SECURITY Or You're Still Wrong... Blog post by Mykel Board

   

You’re STILL Wrong

or

Mykel's September 2025 Blog/Column

SECURITY

by Mykel Board    

“The more data we give, the more they take. And the less control we have.”

- Timsux Wales

“Passwords are like underwear: don’t let people see it, change it very often, and you shouldn’t share it with strangers.”
            – Chris Pirillo

“Security used to be an inconvenience sometimes, but now it’s a necessity all the time.” 

– Martina Navratilova

“The only way to maintain privacy on the internet is to not be on the internet.” 

– Abhijit Naskar

=================================

“Oh Jordan,” I breathe. “I never dreamed I’d be with you like this.”

“Mykel! Mykel! Mykel!,” Jordan breathes back. 

I press my body against Jordan’s, squeezing hard trying to feel through the double layer of clothing between us. It’s my first time in the student’s new apartment… a dorm-room actually. Part of NYU. Jordan says it’s the safest most secure student housing in the world. “Mom made sure of it.”

I reach under the twenty something’s t-shirt, feeling the skin on the spine. I bring my hand to the front… looking for a nipple to caress. I feel blood rush between my legs. 

My phone vibrates on the night-table next to the bed. 

“Don’t worry,” I say. “I’ll ignore it.”  

“No! You can’t.” comes the answer. “You need the internet code or you can’t go any further. You want to go further, don’t you?”

“Password?” I ask. “I need a password to touch your nipple?”

“It’s the newest technology,’  comes the reply, “It protects me against harassment… you know, unwanted touching. Please!! Get the code, now!”

I turn on my shoulder... grab the phone… swipe away the home screen… click on the messages speech balloon… There is a box with a small check-box. Next to the check-box it says I am not a robot. I click the small box. And it connects to my own SMS messages. 

Top message: CVS, your prescription for TAM is ready. Just bring this message and when you’re ready click… 

Fuck… the next one… from protectyourbody.com:

Your code is 48521234. Check your email for a message from
ProtectYourBody.com. Click on the email and enter your code.

It takes a lot of self control to keep the phone in my hand instead of sending it through the window. I click on the multi-colored M from gmail. And the first email is from the evil guys. 

Please insert your code in the space below. It says. 

“I’d like to insert my fist up your virtual ass,” I think... loud enough to be heard on the next block.

Fuck! I forgot the number already, and go back to the text message to retrieve it… then I plug it in the email… the phone buzzes again… I check. A larger box shows up. In that larger box is a picture of a naked Margaret Thatcher, Joan Baez and Beyonce lying next to each other on a large bed. Their legs are spread. 

Click on all the squares that show a clitoris, says the caption. 

Using my thumbs, I stretch the picture until I can examine carefully. There’s one… another… and… it’s harder to see on Beyonce, but I manage to discover that bull-tongue clit... spanning two frames. Click. Click. I then press ENTER.

The message now says: You may proceed.

Back to the business at hand. First I press myself against Jordan hoping body to body will stimulate me again. And now I run my hand under that t-shirt… across the chest… Yes! A nipple!! And then another one. Their pinkness tingles my fingers. I can feel the tiny points harden under my fingers… and I can feel Me harden where it’s important. 

I press my lips against Jordan’s. Feeling the other’s tongue slither into my mouth, I suck it in. I peel off my own clothes and press my now-naked body against Jordan’s. Then I reach between us to help the t-shirt nudify that body… and I help the rest of the clothes free the rest of the body lying next to me. We press our nakedness together. 

I run my tongue downwards: breasts, stomach, lingering for a taste of belly button, then go south, to a hairless pube mound, then… PLOW! My head is stuck... Jordan’s thighs pinching it tight, like a wrestling hold. 

“Help!” I shout, muted by the leg hold. “I can’t move. I feel like my head is in a vice. The pain!”

“It’s not me,” answers Jordan. “Mom subscribed me to Legclamp-dot-com. They force my knees together until I call to release them. I have to get to their website and put in a release code in order to let you go.”

