US and THEM or Mykel's Post MRR Column 23

YOU'RE STILL WRONG

POST MRR COLUMNS

POST MRR COUMN 23

Mykel Divides the World

by Mykel Board

At one extreme, a person might step into a social identity and BE it. Another might step into the same one and surprise you because they struggle against it or play it down in light of their unique biography. --Michael Agar

Ah, finally, he's here... visiting from Morocco... my pal El Habib. We met in Agadir, a city on the North African coast. He's coming to New York. In Agadir, he took me all over the place... cooked for me... great guy. All he gets in return is my couch.

When he told me he was visiting in July, it hit.

“Uh...” I profoundly start my email. “That's Ramadan. Isn't it going to be tough for you to hang out and not eat? In New York... in America... everything goes around eating and drinking... all day... every day. Ramadan? Most Americans think Ramadan is a city in India.”

He sends me back one of those laughing “stickers” that facebook uses to disgust readers.

“I'm tired of Moroccan culture,” he says. “I'm tired of Islam. I'm sick and tired of the whole thing. Let's eat!”

“What about drinking? Are you gonna drink alcohol?” I ask.

“Mykel, I'm gonna get drunk with you!” He says.

There is no facebook sticker with a grin wide enough to react. I love drinking with Muslims as much as I like eating ham with Jews... and that's a lot.

The plane was due at 3:30. I figure it'll take an hour to get through immigration. They won't know he isn't celebrating Ramadan. Then, if he comes by subway, that'd be another hour. He should have rung my doorbell around 5:30... It's coming on seven... no sign of him.

BEEP BEEP... the doorbell!

I buzz him in... take the elevator downstairs to meet him.

He's there... in the lobby... with someone else... two someone elses... each with a huge backpack... and instruments... a large conga drum... animal skin, Senegalese style, a guitar, and bags... half a dozen of 'em... two as big as my stove. They're all staying here... in my tiny apartment. We squeeze into the elevator and I reach around to push the button.

My apartment is now so crowded I have walk ON suitcases to get from the couch to the bathroom. The drummer sets up the drum in the only 2 square foot open space. It's the table for their stay.

“Hey guys,” I say. “I want the perfect photo. Mykel and 3 Arabs eating pork together. You up for it?”

They look at each other. I wonder if I went too far. [ASIDE: Actually, I NEVER wonder if I go too far.]

“Mykel,” he says, “I guess you forgot. We're not Arabs. We're Amazighs. You might call us Berbers. We were in Africa BEFORE the Arabs... before the Muslims. We're the Indians of Morocco.”

“Okay, Chief,” I say. “Let's you and me drink the peace pipe and eat some pork belly. And what happened to the word Berbers?”

“We don't really like it,” says El Habib. “It comes from Latin. From the Romans... You know Barbarians. Anyone not Roman was a Barbarian.”

“I see,” I tell him. “It's like Goyim.”

He doesn't get it.

One of the guys... the guitar player... speaks up.

“I donno, Mykel,” he says. “I am a Berber, but my name is Mohammed. Don't you think I should change it? How far will I get in America with a name like Mohammed?”

“You should call yourself Osama,” I tell him.

He elbows me in the chest.

He gets it.

We have plans to meet later that night at Bar 13 where El Habib will read poems of The Beats that he's translated into Arabic. He'll also read some poems he's written directly in English.

FLASH TO THE CLUB: We're at the door. Ready to go in and Rock the Casbah to Allen Ginsberg with guitar and drum backing.

The doorman, a huge black doorman-looking guy, sits on a stool outside the bar. We approach... Me in arm boots and black jeans. The Berbers in shorts, with Moroccan equivalents of yarmulkes.

“Ok, fellas,” says the doorman. “I need to see your IDs.”

They stop... freeze. The color drains from their faces. They look at each other... then at me.

Habib whispers to me, “Is he speaking Amazigh?”

“Somehow I doubt it,” I tell him. “Most doormen come from the Bronx, not the Sahara. Just show him your ID.”

I reach for my wallet. The three of them are somewhat panicked, conversing in Berber.

“Is this the American way?” asks the guitar player.

“This is America,” I tell him. “Everything is ID, ID, ID.”

“It must have a different meaning in English,” he says, shaking his head. “Aidee in Berber... er... Amazigh... means penis.”

I share this information with the doorman. He laughs.

“He's right,” he tells the guitar player. “Everything in America is Aidee, Aidee, Aidee.”

Inside the bar, Habib greets the hostess.. a short Semitic-looking woman who hugs him on arrival.

“This is Sarah, I met her at the Kerouac school,” Habib tells me. “We've stayed in touch ever since. She runs these poetry things here.”

Sarah turns to me, gives me a big hug... like I'm a family member.

“I'm guessing you're a poet too,” she says to me.

“I'm not exactly a poet,” I say, “but a lot of people consider me some kind of artist.”

“Poet. Artist. It doesn't matter,” she says... exuding such a love of life... of enjoying every second... I nearly cum. “Any friend of Habib's is a friend of mine.”

Then she hugs me again. I cum.

FLASH TO TIMES SQUARE: There is a big black guy... Not very black... more bank clerk black than club bouncer black. He wears khaki pants, a gray t-shirt, black moccasins with no socks. In his left hand is a piece of thick white paper... oaktag. He holds it high. On it... written in thick marker... is:

JEWS FINANCED BLACK SLAVERY... GOOGLE IT!

At first I'm pissed off... then confused... wondering if FINANCED means something different in Negro than it means in English.

