I just bought a $179 wireless router for my iMac, then dropped another $129 on a 500GB external hard drive so that I can back up my iMac using the bullshit Time Machine feature that doesn’t work right on Leopard (the new Mac OS). Today Apple just introduced their new $299 wireless router that is ALSO a 500GB external drive specifically designed to work with Leopard. It’s exactly what I needed… last week and $300 ago.

I hate Steve Jobs.

That said, I’m totally buying it when it comes out next month.

Another reason why I can’t watch this woman more than 30 seconds.

Tyra, STOP THE MADNESS!

What I kills me the most about Tyra Banks is how she thinks we all just love these live shenanigans and respect her “candindness” and ability to poke fun at herself (i.e. show us things we don’t really want to see from supermodels). It never really works, just kind of looks stupid. I mean, that first clip is clearly her parodying Oprah and it might actually be kind of funny if it wasn’t really obvious that Tyra thinks she’s being slapstick hilarious. All this does is remind me again why she isn’t (and won’t ever be) as ground-shattering as Mama O and how much she doesn’t deserve all the comparisons.

Tyra please just stop this. If you wanna do the world some good go make a fat girl the Top Model. Also, maybe get rid of the platinum hair.

If one more person misuses the “care less” phrase I’m going to lose it. I will snap. We’re talking me grabbing a gun and pistol-whipping total strangers. Even the elderly.

See here and here.

The phrase should go like this: “I couldn’t care less.” It means that at this present time, you care SO LITTLE about something that it would not be possible for you to care any less. Meaning you don’t give a shit and there’s no way to get there. Hey my boss is pissed at me? I couldn’t care less.

Not like this: “I could care less about how you feel!” This means that you DO care but it’s possible to not care even more. And this is what most people say and I hate it. How is it that damn near everyone in the world says it wrong? News anchors, politicians, magazine journalists, even characters on TV shows — don’t any of those people have advisors/editors/producers to keep them from making errors like this? It’s like the public has become so used to saying it one way, we’re just chucking the rules out the window and anything can fly. Miss Jodi knows what I’m talking about. If we don’t do something about this now, Gen Z is going to be even dumber than we think they are. It’s careless and lazy and I will not stand for it anymore.

I have sent an email to Grammar Girl, asking her to take this up on her next podcast. You’re all gonna be sorry.

Robin Williams has ruined my entire night.

I watched The People’s Choice Awards tonight, cuz I’ll watch anything featuring Queen Latifah and her boobs, and I just lovehate it when celebrities go into cheesy mode and start referring to their fans as “the people” (i.e. “This award means so much because it’s coming from The People.”). They cut to this backstage clip of Robin Williams being asked if people always expect him to be funny, and he said some woman recently came up to him @ the airport and said, “Be zany!” Then he goes, “It’s kinda like going up to Ned Beatty and saying, ‘You sure got a purdy mouth. Squeal like a pig! Go on! Wheeeeeee! Wheeeeee!’.” He was being really funny and animated and everybody was laughing and I had no clue what he was talking about.

I know Ned Beatty as Otis in Superman and was in Purple People Eater and Back to School, stupid funny movies. So I google the “squeal like pig” phrase and find that it’s a famous line from the movie Deliverance, which I never saw. Did a YouTube search for the movie and…

Oh God. My eyes. Trauma. I’m not even going to link you to the clip.

So apparently, the whole famous line comes from a scene in the movie where 2 crazy mountain men tie this guy to a tree and make him watch while they RAPE his buddy, poor Ned Beatty, like a prison bitch in the mud. That’s where the “Squeal like pig!” line plays out… and it’s NOT funny. They strip him naked and make him snort and grunt and squeal and oh my god I can’t even type this out. How the hell was Robin Williams joking about that dialouge, with the pig noises and shit? The movie is 30-something years old but still, man. Rape and bestiality aren’t that funny. Robin Williams, what the hell is the matter with you?

