I WAS WRONG or Mykel Board's Blog for January 2026

  

I WAS WRONG or Mykel Board's Blog for January 2026

  

You’re STILL Wrong

or

Mykel's January 2026 Blog/Column

I WAS WRONG

by Mykel Board    

The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.

                -- Henry Ford

More people would learn from their mistakes if they weren't so busy denying them
                -- J. Harold Smith

You have to own your mistakes, otherwise your mistakes own you
            --Paulo Coelho

For nearly 50 years, I hated Opera on principle. It was fat ladies and guys who “sang” the word Figaro over and over again. And the plots? My God! Love and other mushy shit. Opera was something to make fun of… like the Marx Brothers did. Opera isn’t punk. Texas Chainsaw Massacre is punk. Outrage is punk (if you haven’t seen it, do!) Aileen Wuornos is punk. The Ramones, The Dead Boys, The Sex Pistols are punk… but opera cannot be punk… or so I thought. A Drink Clubber showed up… he’s an opera singer. He put me on the guest list.

I was wrong. Opera can be pretty punk. You got this girl who works in a cigarette factory. She’s got two guys who want to get into her pants. One of ‘em ends up stabbing the girl to death… at a bullring!! What could be punker? In case you don’t know, that’s the plot of Carmen.

This, being my first blog entry of 2026, will talk about some of the times I’ve been wrong. As I come to the end of the legend that is me… (heart attack in September)… it’s time to come clean. From punk to politics… I know it’s hard to believe… but I’ve been wrong a few times. And now I want to talk about it.

Let’s first time travel back to 1966-67… Hicksville High School. Yeah, I went to high school with Billy Joel. When I was there, he was two years older than me and had a band called The Hassles. Now, he’s two years younger than me… but that’s show biz. I never saw his band. Me, and my best pal Dave, had better things to do. We took the Long Island Railroad in from Hicksville to Manhattan. We went to the city...Cafe Wha... almost every weekend to see The Fugs. We often got stoned… before taking the train. I remember once I took a handful of mom’s diet pills. I got so high, I fell in love with the train door.

That was the thing in Hicksville High School. The cool kids (called TRACK ONE… with advanced placement classes and lots of Jews) smoked dope. The dumb kids (called TRACK THREE, often taking “shop” or “home economics” classes), drank booze. I never had a full can of beer until I went to Beloit College in Wisconsin. You cannot live in Wisconsin without drinking beer. Not drinking beer is against the law there.

That’s when I realized I WAS WRONG. Marijuana made me want to sit alone and read books… often the same paragraph... over and over again. Alcohol made me want to kiss strangers and dance naked in the street. My love of drugs over booze was a big mistake… corrected as a teenager and 20-something. Though at Beloit, I have to admit to doing both.

FLASH TO NOW: I've just wiped up the few seminal drops I can still spill… after 20 minutes looking for-- and finding-- exactly the right video on ThisVid porn site. You can't get good scat vids very many places, so you take what you can get. Time to put away the laptop, zip up my pants and watch some real TV.

I turn on my just bought VIZIO TV, grab my new ROKU remote (a gift from a fb friend) and look for the next ALFRED HITCHCOCK HOUR streaming TV show. I want to watch them all… Found it, and Dennis Hopper’s in it! My favorite American actor.

BANG! A commercial… for Starbucks. A store/company I hate on principle. Crazy high prices, awful reputation for treating their workers like shit, ugly mega-corp forcing the little guys out of business. I wish I could jerk off into their frappacino.

And this commercial??? Does it talk about how great the coffee is? Does it say they let you sit there all day doing your homework on your MacBook? Does it brag about all the crap they put in their coffee, call it by an Italian name and charge 6 bucks for it?

NO!!! They talk about how the shlubs who work for them have a chance for advancement… how they throw their baristas a few dollars to pay for a college course or two... NOTHING about the product, only what good employers they are.

Later come more ads: One for Meta (the drag-name of Facebook/ Instagram/ WhatsApp). What’s in the commercial? Do they talk about how facebook keeps you on-line for hours… checking back if that last cat picture has as many LIKES as you'd want? Do they explain how you can avoid local phone charges by sending messages and calls through the Internet? Do they entice you to post your personal twerking videos to earn more hearts than your neighbors have?

