This is a clip from the BBC documentary programme Arena, made in 1981 on the Chelsea Hotel in New York. It is probably the most famous hotel in the world and was once the residence of Brendan Behan, William S. Burroughs, Jean-Paul Sartre, Gore Vidal, Quentin Crisp, Patti Smith, Herbert Huncke and Andy Warhol's Factory superstars - among other luminaries. Herbert Huncke - bisexual hustler, hobo, thief, drug addict, jailbird and author of the searingly authentic The Evening Sun Turned Crimson - is one of my favourite writers. He was living across the hall from my room at the Chelsea Hotel while I was staying there in 1994. He rarely left his accommodation and I never met him, although I knocked twice. There is a myriad of accounts and stories surrounding the Chelsea and its denizens, but the one that I like most is of the male guest who once telephoned down to reception in the early hours of the morning:
"This is Room 622. I've just been beaten up, pissed on, raped and robbed."
"...And you enjoyed every minute of it."
Click.
It opens with an interview with the world's then oldest man, the painter Alphaeus Philemon Cole, who lived there until his death at age 112. The BBC interviewer shouts:
"WHAT'S WRONG WITH MODERN ART?"
Entirely reasonable question.
There is a rare segment of America's first self-proclaimed homosexual rock star, Jobriath, filmed prior to his death from an AIDS-related illness and whom Elektra Records - at significant cost - promoted as the new David Bowie. America was not ready - it still isn't - and Jobriath reinvented himself as a cabaret performer. He lived in a black pyramid on the roof of the hotel. How this particular arrangement came about - not least the architectural question - is possibly more of an enigma than its illustrious inhabitant.
Also there's a segment of Williams Burroughs and Andy Warhol having lunch with an highly excitable Victor Bockris who confides to camera:
"The tension here is pretty weird. Andy Warhol is wearing a pair of headphones which he hasn't taken off."
It opens with an interview with the world's then oldest man, the painter Alphaeus Philemon Cole, who lived there until his death at age 112. The BBC interviewer shouts:
"WHAT'S WRONG WITH MODERN ART?"
Entirely reasonable question.
There is a rare segment of America's first self-proclaimed homosexual rock star, Jobriath, filmed prior to his death from an AIDS-related illness and whom Elektra Records - at significant cost - promoted as the new David Bowie. America was not ready - it still isn't - and Jobriath reinvented himself as a cabaret performer. He lived in a black pyramid on the roof of the hotel. How this particular arrangement came about - not least the architectural question - is possibly more of an enigma than its illustrious inhabitant.
Also there's a segment of Williams Burroughs and Andy Warhol having lunch with an highly excitable Victor Bockris who confides to camera:
"The tension here is pretty weird. Andy Warhol is wearing a pair of headphones which he hasn't taken off."
2 comments:
I phoned the Chelsea to make accommodation a couple of years ago, and I asked about Jobriath's pyramid. The desk-person said, "I can't talk about that" and ended the call. I'd like to see it, if not sleep in it. It is to remain a mystery.
"I can't talk about that." I wonder if it still exists, how it came to be built and whether it's currently occupied. The Chelsea is no longer a residential hotel. Maximum stay 21 nights. New management. They fired Stanley Bard who ran it for decades.
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