I WAS WRONG or Mykel Board's Blog for January 2026
You’re STILL Wrong
or
Mykel's January 2026 Blog/Column
I WAS WRONG
by Mykel Board
More people would learn from their mistakes if they weren't so busy denying them
-- J. Harold Smith
You have to own your mistakes, otherwise your mistakes own you
--Paulo Coelho
For nearly 50 years, I hated Opera on principle. It was fat ladies and guys who “sang” the word Figaro over and over again. And the plots? My God! Love and other mushy shit. Opera was something to make fun of… like the Marx Brothers did. Opera isn’t punk. Texas Chainsaw Massacre is punk. Outrage is punk (if you haven’t seen it, do!) Aileen Wuornos is punk. The Ramones, The Dead Boys, The Sex Pistols are punk… but opera cannot be punk… or so I thought. A Drink Clubber showed up… he’s an opera singer. He put me on the guest list.
I was wrong. Opera can be pretty punk. You got this girl who works in a cigarette factory. She’s got two guys who want to get into her pants. One of ‘em ends up stabbing the girl to death… at a bullring!! What could be punker? In case you don’t know, that’s the plot of Carmen.
This, being my first blog entry of 2026, will talk about some of the times I’ve been wrong. As I come to the end of the legend that is me… (heart attack in September)… it’s time to come clean. From punk to politics… I know it’s hard to believe… but I’ve been wrong a few times. And now I want to talk about it.
Let’s first time travel back to 1966-67… Hicksville High School. Yeah, I went to high school with Billy Joel. When I was there, he was two years older than me and had a band called The Hassles. Now, he’s two years younger than me… but that’s show biz. I never saw his band. Me, and my best pal Dave, had better things to do. We took the Long Island Railroad in from Hicksville to Manhattan. We went to the city...Cafe Wha... almost every weekend to see The Fugs. We often got stoned… before taking the train. I remember once I took a handful of mom’s diet pills. I got so high, I fell in love with the train door.
That was the thing in Hicksville High School. The cool kids (called TRACK ONE… with advanced placement classes and lots of Jews) smoked dope. The dumb kids (called TRACK THREE, often taking “shop” or “home economics” classes), drank booze. I never had a full can of beer until I went to Beloit College in Wisconsin. You cannot live in Wisconsin without drinking beer. Not drinking beer is against the law there.
That’s when I realized I WAS WRONG. Marijuana made me want to sit alone and read books… often the same paragraph... over and over again. Alcohol made me want to kiss strangers and dance naked in the street. My love of drugs over booze was a big mistake… corrected as a teenager and 20-something. Though at Beloit, I have to admit to doing both.
FLASH TO NOW: I've just wiped up the few seminal drops I can still spill… after 20 minutes looking for-- and finding-- exactly the right video on ThisVid porn site. You can't get good scat vids very many places, so you take what you can get. Time to put away the laptop, zip up my pants and watch some real TV.
I turn on my just bought VIZIO TV, grab my new ROKU remote (a gift from a fb friend) and look for the next ALFRED HITCHCOCK HOUR streaming TV show. I want to watch them all… Found it, and Dennis Hopper’s in it! My favorite American actor.
BANG! A commercial… for Starbucks. A store/company I hate on principle. Crazy high prices, awful reputation for treating their workers like shit, ugly mega-corp forcing the little guys out of business. I wish I could jerk off into their frappacino.
And this commercial??? Does it talk about how great the coffee is? Does it say they let you sit there all day doing your homework on your MacBook? Does it brag about all the crap they put in their coffee, call it by an Italian name and charge 6 bucks for it?
NO!!! They talk about how the shlubs who work for them have a chance for advancement… how they throw their baristas a few dollars to pay for a college course or two... NOTHING about the product, only what good employers they are.
Later come more ads: One for Meta (the drag-name of Facebook/ Instagram/ WhatsApp). What’s in the commercial? Do they talk about how facebook keeps you on-line for hours… checking back if that last cat picture has as many LIKES as you'd want? Do they explain how you can avoid local phone charges by sending messages and calls through the Internet? Do they entice you to post your personal twerking videos to earn more hearts than your neighbors have?
NO!!! The ad starts with a very working-class looking guy… flannel shirt… overweight… 2 days’ beard growth… talking about his home town and how it suffered when the factory closed and the business moved to China. And how people were poor and they thought they were lost until META "invested" millions of dollars in a new facility housing computers and AI machines. How the city came back with all that money,.. How META made jobs. Not a word about the products or services… just about how good META is for the community. Bringing jobs and income... what the locals need.
Back to Dennis Hopper: he's a piano player and there's some mobster connection. Also a sexy female singer and… another commercial… This one from Amazon.
[NOTE: While I never go to Starbucks, I have to admit being addicted to Facebook, and using Instagram every once-in-awhile. I also use WhatsApp to communicate with my non-American friends. And I use Amazon both to buy and sell from, though my buying is mostly from gift-cards I earn by taking stupid surveys that pay in Amazon gift-cards. I feel guilty for my sins in using these sites.]
