Child's Play or Mykel's May 2024 Blog: You're Still Wrong

   

You’re STILL Wrong

Mykel's

May 2024 Blog/Column

Child's Play

by Mykel Board

Spare the rod and spoil the child

--Old Proverb

Discipline your children, and they will give you peace

-- Proverbs 29:17

The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself brings shame to his mother.

– Proverbs 29:15

True freedom is impossible without a mind made free by discipline.”

― Mortimer J. Adler,

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

“Gooo gooo gah gah goo gah.”

Little Liam crawls from his crib to the door of his room. He babbles to himself… or to no one... as ten-month old babies are wont to do. This evening, Mom and Dad are off at the movies… Oppenheimer… and they’ve left Liam with Ashley, the 16 year old babysitter, daughter of Mr and Mrs Kosminski, friends of Liam’s parents.

Liam pushes his head against his bedroom door. It creaks open with a click… He pushes again. The door opens enough for Liam to crawl through to the hallway.

Meanwhile, Ashley is diddling her cellphone… simultaneously texting her love to her sweetheart, Dexter, and to her girlfriend, Brittany, describing Dexter’s attributes.

“You can’t believe how that guy’s hung,” types Ashley to Brittany. “God… think kielbasa!”

“Wow,” texts Brittany back.

“I love you more than Beyonce loves Jay Z!” Ashley texts to her boyfriend.

“For the same reason?” Dexter texts in return.

While Ashley texts, little Liam has left his room and crawls toward the staircase that connects the upper bedroom area with the living room and kitchen downstairs. As he approaches the staircase, his right arm slips over the top steps. His arm and shoulder slide down. The boy’s ten-month old brain is smart enough to figure this isn’t right. He backs up and changes direction.

Now, he’s headed toward his parents’ room. Liam tries it again… pushing his head against the door. Again it works. There’s something familiar about the room. Liam recognizes the big bed where sometimes he sleeps... nestled between his parents when he is being comforted by Mom and Dad on an especially cryful night.

But those two things –one on either side of the bed… What are they? Liam recognizes the color… black… but has no vocabulary to say or think it. He knows this side is Mommy’s side and that side is Daddy’s side. He crawls toward the black thing on Daddy’s side. There are some handles on the outside of Daddy’s black thing. They look like big toys… something to climb on. Liam crawls over to one of the tall black objects and grabs it.

It flops open. Inside is a smaller toy… made of metal… long on one side and curved… something like a banana… on the other. Down where the two sides meet, there is another little piece of metal with a second curved piece around it. Liam pulls himself up using the drawer and its handle for support. Then he reaches inside and takes the gun.

The barely-a-toddler now crawls toward the voice coming to him from the living room. The gun, held tightly in two tiny hands, scrapes along the floor… a trail of drool follows the child as he goes.

“I just love it when he talks to me like that,” Ashley, changing to conversation from text, is saying. Little Liam has no sense of meaning, he just hears the voice and it draws him like a magnet. Down the stairs… KERCHUNK. The gun pulls his arms... KERCHUNK… KERCHUNK… KERCHUNK. Step by step his little body follows.

To the living room… behind Ashley… gurgling loudly to get her attention, show her what he found when POW! BLAM!

A voice from the cellphone pleads… “Ashley? Ashley? Are you all right Ashley?”

FLASH AHEAD

At the trial, Liam is convicted of involuntary manslaughter. He’ll spend the rest of his life in prison… with no chance of probation.

The next week, Liam’s parents are arrested. Fantasy? Impossible? Well...

FLASH TO MICHIGAN... OXFORD HIGH SCHOOL 2021 A boy shoots two handfuls of students. KERPOW! KERPOW! KERPOW! More blood than a pro wrestling match. Four dead. Seven injured…

Two years later, the killer stands to receive the sentence for his crime… TERRORISM. What does he get? This kid… who when he committed the crime wasn’t old enough to have sex, to drive a car, to drink a beer, to smoke a cigarette, to vote… a little boy with a gun… What is this child’s punishment? LIFE IN PRISON WITHOUT PAROLE. The max… not the little boy max… but the big adult make-decisions-for-himself max.

Rosemary Bayer, the Democratic state senator from the district, says. “I’m not a doctor. I’m not a psychologist. But it’s never the kid’s fault.”

I can hear another voice now. It’s Literary Device calling to me. “Mykel,” she says. “It’s not the same. A baby has no freedom of choice. What happened with your imaginary kid was an accident. The kid wasn’t responsible for what he did.”

