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
- I figured I’d mis-set it and wake up late, and
- 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?
- I have a tortured goddamn psyche;
- you shouldn’t stay at the Westin Bonaventure in L.A. It’s overpriced and underdelivers.
, by Bill Simmons, 
, by Ralph Rosenblum, and 
, by Tony Scherman and David Dalton. The latter was on display in my library when I stopped in a few days ago, so I borrowed it and gave it a read. I might go on a Warhol kick this winter, because I suspect he’s key to an understanding of celebrity (not just in terms of the “15 minutes” thing) in our age.
, by Underworld.
