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

DAR! or Mykel's September Blog/Column

 

You’re STILL Wrong

Mykel's

September 2024 Blog/Column

DAR!

"It's kind of like some sort of… gay radar. I call it… the homometer."
                                            — Ed Helms on The Daily Show

Canadian psychologist Nicholas Rule studies social intuitions—the snap judgments we make about people we’ve just met. In a series of experiments, he and his colleagues tested people’s abilities to judge others’ sexual orientation, and came to the conclusion that gaydar is real. -- Psychology Today

Your vibe attracts your tribe.”
                                    – Unknown

Vibe high and the magic around you will unfold.
                                – Akilnathan Logeswaran

Sitting at the bar downstairs at the Peculier pub. I’m showing New York to Paula, one of a ton of my lesbo pals, just in from California. There are only a few of us here… it’s still early… clock would be striking 6 if the clock actually struck. For the moment no one else sits at the bar. A couple couples are at the well graffitied table around the main floor. Mac is the waitress. As is the custom here, the waitresses always show navel. (For some reason, all are innies… maybe that’s also a requirement.) Andrew, a former waiter who never showed navel is now behind the bar pouring beer and mixing drinks. Paula drinks a PBR. I drink an Ithaca Flower Power.”

We click our glasses and say “Baka yaroo!” Which I tell my English-speaking friends means “cheers” in Japanese… but actually means something like “you fuckin’ idiot”

“How’s the girlfriend?” I ask.

“Don’t ask…. That bitch!” answers Paula.

“Ouch!” I say, then laugh.

Right then… like a movie where the director cues the Enter The Mysterious Stranger^®, a girl walks in and up to the bar. Wow! I use my palms to push my eyes back into my head. Talk about MY TYPE. Concentration camp thin… a flawless face with just a touch of the oriental… one-hand cupable breasts… a built in pout. She stands next to me… leans over the bar to order an Imperial Stout from Andrew.

“You have good taste,” I say to her. “And tolerance up the wazoo for an imperial stout at 6 in the evening.”

She smiles.

I feel myself beginning to harden. Paula leans over and whispers something in my ear. It sounds like “Eyekul, Caesar Tyke,,, whore ket tit.”

I know my hearing is bad so I answer, “We’ll talk later, when there’s less noise” I say and return to my banal beer conversation with Mysterious Stranger^® As we talk, the bar fills up slightly. Among the new folks entering is a young woman wearing a short summer dress. Dark hair and skin with a touch of Indian (red dot, not feather) in it. The new entrancée looks around, spots Mysterious Stranger^® with us at the bar. She smiles walks over to us… to Mysterious Stranger^® actually… and kisses her hello. I don’t mean a peck on the cheek kiss, I mean a tongue deep passionate guess-where-my-tongue-will-be-next kiss.

“So long,” says Mysterious Stranger^® as she and the femmy girl walk to the back of the bar, and out of sight.

“Mykel,” Paula says to me, “did you hear what I said to you?”

I shake my head.

“I said, ‘Mykel, she’s a dyke.’ Didn’t you get the vibe?”

This brings me to the point of this blog-post. I’m notorious for not getting vibes. I have absolutely no GAYDAR. My friends who have the skill can smell one a mile away. To me, that girl just looks like an office lady. That guy looks like a CVS delivery boy. I just can’t tell. Two guys could be futt-bucking in a restroom stall and I wouldn’t know.

Of course it’s a liability…. Especially since my personal tastes go to butch girls and femmy guys… but I NEVER KNOW... unless I end up with some late night skin-to-skin. That skin-to-skin could be night-time nookie, or a fist to my jaw!

One of my friends: female… bisexual. (Not that I believe in that stuff… but that’s another post) says she’s got LAYDAR. This is a vibe detector that buzzes when the object is hot to trot. It works with any gender. What a great ability! I often wonder how many ready-to-goes I missed because I couldn’t tell… or the reverse… how many hours I wasted chasing after someone who’d get not further than “Let’s just be friends.” (Is there an uglier phrase in the English language?)

But GAYDAR and LAYDAR are not the only DARs I lack. There’s also GENDAR. It’s controversial with XY and XX and all that Olympics shit. But that’s not what I’m talking about. I mean just every day people, dressed in everyday non-gendered clothing. Sure, a beard is a dead giveaway. Balding helps too. But with a neutral haircut, neutral clothes: sneakers, jeans and a loose t-shirt… I can’t tell! Yeah, I love the middle look… “can’t tell” is sexy… but I also can’t bring myself to defile English and refer to one person as THEY. I know some girls like to hide their biology under a crewcut or even using Rogain on their face. That’s okay with me. But if you have a Santa Claus beard or the kind of face you’d want to lick the make-up from… LET ME KNOW WHAT’S UNDERNEATH DOWN BELOW! I can’t tell.

