A Tale of Two Ladies or Mykel's June 2025 Blog Post

   

You’re STILL Wrong
Mykel's

June 2025 Blog/Column

A TALE OF TWO LADIES

All weakness tends to corrupt, and impotence corrupts absolutely.
– Edgar Friedenberg

To succeed with the opposite sex, tell her you're impotent. She can't wait to disprove it.
-- Cary Grant

Worry is to human beings … what a condom is to a man with erectile dysfunction.

– Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Has anyone ever in the history of medicine ever uttered these words? “Through good sanitation and health care, men are now living long enough to develop erectile dysfunction?” Doubtful.

--Jennifer Gunter

It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. In the early 80's, I remember thinking,  while masturbating to a William Burroughs book, how sad it was that Burroughs became a literary superstar when he was old. Probably too old to enjoy his own groupies.. That’s how it goes… fame comes too late to enjoy it.

And now, in my 75th year, post-prostate radiation… I find myself in a similar position. I just can’t do it anymore. My stiffy isn’t stiff. Sure I can flog a limpy… but it’s not very satisfying.

What’s all this got to do with Kenya? You’ll see… because I’m now revealing: A TALE OF TWO LADIES

But first, you need a little context. I pride myself in my ability to put… and my love of putting...myself in places where I’m the only white guy. When I lived in Japan last century, I lived in Soubudai. a small town in Kanagawa… the same prefecture (like a state) where Yokohama is, but far from that big city. I was the only white guy in the whole town. The owner of the only bar in town knew my name and my drink without asking. Normally I drank for free, but not as a gift from the owner.

See, in Japan (and I hear also in Tennessee or Kentucky… at least they used to) they have a system called a KEEP. The way that worked is: at the izakaya (bar) you bought an entire bottle of some whiskey. They put your name on it, and stored it in a special cabinet. You went to the izakaya where your KEEP was, paid 200yen (around $2) for “a set-up”… usually some peanuts or another snack. Then, the bartender would pour you a glass from your already-paid-for bottle and you’d toast with a KAMPAI!

I come in, someone in a suit, tie loosened, sitting at the bar, waves to me. I sit next to him. He then calls to the barmaid, “私の キープ をください!” She brings him the bottle and two glasses. One of those glasses is for me. She pours a drink for him and one for me and we toast each other. 乾杯! Usually we go through several glasses. This would never have happened if I weren’t the only white guy in town.

The scene is a little different in Kenya, I’ll talk about my bar adventures next blog. But, as I was in Japan, I’m usually the only white guy… and I love it.

So now I’ve set the scene : A TALE OF TWO WOMEN. But before I talk about the bar, I want to tell you about...

Chuki, The Sausage Seller: Albert and I are on the way back to the Sweet Bargain Hotel. We took a room there because it was too late to go back to Nairobi We got a single room with two huge beds… and a wall between those beds, so don’t get any ideas. I paid the $20 a night it cost us to stay there for two nights. The $20 did include breakfast… with Nescafe instant coffee.

We’ve just come from a bar, where, for the first time in my life, I bought the bartender and her galpal an expensive drink. I’ve found that not only do Kenyans think all white people are rich… but they make you FEEL that you’re rich. Like you’d assume Jeff Bezos would pay for you and your friends if you went to McSorley’s with him.

We haven’t eaten dinner, so we stop by a street stand where a young woman is selling various kinds of sausage: some with dry skin, some hot-dog looking, some looking hard and fleshy. Albert orders a hot-dogish one. I take one with dry skin… a bit on the gray side.

The attractive young woman behind the sausage stand casually hands Albert his sausage. Mine, she gives to me deeply caressing my hand as she pushes the sausage into it.

“My name is Chuki. Where are you from?” asks the young woman.

“New York,” I tell her. “I’m Mykel.”

“I mean what country?” she says, smiling coyly, looking at the street and scraping the toe of her flip-flop against the pavement.

“The US,” I answer, puzzled that she can’t figure that out for herself

She looks me directly in the eyes and rubs her hand against my forearm

“Do you like me?” she asks, bringing her face very close to mine.

