i DIED LAST NIGHT! or You're STILL Wrong, Mykel's February 2025 Blog/Column

 

I DIED LAST NIGHT!, or You're STILL Wrong, Mykel's February 2025 Blog/Column

 

You’re STILL Wrong
Mykel's

January 2025 Blog/Column

BANG! YOU'RE DEAD!

I didn't realize it, but the days came along one after another, and then two years were gone, and everything was gone, and I was gone.
                                            -- F. Scott Fitzgerald

What I can’t understand is the selfishness! Those of you who want to die and take your whole lives doing it.
                                            --Edward Albee

The world may be strange to a child, but he does not fear it the way a man fears it. He marvels at it, but the grown man mainly dreads it. And why? Because of death.                     
                                            --Saul Bellow

But he found the men of the world all engrossed in the quest for profit or fame, there was not one who had any care for the end in store for him. 
                                                -- Wu Cheng’ en

I died last night at exactly 12:04 AM. It was a peaceful death… well not peaceful, but not unpleasant. I know the time because I was laying down… my WZRD shotglass empty on the low table next to the bed… just drained of a pour of Jim Beam.

Now it’s time to do that thing that most guys do to help getting to sleep. My laptop on my stomach… my browser tuned to xvideos… Ah, here’s a good one: Two Boys and a Girl: First Time For All. I click on it. Oh yeah, if they’re 18, I’m a twink.

My fist around my protrusion, I stare at the screen. It’s just the way I like it. Girl on her back on the bed. Blond boy lying on top, inserted balls deep. On his back is the brunette guy, inserted balls deep into the blond guy.

My eyes dance over the screen. I especially like to focus on the faces. You know that Andy Warhol movie Blow Job? That’s the kind of entertainment I… My eyes dart to that little clock in the corner of the screen. It’s 12:03 AM.,, right time to fall asleep. But there’s something wrong… or at least different. I have a headache… really bad.

I think about my hand. I can’t feel anything. Yeah, I’m not a large guy… but NOTHING? There’s an emptiness between my legs… Actually, I can’t feel anything at all. Not the organ in my fist... not the computer on my belly… not the bed underneath me.

I look back at the screen and there’s nothing there… not a blank screen, but nothing at all. I remember I had a headache, but now there’s nothing. It suddenly occurs to me that I must be dead. A stroke, I guess.

All the stories I’ve read, told by dying people saved just before they’re completely gone… They talk about rising up… going through a tunnel with a bright light at the end… flying toward the light. There is none of that for me.

No tunnel. No floating. No flying. I do move, but it’s more like teleportation… Beam Me Up, Scotty… than flying. Suddenly, I’m in a white room. Standing naked on a white tile floor. Clouds of something white form and dissolve around me. Gradually the forms solidify, like when the transporter puts Captain Kirk back together… molecule by molecule. As they take shape, I can see all my heroes –at least the dead ones– form as complete figures… not naked… in the room around me. There’s Celine, mustached… arching eyebrows… just standing, arms limply at his side. Bella Abzug… yes, wearing a hat… the bellicose one now silently standing with her arms folded over her chest. Stiv Bators, with his thin weasel-like face squished into one of his typical Stiv Bators stage antics. Oh look, over there… smirking in the corner, a cigarette burning in his developing hand… Yes, it’s William Burroughs!

I turn around and around, watching new people appear… each seems oblivious to the others in the room… and to the naked me watching it all from someplace near the middle. Thurman Munson and Phil Rizzuto… right next to each other, seemingly unaware. Barry Goldwater and Jimmy Carter… this time at opposite sides of the room. Marcel Duchamp and Frida Kahlo and more heroes than I knew I had.

I wonder if I can talk to these people. All of them are dead. The only one I’ve ever spoken to in real life is Stiv Bators and we didn’t say all that much to each other. Gradually, I lose my uneasiness at being nude. I walk up to Celine, deciding the best way to start a conversation is with a compliment. I’m going to tell him that he was the greatest writer who ever lived… or died.

