BANG! YOU'RE DEAD!, or You're STILL Wrong, Mykel's Januaray 2025 Blog/Column

 

You’re STILL Wrong
Mykel's

January 2025 Blog/Column

BANG! YOU'RE DEAD!

Waaaa! That fuckin’baby. Every morning… 8 o’clock… sometimes before. Waaaaa! Right next door. And all mom can do is try to shush him… doesn’t work. WAAAAA! Wow, worse than usual. When I moved in here, Laticia, aka Mom had a husband/boyfriend who knows? Name: Jimmy. Black and white pair… him white… truck-driver lookin. Her black slim… sexy. I haven’t seen him in months… ever since the uterine ways of intimacy started taking hold… and Leticia’s shape began to change.

WAAAAAAA! This seems serious. I hope the kid isn’t sick or something. I know babies do that. Eeeeee! The waaaa has changed... more of a scream than a baby cry.

Not good.

I get up, dress and go out into the hall... stand in front of her door… press my ear against it. There’s a low murmur… man’s voice but my punkrock-wrecked hearing keeps me from understanding the words. Besides the baby screams and man’s mumbling, I hear what sounds like a woman’s gasping voice… as if she were thrown off a boat into cold water.

I try the doorknob, turning it bit by bit... not wanting to invade someone else’s personal space, but not wanting to stand by if someone’s in danger.

Fully turned, I push against the door. It opens squeaklessly. I tiptoe into their apartment.

I know the hall door opens into the kitchen. On the other side of the kitchen is the living room. In front of me, I see a silhouette. Big, standing straight up. I watch from the back. I can see his right arm move. Making some kind of motion in front of him. His left arm is invisible to me, as if he were holding it still ...across his chest. Looks like Billy from what I remember.

On the kitchen table is a roasted chicken. Next to it, a carving knife… no grease on it… looks unused for the day. Only one place is set. I guess Billy was a surprise.

Playing like those guys on TV, I reach quietly for the knife and hug the wall inside the kitchen. I hope that makes me invisible to the other room. It always works on TV.

From this angle, I can see a little more of what’s going on. Leticia is by the couch, her eyes fixed on Billy’s left hand. In that hand is the baby. Billy holds the naked kid (apparently a girl) by the ankles. He can hold both her ankles in one big hand. The other hand holds a knife… not a kitchen knife, but a kind of boy scout knife… one of those with lots of blades and maybe a corkscrew.

Leticia is crying. Shaking her head no. Billy raises the knife in his right hand. PICHUNG! He pokes the baby with the knife… in front of her left thigh. Leticia whimpers. PUTUU PUTUU a double poke, this one higher up, in the baby’s side. The kid screams. Leticia chokes back a scream of her own.

I bring my forefinger to my lips in a shushing motion and peak around the living room entrance. Our (mine and Leticia’s) eyes meet briefly. She nods almost imperceptibly. Like a ninja, sideways step by sideways step, I position myself in back of the guy… who is indeed Billy. He’s intent on the baby… whose blood drips… drop-by-drop... onto the coffee table. He doesn’t see me.

Judging where his kidneys should be I lean the full weight of my body in back of the knife as I plunge it in. Billy freezes –eyes wide– more in surprise than in pain. Leticia runs and grabs the baby, pulling it from Billy’s weakening grip. Billy slowly sinks to the floor.

FLASHBACK: The year: 1966. The place: Austin Texas. I’m in Austin looking for colleges I should apply to after I graduate Hicksville High. It’s my first time in Texas. I like it. Friendly cowboys, great barbecue, great Mexican food. We don’t have one Mexican restaurant in Hicksville-- not even a Taco Bell. I’m here to talk to the dean and get a feeling for student life. One thing that surprises me is how many guns people have. I’ve never touched a real gun, let alone shot one. But here I am, in the land of guns.

I’m thinking about this as I walk through the UT campus. Then I hear a POP! It’s not a PITCHEW... like bullets on TV, but just one pop… like a fire cracker. Then another… and another. A few feet ahead of me a student just collapses… a stream of blood pours from the side of his head against the sidewalk.

There is a scream. Off to the left, another walking body drops to the ground… motionless. I feel a scream choke in my own throat. I run… I don’t know where or how… but I run… I bang on a door… It’s a very college looking building, gray bricks arched doors, no ivy though.

The door is locked. I picture students huddling inside. Where are their guns? Why doesn’t someone go and kill this guy? Save lives!

