Voting For The Colonel or Mykel's Blog for November 2025

  

You’re STILL Wrong

or

Mykel's November 2025 Blog/Column

VOTING FOR THE COLONEL

by Mykel Board    

If he only wants you for your breasts, legs, and thighs, send him to KFC.
                                                                – Drake

If your idea of a 7 course meal is a bucket of KFC and a sixpack, you might be a redneck.
                                                            – Jeff Foxworthy

There's no reason to be the richest man in the cemetery. You can't do any business from there.
                                                            – Colonel Sanders

“How could you, a Jew, vote for Mamdani? That’s like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders.” That quote is from one of my best friends. We don’t agree on everything, but I’ve never met a person who agrees with me 100% on politics... or music... or movies. If I ever do, I’ll have to change my opinion. But her answer here, though, is just genius: funny… and it avoids the Godwin’s law trap.

For those who don’t know. Godwin’s law is something like “in any discussion, one party is sure to mention Hitler or The Nazis and, after that, all intelligent discussion is impossible.” Board’s corollary to Godwin’s law is “when person A calls person B on Godwin’s law, person B will inevitably answer yeah, but Godwin himself said it’s all right to mention Nazis if you’re really talking about Nazis.” Of course, that reply is bullshit because anyone Nazi-calling is sure to claim s/he’s talking about REAL Nazis.

My friend’s KFC remark is brilliant because it make concentration camps funny! It brings humor to tragedy. It floats with laughing irony. And it’ll work most everywhere.

Take farmers… please. Overwhelmingly, the redneck/hillbilly vote went to Donny The Trump… Regular readers know that although I don’t think that guy is 100% evil, I think it would be difficult to slip a pinkie into the stuff he’s done right. One of the worst wrong-doings is the ICE kidnaps/round-ups of folks who don’t pass the show me your papers test. Most don’t even get to reach in their pockets for those papers in the first place.

So what happens? Those farm crops lay rotting on the fields because, in normal times, they’re picked by immigrants. What native-speaking white guy is going to work a twelve hour day… under the sun… back bent for 11 and a half of those hours… for 79 cents and a hat? Those (mostly) illegals keep food in good supply.

Poor rednecks are losing money with food that won’t be harvested… Chickens voting for Colonel Sanders.

NOTE: I saw this report on Instagram… ICE visited a farm in Texas. They went to the owner, explained who they were and said they were going to inspect.

“Inspect away,” said the farm boss. “Just don’t go into that field on the left.”

Of course, that’s where they first headed. It’s where the farmer kept his most ferocious wild bulls.

I doubt the truth of the story. It’s too good. But one can always hope to find humor in real life. It’s Colonel Sanders getting his just desserts.

And speaking of Colonel Sanders… Though born in the US, his background is Dutch and Irish. The latter one of the most persecuted groups in America. Get it? The US is a nation of immigrants. One of a sliver of nice things about Franklin Roosevelt is that when he spoke before the DAUGHTERS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, a right-wing group of anti-immigrants. At that time, the evil immigrants were mostly Germans.) Roosevelt began his speech with the words: Fellow Immigrants.

My grandparents… on my mother’s side… were “illegal immigrants… from Russia via Canada... walking to Michigan. My dream is for ICE to grab Melania Trump, stuff her in a burlap bag and ship her back to Slovenia. Even so-called native people (aka American Indians) descended from immigrants… born in Mongolia. They walked over the ice of the Bering Strait … through North America... and settled in their tepees on the way. You think the Apaches had passports? Get it? There are NO Native Americans. We’re all here because some relatives came here first. In the case of most of us, there were No papers. No immigration forms. That mean YOU, my fellow illegals.

Wait! Wait! Wait! Brake! Shift! My first plan was to use Chickens Voting for Colonel Sanders over and over again in different contexts… but I just saw a clip from the NYC mayoral debate that changed my plan. I’ll still vote for Mamdani for mayor. A socialist! Wow! 20 punk points. But I gotta say, clipwise, he disappointed me.

Why? Mandami’s become part of the party role reversal plaguing American politics. The Repubs used to be the party of small government. Now, they’re a dictatorship. The Dems used to be the party of anti-censorship, pro-sexual freedom. Now they’re prudes.

The only way I can see to connect the two parts of this blog is CHICKEN!!! We got Colonel Sanders and gay slang for underage boys. It doesn’t quite fit, but at least it’s something to boost the coherence.

What happened in the mayoral debate tonight was that Mamdani snuck someone into the audience. She was one of the women who accused Andrew Cuomo (one of Mamdani’s two opponents) of “sexual harassment.” The Muslim trotted her out during the debate to show what an evil guy Cuomo is. Did Cuomo stab her with a Bowie knife? Did he cheat her out of a fortune? Did he lie about her integrity to get her fired? No!!! He touched her “inappropriately!” Ewww! Cooties!

