comment #1

Rothchild says ...

You left an example of your horrible fashion sense behind at a hotel. No one on this entire planet would make you a reservation because of that. No one left you in the lurch. You forgot your cowboy hat.

comment #2

62Lincoln says ...

Jeff, a reservation requires a deposit or at least a credit card on file. Not a cowboy hat. She has a business to run, so please don't attempt to lay blame on her. If she agrees to do this, you should make a point to give her something in appreciation, as you are completely in the wrong, and she's done nothing wrong here. I hope she agrees and this works out for you.

comment #3

eoguy says ...

Somebody left their cowboy hat at my house once. I threw it out.

comment #4

Rothchild says ...

I'm going to leave my Hammer pants at the Omni this year. If I show up at Comic Con the year following and I don't have a reservation I'm going to kick someone's ass. Then write 90 blogs about it instead of realizing I made a mistake.

comment #5

MindlessObamaton says ...

The guy left YOU in a lurch? What the hell is that? Wells is the best. We're all just livin' in his world!!!

Oh yeah, watching the Wrestler and Marisa Tomei is HOT!!!

comment #6

byanyother says ...

LOL.

comment #7

MindlessObamaton says ...

This thread OWNS!!!

comment #8

Josh Massey says ...

Wait, you left a literal cowboy hat? I thought it was some west coast saying I'd never heard.

comment #9

Sabina E says ...

Mindless Obamaton, is that you, LexG?

comment #10

Jeffrey Wells says ...

Wells to 62 Lincoln and the others who don't get it: Yes, yes...if I'd left a cash deposit or a credit-card number then the room would have been assured. I'm not an idiot. But leaving the cowboy hat and plainly stating to the proprietor that I'd come back and wear it the following year (especially after having stayed at the Star in '07 and '08 and been part of the family there, in a sense) was a very emotionally vivid and pronounced way of stating my intentions. It was a message that is recognized by everyone all over the world. It's even recognized in the animal kingdom (i.e., leaving your scent on a piece of turf).

If you go out with a girl and she comes home with you and stays the night and she leaves her underwear or bra or socks in your bedroom after she leaves the next morning, we all know that's a universal message that says, "I want to come back and get to know you better and probably have sex with you again." Everyone knows that. Leaving an article of clothing, something with your scent and paw-prints and sweat residue on it, means that you intend to come back and spray your scent around some more.

If you were to see a 1930s Gary Cooper western and hotel manager Frances Farmer, giving him the old twinkle-eye, asked him if he was coming back after taking his cattle to market, and if he faintly grinned at her and took off his cowboy hat and left it hanging on the wall as he walks out the door, everybody watching the film in any country in the world would know exactly what that means. It would be crystal clear. So don't tell me. Credit cards are well and good, but to say left-behind cowboy hats and such mean nothing is to be way too "dollars and cents" about this matter.

comment #11

byanyother says ...

Is this like in Taxi Driver when that greasy twenty got dropped on the seat?

Do cum stains on furniture count?

comment #12

MindlessObamaton says ...

I don't know, Wells. In my wilder, younger days, I had quite the collection of panties in a drawer in my old place. Some came back for more, some didn't.

Still, I just love this whole thing, man. You really are the grumpiest older guy around (compliment). It reminds me of when Lex posted about seeing you at the CHE screening, saying how you really looked like you write. That cracked me up.

DBTP: I am definitely not Lex. My own dude, here.

comment #13

Rothchild says ...

Yes, leaving a cowboy hat behind at a hotel is "a message that is recognized by everyone all over the world." You can't make this stuff up. This is funnier than any Eddie Murphy movie since Bowfinger. Please continue.

comment #14

TheJeff says ...

This is easily the most hilarious and absurd thing I've ever read here -- and that's saying A LOT. This is not the 1930s, Jeff, and you're not Gary Cooper. There are thousands of people clamoring for that room. Do you really think they're going to turn down a reservation request and say, "Oh no. We have to hold that room. Some dude left his scent there."

