Traveling and living in different places is fun. I’ve lived in a bunch of different spots, so I have a pretty good idea of what goes into the making of a crap town versus an awesome town, and guess what? Olympia, Washington is a portal to hell itself.It is a rusted birdhouse dug out from a barn where priests molest dogs, and then fill it with the turds of those dogs. It’s where good dreams go to become bad dreams, and where hygiene and properly groomed facial (and other) hair is frowned upon. Don’t move there. And if you’ve already moved there, stop drinking the tap water right now so the voodoo juice they put in it will seep out of your pores, then wash your face and move away.I know what you’re thinking, “Ohhhh, but all of these cool bands that were really big in the 90s, or that I heard about once at the Michigan Womyn’s Festival live there!” Yeah, you’re right, and guess what? They’re all douche clowns. Very very healthy douche clowns, but douche clowns nonetheless. There are a few native Olympian artists who don’t suck dick, and you know what they all have in common? DICKS! Weird.Aside from the fact that everyone in Olympia goes out of their way to make me sick, and that the state bird is “gas face,” it is also a fact that you can’t buy anything normal in this town. “Where can I buy the new issue of Anything Magazine around here?” you might find yourself asking someone. “Nowhere,” would be their response. “Where can I buy tampons that aren’t made out of pine cones? Oh, those were boycotted and you wrote a zine about it? Cool, I’ll pick it up at the pinecone tampon benefit this weekend.”In the two years I lived in New York (generally presumed to be the filthiest city ever) the only disgusting thing I ever saw was a man masturbating in-between two cars late at night when I was walking around the Financial District. The shock and horror of seeing someone’s urethra right after consuming way too many sugary booze drinks may have been enough to make me pen a letter to the Make-A-Wish Foundation, but it pales in comparison to the horrors I have encountered in Olympia.I don’t know if they stand out more here because there are less people and less stuff in general to camouflage the worser things, but I guess that makes sense. Like if you’re walking down the sidewalk and there’s nothing interesting to see or be experienced anywhere near you, something like a half-used syringe (pictured above) placed gingerly on the ledge of the Crab Shack is really gonna catch your eye. Same with walking into the toolshed of your place of business and discovering that homeless townies have been using it as a toilet. “Where’s the shovel? Oh, there it is, by the pile of watery crap that smells of $3 merlot.”And getting back to the syringe thing, what really bothered me about it was that there was a trashcan three seconds away from where it was left. I talked to some friends about it and we concluded that whoever left it there had noticed that their waitress was bringing the food to their table inside, and they wanted to save the leftover heroin for when they were done eating, in lieu of smoking a cigarette, because those things are disgusting. Or maybe they didn’t want to mix recyclable plastic materials in with normal garbage.In conclusion: Don’t move to Olympia. Try Long Beach or some place that at least has a Walgreens.AVERY NETTLE
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