You're STILL Wrong, Mykel's Sept 2020 Blog #2 or SCIENCE vs VOODOO

  YOU'RE STILL WRONG.. 

MYKEL'S SEPT. 2020 BLOG

VOLUME 2

OR

SCIENCE SHMIENCE

by Mykel Board

I used to go to a crap chiropractor who also did acupuncture. I poo-pooed it but whatever, I let her do her thing. During a visit, I was going through a bout of bronchitis. I used to get bronchitis twice a year, every year. She remarked on it and popped a needle in my chest. I rolled my eyes and laid down. I have not had a case of bronchitis in over 20 years since.
Jennifer Fogeliscious-Legof (personal letter)

If you take an ineffective sugar pill, at your sickest, it's odds on you're going to get better, in exactly the same way that if you sacrifice a goat, after rolling a double six, your next roll is likely to be lower. --Ben Goldacre in The Guardian

FLASH TO NEW ORLEANS, April 10,1861: Marie Laveau sits in her parlor in the city’s French Quarter. Marie is not French. She probably has some Haitian blood. In any case, she is among the few born-free Colored People in The South. She’s Colored by default, as it will still be in 2020, when mixed-race people either choose their color or have it chosen for them.

Marie’s abundant hair is covered… more wrapped than covered.. in a red and white cloth… hatpinned together along the seams. In her hands, she holds a doll… a kind of stick figure… made from straw... arms and legs divided from the torso by thread at the hips, wrists and shoulders and ankles... the head partially separated by another tight thread at the neck.

Marie takes a long hatpin from the cloth around her hair. She sets the pin between the legs of the doll… pointy side facing the crotch. She pushes upwards.

Just then... a hundred and sixty-two miles northwest... on a plantation where the Colored People are still slaves.. a handsome young slave screams… grabbing between his legs and falling to the ground.

FLASH TO FEBRUARY 2020: 80-year-old Marsha Goldstein is up at 6AM. She struggles to pull on her compression socks and fix her prim skirt. Pushing one hand against the wall, she limps from the bedroom down the short hall to the closet where she stores her walker. Propped on top of the folded metal support, is a half-empty box of rubber gloves… just purchased from CVS. Pulling out a pair of gloves, she struggles… one hand at a time... into them. Then she opens the walker.

It’s shopping day. Mrs. Goldstein has to stock up on chicken and vegetables for soup… maybe some noodles. Senior shopping hour starts at 7AM. The store will be freshly sterilized, chemicals sprayed over the produce and on the boxes of Captain Crunch. When Marsha walks in, a huge bottle of 80% alcohol hand-sanitizer waits for those dumb enough not to wear gloves. At least she doesn’t need one of those stupid surgical masks. You can’t breathe in those things… And scientists at the CDC say that Corona comes from surfaces… not from the air. Near the prunes, a man with dark eyes coughs. In a month, Mrs. Goldstein is dead.

FLASH to GERMANY 1960: A new drug has hit the market. Science has found a treatment for cancer, morning sickness, and maybe infertility. Germans discovered it and marketed it. Another medical wonder… a gift from science. Morning sickness… vomiting, nausea… one of the many pains of pregnancy… can be helped… finally.

Some women take the drug for infertility… an “off-label” prescription. Lo and behind, they have children. It works! The children, however, did not have arms, but a drug-induced birth defect that connects their cute little hands directly to their cute little shoulders. The drug is called Thalidomide.

FLASH TO 1979: Harvey DiPecora is fat. His doctor tells him to lose weight, lower his cholesterol, eliminate saturated fats from his diet.

“I gotta do it,” thinks Harvey. “That means that awful shit margarine… it’s like eating jellied snot. But I gotta do it to save myself. No saturated fat there. Just hyrdrogenated this and that. It’ll save me!”

Magazines and newspapers tout the scientific findings that any kind of non-saturated fats is good for you. Harvey believes in science.

