The Moon is Full tonight, and it will make people crazy. It glares overhead , like the prominent wide brimmed hat of an Abbot Kinney Shaman. Unmistakable and off putting. The Moon projects a deliberate spotlight on the steeple of the Chateau Marmont. Luminous and opalescent, it appears stark, center stage, reducing the rest of the Sunset Strip into a twinkling toy town. Protruding proudly out of the mouth of the canyons, passing cars gaze longingly at the Celebrity Cathedral. The full moon coats the exterior in a glistening varnish, luring its inhabitants into madness.
The Chateau’s motto, “Always a Safe Haven”, boasts a promise of privacy. For Hollywood's finest, it serves as refuge from paparazzi and peering eyes. Not for its spa, nor it’s security, but its high brow, secretive atmosphere. The Chateau Marmont can contain it's chaos. It’s logo is Pan, sprinting midair, playing the pipes. He is found embossed onto menus and coasters. To some, he is a satyr of the wilderness, serenading nymphs. To others, he is known as the MK Ultra handler of Narnia. A musical kidnapper for the Gods.
The Chateau Marmont comes to life on a full moon. Seeming to belong to a different timeline, paranormally permanent, in a city that habitually discards old things. Its turrets smirk like pearly teeth, each terrace curving in and out of the floors, caressing it's walls with careful cartilage. It’s heart, the lobby, maintains an enduring glow, pulsing the piano. The ivory walls protect the secrecy of it's patrons, sedimentary and stern, like ancient bone.
I have entertained in penthouse parties, even held a seance with Death Grips in Bungalow Three. I spent two weeks cruising the corridors, during a brief engagement . Saw Tara Reid’s breasts, first hand, in 52. I even climbed it's roof, until I reached the tip of the highest turret, and almost splattered across Sunset Strip. And still, the barricade of bodyguards beneath the neon sign holds no promise of certain entryway. Even pretty privilege has it's limits. Things here expire quickly. Fashions fade. But once, past the gates, the Chateau always fulfills it's promise. Once you’ve passed it's fortress, you never depart in the same state.
Unusually busy tonight, the lobby bustles with degenerates of distinction. Crown shaped chandeliers hang overhead, whilst velveteen drapes brush the red carpeted floor. It rings with the chiming of cocktails, the accompaniment of a grand piano, and the click clacking of heels across cobblestones. Trustafarians sit whispering to Cannabis Cartels. Balenciaga Baronesses swap dirty looks with demented debutants. The bathroom hosts a steady rotation of buxom brigades, posing for photos in a militant fashion. They leave behind perfume clouds of tobacco, Le Labo and Byredo. Bewildered bystanders gaze longingly, willing the fates to strike up the right conversation, threading them to the right person. Self conscious side-glances are exchanged, but no one dares stares at the celebrities.
Cigar-smoking executives glaze over, garnished like pigs in cocaine sweat. They bellow commentary on music matters from candlelit wicker tables. Models slink and sulk all around, sporting chiffon, lace and sequins. LA natives spot familiar faces and zig-zag across the restaurant patio, to have melodramatic reconciliations between tables. Has-been musicians swirl wine, elbows interlaced with aging actresses. Prisoners of celebrity parentage lament across the couches, while hopeful harlots hang on to their every word. Imposters provocatively pout in corners, defiantly mute, begging to be discovered. And the Full Moon spreads it's incandescent silk through the verandas, windows and canopies, enlivening the scene, blanketing the evening with an atmosphere of unreality. The patient staff hover like beautiful babysitters, carefully detecting needs. They know, better than any other hotel, when to encourage play, and when to assert strict limits.
Everyone abuses their liver in unison, until after midnight, when concealed motives become apparent.
After midnight, the Chateau becomes a liminal space. An in-between, a gate. Candles wink, and the curtains of the smoking patio peel back. Creatives converge, struck by uncommon genius. Transactions are made in low hums: Sex for success, free will for fame, promised payments for poisoned powder. Cleavage spills out on the patio tables, whilst bombshells fervently flip hair. Eyelashes, bat, elbow-propped heads, bob. Collagen plumped limps quiver like synthetic jelly. Every conversation, a riveting diatribe or nefarious negotiation. For the Chateau Marmont breeds both brilliant and bad ideas.
For some, heated philosophical debates, weighing and comparing art forms, inadvertently determining the course of culture. There is no discussion of anything as drab or depressing as politics or day jobs, for the Chateau is immune to the inclement weather of such mundanities. After enough booze, the scenery sways and morphs. The Castle glazes over, and the famous and unfamous merge. Demigods and Mortals convene, discreetly, in alcoves and dimly lit corners. The scene is so intoxicating, you think it belongs in a diorama, encased in glass, or contained in a miniature tin shrine. It is a seductive spectacle. Each vignette of the evening, more enticing than the previous, teasing and tempting, like mythological burlesque theater.
