Mykel's Other Blog

(MRR 344) Mykel Board explains Steve Jobs is better dead than Maumar Qadaffi is

2012-01-07T21:39:00.000-05:00

f you want to read more about Mykel's adventures in Albania, The US South-- or life in General-- check out Mykel's Diary For a look at the weird, the scary and the funny in real life, check out Mykel's Article's and Propositions.

You're Wrong
An Irregular Column
Column for MRR 344
January 2012

by Mykel Board

aka Mykel explains why he's happier that Steve Jobs kicked the bucket, than he is that Moumar Qadaffi did.

“Nobody reads anymore” --Steve Jobs

I write these columns a long time before you read them. Today is October 24^th, 2011. For Jews, it's 5773. Yom Kippur... the day of atonement... no food or water for 24 hours... a concentrated Jewish Ramadan... has just passed.

As I write this, a few of the most exciting weeks in history have also just past. Occupy Wall Street started and spread around the world. Steve Jobs died of liver cancer. Muammar Gaddafi (the name with a thousand spellings) died at the hands of US aided Libyans. Can I put all this in one column? Do I have anything to say about it that hasn't been said before?

You bet I can. You bet I do.

PART 1: Considering what's been going on in Israel for the past 40+ years, I never thought I'd be supporting an occupation. But this WALL STREET stuff is inspiring. And it's more inspiring because so many people JUST DON'T GET IT.

I visit the site for an Occupy Wall Street Yom Kippur service. I've arrived early to check out the other occupiers. The park is a punkhouse turned inside-out. Paths with free food (I avoid it because FOOD NOT BOMBS, whose nauseating fare has converted thousands of vegetarians to carnivorism, has probably provided the food), free clothes (I avoid them because of the bedbug scare), free sex (yeah, right). Key point: people GIVE AWAY stuff. They don't sell it. Posters, silk-screened t-shirts... give it away. Free.

On the propaganda front, there are leaflets and signs... stuff about Israel, the mid-East wars, the bank bailouts, and human consciousness... as many anti-Obama as anti-anything else. (After all, it WAS Obama who bailed out the banks.) Everything is permitted.

An old bearded fat guy sits on a wall. He looks familiar.

“Aron?” I ask.

He nods.

“Mykel Board,” I say re-introducing myself.

“I remember you,” he sprays into my face.

It is indeed Aron Kay, the famous 70s pie-thrower and Yippie who hit Andy Warhol, G. Gordon Liddy, and Phyllis Schlafly among others. Once a folk hero, now he's almost forgotten. Not by me.

There's more to see... to report... too much for this column.

Besides, I have to get back across Broadway in time for Yom Kippur services.

And through the magic of print... BANG! I'm there.

Someone hands me a prayer book. Free.

I see that the books have been donated by Congregation Beth Simchas Torah... the homogogue I usually go to for this holiday. We pass them around to new comers.

There are about 1000 of us Jews here. Makes and models range from men with curly sideburns to men in dresses. Ages 6 to 80 or older... mohawks to white shirts to Aron Kay. Our purpose? Support the occupiers... of Wall Street, not Palestine... and celebrate Judaism's holiest day.

Electric amplification is prohibited in the occupied territories. It would give the cops a chance to bust us. The rabbi speaks loudly.

He starts the service. “We start with the blessing on page 32,” he says.

“WE START WITH THE BLESSING ON PAGE 32,” shouts the crowd closest to him... human amplifiers who pass the word on to the rest.

As the rabbi continues, the crowd repeats the prayers and chants... making a human PA system. It lasts the full two hours of the service.

As I wrote in the beginning of this column, Yom Kippur is a “Day of Atonement.” Jews ask forgiveness for all the bad stuff we've done during the year. Here, the rabbi asks us to volunteer a promise of something we're sorry for and we resolve not to do the next year. He starts.

“I will take all my money out of the Bank of America,” he says.

Someone else stands up, “I won't continue to let Jews blindly defend Israel until there's really a Palestine.”

Another person, “I will visit my friends in the hospital, even if it's inconvenient for me.”

There are dozens: Political, personal, humorous, serious, and dumb,(“I will not drink orange juice right after brushing my teeth.”)... just like the signs and leaflets across the street at the occupation.

FAST FORWARD: Later in the week, I read that professional liberal, Susan Sarandon, visited the Wall Street site and complained that the participants “lack focus.” Others have said the occupiers have “no issue”... “no clear-cut plan.” “They're just a bunch of dreamers.”

I say, YEAH! All that!

When Aron Kay... and I... were in the Yippies, we had three demands. 1. An end to the war in Vietnam. 2. No more pay toilets in New York City. 3. Mass ecstasy.

The Wall Street Occupation is like that. Anyone can join. Your dream is their demand. Focus shmocus. The sky's the limit. It's your chance to show what you really want. Fuck possibility. Fuck practicality. That stuff is for politicians, not dreamers. Occupiers ARE dreamers... and that's a great thing.

How 'bout: 1. Pull out the troops from Iraq, Afghanistan, and everywhere else. 2. Re-regulate the banks. 3. End capitalism

Sound good? At least for starters. What's your dream?

PART 2: Why I'm happier about a dead Steve Jobs than I am about a dead Muammar Kadafi.

STEVE JOBS, glad he's dead:

1. He was a corporate shmuck just like any other corporate shmuck. Yet, somehow, he could trick a generation of anti-corporaters into loving him.

2. He helped kill real human interaction. Go out with anyone today and you're lucky if you can get two words in between the texting, cellphone answering, facebooking, app-hell created by the iPhone.

It used to be, when you left home or left work, you left that shit behind. Now it's with you all the time. Being with someone is never BEING WITH someone. It's being with someone and their i-connections to other people who are ignoring their live mates to check their i-tweets.

3. He helped wreck independent music. Felix Havoc's columns have been a great introduction to how Apple strangled independent music. Records, covers, vinyl, even CDs... They're all dead. If you don't distribute through iTunes, you won't be heard. Related to that is...

4. He wrecked music quality. The sampling rate for anything you get over the internet is much lower than the CD sampling rate, and much worse than analog vinyl quality. Subtleties are lost. Quality and LIVE sound is lost in the urge for “convenience.” People listen to iPods/iPhones for the same reason they eat at McDonalds. It's really easy. Shitty, but easy.

5. He blocked the city sidewalks. You can't walk down the street without rear-ending some idiot talking/texting/map-reading on an iPhone.

6. He made consumers out of producers. How many people still have blogs, or personal webpages? No one creates content anymore... except professional content creators. You don't need to make it. There's an APP for that. PLUS Apple killed porn apps, with censorship much worse than government censorship. With the government, you know it's there and you work around it. With i-Censor, you don't even know it's there.

7. He killed bar bets. You can't bet your friends that Dushanbe is the capital of Tajikistan. They can just look it up on their iPhones. The thrill of “finding out,” “looking up,” “discovery,” is gone. Now you just push a few icons. Why KNOW anything at all? You can find out with your iPhone.

8. He killed diversity. Go to an internet café and you'll see a sea of soft white apples blazing out of collective computers. It's a monopoly. A mind monopoly of anyone under 30. I said “mind,” but anyone with an APPLE anything is a zombie. Forget about mind.

MUAMMAR QADDAFI, sad he's dead:

1. Now the Obamites are gonna have to find someone else to go after. Another day, another target. It could be YOU! The Obama administration said it has the right to kill American citizens... without trial... if “they present a danger.” Details here.

2.TIME MAGAZINE, in its May 16, 2006 issue, had a feature story “Why Khadafy's Now a Good Guy.” In that article, Khadaffi talks about entering the league of nations and negotiating rather than destroying.

3. He was a leader in the African Unity movement against American, Chinese and Russian imperialism. In 2001, he hosted the inaugural meeting of the new African Union.

4.Women lived better under Khadaffi than in the Shiekdoms of America's friends the Saudis. Gadhafi was one of the few secular leaders in the Arab world. He did not believe in Islamic fundamentalism. In Libya, women have been able to go to school, join the army, and walk around with their faces hanging out.

5. Khadaffi was a natty dresser. Vanity Fair gave his clothes the thumbs up for innovative dressing. Sometimes he wore medallion military chic... dictator black. Sometimes, it was almost drag. He just didn't give a shit about Western fashion tastes. In other words, he was punkrock.

6. Khadaffi did not tax his citizens. Their housing, education, healthcare were all FREE. The leader built a huge water pipe across the desert to ensure water was in supply for all of his major cities, as well as irrigating the desert to give them food security. Free.

7. Under Khadaffi, Libya had the highest living standard in Africa. According to the Human Development Index, it ranked in the top third out of 172 countries in the world-- before NATO and Rebel interference

8. Ron Paul (wrong on everything domestic, right on (almost) everything foreign) wrote:

Momar Khaddafi was not the evil rogue portrayed by Western propaganda.

In fact, he was a hero. Qadhafi’s Gold Dinar Plan and Libya’s Public Central Bank would have changed the monetary system and freed all of Africa from the Private Central Bank System. Ultimately, it might possibly have freed the NATO host nations from their own parasites – Vampire Private Central Banks.

Qathafi’s courage and pioneering efforts in trying to restore national sovereignty and making the government responsible to the people instead of to the Global Banking Elites is the reason why he was targeted and killed.

NATO terrorist attacks will not get the Western nations out of debt – only an honest Public Central Bank – like the attempted Bank of Libya – would.

But guess what? With Gaddafi now out-of-the-way, the IMF and The World Bank have moved in to Libya, and have reestablished their control and dominance there. And (black man) Obama was the ringleader in the effort to reassert the impoverishment of Africa.

There will be no independence, and there will be no freedom. The only way for a Country to be Sovereign is to have sovereign control of its money.

9. All those ways to spell his name! Ah, that fun will be lost.

ENDNOTES: [email subscribers (god@mykelboard.com) or blog viewers (mykelsblog.blogspot.com/) will get live links and a chance to post comments on the column.]

-->Occupy this dept: According the the Washington Post, the top-earning 0.1 percent of Americans (average income $5.6 million a year) saw a 385% raise in their income since 1975. The bottom 90%... we lost ground.

-->Separation of mouth and brain dept: Speaker of the House, John Boehner, keeps saying the country is “broke” so Americans United for Separation of Church and State asks why he is determined to funnel $20 million in tax dollars to religious schools in Washington, D.C.
Boehner is attempting to railroad the re-authorization of a nasty school voucher “experiment” through the House.
Speaker Boehner says we’re broke and have to slash federal spending,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United. “Yet, he’s willing to throw $20 million at religious and other private schools.”

-->Great ideas dept: I'm waiting for the first all girl Lebanese punk band. I've been saving this name for you for the past few years. You're welcome to it. Just give me credit: LEZBOLLAH.

-->Speaking of punk rock dept: I've seen so many bands during the last month... hell, the last week... it's making my head spin. Tons of oldster still making punk... or doing it again. Former MRRers, FLY and JENNIFER BLOWDRYER, played on the same bill as COJOBA for Girls night at Otto's . Not long before that, I saw NOFX (thanks for the guestlist Mike!) with ANTIFLAG and cowpunkers OLD MAN MARKLEY. Wow!
And now, I'm still feeling the hangover (thanks Kenny) from last night's MEATMEN, BLACK FAG (check out the YouTube video if you don't know them.... Homo versions of B.F. songs), RUNNY and BEER AND CABLE... two bands you never heard of, both whose members are... er... not young... both among the best things to wreck my ears in MONTHS. Oh yeah, thanks Tesco for the great TOUCH AND GO book and the admission!

-->How 'bout some equality dept: The Oakland police force has shot into and seriously injured Occupiers in that city. One former Iraqi vet has brain damage from the attack. So we've got the government attacking its own people. Well, Mr Obama, how 'bout a NO-FLY zone over the East Bay? Or even better, send in the drones!

-->It's already working dept: As of today, you can already see the effects of Occupy Wall Street. Obama has publicly criticized the Bank of America for its ATM card fee AND (except for several thousand “advisers,”) announced the end of the war in Iraq. Newspapers may give other reasons, but don't ever doubt WE DID IT.

-end-

Mykel's not-quite-functioning homepage is at: www.mykelboard.com

(MRR 343) Mykel Board explains the difference between BEING and DOING

2011-12-09T07:53:00.000-05:00

If you want to read more about Mykel's adventures in Albania, The US South-- or life in General-- check out Mykel's Diary For a look at the weird, the scary and the funny in real life, check out Mykel's Article's and Propositions.

