Wrong Questions or You're STILL Wrong, Mykel's December 2021 Blog

 

You’re STILL Wrong

or

Mykel's 

December 2021 Blog/Column 

Wrong Question

by Mykel Board

“Change the questions you ask and the way you view the issue will be transformed.” - Isaac Yu, 

Being in possession of all the answers holds no appeal at all, but owning a good pocketful of unanswered questions is, to me, like bread to the starving. --Cathy Johnson

Clamps… big metal clamps… shaped like upside down U’s… hold my shoulders to the floor. And my wrists… and my ankles. Another metal clamp… like you might see in a dentist’s office or a porn movie… holds my mouth open. 

A big man in a soldier’s uniform stands over me with a bucket. I’m guessing it’s filthy water. I’m guessing right. He pours it into my open mouth. I’m drowning… coughing… spitting up… water down my throat… into my lungs… dripping down the sides of my face. As I cough… some of the water goes up through my nose… forcing booger-laced snot out onto my face… into my eyes. 

“Now,” says the man, “let’s try this again. Where is the next terrorist strike against US forces?”

“How... should... I... know?” I sputter between coughs, tears and frantic efforts to breathe through the water in my lungs.

“You are Milad Borazjan,” he says. “You are from Teheran and work to plan terrorist activities.” 

I cough… spit up some more water… “I’m Mykel Board,” I say. “I’m from New York and I teach English to Japanese businessmen.”

My interrogator frowns. “Why didn’t you tell us this before?” He asks.

“You didn’t ask.” I answer. 

FLASH TO NEW YORK… November. I sit barefoot… in my underwear… a formerly plush green robe hangs loosely over my naked body. I  try to think of a way to introduce this blog about asking the wrong questions. Maybe I’ll put myself in the US torture center in Guantanamo… an inquisitor asks me about terrorist activities, rather than asking who I am. 

I get this mail from Common Cause, asking for money to help support a constitutional amendment to end Citizens United. That’s the Supreme Court decision that allows corporations to contribute unlimited funds to political candidates. 

“Wouldn’t we be better off,” they ask, “if we could get the huge amounts of corporate funds out of politics. Wouldn’t that help make elections fairer?”

WRONG QUESTION!

Here are the top 15 richest people in America:

Any one of them is richer than 90% of US corporations… unless they run those corporations. The right question isn’t whether or not we should permit corporate money in politics… but whether or not we should permit ANY money… especially private money… in politics. 

Should we again have Fairness Doctrine TV laws? Should we ban all paid political advertising? Those are the right questions. 

Hold on! There was a snap… PiKoop! Klip! A shake... then silence. I recognize the sound, though my punkrock damaged hearing won’t tell me if it’s from under the dresser to my right or from the kitchen behind me. I check the dresser… First try! Yeah!

There, fresh as a freshly slaughtered lamb, lies a mouse in a snappy trap. A vague smell of death rises from the little gray body. The small metal bar crushed Mickey’s little skull, his mouth still around the Wasa bread wired to the bait lever. He bleeds softly from the ears.

Got what was coming to him.

“Hey Mykel, you’re blaming the victim!”

“Mice eat my food! Their shit spreads disease. Their pawing and scattering keep me awake at night,” I answer. “Sometimes the victims are at fault… they SHOULD be blamed.”

FLASH TO  KENOSHA WISCONSIN: a jury of 11 whitefolks and one colored guy, find Kyle Rittenhouse, who shot… with an semi-automatic rifle… three protesters at a Black Lives Matter demonstration. Two of those shot were killed. 

So far, there have been only a few demonstrations, one riot (in Portland, where they riot at a loud fart), at the not-guilty verdict. In any case, there is nothing to compare with the riots after the police killing of George Floyd. Why?

Rittenhouse was found innocent because he was attacked and had to fight off his attackers with his rifle. He was a victim, don’t you know? No choice but to pull the trigger. 

Of course, the guy did ride into town carrying a semi-automatic rifle. But no one asks “Is the victim responsible for the crime?” If you’re a victim, you must be innocent. You can’t go around blaming the victim. Isn’t that right? 

But what if we say no? What if we say sometimes the victim IS to blame? What if we ask, “Why did the victim go to a demonstration he hated… with a loaded semi-automatic rifle?” “Why go anywhere at all with an semi-automatic rifle, unless you intend to use it?”

Maybe we’d get different answers.

But wait, there’s more. Spikes in crime… in gun violence… in random attacks. Every day, someone’s cellphone or some security camera captures pictures of a masked man in a hoodie attacking innocent bystanders… and mugging, mauling or murdering them.

