MYKEL'S APRIL 2021 BLOG or Side Effects

 You’re STILL Wrong

or
Mykel's

April 2021 Blog/Column

Side Effects

by Mykel Board

With some things we are trying to solve some of the problems that are caused by some of the things with which we are trying to solve some of the problems that are caused by some things. -- Mokokoma Mokhonoana

April is when the world slowly opens up and I have to compromise. People will only come out of their cubby holes, masked, vaxxed, and rubber gloved. Really? I find it hard to believe that image of the typical New York wimp is a “tough New Yorker.” Like other images, I guess, it’s only an image. Few people match the image. Out of a hundred, maybe one. Or fewer. Lot’s of other places have people with balls-- here, you can’t even say that word without some feminist saying Yo! I have more balls than you’ll ever have... and being right about that.

I give up. New York is one of the most diverse cities in the world… yet it’s one of the most conformist. I’ve been to every US state, and 70 other countries. The MOST conformist city in the world is San Francisco. Next may be Stockholm, but Stockholm isn’t nearly as cowardly as New York.

The only way you can actually meet people here... have non-virtual social intercourse... go out to eat… to a bar… to a hotel lobby with Dorothy Parker to talk about the state of the world… is to show your Covid test results or your vaccine certificate… otherwise ewwwww cooties!

Bullied into getting shot, I’m on my way to Duane Reade by Walgreens to get the second poke of the government Pfizer-subsidy program. The first shot was free of side effects, but there are all kinds of reports about nasty reactions to the second. 

I’m inside a little white room next to the drugstore pharmacy section. (You’re too young to remember when drugstores WERE pharmacies.) There’s a chair, a tiny table, a sink, and a garbage pail that has a hand-written sign taped to the top of it.

NO FOOD IN GARBAGE. Thanks

This is clearly to discourage patients from rummaging for lunch. A slightly chubby woman, glasses, stern, smile-less... looking more like a security guard than a nurse... asks me to roll up my sleeve. I take my shirt off.

“I need to see your vaccine card to indicate your second dose,” she tells me. I pull it out of my wallet where it lies right next to my new food stamp card. The unfriendly needle-sticker writes some stuff on it. Then...

She wipes an alcohol swab on my arm and BLAM! ...jabs my shoulder with the pre-loaded needle.

“Have a seat outside for fifteen minutes,” she tells me. “If there are no side effects you can go home.” 

“What if there are side effects AFTER fifteen minutes?” I ask her.

“Then stay, home,” she says… in a serious cop voice, “take Tylenol and drink some tea with lemon.”

“You’re shittin’ me,” I don’t say as I put my shirt back on and go outside to wait for the rest of my hair to fall out. It never occurs to me that there could be side effects other than something horrible

The outside room brightens suddenly, as if someone turned a knob that had been only halfway up.

About 10 minutes into sitting out my 15 minutes, the nurse passes me to talk to another patient. It’s then that I notice her ankles… like a dancer’s… a sheet of muscle pounding between bone and skin… and her calves… like tight black eggplants… begging to be skinned and boiled. And the way they disappear under her white lab coat… begging to be followed… explored… lifted. Those legs will be the most beautiful thing in the world. I knew then that the smile missing from her face could be found between her legs. I feel a stirring between my own legs.

The RN loudly clears her throat, and looks at her watch. “Your fifteen minutes are up,” she says. “You can leave now.”

“Did anyone every tell you,” I don’t say… but think… “that you’re the most beautiful woman in the world?”

Somehow I manage to get myself to the door. I glance back, but the goddess in white is gone. As I leave the store, I can still feel the blood pulsating between my legs.

Outside, a Mexican delivery boy dismounts his bicycle. On his back is a square backpack with the word CAVIAR in white against a red background. He wears a heavy jacket that does not conceal his Alfred Hitchcock profile. He also wears a black mask with more ridges than a Ruffles potato chip. Above his mask I can see his eyes. Deep brown… the kind that draw you in… the kind that hook your own eyes and pull you closer. The kind that you just want to look at for the rest of your life.

I stare into those wide brown eyes. The guy looks at me, clucks his tongue, then looks back at me. Then he looks skyward, heads to an old apartment building and rings the bell. I watch him move… sexy as a ballet dancer… one leg kicking out… then the next. I’ve never seen anything like it…I’m in love... more stirring between my legs.