You didn't leave a credit card deposit because maybe you would decide not to go this year, or maybe you would get a better offer. I have no doubt that you would have left the hotel proprietor "in the lurch" if someone had offered you their Park City condo for the week. She would be crying to you on the phone, "...but you left your hat...and your scent here. I've been waiting all year for you to return!"

I have never heard of this being an accepted, normal practice anywhere at any time. Can you point to a single source identifying this "leaving your hat" business as being part of some code. Referring to every single commenter in this thread as being "the others who don't get it" seems kind of silly since you are, apparently, the only person in the world who "gets" this. Can you offer up anyone (that's not related to you) who agrees with you on this or thinks you've been wronged?

comment #15

MindlessObamaton says ...

TheJeff says: "Can you offer up anyone (that's not related to you) who agrees with you on this or thinks you've been wronged?"

Maybe Philly agrees with him?

comment #16

Tiny Tim says ...

I think Wells is onto something here. New credit for the post-Apocalypse economy!

American Express should begin marketing AMEX hats that cool people can leave at hotels to signify, "I intend to return here a year from now."

Victoria's Secret should bring out a line of panties that women can leave in various domiciles, signifying, "I want to have sex with you again."

Why didn't I think of this?

comment #17

MindlessObamaton says ...

This reminds me of that Onion headline that read "Cambodia moves to all skull economy"

comment #18

MindlessObamaton says ...

Off topic: Is anyone else annoyed by Evan Rachel Wood?

comment #19

Pinko Punko says ...

The more things don't change, the more they stay exactly the same. Every year Jeff has a Sundance issue, and it all karmically works out and we benefit. Just like Jeff always has the world's most in jeopardy digital camera. It gets stolen. He gets a new one. I just wish he weren't so destructive with his nerves, but I guess all reality TV has some sort of manufactured drama. In this case I think it is organic, so we'll just have to go with the flow.

comment #20

62Lincoln says ...

Wells: I get it alright, I'm simply stating the fact that she has a business to operate, and she simply isn't keeping a room open based on a hat and a promise. It IS dollars and sense/cents for her. I empathize with your sense of this situation, but she is NOT in the wrong. And this isn't a movie, it's real life. Again, I hope she agrees to your proposal, and I hope you'll come through with some gesture of thanks... Maybe a cowboy hat in her size as a reminder of your intentions for next year.

comment #21

NotImpressed1Yet says ...

This is of course some kind of joke on Wells' part. There's no way he actually believes there's any actual merit to his cowboy-hat-reservation-gesture.

Also, cowboy hats are incredibly lame.

comment #22

MindlessObamaton says ...

Oh man, I'd pay MONEY to actually watch a Wells reality show. Poland could be his more richer, better connected arch enemy and we'd follow Wells throughout his days. Would so rule. It'd have to go a full year, so we could see Wells go to "Siberia" and face the Dead Zone, in Cannes to eat and try to watch five flicks a day and stay up for 72 hours straight. In a moment of quiet contemplation, he looks into the mirror and does the lines that Bobby D did in RAGING BULL, when he was doing LaMotta who was doing Brando. All the wearing the cowboy hat.

Genius.

comment #23

byanyother says ...

Totally. "The Cranky Columnist." This is the episode where he leaves is iPhone on the table in a strange city while he uses the can.

comment #24

MindlessObamaton says ...

And, of course, the camera crew would stay by the Iphone while he hits the can, not even bothering to stop the thief from taking it.

comment #25

Deathtongue_Groupie says ...

If we go with the assumption that this proprietor had either Jeff's email and current cell phone (or both) so she could have contacted him, then I'm gonna have to go with Jeff on this one. Mostly.

Check out the website: http://www.rixey.net/starhotel/

This is advertised as a homey bed & breakfast. These people depend on patrons like Jeff returning year after year. They know such patrons are dependable and, more importantly, trustworthy. A bed & breakfast is by definition someone's home.

