Category: travel

What I’m reading: Same stuff as last week — When the Shooting Stops, The Book of Basketball — and a ton of stories that I’d been saving in my RSS reader.

What I’m listening to: Graceland (Paul Simon), Boxer (The National; boy I really adore this record), In Our Nature (Jose Gonzalez), The Royal Tenenbaums soundtrack

What I’m watching: The 6-episode BBC miniseries, The Singing Detective, which was mindbowingly good.

What I’m drinking: Hendrick’s & tonic (but not at the Westin Bonaventure in L.A., those bait-and-switching sonsabitches)

What Rufus is up to: According to my wife, he spent his time pouting in his crate while I was away.

Where I’m going: Nodarnwhere! Yay!

What I’m happy about: That I was able to carry off French cuffs with my suits at the conference last week. And the new album by Dave Rawlings Machine is out this week!

What I’m sad about: Not getting to see more of L.A. than the 1-mile stretch of downtown from my hotel to the convention center. Didn’t even get out to the retail store for Monocle magazine in Santa Monica.

What I’m worried about: That this essay will lose its ability to inspire me.

What I’m pondering: What headset to buy for my Skype-recording setup, since I’m going to do a lot more of my day-job at home and need to be able to record phone interviews. Also, I’m still thinking of starting a VM podcast somedarntime.

Last week, I stayed at the Westin Bonaventure in Los Angeles. When I checked in Sunday night after my 6-plus hour flight and hour-long trip from the airport, I was told, “I’m sorry, sir, but we don’t have any rooms with king-sized beds available, as per your reservation.”

“What do you have?”

“Queens and twin-beds.”

“I’ll take a queen, then.”

“Well, the only thing is, all the available rooms with queen beds are right next to elevators, so they’re kind of loud.”

“. . . Awesome. I’ll take the twin room, then.”

That night, I met some of my advertiser-pals at the bar in the lobby. As is my wont, I ordered a Hendrick’s & tonic. I took one sip of the drink, and said to my pals, “This isn’t Hendrick’s.”

“What do you mean?”

“They’re serving a cheap gin out of that bottle, and they’re getting people to spend $12 because they can’t tell the difference.”

“You gonna complain?”

“Nah. The bartender didn’t do it. It’s the second time this has happened to me, and both times were in hotel bars, so I’ve learned my lesson.”

I had an 8:30 a.m. flight home on Thursday, so I set up a wake-up call with the front desk for 5:45 a.m., then lay myself on the bed diagonally (to keep my feet from dangling over the end) and went to sleep.

As is also my wont, I had a dream in which I didn’t get the wake-up call. Trust me; business travel breeds this sorta thing.

(Why I didn’t use the room’s alarm clock, you ask? Because

1. I figured I’d mis-set it and wake up late, and
2. as I told one of my advertiser-pals during the conference, “I operate under the assumption that every single object in one’s hotel room has been used for sexual purposes.” I was explaining why I don’t use the in-room coffee-maker, but same principle.)

In my dream that morning, I overslept, then woke up too late to make the flight, and called the front desk to rant and rave about how they’d messed up my wakeup call. I threatened to write a scathing review of the hotel and complain to the parent company about how awful the entire stay was.

The manager was so distraught that he, um, well, he sent a girl up to my room. This being a dream, I grudgingly took her to bed. We were about to get at it when she told me that was actually a lesbian. I exploded, bellowing, “This entire hotel is predicated on the goddamn bait-and-switch!”

I woke up. It was 5 a.m. The call came right on time, 45 minutes later.

The takeaway?

1. I have a tortured goddamn psyche;
2. you shouldn’t stay at the Westin Bonaventure in L.A. It’s overpriced and underdelivers.