You're Still Wrong, Mykels Aug. 2020 Blog Vol 2: WHAT OLD PEOPLE DO!

 

YOU'RE STILL WRONG.. 

MYKEL'S AUGUST 2020 BLOG

VOLUME 2

OR

WHAT OLD PEOPLE DO

by Mykel Board

In America, the land of the perpetually young, growing old is an embarrassment and dying is seen as a failure. – Harold S. Kushner

Suffering and understanding are deeply connected; death and self-awareness are in league. – Denis de Rougemont

Olivia de Havilland died? What a shame! She was 104 years old… had her whole life behind her. It’s just awful. Such a tragedy.

I know. It’s so sad. And what about that Regis Philbin? 84 years old and poof! Just gone! It’s terrifying. Quick! Close everything NOW!!!! Old people are dying!

And Granny! It was so horrible. She had diabetes, chronic lung infection, pneumonia… and she just died. Can you imagine a woman like that just up and dying?

Flash to small talk: At a wedding party… you meet a young man, full head of hair tight chin under his scruffy beard.

“And what do you do?” you ask…

He answers.

“Oh, still in grad school,” you say, “What are your plans for the next decade or so?”

“Well, after I graduate,” comes the answer, “I think I’ll take a trip around the world. Then, look for a job in an emerging tech company. You never know when Google will be on a buying spree.”

Flash to small talk TWO, same party: an older man. The fringe of hair left is deeply gray... eyebags like a shopping trip to Safeway… wisps of gray beard missed in shaving.

“Ah, grandfather of the bride?” you ask.

He shakes his head. “Of the groom.”

“And what are your plans for the next decade or so?” you don’t ask.

“I plan to die,” he doesn’t say. “That’s what old people do. We die.”

Get it?

We have a panic. The government is asking… sometimes demanding… that everyone change their lives to protect the old and the sick. Society upends. There is more sudden poverty than at any time since the great depression. Why? So that old and sick people don’t die.

I’m pushing 80 years old. I’m a high risker. And I’m going to die! You know? That’s what old people do. That’s what EVERYBODY does. You don’t save lives… the best you can do is postpone death. Does this come as a shock to you?

Why should…

Hey Mykel!

Fuck! I’d know that font anywhere. It’s The Literary Device. Okay, I’ll bite. What the hell do you want?

Where are you going with this? As if I didn’t know. You think, since old people and sick people are going to die anyway, that asking everybody to sacrifice to save them is a worthless sacrifice.

“Worse than worthless,” I answer. “Destructive! We’re harming the many to save those who won’t be saved anyway.”

Think, Mykel... since everyone is going to die anyway, why have lifeguards at beaches… or EMT? You’re not saving anyone, you’re just postponing death.

“First,” I say, “what gives you the right to butt in here anyway. You’re just a literary device… you’re not even human. Second...”

BINGO! That’s exactly what gives me the right. I’m one who WON’T die. Literary devices live forever. That gives me some perspective.

“Shut up!” I yell back. “Second, you have a good point. I should have said that given the way this epidemic goes: You don’t save lives. the best you can do is postpone death… a little. Is it worth it?”

Who are you to judge?

“I’m Mykel fuckin’ Board. That’s who. I have the same right to give my opinion as anyone else. And I hate to see lives wrecked... people afraid to leave their houses... last chance meetings missed... plans destroyed... kids taught that other humans are dangerous and being too close to them will kill those kids… the idea of social followed immediately by the idea of distancing… We’re destroying ourselves to save people who would die soon anyway.”

Young people get the virus… even kids. It’s not just a the sick and the old disease.

“Neither is the flu, the common cold, or e-coli,” I answer, “But most people get over them. Corona is unpleasant for a while, sometimes needs heroic measures, but more than 90% of the people who get it, get over it. In the meantime, people’s lives are ruined –forever– by the fear of it. They won’t get over it. Future generations are ruined by lack of real schooling, lack of human contact, lack of a social life… except for DISTANCING. A $600 –or Trumpian $400– check is not going to fix that.”

So what do you propose? Overwhelm the US healthcare system? It’s the worst in the so-called developed world. You want to make it impossible to treat any other disease than the pile of COVIDS?

“Ah,” I reply, “you’ve hit the problem. We’re fucked from the start by living in such a primitive country. Worst medical system… except for the rich. And that’s a problem… for once in my life... I don’t have an answer to.”

Bingo!

- 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

Had enough yet? dept: There’s a great story (with an awful headline, cut from the picture below) that just reports and doesn’t take sides. It’s so rare to see any balance from anyone these days.

To mask or not to mask… no conclusions. That’s the way it should be.

→ Bird Flew dept: Meaww.com reports that a British man pleaded guilty to having sex with chickens and having his wife film the act. Rehan Baigalong with his wife, Heema Baig, appeared for a hearing before a judge and pleaded guilty to 11 charges including three of performing an act of penetration on chickens.

Funny, fucking a chicken is a criminal offense, but killing one is not. Values anyone?