Then there’s JOKEDAR. People who know me know that I lie casually. I think lies are funny. When I’m out with my multinational friends, I pretend to show off by telling people CHEERS in Spanish is Besa mi culo… In German it’s Leck mich am Arsch. Actually, both phrases mean Kiss My Ass. I already explained how I hand the Japanese.In Tagalog, the main language of the Philippines, CHEERS is Putan ina mo! Oh yeah, that means Your mother is a whore. It’s one of my many playful habits, and I’m often at a restaurant or bar with friends, turning heads at other tables, making strangers laugh. But there’s always at least one… sometimes more… who come back with that’s not funny. Well, what is?

Lately, the only things people seem to find funny are jokes about politicians they don’t like. Are you one of those Stephen Colbert types who just says Donald Trump over and over, getting a laugh every time? Or worse are you part of the OFFENSE squad… like half of facebook and maybe all of Reddit who think nothing about politics, gender, race, or most anything else is funny… unless they agree with you? One of my “friends” on facebook banned me because I said Kamala Harris doesn’t look black. That wasn’t fully in jest… but it certainly lacks humor to take offense at it. If someone says I don’t look Jewish do I take offense? Of course not! I just unzip and pull out my ID. I’m not sure I even know what OFFENSE is! Sure I get angry at stuff. And sometimes people say things (mostly things about me) that make me sad… is that OFFENSE? I don’t know! I have no OFFENSEDAR!

Speaking of looking Jewish, another DAR I lack is JEWDAR. A story I often repeat is my visit to Kafka’s (yes, he was one too) grave in Prague. It was during Communist times, so I was an unusual American. As I stood looking at the tombstone, an older woman, who was removing branches and other debris from the grave spoke to me in English.

“Are you Israeli?” she asked.

“No,” I told her. “I’m from New York.”

“But you are Jewish…” she said with some authority.

How did she know? What was there? Of course the answer is that she had the Jewdar that I lack.

Last century, I wrote a song called Jews With Tattoos (which an Israeli pal of mine told me was a HIT in Israel!). In the beginning of that song, I wrote the cliched view of Jews: Glasses and a Hitchcock lip, big belly balding too. Lots of pimples, way too smart… Actually, I can’t tell. Does Ron Jeremy, the most famous male porn star in the world, look Jewish? Does Scarlett Johansson look Jewish? Sammy Davis Jr? David Diggs from the musical Hamilton?


I can’t tell, but the internet says he is one of us!

Okay, this next guy “looks Jewish.”

I'd say “Shalom” to him on the street. Otherwise I wish I were like those Chabad guys who come up to everyone passing and ask “Are you Jewish?” (Someday I’ll write about Chabad… I love those guys). Oh yeah, once in a record store I was looking at an LP and mentioned to the store owner that I know the guy on the cover… a fellow Jew.

“In New York, how do you know if someone is Jewish?” he asked me… clearly the tone of a joke in his voice.

“I wish I knew,” I answered.

“He’ll tell you,” he replied.

I walk down Bleecker Street, heading from Sixth Avenue toward the Peculier. A thin young man somewhat taller than me... long hair… the kind of face you’d want between your legs. He wears extremely baggy jeans and a t-shirt that says RANDOM across the chest. He stares into the cellphone in his right hand… poking at it as if angry. I figure he’s having trouble finding some place… learning –as we all do eventually– that among tall buildings, Google maps are wrong.

“Are you lost?” I ask him… as I often ask strangers poking at their cellphones.

He turns to me… wide-eyed and whispers. “We’re ALL lost.”

He raises one arm above his head and points to the sky. “We’re stray sheep,” he continues, his voice getting louder. “My phone is possessed. It’s been taken over by SATAN!” By now he’s screaming at me. “AND YOU ARE HIS AGENT! DON’T THINK I DON’T KNOW!”

Fuck! I have no NUTDAR! I can’t tell a looney until he’s right on top of me. I don’t care how good-looking he is… I don’t want this guy on top of me… I run.

FLASH RETURN TO THE PECULIER PUB: It’s Drink Club. I sit outside with my fellow imbibers, lying about how to say cheers in various languages. You know about that from JOKEDAR. We’re in one of those makeshift sheds that popped up during the plague. One of the many reasons I like eating and drinking outside is people watching. Bleecker Street is a human zoo sometimes.

We’re sitting outside as usual and this big guy passes us. As he does so, he looks directly at me.

