You’re Still Wrong Mykel's Blog November 2019 or Life With Phil!

You’re STILL Wrong

or
Mykel's

November 2019 Blog/Column

Life With Nothing But A Groundhog

by Mykel Board

Pennsylvania is Philadelphia and Pittsburgh with Alabama in between.

--James Carville

I sit at the Midway, a rundown bar in Punxsutawney Pennsylvania. On one side of the sign outside it says: OPEN E ERY DAY, on the other side is WED. NITE WINGS. They haven’t had food of any kind for over a year.

Yeungling on tap is usually $1.75 a pint. Today it’s $2.25.

“What’s up with that?” I ask Marcy, the bartendress. [NOTE: I’ve been here a couple of weeks now, and have yet to see a MALE bartender… at any bar.]

“It’s an Octoberfest beer, Mykel,” she says, “costs more.”

$2.25 a beer is EXPENSIVE around here. [NOTE TO READERS WHO DO NOT LIVE IN MASSIVE GENTRIFIED CITIES: average cost of a beer in a Manhattan bar? $8]

I sit next to my pal Vincent. He has a doctorate in economics… used to teach business before the local college decided to become exclusively a culinary school.

Behind the bar, there are two huge TV screens. Bigger than you’d see at any sports bar in New York. On one screen is a hunting show. The bearded millennial compares rifles and crossbows… showing this and that dead deer… picking them up by the antlers and making their dead heads look right, then left.

Before we get to the meat of my bar visit, let’s zoom out… helicopter view…

Punxsutawney PA... famous one day a year, it sinks into depression for the other 364 days. The entire spirit of the town is the groundhog. There are groundhog statues everywhere… in all sizes. There’s groundhog beer, groundhog pizza, and the Weather Museum. The city motto is Weather Capital of The World. Maybe, but surely for only one day a year.

I’m here learning about small town America. What it’s like… what the people are like… how they think… how they live.

I thought I knew. I thought I grew up in a small town. Hicksville... yeah, that’s really the name of my hometown... has a population of 36,000. One Catholic high school, and one high school for normal people. It’s changed since I lived there… but when I did it was all white. For foreign food, we had Frank’s Alibi (Italian) and Long’s Chinese (later closed down for serving cat meat).

It took 45 minutes to take the train into THE CITY and another 45 minutes to take it back. My father did it every day… I did it on weekends. Some of my friends had cars and girlfriends and rarely left the county. We had a house with three bedrooms, an attic, and a basement.

I used to tell people I grew up in a small town on Long Island. A month in Punxsutawny has taught me there is a difference between a small town on Long Island and A SMALL TOWN IN AMERICA.

Take Jews. (I won’t say it.) In Hicksville, about ten percent of the population was Jewish. There was one synagogue in town… and half a dozen within ten miles. Hicksville High had the track system. Smart kids in Track One. Normal kids in Track Two. Dumb kids in Track Three. Most of the Jews were in Track One. The Poles and Italians in Track Two. The Irish in Track Three.

Up until Punxy, Hicksville was the SMALL TOWN I grew up in. Now I know I didn’t know jack shit about what that is. Hicksville is not a small town. It’s a suburb. A NEW YORK CITY suburb. It’s about as small town as East and West Egg… though much less opulent.

In Punxsutawney in 2019, there is one Jewish family. The nearest synagogue is 20 miles away… and on Yom Kippur there are fewer than 20 people in attendance.

“Punxsutawney is all bars and churches,” my landlady tells me.

I haven’t visited any churches, although some are beautiful… but the bars… that’s where I go to find out about the locals in any non-Muslim location. And believe me, Punxsutawney Pennsylvania is as non-Muslim as The Vatican.

What else can I tell you?

Well, people here are fat. I don’t mean overweight. I don’t mean obese by government standards. I mean HUUUUGE… MONSTER-SIZE… Three airplane seats width… asses from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia… especially the women. There are almost as many motorized wheelchairs as there are cars. It’s hard to know if people need them because

A. They’re too fat for their legs to support.

or

B. They’re so fat because they use the wheelchairs and never walk.

It doesn’t matter. People here are also kind… amazingly kind. My landlady drives me from one end of town to the other… and to several towns nearby... so I can explore the nooks and crannies of the local culture. Her husband walks with me through the back roads that lead to the train tracks that lead to trails that lead to grown over coke ovens… reclaimed by the woods after decades of non-use… overgrown remnants of richer coal-mining days.

