HIT HARDER! or You're STILL wrong... Mykel's Blog for October 2022

 

HIT HARDER!

or You're STILL Wrong,

Mykel's October 2022 Blog

by Mykel Board

There’s nothing wrong with a screw that a hammer can’t fix.

--Mongolian proverb

An Indian grandfather is talking to his grandson. He says it’s as if two wolves are fighting in his heart. One wolf is vengeful and angry, and the other wolf is understanding and kind. The young man asks his grandfather which wolf will win the fight in his heart. The grandfather answers, "The one that wins will be the one I choose to feed.” — Pema Chodron

Violence is as American as apple pie – H. Rap Brown

There is no greater tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of the law and in the name of justice. - Charles-Louis de Secondat

-----

It’s that scene where Al Pacino sprays the room with bullets. You know.. the gritted teeth, the flying blood, the… what the fuck? He dissolves, the whole scene dissolves into little boxes… stuttering picture… squares shifting… a jigsaw puzzle from hell.

I sit up… lean over … smash my fist against the side fo the TV. CHUMP! CHUMP! CHUMP! It only makes the picture worse. I get out of bed… pad barefoot to the kitchen… a frying pan… that should do it. WHACK! WHACK… A scar appears on the side of the TV. The black metal frame glints silver. Scarface has completely disappeared… just a gray screen… not black… the TV is on… but gray… refusing to show color.

To the closet! A hammer! WaTOOM! WaTOOM! WaTOOM! The TV glass cracks, sprays itself over the bed… Somewhere a small spark ignites.

Flash to someplace in Alabama: I can’t remember the town’s name… a small town. It’s on the news. A 20-something year old guy shot his family. Body count: Mom, Dad, older Sister, and much younger brother.

The sheriff is making a statement. “We believe we have the perpetrator in custody. He has a record… convicted of a crime with a gun. He only served a year for that crime. If he was still in jail, like he should have been, that family would be alive today.”

OUCH! I just slammed the heel of my palm into my forehead. How can people think that way? It’s like fixing a TV with a hammer if your fist doesn’t work.

If people commit crimes after being released from jail, it doesn’t mean that they should spend more time in jail. It means JAILS DON’T WORK! Jail takes away homes, jobs, friends, dignity. What’s left after getting out? CRIME! That’s what.

What it comes down to is that, in America, jail isn’t to cure or prevent crime. Jail is to make the victims of crimes feel better. Jail is about revenge… codenamed justice or being held accountable. Often it’s a training camp… and the only place inmates will feel comfortable in their future lives. Prison is HOME.

Now what happens when the victims become the judges and juries. Any idea of justice flies out the window like my errant TV.

Take the January 6 fratboy riot at the capitol. They’re planning to overthrow the government… with bear spray? They’re violent insurrectionists... with plastic zip ties? Seems to me that insurrectionists shoot people They use guns. Only one person was shot at the capitol… and she was shot by the cops.

Congressional trials by victims? You bet your horned hat. Congress will throw the book (and encourage local jurisdictions to throw several years) at these guys. Boo hoo hoo. Some congressfolks had to hide in a bomb shelter. Big fuckin’ deal! But the victims are the judges and jury.

FLASH: imagine that the newly formed Amazon Workers Union, has a rebellion... a piss-in... creating a stream of urine-soaked inventory to call attention to Amazon’s refusal to give time off for its drivers to use the bathroom. Workers rebel. Pissing on books and kitchenware and whatever else Amazon sends trucking through America.

Now imagine the pissers are rounded up… dicks and twats milked for DNA matching with what’s found on the products destroyed. And, get this, the jury is made up of Amazon’s board of directors. And the judge? You guessed it: JEFF BEZOS!

That’s what happened in Washington with the rioters. A couple windows broken… some furniture moved… that’s it! But a former president’s home is raided. One of the rioters gets 7 years in prison! News programs scream “It was revolution,” as if George Washington carried plastic twisties with him.

In 1968, in Chicago, the Yippies and others came together to wreck the Democratic Convention and call for REVOLUTION. I was among them. There was lots of publicity… no one went to jail. An no Democrat had to hide under their Chicago desks.

