How To Say YES or Mykel's Post MRR Blog #26

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Inner Beauty or Mykel's Post MRR Column 22

YOU'RE STILL WRONG

POST MRR COLUMNS

Post MRR Column 22 aka

Inner Beauty

by Mykel Board

Problem, problem

Problem, the problem is you

What you gonna do?

--Sex Pistols

It was more out of place than Hillary Clinton at an anti-war rally. On facebook... Zine Chatter... an answer to a random comment about the value of old issues of Maximum Rock'n'Roll... some random feminist:

I've never met you Mykel, I don't think I'd want to. But I need to ask you when are you going to get over it. Let MRR go. Get on with your life. Instead of harping on the past... always looking for answers OUT THERE...on the outside. Examine yourself. You'll find the problem there. Stop looking out. Start looking in. You'll find the problem inside.

In haiku, they call the discovery of a MOMENT... a unique insight into something... something usually banal or taken for granted... an a-hah! moment. Finding these moments are one my life's many joys. This facebook moment, though, is not an a-hah! moment. It is a huh? moment... I just don't get it.

Then, I do.

This is how America works. If you get sick, it's YOUR fault. It's not the poison spray on your vegetables, the antibiotics in your meat, the sulfur dioxide in the air... it's YOU. You smoke. You don't watch your diet. You don't take vitamins. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE. If you're poor, it's YOUR fault. Not your race, or the lack of meaningful (or any) work, or your parents' income. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE. Don't look to the government for answers... look inside yourself.

Flash ahead to my worst hangover of the month... a brainbuster... a stomach pumper... a body wrencher. Sunday morning... thrown out of bed by the need to pray to the porcelain goddess... I turn... fall the two or three feet from the couch where I passed out last night.

I'd returned from The Patriot... best bar in New York. She was back.. that bartender who sets her nipples on fire and lets the birthday boy blow them out. I only wish it was my birthday. Whose birthday was it? I forget.

No time to worry about that now. Naked, fresh from bed... I'm kneeling next to Big Mariam... the porcelain goddess. I just manage to reach her. I trace yesterday's beer... and Buffalo wings... and dollar hotdogs... and sliders... follow them on their passage from my stomach... heaving in a painful bulk... upwards... around the bend... burning... burning... into my throat... exploding from my mouth into the toilet... the force pushing... prodding upwards... into my nose... filling my sinuses with an acrid poison.... running out my nose... dripping downwards... self-processed food... mixing with yesterday's liquid remains... dripping into the toilet as my stomach empties its contents.

A post-orgasmic collapse... facedown in the toilet. I don't want to die Elvis style... I won't get a postage stamp with my picture on it. I've got to lift my head out of the mire. It's getting hard to breathe. Small chunks of things hit my cheek... puke-filled water squirms up my nose... I slump... fall back on the bathroom floor.

I lay prone, barely aware of the hard tile and vomit splotches. Then it hits me... I have just emptied my insides. The contents of ME! Right there, available for my examination.

Using the toilet rim, I pull myself up to a half-sitting position. I look inside: the beer-colored former contents of my stomach. Great chunks of red, green and brown float at their respective weight levels. Blotches of mucus... translucent and viscous... rise to the top.

I reach into the slough.

Plunging my hand downwards, I scoop up the most solid of the goop. Some chunks of red... a few identifiable peas and carrot pieces... something white and very thin... shaped like a babushka. I bring my hand toward my face... my nose, now clear enough to smell... the unmistakable smell of puke but with overtones of beer and jalapeño.

I stick out my tongue and touch it to the mess in my palm. It stings-- not like eating a Mexican pepper stings, but like the up-chucked bile of too much pepperoni stings. I suck some of the glop into my mouth... re-chew... re-swallow... the ultimate human recycling. I eat more of it... Smear it over my face... my body... rub it between my legs... the liquid is cool and sticky against my skin.

I scoop more from the toilet. Suck it in... something gets caught... goes down the wrong pipe... I cough up... spew more... this time over my naked chest... Another scoop... this one with more green than the last. Look! A kernel of corn... whole... undigested. I suck it in, chewing well, making sure next time out it'll look different.

Then, it hits like a punch, knocking the wind out of me. This is pain... not the nausea of vomit... but the pain of a rumbling large intestine... begging for release... a piercing exploding pain... a pain like giving birth... a screaming bulge that forces me to stand... slide in the floor vomit... skin a knee in the slop... stand again... just poised... frustrated sphincter bulging. My insides tear to fight the release. Relax, don't fight it... push... a drip.. a drop... two. Push more... a stream squirts downward splashing itself and the vomit below... up onto my hovering twin cheeks.

