Life after Death or Mykel's Post MRR Column no 58

Mykel's

Post MRR Column no 58

or

Life after Death

"If any doctor tells me, as I like in my hospital bed, that my death will not only help others to live, but be symptomatic of the triumph of humanity, I shall watch him very carefully when next he adjusts my drip” --Julian Barnes

“You’re shorter than I thought you would be.” I tell her. “You too,” she answers. We both laugh.

So I’m hangin’ out with God at the Purgatory Bar and Grill… known locally as The Purg. Drinks are on her… I don’t even know if they take cash here… let alone my United Airlines Mileage Plus card.

I’ve been dead about two weeks... came here to drink first thing. Now I’m a regular, but I hadn’t met the big boss until just a few minutes ago.

“I like to visit the celebrities,” she says. “I just left Tom Wolfe… and I gotta tell you… you’re looking better than he does.”

“He was 88 when he kicked the bucket,” I remind her. “I was almost 20 years younger.”

“Yeah,” she says, “but he stayed a natty dresser to the end….” She looks me down and up… from my holey army boots to my bad transplant comb-over. “What happened to you?”

I look her up and down from her brown feet in Greek-wrapped calf-length sandals to her naked thighs, to her bright colored bikini (I expected leather) over a muscular-- but not six-packed stomach …. to her cascade of braided black hair.

God

Okay,” I say, “You win.”

“But I was nearly right in my earthbound imaginations,” I continue. “I knew you’d be a colored girl.”

“THAT’s one of the reasons I wanted to meet you,” she says. “No one else would have the balls to call God “a colored girl.” You get ten punk points for that.”

“I call most females girls,” I say, “unless they’re feminists who’ve completely lost their playfulness or ability to be cute, whimsical, laugh easily, or delight in a kitten. Women are mature in the worst way. Women have no sense of humor, no ability to enjoy blowing the pollen off a dandelion, no thrill in wondering why grass is green or why men like sports. Girls ask about the universe. Women demand an end to the patriarchy.”

“Yep,” says God. “I’m older than the universe and I’m still a girl. I HATE that word woman! It’s almost as bad as man. Boys can light farts. Men talk about the stock market…. just disgusting.”

“Agreed!” I shout, slapping her open palm with mine… She orders another round of beers. Yes, there is Founders Breakfast Stout at The Purg.

“Speaking of farts...” she starts.

“I know,” I answer. “It was a pretty dumb move.”

[NOTE: I died while trying to light a fart. It was a giant beer fart... the morning after my last night on earth. The accident involved some nearby flammable liquid and an explosion… from the inside, that left my half-naked body in pieces.]

“It wasn’t dumb,” answers God. “It was boyish! That’s what I like about you.”

I smile at her compliment… an aw shucks kind of smile.

“Then there’s the colored part,” she says.

I raise my eyebrows to show that I don’t know what she’s talking about.

“I mean the colored part of colored girl.”

“Oh yeah,” I say. “ I always liked that… from Lou Reed, ya know. The colored girls go Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo dooooooo...”

“Yeah, that’s almost worth it on its own,” she says. “By the way, I just saw Lou last weekend. Sometimes, he has trouble getting along with the other recently deceased. They say he’s got an attitude problem.”

“Maybe that’s why I never see him here,” I say.

She nods, “but back to the main point… the word colored… I love it. Rainbows are colored. Flower gardens are colored. African clothes are colored. Check out this bathing suit.” She runs her hands along the skimpy material that hides the good parts.

“I am not BLACK,” she continues. “I’m auburn, with tinges of pink on my palms… on my tongue.” She shows me. “Look, hold out your arm.”

I do.

“See, It’s just an ugly gray pink. Not really white, but no color in particular... a rather boring hair-covered nothing. Sorry, but it’s not attractive. Now look at this...”

She holds out her arm, “Every color from the earth beneath your feet to a deep night sky. BLACK is an insult!”

“I’ve met two REAL black people in my life,” I say. “And none in my death!”

She nods. “I know. And that African American shit! Give me a break! You know when Nelson Mandela became president of South Africa? A CNN reporter went down there to introduce him to the American people. She said, ‘Here’s Nelson Mandela… a great African-American.’ You should have seen the look on his face!”

I laugh.

“Yeah,” she continues, “but it wasn’t her fault. CNN rules said she had to use the word African American for any colored person. It was crazy.”

The beers follow one on another. Maybe your alcohol tolerance increases after death… I dunno. I’m feeling good, but not soused. I don’t want to make a fool of myself before God. You know what I mean?

