I totally get Keith Moon now. I grew up reading about his hotel tantrums. The TVs sailing out windows, the cars in pools. I get it now. I really do. There is something about being on the road that drives you nuts. And the main Nut-Driver (patent pending) is your hotel room.
First of all, please understand that I realize how lucky we are to get to travel all over the country and stay in these wonderful cities. We get it. But I’m sorry… there is something maddening about hotel rooms. First of all, every one is a little different. You go to hang your towel where the hook is… no, that was the LAST room. This hook is on the door. You open your suitcase and try to put your clothes in the drawer… no, wait. The LAST hotel had a dresser. THIS hotel is way too cool to have a dresser in the room. It would ruin the Feng Fucking Shui. Stack your t-shirts on the rack in the closet like some Fuller Brush Man staying at a roadside motel in Paducah. And they all hide the wastebaskets. You look and look and they are hidden more cleverly than the door handles on a Lamborghini. I am quite insane now. I look where the previous room hid them and when they are not there… my trash goes on the floor for the maid to deal with. Then I pick it back up because….
There IS no maid. You either forget and leave the Do Not Disturb sign on when you go out for the day or they just ignore your room completely. The last hotel we stayed at didn’t clean our rooms for three days. They kept insisting that our road manager had told them not to because we needed our rest. Our road manager told us that he did not know nor did he care whether we were rested or not and ever told them not to clean our damn rooms and why are you bothering me with this shit?
In a previous hotel… I left Georgia asleep in our room (because I am a sweet and conscientious husband who knows what it feels like to have an alarm clock bounced off my forehead) while I went to work out. I found the strange little workout room in the center of our building. This hotel was a giant, sprawling complex that was laid out by the famed architect “Shemp Howard”… twenty buildings, no laundry…. genius. So I am working out and I felt like I had to… you know….”go.” Hey, even Arnold Schwarzenegger sometimes feels the urge on the treadmill. All that bouncing… So I look around for a men’s room in the gym. Nope. Too reasonable. I go out into the hall and walk about a hundred yards in each direction. Nope. I stop someone who gets a paycheck from the hotel (I was going to type “works at” the hotel but that seemed inappropriate) to ask where one might find a bathroom. He said “In your room.” I don’t want to go back to my room. It would mean I’d wake Georgia up… (trying for sainthood here)… Where else? “The lobby.” Oh, the lobby that’s fourteen buildings away and I would have to pack a lunch to walk to in my gym clothes in the middle of a grueling 11 minute program on a Stairmaster? So I walk and I walk and I sprint and I get to the lobby and I have a successful mission and I walk. And I walk and I walk back to the gym… and someone took my sunglasses. They were right there, next to the towels. This was the hotel’s master plan. A caper. Distract him by sending him to Aruba for his morning constitutional and run off with the Ray Bans! They probably sell them on the side in the gift shop.
When I got back to the room, I snapped. I understand Keith Moon. I really do. But I am a Connecticut boy raised by good, loving parents who instilled in me a tremendous fear of being caught doing anything wrong at anytime… so I went to the fruit bowl. Yes, they were nice enough to supply the room with a fruit bowl. Two bananas and three apples. Nature’s bounty! I grab an apple, slide open the door… (we are on the impressive 9th floor) and I start throwing apples as far and as hard as I can into the parking lot. Now since I am my Mother’s son, first I make sure there are no people in the parking lot… or cars… or animals. No humans or animals were hurt in the making of this tantrum. The apples sailed into the northern California sunlight. They hit the ground and exploded nicely. I felt better. As, I am sure, Keith Moon felt better.
I still want waste baskets I can find easily. I still want two keys that BOTH still work after the first twenty four hours. I want… I want…
Okay. This is starting to sound like Gwyneth Paltrow complaining because her croissant is too flaky. Traveling is fun. Touring is exciting. It’s not home, but it’s not exactly touring in a station wagon and sleeping in the back behind the club like some bands have to. I promise no more tantrums.
By the way, we played the Belly Up in San Diego last night. It was a great show with a great crowd. Only downside? As soon as I walked in the dressing room my sinuses closed up. Something in there… mold… old smoke…dust… packed my nose up tighter than a pair of fishnets on Roseanne Barr (twenty year old cultural reference). Kenny offered me some nasal spray but it was right at the moment I was being introduced to go on stage and I was afraid I would spend the entire first song sneezing and dripping. I was miserable. But I got through the show with a minimum of disgusting discharge… and I am SO looking forward to going in to that dressing room for tonight’s second show. I am going to wear a bib.