“Please do it quick!” I try to shout back. “My head is going to explode.” 

“Roll on to your stomach,” says Jordan, legs twisting my head forcing our entire bodies toward the cellphone. 

I jerk my shoulders, trying to get my body to follow… another jerk… finally with the help of Jordan’s turn toward the table, I manage to be completely face down... a thigh still pressing on either side of my head. 

I guess Jordan reached the phone. I hear half the conversation. It is not encouraging. 

“I don’t remember the fucking password!” Jordan shouts into the phone. “I’m in pain, and my bedfriend is in worse pain.” 

“You tell ‘em!” I try to say, my words lost between the pressing legs... fading into the mattress. 

“Goldstein,” I hear Jordan say… probably in answer to a mother’s maiden name question from the other side of the phone. Then, "Fifi." I’m guessing childhood pet. 

“You’re kidding!” comes Jordan’s voice. “Okay, okay… Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep, If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.”

PAROONG! The pressure eases on each side of my head. I can remove my head from between Jordan’s legs. I roll onto my back and in relief, Jordan turns to me and licks my ear. I smile. 

My bedmate’s hand rubs my chest and goes south. Lightly cupping the good parts, that hand moves up and down bringing blood into that key vessel. My limpy slowly hardens. Jordan’s lips follow the path laid out by the hand.  A joyful hardness between my legs replaces the awful pain in my head.

Jordan turns face down. I roll face down onto the nakedness now underneath me. My face nestles again a right buttocks. I move over… stick my nose between right and left lower cheeks. Working the saliva in my throat into my mouth, I use my tongue to lubricate the little hole. The sphincter tightens around my tongue. I spin around like a helicopter propeller, and nestle new hardness where my tongue has been. 

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! SECURITY VIOLATION!  ATTEMPTED SPHINCTER VIOLATION! CAMPUS POLICE INFORMED. 

The announcement… loud enough to wake the neighbors… blasting from speakers hidden who-knows-where. It doesn’t stop!

AUTHORITIES INFORMED. CAVITY SEALED! 

A siren sounds… UUUUWAAAH! UUUUWAAAH! UUUUWAAAH!

“Mykel,” says Jordan. “You’ve got to get out of here… fast… Campus security will be here in three minutes. Who knows where you’ll end up?”

I don’t ask questions. Pow! I dress like there’s no tomorrow. If I don’t hurry, maybe there will be no tomorrow. Blam! I’m out of the room… Fearing a booby-trapped elevator, I take the stairs down and exit through the back of the building… into a courtyard filled with rubber trash cans… There’s a low cyclone fence that I can easily climb over. Wow! Safe. 

Is Jordan safe? I guess it depends on how you look at it. The sophomore is safe from my hard flesh for the night. But is the sophomore safe from security? Is anyone? 

I make it back to my apartment, the stiffness in my pants just starting to loosen. I pull it out of my pants as I pull the laptop onto the bed. I lay down and tune into XNXX. Then comes the loud banging on my door… then the break-in. 

See you in hell, 

MB

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]

Explanation dept: The adventure described in this post is obviously a figment of my imagination… but is it really that far from reality? Security is the greatest danger that humanity now faces. Soldiers call their killing-jobs security.  Your bank account gets locked because of a mis-typed password… and that’s security. Your call may be monitored or recorded. Why? For YOUR security. I’d like to walk into Times Square and piss on Sponge Bob while shouting? “You want security? Shit… well piss… happens. Security is the opposite of freedom! Arrest me and my dick… see how far that gets you!”

Even the government dept: Wired Magazine reports: A string of previously undisclosed break-ins at Tennessee National Guard armories last fall marks the latest in a growing series of security breaches at military facilities across the United States, raising fresh concerns about the vulnerability of US armories to theft and intrusion.

