One thing you might not know about Shawn and me is that we’re both hardened criminals. I don’t care who knows that I have not one, but TWO traffic violations that are both years old. Shawn’s had even more speeding tickets than me. Do you know who doesn’t give a fuck about parking tickets sometimes? ME. That’s right. Fuck it, arrest me, bro!
[Shaggy 2 Dope teaching us how to be “hard” by giving us Faygo.]
So, being as hard as we are, Thursday really kicked into high gear when it took seven armed cops in SWAT gear to make me sit on a couch. And because they were confusing with their errant gestures, I actually sat on the wrong couch first because we’re so ballin’ out of control that we own THREE used couches. Talk about some MAJOR resisting orders.
See, I’ve lived in Shawn’s house for a whole two days. I was thinking I was gonna give up the bachelor lifestyle and really settle down. Except that someone who used to live here is a licensed medical marijuana grower who made a serious mistake — he had TOO MUCH MEDICINE. So some cops in facemasks and flak jackets surrounded our house, curtly asked us to stand and sit in various places and rifled through my porn and panties.
[The film “Asshole Physics” contains absolutely nothing physics related; that’s the real crime here.]
Shawn, being a full-time student and a former Marine, and me, being a college-educated, professionally employed political activist, are SERIOUSLY DANGEROUS TO SOCIETY. And, boy, did having all our shit tossed around and our drawers pulled out (WHICH THEY DID NOT PUT BACK!) really scare us straight. Because marijuana is serious, you guys. Not only does the city of Grand Rapids waste, I mean, allocate $2.5 million a year to sticking it to dangerous types holding less than an ounce of it, marijuana causes millions of innocent pizzas and burgers to get stand-grounded. Sometimes, totally awesome people smoke weed and, GET THIS, watch Animal Planet and fall asleep. So, I TOTALLY understand their concern and why they wouldn’t sign my DecriminalizeGR petition.
After the officers left to go stop other hardened criminals, I did what any rabble rouser would do. I stood outside looking menacingly at the neighbors, then went ON THE LAM.
ON THE LAM: DAY 1
Morley, MI is the trucking capital of the world, according to this sign.
[#humblebrag]
Supposedly, it’s because it’s a convenient location for truckers to live and more live here than any other city in Michigan. We found shelter at a small motel called The Morley Motel. The caretaker told us there’d be a big garage sale in the morning if we wanted to check it out.
[Located in downtown Morley, home of 2 restaurants and one bar.]
We stayed in Room No. 3. Much nicer than several of our other motels, this one had a mini-fridge, a small microwave and clean, soft bedding. It also had one wall covered entirely in carpet.
[The duck painting is bolted into the carpet wall.]
Morley doesn’t have a lot going on, given that it’s 2000 census population was 495. We ate dinner at a place called Moe-Z Inn and then headed out to explore the surrounding area.
If you drive through dark, foggy woods full of trilling insects, you will find a bar called Coocheez in the middle of the woods. They’ve taken the liberty of setting up beer pong tables for you. Live bands play on the weekends in front of a giant Bud Light Platinum poster and a cardboard cut out of a hot chick. Really my kinda place, but not at all. While the staff was friendly, we moved on.
[“I just went through Urban Dictionary, threw my finger down on a word, and voila.”]
To Gentleman 131 in Standwood, a “high class bikini bar.” What made this place high class was not the three girls taking turns dancing with long breaks in between or the older man by himself staring blatantly at asses or even the two female patrons who were taking turns grinding on each other. What made this joint classy was the chaise lounge directly in front of the stage and the chandeliers.
The only other bar in Standwood was a placed called Copper Top that was closed. So we drove over to Big Rapids and went to The Gate. Part bowling alley, part meat market, part arcade, we played House of the Dead. As you can see, Shawn is really dangerous with a toy gun, as one must be when they’re on the lam, but checking in on FourSquare.
[No Big Buck gets outta here alive.]
Back at the Morley Motel, we learned that even floor to ceiling carpeted walls will not buffer the sound of a couple (or as Shawn fiercely claims, a THRUPPLE) making sweet, sweet love. We listened to them have sex for longer than doesn’t make us creeps.
ON THE LAM: DAY 2
In the morning, a group of Amish women came to peruse the wares of the big motel lawn sale, which included hats made out of yarn and beer cans and cat necklaces.
We had breakfast over at Ed’s Family Restaurant, checked out a fossil/bookstore in Sand Lake, then headed over to what some call a ghost town.
Idlewild was a popular resort town back when white people didn’t want to vacation with black people. African Americans came to Idlewild to party and vacation. The Flamingo Club hosted big-name artists and its proximity to the lake made it an ideal and beautiful paradise — in fact, it was known as “Black Eden.” But when people stopped being fucking twats (I mean, they never STOPPED, but when they stopped being as big of twats) and integration began to occur, the need for Idlewild diminished and the small town fell into an economic decline.
