Back To The Future or Mykel's First Blog of 2022

 

Back To The Future or You're STILL Wrong, Mykel's January 2022 Blog

 

You’re STILL Wrong

or

Mykel's 

January 2022 Blog/Column 

Back To The Future

by Mykel Board

Living sends a person not into the future, but back into the past to childhood and before birth, finally, to communicate with the dead. --Jeffrey Eugenides

“It's amazing how a little tomorrow can make up for a whole lot of yesterday.” - John Guare

No matter what happens, you always have the past to look forward to. –Mykel Board

“Waaaaa!!!” I scream.

“Fred!” says Mommy. “Look at Mickey! His mask is off… must’ve fallen and we didn’t notice.”

“Mickey!” says Dad, “I’m so sorry. I’ll get you another mask right away. 

“Nee wah wet oh dah peep-po she you shmyle!” I say through my tears.

Dad smiles, “That’s right, Mickey. You learn well! Never let other people see you smile!”

“Waaaa!!” I scream again, shaking the stroller side-to-side. “Waaaaa!”

“Okay,” says Dad, “I’ll get a new mask from the DPC (Disease Prevention Center)… next to the lifeguard station. We can’t let little Mickey feel naked.”

FLASH AHEAD 7 YEARS: In school, Mickey has become Michael… years before Michael becomes Mykel: 

It’s a big class… 20 of us. I wear dark blue slacks, a white shirt and a bow tie.  We sit at desks... 1 student to 1 small desk…  plexiglass walls between those desks. 

Mrs. Hauser… gray dress... white and gray top part… like a bib... stands in front of the room… hands sternly on her hips. She frowns 

“Michael Board,” she says. “Please stand up.”

I look around as if it’s not me she’s talking to. 

“Stand up!” she says in that special teacher’s voice. 

I stand up.

“Now, Michael,” says Mrs. Hauser. “We just got a report from the cafeteria…”

She stops, as if waiting for me to say something… to fill in the blank. I stand stone still… keeping stone quiet.

“You know the problem, don’t you?” asks the teacher. 

I shake my head. 

“You know where you were standing… on the lunch line… you know how close you were… You were right behind Janet Kaprinski. You could practically touch her!”

I and look behind me at the cute girl... in a frilly yellow dress. She stares straight ahead… like I’m not there. 

“How far is six feet?” Mrs. Houser asks me.

I spread my arms as wide as I can. 

“No!” says Mrs. Houser, “You are a child. You cannot show six feet with your body. Put on your rubber gloves and touch the glass between your and Robert Gottlieb’s desk.”

I put on my rubber gloves and walk to the partition … touch it. 

“Now, walk to the other side of your desk and touch the glass between your desk and Linda McGunnigal’s desk.”

I walk to the other side of my desk and touch the glass.

“That’s six feet!” says the teacher. 

I don’t say anything. 

“Spread your arms again,” says the teacher. 

I do.

“That’s how close you were to Janet Kaprinski,” says Mrs. Hauser. “And Janet Kaprinski is ANOTHER PERSON!” She speaks the last two words in capital letters.

“And what do other people do?” asks the teacher. 

I shrug. 

“Class?” asks Mrs Houser, “Can you tell Michael what other people do?”

“OTHER PEOPLE MAKE YOU SICK!” shouts the class in unison. 

“Again.” commands Mrs. Houser.

“OTHER PEOPLE MAKE YOU SICK!” they shout again… louder this time.

FLASH AHEAD 8 MORE YEARS: I’m making the trip to THE CITY… a Long Island Railroad trip about 45 minutes from Hicksville... masked... of course. I sit in the window seat. My best friend David joins me on this adventure. He sits, socially distant, in the aisle seat. 

In this universe, there are cellphones in 1965. I pull mine out and check the time. 

“WE SHOULD BE THERE IN 10 MINUTES,” I shout to Dave. 

“WHAT?” he asks… both of us mask-muffled in the train.