You're Wrong
An Irregular Column
Column for MRR 343
December 2011

by Mykel Board

aka Mykel explains the difference between doing and being

“A person's sexuality is so much more than one word “gay.” No one refers to anyone as just “hetero” because that doesn't say anything. Sexual identity is broader than a label.” --Gus Van Sant

Los Gallos me dan dinero. Las mujeres me lo quitan. “The cocks give me money. The women take it away.” It's written... white on brown... on the front of my hat... a baseball-style hat I bought in Mexico-- made in China... of course.

The hat is on my head. My head is on my neck. My neck is on my body, the ass of which is on a United Airlines seat. The seat is fastened to the inside of a Boing 737.

I write this in the air... over the hills of Kentucky, where, like in Mexico, you can go to cockfights if you want. I'm thinking about my own cock, which hasn't earned me money in over 35 years, but has cost me plenty-- not only from the women. I'm headed toward the detestable Phoenix. Then, the much better Tucson. Then, the heavenly Agua Prieta, Mexico.

I'm leaving behind hellish New York with its TV cameras on every street, ID checks in tall buildings, bag checks in the subway, and a new law that criminalizes attendance at a dog or cockfight.

You don't have to actually DO anything to violate the law. You just have to BE there. That's illegal.

Flash to scene one: Chickens... beaks clipped... five dozen squeezed together in an area smaller than my apartment. Wing-to-wing, feather-to-feather, unable to move, to stretch, to do anything other than lay eggs. When they can't do that anymore, WHAM! grab a leg, lay 'em down, ffffft, off comes the head. Do they die instantly? Oh no. The expression running around like a chicken with its head cut off didn't come from nowhere. They live, those suckers... heads twitching in a floor pile... bodies not dead... kicking... in unimaginable pain... until enough blood drips to the concrete floor to send them to hen heaven.

Not one second of painless life while alive. Even a horrible death must be a relief for them.

Flash to scene two: A concrete ring in a small enclosed stadium. Two trained cocks face off. They stare at each other like professional boxers. Eye to eye, heads bobbing like human boxers. A flutter of wings. Attack! One bird settles, digging its claws into the back or the other. Half flight, the bottom bird shakes off the top one, backs away. A thin trickle colors its feathers.

They face off... dive... half fly... flutter... each intent on defeating the other. It's cold and brave. These birds have balls.

I've seen them trained, these birds. I've seen the love and care their owners have for them. I've seen the tears shed at each death. Who lives better? The cocks or the chickens? Who dies better? Which is illegal?

Yeah, Cockfights... or dogfights... or bullfights... shouldn't be illegal. Cockfights are more humane and less painful than the day-to-day lives of America's billions of chickens. Dogfights? Hah! Those dogs live better than any of America's billions of cattle. Dogfights are illegal because people don't have pet cows. Cows aren't cute.

I've written enough making fun of vegetarians, but at least they have the integrity that most supporters of this law don't have. For vegetarians, cruelty hidden is the same as cruelty for sport. You gotta admire that.

That's all an aside... a tangent. What I really wanna write about is BEING vs DOING. I want to write about laws that criminalize EXISTENCE, in a place... at a time... like the NY law against BEING at an animal fight. You don't have to DO anything... just BE there, and it's illegal.

Right now, I'm on my way to the most notorious place that criminalizes BEING: Arizona. Uh oh! Mexican without a license. BEING born in another country is against the law. The idea that a person (rather than an action) is ILLEGAL should be repugnant to all those of non-genocidal persuasion.

America is famous for crimes without victims. Drug laws (possession) and porn laws (possession) are the most obvious. Can you tell me who is hurt if you POSSESS an internet file or a syringe of heroin? MAYBE you are hurt, but it's your choice. In any case, it's gonna hurt a lot less than getting butt-fucked by a murderous cellmate.

HAVING is a kind of BEING. The object you have is simply BEING owned by you. The means of getting it should, perhaps, be prohibited. But HAVING? It's as innocent as breathing.

I can't imagine a valid law prohibiting possession of ANYTHING. Stolen goods? Stealing already is against the law. Fair enough. Possession? No!

Your neighbor's head in a hatbox? Murder already is against the law. Your neighbor is just as dead with her head in your apartment as she is with her head in the dumpster outside.

Even having $36 billion, like the mayor of New York, shouldn't be illegal... though it should be controlled through taxes. The bankers who stole money from customers, who DID something by tricking-- or extorting-- people into giving them money, the DOING should be punished, not the HAVING. (Though, nobody HAS $36 billion dollars without DOING something bad to a whole lot of people.)

If it were legal to say it, I'd say Dick Cheny should be hung by the balls for setting up the torture in Guantanamo. (It probably is illegal to say that, so I won't.) But these are ACTIONS, not states of BEING or HAVING. He WAS vice-president... BFD. It's what he DID.

EEEEEE! SCREECH TO A STOP, Er. Er.. Er.. SWITCH GEARS

Sometimes people confuse BEING with DOING. Take “gay”... please! Of course homosex is a victimless act. It is no longer (in the US) a crime, and it shouldn't be. There's plenty of DOING that, like being, shouldn't be illegal. Most, in fact. But it's important to distinguish the two.

No one IS gay. It's not something you can BE? What does it mean to BE gay? Attracted to the “same” sex? Hah, every one is-- in one way or another. Having sexual contact with the “same” sex? Are all prisoners “gay?”

The idea that gay is BEING rather than DOING is part of a big problem. BEING gay is such a trap for a shitload of people. Guys begin to be attracted to other guys. They suddenly think “oh, I like the way he looks. I must BE gay.” Then suddenly their world changes.

Someone in Real Jock, the “gay health and fitness website,” asks, why do gay men like the same kind of music as 14 year old girls? The letters section of MRR fills with people explaining how “Emo” has become code for “gay.”

What does music have to do with the organs that enter your anus?

Glad you asked.

The answer, of course, should be NOTHING! It's only a connection if you think gay IS something... BEING something. Johnny who, though his crush on Aiden, thinks he IS gay, will suddenly become his own image of gaydom. He'll dress gay, like gay music, go to gay bars, a whole slew of things that match the image of what he thinks he IS. Instead of just DOING Aiden, and BEING whatever he wants, Johnny has to BE gay. That's a trap. Johnny has given up his right to choose, because of what he thinks he IS.

Part of why I respect trannie boys and girls so much is that they refuse to BE. As much as society puts pressure on people (especially guys) to BE gay or straight, there's that much more pressure put on people to BE a man or a woman. Who can resist such pressure?

Everything is divided. Even the fuckin' bathrooms, for God's sake. MEN/WOMEN... choose one. BE one. Transsexuals refuse. They refuse to BE. Or rather they CHOOSE to BE. Screw your biology.

It takes more balls for a boy to put on a dress than it does for one cock to face another in a concrete ring. And girls? Them too!

Ok, I have a twat. That doesn't mean I AM a girl. If I want, I can just be a boy with a cunt. You gotta love that!

I know one-- a boy with a cunt. S/he lives with a guy in a “homo relationship.” “She” calls herself “he” and goes to gay bars and, as far as I know, gets popped in the poopshaft. (I only wish I could find out first hand.) S/He's a god(dess). The perfect person... immensely strong... refusing to be trapped by biology.

Instead of the poor homo saying, “I can't help it. It's biology. That's just the way I AM.” You've got someone saying, “Fuck biology! I AM who I want to BE.”

If there's a master race, it's transsexuals.

Almost. Sometimes the badguys are just too smart. I never watch television, but occasionally I see a newspaper. I read something about Cher's trans-son, Chaz Bono. And what? He's going to be on TV, selling soap in Dancing With The Stars. Ah America, if they don't make it illegal, they make it a commodity.

ENDNOTES: [email subscribers (god@mykelboard.com) or blog viewers (mykelsblog.blogspot.com/) will get live links and a chance to post comments on the column]

-->They can sabotage too dept: Harpers Magazine reports that a British intelligence group has announced that its operatives had sabotaged the launch of Inspire. That's an English-language magazine published by Al Qaeda supporters. How did they sabotage it? They inserted cupcake recipes into an article on bomb-making.

-->How to get free healthcare in America dept: The Gaston Gazette reports that James Richard Verone walked into a bank and handed the teller a note demanding one dollar-- and medical attention. Verone worked for Coca-Cola for seventeen years as a deliveryman before being fired. He is unable to handle work because of his poor health and he has no health insurance. The Gazette reports that Verone chose to rob the bank to so he'd be sent to jail. He felt that was the only way he could get free healthcare to treat his poor physical condition.

-->Drink this! dept: The Progressive reports that the federal government is warning residents in Pavilion Wyoming not to drink the water. It is not only polluted, but also potentially explosive. The EPA issued a warning that said people should not drink their water and should use fans and ventilation when showering or washing clothes to avoid the risk of an explosion.

-->Whose picture is that next to the GREEDY entry dept: NJ Governor Chris Christie called public school teachers "greedy" for their $50,000 salaries and benefits. He forgot to mention, however, that his own salary is $175,000 with free healthcare. He does not call for cuts to THAT salary.

-->Food for thought dept: This from my pal Kyle, finally out of the clink... and on Facebook): “If you get 20 years in prison for fantasizing about kids, and jacking off in your home to kiddy porn... and you get 20 years for going out and kidnapping and raping a little girl... well what's the molester gonna do?”

-->Which is more important dept: After the earthquake and radioactive tragedies in Japan, CNBC commentator Larry Kudlow reported "The human toll here looks to be much worse than the economic one, and we can be grateful for that"

-->Presidential Material Dept: Presidential candidate Michele Bachmann wished Elvis Presley a happy birthday-- on the 34^th anniversary of his death. She made the remark during a campaign stop at a restaurant in South Carolina. Given the location, I expect a lot of patrons would have been aware of the error. Another interesting fact, because of the name, Bachmann, a lot of NY Jews think Michele is one of us. G-d forbid!

-->Store this letter in the closet dept: I got this form letter (asking for money of course) from the what used to be called The Gay Task Force. It's an advocacy group for all the mainstream stuff like homos in the military or gay marriage. But it seems that people are ashamed to receive mail with GAY in the return address. So the group changed its name to THE TASK FORCE. Whew! Now I don't have to be embarrassed in front of my mailman.

-end-

(MRR 342) Mykel Relates Mexico to His Colon

2011-11-05T20:31:00.000-04:00

You're Wrong

An Irregular Column

by Mykel Board

(Note: It's shorter than usual this month. (TWSS) I have not been censored... just timed. I'll be in Mexico for the column deadline, so I have to get it in early.(TWHS))

"These self-anointed Protectors of the Overprotected endlessly yammer about breaking the "cycle of abuse," oblivious to the concept that imprisoning someone is a particularly vicious perpetuation of that cycle.” --Jim Goad

“Death begins in the colon.” --Sir Jason Winters

I'm fetally curled into a human comma. My arms are thrust between my legs. Those legs are pulled up toward my chest. A bubbling perks in my intestines. Bullump. Bullump. Bullump. I feel it along my right side... the side pressed against the naked mattress beneath my naked self. The bubbling moves. Up my right side, across my abdomen, down my left side. Bullump... Bullump... Bullump... the gaseous track of my large intestine. It presses rectally downwards... gurgling through the netherworld. Building pressure.

I cup my hands over my struggling sphincter... contract my stomach muscles...push... hard. BLAAAAATTTTT. Just a few milometers north of a liquid explosion... whew! I blow pure hot gas into my hands. Now I raise those hands to my nose... inhaling my own smell. I turn the inside out. How is it that it smells so good? How is it that other people's farts stink to holy hell and mine out-roses any rose ever risen?

The fragrant gas enters my body. From my nose and mouth, down deep into my lungs. It's a physical, spiritual, metaphysical cycle. That beautiful smell... leaving my body... entering my body, traveling through my body.

I drift back to sleep.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! What the fuck?

The alarm clock. As beautiful a smell as my own fart... that's how horrible is the sound of the alarm clock. In the 1400s clocks had no minute hands, just an hour hand that lazily circled a Roman-numeraled face. Then came the minute hand, and 8AM became 8:09AM or 7:59AM. It wasn't long before a someone added a SECOND HAND. In Union Square, you can get the time to five decimal places. Who the fuck needs five decimal places? My boss?

How can I lay in bed and enjoy my farts? There's work to be done. Time to get up.

I try to sit up. Pain shoots through my pelvis, down my leg. Excruciating. Aaaaaaah! My leg, my balls, my prostate. On fire. A burning mass of pain.

“AAAAAAAAH!” I cry out

BAUM! BAUM! BAUM!

My neighbor bangs on her side of the wall. The universal signal for SHUT THE FUCK UP!

I lower my cry to a whimper.

From the waist down, is pain. Everything hurts. Last night's beer bulges in my stomach. The sciatica presses against my back and legs.

