Life is good. The air is warm, the skies are clear and you just put down a big deposit on that golf course house you’ve been pining for all these years. What could be better for your health than fresh air and 9-18 holes of exercise every day? Maybe a tent in the ghetto.
Turns out you might be moving in to Parkinson’s Country. You know…that fast-spreading neurological disease that seems to be blossoming at a distressing pace. In 2020, researcher Michael Okun, M.D., first used the term “Parkinson’s pandemic,” projecting 12 million sufferers by 2035. People laughed at his excessive numbers, called him wrong as sex while driving. Looks like Doc Okun was an optimist. There are 11.8 million cases today. “The growth has been explosive,” Okun tells us.
He and his co-author, Ray Dorsey, M.D., another leading Parkinson’s researcher, examine what’s driving the uptick in their new book, “The Parkinson’s Plan.” Here’s Okun on what they learned: “About 20 years ago, research started coming out about how pesticide exposure is associated with a higher prevalence of people with Parkinson’s. For a while, nobody paid much attention to this, but then the same patterns started to emerge globally. While we’ve discovered is that some of these pesticides, with chemicals like paraquat and rotenone, are linked to Parkinson’s, as is trichlorethylene (TCE), which is used in dry cleaning and as a degreaser for airplanes.”
Bad news, but what’s that got to do with my golf course? Dr. Okun and his colleagues found that if you live within a mile of a golf course, you have a much higher chance of developing Parkinson’s. They think it’s because when the golf courses are sprayed with pesticides, they leak into the groundwater and contaminate the drinking water. The affected water impairs mitochondria, the powerhouse of cells, and that changes how the brain is able to regulate itself, knocking it out of homeostasis. If you happen to have one of the genes that’s linked with Parkinson’s and you’re exposed to Parkinson’s on top of that, your risk is greatly increased.
But hold on a second---most people who live on or near golf courses are probably drinking city water. Is there some problem inherent in just traipsing over these courses day after day? Nobody seems to know. Until somebody figures it out, you might want to take up Pickleball.
Or Not
Pickleball injuries are on the rise, driven by the sport’s surging popularity among older adults. The most common injuries are the usual suspects---sprains, strains and fractures caused by sudden movements and falls. Between 2000 and 2022, emergency department visits for Pickleball-related injuries shot up by 91%, with hospital admissions rising by 257%.
Eye injuries are also on the rise, with a recent study showing an increase of about 405 injuries per year from 2021 ro 2024, with 1200 in that latter year alone. The primary mechanisms are direct hits from a pickleball or even a paddle and also falling on the court. Some injuries have been severe, including retinal detachment, orbital fractures and globe trauma.
You won’t be playing any Pickleball at fussy Carmel-by-the-Sea. The snob capitol of California has become the first city in the state to ban the sport at its public courts due to noise complaints from its residents. “I just can’t stand that pop-pop-popping sound of the balls hitting the rackets,” griped long-time local Sanders Venderveer. “It would make me grit my teeth if I had any.”
City Council members Jeff Baron and Hans Buder hatched a plan to require players to use “quiet” paddles and balls but residents said those snippy Pickleballers wouldn’t abide by the rules. “Who’s going to enforce it?” one woman in the audience protested. “These Pickleball people are rowdies and worse. They drink and swear and pee in the bushes. One night last week there was an 80-year-old man playing bare naked. You don’t want to see that!” No, Ma‘am, we certainly don’t. All in favor of the ordinance say, “aye.” The “ayes” have it. Somebody hand that man a toga.
Disturbing Notes
Now, all of us know that musicians are prone to annoying ailments like tendonitis, trigger finger, arthritis and getting hit in the groin by thrown fruit, but it’s worse than you think. If you or a loved one is a maker of music, better make sure your health insurance is paid up.
With musicians, one minute you’re up, the next you’ve fallen through a hole in the stage while gliding along playing violin for the Viennese Waltz. At a 2015 Foo Fighters show in Sweden, Dave Grohl asked for the mic to tell the audience he’d just broken his leg somehow. No sissy, Grohl promised the audience the band would require just a short intermission. An hour later, they returned, and so did Dave…on a stretcher. He and the Foos returned to Sweden in 2018 and gave the audience a jolt by having a lookalike immediately fall off the stage.
