God Damn It! or Mykel's February 2024 Blog/Column

 

Monday, January 01, 2024

God Damn It! or Mykel's February 2024 Blog/Column

  

You’re STILL Wrong 
Mykel's 
February 2024 Blog/Column 
God Damn It!
by Mykel Board

We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature - trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence... We need silence to be able to touch souls.      --Mother Teresa

God is emotional and impulsive and gets things wrong and even loses; just as He is neither omniscient nor omnipotent, neither a flawless robot nor an errorless computer--  so we too dear reader. We have been granted the right to do wrong. Rejoice!    – Ze’ev Maghen 

Aren't you one of those atheists who says God doesn't exist?"  "Who said that? I believe that God does, unfortunately, exist. It's just that he's a fascist."  – Umberto Eco

There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.'                                                            – C. S. Lewis

Who is it that makes you cry, cripples children lets them die, lets the bad guys win, puts acne on your skin, gives cancer to Aunt May, then she’ll giggle when you pray? It’s God! It’s God!                                                      –
                                                                 -- Artless, from the song GOD

This was the original first paragraph I’d planned for the blog:

By the time you read this, I’ll likely be dead. You’ll understand why by the time you get to the end… I think. In murder cases, they always ask for motive, means and opportunity. The rest of this blog will show the motive. The means, I haven’t decided yet. It could even be GOD, doing her natural causes bit… as if that had a meaning when ANYTHING that happens is a natural cause. More likely it’s something quiet… too much too soon. A mix of this and that… with an extra shot of that. Maybe I’ll ask Jim Testa to write the obituary. 

But all of a sudden, I had a change of heart. Instead of writing about me, I decided to choose a smaller and easier subject: GOD. I can escape from my bedbugs, my instant senility, my deafness and all the other effluvia ruining my life right now. So now I’ll leave my current life and join a continued discussion that’s spanned the life of everyone who’s ever lived in a college dorm. 

You’ll read later about a conversation I had with an atheist in Eastern Europe. Although it took place more than 40 years ago, I still remember it. In a way, the logic of the girl I spoke with is behind the logic of most current atheists.. though they wouldn’t admit it. 

More recently, a Jewdhist friend named Richard Goldberg told me. “Mykel, if you want to find God, imagine everything that exists in the universe. That’s God.”

But let’s go back to earlier times: 

Flash to Prague... commie times... the end of the 70s. I’m visiting the grave of Franz Kafka, one of my favorite writers. No, his tombstone is not crawling with cockroaches. He’s buried in the same grave as his father… spending eternity with someone he hated. There is a lot of Hebrew on the grave, but the tenants’ names are written using the Roman alphabet. 

 As I approach the tombstone, I see a woman… stout, with gray hair… tending to the grave… brushing away weeds… picking up garbage. When I come closer, the woman looks up at me.

“Shalom,” she says.

“Hi,” I say.

“Are you Israeli?” she asks.

I shake my head. “No, I’m not,” I tell her.

“But you are Jewish,” she says, her voice without any question intonation.

I nod… and smile.

“I have a daughter...” she says and invites me to dinner.

I don’t remember what we ate. I do remember that the daughter’s name was Helena. She was slightly zaftig, blond hair and she wore a mezuzah around her neck. After dinner mom says, “You children go into the living room and talk. I’ll have to clean the dishes.”

Together we go into the living room and sit on the couch. I look at her breasts.

“I see you’re looking at my mezuzah,” she says. “I wear it for my mother. She bought it for me and I promised to wear it. It tells people I’m a Jew… but I don’t believe in God.”

“Oh?” I ask. “Why not?”

“If God is up there in the sky… living on a cloud… he would just fall down.” She says, as if it were obvious.

BOING! I get it. It hits like an errant erection. If I believed rabbits were pink and delivered eggs at Easter… I wouldn’t believe in rabbits. The atheist commies (or maybe all atheists) believe God is an old man who lives in the clouds… then deny his existence. Of course!

If, like Richard Goldberg, you define God as everything that exists… then God must exist… otherwise nothing exists. The literal existence of Jesus Christ is open to debate… though I think most people will say he existed in some form or other. If you believe Jesus is/was God, then if Jesus existed, so did God. If you believe he had supernatural powers… turning water to wine or feeding a hundred on one loaf of matzoh… that’s open to debate.

What atheists do is define God like Helena defined God… an old man who sits in the clouds. Then they deny his existence… he’d just fall down. Supernatural powers? What are those? It used to be that flying flying humans would show supernatural powers until airplanes came along and made the powers as natural as a boarding pass. Yesterday’s supernatural is today’s mundane. We need some other way to judge.

For some, God is just a comforting thought… an appreciation that there’s something bigger than us… more in control… without physical shape or corporeal body. How can you NOT believe that?

People’s belief in God is a reflection of who they are… or who they want to be. I see God as a nine foot tall woman in a black leather bikini wielding a whip. She sees her job as making my life so bad that I kill myself… and she wins. I can prolong the game by refusing to give in. If SHE has to kill me, I win.

Is my God real? Of course she’s real. God isn’t a human. She’s whatever we make her. She’s what’s useful to us and what explains the universe. Bedbugs, cancer, war, earthquakes, plagues… what more do we need to understand the pestilence of the universe? Atheists tell me that mosquitoes are proof that God does not exist. Bullshit. Mosquitoes are proof that God is either not omnipotent or that God is not good… or both. But they don’t disprove her existence.