We pull into Penn Station… get out of the train… leave the platform and look for the INDEPENDENT train line to Greenwich Village. My parents took a trip there once and they said it was where “the weird people hang out.” Sounds right up my young alley. 

“Look! Right there! There’s a sign.” 

“I think that’s the one we have to take,” I say to David.

“What?” he asks. “I can’t hear you.”

I shout through my mask. “I think that’s the one we have to take to go to Greenwich Village.”

He nods. 

We follow the sign to the next sign and finally come to a token booth. Dad has explained the system. 

“FOUR TOKENS,” I shout through the booth window. “WE WANT TO GO TO GREENWICH VILLAGE.”

The clerk looks at us from behind his masks. I can see his eyebrows raise in amusement. I make sure I can’t see him smile. 

“THAT’LL BE EIGHTY CENTS!” He shouts back to us. “GET OFF AT WEST 4TH STREET.” 

I push a dollar under the glass in the booth, and he pushes back four tokens and two dimes. I wave to him... hand two tokens to Dave. We put them in the turnstile slots and walk onto the subway platform. 

There is a scream. We look toward the end of the platform. A man is pushing a woman against the wall. He has pulled off her face mask exposing her naked nose and mouth. She opens her mouth to scream again, but the man covers it with his hand… a human mask... forcing her head against the wall. 

“Let’s go help her!” says David, taking off for the other end of the platform. 

“NO, WAIT!” I shout. “Don’t do it! OTHER PEOPLE MAKE YOU SICK!”

I take out my cellphone and focus it on the couple struggling at the end of the platform. I motion to Dave to do the same. 

“Walter Cronkite will pay good money for these pictures. We’ll be on TV!” 

“You’re right!” says David, pulling out his own phone and starting to film. 

BLAM! FLASH TO WHAT PASSES FOR REALITY IN 2021: Of course, 20 cent tokens and cellphones never occupied the same space-time continuum. And my father would never have rewarded me for avoiding the smile of a stranger. 

But people have little else to do during lockdowns and social distancing... they fuck like bunnies and drop a ton of puppies. I have four new nieces, all having come forth from between young legs during the last year. 

Those kids will have lives like my fictional childhood. They’ll feel naked without their masks. They’ll be afraid of a stranger’s smile. They’ll see strangers as little more than sources of infection… or fodder for a TV news story. I’ll be dead before they’re young adults. 

Lucky me.

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 emailwith SUBSCRIBE in the subject line.  Back blogs and columns are at https://mykelsblog.blogspot.com]

–> Tit for Cat Dept: The NY Post reports that on a Delta Airlines flight from Syracuse to Atlanta, a woman tried to breastfeed her cat. The cat was not happy. Other passengers had mixed feelings. 

Flight attendants repeatedly asked the woman to return the yowling cat to its kennel, but she refused. "Her shirt was up and she was trying to get the cat to latch ... and the cat was screaming for its life," said  a flight attendant who was on board during the incident. The woman was taken away by security when the plane landed. It's unclear what happened to her cat. 

–>Where’s that Cellphone Camera When You Need It dept: Yahoo News reports that a 98-year-old COVID-19 victim's body was dissected in front of a paying audience in a Portland, Oregon, hotel ballroom.

A funeral director in Baton Rouge said that the body of the man had been donated for “medical research” to a private company called Med Ed Labs.

Instead of research, the body was dissected at a $500-a-ticket event at a Portland Marriott Hotel. The dissection was organized by a group called Death Science, which has more than a million followers on TikTok and says on its website that it educates people on "scientific fields and topics that relate to the deceased."

–> I’m surprised department: How did they let this news out? Almost 5 dozen people suffered blood clots after receiving the Johnson and Johnson COVID vaccine… the majority in women under 50. The CDC revised its recommendations, saying the J&J vaccine should be a last resort. I guess the US will ship the remaining doses to Africa to show how generous we are. Stay tuned for more… and there will be. 