I walk up to him, not feeling the floor against my bare feet. I’m behind him now. I reach out to tap him on the shoulder. But he’s not there. None of them are there. The room… the whiteness… the clouds… the people… nothing. I’m still naked, but now I’m outside… in what looks like a forest… or at least a very large public park or some other wilderness. I look down and under my bare feet are leaves… nothing but leaves.

Otto Kentrol once told me he could tell the name of a tree just by looking at it. An oak, a birch, an elm… anything. The shape of the tree... the leaves... the way the branches hang. KERCHOW! He could tell you what kind of tree it was… an awe-inspiring skill.

Me? In Hicksville, we had a weeping willow in the backyard. I think I’d know one if I saw it again. I probably could tell a giant redwood if a car drove through a tunnel in the trunk. But that’s about it. Here, I know nothing. It’s a like a painting… filled with greens and browns and a burst of red here and there. The sky is blue… skyblue like the skies they get in Texas sometimes. And trees… lots of trees. I can’t tell one from the other.

I wonder if I can time travel as well as travel from one place to another. After all there are fewer than 10 billion people alive on earth. But there must be zillions of dead people here in heaven. Living people go through a cycle: birth, life, death. The same for everyone, although to varying degrees.

Time exists as a marker between birth and death. You get older. Some people die. Other people are born. Time is how you keep track. But if there is no birth or life… only an eternal death, then there is no time. Moving to the past or present is meaningless.

I’m distracted from these thoughts by the cold wet splash of semen on my naked feet. It’s my own semen, of course, still leaking from my continued harditude. Strange that it is the only thing I’m able to feel.

I’m off again… not flying, just transporting… new place. Another woods-like area but here is a little clearing with a tree in the middle. Despite my usual inability to distinguish trees, I understand that this is an apple tree. The apples growing from the branches are the best clue.

I have no feeling of hunger, but I can imagine the taste of an apple and have half an urge to experience it. I reach for the red fruit.

There is a rustling next to me. And I see a young woman… also naked… the first other naked person I’ve seen since my death.

And she’s a WOW! Short dark hair… in a dykish crew cut, breasts risen, tight, two handfuls. A face that could be in a K-Pop boy band.

I feel a stirring between my legs. Something that I haven’t felt for a year. Even alive… after my prostate radiation… I never got the sense… but here it is… heavenly.

She looks my way.

Wow!

It’s impossible to imagine. When I was alive, I was a believer. Too many things go wrong for there not to be a God. Not to mention, she kills everyone who ever lives. And just think of how miserable life is for so many people… you and me. You think that’s an accident? Only a God… an evil God could be responsible for that horror.

But, until now, I didn’t believe in heaven or hell. I thought once you kicked the bucket, it was all over. Like a dreamless sleep you never wake up from.

The naked young woman reaches to my dripping organ and fondles it. It throbs. Has the dripping stopped? I’m not sure. She kneels in front of me then takes me into her mouth.

“Whatever the case,” I tell her. “I sure didn’t expect heaven to be like this.”

“Heaven?” she laughs, speaking around my fullness. “Heaven? That’s where you think you are?” She laughs again.

Then she bites down… hard. This time I feel it.

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]

→ Explanation Dept: As this is February, you might have guessed this was not my annual APRIL FOOLS’ column. It was an experiment… a trial at a new way of writing… a new form… something new… like a Beatles Album. Maybe I should dedicate it to the spirit of David Lynch. He must be ghosting around the cosmos now.
    Comments are welcome. It’s a first attempt at an alternate reality (I think that’s what they call it) non-political blogpost. I’m trying to combine a few genres here. Let me know if it’s a hit or a miss… or a near hit or near miss. Thanks.

