Chelsea Horror Hotel

by Dee Dee Ramone

Dee Dee Ramone doesn't quite know what he's getting himself into when he and his wife Barbara move into the squalid Chelsea Hotel with their dog Banfield. He spends most of his time trying to score drugs and walking Banfield, with whom he can magically communicate. Meanwhile, he can't stand his neighbors and shies away from violence, but wishes everyone were six feet under. He also thinks that the room he's staying in is the very room where his old friend Sid Vicious stabbed Nancy Spungen, and begins having nightmares of Nancy emerging from the bathroom with a knife wound. After one of his nightmares, an evil force enters his hotel room and hurls him against a wall. Dee Dee also gets involved with the transvestite lover of one of his gay fellow addicts. When his wife finds out, the two fight it out and become seriously wounded. During all this, Dee Dee is tormented by the living and dead demons that plague the hotel, along with the ghosts of his old dead punk rock friends Sid Vicious, Johnny Thunders and Stiv Bators. And that's when the Devil himself decides to join the party…

Genres: Fiction, Music, Horror, Rock N Roll, Punk, New York

252 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2001

About the author

Dee Dee Ramone, born Douglas Glenn Colvin was a German-American songwriter and bassist, best remembered as a founding member of the punk rock band The Ramones.

Though nearly all of the Ramones' songs were credited equally to all the band members, Dee Dee was the group's most prolific lyricist and songwriter, penning songs such as "53rd & 3rd", "Commando", "Rockaway Beach" and "Poison Heart". He was the bass guitarist for the group from their formation in 1974 through 1989, although at first he wanted to play the guitar. He then left to pursue a short-lived career in hip hop music under the name Dee Dee King. Afterwards, he returned to his punk roots and released three little-known solo albums featuring brand new songs (many were used later on Ramones records). He toured the world playing his songs, Ramones songs and some old favorites in small clubs and continued to write songs for the Ramones until 1996, when the band retired.

Dee Dee struggled with drug addiction for much of his life, especially heroin; he began using drugs as a teenager, and continued to use for the majority of his adult life. He seemed to clean up his act in the early 1990s and to remain clean for most of that decade.

He died from a drug overdose in 2002.

Reviews

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. When I went to the big box bookstore and saw they had one copy of it I clutched it to my chest as if everyone else in there wanted it as well. I loved the mix of fact and fiction, such as Sid Vicious saving him when we all know he couldn't save himself. I think you do need a understanding of Punk Rock to enjoy this book, but then again if you didn't already have that why would you be reading a book written by one of the Ramones?

[Stay Fetters · Rating 1 out of 5]

"How can you bastards be so heartless on a man's birthday?"

DNF@ 25%

I'm not sure Dee Dee was cut out to have more than musical talent. Don't get me wrong, I like Dee Dee Ramone as a musician and I love The Ramones but this book was laughable at best. I really can't even say that this was written as a whole. It almost reminded me of rambling thoughts all put together to make one giant ramble. I wasn't a fan.

I mean, of course, I wanted to see how it would look for him to put pen to paper and create something other than what he is known for. It did not work out in his favor. And shame on the people comparing this to the works of William S. Burroughs.

Chelsea Horror Hotel definitely released some demons from the closet and showed you the seedier side of life but this just wasn't what I was hoping it would be. It was gritty and way out there in outer space. It is what it is but I doubt this would have been published if it wasn't written by a famous musician.

[k r i s t i a n · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dee Dee siempre fue mi Ramone favorito así que obviamente tuve que leer este libro. El otro que está dedicado a su vida en Ramones estaba bastante bien, este no.
Este es un Dee Dee nada desconstruido (a veces es un poco chocante algunas menciones sobre mujeres y travestis y enfermxs de hiv, etc) contando su estancia en el Chelsea hotel, luego de haber vivido en Argentina y estar de vuelta en NY con Bárbara y su perro Banfield. Digamos que hasta la mitad son historias de convivencia con otros huéspedes del famoso hotel y cosas que le ocurrían caminando por la ciudad mientras paseaba al perro. Pero en algún momento arranca lo surreal y en la historia aparece el fantasma de Sid Vicious (?), el perro empieza a hablar (???), la historia pega un vuelco cuando Dee Dee mata a un travesti, del cual Barbara estaba celosa porque los encontró cogiendo y hasta tiene su aparición fantasmagórica Johnny Thunders. Ahí ya perdí el hilo y me aburrí, así que fui salteando a ver si pasaba algo interesante pero no.
A Dee Dee lo querré por siempre, pero por suerte se dedico a la música y no a la literatura.

