#MENEITHER or Mykel's Post MRR Column no 51

Mykel's

Post MRR Column no 51

or

The Harvey Touch

or

#meneither

"Physical revulsion at sex with the wrong person was a learned and socially instituted response. More than that, it was an effective social management tool, since once internalized, it institutes the psychology of monogamy as a self-enforced system.” --Laura Kipnis

It's the mother of all beershits... a bowl-filling steaming pile of brownitude.. no --black... blacker than a Japanese businessman’s suit... blacker than an NFL player... blacker than your ex-wife's heart. A bubbling bowl of churning feces... neither solid nor liquid... with the gaseous aroma of a turned-on oven whose flame has gone out.

The power of anal expulsion lifts me to new heights. I'm only vaguely aware of the splash against the back of my legs... I can deal with that later. Right now, the relief lifts me up... up... my balding head nearly touching the bathroom ceiling... on the way to nirvana.

Everything is right with the world. I've turned inside out... emptied myself of doubt, fear, evil, the horror of day-to-day life. Ennui replaced by ecstasy. I walk on air from the toilet paper to the bedroom to the street below... where I say hello and blow a kiss to the ugliest girl I see.

“Fuck, you!” she says... and then. “No, I take that back. I WON'T fuck you. Not now or ever.”

My beer-shit high leaves me, and I crash down to the filthy streets of the city.

That's just the start.

I leave the subway at Grand Central Station. As usual, a nest of tourists gathers at the exit... consulting their cellphone maps,.. turning this way and that to orient their Google to the simple streets of Manhattan.

A young white woman... judging from the width of her hips, probably not a New Yorker... squints with confusion at the tiny screen in front of her.

“Are you lost?” I ask.

It's as if I'd asked, “Can you show me your twat?”

Her eyebrows raise in half anger and half terror.

“No!” she shouts and walks off... no-- stomps off... in the wrong direction, I hope.

What happened?

FLASH TO THE NEWS: Harvey Weinstein, a rather unappealing-looking man is charged hither and yon with sexual harassment. Like a Bill Cosby redux, any vaginated creature who was ever in the same room with the guy... now claims she was harassed... violated... humiliated.

Even males who try to cast aside their penis privilege get their balls nailed to the table. Take Ben Affleck... please... Like most male feminists, Affleck clearly wants to get on the good side of women. It's called the urge to get laid. When the Weinstein affair is announced Affleck tweets:

I am saddened and angry that a man who I worked with used his position to intimidate, sexually harass, and manipulate many women over decades....

The tweet goes on to say how wonderful women are and how they need to have more power. blah, blah blah...

Does it work? Does Affleck suddenly have a harem of women begging him to taste their liberated juices? You bet your Anita Hill he doesn't. Instead, more harassees come out of the woodwork... like termites from a burning log. One of them accuses Affleck himself of “groping” her. What did he do?

“He touched my breast.”

I shit you not. He touched her breast!

I live in New York... Do you know how many breasts I touch on any given rush hour train? How many times my own manly nips are brushed? Breast-touching is as common as crossing the street against a red light... and just as offensive.

The atmosphere is getting so that people are afraid to touch each other at all. Every tap on the shoulder... every hug... every peck on the cheek is sexual harassment. Sex itself... is sexual harassment.

As I write this, Weinstein, a former Hollywood mogul, is in trouble because he used the casting couch to get laid. He's a big ugly bulldog of a man, but there are few reports of force or brutality.

“Hey kid, you wanna be in pictures? Put those fat lips around this flesh cigar ticket to stardom?”

And why not? Is pay-to-play for Hollywood any worse than pay-to-play for the smuggling truck for that Mexican delivery boy? Is a multi-thousand-dollar-movie-contract-to-fame worse than immigrants sleeping 6 in a room for tips? Who do you think suffers more?

Why is SEXUAL harassment worse than any other kind? Why is giving a blowjob for a movie role worse than suffering hours in a truck... maybe dying... to mow lawns? Why is giving a blowjob-- once-- for Hollywood-- any worse than the toadying that office workers do every day to KEEP their jobs.

