BRAIN POLICE or Mykel's Post MRR Column no 52

YOU'RE STILL WRONG

POST MRR COLUMNS

POST MRR COLUMN NUMBER 52

Brain Police!

by Mykel Board

Anger will never disappear so long as thoughts of resentment are cherished in the mind. Anger will disappear just as soon as thoughts of resentment are forgotten.” --Buddha

I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America. --de Tocqueville

What will you do if the people you knew were the plastic that melted, and the chromium too? WHO ARE THE BRAIN POLICE? --Frank Zappa

Yo! Yeah, I'm talking to you. No, don't look over your shoulder... There's no one there. Yeah you! You... the echo of every tweet that agrees with you. You... the spewer of every fashionable idea that every one of your friends spouts... verbatim. You... the cop-hating language cop. You the safe-spacer... the spouter of thoughts you take for granted... but are wrong. Yeah, I'm talking to you!

FLASH TO PORNHUB.COM: Damn it! A search for bisexual Africans is one page long and it only has lesbos with guys. What's up with that? Where is the doggie-style girl on her hands and knees... one guy on either end... the black twinks kissing each other as the girl gives head to one and takes the other up the wazoo? Forward me the links... please!

Elena once asked me if I still could jerk off only to what's in my mind... if I NEEDED porn to get a stiffy... if I could use my own fantasy to spew the few drops my prostate has left onto that faithful purple rag that hangs next to the computer.

An interesting question. The facile answer is Of course I don't need porn. An attractive REAL LIVE naked person will work just fine. That is a cheat... and it's not the point. The point? Can I construct a fantasy in my mind... one strong enough to get me off? With no pictures... no text... no outside inspiration?

I can do it, if I fantasize about someone I've seen. I can have an orgasmic mental vision if the people are real. I can rise and stroke if I have an image in my head of someone substantive... a real LIVE person. But I cannot create from scratch. I cannot make a face... a body... a dialog... out of nothing... and then jerk off to it. I USED TO be able to do it. But now I can't. Is porn responsible for that inability? We'll talk about that later.

FLASH TO LAS VEGAS NEVADA: Stephen Paddock, an ex-serviceman, open-fires on a Country and Western crowd. Blau... blau. BlauBlauBlau.. A....aaaaa.aaaaaaaaaa...aaaaa...

Bodies crash to the ground. That ground quickly turns to crimson mud. A young woman tries to run from the shots... she trips over a corpse... near corpse?... she's down. Ratatatatat across her back. Two corpses.... Then more. By the time it's over, the body count is 59.

FLASH TO SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, TEXAS: Devin Patrick Kelley enters a church on November 4... He opens fire. Heavy artillery... through the pews... KERPOW! KERPOW! KERPOW! Bullet-torn victims from 24 months to 70 years old.. A sea of bloody Christians... come together to ask for God's blessing and this is what they get. Almost enough to make you think God is not such a nice guy.

FLASH TO NEW YORK... HALLOWEEN: I hate Halloween. Next to Santacon, it's my least favorite holiday of the year. In NYU-land... around the corner from my apartment, Halloween is an excuse for every closet-queen fratboy to dress in borrowed frills and stuffed brassieres.. and parade his drunken idiocy on the street. It's gotten worse since the costume cops make even this unacceptable (sexist, they say)... limiting approved trans-costumes to Superheroes ... and inanimate objects.  

The morning of this Halloween a rented truck in Soho plows into a group of cyclists and pedestrians. The driver shouts ALLAH AKHBAR or something like that. BLAM! Right down the bike path. PITUM! PITUM! PITUM! Like a ball in a bowling alley. Bikes and people fly through the air like bowling pins. Eight people die. 

You don't have to be Nostradamus to predict the reaction. MASSACRE... MASSACRE... TERROR.

Social Justice Warriors twitter up a storm:

On and on... a tsunami of righteous indignation. When I object, I hear that old 1960s refrain. Mykel, you're either part of the solution or you're part of the problem.

I say: YOU'RE WRONG! The solution IS the problem.