→ Swine get it right dept: Meanwhile, the Ripley’s site shows us a flu animal that gets it. There are, evidently, dozens of cases where pigs, farmed for their flesh, EAT the farmers. They do a pretty good job. One family reports a farmer’s remains as “his dentures and a few small body parts-- that’s all.” The article does not say if there are records of pigs fucking humans (though it seems to me I’ve seen the 8mm films). I have no idea if it would be legal or not. But if people aren’t allowed to do it to chickens, you’d expect that pigs wouldn’t be allowed to do it to people. You never know, though. If you do it... send me a picture, will ya?

--See you in hell!

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.

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

(MRR 341) Mykel Refuses To Keep His Shirt On

  

 If you want to read more about Mykel's adventures in Albania, The US South-- or life in General-- check out Mykel's Diary For a look at the weird, the scary and the funny in real life, check out Mykel's Article's and Propositions.

You're Wrong
An Irregular Column
Column for MRR 341
October 2011

by Mykel Board

aka  Mykel refuses to keep his shirt on.

If people vote themselves into slavery and give up their liberty, is this freedom? --Isaiah Berlin

It's 1995... the same Toronto anarchist festival I wrote about last week. That was the Vegan Reich story. This one's about Alekz Vermont... and some other girl... I can't remember her name.

It's like a dream. I'm in an open field. Two girls are chasing me. Two attractive girls... the kind I usually wouldn't run from... but would turn to... nuzzling my muzzle between their legs... savoring the clitoral sea breeze.. lapping languidly between the labia. 

But now they haven an agenda. They want to hurt me, I think. So I run. 

BLAM!!! Something hits the back of my legs. I'm down... tackled... like a football player. The other girl... the one who's not Alekz... grabs my KLANARCHY t-shirt... SCRRRRRT... tears it... tears it off... Then Alex is on my shirtless self... her knees on my shoulders... She does not lower herself, pressing her luscious mons veneris into my face. Instead, out comes a magic marker... a thick one... indelible... She draws two arrows on my chest... one pointing to each nipple. Under the arrows... equally indelible... she prints THESE ARE TITS TOO.

Then they skedaddle... both of them... waving my shirt like a captured flag... off... to wherever girl anarchists go when they strip a boy... gone... leaving me to walk around half naked... for the rest of the day... smiling at cops who have better things to do... Some anarchists asks me what it means. I shrug.

 

1999: I'm happier than a Christian at a book-burning. At ABC NO Rio... one of my top 20 live bands of all time. Mmmm boy.


They were on the cover of Flipside. I heard the record, saw them at CBGBs. Now I can get even closer. 

As usual, Esneider is at the door. I hand him my $5. He stamps the NO VALUE rubber stamp into the pad and then on the inside of my wrist.  

“Be careful today, Mykel,” he says. “Stay out of the pit. They've got the most vicious pit I've ever seen.”

“I'm five foot three inches tall,” I remind him. “I weigh 130 pounds. I NEVER go into the pit.”

“But Mykel,” he says, “sometimes the pit goes into you.”

Inside, the tiny club is packed. Back in those days, the shows were in the basement. There was no ventilation. It was always hot. 

A packed house and a tough pit means SUPERHOT. Maybe people will take off their shirts. Yeah!

I stand on the side... in back of a short attractive girl. She'll be a buffer in case the going gets tight. I've got a great view of the band. Shirts have already come off because of the heat.

Then the music starts. Wowee! Slam-away. Fuck, right in the ribs... in the shoulder... OUCH! ...in the balls... I back off more... a little more peace... 

Then the lead singer, Lynn, takes her shirt off. Yeah, it's TRIBE 8, the best Lesbo band in herstory. And Lynn, the greatest of the great, has the balls to take her shirt off at a punkrock show. Just like everyone else. Tits like everybody else has. Yeah!

The academic part:  Kurt Vonnegut once wrote a story about equality. In that story, the society required everyone to be equal. So if somebody lost the sight in one eye, everybody had to wear blinders on one eye to make them equal.

In the quest for equality, people walk around with weights on their legs or an arm tied behind their backs. That makes them equal to the cripples among them. They are braced, their backs forced into a curve, to make them equal to those with scoliosis. They have earplugs to make them equal to deaf people. You get the idea. Equality is the first value.

Vonnegut is dead. (Sometime soon, I'll be HIS equal.) But he was not against equality. He was against a narrow view of equality-- a NEGATIVE equality that makes people equal at the bottom rather than at the top. 

I'll explain further: Imagine I have a gold pen. There are ten people sitting with me. We can make everyone equal in two ways. One is to give everyone else a gold pen. The other is to take away my pen. The former is a POSITIVE equality. The latter a NEGATIVE one.

The marriage equality act-- homo marriage-- is an example of NEGATIVE equality.


Right now, you can only get “free” health insurance if you're married to someone with paid insurance. You can only get hospital visitation rights, or child adoption rights if you're married. You can only file a joint tax return or get easy citizenship if you're married. You can only pass on your apartment to a spouse. Share veterans' discounts on medical care, education, and home loans with someone you're married to. You can only receive crime victims' recovery benefits if you're married to the victim (or if you are the victim.)

