Fear and Sadness in New York and Nairobi July 2025

 

Tuesday July 1, 2025

Fear and Sadness in New York and Nairobi

   

You’re STILL Wrong:

Mykel's

July 2025 Blog/Column

Fear and Sadness in New York and Nairobi

[Much of this post has previously been uploaded to facebook…. though in a different form.]

When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.

                                    – William Shakespeare

Oh the piercing sadness of life in the midst of its ordinariness!

                                    – Iris Murdoch

When you're happy you enjoy the music, but when you're sad you understand the lyrics.

                                    – Frank Ocean

I sit now in the library … my facebook notes downloaded to my travel computer. At first I can’t connect to the internet… I bring it to a very librarian-looking librarian.

“Sorry, I don’t know what’s wrong,” she tells me. “Maybe you should try shutting it off and turning it on again.” Ah, the universal answer to every problem in 2025… except this one.

“It doesn’t work,” I tell her.

“Maybe if you try a different floor.” she says.

I go downstairs to the more library-looking library. The librarian there is a younger, more tech-looking guy... sexier than the prissy woman upstairs.

“I can’t connect to the Internet,” I tell him.

“Let me take a look,” he offers, touching a few keys, watching the screen change. Those concentric curved lines that signal you’re connected appear in the taskbar.

“Thanks,” I say to him. “Wanna go out for a drink?”

That last quote is a lie.

But that’s what writers do. We lie. In fiction, it’s all a lie… or at least 90% with some real-life events, twisted to fit-in. For fiction writers, writing is show biz.

For me, unless I say otherwise, what I tell you is “true” although I might touch it up as needed. You know, zip up an open fly, make the weather rainy when it was only foggy, crowd an empty room with strangers. But the important stuff is true.

Up until June 16, my saddest (non-death) NY experience was in talking with a Korean-American friend. This was about 10 years ago. He was in his late 20s... early 30s maybe. We’re sitting in a secret bar, upstairs over The Every Day Gourmet, a Korean deli on Lexington Ave.

"So, how you doin', Kim." I ask him.

He looks at me and squints slightly, "You know Mykel," he says, "whenever I look into a mirror, I hate what I see. I want to just kill myself."

"Huh?" I say, "You're a good-lookin' guy. You got a great smile. I think you just found a bad mirror."

"You don't get it," he says. "It doesn't matter that I'm a native speaker... that I'm a native New Yorker. I’ve been here my whole life. Still, people.... speak..... to.... me.... like....this. Like .... I .... can't ,.. understand… what… they’re… saying. My English is better than theirs."

He points to his face... his chin actually. "It's this face! This face makes me an outsider. Someone they have to adjust to. This face says ASIAN... not American. I hate this face"

I feel my eyes tear. And I buy him another HITE, the Korean beer most gringos don’t know about.

I don't sleep at all well that night.

And now tonight. At about 8, there is the loud whir of a helicopter outside. It sounds like a dozen of 'em, but there’s only one. I go out to see what's happening. I walk until I'm standing directly beneath the noisy beast. I see nothing unusual on the street or any street.

"It's been there for an hour," says a woman passing me. "I don't know what it is. There’s nothing going on here.”

I take a picture of the helicopter. It flies away... like it’s afraid of my camera.  

I head for home. On the way back, I pass Matthew, one of my many homeless friends. It looks like he's in a new wheelchair. We talk a bit. I can see he is sliding down in the chair and doesn't have the leg-strength to push himself up.

“Still getting used to the new chair?” I ask him.

“Yeah, Mykel,” he answers, “It doesn’t have the give of the last one, and the tilt of the seat is all wrong. Could you help me sit up?”

I reach under one of his arms in an effort to pull him up. But all 5'3" of my 75 year old self aren't strong enough to move him. I try to stop a very macho looking 20-something who is walking past us on the sidewalk.

"Excuse me," I say. "Could you help me pull my friend up in his wheelchair?"

He walks right past, as if I'm not there, not even looking at us. I wait for another tough-looking guy. In a couple minutes there is one, with a small gang of maybe NYU students. "Could you help us?" I ask. "We don't want money. Just help straightening..." He and his friends walk past just like the last one... as if we're not there.

The third time, I'm on the edge. How can people be so cruel? How can they just pass by a call for help? It would take less than a minute. Not cost a cent. One guy in a wheelchair and one little old man... what danger could there be?

