Travel Reference
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there and working on his house all the time. I thought the whole thing a total
scam, and the guru and his followers knew I thought so. Not to mention he was
cheating on his wife.
JOHN ZINSSER
Wewouldhearthischantingthroughthedooreveryday.Iknowthatitwasprob-
ably some kind of Buddhist chanting or something, but the sound of these chants
reallyhadthisfeelingofSatanistschantingintheroom!Itgavethisspookyvibe.
We heard it through that boarded up door, which made it especially spooky.
There was a guy who definitely looked like one of these ashram holy men, a
bearded guy with this intense gaze. I think they ran a center there—I think it was
their business. Like a lot of people at the Chelsea, they never seemed to go any-
where or work or do anything. I think it was a couple, a man and a wife. The guy
looked like one of these Jewish mystics. He had a kind of magnetic presence.
ROBERT CAMPBELL
You could hear the chanting and the cymbals clapping and all this, and in the
background I heard this electric guitar playing. I knew the guitar couldn't pos-
sibly be coming from the ashram, but the guitar music did sort of flow togeth-
er nicely with the chanting and the cymbals. So I went out, followed the guitar
sounddownthehall,andknockedonthedooroftheroomtheguitarsoundswere
coming from. And who should open the door but Dee Dee Ramone!
I played it cool, pretending I didn't know who he was, and to be honest, I
really didn't know much except that he was somebody famous. I knew the Ra-
mones were kind of important.
“Hey,” I said. “That guitar sounded pretty cool. Do you want to jam?”
“Yeah, what do you have?”
I told him I had two basses and a Telecaster, a Stratocaster and a Squire. And
I had all these little amplifiers, which were useful in a place like the Chelsea be-
cause Iwouldalways behaving people come overtomyplace tojam. Musicians
didn't have to bring any of their own instruments or equipment. I had everything
we needed to jam, unless you were a drummer.
So Dee Dee came over to my room. He checked out all of my equipment and
said, “Yeah, I'd like to jam.”
Sure enough, early that evening, he called me up. “Hey, so you want to come
over at eight o'clock?”
I said okay.
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