"Operation Trespass" starring Dave Cole

I don't need to see the movie; I lived it

Curiosity Killed the Kike

On my way from filthy Santa Monica to my hotel back in my beloved Beverly Hills, it just so happened that I was going to have to pass by my house. Well, the house that used to be mine. I’ve been gone since May 31st, and curiosity got the better of me…it’s been over two weeks. What does it look like now? I sold to a builder who plans to knock it flat and build a McMansion.

So is my house knocked flat yet? I gots ta know.

Nightmares

I’ve been having nightmares ever since leaving. See, my deal with Bob the Builder (well, actually Baruch the Builder) was that I only needed to take what I wanted to keep. Everything else I could leave behind. Mexicans are gonna junk the whole place…whatever I chose not to take would get junked along with the walls, roof, floors, etc.

I had movers come and take tons of stuff to storage. But after I left and turned over the keys, I started having nightmares about a few sentimental items I’d left behind. Nothing of value value, but things of emotional value that the day of the movers I was like “I’m not some child! I can leave these trinkets behind. Stoic Dave has no attachments!”

But then I started dreaming about those items. I even dreamed that I broke back into my house, which in my dream was torn up inside like a bulldozer had run through it, and retrieved them.

But of course 17 days after surrendering the keys, I assumed that those items would be long gone, in a dumpster somewhere.

A Dave Drive-By

So there I was, my friend and I about to pass my house. I fully expected to see a fence around it, ready for demolition.

But no…it was untouched. Just as I’d left it.

I asked my friend to pull into the driveway. And I got out.

Front door locked of course, but I went around the back into the yard…peered through the windows.

Nothing inside was different from the way I left it on the 31st.

So I broke in (it’s been my house for 50 years; I know the weak spots).

Man was the air stale! 17 days with no open windows. Oddly, the food I’d left on the counter when I surrendered the place was still there…the rats hadn’t touched a thing. They had the run of the place for SEVENTEEN DAYS and they didn’t eat anything. Proves what I suspected all along: they were just there to fuck with me. They were Biblical plagues sent for my torment. Once I’d fled my house, their purpose served, they left.

It was never about the food.

Bastards.

So I open the front door and let my friend in, and I sez “we’re gonna pile some stuff in your car,” and with that I start collecting all the little items that had been haunting my dreams.

“Are we trespassing?” my friend asked.

I replied “only in the technical, legal, and actual sense.”

One last fling…one final 30 minutes in my home.

I figured, “I’ll sleep well tonight.”

Or Not

The hotel I chose for my triumphant return to BH after my week in the salty-aired asscrack of Santa Monica was a place I knew well. Why take chances with a strange new hotel? This was the hotel where one of my best friends would stay when he’d visit from Miami. It’s a great hotel - right in the heart of BH, with a beautiful bar, resplendent restaurant, and rooms stocked with minibars, espresso machines, and all the amenities.

For over five years I’ve hung out there whenever my friend was in town.

But he hasn’t been in town for six months.

And the hotel is under new management now.

They scrapped the restaurant, scrapped the bar, pulled all the minibars and coffee machines from the rooms, along with the soap and water glasses in the bathrooms. No more laundry service, and if you want a cup of regular coffee, not even espresso but just a simple cup, you have to give the front desk woman $6 and she’ll get you one from the break room. Then you have to drink it in front of her so she gets the cup back.

I’m not making that up.

The place, which had in the past been a location of such joy - a lively bar, people laughing, drinking, enjoying the atmosphere - was now dead. And nobody is staying there. They put me on the fourth (top) floor, and as I write this I’ve been in this room all night and I can confirm, I’m the only guest on the entire fucking floor.

It’s quiet, yes. But spooky. REALLY spooky.

They’ve stopped maintaining the elevator. It sputs and stutters and drops and generally scares the crap out of everyone. The button for the 2nd floor doesn’t work at all, and I saw an elderly couple climbing the stairs to the 3rd floor, the husband saying “no way I’m getting on that fucking elevator again. I nearly had a heart attack!”

Oh, and the “balcony” in my room is just planks of rotting wood haphazardly nailed over a four-story drop. You can FEEL them giving way when you step on them.

Mind the gap…it’s a long way down!

Daytime view…JUST big enough to “accidentally” drop a toddler. The designer was Casey Anthony.

Rotting, separated supports. This…can’t be legal.

I will tell you, my friends, that it is VERY weird being the only guest on the entire floor. Very “Shining.” I may no longer have nightmares about the items I’d left behind at my house, but I’m definitely likely to have nightmares about this desolate building.

I went to my favorite restaurant on Beverly Drive for dinner (Avra: seared swordfish with capers, lobster bisque, butter cake), but I wanted coffee that I could take back to my room. So I go to the Maybourne - the hotel where Bieber keeps a permanent suite - and I asked if they could fix me a decaf to go. Which they did, no questions asked (the Maybourne is $1,000 a night, but you DO get superior service). When I told the manager that my hotel, the Sirtaj, had ripped the coffee makers out of the rooms, he replied, “the Sirtaj? I thought that place shut down last year. I thought it was vacant.”

So I’m in a fucking ghost story now. I’m the only occupant in a ghost hotel that only materialized for me, to torment me as the rats did.

Okay, enough of that shit. I booked a new room for the next day at a better hotel (though not a $1,000-a-night one).

Still, I do have to spend the night here, so…maybe there’ll be another travel update in a few days, or maybe my next entry will be “all work and no play makes Dave a dull boy.”

Ha, jokes on you, asshole ghosts. I’m dull already! Go pick on someone with at least a hint, a remnant of lifeforce.

Can’t kill what’s already dead inside, you spectral dicks.

That said, I took a two-hour walk at 2am, to cleanse the filth of my Santa Monica experience. Beverly Hills is so beautiful after hours. Zero homeless, nothing to be on-guard against. Just fresh air and pretty sights, as it’s always been. Actually, better than it’s been; 20 years ago there’d be the occasional vagrant lurking in an alley. Not anymore. The BHPD allows none of that. Post-BLM riots, the BHPD, with expanded funding, puts the steel toe in “boot-up-the-ass of schizos.”

This will always be my home. House or not, if there’s one thing my trek has taught me, this is where I belong. Where I’ve always belonged. Where I’m happy.

But I do at some point gotta stop living out of hotels.

WANNA SUPPORT HOMELESS DAVE?

BUY ME A BEER!

Or GIVESENDGO!