“And how ‘bout them Yankees?” I ask…. not knowing her team preference, but unable to imagine God as a Red Sox fan.

“Yeah,” she says, “they started slow, but picked up really quickly…. And how ‘bout that Ohtani guy? Pitching? Under a 200 ERA. Hitting? Over three hundred. Boy those Orientals are finally catching up.”

“Orientals? You said Orientals? I’m in love!”

“Of course I said Orientals,” God answers. “Waddaya think? Asians? People from Siberia are Asians. Pakistanis are Asians. Arabs are Asians. Goddamn Australians are practically Asians.”

We raise hands and slap palms again.

“Besides,” she continues, “Oriental means from the East the same as Asian means from the East. But Asia has taken on the meaning of the continent… and it’s useless as a description.”

“You’re telling me,” I say to her, emptying my glass. “You got a room full of all kinds of people. Guys from India, Russia, Afghanistan, even Israel for fuck’s sake…. Is it rude to say FUCK to God?”

God laughs.

“Anyway,” I continue. “In that room is one guy from Japan. Someone asks you how to find him…. So waddaya say, ‘He’s the only Asian in the room?’ They’re ALL Asians.”

Asians

I still have a little Founders left in my glass. I gulp it down.

“I love Founders beer,” I tell her. “It's the best brewery in America.”

“And that's another thing,” says God.

“Founders?” I ask.

“No LOVE!” she answers. “It's total horseshit. People love beer, love their parents, love their paramours. What crap! Love and marriage go together like a horse and carriage? Are you gonna marry your beer?”

“I think it means a different kind of love,” I tell her. “Like the Greeks had. You know eros, philia, agape, that kind of thing.”

“You guys don't even know what love is... and marriage has NOTHING to do with love,” she continues. “For men, marriage is pussy insurance... a trade of freedom for the guarantee of getting laid. For women, marriage is nanny insurance... a trade of freedom for the guarantee she won't be on her own to take care of the brood. The institution of marriage is just giant insurance agency.”

“Bingo!” I say waiting to slap her hand... but this time she doesn't offer it. “That's why gay marriage is so stupid. Why bother? Do homosexuals need pussy insurance?”

“You're forgetting something,” says God. “The institution of marriage is so ingrained in the culture. To encourage it, the culture offers a bunch of perks to those who embrace the institution. Tax breaks, hospital visitation rights, legal joint ownership of property, more. Gay marriage makes sense for the social benefits... not for LOVE.”

“Still, it isn't fair,” I say. “What business does the government or the rest of society have in encouraging marriage?”

“It's the business of money, of course... saving money,” she answers. “The pussy insurance isn't so important. But the nanny insurance IS important. It saves the government from having to be the nanny... or at least from having to pay for one.”

I shake my head, simultaneously unable to answer-- and in awe of-- the brilliance of God. I thought she'd be an airhead.

God smiles, walks over to the bar. I stare as her netherparts sway away from me. She’s gone to order another round of drinks. She looks over her shoulder at me and asks “Another one of the same?”

I consider for a moment... then figure... since God is paying… “I’ll have a Space Barley this time.”

The bartender, a man looking much like Mr. Whipple, laughs hard through his nose. I'm afraid he might splash God with his mucus. She could get sick.

She doesn't seem to notice, but just turns, smiles and talks to me.

“Yo Mykel,” she says. “This is The Purg… not The Elysium… How ‘bout an Ommegang Three Philosophers?”

“Great!” I answer.

When she returns, I raise my glass and click it to hers. “L’chiam!” I say.

“Sawa!” she answers.

“Now where were we...” I start… but don’t continue. There is a disturbance in another part of the bar. My back is to the noise… sounding like breaking furniture. God looks over my shoulder at something going on behind me. I turn around to check it out.

It’s like a scene from an old Western: the bar brawl. A table is on its side. Broken glass and doused candles litter the floor. Flat against another table a man-- late twenties I’d guess…but what the fuck does age mean if you’re dead? Jockish-looking, with a millennial beard… he lies on his back... pinned. On top of him, a brawler kneels on his chest… slamming fist to face… right… left… right… left. A rivulet of blood drips from the corner of his mouth down to the table… puddling under his neck.

The puncher is a woman... slightly stout and matronly…. a bit overweight... but with a set of those arms women get when they lift weights instead of protest signs.

“What happened?” I ask.

