Courtney Love Lived Here; Now, In-House Psychic and Butler
Posted - September 8th, 2010 - Art, Debauchery, Fashion
Parlor in the Chelsea Mansion on 20th Street
Right before Labor Day weekend, I was invited to experience a little bit of the latest New York V.I.P housing concept: the temporary luxury dwelling. Perfect for movie stars and directors who are non-city residents but are shooting flicks in the city, the renovated Chelsea Mansion — built in the 1800’s — brings Edith Wharton into the glittering modern age. Located at 436 West 20th Street and restored by developer Michael Bolla, the place felt colorfully mind expanding like an ode to not just Wharton, but to the Bloomsbury intellectual salon of yore. The six-floored place features an in-house butler and psychic for all residents. (The amenities list also boasts an on call fashion stylist and yoga instructor.)
After falling in love with the marble fireplaces and Baccarat chandeliers (from the Twenties), the psychic, Roxanne Hulderman, literally gave me goose bumps. In the cozy boho chic parlor, she held my necklace in her palm and consulted my “guides and angels,” taking me on an uncanny session of personal details that I still do not understand.
Hulderman, who has been featured on CNN and other shows in the past few months, had become the financial world’s soothsayer du jour since the market crashed. She’s apparently also seen Courtney Love, who lived at Chelsea Mansion until May. For a cool $20,000 a month for a two bedroom — with short term leases going for a few weeks up to twelve months — you too can have the luxury of seeing the incredible Hulderman.
Still, you don’t have to move in to get a reading. You can contact the psychic through her website. Prepare to be spooked in the nicest possible way. Check out: PSYCHICROXANNE.
Courtney Love, one of the cozy yet luxe Chelesea Mansion’s first modern short term residents
I HEART NYC!
Posted - September 7th, 2010 - Debauchery
Flying back into New York City, JFK airport…
Yesterday, Labor Day in the States, marks the unofficial last day of summer in the USA. While the actual calendar final day of the warm season does not occur for three more weeks, a lot of us are coming back from holidays, beaches and woods and beyond.
But, the mark of a true New Yorker –including ex-pats and orphans from other cities — includes an incredibly warm sense of home that fills you when seeing the city skyline reappear when landing back at JFK, Newark, or LaGuardia airports. The promise of the autumn season, with fashion week, art openings, the CMJ music festival, and NYC night life beckons as do long brunches in unique city restaurants with friends back from summer jaunts. I’m already picking out my Hudson jeans for the change of season and lots of social ports of call.
Montauk Does Chanel American Style
Posted - August 25th, 2010 - Debauchery, Fashion
Scene at the beach in front of the Crow’s Nest Hotel on Saturday (photo: Steve Eichner)
What does Chanel have in common with lobster rolls, french fries, and American volleyball? Basically nothing, until you consider surfer Laird Hamilton, the brand muse behind the new Chanel J12 marine watch. To fete the very Yankee association, a Chanel-themed beach party enlisted Hamilton, his wife volleyball champ Gabrielle Reece, and a good smattering of movie stars including Angelica Houston, Richard Gere, and Rachel Weisz at the Crow’s Nest Hotel in Montauk. With socialites, artist filmmaker Julian Schnabel, Jimmy “Margaritaville” Buffet, and several guys in checkered shirts mixed in, if it weren’t for the Chanel surfboards — that were quite cool — you’d swear that Ralph Lauren had presided here instead of the French luxe house.
By twilight, the celebration became a cocktail swilling benefit dinner for the Surfrider Foundation, which preserves the ecosystem of beaches; and the fare turned from fries and seafood salads to steamed clams and grilled peaches. If only they gave away those black and white Chanel surfboards, it would have been a perfect day! I could totally ride one of those babies in a pair of Hudson denim shorts!
Movie stars chow down on beach food in Montauk (photo: Billy Farrell)
“Way of Seeing” — the show at the Carolina Nitsch Project Room in Chelsea plays with so many themes of humanity, technology, and sexual personae, you leave feeling like you’ve walked into a mini mind kidnapping. It’s quite effective, which is maybe why the show has been extended through this week. So you better get there fast!
You’ll see work by artists E.V. Day, Richard Dupont, and Alyson Shotz. Day places a lady’s Victorian glove in a bell jar, a sensuality suspended and trapped. She also drew diagrams of the inside of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner’s jet, with arrows pointing to navigational points and an on board screening room. How’s that for taking all the juice out of the male virility? Similarly, Dupont erects naked men lined up to depict their human representation in cyberspace. And Shotz plays with string theory in her drawings and also causes a double take in her mirrored wall balls, based on the Arnolfini Wedding by Jan Van Eyck.