Conservatives ask, “Doesn’t this prove we need stronger laws to get these criminals off the street? Won’t locking them up keep the rest of us safe? Where are the cops when we need them?”

And they answer that it’s the anti-police demonstrations, the defunding, the disrespect for law and order that makes the crime shoot up like a penis in a whorehouse. 

Liberals ask, “What about homelessness, COVID-caused poverty, the emptying of prisons with nowhere for the prisoners to go?”

And they answer, “Crime increases because it’s the only thing criminals know. Non-violent criminals are released onto the street without homes, without money, without ways to live. There are no mental health services for the homeless. All they know is the crime they learn in prison. Jailing makes criminals. It doesn’t cure them, right?”  

WRONG QUESTIONS!

The right question is taboo in 2021. That is: What are the effects of mask mandates, and a society used to people wearing masks in public?” 

Look at an old Western. The bank robbers have kerchiefs over their noses when they hold-up banks. Stage coach bandits ride, faces kerchief-covered as they race after the Wells Fargo stage coach. We know they’re criminals because they cover their faces.

The question should not be, “Why is there so much crime?” But, “Why are there so many criminals?”

In 2021, criminals commit all sorts of misdeeds for the same reason dogs lick their balls… BECAUSE THEY CAN. 

Wear a hoodie and a mask and you’re invisible. Cellphones, security cameras… what do they capture? People in masks and hoodies. Much (most?) of the increase in street crime comes because people wear masks… and that it’s not strange… not a sign of criminality… nothing to worry about with the stranger behind you in a hoodie wearing a mask. EVERYONE is wearing a hoodie and a mask. It makes crime soooo much easier. 

FLASH TO MY LOFT BED: I take her left nipple into my mouth… suck on it… play my tongue over it. Then the right nipple. I feel a hardening between my legs. I gently take her wrist to move her hand down there… wrapping her fingers around the stiffness.

“Don’t worry, honey,” she says, “just put it on the night-table. I’ll smoke it in the morning.”

When I Google “Size Matters” I get 6,080,000 links. When I look for “Size Doesn’t Matter.” I get 13,000. It shows you what counts. 

Take vegetarians… (I know. I know.) 

There are three main reasons people are vegetarians: 

1. They think it’s healthy.

2. They think it’s better for the global environment.

3. They feel sorry for the animals. 

Let’s talk about the last one. When you see pictures of the poor animals being murdered by farmer Joe or Kenji Sakamoto, you see BIG animals. You see cows, whales, porpoises. If they’re talking about China or the Philippines, you might see a dog or two. I’ve never seen a PETA billboard with a picture of a cockroach or a mosquito… or even a mouse.

I’ve heard sorry-for-animalists trying to explain that the big animals feel pain, and insects don’t. The ability to feel pain is also used by anti-abortionists when they talk about the fetus. “How can we kill it? It feels pain.” 

Now that scientists suspect that plants feel pain, that argument goes out the window like a wounded housefly. All that’s left is the emotional tinge of a sad-looking cow-- or a fetus picture blown-up human size.

“Does X feel pain?” 

WRONG QUESTION!

Not that it’s the wrong question to ask, but it isn’t the REAL question they ask. 

The real question vegetarians ask is: 

“Does the animal scream or otherwise show pain like humans show pain?” 

For vegetarians, like for most others, size matters. They’ll tell you it’s about reverence for life, but they take the lives of flies and roaches with a casual swat. If they can’t see the pain of what they murder, it doesn’t count. 

Their real question is:

“Is the animalBIG enough that we can see the pain and feel guilty about inflicting it?”

That question tells us more about the asker than the answer. Size matters, you see. 

If you want to talk about killing animals… or fetuses… the question SHOULD be: 

How can we act morally in the world and find a principle to make life-death decisions?

Unfortunately, I don’t know the answer to that one.

Yeah, sometimes I don’t have all the answers. I don’t even have all the questions. But finding those questions is more important than finding the answers.

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]

–> Anyone can show it off on YouTube dept: The internet was supposed to democratize music, but as it turns out, it turned into an oligarchy. The American Prospect reports: 

For the main streaming companies—YouTube and Spotify—music is really a loss leader, incidental to data collection, the advertising that can be sold off that data, and the promise of audience growth to investors. “Spotify is benefiting from every single artist on the platform driving fans to them,” said Chris Castle, an entertainment attorney who used to work at A&M Records. “The labels say they give you exposure. The answer is that you can die of exposure.”

Remember when the labels were worried about home taping? How much money that lost? Naw, you don’t remember, you’re too young. 

