POST
MRR COLUMNS
Column 20, April 2015
by
Mykel Board
Feminism
is a collection of movements and ideologies that share a common goal:
to define, establish, and achieve equal political, economic,
cultural, personal, and social rights for women. --Wikipedia
I
never doubted that equal rights was the right direction. Most
reforms, most problems are complicated. But to me there is nothing
complicated about ordinary equality. -Alice Paul, feminist
[Note:
I promised a continuation of last month's column... but I
was...distracted... you'll read about it. I'll continue with the
“sucking column” next month.]
It's more
annoying than a jazz solo in a punk song. I sit in a tiny Russian bar
on the Lower East Side. Bang. Right up against the band. The bass
headstock knocking against my thoracic vertebrae... BANG! Chugga
Chugga Chugga...BANG! Chugga Chugga Chugga...BANG! Chugga Chugga
Chugga.
The
TV on the wall is silent, but running through a series of pictures...
like PowerPoint slides. Some senators... Abe Lincoln... famous
historically dead colored people... a few girls.
At
first I don't know what they're on about, but then I see a mark...
looking like a distorted KOSHER sign. After the mark I see
MENFORWOMEN. The same thing repeats on each slide. Wait a minute,
it's women's something month or week or... I dunno. Oh yeah... that
mark... it's a hashtag: #MENFORWOMEN, like #BLACKLIVESMATTER. I get
it. I try to concentrate on the band and my shrimp something in
something rice-ish.
In
the corner of the bar, under yet ANOTHER TV, sits a twenty-something
couple. Drinking vodka shots from the bottle on the table, they gaze
blurrily into each other's eyes. The guy is handsome, slicked back
dark hair, a 10 o'clock shadow, light eyebrows looking almost
manicured. Mentally, I name him CHASE. The girl is... er... plain.
White, with shoulder-length scraggly blond hair, puffy cheeks and
puffy eyes. Too heavy powder doesn't cover her skin problems... even
in this soft light. I call her CALI.
Cali
reaches her hand up and presses it against Chase's neck...
forcing his face into hers. I know where this is going. I can see the
scene... 12 hours later... both naked in her bed. Chase wakes up
first... slowly the girl comes into focus. She's lying on his arm.
Along with the hangover headache comes the thought... JEZUS, What
happened? Did I fuck HER? My God! How'm I gonna get out of here? I'm
really gonna have to chew my arm off to avoid waking her up.
That's
when I think about equality!
If
we had equality, the guy could claim rape. Right now, only girls can
use booze as a sex excuse. No matter what they did... or who started
it... or it they both were drunk... if the girl was drunk she can
claim RAPE! She's not responsible. Legally, DRUNK WOMEN CAN'T GIVE
CONSENT. ALL sex with drunk women is RAPE!
With
a little equality, Chase would be able cry RAPE... and explain to his
friends how he would never have given consent to such a pairing. It
was the alcohol! She should have known! She took advantage of his
condition!
I
can't take my eyes off the couple. On Cali's blouse-- a frilly thing
with tiny pictures of vines-- is a pink ribbon. I think it's for
breast cancer... I'll look it up when I get home. Then I think some
more about equality.
If
we had equality, I could have my own ribbon. Right now, in this
country where the average man dies a septuagenarian and women live on
into the next decade... who gets the ribbons? Breast cancer pink.
Cervical cancer teal. Wife-beating victim purple. Bulimia periwinkle, for God's sake! Ribbons for diseases that WOMEN get. Where's my
ribbon? Prostate purple? Testicle tangerine? Hernia heliotrope? How
'bout some equality?
BACK
TO THE RUSSIAN BAR: It's a different band now... an awful cover
band... on a break from Bar Mitzvah duty. I'm ready to
spit up my pierogi! They're playing YESTERDAY!
The
couple in the corner howl along... chins raised, singing to the
ceiling:
all
my troubles seemed so far awaaaaaaaay,
Now
it looks as though they're here to staaaaaaaaaay,
Oh,
I believe in yesterdaaaaaaaaaay
I
picture them ten years from now.
CALI
and CHASE. Chase comes back to their Williamsburg luxury apartment.
It's been a hard day at the bank. (It's a running joke... worn out by
now: Chase works for Citibank. Ha ha.) He rubs between the
thumb and forefinger on his left hand.
“Damn
carpal tunnel,” he says. “Doc wants to splint it, but it'd look
too ugly. I got clients to meet.”
Cali
sits on the couch. Her skin has cleared up since the days at the
Russian bar. She's also plumped out a bit. She wears a pink nightgown
and a loose green terrycloth robe.
“I
managed not to leave the house all day today,” she says. “Got
completely caught up on The Big Bang marathon. Those guys were soooo
hot!”
Divorce
is 18 months away. Cali will get the apartment, and $20,000 a month
alimony.
BANG!
Equality!
If we had gender equality, WOMEN would pay MEN alimony. All that time
MEN worked so women could SHOP! Let's return some of that! All that
nail salon, beauty parlor, days out in the cafe with the girls...
let's see some of that back! Yeah!! Bring on equality!
The
sound of water brings me back to the present. The Mexican busboy is
filling our glasses and taking away some plates. They always smile,
these busboys, but with a hint of fear. U.S. immigration... hot on
their brown little tails. Any day, they could be swept away in a
round-up organized by some over-eager candidate for higher office.
Wait
a minute! If we had gender equality, they could be victims of HUMAN
TRAFFICKING! They could get amnesty... maybe some cash from the
government. Instead of being ILLEGALS, they'd be victims... entitled
to all the sympathy that Russian callgirls get when they shed tears
at how they thought they were going to be movie stars.
