I WAS FRAMED! or Mykel's October 2023 Blog/Column

 I Was Framed ... or Mykel's Blog for October

You’re STILL Wrong

or

Mykel's October 2023 Blog/Column 

I Was Framed!    

by Mykel Board

The instrument that measures all other instruments– the human nervous system– has its own laws, and one of them involves always seeing the results one wants to see until and unless something really startles the brain enough to reframe its experiences. --Robert Anton Wilson

Popular authors do not and apparently cannot appreciate the fact that true art is obtainable only by rejecting normality and conventionality in toto, and approaching a theme purged utterly of any usual or preconceived point of view. --Edwin Baird

I think people have to set up little battles. They have to demonize people whom they disagree with or feel threatened by. But it's the ideological framing of the debate that scares me. – Barbara Kruger

It’s slightly pornographic… or could be. Just three fingers... lady’s fingers clearly... but what’s between them? Is that a urethra canal? Could it be the centerfold of a “men’s” magazine? Will the Google gods post this behind a SENSITIVE CONTENT SCREEN? How about if we look at the picture another way? Maybe that can tell us something different about those fingers:

Flash to the motel room: The floor is bloody… The door hangs on one hinge… lopsided as if forced in from the outside… it was.. Lying on the couch is a woman… clothed only in her own blood. Her vacant eyes stare blankly at the ceiling. A man… scruffy… wearing a beat up overcoat... sits on a chair at the desk. On either side of him is a cop. One tall… macho looking.. a strong chin cleanly shaven. Squinting, the disheveled man can read DETECTIVE BASTINI. The other cop is somewhat shlubbier… beer belly just poking over the front of his belt. The name on his badge is not visible to the sitting man.

“You realize this looks pretty bad for you,” says Detective Bastini.

“But officer,” says the disheveled man, “you gotta understand. This was a set-up. I was framed!”

You got it buckaroos! I want to write about FRAMING! How our entire view of the world, of people, of good and bad… right and wrong... is all about framing. And framing is everywhere… what we see out of a window is framed… what we hear on the news… what we listen to in a punk club… what appears in store displays… It’s all framed. White-washing, green-washing, pink-washing, ad-washing, even face- washing… BUILD THOSE FRAMES!

Yeah, I’m going to repeat myself here. I often repeat myself. I often repeat myself. I often repeat myself. I often repeat myself. I often repeat myself. I often repeat myself. I often repeat myself. But in saying what I’ve said before, I’m going to frame it with a frame. Show how you’ve been tricked by what the frame let in the picture and what it kept out.

So says the Google search. I don’t have time to dig further because my stomach is begging for release… Last night was Drink Club and I’m paying for it now. Aaaahrgh! I feel like I’m being fist-fucked from the inside. The pain… the pain… the bathroom… the toilet… sit down… ahh… ahhh… aaahhhhhh! An explosion… splashing down with the force of a space capsule in the ocean. BLOOOF! BLOOF! BLOOOF! Feces-filled water splashes back up... dribbling drip… drip… drip back into the muddy waters below. No, I can’t see it, but I feel it… against both lower cheeks… and the back of my thighs. 

Ecstasy! Poetry in brown! I just sit a bit and enjoy it... closing my eyes to focus on the relief. Then the wipe… the double wipe… the pull up… What’s that? A hard-yet-squishy feel. I again pull down my boxers. A brown stain discolors the top… right near the elastic. A single dingle-berry... hanging by a hair… too high up to reach through the legs… still there. I have to go around the side… grope for it. Aaaah, if only I could pay someone to make sure I’d got the last one before pulling up. A pro to take care of errant hanger-ons… to save my underpants… and my embarrassment at the laundromat. But wait... a dingle-berry remover!!! I’ve created a job! All I need is someone to fill it. Get it? It’s easy to create a job, though likely it’ll be a shitty one. 

It’s the frame! If we only look at jobs… at how many people are employed or can be employed… we mistake the Mona Lisa fingers for the painting. If we frame it as happy people... fulfilled people… people able to live a good life… then Biden’s 6.6 million jobs are meaningless. 

MOST jobs are worthless. They contribute nothing and may do more harm than good. 

That guy sitting at his desk shuffling electrons to buy and sell stock… What does he contribute? The greeter at Walmart... the CEO of a tech corporation... the maitre ‘d at a restaurant… bookkeepers… corporate lawyers… insurance brokers… advertising copy writers… the list never ends. Framing “job creation” instead of “life improvement” skews the equation.