–> Speaking of exposure dept: In a repeat of the notorious piss-in-mouth show at Gilman Street in the 90s. The lead singer of Brass Against pissed in the mouth of a fan at their show in  November. The loudwire website did a story on this, but unfortunately it was not accompanied by a video. Oh wait, I found the link! The band itself is weird enough, doing brass versions of Rage Against The Machine  and Tool.  Glad to see this kind of stuff is still going on in the ever-stuffier twenty-first century. 

–> Right again dept: I’ve written about the evils of recycling and how it does more harm than good. You’ve probably heard about the hundreds of neighborhood recycling programs stopped because of my writing. (Yeah right.) Now, The Tampa Bay Times reports on lead-poisoned workers, and a spread of the poison to surrounding communities… from where? From a lead recycling plant, of course. 

See you in hell, redux,

Mykel Board

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.

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

Scientific Consensus and YouTube (Mykel Board's February 2021 Blog)

 

Scientific Consensus

 (Mykel Board's February 2021 Blog)

 YOU'RE STILL WRONG.. 

MYKEL'S JAN. 2021 BLOG

OR

Scientific Consensus

by Mykel Board

It’s Last Week Tonight with bespectacled British comedian, John Oliver. I don’t get HBO, but I can watch on YouTube. I do.

Oliver sits behind a desk. As he talks about Climate Change® the upper left corner of the screen flashes pictures of fires, melting polar caps and the obligatory polar bear stranded on an ice-floe. Then the comedian complains about network coverage of the phenomenon.

“It’s always one-on-one,” says Oliver, “the moderator in the middle, Bill Nye, the science guy, on one side, and some schmuck on the other side.”

Oliver claims this presents an unfair picture of climate science. He says that 97% of climate scientists agree that global warming is human-made-- far from the 50-50 implied by only one guy on each side.

To make the presentation more fair, Oliver brings in two people who agree with the schmuck… and 97 people who agree with the science guy.

The audience laughs.

Now, before we go on, I want to make my own position clear on this.

1. Climate change is real. Just watching weather reports over the last 10 years should prove that. It’s something every Eskimo who sees his igloo slowly melt knows instinctively.

2. With the exception of the Eskimo who never leaves his refrigerator in Point Barrow…

No educated people deny that the climate is changing. They don’t think climate change is “a hoax.” The climate has always been changing. There is only denial on the cause of the change. Oliver’s 3% believes that cause is not humans. Climate change killed the dinosaurs for fuck’s sake. Was that because of the gasoline engine?

3. I believe things are more complicated, and while there is natural climate change… and it’s probably happening… humans are responsible for making it much more destructive and faster-acting.

Now back to our regularly scheduled program.

I’m at the podiatrist’s. My passion for long walks.. and my love of army boots and cop shoes has injured my left foot. The doctor is putting a cast on the foot. He talks to me through a black mask over his mouth and nose. I talk to him through a blue one.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “Would you mind removing your mask? My hearing is lousy and I can’t understand what you’re saying.”

He takes off his mask. I see that he’s smiling.

“I’m happy you don’t care about that mask stuff,” he says. “I know the government and the medical establishment don’t want people to feel helpless in the midst of this pandemic.”

“I prefer to call it a plague,” I tell him.

He laughs… and continues, “If people feel there’s nothing they can do, they’ll panic. You’ve got to give them something to hold on to. Some way they can believe they have control over this pandem… er… plague.”

I laugh. “You got it!” I say.

On facebook, I connect to a video of a doctor lecturing about how useless masks are… and how they might, in fact, spread the disease. She gives the example of going out to eat, taking off the mask, setting it on the table next to the food, possibly contaminating fingers, the table, the dishes, etc…

Soon after I post the video on facebook, come the answers:

“Yeah, Mykel, you found a doctor who doesn’t believe in masks... one in a hundred. Leave it to you.”

“One in a hundred? Who do you think you are?” I don’t ask. “John Oliver with the Science Guy?”

Now before we go on, I want to make my position clear:

1. COVID-19 is real. I know several people who have had it, and the father of one of my best friends has died from it.

2. I don’t think most people who are against mask-wearing think COVID is “a hoax.” The virus is real and a killer. But they believe mask wearing… especially the paper things and kerchiefs you see on the street… are not effective against it. They are a palliative… and may actually spread the disease. (Watch the video)

3. I believe things are more complicated. In many ways, the virus is nature’s way of keeping house. Cleaning out humankind… the most destructive force on earth. We can mitigate the effect, but we should not over-react. 