→Kenya: By the time you read this I’ll probably be in Kenya. It’ll be my first trip to East Africa. I start in Nairobi, which my Lonely Planet Guide tells me is known as Nairobbery by the locals. Whatever happens, it’ll be an adventure. I might even die there. Contact me if you have any Kenyan connections, the more the merrier. By the way, there may be no March blog this year. I’ll be too busy going native.

→Speaking of Kenya dept: MSN reports that a giant metal ring fell from the sky onto earth in a small Kenyan village. The space ring weighs over a ton. Its origins are unknown.. and just listed as “somewhere in outer space.” Here’s a picture of it:

TIME TO READ THIS AGAIN!!

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.

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 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.

Also on bandcamp: My very long time faves in NYC, the BLACKOUT SHOPPERS. Featuring pals Seth and failed vice-president of the US candidate, Charles Bukkake

And a terrific performance piece from Sid Yiddish and his Candy Store Henchmen, with some special guest stars you might recognize. All for WZRD radio.

And this sounds right up Sid’s alley. The Bilderberg Jazz Arkestra on Bandcamp! They wrote to me.

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.

And for a quiet smile and a much needed break for you and the dog, try G.C. Adams’ YouTube entry.

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!

Margaret O’Brien asked me to include the site: anti-war.com They seem to be folks after my own heart.

Jennifer Blowdryer has just come out with a great book called Music A-Z. Anybody who’s ever played in a band will be able to relate to the drug-addled club rip-off people here. You can order it here… directly from the publisher.

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

BANG! YOU'RE DEAD!, or You're STILL Wrong, Mykel's January 2025 Blog/Column

 

You’re STILL Wrong
Mykel's

January 2025 Blog/Column

BANG! YOU'RE DEAD!

Waaaa! That fuckin’baby. Every morning… 8 o’clock… sometimes before. Waaaaa! Right next door. And all mom can do is try to shush him… doesn’t work. WAAAAA! Wow, worse than usual. When I moved in here, Laticia, aka Mom had a husband/boyfriend who knows? Name: Jimmy. Black and white pair… him white… truck-driver lookin. Her black slim… sexy. I haven’t seen him in months… ever since the uterine ways of intimacy started taking hold… and Leticia’s shape began to change.

WAAAAAAA! This seems serious. I hope the kid isn’t sick or something. I know babies do that. Eeeeee! The waaaa has changed... more of a scream than a baby cry.

Not good.

I get up, dress and go out into the hall... stand in front of her door… press my ear against it. There’s a low murmur… man’s voice but my punkrock-wrecked hearing keeps me from understanding the words. Besides the baby screams and man’s mumbling, I hear what sounds like a woman’s gasping voice… as if she were thrown off a boat into cold water.

I try the doorknob, turning it bit by bit... not wanting to invade someone else’s personal space, but not wanting to stand by if someone’s in danger.

Fully turned, I push against the door. It opens squeaklessly. I tiptoe into their apartment.

I know the hall door opens into the kitchen. On the other side of the kitchen is the living room. In front of me, I see a silhouette. Big, standing straight up. I watch from the back. I can see his right arm move. Making some kind of motion in front of him. His left arm is invisible to me, as if he were holding it still ...across his chest. Looks like Billy from what I remember.

On the kitchen table is a roasted chicken. Next to it, a carving knife… no grease on it… looks unused for the day. Only one place is set. I guess Billy was a surprise.

Playing like those guys on TV, I reach quietly for the knife and hug the wall inside the kitchen. I hope that makes me invisible to the other room. It always works on TV.

From this angle, I can see a little more of what’s going on. Leticia is by the couch, her eyes fixed on Billy’s left hand. In that hand is the baby. Billy holds the naked kid (apparently a girl) by the ankles. He can hold both her ankles in one big hand. The other hand holds a knife… not a kitchen knife, but a kind of boy scout knife… one of those with lots of blades and maybe a corkscrew.