In 2022 Who conducts the congressional inquiry? Why the Congressfolks themselves. Anti-abortion, pro-Iraqi War, 90% Trump supporter and Congresswoman Elizabeth Cheney wields the gavel. Suddenly, she’s the heroine… the love of the Democrats. Principles be damned… THEY ATTACKED US! VICTIMS RULE.

REVENGE!

If this riot were in a school, you’d hardly hear about it. If it were at Amazon headquarters, you probably would be cheering on the perps! (I would be!) But in Washington, where the “victims” become the judge and jury, you switch sides.

Google “slap on the wrist” and you’ll find dozens of complaints about punishments that aren’t severe enough. Try “revolving door justice” and you’ll get the same.

REVENGE! REVENGE! REVENGE!

It’s not a Department of Corrections… but a Department of Punishment.

The calls for vengeance… usually known by its drag name justice… come from all sides. Depending on how the press frames the crime, those calls come from the left, right and center. George Bush the First was elected by videos of a black guy with an Afro going round and round in a revolving door.

More punishment. More blood! It’s the American way. The World Trade Center is destroyed by Saudis… Well, attack Iraq! All those people died. SOMEBODY’S got to pay, right?

In 2020, the black guy wasn’t going around a revolving door. He was under a cop’s knee. This time the calls came from the other side, but they were no less hateful and demanding.

Black Lives Matter is right. I marched on their first demonstration that year. I still support them. People need to see victims of crime… NOT to have revenge against the criminals, but to prevent the crime in the first place. It is so much more important to have awareness that some groups of people have been considered disposable, than it is to have one or two scapegoats for a system gone wrong.

You think the cries for Donald Trump to be “imprisoned for his crimes” are because people want him to be rehabilitated????

I remember when the cops broke into Jello Biafra’s house… tearing the place apart looking for pornography to help their case against a graphic record insert. We were rightly horrified that the cops smash the door to someone’s house without their permission... just tear up the place... steal documents… electronics, and then be free to use what they steal to press charges instead of being prosecuted themselves for the destruction.

But let it happen to someone you don’t like. And a cheer goes up. Let it happen to someone accused of fomenting false conspiracies. False conspiracies grow from the opposing side. Did you know that the FBI found Trump was selling US nuclear weapons-making instructions to the Russians? Can you get more evil than that?

Of course, no one found anything like that. The closest we get was a MAYBE that the president took home some papers on the nuclear capabilities of other countries… nothing about how to make atomic bombs with ammonia and old lightbulbs. But people will believe anything if it fits the narrative.

So the news stations that reported that the president took home American nuclear secrets apologized when they were proven wrong. Yeah right. Did you get calls from THE OTHER SIDE for something called the CONSTITUTION which says people should be secure in their homes? You bet your MSNBC you didn’t! HATE rules the day! More cheers and emails in my inbox telling me how wonderful Liz Cheney is and how much she needs me.

That woman is so cold that an ice cube wouldn’t melt in her ass. That woman, who according to PoliticsThatWork opposes taxing businesses, consumer protection, environmental protection, financial sector regulation, gun control, public health, humane immigration policy, labor rights and wages, lgbt rights, racial equality, taxing the wealthy, countering Russian interference, women's rights and supports big business, and war whenever possible.

She needs me?

People who should be opposed to everything she stands for… are suddenly in love with her. Why? Because she’s getting revenge on somebody they HATE. 

These days they say HATE is a crime. You can even be arrest for it. But the law-writers pick and choose their hate. You’re not allowed to do that.

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]

→ Four strikes and you’re out dept: As more states stupidly fight crime with baseball-like “three strikes and you’re out” laws, those laws make even judges cry.
    Timothy Jackson was caught shoplifting a $159 jacket from a New Orleans department store. At the time Jackson was a 36-year-old restaurant cook with a sixth-grade education and a drug addiction problem.
    Since this was not Jackson’s first offense, the Louisiana Court made use of his “criminal past”, (3 robbery-without-violence convictions, one as a child), and sentenced him as a fourth-strike offender.