I look at the sky. It is blue… a few wispy clouds form the ass of the Venus de Milo... callipygian… right there above my head. I imagine those cloud cheeks… settling themselves on either side of my face. A gluteal COVID mask… right overhead. I turn around to get a different perspective. I turn again… and again. Before long, I’m just spinning on the sidewalk... whirling... arms flung out… a manic ballet… a Dervish on Spring Street… images of those cheeks resting on my face.

I’m getting dizzy. I stop. The spinning doesn’t. The streets twist around me like chopsticks on a turntable. I feel something under my elbow… a hand… pressing to support me.

“Are you all right, sir?” comes a voice whose source I can’t quite locate. “Here, let me help you to someplace where you can sit down.”

We move to a stone porch. I sit on one of the lower steps. Slowly the spinning stops.

“Is that better, sir?” comes the same voice. I look up into his face… scruffy beard… impossible to tell where the nose hairs end and the mustache-beard begins. Bushy gray eyebrows… shooting off in all directions. A double… no triple,,, chin, pushed out by the downward look of the mysterious stranger. He’s one of the most beautiful people I’ve ever seen.

“You… you…” I start… “Thank you, you saved me,” I say.

“No problem sir,” says that melodious voice. “You think you can make it home by yourself? Should I call an ambulance?”

“I’m okay,” I answer. “Did anyone ever tell you how dazzling you are?”

A smile with a few missing teeth answers my question… I fear I’ve made the smiler uncomfortable.

“No problem, sir,” comes that voice. “Have a nice day.”

I watch as he walks away… what an ass on that guy!

Holy shit! You never think of side effects as anything but BAD side effects… but this must be a vaccine side affect. Shoot me again... and again. I’ve got to get home to take care of the pressure between my legs. I won’t need youngperps.com today. Just my memories and a glance out the window at a passing stranger. So much love… so much beauty!

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]

--> Speaking of Cop-like dept: WDJT reports that a Wisconsin security guard wound up handcuffed and had to call the cops. Police were dispatched to a local Bath and Body Works around 2 a.m. after receiving a call from the shackled guard.

When asked what happened, the guard told them he was bored and put the handcuffs on himself to pass the time. He hadn’t realized, though, he left his keys at home. He added that it wasn’t the first time it had happened either.

One of the officers used a police handcuff key to free the victim.

Reports are that the guard has since put the cuffs where he can’t easily get to them. I wonder what he looks like.

--> A bird in the Wuhan dept: [This was taken from the CRACKED website.]
Even at-least-now-I-have-time-to-catch-up-on-Netflix thinking can become a curse as you enter the ninth day since you felt sunlight. When you're isolated you crave novelty, and over 40 million people found it in the form of Chinese construction vehicles.

Chinese state broadcasters hosted livestreams of two hospitals being built, and very bored people developed a fandom around the equipment. Cement mixers were dubbed Big White Rabbit and The Cement King. A flatbed truck was declared Brother Red Bull, and the biggest stars of the show were Folkchan, "the cutest and most hard working little forklifts." Fan art was created. Viewers could vote on their favorite vehicles, and little mythologies sprung up in live chats as the construction efforts were cheered on. So please enjoy this lighter side of the corona saga before someone inevitably makes hardcore forklift porn.

–> Howdy Partner Dept: The Washington Post tells us that more than 2,000 police and fire departments across the U.S. have “cooperative agreements” with the Amazon doorbell camera Ring system. This is up from 60 in 2018. The pace of new sign-ups is now two new “partnerships” a day.

Those partnerships allow officers to ask all camera owners within half a square mile of a crime scene to share video that could help with the case, and agencies have been seeking out video at a striking rate. Police in Milwaukee, for example, now send Ring video requests for every homicide and nonfatal shooting in the city. Last year officers there requested video more than 800 times.
Credit where it’s due though. This scary report was published in a newspaper owned by… (drumroll here) AMAZON!