FLASH TO HATE-CRIMES: Somebody scrawls a swastika on a tombstone in a Jewish cemetery. It's A HATE CRIME!! That means the perp goes to jail... for graffiti.

It's a dark side street in Greenwich Village. Two young guys... matching haircuts... walk down the street hand-in-hand. The sound of voices rings from behind.

“Let's get 'em!”

A gaggle of colored teens is on the homosexuals. A fist to the ribs... one to the head. One of the attackers holds one of the gay pair. Another reaches into the victim's pocket and and takes his wallet.

“Yeah, you homos... I need this more than you do.”

The colored guys are later arrested and charged with assault and robbery as a hate crime... sentenced to an extra two years in jail... just for the hate part.

FLASH TO JOHNNY CARSON 1960s:

Carson is playing THE GREAT CARNAC! Wearing a huge turban (politically incorrect in the 21^st Century) festooned with jewels, he takes a sealed envelope and holds it to his temple.

“And the answer is PETER PAN!” He says. Then he opens the envelope and reads:

“What do you use to fry a Peter?”

Next envelope:

“And the answer is Hi Diddly Dee.” And he opens the envelope.

“How do you say Good Morning to your diddly dee?”

Get it? Mind reading was a trick. A joke. Something that everyone knew was fake... an impossibility. That was 1965... Sometimes what everybody knew, nobody knows anymore.

Now, what's IN THE MIND is no longer a joke. It's not a parlor trick. It's a crime! TERRORISM, like a HATE-CRIME is in the mind of the criminal... not in the action. It is a thought crime. Your support for HATE-CRIME laws, makes TERRORISM laws possible. YOU... yeah you... give the okay to criminalize what people are thinking.

What makes the Muslim a terrorist while the white guys aren't? It's the same reasoning that makes a subway graffitier an artist and a swastika painter a hate criminal. It's the MIND.

Don't tell me there are other thought crimes. Crimes of intent. The difference between a killing by accident and MURDER. Intent requires SOMETHING in the mind of the perp... but it doesn't say what that something is. If I plan to kill you... that shows intent. If I stalk you. Follow your comings and goings... wait outside your door for you to show yourself... that shows intent. It doesn't matter WHAT the motive is... jealousy... fear... hatred... revenge... intent is the only requirement. It doesn't take a mind-reader to figure it out.

In the 21^st Century, things have changed. Where mind-reading was a joke, now it's deadly serious. People are going to jail... maybe executed... because of their thoughts! Because of what's in their minds.

You're pissed that the white guys massacred and the Arab was a terrorist! The reason is the thought, not the action. Terrorism is for political ends. The THOUGHT must be to make some political change. The massacre-makers had no politics. They were in it for the blood. More people died in the massacres, but the killers didn't THINK terrorist^® thoughts.

I've written before about my feelings on hate crimes. Now we see it reflected in terrorism. The same people who support hate crime laws, now complain about “unfair” terrorism charges. You... yeah you... you don't get it. You're the problem.

Once you allow MIND-CRIMES... once you allow the law to prosecute thoughts... what's in the mind... you unleash a terrible power. How many of my fantasies are illegal... and yours? How many women dream about getting raped... but would never want it in real life? What if there were penalties just for the fantasy? How many diaries... blogs... pre-bedtime jerk-offs... daydreams... nightmares are against the law... or will be?

Is my increasing inability to fantasize a reaction to increasing thought control? I donno, but it might be.

When we police thinking... we stop thinking. Americans suffer from lack of thinking enough. My inability to create a hard-on-inducing image from scratch is a precursor to ALL of our inabilities to imagine anything new, different, transgressive, strange.

The cliched answer to Why do they hate is? is: They're jealous of our freedom. As long as THINKING is against the law, we have no freedom to be jealous of.

--End of the Main Part--

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

--> I said it in the 80s dept: I found a link to a "song" I wrote in the 1980s that had similar ideas... called "terrorist." You can find it at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqBBIxBYQ1I, but you might have to cut and paste, because Blogger is acting up today.  