The judge wrote, “This sentence is constitutionally excessive in that it is grossly out of proportion to the seriousness of the offense.” Unfortunately, she was unable to deviate from the mandatory life sentence without parole required by law.

→ Hey! That’s Jeff Bezos’ tuna dept: The ACLU reports that in Texas, in 2010, Larry Dayries stole a tuna sandwich from Whole Foods while wielding a knife. He had prior convictions for burglary and theft, so the sandwich incident landed him a 70-year sentence. Larry will be 111 at the end of his sentence.
    Yeah, sure he’ll be 111. He’ll be DEAD at the end of his sentence.

See you in hell, redux,

MB

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. There are two articles in the current issue I’d like to recommend herel 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.

One article is a great one (though I disagree with some parts of it, of course). It’s about “How the US leads by helping other people kill each other.” There’s also a good one about Liz Cheney, with a slightly different point of view from mine.

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:

First take Sid Yiddish. There’s a great interview with him on YouTube. You can check it out here.

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 again 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 July Blog: That's Horrible... No Wait!

 

You're Still Wrong: Mykel's July Blog... That's Horrible... No Wait!

 

You’re STILL Wrong

or

Mykel's Blog for July 2021

To answer brutality with brutality is to admit to one’s moral and intellectual bankruptcy. --Gandhi

You walk down St. Marks Place… the plan: meet some friends… a drink at the Grass Roots… talk about old times... when St. Marks Place was PUNK ROCK. Barely registering… a city bus pulls over to the curb behind you. You hear it but only as part of the city noise. Then, the running footsteps... behind you… getting closer. You turn. A massive guy… running toward you… eyes filled with hate… like the cuckolded man… on a TV crime-show… running after the man he found boffing his wife.

He gets closer. You put up your hands… show you have no weapon… “let’s talk!” you want to say. No chance...

PFAAACK!

the crunch of his tight white knuckles into your jaw… a loud CRACK! The rest is pain… then nothing… blackness.

Here’s real scene: Seattle 2021. A white guy… mid-30s… balding, minor beard, slightly on the plump side… stands on a street corner. He wears a black leather jacket. Another guy, about a foot taller, same age, all in white… except for a black backpack. The bigger guy approaches the smaller one… Shouts… it’s hard to hear what he says… The guy in the leather jacket turns… look of fear... puts up his hands.

“Wait! Let’s talk,” say those hands.

The big guy moves closer. Cocks his right arm. KERPOW! Punches through the smaller guy’s raised hands. Fist-to-chin… no comments... no questions. BLAM! The smaller guy is down… slammed to the sidewalk… nose first … knocked out... possible concussion… broken nose. The big guy chuckles, sniffs… walks away.

The YouTube video makes it to facebook in a day. The reaction:

“Wow, that’s great!”

“I could watch that over and over again… just terrific.”

“Wonderful, just wonderful.”

At least a dozen more of the same tenor... All cheering the aggressor, booing the guy who puts his arms up and just wants to talk.

Oh yeah, the guy in the leather jacket… the one knocked out... was wearing a red armband with a swastika on it.

Did you switch? Were you horrified at the brutality of the aggressor, then turned into his supporter?

You don’t need to be in AntiFa to cheer this kind of hypocrisy… but it helps. The youtube clip claims there was some SMSing. Somebody said that somebody said that somebody said. No one said anyone was attacked… no one was hit… no one claims brutality. This guy is floored on a rumor that someone read while riding the bus.

FLASH to 1980s New York:

A pair of femmy young men walk down Greenwich Avenue from Sixth Avenue toward Christopher Street. They laugh… gesture limp-wristedly... stop and kiss each other in a gay parody of a Gone With The Wind poster.

Comes a voice from behind them. “Hey you faggots!”

Behind them are a gang of New Jersey boys... in town for a little fag bashing. They dive at the legs of the young men as if they’e going to bite them.

FOP! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

From behind the Jersey boys comes a crew with baseball bats. SLAM to the ribs. A Jersey Boy in shorts and a gray hoodie screams and sinks down. SLAM to the knees… a tough jock falls to the sidewalk, wincing in pain.

BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

The bats keep going until the Jerseyites crawl away... back to the Path Train.

When I read about this I think:

“Wow! That’s great!”

“Wonderful, just wonderful!”

The baseball bat group is SMASH, Society to Make America Safe for Homosexuals. Their Modus Operandi is to send out a weak-looking, femmy, pair as bait… and when the pair is attacked… they strike back... harder.

So what’s the difference? How can I defend SMASH but condemn AntiFa? Glad you asked and the answer is easy.

SMASH attacked in defense of others who were physically attacked. The bad guys bashed in real life…. Not supporters… not rumors… not history… not refusing to talk… but right there… watching the attack like you might watch a neighbor beat his dog… and do something to stop it. The anti-fa bashee? He just wanted to talk.

Sid Vicious wore a swastika on the cover of the My Way single. If that were this century, those Anti-Fas would’ve been all over him… probably with a baseball bat.

Your actions give others permission to do the same things. If it’s all right for you to punch someone who thinks differently from you… someone who’s done nothing to you… why not the same for someone who is a different religion from you? Or a different race? Or… the list goes on, but you get it.

Punching someone who has done no evil that you’ve seen says it’s okay to punch someone who’s done no evil that you’ve seen. My advice to the Antifa lovers?

Watch your back.

You’re building an audience who, when it happens to you, will be saying:

“Wow! That’s great!”

“Wonderful, just wonderful!”

When someone catches you sneaking a burger at McD’s… you know, Meat is Murder… you’ll get what you deserve. When someone texts that you put your hand on some girl’s leg when she was crowd-surfing at the punk show… It’ll be more than a hand on YOUR leg. I’ll be tuning in to YouTube to watch the video.

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]

–>Even The Governor Dept: Because New York State has reached a 70% vaccine rate, the governor has stopped all recommendations for sidewalk masks and relaxed almost all mask mandates in other places. Despite this, almost half of New Yorkers still mask themselves on the street. Stores and restaurants still ask people to mask up before they go in. And the post office is so confused, they have conflicting signs right next to one another. Why don’t the CDC-loving mask-wearers follow the CDC when they say fuggedaboud those masks? 

–>Who knew dept: Maybe COVID has turned everything upside down – even the real estate market. The Huffington Post reports on a Colorado house listed as being “a little slice of hell” with “human and animal feces left in the living room to greet you as you walk in.” It sold quickly for more than half a million dollars. I wonder if you have to wear a mask to go look at it.

–>Sudden realization dept: I wish I had the reference. Maybe it was on Al Jazeera, the only TV news I trust. Some professor is talking about race and how what we see on TV and in the news forms our images. She talks about the dead people we see on TV. Bodies of George Floyd and Eric Garner... bodies of war dead. They’re usually black. Remember that guy in Atlanta who killed the Asian sex-workers? How many bodies did you see? Yeah, that’s what I thought. If the victim is white… they show a high school yearbook picture. Asian… no pictures at all.
And hungry people, starving bubble-bellied babies? What color are they? Save the Children? What color children? We know anyone can be hungry… and anyone can be killed, but what we see… what we’re used to… are dead and hungry black and brown people. That’s got to affect the way we think about those people.

Wow! Never thought about that before.

–> Honest Cop Dept: NPR reports The police chief in Sperry, Okla. wrote himself a speeding ticket after a traffic camera caught him speeding. He says he's going to pay the more than $300 ticket he wrote himself. Evidently, he was doing 80mph in a school zone. That’s setting an example. if more cops wrote themselves tickets, you could have police forces that pay for themselves. Defund, shmefund.

–> Just deserts dept: My long-time pal Sid Yiddish found this interesting tidbit. You know how vegans really hate vegetables and are always looking for ways to trick bad-tasting food into tasting like meat? Mock duck, veggie burgers, almond milk. Funnily enough, a veggie company is recalling it’s fake eggs. Why? Because they were contaminated. With what? REAL EGGS, of course. Oh, the horror!

