Yes, I Ken! or Mykel's Post MRR Blog April 2025

 

You’re STILL Wrong
Mykel's

APRIL 2025 Blog/Column

KENYA? Yes I ken!

Mary Keitany from Kenya won the women's race at the New York City Marathon. You can tell she was fast because guys on the street didn't even have time to finish their catcalls.

                                           – David Letterman

In Kenya you've got the great birds and monkeys leaping through the trees overhead. It's a chance to remember what the world is really like.

– Joanna Lumley

Kenya is an immense land with a capacity for healing.

– Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor

I know it’s April, but I’m not fooling with this one. I skipped a month because of my trip to Kenya… and I want to write about it before I forget. (These days I forget… forget… er… what was I saying?) So no April Fools post this year… Those who follow me on facebook will know some of these adventures. I posted a lot of them, although I’ll do some re-writing for this blog post. 

My trip was quite amazing. And thanks to some Kenyans, I’ve thought things, seen things and done things I’ve never thought, seen or done before. All that with NO SEX. Not that I didn’t have the chance (I’ll write about that later) but I didn’t have the ability! That prostate radiation… well, lemme tell ya. It pushed some wrong buttons. 

But the trip starts in New York, as do many things in the world today. It was a facebook friend request from Alberto (real name, Albert), a fascinating guy. He tells me he’s from Kenya. I tell him the only two things Americans know about Kenya are Barack Obama and the New York Marathon. 

Mentally I have a picture of a country with Obama everywhere. People would carry wallets with Obama’s picture on the front. Wear Obama t-shirts. Carry Obama shopping bags. I’m wrong, but I’ll write about that later.

Albert and I talk politics a bit. The US election is coming up. It’s big news in Kenya. Albert wants my prediction. 

“I think Trump is going to win,” I tell him. “People are tired of the same old shit. But don’t listen to me. My predictions are usually wrong.”

 Albert wants to know more about Donny Trump. I explain that he’s not very popular in America but I think people want a radical change. Trump represents change. Kamala Harris represents a continuation of the same thing. Also a lot of people are angry tht Harris wasn’t chosen by election, but was just given the job as candidate. 

We talk about our countries. I tell him that Kenya isn’t in the news very much here… actually any other country isn’t in the news very much over here, unless there’s a war. I do mention that I read about “tax riots in Nairobi.” And asked him what the story was behind that. Anybody hurt? Who are the good guys and who are the bad guys?

It's all about increase in tax by parliament. Kenya’s president William Ruto rejects and withdraws his own Finance Bill after nationwide protests against over-taxation. The police are using live bullets to shoot at the young generation in Nairobi who are protesting Two people including a child shot dead in Ongata Rongai, Kajiado County during the anti-government protests; 19 others left with gunshot injuries across the country.

Wow!

And the discussions continue. Now, tt’s just after the US election. Results are starting to come in. TV news here has not yet projected a winner. In Kenya, Alberto tells me, they say that Trump won. He shows me a map with a lot of red and a little blue at the right and left edges. 

We talk over a couple of months and then Albert makes what I hoped was a fatal flaw. “If you ever come to Kenya,” he says, “you can stay with me.”

Ah, a free place to stay in an exotic country. Bang! I’m on it. I Google (actually DuckDuckGo) “Kenya” and “punk rock” and find a punk rocker in a band called .Powerslide His name is Willy, and he already knows what it means in English slang. Then I try “Kenya” and “haiku” (if you don’t know my relationship to haiku and Japan send me a private message.) And find a teacher/headmaster in Nairobi who was one of the first people in the world to write haiku in Swahili!!! (See the endnotes for more info on his school.) And the school is in a self-described slum. Wow. Right up my alley. 

So now I’m WhatsApping this crew, asking about the right season to go,  how long they can put me up, if they want “something small” from New York. The punk rocker wants Nietzsche and Far Eastern religion books. The headmaster wants haiku. And Albert wants a cellphone. 

What the hell, I’m going to be sleeping on his floor for a month, a $200 cellphone is two nights in a New York hotel. I get a Samsung at Best Buy. Costs $250 dollars, but that’s less than two weeks in a hotel. The books for the punk rocker I find in the second-hand bookstores in the neighborhood. 