Leticia is crying. Shaking her head no. Billy raises the knife in his right hand. PICHUNG! He pokes the baby with the knife… in front of her left thigh. Leticia whimpers. PUTUU PUTUU a double poke, this one higher up, in the baby’s side. The kid screams. Leticia chokes back a scream of her own.

I bring my forefinger to my lips in a shushing motion and peak around the living room entrance. Our (mine and Leticia’s) eyes meet briefly. She nods almost imperceptibly. Like a ninja, sideways step by sideways step, I position myself in back of the guy… who is indeed Billy. He’s intent on the baby… whose blood drips… drop-by-drop... onto the coffee table. He doesn’t see me.

Judging where his kidneys should be I lean the full weight of my body in back of the knife as I plunge it in. Billy freezes –eyes wide– more in surprise than in pain. Leticia runs and grabs the baby, pulling it from Billy’s weakening grip. Billy slowly sinks to the floor.

FLASHBACK: The year: 1966. The place: Austin Texas. I’m in Austin looking for colleges I should apply to after I graduate Hicksville High. It’s my first time in Texas. I like it. Friendly cowboys, great barbecue, great Mexican food. We don’t have one Mexican restaurant in Hicksville-- not even a Taco Bell. I’m here to talk to the dean and get a feeling for student life. One thing that surprises me is how many guns people have. I’ve never touched a real gun, let alone shot one. But here I am, in the land of guns.

I’m thinking about this as I walk through the UT campus. Then I hear a POP! It’s not a PITCHEW... like bullets on TV, but just one pop… like a fire cracker. Then another… and another. A few feet ahead of me a student just collapses… a stream of blood pours from the side of his head against the sidewalk.

There is a scream. Off to the left, another walking body drops to the ground… motionless. I feel a scream choke in my own throat. I run… I don’t know where or how… but I run… I bang on a door… It’s a very college looking building, gray bricks arched doors, no ivy though.

The door is locked. I picture students huddling inside. Where are their guns? Why doesn’t someone go and kill this guy? Save lives!

Then I see the tower… little puffs of smoke: POP! POP! POP! That’s where the shooting is from,,, perfect view… and aim… of the whole university.

Now I hear sirens… faint in the background… then louder and louder. More and more. Cops… in body armor… pulling up around the university tower. I was right. THAT’S where he (she?) is!

Crouching behind a low wall, I look at that tower. Those smoke puffs... at first, from the top, then all up and down the structure. POW! POW! POWPOWPOW! Like a shootout on a TV cowboy movie. Then silence. 32 people murdered by the guy… in the land of guns. Only the cops would murder him. They do.

FLASH TO 1775… even before I was born. People in the American colonies were getting annoyed at the actions of their colonizers. In Boston, the Brits shot into a crowd of protesting Yanks. A bunch were killed. In Concord the Brits set up camp and the Yanks attacked. It was the shot heard round the world. The colonists murdered 3 soldiers and the American Revolution began. The rest is history. And I think you know who won.

FLASH TO 2026… It’s my first time driving since the COVID plague. It’s been 3 years since I’ve been behind the wheel of a car. It feels soooo comfortable. I’m in control… this tonnage (Hertz Rental) with its double loop logo… I’d never have guessed it was a T if Sid hadn’t told me. To me, it looks like a halo over the monster in Scream. 

But I’m rolling along. Going with the flow of traffic. Passing the girls and other bad drivers… moving over to the left lane, trying to make time. FUCK! There’s a lady driver, hogging the left lane, going the speed limit… maybe a few miles below. I can’t pass her because the next lane is moving too fast. If I pull over I’ll be hit.

She’s driving a Hyundai… pronounced Hon-day in America… sound of the original Korean name changed to make it more like “Honda” I’ve got REAL Japanese quality. She’s got a knock-off.

I flash my lights… no reaction. I honk. The driver’s side window rolls down. Out comes a nail-polished hand with a raised middle finger. That does it.