–> More side-effects dept: The Week Magazine reports that there have been unintended side effect from the Zoom Culture that developed over the Covid year. Here’s what they said:

–> Something fishy Dept: CNN reports Taiwan’s government has pleaded with citizens to stop changing their names to “salmon” in order to get free sushi. Restaurant chain Sushiro launched a promotion that people whose names include the Chinese characters for salmon could get a free all-you-can-eat meal with five friends. Taiwan’s interior minister complained that the rush for official name changes created “unnecessary paperwork.” But one college student now named Explosive Good Looking Salmon said it was worth it because he’d already eaten 245 dollars worth of free sushi.

See you in hell… again,

MB

LINK TRADE DEPARTMENT:

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:

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.

Rock-writer and historian extraordinaire, Jim Testa, has continued his great zine online. Jersey Beat is still going!

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.

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.

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.

I have a very occasional blog about how rich people are just like us… same needs, same desires, you know. You can read it 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

MRR column for no 359 APRIL 2013 (Mykel Takes Over)

 

You're Wrong

An Irregular Column

by Mykel Board

Column 359 April 2013

"What does a guy want with his arms and legs? He doesn't need arms and legs to write with. He needs security... peace... protection. If you could be sure of that I'd say let's have a war tomorrow. I wouldn't give a fuck about the medals-- they could keep the medals. All I'd want is a good wheelchair and three meals a day. Then I'd give them something to read, those pricks.” --Henry Miller

It's a small turd. Just a brown chili, floating halfway down in the toilet. If I pasted it atop my clenched fist, the guy across the hall might think I was flipping him the bird. So small... so neat... yet what a mess!

Takes a whole roll of paper. The smear half way up my back... covers both cheeks... thick... like dark brown tofu... I need to wipe down the toilet seat...the backs of my legs... Sheet after sheet... leaking off the paper... my fingers covered... dripping... then the phone rings.

Fuck. If I pull my pants up, it'll make a worse mess. The this month's laundry'll smell like shit. So I waddle from the bathroom to the bedroom/livingroom/den... pants around my ankles, naked below the waist... covered in smeared feces.

I pick up the phone.

“Yeah?” I say.

“Mykel?” comes the voice.

“Of course, it's fuckin' Mykel.” I don't say. “You called me!”

“Who's this?” I do say.

“Hi,” comes the female voice on the other end. “I was hoping to get you at home. I'm just calling to tell you we finally decided on the new editor of MRR.”

“Great,” I don't say, “like I need to know the name of my next task-master. What do I care?”

“Who?” I do ask.

“I'm talkin' to him right now,” says the voice.

Yeah, I know this is probably old news to you. Such a long long search and it turns into a great circle and bites you (me) on the (shit-stained) ass. But it takes me by surprise. I sit down.... yeah, I know. That chair is out on the street right now... attracting flies. But the rest, is future.

This is the April issue of MRR. Starting next month, May, I'm in charge. Do I expect to make any changes? Will you notice a difference? You bet your shit-covered ass you will.

What changes? What's the problem with MRR the way it is?

Ask anyone... just go out on the street... stop that housewife on the way to Walmart... that homeless guy picking through the trash... that bike courier on the way from C-squat to the Apple Store... just stop 'em and ask, “What's wrong with MRR?” You'll get the same answer. Always... it's been that way for 30 years:

THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH PICTURES OF NAKED PEOPLE.

You know without asking... you don't need me to tell you. It's as plain as the twat on your face.

Well, I'm gonna change that. Under my regime, every issue will have dozens of 'em. Any (legal) age... any gender or race you can name. Dwarfs, amputees, nursing home residents. All of 'em. Naked people up the wazoo.... every month. Bands... cartoonists... MIT intellectuals... everybody.

A stimulating publication? Yeah, you'll find that famous rub-off ink on more than your hands. You ain't seen nothing yet.

More changes?

Start from the front. The cover. Right now: if it's not a crappy line drawing, it's some band of white people from some hillbilly town in some state you wouldn't touch with a six foot hog call. Under my reign? NO WHITE PEOPLE ON THE COVER OF MRR!! MAYBE we'll have an exception if the band agrees to appear naked, but it would require a substantial endowment.

And the columns? What about the columns?

The columnists would not change. I like everyone who writes, though I'd include bigger pictures as column headers... and, of course, every columnist will appear naked in those headers.

Columnists will have absolute freedom to say whatever they want. Although, if I disagree with anything, they will be required to spend time in the notorious MRR Special Room. After all, if you say something you have to take responsibility for it. We have ways of MAKING YOU take responsibility. Get it?