NO!!! The ad starts with a very working-class looking guy… flannel shirt… overweight… 2 days’ beard growth… talking about his home town and how it suffered when the factory closed and the business moved to China. And how people were poor and they thought they were lost until META "invested" millions of dollars in a new facility housing computers and AI machines. How the city came back with all that money,.. How META made jobs. Not a word about the products or services… just about how good META is for the community. Bringing jobs and income... what the locals need.

Back to Dennis Hopper: he's a piano player and there's some mobster connection. Also a sexy female singer and… another commercial… This one from Amazon.

[NOTE: While I never go to Starbucks, I have to admit being addicted to Facebook, and using Instagram every once-in-awhile. I also use WhatsApp to communicate with my non-American friends. And I use Amazon both to buy and sell from, though my buying is mostly from gift-cards I earn by taking stupid surveys that pay in Amazon gift-cards. I feel guilty for my sins in using these sites.]

Back to the Amazon commercial: Does it brag about next day delivery? Does it say it sells anything from American Cheese to Zambian Socks? Does it tell you how it makes your home so comfortable and product ready that you never have to leave?

NO! It reports that 28% of its business is working with small businesses. It tells us about how Amazon "supports" small businesses, and how they can't do without it. They tell us how kind they are in providing shipping materials and delivery services for their small business babies. They are not a mega (or MAGA)-business. They are a public service, providing for the needs of small businesses in your neighborhood.

Right-wingers and corporate Democrats call anti-racist jacket-patches and driving (non-Musk) electric cars virtue signaling. The implication is I'm on the good side and I want you to notice it. I call these commercials virtue advertising. Companies brag about their benefits to society and their workers, rather than the quality of their products. And I hated it.

Then, in a flash, I realize I’m wrong. That virtue advertising means these assholes are worried. It means that the boycotts, the strikes, the petitions, the letters of complaints are working. Virtue advertising is a sign of FEAR. Those evil corporations have learned they are not loved. They have to change and tell people about the change.

Does Starbucks give college scholarships so people won't think they're evil? They hope so. Does Meta invest in local economies, create jobs for local workers, build factories that include kiddie play spaces, because they're afraid that people will think they're shithead exploiters and polluters if they don't? Yes! And they advertise those actions.

So my hatred of virtue advertising has changed to a clenched fist victory salute. These ads are admissions of guilt. They know their image and do something about it, THEN advertise that doing. Virtue advertising means the good guys won… not completely, of course, but we made a difference. Let's celebrate it… not complain about it.

The next wrongitude I want to talk about has to do with my arthritic hand, stent-supported heart, loss of hair, radiated prostate, limpy-flogger, increased bowel gas… There's a reason old farts are called old FARTS.

When I was a young-un of 18 or 40 or 60 I was usually the oldest in my crew… just a few years older than the others, but older. Younger people were sexier, brighter, more willing to try new things… think new thoughts. I avoided the real oldsters.

In my 20s, when I hung out at the 9^th Circle, we used to make fun of the crowd at Ty's or Boots and Saddles. We called those places "wrinkle bars."... laughing at the patrons as well as the locales.

By the time you read this, I'll be 76 years old. Maybe just back from a birthday party celebrating the 90^th birthday of one of my best pals. Old people may not have the smooth looks. Though, for some people… age is a fetish. Check out ThisVids' geriatric porn. Lots of those MILFs and DILFs are OILFs. oldsters, doin’ the dirty.

For more than 50 years, I’ve been the oldest member of any group that would have me. In college, the the crew I organized under the banner OPERATION MAXWELL (named after the Beatle’s song Maxwell’s Silver Hammer), was 3^rd year me and a bunch of freshmen. When I was with ARTLESS, Gavin, the guitar player looked so young that we told people I was his dad. The idea of hanging out with old (older) people was as appealing to me as eating mountain oysters.

FLASH TO MINUTES BEFORE I WRITE THESE WORDS: I just finish wrapping a re-gift to one of the two best friends met at the start of the COVID plague. One is in his early sixties, his boyfriend turns 90 on the day before Christmas. This is how we met:

For those who don’t know, I’m the big macher of a group called Drink Club. Once a roving troop, we now meet every week on Thursday night at the Peculier Pub, where we drink ourselves into Friday. During COVID we started meeting outside at the Peculier. The weekend before we meet I send out email to about 150 people. I’m lucky if 6 show up. The official starting time is 8:32 PM.