“Sure,” I answer. “What’s your name?"

“Chuki,” she says. “Do you want to come home with me

I make a fist, raise my index finger as if I’m pointing at a star, then slowly let it go limp… until it points to the street below.

“I can fix that,” she says, making a fist of her own with a hard index finger pointing upwards.

I bend down and take the index finger into my mouth. Then I take her hand and bend the finger slowly until it is limp and downward pointing.

“It can’t be fixed,” I tell her

Albert lets a laugh escape through his nose. Chuki seems not to notice it

“I can help you. I know I can,” she says.

I smile, take the hand… still in a limp fist… kiss the hand… and head back to the hotel with Albert.

Esther, The Samosa Queen: My favorite bar in Nairobi… and next to The Peculier Pub, The Bleecker Street Bar and Otto’s Shrunken Head in New York… my favorite bar in the world, is a place in Nairobi called Kenge’s.

The bar has a kind of BBQ pit downstairs. Upstairs is pool tables, restrooms, and a bar area with low tables, a sitdown bar, and rowdy regulars… that’s us! Drinks at our table are on me… not that expensive, and they always include samosas… made by Esther… dubbed (by me) as The Samosa Queen. Her samosas are really great but Kenyan samosa culture may be a little tricky for foreign digestive tracts.

In fact, I posted about my digestive adventures with samosas and my professor friend Patrick Wafula Wanyama commented: "Mykel, you didn’t ask. Had you asked, I’d have forbidden you from eating those samosas. The meat used to make them is sometimes gotten from animal carcasses like dogs or cats that have been either knocked down by cars or killed by people. In Kenya, samosas are the most unhealthy snacks."

 Here’s our table at Kenge’s:

Still, I really like the food… and the food maker. “When’s our wedding?” I ask her when she comes upstairs to sit with us awhile.

“Let’s set the date,” she replies.

Uh oh.

It’s a week before my next visit to Kenga’s. When I walk in, Esther runs around to the front of the BBQ area and gives me a big hug,  

 “Mykel!” she yells, adding to the hug a wet kiss on the cheek.

I give her a return hug and make my way upstairs to the bar, where everyone waves to me. A few move to the table I’m at.

“Drinks for everyone at the table!” I tell the bartendress, “and samosas!” Some more people move to our table. We talk about my life in Kenya… and politics in general. They want to know if I can find jobs for everyone in New York.

Esther brings the samosas upstairs. She comes to the bench where I’m sitting and ass-wiggles her way between the couple sitting next to me… and me. The bartendress brings her a Kane (sort of a Kenyan vodka… ) https://jayswines.com/product/kane-extra-750-ml/.
I’m drinking Tusker, the national beer of Kenya, in a huge bottle.

Esther sits next to me and lets one hand casually rest on my thigh… the INSIDE of my thigh. She turns to me and licks the side of my neck. The people around the table pretend not to notice. I feel the young woman’s lips against my ear.

“Mykel,” she says, “I want you to give me a daughter.”

I take a big gulp of the beer in front of me.

“Can I see you tonight?” she asks. “Or maybe we can go someplace tomorrow?”

I take another gulp.

I’ve already mentioned to the group that I’m planning to go to a fancy shopping center called Village Market. My pal Willy, asked me to meet him there. We were going to eat and maybe go to a “rock show” (a rarity in the country).

“I’ll go to the Village Market with you,” says Esther.

“Sure,” I say, “I’ll text you when I get there.”

The next day, I’ve got bowel troubles up the ass. I text Esther that I won’t be able to make it… I may not be able to make it out the front door. In the evening though, I’m better and I do get it to the market. I don’t go to the rock show… and I don’t tell Esther where I am.

I guess it’s age as well as radiation, but sex is one of life’s greatest pleasures. These days, I can no longer share that pleasure, though I’d try Viagra if I got the chance. Until then, I feel like a chess player stranded on a desert island. I can play myself in the game… and always win. But I always lose too.

