Nothing But The Truth or Mykel's Blog for December 2022
Nothing But The Truthor You're STILL Wrong,Mykel's December 2022 Blog
by Mykel Board
Truth
is a shining goddess, always veiled, always distant, never wholly
approachable, but worthy of all the devotion of which the human
spirit is capable. – Bertrand Russell
Truth
is a goddess upon whose altar we have laid down our lives, but truth
without gentleness, without mercy, without kindness, without love, is
a pile of bones rotting in the midday sun.
--Larry Livermore
Truth
is sacred, and if you tell the truth too often, no one will believe
it. – G. K. Chesterton
They
are evil people, the press, the media, they are bad people, and
nobody, nobody lies like they do. – Donald Trump
Postmodernists
are skeptical of explanations which claim to be valid for all groups,
cultures, traditions, or races, and instead focuses on the relative
truths of each person. It considers "reality" to be a
mental construct. – Wikipedia
********************
I
lay naked, face up, on the rough plywood plank. My wrists are
fastened by leather handcuffs to the top corners. I’m bent in half…
Ropes pull my knees pull tight against my shoulders. My thighs press
my chest. Two sets of hands push down on my belly… and again. Each
hard push just grazes my bladder forcing a weak stream from between
my legs… settling in a growing yellow pond in my navel.
“Come
on, Mykel! Shit!”
shouts
the one who presses the hardest.
Then….
Hold
on! Speaking of shit. Stop the bullshit. You know this is all made
up, Mykel. Just a bunch of bullshit… lies.
Fuck!
I’d recognize that voice anywhere. It’s the voice of Literary
Device®.
I
wish to hell she’d shut up. Busting in, right when I’m trying to
set the mood.
“What
the fuck?” I yell at her. “I’m just about to get to the
coprophilic orgasm and you have to break in. Why?”
“Because
it’s a lie, Mykel,’ she says. “You
literally have to make shit up to prove your point. Why can’t you
stick to the truth?”
Even
though she’s an asshole, somehow Literary Device®
provides an introduction to what I want to write about.
This
month it’s
THE
TRUTH
What
is truth? My email in-box today has a petition
from Common Cause to ask facebook, twitter and penislength.org
to “fact-check” all posts, and presumably ban the ones that don’t
tell the truth. (They also want to ban “Hate Speech,” but you
already know how I feel about that.)
Did
you know Joe Biden shaves his pubic hair? Fact check that, buckaroo!
Donald Trump likes golden showers. Is that the truth?
I
know what’s happened to me. That’s the truth, right? Maybe not!
Even that can be a lie. See false
memories. There is no way to know what is truth and not. In
everyday life, we have to live as if we know the truth… whether we
really know it or not. We have to take one step after
another assuming “the truth” that the ground will continue to
support our weight as we move forward.
Is
THE TRUTH something you see or experience personally? How many
satanic
cases went to court
because cops convinced witnesses of what they didn’t see, but
believed they saw?
I
sit and type this… a vague smell of melting wax comes into my
nostrils. I feel a tinge of pain in my neck… on the right side. I
guess my head must have been in the same position too long. The left
side of my neck itches… as does the bottom of my right foot. A
piece of the skin around my left testicle has somehow curled itself
under my leg and is beginning to ache.
These
things are TRUTH for me. Can anything else be truth?
Is
science truth? Some people worship it like a God.“It’s science,”
they say and that’s that. Like "It's in the Bible." for the religious.
Newton’s
science was undone by Einstein. Then Einstein begins to unravel in a
sea of uncertainty and randomness and Quantum Mechanics. Einstein
tries to fights back… even bringing God into the mix with his
famous quote: God does not play dice with the universe. But
the Quantum says she does.
Science...
that method of thinking... has unleashed at least as much harm in the
world as religion. Can you say atomic bombs,
plastics, Tuskegee Experiment, poisonous fertilizers, Cyanide,
germ warfare, Thalidomide… the list goes on. Still it claims to
have a monopoly on truth.
In
2022, science has become politics, with Democrats urging mask-wearing
(and political contributing, of course) in order to fight the
“anti-science” Republicans.
“Stop
Mykel,” comes the voice of Literary Device®,
“sure science has done some
fucked-up things, but that doesn’t mean it’s not the
best way to discover the
truth.”
You’re
right, L. D. But science has
other ways
to show it’s falsehoods. It proves
it’s not true by turning on
itself. Science that explains how the sun goes around the earth is
replaced by science that says the earth goes around the sun. Science
that says antibiotics cure
disease, is replaced by science that says, disease builds an immunity
to antibiotics. Science changes… goes back… contradicts itself…
finds exceptions. If truth is anything,
it’s always true. Science is a lie waiting to happen.