-->Scalp em! dept: The Minneapolis Sculpture Garden has dismantled an anti-slavery artwork that tried to recreate the gallows Americans used to help enslave non-white people. Why was it dismantled? Indians!

      Protesters said it was traumatic “because it recalled the execution of 38 tribesmen in 1862.” Traumatic? That's the idea! But you can't talk to people about trauma... it may cause a traumatic reaction.

-->Leaving Absurdistan dept: By the time you read this I'll be out of New York on my yearly adventure to... someplace. This year I'm going to:

     1.Los Angeles from Dec 1 through the 7th

2. New Zealand from Dec 9 through New Year's Eve
3. Tahiti (Pape-ete) for a SECOND New Year's Eve (It's on the other side of the International Dateline, get it?) Till Jan 8
4. San Francisco Till Jan 14

If you'll be in any of those places let me know... and we can meet up. If you've got beer and a couch, that's even better.

-->Busy little beaver dept: There's lots to pimp this month. First, there's an essay I wrote (actually a version of an MRR column), about GG Allin's last show in New York. The book it's in is expensive, but great! Click on it for more information and Amazon ordering. Maybe you can get it used.

-->Something for the girls dept: I contributed a lot of photos, but they only wanted the ones that presented a “positive image.” So I think I have one picture in the book... even then, it's a fine inspiration and memory of a time when females did more than complain about being touched.

-->You're kidding dept: Those who REALLY know me, know that I'm a fan of haiku and senryu (more human, usually humorous, haiku). I don't mean those idiotic 5-7-5 internet joke haiku. I mean REAL stuff. Stuff that ignores 5-7-5 and goes for something deeper. For 25 years or so, I've belonged to The Spring Street Haiku Group. We do small chapbook anthologies. Here's the current one... and it's cheap. If you can't connect by clicking on the book, it's because I'm out of town. Try again at the end of January, or send a crisp $5 bill to me at POB 137, NYC 10012. I'll send you a copy when I get back.

-->Last With A Hard-on dept: Remember when homos celebrated QUEERNESS instead of pushing to be JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE? You can see me, Tom Jennings, Larry Livermore, Bruce LaBruce and the terrific GB Jones (among others). In the Queercore documentary... Here's a link to their facebook page. 

MORE PLUGS

If you're interested in my travel writing , check out http://mykelsdiary.blogspot.com/

You can read some of my classics as far back as the 70s at: http://mykelsoldies.blogspot.com/

I also have some random postings including several on how rich people spend their money.

Those are at: http:/mykelsclippings.blogspot.com

AND FINALLY

LINK TRADE:

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.

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

• 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.

See you in hell!

--Mykel Board

You Just Don't Get It or Mykel's Post MRR Column no 49

Mykel's

Post MRR Column no 49

or

You Just Don't Get it

by Mykel Bioard

“That's the difference between most oppressed peoples of the world and American blacks. They vow never to forget, and we want everything expunged from our record, sealed and filed away for eternity.”

--Paul Beatty

“Nothing is so awkward as the demonstration of humanity by the enemy" -- Kobo Abe

CHARLOTTESVILLE VIRGINIA, SATURDAY AUGUST 12: Tension is high as a group of torch-bearing women and (mostly) men demonstrate against the removal of a Civil War statue. It's a motley crew of Southern Patriots, a guy with a swastika flag, White Supremacists, alt-rightist, not-so-alt-rightists, and who knows who else. Previous demonstrations have been attacked by Antifas... This time the paraders are prepared... armed. Some of them are looking for a fight. ...The torchlight parade begins.

Of course, the anti-Parade also begins. It's a motley crew of Antifas, liberals, American blacks and who knows who else. They too are armed, but apparently with more club power than fire power. Some of them are looking for a fight.

If these folks had been watching their CNN/FOX/BREITBART/BART SIMPSON these days. The weapon of choice in 2017 is neither a Ruger, a Tipman, a Bushmaster... nor a Saint Louis Slugger. It's a car... a van or SUV ... actually. Check out Nice... or London Bridge... Those guys know how to terror!

[I'm waiting for Mothers Against Cars to demand Car Control Laws... And the reaction form the right? “They're taking our cars away. The Feds are coming for them. Soon: no more cars... or Christmas!]

