I WAS FRAMED! or Mykel's October 2023 Blog/Column

 I Was Framed ... or Mykel's Blog for October

You’re STILL Wrong

or

Mykel's October 2023 Blog/Column 

I Was Framed!    

by Mykel Board

The instrument that measures all other instruments– the human nervous system– has its own laws, and one of them involves always seeing the results one wants to see until and unless something really startles the brain enough to reframe its experiences. --Robert Anton Wilson

Popular authors do not and apparently cannot appreciate the fact that true art is obtainable only by rejecting normality and conventionality in toto, and approaching a theme purged utterly of any usual or preconceived point of view. --Edwin Baird

I think people have to set up little battles. They have to demonize people whom they disagree with or feel threatened by. But it's the ideological framing of the debate that scares me. – Barbara Kruger

It’s slightly pornographic… or could be. Just three fingers... lady’s fingers clearly... but what’s between them? Is that a urethra canal? Could it be the centerfold of a “men’s” magazine? Will the Google gods post this behind a SENSITIVE CONTENT SCREEN? How about if we look at the picture another way? Maybe that can tell us something different about those fingers:

Flash to the motel room: The floor is bloody… The door hangs on one hinge… lopsided as if forced in from the outside… it was.. Lying on the couch is a woman… clothed only in her own blood. Her vacant eyes stare blankly at the ceiling. A man… scruffy… wearing a beat up overcoat... sits on a chair at the desk. On either side of him is a cop. One tall… macho looking.. a strong chin cleanly shaven. Squinting, the disheveled man can read DETECTIVE BASTINI. The other cop is somewhat shlubbier… beer belly just poking over the front of his belt. The name on his badge is not visible to the sitting man.

“You realize this looks pretty bad for you,” says Detective Bastini.

“But officer,” says the disheveled man, “you gotta understand. This was a set-up. I was framed!”

You got it buckaroos! I want to write about FRAMING! How our entire view of the world, of people, of good and bad… right and wrong... is all about framing. And framing is everywhere… what we see out of a window is framed… what we hear on the news… what we listen to in a punk club… what appears in store displays… It’s all framed. White-washing, green-washing, pink-washing, ad-washing, even face- washing… BUILD THOSE FRAMES!

Yeah, I’m going to repeat myself here. I often repeat myself. I often repeat myself. I often repeat myself. I often repeat myself. I often repeat myself. I often repeat myself. I often repeat myself. But in saying what I’ve said before, I’m going to frame it with a frame. Show how you’ve been tricked by what the frame let in the picture and what it kept out.

So says the Google search. I don’t have time to dig further because my stomach is begging for release… Last night was Drink Club and I’m paying for it now. Aaaahrgh! I feel like I’m being fist-fucked from the inside. The pain… the pain… the bathroom… the toilet… sit down… ahh… ahhh… aaahhhhhh! An explosion… splashing down with the force of a space capsule in the ocean. BLOOOF! BLOOF! BLOOOF! Feces-filled water splashes back up... dribbling drip… drip… drip back into the muddy waters below. No, I can’t see it, but I feel it… against both lower cheeks… and the back of my thighs. 

Ecstasy! Poetry in brown! I just sit a bit and enjoy it... closing my eyes to focus on the relief. Then the wipe… the double wipe… the pull up… What’s that? A hard-yet-squishy feel. I again pull down my boxers. A brown stain discolors the top… right near the elastic. A single dingle-berry... hanging by a hair… too high up to reach through the legs… still there. I have to go around the side… grope for it. Aaaah, if only I could pay someone to make sure I’d got the last one before pulling up. A pro to take care of errant hanger-ons… to save my underpants… and my embarrassment at the laundromat. But wait... a dingle-berry remover!!! I’ve created a job! All I need is someone to fill it. Get it? It’s easy to create a job, though likely it’ll be a shitty one. 

It’s the frame! If we only look at jobs… at how many people are employed or can be employed… we mistake the Mona Lisa fingers for the painting. If we frame it as happy people... fulfilled people… people able to live a good life… then Biden’s 6.6 million jobs are meaningless. 

