Mykel Board Talks Shit MRR 329

You're Wrong
An Irregular Column
by Mykel Board

aka Mykel Talks Shit!

"What is the reward for pointing out that everyone's walking around carrying bucketfuls of shit? They dump the buckets on you. They feel lighter, and you get covered in shit.” --Jim Goad

It must've been the Guinness. I can feel the rumblings on my right side, right above my hipbone. The painful gurgle-gurgle, the mucilaginous brownitude. bubbling up slowly, then across... inch by painful inch... down the left side. Ah the delicious pain. My sphincter spontaneously fights the flow. Open the gates! Please, open the gates. There's a drop... then another... then...

Mykel! What the fuck??!

It's Sid Yiddish, my friend and editor, typing in italics. Wacha doin' in my columns, Sid?

 

I don't mind doing this for you... for free... I might add... but every month there's some scat I have to... er... sit through. You're obsessed with shit. I don't get it. Can't you write about anything but shit?

He's right. I write shit. I talk shit. Why?

Mark Twain and Ben Weasel have both sung the praises of a good shit. Both complained that fecal matters get the short shrift in the war between shit and fuck. I agree. 

Shit has a lot going for it. You don't have to tell a good shit you love it... or make it breakfast in the morning. 

That's for starters.
 

But there's another reason I'm shit obsessed. There's just so much of it. 

 

Flashback: The year is 1968. It's the Vietnam War times. There is a law: Local draft boards have to include any “information” you send them. Your records much be complete as you see fit to complete them. 

The idea is that people send their draft boards all the reasons they shouldn't be drafted. The board has to consider all this information. To do so fairly, they have to add anything you want to your file. I'm packaging a dead mouse I found in the corner of my dorm room, snapped in half by one of those snappy traps. I've liberated the body from the trap, put it in tissue paper, put that in a shoebox. 

On a plain piece of typing paper, I write: Please add this to my files on record at the draft board. Thank you, Mykel (actually, then it was Michael) J. Board. I add my SS number.

Now I tape the shoebox shut. On top of the box, right under the KEDS logo, I write the name of my draft board, and its office address, somewhere in Ronkonkoma. 

I don't put a return address on the box. But I do put on a lot of postage. 

Since it costs six cents to mail an ordinary letter, I figure 20 stamps should be more than enough.
 

I take an entire stamp sheet... Law and Order stamps..., lick the back... the whole sheet, and wrap it from the top of the package around the side. I slip the package into the corner mailbox. Then, return to my dorm room. 

There is nothing left. Nothing to show. The spot where the package lay, the stamps, the box, have no record. 

No shit. 

NOW: I'm sadly packing my copy of Humungousfungusamongus. Sold it on GEMM to someone in Japan for $19.90. Plus shipping. Of course, I charge way too much for the shipping. That's how you do it these days.
 

Shipping charges don't make up for the sadness of parting with an LP I love... but sometimes you gotta eat, and pay the bar bill.

I print a shipping label and peel it off a waxed backing sheet. Then, I put the packing slip in an envelope, pull off a strip of vinyl and seal the envelope. Then, I take a stamp from another waxed sheet of paper, peel it off, and stick it on the package. 

I've sent something 12,000 miles away, and I'm left with more than I started. Stupid little strips of plastic. Label backings. Remnants of sealings that used to leave nothing. A bunch of shit.

Lately, everything makes shit. 

I can't buy a bottle of One-A-Day Vitamins without a plastic-sealed cap, an inner aluminum seal, the whole bottle in a box with six pages of instructions... and a coupon. Instructions for One-A-Day Vitamins??? Hmmm One-A-Day Vitamins, I wonder what the dosage is. 

Shit! Shit! And more shit!

Susan-of-the-Apple-Worshippers butts in: But Mykel, you are the one who rants against iPods and e-readers. Those things reduce shit. Think of all the trees not cut down to make books. Think of all the oil saved in not making CDs and records...

No! No! No! 

Books are NOT shit. Records are not shit. They are things we use. We hold them. Use them. Use them again. Give them away. Sell them on GEMM. 