I answer, “Is a fifteen year old with severe mental problems responsible for what he did?”

[ASIDE: You probably know, I’m an abolitionist. I don’t believe inprisons at all. I think no one should be put in a cage and the fact that so many go back time-after-time proves prisons don’t work. They’re not supposed to. They don’t exist to prevent crime. They exist for REVENGE… and to feed the prison industrial complex. In fact, the only exception in the anti-slavery amendment to the constitution is prisons. But this is even worse!]

Yes, it’s a kind of prison for slaves. Someone without rights… a child… is thrown away for the rest of his life. Most children have the right to grow into their freedom. Fifteen year old Ethan Crumbley will never have that right. But wait… there’s more.

Mom and Dad Crumbly get charged with involuntary manslaughter. Think about that. INVOLUNTARY is without will… not by design… by accident. Can you imagine a crime that happens BY ACCIDENT? Isn’t the nature of crime that you have to commit it? What is COMMIT if not VOLUNTARY? Is a miscarriage involuntary manslaughter for the anti-abortion crew? I don’t know.

Ooooo but the parents ignored the kid. They didn’t realize he had mental problems… HOLD ON! IF HE HAD MENTAL PROBLEMS it was the DISEASE that caused the kid to shoot up the school. It was INVOLUNTARY, right? The kid is innocent for… besides being a kid… reason of INSANITY.

The fact that a penalty of LIFE IMPRISONMENT WITHOUT PAROLE exists proves that the purpose of prisons is not to “correct” or reform lawbreakers… but to PUNISH them. No that’s wrong too. The purpose of punishment is correction. You slap a dog on the ass when she shits in the house so she won’t do it again. That’s punishment. You make a kid finish his dinner or have what’s left for breakfast… cold… the next day. That’ll teach him to finish what’s on his plate every night. (My parents actually did this.) Get it? Punishment is a way of teaching.

LIFE IMPRISONMENT is not punishment. It’s not to teach. It is REVENGE… It is blood for the blood-thirsty. It is a throw into the lion’s den to please the crowd. The audience is family and friends of the victim… and they give the thumbs down. The press calls it closure. But the only closure is that cell door for the rest of that inmate’s life.

[NOTE: In 2021, the Supreme Court ruled that it was fine to give kids a life sentence without parole. I wonder when the court will rule that it’s okay to let kids vote and screw. If they have to pay the penalties, they should at least get the privileges, don’t you think?]

As for the parents…

Their convictions confirm punishment for “repeated acts or lack of acts that could have halted an oncoming runaway train. They repeatedly ignored things that make a reasonable person feel the hair on the back of their neck stand up,” the judge says. “Opportunity knocked over and over again, louder and louder and was ignored. No one answered. And these two people should have and sure didn’t.”

So NOT DOING is involuntary manslaughter… even without an inkling of the results of that not doing.

But back to kids… they’re the theme of this blog. Either they’re just people like adults or they’re sub-people not able to make their own choices. If it’s the former, then they should have the same rights as adults… sex, voting, smoking, drinking. If it’s the latter, then they are not responsible for their actions, and may be trained like an errant puppy… but not put away like someone who knew exactly what they were doing.

See you in hell,
Mykel Board

ENDNOTES: [You can contact me on facebook or by email at mykelboard@gmail.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. Send me an email with SUBSCRIBE in the subject line. Back blogs and columns are at https://mykelsblog.blogspot.com]

→ A Better Solution Dept: The Associated Press reports: A teenager who opened fire at a central Indiana middle school in 2018, wounding another student and a teacher, will go to a residential treatment center, as ordered by the judge.
      The court ordered that the now-18-year-old be held in the Hamilton County Juvenile Service Center for 120 days while a probation department finds “a suitable secure residential facility” for him. Not the perfect solution, but better than a lifetime in the clink.

→ Throw the Whole Team in Jail dept: A strange internet site reports that in 2002 a thirteen-year-old hockey fan, Brittanie Cecil, was struck in the head by a traveling hockey puck while she and her family attended a local hockey game. Seated fifteen rows up from behind the goal, the puck hit her so forcefully that it fractured her skull. If that isn’t INVOLUNTARY MANSLAUGHTER (girlslaughter?), I don’t know what is.