Besides books, I find a great travel agent from Ghana… now in New York. I plan a week in London visiting my very old friends. Then a month in Kenya. A week in Nairobi with the punk rocker. Then two weeks in the countryside with Albert. Then another week back in Nairobi. All the time, as usual, being led by my Willy. 

I take out all the Swahili books and CDs I can find in the library. Since Covid, there have been no late fees on overdue books, and I’ll have a ton of them.  I fall asleep listening to Samahani, bibi. Wehweh unfamamu kiingereza?

Then I scour the streets of Chinatown for NYC t-shirts to use as trinkets for the natives. I look in bookstores for Nietzsche.

For the first week of the trip, I plan to stay in London with Claire Jackson who I met when I was living at the Lin Piao (aka Lin Biao) Commune in London in 1970. Lin Piao, by the way, was a Chinese general who died in a suspicious plane crash after he attempted to assassinate Mao Tse Tung.

Claire and I have kept in touch all these years… and she’s even been to Hicksville to stay with my parents and me in the late 70s. Since then, she’s dumped the boyfriend she was with, and married a Scott named Alistair. I would just miss his 80th birthday party… scheduled a couple weeks before my arrival.

During this time in New York, Kenya is constantly on my mind. Dialogs run through my head as I tell people I’ll be going from London to Kenya.

Of course the answer will be, "Kenya?"

Then I'll say "If possible."

That should get a laugh... or even better, a wrinkled forehead and, when explained, a palm slap against that forehead.

Then come the WhatsApp messages.

“Mykel,” says Albert. “I don’t think you should come to stay with me. We’ve had cattle rustlers here. People were shot. It’s very dangerous. I can come to see you in Nairobi, but it’s too dangerous for you to stay here.”

“Mykel,” says Willy, “I don’t think you’ll be able to stay with me. I live in a tiny apartment with my girlfriend. I’ll be able to find a cheap hotel for you in Nairobi. Around $20 a night. I hope that’s okay.”

Claire and Alistair are still ready for me. They’ll put me up in the former bedroom of their son, who now has his own place. At least something works out. Right?

This is the time… just after Trump’s election… when planes started falling out of the sky. Four crashes in a month. Do I really want to fly to Europe now? At least Gillian at Trinity found me a non-US-based airline to get me to England. British Air will take care of me. Right?

And it works. The flight is on time, and I can tap my credit card to get me on the subway… er… underground that’ll take me close enough to walk.

Before long I’m in familiar territory. Sitting having some beer and a shot of the bourbon I brought from duty free.

 “So,” says Alistair, “what’s the plan?”

"From here I'm going to Kenya," I tell him, waiting to pull the punchline.

"I'm going to the Caribbean," he answers. "Claire's coming with me."

"Jamaica?" I ask.

"No," he answers. "She wanted to go."

[The story of this adventure will continue next month. I might move to substack as my friends all seem to be shifting there. Check out Jim Testa (JimtestaNJ.substack.com) for example.]

See you in hell,

MB

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

They need it to dept: One of friends in Kenya… the headmaster of a school in Soweto, which he describes as a “slum,” needs funds to buy laptops for the school. I wrote about him above. As you know, if you’re reading this, computer literacy is as important as (more important than?) language literacy in 2025. I know the kids at this school. They are eager learners and great people. I hope you can help. I set up a GoFundMe for the school to buy laptops for student use. Please give whatever you can.

Pimping The Agent Dept: Travel agents are disappearing at rocket speed. The Internet has eaten everything. If you want to deal with a human you’ve got to do a lot of work to track one down. I can and do recommend Gillian at Trinity Travel. You can find her at: https://gillianboateng.inteletravel.com/booktravel.cfm

No details yet dept: You’ve probably read about my arrest for “public indecency.” I’m not going to write about it in detail… but what you’ve read in the papers is probably true. Just like everything else I write in April.

See you in hell redux,
MB

TIME TO READ THIS AGAIN!!

I did a nice interview with The Aither zine. Interesting questions, complete, and questions I’ve never been asked before. You can read it here. It’s a good one.

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:

Jim Testa is exploring the riches of substack and has posted is blog at: JimtestaNJ.substack.com Jim is a quiet but super important person in the history of punkrock. He does like the Mets more than the Yankees, but we all have our faults. (And he took me to a Mets game!)

Here’s Ricardo Wang with a “micro-label” in Seattle “specializing in 8-track tapes and CDs. WOW! Check out one of their label staples: The Dead Air Fresheners.

