You're Still Wrong, Mykel's Oct 2020 Blog #2 or Head in The Oven

MYKEL'S OCT. 2020 BLOG

VOLUME 2

OR

Is That Your Head In The Oven
or Are You Happy to See Me?

You’re STILL Wrong

or

Mykel's 1st October 2020 Blog/Column

by Mykel Board 

[This will be my last semi-monthly blog. I find there are fewer readers. It’s more work. And I’m in no mood. Next month the blog goes once-a-month again.]

We die. That may be the meaning of our lives. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives. --Tony Morrison

You know how it feels when you’ve got your hands around the throat of someone you hate? You know how your fingers press against the neckback while your thumbs search out the bump of an adams apple? You know how when you squeeze, you can press your thumbs against that bump… one on either side… until something pops… then gurgles? There’s always a cough first.. then a tension… like an electric shock… then limpness… the head lolling… first right… then left... then down… chin to chest. You know how it feels when you release your hands and see that final slump… Thinking Yes! I did that! You little piece of shit… NOW, your life has meaning. Get it?

Sometimes I feel like sticking my head in the oven… the microwave oven. Sometimes I feel like walking down Broadway with an Uzi… and lots of ammo. 2020 has been a hell year for most everyone. Every day I dread email, facebook, or some other bringer of bad news. Who died? Who hates me? Who’s in the hospital? In jail?

My friends are dropping like beershit turds. Not (only) from the plague or from what happens when you get old and your friends do too, but from tightly wound tension... from the plague fear… from well, your other friends don’t want to see you so they must know something I don’t know. I’d better sequester myself too… at least from you.

I feel like Bojing Chow, the Chinese guy from Hubei (pronounced “Hoo-bay,” capital Wuhan) who works chopping suey for 10 years… sleeps in a hovel with his wife, family, and two other families… saves enough money to open his own hole-in-the-wall restaurant serving a Hubei favorite, Spicy Duck Neck. With the name Hubei Your Urges. The motif is a strange mixture of half-naked women and ducks.

Then comes the WUHAN virus. Then the lockdown… the closings… the sudden poverty. Bojing! Join me in my microwave… I’ll show you how to defeat the door-lock. There’s room enough for two.

I’m a social guy… the reverse of that cliché of I love humanity. It’s people I can’t stand. Me? I like people. I like to be in the midst of them… to eat and drink with them… to talk with them… to be naked in a pile of them.

In “normal” times in New York, every Thursday night I have DRINK CLUB. We go to a different bar every week, eat, drink, talk. Maskless, we treat each other like human beings, sharing food, tasting this beer and that. Laughing… or singing out loud. Sometimes we hug each other.

The plague put the kibosh on that… at least for a few months. During the last month or two I’ve brought it back with outside meetings and sticking to the same bar every week. In pre-plague times, Drink Club had from 6 to ten people usually several Japanese, and a few Hispanics to kick up the spice.

We loved to kid.. to lie about how to say Cheers in our native languages. We teach the round-eyes that in Japanese, it’s baka yaroo. (Actually, that means you fucking idiot.) We teach the Orientals that, in Spanish, it’s besa mi culo. (Actually, that means kiss my ass.) In English it’s garlic cow. I’ll teach you where that comes from.

In Spanish, garlic is ajo. Cow is vaca (pronounced, you guessed it, baka). Ajo in Japanese is something like asshole. So Garlic Cow in Spanish is ajo baka which, in Japanese means stupid asshole. Get it? No one else will.

This silly playfulness helps bring us together... to make us laugh… to make us feel less alone.

In lockdown Drink Clubs, the max is 7 people… almost all occidentals… mostly old people. This further lend credence to my theory that old people fear this plague less than the young. Like I wrote a couple weeks ago, that’s what old people do. We don’t fear death. We die. But that doesn’t make the uniform group of white oldsters any more exciting.

I miss the languages, the joking, the name-calling. In Spanish, it’s common to call the hefty guy Gordo (Fatty). In America, in the early 1900s a famous actor-comedian (who came to a bad end) was called “Fatty Arbuckle.” In 2020, “Fatty” would be bullying. You’d probably be banned from Facebook.

