The Pink House was like an underground United Nations. Chapel Hill's aspiring artists, musicians, poets, DJ's, activists, actors, writers, nudists, flutists, knuckleheads, and couch-surfers, all living together in (relative) harmony, united by their common bohemianism. Life inside the Pink House often consisted of weird shit happening at all hours, every day, it rarely stopped. And there's something about that place that won't allow the vibe to ever fully dissipate. / PinkHouseForever.org
Originally I lived in the Mona Lisa room with Sally. Then I lived in the little pink room upstairs, then moved across the hall into Erik's old room. The upstairs rooms were the BEST.
There was an older lady who lived next door. She was the house mother for one of the sororities. She was a sweetheart, and she also asked us girls about our lives. I don't know if she chatted with the guys much.
I was always cleaning that place - especially the dishes. And the downstairs bathroom would get this virulent-looking gooey mold on the ceiling, all brownish-black, that looked like it would drip on you.
Painting the living room purple was a bitch! Looked cool though. I'm sure whoever came after and repainted it was cursing my soul.
I had heard the place used to be a garden showplace (maybe someone else had heard it from a neighbor?), even having been photographed for a magazine. There wasn't much left of that, but in the spring, these odd-looking lilies would pop up in the far back yard, right in the middle of the grass. Like red alliums, but with no leaves - just a big ball of delicate flowers.
And there were these gorgeous magnolias, but they were being killed by the wisteria, so I got Steve to help me save the trees. He wasn't into it, so I promised we could dress up in ridiculous outfits first. Wish I still had that picture!
Oh, God! And those creepy spider crickets! They were always in the bathtub! Jay was so freaked out by them - I used to get the critters for him. It was so fun saving the day for Jay. He was always making those huge pots of spaghetti.
In April, Gerald Bundy turned 40, and Jay made the scene, taking a train up from Davidson to do it. Gerald hung out with Jay a lot at the Pink House and found him a room at 401 Pritchard when everyone got kicked out in '97.
On Friday night, we grabbed some grub at Milltown in Carrboro, then crossed the road to meet up with former housemate Karen Hurka (summer '93) at a free record release party at the Cradle for the latest LP from her husband Ryan's band the Kingsbury Manx. This show sparked even more Pink House memories when we all ran into Grant Tennille and Matt Hedt.
The next day, enroute to Gerald's in Durham we picked up Barbara and Jeff, and did a drive-by on Sam's Quik Shop. I had invited Lydia to come along, but she couldn't make it. Also at the party was Allen Sellars, Chez Pink resident during 1995. Before that, Allen also lived at 401 Pritchard. Many Pink House and 401 stories were told, including the tale of the two hippies who lived in the Pink House driveway. Gerald fed us oysters, wine, and gourmet root beer.
"Jay and I missed getting to hang with you at the birthday party the other weekend. He had a tough night's sleep on our lumpy futon couch, but was good to go after shaving his head on the porch. Here's a photo, the other people are Jay's friend Gerald, Barbara, who used to live at 401 Pritchard Ave with Jay, and her husband, Jeff."
- e-mail to Lydia
While in town, Jay also owned up to various Pink House housemate misdemeanors.
J: I remember once I was making out with my girlfriend at the time Julia, and somehow we ended up fooling around in Steve’s room. Then Steve suddenly came in and cut the lights on, and we were like, oops! Busted! I also remember when Steve took my fan. I came back home one day, and my fan was gone, and I was like, what happened to my fan? And it quickly mushroomed into a conversation about how I wasn't doing enough around the house.
E: This was your fan?
J: It was supposedly a house fan.
E: And there was a confrontation between you and Steve?
J: Yeah, but you were there, backing him up.
E: That was cold.
J: I wasn't the perfect housemate. A couple times, I mooched some of Sally's food, and when she found it missing, she immediately blamed you. And I was okay with that.
E: Fifteen years later, the truth all comes out in the wash.