Also on bandcamp: My very long time faves in NYC, the BLACKOUT SHOPPERS. Featuring pals Seth and failed vice-president of the US candidate, Charles Bukkake

And a terrific performance piece from Sid Yiddish and his Candy Store Henchmen, with some special guest stars you might recognize. All for WZRD radio.

And this sounds right up Sid’s alley. The Bilderberg Jazz Arkestra on Bandcamp! They wrote to me.

Eric Grayson has an online music review zine, Sobriquet. Full pictures of the sleeves too! Something missing from too many zines. Sometimes you CAN judge a… er… book… by its cover.

Steen Thomsen is a Dane I’ve known ever since Lincoln was shot. I put his band THE ZERO POINT on the great WORLD CLASS PUNK Cassette for ROIR. It must be worth a mint now. I don’t have any left, I’m afraid. You can (and should) connect to the Zero Point on facebook. Tell ‘em Mykel’s blog sent you.

Sorry Dorothy, we are STILL in Kansas. And it’s as weird as OZ. Check out Bob Cutler’s DISTOPEKA.

And for a quiet smile and a much needed break for you and the dog, try G.C. Adams’ YouTube entry.

You already know Murder & Mayhem zine… those guys who did the Mykel Board centerfold. (No genitals shown… and probably for the better.) Their online version is here.

The Clean Boys from Denmark are also longtime friends of mine. In Denmark we recorded as The Bend-over Boys. Only one 10-inch available… but at least now I can say I have a 10-incher!

Margaret O’Brien asked me to include the site: anti-war.com They seem to be folks after my own heart.

Jennifer Blowdryer has just come out with a great book called Music A-Z. Anybody who’s ever played in a band will be able to relate to the drug-addled club rip-off people here. You can order it here… directly from the publisher.

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

i DIED LAST NIGHT! or You're STILL Wrong, Mykel's February 2025 Blog/Column

 

I DIED LAST NIGHT!, or You're STILL Wrong, Mykel's February 2025 Blog/Column

 

You’re STILL Wrong
Mykel's

January 2025 Blog/Column

BANG! YOU'RE DEAD!

I didn't realize it, but the days came along one after another, and then two years were gone, and everything was gone, and I was gone.
                                            -- F. Scott Fitzgerald

What I can’t understand is the selfishness! Those of you who want to die and take your whole lives doing it.
                                            --Edward Albee

The world may be strange to a child, but he does not fear it the way a man fears it. He marvels at it, but the grown man mainly dreads it. And why? Because of death.                     
                                            --Saul Bellow

But he found the men of the world all engrossed in the quest for profit or fame, there was not one who had any care for the end in store for him. 
                                                -- Wu Cheng’ en

I died last night at exactly 12:04 AM. It was a peaceful death… well not peaceful, but not unpleasant. I know the time because I was laying down… my WZRD shotglass empty on the low table next to the bed… just drained of a pour of Jim Beam.

Now it’s time to do that thing that most guys do to help getting to sleep. My laptop on my stomach… my browser tuned to xvideos… Ah, here’s a good one: Two Boys and a Girl: First Time For All. I click on it. Oh yeah, if they’re 18, I’m a twink.

My fist around my protrusion, I stare at the screen. It’s just the way I like it. Girl on her back on the bed. Blond boy lying on top, inserted balls deep. On his back is the brunette guy, inserted balls deep into the blond guy.

My eyes dance over the screen. I especially like to focus on the faces. You know that Andy Warhol movie Blow Job? That’s the kind of entertainment I… My eyes dart to that little clock in the corner of the screen. It’s 12:03 AM.,, right time to fall asleep. But there’s something wrong… or at least different. I have a headache… really bad.

I think about my hand. I can’t feel anything. Yeah, I’m not a large guy… but NOTHING? There’s an emptiness between my legs… Actually, I can’t feel anything at all. Not the organ in my fist... not the computer on my belly… not the bed underneath me.

I look back at the screen and there’s nothing there… not a blank screen, but nothing at all. I remember I had a headache, but now there’s nothing. It suddenly occurs to me that I must be dead. A stroke, I guess.

All the stories I’ve read, told by dying people saved just before they’re completely gone… They talk about rising up… going through a tunnel with a bright light at the end… flying toward the light. There is none of that for me.

