I don’t have evidence to prove it, but I swear to your imaginary god the old dicks of Palm Springs are the only thing keeping that economy surging. (Or rising, or throbbing, or pick your own erection metaphor).

Before the pandemic, every March we went to the Indian Wells tennis tournament. Every year we see that crypt-keeper Larry Ellison hanging on to what must be his great-grand-niece…

Nope, that’s his “girlfriend.”

We were looking around the stadium. Every other couple was a Spring/Death’s-Doorstep relationship.

The first year I went was with my friend Mike.  We were pointing and giggling, when we noticed some 80-plus dude hanging all over this 20-something girl in “our” corporate box too.

I’m not big on any public displays of affection, so I was not enjoying being 2-feet away from crepe-paper-skin leaning and lurching all over a “chick” who is younger than my best pair of shoes.

The matches end late. The last dude in the corporate box, tells us we “have to go” to the Bird’s Nest, or the Bird Cage or some fucking thing with birds.

“It’s the hottest place in town,” he said with a leer usually reserved for handing out candy in cargo vans.

The parking lot is chock full of BMW’s, Jaguars, Mercedes… There’s a line to get in. The bar is full of 20-40-something women in short-tight skirts and covered in enough makeup to backfill the San Andrea’s fault.

Smells like Old Spice and strippers.

They are playing the “hits of the 70’s.” There’s a bunch of guys in their 70’s in half-buttoned shirts showing off their white chest hair (complete with bypass scars). They have “matching” white pants, white belts and white shoes. They are swooping down on these bimbos like seagulls snagging french fries at the beach.

Nature has a way to stop this kind of bullshit. You reach a certain age, and your dick stops working. But that’s now how it is in fucking Palm Springs.

That explains why every other commercial on the Tennis Channel is for Viagra or has those two fucking people holding hands in bathtubs…

For several years after, the Bear and I have done the tournament.  Every time we go to Palm Springs, the only visible signs of economic activity are the luxury car dealers and that line of gold-digging chicks outside that bullshit “bird” restaurant.

Their entire economy must be based on dick pills, because if that shit didn’t work, the gold diggers would stay in LA, and we would rename Palm Springs — “Dead Dickville.”

Update: May, 2020.

 I wrote this story a few years ago, and with the great economic crash and the need to restart our economy, it reminded me of at least one place to start.  More dick pills for Palm Springs. Even if that doesn’t make unemployment fall, at least one little thing will rise.