Whassup! This is your former Pink Housemate Erik coming through loud and clear on the straight-up tip, doing deals and making crazy cash while chillin' in Chapel Hill, sending you out a positive shout up there in D.C., where the word on the street says you've finally made the big move into an apartment of your very own! Well, actually I guess it's a place you're sharing with someone else, namely, Jenny's very close friend and former roommate Alston Neal. What a coincidence. Hope everything's going smoothly, from what I've heard you're having a great time living closer to the heart of the city.
Shelly was in town this past weekend and tried unsuccessfully to get in touch with me regarding your mail. It was a very hectic weekend for us both I guess, for me because of my latest, on-going, money-making venture. More about that in a second. Anyway, I figured I should get off my ass and send you this mail and your farewell videotape before any more time elapsed. It's a two-hour tape, and your goodbye party takes the award for most interesting portion.
Yeah, so the Pink House vibe has definitely dissipated. You're gone, I'm gone, and for a while it looked as if Mel was planning to jet as well. The troubles all started when I left town shortly after you, leaving a check for both our phone bills with Chris Palmatier. He proceeded to lose this check, and instead just assumed that neither of us had paid our bills. Jay Murray, of course, at this point hadn't paid the phone bill either. So guess what happened? The phone got disconnected. It took those kids about six weeks to finally get their phone service reconnected. Mel was truly bugging out. The inconvenience of not having a phone was really getting to her, plus the utter summer filth that the house predictably sank into within days of our departures, plus everyone else's general slack attitudes. And since I took most of my stuff with me when I jetted, the house got left kind of bare anyway. So Mel started thinking about jumping ship herself.
Then Charlie came back from New Orleans, Trent moved in, and I finished moving out. Mel came back from Pennsylvania and realized how much bigger my room was than the one she'd been living in across the hall. Trent is an actor, and he can't live without a phone, so within a few days he arranged to have the service re-connected. Then Charlie, Jay and Scott went on a mad furniture buying spree, and bought all this new funky furniture to replace the stuff I'd jetted with. I think they even started picking up after themselves. Mel tried looking around for apartments, and realized there wasn't much out there close to campus where she could keep a pet. Laverne is getting so big, by the way - you wouldn't believe it. So all these factors converged to influence a change in her plans, and now Mel is again staying at Chez Pink. You have their new phone number, I assume, but in case you don't, it's (919) 967-8969.
O.k., I'm on the verge of wrapping this letter up, but I did want to tell you how I've been making crazy money these last few weeks. Basically, I've become a used furniture broker! Selling absurd used furniture to kids moving into dorms and apartments, all kinds of crazy shit, and I've netted about $2500 since mid-August. I feel like I've been stuck in an extended episode of Sanford and Son, driving around town in my Volvo, scanning the streets for wayward couches and easy chairs, searching apartment complex dumpsters for those "special items" just waiting to make some furniture customer a happy camper.
Essentially, I'm raising capital. Kristen Schoonover (who told me all about the great night out at Fifth Column she had with you and Jyoti a few weeks ago) and I are now exploring becoming co-investors in a nightclub in Raleigh, a space over on Hillsborough Street. It's got 1500 square feet, rent is $1000/month, and we're going to look at it on Tuesday of this week. It's owned by two brothers who are friends of hers, Leon and Louie, and who own half the real estate on Hillsborough Street. I'll keep you informed of developments.
Feel free to drop me a line with all the latest lowdown on your plans and activities, because both Jenny and I would love to know how things are going with you. And you know you're welcome to stay with us whenever you come down to visit next - we've got an extra futon and it's all you. O.k., kid, I gotta go sell some more used furniture. My inventory is almost depleted, but I've still got about $800 worth of deals to close. Jyoti, Ryan, Firas, and Derek Shadid all say hello.
First things first. Chillin' the night before with Mel, Martha, Scott, Jay, Christy, Erik the chinese food delivery guy, Caroline, Steve and Fred. Went to sleep around 7 am after I started re-organizing my room. I woke up around 10:50 and called Caroline. Rescheduled our Internet meeting for tomorrow at 11 am, then went downstairs and woke up Martha and Mel. Yay! Took Martha home, then Mel and I went and picked up my grade change form. Then I turned that fucker in! Officially graduated!