It’s all definitely worth a look, through this week: Carolina Nitsch Project Room, 534 W. 22nd Street, NYC
Photos for Hudson, courtesy of Olivia Wolfe
The inside of Don Hill’s bar in Soho last Wednesday felt like the inside of a stove, or at least what we’d imagine that to be. The longstanding music venue/dive bar is still in process of renovation — due for an official opening during Fashion Week in September — so several A/C generators were not installed yet. Thus, hipsters like the miniature Olsen twins resembled melting candy munchkins. Think body odor, beer piss, and mascara that dripped like chocolate sauce, but what’s better for gritty rock n’roll? These pix above, shot by my pal, the artist Olivia Wolfe (who has a better camera than yours truly) captures just how sweaty it got for Alison Mosshart, who kept saying between sets, “It’s so f****n hot in here!” The group is finished touring for the album, “Sea of Cowards.” Consider this post a salute to the dog days of summer.
Shots taken inside “Le Bain;” Check out striped waitresses and André Saraiva (small guy with black hair) also in stripes and charming the ladies
No more “boom boom,” guys! That’s the word on the VIP street when you pass by the first side door at New Yorks’s Standard Hotel. Hotelier André Balazs has closed his eighteenth floor lounge, which will re-open in the fall to members only. But to keep the hipsters stepping, André Saraiva — who owns Le Baron club in Paris, and who started as a party boy turned graffiti artist — has taken over the space heralded by the second door at the Standard. It’s called “Le Bain,” which means “the bath” in French. So far, the space, which features a square hot tub pool, has hosted a party for the Italian label Salavatore Ferragamo. Alexander Dexter Jones, baby brother of Mark and Samantha Ronson, takes his turns at the music, spinning everything from Studio 54 disco to Depeche Mode and Lady Gaga. We haven’t seen so many grungy hipsters since Beatrice closed. But the Cote d’Azur stripes on the wait staff and the beach balls the color of the French flag (and American, note!) are good fun. The roof top– via back stairs– is perfect for star gazing, both in the sky and in the celebrity sense, on breezy nights. WARNING: By 2 am, you’ll likely spot a few male models and often deejay Mike Nouveau in the pool.
Above: Work by Brion Gysin, some inspired or in collaboration with William Burroughs
Ever want to go on a magical mystery tour? The late painter, illustrator, calligraphist, writer, and performance artist Brion Gysin did. That’s why Gysin constructed something called “the dream machine,” whereby folks could sit in front of a screen and by watching different colors and gradations of light, they could relax and transcend consciousness. A version of the dream machine is up now at the New Museum, as are incredible paintings and collages that Gysin did with his pal, artist/writer William Burroughs. One of Gysin’s images in our Hudson slideshow features a passage from Burrough’s infamous book, “Naked Lunch:” `A boy who disappears as soon as you come, leaving a smell of burning leaves and a sound effect of distant train whistles.’ Some say that book and the word collages (from the early Seventies) — as seen in this exhibit — don’t make sense. Both Gysin and Burroughs would disagree, preferring the experiential component of creation and story telling. After all, life doesn’t make sense, does it?
(Brion Gysin — now through October 3rd — at the New Museum, 235 Bowery, NYC.)
Brilliant Finish – Bullrun 2010
Posted - July 19th, 2010 - Debauchery
The Hudson Jeans Exotics Rally Nissan GTR, also affectionately known as “Gaadzilla” finished the last leg of the Bullrun Rally to Las Vegas in 2nd place. Tony and Seth suprised everyone this year by grabbing two First & Second place finishes. Besides the brilliant driving and rocking the rally in Hudson Jeans fashion, the car won for the the hottest car and best driver. The coveted “CEC Hottest Wheels Award” was presented by another Bullrun 2010 award winner, Claus Ettensberger, who just barely beat the team to the final checkpoint in Vegas.
For some adrenaline, watch the rally close out in style: engines roaring and the front and rear cameras recording the race to the very end.
Tony KING of the Road Driving Hudson Car
Posted - July 16th, 2010 - Debauchery
Tony King, creative extraordinaire, has hit the road this week for Hudson Jeans in a cross-country USA bullrun. In this eight day race to the destination event, guys and girls start out each morning when they are given a spot for lunch and a finish line location. Usually, it’s a hotel somewhere across America where fans line up to cheer the first to arrive. Then the parties ensue. It all began in New York City and it will finish late this afternoon, when the car junkies arrive in Vegas.