See you in hell,

MB

ENDNOTES:

–> HELLO FRIEND, ARE YOU NUTS? DEPT: In its craziness, modern psychiatry defines being too friendly as a mental disease. It’s called Williams Syndrome and I’m sure there’s a hostility drug in development now. I’d propose the name Fuckyoutrazine, but drug companies never listen to me. You can find out more about the syndrome at: https://tinyurl.com/BBC-Syndrome. Someday, I’ll need to write about psychiatry and its drug dependence. I’m glad that in the 1970s the pharmaceutical companies didn’t have the power they have now. If they did, there’d be drugs today targeting homosexuality and foot fetishism. Oh… wait...

→ ADVANCED CIVILIZATIONS DEPT: All these cities have life expectancies in the 80s. Only one is in the US. The others are in civilized countries with national healthcare systems. Click the list. I’ve often heard, in my world travels, when someone wants to indicate a nice idea, but it’ll never happen, in America people say When hell freezes over in Europe I hear When America gets a national health system.

→ ISN’T SCIENCE WONDERFUL DEPT: It’s not only psychiatry that determines our future. Take biology… please! It’s reported that MIT has found a way to “engineer bacteria” to track each other over long distances… similar to Google maps, though with microscopic precision. Even George Orwell didn’t think of that one. How long before the CIA and other government (and non-government) agencies will be using these bacteria as agents to track and mark “enemies?” There’ll be no hiding in the days to come…
Oh yeah, says the article The research was funded by the U.S. Department of Defense; the Army Research Office, a directorate of the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Army Research Laboratory (the funding supported engineering of environmental strains and optimization of genetically-encoded sensors and hyperspectral reporter biosynthetic pathways); and the Ministry of Defense of Israel.

Hold on. Someone’s knocking at the door.

See you in hell,
Redux

LINK TRADE DEPARTMENT:

I read that the search engines like lots of links... and it's also nice to support my friends and enemies in their blogs. So facebook me or email me if you have a blog, webpage or something else to connect to. I add you. You add me.

AFRICAN LINKS:

My friend who told me about samosa meat, and who may be the smartest guy in Nairobi, is Patrick Wafula Wanyama, an English teacher who writes haiku in Swahili. He’s also an advocate for his school in “the slums of Nairobi” and has a GoFundMe to help buy computers for classroom use. Here’s a link to his GoFundMe page. Give him some money.

Albert aka Alberto Melody is the reason I went to Kenya. We met on facebook a couple years ago. He has a blog you should take a look at: Albertomelody.blogspot.com. Tell him Mykel sent ya.

Here's some non-African stuff:

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.

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. god@mykelboard.com

Can you say TUSKER DU? or Mykels May 2025 Blog/Column

  

You’re STILL Wrong
Mykel's

May 2025 Blog/Column

A TUSKER GREETING

I’m leaving London because the weather is too good. I hate London when it’s not raining.

– Groucho Marks

An antitourist is a tourist whose vanity and tourist angst compels him to distance himself from other tourists by shunning organized tours, consuming local food no matter how nasty, eschewing the use of taxis in favor of public transportation, and ostentatiously not carrying a camera.

– Paul Fussel

It is not the fully conscious mind which chooses Africa in preference to Switzerland.

– Graham Greene

When I first arrived at London Heathrow, coming from New York, I asked a random person sitting behind a random desk dressed in a random uniform, about my up-coming trip to Kenya. “When should I check in for an international flight?”

“You should be at the airport three hours before departure,” she says.

The plane is scheduled to leave at 9AM.. That means I should be here at 6 in the fuckin’ morning.

“Shit,” I answer her.

She shrugs.

Heathrow Airport in London is one of the busiest in the world. And they skin you every step of the way. You even have to pay to drop someone off at the curb and let them walk to the terminal!