This guy is with another tough-looking friend. They could easily pull Matthew up to a sitting position. "Excuse me, could you help me pull....." The pair walks right past. Not even a glance. Matthew shrugs. I shout after them when they pass.

"I hope you die!" I shout.

One of the guys turns to look at me and then quickly turns back. Their pace quickens.

"Don't Mykel," says Matthew, "that's how people are these days. Especially young people."

"But... but... this is New York!" I tell him. "That doesn't happen."

Matthew shrugs.

FLASH FROM SADNESS TO FEAR IN KENYA: It’s a story that needs context. My month in Kenya was exciting. Wonderful. Smiling. Making friends. Sometimes I was surprised. Sometimes just annoyed. But only once was I afraid. That’s what I’ll talk about now… as this blog isn’t a bundle of cheer.

I’ve just returned from a trip to the Kenyan countryside. I was in Nakuru with my Kenyan pal, Albert. We spent 3 nights there, including a great trip to the local national park. Albert had to go home to tend to his animals and his blogging. I had to go back to Nairobi.

Albert got me on the bus. There was one spare seat among the students from a girl’s school returning from a class trip. Except for the bus driver, I was the only guy on the bus.

It’s a 4 hour trip. We all get out in a bus parking lot in Nairobi. I walk to a shady place just outside the parking lot. I need the shade to see my phone screen and a location where the Uber driver can pick me up.

I'm followed by this annoying half-drunk wearing a bus conductor's hat. I'll refer to him from now on as "Capman."

I turn toward a small copse of trees to focus maximum shade on my phone, Capman taps me on the shoulder.

"What are you doing?" he asks.

"Trying to call an uber," I tell him. 

He tugs my sleeve. I follow him to a car with a t-shirted driver standing outside of it. 

"Here is an uber," says Capman. "Just tell him where you want to go."

"No thanks," I answer. "If I order in the app, I don't have to pay until i get back to New York." 

This, of course, is a lie. The fees are deducted right away from my Paypal account, but that's too much to explain. 

"Just let me use the app," I continue. "The uber will come."

I turn my back on him and find that the shade is now gone. The sun has risen and destroyed it. I move to another shady spot. Capman follows me. 

"Leave me alone!" I say in a probably too loud and aggressive voice. 

He moves slightly forward and I turn my back on him and order the uber through the app. The app responds that the driver will appear "in 3 minutes,” at the agreed on pick-up location."

"I have a car coming," I tell Capman. "License KDD5074, white Toyota." 

I show him my phone. 

"Oh," says Capman, "it looks like he'll come across the street (a crowded highway). We should go to meet him."

"I'll find him." I say. "Please leave me alone."

He doesn't.

About 10 minutes later, I get an uber message. "I'm here. Where are you?"

"I'm right outside the EasyCoach parking lot," I text back. "White guy in a black t-shirt."

"I'm right behind you," comes the return message.

Capman is looking over my shoulder. He disappears and comes back, again, pulling on my sleeve. 

I follow him because I have no other choice. He takes me a few cars back on the street to a driver, tall wearing a pink shirt. 

"You looking for Mykel?" I ask.

He nods. I get in the car and the driver gets in the car. Capman leans in the open window. 

"I helped you so much," he says. "You should pay me."

"No!" I shout back, and roll up the window.

"Leave now," I tell the driver. "The guy's an asshole. I'll give you 200ksh (Kenyan Shillings) extra in cash if you leave."

Capman shouts something to me... in Swahili. 

"He said he will kill you," the driver tells me. 

And we're off. 

At least we'll be going to the other side of town. I figure the odds are 1 in 5,000,000 that Capman will find me in this city. I'm not very worried. Fat chance he'll get ahold of me.

When we arrive at my Couchsurfing home, I pull out my wallet to pay the promised 200. I'm shocked to find there are only 2 1000ksh bills in the wallet. Earlier there were 9. Was I robbed? Unlikely, since the wallet is chained to my belt. Somehow, I spent the money without realizing it... yet it seems wrong.

"All I have is this thousand," I tell the driver, handing him one of the two bills. "I hope you have change."

"I have no change," he says. "Give me the thousand and I will get change from the fruit-seller on the corner."