Unable to stand, I roll like a log until one arm reaches over the side of the bed. Then, pressing down, I slowly... painfully... drop my body on to the floor... knees first. Using the arm already touching the floor, I push myself up... stagger forward, grabbing a lamp for support... hobbling as fast as biology will let me... I enter the bathroom... fall ass-first onto the toilet.

PLOW! I explode... just missing spurting brown down the back of my legs. But the usual bliss that follows a massive beer shit is lost.... buried in the pain in my back and legs... Is there a reason to keep living if you can't enjoy a beer shit?

NEWS FLASH: A court in Mexico has just found an American teenager, who goes by the nickname "El Ponchis," guilty of torture, murder and kidnappings.

Edgar Jimenez, 14 years old, was convicted of torturing and beheading at least four people and kidnapping three others. The bodies were found hanging from a bridge near Mexico City last year. The judge sentenced El Ponchis to three years in a correctional facility, the maximum permissible for a minor. He was also ordered to pay a fine of 4.5 million pesos, the equivalent of about $400,000.

Flash Ahead: My Mexican pals have invited me back. It's OLD PUNK FEST, in Agua Prieta, one of those border towns where 14 year old Americans cut the heads off who-knows-who. I was there last year. Maybe you read about it. It's one of my favorite towns in the world. Home of Walmarcito and Burger Queen.

My Mexican pals have put together a cover band again. Sin Arte.. I'll be “singing” and hosting an OLD PUNKS night. La Merma, Grito, Pop Gestapo... Except for BEEF, I may be the only non-Mexican in the show. I hope so. That's the way I like it.

When I started this column, I planned to write about circles. My fart leaving and entering my body. My return to Mexico. Old punk rockers rejoining and playing again. This column continuing the theme of the last, and one before.

I've changed my mind.

Going to Mexico will complete a circle. Like sniffing a fart. Last year, this year... but the circle is not round. Just as my beer shit lost its ecstasy in the pain of my sciatica, these circles too become less perfect, more jagged, over time.

My circle metaphor for life may be a spiral. Or something else. When Jim Goad talked about “the cycle of abuse” (check out the opening quotes), jail did something. It knocked that circle a bit. Stretched it. Made it even nastier than it already was.

The circle is such a nice metaphor. But it's wrong. The zen circle is not a circle. Maybe it's shapeless... or shape-shifting like a vampire in a bad TV show... or an amoeba with no shape at all. Maybe it's a spiral... an ever smaller circle that ends in nothing. The neat package of this column has come unraveled.

With my metaphor gone and visions of headless bodies in the street... 14 year old Americans caught and those not caught... I board the plane to Mexico.

ENDNOTES: [email subscribers (god@mykelboard.com) or website viewers (www.mykelboard.com) will get live links and a chance to post comments on the column]

-->One step forward two steps back department: In October last year, the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian featured it's first exhibition "to focus on sexual difference in the making of modern American portraiture." Pretty bold for a government gallery, huh?

Not so fast, the Catholic League attacked one of the images in a video displayed in the collection: 11 seconds of ants crawling on a crucifix. Rep. John A. Boehner led the congressional threat to stop funding if the video was not removed. Within an hour, it was gone.

-->Sometimes bad news isn't dept: Gay City News reports that a recent court ruling "may place nearly insurmountable obstacles” to porn producers suing illegal downloaders. The lawsuits worked in the past, because they'd embarrass the downloader as much as hurt financially.

The way the porn companies worked in the past was to collect IP addresses (your unique computer id number) of "violators" and then sue them as a group. Unless another court overturns the ruling, they can no longer do that.

Awww too bad, right?

Yeah, right.

-->Cause and effect dept: I've often written about how the US has the world's second highest NON-smoking rate, and the world's highest cancer rate... showing that NOT smoking causes cancer.

Now, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that the number of children killed in car crashes in 2009 was 9.6% less than the previous year. They also report that the number use of professionally fitted child booster seats also went down.

So what are we to conclude? NOT using a car seat saves kids lives. Seems reasonable to me.

--> If there were more profs like that, I wudda got my Phd dept: A former assistant professor of psychology at John F. Kennedy University in Pleasant Hill, California, has sued the institution for sex discrimination. She says that she was fired for performing in an off-campus burlesque act.

Sheila Addison was hired in Sept. 2007 to teach graduate students under a one-year contract as an assistant professor of psychology. The following July she was awarded a two-year contract which stated that she could be fired only for “just cause.”

At about the same time that she started working at JFK, she started performing under a pseudonym, Professor Shimmy, at the Hubba Hubba Revue, a burlesque show in San Francisco.

She belonged to a group of performers who sought to bring social commentary to their acts. Some of her performances tell stories, including one in which she performs with a classically trained male ballet dancer. He dresses as a snow fairy and she as the abominable snowman. When they remove their clothes, the audience sees that the fairy and the snowman are not the genders they're supposed to be. Yeah!

The university declines to comment on the case.

-->Completing the Circle Dept: The mercenary company Xe Services, which pre-scandal was called Blackwater, has brought shamed former Attorney Gneral John Ashcroft on board in a new position. And what exactly is that position? Why, ethics chief of course.

(I shit you not.)

-->Humane torture dept: Senator James Inhofe, told Fox News that torture victims in Guantanamo have it easy: "These detainees, they have things they've never had before. You know what the biggest problem in Gitmo is right now? It's obesity. They're eating better than they've ever eaten before.”

-->Reality theme park dept: Parque EcoAlberta in the Mexican state of Hidalgo allows tourists to sign up for a three-hour trek that simulates a refugees passage into the U.S. According to THE PROGRESSIVE magazine "Tourists must navigate craggy ravines and rolling rivers with only a flashlight-- no food or water.... The trek ends with gunshots as the would-be migrants are thrown into the back of mock U.S. border patrol trucks." The cost for the trek is $20 a person.

-->Buy a liberal today dept: AT&T is plugging to buy competitor T-Mobile in a bid to out-monopoly Verizon. So how do they get support... especially from liberals who usually oppose corporatocracy? They give money!

In 2009 alone, the NAACP received a million dollars from AT&T. GLAAD, the pro-Gay-censor-the-opposition group got $50,000 from the Apple-Loving Giant.

I say (with palm out, facing upwards) Go AT&T! Buy that sucker! I support you! Is the check in the mail?

-->Cut! Print! It's a take dept: The Rumanian Doctors Union has criticized a decision to make a surgeon pay almost $200,000 after he lost his temper and hacked off a patient's penis during surgery.

Surgeon Naum Ciomu had been operating on the patient to correct a testicular malformation when he suddenly lost his temper.

According to the BNI Newsletter “Grabbing a scalpel he sliced off the penis in front of shocked nursing staff, and then placed it on the operating table where he chopped it into small pieces before storming out of the operating theater.”

The doctors union objected to the court decision, saying “Doctors in Rumania earn too little to be able to pay amounts like this.”

I say that if the doctor would only support the ATT T-Mobile takeover, he wouldn't have any trouble paying the fine.

-end-

(MRR 341) Mykel Refuses To Keep His Shirt On

2011-10-10T12:08:00.000-04:00

You're Wrong
An Irregular Column
Column for MRR 341
October 2011

by Mykel Board

aka Mykel refuses to keep his shirt on.

If people vote themselves into slavery and give up their liberty, is this freedom? --Isaiah Berlin

It's 1995... the same Toronto anarchist festival I wrote about last week. That was the Vegan Reich story. This one's about Alekz Vermont... and some other girl... I can't remember her name.

It's like a dream. I'm in an open field. Two girls are chasing me. Two attractive girls... the kind I usually wouldn't run from... but would turn to... nuzzling my muzzle between their legs... savoring the clitoral sea breeze.. lapping languidly between the labia.

But now they haven an agenda. They want to hurt me, I think. So I run.

BLAM!!! Something hits the back of my legs. I'm down... tackled... like a football player. The other girl... the one who's not Alekz... grabs my KLANARCHY t-shirt... SCRRRRRT... tears it... tears it off... Then Alex is on my shirtless self... her knees on my shoulders... She does not lower herself, pressing her luscious mons veneris into my face. Instead, out comes a magic marker... a thick one... indelible... She draws two arrows on my chest... one pointing to each nipple. Under the arrows... equally indelible... she prints THESE ARE TITS TOO.

Then they skedaddle... both of them... waving my shirt like a captured flag... off... to wherever girl anarchists go when they strip a boy... gone... leaving me to walk around half naked... for the rest of the day... smiling at cops who have better things to do... Some anarchists asks me what it means. I shrug.

1999: I'm happier than a Christian at a book-burning. At ABC NO Rio... one of my top 20 live bands of all time. Mmmm boy.

They were on the cover of Flipside. I heard the record, saw them at CBGBs. Now I can get even closer.

As usual, Esneider is at the door. I hand him my $5. He stamps the NO VALUE rubber stamp into the pad and then on the inside of my wrist.

“Be careful today, Mykel,” he says. “Stay out of the pit. They've got the most vicious pit I've ever seen.”

“I'm five foot three inches tall,” I remind him. “I weigh 130 pounds. I NEVER go into the pit.”

“But Mykel,” he says, “sometimes the pit goes into you.”

Inside, the tiny club is packed. Back in those days, the shows were in the basement. There was no ventilation. It was always hot.

A packed house and a tough pit means SUPERHOT. Maybe people will take off their shirts. Yeah!

I stand on the side... in back of a short attractive girl. She'll be a buffer in case the going gets tight. I've got a great view of the band. Shirts have already come off because of the heat.

Then the music starts. Wowee! Slam-away. Fuck, right in the ribs... in the shoulder... OUCH! ...in the balls... I back off more... a little more peace...

Then the lead singer, Lynn, takes her shirt off. Yeah, it's TRIBE 8, the best Lesbo band in herstory. And Lynn, the greatest of the great, has the balls to take her shirt off at a punkrock show. Just like everyone else. Tits like everybody else has. Yeah!

The academic part: Kurt Vonnegut once wrote a story about equality. In that story, the society required everyone to be equal. So if somebody lost the sight in one eye, everybody had to wear blinders on one eye to make them equal.

In the quest for equality, people walk around with weights on their legs or an arm tied behind their backs. That makes them equal to the cripples among them. They are braced, their backs forced into a curve, to make them equal to those with scoliosis. They have earplugs to make them equal to deaf people. You get the idea. Equality is the first value.

Vonnegut is dead. (Sometime soon, I'll be HIS equal.) But he was not against equality. He was against a narrow view of equality-- a NEGATIVE equality that makes people equal at the bottom rather than at the top.

I'll explain further: Imagine I have a gold pen. There are ten people sitting with me. We can make everyone equal in two ways. One is to give everyone else a gold pen. The other is to take away my pen. The former is a POSITIVE equality. The latter a NEGATIVE one.

The marriage equality act-- homo marriage-- is an example of NEGATIVE equality.

Right now, you can only get “free” health insurance if you're married to someone with paid insurance. You can only get hospital visitation rights, or child adoption rights if you're married. You can only file a joint tax return or get easy citizenship if you're married. You can only pass on your apartment to a spouse. Share veterans' discounts on medical care, education, and home loans with someone you're married to. You can only receive crime victims' recovery benefits if you're married to the victim (or if you are the victim.)

There are two ways of dealing with the inequality of laws related to marriage. NEGATIVE equality is to force more people into marriage and thereby strengthen the institution. The other is to get the government out of the marriage business completely and make no special privileges based on what should be a religious institution.

POSITIVE equality is to eliminate all marriage laws. Make all people-- married or not, homo, het or neither-- equal. Instead, homos decided to put blinders on the rest of us. Weigh down one leg to make us equal. So now New York has gay marriage. And insurance companies that used to insure “domestic partners,” now require marriage! The freedom to marry becomes the DUTY to marry, and with gay-marriage it's harder than ever to escape.

2011: I'm reading Razorcake, home to former MRR columnists and those who'd like to be. Amy Adoyzie is one of my favorites... a girl that doesn't act like one... until now.

Jeezus fuckin' Christ. She's writing about how punk rock boys make girls uncomfortable... You know how? By taking their shirts off. That's how.

When you take off your shirt in a hot, muggy basement show, you're not just trying to cool yourself off. You're saying something with your body and who you are. You're saying “I'm a dude and as a dude, I can take my shirt off in a room full of other people...” You're unknowingly asserting your dude-ness for all to see. You're saying, “Check me out. I'm a fucking dude.”

And you know what? That makes some people feel unsafe. Just because you think it's innocuous doesn't mean it is. Just because you don't agree that it makes people feel unsafe doesn't mean it doesn't. Put your fucking shirt on.