It’s 5:30AM. Anant is picking me up from Claire and Alistair’s in a couple minutes. He’ll drive me to Heathrow… and pay to drop me off. Watta guy! Claire and Alistair are up to see me leave and to greet Anant. 5:30 AM!!!! For me, that’s bedtime! The world doesn’t turn itself on at 5:30AM. There is no dawn’s early light. No rockets red glare. NOTHING HAPPENS at 5:30 in the morning. Except that I leave for Heathrow Airport to catch a 9:00AM flight to Nairobi, Kenya.

 [ Note: I’ve visited Anant when he lived in Bermuda, New York, Oxford and London. In India, his family adopted me for a tour of the North of that country. And yes, I saw the Taj Mahal. Here we are in an Oxford pub]

The airport too is just waking up. I look for my flight on the electric signboard. It’s not there. I walk past closed concessions… closed duty free shops… restrooms with yellow triangle CLOSED, BEING CLEANED signs in front of them. I check another TV screen. I see what seems like my flight… looks like it’s telling me to go to another terminal for the gate. I want to check in first… no I don’t. I can’t. There is no place to check in.

I walk to the British Airways section of the main terminal. There are no uniformed people sitting at counters, waiting to for me to hand them my passport. Zero. It’s all machines. Scan. Scan! Scan! I don’t know what to do. I’m an hour and a half early… typical for me. Fuck that scan shit. I want a real flesh and bodily organs person-- not a machine. How can I tell a machine it looks like Diana Rigg?

Somewhere, there is a check-in area (AREA D) for the Nairobi flight. I have to check-in and get my boarding pass. There’s a map, showing where the check-in area is supposed to be. I follow the map and find myself in a large space with a lot of empty chairs and some of those stanchions with flat red ropes like you find outside of stores in New York, holding back lines of Generation Z’s waiting to spend their parent’s money.

[NOTE: I don’t know about your city. But one of the newest fashions in New York is waiting on line (most Americans says “in line”, in NYC we wait on-line) to shop. Walk down any Soho street and you’ll see line after line waiting to get into some clothing store or restaurant. Most of the waiting people are 20-somethings taking selfies and texting their friends. Wow! Look at me! I’m in line at the new Kith in New York fuckin’ city!]

“Can I help you, sir?” asks a… er… mature woman wearing what looks like a stewardess uniform.

“I’m supposed to be on the 9 o’clock flight to Nairobi,” I tell her. “I don’t know how to check in. No bags, I’m carrying everything on board.”

“I’ll help you,” says the matron. “Follow me.”

I follow her to one of the machines. “Let me see your passport,” she says as we approach the machine.

I hand it to her. “And I need to see your visa… and your PTA.”

“PTA?” I ask. “I’m not a parent. No kids in school.”

“ETA,” she says. “Not PTA… ETA… Electronic Travel Authorization”

I take out a folder with a printout of what I think/hope is my ETA. I hand her the printout. It has the ugliest picture of me anywhere. I had to take it from my home computer as I was doing the paperwork on-line.

 “This isn’t it,” she tells me. “It’s a piece of it, but not the whole thing. Check your phone. It should be in a message from the Kenyan Consulate.”

I turn on the the phone and open messages. Somehow, I to find the right page… a tiny attachment to a consulate file. I don’t know how it can be usable… but it is. The woman scans the phone, pushes some buttons, flips some levers, hands me my passport and a boarding pass.

“You’re all set,” she says.

“Thanks,” I answer, “but I’m never all set.”

She doesn’t laugh.

“Did anyone ever tell you that you look like Diana Rigg?” I ask.

“Who?” she answers.

I take my leave and find the right gate at about 8:15. It’s an ordinary airport-looking gate. A few people are there already... and boy am I pissed off. They’re all white. How is Willy going to find me among this crew? All white people look the same… except for hair color. That’s not enough.

[Note: I “met” Willy on the internet doing a search for PUNK and NAIROBI. Turns out he plays guitar in POWERSLIDE, a Kenyan punk band. We corresponded and he promised to meet me at the airport in Nairobi. He’ll also set up one night at a hotel. The next day, I’ll couch-surf with some locals. Willy asks me to bring him some books that are hard to find in Kenya. “No problem,” I tell him.]

