Helene: It’s a list of band names that my daughter, Olive, and I make up. We’re about to do a project relating to it. Tell me about what it was like when you first moved in here.
We’d hear gunshots and there would be police running through our yard looking for perps across our lawn. Flatbush Avenue isn’t that far away. There’s lots of funky, intense, weird things and there’s murders that happen, but there are pockets of beauty and niceness. Nothing bad ever happens to us here, but it’s not like the suburbs. It’s still the city and you’re always aware of that. It’s not heaven, but if you want to live in the New York area, it almost is. Do you know the history of this house?
There’s a beautiful N in the doorway, which was the initial of the original owner, who was a borough president of Brooklyn. This was built as a summer residence. There was no train line back then. This is where people would come to be close to the beach. Back in the 20s and 30s, movie stars would stay out here. The house across the street is famous and a friend of mine lives in a house that Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford lived in a few blocks away. This house has only changed hands a few times since it was built. We’re, at most, the fourth owners. Who lived here before?
He was an insane nightmare person. Gary and I have an agreement that we’re not allowed to talk about him to each other. He was a dentist and he accidentally killed a child with anesthesia in the house and I think he went crazy after that. The house is haunted a little bit. There’s a faucet upstairs and sometimes we can hear words coming out of it. What kind of words?
I don’t remember, maybe Gary does. It hasn’t happened in a long time. I think they were saying, “We’re happy that you’re living here now instead of that horrible person.” He left a lot of beakers behind. Let’s go see Gary. Hey, Gary, what did the faucet say?
Gary: Wait, the… what?
Helene: The haunted sink.
Gary: Oh, it said, “Africa.” “Afffrica.” It said it two or three times.
Helene: I thought it was his way of saying he was happy we were here instead of Mort. Oh, also his name was Mort.
Jonathan: There’s two in that room and three of us in there. Does it feel crowded?
Yeah, it’s horrible. Especially when there were four of us in this room. I have to get ready for work at 8 AM and I can’t get ready or do shit. I’m in here with two gays, which is also a pain. Being in this room makes me think of hiding from the Nazis.
Anne Frank’s attic was bigger than this but the stairs are like ladders. Do people give you shit for wearing your Blackstreet shirt?
Yeah, I’ve gotten abused for it on the street. Some guy who passed me said, “Are you fucking kidding me, man? Get that shit off!” Are you the only white people living on a black street?
Yeah. Hilarious! Did you wear that because you knew I was coming over?
No.
Jonathan: My friends who have known me for a while see what my life ended up like and say, “Yeah, that makes sense.” When my brother and I were teenagers we scraped together a couple grand working as busboys at my parents’ restaurant, and when we were 11 and 13 we bought a 25-foot sailboat. Our parents applauded our independence and would let us take three- and four-day journeys off the coast of California to uninhabited islands and anchorages by ourselves. I always saw everything in life as attainable, it was just a matter of kicking your own ass to get there. I had this real estate investment company, which I did for four years, and then my brother and I decided to look at permanent places to live in New York City. I was on vacation and I was looking at houseboats when it hit me that we could live on a houseboat in New York City. The funny thing about boats is that they get bigger but they don’t get more expensive. Passenger ferries that have been decommissioned no longer have a use. The only people who are going to buy one are people like me, and there aren’t that many of us. It wasn’t that expensive. I was able to compare buying a 144-foot, 650-passenger ship with buying a one- or two-bedroom apartment in Manhattan. How’d you find your roommates/crew?
I bowed out of real estate and found myself with this boat, not really knowing what to do with it. We’re going have to pause for a second. Jonathan talks to some people and we get back to it in his room, which is lined with insulating foam and looks like the Wampa cave on Hoth. So you moved your friends onto this boat.
Two of these guys I grew up with in a cult in Southern California and Montana. Which cult?
Let’s call it a church. Scientology?
No. It’s a whole ’nother discussion. Jonathan gets distracted by other people so I talk to Ben, one of the crewmen on the ship, in his dark and grimy bedroom. How long have you lived on the Party Boat?
Ben: A year and nine months. And how’d you meet Jonathan?
I met Jonathan in jail. I was in there for traffic tickets. He was in there for some other minor offense. I was there for only 18 hours. Can this boat actually go places?
If all goes as planned, we’re going to try to take it to Miami for the winter and bring it back in March. We view this boat as being a platform for anything we want. I’m an artist. We have a band on board. International salvage laws say that anything you find in the sea is yours. If some wealthy person sees this article and decides to put some money into this boat we could do neat stuff too. How many people are living on this boat?
Well, there’s my room, which is more of a storeroom. Jonathan has a bedroom. Bruce sleeps in the control room. Jason is making a room in the back where my studio used to be. Do you have a shower on this thing?
Yeah, it’s in Jonathan’s room. Is there anything you don’t like about living on the boat?
I didn’t like the winter. It was freezing cold. I don’t like it when it’s disgustingly dirty. But long story short, living on this boat is incredible. I’ve met so many great people because they’re so interested in it. It’s like I’m in school. The other day I learned how to weld a plate to the bottom of the boat because we got a hole in it. Plug it up, hammer these pegs into the bottom of the boat, shove tiny bits of cotton in there, then cut a plate to the right size and weld it on there. This boat is like Fight Club. Also you guys are all running around shirtless so that adds to that.
It’s a very primal feel here. Our friends come over to drink beers and they’ll ask us if we ever wear shirts. We’re dripping with sweat and covered in filth from running cables and whatever. I used to live in Williamsburg and I didn’t have any room to paint. Now I have a 2,000-square-foot home and I can look at the New York skyline out of the back of the boat while I’m painting.