Poetic Party for Skid Row Documentary

Charles Bukowski was the center of attention Friday night at the American Film Institute, where HBO was hosting a reception for “The Best Hotel on Skid Row,” a documentary about the denizens of downtown L.A.’s Madison Hotel. The poet narrated the film, which will be shown several times this month on the cable network.

Filmmakers Christine Choy and Renee Tajima were in high spirits. Clad in business suits and giddy attitudes, they videotaped the reception, hugged arrivals, did impromptu Supremes impressions and completed each other’s sentences like sisters.

They might have seemed unlikely candidates to be prowling the halls of the Madison, but the hotel’s occupants opened up to Choy and Tajima for the film, talking about everything from their drug addictions to their crushes on their neighbors.

Several of the cast members of “Twin Peaks” were there, including Sheryl Lee, Jack Nance and Eric Da Re, along with actors Arye Gross, Leon and Pat Ast. Also on hand was Sean Penn, who didn’t want his picture taken but nonetheless managed to stay at the center of activity.

“We used to go down to Skid Row for fun like a break,” Bukowski reminisced. “Now for the people down there, there’s no way back. . . . It’s sheer luck for the one in 1,000 who finally makes it out.”

One man who made it out, “Guitar John,” was at the reception. According to John, he had met the filmmakers in a downtown bar and agreed to be interviewed in exchange for Wild Turkey. Since the film’s completion, he has moved out of the Madison and now lives in an apartment on Oceanfront Walk in Venice.

By and large, though, the crowd was Beverly Hills. Said one woman after the screening: “They have the same problems we all do, don’t they? I mean, I know people in Bel-Air who are suffering from drug addiction and the same existential angst. But for the people on Skid Row, it’s just so much more . . . basic. “