→ Special Thanks dept: And call-out to Josh C. and Grue S. who put me up, and put up with me… during my visit to Philadelphia. Both of the couple are friendly, smart, and large… in the physical and personal sense of the word. I’ve already written about my taste for fat people, their self-confidence and (often) musical ability. When we say someone is BIG-hearted, s/he often is a big person.

One of the weird things I don’t get is… self-image. Do fat people look in the mirror and think I’m ugly?” Do some fat people think… I wouldn’t be ugly if I weren’t fat? Grue is a spectacular AND beautiful woman! AND that fat is… er… a huge chunk of the reason!

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.

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

REVENGE! or Mykel's Post MRR Column no 55

Mykel's

Post MRR Column no 55

or

Vengeance is Mine!

Don't get mad. Get even. --Old Saying

    Q. How many Israelis does it take to change a lightbulb?

    A. Three. One to change the bulb. Two to kill my entire family because I made the joke.

                           --New Saying

Ah… ah… ah… AAAARG! It’s 11:30 am!

The talking alarm clock e-crow crows its wake-up call. I want to kill it. It lies. All the clocks in my apartment are set 40 minutes ahead. Since traveling times in Manhattan rarely exceed 40 minutes, this system lets me teleport anyplace on the island. If I have to be someplace at noon, I leave at noon (my time). I arrive on time. So it’s NOT 11:30AM. It's 10:50. And I hate getting up in the morning no matter what time it is.

This morning, like many other mornings, I’m in a foul mood. Pissed off... hung over... full of shit that my morning coffee will soon cause to explode into the toilet like a Sunni explodes in a Shiite mosque. (Or is it the other way around?)

Without opening my eyes, I slap the clock off and roll out of bed… holding on to the night table to steady myself… knocking over a 2/3 empty bottle of Brooklyn Lager… spilling the remaining third on the bed. I pick up the bottle… and for a second am tempted to hurl it through a closed window… teaching it a lesson it’ll never forget. Amazingly, the hoarse voice of reason gets to me before I do it. I set it down.

I waddle through the beer puddle... around the two bends in my single room apartment... wondering if I’m going to make it to the toilet. I make it… and stand there weakly pissing-- dribbling out the already consumed 2/3s of that Brooklyn beer.

Then to the stove where I make Turkish Coffee^®… actually Cafe Bustelo... brewed in the Turkish style… coffee thrown into a pot, boiled with a couple cups of water… poured through a strainer. Oh yeah.

In less than ten minutes, the coffee does its work. Back to the toilet… to my explosive beer shit... a massive semi-liquid relief... a blast that refreshes… a wondershit that’s the best argument I know for the existence of a truly loving God. Why don’t those Jehovah’s Witnesses who wake me up on Saturday morning ever talk about that? Do you want proof God loves you? Look in the toilet?

After I wipe up, I leave for work.

Downstairs, the street is filled with tourists. If you live on Bleecker Street you expect that… but why do they all have to walk in front of me... stopping suddenly to look at the mannequins in store windows… or worse: looking down at their iPhones... following an i-map because they can’t figure out that the street that comes after Fourth Street is Fifth Street.

Right now, a family of pasty white Americans strolls in front of me: a fat man wearing a wool tuke and a blue Canadian Goose down-filled jacket. With him is a fat woman, dark hair, doughboy face, in a matching coat. With them are two kids: a fat boy and fat girl. The woman and the fat boy are looking down at cellphones. The man is speaking to the girl. Together they form a slow-moving phalanx across the sidewalk. I want to kill them… spray them with a high-school style AR-15. Shower the sidewalk with fat body parts. Smash the Canadian Goose that lays no eggs. I hate them. I want revenge for the pain their lassitude is causing me. They must PAY!

I step into the street to go around them. WZZZZZ. An asshole cyclist (a pleonasm?) going the wrong way down the one way street misses me by THIS MUCH!

“Fuck you!” I don’t yell… but I do hope some car hits... him mixing his pizza-- or whatever he’s delivering-- with the muscle tendons and blood in his torn flesh.