Harvey’s toast in the morning… every morning… smothered in Blue Bonnet margarine. Everything’s better with Blue Bonnet on it.

Ten months later, Harvey dies of a heart attack. Scientists change their minds and say that trans fat is deadly… deadlier than saturated fats. Besides heart attacks, it “might cause or contribute to:”

Alzheimer's Disease, Cancer, Diabetes, Obesity, Infertility in women,

Major depressive disorder, Diminished memory and oh yeah, Acne. Check Wikipedia for details.

Every day during the lockdown, I watch daytime TV filled with ads for scientifically proven medicine, for blood pressure, psoriasis, a-fib … just take it once a day. But please note:

Dangerous side effects may include growth of an extra head, testicles rising into the large intestine, internal bleeding until it comes out of your eyes, inability to clip your toenails... and death.

It’s 4AM, I feel my body returning to me. There was some dream about a large Frankenstein-ish monster… naked… with a tiny dick… limp as wet spaghetti and about as thick.

“I’ll take yours!” The monster says, suddenly on top of me… pressing his fist into my stomach. I feel the pressure… the pain… As I wake up, the pain does not go away. I feel it in my stomach… and upwards almost to my throat. This is not the dream. This is reality... my GERD (Gastro-Esophageal Reflux Disease) acting up… waking me after beer and pizza… and I’ve run out of NUX VOMICA.

That disgustingly named plant is the key ingredient in the tiny homeopathic pills that keep me from getting GERD. My friends tell me homeopathy doesn’t work. They say it’s psychological… it’s all in my mind.

So fuckin’ what? Who cares WHERE it is? Mind? Body? It fuckin’ works! If I take the pills, I don’t get the pain. If I don’t take the pills I do get the pain.

“But,” comes the last ditch effort of those who worship science. “If you only stop the pain in your mind, it might keep you from getting the help you really need.”

By the help you really need, they mean those drugs that will cause you to grow another head. (Just a few months ago, Zantac, a popular SCIENTIFICALLY PROVEN GERD medication, was recalled because it causes cancer.)

In science, your experience doesn’t count. That’s called anecdotal evidence. Only numbers count in science-- not people.

Would I take homeopathic medicine for cancer? Would I go to a voodoo priest if I were hit by a car?

Of course not. I’m not against medicine or science. I’m against the WORSHIP of medicine and science. I’m against thinking science has all the answers, and if it’s not SCIENTIFIC it’s not REAL. THAT is wrong. Homeopathy and voodoo are no less real than science.

And yes, science doesn’t always fail. Sometimes it gives us things that work… right out of the box… POW! Like… well… like the atom bomb. What’s wrong with that? I donno, but I think I’ll stick with Nux Vomica.

- end -

ENDNOTES: [You can contact me on facebook or by email at god@mykelboard.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

→ Love Science or They’ll Get You dept: For the first time ever, (over 100 years) Scientific American is endorsing a presidential candidate. Or rather, opposing one. Here’s what they have to say:
The evidence and the science show that Donald Trump has badly damaged the U.S. and its people—because he rejects evidence and science. The most devastating example is his dishonest and inept response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which cost more than 190,000 Americans their lives by the middle of September.

Remember, you oppose SCIENCE at your own peril.

→ Aah, aren’t lower taxes making America great again? Dept: CNBC reports that nearly one out of five of the Fortune 500 companies paid NO TAX in 2019. These companies include: DowDuPont, United States Steel, Eli Lilly, Netflix, and our perennial favorite: Starbucks. I wonder how these corporations will say THANK YOU in an election year, don’t you?

→ Parody is impossible in 2020 dept: Yeah, MRR is dead, but its ghost lives on in the virtual world. I shit you not, but the MRR website diddlers have decided not to publish ANYTHING by white writers, unless they are writing about black artists.

Maxiumim what? That great fusion of black and white music created when Elvis Presley 69-ed with Chuck Berry... where Bad Brains and The Ramones played together at CBGBs… Where… ah you know the story.