[Does not sell organic, free-range, hormone-free, grass-fed meat for Shawn to eat.]
It’s hard to tell which properties are abandoned and which are lived in in Idlewild. Many of the roads are unpaved and properties are overgrown. But there is some activity, including a jazz festivals, the renovated Morton’s Motel and the Cultural Center, open seasonally to talk about the historical significance of the town. There’s also a movement to the end the blight here and restore the village.
In the nearby town of Baldwin, we visited a Log’s Bar where the waitress told us Baldwin was the worst city in the world. I mostly think it’s these decorations bringing her down.
[What you can’t see is the caution sign reading “Warning: Blondes Thinking.”]
Shawn spent some time at a park looking for salamanders. He didn’t find any, and I cut my foot on a prickly bush. While I wanted to take our lam cruise elsewhere, Shawn decided we should end our time as fugitives and go home and check on the cat.
So, now we’re home again. Home… and hard.
I met Damon James and his girlfriend Veruca James at the 2012 AVNs in Las Vegas. Veruca is probably one of the prettiest girls in all of pornography. If you want to see some really great (and NSFW) photos of her standing topless in the streets of NYC shot by Driven by Boredom’s Nate Igor Smith, try here. Anyhow, Damon and Veruca stayed in the Hard Rock during the convention while Igor and myself were in the MGM Signature. When the show was over, Igor and I paid a hot $20 to stash our shit at Circus Circus until my plane left and he drove back to LA. Circus Circus is a shit-hole, but the worst thing that happened was I couldn’t find any decent food. Veruca and Damon, however, were not so lucky…
After our unexpectedly long brunch me, Veruca and David (aka The Black Hipster) decided to take a trip to L.A. We didn’t exactly have a carved out plan and being that there were three of us, it made it a little bit harder to find a place to crash. Vegas had wiped us all out financially, so our budget was really low. No big deal, We’ll grab a seedy hotel on the Sunset Strip and rough it a few nights. After scoping out what seemed like a really sketchy hotel in Echo Park, we decided to stay at The Budget Inn, Hollywood.
In my lifetime, I’ve spent some time in some pretty sketchy and desolate places. I’ve seen a lot and been around enough that I don’t scare easily. I can handle my own in just about any situation. But now that I’m in a serious relationship with someone that I love with all my heart, I am extremely protective. She shouldn’t have to be exposed to what I’ve been exposed to, ever. That, and if we got into some sort of fight with people, they could probably pick all 108 lbs. of her up and run away with her. Hahahaha.
Dead tired, slightly drunk and running on almost no sleep, we checked into the rat trap called Budget Inn. It was about 3:30 a.m. or so when we got our room key. For starters, the door of the room had dents all over it from being punched in. Red flag no. 1.
Once inside, we took a look around and it was extremely obvious that this was a mistake. The floors were sticky and missing patches out of the carpeting. The walls had random holes cut in them and the dresser drawer was filled with cards for cheap prostitutes.
The most disconcerting part about this room was the random mattress and couch barricading one of the windows. One window had bars on it, the other was held closed with duct tape because the bars had been torn off. Hence the barricade.
At this point, I decided it might be a good idea to barricade our room door with the coffee table in the room. We all nervously chuckled and laid on top of our bed sheets and went to sleep. Surely it couldn’t be THAT bad, could it?
Cue 6 a.m. It sounds like somebody is moving furniture. No, more like throwing fucking furniture down the stairs and slamming it into the walls. Our eyes all open at the same time and everyone is paralyzed. In the hallway, we can hear a guy screaming at a transvestite hooker. We can hear him hitting her and slamming her into walls, and we can hear the clicks and scrapes of her heels as she tries to get away. She’s screaming in in broken English. She’s pleading for her life, begging him not to kill her, but all he is saying is to get back in the room, “I won’t hurt you” and “I don’t want to go to jail.”
The thumping and slamming is getting louder and we can actually hear him dragging her across the tile floor to the room. A lot more thumping and we hear her heels clicking away from him right at our door. At this point, she’s threatening to call the police. Please for the love of God, call the damn cops and with any luck, I’ll get to see them shoot this guy. The smashing around in the hallway was so close to our door that I jumped up and grabbed my Smith and Wesson knife from my bag and waited, staring at the door. If living in Chicago has taught me anything it’s NEVER LEAVE HOME WITHOUT A KNIFE.
After about 30 minutes and a lot of bad noise, the commotion stopped. I fell asleep holding Veruca in one arm and clutching the knife in the other.