Guys at the bars buy me a drink just to start a conversation. A woman at the historical society drives me to the nearest T-mobile facility… at least 90 miles away… so I can replace my recently deceased cellphone. Why did she drive me? BECAUSE SHE’S NICE… and people here are nice.

They smile and say hi to strangers on the street. Waitresses ask how I am. At the local beer, blues, and BBQ fest, a matronly woman warns me against the sour beer making a sour face. A writers’ group at the library asks me to join them for their monthly meeting. (Note: The quality of the writing among the group members is spectacular.)

FLASH BACK TO THE MIDWAY:

“Mykel,” says Vincent, “I got my bank statement in the mail yesterday. I have ten dollars in the bank. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“I’ll buy you a beer,” I tell him.

“That’s not it,” he says. “Marcy knows me… I have credit here...”

“One of the things you need,” I answer, “credit at the bar and a friend in the police force.”

“There are maybe half a dozen cops in Punxsutawney,” he says,. “They pick up drunks. Who needs ‘em as friends? I need a job.”

“You’re a PhD!” I say. “You can’t find a job? Why don’t you tutor?”

“The school here is a small school,” he answers. “The department heads don’t like me. And there’s nowhere else to go.”

The door to the bar opens and a man in his mid-forties comes in. Ruffled blond hair, an unintentional beard, dirty t-shirt, jeans and work boots. People say “Hi Ernest,” as he passes them to sit at the bar.

“Hi Ernest,” I say as he passes me.

He looks at me… squints… “Do I know you?”

“I’m in town for a month… doing some research… I’m going to be writing about the town… or at least using the town as a setting for something I’m writing.”

“Oh,” he says, shaking my hand. “You’re that guy.”

I smile.

“You have an unfair advantage,” I say. “Tell me about yourself.

He sits down on a barstool on the other side of me from Vincent. Marcy brings him a Bud Lite.

“I used to work in the coal mines,” he says. “I had an accident… cracked my spine… was in the hospital for a month… then almost a year in a wheelchair. After I got through with physical therapy, I got a new job.”

“What do you do now?” I ask.

“I’m a roofer,” he answers.

“You like danger, huh?”

He laughs.

“I like working with my hands… being outside now… looking up at the beautiful blue sky… ”

“I know,” I tell him, “I LOVE the blue sky here. Any direction, as long as it’s up… blue… blue… blue. In New York, we’re lucky if we get ten minutes of blue sky a week.”

He shakes his head.

“I just like standing on the roof, looking up… the sun, the sky, nothing between me and them.”

“I get it,” I say, “and I love it. New Yorkers would never notice a blue sky. They all walk with their heads down, nose to their iPhones… blocking anyone who really has a place to go… If, by some miracle of awareness, they realized the sky was blue, they wouldn’t look at it. They’d just hold their iPhones up to take a picture.”

He laughs again.

“Watcha been doing in town?” he asks me.

“Taking in the sights,” I tell him. “I walked along the back trails and saw the coke ovens… or what’s left of them”

“Obama did that,” says Ernest. “He just shut ‘em all down.”

“That’s not fair,” answers Vincent. “That started a long time before Obama… he was just the latest in the move.”

“Let me tell you, Mykel,” says Ernest. “Before Trump I didn’t have a job. After Trump I do have a job. That’s what you’ve got to know. We all thank him for that.”

Yes, this is Trump country. And it’s white… Fox TV-watching… gun-owning America. And the people here are great. Here, like in bars everywhere, they gossip and talk politics. And boy, do I have a fuck of a lot to learn from them.

BANG!

Can you tell me what the fuck a constitutional crisis means if you have ten dollars in the bank? Can you explain what collusion is if the coal mines… where you and your father and his father worked for years… have gone out of business?

Can you clarify obstruction of justice when the stores on Mahoning St. (the main drag) are empty, and jobs (low-paying, long hours) have started to come back to the city just after the last presidential election?

It should be a requirement… every city slicker should be forced to sit down with the locals in a small town in Pennsylvania… or Wisconsin… or Indiana. And they should be forced to SHUT UP AND LISTEN!

The locals are not interested in conspiracy theories... on how some Russian Putin agent is hiding under every bed… remote controlling every voting machine… beaming secret signals directly into a receiver embedded in Donald Trump’s hair. They don’t care if Trump paid off a whore… or if his skin looks orange under LED lights. They have closer --more important-- things to worry about.