Unless Jeff was a demanding pain in the ass and she wanted to be rid of him (not entirely unimaginable), she should have contacted him when she was down to just one room to say she needed an yah or nay ASAP or she was renting it out.

Now, on the other hand, Jeff should have checked with her 2 months out, not 1 to confirm the room. There are post it note programs, like the one I use, that can be alarmed to remind you of such things. As a supposed professional, Jeff should have realized that Sundance is a priority that cannot be explained away by "election madness."

But in the end I still find her at like 75% of the responsibility here and would say Jeff would be entitled to some healthy schadenfreude should the replacement guest return home drunk after a screening with some Sundance starlet that he loudly fornicates with all night during which time one or both vomit up their mojitos on the radiator.

comment #26

Phatang! says ...

I wish there was some way for everyone in the world to read this post. So that "He left his hat" could become the universal expression that describe "An unreasonable person with a completely baseless gripe."

comment #27

alynch says ...

This is a truly great thread.

comment #28

Rothchild says ...

No one in Park City has any problem getting patrons. Every place is full by June or July.

comment #29

byanyother says ...

This is the episode where he gets muscled out of a screening by an uppity female publicist.

comment #30

Tiny Tim says ...

Death_Tongue Groupie:

You should start calling yourself Jeff_Wells Groupie.

Why would you take his side on this when he's 100%
in the wrong? The proprietor of the Star Hotel is not
a mind-reader, regardless of how "emotionally vivid"
Jeff's cowboy hat may be.

comment #31

byanyother says ...

Emotionally vivid, lol. This thread has totally made my day!

comment #32

Pinko Punko says ...

I know Jeff is taking the piss because he's angling for a favor. I hope he gets the favor.

Also, there is no way for the proprietress to know that Jeff didn't die or something in the interim, unless the cowboy hat is symbolic of Jeff's being, in which case it would have a magical connection to his existence and be sort of a health monitor.

comment #33

Sabina E says ...

oh man... this thread is hilarious... i'm trying not to laugh loud or everyone's gonna stare at me...

comment #34

Sabina E says ...

anyway, I think Jeff's taking the piss out of everyone. The cowboy hat can' t be for real.

comment #35

MindlessObamaton says ...

Idea for premiere ep of Wells' World:

At a premiere screening party, Jeff accosts a big time actor, calling in him by a strange name, certainly too familar for this kind of relationship. said actor spends all his time at the party throwing slighty pissed, cautious glances at Wells across the room, keeping his distance but overhearing Wells when he clains loudly to be in deep with the "Philly, Philster, Philinator." Hilarity ensues.

comment #36

Deathtongue_Groupie says ...

Tiny Tim - you obviously are a newbie if you think I don't call Wells on his shit when need be. Just go look at the Scott Rudin assistant thread about Raydol (sp)

And Jeff wasn't being as literal about the hat. He clearly meant leaving something of one's own behind to signal you will return and only those under about 25 would fail to recognize that it is, yes, a universal symbolic gesture. Sheesh, I can think of several books that use the same device.

comment #37

Tiny Tim says ...

Deathtongue:

You're absolutely right. All kinds of authors write books where the protagonists leave cowboy hats as symbolic reservations for hotel rooms.

I'd forgotten about the Arthur Conan Doyle classic, "Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Emotionally Vivid Stetson."

comment #38

desert rose says ...

Thank you all! I'm literally crying from laughing so hard. This is the best thread I've read here or anywhere for a long, long time.

Jeff, Jeff, Jeff, you need a good woman to be with you at all times to help you organize and keep your shit together.

And I think The Cranky Columnist would be a better reality show than most of the crap on now.

comment #39

MindlessObamaton says ...

Hey, Wells had a 3way back in the 70s. He's all about pussy!!!

comment #40

Mike says ...

This thread is so funny. The balls on Jeff!! Can you imagine a visitor "symbolically" leaving some of his shit behind in Jeff's apartment for a year? I'd like to read that post.