See you in hell, redux,

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.

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.

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

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

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

Wait! Don't Jump from That Bridge Until We Get To It (Mykel Board's Dec Blog)

 YOU'RE STILL WRONG.. 

MYKEL'S DEC. 2020 BLOG

OR

FUCK YOU 2020!

by Mykel Board

The top people in the Pentagon probably aren't happy with me because they want to do nothing but fight wars so all of those companies that make the bombs and make the planes and make everything else stay happy. --Donald Trump

Spread the faith. God love you all. May God bless America and may God protect our troops. --Joe Biden

I limp to the post office in my brand new foot-steadying surgical shoe… the foot in that shoe wrapped in a “soft cast’... my daily 4+ mile walks on hold while some toe-connecting nerve repairs itself. My goal for now: cut down to 2 miles a day. That’s gonna be hard. Monday I walked 7 miles.

FLASH TO MONDAY: I walk across the George Washington Bridge... from Washington Heights, Manhattan to Fort Lee, New Jersey. The GWB is the only bridge in Manhattan that goes to another state. I walk… hugging the right side… dodging cyclists.

A metal netting covers the bridge… from street level to higher than anyone can climb. It’s clearly a late addition… a normal/jumpable railing –now unreachable– lays like an artifact, on the far side of the mesh.

About half-way across the bridge... a public-service poster… Suicide Prevention Hotline. It makes me smile.

Here it is! Oooo lala! Ft. Lee... famous for its Korean food… cheaper and better than Manhattan. I look around. No one’s on the sidewalk. Outdoor tables are empty.

To my left: apartment buildings. To my right: something restaurant-looking… a red building with a few unlit Christmas lights. I cross the wide road from the bridge and follow it to the building: FRANCO’S ITALIAN. It’s closed. Chairs upside down on the tables inside.

I ask Google to find the nearest Korean Restaurant.

“Back to the bridge,” she tells me.

I shudda turned left.

Back I go, following the Google map. Turn left where I’d turned right... past more closed restaurants… Very few people walk the sidewalks. None look Korean. The shells of ethnic restaurants stick out like bones in a famine victim. It’s worse than New York… dark in the afternoon… a few tables outside… empty and forlorn in the fading light. It’s creepy.

Right here! Says the black dot in the red Google-balloon. There is indeed a restaurant. It says Chinese. I walk in. All the signs are in Hangul. I figure it’s gotta be Korean-style Chinese. I figure right. Mmmm boy!

Stir fry… enough to take some home… served Korean style, where one dish gets you half a dozen dishes, pickles, kimchi, mystery vegetables in little plates of their own… all spiced enough to make you feel the burn. I order something stir fried... best restaurant meal of the year. I pack up what I can’t finish... leave my credit card next to the empty plate… Put on my trenchcoat...

POW! One… two… three... punch to the gut. I the spice burn through every inch of my large intestine… building brown… trying to force its way out of my 70-year loosened sphincter. Pow! Off to the men’s room. There is no men’s room… just one restroom with one toilet. I flip the light switch. Nothing happens. With the door closed, I feel randomly for the toilet. Ah, there it is… Yes! Yes! Yes! I just make it… Hitting the bowl… missing the floor… I hope.

FLASH TO RIGHT NOW: A line of masked millennials winds itself down Broadway to Bleecker, then down the long block to Lafayette Street. Then it curls around Lafayette… goes halfway up the block.

I’m used to the lines. There’s a sneaker shop where Adidas and Nike release their newest scams to a waiting line of fanatics and eBay resellers. It’s a hobby... New Yorkers love to stand on line... especially 20-somethings. (For those of you off the East Coast… here we stand ON line… not IN line!) For those waiting, a long line shows the place is good… worth waiting for. Yep, waiting itself shows it’s worth the wait. These are the breadlines of the old Soviet Union… the welfare lines of the Great Depression… recast... upscale.

