You’re STILL Wrong
or
Mykel's
JUNE 2026 Blog/Column
by Mykel Board
IT'S NOT ROCKET SCIENCE
It suddenly occurred to me that not one person who has successfully committed suicide has lived to regret it.
-1-Mykel
Board
Alcohol is a social lubricant that brings people together. It allows people an excuse to bond and socialize, and there’s probably nothing healthier than having a good time with friends in a safe way.
– Dr. Mehmet Oz
The
latest research shows that alcohol is a toxic, psychoactive, and
dependence-producing substance and has been classified as a Group 1
carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer decades
ago – this is the highest risk group, which also includes asbestos,
radiation and tobacco,”
– World Health Organization-1
Unlike
burgers, processed foods such as hot dogs are classified as a Group 1
carcinogens.
Consuming the artificial compounds found in most hot dogs can
increase cancer risk. The same can be said for char-grilled burgers,
which contain more carcinogens than burgers cooked on a frying pan on
top of the stove. But the level of carcinogenic substances in burgers
is far less than in hot dogs.
--World Health Organization-2
So
drinking alcohol is as carcinogenic as eating hot dogs.
-2
– Mykel Board
I lie naked on the operating table. I’m in that state halfway between sleep and fully aware. I feel some sort of restraints on wrists and ankles. Each seems to be attached to a different corner of the table.
I squint my eyes open and focus on a couple of surgeons. One of the doctors smiles paternally.
“You’re doing the right thing, Mykel.” He says to me, reaching between my legs. “Those glands have helped destroy the world. And they’ve encouraged sex. You know that science has proved that sex causes so many diseases. Every case of syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, trichomoniasis and most cases of AIDS and herpes are caused by sex. This operation will set you free. You’ll never have to worry about the dangers of sex, because you’ll never again have sex. You’ll be neutered and alive.”
Of course it’s correct to say that a person who doesn’t have sex will not contract an STD. Just as my quote at the beginning of this blog is correct in saying no successful suicide has lived to regret it.
But it is NOT logical to say that suicide CAUSES lack of regret any more than it’s logical to say that castration CAUSES the elimination of STDs.
I’m challenging the idea of cause and effect. Saying alcohol causes cancer, like saying sex causes STDs, is just wrong… or at best, misleading. One thing does not cause something else. Things happen for a combination of reasons… mostly too many to count. Something as simple as being shot with a gun caused him to die is just wrong.
How many people have been shot with a gun and DIDN’T die? How much does it count what kind of gun, where the bullet hit? If it was, in fact, a bullet and not a BB? How soon did our victim get treatment? And on and on. Hundreds of things have to happen in order for there to be an effect. The so-called effect is a combination of happenings and conditions –not the result of one thing causing another one thing.
I’ve written before of my hatred of science. Of how it’s wrong and how it never admits to being wrong… Though it completely changes its mind… it never says “we made a mistake.”
Science-based rules on alcohol are a great example of the failure of science. It was science that said two glasses of wine a day… especially red wine… was actually healthy. That wine provided your body with elements that improve brain and heart function and likely help control cholesterol.
Flash forward to the 2020’s. ANY alcohol is bad for you. Science says so. It’s just like x-rays and asbestos. “If you drink alcohol you will die!” say the health experts. Yet alcohol is and has been a part of every culture (except Muslim and Mormon) on earth. And the sharing of the liquid has likely SAVED more people than it’s harmed. Check out the quote from Dr. Oz at the start of this blog.
Science defies logic. And the reason is the myth of cause and effect. The reason for X is that it’s caused by Y. That’s wrong! The public urge to BLAME is the fault of the myth of cause and effect. And that myth has really nasty consequences.
A prisoner is released and commits a crime. He’s been in and out of prison. What’s the reaction? The cause and effect?
“It’s a revolving door! He should have more time in prison... not be let out. Freedom from jail CAUSES crime.”
