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© Copyright 2009, John Crosley, All Rights Reserved

Beatific Scene from the 'Bates Hotel'


johncrosley

Withheld, from raw through Adobe Camera Raw, Photoshop CS4, substantial left crop, due to improper aspect ratio.

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© Copyright 2009, John Crosley, All Rights Reserved

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This is the view at the front desk of the 'Bates Hotel' a pseudonym for a

hotel Stephen King would love to stay at so he could gather fresh

material for a new book -- movie deal. Your ratings and critiques are

invited and most welcome. If you rate harshly or very critically, please

submit a helpful and constructive comment; please share your superior

photographic knowledge to help improve my photography. Thanks!

Enjoy! John

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The Bate 'M'otel is the subject of the movie 'Psycho' and its use in this photo and relation to this particular 'hotel' is no accident.

 

John (Crosley)

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I actually like the fact that you shot it through the window. It gives a distance between us viewers and the scene, as well as creating reflections/shdows which are creating a sublte fantastic and scary feeling here.
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What do you think of a hotel that does not pay its workers?

 

Really, for most of its workers it does not pay them.

 

They get a room, no food and that's all.

 

A few, select few, get a paycheck.

 

Minimum wage is a dream.

 

It took a clerk two hours to figure out my night's rent, and then when she failed, the manager the next day pounded on my door and said regardless she was evicting me for 'nonpayment' even though the rent would have been paid if their totally incompetent clerk had been able to figure out a day's rent. I paid the rent and still was told i was being 'evicted' on 'general principles' (others who had seen my work on the net intervened . . . . what an experience . . . .to be kicked out of possibly the worst hotel in the Western World. . .. ..)

 

Moreover, they advertise $X a week, but charge $x + $100 a week. Bait and Switch in my book (my opinion). (Bait and switch is a crime here and they should be investigated and a DA should determine that.)

 

The weekly rate is more than the daily rate x seven. Can you imagine?

 

You are better off if you pay the daily rate.

 

If they just dislike you for any reason (maybe you are 'honest' or any such thing), they may try to kick you out.

 

It has no billing computer, they issue no receipts, it has no 'night auditor', and one wonders if it has any books at all for IRS accounting purposes.

 

It seems possibly it would fail any safety/fire inspection/health inspection and be shut down immediately.

 

One wonders if they are fiddling their taxes and if so, how many ways they are doing so. No books would make it SOOO easy to say 'we only sold ten rooms' when they have a full house.

 

Yes, the hotel from hell.

 

Run (with two fine exceptions) by people I judge to be total incompetents, or worse.

 

But they run an ad with the 'name' hotels and if rooms are scarce, they 'seem' OK, until one finds one's door left open after an 'inspection' - cameras and lenses left on beds with an open door exposed to thieves, etc., -- all because a manger did not lock a door behind her while snooping.

 

Security is almot non-existent. No security locks or special security keys -- just easily duplicated keys. And keys do not say 'do not duplicate' as they should.'

 

Yes, the Bates Hotel.

 

Be Scared; Real Scared.

 

Hitchcock scared. (Not the Van Sant remake).

 

Psycho scared.

 

My opinion of course.

 

Maybe I'm wrong.

 

Do I have a history here of stating wrong facts?

 

John (Crosley)

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Niels,

 

I got the compliment part, and thanks, but the rest is gibberish to me. Can you explain? It's too truncated for me to understand.

 

John (Crosley)

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She was a worker.

 

I wonder if she's still there.

 

I fear for her life.

 

One other 'worker' who did not get paid, by the way, told me of the owner -- manager's plans for this woman and worker, who has an 'addled' brain (my very personal and considered opinion), to give this now valueless woman an hour to 'pack her things' then take her to the airport (LAX) and ship her off to Texas, where there was supposed to be some sort of religious order that was ready to take her in. I doubt any such places exists.

 

Because of my personal knowledge that few, if any employees got paid, and because of my personal knowledge, learned by observation and by personal experience, that the owners were in violation of health and safety codes and did not keep proper books (I viewed that personally and was told that also by employees), it seemed likely that they were going to put this addled woman on a plane, and it appears 'dump her' into a foreign city, unable to fend for herself.

 

I hope I am wrong.

 

I have my personal opinion that if indeed they were to have put her on a plane, there would have been no one to pick her up and take her to any religious order - and my personal opinion is that it was just 'bait' to get rid of a former 'productive' emplyee (occupying a room without payment), to free up that room in a hotel with almost alwaya a 'full house' and literally dump that woman in the ranks of the far-away homeless, with the woman having no idea of how to help herself or even to know what really had happened to her.

 

She was so addled, she really needed a guardian from the state, and apparently did not have one - she purportedly worked, but told me she was not paid, other than getting a room. (She also told me, reliably others told me, that she had a doctorate in one subject or another earned in the distant past - but fell apart when her mother died.)

 

These are all either 'facts' where indicated as such, from my personal observations,, or were told me as 'facts' by individuals I learned to trust, by her, herself, and by careful observation by me.

 

If they are wrong,I will be happy to post a retraction, as I have no wish to call anyone into disrepute who does not deserve it, but it will take more than just a letter or a post - it will require personal affirmation from people I trust, and including personal witnesses (and possibly authorities who see this woman) to affirm that she is safe and sound -- for I fear the worst.

 

'You check into the Bates Motel, but you don't check out' was the saying, I believe.