Fifteen years after Tribe 8 opens the door to a POSITIVE equality, we've got a girl here saying NOT that girls should be able to take their shirts off... but that boys shouldn't!

Just like the right to marry is actually the duty to marry... and increases inequality for those who choose not to. The right to comfort is the way to limit the freedom of others who choose to... to... show their tits.

In Europe, toplessness is the order of they day... for men and women. Alas, even in the punkrock world, this is not Europe.

Hey Amy, these are tits too! Instead of saying I shouldn't be free to take my shirt off-- you should be saying you should be free to take off yours. Instead of saying Cover up boys, you should be saying Take it off girls. Your freedom doesn't come from my repression. It comes from your own liberation.

ENDNOTES: [email subscribers god@mykelboard.com) or website viewers (www.mykelboard.com) will get live links and a chance to post comments on the column]

-->That gives me an idea dept: The Texas Office of the Comptroller granted tax-exempt status to THE CURCH OF FREETHOUGHT, an "atheist church" in Texas. After an initial denial and run in with Americans United for Separation of Church and State, government officials backed down.
The Comptroller's original objection said if they granted the status it would lead to applications from "any wannabe cult who dresses up and parades down Sixth Street on Halloween."
Hmmm, dress-up anyone?

--> Where? dept: We all know that the locations of most phones can be tracked, either via their built in GPS devices or by triangulating the signals they bounce off the cellular towers. And not only is it possible to figure out where a phone has been, you can also get software or online services that will let you track the location of a phone in real time. You can keep tabs on your teenagers, other family members, employees, or someone you want to stalk. In addition to the location (as it moves), you can also find out how fast it's going.

One such service, which works with certain Blackberry, Windows Mobile and Android phones, is AccuTracking. Since it's probably illegal for me to say some hackers should get on 'em ASAP... I won't. But I can imagine posting some way you can attach a fake tracking chip to a stray cat or a street crazy. Attach a fake device to a hamster, and let it loose in the subway. Watch a panicky parent call the cops as their “child” runs down a subway tunnel in front of a raging train.
Not that I'd propose such a thing. Who me? Such a proposition is likely to be illegal.

-->Speaking of where dept: Gizmo.com reports that Google has a bunch of places that Google Maps won't show you. According to the site, most of the censored places look like imaging anomalies, rather than some big black bar with "CENSORED" written in large text.
You can see 18 of them at: tiny.cc/mapcensor. You can also ask Google what's up widdat?

-->Corporate humans vs Union humans: The Supreme Court ruled that corporations and unions are "humans" with the ability to fund candidates with no limits. The corporations go to the conservatives. The unions go to the liberals.
NOW do you get why so many Republican state governors are trying to break the unions? And there's a new law now in the House of Representatives. Republicans introduced bill HR 1135 that denies foodstamps to any family if a member is out on strike. How low can they go? Maybe I shouldn't ask.

-->For the good of the kids dept: THE UK Government says it's fighting “the early sexualization of children” by blocking internet pornography unless parents request it. The move is intended to ensure that children are not exposed to sex as a routine by-product of the internet.
Instead of using parental controls to stop access to pornography - so-called "opting out" - the tap will be turned off at the source. Adults will then have to "opt in."
More info at: http://tinyurl.com/UKpornban

-->It shudda been my parents dept: Landon & Anette Parris of Nashville pleaded guilty to hiring a stripper for their son's 16^th birthday. They were sentenced to two years' probation and ordered to take “parenting classes.”
I say they should be TEACHING those classes.

-end-

Mykel Asks the anti-Fascists to Look in the Mirror (MRR 340)

2011-09-10T10:34:00.006-04:00

You're Wrong

An Irregular Column

by Mykel Board

"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy.” --Ernest Benn

It's 1977: The Sex Pistols have stolen punkrock from New York and shipped it to London. They're changing the fashion a bit. Making it more Carnaby Street... and at the same time, more offensive. That's the idea of punkrock, ya know?

“Piss on your ancestors,” said proto-punker Patti Smith.

Only the Brits can make piss into a fashion. And what could be more piss-making than THE NAZIS? Something rude for every occasion. Sid Vicious walks down the stairs, at a very polite concert... in a Swastika shirt.

Flash ahead to 1986: ARTLESS is on tour in The South. We're just leaving West Virginia. I wear a SKREWDRIVER t-shirt given to me by one of our hosts.

“Mykel,” asks Gavin, “can't you find us some more fascists to stay with? Those guys fed us well, gave us clean beds, and didn't keep us up all night playing Crass records. Those other guys, those anarchists we usually stay with... they're filthy. The food is awful... and they won't let us sleep.”

Flash ahead to 1995: The anarchist festival in Toronto. I stay at the house of MRR columnist Steve Beaumont. (A decade later he'll be a world-famous beer writer.) Also at the house are a bunch of guys I don't know from some band I don't know. They're funny and friendly. I've never seen them before.

“What's the story on those guys?” I ask Steve.

“Oh Mykel,” he says, “you're in for a surprise. That's VEGAN REICH.”

The big guy in the band wears an even bigger t-shirt with MEAT IS MURDER stenciled on the front. He's fiddling around in his backpack.

“Got it!” he says, taking out a box of something.

“What's that?” I ask.

“It's tofuburger mix,” he says.

“Yuck!” I answer. “I wouldn't eat that shit in a million years.”

“That's what you think,” he says. “Steve, get the camera.”

And he reaches for me.

I'm out the door... sprinting across the front yard... into the next yard. I can easily outrun this big guy, I think. I think wrong.

Blam! I'm on the ground. Tackled like some football player. Another guy from the band kneels over me. I can't see him clearly. Things are a blur. I'm face up. The guy clamps my head between his knees. He reaches over my face and squeezes my jaw, forcing my mouth open. He does not open his fly and lower his turgid tumor into my mouth. Instead, the big guy, who's faster than he looks, has that box of Tofu Burger Mix open in his hand. He pours it into my mouth.

It's like he's force-feeding me sand. Awful. Grains of tasteless nothing... filling my mouth... spilling over my cheeks... clustering first around then into my ears. I'm gonna suffocate. I can't talk... breathe... nothing. I try to shake my head... turn away from the granular invasion. The other guy's knees keep my head just where it is.

Then it's over.

They let go of me. And they help me stand up.

I spit out the crap. Stick my fingers into my mouth to scrape the insides of my cheek. Steve is laughing behind the camera. The Vegan Reich guys are laughing. My piss-offedness turns to laughter. It really is funny.

Flash ahead to 2003: Two years after Al Qaeda (or SOMEBODY) drove a couple planes into the World Trade Center... and one into the Pentagon.

Suddenly, all Muslims have become terrorists in the eyes of America. More than that... everyone who wears a turban... Muslim or Sikh... Christians in Ethiopia wear turbans for Allah's sake... all have become THE ENEMY.

The enemy? Hey: it could be like Sid Vicious in his swastika shirt... singing My Way. What could be punker in the 21^st Century than becoming a Muslim? In my April Fool's column of 2002, I explained my conversion to that religion.

This year, Vegan Reich says:

Perhaps the outward form varied, due to time and place variations. But essentially, every message has been that of "Tawhid," or "divine Unity." Islam includes Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity and accepts their Prophets as being Prophets of Islam. So that is why I came into the din or faith of Islam. To me it seemed to have the most inclusive attitude and complete understanding of spirituality that I had found in many years of searching. And on the outward level, I think it is one of the only traditions that really is inclusive of all racial backgrounds, and absolutely revolutionary in it's demand for social justice.

Are they serious?... or is this just an extension of the elaborate put-on that included me being force-fed tofu in Canada? I don't know. Good satire/parody should skirt the border of reality... touching the possible and the funny at the same time.... like THE ONION. If it's a satire, it's a great one. If it's sincere... it's still funny as hell.

Flash ahead to 2011: The Saudi Arabian punk band Sound of Ruby covers GG Allin's Bite It You Scum. You can see it on YouTube live in a Bahraini disco, complete with the mirror ball and Saudi punks in white robes. Real Muslims assuredly pissing off their world. I love it.

Meanwhile, in England, there's THE SLIMELLIGHT, a venue for Industrial and Goth bands... maybe neo-folk, I haven't been able to figure it out yet. Actually, I don't even know what neo-folk is. Billy Bragg? Not so neo, I'd say.

The Slimelight has been the subject of much protest, including boycott calls... and calls to shut them down.

Of course, music clubs throughout history-- from Negro Jazz through Rock'n'Roll through Punkrock to Hip Hop-- have ALWAYS been the subject of shutdown attempts. Good music is threatening. Those who feel threatened want to shut it down.

But this shutdown call is new. It's organized by Islington Alarm a buncha lefty Brits who don't like the “fascist” aspects of this music. Some Celtic Crosses, and band members in right-wing organizations... or having friends with memberships in right-wing organizations... or being EX-members of right-wing organizations. Without really defining fascism, they brand bands or members as fascist and try to ban them from playing.

In a related blog, Vegan Reich are called fascist because “they're Muslim.” WHAT???

I'll explain. In England, fascist is a common left-wing bully word, similar to the American hate-group. (The U.S. Southern Poverty Law Center brands more than 1000 American organizations as Hate Groups. This includes a number of bands like Tightrope, Fetch the Rope, and Poker Face.)

What is a fascist? For the average British crusty anarchist, it's anyone with a totalitarian attitude. Anyone who thinks “My way is the only way.” Of course, a certain fashion sense, as well as a certain degree of cleanliness, helps.

But what does fascist REALLY mean? Why not ask a fascist? This is the internet age. You can do anything.

So I go to americanfascistmovement.com to see what they say. I don't have space for the whole list, but here are some key points:

*****

Fascism is NOT Racism or Nazism. Races, though unique, are equal. Individuals, however, are not.

Fascism is NOT Materialism: Fascism does not see history as class struggle, and denies that there is nothing to life, and power politics, except what one can put in one's mouth or pocket.

Fascism is NOT Globalism: The integrity of all cultures must be preserved.

Fascism is NOT Capitalism or Communism: Those are materialist systems that promote degeneracy and crush the human spirit.... Man cannot live on peace, land and bread alone

Fascism IS Meritocracy: The degree of which men and women manifest honor and merit in the service of their country is determinant of their place in civil society.

Fascism IS Nationalism: Everything in the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.

Fascism IS Virtue: Above all: a Fascist believes in virtue and will thus tell you the truth and not just what you want to hear. Truth, courage, integrity!

*******

Hmmm, I like that NOT Racism or Nazism. I like that NOT Materialism or Globalism and NOT Capitalism or Communism. I could do without the Nationalism and Meritocracy, but I like the truth-telling part, at least when it comes to things political.

I score 5 out of 7 on the fascisto-meter. Does that make me a fascist? A 5/7 fascist? Does it matter?

No it does not. We can sit and debate the fascist or not of any person or band from here to Laibach. It's likely, just as some great literature has been written by real fascists (Ezra Pound, Celine), great music has been and is probably being made by other real fascists... whatever that means.

If you don't like the politics, protest the politics. Present alternatives. Counter-demonstrate. If you don't like the music, don't listen to it.

But trying to shut down what you don't like... especially if you shut down music because you don't like the politics. Why that's... that's fascist! Just ask any British crusty street punk.

ENDNOTES: [email subscribers (god@mykelboard.com) or website viewers (www.mykelboard.com) will get live links and a chance to post comments on the column]

-->Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor's Ass dept: US Congressional representatives Robert Aderhold and Nick Rahall co-sponsored a resolution which proclaims the "influence the King James Version of the bible has had on countless families, individuals and institutions." The resolution also "expresses gratitude for the influence The Bible has bestown (sic) upon the United States."

A Michigan-based group called "the Bible Nation Society" lobbied for the bill during the giant budget debate. That society was founded by Pastor Douglas Levesque. In 2010, at a society conference, Levesque asserted that President Obama "might be the antichrist."

It's good to know who's making the laws in THIS country!

-->Right in there, not even an amendment dept: Article VI of the U.S. Constitution says "No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification of any office or public trust under the United States." Clearly, that's why we've had so many atheists and Muslims in public office. Right?

-->Get that handbill design... free dept: I got a jail letter from Ryan Homsley aka Waldo. He's in the clink for bank robbery and he's an artist. (Pretty damn good too... I use his portrait of me for my Facebook pic.) He said he'd be happy to exchange handbill or poster designs for a letter. It gets lonely in jail.

So write to him: Ryan Hombsley,. #74767, MCDC, 1120 SW 3rd Ave., Portland OR 97204 Tell him what you want for a record sleeve, poster, or handbill... tell him about your life... tell him I sent ya!