Near the Heathrow departure gate is a DUTY FREE shop-- open now, I buy some Jack Daniels for my couch-surfing host. Willy will meet me at the airport... if he can find me. I still have half an hour before the plane leaves. I check my phone to see if there are any messages from the other side of the world. There is one from Albert, my future host in the Nigerian countryside:

The banditry crisis in our area has reached alarming levels. Even our area chief was recently killed while escorting some tourists. The situation has become unbearable—these bandits terrorize us every night, leaving us in constant fear and unable to sleep. Just yesterday, I was on duty with ten other men, trying to protect our community from another attack. We are doing everything we can, but without proper support, our efforts may not be enough.

Shit... just what I need to start the adventure. BANDITS! I look up how to say “Oy vey” in Swahili. Google Translate doesn’t.

I quickly text back to Albert, asking him if he thinks it’s too dangerous for me to visit. He tells me Kenya isn’t dangerous, but his area, Saburu, is. My friends who’ve been to Kenya say that everywhere is dangerous. Nairobi is commonly called Nairobbery, they tell me. I buy one of those chain wallets… you know. with thick links from wallet to belt… then a leather loop around the belt. I have a spare $20 and a 1000 shilling (about $10) note in a secret zippered compartment in the back of my belt.

“The pickpockets work in pairs,” my friend, Terry tells me. (She’d been in the city at the turn of the century.) “One person will grab your right shoulder from behind. You turn to him and his accomplice will reach into your left pocket and be off with the loot before you can say nakupenda.”

The plane boards on time. It’s a huge British Airways plane-- a US built Boeing 777... a dozen seats across in the economy section. Aisles so narrow that when the stewardess walks down them, she alternately hip bumps first the passenger on the right and then the one on the left.

FLASH TO INSIDE THE PLANE. While we sit on the runway, I wonder about my couch-surfing host and hostess... wonder about my bag of books… wonder how Willy will find me… I clearly will NOT be the only white guy on the plane. I mentally go over my Swahili.

Nimefurahi kukutana nawe (nice to meet you) Mimi sim Kenya. Mimi nim mwamerica. (I’m not Kenyan. I’m American) Nina njaa (I’m hungry). Samahani. (Excuse me) . I learned that you address an older woman as mama and a young woman as bibi. A male stranger is bwana. Which is what, I think, Tonto called The Lone Ranger.

We’re off! Regular readers know that I’m usually opposed to the death penalty. One exception I often talk about is driving at the speed limit in the left lane. Another, for public transportation, is leaning the seat back, often slamming into the knees of the person behind you. Yo! Look behind you! If no one is sitting there, you can recline your seat, but keep an eye out for a late-arriving passenger. If someone IS sitting there, sit up straight like your mama told you. Leaning back where there are only inches to go is rude, thoughtless, smug, and worthy of beheading. Luigi Mangione, you’d know what to do.

The “safety instructions,” usually given by a steward or stewardess… you know “you fasten the seat belt by inserting the tab into the buckle like this… and then pulling the belt firmly... like this.” is given in a video now. The screen on the back of the seat in front of you shows a video of middle ages knights in armor… strapping themselves to their horses. They have to put on their seatbelts. (Saddle belts?) The part about the dropping oxygen mask is given by the queen in her royal parlor.

The people sitting next to me seem deeply involved in the royalty on the screen. Yeah, I’ve got an aisle seat in this monster of a plane. Each section has four seats… that means there are TWO middle seats. I should have asked for one of them this time, so I could free myself from the stewardess’s hip bumps. The serious looks on the other faces in the row tell me this’ll be one of those flights where I’m not going to make any new friends. I don’t really care. The whole row is white anyway. That’s NOT why I’m going to Kenya!

I lean against the upright back of my seat… I still have 6 hours ahead of me… ahhhh! Shit! The asshole in front of me leans his seat back into my lap. I open the table in the back of his seat. Slam it open. Using two hands like I’m playing a bongo, I bang out an I Want Candy riff. The girl by the window... seeing what I’m doing… and knowing exactly why I’m doing it… turns toward me and smiles. The guy in the seat in front of me pretends nothing is wrong. We’ll see who wins this contest.