Oy vey! In Italy, a voluptuous woman walking down the street will likely be complimented with a pinch on the ass. She’ll turn and smile. But in prudeland USA, too tight a hug is harassment. Sex is bad say the Dems… though they wouldn’t say it out loud.

Dems say that it’s fine to give elementary school kids puberty blocking drugs, but touch them in their pre-puberty places… Oh, how horrible.

I’ve seen a facebook post… clearly from a Dem… that calls a 17-year old girl “a child.” In Arkansas you can get married at 16! In several Mexican states, the age of consent is 12. But, in the good old USA, sex is BAD. And young people are not allowed to participate in BAD THINGS.

Donny the Trump draws a cartoon of a naked woman. Naked!! How horrible! And it’s just an outline… as dirty as the Venus de Milo. But naked people have sex! What the hell does sex have to do with running a country? Why care who was friends with Jeffrey Epstein? What does that have to do with an ICE-pack of kidnappers roaming Canal Street?…. Andy Cuomo touched a breast… oooooo people touch breasts when they have sex... sex is evil. Evil Andy! It almost makes me want to vote for him. But I’m a chicken… And I’ll be voting for The Colonel.

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 TO THE BLOG in the subject line. Back blogs and columns are at https://mykelsblog.blogspot.com]

→ Oh no dept: After this was written, I heard from my politically aware nephew that the Colonel Sanders remark was not original with my friend… but an internet meme. That doesn’t make it any less clever. It just makes the source different. And that same nephew told me the Mamdani’s stunt with the Cuomo-groped girl, was a copy of a stunt that Trump pulled with harasser-in-chief Bill Clinton, but I can’t find any internet reference on that one.

→ Real Sex Scandal #1 Dept: Instead of bogus scandal news where 17-year-olds are called “children,” how ‘bout this one? It’s where a doctor left the operating room to boff a nurse, while the patient lay surgically open on the operating table. I hope it was a quickie. Details here.

→Real Sex Scandal #2...this one from Thailand?: Police in Thailand arrested a woman who screwed a bunch of Buddhist monks and then blackmailed them... forcing them to make “large payments” to cover up the nookie. To me, the humor in this one is that the monks involved were de-monked. The process of revoking a monk-license in Thailand is called disrobing. I guess they had to do that. Details here.

→ A real scandal dept: So Chevrolet has gone full-MAGA and is bragging in its commercials that Americans are the best, the strongest and most important. “Never stop being American,” they say. What’s implied behind the message (with video of fighter jets on a bombing mission leaving red, white and blue chem-trails.) is that some people in American never STARTED being American. The country needs to be purified, they imply. Where have I heard THAT before?

See you in hell (redux)
MB

AFRICAN LINKS:

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. Oh yeah… He’s looking for friends his own age. So if you’re a 20-something and interested in Africa… or just meeting new people. Contact him at: albertletowon42@gmail.com

NON-AFRICANS

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

Fear and Sadness in New York and Nairobi July 2025

 

Tuesday July 1, 2025

Fear and Sadness in New York and Nairobi

   

You’re STILL Wrong:

Mykel's

July 2025 Blog/Column

Fear and Sadness in New York and Nairobi

[Much of this post has previously been uploaded to facebook…. though in a different form.]

When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.

                                    – William Shakespeare

Oh the piercing sadness of life in the midst of its ordinariness!

                                    – Iris Murdoch

When you're happy you enjoy the music, but when you're sad you understand the lyrics.

                                    – Frank Ocean

I sit now in the library … my facebook notes downloaded to my travel computer. At first I can’t connect to the internet… I bring it to a very librarian-looking librarian.

“Sorry, I don’t know what’s wrong,” she tells me. “Maybe you should try shutting it off and turning it on again.” Ah, the universal answer to every problem in 2025… except this one.

“It doesn’t work,” I tell her.

“Maybe if you try a different floor.” she says.

I go downstairs to the more library-looking library. The librarian there is a younger, more tech-looking guy... sexier than the prissy woman upstairs.

“I can’t connect to the Internet,” I tell him.

“Let me take a look,” he offers, touching a few keys, watching the screen change. Those concentric curved lines that signal you’re connected appear in the taskbar.

“Thanks,” I say to him. “Wanna go out for a drink?”

That last quote is a lie.

But that’s what writers do. We lie. In fiction, it’s all a lie… or at least 90% with some real-life events, twisted to fit-in. For fiction writers, writing is show biz.

For me, unless I say otherwise, what I tell you is “true” although I might touch it up as needed. You know, zip up an open fly, make the weather rainy when it was only foggy, crowd an empty room with strangers. But the important stuff is true.