A confidential memo from the Tennessee Fusion Center reviewed by WIRED details four break-ins at Tennessee National Guard armories over a seven-week span. In one incident, thieves made off with night vision goggles, laser target locators, and thermal weapons sights, among other equipment. In other incidents, intruders breached fences, tripped alarms, and gained access to supply rooms discovered in the aftermath to have been unlocked.

Victoria’s Not-So Secret:  Sexy Fashion retail chain Victoria's Secret has delayed its first quarter 2025 earnings release because of ongoing corporate system restoration efforts following a security problem. In response to a late May incident, the company took down corporate systems, some in-store services, and the e-commerce website as a precaution.

Get it? No matter how much security you have, someone else can outsmart it. More security means more out-smarters and worse than that, it means less freedom for the rest of us. I have a friend with no cellphone, no laptop, no TikTok page. In fact, the only pages he has are made of paper and connected to a binding. He never gets hacked. 

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.

NON-AFRICANS

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.

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. god@mykelboard.com

Of Course It’s Bad, Look Who Did It OR Mykel Board's August 2025 Blog

 

   

You’re STILL Wrong

or

Mykel's August 2025 Blog/Column

Of Course It’s Bad, Look Who Did It

by Mykel Board    

 “When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’ – Lewis Carroll

The best way to keep a prisoner from escaping is to make sure he never knows he's in prison.

            – Fyodor Dostoevsky

Chrysanthemum growers, you are prisoners of your chrysanthemum.

                        --Yosa Buson

“Eeeewww, it’s like a little doggie dick… not dick-looking at all… just a crotch volcano.” Ashley is complaining. Evidently “some cute boy” she brought home last night was uncircumcised. That was too much for poor little Ashley.

“I want a helmet,” she tells me. “A fireman’s hat.. Not a fuckin’ flesh cone.”

“So did you do him?” I ask.

“I kicked him out,” she says. “Waddaya think? I want something like that up my twat?” Tears well up in her eyes. “It took me two beers before I got someone to sit with me. Cool-looking… sort of Asian… with good enough taste in music to be at Arlene’s Grocery.” [NOTE for non-New Yorkers. Arlene’s Grocery was an actual grocery store that has since turned into a low-key music venue. Cool place if you’re in town.]

“A banana, maybe?” I ask.

“HIS banana!” She answers… “that’s the whole point of this conversation. HIS banana!”

“That’s not what I mean,” I answer. “Japanese… maybe all Asians... call Asians who act like white people bananas. You know, yellow on the outside… white on the inside.”

“I could never figure out that yellow stuff,” Ashley answers. “They are the same color as white people… different eyes… a shorter nose… but skin? It’s the same as yours or mine. They’re like us, but sexier.”

“I know what you mean,” I say. “I think it’s the lack of body hair. Just smooth skin… smooth white skin.”

Ashley nods. “But those dicks! Those hard little sausages… they need to have that taken care of!”

“What was his name?” I ask.

“Something like Kenny, I think,” answers Ashley. “An Asian version of Kenneth.”

“Maybe Kento?” I say, “that’s a common Japanese name.”

“Could be,” answers Ashley. “That’s good enough. From now on we’ll call him Kento… or Ken-dick or something. Ken-lousy-lay, for all I care.”

“How could you say “lousy lay?” I ask. “You didn’t screw him, did you?”

“Of course not,” comes the answer, “but I’m sure he wudda been a lousy lay if I had the balls to do it with him… and there’s more. He claims he’s an artist… a painter. Can you imagine an artist with a foreskin?”

FLASH TO NOW: I sit at the desk in my apartment here on Bleecker Street… having introduced my theme of the month, I need to know how to connect it to what I REALLY want to write about. You may have heard rumors… read on facebook… seen a blog… noticed the graffiti on the restroom wall… overheard a conversation with Larry Livermore… read those last issues of MRR.

Mykel Board is a Trumpist. He supports Trump. Mykel gave a blowjob to an ICE agent. Mykel has turned into a fascist. AJ Weberman was right. Mykel Board is a Nazi.