There are two ways of dealing with the inequality of laws related to marriage. NEGATIVE equality is to force more people into marriage and thereby strengthen the institution. The other is to get the government out of the marriage business completely and make no special privileges based on what should be a religious institution. 

POSITIVE equality is to eliminate all marriage laws. Make all people-- married or not, homo, het or neither-- equal. Instead, homos decided to put blinders on the rest of us. Weigh down one leg to make us equal. So now New York has gay marriage. And insurance companies that used to insure “domestic partners,” now require marriage! The freedom to marry becomes the DUTY to marry, and with gay-marriage it's harder than ever to escape.

2011: I'm reading Razorcake, home to former MRR columnists and those who'd like to be. Amy Adoyzie is one of my favorites... a girl that doesn't act like one... until now.

Jeezus fuckin' Christ. She's writing about how punk rock boys make girls uncomfortable... You know how? By taking their shirts off. That's how.

When you take off your shirt in a hot, muggy basement show, you're not just trying to cool yourself off. You're saying something with your body and who you are. You're saying “I'm a dude and as a dude, I can take my shirt off in a room full of other people...” You're unknowingly asserting your dude-ness for all to see. You're saying, “Check me out. I'm a fucking dude.”

And you know what? That makes some people feel unsafe. Just because you think it's innocuous doesn't mean it is. Just because you don't agree that it makes people feel unsafe doesn't mean it doesn't. Put your fucking shirt on.

Fifteen years after Tribe 8 opens the door to a POSITIVE equality, we've got a girl here saying NOT that girls should be able to take their shirts off... but that boys shouldn't! 

Just like the right to marry is actually the duty to marry... and increases inequality for those who choose not to. The right to comfort is the way to limit the freedom of others who choose to... to... show their tits.

In Europe, toplessness is the order of they day... for men and women. Alas, even in the punkrock world, this is not Europe.


Hey Amy, these are tits too! Instead of saying I shouldn't be free to take my shirt off-- you should be saying you should be free to take off yours. Instead of saying Cover up boys, you should be saying Take it off girls. Your freedom doesn't come from my repression. It comes from your own liberation.

ENDNOTES:  [email subscribers god@mykelboard.com) or website viewers (www.mykelboard.com) will get live links and a chance to post comments on the column]

-->That gives me an idea dept: The Texas Office of the Comptroller granted tax-exempt status to THE CURCH OF FREETHOUGHT, an "atheist church" in Texas. After an initial denial and run in with Americans United for Separation of Church and State, government officials backed down.
   The Comptroller's original objection said if they granted the status it would lead to applications from "any wannabe cult who dresses up and parades down Sixth Street on Halloween."
    Hmmm, dress-up anyone?

--> Where? dept: We all know that the locations of most phones can be tracked, either via their built in GPS devices or by triangulating the signals they bounce off the cellular towers. And not only is it possible to figure out where a phone has been, you can also get software or online services that will let you track the location of a phone in real time. You can keep tabs on your teenagers, other family members, employees, or someone you want to stalk. In addition to the location (as it moves), you can also find out how fast it's going.

      One such service, which works with certain Blackberry, Windows Mobile and Android phones, is AccuTracking. Since it's probably illegal for me to say some hackers should get on 'em ASAP... I won't. But I can imagine posting some way you can attach a fake tracking chip to a stray cat or a street crazy. Attach a fake device to a hamster, and let it loose in the subway. Watch a panicky parent call the cops as their “child” runs down a subway tunnel in front of a raging train.
    Not that I'd propose such a thing. Who me? Such a proposition is likely to be illegal.

-->Speaking of where dept: Gizmo.com reports that Google has a bunch of places that Google Maps won't show you. According to the site, most of the censored places look like imaging anomalies, rather than some big black bar with "CENSORED" written in large text.
    You can see 18 of them at: tiny.cc/mapcensor. You can also ask Google what's up widdat?

-->Corporate humans vs Union humans: The Supreme Court ruled that corporations and unions are "humans" with the ability to fund candidates with no limits. The corporations go to the conservatives. The unions go to the liberals.
     NOW do you get why so many Republican state governors are trying to break the unions? And there's a new law now in the House of Representatives. Republicans introduced bill HR 1135 that denies foodstamps to any family if a member is out on strike. How low can they go? Maybe I shouldn't ask.

-->For the good of the kids dept: THE UK Government says it's fighting “the early sexualization of children” by blocking internet pornography unless parents request it. The move is intended to ensure that children are not exposed to sex as a routine by-product of the internet.
    Instead of using parental controls to stop access to pornography - so-called "opting out" - the tap will be turned off at the source. Adults will then have to "opt in."
   More info at: http://tinyurl.com/UKpornban

-->It shudda been my parents dept: Landon & Anette Parris of Nashville pleaded guilty to hiring a stripper for their son's 16^th birthday. They were sentenced to two years' probation and ordered to take “parenting classes.”
     I say they should be TEACHING those classes.

-end-