No tunnel. No floating. No flying. I do move, but it’s more like teleportation… Beam Me Up, Scotty… than flying. Suddenly, I’m in a white room. Standing naked on a white tile floor. Clouds of something white form and dissolve around me. Gradually the forms solidify, like when the transporter puts Captain Kirk back together… molecule by molecule. As they take shape, I can see all my heroes –at least the dead ones– form as complete figures… not naked… in the room around me. There’s Celine, mustached… arching eyebrows… just standing, arms limply at his side. Bella Abzug… yes, wearing a hat… the bellicose one now silently standing with her arms folded over her chest. Stiv Bators, with his thin weasel-like face squished into one of his typical Stiv Bators stage antics. Oh look, over there… smirking in the corner, a cigarette burning in his developing hand… Yes, it’s William Burroughs!

I turn around and around, watching new people appear… each seems oblivious to the others in the room… and to the naked me watching it all from someplace near the middle. Thurman Munson and Phil Rizzuto… right next to each other, seemingly unaware. Barry Goldwater and Jimmy Carter… this time at opposite sides of the room. Marcel Duchamp and Frida Kahlo and more heroes than I knew I had.

I wonder if I can talk to these people. All of them are dead. The only one I’ve ever spoken to in real life is Stiv Bators and we didn’t say all that much to each other. Gradually, I lose my uneasiness at being nude. I walk up to Celine, deciding the best way to start a conversation is with a compliment. I’m going to tell him that he was the greatest writer who ever lived… or died.

I walk up to him, not feeling the floor against my bare feet. I’m behind him now. I reach out to tap him on the shoulder. But he’s not there. None of them are there. The room… the whiteness… the clouds… the people… nothing. I’m still naked, but now I’m outside… in what looks like a forest… or at least a very large public park or some other wilderness. I look down and under my bare feet are leaves… nothing but leaves.

Otto Kentrol once told me he could tell the name of a tree just by looking at it. An oak, a birch, an elm… anything. The shape of the tree... the leaves... the way the branches hang. KERCHOW! He could tell you what kind of tree it was… an awe-inspiring skill.

Me? In Hicksville, we had a weeping willow in the backyard. I think I’d know one if I saw it again. I probably could tell a giant redwood if a car drove through a tunnel in the trunk. But that’s about it. Here, I know nothing. It’s a like a painting… filled with greens and browns and a burst of red here and there. The sky is blue… skyblue like the skies they get in Texas sometimes. And trees… lots of trees. I can’t tell one from the other.

I wonder if I can time travel as well as travel from one place to another. After all there are fewer than 10 billion people alive on earth. But there must be zillions of dead people here in heaven. Living people go through a cycle: birth, life, death. The same for everyone, although to varying degrees.

Time exists as a marker between birth and death. You get older. Some people die. Other people are born. Time is how you keep track. But if there is no birth or life… only an eternal death, then there is no time. Moving to the past or present is meaningless.

I’m distracted from these thoughts by the cold wet splash of semen on my naked feet. It’s my own semen, of course, still leaking from my continued harditude. Strange that it is the only thing I’m able to feel.

I’m off again… not flying, just transporting… new place. Another woods-like area but here is a little clearing with a tree in the middle. Despite my usual inability to distinguish trees, I understand that this is an apple tree. The apples growing from the branches are the best clue.

I have no feeling of hunger, but I can imagine the taste of an apple and have half an urge to experience it. I reach for the red fruit.

There is a rustling next to me. And I see a young woman… also naked… the first other naked person I’ve seen since my death.

And she’s a WOW! Short dark hair… in a dykish crew cut, breasts risen, tight, two handfuls. A face that could be in a K-Pop boy band.

I feel a stirring between my legs. Something that I haven’t felt for a year. Even alive… after my prostate radiation… I never got the sense… but here it is… heavenly.

She looks my way.

Wow!

It’s impossible to imagine. When I was alive, I was a believer. Too many things go wrong for there not to be a God. Not to mention, she kills everyone who ever lives. And just think of how miserable life is for so many people… you and me. You think that’s an accident? Only a God… an evil God could be responsible for that horror.

But, until now, I didn’t believe in heaven or hell. I thought once you kicked the bucket, it was all over. Like a dreamless sleep you never wake up from.

