NO EMPATHY or Mykel's August 2023 Blog

   

No Empathy... or Mykel's Blog for July 2023

You’re STILL Wrong

or

Mykel's August 2023 Blog/Column 

No Empathy....    

by Mykel Board

“We are surrounded by people who appear to be happy, people who clap their hands and dance in the streets, people who sing for the pure joy of singing… and you think they don’t suffer? You think that they are somehow excluded from the battle of the human condition-- death, infirmity, lost love, poverty, crime and all the rest of it. We’re all half mad.”

--Robert Wilson

“There is only one way to understand a lonely bench in a park: Sit on it; watch whatever it is watching; listen to whatever it is listening to! Sit in spring, sit in winter, sit in summer! To understand something deeply, you need to live its life!”

- Mehmet Murat Ildan

[NOTE: All the people and events described in this blog are true. No names have been changed. No one is innocent.]

I’ve just left the cancer center. Prostate… what old men get. I’m an old man. Radiation surgery… cyberknife they call it. Five cybercuts in 10 days. Not painful… but requiring a weird diet of non-fiber food: white bread, popsicles, canned fruit. A double laxative at night… then a Fleet enema in the morning just to make sure nothing is left inside. After that, a half hour on the operating table.

Your choice of music while they cut. First was Dixieland Jazz. Then The Velvet Underground, Today: Patti Smith. I have other choices. At a hospital, I don’t want to ask for something dead: (Kennedys, Boys, Milkmen, Grateful). It might make the staff uncomfortable. Right now, they’re helping me off the table just as Patti asks if I know how to pony... like Tony Maroni.

I leave the building… on the street now. I need to find a post office. The Upper East Side… I don’t know this neighborhood. I’ll ask someone. Here’s a fellow patient, skinny guy… about half my age… just leaving the cancer center.

“Excuse me,” I ask, “do you know where there’s a post office nearby?”

“Sorry, I’m not from around here.”

“Thanks anyway.”

I ask a security guard… standing in front of the next building taking a smoking break. I love it: a smoking break next to a cancer hospital.

“I know there’s one close,” she says, “but I’m not sure what street.”

I thank her. Ah, here comes a very determined-looking woman… wearing a backpack… body leaning forward as if marching into battle… I approach her.

“Excuse me,” I say, “do you…

She snarls… shakes her head… waves her arms above her head as if brushing away a gnat attack. Stamps the ground... harder as she passes me and disappears around the corner.

I don’t get it? I’m 5 foot 3 inches tall… pushing 80 years old… barely standing after radiation treatment. Did she think I was going to attack her? I don’t understand the cruelty. All she’d have to do is say, “I’m sorry,” and then give an excuse. She wouldn't even have to stop. I just don’t get the inhumanity.

BOING! That’s it. That brings me exactly to what I want to write about. First some definitions (to quote Humpty Dumpty: words mean what I want them to mean… so don’t bother looking this up):

SYMPATHY is feeling sorry for someone. When someone dies you send a sympathy card. When you see a wounded animal, you feel sympathy. You feel unhappy because someone or something else is suffering.

EMPATHY is the ability to feel the emotions of someone else... to mentally put yourself in their jockstrap. To understand what makes them tiktok. To “get it” as if from inside another person.

You’re probably familiar with Jim Testa. He’s known for half a century of music writing… for supporting bands that nobody’s heard of… for supporting friends (including me) that no one else would dare support. A great human being. That’s why it hurt… when Jim said, “Mykel, I’ve known you for a long time… and one thing I’ve gotta say… again… is that you have no empathy.”

The remark comes after I say I refuse to be bullied by the language cops. I’ll say Colored People if it fits what I’m talking about… or if it proves a point. How is People of Color okay, but Colored People offensive? And what’s the problem with being offensive anyway?

“Mykel,” says Jim, “I’ll say it again. You have no empathy.”

FLASH TO CALVIN: Calvin sits on his milk crate… the color of the crate slightly lighter than his skin…. He gets darker in the summer. His back is against the side of the building that corners Bleecker and LaGuardia. He wears a black baseball hat, a plain gray t-shirt and bluejeans. On his feet, some kind of sneakers that are neither new nor fashionable. In his left hand is a plastic soda cup with a few coins on the bottom. He sees me from his corner… smiles and waves.

“Calvin!” I shout from across the street. “How you been doin’?”

I cross to talk with him. Simultaneously, I pull a single dollar bill out of the watch pocket of my jeans… where I keep my homeless money.

