Speaker 1: On location. I'm driven by Victor Dot's Chief Brown. It's
Bilified the Bill Moran Podcast. Well, hello and welcome. Thanks
for getting your pot on. Thank you for telling a friend.
That's how we spread the word about the pirate ship.
I am coming to you live from my sister's basement
in Fairfax, Virginia. I brought all the equipment with me,
and I expected to do something when I was in
Staten Island, and that turned into something, and then after
a while, I just realized it's better to be present
with everybody than trying to race off and do a podcast.
But since I'm Uncle of the Year, I stayed up
way late, as did my mom and my sister. But
they are better than me because we drank a lot
of wine and we talked some philosophical life stuff, I suppose,
and my niece had a synchronized swimming event or practice,
and my mom wanted to go see it, and I
was going to go see it, and I didn't get up,
and so I stayed home, and then my sister kindly
sent me the restaurant they were going to for lunch,
and I declined, and I went for a walk and
I just had a panic attack. Because they have this
very tiny dog the sides of a Chihuahua, but it's
I think it's got Doberman in it. I don't know
how that's possible, but I think it's very small. I
was just barking like crazy, and I went upstairs and
I'm calling the dog's name and there's no response. There's
no response, And now I'm thinking somebody either napped the
dog out of the house like dog napped, or the
dog ran outside. So now I'm outside, I'm looking all around.
I come back in. The dog its way in the
back of its crate with the door open, just laying there,
minding its own business. So all as well, with all
as well with that, And I hope you had a
great holiday, no matter how you said, crate, or at
least a RESTful day if you're not celebrating Christmas. But
I got to tell you, my brother in law is
he has set the bar for how Christmas should be done.
This guy did everything because my sister had rotator cuff surgery,
so she's got a bad wing as I call it.
And man, he did all the heavy lifting from making
this Yulag cake and cookies, and you know, really they
made pasta for a Christmas Eve dinner and then Christmas
Day or durs after or dures and he's serving everybody,
and I'm going I am the laziest. I mean, stockings
that were filled for everyone, including my kids, because my son,
who was with in Staten Island, decided to come down
and all that. But I want to tell you, and
this will be brief today, I just wanted to tell
you some of my experiences in Staten Island. I did
not know that my son was planning to surprise everybody,
even though I wounded opinion, surprise everybody to go to
come to my sister's house for Christmas, which my mother
was really excited about because she was very nervous about
him being alone on Christmas, and you know, just kind
of the depressing thing. But I figure, you, like in
your twenties and mid twenties, if you have to work,
you gotta work, right, So I thought, well, let me
shoot down and I'll see him for the weekend, come
back up, taking my mom down to my sisters in Virginia.
And I thought about this around Thanksgimming, so I booked
a hotel and I did it through Expedia, and I
thought I was staying at a place called The Window.
Seemed nice. It's on Staten Island. Seemed like a reasonable rate,
same as kind of everybody, maybe a little less expensive.
I don't even really remember. So so I go to
the hotel and my son is with me, and we
go in there and I say to him, you know,
I'll give you some of your Christmas gifts. Come on
up to the room. So we get up there this
room and I don't know if you saw it on
my social media or not, but this room was like,
really really tiny. And one of the special features of
this room was that over the eyehole where you would
peek out to see who's knocking on your door was
a tissue like lodged in there that no cleaning crew
had taken out. I mean, the bed was made, everything
was seemed pretty clean. But that just grows me out.
And the place itself was not. And I don't mean
to sound like a snob, but it wasn't like a
really really nice hotel. So we but I figure, what
do I care, It's just me, right, a big deal.
And as somebody said to me, it's kind of like
glamping in a way. Right, you got an ice or bed,
you get stuff. Okay, So we go to I have
a cousin that lives on Staten Island and owns a
bunch of different businesses down on the south end of
the island, and so my son and I go out
there for dinner that night and he says where he's staying,
and I tell him. Now, I realized quickly I'm leaving
this part out that I'm not staying at the Windom.