Lockdowns kill people, depriving them of income, doctor visits, and the security of not being isolated. Lockdowns drive people nuts, impoverish the nation, instill a fear of other humans as deadly. They spread a philosophy of “Don’t Wait... Separate.” Social Distancing is anti-social. 

FLASH TO POLAND 1514: There’s Nicolaus Copernicus up on roof of the student dorms. Looking through a telescope… making notes… checking and double-checking.

He sketches the sun… its path through the sky… the stars… the way they move. Then checks and double-checks.

“It must be,” he thinks… in Polish. “I’ve done the research. I’ve confirmed it… tested it. It must be. The earth revolves around the sun… not the other way around. It’s the only explanation.”

For weeks, young Nic checks and double checks his figures. He tells a few close friends. Most pooh-pooh his theory… call him a nut. A few agree to go with him, to check their own telescopes… to check their own figures... and see if they match. They do.

FLASH AHEAD TO 1633, Italy: The Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei, has heard about the Copernican theory and bought his own telescope to check it out. Amazingly, it checks out. He can see with his own eyes and his own figures that it is the earth moving in an orbit… not the sun.

Galileo is not as shy as Copernicus was. He broadcasts his finding. Italy is stunned. His fellow astronomers gather to condemn the man… call him a conspiracy nut… a follower of the mythical PeeAnon.

“But it moves,” Galileo famously says, talking about the earth traveling around the sun.

The Polish nation turns to TuTube to watch La Scorsa Settimana Stasera where Johanus Oliverus talks about astronomy. He talks about the earth-centric deniers… and how the SCIENCE says that earth is the center of the solar system.

On one side of the host is Galileo, on the other side is The Pope. Johanus introduces each side, then explains (in Italian)… that in order to make an accurate representation of scientific consensus, he will bring in two astronomers of the sun-is-central Galileo school… and 6483 followers of earth-is-central Papal school. And the debate begins. Galileo loses.

Get it? Science isn’t politics. It’s not a democracy. That a majority of scientists believe something, doesn’t make it true. Science is always going back on itself. There are a few dissenters and either they disappear, or get a bigger following… then there are more dissenters. Isaac Newton, then Albert Einstein, then Max Planck… All right in their theories... until a few dissenters show they’re not.

To quote a great dissenter: “John Oliver… YOU’RE WRONG!”

=============================
I want to write a little about the Capitol protests. I’m writing a few days before the inauguration, and state capitals (and capitols) are on high alert.

I’m disgusted by the whole thing, but not surprised. A fratboy protest, complete with costumes and facepaint, is called “an insurrection.” Four people die…so it’s a DEADLY insurrection. One protester is shot by the cops. One cop is hit in the head by a flying fire extinguisher. Three protesters die from their own excessive stupidity... wall climbing, balcony jumping… like that.

An effigy noose is “evidence” that the protesters planned to hang the vice president and the speaker of the house. Despite the rope’s non-useability as a hanging device.

Insurrectionists do not wear Viking hats... unless they're real Vikings. They enter firing. They’re soldiers, not jocks…. But Congress takes its revenge. In the name of healing®, they impeach the president ten days before he leaves office anyway. In 50 years, this’ll be a Netflix comedy. It’s already a very sick real-life one.

Time has passed. It’s now 8:10 on the day of the inauguration. Looks like I was mistaken. Here’s the apology I post on facebook:

“I want to apologize for my earlier skepticism. I just didn't see the coordinated rebel attack on every state capitol, the violence in the streets, the machine gun fire in Washington. I was making fun of this whole "armed revolution all over the country" bit. I thought it was incredibly stupid panic, by a population over-reacting to little more than a fratboy party gone wrong... but these massive attacks have proved that I was mistaken.”

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]

–> Go vegan and smoke dept: Research done in India seems to show that vegetarians and smokers are less susceptible to the disease than others. When that was reported in the US… vegetarians went on an I-TOLD-YOU-SO rampage. You can see the carnage… er… vegage... all over facebook and twitter. But smoking? Few people will dare believe that smoking can lower your risk. But it moves,” say the few brave doctors.

–> Meanwhile dept: The trusty New York Post reports that two Chinese boys died while (and likely FROM) wearing masks while doing strenuous exercises. In their case, heavy running. The masks restricted their breathing. How many kids are going to suffer brain damage from their parents trying to protect them?
According to The Post report about the Chinese deaths,

The death certificate listed the cause as sudden cardiac arrest, but no autopsy was performed.

The boy’s father said he believes that the mask his son was required to wear to school played a role in his death.

See you in hell… again,

MB

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.

Rock-writer and historian extraordinaire, Jim Testa, has continued his great zine online. Jersey Beat is still going!

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

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