Tonight, I sit by myself at our usual table outside. It’s a little after nine and no other Drink Clubbers are here. At another table, closer to the street, sit these two old guys… balder than me. Next to their table a black wheeled walker is parked. The shorter guy has a full gray beard and looks to be the older of the two. He’s laughing at something said by his partner… slapping the table… head thrown back… the beer on the table making waves in its glass mugs. His friend gestures… opening his arms to the sky... as if planning to embrace the universe. Then both laugh. And again.

I stand up and walk over to their table.

“Excuse me,” I say to them. “I am Drink Club. Usually, we have a crew of people here, but tonight no one showed up. You guys seem to be having so much fun… can I sit with you?”

“Sure,” says the younger guy, “my name’s Ed.” He gestures toward his senior, “that’s George.”

“I’m Mykel,” I say and sit down. Not one Drink Clubber shows that entire night, but I have a great time… and learn that Ed and George live together just down the street from me. They’re now my best friends. (Except for two girls who I may tell you about some day.)

Get it? OLD PEOPLE ARE (or at least can be) AWESOME. They’ve seen, done, screwed, joked, drank, more than you have. Maybe more than you ever will. They’ve got it… and you’re still lookin’ for it!

Tomorrow is the first of George’s several 90^th birthday parties. It’ll be at Ty’s, a NY gay bar that’s at least as old as Ed is. George is a celebrity there. His advancing walker is treated like the horses pulling the king’s coach in London.

Avoid Old People?? Boy, was I wrong.

The last wrong I want to write is more political. Ever since Dad made me mow the lawn for my allowance, I had the feeling there was something wrong with work. Not the expenditure of energy or brain work, but the exchange of labor (or mind) for money. When I read Bob Black’s The Abolition of Work sometime in the 80s, I could only think YES! YES! YES!

Why should people spend more than half their waking time just so they can eat, clothe their nakedness, and travel from home to a job over and over again? That’s not humanity, that’s slavery.

As a corollary to anti-work, comes the natural thought of being anti-Union. What do unions do? They support work. They want more people to work. They want to legitimize work… more cookies for the slaves instead of abolishing slavery in the first place.

As I grew older and was forced into the work machine myself, I saw that I’d been wrong. Unions want shorter hours, LESS work, more time off. They don’t legitimize work, they put reins on it.

No, it’s not as good a solution as ending work completely… but it is making the lives of the slaves better than they would have been otherwise. That’s something I’ve got to support.

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 TO THE BLOG in the subject line. Back blogs and columns are at https://mykelsblog.blogspot.com]

→Two wrongs make a right dept: Starbucks is a great example of how virtue-advertising and unions can work together to make life better for those trapped in the work cage. You can read about all the good stuff the Starbuck’s union has done, and wants to do here.

→ Getting It Up At My Age dept: The NY Post reports on a survey of 687 “older Americans.” The survey asked about about their sexual habits and preferences. The results revealed that those in their 70s get it on even more than those youngsters in their mid-to-late 50s. I’ll drink to that.

→ They were wrong dept: Even a few presidents have apologized for making mistakes… Okay, that’s something. But I want to make it clear that I’m not really apologizing. I’m just stating that I think differently now than I thought before. It is interesting that most of the presidential apologies involve the deaths of other people. That is very American. I’m not sure, but I’d guess that, among countries not involved in war, Americans kill more people than the citizens of any other country in the world. No one apologizes for that.

→ You can’t say that, dept: I just came across this BANISHED WORD LIST. It’s not clear who is doing the banishing, but most of those words I don’t use. I guess I’ll have to start using them now that they’ve been banished.

See you in hell (redux)

MB

AFRICAN LINKS:

Albert aka Alberto Melody is the reason I went to Kenya. We met on facebook a couple years ago. He has a blog you should take a look at: Albertomelody.blogspot.com. Tell him Mykel sent ya. Oh yeah… He’s looking for friends his own age. So if you’re a 20-something and interested in Africa… or just meeting new people. Contact him at: albertletowon42@gmail.com

NON-AFRICANS

Jim Testa, a long-time friend, journalist, editor, musician and wordsmith, has an interesting substack about music and more. You can find it here.