In 2020, people’s sensitivity is knife sharp. Not only from PC-itude, but from the tension and fear caused by COVID... mine too. I wrote how I fb-blocked a long-time friend because he name-called me.

Come on Mykel! (Here’s where you slap me, holding the front of my shirt… by the collar… slap first the right cheek, then on the left.)

“You’re - Mykel - fuckin’ - Board.”

Say one word with each slap.

“You’re - gonna - block - a - friend - because - he - called - you - a - name? Who - HASN’T - called - you - a - name?”

Flash to Chinatown: I’m out with El, one of my few remaining friends. We’re at a Chinese restaurant… not Wuhan. El notices an error in the English language menu. One dish is labeled Chicken Niggits.

I laugh out loud. Take a picture. And BAM! Post it on Instagram.

Double BAM! In a few minutes comes a reply from another long-term friend. Yeah, she’s black, “So this is what it’s come to?”

I send an apology and delete the post. It doesn’t help. I haven’t heard from her again.

I’M SORRY!

And so it goes.

Blame? I’d love to blame. Everyone looks for someone to blame… as if this will help… Hurricane after hurricane… quick blame the oil companies and their climate change? Race riots? Blame anarchists and outside agitators. Police murders? Blame “a few bad apples” rather than a system that attracts and creates bad apples. Police being murdered? Blame thugs who are incited by the anarchists. Corona virus? If you’re a Trump supporter, blame China. If you’re a Trump-hater, blame Trump.

The problem is that blaming doesn’t work. I don’t feel better if I blame my friends for deserting me… I’m still friendless. Believe me, the only solution is the microwave. Right now it’s on the refrigerator… too high for me to reach just standing on the floor. Okay, I’ll use the step ladder.

POW! Exploding head! That’ll teach ‘em. Right? They’ll have nobody to blame but themselves. Now, where’d I put that step ladder?

- 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

→ In Everyday Life dept: In writing this blog, I learned there really is such a thing as Exploding Head Syndrome. Your head doesn’t actually blow up, though. You need a microwave for that.

→ Speaking of death department: Here are slightly edited versions of two emails I received from Kyle Nonnemen. They show the slave business aka Prison Labor… and how the prison system encourages people to keep quiet about their COVID symptoms.

Here are his last two emails to me.

+++++++++++++++++++

Message 1:

I can’t get out of my cell to call you. Corona virus outbreak lockdown status. Nobody gets out. They pop my door to give me nasty sack-lunches and a 15 minute shower once a day. Other than that, it’s 24 hour lockdown.

To prevent corona spreading even more than it already has, I took a corona virus test on 9-30, should get the results back by Monday. They stick a wooden cotton swab up your nasal cavity and it’s extremely painful.

If I’ve got the corona virus I'm getting transported to the quarantine hospice death ward they got set up at Coffee Creek. I got severe asthma, limited lung functioning from scoliosis and a lot of other damage to my lungs and Oregon Department of Corrections can’t afford high quality medical care.

So if I’ve got corona virus, I'm probably going to die from it. So when the Covid stuff first started happening, I wore a mask everywhere and didn't sit with any other inmates and primarily stayed in my cell. All the units in the prison were separated to avoid cross contamination.

I cleaned the mask all the time, sprayed stuff down with Virustat.Then, when the wildfires happened, I got stuck on a crowded sardine-can bus and then left outside in the in the prison yard for over 10 hours breathing in the toxic smoke, and ash from the fires. Then they crammed me into an open dorm unit, hundreds of inmates from all different units crowded together in one communal area.

In addition, Oregon state penitentiary where they evacuated us to, was previously declared a Covid hot zone. Now that they've brought everybody back from Oregon state penitentiary, the incubation period is over and now there's a really bad corona virus outbreak.

The Statesmen-Journal newspaper did a whole article about how bad the cramped conditions were at the state penitentiary and how people are infected from it.

That's why I asked you to contact some civil rights attorneys because if I test positive I'm getting shipped out to the death ward unit and you ain’t going to hear from me again. Lawyers can call me though.

Oregon D.O.C command staff are the reason this is spreading. No visitors come in. The prisoners don’t leave. It’s them bringing it in.

But whatever happens, is going to happen. I'm tired of living in a cage anyway.

so it goes.

all the best
kyle

Message 2:

They're transporting me to medical hospice death ward at coffee creek. With my asthma etc. I probably won't survive this. So you won’t hear from me again.