“You on your way to your favorite place?” Calvin asks me, nodding toward the Peculier Pub, my regular hangout.

“How’d you guess?” I joke, dropping the dollar into Calvin’s cup.

“You goin’ back to South Carolina this summer?” I ask.

“Mykel, are you kidding? You know how hot the summers are in New York? Double that for South Carolina…”

He interrupts our conversation to talk to some passing folks… all with purple NYU T-shirts… talking with each other… gesturing with their cellphones.

“How you doin’ today, folks?” He says, rattling the coins in his plastic cup. They keep walking… like he’s invisible.

Calvin and I talk a little more. My sister lives in South Carolina and we’ve talked about that before. Calvin’s family is from a different part of the state than my sister is.

“It’s almost like a different country,” he tells me.

I often think about Calvin. Where does he go at night? How does he get to South Carolina once a year? Hitchhike? Do people still hitchhike in 2023? What’s it like 20+ years after the last time I hitchhiked. What’s his life like? I can’t imagine!

FLASH TO MANNY: In a wheelchair on the other side of Bleecker… down a little bit.. usually in front of the CVS on the corner. About 50, a big guy... missing a few teeth on the bottom… I drop a buck into his plastic cup. Even though it’s nearly 90^o out, he’s covered from shoulder to knees in a blanket.

“Mykel,” says Manny. “ Gotta talk to you. I always see you hangin’ out with these Japanese guys… girls… whatever. Lemme warn you. Be careful of ‘em.”

“But, I like Japanese people. They’re smart and fun.”

“They act like they’s your friend,” he says, stealing a glance to the right and left. “But secretly, they hate you. They want to kill you. Take it from me… I know.”

What happened to this guy? Is he talking about the Japanese or Asians in general? Did he serve in Vietnam and end up in a wheelchair? Why would he say something like that? I can’t imagine why he feels like that. No clue to what it must be like to have that kind of fear and hatred inside... stewing as he sits in the heat and asks people for money.

FLASH TO KEVIN: If Manny is big and fat, Kevin is a monster. From neck to knees… rolls and rolls of it… His body is just a lump… a huge lump… any particular part: chest... stomach... back... ass… They fold into one another… just blobs… impossible to know where one part ends the next part begins. He’s like a huge mound of jello on a bench. Not really ON the bench, but dripping over the bench.

Kevin’s bench is in front of H-Mart, the Korean supermarket chain. I often shop there. Not expensive... good Korean food... good Japanese food at two-thirds the price of the Japanese stores. Kevin’s cup doesn’t get a dollar from me. I know him too well.

“Mykel,” he tells me twice a week... when I shop at H-Mart, “I don’t want your money. I know you’re going into that store. Bring me a Coke when you come out.”

I say to him, “Kevin, you say the same thing to me every week. I know you by now. You know they got a sign in the store… in the soda section… by the Coke. HOLD ONE CAN FOR MYKEL TO PICK UP FOR KEVIN.”

He laughs.

We shake hands… bump fists actually. I go into H-Mart… buy some frozen Korean pancakes, red miso, pork dumplings… and a can of Coke. I pay... walk out… freeze. Kevin is on his feet… leaning forward… yelling…. Both fists clenched at his side… the muscles on his neck throbbing.

YOU WHITE BITCH! WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? YOU WON’T EVEN TALK TO ME? DON’T EVEN SAY “I’M SORRY!”

And the rant goes on. He stands and shouts down the street at someone I can’t see. I’ve never seen him like this. He could have a stroke. If he were white, he’d be red in the face. I steal behind him… quietly set the can of coke on the bench… he’s still yelling not seeing anything but the object of his rage. I turn toward Houston Street and head home.

FLASH TO WILL: Will’s from Texas… Austin… BA in film from UT. He arrived in New York at the beginning of this year. His plan? Live on the street until he earns enough money to get a place of his own.

25 years old, Will is the thinnest of my homeless friends. He’s amassing his future fortune by working for DoorDash, a food delivery service that makes its workers compete with one another to score points for quick service and good ratings. Orders flash to cellphones close to either pick-up or delivery points. The first person to accept… provided he has a good rating… gets the job.

Will also makes money on eBay… learning and visiting thrift-shops… anywhere the subway goes… pickup up DVDs and electronic doodads… and “flipping them” on eBay… two to ten times their original value. Will travels the city wearing a huge backpack… for his deliveries and his thrift-store finds.

Will is a schlemazel. Two months ago, I saw him with a shiner… not the beer, but the black eye.