More... great gushes... clods, wads, globs... assonance up the ass... or out of the ass... Here it comes... it's ripping me open.. a huge hard one... like it's coming out sideways... bigger than my thigh. Down it comes, like a soldier whose parachute didn't open... like a building cornice in an earthquake... like an angel, fallen from God's kingdom to hell.

I look between my legs at the mess in the toilet. My ripped rectum bleeds softly into the morass... the red mixing with the shit brown and multicolored heave-itude... swirling in a psychedelic blend... It's postpartum ecstasy. I do nothing but sit... breathe... eyes closed... the ebullience of evacuation outweighing the pain of my torn sphincter.

For a second... a minute... an infinity... I sit in bliss. Then I realize what I have to do. I reach between my legs... into the liquescent rainbow swirling below. I strain the liquid through my hands picking up one solid log... about the length of a slice of pizza... the width of a hearty twig. I roll it between my hands, like making a snake out of clay. Faster and faster... it breaks off, the top end... spinning... leaping over my leg on to the bathroom floor. I try again. Picking up a similar piece... a bit shorter and thicker... sturdier than the other... made of stronger stuff... I think about how this fine turd was once a Buffalo wing or maybe a piece of calamari.

Holding it in one hand, I bring it close to my nose. The obvious line would be it smells like shit... It doesn't. It smells like puke. The contents of my stomach... at least nasally... overcome the contents of my large intestines.

“This came from me,” I think. “My body made this, changing through some mysterious process... things I put in... coming out on their own. How did my body choose... separate nutrients... change colors? What happened and why did this particular turd decide to leave me at this particular moment?

I push forward on the toilet seat... lean my chest against my thighs... turd in hand, I reach back and push... relax... push again... reinserting that product... product of my body... back into its recent home.

It feels good... this fecal dildo... pressing the prostate from the inside.

Reaching back into the multi-colored stew, I look for tiny bits... grape-sized. One-by-one, I grab them... lean over... force them back inside... where they came from. I reach down and grab another one. This one breaks... shatters into tiny nubs... like Oriental nipples... before it can re-pass the sphincter threshold.

I put the pieces into my mouth. They taste... neutral... like white bread... like mashed potatoes... like rice... like nothing at all. Swallowing, I wonder how my body will treat its already-sorted waste... now a new entry. Will it be confused? Will it change it back to a Buffalo wing or a piece of calamari?

I lean back again and reach for a bigger coprolith... this one the size and shape of a large carrot. Perfect. Leaning forward once more, I force it back into its ancestral home... past the prostate... tickling, eroticizing... I feel my little friend rise between my legs.

Using more of the water as a lubricant... I rub myself hard... harder... One hand manipulating the excremental plug, the other manipulating me... yes... yes... yes! I spurt hard and white, adding yet another color to the psychedelic solution.

Yes, I've seen it... the real me. And it made me come!

Ok, I've done it. Looked inside... examined myself... penetrated my inner core... tasted, smelled, reused. I've analyzed and anal-ized. Macro-ed and micro-ed. Seen it all and... without a trace... have not found the cause of my discontent. I have not found the reason the stand-on-your-own-two-feet-personal-responsibility conservatives say I'm poor. Or the reason MRR lied to me. I've looked inside myself... gotten as close as I can to the inner me and the problem is not there.

Get it MRR and libertarian conservatives? Get it anti-welfare-ites and get-a-job-ers? Sometimes the problem is NOT inside. Sometimes the problem is outside. Sometimes we've got nothing to do with our problems. We can't control the circumstances. Sometimes it's just luck. Sometimes we're lied to, abused, taken advantage of and it IS NOT OUR FAULT. It's NOT from us! It's NOT INSIDE. Problem? Problem? The problem is you!

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

-->Trans-racial dept: You know about the Spokane Washington organizer for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People who was outed by her parents as White. She claims to be “trans-racial.”

Amazingly, she was supported by a ton of liberals who said that trans-race was fine. Anybody can be any race they choose... just by saying so.

I don't think so.

-->Trans-racial part 2 dept: Then there is Dylann Roof who kills nine people in a church in South Carolina. The reason? They're black. Dylann doesn't like blacks very much.

Hah, the joke's on him. He didn't know that the people he shot were actually WHITE. Trans-racial... you could ask any of them. (Now, you can't.) They'd tell you right out they were white. Whoops, I guess Dylann didn't know. You gotta ask questions first, THEN shoot. Otherwise, you may be shooting the wrong race. Right, Dylann?