FLASH
TO SEASON TWO BETTER CALL SAUL: Jimmy McGill is scamming a
bunch of old people in an assisted living home. He walks into
Brenda’s apartment with a box of cookies.
“Oh
Jimmy,” says Brenda. “You’re so wonderful. You never forget
me.”
Jimmy
sets the cookies in front of her. “It’s because I care about
you,” he says. “Have you thought about what you’re going to do
with all that money from the lawsuit? Go on a cruise maybe?”
Brenda
is the “class lawsuit representative” and makes the decisions
about whether to accept a settlement, or hold out for more money. If
she accepts, Jimmy will have big bucks coming. He has persuaded
Brenda and she signed the papers.
“Oh,
I don’t know, Jimmy,” says Brenda, “the other people around
here are angry at me. They don’t talk to me anymore. All my friends
have left me. They think I sold them out.”
“They’ll
come around,” says Jimmy.
They
don’t. They hate her. She’s lonely... unloved.. where she used to
be the queen of the club.
Flash
to the next episode, Jimmy sacrifices the case… more than a million
bucks.. to trick the group into loving her again. It’s complicated…
like life. Jimmy is scum. Jimmy is a hero.
There’s
more TRUTH in those two episodes of TV fiction, than there is in an
entire year of Scientific American. People… life… the
world… It’s complicated, deep... changes from one minute to the
next… from one place to the next… from one culture to the next.
I’ve
written about binary thinking. How pro-Trump people will excuse… or
justify his abuse of immigrants. How they’ll explain away his
clearing of demonstrators so he can have a photo op with a Bible. How
he used a drone in a political assassination. Anything bad about
Trump is not true because
Trump is Good.
Anti-Trump
people explain away his pardoning of thousands of non-violent locked
up people. They call his opening of communications with North Korea,
“a trick.” Anything good about the guy is not
true because Trump is
Evil.
Take
a proposition: Trump is Good or Trump is Evil… and your job is to
prove that proposition is right. For you, the TRUTH will be what
confirms your opinions, your culture, your preconceptions.
“Ok
come on,” says Literary Device®. "2+2 = 4. That’s TRUE.
2+2=5… That is NOT
true. Always. Anytime."
No
it’s not. In Roman numerals II+II=IV.
If that is TRUE, then 2+2 should equal 2V.
Okay,
so what is THE TRUTH? Maybe it’s not something that always reflects
outside reality. Maybe it’s just a tool that helps make
predictions.
I
sit at my desk, continuing to type these words. It’s cold outside…
39o (4o C) my eyes burn from the dry air. I
reach for the half-filled coffee cup sitting on the edge of the
mousepad. My hand settles on the handle... index finger on top...
middle finger sliding slightly down... through the handle…
vagina-like.
With
the support of the ring finger on the same hand, I lift the cup to my
lips. If I release my grip, the cup will fall… likely breaking into
foot splintering shards… the hot liquid splashing against my bare
legs.
Gravity
is useful knowledge. If I drop something, it will fall down. It helps
in my daily life. I can avoid broken dishes and locating that battery
I just dropped out of the dildo. Gravity is truth. If you drop
something it falls… oh wait, helium balloons…
Gravity
is not truth. It is a useful way of predicting what will happens, but
sometimes it’s wrong. Sure science can explain away why things
don’t ALWAYS fall when dropped. But do we need that? Is it
important? Isn’t truth only useful when it helps us make decisions
or prepare for the future?
Why
worship it? How is believing in science any different from believing
in the virgin birth?
“Okay
Mykel,” says Literary Device®.
“Whatever truth is to us, that’s what we should communicate.
Whatever we believe is true, we should be responsible and pass that
on the way we see it. That’s called being honest.”
FLASH
TO HAPPY FACE NURSING HOME: 90-year old Mary Sunshine stands in front
of me. She’s modeling her new dress... white with little Hello
Kitty faces polka-dotted from shoulder to shin. She twists and
turns on her feet as best as she can… first this way, then that.
“How
do I look?” she asks.
“You
look like shit.” I tell her. “You’re old and ugly and there’s
nothing you can do about it… except maybe with twenty grand’s
worth of plastic surgery.”
Tears
form in Mary’s eyes. She sits down… hangs her head like a
defeated boxer.
“How
could you do that to her?” asks Literary Device®.
“That was so cruel!”
“But
it was the truth,” I answer.
Get it?