“Wow! It’s great to see you!” he says, and then comes over to me and sits next to me. “Don’t you remember me?” he continues. “It was a couple weeks ago. You dropped your cellphone on the sidewalk and I picked it up and ran to you. My name’s Jim. You thanked me and said I owe you twenty bucks for that. You didn’t have it then, but that’s okay.”

“I’m Mykel,” I tell him, “in case you forgot.”

I have no memory of that incident… but I have no memory of most things. I call Mac over to the table. “Bring this guy a beer,” I say to her. She smiles and goes to fetch one. I pull out my wallet, take a twenty and give it to Jim.

“Sorry to take so long,” I say to him.

Mac brings Jim his beer. He drinks it in a fell swoop.

“Thanks, Mykel” he says. “Great to see you again.”

He gets up and leaves, heading toward Sixth Avenue and the subway. It’s only then that I realize it was fake and I lost $20 due to my lack of SCAMDAR. One of the few things I pride myself on is my ability to recognize fakes… but even that I can’t do with the accuracy I’d like. I got taken!! A sincere face... a good story... a friendly hug saying we’ve known each other for a long time. POW, I’m as much of a sucker as the tourists who fall for the pea-shuffles under the shells.

What exactly are these DARS I don’t have. Most people I’ve asked describe it as a VIBE. A feeling that transfers automatically from one person to the next,,, like the smell of unwashed armpits. Sometimes I get the impression of other people. If they’re happy… or angry… or sad. But that comes from a smile, a frown, a fist pounding on a table. Maybe a tear on the cheek. But that’s not a vibe.

A vibe is something mysterious. Something that transfers silently through the air. Happiness without a smile. Anger without a clenched fist. Lust without a pants bulge. I’m aware these vibes exist. Many of my friends have all kinds of them. Some even divide the world into people sending good ones and bad ones. These friends try to explain vibes to me, but I don’t get it. I’m like a person born blind that friends are describing BLUE to. It’s useless. I just can’t understand.

So, for future reference. If you’re an attractive tough girl… at least if you’re a girl who can beat me up… you’ll have to tell me you want me. If you’re a young femmy guy… like to start at the bottom… you’ll have to rest your hand between my legs before I’ll be aware of how you feel.

I am vibeless.

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]

-→Test Yourself Dept: Here’s a test I found on the internet. Just from visual vibes, you have to guess who is straight and who is gay. Let me know how you do. (I got 47% correct… worse than chance) Part of the problem could be that they showed a side-by-side pictures and asked to choose right or left. I couldn’t guess if they meant MY right/left or the people in the picture’s right/left. My 47% was based on the former assumption.

→ Movies about Everything Dept: In researching this blog I discovered there’s a movie called “Under The Gaydar.” (See the reviews in IMDB) And RON JEREMY is in it! I can’t find it for free on-line, so maybe one of you can tell me how to do that. The plot, by the way, is the story of a guy whose parents fear is gay. So they hire a girl to seduce him and turn him straight. The guy is actually straight, and gets to screw some beautiful girls, paid for by his parents.

→YOU’RE INVITED dept: If you’re in New York on a Thursday, come and join us at Drink Club. Just look for the Drink Club sign or ask the bouncer at the door.

RETURN TO THE NATION DEPT:

I found a stack of old issues of THE NATION and want to recommend some great pieces there. First there’s an article by Aida Chavez that says Biden is using the same order that the Trump administration used to expel migrants at the border without a hearing. I’m guessing we can expect Biden’s VP to do the same if she gets the chance.

There’s also another fascinating piece about “Foundation Colonialism.” That is those charities (like the Bill & Melinda Gates one). It seems that while they give away a lot of money, MOST of it is to organizations based in Western Countries. Their “help” is usually spreading Western medicine (big Pharma), farming (GMOs, heavy fertilizer use), etc. to countries who can and should use the more native-- and cleaner, though less profitable for big industry-- methods.

LINK TRADE DEPARTMENT:

I did a nice interview with The Aither zine. Interesting questions many I’d 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, superstar comic writer, Justin Melkmann and possibly the next vice-president of the US, Charles Bukkake.

Here’s an update on the current URL for Sid Yiddish’s Dating Game (type) entry.

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.

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 on-line 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!

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.

Longtime writer, Randall Fleming, has a new book out about the reversal of flag desecration. In his view, the right And more generally it’s about political violence in the 21^st century.