I get in an uber after we get off the
Staten Island ferry and I say to the guy the
window and he's like, the Windhom and I say, yeah,
the windowm hotel. And he's like, there's no Windom on
the island and I said, yeah, there is. I said,
let me pull up my email and they have the
address on there. I'll give it to you. And the
guy goes, Windom, that's back in Brooklyn, and I said no,
and then I give him the address and he goes, oh,
days in by Windom. Okay, well there was my first indicator.
So I show up and the place is like being renovated.
This is stuff, but whatever. Let me go back to
where we're having dinner at my cousin's house. This beautiful
home he has in Staten Island. My son works at his.
He has a banquet hall called the Old Bermuda. They
were having a breakfast with Sanna that I went to
the next day because my son was working and I
had brunch. It was a fantastic brunch and kind of
hung out there that day. There were no TVs, so
I listened to the Bills game via a serious XM satellite.
I have the app, so that was fine, and talk
to a lot of people. Guy, it was nice. It
was perfectly nice, enjoyable, beautifully decorated place. He says to me,
where are you staying? And I tell him the day's
in by windowm and he goes, what and I said yeah.
He goes no, no, no, no, no, no, no no. And his
wife's like, why didn't you tell us you were coming down?
You could have stayed here. But they're on the other
end of the island from where my son is because
he's up closer to the ferry because he works in
Manhattan and likes going over to the city. So I
was like, no, I wanted to be close to him,
and I don't want to burden anybody's before the holiday,
you know what I mean? It's like you need one
more person coming in, you know, crapping up your towels
and sheets and all this stuff. Is you're gonna have
family over. So they're like, they let a lot of
My cousin says, they let a lot of homeless people
stay there. I don't know. Well, let me tell you.
I get back to the hotel and I'm on the
fifth floor. I go to my room and there's a
lot of yelling. I mean a lot of yelling and cursing,
and kids running around and a man yelling at a woman,
fuck you, like yelling and stuff. And I'm like, oh boy, yeah,
seems to quiet down. I go to sleep. I sleep
through the night, but I am I gotta tell you, like,
I was a little weirded out. So the next morning, Uh,
I don't even I think I was going to meet
my son. He had to be at work, so I
was going to go to that brunch and he had
a one o'clock reservation for me. So I was moving slow,
and uh, I'm laying in bed and some little kid
is just singing out in the hallway, just like a
little kid does. Right, Usually when anybody's happy, they sing.
A kid is happy. When they're singing side. I didn't
really think anything, but it was and it was muffled.
It was, you know, not terrible. The person on the
other side of the wall for me starts screaming shut
the fuck up, shut the fuck up, like really really loud,
and these walls are super thin, and I'm like, what
in the hell is going on? And there was a
time in the middle of the night, like I did
get woken up by some loud noise at door slamming
and someone yelling, but you know, you kind of rolled
over and went to sleep and figured, if I mind
my own business and my door's locked and my privacy
thing's on, nobody's getting in here, and no one really cares,
and it doesn't sound like it had anything to do
with me, So you know, why am I gonna get involved?
I would rather pull the stay at a place that
I didn't have this going on. So now I get
up and I'm moving slow. It's probably around ten thirty
and maybe ten o'clock, and I left and they I
guess they have a breakfast in there, but I was like,
I don't really want to eat their breakfast. Breakfast. I mean,
it's fine, it's smelled delicious, and I went out to
this little place. I picked up a couple of bottles
of water and a cup of coffee, and I come
back and I'm gonna get in the shower, and I
turn on the water and I let it run for
a few minutes, figuring I'm on the fifth floor. I
don't know now the water in the sink. The night
before I washed my face and brush my teeth. I
have this whole weird night clam ritual life floss that
had warm water, that had hot water. I could make
it warm, right, mikes the cold hot. This is just cold.