Now, in a parody of the old MRR PC gone bonkers, they’ve outdone themselves.
Yes, MRR is dead… and now it’s deader than it ever could be, leaving only a virtual grave to piss on.

→ Speaking of pissing dept: CNN reports The city of Amsterdam is going green in an attempt to stop random pissing. The local council has installed eight hemp-filled urinals in the city's "wild peeing" spots.

The urinals look like traditional planters, with greenery sprouting from the top. But there’s an opening in the side. This is the target zone for the piss.

There are now 12 of the urinals in Amsterdam, inventor Richard de Vries, an environmental psychologist, worked with the council on the project starting in 2018, installing GreenPees in four hot spots in the center of the city.

"The result was there was a 50% reduction in wild peeing," said De Vries. "It was a great success."

My question? The Dutch are the tallest people on earth. Can the rest of us reach? And what about girls? Can they aim well enough to hit the spot?

--See you in hell! MB

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.

Here's a start:

Here’s Richard Goldberg: goldberg.wordpress.com

Poetry and humor fans will like Justin Martin in The Latency

And my friend Mike R has a nice site with recipe hits from the past! (He cooked for me once... great stuff.) Check out Yesterday's Recipes.

And here's one by a member of ANTI-SEEN... a tour diary of sorts.

Andy Shelton has an interesting blog here.

Savage Hippie is a guy who has been YouTubing for a long time. Our opinions largely overlap... but he complains that I'm a Communist. I'm not! I'm a communist.

Chris Stecher publishes a zine called PRECIS. You can see the back issue links there... and he promises a new issue soon.

George Fertakis has a very nice graphics-heavy blog... with music and books featured prominently. If there’s no link here (I can’t find it temporarily), then Google… er… Duckduckgo him for information.

And my long-term pal Sid Yiddish contributes with his Mishegas Master Blog.

And connect to TRUST Zine, a long-running German punk zine… that STILL PRINTS!!! Yeah, they have a website too… of course! It’s here.

Kyle Nonneman is in prison in Portland. At least he can’t be kidnapped by the secret police… I think. I post his blog for him, he can’t do it from the klink. Lots of stuff about noise metal… and some very weird politics that will either fascinate or repulse you… or both.

Here are a couple video links.

This from Jon Cox https://squelchchamber1.bandcamp.com/album/down-so-low

And this one from my very long-time friend Roger Armstrong.

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

You're Still Wrong, Mykels Aug. 2020 Blog Vol 2: WHAT OLD PEOPLE DO!

 

YOU'RE STILL WRONG.. 

MYKEL'S AUGUST 2020 BLOG

VOLUME 2

OR

WHAT OLD PEOPLE DO

by Mykel Board

In America, the land of the perpetually young, growing old is an embarrassment and dying is seen as a failure. – Harold S. Kushner

Suffering and understanding are deeply connected; death and self-awareness are in league. – Denis de Rougemont

Olivia de Havilland died? What a shame! She was 104 years old… had her whole life behind her. It’s just awful. Such a tragedy.

I know. It’s so sad. And what about that Regis Philbin? 84 years old and poof! Just gone! It’s terrifying. Quick! Close everything NOW!!!! Old people are dying!

And Granny! It was so horrible. She had diabetes, chronic lung infection, pneumonia… and she just died. Can you imagine a woman like that just up and dying?

Flash to small talk: At a wedding party… you meet a young man, full head of hair tight chin under his scruffy beard.

“And what do you do?” you ask…

He answers.

“Oh, still in grad school,” you say, “What are your plans for the next decade or so?”

“Well, after I graduate,” comes the answer, “I think I’ll take a trip around the world. Then, look for a job in an emerging tech company. You never know when Google will be on a buying spree.”

Flash to small talk TWO, same party: an older man. The fringe of hair left is deeply gray... eyebags like a shopping trip to Safeway… wisps of gray beard missed in shaving.

“Ah, grandfather of the bride?” you ask.

He shakes his head. “Of the groom.”