Work late with no pay? #metoo

Wake up early to wear clothes you hate to work 8-10 hours at something soul-destroying? #metoo

Grind your teeth at night because the boss criticized some minor infraction of a work rule? #metoo

Rather flip tricks than flip burgers. #metoo

What's the difference between all this exploitation and the victims of Harvey Weinstein? It's SEX! SEX! SEX! It comes back to Christianity... to the idea that sex is a SIN! Though most modern feminists are atheists... their morality is Protestant... Evangelical. Of all the horrible things people do to get a keep a job... of all the overwork, low/no pay, theft from the public, deceiving... involved in the American workplace... only SEX is the bad one.

Remember when sex was fun? Spontaneous? As politics-free as a good beershit? #metoo

FLASH TO THE SUBWAY: It's the 23^rd Street stop. From my seat I see the doors open and an old woman... leaning on a walker... heading toward the train. She shuffles, pulling her right foot ahead and then bringing up the left... then pushing her right foot ahead once more. On her face is a grimace... the snarl of continual pain and frustration. Through that snarl, I can see a single tooth on her lower jaw.

She slowly approaches... The BONG BING of the closing door... I bolt... just make it... pry the doors apart so the woman and her walker can squeeze inside. She makes it... looks at me. I can read her thoughts. They say, I KNOW WHY YOU DID THAT! YOU WANT TO FUCK ME!

That's it. All social intercourse has become harassment! All contact between genders is for sex. I never thought I'd agree with Betsy DeVos, the woman who wants to destroy public education... but she said “If everything is harassment, then nothing is.” She's right.

Kidding, jokes, honest flirtation, courtship... all are dead in a world so sex-obsessed that words are RAPE. Is spin-the-bottle sexual harassment? Young men, just exploring their own sexuality... forced to face verbal castration or be accused in the #metoo-ism of harassment. Will heterosexual sex become as contractual as accepting a job offer: in writing-- or not at all.

(Side note: maybe the benefit of this mentality will be an increase in homosexuality.... Aaah... a small silver lining.)

In 2006, members of the Duke University lacrosse team were accused of gang-raping a student. The young men went through hell... were shunned... isolated by their friends... shamed by the media... found guilty in the press... held as examples of “rape culture” by puritanical feminists... They were not guilty.

In 2015, Rolling Stone magazine reported another gang rape. This time at the University of Virginia. A horrific first-person account of multiple forced penetration by multiple partners. It was a lie.

In 2017 the main rape victim in America is THE TRUTH. Along with other victims: humor, banter, and a sense of anything other than OUTRAGE. Sex is like politics... there's only US and THE BAD GUYS.

Ever rape anyone? #meneither

Do you only talk to strangers with the intention of getting sex from them? #meneither

Would you prefer to operate a jackhammer for $10 an hour to giving a handjob for a million dollar movie contract? …. #meneither

If you have your choice between slinging fried eggs in a diner for the rest of your life or letting some ugly guy screw you once for a dream life... would you chose the diner? #meneither

If you found a world where people are afraid to touch one another... where every hug is harrassment... where every kiss is rape... Would you want to live in that world? #meneither

Do you find yourself feeling guilty because you looked at someone lustfully? Because you had sex when you were drunk? Because you didn't get a written contract before touching genitals? #meneither

Do you like living in a world where fame means every sexual peccadillo of past mishaps gets waved in your face-- and pulled out of your wallet? Where real and fake accusations... sometimes dozens of years old... are pulled out in legal blackmail? #meneither

The tweets have already started. It was too logical to pass up... there are dozens. But they seem to lack focus. Would you object to adding your own so we could have a real conversation? #meneither

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

-->Public admissions dept: Actually, I love my job (teaching English to Japanese people), and I'm rarely angry or annoyed with the boss. The #metoos in the piece above are based on the lives I see around me... not on my own. I don't have to wear a tie to work.

-->If that's not racist Dept: The Whitney Museum removed a painting based on the dead civil rights activist Emmit Till. Why? Because the artist was a white person. That makes it exploitation, don't you see?

As long as some races are allowed to speak (write, make art) and others are forbidden... there can ONLY be racism. As long as EVERYTHING is race... or sex... or gender... as long as basic principle of the right to a point of view is ignored... Society will be more racist, sexist, genderist... and less free.

-->If that's not censorship Dept: Students “affiliated” with Black Lives Matter shut down an ACLU a “free speech” discussion at the College of William and Mary. Why? Because the ACLU defends the right of all people to express their ideas. That includes Nazis, The Klan, and... Black Lives Matters. The ACLU speaker offered platform time to BLM, but they preferred to keep shouting so that the event had to stop. Someday, I hope, that's going to come around and bite them in the ass.