Cue 8 a.m. There is a guy in the hallway next door (maybe the same guy) trying to kick down a door on his hoes, screaming and demanding money. Veruca rolls over and asks me: “Why does it smell like burning plastic?” Don’t worry, honey, that’s just someone smoking crack outside our window. This is the point when I tell everyone to pack their shit. We’ll find a new place to stay.
We spent the day saying hi to different friends in downtown L.A. and regaling them with our previous night’s insanity. Between Vegas and L.A. I had slept maybe nine hours. All I wanted to do was go home. Luckily, a very near and dear person in my life put us up in a decent Super 8 hotel in Silverlake. This was the first real night of sleep I had in a week.
The next day we went down to Venice beach, ate some fish tacos, snapped some photos and relaxed. It finally felt like a vacation. The whole point of going to L.A. was to figure out what part we wanted to live in, and we didn’t even get the opportunity to do that. By the time we started to get relaxed, we were leaving. To be continued, Los Angeles. To be continued…
[Veruca and Damon finally reach civilization, or at least, someplace with Mojitos.]
2002 South Dort Highway
Flint, MI 48503
Flint, MI is boasted as the murder capital of the country, often being touted on a number of lists as anywhere between the first and fourth most dangerous city in the U.S., right up there with St. Louis. When deciding to explore Flint, we chose the Travel Inn because of the following negative review:
“They claim to have 24-hour porn, but they DO NOT!!!!”
Even if they didn’t have 24-hour porn, any place that uses non-stop adult entertainment as a selling point is excellent in my book. I called the place up and the lady told me they didn’t take reservations, but they currently had open rooms. “Are you looking or an OVERNIGHT stay?” she asked. Perfect!
The street was mostly sprawl in feel, littered with bars, gas stations and other businesses. We were soon to learn one type of business far outnumbered the rest. The Travel Inn was surrounded by an eight-foot tall fence and the clerk sat in an office completely made of bullet-proof glass. She charged us $30 for the night, plus a $5 deposit for our room key, which was an actual key, not a card.
They used to have a pool, but now they have a dirt garden that grows only dirt, complete with a random array of lawn chairs, grills and piles of barbed wire.
Our room was on the second floor, giving us easy access to the roof. It smelled musty, but not wholly unpleasant. Despite the two bare bulbs provided for lighting, it was quite dim. The comforter contained several cigarette burns and there were slashes in the mattress — but no blood! Most of the tables had the handles ripped off, and there was a very small closet with a tiny air conditioner next to a mounted TV that provided basic cable and NO PORN. THAT GUY WAS RIGHT!
Perhaps the best find, however, was this used douche shoved in one of the dresser drawers. Shawn and I learned that we knew very little about orifice cleansing. I was convinced it was an enema, and it was only a Google image search that gave us a true answer. I gently removed the douche with a washcloth and placed it next to our ashtray. Nothing like a smoking room you can rent by the hour, the night, the week or the month.
We decided to go explore the strip. We had a choice of Triangle Bar (a gay bar), Deja Vu (bottomless strip club), Nathan J’s Cocktail & Lace (topless strip club) or State Bar (gay bar with strippers). First, we hit up Nathan J’s.
Nathan J’s is a perfectly acceptable strip club where girls dance to Rammstein, dubstep and LMFAO. The girl dancing to “Party Rockin’” actually stopped her sultry moves to be shufflin’. The drinks were not nearly as expensive as most strip clubs, and the cover was only $7. And while Shawn paid more attention to his new smartphone (which tells him the temperature so he doesn’t even have to go to all that trouble of stepping out on the porch to figure out if it’s cold or not), I noted that the girls were even reasonably attractive. However, I spent most of our time there sexting a couple back home. Now I’ll never be the Mayor!
Next, we decided to hit up the State Bar, thinking it was a normal bar. We were wrong. IT WAS THE BEST BAR.
Here, the people were friendly, the drinks were cheap, and two drag queens performed to Manson and Whitney Houston. The queen performing Whitney even dumped a bag of cocaine (wait… baby powder?) all over herself. We made quick friends with a man who told us his boy problems, including showing us naked photos of his partner so we could empathize. We also were coerced into buying shots that came in large needles.
We also met Scruff, a bear dancer whose tiny, tight, brown short-shorts and leather chest harness were paired well with a pair of brown boots. He was very good at riling up the crowd. As our sad victim of lover’s quarrel said to us when Scruff came calling, “I now have a dick on my arm.”
[Scruff and Shawn share a moment]
We were feeling peckish, so the bartender directed us to a nearby 24-hour diner called the Starlite. The place was packed with bikers, college students, clubbers and a guy who looked like Danzig. There was also a confusing number of security guards, who may or may not have been real security guards, but their guns looked real. One of them told us he was a waiter, but I never saw him bring out any food.