I know the history. Some Portuguese and a lot of Dutch-- through the Dutch East India Company-- funded most of the slave trade in the West. Some major backers of the D.E.I.C. were Jewish. That's who lent money to the corporation at the time.

BUT, the D.E.I.C. controlled the tea trade, the salt trade, the furniture trade. They were a TRADING company, for G-d's sake! Why not say THE DUTCH funded the slave trade? Or The Dutch East India Company funded the slave trade? My ancestors in Kiev had nothing to do with it.

FLASH TO AUSTIN TEXAS: I gotta take a piss. BEERLAND is living up to its name. Shiner Bock... almost makes up for G.W.B. Shiner's a great beer, but it does what beer does and I need to get rid of mine before the next round.

I stagger over to this very Texas-looking (blond, large and jiggly on top) girl. Brushing against her prominent-though-covered nipples I slur, “Air da mess oom?”

“Excuse me?” she says, stepping back a bit.

“Men's room?” I say forcing my mouth into proper linguistic position. “This is an emergency.”

She laughs. “This is Austin,” she says. “We don't do men's rooms.”

A trickle begins its decent down my leg.

FLASH TO THE NEWS: Austin has become the first city in America to legislate gender-free bathrooms. When you gotta go... you find a stall and go. That's it. No penis-bound division. Just go... just restrooms... just toilet... stand... sit... or hover... no one checks the danglies.

FLASH TO THE THEORETICAL: You probably get it by now. I'm writing about the way we divide up the world: us and them... Jews and goyim... Romans and Barbarians... gays and straights... men and women... trannies and cis-men. This division does not only come from our view of the world... it CREATES our view of the world.

Some Saudis and a couple of their buddies fly 747s into the World Trade Center. KAPLOW! Suddenly, they become ISLAMIC attackers. Not Saudis. How come?

Israel with several American Jewish volunteers kill thousands of Palestinians in Gaza. The attack was an ISRAELI attack, not a JEWISH attack. How come?

Homosexuals try to show scientific evidence they “are born that way.” What way? Every time a new sex or gender group defines itself, another letter gets added to the LBGTQ alphabet soup, expanding US, but not changing the whole view of US vs THEM.

I'm a Jew, a writer, a punk-rocker, a social libertarian, a contrarian, a pansexual, a short old bald guy with a bad hair transplant. No, that's wrong. I'm NOT a (fill in the blank). I DO (fill in the blank). I write. I shit. I fuck when I can, jerk off otherwise. I fast on Yom Kippur and don't eat bread on Passover.

I want to suggest a wee change to the paradigm... I mean a WE change. It's about how WE divide the world. It's about how WE see US and THEM. It's about how there is only US. THEM is a myth... an artificial arbitrary result of picking a few characteristics and using those to draw a line between US and THEM. It's about identity politics... where the politics should be about erasing identity.

Humanity is a hodgepodge of individual characteristics, tastes, genders, religions, skin colors. There is only US.

White Pride, Black Pride, Islamism, Jewish Nationhood... they're all dangerous divisions that come from dividing up the world in into US and THEM. Take down those MEN and WOMEN signs from the toilet world. Learn that THE JEWS (White People, Africans, Germans, The Arabs) didn't do anything-- good or bad. PEOPLE did things. And that's all the dividing we need.

ENDNOTES: [You can contact me 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 by subscribing to the MYKEL'S READERS Yahoo group readmboard-subscribe@yahoogroups.com]

-->Free means you don't pay dept: 11-year old Margaleet Katzenblickstein in Weston MA applied for a permit to hold a rally against the police murders of unarmed colored people. The police of that town said she needed to pay a hundred dollars (a couple hundred according to other reports) for the police presence at the demonstration.

Amazingly enough, the town declined the police request for cash and allowed her to hold the demonstration without charge... though I wouldn't want to be little Margaleet walking through the city on her own on a dark night. Look at what happened (6th arrest!) to the NY good citizen who filmed the police murder of Eric Garner.

-->Compassion trumps religion dept: This is the way it should be! Harman Singh, a Sikh student in Auckland New Zealand took off his turban (something forbidden by Sikh law) to aid a 5-year old who had been hit by a car. He tucked the turban under the child's head to help him ease the pain. That's the kind of US I've been talking about in this column.

-->Productive dept: Representative Steve La Tourette announced his retirement from congress by saying, “I'll go back and find something productive to do with my life... as opposed to the last eighteen years.”

Three days after that announcement, he joined a lobbying firm based in Washington DC.

-->It was on Fox News so it must be true dept: Thanks to D Keith Dobson Jr. for this Fox News Denver report: A Chinese man successfully sued his wife over “an extremely ugly baby girl.”

Jian Feng filed the lawsuit after his wife gave birth to the girl. Why did he win? Apparently Feng’s wife underwent more than $100,000 in cosmetic surgery before they met and never told him. He said she tricked him into thinking she was beautiful.

Feng sued on the grounds of false pretenses and a judge agreed with him. The judge also ordered Feng’s wife to pay him $120,000.

Since Fox News reported this, Snopes has investigated and found it to be complete fiction.

Fox, reporting fictional News? Who wudda thunk it?

My question: When will the viewers of FOX NEWS sue for being made stupid-- on the grounds of false pretenses?

-->Keeping the Pressure on Dept: I want to thank reader George Metesky for suggesting a continuing Bring Back Mykel effort directed at Maximum Rock'n'Roll for their firing me as their contribution to the world of censorship. Send your comments to mrr@maximumrocknroll.com (or post on their facebook page) with the subject line: BRING BACK MYKEL! Let me know how they answer.

