Ok. I write this with some sort of stomach flu that attacked me last night. I know what you think, that’s I am a walking hospital patient but I am actually one of the healthiest people you’ll ever meet. I guess it’s a stretch of bad luck? Well, more to the point, we flew to London on Sept 11 because our flight to LAX wasn’t until the 12th. So we land 3 hours later at Luton and was picked up by a driver, which was arranged by none other than Mr. Glenn Povey of 2nd wave Productions. The ride to our hotel was nice and fast, as the bloke who drove us had been watching “Ronin” or something because he was doing 90mph (130 Kph) ALL THE WAY to Heathrow, where we checked into the LONDON HEATROW THISTLE HOTEL. But it turns out we only had a reservation…and for 1 room! Now, there is Rusty, Daddyo and myself. So I call Glenn on his cell and of course there’s no answer (anyone who’s every tried extract Geldt from Sir Povey very well know the difficulties of that “sorry, not in” message on the Mobile) so I call Gene Kraut(…you what I mean? WAKE HIS ASS UP, RIGHT?) IN NEW YORK but then I realize it’s actually 5 hours behind so I give Gene the story and asks if he’ll do anything about it and he says,”Maybe…maybe not” and I’m going, “say man, take care of this!”

he then starts laughing out loud and says, “Why don’t you get “A-BOD” to take care of it!”. obviously showing even Gene Kraut is a slave to the Diaries…So Gene takes care of it and we decide to take 1 room with 3 beds. But the people at the place are comatose, beginning with the bloke who offered to take our bags to our room AND NEVER CAME BACK. Or how about the guy who suggested we order room service so he could bring us our choice of sandwiches AND THEN REFUSES TO ANSWER THE PHONE. Or what about the 100% super-Genius who runs the front desk that neither works nor answers the phone but sits there like a worthless fat fuck. Pardon Moi, but, don’t these bumbling idiots work on behalf of the patron? I mean, if this were in America, I could dial the “tattle-tale” 1-800-FIRE-HIM line that most of these places have. But it’s the UK and these people could care less if you dropped dead, as long as you pay the bill on don’t pee on the rug.

So we took our bags up and then we had 3 bottles of wine we needed opening so I go back downstairs to the hotel restaurant and asked to borrow an opener, only to be told,”Sorry, we don’t have one.” So I’m thinking to myself, ALL THOSE PEOPLE OVER THERE IN THE RESTAURANT ARE DRINKING GRAPE PUNCH. So I ask again, politely, but the woman, who looks eerily familiar to a goat, insists they have none. Well, of course she figured I was too dumb to guess that those half filled bottles on Vino didn’t open themselves. So I devised a plan, and, you are more then welcome to use this at any hotel, anytime, in any country; take a pen and a piece of paper and write the following…

Dear Hotel Worker (and I use the word “Worker” loosely), I AM A PATRON IN THIS OVERPRICED PIECE OF SHIT SHACK YOU CALL A HOTEL. IF THERE IS A MORE INCOMPETENT STAFF ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD, PLEASE EXCUSE ME FOR MISSING IT’S NAME. NOW, ALL I WANT IS TO GO TO ROOM AND DRINK WINE WITH MY FRIENDS AND NOT HAVE TO LOOK AT ANY OF YOU UNTIL I HAND YOU MY ROOM KEY TOMORROW MORNING, AND WITH ANY LUCK, NO ONE WILL EVEN BE AT THE DESK (WHICH IS A GOOD BET). SO PLEASE FIND ME AN OPENER OR I WILL STAND HERE ALL NIGHT AND WILL MENTION TO EVERYONE OF ONE THESE STUCK UP BUSINESS WANKERS HOW MUCH OF A DUMP THIS “JIP JOINT” REALLY IS.

SINCERELY, MIKE RANDLE ROOM 882

So, Goat woman reads my letter and goes and gets “Raul” and tells him to follow me to the room and open all the bottles. Raul and I have a great conversation and it turns out he’s the only guy with common sense in eh whole lot of them. So we finally have our wine and, after being bombarded with Images of Theif of Elections talking a bunch of cowboy nonsense, something happened that I will never ever forget as long as I live: SOMEONE AT THE BBC REPLACED GEORGE BUSH ON THE TELE WITH THE YANKEES VERSUS THE BALTIMORE ORIEOLES!!!! Yay!!!!! We jumped up like children! We couldn’t believe it. Even the BBC were getting wise. I spose that means Blair will have to surrender his American Passport. And a word to the higher members of Parliament; GROW SOME JACOBS, for Christ’s sakes…Blair is delivering round-the-clock BLOW JOBS to Dubya and you sit there with your thumbs up yer bums!

OK, where was I? Oh yes, the Yankee game…ok….so Daddyo falls asleep like in the 2nd Inning and Rusty and I are watching it and it’s like 4-nil in the 5th after Sarioano takes the Baltimore pitcher deep into center field. But then, we’re on our 3 bottle and it’s the 6th and the Yankee pitcher, EL DUCKE, has runners on 2nd and 3rd and Yankee catcher, Posada, comes up and pretty much says, “Yo, chill out, Duke. Keep the those inside breaking balls down and in or this guys is gonna put the next pitch in the parking lot.” So Posada, a smart catcher, calls for a low-inside fast ball, knowing the knucklehead at the plate is thinking CURVEBALL, UP AND IN. But El Ducke waves him off and throws a curveball, up and in and guess what? THE BALTIMORE BATTER KNOCKED THE COVER OFF THE BALL. Scoreboard? 4-4. Damn. I looked over at Rusty and he’s asleep. So I finish off my wine and hit the hey. It was a long day.

So I layed there with my arms behind my head and thought of Anna and wondered if she wondered about me? I mean, you never know. Women don’t always wear there feelings or expressions. But she was happy in Athens, I was convinced. So I turned on my side and thought about getting the hell out of this hotel. How sweet it would be to check out and never, ever come back. But my thoughts drifted back to the Russian Greek and that Marilyn Monroe song. I guess some things, and some people for that matter, were meant to be forever mysterious.

Mike Randle