Following our meal, we went back to the Travel Inn. We had to show our key to get the fence opened so we could enter. A few strange characters walked about the parking lot, and as is quintessential to any motel, there were people just sitting in cars with the motor running for inordinately long periods of time, doing what appeared to be absolutely nothing. Since the deadbolt had been ripped out of our door, we made our own state-of-the-art security system.
We woke up in the morning, delightfully un-murdered. We checked out, got our $5 deposit back and got yelled at for trying to go back into the “plaza” (as she called it) to get our car. Implying that most people just walk away from the Travel Inn, like troubadours into the desert sun, never to return again.
Downtown Flint was cold and empty, but leave it to Shawn to somehow navigate us straight to an organic, fair-trade, locally-sourced espresso bar and crepe shop called Flint Crepe Company. From here, we drove past the river in search of new sights.
Well, this liquor store is definitely out of whiskey.
This car wash has no soap, but it IS full of mattresses and desks with grass growing on them!
Here’s one part of Flint that is alive and bustling. Occupy Flint is still going strong with the best tent city I’ve seen yet. These guys even have a smoke stack jutting from the top of an RV.
Cruising along, we stopped into Ike’s Small Engine Repair on S. Saginaw, a small shop that doubles as a motorcycle shop and an army surplus store. Three guys, a boy and a small dog dwell here. Friendly, knowledgeable and fun, this place is definitely worth a visit. I bought an NYPD tactical bag that still contained antibacterial wipe packets and one latex glove for ten bucks.
When we told the guys at the shop that we have a hobby of going to the worst motel in a given city, they told us if we wanted a real murder spot, we ought to check out an infamous haunted house down the street. Abandoned for purportedly a long time, legend has it that the former owner murdered his wife and paved her underneath the driveway. Naturally, we decided to check it out.
IS SHE UNDER THERE?
The house is gorgeous and foreboding, with a metal fence blocking the drive. It is attached to a large storefront, making the overall property huge.
Also there is a cage in the backyard! For HUMANS, I’m sure!
Another interesting note is that the back door was unlocked.
HEY, YOU GUYS. DON’T GO IN UNLOCKED HOUSES, EVEN IF THEY’VE BEEN ABANDONED FOR YEARS BECAUSE MURDERERS LIVED THERE! THAT’S ILLEGAL. Or as Shawn said, “Are you really going in there? You’re going to get arrested. I’m not afraid of getting murdered — I’m only afraid of getting in trouble.”
Seriously, this house is gorgeous.
At this point, we decided it was time to swing down into Grand Blanc to look for @dadboner. (video coming soon)
For our next adventure, we’re contemplating a trip to scenic Inkster and a possible stay at one of a series of seedy motels — some connected to adult toy stores, and one the scene of a triple homicide. Anyone want to donate some Luminol?
Super 8 Motel
3380 Hoyt Street
Muskegon, MI 49444
Look, you guys. I’m going to be honest with you. This motel was a goddamn disappointment. But if you stick around, I will talk about masturbation.
The evening began with Savory Avery and yours truly planning on going to Kalamazoo to stay in a motel that purportedly had all the mirrors smashed out and skulls drawn everywhere. Sounds dreamy, right? Well, it was “sold out,” and so was every other shit-motel in Kalamazoo. I don’t go to Kalamazoo to stay in a Holiday Inn Express. So, we decided to venture out to Muskegon.
Muskegon is about 45 minutes from Grand Rapids, where we live, and I haven’t been there since we covered Electric Forest in Rothbury, MI in July. However, when the weather decides to go from placid to blizzard mid-drive, it takes a lot longer to get there. We’re driving 35 mph by the time we get past the point no return, and pass wrecker after wrecker, car-in-ditch after car-in-ditch. When we finally arrive at the Super 8, located in a complex containing a Red Roof Inn and an American Legion, we’re pretty much stuck here.
As you can see, the Super 8 is very keen on the part where it’s been rated on TripAdvisor. Our research assistant, Megan Poertner, had been texting us a few choice comments from TripAdvisor. They included:
“half eaten hamburgers on headboard.”
“Our first room smelled of urine so bad that they gave us another.”
“Huge red stain on the carpet, pubic hair on the bathroom wall, MAGNUM CONDOM WRAPPER found next to the bed (not even joking)”
“we’re pretty sure someone got murdered in the room.”
Imagine our disappointment to check into Room 203 to find it to only slightly musty smelling. The only things under the bed were an empty Bud Light can, some chewed gum and a red Starburst. The metal meant to encase the lamp cords had been pulled off and the Bible looked as though someone had been doing some serious Devotions. But there was nothing that looked like blood and no evidence of SERIOUSLY LARGE NOT EVEN JOKING wieners.