-->And: I'm still on a massive clean-up/divest kick. I'm giving away DVDs, cassettes, VHS videos, CDs, posters, and a few 7-inch singles. Just pay separate shipping and handling. Details at: MykelsGiveaway

-end

TO BE or NOT TO BE or MAYBE TO BE Mykel Board's Post-MRR Column 13

TO BE or NOT TO BE or MAYBE TO BE

YOU'RE STILL WRONG

POST MRR COLUMNS

by Mykel Board

We will peer at wiggling things that look like rattlesnakes from one side and look much more like the middle of next week from a different but equally plausible angle of view. Those with tired or rigidly dogmatic minds will find these perceptual relativities distressing... You have had warning. Don't complain later if this seems like a bloody abattoir for you own favorite Sacred Cows and you get a bit uneasy about things that formerly looked simple and honest. --Robert Anton Wilson

Fuck, I'm late. They're gonna be pissed off at work. The Japanese are such sticklers that on-time is late. I'm hung over... I need to pour myself into my clothes and POW! out the door. Elevator downstairs... out the front door. My foot hits something slimy... gooey... slippery.... SSSSSSS.. TAKOOO! It slides from under me. For a second, I'm in the air... Peter Pan over Bleecker Street. TWATOOOM! I'm on the sidewalk... my ass a mass of coffee-colored pain... my hands aching and slimy. I look at them. They too are brown... palms covered in shit. Splashed onto my wrists, the sides of my pants. I slipped on dog ooze and landed in it palms first. The smell makes me gag.

FLASHBACK TO 1997: I don't have a cellphone. I won't be bullied into getting one for a couple years. But I need to make a call. In the 90s, there were things called COIN PHONES. The body of the phone was attached to a little stand. You picked up the receiver (a black piece of plastic with a speaker for your ear and one to catch your voice) and listened for something called a DIAL TONE. Once you heard the tone, you put some money-- usually a quarter-- into a slot at the top of the fixed part of the phone. Then you dialed the person you wanted to speak to. There must be an instructional video on YouTube someplace.

This time, though, the act of picking up the receiver, putting it next to my head... against my ear... and speaking into it is … well... there's something slimy on my ear, something squishy on my hand, something foul-tasting in front of my lips. You guessed it! It's covered in shit! This time I vomit... right into the receiver.

FLASH TO LAST WEEK: First class over, now! An intestine full of last night's Red Horse beer … Red, now brown... waiting to burst out... I can just about make it to the men's. Rip open my belt... unzip... now... now... NOW! BLLLAAAUUUUPPPP! A blast... a joyful noise... a liquid soup... a number three.... exploding from my rectum with such force it splashes the bowlful of water back up... mix of shit and bogwater coat my ass... drips from my balls... FFFFFRRRRT.. an aftershock... another ecstatic explosion. My God... the best feeling of the day... the week... the month... I'm pregnant... giving birth... releasing the universe inside. The best shit... uhhhh... wait.

Shit! Shit? Good or bad. Most evil of face filthers or most delicious of joys? Maybe it's neither... or both... or... And of this shit begins this column.

SHIFT TO A BOOK: Recommended to me by my jailbird friend Kyle, it's written by Robert Anton Wilson. He's best known for his conspiracy trilogy THE ILLUMINATUS... and his participation in lots of Libertarian events. It's the third part in another trilogy: the Trigger Books. The quote at the start of this column is from that book.

Wilson writes the entire book without using the verb TO BE (am, is, are, were, was etc) except when quoting someone else. The reason? He believes that TO BE stops thought. If I say, “It IS cold outside.” there is no room for discussion... only right or wrong. Disagreement becomes personal attack. A position is hard... fixed. Whereas if I say, “From my life experience, and in comparison to other temperatures I've observed, the weather seems colder than at other times.” I open the door to intelligent discussion and a world of possibility closed to the IS COLD absolutism.

If we only have IS, we can only counter with IS NOT. We're trained to make binary decisions. A or B. Hot or cold. Right or wrong. Good or bad. Mother Theresa or Adolf Hitler. The world isn't like that. There's a complicated range of possibilities... and they can be different depending on what side of the sphincter you're on.

Intellectually, that appeals to me. Stylistically, it sucks. I like the idea though, and will take a lesson... or two..., from it. Lesson one:

Take Israel... please.

The original idea of Israel was to make a socialist paradise-- a safe haven for any Jew under attack. It was supposed to be an example. A utopia... a lesson for the world on how to live... a place to go when the going gets rough (as it often does for Jews). That's a worthy cause.... a good cause. But there's been a lot of lead over the desert since then.

In the current war, thousands of Palestinians have been killed... fewer than a dozen Israelis-- all soldiers. A U.S. funded Iron Dome system protects Israel. It destroys in-coming rockets before they reach their target. Gaza has no such system... so they die from Israeli rockets. How can Israel excuse such a one-sided massacre? What's left to say... they WANT to die?

Yep, that's what they say. According to the Israelis, Palestinians hide the rockets in schools, hospitals, and apartment complexes. The Israelis warn them of coming attacks and the locals climb to the building tops to wave on the attackers. The fact that there are tens of thousands of refugees running from the war doesn't change this opinion. Running away or not-- they still WANT to be killed. How can people believe that? It's easy, because the opinion doesn't come from facts... it comes from viewpoint, from BEING.