I speed up. Ride her bumper… Touch it with my bumper… back off… then touch it again... this time a little harder. I can see her looking back at me. She’s pretty. Probably a just-post teenager. I pucker my lips… blow her a kiss. Then bang my Toyota into her Hyundai. I can see a light dent in her bumper. She turns back to look at me… tries to turn the wheel to move right. No luck.

I pull my car to the right slightly and again slam into her car. This time: full force. I catch the back right corner of the Hyundai, lifting it off the ground. Quickly, I increase my speed. Her car flips… tumbles side over side onto the asphalt. All traffic pulls to the right. In my rear-view mirror, I see what looks like half a woman’s body half out of the window, laying on the blood-spattered grass.

FLASH TO December 4, 2024:

An attractive young man hangs around the NYC Hilton Hotel at 5:41AM. There are few other people on the street. So he’s easy to spot.

At 6:17 a.m., the young man goes to a Starbucks near the hotel. He pays cash for his frappuccino… always a suspicious sign. At 6:30 the young man walks toward the Hilton from Starbucks, while speaking on a cellphone. Ten minutes later, he arrives at the hotel-- not the Hilton, but one right across the street 

At 6:45 the CEO of United Healthcare walks out of his hotel and heads down the street. The young man follows him, takes a position behind him, aims and shoots him in the leg… next shot the back. The executive slumps to the sidewalk. 

NEWS REPORT: UnitedHealthcare CEO, Brian Thompson, is shot dead at 6:46 a.m. Police say the suspect ran into the alley between West 54th and 5th streets, then rode a bike up Sixth Avenue to Central Park.

In the days and weeks that follow the murder, the internet is ablaze with real pix and doctored photos of the young man, Luigi Mangione… now known affectionately as Super Mario. Networks are shocked at the response.

Joseph G... one of my long-term friends.. but someone I rarely see these days… posted that “the man (the UHC exec) was married with two children. Now those children have no father.”

In the dialog that followed, one person wrote Murder is always wrong... and another one: Here’s the exact quote: I had never heard of Brian Thompson before today, and it’s entirely possible that he made some bad decisions. It is not possible that he deserved to be murdered, because nobody deserves to be murdered

Sentiments like this inspired this blog post. While my murder of the left-lane hogger was clearly wrong. Was my murder of Billy to save his baby also wrong? Did Charles Whitman deserve to be murdered by police to save so many students at UT? Were the American rebels’ murder of British soldiers... after they had killed Crispus Attucks and others in the colonies... also wrong? How many revolutions were started with a murder… or a few murders? How many with revenge for a murder… or protection from further murders? 

How many heroes are also murderers... .yet even idols:

See you in hell
(or Nairobi… the latter being much more congenial than the former),
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]

--> It won't end dept: As I was preparing to post this I got word of the truck attack in New Orleans. I am close to that city and several people there. I care about their safety. I don't want to talk about my political feelings about the attack, just to wish the best possible to the people of New Orleans.

→ Thanks dept: That great picture of Mangione was stolen from Bruce LaBruce via Instgram. If you don’t know his movies, zines, and other stuff… you should.

→ A Shitty Story Dept: My pal Sid Yiddish forwarded me this story about two guys who were batshit crazy about growing weed. I’m tellin’ ya. Danger lurks in every corner these days. Be careful of going too organic.

-→Another Point of View: One I almost agree with is Michael Moore’s response to Mangione. You can read it here and make up your own mind.

–> Full-disclosure Dept: My health insurance company is United Healthcare. And the rates went up this year. In an all-too typical exchange, an eye infection prompted my Primary Care Physician to recommend going to the hospital emergency dept. I told him I couldn’t afford emergency care and went to see the company my eye-doctor belongs to. My regular guy wasn’t there, but another doctor took care of me for a “co-pay” of “only” $45. Next year it’ll be $50. The emergency room would have cost me hundreds.

See you in hell redux,
MB

LINK TRADE DEPARTMENT:

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.

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 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.

