie’s luminous score, make Entr’acte one of the extraordinary artistic achievements of its time," says Levingston, who will give a rare live performance of the sparkling music Satie wrote to accompany the film. It is the first score ever synchronized frame by frame for a film and the last piece of music that Satie ever wrote.Mr. Levingston will also perform some of Satie’s earlier works including selections from the Gnossiennes, Gymnopédies, and Sarabandes as well as a complete performance of Sports et Divertissements, a unique collection of twenty pieces of music and poetry written by Satie to accompany twenty brilliantly colorful pochoir prints by Charles Martin published in 1925–a time when this print-making technique, also
used by Matisse, Miro and Picasso, among others, was reaching its greatest height. A set of Martin’s original prints for the work, once belonging to composer Virgil Thomson , will be projected on a screen
during the performance.
Florence Gould Hall, 55 East 59th Street NY NY, Members $25, Non-Members $30, Students (w/ID) $25Wednesday, June 6, 10:00 – 6:45
For
our readers in Ohio, a retrospective of the work of designer Charles James recently opened at the Kent State University Museum. Eleven garments will be on display in the Museum’s Alumni Gallery. These will include early pieces, such as a black satin coat created in 1943-1945 for the Elizabeth Arden Salon on New York’s Fifth Avenue, to some quintessential 1950s day, cocktail and evening attire. Among the jewels of the Museum’s collection will be the magnificent "Butterfly" and "Concert" evening gowns. The exhibit runs through February 2008.
Alumni Gallery in Rockwell Hall on the corner of East Main and South Lincoln streets on the Kent Campus, Kent, Ohio.Thursday, June 7, 10:30 p.m.
Susanne Bartsch and Kenny Kenny invite one and all to Kino 41. Kino 41 starlets: Amanda Leopore, Lady Fag, Moondust, Furey and Andre J. Cine Sounds & Show: TBD. Life is Like a Movie. Stop by every Thursday for your close up.
135 West 41st, NY NYSaturday & Sunday, June 9 – 10, 12:00 – 6:00 p.m.
The Big Apple BBQ Block Party. The Big Apple Barbecue Block Party brings people from all walks of life together to celebrate America’s culinary and musical traditions, real pit barbecue and live jazz, blues, bluegrass and rhythm & blues.
Madison Square Park, Fifth Avenue between 23rd & 26th Streets, NY NYIf you have an event appropriate for "All Tomorrow’s Parties" send an e-mail to chelblog@yahoo.com
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Steve Dior, who played with Sid in a band called the Idols, has come up with a new theory about Nancy’s
murder. He says a drug dealer from New Jersey did it. But is that the same person as Rocket’s Redglare? We’ve heard the theory that Rocket’s did it, but we thought he lived in the East Village. Dior doesn’t name names. Another interesting contentious is that Nancy was killed with a "switch knife" which I assume is what we yanks call a switchblade — that Dior found, together with a bottle of mercury, in a new apartment he had moved into. All the other accounts I’ve read say that Nancy was killed with Sid’s hunting knife, which he apparently bought from a store right before the killing.
Since Dior was speaking at a launch party for Alan Parker’s new bio of Sid (his 3rd effort) we can’t help but be suspicious that this is just a play to generate press for the book. But we’d love to talk to Dior. So if you’re out there Steve, shoot us an e-mail and maybe we can interview you for the blog.
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In Sunday’s Daily News there’s an article about a woman, Karen Leiberman, whose building on West 85th Street is being torn down around her. The case is eerily similar to what has been happening to Daniel Peckham in his Chelsea apartment for the past two years. Both cases result from a landlord using a loophole in the housing code to empty a building of its rent-stabilized tenants.
In Peckham’s case it’s the so called “phony demolition” loophole, while in Leiberman’s it’s the owner-
occupancy provision. Futher linking the cases is the fact that both landlords – Larry Tauber in Peckham’s case, and Warren Malone in Leiberman’s – lied on their applications for demolition permits: both stated falsely, that their buildings had already been emptied of tenants. And that’s a pretty significant lie, became, even thought the DOB seems to be bending over backward to let owners do whatever they ant with their property, they still require that the buildings not be pulled down on top of somebody’s head.