-->Cursing the dark dept: California became the first state to outlaw the incandescent lightbulb. Typical of the mommyism of that state (they've also outlawed the sale of violent video games to youngsters), they've decided that despite the extra cost-- and extra mercury-- of fluorescent bulbs, they're better than the old hot-wire ones. Like the Brits they say, “If you don't like it... ban it.

You used to have a choice: 25¢ for a bulb or $10 for one. Guess what happened to that choice.

-->Talk about Mommyism dept: A new Tennessee law makes it a crime to "transmit or display an image" online that is likely to "frighten, intimidate or cause emotional distress" to someone who sees it. Violations can get you almost a year in jail time or up to $2500 in fines.

The ban on “distressing images” is an update to existing laws which already make it a crime to make phone calls, send emails, or otherwise communicate directly with someone in a manner the sender "reasonably should know" would "cause emotional distress" to the recipient.

For image postings, the "emotionally distressed" individual need not be the intended recipient. Anyone who sees the image is a potential victim. If a court decides you "should have known" that an image you posted would be upsetting to someone who sees it, you could face months in prison and thousands of dollars in fines.

Now, if I lived in Tennessee, I'd protest my discomfort and “emotional distress” at every picture of Sarah Palin or Newt Gingrich.

Details at: http://tinyurl.com/comfortoverfreedom

-->The end of scalping dept: The San Francisco 49ers football team joined with Ticketmaster to adopt paperless-only tickets. They became the first NFL team to officially restrict the rights of their fans.

Now, fans have no control over what they can do with their own tickets. Instead, Ticketmaster dictates who they can give their tickets to, and how much that transfer will cost. Details at: http://tinyurl.com/endoftix

-->The beginning of the end dept: Remember how we railed against Google for caving into Chinese calls for them to censor their search engine in China? We've got a bigger problem now.

The "Combating Online Infringements and Counterfeits Act" (COICA) is an Internet censorship bill which is rapidly progressing through the Senate. Although it's supposed to focus on copyright infringement, a huge amount of other stuff, including political and other speech, could disappear off the Web if it passes.

The main mechanism of the bill is to interfere with the Internet's Domain Name System, which translates names like "www.eff.org" or "www.nytimes.com" into the numerical IP addresses that computers use to communicate with each other. The bill creates a blacklist of censored domains. The Attorney General can ask a court to place any website on the blacklist if infringement is "central" to the purpose of the site.

There are already laws in place for taking down sites that violate the law. This act would allow the Attorney General to censor sites even when no court has found they have infringed copyright or any other law.

Strange how that Wikileaks site just happens to infringe on something, isn't it? You doubt it? Why just ask the Attorney General. He'll tell ya.

Details at: http://www.eff.org/coica

-->Whoa yeah! dept: From a so-to-be interfered with website: “Jesus Diaz—Lulzsec and Anonymous declare war on all governments, banks and big corporations in the world.”

And it just gets better from there. A network of information stealers... not for money, but for MORAL GOOD. Are they fascist? I don't care. I love 'em!

http://tinyurl.com/antisec for details.

-end-

Mykel Refuses to Act His Age (MRR 339)

2011-08-07T10:58:00.001-04:00

You're Wrong
An Irregular Column
Column for MRR 339
August 2011

by Mykel Board

aka Mykel refuses to act his age.

“To know how to grow old is the master work of wisdom, and one of the most difficult chapters in the great art of living.” – Herman Melville

“Pffffammmda!” he says.

“Tell me later,” I reply, “after I come.”

I grab the back of his head, pressing the mohawk against the smooth sides of his skull. Thrusting forward, I push deeper into his mouth. He has one hand on each of my glutes. I reach behind me to adjust him.

“Stick a finger up my asshole,” I tell him. “Press in.. as far as you can go... like you're digging out a sesame seed... you may BE digging out a sesame seed... Yes! Yes! That's it!”

I wish I could describe the semenal dribble down his chin, but as I work through my last decade of life, I just manage to produce a Nik-L-Nip. Gone before either of us knows it.

My tippling punk releases me and I squeeze out another drop.

“Now,” I say, stuffing in and zipping up. “What were you trying to say?”

“Did you hear the new Social Distortion album?” he asks.

“No,” I tell him. “Should I?”

“It sucks,” he says. “They've gone... I donno... bad.”

I like the guy. Smart, attractive, skin the color of a Sam Adams bottle. Oh yeah! But an 18-year old punk with a mohawk may not be the best judge of music. So I check the real experts-- the guys who write the reviews on Amazon.com.

From Amazon 1: I don't think that there was Social Distortion album that I didn't like until this one. It just doesn't sound like them. Yes, I agree that bands, like people evolve and change, but that doesn't always mean it's a good thing.

From Amazon 2: Wow, this record is amazing....amazing in its mediocrity. Is this Social D, or is this the new Goo Goo Dolls album? Is Mike Ness trying to be the next John Mellencamp? Was this record pushed out to fulfill a contractual obligation? Was it dumbed down to get a single played on lamestream radio? Did aliens come down and abduct the band and replace them with Social D. clones?

The songs are pedestrian, the band is uninspired, the guitar solos are weak, the lyrics are every cliché pulled from the last four albums, and the vox are overproduced and sanitized. Where's that punch in the mouth I expect from a Social D. song?

Looks like the band tried something new. That's how fans are, right? Keep remaking that first album. If you don't, you're slowing down... changing... getting old... And getting old is getting bad, right?

My Mohawked pal (I call him Punky Brewster) shakes his head.

“You're old, Mykel,” he says. “But I'm here giving you a blow job because I respect what you're doing. You've never made an Artless At The Jazz Lounge album. You've stayed punk for 40 years!

I smile.

FLASH AHEAD: It's gonna be a great show. My friends, Cojoba, are opening. Then comes Death First, a band I don't know. Then, MDC yes.. THAT MDC: Millions of Dead Cops, Millions of Damn Christians, Multi-Death Corporation, My Dog Charlie. THAT one. Then the (British) Sub-Humans. Wow!

When Punky and I get to the show, the place is already packed. The main stage isn't open yet, so we crowd into the bar downstairs. I buy a beer and slip it to Punky. He sucks on it greedily. That's my boy!

The show is masterful. Cojoba and Death First wow the crowd... set 'em pogoing! (I shit you not.) Both bands have girl singers. Cojoba is Hispanic enough to cause one of those hour-plus erections that the commercials warn you about.

Death First are plain killer in the best sense of the word. Though few people know their songs, the crowd loves 'em.

And speaking of the crowd, I'm amazed and delighted by it. Mixed ages (I'm not even the oldest!) and genders. After the first two bands, kids who barely saw last century sing along with the Sub-humans and MDC. Yeah! These kids know the words!

No, the bands don't jump around like they used to. They look older. They ARE older. They probably dribble semen instead of spray it into the back of the throat. But it still is quality semen.

FLASH AHEAD TO CALIFORNIA: I'm with Rebecca (name changed because she'd want it that way). I've known her since 1982... had a crush on her the whole time... didn't come to anything though. She's since gotten married, dropped a couple puppies, started a consulting business. We used to have very similar musical tastes. She, like me, is friends with Dave, the MDC singer.

“Hey, I saw MDC and the Sub-humans in New York,” I tell her.

“Really?” she says, “They're doing one of those stupid reunion shows?”

I nod.

“But it wasn't stupid,” I say. “They were really punkrock. And there were these kids... same age as yours... they knew all the songs.”

She shakes her head. “Don't they feel stuck? Doing the same songs for 30 years? Don't they know what people think of them? Another bunch of old farts, getting together to live on their past. It's sad. It must be a kind of hell.”

FLASH FURTHER AHEAD: When I get back to New York, I hit the computer. Right to Google, god of everything that's true in the world. I enter, “boring old bands reuniting and touring” and in 0.34 seconds I get “About 3,280,000 results.” I don't look at any of them.

The May issue of MRR was filled with people lamenting “reunion bands.” In California, I saw leaflets urging a boycott of Steve Ignorant's tour doing Crass songs. Dead bands should stay dead is the call.

And in the June MRR issue, a columnist who usually plays contrarian, not only jumps full force on the reunion band bashing bandwagon, but crawls to the front to beat the dead horse dragging the thing. Old people should just die, he says.

Well. Sin Arte, (the Mexican version of ARTLESS, with me singing), is reuniting for one show in Agua Prieta in August. Along with us will be La Merma and Solución Mortal-- two of the most hardcore Mexican bands from the 80s. You wanna make somethin' of it?

Jeezus fuckin' Christ. If a band who loves playing tours when they're past 50, they're a sad bunch of old farts living in the past. When they try something new, they're pedestrian and uninspired. Why not just take a job selling insurance? Better yet, kill yourself... make it spectacular.

Listen kids, youth is NOT an asset. Just because your face sags a bit, your hair falls out, you dribble instead of shoot, you are no less inspired or creative. Your songs have no less value in 2011 than they did in 1981. Go ahead, complain because someone is old. I hope that's a condition you never face.

Listen adults, maturity is NOT an asset. Giving up a dream is not progress. Being realistic is defeat. Why should I settle for real life when I can live the fantasy? I've been doing it for a long time and while I don't have money or property... I LOVE my life. You? Get married or an MBA or something. See how much you love YOUR life. You can pick your maturity out of my asshole like a sesame seed... then eat it.

It may take me slightly longer to fill that martini glass with viscous white semen from my aged balls. But fill it I will. Then I'll drink a spermata toast to every creaky old guy or gal... waddling on stage... temporarily ditching the walker for a guitar... inhaling oxygen through a tube attached to a tank on wheels... whaling out those last few chords before coughing up blood... I'll be singing along. I already know the words.

ENDNOTES: [email subscribers (god@mykelboard.com) or website viewers (www.mykelboard.com) will get live links, extra endnotes and a chance to post comments on the column]

-->Conflict of interest dept: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas will vote on the constitutionality of the health care reform law. He has already profited from opposition to that law. His wife has taken nearly $700,000 from health care opponents and now openly advertises herself as a crack lobbyist with the "experience and connections" to overturn the law of the land.

Seventy-five congressional representatives signed a letter to Justice Thomas calling on him to recuse himself from deliberations related to health care. I'm sure he'll take himself right out of the case. Yeah, right. And the world will end on May 21.

-->And why does Al Qaeda hate us? They're jealous of our freedom! dept: One out of every 100 Americans is in jail. One out of 39 are in jail, paroled or somehow in the criminal injustice system. More Negroes are in jail than were slaves before the Civil War.

What do you mean FREEDOM, whiteboy?

-->And why do the conservatives hate Obama? dept: The ACLU reports that Abdullah al-Kidd was arrested and never charged with a crime He was never asked to testify. But he spent 16 days in harsh detention, sometimes held naked and shackled hand-and-foot. The ACLU fought the case in the lower courts, and the court agreed with them. The Obama Administration is fighting that decision.

-->Speaking of Obama dept: AARP reports that Obama has named one “entertainer” to join his Council for Community Solutions. That's a group that's supposed to help reduce youth unemployment and help poor people in general. Of course, our pal Barak chose someone from the lower ranks of society, who really understands the problems of the poor. Russel Simmons... yeah right. Would you believe Jon Bon Jovi?

-->Just discovered dept: BARRACK in Australian English means "to cheer for a team or player." They don't use root in that context, because root means "to fuck" in Australian English. Interesting, because a similar word BARACK in American English, means BIG DISAPPOINTMENT.

-->Catch THE OTHER GUY dept: Car & Travel Magazine reports that 52% of Americans feel "less safe" on the road than they did a year ago. It also reveals:

    66% of poll-answerers report talking on their cellphone while driving
   24% say they were texting or e-mailing while driving
   25% say they drove when they were so tired they had a hard time keeping their eyes open.
   Despite this, 66% support having more police on the road to catch traffic violators.
   Huh?

-->Modify THAT baby! dept: In spite of strong opposition from the organic community, the USDA approved the unrestricted cultivation of genetically engineered alfalfa. The approval included no requirements to prevent contamination of organic and non-GE crops. Genetically engineered alfalfa does not have to be labeled so that consumers can identify it.

-->But not this one dept: Among the dozens of bills awaiting Arizona Governor Jan Brewer's action are several that didn't pass until the final hours of the legislative session. Most of these provoked controversy or needed last-minute fixes to get through. They include Senate Bill 1307, which bans human-animal hybrids. It won narrow approval in both chambers of the legislature. Opponents ridiculed its attempt to legislate actions that they say have no foundation in reality, with Democrats cracking jokes about minotaurs and mermaids.

-->Let's go back to the past dept: In 1949, the United Nations launched a universal campaign for the decriminalization of prostitution. It failed. Now, I'm afraid, the foot is in the other mouth.