I mean it is freezing cold. And now I'm debating
because I'm I'm like, wow, I don't know how long
it's going to take me to get to the other
end of the island. And my son's got a one
o'clock and now we're coming up on like eleven. So
the water is freezing cold, like there's nothing happening, and
I go, well, maybe they have it reversed. I have
seen plumbers in homes where they have reversed the hot
and the cold. So the indicator says cold, but it's hot,
and the indicator says cold, but yeah, hot, but it's
cold water that comes out because somebody makes stuff underneath, right, Okay,
So I'm thinking, oh, the way this hotel is operating, Papa,
could be a good chance that this is the case.
So I try that, still freezing, and now I'm going
I really don't want to take a fucking freezing cold shower.
I have not. I did for a while, and I
think I'll maybe try to do it again in twenty
twenty six. But I would get up in the morning
and try to stand in a freezing cold shower kind
of moving around, you know, spinning like you're in a
phone booth, you know, make sure I get my head
completely wet in free as cold as I could get it,
and it really does wake up. And you've heard a
lot of people with cold plunges up, but I haven't
been doing that consistently for a while, probably since I
started grad school. And then this is so cold, and
I'm like, I'm not having to fucking move for this.
So now I go down to the front desk. And
it had to be a Sunday, and I don't even
know what day it is, but yes, it had to
be Sunday because I arrived Saturday and she's the woman
says to me, uh, the only thing I can do
is have you changed rooms? And I'm like, oh, She's like,
that's the only thing I can do. She said, I
can't call it plumber. It's a sunday. I'm like, okay,
but maybe there's a hot water tank, there's a maintenance
worker on staff. You know what I'm saying. You understand
what I'm saying. So she says, yeah, you can only
that's the only thing I can do. So she gives
me a room on the seventh floor. So I get
all my stuff and I have a bag with the
equipment for the podcast. I have a bag with my
computer and stuff in it. I've got a duffel bag
with presents and things, and I've got a suitcase. Maybe
I left the uffel bag of my mom, so I
had the suitcase. So I'm taking these two bags that's
what it was, and the and the other one that
I can roll with me. But I got shoes under
my arm because you're you're you're sort of unpacked somewhat
in this in the space you were in. It's like,
got it pain. So I get up there and I
get to the room that they're going to put me in,
and I opened the door and then all of a
sudden they just jams because the privacy lock had slipped over.
I don't know how, and so now you can't get
in the room. So I put my stuff down and
there are two women who were cleaning the floor up there,
and I walk over and I said, hey, they just
gave me a room on this floor, but I can't
get in. And she said to me, I don't speak English.
So I say, so, I just motion come with me.
So she walks with me and I show her and
so she goes back to her cart and tries to
get a tool to pry the thing off that's not working.
The other woman who was cleaning, these two very lovely
young women, very nice, they just didn't speak English or
speak it well. So they're trying to get the thing off.
We're about five minutes in and I go, I'm going
back to the front desk because don't forget, I got
on one o'clock reservation that my son made and I
don't want to be late. I don't want to be rude,
and I don't know how long it's going to take
me to get there, So I go back down to
the front desk. On my way. I got the two bags,
I got the stuff, and the woman says to me,
leave leave, meaning leave your bag. She's pointing at my bag,
my suitcase. Leave leave. And I said, I don't know
if I can trust you. I go no, trust And
it kind of funny in a playful way. And she
points up and says there's a camera there. They'll see everything.
And I say, okay, So I leave my suitcase on
the seventh floor, but I take the two bags that
are on my shoulders because they're already up there, and
I just go down. I go down and I explain
to the woman what's going on and she said to me, oh,
and I said, yeah, we can't get in at all.
I said, I don't know. I don't even know how
you guys are going to get in. And she said, okay,
let me see if I can find you another room.