[Jeffreyleepierce · Rating 4 out of 5]

Smutsigt, skitigt och underhållande! Som en lång Ramones-låt men med mer sex och våld. Klart jag kommer att läsa om boken.

Hey ho lets go!

[Caitlin M. · Rating 1 out of 5]

"Chelsea Horror Hotel" was a bit of a mess-- almost like the legendary punk rocker Dee Dee Ramone began writing with the intent to document a memoir about his experiences at his home,the historic Chelsea Hotel, but then part way through either got too bored or stoned to stay on point.

The end result is a very stream of consciousness, triply, violent story that gives the reader a lot of insight on his thoughts about growing old and, simultaneously, an understanding of his very serious drug problem. It's sad that "Chelsea Horror Hotel" wasn't regarded as a warning sign by those close to Ramone. (The book's ending is a case of real-life foreshadowing.)

The story is a bit difficult to make heads or tails of, but I think this quote from "Chelsea Horror Hotel" really sums up the whole book and Ramone's life: "...instead my childish desires to take some dope and play punk rock music and hang around negative people were stronger than my instinct for survival."

I struggled to finish this one and felt very sad by the end: it's labeled "fiction," but what I got out of "Chelsea Horror Hotel" was that Ramone saw his future and didn't even try to stop it.

I feel like this story is worth taking a look at if only to take a glimpse at Dee Dee Ramone's long-time love/hate relationship with this culturally important, now very seedy hotel.

[Giuliano · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dee Dee Ramone was a brilliant songwriter and an inspiring musician. According to those who knew him, he was also bipolar, a pathological liar, and often a rather complicated person to deal with. According to me, for what it's worth, his storywriting was absolutely not on par with his songwriting. In this semi-biographical novel the real life whiny Dee Dee experiences dizzying (for the reader) mood swings within the same page if not the same paragraph, whereas the fictional horror parts lack rhythm and fail to impress.
Grammar is also, at times, rather shaky.
What really made me cringe was, on the final chapter, reading of a Fender "percussion" (should be "Precision") bass. Editing mistake?
Can't really recommend it.

[Denise · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fast paced, always on the hunt, the life of living as a junkie in the Chelsea Hotel with a horror story script playing in the background. At times, I wondered where the facts and fiction lay. The horror was entertaining.

[David Ball · Rating 2 out of 5]

I must have a hundred books on my GoodReads to-read shelf with a better rating than DeeDee Ramone’s Chelsea Horror Hotel, but somehow it ended up in my hands late one night. It was easy enough to read, and never quite bad enough to put down (although I did get tempted near the end), so I committed a few nights of my life to completing it. It’s nonsense really - DeeDee’s fictionalized account of living in the Chelsea. It’s all very New York in the seventies - the squalor and seediness - the characters could all be from Lou Reed songs. The Ramones have called it quits so DeeDee spends his time moping around the hotel, walking his talking dog Banfield, and scoring drugs. He’s an abrasive fellow, particularly when he’s off his head, so daily interactions with the other guests and the hotel staff are erratic and generally antagonistic. He’s particularly obsessed with the hotel’s basement where he believes a cult of dead punks which includes Sid Vicious, Jerry Harrison, Stiv Bators and Johnny Thunders are luring people to be sacrificed. In fact the basement is apparently a portal to hell, which eventually engulfs the building in an apocalyptic manner. DeeDee’s delusional paranoia and put-upon personality makes him relatively amusing company, but the increasingly cartoonish storyline had me questioning my decision to persevere.