Back to the Amazon commercial: Does it brag about next day delivery? Does it say it sells anything from American Cheese to Zambian Socks? Does it tell you how it makes your home so comfortable and product ready that you never have to leave?
NO! It reports that 28% of its business is working with small businesses. It tells us about how Amazon "supports" small businesses, and how they can't do without it. They tell us how kind they are in providing shipping materials and delivery services for their small business babies. They are not a mega (or MAGA)-business. They are a public service, providing for the needs of small businesses in your neighborhood.
Right-wingers and corporate Democrats call anti-racist jacket-patches and driving (non-Musk) electric cars virtue signaling. The implication is I'm on the good side and I want you to notice it. I call these commercials virtue advertising. Companies brag about their benefits to society and their workers, rather than the quality of their products. And I hated it.
Then, in a flash, I realize I’m wrong. That virtue advertising means these assholes are worried. It means that the boycotts, the strikes, the petitions, the letters of complaints are working. Virtue advertising is a sign of FEAR. Those evil corporations have learned they are not loved. They have to change and tell people about the change.
Does Starbucks give college scholarships so people won't think they're evil? They hope so. Does Meta invest in local economies, create jobs for local workers, build factories that include kiddie play spaces, because they're afraid that people will think they're shithead exploiters and polluters if they don't? Yes! And they advertise those actions.
So my hatred of virtue advertising has changed to a clenched fist victory salute. These ads are admissions of guilt. They know their image and do something about it, THEN advertise that doing. Virtue advertising means the good guys won… not completely, of course, but we made a difference. Let's celebrate it… not complain about it.
The next wrongitude I want to talk about has to do with my arthritic hand, stent-supported heart, loss of hair, radiated prostate, limpy-flogger, increased bowel gas… There's a reason old farts are called old FARTS.
When I was a young-un of 18 or 40 or 60 I was usually the oldest in my crew… just a few years older than the others, but older. Younger people were sexier, brighter, more willing to try new things… think new thoughts. I avoided the real oldsters.
In my 20s, when I hung out at the 9th Circle, we used to make fun of the crowd at Ty's or Boots and Saddles. We called those places "wrinkle bars."... laughing at the patrons as well as the locales.
By the time you read this, I'll be 76 years old. Maybe just back from a birthday party celebrating the 90th birthday of one of my best pals. Old people may not have the smooth looks. Though, for some people… age is a fetish. Check out ThisVids' geriatric porn. Lots of those MILFs and DILFs are OILFs. oldsters, doin’ the dirty.
For more than 50 years, I’ve been the oldest member of any group that would have me. In college, the the crew I organized under the banner OPERATION MAXWELL (named after the Beatle’s song Maxwell’s Silver Hammer), was 3rd year me and a bunch of freshmen. When I was with ARTLESS, Gavin, the guitar player looked so young that we told people I was his dad. The idea of hanging out with old (older) people was as appealing to me as eating mountain oysters.
FLASH TO MINUTES BEFORE I WRITE THESE WORDS: I just finish wrapping a re-gift to one of the two best friends met at the start of the COVID plague. One is in his early sixties, his boyfriend turns 90 on the day before Christmas. This is how we met:
For those who don’t know, I’m the big macher of a group called Drink Club. Once a roving troop, we now meet every week on Thursday night at the Peculier Pub, where we drink ourselves into Friday. During COVID we started meeting outside at the Peculier. The weekend before we meet I send out email to about 150 people. I’m lucky if 6 show up. The official starting time is 8:32 PM.
Tonight, I sit by myself at our usual table outside. It’s a little after nine and no other Drink Clubbers are here. At another table, closer to the street, sit these two old guys… balder than me. Next to their table a black wheeled walker is parked. The shorter guy has a full gray beard and looks to be the older of the two. He’s laughing at something said by his partner… slapping the table… head thrown back… the beer on the table making waves in its glass mugs. His friend gestures… opening his arms to the sky... as if planning to embrace the universe. Then both laugh. And again.
I stand up and walk over to their table.
“Excuse me,” I say to them. “I am Drink Club. Usually, we have a crew of people here, but tonight no one showed up. You guys seem to be having so much fun… can I sit with you?”
“Sure,” says the younger guy, “my name’s Ed.” He gestures toward his senior, “that’s George.”
“I’m Mykel,” I say and sit down. Not one Drink Clubber shows that entire night, but I have a great time… and learn that Ed and George live together just down the street from me. They’re now my best friends. (Except for two girls who I may tell you about some day.)
Get it? OLD PEOPLE ARE (or at least can be) AWESOME. They’ve seen, done, screwed, joked, drank, more than you have. Maybe more than you ever will. They’ve got it… and you’re still lookin’ for it!