So while she's looking, I said, listen, I gotta say
something to you. I go it was really loud last
night and this morning, people screaming, And I said, not
such nice language, you know, all over the place and
just and she said, oh, that's because I put everybody
on the fifth floor last night, and I paused, and
I'm like, I've stayed and sold out hotels. I've stayed
and sold out hotels that had kids on hockey tournaments
staying at them, you know, were basketball trip. There was
never never this level of noise, never this level of
slamming doors, Never people cursing, and not one guy screaming
from his room to some stranger shut the fuck up.
And then he's singing along with the kid, the kids singing.
He's yeah, I'm like this, this is like insane. So
she says, I'm gonna give you another So she gives
me another room. Now I'm on the sixth floor. Okay,
but don't forget I left my suitcase on the seventh floor.
I'm like great, so I go back up to the
seventh floor. Now this place was really tiny. I wouldn't
say micro hotel. Have you seen these? They're just really
kind of quick in and out. But they're they're perfect
for I guess affairs or or or a business guy
going by himself somewhere, a businesswoman. I don't know. So
the I figured what I was gonna do. Because the
elevator was also taken a little while to get to me,
and I'm like, I'm running out of time. I got
a one o'clock it's now noon, and I'm going good.
I think it was eleven fifty five. I get up
to the seventh floor and I figure, I'm just gonna
lean out, grab my bag where I left it, pull
it back on the elevator so I never have to
get off the elevator and then get down to my
floor and get in a room and try to take
a shower and get ready. The doors open up. My
suitcase is not there. My sphincter gets this tight. I mean, Jesus,
I could have shitt a diamond. So I get out
of the thing and I'm kind of going, hey, hey, hey, hey,
and I the woman who was cleaning comes around the
corner and I said, I go, I'm looking for my bag,
and she had kindly put it behind so anybody getting
off the elevator where I left it wouldn't walk into
it trip over whatever. She had put it behind her
cleaning car. But I'm in like full paddic because now
i know, I'm going, what the fuck this is? Just
it just fits, it just fits. So I get i'd
actually I get into a room and it's fine, hot
water was fine, the room was cleaner. The TV actually
worked in this one. It didn't work in the other one.
I was, I was all. I was all set and
I was able to get showered out. I was out
by like twelve twenty four and got to my son
by about twelve fifty five, in time for my one
o'clock reservation. So the next day, when I'm checking out
of the hotel and I'm gonna go with my son,
and that's a whole other story, I say to the
person there, I go, hey, man, I had to move room.
I had to. I go, you've had people screaming in yellen.
So he says to me, oh, oh oh. I said,
you gotta camp me a night. And he goes, Now,
I'm not the I'm not the manager. Only the manager
can do that. And I said, okay, but where's the manager. Oh,
manager will be here in a little while. I said,
I think you gotta do something because this is ridiculous.
I said, moving rooms, leaving my bag, all this stuff.
It was. It was an inconvenience for me. And I'm
paying you to stay here. And the guy's like yeah,
and I said, and then the fifth floor she told
me she put everybody on that floor the night before
and it was all that's where all the nuttiness was
happening in the Yellen. And the guy goes, yeah, I
know the police came. Okay, now these people they could
give two flying fox And the guy goes, yeah, let
me see the police came. So then he said, wait,
he looks it up and he sees the police had
been called to that hotel for misbehaving guests. I would
assume on December nineteenth, which was Friday, but I didn't
get there till the twentieth. Okay, So the guy's like, oh, wait,
you weren't here when the police were called. I said,
I don't care. It was still noisy, loud. He goes, yeah,
I can't do anything. So I'm like, all right, I
call an uber. I'm gonna meet my son. He wants
to take me to Little Ireland, which is up towards Yonkers.
So I've got now all my bags. I got to
pull them on the subway. I'm trying to keep up
with this kid who's six foot six, and he's like,
you know, he's just his stride. I'm asking him to
carry a bag. I'm huffing. I'm puffing. I'm pulling through
things I got. I mean, he had me going through
Times Square when I first got there. I'm pulling my
bags three. He wants to take me to this like
cuban tiny deli and then show me that's just off
Times Square. There's families, there's people. I'm getting held up.