The alarm clock is glued to the table. Which sucks, because I really wanted to steal it. I thought about asking the concierge if he could put us in a room that was “a little more murdery,” but Shawn was hungry.
We stopped at a nearby Italian restaurant called Verdoni’s. It was just down the street but took a year to get to. On the way back, the roads had iced over and it took nine years. A car was actually on its side, and everyone was driving about 7 mph. [Editor’s note: All of these numbers are extremely accurate.] Dejected about being snowed in with no chance for adventure, we settled back into our only somewhat shitty room.
Now, one would assume that two people who share a sexual attraction who are snowed into a room would, you know, have a bunch of sex. We did too. So, we turned on the telly and browsed for something sultry. We settled on a show called “Strange Sex” and hoped for the best.
WARNING: If you are trying to get into a romantic mood, DO NOT watch “Strange Sex” on the Oprah Winfrey Network. You will watch a segment on a woman whose vagina is so sensitive she cannot have sex, a bunch of hippies in a boring poly-amorous relationship where the chick has a baby in a bathtub and a disturbing woman who experienced a birth orgasm… also in a bathtub. And then, she’s DISAPPOINTED she didn’t orgasm during the birth of her second child. Disgusting!
To top it all off, Shawn fell asleep leaving me to watch a horrible show called “Unfaithful” all by myself. The whole show was about some whiny minister who had an affair with a parishioner who later left him. Following a dramatic reenactment of him sitting in a chair with a bottle of pills and self-pity, his stupid wife takes him back. That’s some real feminism right there, Oprah Network!
I looked around for a hammer to knock myself out with, but, finding none, just had to go to sleep the old-fashioned way. Autoeroticasphyxiation.
As you can see, someone else got stuck here and tried to claw their way out of the bathroom. They, too, failed at escape.
In the morning, the blizzard had subsided, so we decided to eat breakfast at the American Legion in front of the motel. Shawn refused to acknowledge he was eating Velveeta cheese.
We decided to explore Muskegon. Turns out Muskegon is mostly trees, pro-life billboards and industrial buildings. And this place.
Who let this 8-year-old girl buy a house?!
We stopped for a Bloody Mary at a place called Bear Lake Tavern before deciding we should probably hit up the Odyssey Showgirls Lounge. On a Sunday afternoon, the strip club/bar area was closed, but the worst-stocked adult novelty shop in the world was open. What a piss-poor selection of vibrators and crap videos! But they did have this gem, which begs the question: What do you do with the removable cock? Isn’t that just a dildo? Why would you take it off?
Nothing says romance like “inviting anus.” And nothing says oxymoron like “life-like mannequin face.” The Odyssey makes up for what it lacks in erotic novelty selection with peep shows, video booths and an adult theatre. However, women are not allowed in the booths, proving that sexism is alive and well in Muskegon! However, the man at the desk informs us, couples are allowed to go in the theatre for free.
The theatre is a small room with maybe 20 straight-backed chairs in front of a projection screen. They are playing a very awkward gangbang video where no one really has an erection and everyone moans too loudly. There is a recliner shoved in a dark corner where a man has pulled his shirt over his belt and is making a lot of furious motions underneath. Not sure what to do, we awkwardly sit down and pretend to be interested in the film.
The only interesting thing about the film is that during the money shot, they cut to a picture-in-picture shot of each man’s face during his optimum moment. “Who wants to see that?” Shawn kept saying. A man came in and stood awkwardly behind us, fiddling with his belt. Why didn’t he just sit down?! What is the etiquette involved with public self pleasure? Are you supposed to be discrete about it? Don’t these people have the Internet? Couldn’t they just buy a video to take home versus paying to go to the theatre? Haven’t they seen the film Taxi Driver?
When the first film ends, one of the men goes back into the main room to prompt the clerk to play another film. The film gets stuck on the menu for an inordinately long time. The man goes back out again and prompts the clerk a second time. Then another poorly made movie begins where a thinner version of the cook from TGI Friday’s is saying obnoxiously lewd things to a woman who appears to be mute.
We leave and one of the men exits a few seconds later. He seems disappointed in us. I’m sorry, Pee Wee Herman. I didn’t know we escaped the cover charge because we were supposed to entertain you! Hmmph.
Disappointed, we went to the mall to do some normal-ing a la “30 Rock”. Shawn rode the fun bus.
And I fed some ducks. Which is cool, because iPhone always autocorrects my texts to say stuff like, “I’m going to duck you in the mouth,” and “this ducking construction is a shot show.”
