You're
Wrong
An
Irregular Column
by
Mykel Board
“This is the way
the world ends; not with a bang or a whimper, but with zombies
breaking down the back door.”
― Amanda Hocking,
in Hollowland
I'm madder than a
feminist with chlamydia. Not only do I get my “survivor” column
cut, but I break out. Tonight is Furious George at the Bowery
Electric.
I'm meeting this fanzine girl who emailed me she'll do
anything, because I love the way you talk about body fluids.
Is that a dream or what? It might as well be. I'm in whitehead hell.
You know, those pimples... you can feel 'em coming for
days... then they break the surface... red pus-filled lumps. Suddenly
I'm attacked... one on my shoulder... one on my ass... one on the
side of my nose... now one on my upper palate. Right where she's
gonna run her tongue... the first night of our tryst... Yeah she
likes body fluids... but does pus count? I doubt it.
I donno, the lights
are low in that club. Maybe I can get away with it. I'll feel a
little guilty lapping those lower labia... might get my palatine pus
in her sensitive spot. Ah, who cares? I'll never see her again. I
just hope that she won't want to meet me tomorrow... hang out in Soho
or something. Ugh! Can you imagine spending the day with a gender
whose hobby is SHOPPING?
Suddenly a stench
fills my apartment. It surrounds me like a blanket... a suffocating
blanket. It's the smell of a mouse caught weeks ago... left in the
trap to rot... times ten... an over-powering stench of death.
Ok Mykel, I
think we've finally had enough. You are so full of shit your eyes are
brown. What do you think it's like hanging out with a gender whose
idea of a good time is football and cars? You think that's sexy? We'd
rather shop for clothes... though in our current condition, it's hard
to find something that'll fit.
I turn and see a
whole bunch of people... I guess they are people. They're not looking
too healthy, although it's hard to focus on any one of them. Most are
missing body parts. Many are scarred around the face and between the
legs. Broken bones poke through at odd places.
“Who are you?”
I ask. “And what the fuck are you doing in my apartment?”
We're the ghosts
of every woman raped... dismembered bodies thrown in garbage bags.
We're the ghosts of every woman burned alive on her husband's funeral
pyre. We're the ghosts of every woman killed because she wanted to
attend school or drive a car or vote. We're the ghosts of every woman
sacrificed to a male god. Of every woman who died in childbirth
because she was forced to have a child she didn't want. We're the
ghosts of every woman murdered to save the honor of some male shmuck.
We're the ghosts...
“There
certainly are a lot of you,” I say, speaking to the
limbless-torso-with-a-head who's talking to me.
“There are
millions of us,” she answers.
“How did you all
fit into my tiny apartment?” I ask.
“We're dead,
Mykel,” she says. “We don't take up much space... And
what's that ugly thing on the side of your nose?”
“You
should talk,” I say, “you're dripping blood all over my floor.”
“You're
right,” she says. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get
personal.”
“Okay,”
I tell her. “Next question: What the fuck are you doing in my
column? Who gave you permission...”
She laughs.... the
limbless one... a deep throaty laugh that sounds like it comes from
the depths of hell. Maybe it does.
“That's pretty
funny,” she says, “coming from Mr. Free Speech Absolute.
We need permission to speak???? That's rich!”
She laughs again.
The teeming mass around her echos. It's like standing in front of a
jet engine. Oh boy, the neighbors are going to complain.
“But you're
dead!” I object.
“So dead
people have no rights?” she answers. “It's a slippery
slope, and you know it. First you deny rights to dead people. Then
you deny them to black people.”
“Okay,” I say,
“you're right. I buttered my free-speech bed, now I have to sleep
in it. So WHY are you here?”
“We're here to
do what your editors SHOULD have done. We're not here to block you.
We're here to ANSWER you.”
“Why
didn't you do this LAST issue?” I ask. “That's the one after the
one they didn't print.”
“Publishing
schedules,” she says. “We didn't have time to organize
before the deadline. How long do you think it takes to get millions
of dead women together? It's a big job.”
“Like meeting
some after work,” I say. “Girls... always takes them a long time
to do anything.”
“Sure Mykel,”
she answers, “pick a cliche and jump on it. How creative of
you. I think this whole ghost thing is a rip-off of George Tabb
anyway.”
“Hey,” I say,
“don't get testy. Is it time of the month or something?”
“No Mykel,”
she says in a voice that would indicate hands-on-hips, though
this girl has no hands to put anywhere, “we're dead. We don't
have those times of the month.”
“I
forgot,” I say.
“And besides,
why is it when a woman gets pissed off it's always female
trouble or that time of the month?
When a guy gets pissed off the cause is something else. Something
outside his body. How come everything a woman does is blamed on her
own body?”
“Not
everything,” I say. “Besides, girls identify with their bodies.
For girls, things exist the way they do BECAUSE they're girls. In my
censored column...”
She cuts me off,
“It wasn't CENSORED, Mykel. The editors chose not to print it.
That's what editors do. You got enough publicity out of it to satisfy
even an egomaniac like you. MRR doesn't print ballet reviews. Is that
censorship? Maybe they should print Bill O'Reilly?”
“Let me
finish,” I say, “in that column... whatever you call it...
I start with a quote from Catherine McKinnon, where she says that all
heterosexual sex is rape. That's BECAUSE women...”
“What the
fuck?” the torso asks. “Catherine McKinnon does not speak
for me. She's a relic from the 80s... like you! She doesn't speak for
any of us. She only speaks for guys like you who want to use her as
an example of WOMEN. Men love her a hell of a lot more than women do.
She's exactly their image of A FEMINIST. She isn't and never was. You
just like to believe that. Does Bill O'Reilly speak for YOU? Does he
speak for MEN?”