Then I see the tower… little puffs of smoke: POP! POP! POP! That’s where the shooting is from,,, perfect view… and aim… of the whole university.

Now I hear sirens… faint in the background… then louder and louder. More and more. Cops… in body armor… pulling up around the university tower. I was right. THAT’S where he (she?) is!

Crouching behind a low wall, I look at that tower. Those smoke puffs... at first, from the top, then all up and down the structure. POW! POW! POWPOWPOW! Like a shootout on a TV cowboy movie. Then silence. 32 people murdered by the guy… in the land of guns. Only the cops would murder him. They do.

FLASH TO 1775… even before I was born. People in the American colonies were getting annoyed at the actions of their colonizers. In Boston, the Brits shot into a crowd of protesting Yanks. A bunch were killed. In Concord the Brits set up camp and the Yanks attacked. It was the shot heard round the world. The colonists murdered 3 soldiers and the American Revolution began. The rest is history. And I think you know who won.

FLASH TO 2026… It’s my first time driving since the COVID plague. It’s been 3 years since I’ve been behind the wheel of a car. It feels soooo comfortable. I’m in control… this tonnage (Hertz Rental) with its double loop logo… I’d never have guessed it was a T if Sid hadn’t told me. To me, it looks like a halo over the monster in Scream. 

But I’m rolling along. Going with the flow of traffic. Passing the girls and other bad drivers… moving over to the left lane, trying to make time. FUCK! There’s a lady driver, hogging the left lane, going the speed limit… maybe a few miles below. I can’t pass her because the next lane is moving too fast. If I pull over I’ll be hit.

She’s driving a Hyundai… pronounced Hon-day in America… sound of the original Korean name changed to make it more like “Honda” I’ve got REAL Japanese quality. She’s got a knock-off.

I flash my lights… no reaction. I honk. The driver’s side window rolls down. Out comes a nail-polished hand with a raised middle finger. That does it.

I speed up. Ride her bumper… Touch it with my bumper… back off… then touch it again... this time a little harder. I can see her looking back at me. She’s pretty. Probably a just-post teenager. I pucker my lips… blow her a kiss. Then bang my Toyota into her Hyundai. I can see a light dent in her bumper. She turns back to look at me… tries to turn the wheel to move right. No luck.

I pull my car to the right slightly and again slam into her car. This time: full force. I catch the back right corner of the Hyundai, lifting it off the ground. Quickly, I increase my speed. Her car flips… tumbles side over side onto the asphalt. All traffic pulls to the right. In my rear-view mirror, I see what looks like half a woman’s body half out of the window, laying on the blood-spattered grass.

FLASH TO December 4, 2024:

An attractive young man hangs around the NYC Hilton Hotel at 5:41AM. There are few other people on the street. So he’s easy to spot.

At 6:17 a.m., the young man goes to a Starbucks near the hotel. He pays cash for his frappuccino… always a suspicious sign. At 6:30 the young man walks toward the Hilton from Starbucks, while speaking on a cellphone. Ten minutes later, he arrives at the hotel-- not the Hilton, but one right across the street 

At 6:45 the CEO of United Healthcare walks out of his hotel and heads down the street. The young man follows him, takes a position behind him, aims and shoots him in the leg… next shot the back. The executive slumps to the sidewalk. 

NEWS REPORT: UnitedHealthcare CEO, Brian Thompson, is shot dead at 6:46 a.m. Police say the suspect ran into the alley between West 54th and 5th streets, then rode a bike up Sixth Avenue to Central Park.

In the days and weeks that follow the murder, the internet is ablaze with real pix and doctored photos of the young man, Luigi Mangione… now known affectionately as Super Mario. Networks are shocked at the response.

Joseph G... one of my long-term friends.. but someone I rarely see these days… posted that “the man (the UHC exec) was married with two children. Now those children have no father.”

In the dialog that followed, one person wrote Murder is always wrong... and another one: Here’s the exact quote: I had never heard of Brian Thompson before today, and it’s entirely possible that he made some bad decisions. It is not possible that he deserved to be murdered, because nobody deserves to be murdered

Sentiments like this inspired this blog post. While my murder of the left-lane hogger was clearly wrong. Was my murder of Billy to save his baby also wrong? Did Charles Whitman deserve to be murdered by police to save so many students at UT? Were the American rebels’ murder of British soldiers... after they had killed Crispus Attucks and others in the colonies... also wrong? How many revolutions were started with a murder… or a few murders? How many with revenge for a murder… or protection from further murders? 