MOST jobs are worthless. They contribute nothing and may do more harm than good. 

That guy sitting at his desk shuffling electrons to buy and sell stock… What does he contribute? The greeter at Walmart... the CEO of a tech corporation... the maitre ‘d at a restaurant… bookkeepers… corporate lawyers… insurance brokers… advertising copy writers… the list never ends. Framing “job creation” instead of “life improvement” skews the equation.

It’s sometime in the late 1970s. Milton Friedman has already won the Nobel Prize for his defense of the crime of capitalism. The local PBS station shows a short series where Friedman explains his theories.

A twenty-something me sits in front of the TV as Friedman walks around the streets of New York, talking to the camera. He passes a beggar.

“It seems cruel,” says Friedman, “but if we don’t support this man… if we don’t give him money… he’ll have to get a job. The state… other working people… will not have to pay for him”

I close my eyes… take a deep breath… wish for the beggar to jump up, slam a lead pipe into the back of Friedman’s head… grab his wallet and take off. “There’s your have to get a job, motherfucker!” And I smile.

I tell this story to my Ayn Rand-loving friends. “No Mykel,” they tell me, “That’s what the police are for. They catch the guy and throw him in jail.”

“Where he’s supported by the state… working people,” I answer.

WORK --more precisely HAVING A JOB-- is something that’s lauded by Communists and Capitalists alike. There’s dignity in having a job. And a gauge of any president’s performance is whether or not he creates FULL EMPLOYMENT! So, destructive and useless jobs are better than no jobs at all. NO THEY AREN’T.

Let’s move the frame. Let’s value the ability to enjoy life. The ability to help others enjoy life. Lets value a smile on a poor man’s face more than a billion dollars in Jeff Bezos’s pocket. If there were no garbagemen, who would take away the garbage?

Who takes it away now? Who removes the banana peels from your kitchen? YOU DO! The garbage is taken away because it needs to be taken away… not because there are garbagemen.

I can hear Literary Device complaining now.

“Forget about garbagemen, Mykel,” she says. “What about doctors? Teachers? Architects? Those things take years of study. Are you going to have everyone be her own doctor?”

“Not quite,” I answer. “But I can tell you that I get paid to be a teacher. It’s my job. I’d do it though, even if it weren’t my job. I love doing it”

There are enough people who love doctoring and teaching doctoring that –job or not– they’d do it. With so many worthless or destructive jobs gone, people will be able to do what they love. Think of all the kids that want to be doctors or firemen or athletes, but end up stock brokers or insurance salesmen as adults. Are they happy wearing their white shirts and ties... spending a third of their lives moving electrons from one computer to the next… I bet MOST people are unhappy in their jobs, especially the useless or harmful ones.

Move that VALUE frame. Value humanity... satisfaction... time... rather than having a job. You’ll get a much nicer picture.

FLASH TO The Every Little Bit Helps frame: I generate a lot of garbage. No, I’m not talking about this blog. I’m talking real, physical stuff. Junkmail… bills (always shredded and thrown out), old magazines, plastic containers from yogurt, deli sandwiches, styrofoam trays from frozen chicken… the list goes on. The only garbage separating I do is pulling out the deposit bottles and cans. I put those in a separate clear plastic bag and leave that outside for the street people who live on bottle and can deposits. Many of them are my friends.

According to Green Matters, only around 9 percent of goods separated for recycling are being recycled. But there’s the frame. If you separate your soup cans from your bleach bottles you’re part of that every little bit. You can go ahead and buy your Campbell’s 12 pack and your Costco size bleach bottle. You’re still doing your part. But if we expand the frame… include the rest of the Mona Lisa... we can see the whole picture.

We can see that there’s a relationship between feeling good about your consumption… and consuming more. It’s okay if I buy so much more than I need. More to throw away…more junk… I RECYCLE… so it’s all right.

NO IT ISN’T! Recycling encourages consumption. Consumption encourages waste (and corporate profits). In this frame, RECYCLING MAKES JUNK. Instead of framing the junk our consumption makes, why not frame the consumption itself? Instead of recycling, why not avoid buying in the first place?