[Craig White · Rating 5 out of 5]

the last we see of dee dee ramone is him wandering off along a corridor, on his own, after delivering the most memorable ever speech in accepting entrance into the rock 'n' roll hall of fame. a few months later he was dead! the above, and the contents of this book help to illuminate where his head was in the last year or so of his life. a fair amount of bile is spewed, but at the same time seeking peace with the long dead, for whom he feels guilt at having outlived? it would take a better paid mind than mine to unravel the enigmatic complexities of the man!
at the absolute height of his powers, dee dee was creating songs and lyrics at genius level, the real engine room of the ramones, owners of some of the most blisteringly unique and iconic sounds of the previous century, and also, of a devastatingly killer live show. however, this could not be sustained due to the high intensity involved, and the playing out of one of the saddest band stories ever. without dipping further into the story, and after/during many attempts to satisfy his musical bent (dee dee king? hmmm!) after he left the ramones, he began to write. and very well he began to write - both his factual accounts of life during and after ramones are excellent reading, rough but honest. and entertaining! this he brought to the table for this, his only novel. where he would have taken this, we'll never know!
the story is a seriously warped account of (low) life at the chelsea hotel, is violent (imaginatively so), fast moving, and very definitely the product of an unsettled mind hauling a whole load of issues behind. it's fiction, but he still manages to take a few pot shots at his former band mates, and exhumes former contemporaries, some of which receive further berating, but in others he may be seeking forgiveness. stylistically, it's identifiable as his work, sometimes rough, others insightful, but all contributing toward a good unique read. maybe, if you rolled a chunk of burroughs, a slice of bukowski, into a leather jacket and tied it up with kinky friedman's ability to include actual people in fictional situations, you might get an idea of the contents! it's a damn fine novel, and to me, looked as if he may have been on the cusp of further success in this medium. an original voice!
you don't require to have been a ramones fan to see the value in this book, but, for those who are, it's a look into a different side of dee dee ramone! d.u.m.b.? no way!

[Simon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chelsea Horror Hotel by Dee Dee Ramone
This is a great Novel by Dee Dee Ramone where in
he seems to be writing his own demise and entry
into the afterlife, set in the Chelsea Hotel in
the late 1990's Dee Dee who makes himself the
star of the book is down on his luck and no
longer even owns a guitar he is living at the
Chelsea Hotel and from time to time playing in a
Ramones tribute band as no one from the band
talks to Joey anymore! He then depicts the hotel
and the people who stay there as like the 7
circles of Hell and he takes us on a drug fuelled
journey through them that ends with him joining
the S.K.U.L.L.S. hells own house band featuring
Johnny Thunders, Jerry Nolan, Stiv Bators and Sid
Viscious how it all goes down and what happens
reads like the script of a zombie horror flick
and is at times queasy but always gripping, if
you like The Ramones and are interested in New
York rock or the Chelsea Hotel this book is a
must read it's published by Thunder's mouth Press
go and buy a copy now...
Oh and someone should make this into a movie
soon!!

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

A complete mess of a narrative that thrives on Dee Dee's wild imagination, his skill at translating real New York low-lives into vignettes that succeed due to his wit and intelligence. Dee Dee was a tortured, sensitive, romantic, kind, and paranoid individual, one who had to be hard to work with and know but who also had a huge heart and an openness that most New Yorkers lacked.

For me, that character helps to push the book out of the three-star territory. I won't lie here: I love The Ramones and spending time with Dee Dee's weird brain is a joy. But if this is rated as literature, it should probably really only get 2-3 stars at the most. Dee Dee is honestly not a bad writer in a Burroughs vein, with a skill for short and precise sentences and a sprawling imagination.

But the book feels more like a collection of things that happened, rather than a true novel. And that's fine but it can make the overall ending seem somewhat of a letdown. Though it remains a fun read, it's probably best saved for fans of the band or those who like weird horror or depictions of New York low lives.

[Craigtator · Rating 3 out of 5]

Impossible book to rate. Understand that it's a Burroughs inspired hallucinogenic set of semi interconnected vignettes written by a heroin addicted bipolar musician that specialized in writing songs that averaged about two minutes in length.

If any part of that sounds horrifying to you, be forewarned. I personally thought it was weird, silly, sophomoric, and funny.

Like, you know, a Ramones song.

[J. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Strange happening in Dee Dee Ramone's mind while living as a drug addict with his 16 year old girlfriend at the old Chelsea Hotel in NYC. I couldn't help but think of Jack Kerouac's Big Sur when he was speaking about the visions he had while experiencing the DTs ( Delirium Tremens ) with their pseudo Christian images.