-->Nasal Harassment Dept: Chuck Shephard's great News of the Weird reports: Neven Ciganovic of Croatia was undergoing the latest in a series of plastic surgeries (this one a rhinoplasty) in Iran when he "reacted badly" to the general anesthesia and developed a painful, long-lasting erection, known as priapism. As he recovered in a Serbian hospital, Ciganovic was denied painkillers and was only relieved of the condition after another surgery, although he says it will be months before he is fully recovered. The tattoo-covered Ciganovic is hoping his latest nose operation will improve his looks enough to launch him to international stardom.

I say, looks? Who cares about looks? He could achieve stardom with his priapism! Pictures please!

-->This Just In Dept: Former President George HW Bush (the REALLY OLD ONE) has said he was sorry after actress Heather Lind accused him of sexually assaulting her during a TV show promotion in 2014. They guy was 91 years old in 2014... in a wheelchair... What kind of sexual assault? “He touched me... twice.” Okay Lind... what is it? Did my agent pay you to prove my point?

--> Keeping the Pressure on Dept: I want to thank reader George Metesky for suggesting a continuing Bring Back Mykel effort directed at Maximum Rock'n'Roll for censoring me.

As their revolving editrixes move on to commercial ventures, each blames her predecessors for my demise... as if they had no control over the business... and couldn't simply invite me back.

Send your comments to mrr@maximumrocknroll.com (or post on their facebook page) with the subject line: BRING BACK MYKEL! Let me know how they answer.

See you in hell.

-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/

LINK TRADE:

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.

Here's a start:

David Goldberg's Busy Microbes Blog

And another Goldberg: goldberg.wordpress.com

Hate! or Mykel's Post MRR Column no 48

Mykel's

Post MRR Column no 48

or

Hate

The MOST important type of speech to protect is hate speech, because it often contains desperate truths that would lose their urgency if expressed calmly. --Jim Goad

It's my last night in Grenomia... second smallest country in Africa... and one of the many where English is the first language. The natives know half a dozen others. The local tribal language sounds more Slovic than African. I'll do my best to transcribe it. It's been 30 days of wild times with half a dozen citizens who may be the only punk rockers in the country. I have a hangover the size of Lithuania, and a smile on my face the size of Wyoming. Great times!

My farewell party is in a squat on the outskirts of Juancasas.. the country's capital. The locals have squatted the entire house, and when they drive me here they tell me they had a special farewell gift for me.

I'm game.

The car pulls over in front of a dilapidated house that wouldn't look out of place in a Psycho remake... Africa version... left over from colonial times and just allowed to rot. It's a tall stone structure with a balcony over the door. The windows are either boarded up or naked and glassless. There is a recently-built front door of sorts... a piece of plywood on hinges.

The lockless front door creaks open, but instead of the theme to The Munsters, Black Flag's Six Pack blasts out from a boombox with fresh batteries. It's the Grenomian Punk House! Oh yeah!

Inside is a self-remodeled house... almost completely plywood. Punk posters on plywood walls... The lower floors have makeshift plywood ceilings while the upper floors are left open to the sky. Clothes hang on wood racks... wood wood wood.

Stratos... nothing like a black guy with a Mohawk!

The house is lit with candles. Yep, wood wood wood illuminated with burning tapers... an open invitation to a future skin graft. Fearless me proceeds inward... up a winding staircase... to a closed door that Stratos... my mohawked host... punk and punster supreme... opens with a flourish.   >

“Her name is Ovoje Laž,” Stratos tells me. “You can just call her Ovo. She's your farewell present.”

“Oh yeah!” I say to him.

“Pleased to meet you,” I tell the girl on the floor, now looking over her shoulder at me.

“Ez îngilîzî nizanim,” she answers.

I figure inglizi is English. And she's telling me she doesn't speak it. I figure wrong.

“Just kidding,” she says. “But I got paid. My body is your body. Should we start doggie style?”

“In front of this guy?” I ask, motioning to Stratos.

He laughs. “It's part of the deal,” he says. “I get to watch.”

“I donno,” I say. “I'm not sure I can... er... perform in front of someone else.”

He laughs again. “Mykel, you've spent your whole life performing in front of other people.”

Wiseguy.