He closes the door and walks to the fruit-seller... showing him the 1000ksh bill. I can see the seller shake his head. The driver returns to the car, obviously pissed off. He hands the bill back to me.

"The man has no change," he tells me.

"I'll add the money to your tip," I tell him, pointing to the app.

I can tell he's not pleased. I shrug, and get out of the uber. The driver drives off. Then it occurs to me the driver and Capman probably know each other. He will return to Capman and the latter will learn where I'm living in Nairobi.

"Living" may be a too-soon used phrase. Now, both the driver and Capman have a reason for revenge. And they know exactly where to find me.

Late Note: With my Uber experience… my fear was undeserved. But, speaking of fear, my Kenyan friends still ask me about coming to the US. They all want to work here. I try to dissuade them, warning them that they could be grabbed off the street and shipped to El Salvador. It makes me even sadder.

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]

→This one is double BALLS dept: Hats (pants?) off to Nezza for singing the US National Anthem IN SPANISH at a ballgame during the LA ICE war. Even after she was warned to ‘sing in English,” she defied the warning. She certainly gets 20 punk points for that. But wait, there’s more. Team management could have banned her from the stadium, issued a statement saying they “reject the rudeness,” apologized to their fans… but they didn’t do any of that. They just shrugged and went on tacitly supporting free speech… and free song. They get ten points for that.

→ Speaking of sadness dept: At the start of this post I relayed some sad events in my recent life. People who know me, know that I call myself a Trump agnostic. While most of his actions are awful, I have to give him credit with talking to the enemy. He was the first president to cross the DMZ and speak to “the other side” in Korea. He had phone conversations with Putin. Those are things to be admired. But one of his saddest, most pride-defeating actions was the installment of English as the official language of the US. Only 4 countries now have no official language. Mexico, Australia, Eritrea, and surprisingly, The United Kingdom. The tyranny of English here makes me as sad as a Korean who hates his face. The Eritrean constitution specifically declares that all languages are equal—thus, Eritrea has no official language. I think I’m moving to Eritrea wherever the hell that is.

→ More incentive to move dept: My first trip to Europe was in 1970… when I did my Beloit College foreign service job in London. I got an (unpaid) job there writing for FREEDOM, an anarchist newspaper. This was during the Vietnam war, where the US government was burning people alive in Saigon. I saw several American visitors to the UK with Canadian flags sewn to their denim jackets. I had mixed feelings about that. Anti-Canadian-flag was that they’re not showing people that Americans can still be American and oppose the war. Pro-Canadian flag was people rejecting the US and showing that those stars and stripes do not represent all of us. After just supplying the bombs, we’ve “progressed” to actually dropping them on people who attacked no one! I wonder if those flag patches will be making a comeback in 2025.

See you in hell (redux),

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.

AFRICAN LINKS:

My friend who told me about samosa meat, and who may be the smartest guy in Nairobi, is Patrick Wafula Wanyama, an English teacher who writes haiku in Swahili. He’s also an advocate for his school in “the slums of Nairobi” and has a GoFundMe to help buy computers for classroom use. Here’s a link to his GoFundMe page. Give him some money.

Albert aka Alberto Melody is the reason I went to Kenya. We met on facebook a couple years ago. He has a blog you should take a look at: Albertomelody.blogspot.com. Tell him Mykel sent ya.

Here's some non-African stuff:

Sid Yiddish sent me this link to all his videos. It’s a great place to start, especially if you don’t know him.

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’Brien 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. god@mykelboard.com

Sad Song: You're Still Wrong: Mykel's October Blog

 

A Sad Song: You're Still Wrong: Mykel's  October Blog

 

You’re STILL Wrong

or

Mykel's 

October 2021 Blog/Column 

A Sad Song

by Mykel Board

There are two types of people in the world: those who prefer to be sad among others, and those who prefer to be sad alone. 

                                                                                  --Nicole Krauss

Staring at my picture book, she looks like Mary, Queen of Scots.

She seemed very regal to me, just goes to show how wrong you can be. I'm gonna stop wastin' my time. Somebody else would have broken both of her arms. Sad song, sad song. Sad song, sad song.

                                                          --Lou Reed

The way sadness works is one of the strange riddles of the world. If you are stricken with a great sadness, you may feel as if you have been set aflame, not only because of the enormous pain but also because your sadness may spread over your life, like smoke from an enormous fire.