Sid Yiddish sent me this link to all his videos. It’s a great place to start, especially if you don’t know him.

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.

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, best band name of the year.

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 has posted a video of a show done for WZRD in Chicago. Great live performances, and if you catch the video around the 20+ minute point you might see a familiar face doing the lyrics to his songs (some unrecorded) as poetry. You’ll find it here.

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.

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, for this month, Margaret O’Brien asked me to include the site: anti-war.com They seem to be folks after my own heart. I’m glad they didn’t call it “anti-defense.”

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. mykelboard@gmail.com

Losing The Urge or Mykel's November 2021 Blog/Column

 

Losing The Urge: Mykel's  November Blog

 

You’re STILL Wrong

or

Mykel's 

November 2021 Blog/Column 

Losing The Urge

by Mykel Board

With some, inhibitions and urges may be neutralized by other tendencies. But with every being the primal emotions are there. All men have an emotion to kill; when they strongly dislike some one they involuntarily wish he was dead. I have never killed any one, but I have read some obituary notices with great satisfaction. - Clarence Darrow

“That animal is not your possession. He doesn't exist for your amusement. He has needs, instincts... urges."

The way he said that word, in that deep, earthy growl, had chills rippling over her skin.

She swallowed hard. "Urges?"

"Yes. Urges." He sauntered toward her- as much as a man could saunter in knee-deep water. "But what could a lady like you know about those?"

"Oh, I understand urges. Right now, I have the powerful urge to do this."

She shoved him hard in the chest, hoping to send him flailing backward into the river. --Tessa Dare

“If you feel the urge, get up and dance; and if you don't feel the urge, get up and dance.” - Marty Rubin

When I lost the sex urge I felt as if I’d escaped from a frantic and savage master. – Sophocles

I measure the progress of my traveling adventures in what my body chooses to show me. My bowels produce a chronicle of time and place. 

Stages reflect themselves in toilet water. Every trip starts with nothing… a whiff of gas… a pffffft… no more. After the gas come the raisins. Tip… tip… tip… like a rabbit spitting out sunflower seeds. Then come the cherry tomatoes… plop… plop… plop... hard and loud as they fall into the water and splash up against me. 

Next are the fuzzy caterpillars, each as long as my thumb… edges unclear… worms clothed in dust bunnies. Then a day later… maybe two… it’s Vienna Sausages… sliding effortless out of my body. 

Then, the kielbasa. Thick… like a turd blimp. Wider than my waist… like being fist-fucked by Mike Tyson… only in reverse. 

Then, if I’m still away, I return to normal… gobs of half-solids… turning the water brown… little floating pieces… undefined shapes… exploding below. 

Today I’m in Pittsburgh. I’ve reached the cherry tomato stage… or what should be the cherry tomato stage. Things are not as smooth as they should be… noisier… with a smell like the night after a Mexican lunch. 

And it feels weird… like I’m releasing a playing card… Ace of Spades… one-eyed Jack. I check. It’s New Jersey.

I shit you not. It’s a turd, about the size of my hand, shaped exactly like New Jersey… From the boxy edge of Bergen County, across to the Delaware river… down to a perfect little Cape May at the tip. 

Don’t get me wrong. I LOVE New Jersey… the state. Some of my best friends live there. Others are from there but have moved away. New Yorkers who can’t stand the cootiephobia, the noise, the high prices, are moving there. 

Mitsuwa is in New Jersey. AOD is FROM New Jersey. It’s a great state. The shit is not a metaphor… not a judgment… but a real statement… made by my body… sculpted from the refuse of my food… hewn from the pressure of my large intestine… I have the urge to reach in… pull it away from its more normal siblings… lift it up… examine it closely, turn it over… match it to a Google map. 

I don’t. 

Instead, I flush. 

FLASH to 2017: The Museum of Modern Art has a show featuring the art and characters of CLUB 57… a performance-space in the East Village during the 80s and 90s. On the wall are several posters of ART, my first “band” (guitar player, metronome player/vocalist, sign-language signer, and me). 

The You’ll Hate This Record Record, on the Seidboard Label, is framed and hanging on the wall. I put together that record… compiled the bands… the most hated in America... pasted the rubber vomit on the cover.