I AM a Jew. Jews support Israel. First support Israel, then bend the facts to fit that support.

And what of those lefty Jews? Those who say I AM a liberal. The ones outraged by environmental degradation... refusing to shop at Walmart because the company pays slave wages... marching against climate change... what are their feelings on Israel? Support a massacre, an ethnic cleansing. They find their views are exactly the same as FOX NEWS... How do THEY feel when their liberal perspective suddenly turns conservative? When Glenn Beck visits Israel and wears a yarmulke? How do they choose between I AM a Jew and I AM a liberal?

Why support Israel just because you ARE a Jew? Jewdom has a myriad ways of expressing itself. It's a religion, a nationality, a culture. You don't have to believe in Israel any more than you have to believe God turned Sodomites into salt. You can start with some version of reality and THEN see if that leads to supporting or opposing the Jewish state. You can start with the moral action, rather than the rules you have to follow by BEING Jewish. Same, of course, with BEING a liberal.

Lesson two:

Or take feminism... double please.

The idea went through a myriad of changing. Starting (in the US) with an angry Carrie Nation's saloon smashing, morphing into a voting rights movement, now finding itself at war with transexuals. Calling the trannies bed wetters in bad wigs.

Like being pro-Israel, if you start out being feminist (in the 2014 sense), you see things in a completely different way from someone who is not feminist. Feminist Susan McClary, for example, writes that Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is about rape:

“The point of recapitulation of the first movement of the Ninth is one of the most horrifying moments in music... which finally explodes in the throttling murderous rage of a rapist.”

Oh please! I hate Beethoven as much as the next guy. The music may be boring, but it ain't rape. From her feminist-first point of view, however, that's the reality.

Now we see lefty wars between feminists and trannies... and you can't even say “tranny” anymore. (NOTE: I AM Mykel Board. I can... and do... say what I want.) Fox News' Gavin McInnes was fired both from his Fox TV job and the ad agency he helped start. This for writing on the internet:

(Transsexuals) are mentally ill gays who need help, and that help doesn’t include being maimed by physicians. These aren’t women trapped in a man’s body. They are nuts trapped in a crazy person’s body. I see them on the streets of New York. They are guys with tits and a sweatshirt. They wear jeans and New Balance. “What’s the matter with simply being a fag who wears makeup?” I think when I see them. You’re not a woman. You’re a tomboy at best. Get fucked in the ass. And ladies, if you’re a butch lesbian, you’re a lady with a lot of testosterone. Put a dick on a belt and fuck your girlfriend. You don’t need to turn your vagina inside out. You’re not a man.

Here we see rightist FOX-NEWS Gavin taking the same side as the radical feminists. But maybe he knows this and has decided not to BE a right-winger, but to SAY what he thinks is right. Fuck the requirements of TO BE ideology.

Of course I disagree with him... but NOT completely. I want to fight the binary.

Gavin says, “You ARE NOT a man?” Does that mean you ARE a woman? We're caught in the binary again, instead of the realm of infinite possibilities. Why are there only two choices? There aren't!

I know many transfolks are not gay. Half the guys who become women become lesbians. Is that gay? I don't know. But Gavin asks questions that go beyond the gonzo writing. Some transactivists want children “born in the wrong body” to be given hormones... starting as young as 8 years old. That way, they say, the kids can have a smoother transition.

WTF? eight-year olds cannot legally decide who to fuck. They're not allowed to fuck anyone, actually. Yet they can decide to take hormones leading to major surgery? Huh? When I was eight years old I wanted to be a cop... or maybe an astronaut. Kids-- all people-- change their minds. One false move as a kid and POW! you're on hormones! This thinking disappears when you get rid of the verb TO BE, at least when it comes to gender. Not I AM a girl or I want TO BE a boy... but

“Johnny, you may be right and don't feel like you're a boy. That doesn't mean you're a girl. You don't have to be one or the other. You're JOHNNY! Different from everyone else. Okay?”

Of course I support the freedom to choose your gender... and the freedom to unchoose it. But if we stop looking at gender as something you ARE... instead just doing what feels good, we can kiss the hormones and the scalpels goodbye.

Here's where that copula-cutting works. If I say (and I used to) I AM a leftist does that mean I support Fox's censorship of Gavin McInnes? That's what leftists do. I don't. If I say I AM a Jew, do I have to support the Israeli genocide? That's what Jews do. I don't.

I've written before about homosexuality and how people DO homosexual... not ARE homosexual. Maybe it's time to rein in the BE... er... in my opinion, the time has arrived to rein in the BE... not to eliminate it, but to think a bit before using it.

ENDNOTES: [You can contact me 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 by subscribing to the MYKEL'S READERS Yahoo group readmboard-subscribe@yahoogroups.com]

-->Full-disclosure dept: The coin phone episode is true... but it didn't happen to me. It happened to my friend Bianca... and was the reason she got a cell phone.

-->Had to happen department: An ALS fatality... some idiot decided to do the ice bucket one better. Jump in to a pool at the bottom of a cliff... a 100+ foot drop... plow... didn't make it. I guess he won't have a chance to challenge someone else.

Me? I was challenged and rejected the challenge... or tried to. At the bar we ordered 3 bucketfuls of Red Horse beer. I explained how I'd decided to refuse to be intimidated into supporting a rich charity where most of the money goes to the board of directors. My friends answered by holding me down, pouring the water and ice from all the buckets... over my head. Fortunately, they forgot to video the farce.