We celebrated by going on a free stuff tour all over town, mostly in Carrboro, for what seemed like an amazing four hours. Stops included the hardware store and every apartment complex in the vicinity. The killer joint was definitely Bolinwood. Free stuff was ubiquitous there, including a wig box and a new grill. Tried to go see Mel's new dog Laverne at the pound but couldn't. Took a long power nap in the afternoon (three hours) then got up and started cleaning the house.
Chillin. Very little food today. I am still very hungry. Martha came over again, plus Matt Schofield, Steve, Mel, Jay, Scott and myself watched the third part of The Stand. Jenny came back tonight. I am happy but I have so much to do.
- journal entry, 5/12/94 1:09 am
(Note from 2009 - this was written a few days before graduation weekend 1994. Counting down the final months of my stay in the Pink House.)
Whassup, cat. This is a diatribe coming to you straight out of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, home of that graduating motherfucker himself. How's life in the Apple treating you?
Right now we're looking at 'round about 2 am, chillin' with a new Bob Marley CD that arrived today courtesy of those ignorant imbeciles at Columbia House who seem to have no problems sending hundreds of dollars of free merchandise out to imaginary individuals. I'm procrastinating doing real work, like writing one of the ten papers I need to finish in the next month in order to graduate with two majors. I'm also putting off going to the copy store to work on a flyer for this benefit keg/rave we're throwing here at the Pink House next Saturday. Hundreds of drunk people destroying their brain cells in order to benefit a local literacy education project - makes sense! So it's a perfect time to write you a letter.
...
Let's see, what's up down here on Tobacco Road. Are you a big basketball fan, Robb? I hate sports in a general, ideological sense, but b-ball is so ubiquitous here that it's hard not to caught up in this March Madness bullshit. So, I'll admit it, I have been known to actually watch short stretches of particularly decent games. On TV, of course. I've been to exactly one home game since I've been down here. It was my junior year. We were playing Florida A&M, and the game before the one I went to, a brawl had erupted on court. One of their players actually stepped on another player's head. So I was like, cool! Let's check this shit out. But nobody even got elbowed.
This year the Heels got eliminated from the tournament right away. People were walking around like somebody had stolen all their comic books or something. There were positive and negative sides to this development. On the positive side, people weren't out mobbing the streets every night a game was on, fucking with me whenever I wanted to drive somewhere around town. On the negative tip, it meant that all these basketball yahoos who would normally have been holed up in bars drinking beer were clogging up the libraries, cafeterias, and other places on campus where there are already far too many motherfuckers to begin with. Oh well.
...
I saw this cool play on campus recently called Life As Art: A Tribute to Paul Green. He was a Chapel Hill playwright who essentially set up my school's drama department. Have you heard of In Abraham's Bosom? This was the play he wrote about race relations that won a Pulitzer prize in 1927. Check out a copy of the script. It was incredibly hard-hitting for its time, especially for the South. Green also worked with Richard Wright to adapt Native Son for the stage in the 1940s.
Right before Easter, it was my birthday. I had a phat time, since my friends organized a little birthday get together for me at our house. Folks were stopping by all evening, bearing gifts.
My housemates baked me a cake, and one of my really good friends down here took me out to dinner. Her name is Jyoti (pronounced Jo-thee), she's a dancer, and a speech communications major. We're going to be working on business and activist projects together this summer. One of the profit-making ones will be a local ice cream delivery service. I'm also going to try and open up a Chapel Hill nightclub as a business partner with my housemate Steve, who's from the Bahamas.
On the non-profit end, I'm applying for grants to fund some grassroots democracy projects. I've enclosed a copy of one of my grant proposal project descriptions for you to check out.
...
I heard from Tony on my birthday. He was trying to come down here for his spring break (his perpetual quest for the past three years), but things didn't pan out. So he claims he'll make it down for my graduation in mid-May. Well, I won't be moving into condo land until mid-July. Until then, the Pink House remains the spacious crash pad of choice for any friends seeking to escape Northern landscapes. Don't know if you planned to get out of New York for a road trip any time soon.