Today the wait is for City MD, an “Urgent Care” clinic. Usually it’s where people with lousy insurance go so they don’t have to pay hundreds for a hospital waiting room. Today they wait for a free COVID-19 test. Mostly masked, somewhat less than socially distant.. the cellphone-reading chirps stand there for two hours to have their noses stuck with a wooden stick. In half a week they find out if they’ve got it or not?

Whoa…. Let me see if I’ve got that right. People who think they may have the plague wait on line with other people who think they may have the plague, creating a mini-mob. The nose-scrapers test the crowd and then find… surprise!… a higher percentage has the plague than was recorded before the free testing. And tomorrow... there’ll be even more.

What a surprise? A line of people who think they have the disease turns out to produce more people who actually do have the disease. Shocking! And what does that mean? LOCKDOWN RETURNS… Restaurants close… the fear grows. More folks wait on line to be tested.

My pal Troy tells me, in Japan, there are more suicides than Corona deaths. In the US, people are to afraid to kill themselves. Instead, New Yorkers engage in their favorite line-waiting activity to learn in a few days… that they didn’t have the disease a few days ago… but might have caught it by now and should stand on line again next week... for another test.

Meanwhile, bars and restaurants close at 10PM… and those who can’t pay their vacancy expenses… commit mom-and-pop-store-suicide. My favorite midtown Irish bar… and my favorite midtown izakaya… both dead from Covid… make that Covid FEAR.

I tell ya, I want to jump off a bridge… or at least move to Japan.

I write this November 21^st. Donny Trump is still protesting the election. Frankly, I’d (slightly) prefer a Trump president to one who gets his funds from banks and the big drug companies. I’d prefer one with a vice president who keeps his door open when he’s with a woman, but closes it when he’s with another guy… to one who’s a cop. But it looks like Biden it will be.

In that case, he has a tough decision to make. He’s either got to pardon Trump of all crimes and get on with his HEALING THE NATION shtick… or he’s got to let the bloodlust go kablooey… satisfy the revenge-seekers... the ghouls… the vampires.

My bet’s on the “healing.” Joe Biden is Mr. Normal. He’s another old white guy who’ll keep things going just the way they used to go... nothing new or upsetting here… everything just like it was before. He’ll “re-engage America with the world.” That means dropping bombs on our “enemies” and giving weapons to our “friends.” That means Bill Clinton-like NAFTA and other “business partnerships,” making American consumers happy with cheap goods from those nice guys in China.

We’ll see a few nods to the cultural left. Some statues torn down... names changed, maybe some funds to convert mental health rescue from a police action to a… er…. mental health action. That would be a good thing. Maybe we’ll see a national Bad Cops Registry. I’m not sure about that one.

Gays and lesbians will be just normal every-day guys and gals. They’ll be able to protest homeless people begging in the neighborhood… adopt kids to send to private schools… on vouchers… give spouses the gift of shared insurance so their visit to “a specialist,” will only cost them $80.

Laws will pass creating and requiring new pronouns. The next billionaire will be transsexual… employing hundreds of thousands of people… at minimum wage. Biden will refill the prisons emptied by Trump. And the Democrats will cheer him on… The Republicans will call him “a socialist” and “soft on crime.”

And so 2021 will continue. You know a bridge without wire fencing?

- end -

ENDNOTES: [You can contact me on facebook or by email at god@mykelboard.com. Through the post office: send those... er... private DVDs..or music or zines... or anything else (legal only!) to: Mykel Board, POB 137, New York, NY 10012-0003. If you like my writing, you can be notified when anything new is available. Send me an email with SUBSCRIBE in the subject line. Back blogs and columns are at https://mykelsblog.blogspot.com

→ Proactive Interference Dept: At the end of October, the New York Times reported (since updated) that Big Tech had plans if Trump lost the election and tried to “delegitimize the results.”