Faster than a feminist can be offended, I take my clothes off. I'm limper than limp... positively shriveled... how is this gonna work?

When I'm naked, I stand in front of Ovo and she looks at my stub and asks simply, “And?...”

“You know,” I say. “Maybe if you warm me up a little... you know from the front... get the blood circulating... don't forget to do my balls.”

“Yo!” shouts Stratos from the sidelines. “Don't look a gift whore in the mouth.”

Wiseguy again.

She takes my hors d’oeuvre pickle in her mouth. Blood flows to the nether regions. Slowly I perk up. In less than a minute, she releases me.

“Should I keep going?” she asks.

“Have a ball!” shouts Stratos from the sideline.

My feelings exactly.

She takes one, then the other into her mouth. Then both... sucking with just the right degree of gentleness... like a pro.

From the corner of my eye I see Stratos... his pants unzipped... his ample amplitude filling his fist... It's like he's watching a porno movie.

That makes me harder.

“Okay! Okay!” I breathe. “Let's get this show on the road.”

She lets me loose and I go around in back.

I stand behind her. Lower myself slightly... I hear Stratos shift his position... to either get a better view or a better grip.

I bend my knees a bit, reach for the good part and press myself in. I start pumping, but feel very little.

Then she says it... the four most awful words in English:

Is it in yet?It falls out.

I lift... reinsert. Press.... It falls out.

I bend my knees more... try again... pffffft... air... I'm fucking air. Insert again... a laughing sound comes from behind me. It's Stratos.

“Mykel, Mykel, Mykel,” he says, “think outside the box.”

Oh yeah! I salivate and stick my middle finger in my mouth. Then instead of aiming for the i, I am for the DOT on the i. BINGO!

I grab the reigns and buck for the bunghole. Oh yeah! Friction up the wazoo. I watch her ass cheeks wave in punkrock rhythm to the music of my thrusts.

I draw ever closer to that magical moment. All I can do is concentrate on the tightness around my little linguine. Yes! Yes!

I hear a female voice. It is NOT the voice of the girl I'm shtupping.

“OK, MYKEL...” it says, “I THINK WE'VE HAD ENOUGH!”

“Who the fuck are you?” I ask.

“YOU KNOW ME, MYKEL,” she says. “I'VE BEEN ABUSED BY YOU FOR DECADES. I'M A LITERARY DEVICE.”

“What the fuck are you doing here?” I ask. “Go away!”

If there were a transcription for the sound eyes make when they roll heavenward, I'd insert it here.

“YOU KNOW, MYKEL. (eye-rolling sound) I'M JUST DOING MY JOB... I'M HERE TO CALL YOU OUT... WHERE SHOULD I START?”

“I donno,” I say, “at the beginning?”

“FINE,” she says, “LET'S START WITH FAKE NEWS. GRENOMIA? THERE'S NO COUNTRY IN AFRICA-- OR IN THE WORLD-- CALLED GRENOMIA. YOU JUST MADE THAT UP.”

“Of course I did,” I answer. “I'm a writer. That's a writer's job... to make stuff up. It's what I'm supposed to do. Is Moby Dick FAKE NEWS because there was no real Captain Ahab?”

“MOBY DICK WAS A NOVEL,” she says. “YOU'RE NOT WRITING A NOVEL. AND BESIDES, THAT'S ONLY THE FIRST OFFENSE.”

“Okay,” I answer. “What's next?”

“YOU PUT THE WHOLE THING IN AFRICA. YOU'RE APPROPRIATING A FOREIGN CULTURE. YOU'RE INSERTING YOURSELF SOMEWHERE TO CREATE THE IMPRESSION OF THE EXOTIC... THE MYSTERIOUS... YOU'RE MAKING AFRICANS AS SOME SORT OF FREAKS... COMPLETE ALIENS.”

You're wrong! I'm making the Africans punk-cool-sophisticated. That great punster is African. The squat... could have been Ave C in the 80s... is African.

OK, THEN WHAT ABOUT THE HET-ITUDE? THAT WOMAN ON THE FLOOR... IT HAD TO BE A WOMAN? WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO PROVE, MYKEL? YOUR HETERO MANLINESS?

What the fuck? Are you accusing me of homophobia? Me??? I'm not gay, but MOST of the guys I've fucked are gay. That's as public as my hair transplant.