→ But was it INVOLUNTARY dept: Among the most famous criminal executions is the 1916 execution of Mary, the Circus Elephant, who killed a homeless man temporarily hired as her keeper. Several other people have been killed by elephants since then, proving that the death penalty does not prevent murder… even for elephants. Mary, was tried, then hanged from a crane. Here’s the death photo. 

BACK TO THE NATION DEPT: The newest issue of THE NATION has a great column by Kali Holloway on why TikTok banning is such a bad idea. (As is most (all?) censorship.) It again makes me point out that THE NATION is the only lefty magazine I know that is often right (I mean CORRECT) about things.
Besides the Holloway column, there’s also a good one by Ginny Hogan (strangely, but slightly, different on the website than in the magazine) with the pull-quote talking about the up-coming presidential election.

We have our two candidates.
One of them is deeply uninspiring,
and the other is Donald Trump.

Time to subscribe, I’d say.

LINK TRADE DEPARTMENT:

I did a nice interview with The Aither zine. Interesting questions, complete, and questions I’ve never been asked before. You can read it here. It’s a good one.

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:

I alreay posted my centerfold picture printed in the zine Trey Mayhem sent me recently. It’s called Murder and Mayhem and it’s also a record label Murder and Mayhem records. You can see the blog here. Or/and contact Trey at TreyofToday@yahoo.com

My long-time friend Sid Yiddish appears on a YouTube DatingGame-like video. Guess who wins the bachelorette!

Here’s Richard Goldberg: goldberg.wordpress.com

Poetry and humor fans will like Justin Martin in The Latency

And my friend Mike R has a nice site with recipe hits from the past! (He cooked for me once... great stuff.) Check out Yesterday's Recipes.

And here's one by a member of ANTI-SEEN... a tour diary of sorts.

Andy Shelton has an interesting blog here.

Savage Hippie is a guy who has been YouTubing for a long time. Our opinions largely overlap... but he complains that I'm a Communist. I'm not! I'm a communist.

Chris Stecher publishes a zine called PRECIS. You can see the back issue links there... and he promises a new issue soon.

George Fertakis has a very nice graphics-heavy blog... with music and books featured prominently. If there’s no link here (I can’t find it temporarily), then Google… er… Duckduckgo him for information.

And my long-term pal Sid Yiddish contributes with his Mishegas Master Blog.

And connect to TRUST Zine, a long-running German punk zine… that STILL PRINTS!!! Yeah, they have a website too… of course! It’s here.

Here are a couple video links.

This from Jon Cox https://squelchchamber1.bandcamp.com/album/down-so-low

And this one from my very long-time friend Roger Armstrong who has recently died in a motorcycle accident.

Jim Testa moved his long running zine, Jersey Beat, to the blogosphere awhile back. You can read it here. Jim also recommended a kind of unique album… in a style you don’t see to much of these days… or any days. Neo-Hassidic Rock Opera. You can stream the album here.

Kyle Nonneman is in prison in Portland. At least he can’t be kidnapped by the secret police… I think. I post his blog for him, he can’t do it from the klink. Lots of stuff about noise metal… and some very weird politics that will either fascinate or repulse you… or both. It’s hard (and costs money) to send him email. So. If you remember how to write a letter… send him one at: Kyle Nonneman, #16534211, Snake River Correctional Institution, 777 Stanton Blvd Ontario OR 97914-8335

My long time pal, Jim Hayes rightfully complained about my leaving out his blog. He’s a great writer, so it was a tragic omission. Here it is.

Oh yeah, then there’s me. I have a blog of stuff I’ve written mostly from last century. You might enjoy it. Then again, you might not. It’s here.

Let me know if you have a blog… or a print zine… or a YouTube and want to be added to the list. You show me yours… you’ve already seen mine. god@mykelboard.com

You're Still Wrong, Mykel's Oct 2020 Blog #2 or Head in The Oven

MYKEL'S OCT. 2020 BLOG

VOLUME 2

OR

Is That Your Head In The Oven
or Are You Happy to See Me?

You’re STILL Wrong

or

Mykel's 1st October 2020 Blog/Column

by Mykel Board 

[This will be my last semi-monthly blog. I find there are fewer readers. It’s more work. And I’m in no mood. Next month the blog goes once-a-month again.]