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

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

God Damn It! or Mykel's February 2024 Blog/Column

 

Monday, January 01, 2024

God Damn It! or Mykel's February 2024 Blog/Column

  

You’re STILL Wrong 
Mykel's 
February 2024 Blog/Column 
God Damn It!
by Mykel Board

We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature - trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence... We need silence to be able to touch souls.      --Mother Teresa

God is emotional and impulsive and gets things wrong and even loses; just as He is neither omniscient nor omnipotent, neither a flawless robot nor an errorless computer--  so we too dear reader. We have been granted the right to do wrong. Rejoice!    – Ze’ev Maghen 

Aren't you one of those atheists who says God doesn't exist?"  "Who said that? I believe that God does, unfortunately, exist. It's just that he's a fascist."  – Umberto Eco

There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.'                                                            – C. S. Lewis

Who is it that makes you cry, cripples children lets them die, lets the bad guys win, puts acne on your skin, gives cancer to Aunt May, then she’ll giggle when you pray? It’s God! It’s God!                                                      –
                                                                 -- Artless, from the song GOD

This was the original first paragraph I’d planned for the blog:

By the time you read this, I’ll likely be dead. You’ll understand why by the time you get to the end… I think. In murder cases, they always ask for motive, means and opportunity. The rest of this blog will show the motive. The means, I haven’t decided yet. It could even be GOD, doing her natural causes bit… as if that had a meaning when ANYTHING that happens is a natural cause. More likely it’s something quiet… too much too soon. A mix of this and that… with an extra shot of that. Maybe I’ll ask Jim Testa to write the obituary. 

But all of a sudden, I had a change of heart. Instead of writing about me, I decided to choose a smaller and easier subject: GOD. I can escape from my bedbugs, my instant senility, my deafness and all the other effluvia ruining my life right now. So now I’ll leave my current life and join a continued discussion that’s spanned the life of everyone who’s ever lived in a college dorm. 

You’ll read later about a conversation I had with an atheist in Eastern Europe. Although it took place more than 40 years ago, I still remember it. In a way, the logic of the girl I spoke with is behind the logic of most current atheists.. though they wouldn’t admit it. 

More recently, a Jewdhist friend named Richard Goldberg told me. “Mykel, if you want to find God, imagine everything that exists in the universe. That’s God.”

But let’s go back to earlier times: 

Flash to Prague... commie times... the end of the 70s. I’m visiting the grave of Franz Kafka, one of my favorite writers. No, his tombstone is not crawling with cockroaches. He’s buried in the same grave as his father… spending eternity with someone he hated. There is a lot of Hebrew on the grave, but the tenants’ names are written using the Roman alphabet. 

 As I approach the tombstone, I see a woman… stout, with gray hair… tending to the grave… brushing away weeds… picking up garbage. When I come closer, the woman looks up at me.

“Shalom,” she says.

“Hi,” I say.

“Are you Israeli?” she asks.

I shake my head. “No, I’m not,” I tell her.

“But you are Jewish,” she says, her voice without any question intonation.

I nod… and smile.

“I have a daughter...” she says and invites me to dinner.

I don’t remember what we ate. I do remember that the daughter’s name was Helena. She was slightly zaftig, blond hair and she wore a mezuzah around her neck. After dinner mom says, “You children go into the living room and talk. I’ll have to clean the dishes.”

Together we go into the living room and sit on the couch. I look at her breasts.

“I see you’re looking at my mezuzah,” she says. “I wear it for my mother. She bought it for me and I promised to wear it. It tells people I’m a Jew… but I don’t believe in God.”

“Oh?” I ask. “Why not?”

“If God is up there in the sky… living on a cloud… he would just fall down.” She says, as if it were obvious.

BOING! I get it. It hits like an errant erection. If I believed rabbits were pink and delivered eggs at Easter… I wouldn’t believe in rabbits. The atheist commies (or maybe all atheists) believe God is an old man who lives in the clouds… then deny his existence. Of course!

If, like Richard Goldberg, you define God as everything that exists… then God must exist… otherwise nothing exists. The literal existence of Jesus Christ is open to debate… though I think most people will say he existed in some form or other. If you believe Jesus is/was God, then if Jesus existed, so did God. If you believe he had supernatural powers… turning water to wine or feeding a hundred on one loaf of matzoh… that’s open to debate.

What atheists do is define God like Helena defined God… an old man who sits in the clouds. Then they deny his existence… he’d just fall down. Supernatural powers? What are those? It used to be that flying flying humans would show supernatural powers until airplanes came along and made the powers as natural as a boarding pass. Yesterday’s supernatural is today’s mundane. We need some other way to judge.

For some, God is just a comforting thought… an appreciation that there’s something bigger than us… more in control… without physical shape or corporeal body. How can you NOT believe that?

People’s belief in God is a reflection of who they are… or who they want to be. I see God as a nine foot tall woman in a black leather bikini wielding a whip. She sees her job as making my life so bad that I kill myself… and she wins. I can prolong the game by refusing to give in. If SHE has to kill me, I win.