-->Just because it's in the Post doesn't mean it's wrong dept: The NY Post reports that private eyes have started using drones to spy both on cheating spouses, and people filing false disability claims. “The drones are a game changer,” says one of NY's private dicks.

-->Censorship is censorship dept: I'm not sure of the best way to support Gavin McInnes in his ouster from Fox and his ad company, Rooster. Try send emails of support to Fox and to the Rooster Ad Company complaining about the censorship.

-->Quote of the Month dept: President Obama is a member of a minority and as such I'm sure during his lifetime he has been prejudiced against... Now he's doing the exact same thing, talking about the top 1 percent as if there's something wrong with us. --Cypress Semiconductor CEO TJ Rodgers

-->Compassion, Swine and the 1%-- South Africa style dept: Thandi Modise, chairwoman of the S.A. National Council of Provinces, was paying workers on her pig farm sub-McDonalds wages. They walked off the job. Without attendants, the animals starved, became cannibals and drank their own piss. When the woman was confronted with the facts, she said, “The suffering the animals endured does not compare to the financial loss I suffered.”

-->More on the 1%-ers dept: 1%-er Michael Bloomberg's website Bloomberg.com reports that economists at the European Central Bank said that a new study shows the percent of earnings of the 1% is not 30% as usually stated, but 36%... and may be higher. Study author Philip Vermeulen said, “The results clearly indicate that surveys are very likely to underestimate wealth at the top.”

-->Keeping the Pressure on Dept: I want to thank reader George Metesky for suggesting a Bring Back Mykel effort directed at Maximum Rock'n'Roll. Send your comments-- to mrr@maximumrocknroll.com with the subject line: BRING BACK MYKEL. Let me know how they answer.

-->And: I'm on a massive clean-up/divest kick. I'm giving away DVDs, cassettes, VHS videos, and a few CDs. Just pay separate shipping and handling. Details at: MykelsGiveaway

-end-

Mykel's Column for MRR 304 September 2008

Mykel Board sez
YOU'RE WRONG!
Column for MRR #304
September 2008

"Always go to other people's funerals, otherwise they will not go to yours” --Yogi Berra

-------------

Mom died yesterday. Or the day before maybe. I don't know. In the morning I go to the gym. I come back home, take a shower, check my voicemail. Three calls. First, from my sister, Gayl. Tearful. “You gotta call me.”

Second, from the hospice lady taking care of Mom. “You gotta call me.”

Third, from the hospice lady taking care of Mom. “I hate to leave this on your voicemail, but I know it's the only way to contact you. Your mother passed this morning-- or last night-- in her sleep. She was very peaceful. They're coming to pick up the body at around 1 PM. I'm very sorry.”

I must be in shock. I don't cry. I don't do anything but think.

Why do you hate to leave the message on my voicemail? I'd LOVE to leave such a message on voicemail. Somebody dies? I don't want to break the bad news. I don't want to sit there while the embarrassed receiver chokes back tears to thank me for telling him something horrible.

Last time I cried for a death was when Timmy Yohannon bit the big one. George Tabb left the message on my voicemail.

Stutter dialtone. That's what they call it. Instead of a BAAAAAAAAAAAA, it's a BAH BAH BAH BAH BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. You know you have a message. Shock. Then the tears. Did George want to listen to that? I don't think so.

Leave a message. The truth. All the facts. Not some mystery that I'll agonize about until I finally reach someone.

Family wiped out in a terrorist attack? Leave a message. I've got cancer? Leave a message. End of the world? Leave a message. The last thing I wanna do is blubber to the messenger. Tell it to the machine.

I call my sister. Dad's alone with a dead body. Somebody has to be there. She has a car and is 20 minutes away. I have to rent a car and drive an hour. I call her cellphone. Before she speaks, I hear what sounds like an announcer over a loud speaker. Then her voice.

“It's me,” I say.

“Oh,” she says, “I'm at the ballpark. I took Josh (her son) to the ballgame. Dad's okay. I talked with the people at Sunrise.” (That's the old folks home where my parents have been living).

“You what?” I don't say. “You took the kid to a ballgame when your mother's lying dead and your father's 'sitting the body? You went to a ballgame? Holy existential batman! That's harsh.”

“Mykel,” says Gayl, “are you okay? You don't sound too good.”

I hang up, call the rabbi, get his voicemail. Whew!

“Mom died this morning,” I tell his voicemail. “I'm heading to Sunrise now. Could we meet at 1 or 2?”

I call Hertz and make an on-the-spot reservation. I'm in New Jersey in an hour. As I pull into the parking lot at Sunrise, the rabbi calls me. “I'll give you a few minutes alone with your Dad. Then I'll come over.”

On entering Sunrise, the receptionist gives me a hug. Then the attendants, one by one. “My condolences,” in Tagalog, Spanish, Chinese accents.

Each hug brings tears. I'm dry-eyed, in control, until I get a “my condolences,” hug. Then the tears flood and the snot drips.

Dad sits by himself in the corner of the group livingroom. He's slumped in his wheelchair. Maybe asleep. His blackening gangrene food is propped up in front of him. Multiple strokes, final stage diabetes. On and off dementia. I thought he'd be the one to go first.

I wake him with a kiss on the top of the head. He looks at me and smiles. Then come his tears. Then come mine.

“I feel like my whole insides are being torn out,” he says. “They woke me up this morning and said they had bad news. I thought they were going to tell me I died. They said, 'we're sorry, but your wife died.' I thought they must have been wrong. It was me who died. I've never felt like this in my life.”