Ned Beatty, if you are reading this I just want you to know that I’m sorry. Just so sorry. I want to give you a hug and let you know that Robin does NOT speak for me. If I could turn back time, if I could find a way I’d take back those words that hurt you and you’d stay. Keep your head up, buddy. I was never a big fan of pork anyway.

(naughtier SHORTBUS trailer here)

I really wanted to love this movie. It’s from John Cameron Mitchell who did Hedwig (which everyone should see if only just to marvel at how much Hedwig looks like Rachel Griffiths) and it’s all about young attractive people in search of sex and lonliness and love in New York. For those reasons alone I went to theater excited and ready to be moved, and those are the reasons I think most people are going to say that they loved this movie b/c it spoke for them and the way they feel, the same way everyone jumped on the Garden State bandwagon. Garden State was a train of love I didn’t jump on, by the way — I liked it and yeah, of course I identified with it and connected with that whole “Home doesn’t exist anymore” feeling, but shit, I had an issue believing that Zach Braff’s character could leave the Natalie Portman so flippantly in the end. A plain, Average Joe lands this impossibely beautiful girl on a weekend trip home, and, once he gets her in bed, rides his afterglow “I bagged a hot girl” ego back to his L.A. life. Yeah a ton of other things were said and done but ultimately isn’t that where it went? YES I KNOW he ended up coming right back but still, did you see how OUT of there he was? Wasn’t anyone else sitting there watching the airport goodbye scene going, “Why is he leaving Natalie Portman? What, he’s already over her? Why is she sitting there crying over this guy with big lips? A guy that gawky would NEVER get such a hot girl in real life.” (And yes I know Zach Braff dates Mandy Moore in real life but that was post-Garden State, ok? Think about it). In the way Melissa can’t sit through big action flicks w/o knowing in the back of her mind that it’s just “adults pretending to fight”, I can’t sit and watch (and believe) romantic dramadies with ugly men dating hotass women and then trying to act like that’s just how they roll. Whatever, I digress.

So a lot of people are going to say that they GOT Shortbus. I can meet them halfway on some of this shit. For instance, I loved the whole conversation about NYC being a place people come to be forgiven… and how for people who’ve been here a long time, it starts to feel like you can’t be forgiven. I totally bought the gay couple having a real gay relationship crossroads: to threeway or not to threeway? One of them is The Hotter One With the Big Dick and his whims tend to direct the course of their relationship, while the Lesser Hot One With Nice Abs and the Weird Face is just easygoing and agrees to whatever makes him seem supportive (when it’s really just him scared of losing his partner). We all know a couple like this. I loved LOVED Sook Yin Lee (I hate when ppl call her “the asian girl”) and held my breath every moment she was onscreen, she seemed like a real person and never seemed like she trying to be pretty or witty or tough like most New York women. I just really believed her the whole time and dammit, her masturbating scenes were uncomfortable and funny and that’s a fine line to walk. The music was amazing. I liked that gay actors played gay characters. I thought it was cool how power all over the city kept flickering up until the inevitable blackout, and how the blackout seemed to stop the madness. That’s how I remember the real blackout back in 2003. I also liked that somebody actually said out loud what I think all the time, “What if I lose my apartment? New York is so EXPENSIVE, what if I can’t afford to live here anymore?” and a little peice of me resented and appreciated when Justin Bond says that most of kids stay in New York despite the rent b/c “9/11 was the first REAL thing that happened to them”. Wow.

My general gripe is that I wish there’d been a more fleshed out story, a bit more shape. It felt like the beginning had all these interesting angles, and I like how all the characters were introduced to us and each other… and then the story went blurry. I read that John Cameron Mitchell pretty much let the actors improvise almost everything, not just the characters backstories but most of their dialouge too, and that seems like such a bad idea. Although I love the fact that they spent 2 years casting, workshopping, and reworking this movie? I’m not a fan of actors being given all that storytelling power… cuz they tend to milk it and show off. Speaking as an (ex)actor, I know this to be true: there’s a reason we’re not directors, there’s a reason we don’t write. Actors should just act, bring life and colors to written parts. At the base core of an actor’s soul, there’s an innate instinct to SHOW and glow for a camera/audience/roomfull of people, which is why you can’t give them full freedom to construct their own storyline. Sometimes a story needs to be subtle and sometimes the characters must be still, and only really REALLY sharp actors are smart enough to do this.