Truth
is bullshit. A kind of truth may help you decide how to live your
day-to-day life… but for every ten prevented spilt cups of coffee,
there is one escaped helium balloon.
Human
feelings, complexity, emotions, culture, avoidance of inflicting
pain, these values are more important that the truth. Believing in
them is more important than in believing in science… or the truth.
You
atheists… you who say there is no God… you make a God out of
science… science where the next day it admits it had it wrong and
TODAY it has it right. Instead of judging Is it useful? Does it
make someone feel better? Will it help? You instead judge IS IT
TRUE?
Well,
to again quote a great man… YOU’RE WRONG!
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]
→ Cancel
Culture Strikes Again Dept: This from the National Coalition
Against Censorship. One of the few organizations that recognizes
censorship from all sides.
Wanna
bet that the folks who are protesting this play are NOT the same
folks who are protesting Transfolk Story Telling Hour?
→
A Tasteless True Story Dept: The Japan Times reports
that Japanese convenience store
Lawson is testing a new candy that tastes like emptiness. "Aji
no Shinai? Ame," or "Tasteless? Candy," apparently has
a slight odor but almost no flavor. The makers are hoping that people
who use candy just to keep their mouths and throats moist will
appreciate the flavorless variety.
→ Biting
The Dust Dept: Punk rockers and other music folks will know that
Keith Levene, best known as the guitarist for Public Image Ltd
died this month. (November). What’s left out of most of the
obituaries is who remains.
When
living in New York, Keith married Lori Montana, sign language girl
for my then band ART, THE ONLY BAND IN THE WORLD. Lori now lives in
New Jersey and I see her not often enough. Their son, Kirk, along
with his mom, is one of the most important people in my life.
Keith
ditched his family when they moved to Los Angeles. After several
decades Kirk and Keith reestablished communications. Kirk got to
speak to his father a couple hours before Keith died. Keith could not
answer Kirk’s end of the conversation, but, according to Kirk, he
could grunt in acknowledgment. Says Kirk, “It was a happy grunt.”
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.
The
October 17 issue has a great article by Laura Kipnis, one of my
heroes. Her wonderful
book
Against
Love
put words to my long-time feelings. In
this
article,
she
debates the question Is
Masculinity Worth Saving?
Her answer?
Yes! Especially
because Masculinity
includes wearing sensible shoes.
The
November 14 issue has
a
column by
Yale
Prof David
Bromwich called Hating
Russia.
It’s
a
superb calling out of Biden and the media for supporting the war
machine by building anti-Russia hatred. Speaking of Joe Biden, there
was another Joe who had similar anti-Russian
views…
though his last name was McCarthy.
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:
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 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 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
Truth is a shining goddess, always veiled, always distant, never wholly approachable, but worthy of all the devotion of which the human spirit is capable. – Bertrand Russell
Truth is a goddess upon whose altar we have laid down our lives, but truth without gentleness, without mercy, without kindness, without love, is a pile of bones rotting in the midday sun.
--Larry Livermore
Truth is sacred, and if you tell the truth too often, no one will believe it. – G. K. Chesterton
They are evil people, the press, the media, they are bad people, and nobody, nobody lies like they do. – Donald Trump
Postmodernists are skeptical of explanations which claim to be valid for all groups, cultures, traditions, or races, and instead focuses on the relative truths of each person. It considers "reality" to be a mental construct. – Wikipedia
********************
I lay naked, face up, on the rough plywood plank. My wrists are fastened by leather handcuffs to the top corners. I’m bent in half… Ropes pull my knees pull tight against my shoulders. My thighs press my chest. Two sets of hands push down on my belly… and again. Each hard push just grazes my bladder forcing a weak stream from between my legs… settling in a growing yellow pond in my navel.
“Come on, Mykel! Shit!” shouts the one who presses the hardest.
Then….
Hold on! Speaking of shit. Stop the bullshit. You know this is all made up, Mykel. Just a bunch of bullshit… lies.
Fuck! I’d recognize that voice anywhere. It’s the voice of Literary Device®. I wish to hell she’d shut up. Busting in, right when I’m trying to set the mood.
“What the fuck?” I yell at her. “I’m just about to get to the coprophilic orgasm and you have to break in. Why?”
“Because it’s a lie, Mykel,’ she says. “You literally have to make shit up to prove your point. Why can’t you stick to the truth?”
Even though she’s an asshole, somehow Literary Device® provides an introduction to what I want to write about.
