NO EMPATHY or Mykel's August 2023 Blog

   

No Empathy... or Mykel's Blog for July 2023

You’re STILL Wrong

or

Mykel's August 2023 Blog/Column 

No Empathy....    

by Mykel Board

“We are surrounded by people who appear to be happy, people who clap their hands and dance in the streets, people who sing for the pure joy of singing… and you think they don’t suffer? You think that they are somehow excluded from the battle of the human condition-- death, infirmity, lost love, poverty, crime and all the rest of it. We’re all half mad.”

--Robert Wilson

“There is only one way to understand a lonely bench in a park: Sit on it; watch whatever it is watching; listen to whatever it is listening to! Sit in spring, sit in winter, sit in summer! To understand something deeply, you need to live its life!”

- Mehmet Murat Ildan

[NOTE: All the people and events described in this blog are true. No names have been changed. No one is innocent.]

I’ve just left the cancer center. Prostate… what old men get. I’m an old man. Radiation surgery… cyberknife they call it. Five cybercuts in 10 days. Not painful… but requiring a weird diet of non-fiber food: white bread, popsicles, canned fruit. A double laxative at night… then a Fleet enema in the morning just to make sure nothing is left inside. After that, a half hour on the operating table.

Your choice of music while they cut. First was Dixieland Jazz. Then The Velvet Underground, Today: Patti Smith. I have other choices. At a hospital, I don’t want to ask for something dead: (Kennedys, Boys, Milkmen, Grateful). It might make the staff uncomfortable. Right now, they’re helping me off the table just as Patti asks if I know how to pony... like Tony Maroni.

I leave the building… on the street now. I need to find a post office. The Upper East Side… I don’t know this neighborhood. I’ll ask someone. Here’s a fellow patient, skinny guy… about half my age… just leaving the cancer center.

“Excuse me,” I ask, “do you know where there’s a post office nearby?”

“Sorry, I’m not from around here.”

“Thanks anyway.”

I ask a security guard… standing in front of the next building taking a smoking break. I love it: a smoking break next to a cancer hospital.

“I know there’s one close,” she says, “but I’m not sure what street.”

I thank her. Ah, here comes a very determined-looking woman… wearing a backpack… body leaning forward as if marching into battle… I approach her.

“Excuse me,” I say, “do you…

She snarls… shakes her head… waves her arms above her head as if brushing away a gnat attack. Stamps the ground... harder as she passes me and disappears around the corner.

I don’t get it? I’m 5 foot 3 inches tall… pushing 80 years old… barely standing after radiation treatment. Did she think I was going to attack her? I don’t understand the cruelty. All she’d have to do is say, “I’m sorry,” and then give an excuse. She wouldn't even have to stop. I just don’t get the inhumanity.

BOING! That’s it. That brings me exactly to what I want to write about. First some definitions (to quote Humpty Dumpty: words mean what I want them to mean… so don’t bother looking this up):

SYMPATHY is feeling sorry for someone. When someone dies you send a sympathy card. When you see a wounded animal, you feel sympathy. You feel unhappy because someone or something else is suffering.

EMPATHY is the ability to feel the emotions of someone else... to mentally put yourself in their jockstrap. To understand what makes them tiktok. To “get it” as if from inside another person.

You’re probably familiar with Jim Testa. He’s known for half a century of music writing… for supporting bands that nobody’s heard of… for supporting friends (including me) that no one else would dare support. A great human being. That’s why it hurt… when Jim said, “Mykel, I’ve known you for a long time… and one thing I’ve gotta say… again… is that you have no empathy.”

The remark comes after I say I refuse to be bullied by the language cops. I’ll say Colored People if it fits what I’m talking about… or if it proves a point. How is People of Color okay, but Colored People offensive? And what’s the problem with being offensive anyway?

“Mykel,” says Jim, “I’ll say it again. You have no empathy.”

FLASH TO CALVIN: Calvin sits on his milk crate… the color of the crate slightly lighter than his skin…. He gets darker in the summer. His back is against the side of the building that corners Bleecker and LaGuardia. He wears a black baseball hat, a plain gray t-shirt and bluejeans. On his feet, some kind of sneakers that are neither new nor fashionable. In his left hand is a plastic soda cup with a few coins on the bottom. He sees me from his corner… smiles and waves.

“Calvin!” I shout from across the street. “How you been doin’?”

I cross to talk with him. Simultaneously, I pull a single dollar bill out of the watch pocket of my jeans… where I keep my homeless money.