I didn’t like the campire singalong ending. You know, it took me a long time to appreciate the obscure way that indie films storytell. The first time I saw Muriel’s Wedding I was livid, when the credits rolled I simply needed to know more. What the FUCK happens next? Does Muriel succeed in life? What about her asshole Dad, is he finally going to be nice to his kids? Does the slutty best friend walk again? Implications and open-to-interpretations were not good enough, I needed clear resolution. Eventually I Got It and now of course I can appreciate that sometimes Nothing Happens and that’s okay cuz it’s real life… but shit, the Shortbus ending was just random. When you give me a group of emotionally/sexually-challenged people with special needs (hence, Short Bus) and make me watch them fuck and breakdown and be balls-the-wall REAL, you can’t just slap an abstract artsy filmschool ending and expect that be good enough.

Also, I get the sure feeling that John Cameron Mitchell really hopes everyone will think that this is really a movie about his fabulous, underground uber-hip life. That he has all these secret wild polysexual parties in Brooklyn every week and only the cool people (all of his friends) are allowed in. Don’t you wish your own life was hot like his?

Could I have any more goddamn opinions? Yeah, one more. I went to school with the guy who plays Jesse, the Trust Fund Hipster, the guy who likes being dominated. We weren’t friends @ AMDA and fuck yeah, a tiny peice of my soul turned black and broke off when I heard he got cast in this movie. Anyway, there’s a moment in the beginning when he’s jerking off and he asks the dominatrix what her special power would be if she were a superhero — her response, “The power to make you interesting” and then she slapped his chest with a whip. That little evil person who lives in my head? it was his favorite part of the movie.

Every time I speak to my mom on the phone she asks me if I’ve watched Spanglish yet. When I say no she goes into her testimony, praising the movie, testifying to its glorious majesty and just condemning my damned soul for not wanting to watch it. My boyfriend is also a devout Spanglish Apostle and has been pressing me to watch this fucking movie for the entire time we’ve been dating. Finally, last night, I curled up on my futon and gave it a chance.

I didn’t hate it right away. I actually fell into its energy and layers quickly. I loved that this wasn’t a typical Adam Sandler movie, I loved that he was hardly in the first half and when he was he wasn’t being boyish, and I slowly began to build an investment in the characters. Tea Loni was hilarious and terrifying, she made me nervous and uncomfortable, a lot like Sarah Jessica Parker in The Family Stone; that sex scene was by far one of the ugliest and funniest I’ve ever seen in a movie. Cloris Leachman couldn’t have been better, I’m convinced that she took that part and ran with it b/c it wasn’t so much the things she had to say, it was the way she moved and reacted to everything that made her so interesting. And of course the Penelope Cruz Lookalike was absolutely charming and captivating and beautiful, totally had me at bueno. A Mexican making her way in strange new places will always win me over.

I really liked where things were going. This movie was about more than a family and their mexican maid, it was about people and the things we’re searching for — it was saying something. It was commenting on class issues, racial stereotypes, and disconnected family ties and just making beautiful nods at the need for a warm connection with other people in this world and the struggle of walking that fine line between movin’ on up and selling out. I comitted to the people in this story. That hilarious fight between the Mexican and Adam Sandler, with the little girl yelling the translations out for both sides, was pure movie magic. As I watched from my futon, I couldn’t help but feel inspired, like maybe everyone was going to learn really valuable lessons in the end and their lifeforces would be enriched and change for the better just from knowing one another, and that maybe even I too might be a better person for watching this movie.