According toThe Times, Facebook has discussed a “kill switch” to shut off political advertising after Election Day, since the ads, which Facebook does not police for truthfulness, could be used to spread misinformation….YouTube and Twitter have also discussed plans for action if the post-election period becomes complicated.

Nothing like a well-thought-out preventative plan in detail to show there’s no conspiracy. Right?

 → New Normal Dept: The oddest thing about this real-life picture of a warning sign in Alberta Canada is that it’s not so odd. During the complete weirditude that is 2020, you’d just figure that somehow moose tongues spread the plague. Makes as much sense as standing in line with sick people for a COVID test, doesn’t it?

→ Remains of Bidet Dept: Cracked.com reports: The toilet paper shortage is causing more than just the obvious issues. Cities are concerned that people flushing non-toilet paper items like paper towels could royally overload sewer systems. Bidets are the most obvious solution to the lack of TP issue, and Amazon is selling out of them like crazy.

Then they predict: Once the hordes lust for butt paper is satisfied, and we have a stable toilet paper supply line again, lots of people are still going to have bidets. We're going to discover that they're not as scary and European as we initially thought and why uninstall one when the next toilet paper shortage could happen at any time?

Funny... because right now, the only public bidets I know in NYC are in the basement of The Japan Society. I have to admit, they are fun. And they’re adjustable so I bet girls find a special use for that hard spray! It’s all in the plumbing. Oh yeah!

→ Cancel culture redux dept: Thanks to my long-term pal, Jim Testa, for this from NJ.com. It seems that a local Starbucks fired a woman because she refused to wear a (gay) Pride T-shirt. Instead, she wore her usual uniform, saying the t-shirt violated her religious beliefs.

Betsy Fresse, of Newark, said her managers at the Glen Ridge Starbucks “assured her” that she didn’t have to wear the T-shirt during her shift. Two months later she was sent a notice that she was being cut for “acting in violation of Starbucks’ core values.”

Fresse said that being made to wear a Pride T-shirt as a condition of employment would be tantamount to forced speech and inaccurately show her advocacy of a lifestyle in direct contradiction to her religious beliefs.

She also filed a complaint with the U.S. Equal Opportunity Employment Commission, which said it was unable to conclude one way or another if Starbucks engaged in religious discrimination.

I say, it’s the next frontier. Not only the corporate censorship so loved by the new intolerants, but FORCED speech. I can understand a uniform saying whatever management wants as a condition of employment… but then a quick switch with out warning? No fuckin’ way!

What? Boss? I have to wear an I HEART BILL CLINTON t-shirt to work???? Are you kidding?

See you in hell,
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

You're Still Wrong, Mykel's Oct 2020 Blog #2 or Head in The Oven

MYKEL'S OCT. 2020 BLOG

VOLUME 2

OR

Is That Your Head In The Oven
or Are You Happy to See Me?

You’re STILL Wrong

or

Mykel's 1st October 2020 Blog/Column

by Mykel Board 

[This will be my last semi-monthly blog. I find there are fewer readers. It’s more work. And I’m in no mood. Next month the blog goes once-a-month again.]

We die. That may be the meaning of our lives. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives. --Tony Morrison

You know how it feels when you’ve got your hands around the throat of someone you hate? You know how your fingers press against the neckback while your thumbs search out the bump of an adams apple? You know how when you squeeze, you can press your thumbs against that bump… one on either side… until something pops… then gurgles? There’s always a cough first.. then a tension… like an electric shock… then limpness… the head lolling… first right… then left... then down… chin to chest. You know how it feels when you release your hands and see that final slump… Thinking Yes! I did that! You little piece of shit… NOW, your life has meaning. Get it?

Sometimes I feel like sticking my head in the oven… the microwave oven. Sometimes I feel like walking down Broadway with an Uzi… and lots of ammo. 2020 has been a hell year for most everyone. Every day I dread email, facebook, or some other bringer of bad news. Who died? Who hates me? Who’s in the hospital? In jail?