-->Whoops part 2 DEPT: The US Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee no longer classifies cholesterol as a "nutrient of concern." The decision, which reverses four decades of advice, reflects recent research suggesting that eating foods high in cholesterol does not significantly raise cholesterol levels in the blood. All those people avoiding the vitamins and sight-saving lutein of egg yolks... sorry about that.

-->TEXAS Drinkin' DEPT: Quintin Walker was suspended from high school and barred from graduation. Why? School officials saw a can of Bud Lite in a cooler in his truck. His mother had packed the cooler for a family picnic, and Quinton was just bringing back the leftovers.

Bud Lite? It's not like he had beer or something.

-->TEXAS Drinkin' Part 2 Dept: Meanwhile, also in Texas, a new University of Texas study found that drinking two cups of coffee a day lowers the risk of erectile dysfunction by 42 percent. There's no word on what a can of Bud Lite does for that.

-->TROLLS DEPT: Richard Valdes, a former employee of right-wing activist James O'Keefe, reports that he (O'Keefe) instructed undercover operatives to participate in BLACK LIVES MATTER protests and shout things like "I wish I could just kill some of these cops." Then fellow right-wingers use the quotes to show that #Blacklivesmatter is really a bunch of advocates for cop-killing.

->Keeping the Pressure on Dept: I want to thank reader George Metesky for suggesting a continuing Bring Back Mykel effort directed at Maximum Rock'n'Roll for their firing me as their contribution to the world of censorship. Send your comments to mrr@maximumrocknroll.com (or post on their facebook page) with the subject line: BRING BACK MYKEL! Let me know how they answer.

-->And: I'm still on a massive clean-up/divest kick. I'm giving away DVDs, cassettes, VHS videos, CDs, posters, and a few 7-inch singles. Just pay separate shipping and handling. Details at: MykelsGiveaway

-end

This Column Sucks (Part 3) or Mykel's Post MRR Column # 21 V.3

YOU'RE STILL WRONG

POST MRR COLUMNS

Column 21¾

Better Than God PT. 3

by Mykel Board

[NOTE: I promised this column as a supplement, to be done before my usual. I flaked. Too much facebook, and autoerotic procrastination. So here it is... maybe late... but here it is.]

"Although real and troubling lawlessness... had occurred, rumors of homicidal gangs and "zombies".. were revealed as overblown. Looters were sometimes foragers, searching for food and water. Gunshots assumed to have been aimed at rescuers may have been gunshots aimed, however misguidedly, at alerting those rescuers to the presence of desperate survivors.” --Sheri Fink in 5 Days at Memorial

To refresh: Picture Amanojaku, tiny... horned... ugly...born of semen and dustbunnies... on the cusp of a vacuum cleaner hose...

He challenges me to replace the chasm left when the old morality died. I complained about the current replace-ments... identity politics... totalitarianism... over-sensitivity... privatization... Me... Me... Me.. I rejected THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (too egotistical / God centered) and THE GOLDEN RULE (encourages masochists to hurt people). So Amanojaku asks me for my own set of commandments. 

 When last we left, I was giving my commandments. I gave them while the little demon lay squished on my naked leg... murdered by me... crushed like a fly on a TV screen. Last month I gave my first five commandments-- aka Basic Rules. 

 “Okay you little fucker,” I tell the mess on my thigh. “Here are the last five. If there's reincarnation, you can follow them in the next life.” 

BASIC RULE NUMBER SIX: Thou shalt SOLVE PROBLEMS BY OPENING RATHER THAN CLOSING. In politics, it's easy to see how this works. You're worried about the rebels in Syria? Offer them visas and free passage to the US or wherever else they want to go. “Supporting” people means giving them a place to go, a place where they do not feel in danger. You think the Russians are giving the Ukrainians a raw deal? Don't give 'em guns, give 'em houses in Brighton Beach... open up. You don't solve problems by killing people. Nothing is more “closing” than death. 

In personal relations, OPENING means, giving up your headphones and i‑Whatever and letting the street sounds and views and random people come into your life. Much of it you won't like, but I guarantee a few grains of corn in with the general shit. Open up! See the world... your neighborhood... your neighbors. 

 Mentally, it means not being so wedded to a gender, race, or ideology that it colors everything you do. Let in the outside world: 

Flash to Venezuela: I'm here because Chavez is in charge... the great liberator... called GW Bush Satan at the UN. Yeah! The country is a paradise: Happy workers with free land, healthcare and a leader they can trust, no? 