-->Further back in the past dept: According to recent historical evidence, Empress Wu Hou of the Chinese Tang dynasty (683-705) insisted that all visiting dignitaries perform oral sex on her as a way of paying homage.
Without knowing it, I've been copying the Empress for the last 50 years. Must be royalty in the blood

-->The Tea Party says China will beat us dept: No, it's not because of the oral sex. Instead, the tea party is running TV ads on how the Chinese are going to take over because of high US corporate taxes. They forgot, however, to connect their propaganda to the facts. Jim Hightower reports that in the 1950s, 30 percent of the US tax revenues came from corporations. In the 2010s that number is 6.6 percent. General Electric notoriously paid NO TAXES last year. Now, what's China going to do about that when they take over?

-end-

Mykel's homepage is here.

Mykel Divides it Right (MRR 338)

2011-07-07T05:24:00.015-04:00

You're Wrong
An Irregular Column
Column for MRR 338
July 2011

by Mykel Board

aka Mykel learns how to divide the world.

“In his Petersburg world, all people were divided into utterly opposed classes. One, the lower class, vulgar, stupid, and above all, ridiculous people, who believe that one husband ought to live with one wife whom he has lawfully married, that a girl should be innocent, a woman modest, and a man manly, self controlled and strong: that one ought to bring up one’s children, earn one’s bread, and pay one’s debts: and various similar absurdities. But there was another class of people, the real people. To this class, the great thing was to be elegant, generous, plucky, gay, to abandon oneself without a blush to every passion, and to laugh at everything else” -- Leo Tolstoy in Anna Karenina

Maybe it’s a general semen buildup. Maybe it’s my prostate-- swelling a millimeter with each passing decade. In 2011, I find that the only way I can keep those final piss drops from oozing generously down my pants leg is by reaching back with the middle finger... right between my balls... pressing on the prostate ...slowly squeezing forward, like grinding the last bit of toothpaste out of the tube. I do that. Those last drops dribble out. PLOP PLOP PLOP. Into the toilet. No panty stains for me. This pipe-cleaning piss follows my daily semen spill, so I squeeze twice to make sure I get the last blocked drops.

It was a pleasant masturbation... at TEEN SNOW, the best pornsite on the internet. Something new every day... guys who look as good as the girls... that’s pretty fuckin’ good. With just enough sick stuff to keep a multi-interested high riser like me, multi-interested. The only thing wrong is the name: TEEN SNOW?? What the fuck does that mean? Even Urban Dictionary doesn’t have a listing for TEEN SNOW.

FLASH AHEAD: I type this at Kennedy Airport while waiting for a flight to San Francisco. The airport: a place I like even less than an Apple store and only slightly more than a hospital or morgue. I sit by the food concessions near the departure gate. The smell of French fries forces itself into my nose like The Top forces one of those ball gags into the mouth of The Bottom in an S&M movie.

An obnoxious blonde 2 tables down shouts into her iPhone^TM You’re just gonna die... I mean did you see...

My computer is plugged into a bank of iPads^TMthat offer buttons to press for food brought right to your table. Wow, just like a real restaurant!

For someone who travels as much as I do, you’d think I’d hate airports less than I do. You’d be wrong. Of course I hate SECURITY most, but there’s more. I hate the whole sterile atmosphere. The screaming babies. The smell of French Fries. The Americans... the kind you don’t see in New York: fat... screaming little bundles-of-joy in tow... soda-drinking, Whopper-eating... blond... Americans. White trash without the good food. Rednecks without the moonshine. Tourists without the innocence. At least a hundred people are within my vision. Not one of them is smiling.

I’ve been more or less nauseous since this morning. Is it the egg salad I had for breakfast? No, it started before that. It must be the tension. Dad is in bad shape. Every time I see him, I think it can’t get any worse. It gets worse.

Since he’s been in hospice (that’s a blog), he’s gone downhill fast. Last time I saw him, he weighed less than 100 lbs... was on oxygen... his voice so faint I couldn’t understand him.

“I have a trip planned for next week,” I tell the hospice nurse. “Should I cancel it?”

“If it were my father, I would,” she says.

“You never know,” says my sister. “We’ve got to play it by ear... see what happens.”

I guess she’s right, but I’m so nervous I shut off my phone... dreading THAT text or THAT voicemail. My stomach tense... my blood pressure in the danger zone... I can’t concentrate. In a way, it’s a good time to get away. In another way, it bodes disaster.

Still, Passover calls... I’ve got family and friends... and somewhat of a life... it’s taking all my concentration... except... over there, by the Supersize Me sign... I love the way her jeans curve gently over her buttocks... bulging directly back, like a full parenthesis... must be Hispanic. What other girls have asses like that? Ah, a relief... a distraction. She sits down. It’s over.

The guy next to me must’ve paid his $9.95 for Internet access. He’s reading the news on the iPad^TM. I look over his shoulder.

NYTIMES.COM says it’s still up in the air whether California can prohibit the sales of video games to minors. Strange coalitions form on both sides. Rightwing and leftwing libertarians on one side. The religious right and leftwing authoritarian mommies on the other. I’m betting on the badguys. They usually win. (Actually I was wrong here. Since this column was printed, the Supreme Court ruled CORRECTLY!! Overturning the California law.)

It reminds me of a YouTube video I saw a few nights ago. I can’t figure out who the host is. Maybe he works for Fox News. In any case, he wears a tie and sits in front of one of those blue screens they use to show TV within TV. The studio is cheap-looking. On the bluescreen is a pair of Congressmen. He’s interviewing them about the U.S. war in Libya. They’re opposed to it.

They’re not talking about the morality of the war itself, but about how The President just went ahead and did it. The Constitution says only Congress has the power to declare war. The constitution hasn’t been important for the past several years... maybe more.

That would be mildly interesting. What turns it from mild to spicy is the two people being interviewed: Ron Paul, the most conservative Congressman-- from the hated state of Arizona... and Dennis Kucinich, the most left Congressman... and a guy who is right about almost as much as I am. What the fuck?

Here they are, both agreeing that Obama has usurped his power, declared war wrongly, and created an imperial presidency. Wow!

A great man (me) once wrote a song called CRASSDRIVER. It was about how the left and right were the same. But in that song, I was saying they were both full of shit. Now, they’re both RIGHT!

And then, take Tolstoy... please!

Actually, it’s not Tolstoy, but just a character in Anna Karenina. For him, lower classes are conservative, Christian, monogamous, and boring. Then there’s the rest of us.

In England 2011, the riots against the government are not corporate financed tea parties: conservative, Christian and boring. They’re anarchists, socialists... a bunch of them poor people. The government cuts in France aren’t being welcomed by the French equivalent of the Koch brothers. They’re being fought by the French equivalent of that construction guy who calls out Hey babe... anybody tell you you’ve got nice tits?

Even punk rock, that musical style that began in America as a middle-class reaction to White overblown rock music and Negro (and gay) disco. When it crossed the ocean, poor people took it over. When it came back, it turned from Skrewdriver to The Dead Kennedys.

What the fuck? Things aren’t like they should be. Who’s conservative? Who’s liberal? Who’s a lefty? Is punkrock rightwing or leftwing? What does that mean anyway? Fuck if I...

WAIT A MINUTE!! I GOT IT!! It’s not TEEN SNOW at all! It’s TEENS NOW! TEEN SNOW-dot-fuckin’ com is TEENS NOW-dot-fuckin’ com. How did I miss that?

I just divided it in the wrong place. I split the words where the words shouldn’t have been split. As usual, pornography answers life’s most profound questions.

It’s not a question of left or right, punk or non-punk, dead Dad or live Dad. I’ve been dividing the world where the world shouldn’t have been divided.

Kucinich-Paul makes perfect sense. Both politicians believe the U.S. should avoid doing harm in the world. Both believe that money spent killing people in other countries is not money well spent. Kucinich believes that money should be spent on people who need it. Paul believes that money should be returned to the people who had it before the government took it. THAT’S the dividing line. The idea of left and right is irrelevant.

Skrewdriver was just as punk as Crass. Working-class Sham 69 was no punker than middle-class Ramones. GG Allin is punk. Green Day is punk. Fast music and a fuck-you attitude... that’s the line. It’s not politics, popularity or personality. If you inspire people to throw themselves at one another, sing along, say fuck you to someone with power. It’s punk. Anarcho, pop, post, crusty... they don’t mean shit. You're dividing things in the wrong places.

Dad may indeed kick the bucket while I’m here in California. He may go before this plane touches ground. I could land, call Cousin Shirley from the airport and hear her teary voice on the other end. I have no control. Go or not will not change the end. People die. When they die, we do things (cry, go to funerals, cemeteries, figure out what debts to skip out on, where to go from here). Life and death is what happens. One is the end of the other. There’s no dividing at all.

ENDNOTES: [email subscribers (god@mykelboard.com) or website viewers (mykelsblog.blogspot.com) will get live links and a chance to post comments on the column]

--> I hate Obama so I’m safe from hell dept: In Greenville South Carolina, Rev. Jay Scott Newman distributed a letter to his congregation. The letter told them that if they voted for Obama or any other “pro-abortion” politician, they “place themselves outside the full communion of Christ’s Church... Persons in this condition should not receive Holy Communion until and unless they are reconciled to God in the Sacrament of Penance, lest they eat and drink their own condemnation.”

--> Recession? What recession? dept: The LA Times reports that the top executives of America’s 4 largest for-profit insurance companies got nearly $200 million last year. The insurance companies also forced double-digit premium hikes on their customers.

--> Civil War redux dept: Tennessee Representative Zach Wamp said that states need to secede from the union if the Federal government continues in its current path. Says he, “I hope that the American people will go to the ballot box in 2012 so that states are not forced to consider separation from this government.”
I say, YEAH! America is way too big anyway. How ‘bout fifty countries? Then those guys can get what they deserve. Here, dividing lines are clear. Just look at a map.

--> You want Palin with that? dept: Jim Hightower reports on the last week before the 2010 elections. Workers in a McDonald’s outlet in Canton, Ohio found instructions from their boss on how to vote.

In a pamphlet with the McDonald’s logo, workers read, “If the right people are elected, we will continue with raises and benefits at or above the current levels. If others are elected, we will not.”
Just in case the workers didn’t get it, the McDonald’s owner listed the Republican nominees for Governor, Senate and Congress, designating them as “the right people.”

--> You want truth with that? dept: Republican ad-man Ben Mathis got famous actor Morgan Freeman to do an ad attacking North Carolina’s Democrats. Only he didn’t. Mathis hired a voice double to make the ad, copying Freeman’s voice.
Says Mathis, “we, of course, never say that they are the actual celebrities, but voters recognize their voice and trust it.”

--> I wonder if he got hard labor dept: Kyle sent me a clipping about a Swedish man who was sentenced to more than 2½ years in prison for stealing the Auschwitz ARBEIT MACHT FREI (Work Makes You Free) sign that was over the entrance to the concentration camp.

--> One small victory dept: The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down an Oregon law which criminalized giving or selling to minors “material containing descriptions or depictions of sexual activity.” This would have included material from sex eduction books, or Maximum RocknRoll when it runs my columns.

--> Further on the censorship front dept: The Bible Literacy Project is a program for pushing bible-studies in public schools. It's gotten in trouble with Christian fundamentalists. Why? The group published a textbook called The Bible and It’s Influence using a picture where... gasp... Adam and Eve were NAKED! Fundamentalists complained. The textbook’s authors will soon make necessary changes. Besides, everybody knows that Adam and Eve were born wearing JESUS IS MY COACH t-shirts, right?

--> Very End Endnote Dept: With nearly perfect timing, Dad died 2 days after my return to New York. He let me enjoy my time in California... both with my family and friends including early MRR founders and supporters: Ruth Schwartz, Jeff Bale, and Jello Biafra. I also hung with current MRR editrix Mariam, and a bunch of shitworkers. Though I missed a few important people (Adrienne and Martin among others) it was a great trip. I’m glad Dad let me enjoy it. Thanks Dad.

-end-

Mykel's homepage is here

Mykel Knows It From A Hole In The Ground! (MRR 337, June)

2011-06-04T04:34:00.000-04:00

You're Wrong
An Irregular Column

Column for MRR 337

May 2011
by Mykel Board

aka Mykel Knows It From A Hole In The Ground!

[This is the last column of my recent Mexican adventure. There will be probably be more on my travel blog. You can read it at: http://mykelsdiary.blogspot.com/]

"There is hardly anyone whose sexual life, if it were broadcast, would not fill the world at large with surprise and horror.” --W. Somerset Maugham

“The very core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. “ --Christopher McCandliss

I'm not like other people. I love to watch naked-- or near naked-- people gyrate on stage, I love to poke my dollar in a bikini string, I love to stare at the flash of gash, a quiver of quim, or a dollop of dick. I love to watch naked nipples, and the pulsing spiral of an exposed anus. Yes, in that way I'm normal. But, I cannot get off on a lap dance. It's my curse.