Then it all by way of the devil. Suddenly there was a whole lot less insight into the dynamics of the troubled family and a whole lot more of sweet flirtatious moments between a befuddled Adam Sandler and the lonely doe-eyed maid — only after she started making the effort to learn English, of course. We stopped caring about whether or not the neglected, overweight daughter was ever going to be comforted and reassured that she is beautiful and important. We stopped looking at what it’s like for a woman to leave behind the comfort of her latin community so she can provide a better life for her daughter, what those challenges are like especially when she can’t verbally communicate with anyone. We skipped the grandmother’s struggle and triumph over alcohaulism altogether, like it was never even an issue. Suddenly all we really care about is whether or not the married man with a family is gonna get with the exotic wallflower who really appreciates him. The fact that they don’t actually have a full-fledged affair is irrelevant, he’d spent months pining for her in his heart while he’s MARRIED WITH KIDS and maybe it’s just my Godness kicking in but to me, that’s the same thing. We’re now watching a romantic comedy where Adam Sandler does his quirky sensitive Jew thing to get the girl (the same game we watch him pull in every movie where he lands an impossibly hot girl) and it just makes me annoyed.

I’m getting really sick, by the way, of this frat boy delusion we keep seeing in romantic comedies by guys like Sandler and Vince Vaughn and Jack Black and Jon Faverau where the schlubby loser keeps getting laid? How are we supposed to believe that these chubby underdog ex-fratboys keep landing beautiful, successful women? Are there no more hot guys that fit the bill? When did love handles, jowls, and neck fat jump to the top of Jennifer Anniston’s Requirements To Fuck Me List? I thought women didn’t want no scrubs. Don’t even get me started on Zach Braff’s new movie The Last Kiss. Am I REALLY supposed to be rooting for a guy who wants to put his beautiful pregnant fiance on hold while he runs out and romances someone hotter? Is this basically what happens to his average joe character from Garden State — he got the unattainable girl and became a little overconfidant and thus forgets how, if there’d been hotter more successful guys around at the time, he might’ve never even stood a chance in the first place? Whatever, I’m a hater. Don’t look suprised.

I’m all for plot twists and suprises. I actually love it when a movie goes someplace I didn’t expect it to — again, like in Family Stone, we thought it was about this and this and it ended up having a lot of layers — but if it’s not done well, ugh. I just hated where the movie went in its 2nd half. Fucking hated it. Infidelity runs abound, the white people NEVER made an effort the learn Spanish, the fat daughter is never redeemed, and the little girl narrating the movie gets yanked out her chance for a bright future all b/c her mom kissed the boss’ husband. I don’t get why people loved this movie so much. It left me feeling confused and shaken, the only thing I was sure about is that keeping it real (if you’re ethnic) means choosing poverty over higher education and cheating on a spouse who cheated on you is okay.

I think I need to have a talk with my Mom.

Damn you, Netflix. 88 minutes of my life gone forever. I’ve been on this horror kick lately, renting anything looking even remotely scary, so I took a chance on this one. Awful. Not even the pornographic pout of the beautiful Jensen Ackles was enough to redeem this sin against cinema. SUCKED. I should have known anything costarring Domanique Swain was a peice of shit, that bitch is Direct to Video poison. Well, that’s not quite fair. Direct to Cable at best.

My friends blew me off tonight. We were gonna go to a movie after work — that new Woody Allen one everyone’s buzzing about. I have no clue what happens in it, I just know Jonathon Rhys-Meyers is in it and that’s pretty much all I need to know. Here’s my $10.50, bring on those lips. Anyway, my friends never got back to me today about going to the movie and I didn’t wanna risk going all the way home and missing their call, so I went to this cute spa and cashed in on a gift certificate I have for them. Haircut yesterday, spa trip today — why not? Just as I walked into the spa, they called and were up for it. So I’m all excited: an afternoon at the spa and then a movie with my friends! One facial, foot reflexology session, and full body shiatzu massage later I’m on my way outta the spa to meetup with them when I get the voicemail…

“Hi, don’t hate us but we’re going to a party tonight instead! Anyway, call us. Bye!”