FLASH TO the war in Ukraine. Oh, the bad guys invade. “We” have to help. It’s good guys against bad guys… a typical American frame… cowboy movies… war movies… comic books. The good guys need to defeat the bad guys… the invaders. Send in weapons… train the soldiers… beat the war drums… put up Ukrainian flags. Measure success like in a war movie. CHASE THEM OUT. MAKE THEM DIE. They lose. We win. What can be more American than “Winning isn’t everything… It’s the only thing?”

But let’s use a different frame. Let’s keep score… if score must be kept… a different way. Let’s use a GOLF frame, instead of a comic book frame. In golf, the lowest score wins. So players work hardest at getting the lowest score. How ‘bout if, instead of keeping score by advances and retreats and downed airplanes or destroyed infantry, we count dead people. The fewer dead, the better the situation. So if “we” want to get a good score, we provide negotiators instead of bombs. We offer cash, concessions, trades, to keep the number of dead low. We exchange the frame of winning and losing for one of dying or not dying.

NEXT FRAME INTRODUCTION: It’s called “pre-judgement” and includes one of my favorite idioms of the last decade or so. It too is an extension of the American good guy/ bad guy frame. That is, anything done by a badguy must be bad. If the cowboy wearing black picks up a a dog in scene one, he’ll shoot it in scene three. He can’t be NICE to the dog… he’s a bad guy. That phrase I love is Trump Derangement Syndrome

FLASH TO Miami beach: It’s crowded. Throngs wanting to get in their last wave before Hurricane Bruce slams the coast and ruins their fun. If you walk quietly in a corner of the beach, you’ll see what looks like a typical American family: a chubby balding man… gray chest-hair, a woman, obviously his wife, with bright red hair, obviously from a bottle. A boy and his younger sister play on the bright blue picnic blanket spread in the sand. The boy carries a plastic bucket and a little plastic shovel. The little girl is empty-handed.

If you listen carefully, you’ll hear that they are speaking French. Maybe they’re tourists. With a peal of kiddie-laughter the empty-handed girl grabs the bucket from her brother and runs toward the ocean. The brother gives chase, finally catching up and wrestling the bucket free. Then he pushes his sister who falls into the increasingly violent waves smashing against the shore. The girl washes out to sea.

“Aide! Aide!” screams the father, as the little girl is rip-currented further and further from shore.

Donald Trump, passing by, hears the shouts. Not taking the time to remove anything but his shoes, he runs to the water and jumps in. Powerfully, he swims out to the girl, grabs her around the chest and… careful to keep her head above water... brings her safely back to shore.

TRUMP MOLESTS TODDLER AT THE BEACH is the headline in The Times the next day… along with a photo of Donny Trump in the water with his arm around the girl’s chest.

For so many people, Trump is incapable of doing anything right… of doing a good deed. If it appears good… pardoning non-violent offenders, keeping the US out of war, downsizing The Pentagon… there’s always some reason it’s BAD. Getting out of NAFTA and TPP… disastrous trade bills that would have allowed international trade with no oversight. Slave conditions unanswerable by the US courts. President Trump saved us from them.

No he didn’t. Come the answers. Those were good for trade… come the TDS answers… except for Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and AOC who also opposed the treaties when they were presented by the Dems… those treaties are left out of the frame.

And finally… briefly… a pair of frames I’ve written about before: the GENDER frame and the RACE frame. Seeing abortion as “a war against women” where most of the anti-abortionists see a war against murder. Or seeing street crime and armed robbery as BLACK street crime and BLACK armed robbery instead of POVERTY-INDUCED street crime and POVERTY-INDUCED armed robbery. Framing… framing… framing.

So please… face the wall and look at that picture. Take it down… open the back and spread out the painting so the unframed parts become clear. Then REFRAME it, so those twat-showing hands become the Mona Lisa.

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]

→ Framing Step-by-Step Dept: There’s a great step-by-step analysis of news- framing in the New York Times. It’s not published on any of the monopoly-internet sites, but you can find it here.

