Hopeless Haze - Volume I: Hot Fuss (Remastered)

5: Bet Your Bottom Dollar

OCTOBER 21 - 24, 2003

"This is crazy," Brandon says, keycard in hand as he leads the band through the halls of the Tribeca Grand. "And I've been in a lot of hotels, so that's saying something."

New York had been colder than Brandon imagined when he woke up this morning. Their red-eye flight had been lovely, he thought, and he was excited to see what the city had to offer. But it had been cold. Not Utah-winter cold, but enough so that jump from the desert to the Northeast had left him feeling underprepared. He hasn't got many coats, which may be a necessity for the tour next month. He'll have to go thrifting when they get home.

New York has probably got some crazy thrift stores.

They're on one of the upper floors of the hotel, and the room that Braden booked for them is supposedly very good. A common living room with two bedrooms, this is supposed to be HQ for the next couple of days before they head to California to do some more recording. Brandon's itching to get back at it seeing as they haven't recorded since April and he had been sick at the time, so none of his vocal tracks sounded good. It's literally been bothering him for months.

They get to their door, Brandon swipes the card, and the band takes in the majesty of the best hotel room they've ever seen. Ever stayed in, Brandon would be quick to correct you, because he's been in a lot of hotels (duh).

As they step in, it's easy to ignore all of the hardwood and leather in favor of the fact that the place has seemingly been bombed with gifts. Baskets of food, liquor, music, and to Brandon's horror-clothes. The four of them must look like fools, standing there draped in luggage with their mouths hanging open.

"This isn't, like," Dave begins as they shuffle forwards, "stuff we have to pay for, right?"

Brandon drops his bag and inspects a tag hanging off of a basket containing a bottle of Moët et Chandon, "It's from... Republic Records?"

"You're kidding," Ronnie appears behind him to look for himself.

"This one says American," Mark chimes in.

Brandon squints at the rest of the items-maybe there's a card somewhere that will better explain what's going on. But then Braden arrives after having dumped his stuff off in his single room and then wasting no time heading upstairs to see what was going on. He takes an immediate interest in the gifts, instructing the band not to touch them until he can figure out how they got there and why they're there in the first place. But American and Republic are both under the Universal umbrella, which is a good sign. They've already got two labels trying to butter them up so that they may be starstruck enough to accept a shitty deal.

"Get settled in," Braden tells them. "And later tonight I'll come by and we can talk about the plan for tomorrow. I'm gonna go talk to someone about..." he motions towards the gift baskets, "this."

He heads off, most likely to do some managerial stuff that Brandon doesn't completely understand. He hopes that they get the green light on the gift baskets, though, because he thinks he can see a Swatch brand watch buried somewhere.

"Who's rooming up?" Dave asks. "I need a nap-couldn't sleep on that damn plane." Brandon looks to Ronnie. He doesn't mean to, but he does, and Ronnie is looking right back at him. He hopes that it isn't that obvious. But Dave snorts, "Alright, the roomies and the guitarists."

Brandon hopes that Dave isn't offended because up until now, it had always been a them thing. But he doesn't think that will be the case because they both know that Dave can get easily irritated with Brandon.

"Are the rooms the same?" Ronnie asks, grabbing ahold of his bag once more.

"I dunno. Who cares," Dave takes his things and disappears into the door closest to him. Mark just shrugs and lets himself collapse on the couch, happy to let Dave have some alone time for the betterment of his mood.