I take a little lap through Union Square to cope with the letdown and opt to give them a buzz, hoping they’ll change their minds and still head out with me. The fact that I was so easily ditched stings a bit and would normally be enough to put me off but I’d just had an amazing shiatzu and was feeling all tranquil and shit; felt phsyically impossible to be worked up about damn near anything. Plus, I’d been so excited about seeing my posse anyway so whatever. I give them a ring, they’re downtown shopping and yeah, totally skipping out on me and going to this downtown party instead. But I shouldn’t be upset, evidently, b/c they were supposed to go to this already and only just got the word that it was still on. *sigh* I try to see if they can do both and go to the party later — it doesn’t start till 10pm and the movie is @ 7pm… but apparently that’s cutting it way too close cuz it might make them late. For the party. The party I’m not invited to, by the way, b/c it’s a very exclusive crowd and you have to be asked to attend. It’s like a thunderstorm of dissappointments here and suddenly I’m sad, cuz these are my best friends. Friends I was fully appreciating and bragging/blogging about just the other night. Friends for whom I excitedly arranged COMP entrance to a huge New Years Eve bash tomorrow night (I was like all, “Yeah I’ll be there, and comp me down +3 cuz I’m bringing my peeps”). Reality check, for shizzy. All this and not even an I’m sorry from them. I’m sorry but that’s kind of bullshit.

How childish is this post? Me me me. Shut up, I’m halfway over it anyway. … Only halfway, that is, cuz I’m sitting @ home — bored, half-cocked, and red-faced (from the facial, dudes) while my friends are tagging along @ a members-only party, closing the year out with a bunch of folks who would never gladly get them comp entrance to anything. The sting don’t feel too nice. Burn, baby, burn. Hurry up, 2006. Bring on midnight and refresh this shit already.

Deep down, I always kinda wondered what I’d look like with a fuller set of luscious lips. Just some bigass smackers. One of those sexy Ryan Phillipe pouts where you’re making out with somebody and they just wanna chew your lips off cuz they’re so delicious and big. B/c I’m pretty shallow like that, I’ve actually checked myself out in the mirror after a really good cry — you know how your lips get really ripe and plump — and I think, “Yeah, I’d look hot with bigger lips.” Turns out, actually? Not so much. Freakish. The word freakish is better fitting.

I don’t have any shame. My life sucks. Keep reading.

No, what you are seeing is not a botched collagen job. It’s a picture of my MUTANT DUCK LIPS, a spontaneous allergic reaction I had the other day that turned me into a human blowfish. Still have no clue what brought it on. I showed up @ work the other morning feeling great, looking fine, fresh-scrubbed and smiley. An hour or two into my shift, the inside of my upper lip starts bothering me. 20 minutes later, BOOM! my lips swelled up so huge that they didn’t even look real. They looked like a set of those candy wax lips, only I couldn’t even lick them. I started popping Benadryll tablets like they’re chiclets and trying to go about work as normal, doing whatever I could to keep my abnormally large mouth out of sight. When you’re a Concierge and your whole job is interacting and TALKING with people in front of you, this proves to be pretty fucking impossible when you look like you’ve got lemon wedges shoved against your gums. A normal person would have gone to the manager right then and there and been like, “Look, I’m having a reaction to something and I don’t know what it is, I think I need to leave and see a doctor.” Not my ass. I was too fucking humiliated and I just stood there in uniform looking like one of the Simpsons. Guest after guest came up to me at my desk, asking questions, needing directions, and I straightup I kept my head down and my hand over my mouth like I was in deep thought. Or I’d take the phone receiver and shove it like a sheild over my mouth and make like I was on hold. At point I even tried just smiling really really big and wide so that my mouth looked semi-normal (as normal as you can look with a glazed grin plastered across your face), but by that point my lips had swollen so large that you couldn’t even see my teeth. No, I’m serious, and It’s not like I have the most common features anyway, me with these bigass cartoon eyes and the tiny stature and now freakishly large mouth: I looked like a discard sketch from a bad Pokemon episode. Hotel guests tried really hard to be polite and not stare at my face, but you can only fake so much before it becomes ovious that somebody’s lips are about to explode all over your suit. Finally, I was sent home for being so damn disgusting.