AND, I will replace the current random order of columnists with a strict order... the same every month... in exact order of the AGE of the columnists... oldest first, of course.

What about English? Fuckin' English. I've said before that people spoke Spanish in America way before they spoke English. You think Nina, Pinta, y Santa Maria are English names? What the fuck? First thing: the NAME of the magazine changes to MAXIMUM VERGA Y CULO. Maybe we'll have a small English section-- at the end of the zine-- the last page or two to tell you what you're missing. For the rest: HABLAS ESPAÑOL O MUERTE!

And reviews? Those fuckin' reviews? MRR reviewers are a bunch of prissy whitefolks (or at least native-English speakers) who think eating a California roll with a dab of soy sauce is oh so exotic and foreign. That's gonna change.

NEW RULES FOR REVIEWS:

All reviewers have to ACTUALLY LISTEN TO OR READ what they review. Don't say, “Well, it's not my taste.” If you don't like the style, don't fuckin' review it! If you don't understand the language then give it to someone who does! Why does every issue of the German zine TRUST have an MRR review-- in English-- and every MRR has a review of TRUST that says, “I wish I could read German.” I know seeing your name in print is an ego boost, but speak what you're gonna review or don't review it. SPRICH DEUTSCH ODER VERRECKE!

Scene reports? What's up with those? If I see one more band name written with the Roman alphabet, I'm gonna shit. There are hundreds of languages in the world. Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese, Thai, Urdu, Bulgarian... the list goes on. Why do we see... month after month... scene reports from places that use A,B,C,D instead of ALEPH, BET, GIMMEL, DALID? No more of that under my reign! New Rule: No more scene reports from places that use the Roman alphabet. A,B,C, is for wimps. Hey, buckaroos! Wake up! This is PUNK ROCK! Learn to read.

It won't be just changes. No sireebob. There'll be a ton of new stuff. More things people actually want:

BODY FLUID OF THE MONTH, TIMMY Y SPEAKS FROM THE GRAVE (transcripts of monthly séances held at the MRR house on night of the full moon.), THE SELL-OUT REPORT (listing what bands it's cool to like and which are on the boycott list), and a new scanned letter section. All letters written entirely IN BLOOD! Anyone answering those letters, must also write in blood.

That's a taste of things to come... a teaser...the start of the change from a punkrock zine to a PUNK ROCK ZINE. Like my turd in the toilet, MRR is not all that big in the world... but it's gonna make a HUGE mess!

ENDNOTES: [email subscribers (god@mykelboard.com) or blog viewers (mykelsblog.blogspot.com/) will get live links and a chance to post comments on the column. Your zines, Cds/records, and... er... private videos... can and should be sent to me at: Mykel Board, POB 137, Prince Street Station, New York NY 10012]

-->Irony on irony dept: In the Martin Luther King days, The Southern Poverty Law Center was a good group. Then it ventured into "Anti-Defamation" territory. Like the Jewish Anti-Defamation League who calls every critic of Israel "anti-semitic" (and even accuses Arabs, who are Semites, of being "anti-Semitic") the SPLC jumps on any group it disagrees with and labels them "racist" or "terrorist."

Reuter's now reports SPLC is coordinating an "anti-bullying program." (That's ironic since they themselves use bully name-calling tactics.) As part of their anti-bully program, they've organized 3000 schools to have a "Mix It Up at Lunch Day." Students in those schools are encouraged "to sit by someone in the cafeteria they would not normally sit next to.”

The right-wing American Family Association, is boycotting the event because they say it's "a nationwide push to promote the homosexual lifestyle in public schools." Doubly funny because the intolerant name-callers are getting name-called for promoting tolerance.

-->Sissy Bradford, a criminology professor at Texas A&M University lost her job after complaining about a taxpayer-funded tower with four Christian crosses. The tower also featured the official university seal. Thanks to her protest and a letter from the legal department of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the crosses were removed. Then followed several threats from cross defenders. These that got so bad that Ms Bradford asked the campus cops for protection. Her request was ignored. Now she's without a job and no campus for the campus cops to protect her on.