One of the statue supporters... a fan of white people... plows his sedan-not-SUV into a crowd of antis... killing one and injuring several. Outrage! (Justified.) Terrorism! (Maybe.)

STOP: Let's get this straight. Terrorism is a very specific form of warfare. It is meant to create fear in the local people so they will pressure their leaders to surrender/end a war/stop some action. Raiding a random school yard and shooting up kids is not terrorism. A guy at a swimming pool killing innocents to get back at his girlfriend is not terrorism. An attack killing Planned Parenthood doctors MIGHT be terrorism, if the motive is to scare doctors away from performing abortions. If it's to kill doctors that the shooter judges to be murderers... it is NOT terrorism. Sherman's civil war march through the South, burning a path to the sea... damaging innocent people on the way... that was terrorism. Early 20^th century lynchings for looking at a white woman and vagrancy or just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. That was terrorism. Scare those darkies into knowing their place!

Of course, even if an act is NOT terrorism, it can still be deadly and worthy of condemnation. A person is no less dead if she's killed in a nut-job shooting or a drone attack than if she's plowed down by a terrorist. I just want to get the terms right.

So, what happens after this guy smashes his car into the crowd? Not only does he become a terrorist but everybody in the pro-statue march suddenly become Nazis and Racists. Alt-right-- an umbrella term for rightists who don't subscribe to The National Review-- suddenly becomes an umbrella term for Nazis, the KKK, and anyone else on the Antifa shit list. One person carrying a swastika flag becomes the symbol of everybody who carries a Hawaiian tiki torch. The car driver earns the epithet American Terrorist, in nya-nya-told-ya-so response to alt-right labeling of other terrorists foreigners, Muslims or immigrants.

AUGUST 17, BARCELONA SPAIN: A van driven by a Muslim immigrant...claimed by ISIS as one of their own... slams into a crowd in Barcelona Spain. It kills sixteen people. This is clearly a terrorist act. Isis has used this tactic exactly in the terrorist way... to scare people into pressuring their government into stopping the invasions of the Middle East. (By the way, I agree with their motives, but not their means.)

Local Muslims are scared. Spain has a history of tossing Muslims (and Jews) out of the country (check out what ELSE happened in 1492)... Can you say Spanish Inquisition? In order to ensure calm in the Barcelona aftermath, European liberals urge the populous not to tar the whole immigration kit and caboodle with one blood-spattered van. There is a march to welcome new immigrants.

But who, except The President^®, is urging the American populous not to tar the whole Charlottesville march kit and caboodle with one somewhat less blood-spattered vehicle? And the president giving an ounce of humanity to the torch-bearers provokes such outrage that his entire multi-billionaired CEO advisory group... quits. This is a group scummier than Citibank, than Lehman Brothers, than Goldman Sachs. Scummier than Steve Jobs... the kind of group that bribes Hilary Clinton with one besmirched hand and then wipes Donald Trump's ass with the other. These are people who support companies that exploit workers, pay no taxes, make sure the government is “business friendly,” hire slave labor, no problem. But give an modicum of understanding to “the other side?” What an outrage!

Even FOX News, that paragon of corporate conservatism. (via Newsmax):

James Murdoch, the CEO of Fox News' parent company, has been slammed by conservatives for harshly criticizing President Donald Trump and suggesting he had backed Nazi sympathizers.

Earlier this week, Murdoch, who heads 21st Century Fox, wrote "What we watched this last week in Charlottesville and the reaction to it by the President of the United States concern all of us as Americans and free people."

Murdoch pledged “to fight hate crimes and prejudice.”

"The presence of hate in our society was appallingly laid bare as we watched swastikas brandished on the streets of Charlottesville and acts of brutal terrorism and violence perpetrated by a racist mob," Murdoch added.

"I can't even believe I have to write this: Standing up to Nazis is essential; there are no good Nazis. Or Klansmen, or terrorists."