Back in New York:

Ah, looks like we’re finally going to get rid of that orange guy… impeach… he’s trampling on the Constitution… of course he does… Putin told him to… all roads lead to Putin.

I sigh and shake my head. “You’ll never get it,” I don’t say.

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. Back blogs and columns are at https://mykelsblog.blogspot.com. Subscribe to the MYKEL'S READERS Yahoo group readmboard-subscribe@yahoogroups.com]

-→A shit solution is a good solution dept: Springfield, Missouri authorities have come up with an effective shame campaign to reduce dogshit in the downtown area. Turd piles are being tagged with recycled paper flags saying Is this your turd? 'Cuz that's absurd, and This is a nudge to pick up the fudge. The city says it spends $7,500 a year to pick up 25 pounds of shit per week from downtown parks and parking lots. My question: who weighs that shit?

-->Open your wallet for God dept: CBS news reports that if you have enough bucks, you can buy a pair of Nike Air Max 97s Jesus Shoes from a Brooklyn company called MSCHF. Introduced Oct. 8, the shoes have 60ccs of holy water from the Jordan River injected into the soles so you can literally walk on water.” The shoes also have a crucifix in the laces, red insoles related to “Vatican traditions,” and a Matthew 14:25 inscription. They are also scented with frankincense and are a god-like white and light blue color. The Jesus Shoes originally sold for $1,425, but are now fetching anywhere from $2,000 to upwards of $11,000. No need to buy me a pair. I’m waiting for the Satan Shoes with blood from a virgin in the soles.

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.
• 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.
• Carol Bergman has a blog about writing that features one of my favorite people: Me.

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

You're Still Wrong March 2019 or LOCK UP!

You’re Still Wrong

Mykel's Blog for March 2019
or

LOCK UP!

The prisoners assemble in the shape-up room. Standing at attention… most of them anyway… a few slump… in rows of twenty across… about a dozen deep. The warden is in front, addressing the crew.

“Okay, now listen up. New rules starting today,” he shouts in that kind of voice that means here’s an announcement and you’d better fuckin’ pay attention.

“This bag,” he says... holding aloft and shaking a cloth bag... like the ones in old cartoons. This one, however, is not stenciled with dollar signs. It jangles. It “is filled with keys. They are the keys to your cells... the keys to each section… and the keys to the jail itself… I’m here to distribute them.”

Inmate eyebrows frown in near unison.

“We’re downsizing and figure it’s a waste to pay someone to turn a key. You can just as easily do it yourself…. So, when I call your names, I want you to walk up here and collect your keys. You’ll sign your name in the book as having received them. If you lose them, it’ll cost you big… so don’t.”

“Excuse me, sir,” says a voice from somewhere near the middle of the crowd, “are you giving us the keys to our own cells? I mean, are you saying we’re going to lock ourselves in at night, and unlock ourselves during exercise periods and visits?”

“You got it, Einstein,” the warden shouts back.

There’s a low murmur among the men… like the walla walla walla background noises in movie restaurant scenes.

“SHUT THE FUCK UP!” shouts the warden. “Wait for your name to be called… then walk up here and get your keys… then go and stand back where you were….”

He looks down at a clipboard. “LeRoy Anthony!” he shouts. “LeRoy Anthony, come and collect your keys.”

A guy, late 60s, slightly stooped... walks from the far end of the third row… toward the warden. Meanwhile, the warden sorts through his cloth sack… looking at the tags on the keys.

HOLD IT! HOLD IT MYKEL… What’s the point here? What are you trying to prove? You think a prison would ever give inmates the keys and trust them to lock themselves in?

It’s that damn Literary Device. She just can’t keep her mouth shut… breaking in at key points… spoiling the flow with stupid questions and stupider statements of the obvious. Just when I’m setting the stage.

“Yo! Literary Device,” I say, “Give me a few paragraphs.. I’ll explain the point… and YES, I think inmates would lock themselves in by themselves. How many commit crimes just to get back in jail because they can’t handle the outside world? How many WANT to be there? How many would be on the street sleeping over a subway vent if it weren’t for prison?”

She (Literary Device), makes a sweeping be my guest hand gesture, like the doorman at an expensive restaurant… and says nothing.