Pinko, your post about the doomed digital camera had me laughing out loud.

comment #41

CanCan says ...

Good God! This is gold.

Long time reader of Jeff (reel.com) & just created the ID just to thank him and the readers for this thread. I haven`t laughed this hard since I don`t know when.

"a message that is recognized by everyone all over the world." If this was written by anyone other than him I would be sure they were joking but I`m almost sure Jeff means it. This is too funny.

comment #42

MindlessObamaton says ...

Hey, he's had people leave the fragrant scent of cig smoke. maybe that was a message those folks wanted to come back.

comment #43

dixiedugan says ...

In this economy you expect someone to keep a room for you because of a hat? It's not even a hat with character, like a bowler or porkpie. Sheesh.

I have a niece that lives out there and I was seriously vaguely thinking of e-mailing her to see if her couch would be available but I don't know. What would you leave her?

comment #44

byanyother says ...

I really hope he doesn't leave his "scent."

This is when a cowboy hat WOULD come in handy.

comment #45

corey3rd says ...

A man's hat is his word - John Wayne.

comment #46

dixiedugan says ...

But only if it was John Wayne's hat.

comment #47

Edward Havens says ...

Jeff... you are just another former customer to these people. There's no way to know in January 2008 if you'll follow through on your threat to return in January 2009. I lot of crap can happen in a year. People die. People lose all their money in a tanking economy. People lose all their money in Ponzi schemes. People just give up their former passions.

Shit happens. A hat, no matter how much it meant to you (and really, how much could that hat have meant to you if you just willy nilly left it behind?), is not any kind of promise. A deposit is.

End of story.

comment #48

irvingberlinalexanderputz says ...

Now I know: when my dog left that 'present' for me, it meant she wanted me to keep that spot on the carpet open for her. Or maybe she was trying to give spoilers for my dinner that night.
All-time best thread ever. You rock, Jeff

comment #49

cleopatrajones says ...

This gave me the best laugh of the day. God, I really needed that.

"There's no way to know in January 2008 if you'll follow through on your threat to return in January 2009. "

I love how Edward Havens labels the hat drop a "threat". This thread is classic.

comment #50

KC says ...

Reading the original post, a tiny part of me wondered whether the cowboy hat thing might have been serious, but I dared not allow myself to dream. Oh my shit this is amazing, I laughed into a balled-up sweater reading this thread.

comment #51

KC says ...

God, I can already tell that animal kingdom line is going to stick with me for the rest of my life

comment #52

Rothchild says ...

"Sir, you forgot your hat."
"I'm just leavin' my scent."
"....."

comment #53

Sabina E says ...

Jeff, now I have more respect for you because you're letting some people talk shit about you on your own blog.

comment #54

plastiqueelephant says ...

Jeff, I've been not loving you very much recently but I empathize with you in this situation. It may not be universally respected, but I wish I'd thought of it because leaving a hat is a pretty classy old-school thing to do and warranted a call before she booked your room.

You Americans are WAY too systems based with your credit card deposits and such. When systems trump human approaches you end up with situations like this whole sub-prime palava cause people are excused from actual moral decision making.

comment #55

byanyother says ...

This is the episode where the Cranky Critic sublet his apartment to a woman from Craig's List and she smoked in the house.

comment #56

Chris Willman says ...

Anyone have any good tips on where to stay at a reasonable price, outside of Park City but not as far as SLC? I'm returning for the first time in a long time (maybe) and my old cheap haunts are history.

comment #57

joncro says ...

You didn't leave the hat on the bed did you?
If I ever see a hat on a bed in this house, man, like you'll never see me again.

comment #58

moorish says ...

This thread is hilarious! "a very emotionally vivid and pronounced way of stating my intentions." Hahahaha!