I just wanted to let you know what happened. Get a hold of the prison for funeral arrangements or whatever. I don’t know what they’ll do with my body.

Sorry for putting you through all this. Thanks for your support

all the best kyle

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.

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.

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.

I have a very occasional blog about how rich people are just like us… same needs, same desires, you know. You can read it 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 MAY Vol 1 2020 BLOG or BLAME! by Mykel Board

YOU'RE STILL WRONG.. 

MYKEL'S MAY 2020 BLOG

VOLUME 1

OR

BLAME!

by Mykel Board

[I’ve given up the idea of splitting the blog into smaller parts. It just doesn’t work well. So now, I’ll just be writing shorter blogs… but more often. Twice a month if I can manage it. This is the first May Blog. I wanted to avoid talking about IT… but these days IT is all there is to talk about]

You’re STILL Wrong

or
Mykel's

May 2020 Blog/Column #1
Blame

by Mykel Board

Don’t assign blame. Fix the problem

―Japanese Proverb

Oh the Protestants blame the Catholics

And the Catholics blame the Protestants

And the Hindus blame the Muslims

And everybody blames the Jews

--from Tom Lehrer (slightly changed)

LeRoy Washington Jr. walks across Houston Street… just where the Williamsburg Bridge enters Manhattan. He’s leaving the Baruch Daycare Center, where he just dropped off LeBron, his little boy. LeRoy wears bluejeans and a kind of flight jacket against the cold. As he approaches the street, he reaches into his pocket for his cellphone. It’s not clear if the phone is ringing/vibrating or if he’s just checking his email.

In any case, it’s the phone he’s looking at when he steps into the street. It’s the phone he’s looking at when a big black Uber Limo smashes into him… lifts him completely into the air where he smashes back down onto the street. I don’t know for sure, but I imagine the phone is gone on impact… it is certainly gone when the car in the next lane screeches to a halt… a few seconds too late… and completely runs over the wrecked body.

Both drivers stop their cars… maybe someone else calls the cops.

“What’s wrong with you?” shouts the Uber Driver, a tall thin white guy, graying at the temples. “There’s a guy lying in the street and you just run him over.”

“You hit him first!” yells the other driver getting out of his Honda Civic.

“Yeah,” says Uber, “and I was gonna go help him, and you fuckin’ finished the job.”

This goes back and forth as LeRoy quickly loses enough blood to insure a paler look for his funeral.

FLASH TO LAST WEEK: Jeezus fuckin’ Christ! It’s there! Just POW! Right there on the screen… in zeros, a one and a two. $1200 dollars for doing nothing but staying inside and wearing a mask. Not even… If you read my last blog, you know I don’t stay inside and I don’t wear a mask… and I don’t feel guilty about that.

One of the few things I do feel guilty about is keeping my money at Chase bank. They are scum. One of the worst exploiters among banks… with special fees for poor people. But they are convenient. Branches everywhere… ATMs up the wazoo… Smiley-faced bank tellers who remember you from each visit… or at least ACT like they remember you.

And they’re the only bank I know that writes checks from their website, and mails ‘em for you. You say who to pay and POW! the check is in the mail… for real! I get paid by check… and I have to pay Merle Allin by check. So Chase it is. [BUT, see note at the end.]

And it’s on Chase’s website that I see the dollars… more than the rent... this month.

“I got Trump’s cash,” I post on facebook.

“It’s not Trump’s,” come the indignant replies. “It’s Nancy Pelosi’s. She’s responsible. Trump held it up just to get his name on the check.”

Did these guys fail Social Studies? Laws are made by someone… often the president, but theoretically anyone.. proposes something, congress debates and (usually) changes the proposal. Then both houses talk about it, vote on it, and if the vote passes, the bill goes to the president… who either vetoes it, in which case it goes back to congress… or signs it… in which case it becomes law.

The two needed to tango are equal partners-- the president and congress. But you gotta have someone to blame.

Am I blaming people for blaming people? You bet your N95 mask I am. And I’m blaming the culture that splits people into all or nothing… that limits thinking to US and THEM… RIGHT and WRONG… GOOD and EVIL. If you think Donny Trump is responsible for your $1200, then you believe in putting children in cages. If you think Nancy Pelosi wrote that check, then you want all Americans to be locked in their houses for the rest of eternity.