It was worse for Black Sabbath guitarist Tommi Iommi. At age 17, a machine at his day job in a metal factory cut off the tips of two fingers. Tony was told he’d never play again, but he just laughed. Iommi crafted prosthetics from thimbles, wax and strips of leather from his jacket. The lack of sensation in his fingers allowed him to tune his guitar lower than normal, creating the low, rumbling sound that came to define Black Sabbath’s music.
At least Tommi wasn’t electrocuted like poor KISS guitarist Ace Frehley. Ace was walking down a flight of stairs and happened to grab a metal railing, unknowingly creating an electrical current with his guitar. It was only by seizing up and being thrown back by the shock that Frehley was able to let go of the railing before he was shocked to death. Unfazed, Ace wrote a song about the experience for the band’s next album.
Slipknot just begs for trouble, with fire being a regular part of their shows. Sid Wilson and Shawn Crahan typically set themselves and their equipment ablaze to the delight of pyro audiences everywhere. During one performance, bandmate Corey Taylor’s leg caught fire, but no worries—he just sort of stared at it, then walked away, letting it burn for 13 seconds. Taylor later showed off the tattoos on his leg decorating the burns he endured during the show. Slipnot is nothing if not gutsy. On a separate occasion, Wilson leapt off a platform and plummeted fifteen feet down, landing on his heels…and breaking both of them. He was able to limp back on stage and finished the set barely standing.
In a 1992 show in Montreal, Metallica had to cut their show short at an infamous concert when James Hetfield was accidentally hit with a massive pyrotechnic blast, which severely burned his face, arm, back and leg. It took awhile, but he eventually recovered and rocked on. Kirk Novoselic of Nirvana was well-known for tossing his bass in the air, which sounds innocent enough. Alas, at the 1992 MTV Music Video Awards he gave it a toss and the bass landed smack-dab on his face. After the paramedics left him, Queen’s Brian May came over with a glass of champagne to celebrate the occasion.
Crazed showman Alice Cooper was subject to do anything for a scare. Several minutes into his live shows, he liked to fake his own death by decapitating himself with a guillotine or hanging himself on a gallows. During a performance in 1988, however, Cooper almost hanged himself for real. The piano wire used to keep him from strangling broke, leaving the helpless Alice to dangle for a few seconds before plummeting to the ground unconscious. Not one to be put off by piffling threats to life and limb, Gainesville, Florida guitarist Nancy Luca is thinking of giving it a try.
Scary Facts
1. A public toilet seat is cleaner than your smartphone.
2. There exists such a thing as zombie ants.
3. If you fall into a black hole, you might be turned into spaghetti.
4. Your bed is full of millions of bugs which feed on dead skin cells.
5. Butterflies can drink blood.
6. There’s a fish that has human-like teeth.
7. While in the womb, babies have mustaches.
8. Crows can remember your face.
9. Pineapples eat humans.
10. A Christmas tree can grow inside the human body.
11. A chicken named Mike once live for 18 months without a head.
12. The Golden Poison Dart Frog is so poisonous it can kill you with one touch.
13. Horned Lizards squirt blood from their eyes.
14. If Reincarnation really exists, Donald Trump could come back as Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.
Thirteen Months And Counting
“Some things are even worse than zombie ants.”---W.T. Killeen
The image in the windshield is enormous, frightening and two inches from your face, then all hell breaks loose. Your ears are assaulted by a cacophony of a thousand banshees screaming in the night, your nose is invaded by the searing smells or erupting volcanoes, your vision clouded by smoke and atomic particles of once useful automobile parts flying through the air. A determined airbag, set loose after years of imprisonment, drives your head back, another slams your right arm into your chest. Terrified blood from your innards blindly seeks shelter in the shadowy depths of your bladder. And then, like nothing ever happened, it is quiet as death. The shitstorm has come and gone in a flash and left you smashed and at sea. This is a job for a superhero named Adrenaline, who arrives like a bolt from the blue, temporarily assuaging injuries and raising hopes. You settle yourself, move your legs, grind the car door open and get out. Somehow, despite an attack from the Hammers of Hell, you are still alive and functioning. It’s a great day for the Irish.
That’s all, folks….