“And what are your plans for the next decade or so?” you don’t ask.

“I plan to die,” he doesn’t say. “That’s what old people do. We die.”

Get it?

We have a panic. The government is asking… sometimes demanding… that everyone change their lives to protect the old and the sick. Society upends. There is more sudden poverty than at any time since the great depression. Why? So that old and sick people don’t die.

I’m pushing 80 years old. I’m a high risker. And I’m going to die! You know? That’s what old people do. That’s what EVERYBODY does. You don’t save lives… the best you can do is postpone death. Does this come as a shock to you?

Why should…

Hey Mykel!

Fuck! I’d know that font anywhere. It’s The Literary Device. Okay, I’ll bite. What the hell do you want?

Where are you going with this? As if I didn’t know. You think, since old people and sick people are going to die anyway, that asking everybody to sacrifice to save them is a worthless sacrifice.

“Worse than worthless,” I answer. “Destructive! We’re harming the many to save those who won’t be saved anyway.”

Think, Mykel... since everyone is going to die anyway, why have lifeguards at beaches… or EMT? You’re not saving anyone, you’re just postponing death.

“First,” I say, “what gives you the right to butt in here anyway. You’re just a literary device… you’re not even human. Second...”

BINGO! That’s exactly what gives me the right. I’m one who WON’T die. Literary devices live forever. That gives me some perspective.

“Shut up!” I yell back. “Second, you have a good point. I should have said that given the way this epidemic goes: You don’t save lives. the best you can do is postpone death… a little. Is it worth it?”

Who are you to judge?

“I’m Mykel fuckin’ Board. That’s who. I have the same right to give my opinion as anyone else. And I hate to see lives wrecked... people afraid to leave their houses... last chance meetings missed... plans destroyed... kids taught that other humans are dangerous and being too close to them will kill those kids… the idea of social followed immediately by the idea of distancing… We’re destroying ourselves to save people who would die soon anyway.”

Young people get the virus… even kids. It’s not just a the sick and the old disease.

“Neither is the flu, the common cold, or e-coli,” I answer, “But most people get over them. Corona is unpleasant for a while, sometimes needs heroic measures, but more than 90% of the people who get it, get over it. In the meantime, people’s lives are ruined –forever– by the fear of it. They won’t get over it. Future generations are ruined by lack of real schooling, lack of human contact, lack of a social life… except for DISTANCING. A $600 –or Trumpian $400– check is not going to fix that.”

So what do you propose? Overwhelm the US healthcare system? It’s the worst in the so-called developed world. You want to make it impossible to treat any other disease than the pile of COVIDS?

“Ah,” I reply, “you’ve hit the problem. We’re fucked from the start by living in such a primitive country. Worst medical system… except for the rich. And that’s a problem… for once in my life... I don’t have an answer to.”

Bingo!

- end -

ENDNOTES: [You can contact me on facebook or by email at god@mykelboard.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

Had enough yet? dept: There’s a great story (with an awful headline, cut from the picture below) that just reports and doesn’t take sides. It’s so rare to see any balance from anyone these days.

To mask or not to mask… no conclusions. That’s the way it should be.

→ Bird Flew dept: Meaww.com reports that a British man pleaded guilty to having sex with chickens and having his wife film the act. Rehan Baigalong with his wife, Heema Baig, appeared for a hearing before a judge and pleaded guilty to 11 charges including three of performing an act of penetration on chickens.

Funny, fucking a chicken is a criminal offense, but killing one is not. Values anyone?

→ Swine get it right dept: Meanwhile, the Ripley’s site shows us a flu animal that gets it. There are, evidently, dozens of cases where pigs, farmed for their flesh, EAT the farmers. They do a pretty good job. One family reports a farmer’s remains as “his dentures and a few small body parts-- that’s all.” The article does not say if there are records of pigs fucking humans (though it seems to me I’ve seen the 8mm films). I have no idea if it would be legal or not. But if people aren’t allowed to do it to chickens, you’d expect that pigs wouldn’t be allowed to do it to people. You never know, though. If you do it... send me a picture, will ya?