Up until June 16, my saddest (non-death) NY experience was in talking with a Korean-American friend. This was about 10 years ago. He was in his late 20s... early 30s maybe. We’re sitting in a secret bar, upstairs over The Every Day Gourmet, a Korean deli on Lexington Ave.

"So, how you doin', Kim." I ask him.

He looks at me and squints slightly, "You know Mykel," he says, "whenever I look into a mirror, I hate what I see. I want to just kill myself."

"Huh?" I say, "You're a good-lookin' guy. You got a great smile. I think you just found a bad mirror."

"You don't get it," he says. "It doesn't matter that I'm a native speaker... that I'm a native New Yorker. I’ve been here my whole life. Still, people.... speak..... to.... me.... like....this. Like .... I .... can't ,.. understand… what… they’re… saying. My English is better than theirs."

He points to his face... his chin actually. "It's this face! This face makes me an outsider. Someone they have to adjust to. This face says ASIAN... not American. I hate this face"

I feel my eyes tear. And I buy him another HITE, the Korean beer most gringos don’t know about.

I don't sleep at all well that night.

And now tonight. At about 8, there is the loud whir of a helicopter outside. It sounds like a dozen of 'em, but there’s only one. I go out to see what's happening. I walk until I'm standing directly beneath the noisy beast. I see nothing unusual on the street or any street.

"It's been there for an hour," says a woman passing me. "I don't know what it is. There’s nothing going on here.”

I take a picture of the helicopter. It flies away... like it’s afraid of my camera.  

I head for home. On the way back, I pass Matthew, one of my many homeless friends. It looks like he's in a new wheelchair. We talk a bit. I can see he is sliding down in the chair and doesn't have the leg-strength to push himself up.

“Still getting used to the new chair?” I ask him.

“Yeah, Mykel,” he answers, “It doesn’t have the give of the last one, and the tilt of the seat is all wrong. Could you help me sit up?”

I reach under one of his arms in an effort to pull him up. But all 5'3" of my 75 year old self aren't strong enough to move him. I try to stop a very macho looking 20-something who is walking past us on the sidewalk.

"Excuse me," I say. "Could you help me pull my friend up in his wheelchair?"

He walks right past, as if I'm not there, not even looking at us. I wait for another tough-looking guy. In a couple minutes there is one, with a small gang of maybe NYU students. "Could you help us?" I ask. "We don't want money. Just help straightening..." He and his friends walk past just like the last one... as if we're not there.

The third time, I'm on the edge. How can people be so cruel? How can they just pass by a call for help? It would take less than a minute. Not cost a cent. One guy in a wheelchair and one little old man... what danger could there be?

This guy is with another tough-looking friend. They could easily pull Matthew up to a sitting position. "Excuse me, could you help me pull....." The pair walks right past. Not even a glance. Matthew shrugs. I shout after them when they pass.

"I hope you die!" I shout.

One of the guys turns to look at me and then quickly turns back. Their pace quickens.

"Don't Mykel," says Matthew, "that's how people are these days. Especially young people."

"But... but... this is New York!" I tell him. "That doesn't happen."

Matthew shrugs.

FLASH FROM SADNESS TO FEAR IN KENYA: It’s a story that needs context. My month in Kenya was exciting. Wonderful. Smiling. Making friends. Sometimes I was surprised. Sometimes just annoyed. But only once was I afraid. That’s what I’ll talk about now… as this blog isn’t a bundle of cheer.

I’ve just returned from a trip to the Kenyan countryside. I was in Nakuru with my Kenyan pal, Albert. We spent 3 nights there, including a great trip to the local national park. Albert had to go home to tend to his animals and his blogging. I had to go back to Nairobi.

Albert got me on the bus. There was one spare seat among the students from a girl’s school returning from a class trip. Except for the bus driver, I was the only guy on the bus.

It’s a 4 hour trip. We all get out in a bus parking lot in Nairobi. I walk to a shady place just outside the parking lot. I need the shade to see my phone screen and a location where the Uber driver can pick me up.

I'm followed by this annoying half-drunk wearing a bus conductor's hat. I'll refer to him from now on as "Capman."

I turn toward a small copse of trees to focus maximum shade on my phone, Capman taps me on the shoulder.

"What are you doing?" he asks.

"Trying to call an uber," I tell him. 

He tugs my sleeve. I follow him to a car with a t-shirted driver standing outside of it. 

"Here is an uber," says Capman. "Just tell him where you want to go."

"No thanks," I answer. "If I order in the app, I don't have to pay until i get back to New York." 

This, of course, is a lie. The fees are deducted right away from my Paypal account, but that's too much to explain. 

"Just let me use the app," I continue. "The uber will come."

I turn my back on him and find that the shade is now gone. The sun has risen and destroyed it. I move to another shady spot. Capman follows me. 