Tony not only drives a car emblazoned with HUDSON on the bumper, but he also wears Hudson jeans for the ride. We had to ask him a few things:
HUDSON: I’ve read the background that describes a bullrun as an eight day roving party of guys and girls who get to drive luxury cars cross country and party in each stop. How would you personally describe this bullrun?
TONY: It’s a bunch of people who love cars and love having fun. Aston Martins, muscle cars, funny cars, and Lamborghinis, a whole range. We leave a different place each morning and eveyone jumps in the cars. We use navigation systems to find the quickest way there. People fiddle off into different places. You can win each day’s race by navigation or you can win by speed.
HUDSON: Who decides on the destination?
TONY: Andy and David who run the bullrun. They know all the destinations. We don’t know where we’re going. They give us a route card and where we are going to lunch. Sometimes it’s a race track, sometimes a nice restaurant. Then we get a card for the evening run. Today we did 650 miles. Other times it can be like 300.
HUDSON: Does everyone make it to lunch?
TONY: Yes. We’ll shoot off really fast. There are guys in pickup trucks just cruising along. This morning we did 300 miles from Omaha, Nebraska to I forget the name of the town. Every one came in within twenty minutes of each other.
HUDSON: Did you get to pick the car?
TONY: They are our own cars. This year we are racing an Exotics Rally Nissan GTR. It is the fastest car in the valley. It’s the Hudson Jeans car. I am driving with my friend from Exotics Rally, Seth Rose. He’s a better driver than me has done car rallies with his company for years.
HUDSON: What’s your strategy?
TONY: We cruised 170 for half an hour. We get to 190 most days. After lunch we would go three different ways when everyone was going on the main highway. Half of it is navigtion and half is knowing when to go fast. There are usually two ways to navigate: one – the shortest route, the other – the fastest. I have an iPad and Google maps. We knew it would stir up cops in the morning.
HUDSON: Since there are destination parties, do you all stop and camp out for the night at hotels or giant campgrounds? What’s the deal?
TONY: Last night we were in Omaha. I went to this party with local people and it was great. We saw four hundred or five hundred people in the street. They announce it that day and they are always out. The checkpoint will be the hotel. You run to the table and give them your time card stamps. They even ask for autographs. It’s a little ridiculous.
There’s one guy Claus, he is the most respected here, an amazing driver. In the bullrun last year, we were driving a Lamborghini and we beat Claus. All these locals were there and we came in sideways at the last second. All these people were cheering in Virginia. They asked for for my autograph.
HUDSON: Last year, you drove your own Lamborghini. Are they practical?
TONY: Lamborghini is superlegere, light weight. It was my car. Lamborghini is owned by Audi. They are really drivable. They are good cars now, better than Ferrari.
HUDSON: What are your three most memorable experiences of the week? Details please!
TONY: Today, running neck and neck with Klaus at 200 miles an hour. Starting in NYC at Pier 54 was amazing, with all my friends, family, my daughter. There were eighty-five cars all going engines running. The adrenaline is unbelievable. We all have such a ball. We all text each other twitter each other when there are cops on the road. There’s radio silence toward the end. Everyone is coming in on the end.
HUDSON: How are your Hudson jeans?
TONY: The denim is really soft. Nice.
HUDSON: What advice would you give someone preparing to head out to a bull run?
TONY: Invest in electronic equipment, police scanners, laser jammers, and a radar protector. Then basically take it easy, run in the middle of the track, stay away from the back or you get caught. Be nice to police and you’ll get on your way quicker.
HUDSON: So how do you feel about heading into Vegas?
TONY: I think we’re heading to the Wynn but not sure. People call all these hotels to see if there are reservations in their names, so people try to get their destination ahead of time. They closed part of the strip for us to come and race. I’m looking forward to having a beer with Tony Chu.
If you walked by Milk Studios on 15th Street close to the West Side Highway last Saturday you might have spied a line that snaked all the way down the block. But if you didn’t have the proper wrist band, the body guards would not relent. About 2,500 people were invited by Intel, Vice Magazine, and executives at Milk Studios for an all day bash. Call it an arty rave on many floors. Interpol, Sleigh Bells, the Rapture, M.I.A., and Gang Gang Dance performed. Die Antwoord — a trip hop guy with a high-pitched girl singer — turned actor Josh Hartnett on so much that he wanted to body surf. Also in the house were actress Kirsten Dunst and a slew of kids who snacked on Pop Burgers and took in some high tech art installations.
Check out the one I shot for Hudson above where you could walk into a pyramid and have your face morphed into a light glob on the ceiling. In the next few days, I’ll have out-takes from the Milk party, which lasted on all eight floors and the roof until 2 a.m.