--See you in hell!

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.

Here's a start:

Here’s Richard Goldberg: goldberg.wordpress.com

Poetry and humor fans will like Justin Martin in The Latency

And my friend Mike R has a nice site with recipe hits from the past! (He cooked for me once... great stuff.) Check out Yesterday's Recipes.

And here's one by a member of ANTI-SEEN... a tour diary of sorts.

Andy Shelton has an interesting blog here.

Savage Hippie is a guy who has been YouTubing for a long time. Our opinions largely overlap... but he complains that I'm a Communist. I'm not! I'm a communist.

Chris Stecher publishes a zine called PRECIS. You can see the back issue links there... and he promises a new issue soon.

George Fertakis has a very nice graphics-heavy blog... with music and books featured prominently. If there’s no link here (I can’t find it temporarily), then Google… er… Duckduckgo him for information.

And my long-term pal Sid Yiddish contributes with his Mishegas Master Blog.

Here are a couple video links.

This from Jon Cox https://squelchchamber1.bandcamp.com/album/down-so-low

And this one from my very long-time friend Roger Armstrong.

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

You’re STILL Wrong Mykel's January 2019 Blog/Column "Eat This!"

You’re Still Wrong

Mykel's Blog for January 2019
or

EAT THIS, SUCKER!

Every asylum in this nation is filled with poor souls who simply cannot stand lanolin, cellophane, plastic, television, and subdivisions. --Michael Pollan

Back from the Deli… not India-- that was a few weeks ago... but the local place around the corner. Ham and cheese on a kaiser roll… I unwrap the plastic from the roll and take a bite of the sandwich… ahh the joy… I’m sooo fuckin’ hungry… but wait... it needs mustard. Ham, cheese, lettuce, on a roll… you can’t eat a ham and cheese sandwich without mustard. A little on the cheese… a little on the lettuce… close the roll again… yeah! It's the New York lunch of the goyim… and those of us who don’t keep all the rules.

CHOMP, CHOMP CHOMP…. a few more bites and the sandwich is gone… into near-future heartburn and further future loose brown turds. I lick my fingers before picking up the plastic wrap… Then I take a bite of it… pulling the wrap into bite-sized pieces. I feel the smoothness of the plastic inside my mouth… slipping over my molars… I grind it down… take a swig of seltzer to wash it over the back of my tongue. Then another bite of the plastic wrap. I use my tongue to separate the price label from the wrapper. Why bother? I swallow them both.

Weird fantasy? You bet your Nexium it’s not. Daily, Americans eat the equivalent of thousands of plastic wrappers-- or latex gloves. I don’t know about where you live, but here in New York… it’s the law that anyone who prepares food must wear latex gloves before touching the goods. Every sliced piece of meat… every block of cheese… every bunch of grapes… must be handled by hands encased in plastic. Change food? Put on new gloves. And you think that plastic stays on the gloves? You think that latex doesn’t contaminate everything it touches? You think you’re not eating fistfuls of plastic every day? Think again, buckaroo. Happy cancer, baby!

In most countries in the world people use skin. Naked hands-- usually washed naked hands-- but who knows?… Naked hands handle food in India… in Africa… in most of Asia. Go to Japan and find an expert sushi chef who wears hand condoms before molding that perfect fish to that perfect lump of perfect rice… yeah right. Skin... it only works with SKIN!

But here… in the US and maybe much of Europe… the body is DIRTY. Skin is DIRTY. It carries GERMS. Don’t touch it. Don’t let it touch your food. Cover it up… that’ll make it safe… The bare body is BAD! Avoid skin at all costs.

While New Yorkers debate a ban on plastic straws, they consume hundreds of thousands of plastic gloves… to cover the sin of SKIN.

In the Pacific… or the Atlantic… somewhere... there is a floating island of latex gloves. Fish are choking on latex gloves. Seagulls are dying from trying to pick real food from floating latex gloves.

