Chill! or Mykel's Post MRR Column no 47

YOU'RE STILL WRONG

POST MRR COLUMNS

POST MRR COLUMN NUMBER 47

CHILL!

by Mykel Board

No great theater director ever said to an actor, “Okay, this scene calls for some real emotion, now go out there and give me lots of offendedness.”...If I'm sad, I cry. If I'm happy, I laugh. If I'm offended, what do I do, state in a clear and sober voice that I am offended, then walk away in a huff so that I can write a letter to the mayor?

We take offense at chewing with one's mouth open as well as, say, using an ethnic slur. While I like to think that it takes a lot to offend me, I don't personally believe people that people shouldn't feel offended. I just wonder what the context is. Can one be equally offended by someone's elbows being on the dinner table, senseless police shootings and the fact that Seahawks threw the ball on second and one?

– Paul Beatty

SCENE ONE: Central Park, NYC August 15, 2004. Dawn S is walking through the park with her seeing-eye dog. It's a hot day in August... New York Summer. One of the few ways of getting out of the heat... without the electrical expense of air conditioning... a walk in the park. The trees... the reservoir... the lack of concrete... The park is a respite from the city heat.

Dennis, the seeing-eye dog, is a yellow lab. A big lumbering beast... half-dog half-yeti... bold... but friendly to those who know him. Dawn and Dennis are on that diagonal path that leads from the 59^th street fountain north to the lake. Dawn sits on a bench just where the path begins. Dennis sits on the path itself. After a few minutes, Dawn stands to walk on.

Sensing the general direction, Dawn tells Dennis, “Go!”

The dog guides her north.

In less than 100 yards, Dawn feels a tap on her should. She looks up... into space, as she doesn't know where the tap came from.

“Excuse me?” she says.

“You should take your dog inside,” comes a very austere-- animal-rights-sounding female voice... somewhere to her left. “Your dog should not be outside in this weather.”

“I'm just enjoying the fresh air and vegetation,” answers Dawn.

“But you can't tell how hot it is,” returns the voice. “You're blind.”

SCENE TWO: Los Angeles sometime last year: The local Chinese community is becoming so used to the stereotype Chinese driver that they made stickers... like those caution signs you see on scary looking metal boxes.

As you might guess, it isn't long before the complaints come. That sign is racist, offensive. It should be banned... and the first and main complainers? Offended White people.

SCENE THREE: Bill Maher answers a call to work in the field in Nebraska. “Work in the fields? Senator, I’m a house nigger.”

There are outraged calls for his firing. Bang! He apologizes for offending. Meanwhile, Paul Beatty, the guy I quoted at the beginning of this column, wins the Man Booker Prize (like a British Pulitzer) for a book with more mentions of nigger than a Klan rally... or a Hip Hop concert.

SCENE FOUR: Gyu-Kaku Japanese Barbecue May 18, 2017. It's my friend Mei's birthday. We're seated at a long table with two grills built in. While grilling... I talk to my friends about RAPEMAN, the notorious Japanese comic that is actually a hilarious parody of superheroes.

By day, Rapeman is a Junior Highschool teacher-- his Clark Kent identity. By night, he's a caped crusader (from the waist up)... raping the bad girls to turn them good. Rapeman is for hire, and the money is used in local charities... especially an orphanage.

“Good deeds through penetration,” is his motto.

I have a copy of the manga with me. I pass it around to the curious Japanese who have never seen one before. (I pride myself in knowing more about Japanese culture-- traditional and popular-- than most Japanese know.)

Both Americans and Japanese look at it with curiosity... except Sadako (name changed to protect the guilty). She glances at the book and throws it across the table. “How many times have you been afraid you were going to be raped?” she asks me.

I'm shocked. This is a satire... a parody making fun of superheroes. It isn't about rape. I'm so taken aback I bullshit... Well, that's not true... It doesn't take a whole lot to get me to bullshit.

“When I was in the Cub Scouts,” I lie, “there was this patrol leader... and in Albania... when I was kidnapped.”

“Well, women have to face this every day,” she says. “It's not a joke to us. You're saying it's okay to rape people. You're giving permission to rape.”

“It's a comic book!” I plead. “Just a comic book. I'm not giving permission for anything. It's just a wild Japanese comic book unimaginable in the Christian west.”

“And I'm offended,” she continues, “I'm offended for two reasons. I'm offended because you joke about rape... and I'm offended because you look at Japanese people as little jokes. Oh how cute, that wacky culture. You look down on us.”

“What?” I'm too shocked to say, “I LOVE Japanese culture. I LOVE Japanese things. I love Japanese movies, manga, haiku, screen painting. I have more Japanese friends than I have American friends.”

People who know me know I believe Japanese culture is one of the greatest cultures in the world. Certainly greater than anything American culture has to offer (except maybe rock'n'roll).

Yes, part of the reason I love the culture is that they're free of the burdens of Christian (or Jewish) guilt and can explore a kind of wild side that would be completely out-of-bounds for Americans... It's American culture I look down on... not Japanese culture. Actually, I'm 5” 3” tall. I don't look down on ANYONE!

But she's offended... she throws $10 on the table (not in the barbecue pit)... and walks out.

Ok, Mykel. We know the routine. You take some shit from your life... or someone else's life and then tie it all together with some wacky philosophy that connects completely unrelated events as if there were some cosmic order... where things are constructed just to PROVE YOUR POINT. So, what's the point?

The point is CHILL!!!