                       – Lemony Snicket

It starts in that no man’s land between your belly and your chest. It’s a pressure… something on your diaphragm. You struggle to breathe...  your chest rises and falls in deep sighs. Slowly it creeps up… deep in the back of your throat… the spider in the old lady who swallowed a fly… then you feel it in your nose… your eyes… those little parts of your eyes closest to each other… wet… they fill ever more... soon you can’t see… you squeeze your eyelids shut... tears pour out... dripping down the side of your face… You look to the right and left to see if anyone’s watching you… Your nose runs. You wipe the tears… the snot… on your sleeve.

Sadness is inexorably… though understandably… linked with death. People cry when someone close to them dies. It’s the same everywhere. 

I ask my Kenyan pal, Albert, if men cry in Kenya. He says, “Sure, men cry when someone dies. It’s normal.”

Sometimes, we’re sad when people we’ve never met… but have admired… die. I cried when Thurman Munson died. I’ll cry when Jimmy Carter dies. Okay, got that. 

But there’s a kind of sadness that’s not about death. A kind of sadness that doesn’t reach up the throat… doesn’t end in the nose or the eyes... a kind of sadness that is like a giant press, squeezing your lungs… squeezing the air out of you… making you feel like shit for no reason except the sadness itself. 

FLASH TO THE SECRET KOREAN BAR; It’s above a deli on the corner. There are no signs for it… you just have to know it’s there. You enter through the deli, walk up the unmarked staircase in the back and POW! There you are. 

I’m walking up those stairs right now. 

“Yeoboseyo!,” I shout from below. It’s Hello in Korean, but only for answering the phone... never as an in-person greeting… except by me. 

“Mykel!” shouts Jenny from upstairs… behind the bar. 

“How’d you know?” I shout back. 

When I get upstairs, Jenny has poured me a mug of Hite beer. She pushes it over the bar to me as I sit in front of her. 

Andy, an ABK (American Born Korean), hangs out in the bar and is a friend. 

“Andy,” I shout at him from the other side of the room. “Come and sit next to me. We’ll talk. Have a Hite!”

Andy sits on the next stool. “Mykel,” he says, “nice to see ya! I’ve been feeling like shit for the past week.”

“I hope I didn’t make it worse,” I tell him. 

It takes him a second. Then he laughs. 

“How’s the deli job?” I ask. He works at a Korean deli, chopping salad, preparing the take-it-weigh-it-and-pay-it food that Korean delis invented. 

“You know, chop chop,” he says, his right hand making a fake karate move. “So close to Grand Central, lots of tourists and businessmen. Not my favorite people.”

I talk to the bartender, “Jenny,” I say, “give Andy a Hite on me.” 

She pours him a beer. “Mong chung eeee” we say in a fake toast. (It actually means You Moron!) 

“You look unhappy,” I tell him. “Did something happen today?” 

“Something happens every day, Mykel,” says Andy. “When I look in the mirror, I feel like shit. I want to cry. It’s….”

“Huh?” I say, nearly choking on the beer, “You’re a smart, good-looking guy. I wish I saw what you see when I looked in the mirror.”

He smiles halfheartedly… and puts the tips of his index fingers at the edges of his eyes. 

“See these? Slanty eyes!” he says. 

“Come on,” I say, “you speak perfect English… Well, I mean you tawk like a New Yawka.”

He looks at me… very close… fixing his eyes on mine. Then he says… very slowly and very LOUD.

“WHEN… PEOPLE... SEE... ME... THEY... TALK... LIKE... THIS... LOUD... AND... VERRRRRRY…. SLLOOOW. THEY... EXPECT... I... CAN’T... UNDERSTAND…” He speaks, staring directly into my eyes projecting  profound pathos.

“But…” I start.

“You don’t get it, Mykel,” he says. “I know you. Sometimes you play the outsider, the one who never fits… but you CAN fit if you want. I have no choice… I’m ALWAYS the outsider… always the foreigner… no matter how American I am.”

He slaps his own cheek. “I hate my face. I hate being born this way. And sometimes it feels worse than ever...”

I feel a giant press, squeezing my lungs… squeezing the air out… making me feel like shit for no reason except the sadness itself. 

My adventure with Andy took place at least 15 years ago. But all these years later, the sadness still creeps up on me when I think about it.

