Twenty Third & Seventh

Nap Time

Mme Bedsore has taken to her bed with her kitties, a tub of valium, a quart of gin and a few Judy Garland CDs.  Normal services will be restored whenever the hell the underpants gnomes show up for work and/or Mme Bedsore regains functional consciousness.

Trash Transcends

Don't download this file unless you are prepared to be shocked...

Download 11_id_like_to_teach_you_all_to_screw.m4a

from: Deep Throat- OST

Signing off for 2005

And, that was the year that was. 

We plan to defy emerging convention and resist imposing a 'best of' list for 2005.  I'd rather close on one image, switch on your sense of the absurd to decipher it.  In a year that saw more horror than any human being could imagine, in a year that western civilisation retreated to pre-enlightenment brutality, THIS is one the images that was shown to us most.  Something's wrong.  Very wrong.

The Face of 2005?

On this Day: Dec 31

1904: New Year's Eve first celebrated in Times Sq [then known as Longacre Square]

2003: Carrie Bedsore's first full day in NY.  The city is on orange alert, Stanley is beng grumpy and won't help with the phones, there are military on the corner with guns, blackhawks circle above patrolling the avenues and, being new, this all seems quite normal.

2003: Carrie Bedsore witnesses an apparition of Saint Katie Couric who is Manifest in Rockerfeller Plaza, Patron Saint of Antipodean Insomniacs and Amp Heads and begins a new phase in spiritual development

2003: Carrie Bedsore takes first voyage on NY subway- to Christopher St

2003: Carrie Bedsore sees first Broadway musical, Taboo

2003: Carrie Bedsore watches the Times Sq ball-drop from the same VIP enclosure as Mayor Bloomberg

2003: Carrie Bedsore crashes Gwen Stefani's New Years Eve Party.

Happy Birthday to:

Diane von Furstenburg [Princess Diane of Furstenberg]:  Eternal Manhattan fashion figure, pioneer of the wrap-dress and friend of Andy Warhol. 

Odetta: a Beatnik

Donna Summer: Studio 54 Disco Queen and friend of Andy Warhol

Bebe Neuwirth: The Velma Kelly who isn't Chita but is a damn fine singer.

[pictured: 23rd & 7th's own 'Here Lies Jenny' Playbill signed by Bebe Neuwirth.  We saw the show during it's San Francisco run.]

On this Day: Dec 30

Happy birthday to writer, composer, devoted spliffer and regular Chelsea habitue, PAUL BOWLES.

PICTURES REMOVED BY ORDER OF PAUL BOWLES ESTATE   for details

Author and wife to Paul Bowles, Jane Bowles at Hotel Chelsea. 1962

Happy birthday to Goddess of Hotel Chelsea, PATTI SMITH.  The power of the rock is still hers!

Patti Smith at what appears to be Hotel Chelsea

Today is the 2nd anniversary of Carrie Bedsore's first visit to Hotel Chelsea.

Also celebrating birthdays today:
Douglas Coupland [Generation X author]
Mikey Nesmith [the Monkees]
Davey Jones [the Monkees]
Jeff Lyne [ELO]
Matt Lauer [Sex-gnome]

Urbs Blogging Awards Now Closed

Big thanks to everyone who took the time to register a vote for Living with Legends: the Hotel Chelsea Blog in the Urbs: 2005 Urban Blogging Awards.  Legends made a good showing and the foundations for an outright win next year are well prepared.

To look at the outcomes, and remembering that everyone cheated except for us, click click click through to Gridskipper.

If you haven't checked in at Legends recently it's well time you did. All manner of seasonal curios are on view from New Years Eve with the Heatherettes or Patti Smith to Sarah Bernhardt and her famous coffin taking up residence at Hotel Chelsea via rediscovered 1960s Hotel Chelsea soaps selling on eBay, Living with Legends can be guaranteed to sniff out the eclectic as well as being the best cultural guide to NY.

Alarming

With the help of Screenhead

We discovered this creepy flash animation online and take it as a matter of confidence that it means something?

And this one scores as the runner up in jaw-dropping daftness, not quite so manic but every bit as fucked up.

Nana's Drug Ring and other found objects

PERTH grandmother Evelyn Harvey - allegedly caught running an interstate cannabis operation from her housing commission unit - has become the latest Perth senior arrested by organised crime detectives on suspicion of drug trafficking.

A failed attempt by Oprah to make the 2005 celeb deadies list. Fix your plane, cheap bitch.

And while we're doing Oprah, guess who is a self confessed crack ho?

Michael Jackson has not overdosed. But we haven't given up hope yet

Isn't being burned to death in the happiest place in the world an honour? Who are these people?

A not so warm review of Edmund White's memoirs. "Sexual glutton and a slut for selfhood" indeed.

Oh, shock! Men and women use the internet differently. Where do I get a research grant to state the screechingly obvious?

The racist genie is out of the bottle in Australia

Bad Surgery

As much as we love both of these ladies...  enough with the surgery already!  It's too spooky that Chita's surgery makes her look more like LiZa which makes her look like Michael Jackson which makes her look more like Diana Ross who is starting to look eerily like LiZa in a big wig...

The comparable phenomenon is the manner in which Courtney Love and Meg Ryan are slowly having the same face installed.

Chita Rivera and Shirley Maclaine

One could reasonably assume, from this picture, that Patti Lupone shares a surgeon in common as well.  I think I need to lie down.

Patti Rivera Lupone with unknown luvvies

On this day: December 29

Happy Deathday to Rainer Maria Rilke.

Happy Birthday to compulsive hat-thrower, Mary Tyler Mooore.

Happy Birthday to celebrity Mars Bar endorser Marianne Faithfull

Happy Birthday to Joe Dallesandro impersonator, Jon Voight.

[marianne faithfull photo: mapplethorpe]