One of the attendants comes over to me. “Your mother is in the other room. We took your father out right away. You want to go in?”

I excuse myself from Dad and walk into the room. Mom is the most peaceful I've seen her in years. Looks like she's sleeping. I expected the smell of death. The shit released from uncontrolled bowels. The piss from a useless bladder. But there's nothing. Just like she's sleeping. I heard that dead people are cold, but when I put my lips against her forehead, Mom's skin feels warm. Not hot, kinda neutral.

“Bye Mom,” I say.

Then I leave the room, not crying, but furious. I call my sister. Luckily her voicemail answers, “If you're not too busy at the ballgame,” I say, “your mother is dead and your father is in pretty bad shape. If you could make it over here, it would be much appreciated.”

“We called your sister this morning,” says Carmalita, Dad's favorite attendant. “We scheduled someone to pick up the body as late as possible, but they will be here soon. You have to sign some papers.”

She gently places a pile of papers in front of me. I look for blank lines and sign all of them. Who knows, they could be knocking on the door tomorrow to take this computer. Maybe I'm giving 'em permission. Show me a line. I'll just sign.

Dad and I just sit quietly for some time. Tear flow a bit. I get up to find tissues. Not finding any, I bring some paper towels from the kitchen. They'll do.

The body snatchers come at around 1pm. They wrap Mom in a red blanket-- head-to-toe-- and wheel her out through the livingroom where I'm sitting next to Dad.

“Is that her?” asks Dad.

“Yes,” I tell him.

They go out the back door. Dad and I sit quietly. What's there to say?

In a few minutes the door to the livingroom opens again. It's the rabbi. There, open arms. A big hug. I start crying again, pressing my head into his chest. Like that famous picture John McCain with George W. The rabbi is younger than me. He's a Chassid, with fringes and a long brown beard. No gray in it, unless he too uses JUST FOR MEN^TM. After we separate, he comes over to Dad. Hugs him. And sits with us.

“How are you feeling?” asks the rabbi.

“Like someone took all my insides out,” says Dad. “I've never felt like this. I want to yell, but who can I yell at?”

“You can yell at me,” says the rabbi. “If you need someone to yell at, you can yell at me.”

Dad doesn't say anything.

“Look at what you're using on your eyes and nose,” says the rabbi. “Don't use paper towels. You'll hurt your nose. I'll get some tissues. You shouldn't use that.”

From somewhere, he scrounges up a box of tissues and returns to us. We take the box and use it.

“I don't even know what was wrong with her,” says Dad.

“Maybe it was time,” I said. “Maybe it was time and she knew it.”

“You know.” says the rabbi,“we once had a neighbor. An old woman. One day, she went door-to-door... all over the neighborhood. She was just saying good bye. We thought she was crazy. But the next day she was dead. She knew. You know, I think. You know a few days before. You just know.”

“I feel like my insides are being torn out,” says Dad.

“Your wife's Hebrew name is Hannah, right?” asks the rabbi.

“That's right,” answers Dad.

“I remember,” he said. “When I visited before. Your wife was not always so happy. But when I called her Hannah... her face lit up. Like she suddenly recognized something.”

An attendant came over to us. She gave me a big hug. She gave Dad a big hug. Then she reached for the rabbi. He raised his hand to decline.

Orthodox rabbis are not allowed to touch women. I'm not sure of the reason. I think it's related to the Hebrew idea of building a wall around the law. Adultery is forbidden. But then, you need to avoid temptation... a single touch may be all it takes. A rabbi has to be especially careful. Can't even look funny.

This building-a-wall idea you see a lot in Orthodox Judaism. You can't say the name of G-d. Or even write: G-O-D. So The Bible uses only the Y.H. initials. But the initials are close to the real name. You know, like the J*h*v*'s Witnesses say it. Jew've got to say it in a way that means “our lord,” not using the original pronunciation.

When you're not reading the bible, you need to take an extra step back. Another wall of protection. You say “our NAME” meaning the name of the of the name of G-d, substituted for the REAL name of G-d that you're not allowed to say. Layers of protection, like DEPENDS under rubber underwear.

I'm not SURE that's the reason Orthodox rabbis don't touch women, but I THINK it's the reason.

The door to the common room opens. It's a family visiting a relative. It IS Father's Day, after all.

Time passes. Dad cries. I cry. The rabbi doesn't cry, but often puts his arm around Dad and I. More time passes. The door to the common room opens again. A man about ten years older than me enters. He's visiting his mother... for Father's Day.

Time passes. Dad cries. I cry. The rabbi doesn't cry, but often puts his arm around Dad and I. The door to the common room opens. It's my sister.

The care-givers around come and give her a big condolence hug. She walks over to Dad and me. I'm not so warm.

“How was the game?” I don't ask.

“I didn't tell Josh yet,” says Gayl. “Presley (my niece) knows.”

“They took Mom away an hour ago,” I say as icily as I can manage. Then she starts crying.

“You look like you need a hug,” says the rabbi. “I wish I could do it. Wait. Let me call my wife.”

He takes out his cellphone. There's discussion. The rabbi's wife knows my father, but not the rest of the family. I met her for the first time the week before at the local Torah dedication. You can read about that in my diary blog if you want.

In half an hour, the rabbi's wife arrives, giving Gayl a big hug. I don't know if I'm allowed to touch her or not. I don't.

[Aside #1: When Mom went into hospice I suggested that Rabbi Lewis officiate at her funeral.

