Turning 30

You know when you're playing an RPG, where you have to complete some side tasks before moving past a certain point in the game, or not make any mistakes, or else you'll never be able to achieve the good ending? And once you've failed to do that, you might not even be halfway through the game, but from then on you know the best you're going to get is the generic ending. And maybe you bother playing the rest of the game out, but you're not really enjoying it, because you screwed it up and no matter what you do you can't get to the result you want. That's how I feel about turning 30.

An Open Letter to the Hoteliers of America

Dear Hoteliers,

I am tired of filling out those little comment cards, and quite frankly they don't leave enough room for the rant that is about to ensue, so I will address all of you in the hopes that some of you will shape up before I stumble half-asleep across your doorstep some afternoon.

First of all, I see that your comment card asks me lots of questions about things I could care less about: "overall exterior appearance of hotel," "responsiveness to your needs," "condition of furniture."  Let me save you the time and tell you that when I walk into your hotel, I expect 3 things:

A bed

A shower with decent water pressure

an internet connection with sustained speeds over 1.5mbps

I don't care if the room has a TV, a couch, or a chest of drawers.  I hope it has lights and maybe a fridge.  A desk and chair would add to my comfort greatly, and frankly the bed is not strictly necessary, but would be preferable to sleeping on the floor.   But really, the only reason I am here is to take a much-anticipated shower, and to use my little free time to play an online game that demands a reliable connection, and perhaps to download some episodes of "The Wire" from iTunes.  

In my travels thus far, I have found few hotels that can meet even two of these needs.  Everyone has accomplished #1, and for that I congratulate you.  But Holiday Inn Express in Harrisburg, PA, and Hampton Inn in Hampton, VA, are you pumping the water into my shower with a bicycle pump?  Is there a little man in the wall who pours a cup of water at a time into the back of the shower head?  I haven't had a shower in THREE FUCKING DAYS, give me some damn water!!!

Ahem, now on to the most important question, and the area where almost all hotels need to improve.  With the exception of the Holiday Inn Express in Poplar Bluff, MO (!!) you all failed to provide sufficient internet services.  Every hotel I have stayed at has advertised "high speed internet," including the Holiday Inn Select in Lafayette, IN, which provided consistent speeds of 250kbps, which might have been considered high speed 10 years ago.  Here's a tip:  I have just run a speed test on my laptop using my cell phone's connection (in an area with 3G and full bars), and pulled down 818kbps / 348kbps up.   I don't think it's asking too much for your rather large, stationary, and overpriced building to provide better internet service than a fucking PHONE.  

A few other things of less importance:

I'd really like the soda machine to be on my floor and not sold out of everything but Diet Pepsi.  And at least one snack machine in the building.

Why do some of you hide the listing of the TV channels so well that I only discover it when I'm packing up to leave?

Laundry - you must have laundry machines.  When I get a spare hour or two at 2AM, I need some clean clothes.  I might only get that chance once a week, and if I'm in your hotel when it happens, you better be ready for it!

So get it together, folks.  I will be adding to this list as I see fit.

Another Bag Review: Ricardo Beverly Hills Essentials 30" Rolling Duffle

According to my statistics, probably the most popular post ever on my blog is the review I did of my BBP bag (which I decided I kind of hate, and never use, incidentally). It seems people are always searching for reviews of it, and I hope my rather lengthy post on it has helped them make a decision. So since I'm an admitted Bag Whore, and recently purchased a new bag that I'm very excited about, I will give another review.

For this tour I'm now on, I decided I needed a snazzy new piece of luggage that I could lug around for six months, that would be bigger than the small suitcase I use for summer stock, but small enough that I can still get around with it easily. I haven't selected a piece of luggage for myself since I was about 12, so I really didn't know what my options were. After looking for ideas in some luggage stores in New York, I decided to try the rolling duffle format, as it seemed the most expandable while still being lightweight and compact when the contents allowed. I think they actually may not make this model anymore, but you can still find it for sale online (at about half of the original MSRP). Here's the Amazon link.

This is the Ricardo Beverly Hills Essentials 30" Rolling Duffle. It's MSRP is $180, but most places I've seen it online have been around $100. It comes in blue, shown above (which is the one I have), and brown. The wheels (which are Razer-scooter-style) match the color of the bag, which is a completely useless but cool feature. It has some little accents that are yellow (such as the zipper pulls, and the button you push to make the handle pop out).

As this handy image shows, it has two main compartments: there is a lower compartment that's kind of box-shaped and somewhat rigid, but not completely. The zipper that you see partially opened on top leads to the main compartment which takes up pretty much all the rest of the space. There is also a nice mesh section on the bottom of the top compartment, so you can see into the bottom compartment and air can get in there. It even zips open so you can get in the bottom compartment without opening it from the outside (my bag is always packed too tightly to make that very useful, but I'm sure it could be).