No matter what the gender, age, endowment. No matter how hard or light the pressure. No matter if it's frontwards or backwards. No matter nothing. Rubbing my stiffened stub from outside my clothes will not give me an orgasm. It may even unstiff the stiffness.

Now: I'm in Guau Guau, a titty bar in Aqua Prieta, right over the border from Douglas Arizona. In one hand is a beer from my 180 -peso-a-bucket special. In the other hand is a single dollar bill.

AP is one of those cities that the US government issues warnings about. One of those places where headless bodies turn up on Main Street. Where the local drug cartels run the drugs, the restaurants, the shops and the government. One of those places where the U.S. State Department says DON'T GO:

Since 2006, the Mexican government has engaged in an extensive effort to combat drug-trafficking organizations (DTOs). DTOs have erected unauthorized checkpoints, and killed motorists who have not stopped at them. According to published reports, 22,700 people have been killed in narcotics-related violence since 2006.

Yow! Here I am!

At the end of the town's main street is a single mountain with an ominously cup-shaped top.

“My family told me it was a volcano,” says Gilberto. “Now, I don't think so... but you never know.”

You've already met some of the characters in this story. There's Gilberto, my best Mexican pal and organizer of this trip. It's for his birthday party that I find myself in this town.

There's Barichu, aka the Mexican GG Allin. He's been arrested by the police more times than I've paid for sex. That's a lot. When he went after the cops waving a plastic gun, they broke his nose. Newspaper headlines were (in translation): Drugs or Satan? What's behind the bizarre attack? Barichu's hobby is mashing up dried dog shit... and snorting it.

Then there's Ingrid, Gilberto's roommate in Boston. She's a pretty perky blonde with skin so pale you can almost see through it. Her visit to Aqua Prieta engenders erection impeded walking from every male between the ages of puberty and final decay. With me, she always talks about her BOYFRIEND back in Boston. For some reason, whenever I meet attractive people, they all immediately talk about their BOYFRIENDS... always in capital letters. Ingrid won't let me use her real name, so she gets Ingrid, for the blond hair and general sexiness.

But the real star of this story is Agua Prieta itself. A wry place with a sense of humor lurking on every corner. The local convenience store is Walmarcito. It's just down the street from the fast food joint, Burger Queen.

You won't want to eat there, though. Because Gilberto's uncle has “the biggest non-cartel restaurant in town.” I suggest you go there and try the cow-udder tacos. You won't find them at Taco Bell.

Ingrid is in town for the birthday party. It's a wonderful affair hosted by Gilberto's aunt and uncle... with a ton of kids, grand- dads, relatives, friends of every gender, age and description. Igrid, with her blonde hair, thin body, and gringa good looks, stands out like a beard at a lesbian bar.

She and Barichu hit it off pretty well. The only two smokers in the place, they have that special camaraderie that pushes social outcasts together in the most unlikely combinations. Like homos in a small town in Alabama.

Then there's Guau Guau, the strip club. Beautiful girls who give you a kiss when they pick up the dollar you leave on the stage.

Yeah, they bug you for lap dances. Walking around after their set, putting their hands on your thigh, asking if you want a private dance. It is a strip club, after all.

“I'll buy you one, Mykel,” says Gilberto. “You should do it.”

“No thanks,” I tell him, not going into detail about my personal... er... impairment. “I just like to watch.”

He goes off with one of the more attractive strippers. I keep feeding dollars to the girls on the stage. Each kisses me on the cheek after I slip a bill under an elastic band, near the good part.

In my 71 years, I must've gone to a hundred strip bars... but up til now, I've never been to one where the strippers kiss the patrons for tipping them.

The next day, I come back with Gilberto, Barichu, and Ingrid. It's great enough to meet a girl who likes a guy like Barichu. But it's even greater to meet a girl who likes STRIP CLUBS! In the 70s, even girls who WORKED in strip clubs didn't like them. Ah, change is not all negative.

One of Gilberto's friends gets us in for free. We huddle around the stage, nose-close to the dancers.

Ingrid lays those dollar bills down almost as fast as I do. She gets a flash for each one, and a nice peck on the cheek.

Gilberto brings one of the best strippers, tall, curvy in the special way that Latinas do curves. You know, ass-not-hips. Skin, the color of cinnamon. Breasts like twin Mount Fujis. Makes me want to erupt.

Gilberto speaks to Ingrid in English. “Hey Ingrid,” he says. “You want a lap dance? This one's the best. I'll buy you one.”

I laugh.

Ingrid doesn't.

“Sure,” she says.

By the time I close my gaping jaw, she and the Chicana walk off to the back. Brown and white, like a peanut butter sandwich made in heaven.

In twenty minutes Ingrid's back. Her face glows in the soft light of the club.

“They were watching me, Mykel,” she says. “All those bodyguards and bouncers. Back there... it's like an office... with cubicles... she sat on my lap and we were surrounded, these guys... those guys with no necks who work here... they came around to watch... you could see them jiggling themselves... their hands in their pockets.”

“YOU should have charged THEM,” I tell her.

By this time, another Mexican beauty is on stage. This one darker and lither than the first. Like a sexy snake, she slithers full length across the stage... crawling on her arms and legs to the edge. Her petite but proud breasts just touch the wood. She slides right in front of Ingrid and reaches down.

She grabs both of Ingrid's arms and pulls her on stage. But our Indrid isn't dancing. At least not in the normal sense of the word. She's lying on her back. The stripper is over her. Rubbing her brown body against the white girl.

Then the dancer reaches down. She pulls Ingrid's sweater up, over her head. In the soft light, Ingrid's breasts, as perky as her personality, sparkle bright and white.

I reach between my legs to make myself more comfortable.

Gently, the dancer takes one, then the other nipple in her mouth. Looking at the men in the audience, I can see sympathetic tongue movements on each of them. We're in this together.

Together we lick those nipples. We lick each and then lick down to a place between them. We lick in a line from breast to navel, back to breast. We lick downward again. We press our collective chins against her individual crotch and keep licking. We're collectively disappointed when Ingrid keeps her pants on. We're collectively inspired when she licks back at the woman on top of her. We become Ingrid as she takes those brown mounds into her hands.

All too soon, it's over. All too soon, we let go of our breath and applaud our collective appreciation. Ingrid puts her sweater back on and climbs down from the stage.

“Wow!” I say.

She smiles and we (Ingrid, Barichu, Gilberto and I) walk out to the car.

“I'm sorry you had to see my breasts,” she says.

“I'm 70 years old,” I tell her, “I've done more than people twice my age would have done if they lived that old. I've eaten Piranha in Peru, had sex under a Mongolian staircase, been in a threesome with one girl in Thailand, been kidnapped in Albania, but never in my life before has someone said to me I'm sorry you had to see my breasts.”

She smiles.

“Please don't be sorry,” I tell her. “I sure as shit am not.”

When we get back to Gilberto's Tio's place where the party is still going on.

“Mykel,” asks Gilberto's Tia, “¿Mykel, porque andas todo pintarrajeado??”

Whoops. I forgot about that.

I wash my face as best I can. The various shades of lipstick on my cheek meld into one another, but never completey disappear.

We drink some more, eat some more, and somehow Gilberto ends up in bed with Ingrid. I sleep with Barichu.

FLASH AHEAD: It's Arizona. Ingrid wants to see the Grand Canyon. That's what you do in Arizona. I don't want to give the state any of my money... and I certainly don't want to do any tourist shit. But I'm out-voted and Gilberto has the car. So it's to Grand Canyon we go.

We pay $20 to park, then go to the guest house and souvenir shop. I can buy a Grand Canyon Collector Plate, a Grand Canyon Ceramic Cup, or a Grand Canyon Refrigerator Magnet. I don't.

The gift shop is in a rustic-looking shed. Log cabin-ish, though there aren't many logs in this area. One wall is Plexiglas. It overlooks the canyon.

A crowd of tourists presses against the glass, oooowing and ahhing. Being 5'3” tall, I decide not to compete with them, and walk outside for a direct look. I look. It's a hole in the ground. A big hole... and that's it.

Twenty dollars for a hole? I've paid that in Thailand and the DR, but in those cases I got a hole I really enjoyed!

Sometime ago... in the Wild West... some Indian stumbled on this place and said, “let's sucker the gringos. Tell 'em it's special. A really big hole. The rube's be lining up to buy fridge magnets. Those white folks. They can't tell their ass from a hole in the ground.”

I don't take one picture. I don't even stay and look. I head for the car and let Ingrid and Gilberto ooooh and aaahhh.

For me? Aqua Prieta was more ooooh and aaah than the Grand Canyon will ever be. Walmarcito, Burger Queen, the volcano at the end of the street, That's worth some oooohs and aaaahhs. Ingrid's own twin peaks, the lipstick all over my face, Gilberto's birthday party, that's what I'll remember from this trip. I can tell an ass from a hole in the ground. I'll take the ass any day.

ENDNOTES: [email subscribers (god@mykelboard.com) or website viewers (www.mykelboard.com) will get live links and a chance to post comments on the column]

-->The Tea Party is concerned about the debt dept: Ok, instead of taking the cash from poor folks on welfare or immigrants seeking a better life, how 'bout taking it from the pals of GWB?
    The BBC reports that more than $9 billion given to Bush's buddies in Iraq has gone missing.
     Stuart Bowen is the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction. His task is to follow the paper trail-- and after more than 100 investigations-- his work tells a story of waste and mismanagement.
     Bowen says billions of dollars were shrink-wrapped in plastic and flown out of the US to Baghdad.

-->Sometimes you forget that Florida is THE SOUTH dept: The Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville Florida has pastor Terry Jones. Jones is the author of the recently released book Islam Is of the Devil. He was also the proud displayer of a sign-- on church property-- against the city's gay mayor. “No homo Mayor” says the sign.
I say they missed the important question: Is he white?

-->Obama's an improvement? dept: From the LA Times: The Democratic administration of Barack Obama, who denounced his predecessor George W Bush, as “the most secretive administration in history,” is now denying more Freedom of Information Act requests than the Republicans did.

-->Time to turn inward dept: Dean Allen, a Republican candidate for Adjutant General (whatever that is) held a “machine gun social” to raise funds. For a $25 donation, supporters got a barbecue and a chance to fire the machine gun of their choice. Too bad they didn't aim in a different direction.

-->Dying (or killing) for a job dept: Senior Pentagon official, Curtis Gilroy, said that a 10 percent increase in the national unemployment rate becomes a 4 to 6 percent increase in military recruitment. Last year, the Pentagon announced that it has met all of its annual recruiting goals for the first time in 35 years.

-->Sounds like a Christian Scientist with appendicitis dept: A 2006 Kentucky state law created The Kentucky Office of Homeland Security. It requires the state to post a plaque at the entrance to the Emergency Operations Center. The plaque contains a Bible verse and a statement that says: The safety and security of the Commonwealth cannot be achieved apart from reliance upon Almighty God.
I ask: can you please post God's phone number so I can call directly next time a plane flies into a building? I'd rather skip the middleman.

-->God on the ass dept: It now comes out: Rev. Rob Schenck, Rev. Patrick Mahoney, and Grace Nwachukwu, all members of religious-right Christian groups, wanted to influence the hearings on Rightwing Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. They were worried that his views on church-state matters... and abortion... would keep him off the Supreme Court. So, what did they do? At 6 AM, they snuck into the confirmation hearing room and “anointed all the chairs with holy oil.” Thus they brought God to the (back) side of Alito. He was accepted to the court.

-->Speaking of God, my pal Kyle send me the following with the note “The gospel according to GG Allin?” This may just be my favorite bible quote:

Hath my master sent me to thy master and to thee to speak these words? Hath he not sent me to the men that sit upon the wall, that they may eat their own dung, and drink their own piss with you? Isaiah 36:12

It's true! Check it out in your own bible!

-->Punk Rock dept: Gilberto asked me not to forget to mention a few of the notorious Aqua Prieta punk bands:
Los Ke Siquen HC (that's the way he spelled it!), Pinakates (Barichu's band), and The Yerlekererem, a heavy metal band turned punk “'cuz it's easier to play.”

-->Not a gift, but a load dept: Many liberals, caught in the American ideal of giving is bad, lending is good support so-called charities that make small loans to help poor people start businesses. Somehow this LOAN is supposed to be better than an outright gift.
Well, the BBC reports "Interest on repayments begin at around 15%, but it is a flat rate and can soon rise to anything between 40% and 100%," Dr Ahmad says.
Many people lose their businesses-- and their homes-- when they're unable to pay back the loan.