“The usual,” says God. “Some newbie comes here with a chip on his shoulder. Thinks he can just be Mr. Macho. They learn fast. Death does not mean you’re immune from a beating. That guy tried to hurt an old man... muscle him out of the way. The girl now mauling him came to his defense. Girls here know how to take care of themselves... and everyone else.”

“You mean there’s no violence against women laws? “

God laughs. “There are no laws at all,” she says. “We help each other… and we help ourselves….” She shakes her head, “That’s one of the many things I don’t get about your culture… Women-- not girls-- complain about inequality. They ask for the same benefits... salary... positions... respect... as men. But then they whimper that they’re NOT equal. In every country on earth (and most in places you don't know... but I do.) There is a shitload more violence against men than against women.”

“What do those women want?” she continues, pronouncing the word WOMEN with heavy italics.

She answers her own question. “They want a law against violence against women? Like they’re a difference species… a kind of dog or cat... American Society Against Cruelty to Women... ASPCW!” She clicks her tongue and shakes her head. “Where we are now, God helps those who help each other.”

“I’ll drink to that!” I say hoisting my Three Philosophers again and clicking her glass of something darker. Then we drink up.

I look at the empty glass. “I was afraid there would be no beer in heaven,” I tell her.

“In heaven?” she asks… then breaks out laughing. “In heaven???” she shakes her head. “Hahahahahaha! Heaven! That’s a good one.” She calls over her shoulder. “Get a load of this guy,” she says. “He thinks he's going to heaven.”

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

-→Right again, of course, Dept: Last month I wrote about how the only evils people acknowledge in the modern world... are evils related to SEX. No matter how awful someone is, it only counts if somehow there's sex involved.

Now we have the news that Wikileaks hero Joshua Adam Schulte has been arrested. He's the guy who revealed how the CIA was breaking into iPhones and smart TVs to turn them into spy tools for the government. Of course the CIA folks are pissed off... so they arrest him.

On what charges?

Child pornography!!

Yep, somehow, someplace, on some server he administers for work, they found some sex pictures of some people who looked young. Bang! In jail, like that other Wikileak hero, Julian Assange. The government knows in order to make a good guy into a bad guy... you need SEX. Details, though a bit skewed, are here.

-->Yuck dept: The newest fad among oldsters is fecal transplants. That's right. Doctors take someone else's shit and shove it up your ass. At least, that's the basic part of it. Wikipedia says the transplant can be done by colonoscopy, enema, orogastric tube or by mouth. No further comment necessary.

--> It Had To Happen dept: The University of Utah became the first University to offer Video Gaming as a varsity sport. It's my guess that this came about as the administration felt the pressure from the snowflakes to avoid fat-shaming. Sports-- up to now-- have been all about fat-shaming. To do well, you have to be IN SHAPE... and that shape is not fat. Then, along comes video games.

-->Dust-biting time dept: They're dropping like Israeli-shot Gazans! Tom Wolfe, Glenn Branca, Steven Hawking, Margot Kidder, Philip Roth and a bunch more. Though it was last year, I just heard that Chuck Shephard, editor of the amazing News of The Weird has not died... but has retired... which is a kind of death. Over the years, I have cribbed tons of endnotes from Chuck. The website, however, appears to continue without him.

-->That's the spirit Dept: Craig Mitchell, a Scottish man, drove over three hundred miles... leaving Scotland and entering England... to avoid a new alcohol minimum price imposed by the Scottish government. In one of those moves that makes libertarianism tempting, the Scottish government imposed a new booze pricing policy aimed at discouraging alcohol use.

I bet the government is going to be plenty surprised at the INCREASE in traffic accidents caused by the law, as people leave the country for a cheap drink or three south of the border... and then come back drunk.

===========================================

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
• 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
• Sometimes I contribute to an interesting multi-talented blog called OgFomK Arts see me there!
• 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.

See you in hell,

Mykel

Privilege and Stripping or Mykel Board's Post MRR Column no. 33

Mykel's

Post MRR Column no 33

America has Race Fever. It's not an actual race war, but a sort of racial Cold War. A grinding war of nerves. And it's impossible to escape. A race war would be anticlimactic at this point... Let's cool down just a tad. We don't need MORE sensitivity. If we got any more sensitive, we'd all break out in a rash. --Jim Goad (copped from another of my columns)

Privilege and Stripping

or

Stripping the Privilege

by Mykel Board

Part 1: Privilege

It's the circus... an arena for kids and adults to be amazed by some performances... amused by others.