 

I never have been so aware of that phrase than during my brief stay at ths purported hotel - a rathole that seems (by statement of its employees and observation), to be in violation of numerous wage and hour violations, health and safety violations, federal and state income tax violations, and so forth, as well as having responsibilty, I am told, for plans (as I left) for shipping this addled woman across the country without her ability to give informed consent -- literally to dump her far away, without any ability to care for herself -- possibly to perish.

 

I would be most happy to learn (from authorities) that she is safe and sound, and that she has (with official documentation) been paid a salary for all the years she has worked at this particular establishment, (not named).

 

My personal opinion is that I should fear the worst.

 

This is one of the most scary places I have ever been in my life, and I've been in war, numerous riots, in Communist countries at times they were overrun by Mafia, and so forth.

 

Hardly anything compares to the fear I felt when I checked into this 'Bates Motel'. (name an euphemism).

 

I invite anyone with real facts and proof (backed by documentation from officials - the IRS, the health officials, police, welfare officials, etc. and others that are from the government -- to show me to be wrong, with genuine official documentation, and I would be very, very pleased to admit any wrong innuendo, if that were so.

 

I don't deal in untruth, wrong innuendo, falseness or rumor when I write; I write what I believe is the truth; matters I write pass a pretty stringent personal test for accuracy before they are printed, and they are always subject to retraction if proved (with suitable, official proof to the highest standards) to be wrong.

 

However, they are always my personal opinion, but members here have learned whether or not my opinioin generally has value.

 

I have no 'vendetta' against this particular place other than its business practices seem to offend the laws of the State of California and the U.S. Government, as well as general decency and morality. (my opinion.)

 

I'd love to be an official government auditor with with the tax returns of this place and to compare their occupancy records, versus the actual room occupancy they show - they don't even issue room receipts in many cases, or keep more than pencil or throwaway tablet records of occupancy, so an 'audit' would be guesswork, and they turn over their employees rapidly in many cases, so nobody is left to tell the truth about their almost 100% occupancy - except one or two employees who get welfare and are (I recall) unpaid, but need the free room they are given so they can 'get by' since welfare doesn't pay for 'rooms' except in emergencies. They have no 'night auditor' or any 'auditor' at all' staff told me, and no working computer -- all the better if one wants to fiddle the tax man.

 

I doubt if any retractions from me will ever be required here. I do my work before I write.

 

But I'm open to rebuttal - I'm not the last word on anything -- the truth is what is the final word, and I have no monopoly on it (any takers, Bates people?)

 

John (Crosley)

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It's been since 2009 when I issued my challenge to this 'Bates Hotel' (not its real name but they know who they are), suggesting all sorts of improprieties, but all of my opinion based on things told me or which I observed (or both) as compared to my knowledge of California and federal laws.

 

To date there has been no response -- no rebuttal to my challenge.

 

I wonder if this woman befell the fate that I was told was in store for her -- being sent on one hour's notice to a far off city in her befuddled state, being told a religious order that probably did not exist would 'take her in' when in fact no one was there to 'take her in' and she would have ended up in a state unfriendly to the unemployed, befuddled and confused, penniless and soon possibly at death's door, as she would have had no ability to seek out aid from aid workers or even know how to approach them.

 

The holder of a doctoral degree, this woman is severely addled, and when I met her could barely function.

 

She told me she was not paid, but was given a room.  The hotel kept no records and had no 'auditor' as is common in almost all hotels, according to one hotel worker I trusted, as he knew the workings of the hotel and told me enough that I deemed him an honest person.  He also worked and was not paid, but got in return a room only, and no record, he said to me, was kept.

 

He was not cheating welfare; welfare doesn't buy rooms or housing in California for able-bodied males without kids who are under retirement age.  In fact, the day of the so-called 'welfare queen' is long gone with limits on how long one can collect welfare and absurdly low limits on how much any state will pay one individual and/or that individual's family for welfare.

 

It's all very draconian.

 

This photo was taken at the depth of the current recession in a part of the country where the recession hit hardest; part of Los Angeles County near its wharf area which had been severely crippled by strongly curtailed imports and not strong exports which might have generated jobs, and those jobs had disappeared, along with many of the other jobs of the entire Los Angeles Basin area.

 

I cannot prove the opinions I have to a certainty, but I have a degree of good will on this site for not carrying out vendettas.  In fact, no one stole from me at this hotel; I had no real fights with them (my only conflict was noted above in comments) and I just felt badly for those who HAD to stay there or WORK there, and especially for this addled woman, depicted, and the fate, I was told (earnestly by a person whom I trusted) that supposedly awaited her.  I believed what I was told, and pray that it never came to pass, perhaps in part because I wrote what I did above in 2009.

 

I still offer on proof of falseness of 'facts' that I have expressed an opinion on, to retract.  I believe in fairness and fair play. I have no vendetta, and if someone who supplied me facts (there were several) misused me, I am open to hearing new 'facts' in rebuttal.

 

However, I stayed there, and it will take a VERY strong and very detailed set of 'facts' and perhaps some strong inquiries of state and federal authorities with responses from them before I'd change my personal opinion about whether this establishment paid its share of taxes and complied with health and safety codes as well as wages and hours laws.

 

About those things I have opinions, and I am always open to changing my opinions if given more information that is contradictory and trustworthy.

 

I doubt any will be forthcoming, ever.

 

In the meantime, you've been warned!

 

john

 

John (Crosley)

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