NO! 

Chavez is a ruthless dictator... the conservatives are right... at least on this one small point. 

 In Caracas, I stay with a 35-year-old geologist...fired from her government job. Why? She signed a petition asking Chavez to follow the constitution. That's it. Bang! Unemployed! 

I walk the streets of the city...  see dozens of people squatting... eating out of ripped-open garbage bags. These are not punk dumpster divers, but families, stuffing their skinny bodies. I walk to a store... buy a towel... pay cash... “¿Puedo ver su identificación?” 

 People don't talk to each other... to strangers. They're hostile and afraid. A teenager, dirty blond hair... an HOLA! t-shirt... worn jeans... behind me as I walk. I turn the corner. He's still behind me. I turn another corner... still there. Down into the subway... he's right behind me. A cop in the station... I head toward him... the teen is gone. It's creepy and symbolic of a crime-ridden, corrupt, totalitarian Venezuela. I was wrong about it. My open life, this time, pointed to FOX not MSNBC. 

BASIC RULE NUMBER SEVEN: Thou shalt BE CIVIL. I don't fucking mean to be polite, dainty and drink beer from a fuckin' glass. I mean don't be an asshole... be AWARE OF OTHER PEOPLE. 

I'm on a queen-size escalator... the DOWN side... running for the #7 train. I hear the rumble of the train... its approach... I run faster... the multicultural line of people on the right shifts slightly to let me pass. Down that left side... there she is in front of me... a white girl in a too short skirt and too styled hair... standing on the steps...thumbs flailing... feet fixed to the step. 

I pound down the stairs behind her... stomping... clomping... thudding... each step catching glances from everyone on the escalator... except her and her iPhone. I'm right behind her. My arm on the escalator rail... right next to her... if I were a kidnapper... I could nap her right now... encircle her waist. She's oblivious. The train leaves. I don't push her down the remaining stairs. 

 CIVIL means considering the people around you. It means not standing on the walk side... not pushing to get in the train before the people inside leave... not going the just speed limit in the left lane. BASIC 

RULE NUMBER EIGHT: Thou shalt ASSUME ANYTHING THAT “EVERYBODY KNOWS” IS WRONG. This is not only “everybody” as in textbooks, but everybody as in your friends... your fellow liberals... punks... feminists. 

 Wikipedia says: The universe is 13.77 billion years old. Everybody knows that, right? And the solar system is 5 billion years old? Huh? 

What is a YEAR? It's one revolution of the earth around the sun. One year is one trip. If there is no sun, there are no years. We can't measure time if there's nothing to measure it against. It is meaningless to say one BLARF is the time it takes for a kryptonite bullet to pierce Superman's skull. There is no kryptonite and no Superman. Measuring ONE YEAR, when there is no earth or no sun is meaningless. 

 Everybody knows: Smoking tobacco causes lung cancer. You take it for granted... even if you smoke. Smoking is bad for kids and their parents. A smoker is a bad person. Ok, let's see. 

The 10 countries with the highest lung cancer rates (in order) are: 
1. Hungary 
2. Serbia
3. Maldives
4. Poland
5. Armenia
6. Denmark
7. Netherlands
8. Croatia
9. The United States
10. Cuba. 

The 10 countries with the highest percentage of smokers are (in order)
1. Greece
2. Serbia
3. Bulgaria
4. Russia
5. Moldova
6. Ukraine
7. Slovenia
8. Bosnia
9. Belarus
10. Montenegro 

The US is number 51. 

Only Serbia has both a high lung cancer rate and a high smoking rate. If smoking is the main cause of lung cancer, something is wrong. 

 What's wrong is how you think! 

Looking at only one aspect... one cause... one effect... is not how the world works. Cigarette companies, in the US, are the great corporate scapegoats. Asthma? It's cigarettes. Emphysema? Ditto. Companies of all kinds can spew garbage of all kinds in the air. Workers can be exposed to the worst kind of industrial pollutants... but if they get sick... IT'S CIGARETTES. One industry takes the blame for the evils of the others. Worse, it's YOU who takes the blame. You're sick. YOU DID IT. YOU SMOKED! 

That's wrong. 

BASIC RULE COROLLARY: If there's a proverb, cliché, or saying about it, it's probably wrong. 

Examples: 

The early bird catches the worm: WRONG! Recent research shows that early birditude or night owlishness is genetic. If you're in the worm catching business, and you function best at night... catch those worms at night. You'll do better. 

