Lance Olsen - Calendar of Regrets

It isn't?

It's a fucking Rolodex of assaults by men against women. That's what it is. A-and before any of you women haters out there start ranting about how many men get abused by women, or how many women off their children? Don't even fucking bother. Cuz the ones who get pissed off? The ones who go on and on about how they'd never hurt a fly and all that shit? We ALL know better. You fuckers do exactly shit to stop other men from harming women. A-and you wanna know something? I'll always fucking HATE you. I fucking hate you today. I'll fucking hate you tomorrow. I'll fucking hate you the year after that.

And love us, too, right?

Fucking A, man. I've got a knife. I'll use it.

Glad to hear it, honey. We love you, too. Sleep well for me tonight, okay? May your dreams fill the room you inhabit.

From the area code, I'm guessing you're coming to us straight from the rotten core of the Big Apple.

You're the best, Jolly Roger. My name's Mike.

Flattery will get you everywhere, Mike. Or at least another two minutes of airtime in the netherglobe. What wisdom would you like to impart to us fellow Morlocks traveling side-by-side with you in the great time machine called Mother Earth this afternoon?

I've been thinking about how they're all like totally Iraqed.

Who's that, Mike?

The kids? In malls? You know, with their lip rings and tongue studs and way they laugh at you by not laughing? You can see it in their eyes.

Not sure I'm quite following you here, Mike…

They don't wanna do ratshit, ayte? Look at them irises. Fuckers go on and on about dismantling the system and burning The Man and blowing up their high schools and whatever, ayte? Only what they really want? What they really want is to sit around on their fucking asses all day watching SpongeBob SquarePants and snarfing cheesy poofs.

Why do you think that is, Mike?

This ain't THINKING, Jolly. This is KNOWING. I've got one word for you.

One word?

Hormone deficit. Know what I'm saying?

Help me out here.

Them birds in Lake Ontario?

…?

All of a sudden one day they can't find no more mates, ayte? So the females? They start going gay. You hear about that?

I haven't.

Shit, man. They start nesting with these other female birds, taking turns tending their infertile eggs. F that S. Know what I'm saying? Or them other birds? Cormordants? They got beaks so fucking twisted they can't eat nothing. Six-legged frogs. Two-headed turtles. And that place in Florida? The one with all them alligators with dicks too small to fuck with? Tell me that ain't like totally fucked up.

That's totally fucked up, Mike.

So here's what I want to know, ayte? Who gives a shit about like global warming and whatever when your dick's too small to fuck with?

Good point.

Lemme ask you something. How many sperm you think your average guy's supposed to got in an average-sized sackload?

I'm just a lowly podcaster.

Used to be close to a hundred million per milliliter. Word.

Used to be?

Couple years ago? These scientists? They studied like men from all around the world, and you know what they find?

…?

They find sperm counts've fallen by half in the last fifty years, ayte? HALF. You got yourself spunk levels that low, you'd be watching SpongeBob SquarePants and snarfing cheesy poofs, too. Know what I'm saying?

You serious about all this stuff, Mike?

Alphabetical pollutants. PCBs. DDT. Plastics. Cosmetics. Paints. Detergents. They mimic the effects of female hormones, ayte? Screw with your reproductive and nervous and immune systems. Which we're all going gay, man. Put that together with them tainted flu vaccines and you've got yourself a regular apopaclypse.

Tainted flu vaccines?

There's this like bacteria? Serratia. Same shit the government released from this ship off San Francisco in the fifties to test whether an enemy could launch a biological attack from a distance, ayte? Whole lots of them vaccines contaminated with it.

The U.S. government, Mike? Aren't they supposed to be on our side?

Only they thought it was like this harmless microbe at the time, ayte? Turns out it causes this avalanche of bad juju. Everything from heart-valve infections to peptic shock. Know what I'm saying? You want one word for it? Chinese toothpaste. You think you're being careful? You think you're doing all you can?

I'm not sure I do.

Cuz walk around with fucking plastic bags over your hands, ayte? You're still hosed. Cuz you want a hint? The prognosis is always fatal.

In cases of ingesting Chinese toothpaste and lead paint on kids' toys, you're saying?

In cases of being alive, man.

Um, Jesus. Wow. Thanks for the reminder, Mike. We can never hear that shadowy tune enough. Duck and cover, you're saying.

Word, man. Word…

Welcome to lucky episode thirteen of my own little pirate podcast coming to you semi-live and completely indirect every week from a different corner of the godforsaken Salton Sea, deadest body of saline solution on the deadest stretch of southwestern desert you'll ever want to forget.

I checked our download stats at what passes for the internet café at the Fountain of Youth RV Resort down the road from glorious Niland yesterday afternoon, folks, and I'm happy to report our numbers have soared from 166 last week to a whopping 187 as of 1:33 p.m. this day just past.

So it looks like the passenger deck on this ship of fools is filling fast.

Can fame and fortune be far behind?

Almost surely not. But never mind that.

Jolly Rogers wants to thank you all for opening your ears, your hearts, your minds.

Remember: all you have to do to set sail with the whole sick crew is search out my revolving website. To find it, just listen to your closest friends. Surf the web with real curiosity. Open each and every piece of spam you receive. I plan on sticking around here for the great duration listening to what everybody has to say who God and His Gofers have forgotten…

Speaking of which, imagine me tonight, if you will, sitting cross-legged on a deserted beach somewhere at the end of the world. The clock on my computer screen says 3:12 in the a.m. The temperature is a balmy seventy-eight. The forecast, like our government, is bland and predictable. A light breeze wafts in across the blasted water, on the far side of which hangs a stark low mountain range on the horizon. Stars are manifest in hazy profusion. To coin a phrase.

Surrounding me is an abandoned playground, its swingless swing, broken seesaw, and monkey bars in the shape of a submarine's conning tower half sunk in what at first glance you might mistake for white sand. You would be wrong. The granular substance, if you examine it closely, is in fact composed of myriad crushed fish bones from myriad fish kills. The air carries a salty piscine reek that you can taste on your lips, at the back of your tongue, deep in the intricacies of your sinuses. Leave here and drive to Niland, to Mecca, to Palm Springs, and that taste will dog you, friends, reminding you for hours post factum of this alcove in Nowhere's Mansion.

Behind me looms the renowned deserted blue and white marina hotel with its empty graffitied swimming pool. The windows were long ago boarded up with plywood. The back door has been let us say renovated by indigenes to allow easy ingress by the odd intrepid traveler. To wander past what once was a meat locker through what once was the bar, now a dark ramshackle cavern concretized with gull guano and a-trill with the birds' uncanny coos, is finally to understand Mr. Tom Waits's voice.