I voted for Zohan Mamdani. I support the total abolition of prisons. I favor open borders with entrance or leave of a country as easy as crossing the street. I believe in universal free healthcare, high taxes for the rich, free food and homes for the poor. So am I a Trumpist? Like Humpty Dumpty, the name callers make it mean whatever they want to. And where does the twisted call that I’m a Trumpist come from? I’ll tell ya. It comes from the same kind of thinking that says a guy with an uncut dick can’t be a good artist. For now, I’ll call it Kento Thinking.

What is Kento Thinking? I’m glad you asked. Kento thinking is if you find one aspect (or several aspects) of a person repulsive, unkind, or illogical, then EVERYTHING that person says or does is repulsive, unkind or illogical. You don’t judge the words. You don’t judge the actions. But having judged the person, you struggle to find ways to make any of his/her words or actions fit into your image of that person.

“Mykel, you’re not being fair,” comes a voice I’d know anywhere. It’s Literary Device aka L.D.. who somehow feels free to butt in no matter what I’m writing about.

“You’re talking about Donny The Trump here. Right?” says L.D. “He’s the guy who sent the government troops to quash free-speech in LA. He gave a secret police force permission to kidnap and deport people… without trial. Take ‘em from the street, from court houses, from school. POW! Ship ‘em off to a torture camp in El Salvador. You’re talking about a guy who takes away food stamps and medicare so super-rich friends can have tax cuts. Right?”

“Of course,” I answer. “That’s exactly what I’m doing. But I’m also talking about a guy who started human relations between the US and North Korea. Who’s tried to foster (with on and off success) ceasefires in Eastern Europe and the Middle East.”

“You mean the guy who got played as a chump by Kim Jung Un,” says L D. “The guy who failed in Gaza and Ukraine. The guy who stopped taxes on tips, because the huge bonuses his rich friends make are tips. The guy who stopped taxes on overtime, because his friends who don’t clock in as it is, need another tax break for their accountants.”

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about!” I shout to LD. “No matter what he does, because he is DONNY TRUMP, it must be bad/evil/stupid… even if it’s not. It’s like an artist cannot create great art if he has a foreskin.”

“Look Mykel,” answers L.D., “you commit the same crime you accuse others of doing. You’re boycotting Target because they don’t give preferential treatment to those who need it. You don’t buy Amy’s Organic because they had bad working conditions and they laid off a whole factory. You didn’t even start buying again, when the boycott ended…”

“It ended?” I ask, “I didn’t know that.”

“Of course you didn’t,” says L.D., “You just put Amy’s = bad in your brain and never checked it again.”

“You mean, I’m the bad guy?” I ask. “Like Charles Bronson in Death Wish?”

L.D. nods… and disappears, as is his wont.

Lesson learned… for now. From now on, I will try to understand other people’s motives. For every fault, I’ll look for a virtue. I may not find one, but the act of looking ennobles me… or if not that… it at least acts as a crowbar to pry open that Kento Thinking box… so that I can get a look at it. It might be my own prison.

So let’s go back to Kento’s dick. What’s wrong with a foreskin anyway? I have my tribal marking… a red-brown scar around the shaft. In 2025, it no longer only signifies Jew or Muslim… In America everybody does it. Those who want to avoid the religious or tribal meaning say it’s “for health reasons,” but countries where circumcision is common are no healthier than countries that keep the tag on.

Besides, that little skin is fun to play with, and no uglier than a cone vs pyramid. But there's more to this than aesthetics. There is a value called equality. In the US, boys are routinely cut before they leave their birth hospital. No question, no objection… So much for the boys… how 'bout the girls?

Female circumcision is now called “female genital mutilation.” The WHO defines the practice as "all procedures that involve partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reason" And guess what… it's BAD! "How could they do that to a girl?" people ask.

"Ït's so barbaric!" answer the same girls who are disgusted when they find their just-picked-up partner with an extra flab..