“What happened?”

“Mykel, it was weird… these two crackheads… they chased me. They wanted to mug me… I fought them off… screamed at them. One got me right in the face. Blam! It’s a little better now, but still hurts.”

“I’ll buy you a drink,” I tell him.

While waiting for orders from DoorDash, Will hangs out in a mid-town library. He’s got a laptop in his knapsack, and can connect and post on facebook. Today marks a week after the black-eye incident.

“I was attacked again… mugged… wallet stolen… all my money… at swordpoint!”

This is New York. People get mugged. I understand. But mugged at swordpoint? In the subway in 2023? That is impossible… or would be for anyone not Will.

“At least I still have my cellphone.” continues the facebook post. “I couldn’t survive without that. Doordash! What would I do?”

Give it another week.

“I fell asleep on the subway. Woke up… my phone was gone.”

Will sleeps on my couch once a week or so. I watch him planning his next day. After the phone is gone, he’s still planning… visit Verizon… it’s insured… get a replacement… how will they transfer the number? Where’s the nearest Verizon? We sit on the couch to work out the details. But I think: How can he do that? How can he keep going? He could easily move back to Austin where its familiar… easier… more friends than one old Jewish guy who’ll give up his couch once a week. What gives him the power to keep it up… and to smile and be friendly… and not to hate the world? I can’t imagine.

POW! it hits me… like a Fleet Enema. Jim is right. I don’t have empathy. I can’t put myself in other people’s jockstraps. I can’t imagine what it’s like to live on the street. I can’t see myself hating Japanese people. I don’t know how it feels to be confined to a wheelchair… to be black… to flip DVDs from the Salvation Armies. I think about that… wonder… but I can’t feel it. Yep, Jim’s right. I don’t have empathy. Sympathy yes! I live for sympathy. Sometimes I even feel sorry for people who are much richer than I am. But empathy? No, I just can’t do it.

Shit! It’s late. I gotta get to today’s prostate zapping. That enema... that music choice… I need to stop at the bank first. POW! Out of the house, down Broadway… what’s this. Some girl with an ID tag… she wants me to contribute to something… just to talk to me about children or animal abuse. She moves to block my path. I snarl… shake my head… wave my arms above my head as if brushing away a gnat attack. I stamp the ground harder as I pass her… not saying a word, and then, I disappear around the corner.

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]

→ Headline of the week dept: Speaking of homelessness. I saw this headline on the internet: Homeless Man With No Arms Stabs Tourist

I hope the tourist wasn’t Will.

→ Speaking of Will dept: CNN reports DoorDash is jumping on the speedy delivery trend. The company is now offering 10- to 15-minute delivery. Okay Will, you’re really gonna have to jump to it to pick up the food and bring it to the lazy shit who ordered it… in a quarter of an hour!!! Make sure you bring your pepper spray, though you might not have time to use it.

→ Pearls Before Swine dept: It seems that TickTockers have been promoting “Yoni Pearls,” small bundles of a variety of herbs. The idea is to insert them into your vagina (if you have one) to help improve odor, remove toxins and treat bacterial and yeast infections. “Reported side effects are, itching, dryness, stinging and cramping." I donno, I can think of better things to put in MY vagina.

→ I try to be a philosopher but I Kant dept:  This from a facebook pal of mine:

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.

This time, Lev Golinkin writes about how the Western (and pro-war liberal) media praise Ukraine fighters who have exactly the same philosophy as US white supremacists. And, as I still can’t figure out how someone can be Pro-Israel and Anti-Trump at the same time. Israel has more public places named after Donny than anywhere else on earth. In any case, there’s a nice letter from Bob Gris (no link, sorry) quoting the evil Alexander Haig who called Israel “the largest American aircraft in the world that cannot be sunk.”

Finally, there’s a nice discussion of Bernie Sanders and how this guy usually gets everything right.


You can read more, or even subscribe at: https://www.thenation.com/



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

You're Still Wrong.. Mykel's Feb 2020 Blog I DON'T GET IT (Pt. 1)

NOTE: This will be my first WEEKLY blog. I’ve heard from several readers that “it’s too long.” Maybe they’re right. I know the feeling of reading on a screen. An old friend from the band The Apostles sent me a 65 page book he wrote. It’s a great read, but I can only manage 10 pages at a time on the computer. Something about the media shortens attention or concentration. For me, this is a test. Please let me know what you think.