"Leave me alone!" I say in a probably too loud and aggressive voice. 

He moves slightly forward and I turn my back on him and order the uber through the app. The app responds that the driver will appear "in 3 minutes,” at the agreed on pick-up location."

"I have a car coming," I tell Capman. "License KDD5074, white Toyota." 

I show him my phone. 

"Oh," says Capman, "it looks like he'll come across the street (a crowded highway). We should go to meet him."

"I'll find him." I say. "Please leave me alone."

He doesn't.

About 10 minutes later, I get an uber message. "I'm here. Where are you?"

"I'm right outside the EasyCoach parking lot," I text back. "White guy in a black t-shirt."

"I'm right behind you," comes the return message.

Capman is looking over my shoulder. He disappears and comes back, again, pulling on my sleeve. 

I follow him because I have no other choice. He takes me a few cars back on the street to a driver, tall wearing a pink shirt. 

"You looking for Mykel?" I ask.

He nods. I get in the car and the driver gets in the car. Capman leans in the open window. 

"I helped you so much," he says. "You should pay me."

"No!" I shout back, and roll up the window.

"Leave now," I tell the driver. "The guy's an asshole. I'll give you 200ksh (Kenyan Shillings) extra in cash if you leave."

Capman shouts something to me... in Swahili. 

"He said he will kill you," the driver tells me. 

And we're off. 

At least we'll be going to the other side of town. I figure the odds are 1 in 5,000,000 that Capman will find me in this city. I'm not very worried. Fat chance he'll get ahold of me.

When we arrive at my Couchsurfing home, I pull out my wallet to pay the promised 200. I'm shocked to find there are only 2 1000ksh bills in the wallet. Earlier there were 9. Was I robbed? Unlikely, since the wallet is chained to my belt. Somehow, I spent the money without realizing it... yet it seems wrong.

"All I have is this thousand," I tell the driver, handing him one of the two bills. "I hope you have change."

"I have no change," he says. "Give me the thousand and I will get change from the fruit-seller on the corner."

He closes the door and walks to the fruit-seller... showing him the 1000ksh bill. I can see the seller shake his head. The driver returns to the car, obviously pissed off. He hands the bill back to me.

"The man has no change," he tells me.

"I'll add the money to your tip," I tell him, pointing to the app.

I can tell he's not pleased. I shrug, and get out of the uber. The driver drives off. Then it occurs to me the driver and Capman probably know each other. He will return to Capman and the latter will learn where I'm living in Nairobi.

"Living" may be a too-soon used phrase. Now, both the driver and Capman have a reason for revenge. And they know exactly where to find me.

Late Note: With my Uber experience… my fear was undeserved. But, speaking of fear, my Kenyan friends still ask me about coming to the US. They all want to work here. I try to dissuade them, warning them that they could be grabbed off the street and shipped to El Salvador. It makes me even sadder.

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]

→This one is double BALLS dept: Hats (pants?) off to Nezza for singing the US National Anthem IN SPANISH at a ballgame during the LA ICE war. Even after she was warned to ‘sing in English,” she defied the warning. She certainly gets 20 punk points for that. But wait, there’s more. Team management could have banned her from the stadium, issued a statement saying they “reject the rudeness,” apologized to their fans… but they didn’t do any of that. They just shrugged and went on tacitly supporting free speech… and free song. They get ten points for that.

→ Speaking of sadness dept: At the start of this post I relayed some sad events in my recent life. People who know me, know that I call myself a Trump agnostic. While most of his actions are awful, I have to give him credit with talking to the enemy. He was the first president to cross the DMZ and speak to “the other side” in Korea. He had phone conversations with Putin. Those are things to be admired. But one of his saddest, most pride-defeating actions was the installment of English as the official language of the US. Only 4 countries now have no official language. Mexico, Australia, Eritrea, and surprisingly, The United Kingdom. The tyranny of English here makes me as sad as a Korean who hates his face. The Eritrean constitution specifically declares that all languages are equal—thus, Eritrea has no official language. I think I’m moving to Eritrea wherever the hell that is.

→ More incentive to move dept: My first trip to Europe was in 1970… when I did my Beloit College foreign service job in London. I got an (unpaid) job there writing for FREEDOM, an anarchist newspaper. This was during the Vietnam war, where the US government was burning people alive in Saigon. I saw several American visitors to the UK with Canadian flags sewn to their denim jackets. I had mixed feelings about that. Anti-Canadian-flag was that they’re not showing people that Americans can still be American and oppose the war. Pro-Canadian flag was people rejecting the US and showing that those stars and stripes do not represent all of us. After just supplying the bombs, we’ve “progressed” to actually dropping them on people who attacked no one! I wonder if those flag patches will be making a comeback in 2025.

See you in hell (redux),

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.

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

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