Cell phone alarm ensemble strikes hard at 5:15 on Wednesday morning. Springing out of bed is not an option, but movement is excited non-the-less. Memories of the evening spent before sharpen. I recall dashing about town in a last ditch to gather the supplies, to garner bits of glamour and necessaries. Hitting the special store on vine, getting belts and rings and all nature of pretty things. Then Saveon for the necessary. Amy does most of the packing, as I am not very talented at that sort of thing. I tend to throw a lot of combinations at the problem and hope for the best.
Back to my day in progress. Checking the bags. Loving the cats. Waiting for cab.
Our cab was a problem. Arrived on time, very Russian, aren't they all in Los Angeles?
There is a law in the city of west Hollywood, that if a cab is licensed to operate in the city of west Hollywood then that cab must honor a $25 dollar flat fee from any Weho address to LAX. I ask the cabbie if he will give us the flat fee, he informs us he won't. I ask if he is licensed to operate here and he says yes, but gas prices have changed and he must make a living. I could give a fuck. We are all yelling. We call his cab company and they tell us to tell him it's the law and he must. He will not! The company over our cell phones tell us to tell him CODE RED. That's right fuck face! CODE RED! No avail. He just says we will pay the meter or he will drop us off. He speeds to try and get as close to the 25 dollar rate as possible. What a jack ass. In then end we pay 35, which is what we intended to pay, $25 flat plus $10 tip. Instead he gets $31 meter and a shitty $4 dollar tip. I'm going to complain to any city official who will listen.
Check in was a breeze and the bar in the terminal opened at 6:30. Popping a valium and started to drink. The flight departed on time, Amy let me have the window.
I read from the book "Middle Sex", looked out the window, giggled with anticipation and watched "Bewitched", the in flight movie.
As the hours passed out the window in a blur of clouds and blue I finally spotted land. As welcome a sight it was for me from the air after a Five hour plane I can by no strength of imagination understand what it must have been like prior to flight to arrive somewhere by ship.
Landing 20 minutes early, we were given a cold soaking wet flower lei, and ushered eventually into a bus to our hotel.
As we were early we were not allowed yet to check into our hotel. This being a free trip won from a radio station, we were then treated to luxury that we don't understand. They actually took all our luggage, gave us a pager and told us they would page when our room was ready, we were then free to roam wherever we saw fit.
We found a local diner, directly underneath the first gay bar we could find. We ate some sort of fish salad and sandwich of some type. Beer with lunch lead us up the stairs to the above "alternative lifestyle bar". Angles is sort of the trunks of Waikiki as far as I could tell. We went up and enjoyed cheap draft beer and a little local color.
Leaving after a few we were en route to the next gay bar, which we found on a map in a fag rag, when we received the page about our rooms readiness to accept us. Happy we headed the block back to our hotel.
Walking into the room was a pay off. The furnishings beautiful, the clean feeling, and the unobstructed view of the ocean from the 23rd floor. We were going to be well taken care of and to people used to sharing a hotel room with a drag rock band this was something special. The comfort level of the bed was impressive, in such contrast to the bed at home that my neck and back pains all but went away during our stay, very nearly we had been given a start from fresh.
We readied and changed fro the beach. The sand soft and the water warm, not uckie and crowded as I had expected. Not cold like L.A. ocean.
Swimming and frolicking finished we dripped our way into an ABC store and purchased the first of a dozen or so six packs of Asian beer.
Drying on the balcony enjoying a beer we looked over the water, flipped through gay pages to decide where we would go for the evening. We found an ad for a Karaoke bar which serves tunes from 4pm till 2am, we decided this would be our activity for the early evening. The place was called "in between", and it was hidden in an alley where we almost didn't find it, when we did we were shocked at it's tiny size. At the five seat bar was a talkative old Texan and a quiet man of brown skin. Our bartender smiled more than he spoke, but he was good at finding the songs for the karoake, and quick to refill the cheap pitchers of beer. I don't know how long we ended up staying, or how much I ended up drinking. I recall singing "refugee", "Who can it be now", "The Letter", "Ordinary World", "Dancing With Myself" & "Forever in Blue Jeans". I know I sang at least 2 more songs but they are lost in the blur of the evening.
We ended the evening like dumb Americans, drunk and eating at Chili's. Amy cried a bit over something sad from the past. We found our way back to the hotel and passed out rather early.
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