We die. That may be the meaning of our lives. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives. --Tony Morrison

You know how it feels when you’ve got your hands around the throat of someone you hate? You know how your fingers press against the neckback while your thumbs search out the bump of an adams apple? You know how when you squeeze, you can press your thumbs against that bump… one on either side… until something pops… then gurgles? There’s always a cough first.. then a tension… like an electric shock… then limpness… the head lolling… first right… then left... then down… chin to chest. You know how it feels when you release your hands and see that final slump… Thinking Yes! I did that! You little piece of shit… NOW, your life has meaning. Get it?

Sometimes I feel like sticking my head in the oven… the microwave oven. Sometimes I feel like walking down Broadway with an Uzi… and lots of ammo. 2020 has been a hell year for most everyone. Every day I dread email, facebook, or some other bringer of bad news. Who died? Who hates me? Who’s in the hospital? In jail?

My friends are dropping like beershit turds. Not (only) from the plague or from what happens when you get old and your friends do too, but from tightly wound tension... from the plague fear… from well, your other friends don’t want to see you so they must know something I don’t know. I’d better sequester myself too… at least from you.

I feel like Bojing Chow, the Chinese guy from Hubei (pronounced “Hoo-bay,” capital Wuhan) who works chopping suey for 10 years… sleeps in a hovel with his wife, family, and two other families… saves enough money to open his own hole-in-the-wall restaurant serving a Hubei favorite, Spicy Duck Neck. With the name Hubei Your Urges. The motif is a strange mixture of half-naked women and ducks.

Then comes the WUHAN virus. Then the lockdown… the closings… the sudden poverty. Bojing! Join me in my microwave… I’ll show you how to defeat the door-lock. There’s room enough for two.

I’m a social guy… the reverse of that cliché of I love humanity. It’s people I can’t stand. Me? I like people. I like to be in the midst of them… to eat and drink with them… to talk with them… to be naked in a pile of them.

In “normal” times in New York, every Thursday night I have DRINK CLUB. We go to a different bar every week, eat, drink, talk. Maskless, we treat each other like human beings, sharing food, tasting this beer and that. Laughing… or singing out loud. Sometimes we hug each other.

The plague put the kibosh on that… at least for a few months. During the last month or two I’ve brought it back with outside meetings and sticking to the same bar every week. In pre-plague times, Drink Club had from 6 to ten people usually several Japanese, and a few Hispanics to kick up the spice.

We loved to kid.. to lie about how to say Cheers in our native languages. We teach the round-eyes that in Japanese, it’s baka yaroo. (Actually, that means you fucking idiot.) We teach the Orientals that, in Spanish, it’s besa mi culo. (Actually, that means kiss my ass.) In English it’s garlic cow. I’ll teach you where that comes from.

In Spanish, garlic is ajo. Cow is vaca (pronounced, you guessed it, baka). Ajo in Japanese is something like asshole. So Garlic Cow in Spanish is ajo baka which, in Japanese means stupid asshole. Get it? No one else will.

This silly playfulness helps bring us together... to make us laugh… to make us feel less alone.

In lockdown Drink Clubs, the max is 7 people… almost all occidentals… mostly old people. This further lend credence to my theory that old people fear this plague less than the young. Like I wrote a couple weeks ago, that’s what old people do. We don’t fear death. We die. But that doesn’t make the uniform group of white oldsters any more exciting.

I miss the languages, the joking, the name-calling. In Spanish, it’s common to call the hefty guy Gordo (Fatty). In America, in the early 1900s a famous actor-comedian (who came to a bad end) was called “Fatty Arbuckle.” In 2020, “Fatty” would be bullying. You’d probably be banned from Facebook.

In 2020, people’s sensitivity is knife sharp. Not only from PC-itude, but from the tension and fear caused by COVID... mine too. I wrote how I fb-blocked a long-time friend because he name-called me.

Come on Mykel! (Here’s where you slap me, holding the front of my shirt… by the collar… slap first the right cheek, then on the left.)

“You’re - Mykel - fuckin’ - Board.”

Say one word with each slap.

“You’re - gonna - block - a - friend - because - he - called - you - a - name? Who - HASN’T - called - you - a - name?”

Flash to Chinatown: I’m out with El, one of my few remaining friends. We’re at a Chinese restaurant… not Wuhan. El notices an error in the English language menu. One dish is labeled Chicken Niggits.

I laugh out loud. Take a picture. And BAM! Post it on Instagram.

Double BAM! In a few minutes comes a reply from another long-term friend. Yeah, she’s black, “So this is what it’s come to?”

I send an apology and delete the post. It doesn’t help. I haven’t heard from her again.

