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You're Wrong
An Irregular Column
Column for MRR 338
July 2011
by Mykel Board
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 iPhoneTM You’re just gonna die... I mean did you see...
My computer is plugged into a bank of iPadsTM that 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 iPadTM. 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.
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.”
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-
