The Art of The Deal or Mykel Board's Post MRR Column no. 37

Mykel's

Post MRR Column no 37

One of the tenets behind a win-win negotiation is that all parties must be satisfied with the deal. It isn’t a win if someone feels he/she got the short end of stick, right? --Karrass.com

Mykel's ART OF THE DEAL

Trade ya!

Several years before his election, President Trump wrote (or put his name on) a book called The Art of The Deal. I've read it several times... Yeah right.

I never read it, but I can imagine its content. And what I imagine is that much of the book will be about trading. That is, if I have something you want, and you have something I want... we can trade. I'll take a loss for a bigger gain. You have different values, so you take a loss for what YOU think is more important. Finally, we reach some kind of equality... both sides feel happy after the deal. In business, they call it a win-win solution.

You're a mechanic. I'm a plumber. You take the ping out of my car engine. I'll make sure those monster beer turds will sail smoothly down the toilet. Win-win!

So, in my never-ending quest for beneficence, I propose some win-win deals that will make the world a better place for all sides.

First:

GIRLS! Here's your chance! I'm offering big trades. The feminist goals, just what you want. You only have to give up a few things and then: end the patriarchy!

Let's start with the 79¢. The cliché is that for every dollar a boy earns, a girl earns 79 cents. A closer look shows that this is the result of experience and time on the job, rather than vaginal possession. But for this deal, we'll pretend the gap is real. Girls earn 21 cents an hour less than boys... for the same job. Let's make a deal!

According the the CDC, Women in the US live, on average, to 81.2 years old. Men live to 76.4 years old. Do the math: women live 4.8 years longer than men.

Here's the deal: We'll trade! I'll give up 21¢ per hour. Take it!... the whole 21 cents. It's all yours. Go wild. Have a ball, do with it as you like. I'm donating 20% of my $20-an-hour job. It's on your plate. Buy Ms Magazine with it. Donate it to Hillary Clinton... anything.

In return? Just give me half your extra 4.8 years. We both live 78.8 years. Fair trade! Equal pay... isn't that what you've been wanting? You only need to trade for equal longevity. Win-win. Finally, equality! Do we have a deal?

And the government. There are 100 senators. 20 are women. That's a ratio of 1 to 5. Pretty unequal if you're counting genitalia. What can we do about that? Get some equality here.

Let's consider that in 2016 only 18 year old boys have to register for the draft. Women can stay home and complain about the nanny.

In Iraq and Afghanistan 130 women soldiers have died in the past 10 or so years. During those wars about 5700 men have died. That's a ratio of about 1 to 43. We need some equality! So here's the deal:

I'll give you 30 senate seats and you send four and a half thousand women to certain death in Hillary's next war. Plus... to even things out... girls will have to register for the draft. In case, for some reason, there's a sudden lack of people wanting to die in the Middle East.

Waddaya say? Fair trade?

Come on girls, this is equality I'm talking about.

And then there's abortion. Women have the right to choose whether to drop their puppies or throw them in the stem cell bin. That's how it should be. You've got and deserve that benefit. I'll defend to the death (fetal death, that is) your right to do that.

But why only women? Shouldn't men have that choice? If we've got a brat sprouted by the slip of a rubber, shouldn't we be able to say Dump It? If it takes two to tango, shouldn't it take two to untango? I'll be pro-choice, if you're pro-choice.

It's not men's bodies, you say. Women have to go through an ordeal for abortion. It costs money, and it hurts. Fair enough. So here's the deal. Women have absolute choice: pop one or cut it out. Men have secondary choice. If a man wants the little twerp and the woman wants to donate fetal organs... She wins. BUT, to make the deal: if a woman has a kid when the man say KILL IT, the man is not responsible. No child support. No lawsuits. No Daddying. If a woman decides to have a child over the father's objections... then the guy walks away clean. It's a trade. Fair enough?

More deals:

Hillary Clinton has never met a war she didn't like. She voted for the Iraqi war, has supported the Israeli massacre in Gaza, and the coups in Honduras and Ukraine. She wants to strengthen NATO and, like her buddy Obama, supports making new ISIS fighters by drone-ing innocents abroad.