The upper compartment has two pouches on the back edge, like many suitcases have, to stick whatever it is you stick in those (toiletries mostly, I guess, though I travel with a separate toiletries bag since we don't stay in a hotel every night). These don't close, and when the bag is flipped open, due to its flexible nature, I find the pouches sometimes bend over and the contents spill out into the rest of the bag. I keep things like my little swiss army knife, apartment keys, coins for laundry, stamps, and a roll of scotch tape in there. I don't mind it too much, but they're not the most useful for keeping things separate that you really need to keep separate. Unfortunately, I'd say the one fault of the bag is there really aren't any small compartments, but I think that's true of most traditional suitcases as well.

Attached at either end of the upper part of the bag are rather large side pockets. The one on the left is kind of normal, the one on the right has a little trick. It's mostly designed to be a place to keep dirty laundry, wet clothes, shoes, or other things you might not want getting shoved in with all your nice clean clothes. The pocket actually goes much deeper than it appears -- it has a sort of sock-like shape to it that extends into the main compartment. This has advantages and disadvantages: if you don't need to fill that pocket with much, then it just compresses and doesn't take away valuable space in the main compartment. If you do try to cram it with stuff, it will expand into the main compartment, giving you less room in there. I think this is the best possible solution, but when I've got close to a week of dirty laundry, it can be tricky to shove it all in the side pouch, and then rearrange the rest of my bag to compensate for the fact that the center compartment is now reduced in capacity for clean clothes. In theory it should all work out because it's the same total volume, but I find I always have to start rearranging things as the proportion of dirty vs. clean clothes changes throughout the week. If you stay somewhere more than a day or two and actually fully unpack your bag in the hotel, it might not matter at all. Anyway, the idea of having a separate place for dirty laundry was a huge selling point for this bag. The fact that it doesn't waste space when empty is also highly awesome. UPDATE: After a recent string of nights spent sleeping on the bus, I had gotten to the point where most of my clothes were dirty. I'm happy to report the dirty laundry pocket was able to expand to about 2/3 the size of the total upper part of the bag, successfully keeping all my yucky clothes away from the nice ones until we were able to spend the night in a hotel.

These are really the only four compartments. There is a zipper at the bottom of the bottom compartment which leads into the lining of the bag. I really don't know what it's for, but you could shove stuff in there if you really want, maybe for extra security. I keep my mail in there so 3 months of bills and bank statements aren't rolling around in my way every day. On the exterior there are a few loops, and some elastic straps, which if I'm careful, I can get my toiletries bag to fit in -- by complete accident, the bags even match!

The final zippered area is on the bottom of the bag. A panel pulls down revealing some (rather thin and cheap-feeling) backpack straps. I like this feature because if I have to carry the bag up a flight of stairs, it's much easier as a backpack than as a suitcase. However, when there's 30-40lbs in the bag, the straps are not particularly comfortable, so I don't personally see this as an alternative to rolling the bag, except for a quick 30-second jaunt up stairs or the like. I also suspect with any serious use they would start to break.

The bag has a standard pull-out locking luggage handle for wheeling it. It's very sturdy, the only complaint I have about it is that it's short. This works fine given the height of the bag, but if you have any carry-on bags that have a slot intended to be passed over the luggage handle of another bag, you will probably find this handle too short to come out the other end of your carry-on.

On the back side of the bag is a little window for your name and address, with a cover that velcros down over it.

The handles are nicely designed. There are duffel-style handles with a velcro strap to keep them together. The top of the bag has a soft handle, and the bottom has a hard rubberish one, which I think is also intended to help the bag stand on end. This doesn't always work, but it's a start. No matter how you want to carry the bag, or if you want to carry it with another person, you'll find a handle for it. I find that especially useful when yanking the bag around in the luggage bays under our bus.

The wheels, as I said, match the color of the bag and are similar to the narrow variety used in Razer Scooters and inline skates. I'm sure you could find a suitcase with more rugged wheels, but I found these satisfactory even through the snow and ice in Minneapolis.

Finally, here's an action shot of my bag in the Minneapolis airport. This gives some indication that the colors are a little darker and more subtle than the Smurftacular blue that the manufacturer's photos make it seem to be.

One final observation: when I was shopping for this bag I read some reviews saying that it started to fall apart quickly. I was a little concerned, but I must say so far I don't see any signs of wear at all. If that changes over the tour I will update this, but we are traveling every day or two now, so it should be going through a lot of use.

Pros:
Separate pocket for dirty laundry, collapses when not needed.
Hidden backpack straps
Handles every place you could think to carry it from.
Wheels roll nicely

Cons:
No small closable pockets or compartments.
Doesn't stand up on end all that well, depending on how it's packed.
Handle is too short to attach a carry-on around it.