It’s sometime in the late 1970s. Milton Friedman has already won the Nobel Prize for his defense of the crime of capitalism. The local PBS station shows a short series where Friedman explains his theories.

A twenty-something me sits in front of the TV as Friedman walks around the streets of New York, talking to the camera. He passes a beggar.

“It seems cruel,” says Friedman, “but if we don’t support this man… if we don’t give him money… he’ll have to get a job. The state… other working people… will not have to pay for him”

I close my eyes… take a deep breath… wish for the beggar to jump up, slam a lead pipe into the back of Friedman’s head… grab his wallet and take off. “There’s your have to get a job, motherfucker!” And I smile.

I tell this story to my Ayn Rand-loving friends. “No Mykel,” they tell me, “That’s what the police are for. They catch the guy and throw him in jail.”

“Where he’s supported by the state… working people,” I answer.

WORK --more precisely HAVING A JOB-- is something that’s lauded by Communists and Capitalists alike. There’s dignity in having a job. And a gauge of any president’s performance is whether or not he creates FULL EMPLOYMENT! So, destructive and useless jobs are better than no jobs at all. NO THEY AREN’T.

Let’s move the frame. Let’s value the ability to enjoy life. The ability to help others enjoy life. Lets value a smile on a poor man’s face more than a billion dollars in Jeff Bezos’s pocket. If there were no garbagemen, who would take away the garbage?

Who takes it away now? Who removes the banana peels from your kitchen? YOU DO! The garbage is taken away because it needs to be taken away… not because there are garbagemen.

I can hear Literary Device complaining now.

“Forget about garbagemen, Mykel,” she says. “What about doctors? Teachers? Architects? Those things take years of study. Are you going to have everyone be her own doctor?”

“Not quite,” I answer. “But I can tell you that I get paid to be a teacher. It’s my job. I’d do it though, even if it weren’t my job. I love doing it”

There are enough people who love doctoring and teaching doctoring that –job or not– they’d do it. With so many worthless or destructive jobs gone, people will be able to do what they love. Think of all the kids that want to be doctors or firemen or athletes, but end up stock brokers or insurance salesmen as adults. Are they happy wearing their white shirts and ties... spending a third of their lives moving electrons from one computer to the next… I bet MOST people are unhappy in their jobs, especially the useless or harmful ones.

Move that VALUE frame. Value humanity... satisfaction... time... rather than having a job. You’ll get a much nicer picture.

FLASH TO The Every Little Bit Helps frame: I generate a lot of garbage. No, I’m not talking about this blog. I’m talking real, physical stuff. Junkmail… bills (always shredded and thrown out), old magazines, plastic containers from yogurt, deli sandwiches, styrofoam trays from frozen chicken… the list goes on. The only garbage separating I do is pulling out the deposit bottles and cans. I put those in a separate clear plastic bag and leave that outside for the street people who live on bottle and can deposits. Many of them are my friends.

According to Green Matters, only around 9 percent of goods separated for recycling are being recycled. But there’s the frame. If you separate your soup cans from your bleach bottles you’re part of that every little bit. You can go ahead and buy your Campbell’s 12 pack and your Costco size bleach bottle. You’re still doing your part. But if we expand the frame… include the rest of the Mona Lisa... we can see the whole picture.

We can see that there’s a relationship between feeling good about your consumption… and consuming more. It’s okay if I buy so much more than I need. More to throw away…more junk… I RECYCLE… so it’s all right.

NO IT ISN’T! Recycling encourages consumption. Consumption encourages waste (and corporate profits). In this frame, RECYCLING MAKES JUNK. Instead of framing the junk our consumption makes, why not frame the consumption itself? Instead of recycling, why not avoid buying in the first place?

FLASH TO the war in Ukraine. Oh, the bad guys invade. “We” have to help. It’s good guys against bad guys… a typical American frame… cowboy movies… war movies… comic books. The good guys need to defeat the bad guys… the invaders. Send in weapons… train the soldiers… beat the war drums… put up Ukrainian flags. Measure success like in a war movie. CHASE THEM OUT. MAKE THEM DIE. They lose. We win. What can be more American than “Winning isn’t everything… It’s the only thing?”