FLASH TO NOW… RECENTLY: TVs, newspapers… The New York press is filled with… stop the press. A restaurant worker is assaulted… cellphone videos prove it… punches traded… three against one… all girls… a catfight. 

What happened? The worker politely asked for COVID vaccine proof. It’s required by law, you know… can’t eat inside a restaurant without your Covid-card. And for that she gets punched? For that, she’s wounded and has to be saved by patrons pulling the evil Texans off the helpless young lady. 

New Yorkers know that Texans are violent anti-vaxxers who don’t care if the whole world comes down with the plague. Just like them to attack a helpless girl only following the law… doing her job. 

It’s all too pat. The video shows the attackers are black women. The attackee is invisible. Facebook is alive with posts… those evil Texans. Not only do they want to make the rest of us sick with their no-vaxxing, but they attack a hostess who’s just doing her job. 

The news always describes the attackers as Texans. The minions… especially the New York minions… some of the most conformist people in the world… build on the anti-Texas outrage. Ted Cruz… Trump supporters… No respect for other humans... They only love guns and their version of God. 

Looking at the rage in the three black women… looking at the reports with no comments from the attacking side… Seems as clear as a knee on the neck that there’s an unreported racial side to this. 

How could you say that Mykel? They’re from Texas. They just want to kill people… unless those people haven’t been born yet, you know, fetuses… They’re the only ones with a right to life… get it? haw haw haw.

BLEEP! BLEEP! BLEEP! The news unfolds… the waitress wasn’t white. She was Asian. The attackers were all vaccinated. They were being pestered a SECOND time to show their proof… Did someone else’s cellphone catch the word Niggers among the crowd… the staff? 

Yes, I was right. I should be happy. I should be shouting I TOLD YOU SO from the top of the Empire State Building… dancing naked with a suck this you dumb New Yorkers sign hanging from my penis. 

But I don’t feel that way at all. Instead, I struggle to breathe...  my chest rises and falls in deep sighs. Slowly it creeps up… deep in the back of my throat… Being right makes me sad. The news: all lies… the people… my friends… true believers of those lies. So sad.

Some movies are called tear-jerkers. Usually chick flicks, they’re structured to make the viewer cry. I remember one called Once Were Warriors… a New Zealand story about the Maori. I cried at that one and then was pissed off at myself for being manipulated into tears. Now that I think back on the movie, I realize I cried from the film structure, not from sadness… like I laugh at Moe, Larry and Curly. 

Tears can come from pain, laughter, anger, frustration… as well as sadness. Sadness can only come from reality… from the realization that something is really wrong. 

There are people in the world who don’t feel the sadness…. who aren’t aware of the pitiable pain of our lives… who watch the TV news and are outraged… but not saddened. That, in itself, is sad. 

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]

–> The Way Out dept: 

Seems to me, when the government requires creative people to be creative for those they don’t like, the answer is to do lousy or offensive work. This web designer doesn’t like homosexuals? Ok, make a website where every click on every link will bring you to queerbait.com. You want to prove a point by hiring someone who doesn’t approve of you? Have your gay wedding cake with an icing picture of a little boy impaled on a devil-dick. It’d serve you right.

–> My kinda school outing dept: Mass Live reports: Students in Boston rode a party bus, complete with a stripper pole and neon lights, on a school field trip. Why? There’s a national school bus driver shortage. They have to take what they can get from private companies.

Eleventh grade Language teacher, Jim Mayers tweeted about the experience on Sept. 17.

“It is a funny story, but there actually is a real bus shortage and it speaks to major flaws in our education system,” said Mayers. “This in no way is a reflection of anyone involved in planning the trip. We were trying to have a fun day with the kids and that’s exactly what happened.”

I say: the only way to top “a fun day with kids” in a stripper bus with poles and neon… is to have actual strippers. 

–> Rising rents dept: The LA Times reports that a family owned crypt with neighbors Hugh Hefner and Marilyn Monroe is taking bids for a luxury deathplace. Bidding starts at $2 million for the no-bedroom… er… flat. 

–> Shaving lifespan dept: CNN tells of published research that says that eating a single hot dog can take 36 minutes off your lifespan. Joey Chestnut, one of my few heroes, has won the Coney Island Hot Dog Eating Contest for the past several years. He estimates he’s eaten more than 19,000 hot dogs. He’s not dead yet, but the clock is ticking faster than for most people. If he’s buried next to Hugh Hefner, I might visit him one of these days. 