A small car comes from the tent-wing and drives toward the center. Smaller than a smart car, it's somewhere between a kiddie pedal car and a remote controlled drone car. The door opens... out comes a man... tall... a red fringe of hair around a bald head... face and head painted white. Then comes another... bright colored clothes... big shoes. Then another... and another... all faces painted white. So many people from such a small space. How do they do it?

One of the men whacks the other on the ass. It's a slap stick... makes a loud sound and the kids laugh. A mother next to me talks about the slapper.

“What a clown!” she says, casually as scratching her ass.

I cringe.

I think of the make-up... the caricatures... faces painted white in a parody of European-Americans. Whiteface... people playing the fool... the victims of violence from a slapboard to a rug pulled out from underfoot.

Happy clowns, mean clowns, evil clowns, every cliché of the dumb, malicious, whiteguy book...there... accepted by the world.

In never ending parades of whitefolk clichés, clowns tell the world that European-Americans aren't like other people. They're either scary or funny-- evil or stupid-- but not like the rest.

Google “white guys” and you'll see Donald Trump in an open-mouthed harangue... or Clint Eastwood... with a gun.

Watch any TV program... cop show... major movie. Unless it's a Jackie Chan film, most of the dead guys will be white. White lives don't matter. They're as disposable as tissue paper: bleached white to show that you should throw it away.

Half of the murder victims in the US are European-Americans. We don't hear about that.

What do we hear?

Flash to a blond girl... long Prell hair, blue sweater tied loosely around her neck.. She looks directly in the camera. “Fresh is a walk through the woods on an early spring morning.” Cut to a more housewifey lady in a white gossamer gown. Her skin just this side of pink. “Fresh is a gentle breeze, that takes you by surprise.”

 

And what exactly is so fresh? Their twats! They're pushing SUMMER'S EVE, “feminine deodorant” now available in “doctor recommended vinegar and water.”

After five minutes of Walking Dead or some other show I'll never see, comes commercial two:

Cut to an elevator. A young guy-- whiter than Justin Bieber-- shares an elevator with an older crewcut European-American... the latter very boss looking.

“Sam,” says the boss, “glad you got the memo.”

Sam looks at his phone. Sees MEETING CHANGED TO 8AM... in red... on the screen. He puts his briefcase on the elevator ledge, opens it, pulls out the Gillette Deodorant, runs it under his shirt... no sweat!

What do these commercials tell the world? WHITE PEOPLE STINK.

Google PRUDE and you have to scroll down mighty far before you see the first person who isn't white. Clowns, prudes, nerds... these are the images that the world has of white people. These are the images in the brains of people who look at you as you shop for cereal or scratch your balls on the street. Those are the glasses coloring the vision of everyone you meet... or don't meet because they're afraid of you... or you disgust them... because of your race.

What's written in history books? What do we see? WHITE Vikings slicing through the bodies of their helpless victims. Invading flotillas of WHITE people, conquering the peaceful Redman in America. European-American pilots dropping atomic bombs on helpless Asians.

Check out mass murderers for entry after entry of white people. Charles Manson, Timothy McVeigh, The Columbine Killers. Their white faces are splashed across every paper in America. Think: Who are the killers? Answer: WHITE PEOPLE.

When the world thinks of BLACK, they think NELSON MANDELA, MUHAMMAD ALI, or HILLARY CLINTON. Who do you think has an easier time entering the Knicks' lockerroom, Jesse Jackson or Noam Chomsky? It's BLACK-PRIVILEGE.

The prude-clown-murderer... that's what the world thinks of EUROPEAN-AMERICANS. Selective history, stereotypes, non-stop bombardment with disparaging images... this has got to stop! I have a plan.

Put it in a museum. A single place... a monument to European-American stereotypes and cliches. The Betty Boops, the Bozo the Clowns, the John Wayne Gacys, the Elmer Gantrys. The statues of naked whiteboys with granite preserved genitalia. White boys as nutty professors and white boys nailed to a cross. WHITE HINDRANCE. Most European-Americans don't even know they've got it.

When people ask why European-Americans need their own safe spaces... point to that museum.

When they ask why white people can't associate with everyone else... or act in a human way... point to that museum. When people call that white kid THE CLASS CLOWN or say HE GOT AWAY WITH MURDER, it's time to call them out... to bring 'em to that museum.

Part 2 Stripping:

BOOM chaka BOOM chaka BOOM BOOM. The speakers blast at the usual levels. An inch and a half from my nose is a coffee colored ass. I can see every pimple... every spot of rippled flesh... every raised bump, looking like an unpeeled orange at nose level. Here in Miami, it's all the way. No pasties, no bikini bottoms, you got it all... the whole kit... the whole caboodle. I reach forward to put a bill on that little shelf where the beautiful brown buttocks wiggling in front of me attaches itself to her body.