Is my God real? Of course she’s real. God isn’t a human. She’s whatever we make her. She’s what’s useful to us and what explains the universe. Bedbugs, cancer, war, earthquakes, plagues… what more do we need to understand the pestilence of the universe? Atheists tell me that mosquitoes are proof that God does not exist. Bullshit. Mosquitoes are proof that God is either not omnipotent or that God is not good… or both. But they don’t disprove her existence.

When you say you don’t believe in God, you’d better tell me what that God is that you don’t believe in: the egg-delivering pink rabbit or the bunny you see hopping around the garden.

Note: On the unlikely chance that I am still alive and not stroked out from the stress-- or allowing God to win the contest, you can donate to my bedbug fund through my GoFundMe. Just a little will help… and show me I haven’t been abandoned by all but the evil goddess. (SHE thinks of me continually) Thanks in advance for whatever you can do.

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]

→ Death and Taxes Dept: Well, no taxes in this one, but some death. My long term pal Roger Armstrong… who wrote the Japanese scene reports for MRR when I was the zine’s bad guy there… has bit the dust... a motorcycle crash. I visited Roger in Arizona where he lived with his son and Hiromi his Japanese wife. We kept in touch on facebook regularly and with a nengajou. (Look it up!) Roger’s wife answered this year’s nengajou with a “passed away last month” card. Who’s next?

→ Talk about Hol(e)y Dept: Uexpress reports South Korean model “Angel Box Girl”, is being prosecuted for obscene exposure. In Seoul and Gangnam, Angel walked through the streets wearing a large cardboard box with holes for her arms and legs -- plus two more in an unnamed place. She invited strangers to put their hands into those extra holes to grope around. She attracted large crowds that police were called to disperse. "It's freedom of expression," she said.
             “My kind of freedom” I’d say.

→ Irony Dept: I’ve become fascinated by the AI program Aria, that comes packaged with the Opera Internet Browser. It quickly answers questions without stupid weblinks that have nothing to do with those questions. So I asked Aria what country has the highest percentage of atheists. Here’s what she said:
The Czech Republic is often cited as the country with the highest percentage of atheists in the world. According to various surveys and studies, a significant portion of the Czech population identifies as atheist or non-religious. I wonder if they all think God is this old man who lives in the clouds and who would fall down if he really existed.

LINK TRADE DEPARTMENT:

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:

My new pal Trey Mayhem sent me a great letter and some porno email pix. He’s got a blog that’s connected to his label Murder and Mayhem records. You can see the blog here.

My long-time friend Sid Yiddish appears on a YouTube DatingGame-like video. Guess who wins the bachelorette!

Here’s Richard Goldberg: goldberg.wordpress.com

Poetry and humor fans will like Justin Martin in The Latency

And my friend Mike R has a nice site with recipe hits from the past! (He cooked for me once... great stuff.) Check out Yesterday's Recipes.

And here's one by a member of ANTI-SEEN... a tour diary of sorts.

Andy Shelton has an interesting blog here.

Savage Hippie is a guy who has been YouTubing for a long time. Our opinions largely overlap... but he complains that I'm a Communist. I'm not! I'm a communist.

Chris Stecher publishes a zine called PRECIS. You can see the back issue links there... and he promises a new issue soon.

George Fertakis has a very nice graphics-heavy blog... with music and books featured prominently. If there’s no link here (I can’t find it temporarily), then Google… er… Duckduckgo him for information.

And my long-term pal Sid Yiddish contributes with his Mishegas Master Blog.

And connect to TRUST Zine, a long-running German punk zine… that STILL PRINTS!!! Yeah, they have a website too… of course! It’s here.

Here are a couple video links.

This from Jon Cox https://squelchchamber1.bandcamp.com/album/down-so-low

And this one from my very long-time friend Roger Armstrong, whose death you read about in this blog:.

Jim Testa moved his long running zine, Jersey Beat, to the blogosphere awhile back. You can read it here. Jim also recommended a kind of unique album… in a style you don’t see to much of these days… or any days. Neo-Hassidic Rock Opera. You can stream the album here.

Kyle Nonneman is in prison in Portland. At least he can’t be kidnapped by the secret police… I think. I post his blog for him, he can’t do it from the klink. Lots of stuff about noise metal… and some very weird politics that will either fascinate or repulse you… or both. It’s hard (and costs money) to send him email. So. If you remember how to write a letter… send him one at: Kyle Nonneman, #16534211, Snake River Correctional Institution, 777 Stanton Blvd Ontario OR 97914-8335

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

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

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