The naked young woman reaches to my dripping organ and fondles it. It throbs. Has the dripping stopped? I’m not sure. She kneels in front of me then takes me into her mouth.

“Whatever the case,” I tell her. “I sure didn’t expect heaven to be like this.”

“Heaven?” she laughs, speaking around my fullness. “Heaven? That’s where you think you are?” She laughs again.

Then she bites down… hard. This time I feel it.

See you in hell,
Mykel Board

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

→ Explanation Dept: As this is February, you might have guessed this was not my annual APRIL FOOLS’ column. It was an experiment… a trial at a new way of writing… a new form… something new… like a Beatles Album. Maybe I should dedicate it to the spirit of David Lynch. He must be ghosting around the cosmos now.
    Comments are welcome. It’s a first attempt at an alternate reality (I think that’s what they call it) non-political blogpost. I’m trying to combine a few genres here. Let me know if it’s a hit or a miss… or a near hit or near miss. Thanks.

→Kenya: By the time you read this I’ll probably be in Kenya. It’ll be my first trip to East Africa. I start in Nairobi, which my Lonely Planet Guide tells me is known as Nairobbery by the locals. Whatever happens, it’ll be an adventure. I might even die there. Contact me if you have any Kenyan connections, the more the merrier. By the way, there may be no March blog this year. I’ll be too busy going native.

→Speaking of Kenya dept: MSN reports that a giant metal ring fell from the sky onto earth in a small Kenyan village. The space ring weighs over a ton. Its origins are unknown.. and just listed as “somewhere in outer space.” Here’s a picture of it:

TIME TO READ THIS AGAIN!!

I did a nice interview with The Aither zine. Interesting questions, complete, and questions I’ve never been asked before. You can read it here. It’s a good one.

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 Ricardo Wang with a “micro-label” in Seattle “specializing in 8-track tapes and CDs. WOW! Check out one of their label staples: The Dead Air Fresheners.

Also on bandcamp: My very long time faves in NYC, the BLACKOUT SHOPPERS. Featuring pals Seth and failed vice-president of the US candidate, Charles Bukkake

And a terrific performance piece from Sid Yiddish and his Candy Store Henchmen, with some special guest stars you might recognize. All for WZRD radio.

And this sounds right up Sid’s alley. The Bilderberg Jazz Arkestra on Bandcamp! They wrote to me.

Eric Grayson has an online music review zine, Sobriquet. Full pictures of the sleeves too! Something missing from too many zines. Sometimes you CAN judge a… er… book… by its cover.

Steen Thomsen is a Dane I’ve known ever since Lincoln was shot. I put his band THE ZERO POINT on the great WORLD CLASS PUNK Cassette for ROIR. It must be worth a mint now. I don’t have any left, I’m afraid. You can (and should) connect to the Zero Point on facebook. Tell ‘em Mykel’s blog sent you.

Sorry Dorothy, we are STILL in Kansas. And it’s as weird as OZ. Check out Bob Cutler’s DISTOPEKA.

And for a quiet smile and a much needed break for you and the dog, try G.C. Adams’ YouTube entry.

You already know Murder & Mayhem zine… those guys who did the Mykel Board centerfold. (No genitals shown… and probably for the better.) Their online version is here.

The Clean Boys from Denmark are also longtime friends of mine. In Denmark we recorded as The Bend-over Boys. Only one 10-inch available… but at least now I can say I have a 10-incher!

Margaret O’Brien asked me to include the site: anti-war.com They seem to be folks after my own heart.

Jennifer Blowdryer has just come out with a great book called Music A-Z. Anybody who’s ever played in a band will be able to relate to the drug-addled club rip-off people here. You can order it here… directly from the publisher.

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

BOING! or Mykel's December 2024 Blog: YOU'RE STILL WRONG

 

BOING! or Mykel's December 2024 Blog: YOU'RE STILL WRONG

You’re STILL Wrong
Mykel's

December 2024 Blog/Column

BOING!

