HotelChatter

Long story short, it was a good night. Our group of friends and acquaintances shuffled between the room and the bar, laughing the whole way along. There was an incident outside when they wouldn't let someone from our entourage back into the hotel. The guy--I think his name was Jeff--decided the best way to earn his way back in would be to convince the bouncer he was "in Fleetwood Mac" and "[had] SARS." So he pulled up the hood of his jacket, started singing "Landslide" and marched right up to the door, only to be denied again. I guess you had to be there, but it was awesome.

I should mention that, while we didn't want to draw any attention to ourselves, someone decided it would be a great idea to order beer from Pink Dot. Oh yeah, great, great idea. I accompanied him out to the lobby to pick up his stuff. Before I turned back towards the room, a woman grabbed my arm and gave me a warning, something very similar to this: "We know what you're up to. There's going to be trouble."

After a visit from security, I told everyone it was time to take the party outside for good. We had pissed some people off, sure, but I figured that the situation was resolved when we cleared the room out.

We spent the next morning cleaning the room up. Nothing was damaged. When I checked out, no one had an angry word for me. It was business as usual. I figured our relationship with the Standard was solid enough, and never heard anything from them that made me think otherwise.

Until almost three years later.

Many months ago this year, we decided it was time to return to room 154. Not that it was the first time in forever that I'd be returning to LA. I'd been back many times over the years, but had either stayed with friends or tried different hotels along Sunset. I made a reservation online about two months in advance. My credit card was accepted. Everything went fine.

But a couple of weeks before I was to arrive, I decided I wanted to stay an extra day, and went to edit my reservation online. I logged into my account, but the information for my stay wasn't there. Nothing was there. I called the hotel directly.

"Hi," I said. "I'm trying to access my reservation online, but I'm getting an error. I'd like to extend my stay. Can you help me?"

"Sure," says the agent. "One moment."

Typing noises.

"I'm sorry, but you're on our blacklist."

"What?!"

"You're on our blacklist. Party in the room." CLICK.

And that's as much of an explanation as I ever got. Three years later, without any warning, and with only a couple of weeks left to find another place to stay. What if I had never called? I realize I ruffled a couple of feathers there, but I never had plans to cause a ruckus again. And though I didn't damage the room, I would have even paid up to the best of my ability if they informed me of any supposed problems.

Now I'll never see my beloved room 154 again. And to think I considered us soul mates. It could have been different. It should have been different. And a "blacklist," seriously? What gets you on the blacklist? Does anything get you off? Maybe when I die, someone from the Standard will show up at my funeral with an explanation.

So the Standard has a blacklist for parties in the room. That list must be very long indeed. Anyways, this concludes our story session for today. If you have a story about a loved hotel room, be it in Hollywood or not, that you would like to share, our operators are standing by.