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Last week about this time I was on vacation, holding onto a pool noodle and floating naked in the astonishingly teal-blue lagoon that surrounds the island of Taha’a in French Polynesia. I gotta’ tell you, a man does a lot of thinking while holding onto a pool noodle and floating naked in the astonishingly teal-blue lagoon that surrounds the island of Taha’a in French Polynesia.

Granted, a lot of this thinking, at least initially, was focused on whether certain hungry lagoon fish would regard my gently undulating penis as some sort of wounded, flailing albino goby fish that would serve as a suitable appetizer until something bigger -- at least compared to sizeable lagoon fishes – swam by; that, or whether there exists in French Polynesia a counterpart to the Amazonian candiru fish (aka the vampire fish), which has been known to swim up the urethra of similarly exposed penises, switchblade open its spines, and lodge there until extracted through surgery.

After a while, though, my fears subsided and I was able to devote my naked luxuriating thoughts to less terrifying and more land-based concerns, namely, what the hell do I want to do with my Substack page?

I initially earned my chops by writing about supplements and nutrition for bodybuilders, athletes, and the occasional health-minded person on the site I co-founded about 25 years ago (Testosterone Nation, aka T-Nation).

I’d use my science background to read the living hell out of a wide range of scientific studies and use their findings, coupled with my personal experiences and knowledge, to convey info that might be useful for readers.

I didn’t/don’t have a PhD, though, but that’s an advantage in my mind because unlike PhDs, I was (and am) unfettered by their “code”.

What I mean by that is people from academia are pretty much restricted from topping off their research papers with anything coming close to advice or that smells even remotely of an opinion. They look at the results of their study and regardless of how obvious a conclusion might be, they’ll simply say “more research is needed.”

To do otherwise would cause their outraged colleagues to march them naked down the halls of academia and hurl lab-animal excrement at them while repeatedly shouting Shame! until the scientific miscreant staggered over into the Red Keep and fell into the comforting arms of the transmogrified Gregor Clegane.

But me? I dare to make sometimes Grand Canyon-esque deductive leaps, but not casually or irresponsibly. I can comfortably say I only pass on info that, in almost all cases, I’ve heavily researched and personally adopted or tried.

I’ll give you an example. Let’s say scientists from the Ashtabula Institute of Higher Poodle Learning took 100 black poodles and gave them each 500 mg. of supplemental riboflavin every day for 6 weeks. Maybe the scientists found that after 6 weeks of riboflavin supplementation, the fur of all the poodles straightened out so they looked more like Afghans, or maybe some of those Kardashian sisters.

The scientists would say more research was needed, but me? I’d flat out say that it looks like supplemental riboflavin appears to straighten out the fur of most black poodles, but not necessarily white or brown poodles. The latter categories would indeed require further studies.

I built a pretty sizeable following by doing that kind of thing (although not usually about poodles). Many of my articles got 50 to 100,000 reads in the first 24 hours, which is Internet paydirt.

BUT I also wrote essays, many of which had nothing to do with health or nutrition. Most often they were about masculinity, or male sexuality, and a lot of them often cha-cha’d the fine line between profound and ribald.

But I liked writing them and they too were popular. And of course, I also liked writing the science stuff.

I’m like a literary version of a hot fudge sundae. To a hypothetical person who’d never seen a hot fudge sundae before, they might first think they were digging into some sort of peanutty/maraschino cherry dish, only to then discover, holy shit!, there’s something else down here! It’s a layer of whipped cream. Further digging would reveal ice cream! Holy moly!

But by writing about articles that only fall into one genre, i.e., nutrition, I’m a fudge sundae made only of peanuts, which isn’t much of a sundae at all. At best, that’s peanut brittle and at worst, one of those small bags of peanuts the airlines used to hand out and causes the occasional kid’s face to blow up like that puffer fish I saw swim by my naked floatiness last week.

And that brings me to my quandary: What the hell do you, my small but growing audience, want to read from me? Unlike before, I don’t know who you are anymore. Are you health nuts? Longevity freaks? Athletes? Chiropodists? Florists? Does ya’ like to laugh, Bunky?

Moreover, will you accept it when I call the occasional audible and change the “play”? Can you handle it when the topic turns to sex? Do you mind the sometimes-obscure cultural references that you might, if you give a damn, have to look up?

Tell me. Tell me in the comments section below, please.

This is sort of like me asking you if it’s okay if I take out your sister, so yeah, I promise to be a gentleman. I’ll take her out to a nice, romantic place to eat. I’ll even carry her tray for her.

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