-->Bad news for Christians and Feminists dept: A new study has found that porn stars have "higher self-esteem, self confidence and a more flattering image of their bodies" than others. Of course! If you've got hundreds of folks jerking off to your image, it's only logical that you're gonna think a lot of yourself. You can get the full article at: http://tinyurl.com/selfestemeArt

-->Secret major label dept: If you're suddenly seeing advertising for a "micro-brewery" called SHOCK TOP, you guessed right. It's Anheiser-Busch, the Budweiser giant, now owned by a Belgian company. The beer sucks anyway, too sweet and I donno... wrong. But don't be tricked, like Blue Moon, it's a FAKE micro-brew.

-->12 years for NOTHING dept: Of course I'm talking about prison. There are millions of such stories. People who hurt no one languishing in jail under FEDERAL SENTENCING LAWS. I've written a lot about this. But a spot of maraschino cherry in the diarrhea of our legal system is GORILLACONVICT publishing. It's a company that gets the word out FROM the men behind the bars. They publish books (remember them?) by the 2%... the 2% of Americans, that is, who are behind bars. Their website is gorillaconvict.com.

-->Is that a screw in your kneebone or are you happy to see me dept: First Class Magazine reports that Australian airports have introduced full body scanners for all international air passengers. The scanners use wifi length radio waves to scan, rather than the X-ray machines that are used in the US.

Both Europe and Australia have banned the US machines as too much of a cancer risk. The US government doesn't care. It's SECURITY, ya know?

-->Help, 'em but don't let 'em help themselves dept: In Ashland Oregon, public officials have removed three boxes for public donations to help the homeless. The reason is that the boxes were pilfered and the money stolen. After an investigation, a man was arrested, fined and jailed for the theft. You guessed it. He was homeless. Now, please tell me how a homeless person can steal money meant for the homeless. I guess the answer's easy. That's DIRECT giving. If you do that, how does an ADMINISTRATOR get paid? It would destroy the whole American concept of charity.

-->Mix government and religion at your own peril dept: Germany's top court has ruled that Catholics who do not pay religious taxes must automatically leave the church. The judges ruled against Hartmut Zapp (great name!) who wanted to leave the church as an institution, but remain a member of the Catholic community. Germany's bishops announced that believers who refuse to pay the religion tax won't be able to receive the sacraments, become godparents or a have a religious funeral. In Germany, the government subsidizes religions through taxes on members of the religion. In the US, the government subsidizes religion through taxes on EVERYBODY. They call it "faith-based."

-->Good suggestion bad reason dept: Israeli Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky ordered his followers to "burn their iPhones" in order to maintain Jewish insularity and keep the outside world away. I'm not sure iPhones burn very well, but they probably flush nicely down the toilet.

YOU AREN'T SUPPOSED TO KNOW (MRR 335, April)

You're Wrong

An Irregular Column

by Mykel Board

Mykel's Column for MRR 335, April, 2011

---------------- 

Let us, however, in our plans, direct our attention not so much to what is good and moral as to what is necessary and useful. --Protocols of the Elders of Zion

“And you're just going to tell everyone?” he asks. “Pretty soon word'll get out.... Ruin everything... It would destroy thousands of years. Let me tell you: Forget it! Only don't come running back to me. Once you do this, it's over. Like I said before, you won't survive.”

“I'm an old man, George,” I tell him. “I don't have much time left anyway.”

I'm talking with George Tabb. We're in the dressing room of The Continental. I'm there for Revival Two, the second annual reuion of ever-older farts. Downstairs is the dressing room. In a corner of that room, George and I talk about... well, you'll read it.

“After this blood libel thing with Sarah Palin... I gotta speak out.” I tell him.

“Ya gotta do what ya gotta do,” he tells me. “But you're destroying 5000 years of history in the process. It's worse than the holocaust. It might even lead to another one.”

I nod grimly. We hug. It's like we're parting forever. Maybe we are.

 

Flashback: The year is 1952. Six months before my bar mitzvah. As with every Jewish boy, it's during this time we're introduced to the wonders and mysteries of Jewishness. My parents have driven me to the synagogue.

“You won't forget today,” says my father as I get out of the car. Are his eyes wet?

It's early April, a week before Passover. An air of solemnity... awe... fear... blankets the inner chamber of the synagogue. There is no Hebrew school teacher today.... just the rabbi, Rabbi Alterkake.