-->I'm so healthy dept: HDL cholesterol is known as the "good" cholesterol because a high level of it seems to protect against heart attack. And the Harvard Health Letter says: "Alcohol increases HDL. The more people drink the higher it goes. Alcoholics tend to have great HDL numbers."

-end-

See more than you'd ever want to at Mykel's home website.

or READ more than you'd ever want to by ordering his book:
I A, Me-ist or The Portable Mykel Board

Mykel Checks To See If He Can Still Do It! (MRR 335, May)

2011-05-08T12:02:00.000-04:00

You're Wrong
An Irregular Column

Column for MRR 336

May 2011

by Mykel Board

aka Mykel Checks
To See If He Can Still Do It!

"My prayer for the women of the next millennium: have hard hearts; and
learn how to kill.” --Andrea Dworkin

“Nursing is great, Mykel.” Donn tells me. He turns to Gwera. Should we tell him the bowel story?” he asks, before going ahead anyway.

“This is so wonderful,” he continues. “We had this guy... an old guy... street crazy... really just a poor street bum... never saw a doctor... no teeth... scraggly gray beard... came in screaming. Stomach pain... horrible nausea. Later we find out he has an obstructed bowel... like a knot in your lower intestines. The shit can't get through. It builds up... then backs up.”

I nod like it happens all the time.

“Course, the guy has to eat,” says Donn. “And if you eat, the food turns to shit. And the shit goes down the large intestines. But it can't come out... it just piles on the old shit already down there. The guy eats more. That turns to shit and piles more on the old shit. Pretty soon it backs up into the small intestine... like traffic in front of a bridge toll... in rush hour.”

Uh oh. I think I know what's coming.

“That small intestine is pretty long... about twenty feet... big as a house...still, there's a limit. It fills up...after the small intestine comes the stomach... This guy is there...on the gurney... dressed in hospital drag. He starts to gag... rumbling from the stomach... his neck muscles tighten... relax... tighten again... gray cheeks bulge... I get the puke tray... put it next to his head... Then it comes out. This huge brown turd... solid... like a junkie turd...right from his mouth... he's puking shit... backed up from his stomach...”

I feel like puking shit myself.

“It's not only one turd,” he continues. “It's a series... each more viscous than the last... mixed with more stomach juices... digested... redigested... Gobs of brown coming from this guy's mouth.”

I begin to taste my just-eaten tortilla... again.

The speaker is Donn, drummer of Sin Arte. He's a also nurse here in Arizona. Donn used to live in Connecticut. He's an old timer from the 80's hardcore scene. He tells me we met at The Anthrax, before you were born. I forgot his band then. Citizen something or other I think. He's a funny guy, with my kind of sensibility. Besides being a nurse, he's a punkrock drummer in Tucson.

Before we get to the plot, you'll need to know some other characters in this story. I introduced them a couple months ago. Here's a quick review. Gwera's real name is Berenice, she looks Irish and comes from Northern Mexico where the “GU” sound is pronounced like a W. (Like Where a?) Add to that, she's a great guitar player. Add to that she's smart and attractive.

Then there's BEEF, a big white guy who's a great cook. You met him in an earlier column too. Beef is not in Sin Arte, my band for this trip, but he plays a part in the story. You'll see later.

Ivan is not Russian. His full name is something like Ivan Restokovich, but he's Mexican. More than one immigration agent accused him with the legal equivalent of “you're fucking with me,” when he gave his name. You also met him before, in an earlier column. He's the bass player for La Merma, maybe the most famous band from Sonora... the North Mexico state where the Sin Arte tour did not take place. (You can read about my Mexican adventures in my travel blog mykelsdiary.blogspot.com.)

While I was in Mexico, Ivan got kicked out of his Nogales apartment and had to move in with Gwera. Not a bad had to, if you ask me.

The original plan: My Mexican friends have decided to put together a tribute band. The tributee? Me! Or at least my old band ARTLESS. They'll learn ARTLESS songs. I'll sing. We'll play half a dozen shows in Mexico and a couple in Arizona. The
new band, called Sin Arte, will tour with Cojoba, a Puerto Rican band based in New York. Together, we'll play with a buncha Mexican bands, many of them on the revival circuit, getting
back together just for us. Yowsah!

Having encouraged a boycott of Arizona for its ethnic cleansing law...requiring the police to stop and ID anyone suspected of being an illegal immigrant, I'm a little hesitant to play in Arizona. My image is a place filled with intolerance. Anyone a different race? Ship 'em to Mexico. Different ideas? Ship 'em to California.

Gilberto assures me that I'll be playing with Mexicans, so it's okay. AND, in Southern Arizona I'll be playing FOR Mexicans, so it's even better. In the tug of war between ego and morals... morals loses. I agree to do the tour.

As it turns out, Sin Arte listened to ARTLESS songs only “once or twice,” and never rehearsed them. Also as it turns out, every show in Mexico is canceled. Why is a long story. It's in the blog.

That leaves two shows. One in Tucson. One in Flagstaff. The Tucson show is at The Dry River Collective. The one in Flagstaff is at The Infoshop. Both spots are alternative.

Being alternative, I figure both places will be pretty intolerant. That means I'll have the first chance to really piss off a live audience since Artless quit playing in 1998. I wonder if I can do it. Do I still have my chops? Maybe I lost the devil inside... like Mick Jagger in Performance.

We have time for one rehearsal. Four ARTLESS songs: Aahrg, We Want Nuclear War, Do the No, and Beer is Better Than Girls Are... The last is our “hit.” It's a satire on those poor guys who can't get laid and drown their sorrows with the sorry excuse beer is better anyway. I took the words from an old poster/t-shirt... been around for years... I just made it rhyme. That one, the PC folks should actually like.

I figure I gotta change the other song names. Make 'em more offensive. It's punkrock and nobody can understand the lyrics anyway. We Want Nuclear War becomes Bombs, Not Food. Aahrg! (that's the only word in the song) becomes Mata Los Gringos (apologies to NOFX). Everything else stays the same.

FLASH AHEAD: We enter DRY RIVER. It's empty... except for a not-so friendly women at the door. She's tall and skinny... died black hair and a severe Nurse Ratched face. I'm surprised to see that Beef is also here... hanging outside... having a smoke with some locals.

“Yo Beef!” I say. “Wachu doin' here? Come to see us play?”

“Mykel,” he says, “I'm playing tonight... with Pop Gestapo. We're opening for you. Same band... only me singing instead of you.”

Walking up the street is Cojoba. Javier has a shopping bag full of Tecate beer. He hands me one. He hands one to Beef. He hands one to this sixteen year old kid with a skateboard. He hands another to this attractive boy in very short shorts.

Nurse Rached comes to the door and taps him on the shoulder. “Sorry,” she says, “but we can't allow drinking here. The police will shut us down.”

He stops... for a minute or two... then starts handing out the beer again. Aaaaaoooogah! It'll be a club full of drunken' 16 year olds. Yeah!

Inside, I set up the merch table, then look around the crowd. There are a couple femmy white boys in short shorts with skull make-up painted on their faces. I wonder if it's a local fashion. Then I remember today is Day of The Dead. For dead adolescents, they sure look good! Let's hope Javier can get them drunk enough.

Inside, there's no stage, just a floor area... marked off with amps at one end and a drumkit at the other... punkrock.

Slowly, more people come into the club. Another guy with a bicycle and skull make-up. Several girls in wool sweaters... torn at the sleeves. A group of youngsters: a girl with a short purple dress over bright red tights, a muscular blond boy, and the only colored guy in the place (besides Cojoba's drummer)... a good-looking skinny boy about 18.

By now there are about 50 people inside-- not a Mexican among them. At the door waits a jar for contributions. People pay (or don't) what they want for the show. It's voluntary... depends on good will. Not much goes into the jar.

Ok, it's time for Pop Gestapo... a buncha noise and Beef. Beef sings between sips from a glass of water. There's a little moshing. Then come the fire crackers... then the smoke bomb... rolling along the floor... spewing gray smoke... some people run... others laugh... there's shouting.

A guy... scraggly beard... long hair... young Jesus type... comes up to Beef and shouts at him.

“Okay,” he says, “the show's over. Pack up. Go home.”

Beef starts to argue with him. Nurse Rached joins the fray.

“You're jeopardizing the space,” she screams.

“It's only a smoke bomb,” says Beef, sipping from his water glass. “It's harmless.”

“YOU'RE JEOPARDIZING THE SPACE,” she screams louder.

Beef pours the remaining water, about half a glass, over her head. Then he walks out.

Next up is Cojoba.

Club Gestapo is already pissed at Javier for giving away free beer. But seeing as the band sings in Spanish, and has Hispanic (and one Negro) members, the Dry River politburo lets them play. And even thanks them. They do a fine set.

And then it's us, Sin Arte.

Mata Los Gringos has the crowd moshing, as does Bombs, Not Food. Then it's time for Beer, the paean to guys who can't get laid.

No matter how cunning their stunts... with a girl there's that time of the month... the difference of course with a beer... it's good every day of the year...

The crowd stops dancing. Over on the right, the young moshers are standing and smiling. Nurse Rached and her pals stand, arms folded. They are not smiling.

Beer is better than girls are... I don't care where their little curls are... when you're out with the boys at a bar... a beer will wait in the car... yes a beer will wait in the car.

The cool thing about this song is that it's orchestrated so you can hear all the lyrics. No music during the verses, light Omm Pah Pah, German bar music during the chorus.

A beer will give you good head... it goes down easy in bed...

Screaming comes from somewhere. I can't make out the words, but they don't sound very friendly.

Handle it, it won't say Stop it... You know if you're the first to pop it...

“Stop the song. Stop the song now!” comes the screaming voice. It is not from Nurse Rached, but from another girl, tall, skinny, wearing a black and white knit sweater and a tuke.

I continue, The label comes off with no fight... it doesn't say headache tonight.

“Stop it! Stop the song!”

I hand her the microphone. Creatively, she screams into it.

“STOP IT! STOP THE SONG!”

Then, the same guy who talked to Beef walks up to me. “Okay,” he says, “the show's over. Pack up. Go home.”

He must say that a lot.

I think, “Yes!! I can still do it. I can get us thrown off stage. I've still got it!”

Donn has it even better.

“Wow!” he says. “Thrown off the stage twice in less than two hours. Wadda great night!”

As we pack up, the three young moshers come over. The colored guy says, “You guys were great. Too bad those people can't put up with another point of view.”

Each of them shakes my hand and tells me what a good time they were having. I'm thinking, “maybe not all Arizona non-Mexicans are bad.”

“We're from Utah,” says the colored guy. “We want you to come and play. We won't throw you off.”

They came special to the show... to see us. From U-fucking-tah!! I love 'em!

But Arizona? Arizona is fucked. If you go there (you shouldn't!), hang with Mexicans... or Donn or Beef. Other whites are... I donno... just bad. Flagstaff will change my mind about the state... a bit. But I don't have space to tell you about that show. You'll have to wait for the blog.

The bottom line:

DO NOT PLAY at DRY RIVER in Tucson. They are worse than a bunch of Christians in their censorship. With the sense of humor of a cancer patient, they prohibit what they don't like... without even understanding it. If you play there, you will support intolerance as bad as any xenophobic Arizonan on the street.

DO PLAY at THE INFOSHOP in Flagstaff. Although in Flagstaff, I think of it as a kind of Navajo reservation. It is NOT really Arizona. The Navajos who run the place have a punk band of their own, Let The World Die. They are as open-- and friendly-- as a box of puppies-- terrific people. See 'em! book 'em when they come to your town! And if you're passing through Flagstaff, play at their club. Then get the hell out of the state.

ENDNOTES: [email subscribers (god@mykelboard.com) or website viewers (www.mykelboard.com) will get live links and a chance to post comments on the column]

-->Of course my last column, about the Jews and the blood libel was my annual April Fool's column. Don't worry George, I'll never reveal the REAL SECRET of the Jews.

-->He's right dept: Sid Yiddish, my pal and proof-reader, complained that I was being unfair to white Arizonans who oppose ethnic cleansing and are pretty decent people. These W.A.'s include Sid's parents. He's right. Roger Armstrong also lives in Arizona. And he's a pretty cool guy. The state still should be boycotted, but the residents should not be 100% condemned.

[Because of it's excessive length, (there's a phrase I rarely hear!) we've cut some endnotes from this column. They'll be in the next one.]

-end-

more than you'd ever want to know about Mykel Board can be found here