I pucker my lips and place a smackeroo on the right cheek. Her face turns to me. She smiles. I put another dollar up there as I kiss the other cheek. She turns around, showing me her shaved taco... looking tight as a Florida parking space.

I look up at her. Her perfectly styled hair, curled to flow just past her shoulders. I look at her face... her smile. I look into her eyes... I see it... a negative it... something missing. Her smile is there, but something about those eyes. Like I'm a vampire looking into a mirror. No refection....blank... like the light behind those eyes dimmed... flickered... went out.

Something is dead in there. Something that her life... this display... this parody of love... has hurt. Every night... how many different lips on those ass cheeks. How many rides on how many laps? How much has what should be so close, become so mundane... so ordinary? Going beyond sadness... this enters the realm of something closer to death... to murder.

I feel my body begin to drip with sweat. I look around the room at the sad old men... the just post teens... the jocks out for a night of beer... at whose expense? This girl... looking at me...smiling... dead smiling.

What a load of bullshit! From the red I to the red g in smiling. What I wrote above is what feminists and Christians want to hear. And it's a lie.

I love strippers. I know strippers. I know the NYU students who would rather strip than waitress tables for a bunch of hipsters. I know the Thai strippers who would rather shoot an egg out of their twat than serve one au benedict to some farang tourist lady with no chin.

Human trafficking? You want human trafficking? Check the nail salons. That's where you'll find it. Check the maids, the au pairs, the people catering to the rich. More strippers like their jobs than do Walmart associates.... MANY more.

The only reason liberals and Christians get on their high horses about strippers (or prostitutes, for that matter), is SEX. Get it? Sex is bad! MEN are bad. These girls service men with sex... no one would do that willingly, right? It MUST be human trafficking.

Yeah, right.

No matter who has control, the PRUDES win. Liberal or conservative, the prudes, yeah the WHITE prudes, win.

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]

→Thanks dept: I want to thank my pal Tony “Anonymous Boy” Arena for telling me about the Jim Crow Museum that inspired the White Cliché Museum I wrote about in this blog. Tony also told me that Betty Boop was originally black! Hollywood whitened her up to make her more acceptable to the general population. It doesn't change anything in what I wrote, but it is an interesting bit of history.

-->Deep in the Heart Dept pt 1: California Republican Shannon Grove said that the first rain after a Texas drought was God thanking the legislature for the passage of a strict anti-abortion bill. Grove talks about the night of the passage:

“It rained that night,” she said. “God's hand is in the affairs of man.”

-->Deep in the Heart Dept pt 2: Texas police forced 7 and 8 year old sisters to shut down their lemonade stand because they didn't have a permit. They reportedly were raising money to buy a Father's Day gift, but the police said they needed to apply for a permit “because of bacteria that can grow in lemonade.”

--> Deep in the Heart Dept pt 3: Rick Allgeyer was the Director of research in the Texas Health and Human Services Commission. He co-authored an article for the New England Journal of Medicine on how state cuts to Planned Parenthood have reduced the ability of women to get health care.

        He was fired when the article appeared.

-->Nice new suit dept: Chicago cop Robert Rialmo murdered a 19 year old colored guy who had no weapon. He also killed a neighbor "by accident." Now the cop is... get this... suing the estate of the kid he killed for 10 million dollars. Why? He suffered "extreme emotional trauma" because of the deaths and he blames the kid for "forcing him to shoot."

--->Where exactly are you putting that pen dept: The BIC company has announced a new line of pens called "For Her." They come in pastel colors and are thinner than normal bic pens. They're also about 70% more expensive. Predictably, reaction has been cynical.

-->Going to your head dept: Massachusetts' law prohibits wearing hats or head covering in driver's license pictures unless, "they're worn for religious purposes."

So Lindsay Miller shows up wearing a pasta strainer on her head and demands a picture. Why? She's a PASTAFARIAN. After a threat of a court case, the Massachusetts DMV relented and she got her picture.

The actual name of the sect is "Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster."

Wait for MY picture with a nylon stocking over my head. "Robin Hood Church of Bank Robbery."

Got any other ideas?

--> 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 censoring me.

As their revolving editrixes move on to commercial ventures, each blames her predecessors for my demise... as if they had no control over the business... and couldn't simply invite me back.

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.

-end-