I remember when we all went down to the basement and tried to freak each other out. We were in a supernatural phase. I had found that bottle of old scotch stuck in between the dirt and the foundation - I'm pretty sure we drank it. Anyway, there we are in the dark, and suddenly Steve yells out "Oh my God, I smell raw chicken!" and busts out of there. Interesting how cultures have their ghostly warnings - I guess the islands lean toward the raw chicken smell.
Truly, though, a couple of times I heard noise downstairs when no one was home. Once sounded like furniture being moved, and another like someone scrambling in the ice in the freezer. Sally and I got inspired and tried to make everyone think the house was haunted by doing things on our own, but no one really cared. We had fun, though!
We closed this rave down, dancing 'til five o’clock in the morning. It was a packed event, held at the historic former train depot in downtown Greensboro. 14 years later, Barack Obama and Joe Biden would appear at this same spot, speaking on its front steps in the closing weeks of the '08 elections to a crowd estimated at 25,000. But on this cold night in the winter of '94, underground rave culture in North Carolina was in full bloom.
Were there a thousand kids at this party? Whatever capacity the fire marshals would allow, that's how many bodies were packed into the Depot. We met kids there from as far away as Nashville and Birmingham, AL who had come to Feel the HeartBeat.
The night was put on by Ed LeBrun, the owner of Spins record store in Greensboro. In June he would begin promoting the legendary First Friday monthly parties at Babylon, a newly opened dance club on Elm Street. Until his tragic murder in August, 1999, Ed was one of the driving forces behind the rave scene in the Carolinas.
Ed LeBrun outside Spins, mid-90s
The dancefloor space was small, and the amount of lighting and effects that Ed packed in there was truly breathtaking. I remember amazing video and computerized projections washing over the crowd, and constantly flickering on the walls.
The night's theme was love, and the house music and visuals were in perfect harmony. Even the floor lit up!
I remember thinking that the spot where our group of Pink House ravers were grooving was a dancefloor heaven, the perfect place to be at that moment in time. It certainly seemed that way. I was surrounded by the love of my friends, the energy of the night, and the smiling crowd. Everyone was beautiful, and happiness was in the air. Then, at five o'clock on the dot, the lights came up. I looked around, and saw that our mystical rave paradise was actually a shabby little room in the back of the Depot that resembled a broken-down high school cafeteria. It was a bit of a come down. But I was still smiling, all the way home to Chapel Hill.
The jazz show was in a little restaurant in SoHo called Sweet Basil, an infamous spot in the pages of New York jazz history. My housemate Mel and I went there on the Saturday night of our visit, a night when everybody had split up to pursue their own agendas. We saw Mal Waldron, a pianist who used to play with Eric Dolphy, and who now has his own quintet. On bass was Reggie Workman, who used to play with John Coltrane. It was essentially the best jazz going on in the city that whole weekend.
Recorded in 1987
You know what else I recall about Sweet Basil? We were seated in the very front, and you had to duck and swerve whenever the trombone player had a solo lest you get banged in the head with that brassy curve. That was a great concert! - Mel, 2009
We each had to pay a $15 cover and get $10 minimum worth of drinks, so Mel and I split a big bottle of wine. Later, after the show, we went out walking around the Village for a while, both of us slightly drunk. There were all these psychic stores around, and one of them had glaring neon signs everywhere that said "$5 palm reading special." Mel decided she wanted to have hers read.
We sat down and were chilling, waiting on another guy and his girlfriend who were inside to finish their reading and get out. Then, up came these other four kids, two guys and their girlfriends, about our age. They were all from different boroughs outside the city, mostly Queens and Long Island, I think. We started talking with them, and they were cool. None of them were in college, but they were all very aware, and we were talking with them about NYC politics, and the media, and all sorts of bullshit.
Meanwhile we're all getting kind of impatient waiting on the people inside, and I'm thinking to myself, and saying out loud, yo, we should chill out before this palm reading woman puts a voodoo hex on us. And then, we're all looking inside the window, thinking all of a sudden that the guy in there with his girlfriend looks awfully familiar, that we've seen him somewhere before, and then it hits us - he's the guy from the new Family Feud! The motherfucking host!
