You’re STILL Wrong
or
Mykel's
1st October 2020 Blog/Column
Eyebags
by Mykel Board
“Your
face is marked with lines of life, put there by love and laughter,
suffering and tears. It's beautiful.” --Lynsay Sands
“I
don’t ever remember being afraid of “oldness” – Neil Gaiman
“I like the woman you became better than the girl you were. I like the story you’ve written on your face” -- Joanna Bourne
It’s
the summer before the plague locks us in isolation. I walk down 32nd
Street, in back of the Empire State Building. Akitaki, my Japanese
pal, tells me it’s easy to distinguish young Korean women from
young Japanese women.
“They show more leg,” he says.
And it sure is legs galore here in K-town. If those
skirts were any shorter, I’d be able to get a glipse of the whole
camel! Hooeeey! I want to see those gals sit down. You know how
normal females tuck their skirts down between their legs when seated?
Well, these girls have nothing to tuck!
This one coming right toward me… her nose about an inch and a half from her cellphone. She’s directly in my path. That’s when I notice it… looking up… I see she has dyed her hair. So what? Korean girls do that. Japanese too, though not as much.
The punchline is, she has died her hair GRAY! At the last second, she sees me in front of her, my jaw slightly agape. She sidesteps me like a bullfighter and passes to my left. I turn to stare. Then I see it. There are a ton of ‘em. It’ a fashion! Gray hair on young ladies.
Have we done it? Have the boomers’ huge numbers, and vast political power made the trappings of old age DESIRABLE?
Holy
Whistler’s Mother! I can see it now.
The fashionistas…
white, yellow, black, brown, green, all the possible shades of girl.
They’re talking about it.
“Oh Sadie,” says a tall
slim woman who flips her wrist like a caricature of a gay guy. “I’ve
just been bingein’ out in Sephora. They got it all.”
“Really, do they have that new wrinkle cream?” asks a shorter, but equally slim woman. “The one that crunches up your forehead to give that webby look?”
The
tall woman nods.
“You bet they do… but there’s
something even better,” she says. “I found this wrinkling creme…
wow! Not only does it give you forehead creases. It deepens those
crows feet next to your eyes, and get this...”
She moves close to her friend, as if they’re going to kiss. They don’t. The taller woman places her index finger under her left eye and pulls slightly downward.
“It
gives you eyebags!”
Sadie is slack jawed.
“Yeah
look!” answers the tall one. “I only used it once and you can see
it already. The skin droops like I was 50 years older… it’s
incredible!”
“What’s it called?” asks the tall one.
“Well, first I gotta tell you, if you wanna look 50 years older, it’s gonna cost you a dollar a year… but it’s worth it!”
“So what’s it called? Tell me!” Sadie is getting impatient.
“It’s Eau De Crone,” says the other girl.
Women’s cosmetics have taken off like no time since the sixties… and their job is to make women look like they were born in the sixties… or before. Tits a bit too perky? There’s Saggit Breast Cream. Arm muscles too smooth? Just rub on a little Waddles Skin Loosening Cream.
And it’s not only women! Today’s MEN also succumb to the aging game. Stores can’t even keep stocked with NoGain… the men’s natural-looking hairloss shampoo.
And prosthetics… a just-introduced prosthetic double chin… implanted over the the neck, which –along with a chin-reduction procedure– will make any man into a Mitch McConnell.
30-somethings with fake oxygen tubes up the nose. Teens with walkers. Ah the world could be such a different place. And leave it to the youth of Korea to start the whole thing off.
Well, I’m ready! And I don’t need to spend the fortune on cosmetics. I’ve got the receding… er… receded hairline, the wrinkles, the long nosehair. I’ve got the droopy oldman breasts, the creaky knees.
I’m going out to pick up some twenty-something sexpot who looks just like me! Now, where’d I put that walker?
- 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
→
Smarter
Sex Laws dept: There are plenty
of groups advocating for prison reform, especially in the age of
COVID-AS-PUNISHMENT.
But there are few groups advocating for the abolition of punishment
AFTER prison.
Take the
registries… please...
especially the SEX CRIME REGISTRY, where, even after you’re
released, you cannot start with a clean slate. Your crime follows you
wherever you go. You are always guilty. Always unable to find a place
to live or a job because YOU’RE A REGISTERED OFFENDER.
Knife attackers, muggers, and most violent criminals don’t have to register. It’s only SEX… because this is America… and SEX is bad in America.
There is at least one group that is fighting against lifetime punishment after prison. That is NARSOL. You can read their story here.
→ 2020, the Hell Continues Dept: I wanted to make mention of the death of longtime friend (since the 80s) and radio broadcaster, journalist, music geek, and all around great guy. Jan Sneum died in September NOT from the COVID-19 plague, but from a brain aneurism. He helped make Denmark my favorite country in the world… and was an all around friend to music and those who love it.
→ 5781, the Hell Continues Dept: On Rosh Hashana eve, the main voice of reason and compassion on the Supreme Court, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, died. My friend and blog editor, Marlene W., sent me information on how, in the Jewish tradition, it’s a mitzvah to die on the eve of the new year. Okay, I’ll accept that. But it’s still a sad and scary day for the rest of us.
→
I gotta do it dept: I wanted
to leave politics out of this blog for once, but I couldn’t pass up
this story from Reuters.
With incense
smoke, flowers and photos of Donald Trump and Joe Biden, Peruvian
shamans performed a tribal
ritual for the U.S.
elections.
Chanting
and blowing a traditional Andean shell instrument, the shamans
invoked the “Pachamama”, or mother earth, for the U.S. vote to
take place in peace, without attacks or any witchcraft between
rivals.
The
shaman teacher said, during the ritual held in a room of an old
building in downtown Lima, that she was in favor of Biden.
“That
is why we are cleansing him. We have seen that they are attacking him
with witchcraft, with a black doll, with a voodoo doll they are
shadowing to remove him,” said she.
“See
you in hell!” said me.
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 and presidential candidate 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.
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.
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.
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