BULLSHIT!
How can people even think that way? Lawbreakers are in prison. How does a longer time being surrounded by other lawbreakers make you less likely to be one? Logic should win this debate… NOT cause and effect.
You take someone who has pickpocketed a neighbor once. Throw him in jail with rapists, murderers and career thieves. What do you expect? He’s going to get some lessons in rape, murder and more efficient thievery. More prison time RESULTS in crime. It’s logical. Don’t give me statistics that prove different. Use your brain.
FLASH TO PRAGUE… 1972: (I’ve written about this before.) I’m 22 years old and am riding through Eastern Europe on a Dutch moped. Now that I’m here in Czechoslovakia, I want to visit one of my literary heroes: Franz Kafka. Yeah he’s dead, but I figure I can find his grave. I do.
“Are you Israeli?” she asks.
“No,” I answer, “I’m not.”
“You are Jewish? Right?” she asks.
“That I am,” I answer.
“Well, I have a daughter…”
FLASH TO DINNER: The older woman has invited me to meet her daughter, a slightly chubby, somewhat sexy blonde. Her name is Tereza. We’re talking about religion.
“I’m an atheist,” says Tereza. “I know you’re a Jew. But I don’t understand how you can believe in God. If he lives in the clouds, he’d just step out and fall down. Any God would just fall down to earth.”
FLASH TO FACEBOOK IN RECENT TIMES: I post... asking my atheist friends to describe the God they don’t believe in.
The answers come back. “I don’t believe. How can I describe something that I don’t believe in?”
“I don’t believe in dogs,” I reply. “I can perfectly describe the dogs I don’t believe in perfectly: They’re about 10 feet tall and have six legs. They’re very furry… except for the tail. That is bare skin... marine green in color.”
“That’s not a dog,” comes the answer.
“It’s a dog I don’t believe in,” I reply.
Get it? If you don’t believe in something, you need to be able to describe it. Tereza’s old man who lives in the clouds is a perfect God not to believe in. She has an image and can describe it.
An atheist who can’t (or won’t) describe the God he doesn’t believe in, doesn’t know what belief is. His non-belief is not logical. How can you not believe in something if you can’t say what it is that you don’t believe in?
When I say I don’t believe in cause and effect the way science does, I define cause and effect as one thing or action that is directly –and usually immediately– responsible for the existence of another thing or action.
The Hiroshima atom bomb CAUSED the death of more than 140,000 people. The EFFECT of the smallpox vaccine was to completely eliminate smallpox.
Those are cause and effects I believe in. My objection isn’t the complete irrelevance of cause and effect. My objection is the seeking of cause and effect in EVERYTHING. Yes, certain combinations of things makes results more likely. The presence of alcohol, for example, makes unprotected sex more likely. And unprotected sex makes pregnancy more likely. But alcohol does not CAUSE pregnancy.
So it’s really not the concept of cause and affect that bothers me so much as it is the seeking of cause and effect where it doesn't belong... the illogic of trying to find a cause… or effect... where there is neither... and the further mistaking of cause for effect.
Imagine a pool table with bricks on it. The pool players take turns snapping a cue against a ball, only to have the ball bounce uselessly off the nearest brick. I’m a researcher, a scientist, studying the effects of bricks on billiards. To test my theory of cause and effect, I remove the bricks from the table and let the game restart. Pow! Five times as many balls go into the pockets as when the bricks are present. I have just proved that removing bricks from a pool table improves the performance of pool players.
From then on, I carry a bag of bricks with me to pool bars. Before my turn, I spread the bricks on the table… and then remove them. It’s cause and effect. I should have a high score. Removing bricks from a pool table guarantees a high score. NO IT DOESN'T. I tried it. It doesn’t work. It’s not logical.
