Little Shop of Palm Springs

Little Shop of Palm Springs

I stepped out of our arrival gate at the Palm Springs airport and decided to buy one of the airport’s retirement casitas. It’s right by gate 2 and is only a minute walk from baggage claim. The casita comes equipped with a wet bar, Cuban cigars, five-hundred bedrooms, a private pool, and Rosie the robot maid from The Jetson’s. The pool comes with a set of outdoor furniture, a pool boy, and an amphibious Maseratti. I got it for really cheap! I traded in my Indonesian island of Java for it, which upset some of the retired Dutch.

The typical Palm Springs resident drives the ubiquitous Bentley. Ferrari’s are pretty common too. I think Thursday was the most exciting day of the week here. It was in the afternoon as I was walking down N. Palm Drive when I saw it: a Chevrolet! It was an exotic moment.

I have to say that the manners of the people here are inimitable. I’ve never seen Starbuck’s employees put down so properly. It really goes to show that the higher level of class you live in, the more of a complete anthropomorphized turd you become. I mean these people really have their shit together, and they store it all inside their empty skulls. I call it the brown-brain syndrome.

What do these people have to offer? Their cliche accessories are worn as adornment with some odd sense of pride. I say an odd sense of pride because if it wasn’t for the solid gold trinkets attached to them they would not have any sort of soul or character. It is merely another disguise so we can’t see what that person really is. The conclusion here is that I can’t trust these people. It is the social cat-walk. “Look at me!” They seem to say. But I think that’s what we’re supposed to think. I think many of them are so aware of being looked at that they need these things to cling on to as all those eyes, which are probably reading some trite magazine instead, seem to be sizing them up. You’re sizing yourselves up you freakin’ idiots! And you don’t like what you see, so neither do I.

Sure, there are palm trees everywhere, the weather is warm, the sun is never obscured, and the tourism industry shines even brighter but I can’t help feeling alien and a little oppugnant. Standing or walking on the street, my body is posed in a way to imply this mental state. There is no reply. Peggy Lee would tell me to just walk on by but I can’t rightly walk on by if I’m stuck in this plenum of retch and chew for an entire week. Uggh!

“Oh! Charles, dear? Let’s be bohemian this morning and have chota hazri.”
“Look, Martia, I’m sorry I couldn’t find my little blue pill last night... You don’t have to keep bringing it up!”
“Why, Charles, I had forgotten all about that. Chota hazri is just a little...”
“Aw God damn it! I’m goin’ to make a cocktail!”
You sure are, Charles. You sure are...

“Splash down in the Village of Palm Springs, and feel the weight of the world float away. Breathe deeply of the desert air, fragrant with wildflowers. Let your eyes rest on the sheltering mountains. Listen to the romantic whispers of the Palms rustling in the soft breeze.” Billed as a premier vacation destination, which is populated by beautiful people with beautiful jewelry, one expects the spectacular. But really if you come here with any sort of conscience you might just come to the just conclusion that it is a provincial desert landscape being oppressed by the greedy, sexagenarian booboisie.

The Euro-trash hotel that we’re staying at just opened in December. It has forty-foot plasma screen televisions in every room. So this is where all that plasma I donated back in college went to. There is a sacrificial fire by the pool that, when not being used to sacrifice lower-class citizens, is fueled by ancient Cahuilla Indian artifacts. The hotel advertises that its rooms include eye-candy artwork... I’ve been in a few of the rooms and they all have the same art my room has: one giant ExtremeCloseUp painting of a rose and one framed photo of three fat people on a beach. Tasty candy.

Oh! Here’s a good one: Nazis. That’s right, folks you read it right, say it with me in a scary ghost voice. “NAZIS.” Though locals may verbally deny it they have trouble hiding the swastikas tattooed on their hands. Why is there a big white supremacy faction here? I can’t tell you. Maybe they have direct flights to Argentina. The fact that they are here at all should alert you to the fact that this is, indeed, a great place to vacation. Bring your kids! And bring that exchange student from Swaziland that’s been staying with you and eating all of your chicken. I hate Illinois nazis.

Most of the cities I travel to frustrate me. I end up feeling that I just want to leave, move on, go home, or whatever. This particular hollow of Hades, however... well I would like to buy a bat and abate everything in my path on the way out of town. This bat would be magical. It would be able to grow to thirty-three feet long and there would be flames in the shape of angry dog heads swirling around the end of it and cute little cherubs riding the flaming dog heads and brandishing whips and horrible spiked flogging devices. Along with the one who carries this bat comes marching a legion of really pissed off Barbie dolls carrying uzis. This would not be terrorism, only karma.

I suppose maybe I just have low 5-hydroxytryptamine levels and I should go eat some chocolate or take a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor. Or maybe I could buy a bathtub of champagne just to wash my socks. Whatever you do here make sure that it is in no way practical. Everything should be done in excess because when in Rome...

...do as the booboisie do.