CHILL!... a wonderful command asking for calm in the midst of self-created hysteria... CHILL... Relax in the midst of offendeditude... CHILL.. Breathe deep instead of getting huffy.

CHILL!

I'm a Jew. I laugh at holocaust jokes.

I'm 5' 3” tall... I sing, Short People Got No Reason to Live.

I'm 72 years old: I smile when people ask me why I'm not dead yet.

Old people texting:

BFF: Best Friend Fainted

BYOT: Bring Your Own Teeth

CBM: Covered by Medicare

FWB: Friend with Beta-blockers

LMDO: Laughing My Dentures Out

GGPBL: Gotta Go, Pacemaker Battery Low!

Even punks are offended... How can that be? Punk was CREATED to be offensive. It's essense is being offensive from Beat on the Brat With a Baseball Bat to Let's Lynch the Landlord.

Nowadays, punks are the most easily offended. Call someone a Pussy and that punk rock girl will throw a Bikini Kill record at your head.

NOT ONLY ARE THEY “sensitive” but they think they know YOUR sensitivity... what you feel and don't feel. What's in your mind... what's behind your motives. They think, with religious fervor... though most are not religious... if only you could realize THE TRUTH... you'd be sensitive in the same way.

That wacky animal rightist thought she knew that a blind person wouldn't realize the day was hot. Their overriding concern with the poor dog, made them completely unaware that there was someone attached to that dog. They were offended by the dog in the heat (though they themselves were comfortable in it), and that huffitude took over all sense of reason.

That sensitive white girl who complained about the Chinese Driver stickers, thought she knew what was in the mind of the Chinaman on the street. Her overriding concern with race and nationality, made her completely unaware that the Chinese themselves were absorbing-- and negating-- a stereotype.

That Japanese girl who accused me of promoting rape and denigrating Japanese culture thought she knew my motives for being so fascinated with Rapeman. Her over-riding concern with nationality and gender made her completely unaware that the point was satire and inventiveness... nothing to do with nationality or gender. She was offended by the comic book (a comic book, for God's sake!), and that huffitude took over all sense of reason.

Sometimes the old cliches are right. Most obviously sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me. If they DO hurt... the hurt is minor, not permanent, and necessary for life in a free world. It's even better to take the words, give 'em a twist in meaning... then claim 'em for yourself. That's what homosexuals did with queer. What the punk band, New York Niggers did with Nigger. What The Hip Nips did with Nip!. If you take a word and make it cool, the word loses its power to hurt you. 

Short? Old? Jew? Egomaniac? Oh yeah. Those words are MINE! I own them. Now let's see you use them against me.

You too (and the world) can learn how to destroy the effects of words with other words... or by taking them in and turning them around.

That takes time... In the meanwhile, calm down! Laugh at yourself. Relax. Learn that making fun is FUN. Give it. Take it.

CHILL!

(What does Nazi Santa give naughty kids for Christmas?

Jews.)

ENDNOTES: [You can contact me by email at god@mykelboard.com. Through the post office: send those... er... private DVDs..or music or zines... or anything else (legal only!) to: Mykel Board, POB 137, New York, NY 10012-0003. If you like my writing, you can be notified when anything new is available by subscribing to the MYKEL'S READERS Yahoo group readmboard-subscribe@yahoogroups.com]

-->Is that a panel in your pocket or are you marginalizing me dept: The University of Michigan was seeking student input about redesigning their hundred year old building.
Anna Wibbelman, former president of Building a Better Michigan, an organization that voices student concerns about university development, stated that “ minority students felt marginalized by the quiet, imposing masculine paneling” found throughout the 100-year-old building.

        Oppressed by quiet... and wood paneling. Pretty sensitive, huh?

-->Meanwhile in Maryland dept: A group of Maryland teachers displayed posters showing white, black, yellow and other colored women working together... and just being friends. School administrators ordered them removed. Why?

       Said the administrators, “They express a negative view of Donald Trump.”

-->Speaking of a crank call of sensitivity dept: Jordan Haskins, a Republican state councilor was sentenced to probation and sex counseling in May after pleading guilty to eight charges arising from two auto accidents in Saginaw, Michigan. Prosecutors said Haskins described "cranking," in which he would remove a vehicle's spark-plug wires to make it "run rough," which supposedly improves his chances for a self-service happy ending. Haskins's lawyer added, "(Cranking) is something I don't think we understand as attorneys."

Wanna bet?

-->Now's your chance dept: The new wiki Censorpedia is looking for input on censorship from all fronts. By government, by school, by crowd, by boycott... any way. Just go and report it... this is something that has been a long time coming. I just hope it doesn't get censored.

-->Keeping the pressure on dept: I want to thank reader George Metesky for suggesting a Bring Back Mykel concerted effort directed at Maximum Rock'n'Roll. He forwarded me an answer to a letter MRR printed where the editors excuse my firing not as censorship for content, but because I “refuse to answer letters in the letters section.”

         That's a lie.

       In any case, please send comments to mrr@maximumrocknroll.com with the subject line: BRING BACK MYKEL. Let me know how they answer. MRR also has a facebook p age. You might want to let them know how you feel.

-end-

If you're interested in my travel writing (not updated recently) check out http://mykelsdiary.blogspot.com/

You can read some of my classics as far back as the 70s at: http://mykelsoldies.blogspot.com/

I also have some random postings including several on how rich people spend their money. Those are at: http:/mykelsclippings.blogspot.com

See you in hell!