I landed in Honolulu at 10 pm local time (or midnight LA time) after a 5 and 1/2 hour flight. My Tokyo flight leaves tomorrow at 1 pm so I’m staying at an airport-vicinity dump called the Pacific Marina Inn, which is located among a cluster of drab warehouses and small businesses with two ugly gas stations the only beacons (apart from the PMI) of people-friendly commerce.

Pool area of the Pacific Marina Inn.

Aloha! Good to be here! The skanky industrial regions of Oahu can be just as ugly if not uglier than the skanky industrial regions around LA or Newark or Orlando.

As soon as the bags were in the room I stepped outside and breathed in the Hawaiian night air with the idea of going for a nice walk. But about 70 feet away in the darkness of the parking lot there were two curvy, bordering-on-plus-sized girls leaning against a car and making out, and every time I stuck my head out they turned around and gave me this look that said “so are you going to stare at us all night, pervy, or do we get a little privacy here?” So I began to feel intimidated. Like it or not, the girls had laid claim to the parking lot and intruders were not welcome.

Then I told myself I had just as much of a right to enjoy the parking lot as these girls did. Then I asked myself, “What would Ryan Adams do? He’s a sensitive guy, writes for Awards Daily, stands up for gay rights. He’d know what to do. I’m fairly certain he wouldn’t call these girls ‘lesbos’ but would he just roam around and take pictures and do what he wants or would he hide inside the motel room like me, unsure of his next move?”