It’s not just politics… it’s the law. It’s the Internet It’s TV… I hear TV commercials for ambulance-chasing lawyers that say, “If your doctor made a mistake in treating you, we’ll hold him accountable.”

That’s the new euphemism for BLAME! Tonight, while avoiding the news, I was watching CourtTV. In a reinactment, the cops ask a murder witness to identify the perp… Why? So they can HOLD HIM ACCOUNTABLE. Goddamnit! Say PUNISH. Say GET REVENGE. Say BLAME.

For the virus, the Trumpists predictably blame the Chinese. Right-wing news source Newsmax quotes an old issue of Nature Magazine. It talks about a report of a Wuhan laboratory studying germ warfare.

Nature's report states: Some scientists outside China worry about pathogens escaping, and the addition of a biological dimension to geopolitical tensions between China and other nations. But Chinese microbiologists are celebrating their entrance to the elite cadre empowered to wrestle with the world's greatest biological threats.
And, of course, they [Newsmax] have to add: the Obama Administration awarded a $3.7 million grant to the lab in 2015.

Why didn’t they mention Hillary Clinton’s emails?

Meanwhile, in perfect irony, Democracy Now!, a liberal news channel, blames freedom itself for creating the pandemic. Opening businesses … no social distancing… no required masks… no schools so poor kids can at least get at least one free meal a (week)day. OUTLAW EVERYTHING! CLOSED AND LOCKED TIGHT IS THE ONLY WAY TO GO! If you don’t agree, you’re an evil Trumpist.

Why don’t they mention Climate Change?

I’m getting sick of writing about this fuckin’ virus. I’m getting sicker of people throwing around blame… like SUVs throw around bodies on Houston Street… rather than thinking of how to work together to find the best solution… of how to take one from group A and one from group B and try it. I’m getting sick of finger pointing every which way except in the mirror.

I’ve been called “a Trumpist” and a “He’s Not My President.” That’s okay. I’ve spent over half a century blamed for being ON THE OTHER SIDE. Yo buckaroo, there is no other side. I blame no one for that. I just want to solve the problem.

--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 want to be notified when a new blog is published, send me an email with the subject line SUBSCRIBE BLOG. Back blogs and columns are at https://mykelsblog.blogspot.com.

→ Surprise dept: It always amazes me when huge corporations show a speck of integrity. So far two of the world’s greatest villains –Apple and Google– have resisted calls to allow government snoopers into people’s phones. Cheers for them. We'll see how long that lasts.

→ If you can’t beat ‘em, scare ‘em dept: Reuters reports that officials in Indonesia are scaring people into staying home. Kepuh, a village on Java island, is employing local residents to dress as "pocong," or the trapped souls of the dead, in Indonesian folklore. The ghostly figures, in white shrouds with their heads covered and dark-rimmed eyes peering out, surprise unsuspecting pedestrians, then disappear into the night. Villagers have been seen running off in fright when the pocong appear. "People will not gather or stay on the streets after evening prayers," resident Karno Supadmo said.

At least the Indonesians need human size ghosts to scare them. New Yorkers are scared into their homes by viruses smaller than my dick.

→ Humor anywhere you can find it dept: NDTV tells of an Indian couple whose twins were born March 27. What did they name the pair? Corona and Covid, of course. Let THAT put a smile on your face behind the mask.

→ A note on the bank: My friend and proof-reader, Marlene, tells me that most banks will write and mail a check for you. I didn’t know that. In any case, I still get my pay from school in a paper check, and there’s a Chase 2 doors down. It’s not the laziness of a very short walk, but the need to quickly deposit the check before some credit card company charges me a late fee.

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 facebookme or email me if you have a blog, webpage or something else to connect to. I add you. You add me.

• From my friend and fellow poet, Richard Goldberg: goldberg.wordpress.com
• I post a blog for Kyle Nonnemon, in prison for a ton of shit. He's a smart guy, with a passion for industrial metal and a general detestation of humankind. You can read his blog at: apothelema.blogspot.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.
• And my long-term pal Sid Yiddish contributes with his Mishegas Master Blog.