-->Speaking of Death Dept: I just wanted to give a sad nod to the death of Michael Evans... long time ARTLESS drummer and drummer around town (God Is My Co-Pilote, False Prophets, and a ton of others). One of the few people who switched easily from punk to avante garde to jazz to Afro-Caribbean... and just a great guy. 

See you in hell, redux, but I expect Evans will not be there to greet us. He's jamming with Ginger Baker.

MB

LINK TRADE DEPARTMENT:

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

Here's a start:

Here’s Richard Goldberg: goldberg.wordpress.com

Poetry and humor fans will like Justin Martin in The Latency

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

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

Andy Shelton has an interesting blog here.

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

Chris Stecher publishes a zine called PRECIS. You can see the back issue links here... 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's a few video links.

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

And this one from my very long-time friend Roger Armstrong. 

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

Kyle Nonneman is in prison in Portland. At least he can’t be kidnapped by the secret police… I think. I post his blog for him, he can’t do it from the klink. Lots of stuff about noise metal… and some very weird politics that will either fascinate or repulse you… or both. 

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

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

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

You're STILL Wrong, Mykel's Sept 2020 Blog #1 or INC. YOU!

 YOU'RE STILL WRONG.. 

MYKEL'S SEPT. 2020 BLOG

VOLUME 1

OR

INC YOU!

by Mykel Board

Think about George Orwell's two-minutes hate from the novel '1984' and how that left everyone sort of exhausted and able to live their boring humdrum lives. If our lives are going to continue being unfulfilled and boring, perhaps we do need some sort of short-term violent chaos incorporated into them, to make them more palatable. --Chuck Palahniuk

Bebop and hip-hop, in so many ways, they're connected. A lot of rappers remind me so much of bebop guys in terms of improvisation, beats and rhymes. My dream is to see hip-hop incorporated in education. You've got the youth of the world in the palm of your hand. --Quincy Jones

Once upon a time, there was a king who had a ruby ring… but the ruby was scratched. A single line… down the middle of the jewel. The king called on all the grinders and polishers in the kingdom to remove the scratch. None could do it. An etcher approached the king. “I can fix your jewel,” he said. The king shrugged. No one else could do anything. What’s to lose? The etcher etched a rose into the ruby. The scratch became the stem of the rose. – Fairy tale told me more than once by my one-armed father.

Maybe it’s the Jew in me. Whenever I get one of those mailings for a FREE SUBSCRIPTION to anything… as long as I don’t have to pay “a fee” or “for postage and handling”… I’m there!

Flash to 1975. I’m living in my new apartment on 90^th Street on the Upper East Side. The Ruppert Beer Brewery on Third Ave disappeared ten years ago. A few ugly new buildings appeared in the rubble. The neighborhood is “changing.” I live in a railroad flat that used to house brewery workers. These tenements are called railroad flats because the rooms are all in a row… one into the other... like cars on a train…no hallway. You just go through... room to room.. until you get to yours.

In the mail… in a kind of corporate hip envelope… comes an offer to subscribe to INC. magazine. It seems like it’s written for budding entrepreneurs. I’m as budding as a blade, as entrepreneurial as Mahatma Gandhi. I am slightly more Jewish than Gandhi… and it’s 6 months FREE!

I send in my Sure, sign me up reply card… and before I know it, I get this magazine of people whose American dream is an office with big windows and nothing on the walls.

I can’t tell you one thing I read in that magazine. I can’t give you an iota of an idea inspired by that magazine… but I come back to it now, because I’ve come to LOVE the idea of incorporate.

On my couch for a month is Gavin Mendonca. We met in Guyana… where he’s from. Gavin has been touring the jungles of Guyana to learn indigenous music and INCORPORATE it into rock. He calls it Creole Rock.

It’s a shake and bake of everything together. Sure there are punk purist. Race purists. Libertarian purists. Homo and het purists. And those guys are missing out on something… something? Everything!

[Aside] For me, jazz is like toenails on a blackboard. I’m not talking about Dixieland Jazz with clarinets blowing music from old cartoons. That stuff makes me smile. I love it.