Now it’s in the fuckin’ Museum of Fuckin’ Modern Fuckin’ Art! Amazing… dazzling… depressing. I’m not sure why… Then comes the email. It’s from Sophie… at MOMA. 

“We’re having a party for the Club 57 Show. We’d like you to put ART back together. Just one show, downstairs in the VIP space. Of course, we’ll give you compensation. $1000 for the show.” 

I’ve never been paid $1000 for a show. I think ART got $900 opening for Public Image… and that was the most. Usually, “gas money.” That’s it. Sometimes an extra twenty bucks. 

I think about other old guys playing punk rock. Old men trying to reprise –or at least sell–  what was their youth. Angry young bands on a tired old man road. 

Several times, Jim Testa has complained to me that touring 90s bands are what’s keeping new young bands from getting shows. “No one wants to see new bands, Mykel,” he says. “Hardcore and punk is creaky old people… like us.”

At the time, I believe it’s this anti-nostalgia that leads me to reject the $1000 bucks (split 4-ways of course). I don’t want to be the balding old guy on stage trying to resurrect a performer who had hair and enough energy to tear apart 10 different t-shirts. 

It’s only later, I realize I was flattering myself. What really happened was… I lost the urge to perform. It used to be all you had to do was ask… not even that. I’d jump on the stage. Furious George… BANG! I’m up there, holding up the I WEAR A WHITE HAT SIGN. The first Polish Punk Festival in Kolobrzeg, I’m there… singing SWEET JANE with my friends in KANAL. 

The urge to perform… to be in front of people… to get a reaction… cheers… laughs… boos… hit by a pie… I loved it. 

Then, I lost the urge. I didn’t feel the almost sexual need to perform…  to be hated…  to be laughed at... or even admired enough to be bought a beer by a fan. 

The urge left me. I no longer need to perform… I no longer WANT to perform. When I did a short reunion tour about 10 years ago, before it was over, I realized it was a mistake. 

FLASH TO EARLY SUMMER: Girls are out… in their short shorts… the ones that show leg… all the way from hip to ankle. Bare… naked leg... perfectly shaped.. hairless... disappearing into a barely hidden camel toe. Boys’ legs too –usually too hairy to excite my urges–  but every once-in-awhile there’s an Oriental… Oh yeah!

But this year, there’s no urge. I don’t feel a stirring between my own hairy legs. No pressure... no dream of spreading those legs. The urge has deserted me. Gone like a flushed turd shaped like New Jersey.

Sure I still choke the chicken, but these days it’s a soporific rather than a stimulant. I’ve lost Sophocles’ frantic and savage master. The Meth of a screw has turned into a Quaalude. 

I’m worried. If I become completely urgeless, I’ll be dead... one of those depressive zombies who roll out of bed only to piss and return to the covers. It’s scary. 

FLASH TO THE BATHROOM… The place for serious reading… in snippets. I have the latest copy of THE NATION on the tank, waiting for me to take in bit by bit. 

There’s an article about Frank B. Wilderson III, the godfather of a philosophy called Afropessimism. The basic tenet of this philosophy is that slavery makes the Black Experience® in America unique. Indians, Transexies, Hispanics, other “allies” in racial America… are not allies. They don’t suffer the same. They are higher on the totem pole and will become white when it suits them. 

The ideas are fascinating. I never heard of this guy before. He evidently mixes humor, his family history, his personal adventures, and his philosophy. He teaches in California. Sounds smart, cool, deep… and wrong. 

You know what? I want to go out to California. I hear plane fares are low now. I want to sit in on a class. Then, talk to the guy. 

Wilderson: You can’t get it, Mykel. My ancestors were slaves. 

Board: So were mine! 

Wilderson: This country was built on our backs. Our slave labor built America.

Board: Ours built the pyramids.

Wilderson: Don’t pull the that stuff on me. Black… just the word is evil, dangerous, negative in all aspects.

Board: Sure. When I go into a bar and order top shelf, I always ask for Johnny Walker Jew. And in my karate class, everyone is clamoring for a white belt.

I can see the whole thing. Describe his facial reactions… picture how I’ll stand up... pace… Wilderson sits at the edge of his desk... sometimes laughs… sometimes wrinkles his brow. I gotta leave now… check plane schedules to California. 