→ How you react DEPENDS dept: Many of you know that I’ve gone through radiation treatment for prostate cancer. Called Cyberknife, the treatment itself is painless, though expensive. But the cash expense is only part of the problem. I pissed in my pants on the way home from the last treatment. I’ve been wearing (and needing) DEPENDS ever since. I have daily brain fog and the only time I’m not tired is late at night when I should be sleeping. If cyberknife is recommended for you… consider it VEEERRRRRY CAREFULLY, before you agree to it. You have been warned.

→ Put A Bag On It dept: The Canadian Broadcasting Company reports that in an environmental move, rock climbers in British Columbia have been encouraged to use WAG BAGS, to shit in. The idea, you shit in a bag that contains deodorizing chemicals, and then carry the shit with you, out of the wooded areas where you dispose of it at home. Sure, that’s gonna happen. Yeah right.

See you in hell redux,
MB


THE NATION AGAIN

I’m a long-time subscriber to the The Nation. It’s the only lefty publication that I find myself not only agreeing with, but also getting inspiration from. Strangely, when I post this stuff on facebook, no one looks at it. My “friends” would just rather call me a “Trumpist” or a “Republican” for all the times I don’t follow the party line. If it’s printed in THE NATION, it should give me street cred, right? Yeah right.

I found, in an old issue, a great argument against those who charge “What Aboutism” when others make points about a parallel issue outside the frame. The author’s basic (and correct) point of view is that the anti-whataboutism argument justifies hypocrisy.
Then there’s Thomas Graham who spots a little more subtlety in the Ukraine war than the media and the current war-mongers are showing.

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:

Jason Rodgers sent me his book Invisible Generation… free! And I lost it. Jason, a long-time partner of Suzy Poe, has been bugging me to review it… and I can’t. So the best I can do is promote it. I have a lot of respect for Jason… he is a libertarian (in the best sense of the word), and a super-smart guy. When/if I find the book, I’ll give you some more details.

Video of the week: My long-time friend Sid Yiddish appears on a YouTube DatingGame-like video. Guess who wins the bachlorette!

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.

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 July 2018 Blog/Column "An Honorable Profession"

You’re STILL Wrong

or
Mykel's

July 2018 Blog/Column

An Honorable Profession

There's no requirement that jobs be meaningful. If there were, half the country would be out of work. --Max Barry

Dexter is a colored guy... about 6’ tall… missing his four top center teeth. He usually wears one of those horizontally striped polo shirts that make people look fat. At least they make short people look fat. Dexter is as skinny as my paycheck, and no kind of shirt is gonna hide that.

Today, however, he wears a white t-shirt with the word MERKEL in thick dark type across the front. I don’t know whether that’s a department store or the chancellor of Germany.

As usual, Dexter stands on the corner of Lexington Avenue and 41^st Street… in front of the Korean deli. I pass him on the way to the subway from school.

“Yo Mykel, how’s it goin’?”” he says when he sees me… holding out his fist for me to bump with my own.

“Busy, poor, the usual,” I tell him. “But what the fuck is Merkel?”

He frowns.

“On your t-shirt,” I remind him.

“Oh that! Who the fuck knows? I got the shirt in one of those bins you see on the street… mostly in Brooklyn?”

“You mean you figured out how to raid those things?” I ask. “They’re supposed to be for charity.”

“And I’m not charity?” he replies.

“Got me there,” I laugh, pulling out my wallet and handing him my usual buck.

Not Dexter... Dexter is camera shy

He bumps fists with me again.

“I can always count on you, Mykel.” he says.

Actually, he probably says Michael not Mykel. He’s never seen my name written, and since both sound the same….

“I gotta run,” I tell him. “I gotta get to the subway… someone’s waiting for me at a bar down in The Village.”

He smiles and shakes his head like an indulgent parent.

“It’s always a bar, Mykel (Michael),” he says. “You take care of yourself.”

“You too,” I tell him looking over my shoulder as I’m halfway down the block.