Take warning labels… please. The Journal of The American Medical Association found that warning labels on cigarettes had NO EFFECT on the amount of cigarettes smoked. Lung cancer has decreased since the introduction of warning labels, but that decrease was mostly due to earlier detection and better treatment… NOT warning-label discouragement. Putting warning labels on cigarette packs is like putting brinks on pool tables… then removing them before you play. It does nothing.
Now the World Health Organization, in the name of science, is demanding that warnings be put on all alcohol, At the same time, they say alcohol is no more dangerous than hot dogs. In the past, science has urged two glasses of red wine a day for better health. Science had also, in the past, urged margarine to replace butter. More recent findings say there’s greater danger in polyunsaturates (can you say margarine) than in butter. Science was wrong! Wrong about margarine and wrong about alcohol.
Science may be the greatest villain in the cause and effects war, but it’s not the only one. As I write this, TV news reports that every candidate endorsed by Donald Trump has won the Republican primary. This is supposed to prove the EFFECT of a Trump endorsement. It’s not logical.
Picture this: there’s an election between Otto Kentrol and Jello Biafra for induction to the punkrock hall of fame. Otto is pissed off at me because I back Biafra. Biafra wins. Did I do it? If I back the person most likely to win, can I claim any credit for them winning? Did I CAUSE him to win?
Of course not! There is no cause and effect here. I haven’t proved my power by showing I can pick a winner in a contest where the winner is obvious. It’s the same in politics and music and life in general. It’s time to stop looking for causes and use logic and common sense to find solutions… not effects.
See you in hell,
MB
ENDNOTES: [You can contact me on facebook or by email at mykelboard@gmail.com. Through the post office: send those... er... DVDs..or music or zines... or anything else (legal only!) to: Mykel Board, POB 137, New York, NY 10012-0003. If you like my writing, you can be notified when anything new is available. Send me an email with SUBSCRIBE TO THE BLOG in the subject line. Back blogs and columns are at https://mykelsblog.blogspot.com]
→ Web MD proves my point dept: On their website is a nice description of how alcohol is good for you. So before you put a health warning label on your can of Smuttynose, consider some facts… use logic… not stupid cause and effects.
→Cause and effect… whoops dept: Scientists in 1988 found that facial expressions have the potential to influence our moods: the more people smile, the happier they will be, and vice versa. In a last-century experiment, researchers asked participants to read The Far Side comics by artist Gary Larson, with either a pen held between their teeth (forcing a smile) or between their lips (replicating a pout). Results found that people who smiled reported the comics to be funnier than those made to pout. Researchers concluded that changing a facial expression can change mood, and termed this phenomenon the facial feedback hypothesis. But when another team of researchers at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands conducted the same experiment, using the identical comics, the results failed to replicate "in a statistically compelling fashion". Evidently, the cause and effect relationship of smiling to feeling was wrong. You can read about this and other science mistakes at: Science Correcting Itself
→ A shitty story: This story is from my long-time pal Sid Yiddish. Evidently it’s true, and as with many such stories, is more fun in the telling than in the reality. You can read it here. Thanks Sid!
See you in hell
redux
MB
LINKS
New
Links:
I’m happy to present the art of Sarah Thobe… who paints personalities as part of her portraits. Check her out at https://sarathobe.com/.
And it was great to hear from my very long-time friend, Fred Lonberg-Holm. Celloman extraordinaire. You can hear him at https://fredlonberg-holm.bandcamp.com/album/the-return-of
Anthony Allen Begnal asked me to mention his Hardcore Conversation You Tube channel, and I’m happy to do so here.
Longtime scene/zinester Robb Roemershauser has restarted the Above Ground Zine Library. The Zine library doesn’t yet have an address at the location but, fell free to donate zines that you no longer want to the Aboveground Zine Library 2100 Sawmill Road Apt. 22-202, New Orleans, LA 70123. The Zine library will be located in the upper 9th ward on a busy street.
And the regulars:
My pal Matt Sheahan says: You can link to my website - www.matthewsheahan.com or my Substack - https://politenewyorker.substack.com/ . Matt is a great musician and very funny guy.