People are selling shit on the street. I can't get
around Jackson's like ninety yards ahead of me. I somehow
stay calm, but I was getting so frustrated. I was
cursing and mumbling under my breath back to the hotel.
So I go back in while I'm waiting for my uber,
and I said, you have a business card. He goes, yeah,
it gives it to me, and he said the number
changed and they in marker wrote the new number. They
didn't get new cars, they just wrote the new number
in big letters, so for thirty days ago. I go, okay,
this is fantastic. So I say to the guy, UH,
take my number and have the guy call me. He
goes out, yeah, absolutely, but I never hear anything. I
try calling from the UH from the Bronx when we're
up there a little Ireland, and I got a brief
minute and yeah, they the manager's not in yet. It'll
be in in an hour, and I haven't called back.
I'm just here's the thing. I don't want to be
a pain in the ass in a way, I guess
I don't care. It all worked out. The main purpose
was to see my son and hang out with my son.
But I'm never staying there again. And you know, I
hear people Matt Reese is, who's so great when he
comes on the podcast and stuff, always talks about the
yelp reviews and how annoying the Yelp reviews can be
and how hurtful and blah blah blah when it's against
the restaurant. I'm like, I want to give a shitty
Yelp review to this, although I don't think they care.
Though I don't think they honestly care. I don't know
that they're allowing homeless people to say, I have no idea.
This sounded like families. And if they are opening up
and giving a discount rate and trying to help people out,
that's a wonderful thing. Why would you shit on that.
It's hard enough to sometimes make it in the world.
You know, as long as people were being able to
have a safe place to actually sleep and keep hygiene
and all that. I don't have a problem with because
just but here's my question. Can you fucking behave just
to just a little bit? Can you fucking behave please?
I'm trying. Anyway. That was my That was my big
adventure down there. And then I came up to uh,
went back up to my mom's. My mom and I
drove down and she's a terrible passenger. She has a
beautiful new Honda Cord that she said to me, I
want you to drive. So I drove and we hit
a lot of snow all the way into Jersey on
the day we were coming down here, and she's, you know,
white knuckling the thing next to me, and and then
she's like, the visibility is so bad, Billy, it's so bad.
I think we're just gonna have to get a hotel. Like,
we're not getting a hotel. I didn't know. It's not
that bad. It's terrible, Billy, I can't see. I'm like, good,
close your eyes, shut up, which is not nice to
say to your mother at the holidays. I am going
to try, and I will say this here. I am
going to try to do a podcast with my sister
and if I can get these wireless mics that I
have to work. We will see if that actually comes
to fruition or not. She's not super comfortable with the idea,
but I think it could be an interesting one. It
was suggested by a couple of you fantastic listeners, So
we will try to get to that and we will
be back. I should be back at the beginning of
next week. I stayed an extra day at my sisters
because well, we drank too much and we're having philosophical discussions,
and then I was the bad uncle who didn't go
do the fun stuff with my niece. But we'll be back,
and then I think we'll get right back onto a
regular rotation. And I will tell you that I'm really
looking forward to twenty twenty six. I think that there's
going to be a lot of cool things happening with
the podcast, a lot of behind the scene things, and
they think we're going to see some tremendous growth, and
you know, and a lot of that's thanks to you
keep spreading the word my friends about the podcast. You know,
word of mouth. It's the greatest thing in the world.
And I appreciate you all listening for me. Bill Moran
from Fairfax, Virginia, in the basement of my sister's house.
I'll see you tomorrow. Be in the hotel. Didn't know
what to do. I turned the TV on Rule A
letter to you. The Lousi Stout didn't buy the Tagenet
upon the unter state. You see, they were looking for
a kind of light with Tennessee