So everyone flips out, and we're yelling "Survey says!," and tapping on the window, and waving to him, and then the girlfriend comes out, and she starts yelling at us, telling us that she's trying to have her reading done, and then the psychic woman comes out and starts yelling at as too.
Now I'm like, oh my fucking god, she's definitely going to put a hex on us. All of a sudden, from out of the shadows come these mafia type guys, three of them, real shady looking. They start telling us, alright you kids, get out of here, this is our store, we don't want you here, and I'm like, oh shit, whatever, and I start trying to get up and leave. But one of these kids that we were talking to starts arguing with one of the mafia types, and the shit looks like it's escalating fast.
Not one of these kids could have been more than twenty-one or twenty-two, and these guys were like in their late forties, early fifties. Out of a door comes another shady character, this one a skinny kid about our age, and he gets into the thick of things shouting, "yo, that's my father you're talking to!" Mel is right up in there herself, trying to be a peacemaker, and I'm thinking, great, so we're about to get shot by some mafia family. I don't know how the shit cooled down, but it did, and there was no fight. Luckily. In the commotion, the Family Feud guy vanished, and we never saw him again.
Later that night, however, when we went to meet Steve at a gay club called The Roxy, I ran into that Norman guy from the first Real World. He hosts a cable access show now, and since it was Disco Diva night, they were filming some of the transvestites at this club. So those were our brush-ins with celebrity while in New York.
Friday. Our road trip to NYC continued. This was the night that Mel, Steve and I tripped down to the gala opening of Puzzled, a new weekly event at a nightclub called the Tunnel. Located on the corner of West 27th Street and 12th Avenue, on Manhattan's extreme west side, overlooking the West Side Highway. As we pulled onto the block of 27th between 11th and 12th avenues, hookers scattered in all directions. Various unsavory characters who resembled pimps lurked in doorways, keeping watch over a steady flow of club kids who were teeming everywhere.
The crowd flow seemed to be headed away from the club, which immediately made me fear that we might have a hard time getting in. It was precisely two a.m. when we finally walked up to the main entrance. Five or six doormen were keeping things in line. It took us a half hour to get in, and we still had to pay $20 apiece, but it was worth it.
The shit had three levels, inside it stretched for like half a city block, and there were a good 2000-2500 people there. At least. Every second person was wearing some elaborate, fucked up costume, people in cages were dressed as animals, mirrored lounges lined with silver-upholstered couches everywhere, with holes in the middle, filled with little yellow plastic balls. One big room where all the balls came from, just like at Chuck-E-Cheese.
Nude dancers downstairs in the basement, upstairs a whole network of different rooms, each with their own DJ, each hosting a separate private party for all the New York club cliques. Huge silver tendrils hanging from the ceiling, only slightly lighter than punching bags, swinging back and forth amidst the crowds. The former lead singer from Devo (Mark Mothersbaugh) had some paintings on display in an art exhibit in one section of the club. Right near the coatroom was some guy wearing a business suit, chilling behind a desk in a picture perfect office space, behind a plexiglass window, who was being paid to sit pretending to do type, and file stuff, and do office work all night long, just to fuck with people, because it was the last thing you would expect to see at a place like the Tunnel!
The whole scene was like a rave, only for the older, New York club set glitterati.
- Letter to Jared, 11/7/93
(Note from 2009 – we met a lot of crazed club kids that night in the VIP areas. I wouldn't be surprised if one of them was the infamous Michael Alig (Party Monster), who had to have been there hyping up the next Puzzled. On the puzzle-shaped, die-cut flyers from this night, plus the ones we took home for the next Friday's party, Alig was listed as a co-promoter.)
I went up to NYC with four other friends - my housemates Mel and Steve, a guy named Zak, who's a friend of my other housemate Jay, and Derek, who I first met through N'Gai this summer.