YOU’RE STILL WRONG
Mykel’s Post MRR

Feb 2020

Part one

or

I Don’t Get It

I write this as the year is twenty days old. I sit at the shaky wooden table I use as my desk. I’m naked... not for any good reason… but just because it’s too much effort to step into my clothes. It’s Monday, 5 o’clock in the afternoon. I was supposed to meet some friends for a weekly get together at The Peculier Pub, my favorite bar in New York. They all bailed.

I’m recovering from the flu… hit January 3… the usual: headache, cough, phlegm greener than Greta Thunberg… the whole kit and caboodle. Urgent Care told me I had the flu. No shirt, Shitlock. I cudda told THEM that. Only the cough is left after the $30 urgent care visit and 5 generic Tamiflu pills… at $11 a pill. Ah America… ya gotta hate it.

Last night I lost a friend of 30 years… not through death… but through facebook. She suffered a molested childhood, and thought my posts were making fun of that abuse. Pow!

I don’t want to see you again. Don’t ever come to where I work. (She’s a waitress in a nearby bar/restaurant…. my SECOND favorite bar in New York.) If I’m not at work and see you in the same place as I am, I will leave.

It’s a writer’s dilemma… write honestly and suffer the consequences… or write TV commercials.

But wait! There’s more: Today I'm walking in the 20 degree cold... heading for the subway. This old homeless-looking guy (gray beard, shaggy eyebrows, second hand coat) passes me on the sidewalk.

"Hello Mykel" he says.

I turn to him... I spread the sides of the hood on his jacket to get a better look at his face.

"Do I know you?" I ask.

"Mykel, it's Izzy." he says.

When I moved into my apartment building 30+ years ago, he was the 5-year-old kid down the hall. His parents screamed at each other late into the night. I think they got evicted.

"Mom died last year," he says. "Dementia"

I give him a hug.

"Where are you living now?" I ask.

"I'm homeless," he says, his voice barely more than a whisper. "I live on the street."

I reach into my wallet and take out two single dollar bills and hand them to him. "I hope this helps a little. I wish I could do more."

He gives me a hug.... and another. We pass and I go into the subway station.

2020... I tell ya'... it's EVIL!

My friends have it worse. Death, disease, mom lost a limb to gangrene... the rot, not the band. 2019 was bad enough for so many people. Starting the new year on pain, death, disease and loss of friends... just WRONG… but it does strengthen my belief in God (goddess). There’s just too much shit for it to be a random/accident. God is real… and she hates you… me… us.

But I’m not writing about God… or the New Year. I’m writing backwards. Instead of telling you about the world as I understand it… I want to –for once-- write about the world as I DON’T understand it. Specifically, how people think.

I’ve spent more than 40 years telling you WHAT you should think. It’s taken me all this time to finally realize I don’t understand HOW you think in the first place. Maybe when I get that, I can better comprehend why you’re so fucked up.

END OF PART ONE

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. Subscribe to the MYKEL'S READERS Yahoo group readmboard-subscribe@yahoogroups.com]

→ Take a bite outta this one dept: Fox News reports that a woman bit a camel’s testicles at a Louisiana truck stop petting zoo -- and was cited for criminal trespassing.

The woman was chasing her dog when she crawled into the camel’s enclosure at the Tiger Truck Stop. She told deputies she bit the 600-pound camel when he sat on her. “She said: ‘I bit his balls to get him off of me, I bit his testicles to get him off of me,’”

     I guess it worked.

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:

David Goldberg's Busy Microbes Blog

And another 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.

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.

Then there’s the link for people who hate links. Real live XEROS, a zine in a world of e-zines and virtual ideas. Check out ASYMMETRICAL ANTI-MEDIA “The Review Zine with Lunatic Fringe Tendencies.” What’s the URL? Hah! You need to put a crisp (or wrinkled) dollar bill in an envelope and MAIL IT (With a stamp. Get it?) to: Jason Rodgers, PO Box 10894, Albany NY 12201 And you should.

My pal Matt Sheahan has a contrarian political blog: https://matthewsheahan.com/ Hard to imagine that I’d have a contrarian pal, huh?

Then there’s the transgressive Harry Palm… https://harrypalmesq.wordpress.com/ Crank up the psychology!

Then there Dumbkat Press… more than a blog, but you gotta see for yourself!