Of course, complete genital removal is nasty business. But, most female circumcision is no more than taking a bit of skin off the top… just like male circumcision. What's the big deal?

The big deal is that this happens to girls…women... and women are a fragile protected species. They are the ones to step on that cloak laid over the mud puddle by THE OTHER species.

"Stop! Stop! Stop!" shouts L.D! "You're doing it again... what you accuse others of doing. You're making giant generalizations from a clitsworth of information. Yeah, I know when armies fight hundreds are killed but few in society complain. Armies are mostly men. But when the protected species are injured… women and children… oh… how horrible. I've heard that story from you before… Don't forget. I've known you since Jr. High school."

Wow! He got me. "He's right. If it's done to men, it's okay. If it’s done to women, it's not okay." That’s my opinion of society in general… but it's not so simple. Here I am talking about the evils of making sweeping judgments, and the sweeping judgment broom has just hit me in the balls.

Of course it's more complicated than boys vs girls. That's not the point of this post, but it's a (the?) point of life. And it's what I'm complaining about. We pick people we don't like, and instead of looking at their actions, we decide a priori that if we don't like X then X is a bad person and any action done by X is bad… and anything X does that appears good or valuable must be done for some hidden motive because X is bad.

Sometimes girls are the honored gender and sometimes they’re at the bottom of the privilege pole. Here, L.D. is right. Not him personally (I'm not even sure he is a HE), but his criticism. There is more than a big picture… There is an infinite picture. Of course we can't explore all the possibilities, but we can leave ourselves open to discoveries by others. We can say our pre-judgements were wrong… or incomplete… we can ask more questions. For Jews circumcision is a tribal marking. For some Africans, a series of three cheek slashes is a tribal marking. For a Gen Z girl, a nose-ring is a tribal marking. All of these are mutilations… or not. We can think about that. But let's not judge that an action or a ritual or a favorite color or… or… or… is evil, or done with malintent because we don't like the person or the group or the aesthetic of the person doing it.

There are no simple answers… there aren’t even any simple questions. But this name calling, binary thinking, with us or against us, not only destroys thought, but also it imprisons us in a world of can’t say… can’t think… that opinion makes you a bad person. Yeah it imprisons us, but most of us can’t see the bars.

See you in hell,

MB

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]

→AH AMERICA… YA’ GOTTA LAUGH AT IT DEPT: So Donny is in a new scandal. His base is turning against him. Is it his creation of a kidnapping squad that grabs people off the street and sends them to foreign jails? Is it the bromance between him and the Military-Industrial-Complex with the US military budget hitting a trillion dollars, while foodstamps and medicare are defunded? Is it his defunding of emergency and aid programs? No! It’s a more than two decades old birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein! Who cares? No crime on Trump’s part. No one killed or hurt. In civilized countries the letter would be laughed off as man-talk. But this is America… I can usually laugh at it, but every once-in-awhile it makes me sick.

→SUMMER LONG BALLS DEPT: Frankly, I don’t get enough views of other guys summer junk, so I can’t comment on the accuracy. But summer long balls seems to be a real enough phenomenon that news sites can write about it. Summer itch, I get. But any time, any year, there’s no part of me that gets longer-- summer or not. Let me know if it happens to you… pictures are appreciated… but NOT photos sent through your cellphone! Nothing is secure on a cellphone… even when “deleted.”

–> OH THOSE WACKY JAPANESE DEPT: Oddity Central reports that in Japan you can “rent a Grandma” for the equivalent of $23 an hour. Some cook and clean, but most are for show. I guess around the world, grandmas incite special feelings and can get things done that no non-grandma person can do. This article mentions a young woman who wants to break up with her boyfriend. She hires a grandma (presumably impersonating her real grandma) to accompany her as she breaks the news to the guy. She expects the grandma will keep the guy from losing his temper, and soften the emotional blow of the break-up.

See you in hell redux,
MB

LINKS

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.

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.

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.