Our journey began on a Wednesday afternoon, right after classes let out. We drove straight from Chapel Hill to Pennsylvania that evening, which is where Mel is from. She lives right near where this Revolutionary War battle called the battle of Brandywine took place, just south of Valley Forge. Her town looks like a little village that time forgot - I could totally envision ghostly horses and carriages winding around the curves of the roads as we got closer and closer to her crib.
To contribute memories or photos of the Pink House, whether you once lived there, just passed through, or punched a hole in the wall at a party, no matter the era, leave a comment or e-mail us: pinkhouseforever@gmail.com.
I did "live" in the Pink House briefly when Scott and i dated. I remember the fridge that spoiled Jay's milk and he ruined some mac and cheese. I remember many parties. I remember two girls that shared a room downstairs and that toboggan wearing guy (erik?) who read every book known to mankind. I remember that jay's room was tiny. Scott had his own room then. I remember dinners to watch Ren and Stimpy and the Simpsons.
Ain't no party like a Pink House party...I miss Mona Lisa and dropping by just to see what was going on. If nothing else, you could probably catch an episode of Ren and Stimpy. Good times, people.
- Caroline Philson, 2009
A nominee for worst houseguest ever is whoever stole my $100 pair of Ray-Bans. Those were the most expensive pair of sunglasses I ever owned. I used to keep them on the shelf in my room that was the first thing you saw if the door was open. And one day, they were just gone. Other contenders include whoever stole the toilet tank cover, and one of our couch cushions, both at the same party in '95 or '96.
- Jay Murray, 2009
One thing that sticks with me is going through the phone bill each month - 6 people marking their calls. I think Erik used to total it up, and then it became my job when he moved out. There was always some random call that no one would claim!
- Mel Keister (Lanham), 2009
The Pink House experience...I remember the insane mix of characters and personalities...the endless procession of random fiends droppin' by to chill on our couches and unadulterated fun we had...never a dull moment...great times!
- Steve William, 2009
I remember being at the Pink House, but I don't ever remember going there or leaving. It's like it was a place that existed only in my mind.
- Matthew Dan Stewart, 2009
I lived in the house for only six months or so, including one flat-out glorious summer, imported by the inimitable Mr. Murray. Before moving in, I hung out there forever. Then rented the upstairs room (formerly Scott's? Mel's?) across from Erik's, when it opened up at the last minute. Actually hit the road and moved to LA two days before the shootings over on Henderson Street (in January '95).
- Trent McDevitt, 2009
Maybe I'll be back someday, knock on the old Pink House door. That is, of course, if they haven't torn it down.
I was so innocent before I moved into that house...
- Karen Hurka, 2009
Visitor Log
Good music, good people, good parties...a really good gathering of people who were looking for something more. There was new music, people from different backgrounds...a lot of the groovy, hip experience that I got out of my time in Chapel Hill. And lots of interesting conversations. That's what I remember most about Pink House parties – the great conversations.
- Mike Thomas, 2009
Early in '95, Chris Palmatier had bought an 8-track, probably on credit, because bill collectors were constantly calling and looking for him. He had his studio set up in the dining room, on the kitchen counter, and every morning, when I would get up and stumble downstairs looking for some breakfast, I'd have to step over a drum set in the kitchen. By 10 am, Chris would have some band starting their practice session in the living room.
- Allen Sellars, 2009
What's up this is Dawad from the old school Jungle Juice Crew! The blog is excellent, I was going through all the stories and memories were just snapping back in my head. I remember being upstairs taking whippet shots for the first time ever, out of this world, those were free and liberal times when ideas were flowing and action was only a step away.
- Dawad Norville, 2009
The Pink House pictures really brought me back to a very magical time in my life. And to memories of some of the best parties I've ever been to. I don't want to wax too nostalgic but I do think that was a special time and community of people in Chapel Hill in the early-mid '90s.
I was hanging out with (an unnamed Pink House resident) once when we were on campus at UNC, and we stumbled upon some Republican literature. So (the unnamed resident) said, "Oh look, some paper to keep the recycling program going!" And picked up the stack and tossed it into the paper recycling bin. I have always found that hilarious!