But let’s use a different frame. Let’s keep score… if score must be kept… a different way. Let’s use a GOLF frame, instead of a comic book frame. In golf, the lowest score wins. So players work hardest at getting the lowest score. How ‘bout if, instead of keeping score by advances and retreats and downed airplanes or destroyed infantry, we count dead people. The fewer dead, the better the situation. So if “we” want to get a good score, we provide negotiators instead of bombs. We offer cash, concessions, trades, to keep the number of dead low. We exchange the frame of winning and losing for one of dying or not dying.

NEXT FRAME INTRODUCTION: It’s called “pre-judgement” and includes one of my favorite idioms of the last decade or so. It too is an extension of the American good guy/ bad guy frame. That is, anything done by a badguy must be bad. If the cowboy wearing black picks up a a dog in scene one, he’ll shoot it in scene three. He can’t be NICE to the dog… he’s a bad guy. That phrase I love is Trump Derangement Syndrome

FLASH TO Miami beach: It’s crowded. Throngs wanting to get in their last wave before Hurricane Bruce slams the coast and ruins their fun. If you walk quietly in a corner of the beach, you’ll see what looks like a typical American family: a chubby balding man… gray chest-hair, a woman, obviously his wife, with bright red hair, obviously from a bottle. A boy and his younger sister play on the bright blue picnic blanket spread in the sand. The boy carries a plastic bucket and a little plastic shovel. The little girl is empty-handed.

If you listen carefully, you’ll hear that they are speaking French. Maybe they’re tourists. With a peal of kiddie-laughter the empty-handed girl grabs the bucket from her brother and runs toward the ocean. The brother gives chase, finally catching up and wrestling the bucket free. Then he pushes his sister who falls into the increasingly violent waves smashing against the shore. The girl washes out to sea.

“Aide! Aide!” screams the father, as the little girl is rip-currented further and further from shore.

Donald Trump, passing by, hears the shouts. Not taking the time to remove anything but his shoes, he runs to the water and jumps in. Powerfully, he swims out to the girl, grabs her around the chest and… careful to keep her head above water... brings her safely back to shore.

TRUMP MOLESTS TODDLER AT THE BEACH is the headline in The Times the next day… along with a photo of Donny Trump in the water with his arm around the girl’s chest.

For so many people, Trump is incapable of doing anything right… of doing a good deed. If it appears good… pardoning non-violent offenders, keeping the US out of war, downsizing The Pentagon… there’s always some reason it’s BAD. Getting out of NAFTA and TPP… disastrous trade bills that would have allowed international trade with no oversight. Slave conditions unanswerable by the US courts. President Trump saved us from them.

No he didn’t. Come the answers. Those were good for trade… come the TDS answers… except for Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and AOC who also opposed the treaties when they were presented by the Dems… those treaties are left out of the frame.

And finally… briefly… a pair of frames I’ve written about before: the GENDER frame and the RACE frame. Seeing abortion as “a war against women” where most of the anti-abortionists see a war against murder. Or seeing street crime and armed robbery as BLACK street crime and BLACK armed robbery instead of POVERTY-INDUCED street crime and POVERTY-INDUCED armed robbery. Framing… framing… framing.

So please… face the wall and look at that picture. Take it down… open the back and spread out the painting so the unframed parts become clear. Then REFRAME it, so those twat-showing hands become the Mona Lisa.

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]

→ Framing Step-by-Step Dept: There’s a great step-by-step analysis of news- framing in the New York Times. It’s not published on any of the monopoly-internet sites, but you can find it here.

→ How you react DEPENDS dept: Many of you know that I’ve gone through radiation treatment for prostate cancer. Called Cyberknife, the treatment itself is painless, though expensive. But the cash expense is only part of the problem. I pissed in my pants on the way home from the last treatment. I’ve been wearing (and needing) DEPENDS ever since. I have daily brain fog and the only time I’m not tired is late at night when I should be sleeping. If cyberknife is recommended for you… consider it VEEERRRRRY CAREFULLY, before you agree to it. You have been warned.

→ Put A Bag On It dept: The Canadian Broadcasting Company reports that in an environmental move, rock climbers in British Columbia have been encouraged to use WAG BAGS, to shit in. The idea, you shit in a bag that contains deodorizing chemicals, and then carry the shit with you, out of the wooded areas where you dispose of it at home. Sure, that’s gonna happen. Yeah right.