Dee Dee spends most of the book telling us about his mundane existence and what a good person he was who doesn't deserve his fate. He sees ghosts of past rockers and interacts with some bizarre tenants of the hotel. Every so often he goes into fantasy mode and kills someone or something, but mostly he walks the dog and takes drugs. Tedious.

Finally, he slips into a fantastic tale about the whole building coming down while dead punkers search for drugs and play an impromptu concert before the gateway to hell opens up and.... well, you can read it yourself.

Don't expect great literature or even proper sentence structure...but isn't that what punk was anyway...

[Missfit · Rating 2 out of 5]

I very much wanted to like this book but it was a mess. Although there were parts that I liked, or at least the ideas, it was just barley ok at best. In a sense of was insightful and foretelling. I could feel that I was in his mind as his heroin laden blood spilled over the pages. His"writing style" (if you can call it that) was terrible. Sure, it was part of what made it insightful, but it also killed it. Well, partially. The were plenty of times in the book certain kinds of people were spoken of in pretty awful, close-minded ways.

[Missy · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is what would happen if you took the notebook doodles of a drug addicted teenage metal head and attempted to turn them into a story. I don't know what else I expected reading a novel by Dee Dee Ramone. At times this is surprisingly eloquent and coherent, but most of the it is a lot of puking on corpses, eyeballs popping out, pirhanas eating living people in bathtubs, roaches, mice, and filth. It's a glimpse into the mind of Dee Dee which is a pretty unnerving place to spend 250 pages. Good luck.

[MJ Beaufrand · Rating 3 out of 5]

Aw, dang it. The vision was there; the brilliant mind was clearly in evidence; the craft just wasn't. I don't know if Ramone went through proofreading at all before publication, but it feels as though he did not. Then again, maybe there was a proofreader and Ramone just told him to f*** off.

There was still a lot to recommend Chelsea Horror. Especially towards the end. I can't give it away, but you'll have guessed from the intro that Ramone himself dies a year later from a heroine overdose. I like to think that this is his written record of going crazy before that.

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well… I’m a huge Ramones fan and about to stay at the (renovated) Hotel Chelsea in NYC so inhad to read this book. It made me laugh a lot and also made me sad for Dee Dee Ramone and how badly drugs messed with him. It was a surprisingly good read under the circumstances, but not for everyone! It’s a pretty messed up story.

[kevin Guarino · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great Book by a Great Man

The book was way out there but enjoyable to read. It certainly does not read like a novel but a snapshot of what was running around inside his head. You can understand now why he write great songs.

[Adso · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best understood as a kind of outsider art. Terribly written but fascinatingly conceived. A surreal nightmare that blends autobiography with schlock horror tropes and that signature cretinous Ramones sensibility. I liked it, anyway.

[Craig Keyes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rock Star Creative Non-fiction. Dark and grimy like life can be.

[Lisa of LaCreeperie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Yeesh. Well that was weird. Mildly interesting/amusing at first, then descended too far into too much madness for me. 😳

[Kay · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this when I was too young to understand it, but even now it's such a weird and crazy influence.

[Satu Ylävaara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dee Dee Ramone: Chelsea horror hotel. Mistä kauhu saa alkunsa. Miksi Chelsea hotelli kiinnostaa, onhan se legendaarinen, viimeksi nyt Sidin ja Nancyn kautta.
sunnuntai 14. syyskuuta 2014

[Celine Huizer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oh man. What a rapid descent into madness this book was. Heroin is one hell of a drug.

[Kathryn Smart · Rating 1 out of 5]

Honestly wish I hadn’t spent time on finishing this book.

[David Way · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not nearly as bad as you would think. The first hundred pages are pretty good then it becomes a little more dreamy and fantastical. Overall pretty good.

[Louis Yank]

This is unfortunately not good, DNF. Great musician though, recommend that all day for punk enthusiasts

[Beth Brettell · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a train wreck! But I still did enjoy parts of it.

[ej · Rating 5 out of 5]

Deedee Ramones is unironically one of my favorite authors and he barely even tries.

[caroline bates · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kind of choppy and hard to tell what was true and what was fiction. Probably never would have seen the light of day if it hadn’t been written by Dee Dee Ramone.