Before I get to 42^nd street, I hear it…. behind me.

Leave me alone and get a job!

What the fuck?

I turn around. There’s this guy… mid-thirties, I’d say... maybe a little taller than me, standing in front of Dexter. He’s wearing a dark gray suit, white shirt, tie… loosened at the neck. Surprisingly enough, he’s not carrying a briefcase, but a backpack. Nope, not Jansport… it’s something that looks expensive... a hoity toity backpack. In a circle woven onto the back it says: Fjällräven Kånken.

I walk back to Dexter's corner to talk to the business guy… actually yell at him. “What are you talking about? You know this guy? You think it’s any easier living on the street than it is cheating retirees out of their life’s savings?”

“Who the fuck are you?” asks the suit.

“I’m a friend of Dexter’s,” I tell him. “And what’s your job?”

“I’m a real estate agent,” he says, waving his arms at the skyscrapers around us. “I’ve done THIS with my life. What has your pal Dexter done with his? Or you, for that matter.”

I don’t hit him. He’s bigger than I am.

“Dexter has done no harm. He's made no money off people who need a place to live... or work. He hasn’t destroyed homes to make the street safe for real estate companies. He hasn’t cost one cent in environmental damage. He’s cheated no one. Never made a dirty penny. You can’t say that?”

“I WORK for a living!” he shouts at me, then points to Dexter. “HE can’t say that!”

“You work?” I shout back, “You think that makes you noble? You hurt people. You charge them for things they need…. or maybe you just waste space that people could be living in... making offices where workers shift ones and zeros from one computer to another. You waste heat, electricity... physical places… all kinds of shit. Dexter wastes nothing!”

“Your friend is SCUM!” he says, “a waste of a human being.”

He stomps off before I can think of a clever answer… Whoa! I’m writing this, I can make myself say anything I want! I am my own God!

“Your friend is SCUM!” he says... “a waste of a human being.”

“Scum is what’s left over when the usefulness is gone,” I tell him. “You’re the scum. Your usefulness is gone the second you check into the office. Dexter is a hero.”

There, that’s better.

I LOVE street people. It’s a tough job… being outside in all kinds of weather... having to put up with assholes who think that standing on the street and asking for money is not A JOB. And… maybe worse… watching the hundreds of pairs of averted eyes… pretending they don’t see this big man standing in front of them with a partially toothless smile… asking simply Can you help me out?

Is there another job that does so little (no?) damage to the world? Is there another job that makes customers feel so good about themselves when they hand over their cash? Where else do you spend a buck, two bucks, a quarter and buy nothing that was made by slaves, nothing that wastes anything? Nothing that does anything bad… nothing that puts anyone in danger.

Besides street beggars, what else is there? Well, there are whores. Another noble job. Another person who… like a beggar… works only to give pleasure. No resources squandered-- except maybe a few inches of latex. Sex whores sometimes work for pimps or madams… that’s a problem… and a reflection of the capitalist slave system. But when they work for themselves… choose their own streets… their own working hours… their own customers… they join beggars in becoming models for how we should all live.

The first principle of Google-- and doctors-- is First do no harm. Both Google and doctors routinely violate that principle under pressure from THE MARKET PLACE and insurance companies. The market has created an incentive to do harm. Google cannot earn money unless it watches you and sells your every on-line action to the highest bidder. Doctor can’t earn money if they PREVENT disease. It’s only by finding disease, or making you sick, that they earn their BMWs.

Whores may unintentionally spread disease, but that’s not part of the job. The ONLY purpose of a whore is to give pleasure. Not the artificial pleasure of OWNING THINGS... not the destructive pleasure of bossing a slave to do something later sold for “added value...” but REAL direct pleasure.

You’ve got beggars who give pleasure in making their customers feel good about themselves. You’ve got whores who give pleasure in making their customers feel good. The world has two noble professions... beggars and whores. That makes the rest of us ignoble, don't you think?