Trump did condemn white supremacists and Nazi sympathizers, including the person who murdered a young protester. That wasn't enough, says the populous. He needs a thicker brush to tar with... but the tar has to be only on one side. 

CHANGE SUBJECT: Paul Beatty, the author I quoted at the beginning of this entry wrote an amazing book called The Sellout... certainly the best book I've read this year. It's filled with hilarious criticism of racism, and attitude.... and not just white racism. Beatty also criticizes his fellow colored people. In his satire, his protagonist cleans up a black town by reintroducing segregation. His premise, (although he doesn't directly mention the analogy), is that-- like Jews need antisemitism to keep unity-- American blacks need overt racism to bring them together.

Beatty's quote at the beginning of this piece-- about destroying history reaches to RIGHT NOW-- in the city of Baltimore-- which quietly removed Civil War Confederate-oriented statues in the middle of the night. The liberal mayor of that city decided it was the best move to keep the peace... or hide the history.

CHANGE SUBJECT AGAIN: As a free speech kinda guy, I always feel guilty when I ban people on facebook. I know I'm not banning their speech, but I don't get to hear what they have to say. There are about a dozen who make the BLOCK list (out of nearly 3000 “friends”)... most because of association with Maximum Rock'n'Roll. That ban is my tit for their tat. But in the last month I've had to ban someone just for being stupid. Not biologically stupid. Not mongoloid stupid. Not doesn’t-know-an-alligator-from-a-crocodile stupid. But INTERNET stupid... Facebook stupid... The kind of I-don't-want-to-hear-it stupidity that makes most facebook discussion useless.

• Him: You're a racist.
• Me: All Americans are racist.
• Him: So you admit it.
• Me: Absolutely, I think white people are the most destructive race on earth. Most of my friends are not white. I don't like the white race.
• Him: So you admit your racism... and you're trying to play the “My Black Friend” card.
• Me: Thinking “not white” is the same as “black” is racist. Humanity is not just white or black. Neither is the world.
• Him: You're a tool of the alt-right racists.
• Me: You're outta here.

I mention this not because I want to pick on this guy, but because of how many of us are becoming that special kind of idiot that refuses rights and humanity to those we don't like... and by doing so... give others the justification to refuse YOU those rights and humanity. We're losing the ability to discuss.

“How could you think that?” is not a question people want answered. It is code for “You CAN'T think that!”

When you meet opinions with clubs, those clubs will be met with guns, and cars. When you don't think... or don't listen... THEY don't think... or don't listen. When you hide history, you change history. When you change history, nothing is true.

It's easy to shout down, to attack, to throw a sucker-punch. It's easy to stop a person from speaking. But when you do that... instead of answering, debating, thinking... you make yourself the template for the actions of the other side. She did it... so why can't I? And THEY have bigger guns.

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

--> Make New Jersey Great Again dept: A Wall Township (NJ) High School student wore a MAGA shirt for his class photo. When the photo appeared in the yearbook, the t-shirt was blank. At least three other students complained about similar censorship.... The school said it didn't want any trouble... But wait! There's more.

In Morristown (NJ) High, school officials removed two student anti-Trump works from their school art show. The artist, Liam Shea, complained about school censorship for political views. The school said it didn't want any trouble.

See? Once you start, there's no end to it. And look at...

-->College Hoops Dept: Latino students at Pitzer College have a "free speech wall" where students are encouraged to write what they want: Some Hispanic students wrote "White Girl, Take Off Your Hoops," in reference to the idea of "cultural appropriation."

The girls were wrong. One of the few good things about America is that everybody's culture belongs to everybody. I LOVE it when I see Japanese businessmen eating matzoh. Culture should CONTRIBUTE to the world, not divide it. Take my culture... please!

Correct or not, the Latina students have the right to their opinion. That's what free speech is all about. But what happened?

The Latinas all received threats, including pictures of guns pointed at them. They're now afraid for their safety. The idiots of the right have proven themselves to be as intolerant as the idiots of the left.

Another worry America will never have: a shortage of idiots.