Ah, the food cart comes around. I signal the stewardess maneuvering the cart. I push my hands forward, looking at the seat in front of me. She gets it. She walks up to the guy and taps him on the shoulder.

“Excuse me, sir. We’re serving our first meal,” she says. “Please put your seat in an upright position.”

He does, and I give a thumbs up to the stewardess. She’s cute… and I feel an stirring between my legs toward its own an upright position

British Air still gives free non-alcoholic drinks with its meals… though the portions are smaller than what you’d normally buy in the local deli.  

After dinner, I try to sleep. The asshole in the seat in front of me reclines it again. I kick his seat. He pretends not to notice. I half drift off to sleep, dreaming of the Nairobi airport with huge Barack Obama murals… maybe with the former president cavorting among the elephants and giraffes. Fuck, I can’t sleep... maybe if I turn and try to sleep on my side. BLAM! I slam my knee into the back of the asshole’s seat. He clears his throat.

We land very close to the scheduled time… 9:35PM. I’m sitting toward the back of the plane, where the cheap seats are. I’m in a half-sleep fog when the pilot announces we’re preparing for landing PUT AWAY YOUR TRAY TABLES AND PUT YOUR SEATS IN AN UPRIGHT POSITION. He does not say “assholes.”

As we taxi towards the gate, the more awake among us are already standing up and getting their stuff out of the overhead compartments. My backpack is under the seat in front of me and my computer bag (with trinkets for the natives), coat and hat are stuffed in one of the overheads, now being ruffled through by THE ASSHOLE.

Things retrieved, I follow the slow-moving line out of the plane, down the portable stairs rolled up to the door. We’re then shuffled into a shuttle bus to go through immigration. I check my wallet to see if I have an available 1000Ksh (Kenyan shillings) note, in case I need it for a bribe. Remembering my arrival in Senegal a couple decades ago… and talking with my travel agent in New York (from Ghana)… I come prepared.

It turns out I don’t need it. Kenyan immigration and customs is maybe the easiest of all of the 71 other countries I’ve visited. Passing through a large hall… with NO Obama pictures, I show my passport and that stupid ETA on my phone to a guy sitting at a table. He looks up at me. Smiles like a grandfather indulging his grandson, stamps my passport, and says “Welcome to Nairobi!”

I thank him and exit into the baggage room. Having no bags to retrieve, I walk through the room, asking a guard for the mensroom. He shows me the exit-from-the-baggage-pick-up door and tells me there’s a “toilet down the hall on the right.” Aaah, a civilized country where the word “toilet” isn’t taboo!

I take care of business then look around for Willy, who said he’d be at the airport to greet me. Not that I know what he looks like. Despite all the white people, there should at least be one local looking like he’s looking for someone. And no, there are no Obama pictures inside the terminal… or anywhere else I can see.

I walk around, trying to look like I’m trying to look for someone. It doesn’t work. In my trench-coat and fedora, in any other country, I’d have a man in uniform immediately asking, “Can I help you with something?” while radioing headquarters with my description.

I leave the terminal. Outside are a lot of men who look like they’re cab drivers looking for customers. I look around for someone who looks like I imagine Willy looks. No luck. I walk up to one of the cab-driver looking guys.

“Unaweza kuongea kiingereza?” I ask.

He laughs at my stumbling Swahili. “Everybody in Kenya speaks English,” he says. “We learn it in elementary school.”

“I can’t find my friend,” I tell him. “Could you speak to him and tell him where I am? I don’t know where I am.”

He laughs again, but says, “sure.”

I call Willy’s number on my Samsung, then hand the phone to the driver. He runs away with it. Naw, I’m shittin’ you.

Really, he speaks to Willy and explains where we are. Around ten minutes later, Willy and his attractive girlfriend, Jecinta, show up right in front of me.

“Mykel!” he says giving me a hug.

After a short conversation, Jecinta says she has to leave… work tomorrow morning I think. We give our good byes. This will be the last time I ever see her… for the whole duration of the trip. After she walks off, Willy texts his uber, waiting in the airport parking lot. We get it and the driver goes off to the expensive hotel, Hotel Ibis.

It’s near the airport. And it’s my first night... after a long flight, I can spring for the $70. No shower for the week in London. I expect there’s one in the hotel room. Nothing like arriving at a couch-surfer’s home smelling like Irish Spring.

I check in at the hotel desk. The woman at the desk takes my credit card, runs it through her machine and hands me a card for the room, and, as it turns out, is also a card for entrance to the hallway that leads to the room. And for the upper floors in the elevator. This is my first experience with SECURITY… actually over-security… in Kenya. In many ways, I think Kenya will prove to be a model for future America. I’ll write about that later.

After checking in, Willy and I go to a table near the entrance and sit down so I can give him  the books I bought for him. Mostly Nietzsche, and Eastern philosophy… [NOTE: as time goes on, I notice Willy sits with his eyes closed, hands on his lap in deep meditation before every meal. He’s a Buddhist... like YOUTH OF TODAY] I bring him one extra book he didn’t ask for and explain that it’s written by a much respected American author and he should read it to really understand America.

After that, I drop my bags off in the room. And go up to the rooftop bar with Willy. Oh yeah! Tusker beer at the hotel. Looks like it’s only us in the bar. I toast Willy with HONGERA, the Swahili word for “cheers” taught to me by Albert in a facebook message. Willy doesn’t react. The waiter frowns. 

“What’s that?” he asks.

“I thought it was cheers in Swahili. My facebook friend taught it to me.”

“Maybe it’s a local language word.” he says. “We usually say, mad-LOW-ba!”

Willy smiles. Now I don’t know if they’re shittin’ me or not. Serves me right. At Drink Club in NYC, I tell my Japanese friends that Besa mi culo means “cheers” in Spanish. I tell my German friends that Pitchka ti mate in Serbian means “cheers.” Everybody else learns from me that Mong chong ii is “cheers” in Korean.

After I buy us a few drinks. At around 12:30, Willy takes his leave, I go down to my hotel room and DON’T take a shower. I’m beat. I’ll just do that thing that guys do to help them sleep… and sleep I do. Check-out is 10 AM!!! Whoever heard of such a thing? But it is. So I have to get up at 9 o’clock, eat my free breakfast and make my way into downtown Nairobi.

My phone alarm wakes me at 9. I stupidly hit the SNOOZE button, and get up again with 10 minutes to spare.

[To be continued…]

See you in hell,

Mykel Board

ENDNOTES: [You can contact me on facebook or by email at mykelboard@gmail.com. Through the post office: send those... er... private 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 in the subject line. Back blogs and columns are at https://mykelsblog.blogspot.com]

→ Next Surveillance Dept: Sid Yiddish sent me this… about a new bacteria find that can be traced by machine. I can’t imagine who would be interested in the possibility of infecting people with a bacteria that makes them easy to follow. Can you?

→ I Wrote on Facebook Dept: I posted this on Facebook. So sorry to see George Santos going to prison for longer than he has served in Congress. That guy was such a great actor... and the most atoms person in government. Only my pal Tony Autoharp asked what “the most atoms person" meant. The other commenters –and there were a bunch– were just interested in chiding me for my opinions, even though I’m sure they didn’t get the "atoms" either. Oh yeah, you know atoms, right? They make up everything.

→Repeat Performance Dept: The Week magazine had this article that shows the effect of a well-placed sharp piece of metal. I hear the insurance company in the article reversed itself right after the Luigi Mangione adventure: See? It works.

LINK TRADE DEPARTMENT:

LINKS

I read that the search engines like lots of links... and it's also nice to support my friends and enemies in their blogs. So facebook me or email me if you have a blog, webpage or something else to connect to. I add you. You add me.

Here's a start:

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’Brian asked me to include the site: anti-war.com They seem to be folks after my own heart.

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. god@mykelboard.com