“I don't want an Orthodox funeral,” my sister said. “My friends would feel uncomfortable. All that separation. My rabbi is on call. He'll take over when something happens.”

For the uninitiated, Jewish funerals have to take place soon after death. We don't embalm. Ashes-to-ashes, y'know? It's the original recycling program. Even the coffins are 100% biodegradable. No metal handles. They take too long to go back to the earth.

Without embalming, bodies, like fish, get pretty rank after a couple days. We need quick funerals. Move fast. Today is Sunday. Tomorrow would be best. End of Aside]

“I couldn't do it Monday,” says the rabbi. “I just have too much I agreed to do. My sister just had a baby. My own daughter is sick. Urinary tract infection.”

“That's okay,” says Gayl, pulling out her cellphone. “I'll call my rabbi.”

[Aside #2: Although I was raised a Reform Jew, I never felt comfortable in the sect. It's a kind of JEW LITE.

The movement started out copying the church. They changed services from Saturday to Sunday. The first prayer books said “Minister” rather than “Rabbi.”

Reform introduced choirs and organs. Most heinously, they installed an American and an Israeli flag right in front, where the Torah is, as if to prove their dual patriotism. Reform Jews are the most pro-Israel fanatics, but least JEWISH of the Jews.

It's weird. The most fanatic of the Muslims are the most religious: the prayer-mat-kneeling, robe wearing, play-music-and-die zealot. For Jews, the most fanatic are the LEAST religious. The I'm-a-Jew-because-I-eat-a-bagel folks. They are the flag-wavers. The kill-all-the-Arab bigots. Someday I might figure out why. Not today, though.

Another reason I dislike Reform Judaism is all that English. Hebrew is mystical, and cool sounding. But when you know what all that walla walla really means... all that CUT DOWN MY ENEMIES, EARTH SWALLOWS THEM UP, STONE THEM FOR WORKING ON THE SABBATH shit. Oy. I don't want to hear that! It's awful. The worst kind of religion is one you actually understand. I'll take gobbledygook any day. End of aside.]

My sister stands up and walks to the other side of the room. In a few minutes, she's back.

“He can't do it until Wednesday,” she tells us.

“Do you want me to do it?” says the rabbi.

“Actually,” I said, “my sister said she'd be uncomfortable with an Orthodox funeral. Our family has a lot of people raised in a Reform tradition... and...”

“The service is the same,” says the rabbi. “There's no separation. It's almost the same service as reform.”

“No, it's fine with me,” says Gayl, looking helpless.

“What do you think?” she asks me.

“I say yes,” I tell her.

“There are a few important things,” says the rabbi. “One is a ritual body washing, Tahara. The Chevra Kadisha will take care of it, but you must ask the funeral home. I'll do it if you like. They do it for free.”

Gayl hands her cellphone to the rabbi. She gives him the number of the funeral home. She's made all the arrangements earlier in the day. Handled the bookkeeping. All the phone stuff that needed to be done.

“It's the only funeral home in Rockland County,” she tells me. “Can you believe it? A third of the county is Jewish and they only have one funeral home!”

“You'd better check on the prices,” says Dad. “They always try to stick you with extra charges... and I thought it was ME who was dead. I thought they were coming to tell me.”

“Don't worry Dad,” I tell him. “The bath is for free.”

The rabbi makes the call and arranges for Mom's last bath.

(As it turns out, dad is right. Although the bathing is for free, the funeral home charges $500 for the use of the facilities.)

“And another thing,” the rabbi says. “I know in Reform the rabbis tear a piece of ribbon and give it to the mourners to symbolize mourning. But Jewish tradition is to tear a garment. A pinned-on piece of cloth is like a pinned-on grieving. I recommend you wear an old sweater or something that can be torn then thrown away. But you need the tearing, like your heart is tearing.”

“My insides are tearing,” says Dad.

The rabbi and his wife leave. My sister and I leave, dividing up the tasks. I arrange for the wheelchair van to pick up my father. My job is to set up the schedule for the next day. Gayl, the kids, the rabbi and my cousin Barb will meet at the old folks home along with the van.

Gayl does all the relative calling, and the arrangements for obituaries. She's got the hard part. I HATE the telephone, I don't think I could manage.

I don't have space to write about the actual funeral. My father collapsed in the middle of it and had to leave in an ambulance. I rode with him to the hospital.

“Yo,” I ask one of the EMS guys. He looks like a college jock: crew cut, muscles out to here, “you guys ever have a pick-up at a cemetery before?”

“Happens all the time,” he tells me.

Flash ahead: It's the Saturday after the funeral. Jews are supposed to go say a special prayer, the Kaddish, every Friday and Saturday for the year following a funeral. I originally had classes scheduled for Friday, but I decide I'll feel like shit if I abandon Mom right in the first week.

I cancel my classes, learning that “a death in the family,” can get you out of a whole lot. Friday night, I go to the local homogogue... the gay synagogue. It's the one I go to on the high holidays every year. Usually, I go with one of the many girls I've turned into lesbians. It's not exactly Reform, but it's like Reform, with the organ and the flags.

The homogogue has its temporary quarters in a church just north of Chelsea, the rich gay area of Manhattan.

I walk in, my shirt torn. (I did NOT go for the ribbon.) My face wears a suitably grieving look. Working hard to exude a Mom-just-died smell from my armpits, neck, anywhere I can exude, I choose a seat on the right, toward the back.