“I see you
got a bee in your bonnet about Bill O'Reilly,” I tell her.
“We visit him
next,” she says. “He lies. You don't lie..”
“Thank
you,” I say.
“You distort,”
she says. “Instead of letting the facts pick how you think,
you get an opinion first, then find the facts to match. It's a step
up from O'Reilly, but not a big step.”
“Can we
get to some specifics?” I ask.
“Ok,”
she says, “you make light of domestic violence...”
“I do not!” I
answer, “I just say that domestic violence is a two way street. ANY
gender can commit it, but only men are guilty until
proven innocent.”
“There you go
picking and choosing again,” she says. “The (somewhat)
more objective NY
Times says more women in NYC are killed by their
husbands or boyfriends than in robberies, disputes, sexual assaults,
drug violence, random attacks or any other crime where the
relationship between the murderer and victim is known. And
more: according to the Domestic
Violence Resource Center
a quarter of all women in the US are assaulted...”
I'm ready for this
one. “So you think the answer is to throw the assaulters in jail,
where they'll be assaulted and learn that assaulting is the way of
the world?”
“We
are together in this,” says the torso-with-a-head, nodding to
the millions of others with her, “but we can't agree on
everything. Some of us think that just getting these fuckers off the
street is enough. Lock 'em away. Stop 'em from hurting others.
Frankly, we don't give a shit what happens when they're locked up.
It's not like drugs, Mykel. These are not victimless crimes...”
“So,”
I say in triumph, “it IS all about revenge.”
“Don't
get testy,” she says.
[OUCH!
That hurts!]
She
continues, “We don't ALL agree on that. Some of us think the way
to deal with this is to make the assaulters work in a rape crisis
center or a shelter... not as a counselor, but as a guard or
something. Or send them out with the cops who sweep up after a “crime
of passion.” Let 'em see the broken bodies... the results of their
handiwork... US! That's punishment... and
education...”
“Er...” I
interject, “that's exactly what I think.”
“Yeah,”
she says, “but it's not what you write. It's as if we
don't have a right to our own issues, our own problems. We're women,
but we can't talk about that. We have to think of equality,
unfairness, other people who are getting fucked over-- oh yeah, and
FREE SPEECH®.
But we are WOMEN. We're close to THIS ISSUE. This is what killed us.
Look at this bloody mess, Mykel”
She makes a
sweeping gesture with... with what? I donno. How do you make a
sweeping gesture with no arms or legs?
“This
is OUR concern,” she says. “We
are NOT survivors. We are dead. Let's at least applaud the ones who
made it.”
And the sound of
applause of millions of limbless torsos fills my apartment. The
stench of death rises even higher with the sound.
“And
oh yeah,” says the talking
limbless-torso, “that whitehead on the side of your nose just
popped.”
I reach up and feel
the pus oozing onto my finger.
ENDNOTES:
[email subscribers (god@mykelboard.com)
or blog viewers (mykelsblog.blogspot.com/)
will get live links and a chance to post comments on the column. Your
zines, CDs/records, and... er... private
videos... can
and should be sent to me at: Mykel Board, POB 137, Prince Street
Station, New York NY 10012]
-->Messing
with Texas dept: Remember last month when I reported that Texas
wants to ban teaching "critical thinking" in schools? Looks
like they needn't have bothered. Texas Judge Tom Head (his real
name!) recently gave a TV interview where he said that if Obama were
re-elected, the president would "hand over sovereignty of the
U.S. to the U.N. The U.N. will then send in U.N. troops with the
little blue beanies."
A spokesman for
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon replied, "Not even the United
Nations would mess with Texas."
I say. Too bad.
Maybe the U.N. could set up a program to educate those primitives.
-->Recycling
won't help dept: According to the Natural
Resources Defense Council, 40% of all food in the US ends up in
the trash. The average family of four wastes 20 lbs of food a month.
I know, it would be hard to give that up, right? I mean, they'd have
to eat leftovers!
-->Is this a
music magazine or what? dept: I wanna plug some great CDs &
Records I got. World War IX should be EVERYONE'S envy. MRR
reviewed their first CD as "the worst record I've ever heard."
I take my hat off and expose my balding scalp to that one. If only I
could get a review like that!
And then the
GG-less Murder Junkies released their LP ROAD KILLER.
Besides the hits like TWO DICKS IN YOUR MOUTH, and MY LITTLE FUCK
DOLL, Merle finally made a song from GG's christening of Lenny: PISS
DRINKING JEW. I hear a movie about the new band is in the works. I'd
better get a THANK YOU.
-->Who cares
who wins in the US? Dept: A protest
against US drone strikes in Pakistan, led by
cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan has continued for several
days. Khan led at least 1,000 supporters and dozens of Western peace
activists to Tank, the last town before the area where the US claims
Taliban and Al-Qaeda have strongholds.
"It's our
right to go to our people," said student Fakhruddin Shinwari. He
accuses the U.S. and Pakistani governments of trying to hide the real
situation. "There's no security risk. There are no terrorists
there. It will be shown to be a lie."
As I write this, US
drones continue to kill unarmed people in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
As the U.S. election draws near, my friends say voting for Jill Stein
(Green Party) is like voting for Romney. They are wrong. Voting for
Obama is like voting for Romney.
-->Letters
perception dept:
I hear from my editors that some people think I'm wimping out by not
answering my hate mail in the letters section.
I
answer in this column rather than after
the letters. That's because I believe the letters section should be
the voice of the reader. If writers always gets the last word it's
unfair... like a baseball team that always gets to bat in the bottom
of the 9th.
If
you write a letter/and want me to answer after your
letter, let me know and I'll do it. Otherwise, I'll stick to my...
er... guns-- at least for now.
-end-