Most Americans support these long distance wars. Many want even more of them. What's a drone here or there? They deserve it anyway, don't they?

The problem is: Americans don't know war. They don't know drones. They don't know mechanized death except on the giving end... and those rare times that some sympathetic guy with a machine gun unloads a “terrorist act.” Here's the deal.

ISIS: you stop recruiting local killers. Quit the ad campaigns, the dead-baby sympathy pictures... all that. We'll do it ourselves. For every small city we bomb in Syria, we'll bomb one in Kansas. Every innocent person we slaughter in Kabul, we'll slaughter one in Omaha. It's win-win. And look at the benefits.

ISIS stays out of the US. The American government can use its own bombs and bullets... always profit makers... and we reach equality. Added bonus: Americans get to learn about what we do in other countries... first hand. Education through life (and death). So, do we have a deal?

`

OUR FINAL DEAL: One for the guys who are squeamish that some of their membered-members... disguised as women… will enter a ladies’ room and... I donno... look under the stall door? Peep in the make-up mirror? Steal cosmetics? I never quite figured out what they're afraid of. In any case, here's the deal.

If men-dressed-as-women use the ladies room, they will agree to restrict their actions to shitting, pissing, putting on make-up,.. in other words, doing THE SAME THING that ladies do in the ladies’ room. They will not be allowed to stand next to another room-user while pissing and say, “You don't buy beer. You rent it.” or “Nothin' like bleeding the snake, huh?” And they will always put the toilet seat DOWN after use... Do we have a deal?

Waddaya think?

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]

-->Uh Oh dept: Since I started writing this I found out that Trump's book was not about win-win at all. It's about how you should enjoy the GAME of negotiation and not care if you lose, because there's a bigger deal around the corner anyway. My apologies to Mr. Trump's ghostwriter for the misrepresentation. I hope he doesn't sue me.

-->I wrote much of this column on a bus from Copenhagen to Aarhus. I'm keeping a blog of this trip, whose ultimate destination is Greenland. My goals there:

1. Eat Seal

2. Rub noses with an Eskimo

3. Sleep in an igloo

4. Ride on a dog sled

You can read the travel blog at: mykelsdiary.blogspot.com and know if I've done those things-- or what else.

-->Tardcore: Wow! One of my Aarhus pals works in an institution that takes care of “Mentally Handicapped” people who were sentenced because of some crime. In a way that's typically Danish, these folks are separated from the general prison population and given special attention. Not only do they get “job training” and work experience (mostly gardening, but also woodwork, and plumbing) but the caretakers actually ask them What do YOU want? I bet that's a question never heard in the American penal system.

My pal Pedro, who works in the institution, also plays in THE CLEAN BOYS, a punkrock band. And he found that some of the inmates want to play music. They love it... or just love making noise. They mostly can't play their instruments... So what do you do? Start a punk band!!!

Here's a video of their first live show. You might recognize someone famous (not me) in the audience.

Since my first encounter... I've found that world-wide there are several other Tardcore bands in the world. They include one in Finland and the most famous (now disbanded, I hear) HEAVY LOAD in England. What could be punker? With so much shit going on in the world, this is inspiring!

Come on! Help me set up a US tour!

-->Third Thoughts Dept: Last month, I wrote about how Bernie Sanders supporters should vote for Donald Trump. Lately, Trump is looking more and more like a shill for Clinton. He fires and replaces people and derails “his party” more and more. I don't know if it's all part of the elect-Clinton plan, but if so, it would be sad.

I still think, there's never been a more punkrock presidential candidate than Donald Trump... ever! Even if it's all a show... it's a good one. Tardcore Rules!

But in the next election, I'm convinced it doesn't matter how you vote... or if you vote. Maybe it's best to cast your ballot for some minor party candidate... just to tell 'em FUCK YOU BOTH. I'm still going with Sid Yiddish.

--> 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 censoring me.

As their revolving editrixes move on to commercial ventures, each blames her predecessors for my demise... as if they had no control over the business... and couldn't simply invite me back.
(Note somebody told me they currently have a MALE editor. I'll believe it when I blow him.)

Send your comments to mrr@maximumrocknroll.com (or post on their facebook page) with the subject line: BRING BACK MYKEL! Let me know how they answer.

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