Party Like a Rock Star: Monaco Hotel

Met up with Gretchen and `Dave at the Division stop, each of us with a six-pack in tow. So it begins.

We get off downtown, and walk abit to the Hotel Monaco – where the room is. As a brief flashback I think this was the hotel where my friend Melissa (aka Mellzah) stayed, back when she visited in 2004.

Closer…

Inside, there’s a sort of jukebox right in the main living room. Not terribly convenient, as you have to work your way around it to get to the next room. But I guess, if you’re in the rockstar room, you need your rockstar music.

Now THIS is a party.

The hottub. Sadly, I left before there were people in here, pantless and drunk.

Records and stuff on every well.

Right when I arrived, I took a bunch of photos. I felt a bit awkward, as I didn’t really know all that many people… and so I tried to do a lot of my documenting early on in the night. I get camera shy around folks I don’t know, and feel weird about getting in strangers’ faces taking pictures.

Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a… throw-rug with Janis Joplin on it?

By far one of the best items in the room, this TV captured mid-window-smash. I totally missed this for the first 30 minutes I was in the room.

More stuff on the wall – Lennon/Beatles.

Random crowd shot. Things started to get pretty crowded about 45 minutes after we arrived.

And what rock star room would be complete without a guitar? I have to assume that, at some later point in the evening, this thing was taken down and played.

Hillary and Johnathan.

The man of the hour – Jason, on the far left.

Kristen, looking over Jason’s book. LaPorte, Indiana. Here’s a little blurb about the book from the website:

FOUND Magazine editor Jason Bitner has made it a habit of picking up after us, walking down the back alleys of our lives, and accumulating all that we’ve thrown away or mislaid. One afternoon not long ago, after lunch at a small Midwestern diner, he stumbled onto a forgotten archive. In the back of the restaurant were box upon box of studio portraits of the townspeople of LaPorte, Indiana — over 18,000 in total.

This book is simply stunning. I can’t say enough good things. I flipped through it briefly, and it’s just photo after photo of people from LaPorte, Indiana. The lighting is eerily consistent, and there’s seemingly a lot of repetition in the poses. But that’s what did it for me – I’ve long gone on (at length) about my love of variation and repetition… and this is totally what this book is.

In the same way that the You Are I Am experiment worked, these photos… because they all use similar lighting, because they’re similar poses… you notice the variations, the individuals. The people come through so clearly, their personalities and so much about them. I can’t do it justice – you have to pick up a physical copy of the book, and go through it yourself. You’ll see.

18,000 photos. Simply incredible.

Soon after this, I called it a night and ducked out. Tonight was, after all, a school night for me.

Sadly, the stories I heard later were that things got pretty wild. People in the hot tub. A lot more drinking. Puking. Tandem puking, if I heard correctly. LOL.

Fun stuff. Welcome back to Chicago Jason, if only for a night.