Looking back, I guess he wasn't a very tall man, but to me, he seemed like a giant. A fierce looking face with a long gray beard and big eyebrows... two fat caterpillars above deep set eyes.

“Mykel,” says the rabbi. He speaks with a slightly Eastern European accent.... like my grandfather. His deep voice sounds like the voice of GOD.

“You will never forget today,” he says. “It is time for you to know what it really means to be a Jew. You might have heard whispers... rumors dismissed with a wave of the hand. Still, you wondered. Today you will know.”

If you've ever been inside a synagogue, you'll remember that on the Eastern wall, facing Jerusalem, is a tall boxlike structure. It's called an ark. It contains one or two scrolls... dressed fancy with chestplates and crowns. If you've attended a Jewish service, you might have seen the rabbi read from one. When not being read, the scrolls rest on velvet in the back of the ark.

Rabbi Alterkake takes me by the hand and leads me up to the ark. He removes the two scrolls and sets them on a stand. Then he reaches to the blue velvet. There is a snap or zipper or some kind of fastener. I'm not exactly sure. Whatever it is, he unfastens it and pushes against the wood underneath. It is a door. And it silently swings open.

On the other side, a staircase leads downwards. It looks unimaginably old... wooden... rickety... like those staircases in horror movies. The rabbi leads, entering the back of the ark and going down the stairs. I follow.

If this were a movie, the rabbi would have a candle in his hand. We'd be casting eerie shadows on the wall. It isn't. We aren't.

I'm not exactly sure where the light is coming from. There must be bulbs in the staircase ceiling that I don't notice. What I do notice is that the stairs end at a large door... like a giant refrigerator door... white, with a metal handle. Rabbi Alterkake pulls the handle and it silently swings open. We step inside a room.

It's dark. Before my eyes can adjust, the door swings shut behind us with a little whoosh! I feel like I'm in a church crypt... like those I read about in old European cathedrals.

As my eyes adjust I make out a very plain room: four concrete walls. On each of the four walls is a white scroll with a giant Hebrew letter on it.

 

Aleph, Peh, Lamed, Feh. And hanging from the ceiling in the center of the room is another giant Lamed.

In the middle of the room is a cross. It's on an alter, and it's big. Bigger than my 4 foot eleven inch self. A Christian cross. Why?

I wonder if the synagogue is constructed over an old church. But why did they keep the cross there? Why would the rabbi take me to visit it? I can't imagine what Jesus has to do with getting ready for a bar mitzvah.

We approach the cross, circling around to the other side... facing the Aleph on the wall.

It is not Jesus on the cross. It is a little boy... naked... tied to the cross beam by his wrists.

“This is the fate of the goyim,” says the rabbi. “God made us His chosen people. In every generation, the goyim have tried to destroy us. We survive because we respect God. We follow God's instructions.”

He walks to a shelf attached to the concrete wall, just to the right of the Lamed. On that shelf lies a huge pair of scissors-- like the Jewish tailors use to cut cloth in midtown New York.

“We survive,” continues the rabbi, “because we follow the rituals of our fathers... and our fathers' fathers.”

He walks up to the Christian boy... a blond kid, about five years old... Dutchboy haircut. The rope around his wrists is red with blood. He must've scraped the skin off trying to escape. His knees are about eye level to the rabbi.. His face wrinkles in fear. Tears smear his cheeks. His nose drips snot.

A small bucket lies on the floor, directly beneath the child. I recognize the Hebrew letters etched into the metal. One looks like a fiery N. I recognize it as Aleph, the first letter of the alphabet. The other is long, a bit like a P. It's the Hebrew Feh. 

The F-sound. I have no idea what they mean. They must be related to the symbols on the wall. It's all mysterious... foreign.

A drop of blood falls from boy's tiny wrists to the floor. The rabbi reaches up between the boy's legs. The kid tries to twist his knees to protect the tiny glands he will eventually surrender. Slapping the offending legs, the rabbi presses onward.

Pushing his right hand between the child's legs, the rabbi uses the scissors in his left hand to point to the bucket. Then he points to a spot on the cross, under the legs of the naked boy.

“Hold that here,” he says.

I lift the bucket and hold it where I'm told.