FLASH TO 2019: I sit on my bed… laptop on a tiny… shaky… wooden table… The laptop shares the table with a postal scale, a cup of green tea, the empty DVD box of NYMPHOMANIAC VOLUMES ONE AND TWO… subtitled Forget About Love.

In the next apartment, Harry Back sits at his desk, finishing his business plan for a start-up company: Your Bedroom, Your Spaceship. Through the wall, I can hear the DINGS, PINGS, and BABOOS of his computer… every once in awhile... a heartily whispered SHIT! or YES! FINALLY!

BZZZZZ! It’s the door buzzer. Someone is trying to get in the building. They ring all the buzzers until someone lets them in. Barefoot, I pad over to the intercom and shout into it.

WHOWIZZIT? AND WADDAYA WANT?

“Food delivery for Mr. Back.” comes the staticky answer.

NEX DAW! I shout back. DIS IS D. YOU WANT C.

“Sorry,” comes the heavily accented voice, “I try once more.”

In a minute or so, I hear the elevator open and someone walking down the hall. My neighbor opens his door, mumbles thanks and quickly closes it again. The elevator closes… then more PINGS and DINGS from his computer.

FLASH TO The New York Post, December 6, 2018: It turns out millennials love Amazon so much, they’d give up sex or alcohol to keep shopping there. A new survey revealed 77 percent of millennials would go without booze for a year rather than quit Amazon, and 44 percent would forego sex.

It’s 2PM. I sit naked but for boxer shorts, and an old TRIBE 8 t-shirt. I type these words on my Lenovo laptop. A large sticker on the outside of the laptop shows a picture of an apple with a bite taken out of it. The apple is in a red circle. A diagonal red line runs through that apple. Yeah, I’m making a statement.

No classes today. I have a few minutes to spare. Yesterday, I couldn’t write before I had to catch the subway uptown. I taught until 9... as usual. Then out with my students. Thursday, was Drink Club. Wednesday was Drink Club Secret (no link to that one). Tomorrow, I’ll probably go see Jennifer Blowdryer at Otto’s… or else go out for dinner with an old girlfriend… one of many who my Midas touch has turned full-time lesbo. Tonight, though, I have some time.

I still hear Harry through the wall. I mute my beeps and pips… he doesn’t. I wonder if he has his pants on yet. He’s not that good looking, so  thoughts of him sitting at a desk in his underwear do not bring blood to my limp asparagus. I bet his computer doesn’t have a NO APPLE sticker on the front.

I wonder if he ever goes out. I know he works from home. On at least one of the few occasions we’ve met, he’s told me how lucky he feels that he can be in the corporate world and not have to put on a tie. He did not mention putting on his pants.

I imagine his life: He sits… possibly pantsless... at a high-tech desk... One with an actual keyboard tray rather than just pulling out a drawer like normal people do. Behind him sits a small table… swivel distance… so he can type… turn... eat… maybe watch television… swivel back and keep working.

Lightbulb burns out? Pull up Amazon… he’s gotta be a prime member… maybe super-prime if there is such a thing. BING! Lightbulb delivered… right to the door. Time for dinner…. Uber Eats… this time… Chinese or Indian? Indian… great, there in half an hour… Wow! Vindaloo you could die for… uh oh… speaking of dying… it’s kind of a heavy hitter.

Pow! Off to the bathroom… exploding toilet inevitable… Whoa!! Almost out of Charmin! Use that last bit and call CVS for an emergency supply. They deliver and it’s quick… they’re just around the corner. Better order a dozen rolls. That’ll take care of Indian, Szechuan, and a runny nose for a month… almost.

You’re gettin’ it, huh? It’s not a fantasy about prisoners locking themselves up… with the keys to their own cells. We already have that. I go to a punk club… the only people in the audience are recent immigrants who don’t have the delivery system figured out-- or-- THEY are the ones delivering all the stuff to the voluntary inmates… self-locked in their apartments The bars empty out around 10PM… Few people eat out any more… restaurants close… unless they’re just a window… for delivery only. Ms Literary Device, do you get it now?

People don’t leave home… not even to work. They lock themselves in their private apartment cells and turn the key. They think they’re CONNECTED to other people, because they see a few memes on facebook. They think they’re involved in the world, because they can watch a YouTube video of sheep-herders on the steppe.