I’M SORRY!

And so it goes.

Blame? I’d love to blame. Everyone looks for someone to blame… as if this will help… Hurricane after hurricane… quick blame the oil companies and their climate change? Race riots? Blame anarchists and outside agitators. Police murders? Blame “a few bad apples” rather than a system that attracts and creates bad apples. Police being murdered? Blame thugs who are incited by the anarchists. Corona virus? If you’re a Trump supporter, blame China. If you’re a Trump-hater, blame Trump.

The problem is that blaming doesn’t work. I don’t feel better if I blame my friends for deserting me… I’m still friendless. Believe me, the only solution is the microwave. Right now it’s on the refrigerator… too high for me to reach just standing on the floor. Okay, I’ll use the step ladder.

POW! Exploding head! That’ll teach ‘em. Right? They’ll have nobody to blame but themselves. Now, where’d I put that step ladder?

- 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. Send me an email with SUBSCRIBE in the subject line. Back blogs and columns are at https://mykelsblog.blogspot.com

→ In Everyday Life dept: In writing this blog, I learned there really is such a thing as Exploding Head Syndrome. Your head doesn’t actually blow up, though. You need a microwave for that.

→ Speaking of death department: Here are slightly edited versions of two emails I received from Kyle Nonnemen. They show the slave business aka Prison Labor… and how the prison system encourages people to keep quiet about their COVID symptoms.

Here are his last two emails to me.

+++++++++++++++++++

Message 1:

I can’t get out of my cell to call you. Corona virus outbreak lockdown status. Nobody gets out. They pop my door to give me nasty sack-lunches and a 15 minute shower once a day. Other than that, it’s 24 hour lockdown.

To prevent corona spreading even more than it already has, I took a corona virus test on 9-30, should get the results back by Monday. They stick a wooden cotton swab up your nasal cavity and it’s extremely painful.

If I’ve got the corona virus I'm getting transported to the quarantine hospice death ward they got set up at Coffee Creek. I got severe asthma, limited lung functioning from scoliosis and a lot of other damage to my lungs and Oregon Department of Corrections can’t afford high quality medical care.

So if I’ve got corona virus, I'm probably going to die from it. So when the Covid stuff first started happening, I wore a mask everywhere and didn't sit with any other inmates and primarily stayed in my cell. All the units in the prison were separated to avoid cross contamination.

I cleaned the mask all the time, sprayed stuff down with Virustat.Then, when the wildfires happened, I got stuck on a crowded sardine-can bus and then left outside in the in the prison yard for over 10 hours breathing in the toxic smoke, and ash from the fires. Then they crammed me into an open dorm unit, hundreds of inmates from all different units crowded together in one communal area.

In addition, Oregon state penitentiary where they evacuated us to, was previously declared a Covid hot zone. Now that they've brought everybody back from Oregon state penitentiary, the incubation period is over and now there's a really bad corona virus outbreak.

The Statesmen-Journal newspaper did a whole article about how bad the cramped conditions were at the state penitentiary and how people are infected from it.

That's why I asked you to contact some civil rights attorneys because if I test positive I'm getting shipped out to the death ward unit and you ain’t going to hear from me again. Lawyers can call me though.

Oregon D.O.C command staff are the reason this is spreading. No visitors come in. The prisoners don’t leave. It’s them bringing it in.

But whatever happens, is going to happen. I'm tired of living in a cage anyway.

so it goes.

all the best
kyle

Message 2:

They're transporting me to medical hospice death ward at coffee creek. With my asthma etc. I probably won't survive this. So you won’t hear from me again.

I just wanted to let you know what happened. Get a hold of the prison for funeral arrangements or whatever. I don’t know what they’ll do with my body.

Sorry for putting you through all this. Thanks for your support

all the best kyle

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:

Here’s Richard Goldberg: goldberg.wordpress.com

Poetry and humor fans will like Justin Martin in The Latency

And my friend Mike R has a nice site with recipe hits from the past! (He cooked for me once... great stuff.) Check out Yesterday's Recipes.

And here's one by a member of ANTI-SEEN... a tour diary of sorts.

Andy Shelton has an interesting blog here.

Savage Hippie is a guy who has been YouTubing for a long time. Our opinions largely overlap... but he complains that I'm a Communist. I'm not! I'm a communist.

Chris Stecher publishes a zine called PRECIS. You can see the back issue links there... and he promises a new issue soon.