The rabbi's right hand is tight between the kids' legs. He hooks his fingers around the tiny testicles. He pulls and a horrible scream comes from the kid's mouth. Reaching up with the scissors, he puts the two tiny glands between the sharp edges, then presses the handle together. A worse scream issues from the child's mouth. Worse than anything I've ever heard.

That sound still haunts me, 60 years later. It was a scream like the pain of the world. A scream that pierces every bone, like the cold of a wet winter day. A scream that made my 12 and a half year old body tremble as if it were happening to me.

“And they think matzo ball soup is made from balls of matzo,” says the rabbi with a small ironic smile.

The scream dies to a whisper. A kind of sob/hiccup. The bucket I'm holding fills with the blood dripping from the open wound between the boy's legs. At first it's a torrent, splashing out, over my hands, onto my shirt. The torrent turns into a river. The river to a stream. The stream to a trickle. Time slows as the flow of blood slows. TICK... TICK... TICK... DROP... DROP... DROP. Eventually it's over.

The boy is quiet now, his naked legs covered in red rivulets, like a Jackson Pollock painting. The terror is gone from his face. It's almost like he's sleeping, his chin resting against his small chest. His skin is as white and pale as the paper I'm typing this on.

The rabbi walks to another shelf, this one next to the giant Alef. He takes a book from that shelf. It looks like The Koran. At least my 12 year old image of what the Koran looks like. The writing is certainly Arabic, not Hebrew. The book looks old-- but gilded... and holy.

He rips a page from the book and places on it the two little testes he's snipped from the goy on the cross.

He folds the paper around the glands and puts them in the pocket of his long coat. He then spits into the book, rubs it on the seat of his pants and puts it back on the shelf.

I don't know what happens to the little body. My guess is that it's taken down, and walled up behind one of those giant Hebrew letters. It's one of the many things I never find out.

I follow the rabbi back up the stairs. The blood of the little blond boy swishes in the bucket I'm carrying. Kerblub! Kerblub! Telmwirl! Telmwirl! It sounds like it's talking to me.

 

Tell the word! Tell the world! it's saying.

It's a scene that every Jewish boy has witnessed for the past thousand years. Two thousand. Five thousand. And until now, no one has ever told... or if they have, their reports have been ridiculed as blood libel.

Now you know. Blood it is. Libel, unfortunately, it is not.

ENDNOTES: [email subscribers (god@mykelboard.com) or website viewers (www.mykelboard.com) will get live links and a chance to post comments on the column]

-->Credit where its due dept: There are very few big internet corporations that I like... though I use them. Facebook is a privacy horror. Apple has turned itself into a God. eBay spawned the Meg Whitman monster. But sometimes, you've got to give credit.

    In December, the U.S. government got a court order demanding Twitter turn over information about people connected to WikiLeaks. The court order added a gag demand that prevented Twitter from telling anyone, especially the targets of the order, about the order’s existence.

    Instead of caving in Google-like, Twitter successfully challenged the gag order in court. Then they told the targets that their data was being requested. That gave the victims time to try to quash the order themselves.

     Twitter’s move comes as a ton of spineless companies, including PayPal, MasterCard, Visa, and Bank of America banned donations to WikiLeaks. Amazon.com voluntarily threw the site off its hosting platform, though there’s nothing illegal in publishing classified documents.

     By standing up for its users, Twitter showed guts and principles. Ten punk points for you, Twitter.

    Late news: maybe the kudos were awarded a bit too early! 

-->Did it happen to you? dept: If you have a website that has been threatened with a suit or received a letter asking that material be removed... there's help for you. A website called Chilling Effect (http://chillingeffects.org/) will help you stand up for your first amendment rights... and least the few you have left.

-->Telling a man by his friends dept: TV preacher Pat Robertson was told he may not have to testify in the war crimes trial of his business partner, former Liberian dictator, Charles Taylor. Robertson got ten percent of the profits of a Liberian company ironically called Freedom Gold. In 2003, Robertson pulled some strings for his pal by criticizing GWB for "destabilizing Liberia," which meant trying to get rid of the dictator. Robertson had made no such similar comments when GWB tried to get rid of another leader... Saddam Hussein.

-->Secular sectarianism dept: The French government has banned the burka in France. The excuse? "We're a secular nation." They have not, however, banned Jesus bling or mezuzahs on doorposts.

-end-

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