Generic Woman-spread Photo

FLASH TO THE SUBWAY: As I enter, some woman… fresh from a shopping spree… spreads her bags on the subway seats… Woman Spread^®. I stand over her, glaring down at her bags, picturing how her intestines would look stretched and battered beside those of the fat tourists and the cyclist on the sidewalk above. I wonder if the thirst for revenge (sometimes called avenge,

sometimes called justice) is a biological urge... or if it’s a Western relic from the old testament eye-for-an-eye command.

It sure seems an integral part of our culture from the death penalty to the Hollywood classics of Death Wish, Make Them Die Slowly, Kill Bill, and Fatal Attraction…. as American as a heart attack.

After the World Trade Center barrage, president Bush destroyed the country of Iraq-- even though they had nothing to do with the attack. What did he say?

"Ours is a nation that does not seek revenge, but we do seek justice." That line brought down the house. It also brought down Iraq… and brought us ISIS.

But revenge is NOT only Western… Christian-Jew. It is world-wide. Can you say Voodoo Doll? Can you say Hindu revenge killings?

An interesting article called The Case for Revenge claims revenge is biological… an evolutionary leap...like the orgasm. The author says it evolved as a way for humans to survive: Human survival depended greatly on convincing neighboring clans, tribes, and states that no attack or moral injury would go unanswered. Payback was nonnegotiable and self-regulating.

But is the threat of retaliation the same as revenge? I don't think so.

FLASH TO THE SUBWAY... THE F TRAIN: An attractive young woman, dark with white features... maybe Indian, maybe Caribbean... sits across from me-- right next to the door. She wears jeans so tight they could be danskins. I can make out the camel toe between her legs. And it's easy.. she sits with her knees apart... like manspread... but on her it looks good. She is, of course, engrossed in a cellphone.

Next to her, a white child bounces on its mothers knee. . . At 23^rd Street the doors open and an old colored guy... with a cane... enters the car. I motion to him... while standing up.

“Here,” I say, patting my seat, “you can sit over here.”

He looks at me, smiles, and says, “Much obliged, Mister.”

I smile back and nod to him as I move to let him sit down. Then, I position myself in front of the Caribbean girl, trying to get her attention... maybe she'll talk to me... tell me how nice I am for giving up my seat to the old cripple.

I walk across the aisle and stand in front of her. She doesn't look up as I station myself. I clear my throat.

FLASH TO THE SUBWAY IN AN ALTERNATE UNIVERSE: An attractive young woman, dark with white features... maybe Indian, maybe Caribbean sits across from me-- right next to the door. She wears jeans so tight they could be danskins. I swear I can make out the camel toe between her legs. And it's easy.. she sits with her knees apart... like manspread... but on her it looks good. She is, of course, engrossed in a cellphone.

Next to her is a huge guy... same skin color as the girl, but with shoulders wider than my apartment. He wears a flashy jacket... and black jeans... perfectly pressed. He sits with one arm around the goddess-like girl... and he glares at me.

At 23^rd Street the doors open and an old colored guy with a cane... enters the car. I motion to him... while standing up.

“Here,” I say, “you can sit over here.”

Then I stand up, walk to the end of the car... and enter the next one.

Get it? That's not revenge, that's fear. And there is a difference. Revenge is PAYBACK for some wrong... real or imagined. Threat of retaliation discourages action by promising violence.

REALITY CHECK: Will some school kid killer be discouraged from a rampage by a threat of violence? Most of them kill themselves anyway. They LIVE (and die) for violence. They commit their crimes to avenge some real or perceived injustice in school…. In other words… for revenge. The ONLY reason to execute school killers-- or most anyone else-- is REVENGE. BUT, the motive for the original crime was also revenge. Like the Hatfields and McCoys… revenge is a never-ending cycle.

Israel is the current practitioner supreme of REVENGE ideology. Flash to: the early days of the intifada. Palestinian kids throw rocks at the Israeli occupying troops. What about that eye-for-an-eye thing? Do Israelis throw rocks back? You bet your Talmud they don't. They bulldoze the kids’ entire house. KERPOW! Throw a rock and become homeless... in a fell swoop. That is revenge.