These
poor Mexicans are TRAFFICKED! Human cargo... brought to America on
the promise of riches and trapped into sometimes two or three jobs...
servicing gringos... hundreds in a night... just to feed their kids.
Where are the calls to end their exploitation? The petitions to
penalize the traffickers, and allow the misled immigrants to live
decent lives in America?
The
band leaves. The show's over, and I head home. Back home, I check
facebook. There's a picture of a girl... her face is bruised... two
black eyes... Next to her picture is a photo of the perpetrator, a
white guy seated with his arms folded, looking somewhat smug.
WHAT
HASN'T THIS MAN BEEN CAUGHT? screams
the headline. PASS THIS ON TO YOUR FRIENDS. DON'T LET HIM GET
AWAY!
How
do we know the guy didn't look worse than her after the fight? How do
we know the girl didn't hit him with a steel pipe before he turned on
her? How do we even know she was assaulted, and not simply the victim
of a drunken car crash... using the opportunity to get back at a guy
who dumped her for someone less possessive?
We
don't know any of this. We don't know his side of the story at all.
We're supposed to believe the VICTIM, because she has a twat. ONLY
because she has a twat. Presumption of innocence? What's that?
80%
of murder
victims are MEN. The statistics are about the same for assault
and robbery. So what does congress do? It makes a VIOLENCE AGAINST
WOMEN ACT. Could anything be more UNequal? The same people who call
for gender equality want to make laws AGAINST that equality.
Yo!
Let's have some gender equality here. How many women are fired from
their jobs for whacking their husbands on an elevator's surveillance
camera? Does it never happen? Or is it that it's just not newsworthy?
With gender equality it WOULD be newsworthy.
With gender equality, I could
have a bill demanding MEN receive “equal pay for equal work” even
though the people I'm working with have worked the "equal" job for 10
years more than me and have twice as much education.
I
could have my own “safe spaces,” places that excluded girls.
Places where I could watch porno movies, drink beer, belch, fart and
do all that MEN stuff. I could go there and relax. Nobody would call
me SEXIST, let alone question my right to such places.
FLASH
AHEAD: The year is 2130. I've been dead for 100 years. In heaven,
they throw you a big party on the 100th anniversary of
your death. In heaven, they've also achieved real gender equality.
Saint Peter has retired from the gate. Now, the entrance is
(wo)manned by Saint Jolie the deBreasted.
I'm
lucky, I've persuaded the VERY DEAD BOYS, an angelic punk group, to
play at my party. Usually, they don't play cover songs, but tonight
they're doing a heavenly version of RISE ABOVE. They sing it as RISE
WAY ABOVE. I'm getting soused on Celestial Bourbon. It's late (by
heaven's standard) and I find that-- in my old agelessness-- I get
tired before noon the next day.
I
quietly leave the party and walk down the half deserted streets. The
sun is just coming up and some early workers are carrying bricks and
pipes to heavenly construction sites. People keep dying so there's an
eternal housing shortage.
A
pair of women carry a large sheet of plywood-- one on each end. They
wear flannel shirts and hardhats. I have to turn sideways to pass
them. As I pass, I hear a whistle behind me. I look over my shoulder.
“Hey,”
says one of the women, “nice ass.”
I
smile, wink, and walk on.
So,
feminism means gender equality! Yeah, I'm a feminist!
ENDNOTES:
[You can contact me by email at god@mykelboard.com.
Through the post office: send those... er... private DVDs..or music
or zines... or anything else (legal only!) to: Mykel Board, POB 137,
New York, NY 10012-0003. If you like my writing, you can be notified
when anything new is available by subscribing to the MYKEL'S READERS
Yahoo group readmboard-subscribe@yahoogroups.com]
-->Presidential
Politics Part One: Presidential candidate Scott Walker, as
Milwaukee County executive, promised the local Jews that a menorah, as
well as a Christmas tree would be shown in the courthouse. He signed
his letter to the Jewish community: "Thank you again and
Molotov."
-->Presidential
Politics Part Two: Another presidential candidate, Louisiana
governor, Bobby Jindal, has campaign workers distributing literature
blaming Hurricane Katrina and deadly tornadoes on gays and abortion.
"We have watched sin escalate to a proportion the nation has
never seen before," one of the "prayer guides" says.
Hurricanes and tornadoes come because of "the people's
negligence to worship and serve God with their whole heart."
-->More
on Ferguson dept: An assistant district attorney distributed to
the grand jury in the Darren Wilson case a copy of a law governing
the use of force by police. That 1979 Missouri law said it was legal
for police to shoot fleeing subjects. What the assistant DA DIDN'T
say was that the law was ruled unconstitutional by the US Supreme
Court in 1985.
-->With
regards to crime dept: Someone is bound to point out that women
are rape victims more than men. I ask, why?
The
answer? The law defines a PENIS as a requirement in committing a
rape. Usually, that means a man doing it. In most places, a rape
victim, by definition, CANNOT have a penis.
Bend
over boy as she rams that broomstick up your ass. Too bad for you
she's a girl, because that makes it NOT RAPE.
->Keeping
the Pressure on Dept:
I want to thank reader George Metesky for suggesting a continuing
Bring Back Mykel
effort directed at Maximum
Rock'n'Roll for their firing me as a contribution to the world of censorship. Send your
comments-- to mrr@maximumrocknroll.com
with the subject line: BRING BACK MYKEL! Let me know how they answer.
-end