 

Cut to the desert island: You've been stranded for a year. There's fruit and fresh water... you can even catch a fish or two once-in-awhile. 

What's really killing is the boredom. Jerking off doesn't do it anymore. Your dick's got a friction sore as big as your thumbnail.

Construction doesn't do it either. You've made a house, a rain-catching station, a lean-to, and a life-size special friend.

Looking out toward the ocean, you see that the sea is a bit rough today. Waves blow in from the water leaving shells, and odd debris in their wake. 

You're safe on high ground. You can watch without fear as the white caps come further and further inland. You drift to sleep to the sound of the waves.

In the morning, the beach is littered with debris. Plates, plastic bottles, an energy-saving lightbulb. It looks like wreckage, but maybe it's just garbage, dumped by a luxury cruiser. 

Wait. There's something in the distance. Small and square. Ah, to have a book. Something to hold. To read and reread. It would be a dream come true. An escape from the boredom of one day just following another. 

You walk over to the object. Too thin for Moby Dick, maybe it's The Unlimited Dream Company. That would be even better. If the pages are wet, you can separate them and dry them in the sun. In a day, they'll be readable. 

It's hard to make it out until you're right there on top of it. An iPad. 

Jeezus fuckin' Christ. What are you gonna do with that piece of shit?

 

Nowadays: Amazon just announced that its sales of e-books have just surpassed its sales of hard-cover books. What the fuck?

My kindle-totting friends agree with Susan. “Mykel! E-books are eco-friendly. You don't need to kill trees to make them?” 

Eco-friendly my shit-streaked ass!

If I read a book, I can give it to a friend. Sell it on Amazon. It'll stay in circulation. Like a bad cold, it'll go from one person to another. A traveler will pick it up, leave it somewhere. Another traveler will pick it up. Maybe someone will donate it to their local library or the university library in Mongolia. 

E-books? Try donating ten of 'em to your local library. Try selling 'em on Second Ave... or selling 'em back to Amazon. Try throwing 'em overboard, hoping they'll wash up where someone else can read 'em. 

Worse than that, in two years, new machines won't be able to read the old formats. Your collection will be out-dated, needing a new e-reader, a different format. More software. A more powerful computer. More shit. 

Remember when you could just visit someone and look at their family photo album? Now? Fuhgeddaboudit. You need a computer, an internet connection and Facebook. Shit, shit and more shit. 

 

Exactly Now: I sit at McDonald's off the Garden State Parkway in New Jersey. I'm on my way to read at a place called THE LOFT in New Brunswick. Chris, the guy who invited me, ran the shows at the loft. It's also a living place, hangout, and art studio. 

A couple months ago, Chris Facebooked me that he wanted to meet me. Set up a show around my reading. A few bands, a music stand to read from, a place to crash for the night, beer. What more could I want? (Yeah, I know.)

After hemming and hawing for a couple months, I decide to go. Chris seems like a good guy, and says he wants to meet me.

 Besides, New Brunswick is the home of Rutgers University, alma mater of MRR founder and first patriarch, Tim Yohannon. It'll be fun to go there.

As far as I know, Tim's not buried there, though. I don't think he's buried anywhere. His ashes were spread, I hope, among the buffalo dung in Golden Gate Park. That's the way he wanted it.

Just before the show, I check back onto the event site on Facebook. 

 

Is the show still going on? 

 

Is it going to be a memorial?

 

I think Chris would've wanted it to go on. We'll have it.” writes his girlfriend, Jupiter.

Huh? 

The organizer died? He invites me to speak and then goes joining Tim with the buffaloes? Holy shit! What's going on?

So here I sit wondering what's gonna happen tonight. 

I stopped in McDonald's only to get a drink of water and write this column. 

Water? 

No water fountains here. 

If I take a drink from a drinking fountain, that's it. The water travels from the fountain to my mouth. A pure transaction... like a blowjob. 

Now? 

I can BUY water. Plastic bottled water where the chemicals in the plastic leach into the water. This includes an especially dangerous material called antimony:

 

...small doses of antimony can make you feel ill and depressed. Larger quantities chemists say, can cause violent vomiting and even death. 