TEASER: Just this morning, while acting a fool underneath our truck trailer, I got copious amounts of grease on my main backpack, which I fear will be coming off on my hands and anything else it touches from now until the end of time. So I am now in the market to replace my beloved Victorinox bag ASAP. This is one of the most essential objects in my life, so I will be sure to do a thorough review of whatever I get.

My Life in Speeddial

Another in the continuing series of snapshots of my life based on who is currently on my speed-dial list.

1. My assistant (Nick)
2. Our company manager
3. The Acting Company main office number
4. My parents
5. Good stage manager friend
6. Another good stage manager friend
7. The Phantom stage management office

A Snapshot of My Life

I've had my iPhone only a few days, and haven't completely set everything up permanently, but here is who's currently on my favorites list on the phone app:

1. My assistant
2. My parents
3. A stage manager friend from NY
4. Another stage manager friend from NY
5. The tech director at Reagle
6. OK sushi place in town
7. Better sushi place in town

Draw whatever conclusions from this you will.

My Manifesto as Emperor of New York

Preamble
Whereas I have been called out (again!) for not updating this blog, I am going to make a slight departure from the usual topics to share with you my plans for the City of New York after I am declared Emperor.

And whereas these plans have been years in the making, and I have finally felt the need to write them down, and also to make a blog post, Behold!

I. Terraforming of Annoying Geography
For my first act as Emperor, I shall assemble a vast quantity of dynamite and bulldozers and other necessary equipment, and flatten the terrain of Washington Heights. This will no doubt require the destruction of many structures, probably including the one in which I currently reside, but in the end the benefits will outweigh the temporary displacement, and I will have long since moved into my palace above the Bed Bath and Beyond in Chelsea. It is unclear why this couldn't have been done a hundred years ago before there was all this stuff here, but it might as well be done sooner rather than later. In the interests of historical preservation, the Cloisters can be left where they are up on a cliff of some sort, and people can continue to use the A train elevator to get there.

When this important work is completed, some slight modification of the valley in the vicinity of 125th St. can also be looked at.

II. Provision of Necessary Amenities for the Populace

1. It shall be required by law that there be a 24-hour Duane Reade located within 10 blocks of every point in the City.

2. Likewise there shall be a Staples with copy center within 10 blocks of every space licensed for public performance within the City. At least one of these shall be open 24 hours.

3. There shall be a Starbucks within 3 blocks of every point in the City. It may surprise some citizens to know that this has not yet been achieved.

4. Every mobile phone operator who wishes to do business in New York shall ensure that the entire City is covered with adequate voice and high-speed data service down to the first basement level, as well as all subway stations and tunnels. For any area of the city found to be not so covered, the company shall incur a fine of 100 million dollars per week that the lack of coverage exists, or $600,000 per hour in the case of temporary outages, the time being rounded up to the next hour.

5. Time Warner or another provider shall offer internet at a bandwidth of no less than 7 Mbps to every business and residence in the City. Fines for outages shall be $1,000 per minute per customer.

III. Transportation
1. Subways. It was the intention of the designers of the original subway system in 1904 that trains would run every 90 seconds. My first goal for the transit system is to return all lines to this operating procedure. This will not apply only to weekdays or so-called "business hours," but to all hours, as the nighttime and weekend worker and the drunk returning home from the bar at 4AM are entitled to the same service as the businessman traveling to his office at 9AM.

The 2nd Avenue Subway shall be completed with all possible haste. As this will still leave the Upper East Side largely useless, a crosstown subway shall be constructed at 125th St.

2. Buses. The provision of bus lines and bus stops is deemed to be adequate, however the number of buses running on each line shall be greatly increased.

3. Vehicles neglecting to activate their turn signals may be physically damaged in any way deemed appropriate by passing pedestrians without fear of prosecution.


IV. The Bubble
Once the land has been sufficiently terraformed and the needs of the people provided for, we may begin construction on the true purpose of my Empire -- to construct a bubble over the City of New York so that the extreme inconvenience of precipitation may be avoided. Depending on its design it may also allow for some degree of temperature control.

This bubble does not need to completely enclose the city -- it may be open on the sides to allow fresh air and clear views. In effect it shall act as more of a "rain hat" over the City. Job placement assistance and educational opportunities shall be provided for the guys who stand on the street corner saying "Umbrellaumbrellaumbrella." Once the City is free from precipitation, my primary aims as Emperor will be complete.

Other Public Works
A bridge system shall be constructed above the Times Square district, consisting of glass walkways which may be accessed at street corners by means of a card system similar to a Metrocard. Such cards shall be provided without cost to all residents of New York and commuting workers so that they may travel through the Times Square area in a rapid manner while allowing visitors to stare at the tall buildings and have their portraits drawn by sidewalk artists.

In Conclusion
I hope I have made it clear why it is in the best interets of all New Yorkers that I be declared Emperor and that all citizens should cooperate fully with my regime.