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

Mykel's MRR Column for #323, (April, 2010)

  You're Wrong
  An Irregular Column 

Number 323 April, 2010
 by Mykel Board 
(posted by Maximum Rock'n'Roll for Mykel at his request)


Don't know what I want but I know how to get it. --Johnny Rotten
Know what I want, but I don't know how to get it. --Mykel Board

Out my window, rain streams in torrents against the glass, bouncing drop-by-drop on the gray Manhattan streets. Rainwater soaks the legs of my pants... a walk to the bank... and back. Why did I walk to the bank in the rain? Someone has used my debit card number to buy $1,000 worth of disco DJ equipment from Radio Shack in New Jersey.

The appropriately named Chase Fraud Department said that all I had to do was fill out an electronic form. The money would be back in my account “the next business day.” Yeah right. 

It's been a week. Imagine a thousand bucks missing from your bank account for a week. There go the credit card bills, the rent, beer. I'm gonna have to mug a wino to survive. But that's only the end of week 3 of the beginning of the worst decade of my life.   

Back up: I shudda been happier than a feminist at a castration. New Year's 2010. The start of my seventh decade. Seventy years, Jesus fuckin' Christ. 

God said, “Let there be light.” 

I turn on the switch. That's how old I am. 

This is the first month of my seventieth year. New Year's Eve was good. The Bear, my best Japanese friend was there with Gilberto, my best Mexican friend, and Marilyn, my best New York friend. We got pleasantly soused at The Peculier Pub, my favorite locale in The City. 

Part of why I've lasted this long is that I have reasons to live. I knew I could never die before going to Mongolia. So I went to Mongolia. OK, I will live through writing a book. I wrote a book. Two books. Okay, now, I want a party where a girl comes out of a cake. 

Everybody has seen a girl --usually a blonde with tits out to here-- come out of a cake... in The Movies,. It's a mainstay. I guess it also happens on Broadway and in advertising.

But who's seen it in real life? Anybody you know? I didn't think so. But I want to. I want to really have a party where a girl comes out of a cake. Where, she dips her hands in the frosting and tickles my nose with it. I lick it off her breasts. Mmmm lemon. Can't die without doing that, can I?

AND, I found the girl and I found someone to make the cake. My best pal, Marilyn (right name for a girl to come out of a cake... but she's making it) and Lola (right name for a girl to come out of a cake... and she's coming out of it.) Marilyn's making me a great surprise birthday party at the end of the month.

She forks over $1,000 reserving Bar One-Oh-Eight, where we drink every Monday night. We're pals with the bartender and should score a bunch of extras... as well as tolerance for er... unusual activities. 

Marilyn paid for three hours of free booze, an open bar, and food... Dozens of my friends (whose number always increases when there is free booze and food) will be there. Marilyn is a goddess!

As for the rest of the month, I was going to go through a narrative. Go to each item, just when nothing else can go wrong, something worse happens. January may be the worst month of my life where no one dies. (I'm so not sure about that either. I still have six more days for someone to keel over.)

I was gonna tell you about the crashed computer... the $1000 replacement, the pictures, data, writing, lost... me, leaving my apartment the next day... locking the door... the key spins... nothing happens... it's 8:30 AM... I can't lock my apartment and I have to be at work in 20 minutes. The door stays open all day.

Next day... I replace the lock... and lose the new key... a wart develops on my eyelid, $50 at the dermatologist's.

“Maybe it won't come back,” says the doctor as I leave with a patch.

At work, I throw a hissy fit because the office manager complains about me wasting money making copies... I throw three quarters (25 cent pieces) at her...There! That'll pay for your fucking copies!!! Now she hates me... won't talk to me... Workplace harassment or something.

Then, there's the four-hundred dollars' worth of dental work to replace a gold inlay lost in Italy... the twelve hundred dollars' worth of Radio Shack goods I already told you about... charged falsely on my debit card. (No I still haven't gotten the money back)... 

There's more. My doctor says I've got Macular Degeneration. I'll probably go blind in two years. I figure it's from the “generic Viagra” I got in Trinidad all those months ago... I used it three times and only scored once. Want more? 

Fuck it. There's too much for the 2000+ words I'm allowed here. The headaches and skin eruptions. The food spilled on my only clean clothes. The toilet backed up and overflowing all night. What gets me through it all is THE GIRL, THE CAKE. Things are so bad I consider sticking my head in the oven... the microwave... but I've got a birthday party coming. A girl coming out of a cake.

Do you think this portends? Does it sound like a set-up? Like a joke where this guy walks into a bar and asks if he can have a girl come out of a cake? You bet! The joke's on me. 

Marilyn walks past the bar today. On her way to work. The place is closed. Papered up. Gone. Skedaddled. Outta here. Nothing. Bar ONE OH EIGHT is Bar ZERO ZERO ZERO. Not only has this decades' luck set me back several thousand dollars, it's set my best friend back a grand. 