WAIT! The urge! The urge to confront. The urge to disagree… to say YOU’RE WRONG! THAT hasn’t left me. It’s as strong as it ever was. 

In 2021, I’m not going to play in a punk band. I’m not going to drop $100+ in a “massage parlor.” But I still have an urge that hasn’t deserted me. The urge to not think like other people… to find new Jersey in a turd… to tell smart people they’re wrong. THAT urge hasn’t deserted me. 

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]

–> Breakfast-free companions Dept: OZY reports that sex dolls are all the rage in Asia, with hotels springing up in Taiwan and mainland China where people can book a night with an almost lifelike companion. In addition: Australia, Norway, Finland, Denmark and the U.S. lead in Google searches for “sex dolls.” As A.I. matures and robots become more “life-like”... with human pimps matching customers with their ideal companions. “Robo-prostitution” will replace pornhub. There is already a term for mechanized lovers: B.O.B. . . . battery-operated boyfriend. 

Hah, I thought that was just another word for dildo.

–>The world continues to prove me right dept: I've long been an opponent of recycling. My main argument is that it's used to ease consciences in more and more consumption. This from Consumer Reports saying that more than 90% of what goes in the recycle bin ends up incinerated or in landfill. And that doesn't mention the energy used in picking up the recycling, sorting it, and powering the recycling plants. 

Message: DON'T RECYCLE. JUST DON'T BUY IN THE FIRST PLACE.

–> Not quite Annie Sprinkle dept: The Irish Mirror reports: The owner of a U.K. bakery went viral for ranting about regulations that are hurting his profits and his art. Rich Myers, 32, of Leeds, can no longer sell his most popular items because they feature "illegal sprinkles" imported from the US. The sprinkles contain an additive which has been linked to "hyperactivity disorders and tumors in rats."  An anonymous customer tipped off  the local regulatory agency. Myers swears he won't switch to approved sprinkles from his home country, because “they don't hold their colors during the baking process.” 

"If I can't use the imported sprinkles, I won't use any," he said. "I will be on sprinkle strike and won't budge for no man." 

That’s what I like! A man who stands up for his principles. I wonder how much I could make as a sprinkle smuggler.

See you in hell, redux,

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.

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

Andy Shelton has an interesting blog here.

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

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

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

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

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

Here are a couple video links.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You're Still Wrong, Mykel's Oct 2020 Blog #1 or Old Is The New Black

 

MYKEL'S OCT. 2020 BLOG

VOLUME 1

OR

OLD IS THE NEW BLACK

You’re STILL Wrong

or
Mykel's

1st October 2020 Blog/Column

Eyebags

by Mykel Board

“Your face is marked with lines of life, put there by love and laughter, suffering and tears. It's beautiful.” --Lynsay Sands

“I don’t ever remember being afraid of “oldness” – Neil Gaiman

“I like the woman you became better than the girl you were. I like the story you’ve written on your face” -- Joanna Bourne

It’s the summer before the plague locks us in isolation. I walk down 32^nd Street, in back of the Empire State Building. Akitaki, my Japanese pal, tells me it’s easy to distinguish young Korean women from young Japanese women.

“They show more leg,” he says.

And it sure is legs galore here in K-town. If those skirts were any shorter, I’d be able to get a glipse of the whole camel! Hooeeey! I want to see those gals sit down. You know how normal females tuck their skirts down between their legs when seated? Well, these girls have nothing to tuck!

This one coming right toward me… her nose about an inch and a half from her cellphone. She’s directly in my path. That’s when I notice it… looking up… I see she has dyed her hair. So what? Korean girls do that. Japanese too, though not as much.

The punchline is, she has died her hair GRAY! At the last second, she sees me in front of her, my jaw slightly agape. She sidesteps me like a bullfighter and passes to my left. I turn to stare. Then I see it. There are a ton of ‘em. It’ a fashion! Gray hair on young ladies.

Have we done it? Have the boomers’ huge numbers, and vast political power made the trappings of old age DESIRABLE?

Holy Whistler’s Mother! I can see it now.

The fashionistas… white, yellow, black, brown, green, all the possible shades of girl. They’re talking about it.

