Chelsea Girls (4 of 'um)

Melodie, JUGGS model

When the bus was coming into the Port Authority Station I saw these women's faces on a billboard, and I knew I was going to become one of them. You know, a New York girl, the type who can make it here, and then make it anywhere. The magazine put me up in the Chelsea Hotel. I didn't even know about the place. I mean, the history, and all the artists who stayed there and even lived there. It was such an honor to join their company, even if it was just for two nights. And when I left, I thought I'd left my mark on the place too. A kiss print and a pair of nipple-prints on the window, at least.

Jessie, Art Historian

Everyone knows that the Management of the Chelsea occasionally accepted works from artistic guests who were in trouble with their hotel bills. This was an investment in the future, on the Management's part. So it didn't seem unreasonable, or not to me, that a lecture on the pieces present in the hotel's photogenically lurid lobby might be a fair exchange for the week I spent there while applying for jobs at several of the big city's major universities. Management thought different. And they wouldn't take an IOU. So I needed fast cash. An art history professor had to lose her academic robes, and be a model. With any luck, a role model for future young art history students.

roberta e., underground film director

to be even more undergrounder than i already was i asked the old guy at reception if he had any rooms available in the basement. i mean, you really cant get much more underground than that can you. i didnt say i was also going to use whatever room he gave me as the set for the undergound film i had in mind, aka basement bingo. i wanted to tear down my idol the great andy warhol so i had to beat him at his own game and have a bunch of naked old ladies gambling in a squalid underground atmosphere. butt when the reception guy heard the ruckus the drunken crones were making (free beer) he came downstairs and told us to get out. so there we were on 23rd street with nowhere to go. the old girls put on their clothes again and said i could stay with them. i haven't been anywhere since. hotels are where dreams go to die, i guess.

Jane Doe, suicide

Everyone wants to be famous, even if they say they don't. Most people don't know how to get famous, is the problem. I figured out one way: stay at the Chelsea Hotel. Once you're there, you can either get busted for drugs, or be an artist with lots of problems, or murder someone else who's staying there. That last part would be copying, though. Besides, I got no respect for people who want to be famous so they kill someone who's already famous, and that way their names will always be horribly linked to the victim's. So I painted the walls of my room, with my brains, and left a poetic note.

Here it is:

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Hotel Girls

PierAnna D., Influencer

Di questi tempi se hai un bel paio di tette puoi comandare il mondo. Chi me lo fa fare di lavorare in fabbrica quando posso vivere a scrocco in hotel facendomi autoscatti per accumulare like e seguaci in rete. Mi portano da mangiare in camera, posso farmi la doccia quando voglio senza pensare alle bollette. Speriamo che questa storia di Internet non finisca mai.

Enrica B., artista

Le gallerie d'arte sono obsolete. Meglio gli hotel, a questo punto. Sono eclettici perlomeno. Nella hall trovi opere di vari generi, a ogni piano altre cose che sembrano messe lì a caso, ma se guardi meglio una certa indefinibile logica ci dev'essere.

Per un po' portavo i miei quadri con me e le lasciavo nelle stanze d'albergo dove soggiornavo. Furti al rovescio, pensavo. Finora nessuno se n'è lamentato. Può darsi che non gli importi niente. Basta che nelle stanze ci sia qualcosa di non utile, che dia un tono.

velva m., regista underground

visto che ora chiunque può girare un film con un telefonino mi sono detta allora io perché non posso anch’io. la risposta l'ho avuta quando ho mostrato hotel splatter agli amici. secondo loro sono un genio. porto tutto a cannes, a venezia, a sundance. e puoi scommettere che mi ospiteranno in dei posti a 4 stelle, minimo.

Priscilla V., suicida

Il mondo diventa sempre più brutto. Non voglio vivere in una civiltà progettata sul computer. Per farla finita ho scelto l'hotel più mostruoso e deprimente d'Europa. La nota d'addio l'ho scritta analogicamente. Eccola: