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