-->Side effects dept: Tylenol is a drug already marked because of a cyanide scandal last century. This century, scientists credit the drug with causing severe liver damage... and the latest report shows that the drug "dulls empathy." So, if you take Tylenol, you're less likely to give a buck to that homeless guy sitting freezing on his cardboard box.

My question: Why hasn't there been a study about American capitalism? I'm sure findings will show will find an even stronger correlation between it and lack of empathy. Take Ayn Rand.... please!

-->Getting Their Goat Dept: I used to write about how unions were bad guys because their whole purpose is to encourage work. And it still strikes me as odd that the right-wing “get a job you lazy fuck!” crew is so anti-union. They're really (almost) on the same side of the welfare line. Now, I think unions are a necessary evil... better than the alternative which is not a work-free life... but slavery.

Still, every once-in-awhile, I read about jobs that really might be better if done by goats. This from Chuck Shephards News of The Weird:

A local chapter of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees in Battle Creek, Michigan, is butting heads with Western Michigan University this summer after the school brought in a goat crew to clean up an overgrown woodlot on campus, leaving union workers without jobs. The AFSCME's grievance cites a collective bargaining agreement with WMU, but university officials counter that "the area is rife with poison ivy and other invasive species," which are difficult for humans to remove. The 20-goat crew, rented from Munchers on Hooves in Coldwater, Michigan, is ahead of schedule in clearing a 15-acre area.

-->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.

See you in hell.

-end-

NOTE: If you're interested in my travel blog, you can read it at mykelsdiary.blogspot.com. Other articles of interest (to me anyway) including my How Rich People Spend Their Money series can be found at: http://mykelsclippings.blogspot.com. And finally, my oldies-but-baddies series is at: http://mykelsoldies.blogspot.com

Chill! or Mykel's Post MRR Column no 47

YOU'RE STILL WRONG

POST MRR COLUMNS

POST MRR COLUMN NUMBER 47

CHILL!

by Mykel Board

No great theater director ever said to an actor, “Okay, this scene calls for some real emotion, now go out there and give me lots of offendedness.”...If I'm sad, I cry. If I'm happy, I laugh. If I'm offended, what do I do, state in a clear and sober voice that I am offended, then walk away in a huff so that I can write a letter to the mayor?

We take offense at chewing with one's mouth open as well as, say, using an ethnic slur. While I like to think that it takes a lot to offend me, I don't personally believe people that people shouldn't feel offended. I just wonder what the context is. Can one be equally offended by someone's elbows being on the dinner table, senseless police shootings and the fact that Seahawks threw the ball on second and one?

– Paul Beatty

SCENE ONE: Central Park, NYC August 15, 2004. Dawn S is walking through the park with her seeing-eye dog. It's a hot day in August... New York Summer. One of the few ways of getting out of the heat... without the electrical expense of air conditioning... a walk in the park. The trees... the reservoir... the lack of concrete... The park is a respite from the city heat.

Dennis, the seeing-eye dog, is a yellow lab. A big lumbering beast... half-dog half-yeti... bold... but friendly to those who know him. Dawn and Dennis are on that diagonal path that leads from the 59^th street fountain north to the lake. Dawn sits on a bench just where the path begins. Dennis sits on the path itself. After a few minutes, Dawn stands to walk on.

Sensing the general direction, Dawn tells Dennis, “Go!”

The dog guides her north.

In less than 100 yards, Dawn feels a tap on her should. She looks up... into space, as she doesn't know where the tap came from.

“Excuse me?” she says.

“You should take your dog inside,” comes a very austere-- animal-rights-sounding female voice... somewhere to her left. “Your dog should not be outside in this weather.”

“I'm just enjoying the fresh air and vegetation,” answers Dawn.

“But you can't tell how hot it is,” returns the voice. “You're blind.”

SCENE TWO: Los Angeles sometime last year: The local Chinese community is becoming so used to the stereotype Chinese driver that they made stickers... like those caution signs you see on scary looking metal boxes.

As you might guess, it isn't long before the complaints come. That sign is racist, offensive. It should be banned... and the first and main complainers? Offended White people.

SCENE THREE: Bill Maher answers a call to work in the field in Nebraska. “Work in the fields? Senator, I’m a house nigger.”