George Fertakis has a very nice graphics-heavy blog... with music and books featured prominently. If there’s no link here (I can’t find it temporarily), then Google… er… Duckduckgo him for information.

And my long-term pal Sid Yiddish contributes with his Mishegas Master Blog.

And connect to TRUST Zine, a long-running German punk zine… that STILL PRINTS!!! Yeah, they have a website too… of course! It’s here.

Here are a couple video links.

This from Jon Cox https://squelchchamber1.bandcamp.com/album/down-so-low

And this one from my very long-time friend Roger Armstrong.

Jim Testa moved his long running zine, Jersey Beat, to the blogosphere awhile back. You can read it here. Jim also recommended a kind of unique album… in a style you don’t see to much of these days… or any days. Neo-Hassidic Rock Opera. You can stream the album here.

Kyle Nonneman is in prison in Portland. At least he can’t be kidnapped by the secret police… I think. I post his blog for him, he can’t do it from the klink. Lots of stuff about noise metal… and some very weird politics that will either fascinate or repulse you… or both.

Oh yeah, then there’s me. I have a blog of stuff I’ve written mostly from last century. You might enjoy it. Then again, you might not. It’s here.

I have a very occasional blog about how rich people are just like us… same needs, same desires, you know. You can read it here.

Let me know if you have a blog… or a print zine… or a YouTube and want to be added to the list. You show me yours… you’ve already seen mine. god@mykelboard.com

REVENGE! or Mykel's Post MRR Column no 55

Mykel's

Post MRR Column no 55

or

Vengeance is Mine!

Don't get mad. Get even. --Old Saying

    Q. How many Israelis does it take to change a lightbulb?

    A. Three. One to change the bulb. Two to kill my entire family because I made the joke.

                           --New Saying

Ah… ah… ah… AAAARG! It’s 11:30 am!

The talking alarm clock e-crow crows its wake-up call. I want to kill it. It lies. All the clocks in my apartment are set 40 minutes ahead. Since traveling times in Manhattan rarely exceed 40 minutes, this system lets me teleport anyplace on the island. If I have to be someplace at noon, I leave at noon (my time). I arrive on time. So it’s NOT 11:30AM. It's 10:50. And I hate getting up in the morning no matter what time it is.

This morning, like many other mornings, I’m in a foul mood. Pissed off... hung over... full of shit that my morning coffee will soon cause to explode into the toilet like a Sunni explodes in a Shiite mosque. (Or is it the other way around?)

Without opening my eyes, I slap the clock off and roll out of bed… holding on to the night table to steady myself… knocking over a 2/3 empty bottle of Brooklyn Lager… spilling the remaining third on the bed. I pick up the bottle… and for a second am tempted to hurl it through a closed window… teaching it a lesson it’ll never forget. Amazingly, the hoarse voice of reason gets to me before I do it. I set it down.

I waddle through the beer puddle... around the two bends in my single room apartment... wondering if I’m going to make it to the toilet. I make it… and stand there weakly pissing-- dribbling out the already consumed 2/3s of that Brooklyn beer.

Then to the stove where I make Turkish Coffee^®… actually Cafe Bustelo... brewed in the Turkish style… coffee thrown into a pot, boiled with a couple cups of water… poured through a strainer. Oh yeah.

In less than ten minutes, the coffee does its work. Back to the toilet… to my explosive beer shit... a massive semi-liquid relief... a blast that refreshes… a wondershit that’s the best argument I know for the existence of a truly loving God. Why don’t those Jehovah’s Witnesses who wake me up on Saturday morning ever talk about that? Do you want proof God loves you? Look in the toilet?

After I wipe up, I leave for work.

Downstairs, the street is filled with tourists. If you live on Bleecker Street you expect that… but why do they all have to walk in front of me... stopping suddenly to look at the mannequins in store windows… or worse: looking down at their iPhones... following an i-map because they can’t figure out that the street that comes after Fourth Street is Fifth Street.

Right now, a family of pasty white Americans strolls in front of me: a fat man wearing a wool tuke and a blue Canadian Goose down-filled jacket. With him is a fat woman, dark hair, doughboy face, in a matching coat. With them are two kids: a fat boy and fat girl. The woman and the fat boy are looking down at cellphones. The man is speaking to the girl. Together they form a slow-moving phalanx across the sidewalk. I want to kill them… spray them with a high-school style AR-15. Shower the sidewalk with fat body parts. Smash the Canadian Goose that lays no eggs. I hate them. I want revenge for the pain their lassitude is causing me. They must PAY!