SEE? YOU'RE EQUATING GAY WITH HAIR TRANSPLANT... AS IF THEY BOTH WERE FAILED SOLUTIONS TO SOME PROBLEM OR OTHER.

(Insert the sound of Mykel's eye-rolling here.)

DON'T GIVE ME THAT! AND WHAT ABOUT THAT POOR WOMAN?... ON ALL FOURS... IN A SLUM... FOR YOUR PLEASURE. GIVEN LIKE A BIRTHDAY BLOW-UP DOLL FOR YOU TO JERK OFF IN.

It's a service... a job... have you ever given anyone a haircut for his birthday... or paid for someone's cab ride? In a post-work society there will be no prostitutes. No barbers or cab drivers either. Until we get there people work... they have jobs... You think being a whore is somehow more demeaning than being a rich woman's schwarze? I know dozens of people who love whores for what they do. (I'm one of them.) I've yet to meet one who respects the toilet cleaner.

MYKEL! MYKEL! MYKEL! (Literary Device shakes her head.) YOU'RE JUST SO FULL OF HATE! YOU MIGHT AS WELL JUST YELL “FUCK YOU!” AT EVERYONE AND LEAVE IT ALONE.

You're a just literary device... you wouldn't know hate if it came up and bit you on the ass.

BINGO! I WOULD KNOW HATE IF IT BIT ME ON THE ASS. WHAT BETTER WAY TO TELL?

Double bingo! I say. THAT's what hate's all about. A word isn't hate... a cliché... a joke... that isn't hate. Hate is HATE. If I say colored girl... that is not hate. It's just a pair of words with historical meaning. I'll tell you about hate.

I hate mosquitoes. I'd like to kill every one of 'em. I'd like them out... gone... deader than American free speech. That's hate. I hate public displays of possession. Johnny's got Mary (or Jim) pressed up against a lamppost. Their arms are around each other... he grinds his crotch into hers... she sticks her tongue down his throat... one eye on the passers-by... telling 'em Hey look... I'm getting laid. I own this girl... or guy. I hate that! I'd like to strangle them both... bury them as far apart from one another as geography allows.

Want me to tell you what else I hate?

I HAVE THE FEELING YOU WILL ANYWAY.

I hate self-righteous bike riders who think that-- because they don't use gas-- they have the right to go the wrong way on a one-way street, travel at night without a light, and ride on the sidewalk. I hate jock-itch that comes every summer no matter how much I spray beforehand. I hate banks that tell me I need 25-letter passwords and besides they'll block my credit card if I go to Africa... and then say it's for my own protection.

I hate excessive nosehair that-- besides being aesthetically hideous-- tickles when I smile. I hate people who cringe in disgust when I squeeze those nosehairs between my thumb and middle finger and one-by-one yank them out.

ANYTHING ELSE?

Yes. I hate a literary device that doesn't know its place. Literary devices are tricks to illustrate a point... to foreshadow... provide background or diversion. Literary devices aren't supposed to be uppity, contradict the writer, talk back. Get it?

FUCK YOU!

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

-->What's Wayne Newton's First Name? Dept: Chuck Shepherd has collected the names of murderers... or accused murderers-- in the US from 1970 to 2008. Not all of them, though... just the ones whose middle name is WAYNE. You can see the list here. But be prepared... I count six pages of names... from Michael Wayne Adams to Robert Wayne Wyant.

I'm waiting for the Social Justice Warriors to accuse me of Waynophobia. It's not true... there are some good ones out there somewhere. It's just that I can't find any.

-->Jewish Nazis Dept: The totalitarians of the German Antifa Fa squad have shut down a bookstore in Berlin. The reason? The bookstore, located in an immigrant neighborhood, had organized a forum about a thinker than some say is “fascist.” The forum wasn't a promotion, it was a discussion... but discussion is furthest from the “minds” of Antifa-Fas. They called the owner a Nazi and put so much pressure on the store, it had to close. The owners, by the way, were Jews, grandchildren of holocaust survivors.

In their farewell letter they wrote:
when you want a free society you have to except the whole package: the madmen and the pedophiles and the sociopath and the radicals and the dandy and the nerds and the black and the whites and the whiter and the rich jews and the poor christians and also- yourself, this is actually always the right place to start, and it is always best to start now, because tomorrow we might lose these rights and freedoms.