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. god@mykelboard.com

Fear and Sadness in New York and Nairobi July 2025

 

Tuesday July 1, 2025

Fear and Sadness in New York and Nairobi

   

You’re STILL Wrong:

Mykel's

July 2025 Blog/Column

Fear and Sadness in New York and Nairobi

[Much of this post has previously been uploaded to facebook…. though in a different form.]

When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.

                                    – William Shakespeare

Oh the piercing sadness of life in the midst of its ordinariness!

                                    – Iris Murdoch

When you're happy you enjoy the music, but when you're sad you understand the lyrics.

                                    – Frank Ocean

I sit now in the library … my facebook notes downloaded to my travel computer. At first I can’t connect to the internet… I bring it to a very librarian-looking librarian.

“Sorry, I don’t know what’s wrong,” she tells me. “Maybe you should try shutting it off and turning it on again.” Ah, the universal answer to every problem in 2025… except this one.

“It doesn’t work,” I tell her.

“Maybe if you try a different floor.” she says.

I go downstairs to the more library-looking library. The librarian there is a younger, more tech-looking guy... sexier than the prissy woman upstairs.

“I can’t connect to the Internet,” I tell him.

“Let me take a look,” he offers, touching a few keys, watching the screen change. Those concentric curved lines that signal you’re connected appear in the taskbar.

“Thanks,” I say to him. “Wanna go out for a drink?”

That last quote is a lie.

But that’s what writers do. We lie. In fiction, it’s all a lie… or at least 90% with some real-life events, twisted to fit-in. For fiction writers, writing is show biz.

For me, unless I say otherwise, what I tell you is “true” although I might touch it up as needed. You know, zip up an open fly, make the weather rainy when it was only foggy, crowd an empty room with strangers. But the important stuff is true.

Up until June 16, my saddest (non-death) NY experience was in talking with a Korean-American friend. This was about 10 years ago. He was in his late 20s... early 30s maybe. We’re sitting in a secret bar, upstairs over The Every Day Gourmet, a Korean deli on Lexington Ave.

"So, how you doin', Kim." I ask him.

He looks at me and squints slightly, "You know Mykel," he says, "whenever I look into a mirror, I hate what I see. I want to just kill myself."

"Huh?" I say, "You're a good-lookin' guy. You got a great smile. I think you just found a bad mirror."

"You don't get it," he says. "It doesn't matter that I'm a native speaker... that I'm a native New Yorker. I’ve been here my whole life. Still, people.... speak..... to.... me.... like....this. Like .... I .... can't ,.. understand… what… they’re… saying. My English is better than theirs."

He points to his face... his chin actually. "It's this face! This face makes me an outsider. Someone they have to adjust to. This face says ASIAN... not American. I hate this face"

I feel my eyes tear. And I buy him another HITE, the Korean beer most gringos don’t know about.

I don't sleep at all well that night.

And now tonight. At about 8, there is the loud whir of a helicopter outside. It sounds like a dozen of 'em, but there’s only one. I go out to see what's happening. I walk until I'm standing directly beneath the noisy beast. I see nothing unusual on the street or any street.

"It's been there for an hour," says a woman passing me. "I don't know what it is. There’s nothing going on here.”

I take a picture of the helicopter. It flies away... like it’s afraid of my camera.  

I head for home. On the way back, I pass Matthew, one of my many homeless friends. It looks like he's in a new wheelchair. We talk a bit. I can see he is sliding down in the chair and doesn't have the leg-strength to push himself up.

“Still getting used to the new chair?” I ask him.

“Yeah, Mykel,” he answers, “It doesn’t have the give of the last one, and the tilt of the seat is all wrong. Could you help me sit up?”

I reach under one of his arms in an effort to pull him up. But all 5'3" of my 75 year old self aren't strong enough to move him. I try to stop a very macho looking 20-something who is walking past us on the sidewalk.

"Excuse me," I say. "Could you help me pull my friend up in his wheelchair?"