I called the hotel doctor b/c my health insurance hadn’t fully kicked in yet and as a courtesy he agreed to see me for free. I actually thought I was brave enough to walk to his office — bad idea; I got more double-takes and stares on that walk up the dreaded East Side than I was prepared to deal with. Grown women were screaming in terror, little kids were running away from me, doorman of fancy buildings were rushing inside and locking up the doors. It was horrible. The doctor and I went through all the obvious shit and ruled everything out. I hadn’t eaten anything weird so it wasn’t a bacteria thing, hadn’t cut or bitten into my lip so it wasn’t an infection, and I sure as hell hadn’t been getting frisky with anyone so it wasn’t an STD. The only thing we could conclude was that it was an allergic reaction to something I’d been exposed to recently, which still didn’t really narrow it down, but at that point I was just ready to kill myself so I just left. It started raining out. I tried to catch a cab but the Columbus Day Parade was starting and there was nothing around, so I ended up just cutting through Central Park instead.

That’s around the time my Benadryll kicked in and suddenly the whole world got foggy and real damn trippy. Not in a fun way. There I was, bewildered and drugged, stumbling in the rain through thickets of the Park I’d never been through before (who goes to the upper east side?!), half asleep and looking like a refugee from the Land of Bad Botox. I think I fell down at some point, cuz there’s a grass stain on my jeans, but I’m not sure. I got home eventually and crashed into my bed, but not face first. I’ve spent the better part of two days completely locked up in my apartment, popping Benadryll, dousing myself with holy water, and praying for my pretty face to back to normal. Now I’ll never be a teen model. Today is National Coming Out Day and my ass ain’t going nowhere.

Angelina Jolie. Amanda Lepore. Spriteboy. It’s a sad, scary, UGLY reality. Gross. Be careful what you wish for, dudes.

UPDATED:

Even though I’m still not sure what brought it on and though I have not fully recovered from my humiliation, my lips have thankfully gone back to normal. They’re sore as hell from being so stretched out, though. I think this is what Star Jones’ skin feels like.

… and yes, these are actual pictures of my lips that I took, cropped, and posted. Cuz I’m just that self-absorbed. Yeah. And? JEALOUS? Don’t hate. You LIKE it.

There was an article in USA TODAY last week about NYC hotel concierges. A friend of mine in the industry is actually featured very prominently in the peice. The well-written and generous article paints a very glamorous, very impressive image of what it’s like to do what I do for a living; calls us “miracle workers” and some of the most “connected” people in New York City. It’s true, we are paid to know EVERYONE and have access to all kinds of precious shit, we get hooked-up all over town and rarely find ourselves paying for things we are invited to. In a sense, we make a living knowing what’s cool and telling people about it… Sort of. While I’d love nothing more than to perpetuate this angle and make everyone think I just have the coolest job in the world (I kinda do), I have to drop some truth on the matter. How do I proceed without sounding bitter? I can’t, won’t, and I rarely even try staying consistant with my criscrossing trains of thought; so let’s just jump in.

My job can be rough. Sometimes it straight-up fucking sucks.

I loved and loathed the article. I like that it shines a spotlight on what we do, but it sensationalizes it and only showed you the shiny stuff. Gives the impression that we’re just a bunch of assistants DYING to work for no monetary reward. Yeah, that’s bullshit. One of the biggest frutrations of the job is that there aren’t any clear boundires. I’m kind of there to do what no one else is there to do. I’m there to think for you, there to carry out the annoying details you don’t feel like dealing with. I’m there to be the liason, and in some cases, the bitch.

A businesswoman missed her pooch back home. Could the Concierge find a canine companion to keep her company? Turning to the network of friends and acquaintances she has built during her 25-plus years in the concierge business, Hart quickly found someone who was going on vacation and planning to board his Lhasa apso. Would he consider “lending” his dog to the lonely traveler? The man said yes. The hotel guest got her companion. And the lucky Lhasa slept in a hotel instead of a kennel and dined from the Four Seasons’ canine canapé menu.