My friends are dropping like beershit turds. Not (only) from the plague or from what happens when you get old and your friends do too, but from tightly wound tension... from the plague fear… from well, your other friends don’t want to see you so they must know something I don’t know. I’d better sequester myself too… at least from you.

I feel like Bojing Chow, the Chinese guy from Hubei (pronounced “Hoo-bay,” capital Wuhan) who works chopping suey for 10 years… sleeps in a hovel with his wife, family, and two other families… saves enough money to open his own hole-in-the-wall restaurant serving a Hubei favorite, Spicy Duck Neck. With the name Hubei Your Urges. The motif is a strange mixture of half-naked women and ducks.

Then comes the WUHAN virus. Then the lockdown… the closings… the sudden poverty. Bojing! Join me in my microwave… I’ll show you how to defeat the door-lock. There’s room enough for two.

I’m a social guy… the reverse of that cliché of I love humanity. It’s people I can’t stand. Me? I like people. I like to be in the midst of them… to eat and drink with them… to talk with them… to be naked in a pile of them.

In “normal” times in New York, every Thursday night I have DRINK CLUB. We go to a different bar every week, eat, drink, talk. Maskless, we treat each other like human beings, sharing food, tasting this beer and that. Laughing… or singing out loud. Sometimes we hug each other.

The plague put the kibosh on that… at least for a few months. During the last month or two I’ve brought it back with outside meetings and sticking to the same bar every week. In pre-plague times, Drink Club had from 6 to ten people usually several Japanese, and a few Hispanics to kick up the spice.

We loved to kid.. to lie about how to say Cheers in our native languages. We teach the round-eyes that in Japanese, it’s baka yaroo. (Actually, that means you fucking idiot.) We teach the Orientals that, in Spanish, it’s besa mi culo. (Actually, that means kiss my ass.) In English it’s garlic cow. I’ll teach you where that comes from.

In Spanish, garlic is ajo. Cow is vaca (pronounced, you guessed it, baka). Ajo in Japanese is something like asshole. So Garlic Cow in Spanish is ajo baka which, in Japanese means stupid asshole. Get it? No one else will.

This silly playfulness helps bring us together... to make us laugh… to make us feel less alone.

In lockdown Drink Clubs, the max is 7 people… almost all occidentals… mostly old people. This further lend credence to my theory that old people fear this plague less than the young. Like I wrote a couple weeks ago, that’s what old people do. We don’t fear death. We die. But that doesn’t make the uniform group of white oldsters any more exciting.

I miss the languages, the joking, the name-calling. In Spanish, it’s common to call the hefty guy Gordo (Fatty). In America, in the early 1900s a famous actor-comedian (who came to a bad end) was called “Fatty Arbuckle.” In 2020, “Fatty” would be bullying. You’d probably be banned from Facebook.

In 2020, people’s sensitivity is knife sharp. Not only from PC-itude, but from the tension and fear caused by COVID... mine too. I wrote how I fb-blocked a long-time friend because he name-called me.

Come on Mykel! (Here’s where you slap me, holding the front of my shirt… by the collar… slap first the right cheek, then on the left.)

“You’re - Mykel - fuckin’ - Board.”

Say one word with each slap.

“You’re - gonna - block - a - friend - because - he - called - you - a - name? Who - HASN’T - called - you - a - name?”

Flash to Chinatown: I’m out with El, one of my few remaining friends. We’re at a Chinese restaurant… not Wuhan. El notices an error in the English language menu. One dish is labeled Chicken Niggits.

I laugh out loud. Take a picture. And BAM! Post it on Instagram.

Double BAM! In a few minutes comes a reply from another long-term friend. Yeah, she’s black, “So this is what it’s come to?”

I send an apology and delete the post. It doesn’t help. I haven’t heard from her again.

I’M SORRY!

And so it goes.