He walks right past, as if I'm not there, not even looking at us. I wait for another tough-looking guy. In a couple minutes there is one, with a small gang of maybe NYU students. "Could you help us?" I ask. "We don't want money. Just help straightening..." He and his friends walk past just like the last one... as if we're not there.

The third time, I'm on the edge. How can people be so cruel? How can they just pass by a call for help? It would take less than a minute. Not cost a cent. One guy in a wheelchair and one little old man... what danger could there be?

This guy is with another tough-looking friend. They could easily pull Matthew up to a sitting position. "Excuse me, could you help me pull....." The pair walks right past. Not even a glance. Matthew shrugs. I shout after them when they pass.

"I hope you die!" I shout.

One of the guys turns to look at me and then quickly turns back. Their pace quickens.

"Don't Mykel," says Matthew, "that's how people are these days. Especially young people."

"But... but... this is New York!" I tell him. "That doesn't happen."

Matthew shrugs.

FLASH FROM SADNESS TO FEAR IN KENYA: It’s a story that needs context. My month in Kenya was exciting. Wonderful. Smiling. Making friends. Sometimes I was surprised. Sometimes just annoyed. But only once was I afraid. That’s what I’ll talk about now… as this blog isn’t a bundle of cheer.

I’ve just returned from a trip to the Kenyan countryside. I was in Nakuru with my Kenyan pal, Albert. We spent 3 nights there, including a great trip to the local national park. Albert had to go home to tend to his animals and his blogging. I had to go back to Nairobi.

Albert got me on the bus. There was one spare seat among the students from a girl’s school returning from a class trip. Except for the bus driver, I was the only guy on the bus.

It’s a 4 hour trip. We all get out in a bus parking lot in Nairobi. I walk to a shady place just outside the parking lot. I need the shade to see my phone screen and a location where the Uber driver can pick me up.

I'm followed by this annoying half-drunk wearing a bus conductor's hat. I'll refer to him from now on as "Capman."

I turn toward a small copse of trees to focus maximum shade on my phone, Capman taps me on the shoulder.

"What are you doing?" he asks.

"Trying to call an uber," I tell him. 

He tugs my sleeve. I follow him to a car with a t-shirted driver standing outside of it. 

"Here is an uber," says Capman. "Just tell him where you want to go."

"No thanks," I answer. "If I order in the app, I don't have to pay until i get back to New York." 

This, of course, is a lie. The fees are deducted right away from my Paypal account, but that's too much to explain. 

"Just let me use the app," I continue. "The uber will come."

I turn my back on him and find that the shade is now gone. The sun has risen and destroyed it. I move to another shady spot. Capman follows me. 

"Leave me alone!" I say in a probably too loud and aggressive voice. 

He moves slightly forward and I turn my back on him and order the uber through the app. The app responds that the driver will appear "in 3 minutes,” at the agreed on pick-up location."

"I have a car coming," I tell Capman. "License KDD5074, white Toyota." 

I show him my phone. 

"Oh," says Capman, "it looks like he'll come across the street (a crowded highway). We should go to meet him."

"I'll find him." I say. "Please leave me alone."

He doesn't.

About 10 minutes later, I get an uber message. "I'm here. Where are you?"

"I'm right outside the EasyCoach parking lot," I text back. "White guy in a black t-shirt."

"I'm right behind you," comes the return message.

Capman is looking over my shoulder. He disappears and comes back, again, pulling on my sleeve. 

I follow him because I have no other choice. He takes me a few cars back on the street to a driver, tall wearing a pink shirt. 

"You looking for Mykel?" I ask.

He nods. I get in the car and the driver gets in the car. Capman leans in the open window. 

"I helped you so much," he says. "You should pay me."

"No!" I shout back, and roll up the window.

"Leave now," I tell the driver. "The guy's an asshole. I'll give you 200ksh (Kenyan Shillings) extra in cash if you leave."

Capman shouts something to me... in Swahili. 