There are outraged calls for his firing. Bang! He apologizes for offending. Meanwhile, Paul Beatty, the guy I quoted at the beginning of this column, wins the Man Booker Prize (like a British Pulitzer) for a book with more mentions of nigger than a Klan rally... or a Hip Hop concert.

SCENE FOUR: Gyu-Kaku Japanese Barbecue May 18, 2017. It's my friend Mei's birthday. We're seated at a long table with two grills built in. While grilling... I talk to my friends about RAPEMAN, the notorious Japanese comic that is actually a hilarious parody of superheroes.

By day, Rapeman is a Junior Highschool teacher-- his Clark Kent identity. By night, he's a caped crusader (from the waist up)... raping the bad girls to turn them good. Rapeman is for hire, and the money is used in local charities... especially an orphanage.

“Good deeds through penetration,” is his motto.

I have a copy of the manga with me. I pass it around to the curious Japanese who have never seen one before. (I pride myself in knowing more about Japanese culture-- traditional and popular-- than most Japanese know.)

Both Americans and Japanese look at it with curiosity... except Sadako (name changed to protect the guilty). She glances at the book and throws it across the table. “How many times have you been afraid you were going to be raped?” she asks me.

I'm shocked. This is a satire... a parody making fun of superheroes. It isn't about rape. I'm so taken aback I bullshit... Well, that's not true... It doesn't take a whole lot to get me to bullshit.

“When I was in the Cub Scouts,” I lie, “there was this patrol leader... and in Albania... when I was kidnapped.”

“Well, women have to face this every day,” she says. “It's not a joke to us. You're saying it's okay to rape people. You're giving permission to rape.”

“It's a comic book!” I plead. “Just a comic book. I'm not giving permission for anything. It's just a wild Japanese comic book unimaginable in the Christian west.”

“And I'm offended,” she continues, “I'm offended for two reasons. I'm offended because you joke about rape... and I'm offended because you look at Japanese people as little jokes. Oh how cute, that wacky culture. You look down on us.”

“What?” I'm too shocked to say, “I LOVE Japanese culture. I LOVE Japanese things. I love Japanese movies, manga, haiku, screen painting. I have more Japanese friends than I have American friends.”

People who know me know I believe Japanese culture is one of the greatest cultures in the world. Certainly greater than anything American culture has to offer (except maybe rock'n'roll).

Yes, part of the reason I love the culture is that they're free of the burdens of Christian (or Jewish) guilt and can explore a kind of wild side that would be completely out-of-bounds for Americans... It's American culture I look down on... not Japanese culture. Actually, I'm 5” 3” tall. I don't look down on ANYONE!

But she's offended... she throws $10 on the table (not in the barbecue pit)... and walks out.

Ok, Mykel. We know the routine. You take some shit from your life... or someone else's life and then tie it all together with some wacky philosophy that connects completely unrelated events as if there were some cosmic order... where things are constructed just to PROVE YOUR POINT. So, what's the point?

The point is CHILL!!!

CHILL!... a wonderful command asking for calm in the midst of self-created hysteria... CHILL... Relax in the midst of offendeditude... CHILL.. Breathe deep instead of getting huffy.

CHILL!

I'm a Jew. I laugh at holocaust jokes.

I'm 5' 3” tall... I sing, Short People Got No Reason to Live.

I'm 72 years old: I smile when people ask me why I'm not dead yet.

Old people texting:

BFF: Best Friend Fainted

BYOT: Bring Your Own Teeth

CBM: Covered by Medicare

FWB: Friend with Beta-blockers

LMDO: Laughing My Dentures Out

GGPBL: Gotta Go, Pacemaker Battery Low!

Even punks are offended... How can that be? Punk was CREATED to be offensive. It's essense is being offensive from Beat on the Brat With a Baseball Bat to Let's Lynch the Landlord.

Nowadays, punks are the most easily offended. Call someone a Pussy and that punk rock girl will throw a Bikini Kill record at your head.