Those floating plastic islands you read about... destroying marine life… they are not just plastic shopping bags and drinking straws. They are the tiny one-use bags dog owners use instead of a broom and dustpan to pick up shit on the street. They are millions of garbage can liners, because we don’t want to dirty the inside of our trash bins (oh how disgusting). They are millions of baby-preventing condoms because washing and reusing the same condom twice… OH YUCK! And... they are millions of once-used latex gloves.

But wait! There’s more. Think about those pots you stick in the microwave… or in the freezer. You live on the plastic wrapped meat... vegetables... yesterday's tuna casserole... in the refrigerator. Your morning sandwich bought plastic-wrapped at Pret A Manger! All that: in plastic. And you think you’re not eating it? You think those petroleum molecules are somehow better for you than the washed flesh of someone’s hands?

Sure, blame the cancer epidemic on smoking… on vaping… on the artificial food coloring squirted into your bottle of Mountain Dew. Wake up bottled water drinkers! Every bottle of water is surrounded by plastic… and that plastic goes INTO the water. Buy water by the case? By the time you get to that last bottle, more plastic pollution has leached into that water than will ever come out of your faucet.

Yeah, in other countries they sell water in plastic bottles. Their own water is undrinkable and glass is too heavy for easy and cheap shipping. But most other countries don’t use latex gloves to touch food. They don’t use them to touch each other in the doctor’s exam room.

I blame Christians... those sex-adverse fanatics who tell you that THE SOUL is godlike... good... while its house is evil... sinful... needs to be hidden away like a filthy box for a precious jewel. Christians-- along with their monotheistic cohorts: Jews and Muslims-- have taboo-ized the body... made it shameful... along with all those things the body does... pissing... shitting... fucking.

FLASH TO INDIA… I’m at the famous sex temple in Khajuharo. There are frescoes of orgies, sex with animals… with people of all and indeterminate genders. It’s enough to harden my 4 inches of limp biscuit. Tourists pose in front… take selfies… point out the best tiles.

FLASH TO MUMBAI: At a dinner party, I talk about the temple... ask its origins... its history. An attractive homosexual answers me… in a voice that borders on panic.

“You know how old that temple is?” He asks… Then answers his own question… “800 years old! That’s how old. And India has the Kama Sutra… and a history of sex… sex… sex… India was a sex country... More cum spilled than all the tea in Darjeeling... And what happened?”

“The British?” I guess out loud.

He points a hard index finger at me.

“Yes!” he shouts. “Yes! Yes! Yes! It was the British… They ruined us.”

“Like the Americans ruined the other Indians,” I answer.

But it’s not only sex. It’s deeper than that… or-- in a way-- more superficial… or at least surface. The problem is the body and its outer coating… SKIN. The mind is holy. The body is dirty. It needs constant washing… covering up… protection. Half of the #metoo complaints are He touched me. His skin on my body… not even on my skin… just my body. I’ve been defiled… used… his SKIN touched me.

FLASH TO LEXINGTON AVE, NYC: I walk into the school lobby, preparing to board the elevator to take me to my first class of the day. I hope Shiho will be the student. She’s my favorite… one of three people I know in the world who have been to North Korea. She's got terrific stories. This elevator, though, takes fuckin’ forever!

Then it hits me… that caustic smell… filtering through my nosehairs and embedded boogers… burning my nostrils… a medicinal… artificial... stinging smell. I’d know it anywhere: PURELL. The most pervasive example of puritanical cleanliness since Queen Victoria ordered table legs covered-- in modesty-- in the mid 1800s.

The smell is everywhere. In the mensroom, in front of elevators, in the train, in Del Monico’s Deli, where I’m trying to enjoy my half price 4-6PM dinner… The woman at the next table glares at me as she scrubs her hands with PURELL-soaked wetnaps… as if she were trying to rub from her eyes the image of my eating these greasy chicken wings. I gag loudly at the smell.