“You on your way to your favorite place?” Calvin asks me, nodding toward the Peculier Pub, my regular hangout.

“How’d you guess?” I joke, dropping the dollar into Calvin’s cup.

“You goin’ back to South Carolina this summer?” I ask.

“Mykel, are you kidding? You know how hot the summers are in New York? Double that for South Carolina…”

He interrupts our conversation to talk to some passing folks… all with purple NYU T-shirts… talking with each other… gesturing with their cellphones.

“How you doin’ today, folks?” He says, rattling the coins in his plastic cup. They keep walking… like he’s invisible.

Calvin and I talk a little more. My sister lives in South Carolina and we’ve talked about that before. Calvin’s family is from a different part of the state than my sister is.

“It’s almost like a different country,” he tells me.

I often think about Calvin. Where does he go at night? How does he get to South Carolina once a year? Hitchhike? Do people still hitchhike in 2023? What’s it like 20+ years after the last time I hitchhiked. What’s his life like? I can’t imagine!

FLASH TO MANNY: In a wheelchair on the other side of Bleecker… down a little bit.. usually in front of the CVS on the corner. About 50, a big guy... missing a few teeth on the bottom… I drop a buck into his plastic cup. Even though it’s nearly 90^o out, he’s covered from shoulder to knees in a blanket.

“Mykel,” says Manny. “ Gotta talk to you. I always see you hangin’ out with these Japanese guys… girls… whatever. Lemme warn you. Be careful of ‘em.”

“But, I like Japanese people. They’re smart and fun.”

“They act like they’s your friend,” he says, stealing a glance to the right and left. “But secretly, they hate you. They want to kill you. Take it from me… I know.”

What happened to this guy? Is he talking about the Japanese or Asians in general? Did he serve in Vietnam and end up in a wheelchair? Why would he say something like that? I can’t imagine why he feels like that. No clue to what it must be like to have that kind of fear and hatred inside... stewing as he sits in the heat and asks people for money.

FLASH TO KEVIN: If Manny is big and fat, Kevin is a monster. From neck to knees… rolls and rolls of it… His body is just a lump… a huge lump… any particular part: chest... stomach... back... ass… They fold into one another… just blobs… impossible to know where one part ends the next part begins. He’s like a huge mound of jello on a bench. Not really ON the bench, but dripping over the bench.

Kevin’s bench is in front of H-Mart, the Korean supermarket chain. I often shop there. Not expensive... good Korean food... good Japanese food at two-thirds the price of the Japanese stores. Kevin’s cup doesn’t get a dollar from me. I know him too well.

“Mykel,” he tells me twice a week... when I shop at H-Mart, “I don’t want your money. I know you’re going into that store. Bring me a Coke when you come out.”

I say to him, “Kevin, you say the same thing to me every week. I know you by now. You know they got a sign in the store… in the soda section… by the Coke. HOLD ONE CAN FOR MYKEL TO PICK UP FOR KEVIN.”

He laughs.

We shake hands… bump fists actually. I go into H-Mart… buy some frozen Korean pancakes, red miso, pork dumplings… and a can of Coke. I pay... walk out… freeze. Kevin is on his feet… leaning forward… yelling…. Both fists clenched at his side… the muscles on his neck throbbing.

YOU WHITE BITCH! WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? YOU WON’T EVEN TALK TO ME? DON’T EVEN SAY “I’M SORRY!”

And the rant goes on. He stands and shouts down the street at someone I can’t see. I’ve never seen him like this. He could have a stroke. If he were white, he’d be red in the face. I steal behind him… quietly set the can of coke on the bench… he’s still yelling not seeing anything but the object of his rage. I turn toward Houston Street and head home.

FLASH TO WILL: Will’s from Texas… Austin… BA in film from UT. He arrived in New York at the beginning of this year. His plan? Live on the street until he earns enough money to get a place of his own.

25 years old, Will is the thinnest of my homeless friends. He’s amassing his future fortune by working for DoorDash, a food delivery service that makes its workers compete with one another to score points for quick service and good ratings. Orders flash to cellphones close to either pick-up or delivery points. The first person to accept… provided he has a good rating… gets the job.

Will also makes money on eBay… learning and visiting thrift-shops… anywhere the subway goes… pickup up DVDs and electronic doodads… and “flipping them” on eBay… two to ten times their original value. Will travels the city wearing a huge backpack… for his deliveries and his thrift-store finds.