See you in hell redux,
MB


THE NATION AGAIN

I’m a long-time subscriber to the The Nation. It’s the only lefty publication that I find myself not only agreeing with, but also getting inspiration from. Strangely, when I post this stuff on facebook, no one looks at it. My “friends” would just rather call me a “Trumpist” or a “Republican” for all the times I don’t follow the party line. If it’s printed in THE NATION, it should give me street cred, right? Yeah right.

I found, in an old issue, a great argument against those who charge “What Aboutism” when others make points about a parallel issue outside the frame. The author’s basic (and correct) point of view is that the anti-whataboutism argument justifies hypocrisy.
Then there’s Thomas Graham who spots a little more subtlety in the Ukraine war than the media and the current war-mongers are showing.

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:

Jason Rodgers sent me his book Invisible Generation… free! And I lost it. Jason, a long-time partner of Suzy Poe, has been bugging me to review it… and I can’t. So the best I can do is promote it. I have a lot of respect for Jason… he is a libertarian (in the best sense of the word), and a super-smart guy. When/if I find the book, I’ll give you some more details.

Video of the week: My long-time friend Sid Yiddish appears on a YouTube DatingGame-like video. Guess who wins the bachlorette!

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.

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.

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

Liquid Refreshment or Mykel's March 2023 Blog or You're Still Wrong

 

Liquid Refreshment or Mykel's March 2023 Blog

  

You’re STILL Wrong

or

Mykel's March 2023 Blog/Column 

Liquid Refreshment

by Mykel Board

Most of the practice of medicine is plumbing 
                                                                 --J. Reisman MD

There are few moments of clarity more profound than those that follow the emptying of an overcharged bladder. The world slows down, the focus sharpens, the brain comes back on line. Huge nebulous difficulties prove on close calm examination to be merely cloud giants. - Tom Holt

You’re the reason I get up in the morning. That, and I need to pee. - Darynda Jones

I’m in Aachen… in French: Aix La Chapelle. It’s my favorite town in Germany. On the Dreilandepunt... where Germany, Holland and Belgium come together. Seat of the Holy Roman Empire. If they were still allowed to teach European history when you were in school, you know it’s where Charlemagne had his headquarters. There’s a bust of him in the local museum… with an actual piece of his skull in the statue’s head. For the Germans, he’s not Charlemagne, but Karl der Grosse... Karl the Great. 

In Aachen, I can have breakfast in Belgium, lunch in Holland and dinner in Germany… and walk to all of them. When I lived there in the 70s, everyone knew the back ways through the woods that avoided customs and border checks. Now that there’s a united Europe, everywhere avoids customs and border checks.

In the 70s, I needed to avoid those checks. Now I carry nothing more sinister than a bottle of schnapps… still no border check.

What a great system. Borders on maps only… maybe for voting or tax paying… but that’s it. Why can’t we make the world like that?

What can we do? When God asked me how to fix the world, I told her that the first thing is to open the borders. Make the US more European. Make the WORLD more European. Instead of a refuge city make a refuge country… a refuge world... where populations can move at will… where the only good passport is a dead passport... where moving between Turkey and Syria is no more difficult than moving between Manhattan and Hoboken.

Belgium is the center of the European government. Why can’t 405 East 42 St be the center of the World government?

FLASH TO BRUSSELS, BELGIUM: here we are at the Grand Place. Buildings older than I am… festooned with the flags of all free European countries… the joy of a united… Hold on… what’s this?

A Ukrainian flag… blue and yellow… or is it gold? I’d know it anywhere… a cloth-waving reminder of DIVISIONS. A flag-waving good-guy vs bad guy… cowboy vs indian… Patriotism for someone else’s country.

It’s the cold war again. THE COMMUNISTS. Aahrgh!

[ASIDE: As I write this there are reports of a crazy balloon… several others… of unknown function. Most probably for weather detection or to bounce radio waves for better internet reception. ] But let me talk about the first one right now. The big silver one:

It’s metallic… it’s floating… Quick, shoot it down!

KERPOW! We shoot it down… and THEY’re the bad guys… going back to…

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! FLASH TO 1958. I’m in third grade. BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! It’s a test. I know that, but it’s still scary.

“Quick! Everybody under their desks! Now!” Mrs. Reinheimer is even stricter than she is when she’s telling me not to throw spitballs at Janet Kaprinski! “Get down! Now! Wait for the all clear.”

Those damn Russians… they’re going to nuke us. Our only protection is hiding under the desk.