Daniel Peckham alleges corruption at all levels of the DOB, top to bottom. And while I have no reason to doubt him on this, the author of the Daily News article, Brian Kates, points out the presence of a less nebulous factor in the equation — the DOB’s self-certification program, whereby owners are trusted to attest to their own compliance with building codes. Whereas in the past years you might have had to grease a few palms to being gutting your building illegally, now all you need to do is falsify a few documents.
As Kates points out, the self-certification program also results in lax safety standards and shoddy work. This should give even the wealthy condo-purchasers pause. It’s a perfect example of how runaway development and gentrification benefits no one – neither rich nor poor – except a few unscrupulous developers and speculators. — Ed Hamilton -
Joe Bidewell, who played back-up for Nico in the 1980 BBC documentary, closes out the show with his own musical tribute to the Chelsea, "Dream Hotel." Several years ago I heard Joe perform "Dream Hotel" at Sine, which sadly, like a lot of other clubs that Joe used to perform in (CBGBs), are no longer in existance. Well, you can still catch Joe performing at Brown’s in Nashville.
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Clearly, the toilet bowl is now off limits. I usually heave mine down the stairwell, other people who are more lazy just toss theirs out the window onto 23rd Street.
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Wednesday, May 30, 11:00 – 6:00 p.m.
Summer 2007 revisits the unprecedented explosion
of contemporary art and popular culture brought about by the civil unrest and pervasive social change of the 1960s and early ’70s, when a new psychedelic aesthetic emerged in art, music, film, architecture, graphic design, and fashion. The exhibition includes paintings, photographs and sculptures by Isaac Abrams, Richard Avedon, Lynda Benglis, Richard Hamilton, Elliott Landy, Jimi Hendrix (his only known watercolor), Robert Indiana, Yayoi Kusama, Richard Lindner, and John McCracken, among others, as well as a rich selection of important posters, album covers and underground magazines.
Whitney Museum of American Art, 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street, NY NYThursday, May 31, 10:30 p.m.
Susanne Bartsch and Kenny Kenny invite one and all to Kino 41. Kino 41 starlets: Amanda Leopore, Lady Fag, Moondust, Furey and Andre J. Cine Sounds & Show: TBD. Life is Like a Movie. Stop by every Thursday for your close up.
135 West 41st, NY NYFriday, June 1,
Rehearsals for a private reading of Red Eye of Love are currently being held in Manhattan. The reading process, which ends June 1, features the talents of Elizabeth Stanley (as Selma Chargesse), Cheyenne Jackson (as Wilmer Flange) and Richard
Kind (as O.O. Martinas). Tony Award-winning orchestrator Ted Sperling is directing the reading of Red Eye of Love, which is based on a play by Arnold Weinstein. The musical features book and lyrics by Weinstein and John Wulp and music by Jan Warner. (Photo: Opera News)
Saturday, June 2, 2007, 3:00 p.m.
Andy Warhol Superstars — Lee Black Childers, Geladine Smith, Taylor Mead and Ultra Violet discuss the influence Andy had on their lives and art AND the influence they had on Andy’s life and art.
LaMaMa E.T.C. 74A East 4th St. NY, NYIf you have an event appropriate for "All Tomorrow’s Parties" send an e-mail to chelblog@yahoo.com
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The Swordsman
Beware tourists, this could happen to you on your first night at the Chelsea.
https://legends.typepad.com/theswordsman601.movGlass Houses
More than 39 glass houses are set to go up along the High Line, but the biggest one of all is rearing its head on 6th Avenue at 24th Street. https://legends.typepad.com/GlassHouses5-17.mov
Sid’s Room
Watch what happens when Dee Dee Ramone checks into Sid’s room for the night.
https://legends.typepad.com/sidsroom.movWhere have all of the revelatory poets gone?
https://legends.typepad.com/RS.mov
The Paintah
https://legends.typepad.com/Paintah.fff.mov
Credits: Legends of the Chelsea, Snap Films
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Today, May 24th is Talk Like Bob Dylan day. Check out the link for a lot of bad Bob Dylan impersonations or submit your own. It’s also Bob’s birthday. Stop by the Chelsea Hotel, Saturday, May 26, starting at 9:00 p.m. (Rooms 215 & 219) for a belated celebration. "A Night in Bob Dylan’s Bedroom" is an evening of films, live performances and more. (BYOB) For additional info check with the fine folks at Dan’s Chelsea Guitars.