How many heroes are also murderers... .yet even idols:

See you in hell
(or Nairobi… the latter being much more congenial than the former),
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]

--> It won't end dept: As I was preparing to post this I got word of the truck attack in New Orleans. I am close to that city and several people there. I care about their safety. I don't want to talk about my political feelings about the attack, just to wish the best possible to the people of New Orleans.

→ Thanks dept: That great picture of Mangione was stolen from Bruce LaBruce via Instgram. If you don’t know his movies, zines, and other stuff… you should.

→ A Shitty Story Dept: My pal Sid Yiddish forwarded me this story about two guys who were batshit crazy about growing weed. I’m tellin’ ya. Danger lurks in every corner these days. Be careful of going too organic.

-→Another Point of View: One I almost agree with is Michael Moore’s response to Mangione. You can read it here and make up your own mind.

–> Full-disclosure Dept: My health insurance company is United Healthcare. And the rates went up this year. In an all-too typical exchange, an eye infection prompted my Primary Care Physician to recommend going to the hospital emergency dept. I told him I couldn’t afford emergency care and went to see the company my eye-doctor belongs to. My regular guy wasn’t there, but another doctor took care of me for a “co-pay” of “only” $45. Next year it’ll be $50. The emergency room would have cost me hundreds.

See you in hell redux,
MB

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:

Here’s Ricardo Wang with a “micro-label” in Seattle “specializing in 8-track tapes and CDs. WOW! Check out one of their label staples: The Dead Air Fresheners.

Also on bandcamp: My very long time faves in NYC, the BLACKOUT SHOPPERS. Featuring pals Seth and possibly the next vice-president of the US

Sid Yiddish posted a great video of a show he did on WZRD radio in Chicago. Guess who was a guest on that show!

And this sounds right up Sid’s alley. The Bilderberg Jazz Arkestra on Bandcamp!

Eric Grayson has an online music review zine, Sobriquet. Full pictures of the sleeves too! Something missing from too many zines. Sometimes you CAN judge a… er… book… by its cover.

Steen Thomsen is a Dane I’ve known ever since Lincoln was shot. I put his band THE ZERO POINT on the great WORLD CLASS PUNK Cassette for ROIR. It must be worth a mint now. I don’t have any left, I’m afraid. You can (and should) connect to the Zero Point on facebook. Tell ‘em Mykel’s blog sent you.

Sorry Dorothy, we are STILL in Kansas. And it’s as weird as OZ. Check out Bob Cutler’s DISTOPEKA.

And for a quiet smile and a much needed break for you and the dog, try G.C. Adams’ YouTube entry.

You already know Murder & Mayhem zine… those guys who did the Mykel Board centerfold. (No genitals shown… and probably for the better.) Their online version is here.

The Clean Boys from Denmark are also longtime friends of mine. In Denmark we recorded as The Bend-over Boys. Only one 10-inch available… but at least now I can say I have a 10-incher!

Finally, Margaret O’Brian asked me to include the site: anti-war.com They seem to be folks after my own heart.

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

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

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

MYKEL'S OCT. 2020 BLOG

VOLUME 2

OR

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

You’re STILL Wrong

or

Mykel's 1st October 2020 Blog/Column

by Mykel Board 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You’re - Mykel - fuckin’ - Board.”

Say one word with each slap.

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

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

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

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

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

I’M SORRY!

And so it goes.

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

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

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

- end -

ENDNOTES: [You can contact me on facebook or by email at god@mykelboard.com. Through the post office: send those... er... private DVDs..or music or zines... or anything else (legal only!) to: Mykel Board, POB 137, New York, NY 10012-0003. If you like my writing, you can be notified when anything new is available. Send me an email with SUBSCRIBE in the subject line. Back blogs and columns are at https://mykelsblog.blogspot.com

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

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

Here are his last two emails to me.

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

Message 1:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

so it goes.

all the best
kyle

Message 2:

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

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

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

all the best kyle

LINK TRADE DEPARTMENT:

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

Here's a start:

Here’s Richard Goldberg: goldberg.wordpress.com

Poetry and humor fans will like Justin Martin in The Latency

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

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

Andy Shelton has an interesting blog here.

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

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

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

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

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

Here are a couple video links.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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