I step into the street to go around them. WZZZZZ. An asshole cyclist (a pleonasm?) going the wrong way down the one way street misses me by THIS MUCH!

“Fuck you!” I don’t yell… but I do hope some car hits... him mixing his pizza-- or whatever he’s delivering-- with the muscle tendons and blood in his torn flesh.

Generic Woman-spread Photo

FLASH TO THE SUBWAY: As I enter, some woman… fresh from a shopping spree… spreads her bags on the subway seats… Woman Spread^®. I stand over her, glaring down at her bags, picturing how her intestines would look stretched and battered beside those of the fat tourists and the cyclist on the sidewalk above. I wonder if the thirst for revenge (sometimes called avenge,

sometimes called justice) is a biological urge... or if it’s a Western relic from the old testament eye-for-an-eye command.

It sure seems an integral part of our culture from the death penalty to the Hollywood classics of Death Wish, Make Them Die Slowly, Kill Bill, and Fatal Attraction…. as American as a heart attack.

After the World Trade Center barrage, president Bush destroyed the country of Iraq-- even though they had nothing to do with the attack. What did he say?

"Ours is a nation that does not seek revenge, but we do seek justice." That line brought down the house. It also brought down Iraq… and brought us ISIS.

But revenge is NOT only Western… Christian-Jew. It is world-wide. Can you say Voodoo Doll? Can you say Hindu revenge killings?

An interesting article called The Case for Revenge claims revenge is biological… an evolutionary leap...like the orgasm. The author says it evolved as a way for humans to survive: Human survival depended greatly on convincing neighboring clans, tribes, and states that no attack or moral injury would go unanswered. Payback was nonnegotiable and self-regulating.

But is the threat of retaliation the same as revenge? I don't think so.

FLASH TO THE SUBWAY... THE F TRAIN: An attractive young woman, dark with white features... maybe Indian, maybe Caribbean... sits across from me-- right next to the door. She wears jeans so tight they could be danskins. I can make out the camel toe between her legs. And it's easy.. she sits with her knees apart... like manspread... but on her it looks good. She is, of course, engrossed in a cellphone.

Next to her, a white child bounces on its mothers knee. . . At 23^rd Street the doors open and an old colored guy... with a cane... enters the car. I motion to him... while standing up.

“Here,” I say, patting my seat, “you can sit over here.”

He looks at me, smiles, and says, “Much obliged, Mister.”

I smile back and nod to him as I move to let him sit down. Then, I position myself in front of the Caribbean girl, trying to get her attention... maybe she'll talk to me... tell me how nice I am for giving up my seat to the old cripple.

I walk across the aisle and stand in front of her. She doesn't look up as I station myself. I clear my throat.

FLASH TO THE SUBWAY IN AN ALTERNATE UNIVERSE: An attractive young woman, dark with white features... maybe Indian, maybe Caribbean sits across from me-- right next to the door. She wears jeans so tight they could be danskins. I swear I can make out the camel toe between her legs. And it's easy.. she sits with her knees apart... like manspread... but on her it looks good. She is, of course, engrossed in a cellphone.

Next to her is a huge guy... same skin color as the girl, but with shoulders wider than my apartment. He wears a flashy jacket... and black jeans... perfectly pressed. He sits with one arm around the goddess-like girl... and he glares at me.

At 23^rd Street the doors open and an old colored guy with a cane... enters the car. I motion to him... while standing up.

“Here,” I say, “you can sit over here.”

Then I stand up, walk to the end of the car... and enter the next one.

Get it? That's not revenge, that's fear. And there is a difference. Revenge is PAYBACK for some wrong... real or imagined. Threat of retaliation discourages action by promising violence.

REALITY CHECK: Will some school kid killer be discouraged from a rampage by a threat of violence? Most of them kill themselves anyway. They LIVE (and die) for violence. They commit their crimes to avenge some real or perceived injustice in school…. In other words… for revenge. The ONLY reason to execute school killers-- or most anyone else-- is REVENGE. BUT, the motive for the original crime was also revenge. Like the Hatfields and McCoys… revenge is a never-ending cycle.

Israel is the current practitioner supreme of REVENGE ideology. Flash to: the early days of the intifada. Palestinian kids throw rocks at the Israeli occupying troops. What about that eye-for-an-eye thing? Do Israelis throw rocks back? You bet your Talmud they don't. They bulldoze the kids’ entire house. KERPOW! Throw a rock and become homeless... in a fell swoop. That is revenge.