Folks in modern times have less physical contact (the Japanese call it skinship) than jailbirds. Don’t jailbirds fuck all the time? Isn’t that where the original meaning of PUNK comes from? The Harry Backs of the world jerk off to XNXX and that’s what passes for sex. It’s safer that way, huh? No disease. No pictures from someone else’s cellphone to get them in trouble when they run for… I donno, City Council?

The Harry Backs of today don’t go out into the world… they expect the world to come into them. They don’t go to India… they have it delivered. They don’t shop… meet neighbors at the supermarket… handle produce… squeeze the fruit. They have it FRESH delivered.

Jews and Latin folks are famous for touching each other… for making bodily contact. I once read about a 1960’s sociologist who watched same sex pairs at a table in an outdoor cafe. Two WASP American men talked to each other for an hour… they touched each other once. Two Frenchmen talking touched each other 160 times. Two Puerto Ricans… 180 times. (The report did not include Jews… but I think it’s clear that there’s not much difference between Jews and Puerto Ricans.) Two Brits… NEVER TOUCHED in an hour of conversation.

But now? NO ONE will touch. The way we’re going, there will be no one to touch! We’ll just sit in our little cells, locking ourselves in… opening the door for home delivery… then shutting it quickly again. I’m fuckin’ glad I’m old and won’t live to see 8 million jail cells in New York City. Delivery please! But then again….

Shit! There’s the doorbell. Hold on a minute…. Oh hi, you must be from the escort service… Your name’s Literary Device??? Come on, you’re shittin’ me. Well, come in… Can I get you something to drink before we start?

- end 1-

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]

→ I’ve been saying it for years… part one dept: I’m usually as interested in the Oscars as I am in the Superbowl... as I am in gardening or macrame. But this caught my eye from Pop-Buzz.com. It said,

After thanking his parents, the Academy, his cast and Queen, Rami stated: "We made a film about a gay man, an immigrant who lived his life unapologetically himself and the fact that I'm celebrating him and this story with you tonight is proof that we're longing for stories like this". The sentiment was sweet but fans were disappointed that Rami called Freddie "gay".

Bisexuality invisibility came the complaint. And going even further, the complainers pull out this 2005 study that questions whether straight (or gay) people exist at all.

          In the 80s, it took real OUTRAGEOUSNESS to outrage people… Today, publicly scratching your balls is enough to start a twitterstorm.

       There is something to learn from this, though. The evils of BINARY THINKING:

GAY or STRAIGHT.

Trump is GOOD or Trump is SATAN.

And its corollary,
YOU EITHER SUPPORT ANY SHITHEAD THE DEMOCRATS NOMINATE or

YOU PERSONALLY ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR TRUMP’S REELECTION.

       The second facebooker I ever banned, I banned on the stupidity of his binary thinking. “Most of my friends are not white.” I wrote. “Mykel is playing the MY BLACK FRIEND card,” wrote the now-banned “friend”… as if the only two racial choices are WHITE or BLACK. Where the fuck does he live? South Africa?

        Binary thinking is too common for outrage… but it’s just about right for stupidity. You’ve heard me talk about that for years.

→ I’ve been saying this for years… part 2: An article in the Financial Times says that the vegetarian/vegan boom is a bigger boom for corporate agriculture than it is for the earth. Much of supermarket vegan food is genetically modified… usually so it can take heavier duty insecticides… which in turn pollute everything around them. Also, the harvesting of crops is done by petroleum-heavy tractors.. and processed by resource-using electricity. Cows and other animals are “harvested” on horseback.

          One thing the article does NOT mention is how veganism is bad for animals. Instead of choosing to purchase humanely killed /organically raised meat, vegans take their money out of the meat-voting pool. This means fewer meat-eaters care what they eat, which means less demand to raise animals humanely… So the farmers, antibiotic users, and legislators simply don’t care.

→Moving to Vietnam dept: I’ve often thought about leaving the US. It really is an awful place to live… a shithole country. My cousin voted with his feet and now lives in Thailand. I have plenty of friends who’ve ditched the US for places far and wide. I don’t know anyone who’s gone to Vietnam, though. But given that medical care is so bad here… there do seem to be doctors after my own heart on the other side of the world. Check out this Vietnamese doctor who successfully saved someone’s life by pumping beer INTO his stomach.

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.

Here's a start:

• David Goldberg's Busy Microbes Blog
• And another 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.

CONTACT REDUX: 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.