 Women make 77 cents to every man’s dollar. WRONG! That statistic only takes into account JOB TITLES. It does not include the number of hours worked (statistically much higher for men). It also does not include the danger and therefore work years of professions at higher pay. How many garbagewomen have you seen? Pressurized can explosions, exposure to sharp objects, medical contaminants, make this a much more dangerous job than, say kindergarten teaching. The average work life of garbage MAN is much lower than that of a (mostly female job) elementary school teacher... with disease and accidental death a major reason. 

Even in the same job, individual paychecks may be different but money earned per year, during the average work life, is the same for men and women. Variations of length of work hours, previous experience, length of time at the job, all are pay factors. The 77¢ figure is bogus... a relic of the way its supporters do the calculation. 

 BASIC RULE NUMBER NINE: Thou shalt GO ANALOG. Digital is a bunch of ones and zeros... a BINARY system. If you're not NUMBER ONE... you're a big zero. Most Western Countries are digital: one or zero. No in between. It comes from Christianity: God or Satan. You see it everywhere: Cowboys or Indians. Good guys or bad guys. Men or women. Black or white. 6 million in the ovens or holocaust denier. Conservative or liberal. Punk or mainstream. Gay or straight. No middle ground... nothing in between. Yo buckaroos, the world isn't that way. 

Why do so many transsexuals think of themselves as “a woman trapped in a man's body?” That assumes there are only women and men! Digital thinking. Why not be YOU, a unique person, a unique gender, a little of this, a little of that, and something neither this nor that? You are YOU in your body. Why change to conform to a digital idea? Why cut it off if it's there for you to use and enjoy... as any gender you'd like. 

Between black and white is an infinitude of gray... not to mention red or sienna. More than BEING an infinitude, the universe is a SHIFTING infinitude. Today this. Tomorrow not quite this. The next day that.

BASIC RULE NUMBER TEN: Thou shalt (often) TELL THE COMMANDMENT GIVER TO FUCK OFF. 

 The year is 1970. The place Beloit College. I've organized the first meeting of OPERATION MAXWELL, our political action group on campus... embarrassingly (in retrospect) named after a Beatles song. We're meeting outside, on a small concrete strip in front of a wall on front of THE QUAD... an open area when hippie students picnic, folk dance, and try to find a joint. 

Gavel-less, I bang my fist on the wall. 

 “Okay,” I say. “I'm calling this meeting to order. We've got a lot to talk about. As your leader...” 

“No leaders!” comes the call from someone. POW! A PIE IN THE FACE.... Custard.... 

“No leaders!” comes the call again... to be picked up by the others. 

NO LEADERS! NO LEADERS! NO LEADERS! 

 Yeah, I engineered the whole thing. Planned it from day one... my one and only act as leader of the group was to overthrow myself. As your new commandment giver, I want to continue that tradition. 

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

 -->What is it with Indiana and "freedom of religion?" dept: An Indiana Catholic school teacher was fired after she applied for insurance to cover in vitro fertilization. The church had already paid for MALE infertility treatment. The teacher sued the diocese. The diocese responded that having to go to court would be a violation of "the church's religious freedom." It didn't work and the jury awarded the woman 1.9 million dollars. The church plans to appeal the verdict. 

-->I swear, sort of, dept: A Pennsylvania judge prohibited a Muslim woman from swearing on the Koran before taking the witness stand. The law in the state requires witnesses to either swear on the Christian bible or make a non-religious "affirmation." Jeezus! Can't we just get the bible out of court completely and be done with it? 

 -->Fuck school do something useful dept: The LA Times reports that an estimated 100,000 Mexican children under 14 work on farms that supply produce to US stores. The children don't go to school and work in 100^o heat for your corn. Their parents, mostly Mexican Indians, are often in debt to company stores run by the farm owners, so the kids' "earnings" go right back to the farm. 

 ->Keeping the Pressure on Dept: I want to thank reader George Metesky for suggesting a continuing Bring Back Mykel effort directed at Maximum Rock'n'Roll for their firing me as their contribution to the world of censorship. Send your comments to mrr@maximumrocknroll.com (or post on their facebook page) with the subject line: BRING BACK MYKEL! Let me know how they answer.

-->And: I'm still on a massive clean-up/divest kick. I'm giving away DVDs, cassettes, VHS videos, CDs, posters, and a few 7-inch singles. Just pay separate shipping and handling. Details at: MykelsGiveaway 

 -end

A Good Column That Sucks or Mykel's Post MRR Column 19

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