FLASH TO THE GAZA WAR 2014. Here are the stats on that one:

• Palestinians killed: 2,139 Palestinian children killed: 490

• Israeli soldiers killed: 64 Israeli civilians killed: 6 Israeli children killed: 1

That's what revenge looks like when one side has all the fire power. But wait... let's get more recent:

Syria shoots down an Israeli jet that was invading that country. The pilots bailed. No one was injured. The revenge?

Israel attacks twelve bases in Syria. There are several deaths. Here again it's REVENGE in action. The Israelis are masters of the art.

It's tempting to say the revenge thing all started with the Jews. They're so good at it. We talked about Hindus. We talked about voodoo.

And the history of Goyitude is filled with non-Jew revenge seekers. (This from an article on Voodoo of all things:)

In A.D. 64, a great fire broke out in Rome for six days, and devastated much of the city. According to the writer Tacitus, “Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace.” The “abominations” committed by the early Christians were said to be cannibalism and incest, based on rumors circulating in Rome at that time which stemmed from a misunderstanding of the Eucharist.

REVENGE! And for fake news at that.

Behind revenge is a kind of karmic belief that things in the universe should balance. Yin and Yang. Aggression and payback. Compassion pays no part... neither does time nor forgiveness. When southerners complained about Judge Roy Moore's indiscretions 40 years ago, the answer was It's not WHEN it happened. It's THAT it happened. Forgiveness and revenge are the warring parties. Neither has a time limit. You have to choose your side.

Revenge is called Justice by those seeking it. But there’s a difference. If the city doesn’t repair a street pothole, and I break my ankle stepping in it… the two hundred grand I get for pain, lost work, hospital bills, is justice… but it’s not revenge.

My daily fantasies about what to do with people who annoy me are REVENGE fantasies. They have nothing to do with justice. The death penalty… the Iraqi war… the loss of jobs… loss of status… loss of face of Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacy… these are revenge… nothing to do with justice… no matter what it’s called.

As long as we can’t separate justice from revenge we’ll have never-ending revenge. As long as we have a criminal revenge system masquerading as a criminal justice system… we will have ever escalating crime and punishment.

So step back… take a breath… check your motives. If you don’t… I will kill you.

--end--

NOTE: If you're interested in my travel blog, you can read it at mykelsdiary.blogspot.com. I have another blog of short interesting things at: http://mykelsclippings.blogspot.com. And finally, my oldies from last century are slowly being scanned and uploaded to: http://mykelsoldies.blogspot.com/

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

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]

-→Unintentional revenge dept: A hunter in Easton Maryland shot a flying Canada goose on Feb. 1 of this year. When it fell, it hit the hunter, Robert Meilhammer, landing on his head and knocking him out. It also dislodged two of his teeth. As of now, Meilhammer is in stable condition after being airlifted to a hospital.

-->Right again dept: A few blogs ago I wrote about how the only solution to the Harassment^® problem was gender apartheid. Now I read that one of Hillary Clinton's aide stands accused of harassing a co-worker, “he rubbed her shoulders inappropriately, kissed her on the forehead” Rubbed her shoulders?

I accuse the entire nation of France of harassment! Fire 'em all! Whenever I meet one, they hug MY WHOLE BODY!! And worse than that, they give me an inappropriate kiss... two of them... one on each cheek! Harassment if I've ever seen it! Fire the lot!

-->Speaking of shoulder rubs dept: I wonder if German Chancellor Angela Merkel is going to demand that GWB be fired... whoops, he already WAS fired.

-->Intentional Revenge Dept: I wrote about how those who planned the downfall of Alabama judge Roy Moore used accusations 30 years old to attack him. The revengers seem, in typical revenge fashion, to have gotten even more than they hoped for. The judge is broke and destitute... appealing for funds. I'll probably throw the guy ten bucks. 


LINK TRADE DEPARTMENT:

I read that the search engines like lots of links... and it's also nice to support my friends and enemies in their blogs. So facebook me or email me if you have a blog, webpage or something else to connect to. I add you. You add me.

Here's a start: 

• David Goldberg's Busy Microbes Blog

• And another Goldberg: goldberg.wordpress.com

• Poetry and humor fans will like Justin Martin in The Latency

• 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.