Instead of a drinking fountain, I get chemical death. Water wrapped in shit. Not only that. The number one ingredient in the so-called vitamin water (after water, that is) is SUGAR... in “crystalline fructose” form. The next ingredient? SUGAR (cane sugar). 

VITAMIN water, my shitty ass! It's a blowjob with a condom. Yuck! 

And I have a bottle left over. More shit.

From here I go to The Loft. My reading turned into a memorial. I'll let you know what shit goes down.

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]

-->You want wings on that airplane? dept: Federal watchdogs are demanding that airlines disclose their fees up front. That $99 flight to Philadelphia, can end up costing a month's pay. A few people think you should know before you go.
          Ryan Air was the worst, promising to charge for bathroom use. Shit on the floor, I say. Now, Spirit Airlines is adding a fee for carry-on bags, starting at $20 per bag each way. Spirit's CEO told Congress that bringing luggage on vacation is "not essential to travel."

-->What about exposure to Christians dept: An industry group established by Congress recommended that the federal government provide financial incentives for companies to “address the psychological impact on employees of exposure to disturbing images on the internet.”
     Mr. Nigam, co-chairman of the Online Safety and Technology Working Group, said global outsourcing firms that moderate content for many large Internet companies do not offer therapeutic care to their workers.
The group says that workers who have to censor photos for MySpace, Facebook and other websites are “seriously damaged,” by the content of some of those photos.
          The group’s recommendations have been submitted to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which advises the White House on digital policy.

-->You can teach, but you can't preach dept: Americans United for the Separation of Church and State reports that Christian punk band You Can Run But You Cannot Hide performs in schools with the goal of speaking to kids in our schools about the Constitution and suicide prevention. The schools go for it.
Then, they learn the method of suicide prevention. According to the band, it's “our own testimony of how Christ turned our lives around.” And why do they perform in public schools? “So we can get the light into kids’ hands in public schools.” Now what was it about The Constitution? You know that separation of church and state thing? How do we get THAT into kids hands in the public schools?

-->But is it okay to talk to her about capitalism? dept: The same organization reports that Pennsylvania's top court has ruled that a father has a First Amendment right to discuss polygamy with his daughter.
The court said Where there is no finding that discussing such matters constitutes a grave threat of harm to the child, there is insufficient basis for the court to infringe of a parent's constitutionally protected right to speak to a child about religion as he or she sees fit.
          The court was asked to rule during a custody dispute between defendant and his ex-wife. The wife told the court that the man's belief in polygamy ended their marriage and she did not want her 10-year-old daughter exposed to that concept.

-->Times change dept: The Boy Scouts of America are now offering a merit badge in video gaming. I wonder if it's a virtual merit badge. As for me, I had to skin raccoons for my merit badges.

-->Sounds like Birth of a Nation dept: An Israeli court convicted a Palestinian man of rape. Why? Because he told the girl his name was David instead of his real name, Sabbar. The girl thought he was Jewish and fucked him. Word got out and she sued... and won. Rape by deception was the verdict. And what non-virginal male wouldn't be guilty of that?
        Can you imagine? A light-skinned Negro saying he's white. Then the truth comes out? Lynch him! If there were any doubt about the racist state...both of them. Well, how can you answer that?

-->Oh yeah, the show in New Brunswick. It was GREAT!!! The crowd was great. The other bands were great (including one with members of the Murder Junkies... and yes, Dino stuck drumsticks up his ass... but only two!) Most of all Jupiter... Chris's girlfriend... put together a spectacular show... followed the next day by an even more spectacular memorial.
            This was the shit! in the best possible way. Chris must've been pretty special to have so many great friends. The memorial was filled with Chris's drawings, some photos, lots of candles and even more loving people. I'm not a sentimental guy, but who couldn't have been touched by it all. Chris surely didn't die... but lives in Jupiter... and others. You can see some of my photos from the show here.
Thanks, Chris. It was great to meet you!


 =end=

Mykel's personal website is here.