Satori is a brief flash. Suddenly the light breaks through. For a short timeless time we experience eternity in its unmanifest form.  
                                                                                      – Frederick Lenz

Sometimes a revelation comes with a flash of heavenly light and a booming voice and sometimes it is jotted in a sun-bleached spiral notebook.
                                                                                    -- Jeffrey A. Lockwood

I don’t know how I missed it… must be a new one. At least a dozen people.... in the middle is a guy… early twenties… shirtless… barefoot… in jeans… five people around him. Running their hands over his body… up... down… across his chest… stopping to caress a nipple… watch it harden. Another two pairs of hands between his legs… one pair around his calf, the other higher… on the inside of his thigh… higher… moving toward action central. A hand moves up... strokes his fly… the bulge behind the hand becomes bulgier. The fingers of that hand fiddle at the top of the zipper… slowly slide it down… move back up to the metal button at the top of his jeans… The other pair of hands reach up hook over the waistband… pull down… pants and underpants together… moving slowly… until BOING! Up it pops, now revealed… hard and ready for action. Me? My action is spent, and needs a bit of cleaning up.

That’s what I want to write about this month. That BOING moment. The instant that gets me off. In American haiku and Japanese zen they refer to the Aha Moment. Christians call it an epiphany. The Buddhists say satori. It’s a second… or sliver of a second… where you realize something or think in a way you’ve never thought before… a kind of revelation.

I’ve had several in my life… but all too often I let them go and though I learn from the moments, I lose the experience… the thrill… the fun of that second. Part of the problem is not recording the moment… not putting virtual ink to virtual paper and training my muscle memory to use what I’ve just discovered.

In porn, BOING moments appear in every decent segment. I shout BOING from the bed just as it happens… that flip of the flesh baton… and often relieve myself exactly then. But, even without orgasm, those moments in everyday life change me… sometimes giving me insight… understanding… that I’ve never had before.

FLASH TO THE PLATFORM OF THE 6 TRAIN… UPTOWN TRACK. As a New Yorker, I know enough that the end cars are the emptiest and the middle cars are the fullest. During the crowded day time, I stand at the end of the platform, knowing that I’ll likely get a seat. At night, I stand in the middle of the platform, knowing in the fuller car that stops there, I’ll be much less likely to be mugged.

It’s about 4:30 in the afternoon... peak of pre-rush hour traffic. As I go down the stairs, I see that the train is already at the platform. I run to the front… the first car... where the engineer sits. Today, that engineer leans out his window as I stand in front of him. I can see that that car is nearly empty. I lift my leg to step in.

“You may want to move to another car,” says the engineer.

“Thanks, but this is fine for me,” I answer.

He shrugs as I step inside.

I take a seat by engineer’s compartment and look around at the nearly empty car. Sitting on the other end of the car is a naked man. A black guy… late 20s… early 30s. Sitting on a narrow seat. Good parts hidden between his legs… no BOING moment here. A few other people sit singly around the car. No one is talking… or even looking at anyone else.

STAND CLEAR OF THE CLOSING DOORS booms the voice over the loudspeaker. Just as the doors start to close, a white guy… truck-driver type... pries them apart and enters the car. He takes a seat at the end of one of the long benches against the train wall. The doors do not close, but open fully and we sit there. The white guy… shaved head, some kind of working class work clothes… stands up and stands right in front of the naked guy. He shouts at him… gestures… points his finger.

The naked guy takes a pair of gray sweatpants from the seat next to him… slips into them. The white guy continues his harangue. The now not-quite-naked guy stands and shouts back. My punkrock-wrecked hearing prevents me from understanding the words exchanged. All I can tell is that the semi-naked man is losing his patience and begins to stomp around the car. My cheek muscles tense in ever-growing fear.

The bald white guy continues his barrage of words… but slowly backs away from the now-shouting-no-longer-naked guy. I stand and head for the still open doors. The few other passengers in the car do the same. We leave and walk into the next car where a few seats remain… not empty, but with room to squeeze in.

I squeeze into a narrow space forcing the man-spreading guy next to me into a more closed-knees position. Finally, the doors shut and the train chugs north to Astor Place. A respectable-looking… lightish skinned black guy with a gray goatee... sits across from me and says something. I cup my hand behind my ear in the universal sign for HUH? He speaks louder, tilting his head to indicate the car we just left.

“That’s why I voted for Donald Trump!” He says with the verbal exclamation mark clear at the end of his sentence.

BOING!