"He said he will kill you," the driver tells me. 

And we're off. 

At least we'll be going to the other side of town. I figure the odds are 1 in 5,000,000 that Capman will find me in this city. I'm not very worried. Fat chance he'll get ahold of me.

When we arrive at my Couchsurfing home, I pull out my wallet to pay the promised 200. I'm shocked to find there are only 2 1000ksh bills in the wallet. Earlier there were 9. Was I robbed? Unlikely, since the wallet is chained to my belt. Somehow, I spent the money without realizing it... yet it seems wrong.

"All I have is this thousand," I tell the driver, handing him one of the two bills. "I hope you have change."

"I have no change," he says. "Give me the thousand and I will get change from the fruit-seller on the corner."

He closes the door and walks to the fruit-seller... showing him the 1000ksh bill. I can see the seller shake his head. The driver returns to the car, obviously pissed off. He hands the bill back to me.

"The man has no change," he tells me.

"I'll add the money to your tip," I tell him, pointing to the app.

I can tell he's not pleased. I shrug, and get out of the uber. The driver drives off. Then it occurs to me the driver and Capman probably know each other. He will return to Capman and the latter will learn where I'm living in Nairobi.

"Living" may be a too-soon used phrase. Now, both the driver and Capman have a reason for revenge. And they know exactly where to find me.

Late Note: With my Uber experience… my fear was undeserved. But, speaking of fear, my Kenyan friends still ask me about coming to the US. They all want to work here. I try to dissuade them, warning them that they could be grabbed off the street and shipped to El Salvador. It makes me even sadder.

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]

→This one is double BALLS dept: Hats (pants?) off to Nezza for singing the US National Anthem IN SPANISH at a ballgame during the LA ICE war. Even after she was warned to ‘sing in English,” she defied the warning. She certainly gets 20 punk points for that. But wait, there’s more. Team management could have banned her from the stadium, issued a statement saying they “reject the rudeness,” apologized to their fans… but they didn’t do any of that. They just shrugged and went on tacitly supporting free speech… and free song. They get ten points for that.

→ Speaking of sadness dept: At the start of this post I relayed some sad events in my recent life. People who know me, know that I call myself a Trump agnostic. While most of his actions are awful, I have to give him credit with talking to the enemy. He was the first president to cross the DMZ and speak to “the other side” in Korea. He had phone conversations with Putin. Those are things to be admired. But one of his saddest, most pride-defeating actions was the installment of English as the official language of the US. Only 4 countries now have no official language. Mexico, Australia, Eritrea, and surprisingly, The United Kingdom. The tyranny of English here makes me as sad as a Korean who hates his face. The Eritrean constitution specifically declares that all languages are equal—thus, Eritrea has no official language. I think I’m moving to Eritrea wherever the hell that is.

→ More incentive to move dept: My first trip to Europe was in 1970… when I did my Beloit College foreign service job in London. I got an (unpaid) job there writing for FREEDOM, an anarchist newspaper. This was during the Vietnam war, where the US government was burning people alive in Saigon. I saw several American visitors to the UK with Canadian flags sewn to their denim jackets. I had mixed feelings about that. Anti-Canadian-flag was that they’re not showing people that Americans can still be American and oppose the war. Pro-Canadian flag was people rejecting the US and showing that those stars and stripes do not represent all of us. After just supplying the bombs, we’ve “progressed” to actually dropping them on people who attacked no one! I wonder if those flag patches will be making a comeback in 2025.

See you in hell (redux),

LINKS

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.

AFRICAN LINKS:

My friend who told me about samosa meat, and who may be the smartest guy in Nairobi, is Patrick Wafula Wanyama, an English teacher who writes haiku in Swahili. He’s also an advocate for his school in “the slums of Nairobi” and has a GoFundMe to help buy computers for classroom use. Here’s a link to his GoFundMe page. Give him some money.

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.

Here's some non-African stuff:

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.

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. god@mykelboard.com