So what am I going to do? How can I face it? It's unrelenting. Every day there's something else. Today, my statement comes from Chase. The $1000 from Radio Shack is still listed. There's also an Albanian restaurant claiming I owe more than $100 for a meal I ate two months ago! I'm so depressed I ignore it. Don't give a rat's ass. Can't pick up the phone to complain. 

I'm rarely depressed. My life's been pretty good. But now, I want to kill.... passers-by... that nice bum on the corner who I give a quarter to every day... Anybody. None of the usual shit works any more. Find something worse?.. Someone in shittier shape than me? Haiti? Of course their lives are worse than mine... well, maybe not. They're dead.
Afghanistan? They've got a cause. Me? A girl and a cake are not enough. I feel like my head's gonna explode. I've hung up on a dozen people so far today. Tech support! Chase! Amex! FUCK YOU! (click) FUCK YOU! (click) FUCK YOU! (click) My skin burns, like it's been sanded or scraped by a sharp knife...

I want to destroy. Break something. Knock someone's teeth out. Sounds like punkrock, doesn't it? Maybe it's time to start a band again. In the meantime, I'm gonna stay 69. Refuse to have a birthday. If God wants to fuck with me, I'll show her. Come on! Think you can take me? Try it!

ENDNOTES: [email subscribers (god@mykelboard.com) or website viewers (www.mykelboard.com) will get live links and a chance to post comments on the column]

-->Thank heaven for little boys dept: In Chattanooga Tennessee a 4-year old boy was found roaming around at night. He was drinking beer and wearing a little girl's dress, taken from a neighbor's house. The reason?
        It's not clear, but the boy's mother said he wanted to be with his father, who was in jail.

-->Small victories dept: Thanks to a lawsuit filed by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a federal judge has ruled that a South Carolina license plate, sporting a cross and the words "I Believe," is unconstitutional. It's not clear whether it would be constitutional if you had a choice between a cross, a Star of David, a Crescent, or a Pentagram. But only a cross, for some reason, violates the establishment of religion clause of the constitution. I can't imagine why.

-->Kyle Nonneman is back in jail dept: That doesn't surprise me. once they get you, they want to keep you. What does surprise me... but shouldn't... is the reason stated in the “report to the judge”
I quote:
 Samples of Nonneman's work under the name "Nothingistrue" include the following:
    The Passion of Misanthropy
    Cunt Envy
    Right to Kill
    Dead Little Girls
     Once You've Killed Someone Life's Shit
     (That last one sounds like a plea NOT to kill!) 

   Worse than that, the parole-ending guy writes in his report:   it appears he (Kyle) subscribes to a Nihilist philosophy.... Typically Nihilists reject social, legal, moral and religious norms. His thoughts and beliefs are clearly spelled out in his writing, music and posts on his MySpace page.
     Can you believe the cops/courts using music, thoughts, beliefs, and MySpace to jail someone? Uh... yes, you can believe it. This is America, after all.
      Write to Kyle at: Kyle Nonneman, #691768, 1120 SW 3rd St, Portland OR 97204

-->I wonder if she called them "old farts" dept: One of my new heroines is Teanne Harris of DesPlaines IL. Six days before her scheduled wedding, her fiancé... er... pulled out. Instead of trying to get whatever refund she could, she just gave the whole celebration (food, DJ, drink, kit and caboodle) to the local old folks' home. This turning a tragedy on its head is just great.
    It's even better than the original plan. Marriage is a sucky slave-related government institution. Old people are cool. Ten punk points Teanne.

-->Polling the 'digitally active' dept: PC Tools recently commissioned a survey investigating online habits.
     Here are the results: 57% of people surveyed would give up alcohol before giving up the Internet. Eleven percent would give up their job and 8.6% would go without sex to stay connected!
Why is it so hard to give it up?
      Social media ranked first with 68% of participants responding that socializing with others would be the hardest Internet activity to give up. 30% indicated that one of the hardest online activities to sacrifice would be porn!
      I don't think PC Tools gets it. People don't GIVE UP sex for porn. Porn IS sex. You just don't have to make breakfast for it in the next morning.

-end-

As you probably know, Mykel is due to spend the next 20 years at a medium security facility in Tuscaloosa. MRR will handle his correspondence. You can write to him c/o Maximum Rock'n'Roll, POB 460760, SF CA 94146-0760, . Thanks.

      

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