FLASH TO UNINTENTION: I had planned to avoid politics in this post. But in order to get that BOING, I have to bring them into the mix. First some history: My analysis of the election went something like this:

There were two sides in the election. One side was a radical group of outsiders... extreme and unafraid to express that extremity. Aiming at Americans who were fed up… who wanted change… and wanted forcefulness and principles. The other side was a group of people with no principles… changing willy-nilly to fit what they perceived to be the mood of the audience. No ideas to offer except Vote for us because we’re not them.

The radicals won.

I still think that was largely true, but at this BOING moment I realize there’s more. Fear and anger… mostly stoked by the press… sometimes by real-life chaos… by a naked man in a subway car. People are angry. They don’t want more of the same… they don’t want wimpy here today changed tomorrow solutions. They want big changes NOW. Their fear needs a cure.

Get it Mykel? It’s not (only) a bunch of rebels who want the government to take money away from poor people, throw “aliens’’ into concentration camps, and keep women barefoot and pregnant. It’s ordinary people just fed up with what’s going on around them. It’s everyday folks with no ideology or political bent… but they want SOMETHING DONE. They want some control over their lives… or… if not control… they want stability. They want to be able to walk into a subway car and NOT find a naked man sitting there. They watch the news and see reports about some crazy guy stabbing strangers with a kitchen knife and they wonder who’s next.

The reasons for the Trump victory are many. We each like to frame it our own way. With the reasons we like substituting for the reasons that are. People voted for Trump to oppose abortion… whoops, most of the pro-abortion ballot initiatives PASSED. So that’s not it. People voted for Trump because they wouldn’t vote for a woman. Whoops, Trump’s key cabinet positions were given to women. And on and on.

Just wait for the BOING moment. Maybe you’ll learn. That grey-goateed man gave me mine.

Ah, here’s another BOING moment… and it involves a train. It happened a couple years ago, but the memory of it returned to me as I was talking with a couple Indians (red dot, not feather) at the Bleecker Street Bar. (Not on Bleecker Street, by the way.)

Maybe I wrote about this before, but it fits so well into this theme that I need to do it again. I’m in Mumbai. Staying with the friend of a friend. You’ve probably seen the pictures of Indian trains… people grab onto the outside of the train as it travels from place to place above ground…. Hanging off the car like Mardi Gras dancers hang off parade floats.

On either side of the doors on Indian trains there are metal poles… parallel to the doors… perfect for hanging on to once you’ve climbed up a step or two toward the doors. (In India, the trains… at least THESE trains… have doors that never shut.)

I’ve just walked to the station… shocked and pissed off at the way people on the street will push me out of the way in order to pass. I get so angry at being pushed, that I push back… once… but really hard. One guy nearly falls to the sidewalk. Boy, did I feel good. That’ll teach him a lesson.

Back at the station… the train pulls in. After a few people enter the car, I jump up… on the second step… grab ahold of the poles… lean back and prepare for the ride… but whoa… the poles are greasy… likely from the sweat of the hundreds of others who have grabbed onto it during earlier train journeys. I feel myself tilting back. Losing my grip falling backwards… likely head first onto the platform. Will I die in India? In Bombay? The train’s engine has started… it will move any second now… flinging me to the side.

Then I feel it. A pair of hands under my ribcage on the right side…. Another pair of hands holding tightly on the other side. The two sides working in tandem lift me into the air… completely off the trainsteps… suspended… shifted away from the train and set down… a whole Mykel Board… alive and well on the train platform. Heroically saved by two strangers who missed their train… two anonymous heroes. BOING!

Instant awareness. The gentle nudge out of the way comes from a crowd culture, and a fixation on time. But the people here… yes the people… the people are great… deserving of respect rather than a glare of hostility… They are ready in a moment to give up something for the benefit of a stranger. NOW I get it.

One more… It must’ve been a quarter of a century ago… or more. My father then was my age now. Like mine now, his body was starting to fall apart. He, like me, was post-prostate and not enjoying it.

“Mickey,” he says to me, “I just don’t get it… the piss urge. I can walk around all day… drink a beer… or two. No problem. But as soon as I get within a football field of home… I can’t hold it. Psssshhhhh. Blam! I just have to let go.”

“But Dad,” I say. “You know that means it’s psychological. If the urge hits hard when you near a familiar crapper… you know the urge comes from your head, not your bladder.”

“Tell that to the Depends,” says Dad.

BOING! Just knowing that something… pain or piss-urge… is psychological, doesn’t make it hurt less or the urge less urgent.

