Well I am going to see Brian Wilson tonight at Brighton beach and I doubt if I’ll write when I get home. So I’ll write now, on the sneak while at work. Last night Olbermann (bring back Rachel Maddow!), Daily Show and the Colbert Report.

Then I started watching the Shining. So goddamned good. I saw it the first weekend it came out, in Totowa with my sister in law Elaine. We were both Stephen King fans then. She might still be, I know I’m not anymore.

But wow, still a fucking creepy movie. It gets creepier as I get older and with repeated viewings. And I could swear that the first weekend had a different ending than it did afterwards.

Hotels and motels scare me to the day. Walking down empty hallways with who knows what going on behind closed doors. I had a few dicey experiences at hotels and motels. One time when I was but a kid, my parents were invited to a cousin’s wedding out in Long Island.

My parents didn’t think it would be a good idea to leave my brother Brian and I alone so they took us with them. There was a miniature golf course near by and the motel had a swimming pool. I’m pretty sure we utilized them both.

But for me, it was the first time I saw a standing shower and I had the idea to plug up the drain to see if the water would collect high enough to swim indoors. I saw it on TV I’m sure.

I set the water on and clogged the drain and watched the water start to rise. I didn’t get in though. Oh did I get my head handed to me by my brother for that. It wasn’t my finest hour, and it was totally stupid.

I do think we had it all cleaned up before our parents came home from the reception. Maybe we didn’t and maybe we left the motel in the middle of the night in an attempt to escape paying any damage charges. I don’t remember.

The other hotel story takes place in the 1990’s. A friend of mine, (let’s call her Scratchy) was having a party at a hotel in Secaucus. Kevin Craughn and I went out there one night after working at McSwells, enticed by the concept of drugs and booze.

As we rode the elevator in the indoor atrium, I noticed a security guard eyeballing me. Kinky I thought. I made an appearance at the hotel room, partied and said I would be back in a few.

I saw the guard lingering about on another floor and we played a little cat and mouse on different floors before hooking up in a stairway. He knew what he was doing and so did I, or so I thought. I offered willingly, he wanted money.

I didn’t have any money and the whole thing started to go south. I started to leave the stairway when he said he was going to call the cops. I turned and said, ‘you’re going to call the cops on me when you were soliciting me for sex?’

He tried to turn up the figurative heat but I wasn’t having it. Unfortunately I had to play the race card. He was black, and I was white, much like I still am. I told him, ‘This is Secaucus. One of the most racist towns in Hudson County. You’re going to attempt to have me arrested for indecency? Who do you think they cops will believe? You? A black security guard or me a white patron at a hotel?’

He got the picture and let me go. Don’t fuck with me. That actually happened. Not a happy story (though it is- since I didn’t get arrested), but still a story that should hold you over until tomorrow.