Then we couldn’t go into Chuck E. Cheese’s because we had outside drinks called coffee. Peep show booths, arcades… it just wasn’t my day. So we went back to Grand Rapids. According to my research, the Odyssey II in Battle Creek is where shit gets real. So… who wants to party?
This is our friend, Ed Brayton. He’s one of the founders of freethoughtblogs.com and a former touring stand-up comedian. He’s been on the Rachel Maddow Show and he hosts Culture Wars Radio on WPRR. He’s also stayed in some real shitty places he calls “The Comedy Condos.”
3 am in Terra Haute, Indiana. Two comedians are sitting on a couch that is probably older than either of them, in a house that should probably be condemned. They’re watching an old 15 inch television with rabbit ears, the kind you can’t find anywhere but your grandparents’ basement. The TV is in such bad shape that the channel knob has disappeared and been replaced by a knob from the oven. After watching a few minutes of whatever infomercial was playing that night, one of them turns to the other. “Let’s see what’s on bake.”
Welcome to the “comedy condo.”
A comedy condo is a place where comedians often stay when they’re on the road, usually against their will. They belong to comedy club owners who are so cheap that they refuse to pay the $35 a night it would take to put the comics up at a crappy Motel 6, so they go and find a barely habitable house in the worst part of town, buy it for a few thousand dollars, furnish it with garage sale leftovers and make them stay there instead.
When Steve Martin said comedy isn’t pretty, he wasn’t joking.
At the condo in Lansing, Michigan, there was always a faint smell of gas in the air. And a shower that made you feel like you were being pissed on, likely a pleasantly familiar sensation to at least a few of the comics I know who stayed there regularly. The neighborhood was so bad that you couldn’t get a pizza delivered there. I’m not sure you could even get the police to make a trip to that house.
But sometimes it isn’t the neighborhood. Sometimes it’s just the place. In Pentwater, Michigan there was a one-nighter where they put you up at an off-season hunting lodge that made a prison cell seem luxurious. The beds were the size of a camping cot and harder than David Vitter in the diaper section at Walmart. There was no phone, radio or television in the room. It was the kind of place of which comedian Drake Sather once said, “All of the stationary was preaddressed to Jodie Foster.”
To make things worse, when you got up in the morning and went out to your car, at least at certain times of the year, you would find them covered in sap dripping from the pine and maple trees that surrounded the place. Would you like some arboreal bukkake with your breakfast?
In Memphis, the club provided free passes to Graceland to the comics, prompting many of them to go there and buy posters of Elvis, put them on the walls of the condo – a nasty apartment with one bedroom for three people — and add thought bubbles to them with rude messages. My favorite, put there by a friend of mine: “Elvis who? Signed, Chuck Berry.”
And even if the condos aren’t in life-threatening condition, no one really wants to stay there. In a hotel, you at least have a room to yourself; in a condo, you’re treated to the regular sight of that week’s emcee wandering around in his stained underwear or having to listen to the headliner humping some desperate, middle-aged woman whose knees buckle at the thought of getting it on with the kind of “star” who makes $300 a week to tell dick jokes.
In Traverse City, the condo was the upstairs of a two-unit house, with the downstairs occupied by a drunk couple that you swear you’d seen on Cops at least once or twice. A friend of mine was stuck there one weekend when that couple spent all of one night fighting and all of the next night having makeup sex. When he heard the woman yell “come to mama” in a cigarette- and whiskey-stained voice that could break up concrete, he considered lighting the place on fire.
And even if that isn’t going on while you’re there, you know damn well it was going on the week before. As Doug Stanhope – in my opinion, the funniest comedian working today – pointed out on one of his CDs, when you check into a Motel 6 you know that a thousand truck drivers have had sex with hookers in those beds over the years, but they don’t tell you all about it at the front desk when you check in. The staff at the comedy club, on the other hand, will be happy to tell you what the scumbag the week before was doing at the condo, and the chances are pretty good that those sheets haven’t even been washed.
Welcome to show business, kid. Bring your own Lysol.
3221 Plainfield Ave NE
Grand Rapids, MI 49525
According to my extensive Internet research, the Knight’s Inn is not just a large, somewhat rundown hotel on the sketchy side of Plainfield Avenue, but rather a place where couples meet, greet and more. We were told one of these types of parties might be happening this very evening, so we decided to see if we could crash and dash.
We checked into Knight’s Inn, formerly known as The Grand Inn, around 8 p.m., only to see there were hardly any cars in the lot. TripAdvisor had warned us of “sex offender BBQs” and the hotel had an interesting selection of tags when Googled.
Well, as per usual, we learned that the folks on TripAdvisor were a bunch of goddamned whiners. The Knight’s Inn is a very acceptable, cheap motel for the weary traveler, and it’s got a Taco Bell in its front yard. What do these monocle-wearing 1%-ers expect for less than $60 a night?