-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]

Gavin McInnis

→Restaurant attack dept: There’s been a spate of Trump supporters thrown out of restaurants: They tossed Fox's Gavin McInnis for wearing a MAGA hat. Aaron Schlossberg was thrown out of a deli-- and his job-- for complaining about Spanish Speakers. A DC chicken place threw Sarah Huckabee Sanders out for… well… for being Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

Some are justifying the expulsions and saying they don't compare to expulsions based on race or sexuality because the latter can't help who they are.

I say, that's a worse reason. It means, if you COULD help it, you would... and who in their right minds would CHOOSE to be black or gay, right? Jeezus fuckin' Christ!

→Red dot not feather dept: I’ll be going to India in October and staying there for 6 weeks. Anyone with tips or connections, please let me know by email or facebook. If you’ve got a couch... or a dancing cobra... that’s even better.
I just read a true story about a rat that got into an Indian ATM machine and ate $20,000 worth of rupees. I wonder what happened when someone made a cash withdrawal…. confetti? It'll be an adventure... you'll read about it.

→ Good behavior dept: There is a jail in Austria where prisoners get rewarded for good behavior with the right to “conjugal visits” with loved ones in a private space. There’s even been a report of a prison doctor prescribing Viagra to help out a prisoner.

But the good citizens of Austria certainly won’t tolerate a speck of compassion. Though no country is as vengeance-loving as America, there are those everywhere who glory in PUNISHMENT and REVENGE. Fuck good behavior.
So the locals are lobbying the new Austrian right-wing government to prohibit the visits. They probably will succeed. What’s most interesting to me, is that in the US, it would be the LEFT-WING citizens who would be outraged at the compassion... unless, of course, the perpetrators weren't white.

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 ANTISEEN... 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 capital C Communist. I'm not! I'm a lower case c 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 Board

(MRR 346) What America Needs is JOBS!

You're Wrong

An Irregular Column

by Mykel Board

"The crucial reality is the need to sell your labor to capital in order to live, the need to carve up your personality for sale-- to look at yourself in the mirror and think, "What have I got that I can sell?" --Marshall Berman

It was something I ate. Bang. Stomach ache, I can just make it... I hope... It musta been the Korean food... Seemed so healthy... mushrooms... kim chi with sesame seeds... even tofu ice cream for fuck's sake. Pow! A belt to the stomach. I'm gonna explode.


On the way to the bathroom, I grab today's mail. I'll need something to read while the food makes its painful progress through my intestines. 

Ah, made it. Not quite ready to let loose though.

I pick up the mail.

First, THE NATION... my usual bathroom reading. Lefty enough to be interesting. Alexander Cockburn who's almost always right. And book reviews better than the books they review.

This issue reviews a book about the mind. The author of the book is a neurosurgeon who splits peoples brains in epilepsy operations. Then he does experiments on the split brainers. His experiments convince him that people don't really have free will. We act, he says, spontaneously. Then we use free will in rationalizing the act.

The reviewer asks “if people lack free will, why did the surgeon make them sign “consent” forms before the experiments? How can you consent to anything if you don't have free will?” Smart guy, smart ass. Right up my alley.

Ow! Ow! Ow! The brown muck makes it's way up the right side, across the middle, down the left, almost... almost... Fuck, stuck right at the key point... begging release... yet unreleased.

I check out the NATION'S front cover. Getting Priorities Straight. It's about how Obama sold out to the Republicans (what a surprise!) by making the debt the number one issue. Says THE NATION, “it should be JOBS!” Let's have another WPA like during Roosevelt. Let the government hire people so they can earn their own living... not have to take handouts... give people the dignity of earning their own way... put Americans to work.

Yeah, pouring tar on highways. That'll give 'em dignity... or black lungs.

Enough! I put the magazine down and open a letter from something called ACE. I'd think it was a hardware advertisement but for the blurb on the front of the envelope. EMPOWERING THE HOMELESS. Hmmmm. What does that mean? Register them to vote? Give them a place to live, regroup and get something decent to eat? Um, no...

ACE program participants-- who have all spent time on the streets or in prison-- now sweep our sidewalks, bag our trash, and shovel our snow.