FLASH TO THE GAZA WAR 2014. Here are the stats on that one:

• Palestinians killed: 2,139 Palestinian children killed: 490

• Israeli soldiers killed: 64 Israeli civilians killed: 6 Israeli children killed: 1

That's what revenge looks like when one side has all the fire power. But wait... let's get more recent:

Syria shoots down an Israeli jet that was invading that country. The pilots bailed. No one was injured. The revenge?

Israel attacks twelve bases in Syria. There are several deaths. Here again it's REVENGE in action. The Israelis are masters of the art.

It's tempting to say the revenge thing all started with the Jews. They're so good at it. We talked about Hindus. We talked about voodoo.

And the history of Goyitude is filled with non-Jew revenge seekers. (This from an article on Voodoo of all things:)

In A.D. 64, a great fire broke out in Rome for six days, and devastated much of the city. According to the writer Tacitus, “Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace.” The “abominations” committed by the early Christians were said to be cannibalism and incest, based on rumors circulating in Rome at that time which stemmed from a misunderstanding of the Eucharist.

REVENGE! And for fake news at that.

Behind revenge is a kind of karmic belief that things in the universe should balance. Yin and Yang. Aggression and payback. Compassion pays no part... neither does time nor forgiveness. When southerners complained about Judge Roy Moore's indiscretions 40 years ago, the answer was It's not WHEN it happened. It's THAT it happened. Forgiveness and revenge are the warring parties. Neither has a time limit. You have to choose your side.

Revenge is called Justice by those seeking it. But there’s a difference. If the city doesn’t repair a street pothole, and I break my ankle stepping in it… the two hundred grand I get for pain, lost work, hospital bills, is justice… but it’s not revenge.

My daily fantasies about what to do with people who annoy me are REVENGE fantasies. They have nothing to do with justice. The death penalty… the Iraqi war… the loss of jobs… loss of status… loss of face of Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacy… these are revenge… nothing to do with justice… no matter what it’s called.

As long as we can’t separate justice from revenge we’ll have never-ending revenge. As long as we have a criminal revenge system masquerading as a criminal justice system… we will have ever escalating crime and punishment.

So step back… take a breath… check your motives. If you don’t… I will kill you.

--end--

NOTE: If you're interested in my travel blog, you can read it at mykelsdiary.blogspot.com. I have another blog of short interesting things at: http://mykelsclippings.blogspot.com. And finally, my oldies from last century are slowly being scanned and uploaded to: http://mykelsoldies.blogspot.com/

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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. Subscribe to the MYKEL'S READERS Yahoo group readmboard-subscribe@yahoogroups.com]

-→Unintentional revenge dept: A hunter in Easton Maryland shot a flying Canada goose on Feb. 1 of this year. When it fell, it hit the hunter, Robert Meilhammer, landing on his head and knocking him out. It also dislodged two of his teeth. As of now, Meilhammer is in stable condition after being airlifted to a hospital.

-->Right again dept: A few blogs ago I wrote about how the only solution to the Harassment^® problem was gender apartheid. Now I read that one of Hillary Clinton's aide stands accused of harassing a co-worker, “he rubbed her shoulders inappropriately, kissed her on the forehead” Rubbed her shoulders?

I accuse the entire nation of France of harassment! Fire 'em all! Whenever I meet one, they hug MY WHOLE BODY!! And worse than that, they give me an inappropriate kiss... two of them... one on each cheek! Harassment if I've ever seen it! Fire the lot!

-->Speaking of shoulder rubs dept: I wonder if German Chancellor Angela Merkel is going to demand that GWB be fired... whoops, he already WAS fired.

-->Intentional Revenge Dept: I wrote about how those who planned the downfall of Alabama judge Roy Moore used accusations 30 years old to attack him. The revengers seem, in typical revenge fashion, to have gotten even more than they hoped for. The judge is broke and destitute... appealing for funds. I'll probably throw the guy ten bucks. 


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: 

• David Goldberg's Busy Microbes Blog

• And another Goldberg: goldberg.wordpress.com

• Poetry and humor fans will like Justin Martin in The Latency

• Sometimes I contribute to an interesting multi-talented blog called OgFomK Arts see me there!

• 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.