My 50-year old self never realized that. I figured that once you know that something is psychological… I mean really know and believe it… then you have control over it. BOING! THAT’S WRONG. All those medical tests… with control groups. They’re just wrong. Scientists call it The Placebo Effect and in most medical tests… BOTH the placebo group and the “real medicine” group get better. Just because something is “only” in your mind doesn’t make it any less authentic than if it lies in the scar tissue of your prostate.

See you in hell,

Mykel Board

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

–> Pet Peeve Dept.: CNN reports that shit frequency affects general health… or responds to general health. But that’s not what I want to talk about. I want to talk POOP! Since when did that baby-word come into general (and medical!) use? Feces and defecate I can put up with… they sound medical… and shit is shit. But when mainstream news organizations start using baby talk to avoid taboos… It just makes me want to pee pee on them.

→ BOING! Pee Dept: No, Boing Pee is not a city in China. It’s one of those ahah! Moments discovered by travel writer, Rick Steves. He talks about post-prostate incontinence as a way to understanding. His view is different from Dad’s. For him, it wasn’t understanding the psychological vs the actual medical problem… For him, it was about understanding women. We all know that the girls gotta go… and they worry about laugh-pissing, cough-pissing, fart-pissing… Things that boys never think of… unless it happens to them. I never before thought about what it must be like.

→ Kenya Contacts Wanted: I finally bought my tickets. I’ll be going to Kenya via London in Feb-March of next year. Stay tuned here for reports. Right now, I’m looking for contacts and info about Kenya. I can’t find one Kenyan restaurant in New York City! I don’t even know what Kenyan food is like. I’m trying to learn a little Swahili. When I was in my 20s and had a memory and the ability to hear stuff, I could pick up languages like a dog owner picks up dog poo. Those skill are gone. In my experience, Africans are the best in the world at language. Most Africans I know can speak three languages (trade language, colonial language and local tribal language) before they sprout pubic hair. So, I should be able to get by in English.. but I don’t want to. Nimejaribu angalau Kiswahili kidogo. If you have any Kenyan connections, please connect me. Give my email address freely to any Kenyan you might know. mykelboard@gmail.com. I hope I can hold it until I get to the airport.

LINK TRADE DEPARTMENT:

LINKS

I read that the search engines like lots of links... and it's also nice to support my friends and enemies in their blogs. So facebook me or email me if you have a blog, webpage or something else to connect to. I add you. You add me.

Here's a start:

I did a nice interview with The Aither zine. Interesting questions, complete, and questions I’ve never been asked before. You can read it here. It’s a good one.

Here’s Ricardo Wang with a “micro-label” in Seattle “specializing in 8-track tapes and CDs. WOW! Check out one of their label staples: The Dead Air Fresheners, best band name of the year.

Also on bandcamp: My very long time faves in NYC, the BLACKOUT SHOPPERS. Featuring pals Seth and possibly the next vice-president of the US

Sid Yiddish has posted a video of a show done for WZRD in Chicago. Great live performances, and if you catch the video around the 20+ minute point you might see a familiar face doing the lyrics to his songs (some unrecorded) as poetry. You’ll find it here.

And this sounds right up Sid’s alley. The Bilderberg Jazz Arkestra on Bandcamp!

Eric Grayson has an online music review zine, Sobriquet. Full pictures of the sleeves too! Something missing from too many zines. Sometimes you CAN judge a… er… book… by its cover.

Steen Thomsen is a Dane I’ve known ever since Lincoln was shot. I put his band THE ZERO POINT on the great WORLD CLASS PUNK Cassette for ROIR. It must be worth a mint now. I don’t have any left, I’m afraid. You can (and should) connect to the Zero Point on facebook. Tell ‘em Mykel’s blog sent you.

Sorry Dorothy, we are STILL in Kansas. And it’s as weird as OZ. Check out Bob Cutler’s DISTOPEKA.

You already know Murder & Mayhem zine… those guys who did the Mykel Board centerfold. (No genitals shown… and probably for the better.) Their online version is here.

The Clean Boys from Denmark are also longtime friends of mine. In Denmark we recorded as The Bend-over Boys. Only one 10-inch available… but at least now I can say I have a 10-incher!

Finally, for this month, Margaret O’Brian asked me to include the site: anti-war.com They seem to be folks after my own heart.

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

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