Given that the hotel was seemingly guarded by one lone concierge and what was perhaps his daughter using the hotel computer next to a very large television playing cinema classic “Face-Off,” we decided to do a bit of a wander. Here’s what we found!:
A fully-stocked vending machine in that it offers the only things you’ll really need. Pork rinds and old candy bars. This is located in the Knight’s Inn’s fitness center, although the sign outside says it is an “Arcade.”
The fitness center contains a vintage treadmill, two stupid machines that will only increase your heartrate if your job is to lie in bed all day and a step for you to do aerobics by yourself. Here, Shawn demonstrates one. 
“Ugh, moving by body with absolutely no resistance is so hard,” I am not saying.
Here is a surprisingly nice pool area. The pool is heated and there were no bodies in it. The only thing floating were small specks of dust. It is, however, creepy to go to a hotel pool and find it completely silent and empty. Do you remember that scene in “Let the Right One In?” … I do.
Much like all good Starship Enterprises, all good, rundown motels need an Engineering Bay.
Tiring of the hotel, Shawn and I decided it was time to explore the charming neighborhood beyond its premises. First up, we hit the Charlie’s Bar and Grille down the street. A bit strange with its neon bar and clientele of people over 65, the bar was pretty pleasant and the food was not terrible. The radio station they chose was extremely manic. I recorded the playlist during our dinner to include Next, George Thoroughgood, Will Smith, The Contours, Bryan Adams, Afrojack, Elvis Presley, The Black Eyed Peas. In that order. We ordered the Shrimp Bake, which came with individual cracker packets.
I’m glad we chose this over the Scooby Snacks, which consisted of fried olive balls.
Leaving Charlie’s, we had no choice but to stop by the adult novelty store nearby, Cirilla’s, where Shawn refused to buy an elephant trunk thong. I found a lot of interesting things at the store that I will now share with you. It is at this point that if you are at work, you should stop and go past the photos very quickly unless you want your children to starve, you fucking pervert.
Ever feel like you want to be slutty for just one night, but not forever? Or maybe you want to be a slut every day, but you don’t want to be pigeon holed. Well, ladies (and gentlemen), this is the answer for you! Temporary “sexy lower back tattoos!” 
Do you see how it says FORTY?! That’s as many days of looking like a whore as God rained down on sinners, except that God can SUCK IT, because these are waterproof. Please note that the second from the right reads, “Cock candy.”
Have you ever wanted to recreate the magic of getting an EKG except it electrocutes you? OKAY.
Labia, clitoris, perineum… BORING. Looking for something to make your crotch more like an airline runway? Vajazzle it.
WHAT IS THIS?!
After finding out that I didn’t invent the title “Natural Born Drillers,” I got dejected and decided we needed to drink. So, we headed to a little bar that clearly used to be someone’s crappy house called Boon’s Brew.
Boon’s Brew has the tightest action claw in the city. If you go there, you will win a stuffed animal. The problem is that they are all mutants.
Boon’s serves the strongest drinks in the city. A lot of people think it’s Meanwhile or Mulligan’s over on the East side of town, but those people have never been to Boon’s. The clientele here is a little scary, but mostly, they just want to party as well as dry hump. Two girls are at the jukebox choosing songs while dancing to “Down on Me.” I am dubious of their ability to move each butt cheek independently of the other. A drunk couple is getting frisky and a woman is trying to coax her man into not bugging a young couple comprised of what appears to be a Jena Jameson protege and her confused boyfriend in a John Deere hat. I’m pretty sure the Yosemite Sam climbed off of a truck driver’s mudflaps and settled in for some strong Jack ‘n Cokes. The TouchTunes mobile app is ideal for making it appear that he played “Kiss from a Rose” and Skrillex on the jukebox.
Our new friends were worth every quarter inserted into the action claw. Unfortunately, Hurricane, the pinball machine where you stop the balls from being lost forever in the clown’s genitalia has been broken for years.
After two extremely strong $3 Christian Brothers Honey and gingers (the bartender had never heard of mixing ginger with whiskey), we stumbled back to the hotel.
The banquet hall and conference centers were dark with no signs of swingers. Disappointed, we wandered around the hotel, but it was eerily emptied save a room where muted talking, as well as harsh cigarette smoke, emanated.
Michigan’s recession clearly called for the downsizing of fire extinguishers. 
Upon returning to our room, Shawn attempts to explain for nearly ten minutes what each of the animals we won at Boon’s is. When I first say it, I use the word “are.” Do you know how sometimes they give you too many drugs after you get your wisdom teeth out and sometimes you take them when you don’t need them after you’ve been drinking? Oh. Well, then neither do I.