When you say you don’t believe in God, you’d better tell me what that God is that you don’t believe in: the egg-delivering pink rabbit or the bunny you see hopping around the garden.

Note: On the unlikely chance that I am still alive and not stroked out from the stress-- or allowing God to win the contest, you can donate to my bedbug fund through my GoFundMe. Just a little will help… and show me I haven’t been abandoned by all but the evil goddess. (SHE thinks of me continually) Thanks in advance for whatever you can do.

See you in hell,

Mykel Board

ENDNOTES: [You can contact me on facebook or by email at mykelboard@gmail.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. Send me an email with SUBSCRIBE in the subject line. Back blogs and columns are at https://mykelsblog.blogspot.com]

→ Death and Taxes Dept: Well, no taxes in this one, but some death. My long term pal Roger Armstrong… who wrote the Japanese scene reports for MRR when I was the zine’s bad guy there… has bit the dust... a motorcycle crash. I visited Roger in Arizona where he lived with his son and Hiromi his Japanese wife. We kept in touch on facebook regularly and with a nengajou. (Look it up!) Roger’s wife answered this year’s nengajou with a “passed away last month” card. Who’s next?

→ Talk about Hol(e)y Dept: Uexpress reports South Korean model “Angel Box Girl”, is being prosecuted for obscene exposure. In Seoul and Gangnam, Angel walked through the streets wearing a large cardboard box with holes for her arms and legs -- plus two more in an unnamed place. She invited strangers to put their hands into those extra holes to grope around. She attracted large crowds that police were called to disperse. "It's freedom of expression," she said.
             “My kind of freedom” I’d say.

→ Irony Dept: I’ve become fascinated by the AI program Aria, that comes packaged with the Opera Internet Browser. It quickly answers questions without stupid weblinks that have nothing to do with those questions. So I asked Aria what country has the highest percentage of atheists. Here’s what she said:
The Czech Republic is often cited as the country with the highest percentage of atheists in the world. According to various surveys and studies, a significant portion of the Czech population identifies as atheist or non-religious. I wonder if they all think God is this old man who lives in the clouds and who would fall down if he really existed.

LINK TRADE DEPARTMENT:

I did a nice interview with The Aither zine. Interesting questions, complete, and questions I’ve never been asked before. You can read it here. It’s a good one.

I read that the search engines like lots of links... and it's also nice to support my friends and enemies in their blogs. So facebook me or email me if you have a blog, webpage or something else to connect to. I add you. You add me.

Here's a start:

My new pal Trey Mayhem sent me a great letter and some porno email pix. He’s got a blog that’s connected to his label Murder and Mayhem records. You can see the blog here.

My long-time friend Sid Yiddish appears on a YouTube DatingGame-like video. Guess who wins the bachelorette!

Here’s Richard Goldberg: goldberg.wordpress.com

Poetry and humor fans will like Justin Martin in The Latency

And my friend Mike R has a nice site with recipe hits from the past! (He cooked for me once... great stuff.) Check out Yesterday's Recipes.

And here's one by a member of ANTI-SEEN... a tour diary of sorts.

Andy Shelton has an interesting blog here.

Savage Hippie is a guy who has been YouTubing for a long time. Our opinions largely overlap... but he complains that I'm a Communist. I'm not! I'm a communist.

Chris Stecher publishes a zine called PRECIS. You can see the back issue links there... and he promises a new issue soon.

George Fertakis has a very nice graphics-heavy blog... with music and books featured prominently. If there’s no link here (I can’t find it temporarily), then Google… er… Duckduckgo him for information.

And my long-term pal Sid Yiddish contributes with his Mishegas Master Blog.

And connect to TRUST Zine, a long-running German punk zine… that STILL PRINTS!!! Yeah, they have a website too… of course! It’s here.

Here are a couple video links.

This from Jon Cox https://squelchchamber1.bandcamp.com/album/down-so-low

And this one from my very long-time friend Roger Armstrong, whose death you read about in this blog:.

Jim Testa moved his long running zine, Jersey Beat, to the blogosphere awhile back. You can read it here. Jim also recommended a kind of unique album… in a style you don’t see to much of these days… or any days. Neo-Hassidic Rock Opera. You can stream the album here.

Kyle Nonneman is in prison in Portland. At least he can’t be kidnapped by the secret police… I think. I post his blog for him, he can’t do it from the klink. Lots of stuff about noise metal… and some very weird politics that will either fascinate or repulse you… or both. It’s hard (and costs money) to send him email. So. If you remember how to write a letter… send him one at: Kyle Nonneman, #16534211, Snake River Correctional Institution, 777 Stanton Blvd Ontario OR 97914-8335

My long time pal, Jim Hayes rightfully complained about my leaving out his blog. He’s a great writer, so it was a tragic omission. Here it is.

Oh yeah, then there’s me. I have a blog of stuff I’ve written mostly from last century. You might enjoy it. Then again, you might not. It’s here.

Let me know if you have a blog… or a print zine… or a YouTube and want to be added to the list. You show me yours… you’ve already seen mine. mykelboard@gmail.com