I’m talking about a quartet where every instrument is playing a different non-tune… they fight each other for a while… then one instrument screeches a solo… the audience applauds… then another instrument screeches a solo… more applause… then they fight each other with rising volume, until it’s over… and the audience applauds even more loudly.

I’d rather listen to Josh Groban than listen to that.

FLASH TO RIGHT NOW: Here I am, at a free (okay, okay, I know) outdoor concert. Locals from the neighborhood sit on folding chairs set up in front of a makeshift stage. A little boy, about 6 years old, and his sister, about two years older, run frantically back and forth in front of the stage as little kids are wont to do.

The group I came to see plays Zimbabwean music, with authentic African instruments… all the players are white. They’re quite amazing. Nora, the woman who invited me, has spent a long time in Africa learning the music and the culture. I love the way it looks... like Elvis singing “that black music.”

After them, come a jazz ensemble: guitar, synth, conga drum, bass. As they play, the little kids stop running back and forth. They look at the musicians on the stage. They freeze for a bit, then they walk. Not wondering, but heading right for the stage.

The boy stops in front of the drummer… a big black guy with a huge chest and arms like baobab trees. The boy watches him pounding a rhythm on the edge of the drum. Then the kid starts pounding… whacking away… on the other edge of the drum. I wait for someone from the audience to pick the kid up and take him off stage. No one does. Then, I wait for the drummer to brush the kid aside, maybe using a leg to push him away. It doesn’t happen. Slowly, the band incorporates the kid’s wild drumming into what they are playing.

Meanwhile, his sister is fascinated by the guitar. She sits in front of the guitar player, and watches him screech up and down on the fretboard. Occasionally, the musician steps on a pedal to add distortion, wah wah or some other effect. The foot motion draws the attention of the little girl. She watches the dance of the pedals. Then she reaches for the little knobs on those pedals… and turns them…. playing with them like they’re a toy. Turning one, twisting another, doing two at one time.

Does someone from the audience come to claim the little monster? Does the guitar player use her pedal foot to kick away the juvenile vermin? You guessed it. No! The guitar player and the entire band incorporate the freakish sounds into what they’re playing. They work around it... building on it... using it. I’ve never seen anything like it.

When they finish, I come away still not liking the sound of jazz… but loving the hell out of INCORPORATION.

- 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

→ Guyanese Incorporation Dept: You can hear some of Gavin’s fine work at these places. First, a Kaieteur Falls video where he sings in Patamona, an indigenous language. Then, a YouTuber with Sugar Cane, a multi Caribbean punkrock band incorporating everything! And finally a mixed version of a traditional Guyanese folk song.

→ My kind of humor dept: Reuters reports that ever since Covid-19 reached Cuba, a tall cardboard box with arms and legs totters around a Havana suburb, popping into the bakery or butchers, or browsing the newspaper stand.

This is Feridia Rojas, 82, who decided to build and wear mobile housing to shield herself from the virus.

“I am at home, what about you?” reads a message on her box, a nod to Cuba’s government slogan “Stay at home.”
82 years old???? Yes! It gives me hope.

→ Duh dept: The Washington DC health website has a special page on sex during the panic. On the page they list various sex acts and how they can spread the disease. Among their tips:

• Kissing can pass COVID-19. Consider not kissing anyone you do not know or who you are not sure has been isolated for 14 days.

• Rimming, or any sexual activity that involves putting the mouth on the butt/anus, might pass COVID-19. The virus has been found in feces.

• Condoms and dental dams may reduce contact with saliva or feces during oral or anal sex.

• masturbation is always safe sex.

Apparently, these guys don’t cruise the internet enough. You can read the whole cringeworthy report here. Masturbation ISN’T always safe sex.


 

--See you in hell!

LINK TRADE DEPARTMENT:

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

Here's a start:

Here’s Richard Goldberg: goldberg.wordpress.com

Poetry and humor fans will like Justin Martin in The Latency

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

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

Andy Shelton has an interesting blog here.

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

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

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

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

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

Here are a couple video links.

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

And this one from my very long-time friend Roger Armstrong.

Kyle Nonneman is in prison in Portland. At least he can’t be kidnapped by the secret police… I think. I post his blog for him, he can’t do it from the klink. Lots of stuff about noise metal… and some very weird politics that will either fascinate or repulse you… or both.

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

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