“Oh Sadie,” says a tall slim woman who flips her wrist like a caricature of a gay guy. “I’ve just been bingein’ out in Sephora. They got it all.”

“Really, do they have that new wrinkle cream?” asks a shorter, but equally slim woman. “The one that crunches up your forehead to give that webby look?”

The tall woman nods.

“You bet they do… but there’s something even better,” she says. “I found this wrinkling creme… wow! Not only does it give you forehead creases. It deepens those crows feet next to your eyes, and get this...”

She moves close to her friend, as if they’re going to kiss. They don’t. The taller woman places her index finger under her left eye and pulls slightly downward.

“It gives you eyebags!”

Sadie is slack jawed.

“Yeah look!” answers the tall one. “I only used it once and you can see it already. The skin droops like I was 50 years older… it’s incredible!”

“What’s it called?” asks the tall one.

“Well, first I gotta tell you, if you wanna look 50 years older, it’s gonna cost you a dollar a year… but it’s worth it!”

“So what’s it called? Tell me!” Sadie is getting impatient.

“It’s Eau De Crone,” says the other girl.

Women’s cosmetics have taken off like no time since the sixties… and their job is to make women look like they were born in the sixties… or before. Tits a bit too perky? There’s Saggit Breast Cream. Arm muscles too smooth? Just rub on a little Waddles Skin Loosening Cream.

And it’s not only women! Today’s MEN also succumb to the aging game. Stores can’t even keep stocked with NoGain… the men’s natural-looking hairloss shampoo.

And prosthetics… a just-introduced prosthetic double chin… implanted over the the neck, which –along with a chin-reduction procedure– will make any man into a Mitch McConnell.

30-somethings with fake oxygen tubes up the nose. Teens with walkers. Ah the world could be such a different place. And leave it to the youth of Korea to start the whole thing off.

Well, I’m ready! And I don’t need to spend the fortune on cosmetics. I’ve got the receding… er… receded hairline, the wrinkles, the long nosehair. I’ve got the droopy oldman breasts, the creaky knees.

I’m going out to pick up some twenty-something sexpot who looks just like me! Now, where’d I put that walker?

- 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

→ Smarter Sex Laws dept: There are plenty of groups advocating for prison reform, especially in the age of COVID-AS-PUNISHMENT. But there are few groups advocating for the abolition of punishment AFTER prison.
Take the registries… please... especially the SEX CRIME REGISTRY, where, even after you’re released, you cannot start with a clean slate. Your crime follows you wherever you go. You are always guilty. Always unable to find a place to live or a job because YOU’RE A REGISTERED OFFENDER.

Knife attackers, muggers, and most violent criminals don’t have to register. It’s only SEX… because this is America… and SEX is bad in America.

There is at least one group that is fighting against lifetime punishment after prison. That is NARSOL. You can read their story here.

→ 2020, the Hell Continues Dept: I wanted to make mention of the death of longtime friend (since the 80s) and radio broadcaster, journalist, music geek, and all around great guy. Jan Sneum died in September NOT from the COVID-19 plague, but from a brain aneurism. He helped make Denmark my favorite country in the world… and was an all around friend to music and those who love it.

 → 5781, the Hell Continues Dept: On Rosh Hashana eve, the main voice of reason and compassion on the Supreme Court, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, died. My friend and blog editor, Marlene W., sent me information on how, in the Jewish tradition, it’s a mitzvah to die on the eve of the new year. Okay, I’ll accept that. But it’s still a sad and scary day for the rest of us.

→ I gotta do it dept: I wanted to leave politics out of this blog for once, but I couldn’t pass up this story from Reuters.
With incense smoke, flowers and photos of Donald Trump and Joe Biden, Peruvian shamans performed a tribal ritual for the U.S. elections.
    Chanting and blowing a traditional Andean shell instrument, the shamans invoked the “Pachamama”, or mother earth, for the U.S. vote to take place in peace, without attacks or any witchcraft between rivals.
    The shaman teacher said, during the ritual held in a room of an old building in downtown Lima, that she was in favor of Biden.
    “That is why we are cleansing him. We have seen that they are attacking him with witchcraft, with a black doll, with a voodoo doll they are shadowing to remove him,” said she.
    “See you in hell!” said me.

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 and presidential candidate 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.

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.

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.

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