I trick myself into believing the moscow mules are good for me, because they are served in copper cups. I prance around, a giddy voyeur, in pantyhouse and kitten heels. With agile prowess, I weave my way past my four potential boyfriends, clasping the nape of my goblet like Cleopatra. I pretend to be a mining tycoon, unearthing depth. I am an heir to an enormous invisible fortune of unanswerable questions. I am very famous and important in Heaven. After enough time, I will flash a maniac smile at a billionaire, who will stalk me from room to room like an animal. Subjected to the wet glare of blood money, I will prescribe holistic medicine spells to cure him of his wealth. I will interrogate the concierge about the underground tunnel in the garage, and ask how far it extends down Sunset Blvd. Perched on the curtained patio, I wax lyrical about Los Angeles Ley Lines. Drag a disbeliever into a discourse, reciting insurmountable evidence of lizard people beneath the Grey Stone Mansion.
The chosen few will follow the whirlwind upstairs, retreating into various rooms. The elevator gleams like a jewelry box, a carriage, cradling crowds up the succession of stairs. Those with supernatural strength and self-control, refute the betrayal of the sun, and retire to bed. Other pairs wreathe arms, struggling to navigate left and right footsteps down corridors. New best friends form, bound by the common denominator of drunkenness. Within the rooms, cross-legged circles form across carpet, like covens, preparing to regress into infantile states. Creatures crowd in the kitchen, caressing cabinets, toasting the past and future with the clank of crystal champagne flutes. Room service incantations summon silver platters of cigarettes and burgers, that end up bifurcating, half consumed, across the living room floor.
Music plays, tenderly intervened by laughter, gossip, and articulate spurts of inside jokes. Some will lounge, posed like mermaids, melting onto the fringes of carpets. Swapping stories and sedatives with leather-clad rockstars. Held-up hairdos fall undone, and the walls whirl, throwing the remaining guests into a feral frenzy.
Fame-fuckers frolick between furniture, maneuvering methods to entrap their prey in vacant bathrooms. Nymphs nuzzle onto the crisp collars of married men, marking their territory with lipstick. Performers burst into unwarranted parodies of their parental pain. Malnourished women sway in slow motion, stretching their vowels. Some surrender to their drowsiness, and disintegrate on the couches. Quarrels curtail intruders back into halls. Oligarchs carry Angels into bed. Behind closed doors, crisp white sheets pave way for erotic acrobatics, midnight marathons, and altered state aerobics.
And quieter guests, fast sleep, hoping to sanctify their spirits, are visited in dreams by strange apparitions. Time contorts. As if the invisible border, marking the passage of moments, is demolished. All of the Chateau Marmont’s eras occur simultaneously, mingling and meshing in various bedrooms. Even for the dead, this is a place of limited restraints. Free from the cages of mortal coils, symphonies of the silver screen anoint sleeping heads. John Belushi offers comedic critiques on unfinished essays. Led Zeppelin patrol the lobby on winged motorcycles. Bettie Davis, Sharon Tate and Marilyn Monroe trace the terraces. Jim Morrison peruses the parameter of the roof rhythmically, stomping out unheard songs. Phantoms, flurry, room to room, dousing the dreamers in desperate need of new ideas. Galas of ghosts tread careful footsteps, deliberate in their direction through dimensions. They enter the internal landscapes of hotel guests, dispersing distant spasms of inspiration. Writhing away their writers block. Passing elegantly through walls, murmuring meticulous musings.
In the morning, the sun blazes, unforgivingly, through the gothic windows. Like a miraculous stage set, the Chateau shimmers, lit up like a Cathedral, pristinely reassembled. It leaves no evidence of last night's festivities. As if by magic, restored to a place of spiritual sanctity.
When sleeping guests awaken, it is as if they hardly slept at all. Their minds are clouded by prophetic sonnets and foreign memories. They leave the entrappings of their beds with visceral fantasies, colored in extraterrestrial pigments.
After two Advil, I emerge out of a shining chrysalis, shielded by oversized sunglasses. Nimble-footed, I pace the terrace in hotel slippers. Peering down Sunset Blvd, from the Castle in the Synthetic City. I have peculiar visions, and try to recall my dreams. Paused in my pursuit of a cigarette, my minds eye flickers. I receive strange vignettes, unfinished scenes, that hold the shades and contours of something richer than real life. They pervade through my imagination, aching for creative execution. I put a pen to paper, and record both bad and brilliant ideas.