You don't see Purell in India. They don’t rub germicide on their hands... killing off the weak bacteria… so only the strong survive to reproduce. They don’t wash their hands after taking a piss in Christian fear that their naked hand touched the never-to-be-naked skin DOWN THERE!

[Aside: Some facebook friends were trying to convince me it's HEALTH reasons to wash your hands after only taking a piss. Yeah, right. What's the DIRTIEST PART of any public toilet? The first place touched by people who piss on their hands, jerk off or get shit on their hands while wiping? You got it right! The SINK HANDLE. And what's the LAST place you touch after washing your hands? Yep.]

Me? Back in New York... I'm going to Rick's Cabaret this weekend. I need as much skin as I can get.

– end –

ENDNOTES: [You can contact me on facebook or by email at god@mykelboard.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. Subscribe to the MYKEL'S READERS Yahoo group readmboard-subscribe@yahoogroups.com]

-→Common Cold Dept: Some British politician once said, "I think right now if Donald Trump invented a cure for the common cold, they would still find a reason to criticize him."

     BINGO! Trump says he’s pulling 7000 troops out of Afghanistan and ALL the US troops out of Syria. He’s ending two of the worst cases of American international interference in the last 20 years. And what does he get? CRITICISM from both parties. It’s easy to understand from the war-loving Neocons… but the liberal Dems? If Obama had done the same thing, they would have had a parade in celebration.

-→Who doesn’t? dept: The Daily Mail reported on Dec. 14 that a Chinese man identified named Peng was hospitalized in Zhangzhou after he complained of a cough and chest pains. As doctors examined him, Peng admitted that he was "addicted to smelling his socks that he had been wearing." The pain in his chest, it turned out, was a fungal infection he had inhaled from his socks.

     While Peng made a full recovery, other people said on Chinese social media that they have the same habit: "The reason I smell my socks is to know if I can continue wearing them the next day!" one of the comments said.

     Another pledged to "wash my socks every day now.” He learned his lesson.

     Yeah, the fungal infection is interesting and funny… but more interesting and funny is that the reporter didn't realize that EVERYBODY smells their own socks.

-→My kind of recycling dept: Jim Alexander and Betina Bradshaw of Devon, England, had a Christmas feast for family and friends. On the menu: deer, pheasant, rabbits, badgers ... all roadkill. Alexander, a trained butcher, had collected nearly 50 fresh animal corpses over the past year. The butcher said his collecting habits have occasionally drawn the attention of police, but "once they realize I'm doing nothing wrong, they are fine, and one even helped me lift an animal into the van."

     I see this as a dilemma for vegetarians. The animals eaten weren't killed for food. They were dead anyway. Isn't it a waste to just throw the corpse into a trash heap? If the roadkill isn't eaten, then carnivores will simply spend money to buy meat that WAS killed for food.  Doesn't eating roadkill actually SAVE animals?

-------------------------

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.

Here's a start:

• David Goldberg's Busy Microbes Blog

• And another Goldberg: goldberg.wordpress.com

• Poetry and humor fans will like Justin Martin in The Latency

• And my friend Mike R has a nice site with recipe hits from the past! (He cooked for me once... great stuff.) Check out Yesterday's Recipes.

• And here's one by a member of ANTI-SEEN... a tour diary of sorts.

• Andy Shelton has an interesting blog here.
• Savage Hippie is a guy who has been YouTubing for a long time. Our opinions largely overlap... but he complains that I'm a Communist. I'm not! I'm a communist.
• Chris Stecher publishes a zine called PRECIS. You can see the back issue links there... and he promises a new issue soon.
• George Fertakis has a very nice graphics-heavy blog... with music and books featured prominently.
• And my long-term pal Sid Yiddish contributes with his Mishegas Master Blog.

CONTACT REDUX: You can contact me on facebook or by email at god@mykelboard.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. Subscribe to the MYKEL'S READERS Yahoo group: readmboard-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.