Hotel Astoria- The Bathroom

Shortly after college I moved into a three bedroom apartment with one of my closest friends.  We had been in bands together for years and having done some touring and having friends who toured in their bands, it was really important to me to have the space for friends to crash with us.  Early on with decked out the spare bedroom with a futon and made it into a bedroom/recording studio covered in music and movie posters. 

Besides our mutual love of music we had bonded in our formative years over Star Wars.  Over the years we each individually amassed a bunch of Star Wars merchandise from figures to posters to magazines to plates.  It still pains me that I didn’t come up with the idea first but the conversation went something like this”

“Yo, we should theme one of the rooms.  A Star Wars theme.” He said.

“Umm.” I said.

“Let’s make the bathroom the Star Wars Bathroom. Think about it, after this apartment we’ll either be living on our own or with girlfriends and at that point your not going to have a Star Wars themed room.  This is probably our only chance to do it, and wouldn’t life feel less complete without a Star Wars themed room?” he said.

I couldn’t argue with the logic.  It was flawless and rock solid.  Another thing about the bathroom was that all the tile, the tub and the toilet where this worn out 1960’s pink, so covering it up as much as possible would be a happy byproduct of this stupid endeavor.  We began dressing up the bathroom by putting some figures around the sink and some movie posters.  I scoured ebay for some towels and a shower curtain, both Episode 1 related but what could you do, beggars and choosers.  After a few hours of two people working in a cramped 30 square foot space we considered the job completed for now.  There were still stacks of magazines and other things we could do but our energy level was spent.

Over the next year we had quite a few people stay with us, most for a day or two and others for months.  Towards the beginning of 2005 or the end of 2004 a friend of ours who had become quite popular because of a Star Wars themed song had moved back to New York and needed a place to stay for a bit.  We happily obliged.  Because of his rising fame, open love of Star Wars and the impending release of Star Wars Episode III in May, oh and his even more famous friends, he was to be their guest at a special advance screening of Episode III at Skywalker Ranch.  I don’t think I’ve ever been as jealous of anything quite as much as I was of that.  Both my roommate and I secretly & desperately hoped that by some divine intervention they would call him and say that he could bring a friend or two.  Heartbreakingly, that didn’t happen. 

Our temporary roommate left early Friday morning and gave us a call around 11pm our time after he had a private tour of the grounds and had been checked into his bungalow.  He regaled us with the greatness/ unbelievableness of it all and we took our jealous energy and put it to work.  We worked for the next four hours throwing the Star Wars Bathroom into hyperdrive.  We plastered the walls with pictures and posters.  We taped figures to walls in elaborate space battles using the vertical walls as their horizontal floors so they would fill the space.  The Pièce de résistance came when I noticed that the bathroom had two light switches.  The one operated the lights and the second operated the fan and the electrical outlet above the medicine chest.   The box we had on the floor of the stuff to be added to the bathroom I noticed a tape copy of the Empire Strikes Back soundtrack.  In the recording studio I had a pair of junky computer speakers and I knew I had seen an old Walkman somewhere in the apartment.  After tracking down the Walkman and making sure it worked, I got to wiring and taping.  By plugging in the speakers into the outlet and hiding them in the medicine chest along with the Walkman, which was set to constantly loop, the moment you flipped both light switches you would be bombarded by light and the sound of the soundtrack.  Hiding the speakers and the Walkman really took the bathroom to the next level.  I’d bet the Skywalker Ranch didn’t have such high-tech bathrooms.

The unexpected upside of having the soundtrack playing in the bathroom was that it made mundane tasks feel monumental.  Showering to the Imperial March woke you up more so than any cup of coffee ever could.  The uncertainty of what song would be on next when you entered could determine your day, would it be something uplifting or since Empire is the darkest of the original three, would it bring you down. 

Our temporary roommate came back having stolen tampons from Skywalker Ranch to add a feminine needs section to the bathroom.  Shortly after he returned he was interviewed by Time Out New York who came to our place and naturally because of his association with his Star Wars song, they did their photo shoot in the bathroom.  We mounted the picture over where he was sitting (the toilet obviously) to create a super meta visual of you looking at the space you were currently peeing, at least for the gentlemen who frequented the bathroom. 

I moved out of that apartment in the summer of 2009 and the new roommates insisted that the run of the bathroom come to an end, mainly because it was filthy.  It most certainly was filthy.  Taking down or moving board games, action figures, playsets and whatever else to clean was a daunting and time consuming task that no one volunteered for.  So the memorabilia came down revealing the faded pink tiles once again.