That's empowerment? Empowerment means giving people power over their own lives. What does ACE give people power over, a plastic garbage bag?

The Republicans, they want jobs too. Take the oil pipeline through Canada... please.

This from another NATION report:

Republicans used the payroll tax measure to push for quick approval of TransCanada Corp's Keystone XL pipeline project, backed by labor unions but opposed by environmental groups.

The legislation requires Obama to approve construction of the pipeline from Canada to U.S. Gulf of Mexico facilities within 60 days or declare it is not in the national interest. Obama wanted to take a year, beyond November's elections, to review the project.

Republicans argued the pipeline would create jobs at a time the nation is suffering from an 8.6 percent unemployment rate.

"The president says he wakes up every morning thinking about jobs. This morning, the Senate took action where the president has punted," said Republican Senator John Cornyn.

Meanwhile, Libertarians call on the government to stop all welfare programs, and let people find their own jobs. Stand on their own two feet. Instead of handouts, they should work and find dignity in any job.

The problem, they say, is the minimum wage. It's too high, a strain on business. If you pay people 25 cents an hour, think of how many more you could hire! Newt Gingrich wants to end child labor laws. Hire kids at four dollars an hour. Fuck school. What do they learn there? Maybe poetry or art. Is that gonna get them a job?

What about cripples? They can wheel on their own two wheels.

Get people out of school. Get 'em off welfare. Cut unemployment insurance. Work! That's what freedom's all about, isn't it?

Just at this moment, I release. Relief-filled brown splats into the toilet. Pow! Like a beershit. I can feel it in my ankles. It's wonderful.

Wiping myself, I use nearly a whole roll of tissues. Still, I seem to have missed something. I feel a little prick... like a small stone in a sock... I reach a finger into a particularly deep anal fold. There it is... I scrape through with a fingernail... another scrape... Something catches between the nail and the finger flesh... got it! I pull it toward my face to examine it. A sesame seed, from the Korean food last night. What a relief!... Then it hits me.

Jobs! People need jobs. There must be hundreds... no thousands... millions... of people who need dingleberries fished from their anal folds. I'd certainly pay $2 for an anal fisher. Think of the employment possibilities

The new company, At Your Anal Call. All those homeless people, welfare moms, kids who only like poetry or music. All those old folks who no one else will hire. Here's a chance for them to earn money... learn pride in work... make other people happy.

Their $2-a-berry dingleberry-picking will do more than give them enough money for a cup of coffee at Starbucks. It will give them pride in doing it themselves. It will teach them the dignity of earning their own way.

Set up charges will be low. There will be little equipment to buy. The only expense will be advertising the service... and the 39 cents of the $2 fee that will actually go to the dingleberry- picker.

I got it! I'll let the government-- and foundations-- advertise for me. It's a company liberals and conservatives will both love. They'll shower me with cash. It should be easy... a piece of cake... er... Korean sesame.

I call the libertarians at the Cato Institute.

“Hello,” I tell 'em, “All Power to the Koch brothers and private enterprise.”

“All power to capital,” comes their reply. “What can we do for you?”

After a bit of explaining, I'm switched to a Mister DeLoit. I explain my plan to him.

“That's a great idea!” he says. “We'll contribute five million bucks to help you set up the project. Then we'll create a front grou... er... charitable organization, do a mass mailing, encourage people to support people standing on their own two feet...”

“Actually,” I say, “the work requires some kneeling...”

“Wise guy!” he says. “Now where was I... oh yeah, keep the government out of people's business. Let people earn their way in a free society. Start at the bottom. Learn the value of hard work and a dollar. Go from dingleberry picking to... to who knows where? Might even open a chain of pizza parlors... right? The sky's the limit.”

I nod into the phone.

“Now who should I make the check out to,” he continues. “And where should I send it? ...”

Well, that was a fruitful phonecall. Next I call THE NATION, that bastion of left-wing thinking.

“Hello,” I tell 'em, “all power to the people... especially the workers.”

“All power to labor,” comes the reply. “What can we do for you?”