Cute story. Nice little button on the end there. I love how the article mentions the strange requests like they’re not strange or stupid at all. A woman was lonely and wanted the Concierge to get her a dog for the weekend? WHAT? That’s weird and I’d resent anyone who had the balls to submit a request like that with a straight face. If you are the kind of person who just travels without planning anything and just expects everyone around you to figure your life out, I’m wondering whether or not you should be getting on planes or even leaving you house in the first place. What if he hadn’t been able to find you a dog? Would that have tainted any of the other things he can arrange for you? Now, I am professional enough to never make a hotel guest feel stupid for asking for my help, I am smart enough to know that in New York ANYTHING can be arranged. I would never treat a request like it’s insane… but let’s not kid anyone here. Let’s not go writing articles that encourage random travelers to begin demanding overzealous attention just for the sake of seeing how “connected” your Concierge is, and that these projects take no effort on our part. They do take effort, and that deserves some recognition.

So what does a concierge’s services cost?

For the guest, nothing. That’s because concierges are salaried employees of the hotels they work for and don’t depend on tips for their livelihood. While none likes to talk about money, salaries can range from $20,000 to $50,000, according to Les Clefs d’Or.

Huh? Who’s salaried? What? Yeah, I’m rich doing this job. Don’t tip me for anything, please. Not everyone is salaried, buddy. The article doesn’t once mention how everything we arrange comes @ a cost. It actually gives the impression that anyone can get anything for nothing at all, just for being there. Um, not really. While the level of service I provide to a high-rolling VIP is the same level of service I’d deliver to a tourist in from Alabama for the weekend, the results are not going to be the same. People want to get outlandish things but also want you to bargain hunt for them? I’m sorry but nothing’s gonna happen there. If you want the impossible, it’s going to cost you, and I’m really not here to find the best deal for you (i.e. booking Ticketmaster, Expedia, or gypsy cab car services). I’m here to glamourize your experience, and that comes with a running tab. People also want to cheat their way around paying out what they know costs cash. Rather than hire a travel agent, or a wedding coordinator, or an admin assistant, they want the Concierge to do it all for them. And they want to hold the Concierge responsible for the things they don’t like.

Don’t even get me started on non-hotel guests trying to pump me for my resources. Oh yeah, it happens every day. “Hi, I’m calling b/c my wife and I have our 15 wedding anniversary coming up, can you help us get into Spice Market?” “Sure, that would be my pleasure! What’s your room number?” “Oh we’re not staying there but we might @ some point. Anyway, we wanna go @ 8:00pm this Friday.” Words cannot even begin to describe how much I get calls like this.

I guess what I resent the most about this article is the notion that a GOOD Concierge gets you anything you want without question; this is a lovely approach to our work IN THEORY but it doesn’t really work like that. You can be unable to deliver a lot of things and STILL be an amazing Concierge. It’s about the presentation, the style and charm in which you assist and enhance someone’s hotel experience — not about the hook-up’s you handed out. I once had a hotel guest stay with us for over a month while he organzing a cross-country move to New York. I helped him get his damn life together, man. Found him a broker, advised him on neighborhoods, arranged meetings with interior designers, even setup his cable, cell phone, and security plans. If I hadn’t gone beyond, if hadn’t done any of those things — if all I’d done was get him a few great dinner reservations and recommend a few Broadway shows — I STILL would have been a great and helpful Concierge. But I went beyond that and turned his world OUT. And you know what he gave me when he left? A “Thanks for your help, dude”. No tip, thank-you note, no kind word about me to my manager. Wanna know why? b/c he probably read an article somewhere about how hotel Concierges do nothing but perform miracles for free.

“A guest will never, ever understand what goes on behind their request,” says one Concierge, who trained to be an actor before stage fright caused him to rethink his career. “All they get is it’s served on a silver platter,” he says.

Damn right. And that’s the most honest thing the article says.