Will is a schlemazel. Two months ago, I saw him with a shiner… not the beer, but the black eye.

“What happened?”

“Mykel, it was weird… these two crackheads… they chased me. They wanted to mug me… I fought them off… screamed at them. One got me right in the face. Blam! It’s a little better now, but still hurts.”

“I’ll buy you a drink,” I tell him.

While waiting for orders from DoorDash, Will hangs out in a mid-town library. He’s got a laptop in his knapsack, and can connect and post on facebook. Today marks a week after the black-eye incident.

“I was attacked again… mugged… wallet stolen… all my money… at swordpoint!”

This is New York. People get mugged. I understand. But mugged at swordpoint? In the subway in 2023? That is impossible… or would be for anyone not Will.

“At least I still have my cellphone.” continues the facebook post. “I couldn’t survive without that. Doordash! What would I do?”

Give it another week.

“I fell asleep on the subway. Woke up… my phone was gone.”

Will sleeps on my couch once a week or so. I watch him planning his next day. After the phone is gone, he’s still planning… visit Verizon… it’s insured… get a replacement… how will they transfer the number? Where’s the nearest Verizon? We sit on the couch to work out the details. But I think: How can he do that? How can he keep going? He could easily move back to Austin where its familiar… easier… more friends than one old Jewish guy who’ll give up his couch once a week. What gives him the power to keep it up… and to smile and be friendly… and not to hate the world? I can’t imagine.

POW! it hits me… like a Fleet Enema. Jim is right. I don’t have empathy. I can’t put myself in other people’s jockstraps. I can’t imagine what it’s like to live on the street. I can’t see myself hating Japanese people. I don’t know how it feels to be confined to a wheelchair… to be black… to flip DVDs from the Salvation Armies. I think about that… wonder… but I can’t feel it. Yep, Jim’s right. I don’t have empathy. Sympathy yes! I live for sympathy. Sometimes I even feel sorry for people who are much richer than I am. But empathy? No, I just can’t do it.

Shit! It’s late. I gotta get to today’s prostate zapping. That enema... that music choice… I need to stop at the bank first. POW! Out of the house, down Broadway… what’s this. Some girl with an ID tag… she wants me to contribute to something… just to talk to me about children or animal abuse. She moves to block my path. I snarl… shake my head… wave my arms above my head as if brushing away a gnat attack. I stamp the ground harder as I pass her… not saying a word, and then, I disappear around the corner.

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]

→ Headline of the week dept: Speaking of homelessness. I saw this headline on the internet: Homeless Man With No Arms Stabs Tourist

I hope the tourist wasn’t Will.

→ Speaking of Will dept: CNN reports DoorDash is jumping on the speedy delivery trend. The company is now offering 10- to 15-minute delivery. Okay Will, you’re really gonna have to jump to it to pick up the food and bring it to the lazy shit who ordered it… in a quarter of an hour!!! Make sure you bring your pepper spray, though you might not have time to use it.

→ Pearls Before Swine dept: It seems that TickTockers have been promoting “Yoni Pearls,” small bundles of a variety of herbs. The idea is to insert them into your vagina (if you have one) to help improve odor, remove toxins and treat bacterial and yeast infections. “Reported side effects are, itching, dryness, stinging and cramping." I donno, I can think of better things to put in MY vagina.

→ I try to be a philosopher but I Kant dept:  This from a facebook pal of mine:

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

This time, Lev Golinkin writes about how the Western (and pro-war liberal) media praise Ukraine fighters who have exactly the same philosophy as US white supremacists. And, as I still can’t figure out how someone can be Pro-Israel and Anti-Trump at the same time. Israel has more public places named after Donny than anywhere else on earth. In any case, there’s a nice letter from Bob Gris (no link, sorry) quoting the evil Alexander Haig who called Israel “the largest American aircraft in the world that cannot be sunk.”

Finally, there’s a nice discussion of Bernie Sanders and how this guy usually gets everything right.


You can read more, or even subscribe at: https://www.thenation.com/



LINK TRADE DEPARTMENT:

I did a nice interview with The Aither zine. Interesting questions, complete, and questions I’ve never been asked before. You can read it here. It’s a good one.

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

Here's a start:

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

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

Here’s Richard Goldberg: goldberg.wordpress.com

Poetry and humor fans will like Justin Martin in The Latency

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

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

Andy Shelton has an interesting blog here.

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

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

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

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

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

Here are a couple video links.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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