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 posted a great video of a show he did on WZRD radio in Chicago. Guess who was a guest on that show!

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.

And for a quiet smile and a much needed break for you and the dog, try G.C. Adams’ YouTube entry.

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, Margaret O’Brian 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

BOING! or Mykel's December 2024 Blog: YOU'RE STILL WRONG

 

BOING! or Mykel's December 2024 Blog: YOU'RE STILL WRONG

You’re STILL Wrong
Mykel's

December 2024 Blog/Column

BOING!

Satori is a brief flash. Suddenly the light breaks through. For a short timeless time we experience eternity in its unmanifest form.  
                                                                                      – Frederick Lenz

Sometimes a revelation comes with a flash of heavenly light and a booming voice and sometimes it is jotted in a sun-bleached spiral notebook.
                                                                                    -- Jeffrey A. Lockwood

I don’t know how I missed it… must be a new one. At least a dozen people.... in the middle is a guy… early twenties… shirtless… barefoot… in jeans… five people around him. Running their hands over his body… up... down… across his chest… stopping to caress a nipple… watch it harden. Another two pairs of hands between his legs… one pair around his calf, the other higher… on the inside of his thigh… higher… moving toward action central. A hand moves up... strokes his fly… the bulge behind the hand becomes bulgier. The fingers of that hand fiddle at the top of the zipper… slowly slide it down… move back up to the metal button at the top of his jeans… The other pair of hands reach up hook over the waistband… pull down… pants and underpants together… moving slowly… until BOING! Up it pops, now revealed… hard and ready for action. Me? My action is spent, and needs a bit of cleaning up.

That’s what I want to write about this month. That BOING moment. The instant that gets me off. In American haiku and Japanese zen they refer to the Aha Moment. Christians call it an epiphany. The Buddhists say satori. It’s a second… or sliver of a second… where you realize something or think in a way you’ve never thought before… a kind of revelation.

I’ve had several in my life… but all too often I let them go and though I learn from the moments, I lose the experience… the thrill… the fun of that second. Part of the problem is not recording the moment… not putting virtual ink to virtual paper and training my muscle memory to use what I’ve just discovered.

In porn, BOING moments appear in every decent segment. I shout BOING from the bed just as it happens… that flip of the flesh baton… and often relieve myself exactly then. But, even without orgasm, those moments in everyday life change me… sometimes giving me insight… understanding… that I’ve never had before.

FLASH TO THE PLATFORM OF THE 6 TRAIN… UPTOWN TRACK. As a New Yorker, I know enough that the end cars are the emptiest and the middle cars are the fullest. During the crowded day time, I stand at the end of the platform, knowing that I’ll likely get a seat. At night, I stand in the middle of the platform, knowing in the fuller car that stops there, I’ll be much less likely to be mugged.

It’s about 4:30 in the afternoon... peak of pre-rush hour traffic. As I go down the stairs, I see that the train is already at the platform. I run to the front… the first car... where the engineer sits. Today, that engineer leans out his window as I stand in front of him. I can see that that car is nearly empty. I lift my leg to step in.

“You may want to move to another car,” says the engineer.

“Thanks, but this is fine for me,” I answer.

He shrugs as I step inside.

I take a seat by engineer’s compartment and look around at the nearly empty car. Sitting on the other end of the car is a naked man. A black guy… late 20s… early 30s. Sitting on a narrow seat. Good parts hidden between his legs… no BOING moment here. A few other people sit singly around the car. No one is talking… or even looking at anyone else.

STAND CLEAR OF THE CLOSING DOORS booms the voice over the loudspeaker. Just as the doors start to close, a white guy… truck-driver type... pries them apart and enters the car. He takes a seat at the end of one of the long benches against the train wall. The doors do not close, but open fully and we sit there. The white guy… shaved head, some kind of working class work clothes… stands up and stands right in front of the naked guy. He shouts at him… gestures… points his finger.