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

ALL CLEAR. COME OUT NOW. FLASH AHEAD TO 1965. Ninth grade and we learn that only one country on earth has dropped a nuclear bomb… two of ‘em. That country isn’t Russia. Whoops. History tells the truth… we can’t have that.

Soon the US would invade Vietnam… and bomb Cambodia in the mix. So the Western European counties send aid to Hanoi… The Brits send Ho Chi Minh tanks. The French supplY the ammunition. The Spanish provide fighter jets. And the Luxembourg ships in advising officers to train the Vietnamese to fight the Americans.

Actually, none of that happens. The US the GOOD GUY. Invasion? What invasion? It’s not an invasion, it’s support… and the bombing? That’s AIR SUPPORT.

The US has invaded Cuba, overthrown governments in Chile, Guatemala, Iran, Indonesia… is responsible for more foreign deaths than any country since WWII… or maybe any country, ever. anywhere. But (usually) our “allies” support us, because, after all, we’re the good guys.

Every president of my lifetime, except Jimmy Carter (my favorite president) and Donald Trump, has wanted his own war... something to take credit for while showering death on the bad guys.

So I’m standing in the Grand Place in Brussels, thinking about all this. I’m with my pal Randy, who is from Trinidad and plays steel pan in the great Caribbean hardcore band Anti-Everything. Now he now lives in Brussels, getting his PhD in Acoustics.

“Mykel, do you think the Ukraine war is just a proxy war for Joe Biden and the Americans?” he asks.

“I think the Ukraine war is a proxy war for McDonnell-Douglas, Honeywell and Boeing,” I answer. “Biden knows Americans love war. We just wrinkle our noses a bit at all those body bags filled with Americans. Dead Americans give live Americans the heebie jeebies. Biden figured out a way to make billions for American companies, and let the Russians and the Ukrainians fill those body bags.”

Meanwhile, President Zelenskiy gets rock-star status and nobody says a thing when people like the pope, offer to negotiate to stop the war. The Ukrainians would rather fight… and blame it on the Russians.

Imagine there was a negotiator... someone even more skilled than the pope... someone with a good relationship with both the Russians and the Ukrainians…. someone who can… and has… just call up Vlad The Invader or Ladi Dadi Volody... arrange a big meeting and talk to them like old friends. Yeah, you know who I’m talking about… the last president. But there’s not a chance in hell of that happening. Don’t you know? The last president is A BAD GUY. IT’S BETTER TO FIGHT THAN TALK, right?

Okay, enough international politics… I wanna talk about piss. Every major trip I take… and that means hundreds… I bring a travel book with me. I wrote about the book in last month’s blog, but I’ll reprint the cover here… just so you’ll remember. 

In every other country I’ve been in, (there are 70 of ‘em) there’s some sort of disgust --yet childish pleasure-- in stuff that comes out of the body: blood, snot, shit… and piss.

I love talking/writing about that… er… shit. And I love the way it makes people squirm. It’s nasty, taboo, funny… in a word… two words… it’s punk.

Think of all the naked statues you’ve seen... maybe one or two could have served as jerk-off fantasies when puberty hit. Some had showers, water spurting from a vase, a seashell… anything but where it would mean PISS…. Except here: Land of the Manneken Pis.

Older than me, a 1695 pamphlet says The Manneken had become "an object of glory appreciated by all and renowned throughout the world." Yes, a statue of a little boy pissing… renowned throughout the world.

But wait… there’s more. It’s gotten better. Randy takes me on a Piss Tour of Brussels. There are four major stops… each better than the next. The tour doesn’t proceed in his preferred order. That’s not due to bad planning, but to my own prostate problems.

“Randy,” I tell him. “I’m going to have to break your piss tour because of my own needs. I can’t hold it much longer… if we don’t stop some place, I’ll be my own Manneken Pis, down my left leg.”

“Okay Mykel,” he says, “we’ll go a bit out of order. Follow me. Our next stop will be CHURCHEKEN PISS.”

Walking as best I can with my knees pressed tightly together, we go not far… to an historic church. We do not enter the church, but rather go around to the side where… in public… against one side of the building… is a little alcove with a pipe leading to a trough. A couple pieces of graffitied plywood.

Yep, that trough is a public pissoir. Against the wall of a church. You just go there, unzip, and let go… If the guy next to you is tall, you might just catch him glancing down at you...at the best spot.

YES! Pissing against the wall of a church! By invitation of the church! Can you get more Christian Punk than that? 