Then Shawn passed out like a baby in his panties.
In the morning, I stretched my weary body and looked outside at our beautiful view of several bags of mulched leaves.
We quickly rinsed off in the shower that doesn’t drain and went back to our little piece of civilization.
All in all, I’d say this hotel was an extreme disappointment. We saw no evidence of violence, no one tried to buy/sell us drugs, there were no sex offender cookouts (unlike TripAdvisor had indicated) and I never felt in peril for even a moment.
I can’t wait to go someplace trashier.
250 28th Street S.W.
Grand Rapids, Michigan 49548
The Grand Rapids Inn shares its parking lot with Friends’ Diner, also known as Colter’s Family Restaurant. This 24-hour diner is a popular faute de mieux choice for those staggering imbibing heavily on the seedier side of GR’s W. 28th St. Many times, in between arriving at the diner and forcing myself to vomit after eating the food there, I have noticed the Grand Rapids Inn and its “attractive” nightly and weekly rates.There is also a really great article here detailing how the motel also operates as a halfway house for sex offenders.
It is a wintry January evening that Shawn, upon receiving his tax returns, has decided we should really splurge and rent out the motel’s jacuzzi suite. Armed with takeout sushi, a bottle of Seagram’s Seven Dark Honey whiskey and a 2 liter of Michigan’s own Vernor’s ginger ale, we arrive at the GRI at approximately 8 p.m.
A baller like Shawn Avery, when given the choice between the regular jacuzzi suite or the deluxe jacuzzi suite always chooses the deluxe, especially at such a fine establishment as this, and especially after calculating his income tax return.
Upon checking into Room 146, we were pleased to discover that the vanity portion of the bathroom had simply been ripped out to make room for this baby. Some fake peaches and flowers, along with a half-empty (or half-full AMIRITE?!) bottle of storebrand Mango bubble bath awaited us.
While the jets in the jacuzzi do NOT work, we are pleased to find this charming LED display DOES work, making this an ideal jacuzzi to listen to Skrillex or Deadmau5, while snorting ketamine off the edge of a knife.
You can’t drink your Seagrams 7 Dark Honey and ginger without ice, so we head toward the ice machine, hoping that the 9 million signs we saw advertising free ice are not a false promise or some kind of treacherous bait and switch.
The ice room is heavily guarded. Only guests at the motel can enjoy the complimentary ice. Unless, of course, you know how to open a door where the handle has been ripped off. This begs the question: did the motel decide ice was free for all, or perhaps someone misconstrued what kind of ice was housed inside? Either way, we got a bucket full.
Why bother hanging your identical twin paintings of flower baskets in a symmetrical fashion? I mean, given the way the wallpaper has peeled away where the headboard meets the wall, there’s really no point.
If you are going to make your hotel guests shower, urinate and brush their teeth in a cave, the least you can do is cheer them up by putting in a rubber ducky shower curtain. NOW GET IN THE CRAWLSPACE AND CLEAN UP GOOD.
With our preparations all set, it was time to get in the jacuzzi. To our delight, small pieces of marijuana floated to the surface. Better than blood!
Soon we succumbed to our heat exhaustion and decided we must explore other reaches of this place, else wake with only one kidney. Thankfully, the Grand Rapids Inn boasts a laundry facility as well as an arcade! On our way over, a man stopped us and was either trying to buy or sell weed. We told him we didn’t smoke and he said we were the only residents of the GRI that did not. I made up a story about how we got drug-tested regularly for our jobs. As, uh, lifeguards.
The chicken egg prize machine has about 14 eggs in it. We immediately win a pair of fake red lips. Lethal Enforcer is fun, especially if you wanted to only play with the red gun. Because the blue gun doesn’t work. The claw machine does not work at all, but it will take your money. The Simpsons machine is dead.
Luckily, there is also a sticker machine that either dispenses bio-terrorism decals or super patriotic stickers!
Unfortunately, when you put money in it, all you get is an empty cardboard flap.
We trekked across the street to the fabulous Howard Johnson, where Holly’s Back Door, the attached bar, was kicking with karaoke. I sang “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” and was quite pleased when the patrons joined in on the hand-claps. For 9 dollars, we got chips ‘n cheese and two cold, refreshing Crispins. Try as might, we couldn’t keep up with the HoJo’s drink/hour minimum, not without turning into these ladies:
As the HoJo approached last call, we returned to our lovely room to watch Cable TV. She-Ra and Brave Starr in grainy definition as we faded off to sleep in a surprisingly comfortable bed that didn’t actually give us any diseases as the paint continued to peel around us. Were the stains on the wallpaper lipstick or blood? In the end, if you enjoyed yourself, does it really matter?