This month it’s
THE
TRUTH
What is truth? My email in-box today has a petition from Common Cause to ask facebook, twitter and penislength.org to “fact-check” all posts, and presumably ban the ones that don’t tell the truth. (They also want to ban “Hate Speech,” but you already know how I feel about that.)
Did you know Joe Biden shaves his pubic hair? Fact check that, buckaroo! Donald Trump likes golden showers. Is that the truth?
I know what’s happened to me. That’s the truth, right? Maybe not! Even that can be a lie. See false memories. There is no way to know what is truth and not. In everyday life, we have to live as if we know the truth… whether we really know it or not. We have to take one step after another assuming “the truth” that the ground will continue to support our weight as we move forward.
Is THE TRUTH something you see or experience personally? How many satanic cases went to court because cops convinced witnesses of what they didn’t see, but believed they saw?
I sit and type this… a vague smell of melting wax comes into my nostrils. I feel a tinge of pain in my neck… on the right side. I guess my head must have been in the same position too long. The left side of my neck itches… as does the bottom of my right foot. A piece of the skin around my left testicle has somehow curled itself under my leg and is beginning to ache.
These things are TRUTH for me. Can anything else be truth?
Is science truth? Some people worship it like a God.“It’s science,” they say and that’s that. Like "It's in the Bible." for the religious.
Newton’s science was undone by Einstein. Then Einstein begins to unravel in a sea of uncertainty and randomness and Quantum Mechanics. Einstein tries to fights back… even bringing God into the mix with his famous quote: God does not play dice with the universe. But the Quantum says she does.
Science... that method of thinking... has unleashed at least as much harm in the world as religion. Can you say atomic bombs, plastics, Tuskegee Experiment, poisonous fertilizers, Cyanide, germ warfare, Thalidomide… the list goes on. Still it claims to have a monopoly on truth.
In 2022, science has become politics, with Democrats urging mask-wearing (and political contributing, of course) in order to fight the “anti-science” Republicans.
“Stop Mykel,” comes the voice of Literary Device®, “sure science has done some fucked-up things, but that doesn’t mean it’s not the best way to discover the truth.”
You’re right, L. D. But science has other ways to show it’s falsehoods. It proves it’s not true by turning on itself. Science that explains how the sun goes around the earth is replaced by science that says the earth goes around the sun. Science that says antibiotics cure disease, is replaced by science that says, disease builds an immunity to antibiotics. Science changes… goes back… contradicts itself… finds exceptions. If truth is anything, it’s always true. Science is a lie waiting to happen.
FLASH TO SEASON TWO BETTER CALL SAUL: Jimmy McGill is scamming a bunch of old people in an assisted living home. He walks into Brenda’s apartment with a box of cookies.
“Oh Jimmy,” says Brenda. “You’re so wonderful. You never forget me.”
Jimmy sets the cookies in front of her. “It’s because I care about you,” he says. “Have you thought about what you’re going to do with all that money from the lawsuit? Go on a cruise maybe?”
Brenda is the “class lawsuit representative” and makes the decisions about whether to accept a settlement, or hold out for more money. If she accepts, Jimmy will have big bucks coming. He has persuaded Brenda and she signed the papers.
“Oh, I don’t know, Jimmy,” says Brenda, “the other people around here are angry at me. They don’t talk to me anymore. All my friends have left me. They think I sold them out.”
“They’ll come around,” says Jimmy.
They don’t. They hate her. She’s lonely... unloved.. where she used to be the queen of the club.
Flash to the next episode, Jimmy sacrifices the case… more than a million bucks.. to trick the group into loving her again. It’s complicated… like life. Jimmy is scum. Jimmy is a hero.
There’s more TRUTH in those two episodes of TV fiction, than there is in an entire year of Scientific American. People… life… the world… It’s complicated, deep... changes from one minute to the next… from one place to the next… from one culture to the next.
I’ve written about binary thinking. How pro-Trump people will excuse… or justify his abuse of immigrants. How they’ll explain away his clearing of demonstrators so he can have a photo op with a Bible. How he used a drone in a political assassination. Anything bad about Trump is not true because Trump is Good.
Anti-Trump people explain away his pardoning of thousands of non-violent locked up people. They call his opening of communications with North Korea, “a trick.” Anything good about the guy is not true because Trump is Evil.
Take a proposition: Trump is Good or Trump is Evil… and your job is to prove that proposition is right. For you, the TRUTH will be what confirms your opinions, your culture, your preconceptions.
“Ok come on,” says Literary Device®. "2+2 = 4. That’s TRUE. 2+2=5… That is NOT true. Always. Anytime."
No it’s not. In Roman numerals II+II=IV. If that is TRUE, then 2+2 should equal 2V.