Jeff, unless you have a booking, you don't have shit. A cowboy hat?? This *isn't* a Gary Cooper western and no hotel in the world would hold you a room, especially at their busiest time of the year, on the strength of it. You think any hotel employee cares about how "emotionally vivd" your hat is? They would clearly think you had just forgotten it. It's a bit rich of you to accuse them of leaving you in the lurch - it's self-inflicted I'm afraid.

comment #59

Jeffrey Wells says ...

Let me try again and this will be the end of it. The Star hotel is a b & b -- not a hotel. I stayed there in '07 and '08 and was very happy and content to do so. Carol Rixey, who's been running things until this year (when her son took over), runs it quietly and efficiently, but it's a homey little place with family pictures and little knick-knacks on the walls. She serves breakfast in the morning, there are always potato chips and pretzels and cheese squares on the kitchen table, and if you're feeling sick with a fever Carol will sometimes offer you a homemade remedy or a first-aid pack that she keeps in a box near the front entrance. She makes you feel as if you're staying in someone's home that happens to function as a hotel.

And things are very nice and personal there. There are visitors who fit in and those who don't. You have to be a mellow, quiet, laid-back type in order to be the former. And while Carol is a Texan she kind of reminds me of my grandmother (my mom's mom) in a tough way. She's no softy and won't take any guff, but she's maternal and caring in her way. And I came to feel very cared for there. I could talk to Carol like she was family and vice versa. And she has good wifi there!

So when I said to her last year that I'd like to leave my cowboy hat there so I could just pick up in '09 where I left off in '08, I was obviously saying to her (in my head at least, and I can't imagine how she could have interpreted this any differently) that I'd like it very much if she could be a nice and considerate grandma and hold my hat for me, and that I'd be back to stay the following year. Simple and quite clear all around. I trusted her to get what I meant because, I figured, she surely recognizes the trust and affection that we've had between us over the past two years.

But now things have ended badly. Very badly. I just heard from Carol that she considers my having discussed the matter in the column to be a form of blackmail (an hysterical interpretation, in my view) and that she's given my hat to the Park City police and that I can pick it up there when I get to town. The fuzz, for God's sake! She's brought the cops into this! Talk about a violation of the trust that comes with friendship and the values of good grandma-hood! The idea that nice people can turn around and suddenly act erratically and illogically (to put it in gentle terms) is not a very pleasant one, but obviously it happens. Good God.

comment #60

Reedyb says ...

This would make a great episode of "This American Life." Someone please call Ira Glass!

comment #61

alan says ...

I wouldn't have sent it to the police if I was in her place. I would have tossed it out with the garbage.

comment #62

John Cocktosten says ...

The Lonely Cowboy Hat: Now incarcerated.

This hat is the greatest McGuffin ever. You could not make this stuff up. Ivy league hack sitcom writers, take note. There's gold to be had here. I expect to see this in How I Met Your Mother by next season.

comment #63

Withnail says ...

LOL!

The Hat's in the Hoosegow!
Free the Fez!
Clemency for the Chapeau!

Too rich...

comment #64

YRG says ...

I signed in on the 29th to read all about the hat conundrum, but I wasn't able to comment until now due to holiday madness. Hopefully that was enough to reserve a place to add my two cents.

For the future, a simple suggestion: A key component of good communication is assessing the proper feedback. Being direct helps. Rather than expressing an intent to pick up in '09 where one left off in '08, perhaps "Could I leave my hat to reserve a room for next year," would be more comprehensible, along with "let me know if anything changes." Even so, it's a large favor to ask from a business owner. Perhaps the lesson here is that the relationship you thought you had with her did not match up with the reality.

comment #65

rr3333 says ...

On the next episode of 'The New Twilight Zone' ... A Man and his Texas hat, on a journey to Utah, or is it 'THE TWILIGHT ZONE'?

The Pinko comment about Jeff's propensity to lose his digital camera had me rolling.

We luv you, Jeff. Great thread. And as I said in another thread about this same topic, I'm genuinely on your side.

comment #66

PeterPark says ...

Haha! This would make a great episode of "This American Life."!! :)