The naked guy takes a pair of gray sweatpants from the seat next to him… slips into them. The white guy continues his harangue. The now not-quite-naked guy stands and shouts back. My punkrock-wrecked hearing prevents me from understanding the words exchanged. All I can tell is that the semi-naked man is losing his patience and begins to stomp around the car. My cheek muscles tense in ever-growing fear.

The bald white guy continues his barrage of words… but slowly backs away from the now-shouting-no-longer-naked guy. I stand and head for the still open doors. The few other passengers in the car do the same. We leave and walk into the next car where a few seats remain… not empty, but with room to squeeze in.

I squeeze into a narrow space forcing the man-spreading guy next to me into a more closed-knees position. Finally, the doors shut and the train chugs north to Astor Place. A respectable-looking… lightish skinned black guy with a gray goatee... sits across from me and says something. I cup my hand behind my ear in the universal sign for HUH? He speaks louder, tilting his head to indicate the car we just left.

“That’s why I voted for Donald Trump!” He says with the verbal exclamation mark clear at the end of his sentence.

BOING!

FLASH TO UNINTENTION: I had planned to avoid politics in this post. But in order to get that BOING, I have to bring them into the mix. First some history: My analysis of the election went something like this:

There were two sides in the election. One side was a radical group of outsiders... extreme and unafraid to express that extremity. Aiming at Americans who were fed up… who wanted change… and wanted forcefulness and principles. The other side was a group of people with no principles… changing willy-nilly to fit what they perceived to be the mood of the audience. No ideas to offer except Vote for us because we’re not them.

The radicals won.

I still think that was largely true, but at this BOING moment I realize there’s more. Fear and anger… mostly stoked by the press… sometimes by real-life chaos… by a naked man in a subway car. People are angry. They don’t want more of the same… they don’t want wimpy here today changed tomorrow solutions. They want big changes NOW. Their fear needs a cure.

Get it Mykel? It’s not (only) a bunch of rebels who want the government to take money away from poor people, throw “aliens’’ into concentration camps, and keep women barefoot and pregnant. It’s ordinary people just fed up with what’s going on around them. It’s everyday folks with no ideology or political bent… but they want SOMETHING DONE. They want some control over their lives… or… if not control… they want stability. They want to be able to walk into a subway car and NOT find a naked man sitting there. They watch the news and see reports about some crazy guy stabbing strangers with a kitchen knife and they wonder who’s next.

The reasons for the Trump victory are many. We each like to frame it our own way. With the reasons we like substituting for the reasons that are. People voted for Trump to oppose abortion… whoops, most of the pro-abortion ballot initiatives PASSED. So that’s not it. People voted for Trump because they wouldn’t vote for a woman. Whoops, Trump’s key cabinet positions were given to women. And on and on.

Just wait for the BOING moment. Maybe you’ll learn. That grey-goateed man gave me mine.

Ah, here’s another BOING moment… and it involves a train. It happened a couple years ago, but the memory of it returned to me as I was talking with a couple Indians (red dot, not feather) at the Bleecker Street Bar. (Not on Bleecker Street, by the way.)

Maybe I wrote about this before, but it fits so well into this theme that I need to do it again. I’m in Mumbai. Staying with the friend of a friend. You’ve probably seen the pictures of Indian trains… people grab onto the outside of the train as it travels from place to place above ground…. Hanging off the car like Mardi Gras dancers hang off parade floats.

On either side of the doors on Indian trains there are metal poles… parallel to the doors… perfect for hanging on to once you’ve climbed up a step or two toward the doors. (In India, the trains… at least THESE trains… have doors that never shut.)

I’ve just walked to the station… shocked and pissed off at the way people on the street will push me out of the way in order to pass. I get so angry at being pushed, that I push back… once… but really hard. One guy nearly falls to the sidewalk. Boy, did I feel good. That’ll teach him a lesson.