Okay, so what is THE TRUTH? Maybe it’s not something that always reflects outside reality. Maybe it’s just a tool that helps make predictions.
I sit at my desk, continuing to type these words. It’s cold outside… 39o (4o C) my eyes burn from the dry air. I reach for the half-filled coffee cup sitting on the edge of the mousepad. My hand settles on the handle... index finger on top... middle finger sliding slightly down... through the handle… vagina-like.
With the support of the ring finger on the same hand, I lift the cup to my lips. If I release my grip, the cup will fall… likely breaking into foot splintering shards… the hot liquid splashing against my bare legs.
Gravity is useful knowledge. If I drop something, it will fall down. It helps in my daily life. I can avoid broken dishes and locating that battery I just dropped out of the dildo. Gravity is truth. If you drop something it falls… oh wait, helium balloons…
Gravity is not truth. It is a useful way of predicting what will happens, but sometimes it’s wrong. Sure science can explain away why things don’t ALWAYS fall when dropped. But do we need that? Is it important? Isn’t truth only useful when it helps us make decisions or prepare for the future?
Why worship it? How is believing in science any different from believing in the virgin birth?
“Okay Mykel,” says Literary Device®. “Whatever truth is to us, that’s what we should communicate. Whatever we believe is true, we should be responsible and pass that on the way we see it. That’s called being honest.”
FLASH TO HAPPY FACE NURSING HOME: 90-year old Mary Sunshine stands in front of me. She’s modeling her new dress... white with little Hello Kitty faces polka-dotted from shoulder to shin. She twists and turns on her feet as best as she can… first this way, then that.
“How do I look?” she asks.
“You look like shit.” I tell her. “You’re old and ugly and there’s nothing you can do about it… except maybe with twenty grand’s worth of plastic surgery.”
Tears form in Mary’s eyes. She sits down… hangs her head like a defeated boxer.
“How could you do that to her?” asks Literary Device®. “That was so cruel!”
“But it was the truth,” I answer.
Get it?
Truth is bullshit. A kind of truth may help you decide how to live your day-to-day life… but for every ten prevented spilt cups of coffee, there is one escaped helium balloon.
Human feelings, complexity, emotions, culture, avoidance of inflicting pain, these values are more important that the truth. Believing in them is more important than in believing in science… or the truth.
You atheists… you who say there is no God… you make a God out of science… science where the next day it admits it had it wrong and TODAY it has it right. Instead of judging Is it useful? Does it make someone feel better? Will it help? You instead judge IS IT TRUE?
Well, to again quote a great man… YOU’RE WRONG!
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]
→ Cancel
Culture Strikes Again Dept: This from the National Coalition
Against Censorship. One of the few organizations that recognizes
censorship from all sides.
Wanna
bet that the folks who are protesting this play are NOT the same
folks who are protesting Transfolk Story Telling Hour?
→
A Tasteless True Story Dept: The Japan Times reports
that Japanese convenience store
Lawson is testing a new candy that tastes like emptiness. "Aji
no Shinai? Ame," or "Tasteless? Candy," apparently has
a slight odor but almost no flavor. The makers are hoping that people
who use candy just to keep their mouths and throats moist will
appreciate the flavorless variety.
→ Biting The Dust Dept: Punk rockers and other music folks will know that Keith Levene, best known as the guitarist for Public Image Ltd died this month. (November). What’s left out of most of the obituaries is who remains.
When
living in New York, Keith married Lori Montana, sign language girl
for my then band ART, THE ONLY BAND IN THE WORLD. Lori now lives in
New Jersey and I see her not often enough. Their son, Kirk, along
with his mom, is one of the most important people in my life.
Keith
ditched his family when they moved to Los Angeles. After several
decades Kirk and Keith reestablished communications. Kirk got to
speak to his father a couple hours before Keith died. Keith could not
answer Kirk’s end of the conversation, but, according to Kirk, he
could grunt in acknowledgment. Says Kirk, “It was a happy grunt.”
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.
The October 17 issue has a great article by Laura Kipnis, one of my heroes. Her wonderful book Against Love put words to my long-time feelings. In this article, she debates the question Is Masculinity Worth Saving? Her answer? Yes! Especially because Masculinity includes wearing sensible shoes.
The November 14 issue has a column by Yale Prof David Bromwich called Hating Russia. It’s a superb calling out of Biden and the media for supporting the war machine by building anti-Russia hatred. Speaking of Joe Biden, there was another Joe who had similar anti-Russian views… though his last name was McCarthy.
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:
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 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 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