After a bit of explaining, I'm switched to a Ms Jackson. I tell her my plan.

“That's a great idea,” she says. “The government can subsidize your organization... maybe make a contract. It'll be like Roosevelt and the WPA. Jobs, jobs jobs. Of course the workers will have to make a living wage. Your $2 an hour for the extreme effort of dingleberry-picking is much too low.”

“I understand,” I say. “How 'bout if we double it?”

“Excellent,” comes the answer. “We'll be creating real jobs. Useful work for workers who really get their hands dirty. And there are no plastics, chemicals or other environmental hazards.”

“There may be occasional gas,” I say.

 “Wise guy!” she says. “Now where was I... oh yeah. We could set up a lobby to encourage the government to hire dingleberry-pickers. We'll explain it's a public need. We'll contact the unions. Let them organize a Brotherhood of dingleberry-pickers Local 584. Get some government protection. It'll be like the WPA during Roosevelt's time. Jobs! Jobs! Jobs!”

It sounds like she's having an orgasm.

I clear my throat.

“Sorry,” she says, “I got carried away.... Anyway, you've got a great idea. We'll form a front group... er... Political Action Committee... to push the idea. Americans for Jobs Now, we'll call it. How much do you need? Will three million hold you over until we get things started?”

“I think I can get by on that,” I tell her. “It'll be a struggle, but I can do it.”

“Ok,” she says, “we'll make it four. I'd like to give more, but times are tough, you know.”

I thank her and hang up.

Okay, maybe there's something to this JOBS thing after all.

ENDNOTES: [email subscribers (god@mykelboard.coym) or blog viewers (mykelsblog.blogspot.com/) will get live links and a chance to post comments on the column]

-->Inspiration dept: For those who are just learning about anti-workism, the best source is the great essay by Bob Black. Called, The Abolition of Work, it's available for free on the internet. Just google it.

-->Ultimately THEY control it dept: San Francisco's BART subways system is the first American government agency to block internet use to discourage dissent. On August 11, 2011 BART cut off cell phone and internet access in some stations. They believed those stations would be targeted by protesters demonstrating against a transit shooting by transit police. It worked.

-->As if you need another reason to vote 3rd party dept: Obama has signed a law invalidating the constitution. The law allows indefinite imprisonment... without trial... a violation of the most basic law of any free society. In the U.S. the law violates the “due process” clause of the Constitution. Obama cast it aside...like his promises to close Guantanamo.

-->God or jail, which is worse? dept: In September 2011, Police Chief Michael Rowland of Bay Minette Alabama, announced a new program. Called "Operation Restore Our Community,” non-violent offenders would have an option of paying a fine, going to jail or attending church weekly for one year. At the end of 12 months, their records would be wiped clean. 
 There are not many religious choices in Bay Minette: several Protestant churches, one catholic, no synagogues, no mosques, and no B'hai temples. So it's off to the evangelicals... the good thing about it is that prisoners will learn what every goyish kid learns: church is a punishment. Jews learn that synagogue is a punishment. 

-->Government training dept: Wired Magazine revealed that, at the FBI training center in Quantico Virginia, new employees are told, "the more devout a Muslim is, the more likely he is to be violent." Sounds like a Christian to me. The same training material characterizes the prophet Muhammad as a "cult leader," 
 In a surprise move (When Good Things are Done by Bad People), Senators Joseph Lieberman (Israel's 100% patsy) and Republican, Susan Collins, sent a letter to the US Attorney General complaining about the training. They called it "inaccurate and even inflammatory." They're right. What got into them? 

-->Where there's a will there's a hustle dept: Hallmark Cards announced a new line of "cards for people who have lost their jobs," The cards come in six designs. It's not clear if any are congratulations cards. 

-->And if there's an attack did God allow it? dept: The Kentucky Court of Appeals said it's okay for Kentucky to give official credit for its homeland security to "Almighty God,” and put that credit on all official correspondence. Now, if there's a terrorist attack in Kentucky... who's responsible for the FAILURE of that security? Not that I'd advocate such a thing. Who me? God forbid!