Back at the station… the train pulls in. After a few people enter the car, I jump up… on the second step… grab ahold of the poles… lean back and prepare for the ride… but whoa… the poles are greasy… likely from the sweat of the hundreds of others who have grabbed onto it during earlier train journeys. I feel myself tilting back. Losing my grip falling backwards… likely head first onto the platform. Will I die in India? In Bombay? The train’s engine has started… it will move any second now… flinging me to the side.

Then I feel it. A pair of hands under my ribcage on the right side…. Another pair of hands holding tightly on the other side. The two sides working in tandem lift me into the air… completely off the trainsteps… suspended… shifted away from the train and set down… a whole Mykel Board… alive and well on the train platform. Heroically saved by two strangers who missed their train… two anonymous heroes. BOING!

Instant awareness. The gentle nudge out of the way comes from a crowd culture, and a fixation on time. But the people here… yes the people… the people are great… deserving of respect rather than a glare of hostility… They are ready in a moment to give up something for the benefit of a stranger. NOW I get it.

One more… It must’ve been a quarter of a century ago… or more. My father then was my age now. Like mine now, his body was starting to fall apart. He, like me, was post-prostate and not enjoying it.

“Mickey,” he says to me, “I just don’t get it… the piss urge. I can walk around all day… drink a beer… or two. No problem. But as soon as I get within a football field of home… I can’t hold it. Psssshhhhh. Blam! I just have to let go.”

“But Dad,” I say. “You know that means it’s psychological. If the urge hits hard when you near a familiar crapper… you know the urge comes from your head, not your bladder.”

“Tell that to the Depends,” says Dad.

BOING! Just knowing that something… pain or piss-urge… is psychological, doesn’t make it hurt less or the urge less urgent.

My 50-year old self never realized that. I figured that once you know that something is psychological… I mean really know and believe it… then you have control over it. BOING! THAT’S WRONG. All those medical tests… with control groups. They’re just wrong. Scientists call it The Placebo Effect and in most medical tests… BOTH the placebo group and the “real medicine” group get better. Just because something is “only” in your mind doesn’t make it any less authentic than if it lies in the scar tissue of your prostate.

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]

–> Pet Peeve Dept.: CNN reports that shit frequency affects general health… or responds to general health. But that’s not what I want to talk about. I want to talk POOP! Since when did that baby-word come into general (and medical!) use? Feces and defecate I can put up with… they sound medical… and shit is shit. But when mainstream news organizations start using baby talk to avoid taboos… It just makes me want to pee pee on them.

→ BOING! Pee Dept: No, Boing Pee is not a city in China. It’s one of those ahah! Moments discovered by travel writer, Rick Steves. He talks about post-prostate incontinence as a way to understanding. His view is different from Dad’s. For him, it wasn’t understanding the psychological vs the actual medical problem… For him, it was about understanding women. We all know that the girls gotta go… and they worry about laugh-pissing, cough-pissing, fart-pissing… Things that boys never think of… unless it happens to them. I never before thought about what it must be like.

→ Kenya Contacts Wanted: I finally bought my tickets. I’ll be going to Kenya via London in Feb-March of next year. Stay tuned here for reports. Right now, I’m looking for contacts and info about Kenya. I can’t find one Kenyan restaurant in New York City! I don’t even know what Kenyan food is like. I’m trying to learn a little Swahili. When I was in my 20s and had a memory and the ability to hear stuff, I could pick up languages like a dog owner picks up dog poo. Those skill are gone. In my experience, Africans are the best in the world at language. Most Africans I know can speak three languages (trade language, colonial language and local tribal language) before they sprout pubic hair. So, I should be able to get by in English.. but I don’t want to. Nimejaribu angalau Kiswahili kidogo. If you have any Kenyan connections, please connect me. Give my email address freely to any Kenyan you might know. mykelboard@gmail.com. I hope I can hold it until I get to the airport.

LINK TRADE DEPARTMENT:

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.

Here's a start:

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’Brian 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. mykelboard@gmail.com