Blame? I’d love to blame. Everyone looks for someone to blame… as if this will help… Hurricane after hurricane… quick blame the oil companies and their climate change? Race riots? Blame anarchists and outside agitators. Police murders? Blame “a few bad apples” rather than a system that attracts and creates bad apples. Police being murdered? Blame thugs who are incited by the anarchists. Corona virus? If you’re a Trump supporter, blame China. If you’re a Trump-hater, blame Trump.

The problem is that blaming doesn’t work. I don’t feel better if I blame my friends for deserting me… I’m still friendless. Believe me, the only solution is the microwave. Right now it’s on the refrigerator… too high for me to reach just standing on the floor. Okay, I’ll use the step ladder.

POW! Exploding head! That’ll teach ‘em. Right? They’ll have nobody to blame but themselves. Now, where’d I put that step ladder?

- end -

ENDNOTES: [You can contact me on facebook or by email at god@mykelboard.com. Through the post office: send those... er... private DVDs..or music or zines... or anything else (legal only!) to: Mykel Board, POB 137, New York, NY 10012-0003. If you like my writing, you can be notified when anything new is available. Send me an email with SUBSCRIBE in the subject line. Back blogs and columns are at https://mykelsblog.blogspot.com

→ In Everyday Life dept: In writing this blog, I learned there really is such a thing as Exploding Head Syndrome. Your head doesn’t actually blow up, though. You need a microwave for that.

→ Speaking of death department: Here are slightly edited versions of two emails I received from Kyle Nonnemen. They show the slave business aka Prison Labor… and how the prison system encourages people to keep quiet about their COVID symptoms.

Here are his last two emails to me.

+++++++++++++++++++

Message 1:

I can’t get out of my cell to call you. Corona virus outbreak lockdown status. Nobody gets out. They pop my door to give me nasty sack-lunches and a 15 minute shower once a day. Other than that, it’s 24 hour lockdown.

To prevent corona spreading even more than it already has, I took a corona virus test on 9-30, should get the results back by Monday. They stick a wooden cotton swab up your nasal cavity and it’s extremely painful.

If I’ve got the corona virus I'm getting transported to the quarantine hospice death ward they got set up at Coffee Creek. I got severe asthma, limited lung functioning from scoliosis and a lot of other damage to my lungs and Oregon Department of Corrections can’t afford high quality medical care.

So if I’ve got corona virus, I'm probably going to die from it. So when the Covid stuff first started happening, I wore a mask everywhere and didn't sit with any other inmates and primarily stayed in my cell. All the units in the prison were separated to avoid cross contamination.

I cleaned the mask all the time, sprayed stuff down with Virustat.Then, when the wildfires happened, I got stuck on a crowded sardine-can bus and then left outside in the in the prison yard for over 10 hours breathing in the toxic smoke, and ash from the fires. Then they crammed me into an open dorm unit, hundreds of inmates from all different units crowded together in one communal area.

In addition, Oregon state penitentiary where they evacuated us to, was previously declared a Covid hot zone. Now that they've brought everybody back from Oregon state penitentiary, the incubation period is over and now there's a really bad corona virus outbreak.

The Statesmen-Journal newspaper did a whole article about how bad the cramped conditions were at the state penitentiary and how people are infected from it.

That's why I asked you to contact some civil rights attorneys because if I test positive I'm getting shipped out to the death ward unit and you ain’t going to hear from me again. Lawyers can call me though.

Oregon D.O.C command staff are the reason this is spreading. No visitors come in. The prisoners don’t leave. It’s them bringing it in.

But whatever happens, is going to happen. I'm tired of living in a cage anyway.

so it goes.

all the best
kyle

Message 2:

They're transporting me to medical hospice death ward at coffee creek. With my asthma etc. I probably won't survive this. So you won’t hear from me again.

I just wanted to let you know what happened. Get a hold of the prison for funeral arrangements or whatever. I don’t know what they’ll do with my body.

Sorry for putting you through all this. Thanks for your support

all the best kyle

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.

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