The only other person in the row is a large black human of indeterminate gender. Grief-strickenly, I smile at her/im and sit down. S/he flashes me a tight-lipped acknowledgment and adjusts her/is yarmulke.

A few seconds later, s/he taps the shoulder of the young attractive guy sitting in front of her/im. He leans back in his chair. They whisper for a minute. Then, my rowmate gets up and moves to the seat next to the good-looking guy.

For the first part of the service, I'm alone in my row.

Later, out of the corner of my eye, I see someone slowly moving up the aisle. I turn to look at the oldest human I've ever seen on two legs. Agonizingly slow, he shuffles one foot forward, then the other. He's bent nearly double at the waist.

SHHHHH SHHHH SHHHH SHHHH, he shuffles. The soles of his shoes never leave the floor. He won't make it another row. I'm sure. He'll die right there in front of me. Two dead bodies in a week. It's more than I can take.

I pat the seat next to me. He looks at me, smiles and sits down. At the end of the service he hugs me, giving me a big kiss on the cheek. That's the only human contact I have at the place.

No one spoke to me, let alone touched me in this open-inclusive house of worship.

Up to now, the only physical contact I've had since I got back from the funeral has been my two local bums, the homeless guys on the corner. They hugged me until I cried. Their comfort was worth more than all the quarters I've ever given them.

I walk out the front door, past a couple of very butch girls, and down the front steps of the de-goyified church. On the corner is a street sign reminding me where I am.

Holy Hoegarten Batman! I'm right down from The Blarney Stone, one of the two or three REAL dive bars left in the city. (As opposed to faux dive-bars, filled with punks or college kids.) I head right for the place.

Linda, the bartendress has been there eight years. The rest of the clientèle look like they were born there.

Linda is blond and heavily cleavaged. Her accent is so thick I understand less than half of what she says. For her, day and flea rhyme.

“Hello, Mykel,” she says, “yer not a-lookin' so feen t'dee. You be wantin' a beer?”

“I just buried my mother,” I tell her. “Gimme something stronger. Irish whiskey.”

She pours me one. Then puts one leg on a crate under the bar and fixes her body in a story-listening position.

“Wenn did she dee?” she asks.

I drink and talk. Soon the tears begin falling and the snot runs from my nose to my mustache. The woman next to me, about 50, big, black, rubs my back. The Puerto Rican guy next to her puts his hand on my shoulder.

I never saw these people before and here they are, worshiping with me at the synagogue of the bottle. They hug me, tell me their names: April and Roberto, and then tell me about their own losses, their parents, a brother and a sister. They give me their phone numbers. Tell me to call if I need anything.

Somehow, my glass is never empty. I just cry. Drink. Hug my neighbors. Repeat. Linda tells me my money's no good. She's taking care of everything.

“I learned something really important tonight,” I say, drinking up my fifth glass of whiskey.

“What's that?” asks April, her arms cradling me like a baby.

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

-->1984 in 2008 dept: Holy shit! They're trying to market it as a “cure for social phobia.” Yeah right.
Here's the (edited) Press Release:

A nasal spray which increases our trust for strangers is showing promise as a treatment for social phobia, say scientists from Zurich University.
They found that people who inhaled the "love hormone" oxytocin continued to trust strangers with their money - even after they were betrayed.
Nicknamed the "cuddle chemical," oxytocin is a naturally produced hormone, which has been shown to play a role in social relations, maternal bonding, and also in sex.
Lead researcher Dr. Thomas Baumgartner said: "We now know for the first time what exactly is going on in the brain when oxytocin increases trust. We found that oxytocin has a very specific effect in social situations. It seems to diminish our fears.”

Yikes! Wait till the government and corporate America get a little TRUST US spray! You know you're gonna put this in THE AIR. Fox 5 News'll spray it from the back of trucks. It's the beginning of the end!

-->Steal my number, please dept: Entrepreneur Todd Davis has dared criminals to try stealing his identity: Ads for his fraud-prevention company, LifeLock, offer his real Social Security number next to his smiling face and name.
Now, Lifelock customers in Maryland, New Jersey and West Virginia are suing Davis. They claim his service didn't work and he knew it wouldn't. It failed even him.
Davis acknowledged in an interview with The Associated Press that his stunt has led to at least 87 instances in which people have tried to steal his identity. At least one succeeded: a guy in Texas used Davis' Social Security number to dupe an online loan company into giving him $500.

-->At first it seems like a tough choice dept: Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed a friend-of-the-court brief when a Pennsylvania public school refused to allow a parent to read from The Bible for a "Parents Reading" event.
Seems like a violation of free speech, huh? That's what the right wing Alliance Defense Fund said when they sued.
Here's the test. You allow The Bible. I'll read from THE SATANIC BIBLE. Howie's mom will read from the Marquis DeSade. If all that is allowed, I say, why not the Bible? But if you've got any censorship at all, then the school is right. The Bible should go. It's the most dangerous of all those books.

-->Daddy's at The Office Killing People dept: Newsweek reports that Sesame Street has a video package for the children of soldiers. In one clip, "little Rosita asks how she can still dance with her dad even though his legs don't work like they used to." The answer? Rolling to the beat-- in Daddy's wheelchair.
According to Newsweek, "The DVDs leave out some of the complexities of war, such as where Daddy is going or who hurt him. Instead, Daddy Elmo simply tells his son that he must leave to do "grown-up work." Yowsah!

-->Another reason to stay free from K.I.D.S. dept: Bottom Line Health reports that childless men are 16% less likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer than their progeny-encumbered counterparts. The reason is unknown.

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