NOT ONLY ARE THEY “sensitive” but they think they know YOUR sensitivity... what you feel and don't feel. What's in your mind... what's behind your motives. They think, with religious fervor... though most are not religious... if only you could realize THE TRUTH... you'd be sensitive in the same way.

That wacky animal rightist thought she knew that a blind person wouldn't realize the day was hot. Their overriding concern with the poor dog, made them completely unaware that there was someone attached to that dog. They were offended by the dog in the heat (though they themselves were comfortable in it), and that huffitude took over all sense of reason.

That sensitive white girl who complained about the Chinese Driver stickers, thought she knew what was in the mind of the Chinaman on the street. Her overriding concern with race and nationality, made her completely unaware that the Chinese themselves were absorbing-- and negating-- a stereotype.

That Japanese girl who accused me of promoting rape and denigrating Japanese culture thought she knew my motives for being so fascinated with Rapeman. Her over-riding concern with nationality and gender made her completely unaware that the point was satire and inventiveness... nothing to do with nationality or gender. She was offended by the comic book (a comic book, for God's sake!), and that huffitude took over all sense of reason.

Sometimes the old cliches are right. Most obviously sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me. If they DO hurt... the hurt is minor, not permanent, and necessary for life in a free world. It's even better to take the words, give 'em a twist in meaning... then claim 'em for yourself. That's what homosexuals did with queer. What the punk band, New York Niggers did with Nigger. What The Hip Nips did with Nip!. If you take a word and make it cool, the word loses its power to hurt you. 

Short? Old? Jew? Egomaniac? Oh yeah. Those words are MINE! I own them. Now let's see you use them against me.

You too (and the world) can learn how to destroy the effects of words with other words... or by taking them in and turning them around.

That takes time... In the meanwhile, calm down! Laugh at yourself. Relax. Learn that making fun is FUN. Give it. Take it.

CHILL!

(What does Nazi Santa give naughty kids for Christmas?

Jews.)

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]

-->Is that a panel in your pocket or are you marginalizing me dept: The University of Michigan was seeking student input about redesigning their hundred year old building.
Anna Wibbelman, former president of Building a Better Michigan, an organization that voices student concerns about university development, stated that “ minority students felt marginalized by the quiet, imposing masculine paneling” found throughout the 100-year-old building.

        Oppressed by quiet... and wood paneling. Pretty sensitive, huh?

-->Meanwhile in Maryland dept: A group of Maryland teachers displayed posters showing white, black, yellow and other colored women working together... and just being friends. School administrators ordered them removed. Why?

       Said the administrators, “They express a negative view of Donald Trump.”

-->Speaking of a crank call of sensitivity dept: Jordan Haskins, a Republican state councilor was sentenced to probation and sex counseling in May after pleading guilty to eight charges arising from two auto accidents in Saginaw, Michigan. Prosecutors said Haskins described "cranking," in which he would remove a vehicle's spark-plug wires to make it "run rough," which supposedly improves his chances for a self-service happy ending. Haskins's lawyer added, "(Cranking) is something I don't think we understand as attorneys."

Wanna bet?

-->Now's your chance dept: The new wiki Censorpedia is looking for input on censorship from all fronts. By government, by school, by crowd, by boycott... any way. Just go and report it... this is something that has been a long time coming. I just hope it doesn't get censored.

-->Keeping the pressure on dept: I want to thank reader George Metesky for suggesting a Bring Back Mykel concerted effort directed at Maximum Rock'n'Roll. He forwarded me an answer to a letter MRR printed where the editors excuse my firing not as censorship for content, but because I “refuse to answer letters in the letters section.”

         That's a lie.

       In any case, please send comments to mrr@maximumrocknroll.com with the subject line: BRING BACK MYKEL. Let me know how they answer. MRR also has a facebook p age. You might want to let them know how you feel.

-end-

If you're interested in my travel writing (not updated recently) check out http://mykelsdiary.blogspot.com/

You can read some of my classics as far back as the 70s at: http://mykelsoldies.blogspot.com/

I also have some random postings including several on how rich people spend their money. Those are at: http:/mykelsclippings.blogspot.com

See you in hell!