My Kenyan pal, Albert Melody shares a facebook adventure in one of those great Kenyan national parks. Guess who he shared the adventure with!!! You can read about it here. Albert also has a blog at: Albertomelody.blogspot.com
Teddy Labato has a “lo-fi noise” link to his band Check it out.
It’s About Time dept: Finally, a book about Hungarian Punk put out by Puke and Vomit records. Great scene there and I was glad to have contact with bands like Der Trottel and Tizedesz. Glad to have been a (very small) part of that scene.
Here are some other contacts to make:
Teddy Lobato’s band can be found at https://www.facebook.com/THEBASSMANsPSYCHEDELICNOISE
Karl De Winton sent me a link to his bandcamp DJ stuff. https://share.google/5sTnXjgMkFbiWQvzA
NSFW… but that depends on your job.
Dan Hetrick asked me “How 'bout us punk rawk programmers?”
And offers http://merk.chat Free chat for the people!
I’ve talked about Bob Cutler before. But he has more to offer than DYSTOPEKA
https://chrometuna.com/ and https://theklusterfux.com
Riot Division makes its musical offering at: https://www.facebook.com/riotdivision
Barstool Revolution Zine is on facebook at https://www.facebook.com/people/Barstool-Revolution-Zine/61557909822199/
Rina Borei shows off her inflatable Octopus on Instagram: @oona.frost
Jim Testa, a long-time friend, journalist, editor, musician and wordsmith, has an interesting substack about music and more. You can find it here.
Sid Yiddish sent me this link to all his videos. It’s a great place to start, especially if you don’t know him.
I did a nice interview with The Aither zine. Interesting questions, complete, and questions I’ve never been asked before. You can read it here. It’s a good one.
Here’s Ricardo Wang with a “micro-label” in Seattle “specializing in 8-track tapes and CDs. WOW! Check out one of their label staples: The Dead Air Fresheners, best band name of the year.
Also on bandcamp: My very long time faves in NYC, the BLACKOUT SHOPPERS. Featuring pals Seth and possibly the next vice-president of the US
Sid Yiddish has posted a video of a show done for WZRD in Chicago. Great live performances, and if you catch the video around the 20+ minute point you might see a familiar face doing the lyrics to his songs (some unrecorded) as poetry. You’ll find it here.
And this sounds right up Sid’s alley. The Bilderberg Jazz Arkestra on Bandcamp!
Eric Grayson has an online music review zine, Sobriquet. Full pictures of the sleeves too! Something missing from too many zines. Sometimes you CAN judge a… er… book… by its cover.
Steen Thomsen is a Dane I’ve known ever since Lincoln was shot. I put his band THE ZERO POINT on the great WORLD CLASS PUNK Cassette for ROIR. It must be worth a mint now. I don’t have any left, I’m afraid. You can (and should) connect to the Zero Point on facebook. Tell ‘em Mykel’s blog sent you.
Sorry Dorothy, we are STILL in Kansas. And it’s as weird as OZ. Check out Bob Cutler’s DISTOPEKA.
You already know Murder & Mayhem zine… those guys who did the Mykel Board centerfold. (No genitals shown… and probably for the better.) Their online version is here.
The Clean Boys from Denmark are also longtime friends of mine. In Denmark we recorded as The Bend-over Boys. Only one 10-inch available… but at least now I can say I have a 10-incher!
Finally, for this month, Margaret O’Brien asked me to include the site: anti-war.com They seem to be folks after my own heart. I’m glad they didn’t call it “anti-defense.”
Oh yeah, then there’s me. I have a blog of stuff I’ve written mostly from last century. You might enjoy it. Then again, you might not. It’s here.
Let me know if you have a blog… or a print zine… or a YouTube and want to be added to the list. You show me yours… you’ve already seen mine. mykelboard@gmail.com