Tomorrow is the first of George’s several 90th birthday parties. It’ll be at Ty’s, a NY gay bar that’s at least as old as Ed is. George is a celebrity there. His advancing walker is treated like the horses pulling the king’s coach in London.
Avoid Old People?? Boy, was I wrong.
The last wrong I want to write is more political. Ever since Dad made me mow the lawn for my allowance, I had the feeling there was something wrong with work. Not the expenditure of energy or brain work, but the exchange of labor (or mind) for money. When I read Bob Black’s The Abolition of Work sometime in the 80s, I could only think YES! YES! YES!
Why should people spend more than half their waking time just so they can eat, clothe their nakedness, and travel from home to a job over and over again? That’s not humanity, that’s slavery.
As a corollary to anti-work, comes the natural thought of being anti-Union. What do unions do? They support work. They want more people to work. They want to legitimize work… more cookies for the slaves instead of abolishing slavery in the first place.
As I grew older and was forced into the work machine myself, I saw that I’d been wrong. Unions want shorter hours, LESS work, more time off. They don’t legitimize work, they put reins on it.
No, it’s not as good a solution as ending work completely… but it is making the lives of the slaves better than they would have been otherwise. That’s something I’ve got to support.
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 TO THE BLOG in the subject line. Back blogs and columns are at https://mykelsblog.blogspot.com]
→Two wrongs make a right dept: Starbucks is a great example of how virtue-advertising and unions can work together to make life better for those trapped in the work cage. You can read about all the good stuff the Starbuck’s union has done, and wants to do here.
→ Getting It Up At My Age dept: The NY Post reports on a survey of 687 “older Americans.” The survey asked about about their sexual habits and preferences. The results revealed that those in their 70s get it on even more than those youngsters in their mid-to-late 50s. I’ll drink to that.
→ They were wrong dept: Even a few presidents have apologized for making mistakes… Okay, that’s something. But I want to make it clear that I’m not really apologizing. I’m just stating that I think differently now than I thought before. It is interesting that most of the presidential apologies involve the deaths of other people. That is very American. I’m not sure, but I’d guess that, among countries not involved in war, Americans kill more people than the citizens of any other country in the world. No one apologizes for that.
→ You can’t say that, dept: I just came across this BANISHED WORD LIST. It’s not clear who is doing the banishing, but most of those words I don’t use. I guess I’ll have to start using them now that they’ve been banished.
See you in hell (redux)
MB
AFRICAN LINKS:
Albert
aka Alberto Melody is the reason I went to Kenya. We met on facebook
a couple years ago. He has a blog you should take a look at:
Albertomelody.blogspot.com.
Tell him Mykel sent ya. Oh
yeah… He’s looking for friends his
own age.
So if you’re a 20-something and interested in Africa… or just
meeting new people. Contact him at: albertletowon42@gmail.com
NON-AFRICANS
Jim Testa, a long-time friend, journalist, editor, musician and wordsmith, has an interesting substack about music and more. You can find it here.
Sid Yiddish sent me this link to all his videos. It’s a great place to start, especially if you don’t know him.
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.
Here’s Ricardo Wang with a “micro-label” in Seattle “specializing in 8-track tapes and CDs. WOW! Check out one of their label staples: The Dead Air Fresheners, best band name of the year.
Also
on bandcamp: My very long time faves in NYC, the BLACKOUT
SHOPPERS.
Featuring pals Seth and possibly the next vice-president of the
US
Sid Yiddish has posted a video of a show done for WZRD
in Chicago. Great live performances, and if you catch the video
around the 20+ minute point you might see a familiar face doing the
lyrics to his songs (some unrecorded) as poetry. You’ll find it
here.
And this sounds right up Sid’s alley. The Bilderberg Jazz Arkestra on Bandcamp!
Eric Grayson has an online music review zine, Sobriquet. Full pictures of the sleeves too! Something missing from too many zines. Sometimes you CAN judge a… er… book… by its cover.
Steen Thomsen is a Dane I’ve known ever since Lincoln was shot. I put his band THE ZERO POINT on the great WORLD CLASS PUNK Cassette for ROIR. It must be worth a mint now. I don’t have any left, I’m afraid. You can (and should) connect to the Zero Point on facebook. Tell ‘em Mykel’s blog sent you.
Sorry Dorothy, we are STILL in Kansas. And it’s as weird as OZ. Check out Bob Cutler’s DISTOPEKA.
You
already know Murder & Mayhem zine… those guys who did the Mykel
Board centerfold. (No genitals shown… and probably for the better.)
Their online version is here.
The
Clean Boys
from Denmark are also longtime friends of mine. In Denmark we
recorded as The
Bend-over Boys.
Only one 10-inch available… but at least now I can say I have a
10-incher!
Finally, for this month, Margaret O’Brien asked me to include the site: anti-war.com They seem to be folks after my own heart. I’m glad they didn’t call it “anti-defense.”
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
No comments:
Post a Comment