But wait! There’s more!

Even the hoary hand of feminism has touched Belgian Pis culture. In 1987, spurred by calls for fluid equality, the Brussels government okayed the installation of Jeanneke Pis… Yes! Viva las feministas! A GIRL pissing statue, 300 years after the boy. Originally, it was open and in a big public space. Unfortunately, most likely due to attempts (probably by foreigners) to steal or disfigure the statue. It now stands (squats) behind a padlocked iron cage… on a side street… called Jeanneke Pis Straat. I found a cageless picture in Wikipedia… but I’ve never seen it cageless myself. 

The last stop on our fluid tour of the city is a random street corner in the middle of town.

“Do you see our last exhibit?” Randy asks.

I turn my head right and left.. but I see nothing urinish.

“Look harder,” Randy says.

I start to stroke myself through my pants.

“That’s not what I mean,” he tells me. “Bend your neck.” 

Yes! This is so great! Equality at last!

When the evil mayor Rudy Giuliani pushed through anti-PUBLIC URINATION laws, they only applied to humans. I thought, what is this? Catholicism? Dogs can piss anywhere, but humans have a soul so they can’t piss in the street? What possible logic could say it’s all right for a dog to lift his leg and let go, but if a human does it… leg lifted or not… It’ll cost a hundred bucks? It’s as if the animals are free, but humans have to be on a leash.

Thus the tour ends and we go out for a beer. Every bar in Belgium, being famous for beer, has the names of its current offerings written in chalk outside.

I stop in here. And yes, the featured beer of the day is URINE BEER. I stupidly do not take a picture of the sign… but I sure enjoy my glass of it. Down to the last drop.

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]

→ To Be Fair dept: I have to be fair to many of my well-meaning but wrong friends. Many of the older folks… my age and beyond if any are still alive… have been equal in their anti-invasionness. They were against America invading Vietnam AND just as against Russia invading Ukraine. I’m not sure, however, if they were as against negotiations then as they are now.

--> Early Endorsement Dept: The reason is complicated, but I saw Marianne Williamson in an interview. She was interviewed by Andrew Yang, who I have mixed feelings about. No mixed feelings about the girl, though! Sorry Sid, she's got my endorsement for the next election. 

→ Forgotten News Department: Back in 2021, the leftist British paper, The Guardian, ran a story about an oligarch head of a former Soviet Republic and his connections to billions in hidden money. His name? Volodymyr Zelenskiy. I guess Joe Biden’s oligarch sanctions don’t include him, right? It must be the t-shirt.

→ A Drop of Good News Dept: This from THE NATION:

See you in hell, redux,

MB

THE NATION AGAIN

I’m a long-time subscriber to the The Nation. It’s the only lefty publication that I find myself not only agreeing with, but also getting inspiration from. Strangely, when I post this stuff on facebook, no one looks at it. My “friends” would just rather call me a “Trumpist” or a “Republican” for all the times I don’t follow the party line. If it’s printed in THE NATION, it should give me street cred, right? Yeah right.

The February 20, 2023 issue has a great book review by Eric Foner. In this review, Foner talks about how ANOTHER war stoked people patriotism, and the general American love of war. And how besides killing people, it was a horror for civil liberties with books and newspapers being censored and people thrown in jail for criticizing the war effort. That war was World War One. I can’t wait to read the book about World War Three.

The same issue has an interview with Daniel Denvir. My favorite quote (changed slightly because it was in a different grammatical context):

The Democratic Party sold out workers and to smooth things over, joined Republicans in celebrating the spectacular punishment of immigrants, and in doing so, helped produce a cartoonish monster. The origins of Trump were bipartisan.

And to end it off, a super column by Katha Pollitt riffing on a real school banning of Muslim art… the ban started by Muslims.

Finally, there’s a terrific editorial that makes the publication the only truly anti-war leftist periodical in the US. And it fits perfectly with what I said in Belgium. (Nothing to do with piss.)

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:

Video of the week: My long-time friend Sid Yiddish appears on a YouTube DatingGame-like video. Guess who wins the bachlorette!

Jason Rodgers sent me his book Invisible Generation… free! And I lost it. Jason, a long-time partner of Suzy Poe, has been bugging me to review it… and I can’t. So the best I can do is promote it. I have a lot of respect for Jason… he is a libertarian (in the best sense of the word), and a super-smart guy. When/if I find the book, I’ll give you some more details. 

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.

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.

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