--> Keeping the Pressure on Dept: I want to thank reader George Metesky for suggesting a continuing Bring Back Mykel effort directed at Maximum Rock'n'Roll for censoring me.

As their revolving editrixes move on to commercial ventures, each blames her predecessors for my demise... as if they had no control over the business... and couldn't simply invite me back.

Send your comments to mrr@maximumrocknroll.com (or post on their facebook page) with the subject line: BRING BACK MYKEL! Let me know how they answer.

See you in hell.

-end-

NOTE: If you're interested in my travel blog, you can read it at mykelsdiary.blogspot.com.

Then They Came For Me aka Mykel's Post-MRR Column Number 15

YOU'RE STILL WRONG

POST MRR COLUMNS

Post-MRR Column Number 15

by Mykel Board

"Why level downward to our dullest perception always, and praise that as common sense? The commonest sense is the sense of a man asleep.” Henry David Thoreau

First they came for the smokers, and I did not speak out— because I was not a smoker. Then they came for the senile, and I did not speak out— because I was not senile. Then they came for the football players and I did not speak out— because I was not a football player. Then they came for me. --Mykel Board

I don't make it. Both hands cupped over my mouth, I run to the bathroom. I don't make it. Stomach contents... volcanic... force themselves upward... an enema in reverse... chunks of chicken... pieces of potato... whole croutons-- just the way they looked in the bar avocado dip-- spew themselves upward... through my esophagus... filling my cupped hands... spilling over... catching in my beard... dripping on a trail through my fingers.. SPLOTCH... SPLOTCH... SPLOTCH... from the bedroom. The food forces itself upward like liquid, not percolating, but exploding... upward with such force it fills my nose... overflows... my nostrils drip beer and buffalo wings. Sinuses cramp with calamari.

Finally... the toilet. I open my lips and let the primal ooze splash in. My packed sinuses ache... a huge pressure... I grab my nose from the top, spray out... nothing... harder... a green drop... the size of a pea... dribbles from a nostril. It IS a pea, mixed from the same gravy used to make chicken pot pies for decades... centuries... millennia.

No time to consider it. Here comes another heave... a giant fire hose... a brown gray mix up-chucking into the toilet with such force that the splash covers my face... my neck... my naked chest. Dripping with my own vomit, I sink to my knees. Barely able to keep my dripping face above the water in the bowl, I heave again... nearly drowning in the backsplash. I won't get drunk again. I won't get drunk again. It's just common sense.

Ok buckaroos, I've been writing for about 50 years now. MUCH of that writing has been rants against common sense, self-evidence, logic.

“Everybody knows that women make 80¢ for every dollar men make.”

“It's just logic that second-hand smoke is bad for your health.”

“If you only earn $1800 a month you can't afford a trip to Japan... It's common sense.”

All those and more are just wrong! If EVERYBODY knows it, it's probably wrong. Remember how everyone knew that margarine was better than butter. You know how many people DIED from that? Remember how everyone knew that you had to arm the Taliban in Afghanistan? It protected us from COMMUNISM. See what happened?

IN PRAISE OF SMOKING

Bottom of the eighth, two outs, Jeter on third. The Yankees are down 4 to 3. Teixeira’s up. Damn! He's barely hitting at the Mendoza Line. Yeah, he's got a bunch of homers... but. STRIKE ONE. Just as I feared. Swinging at something way out of the strike zone... Ever since his wrist injury... STRIKE TWO. Fuck! I don't need crystal balls to tell him to TAKE that next pitch. He's trying too hard. He's trying to make everything a home run. He'll... STRIKE THREE.

And now comes a public service commercial. A man's talking... not talking exactly... he's got one of those external voice boxes against his neck. A hole in his neck vibrates as he speaks. I used to be a smoker, until... Pissed off, I shut off the TV missing the ninth inning.

FLASH TO LATER THAT NIGHT: I'm looking for those lost videos on YouTube. There were only eight or so shows. Roald Dahl's WAY OUT... better than the Twilight Zone. On the screen, in that stupid side column are public service videos... one aimed at teens:

We can be the generation that ends smoking.

Jeezus fuckin' Christ. In the 60s, people wanted to be part of the generation that ends WAR. These days, they go for a bit more totalitarian goal. I wonder, if, in the 1920s there were posters saying WE CAN BE THE GENERATION THAT ENDS DRINKING.

I see anti-smoking propaganda plastered on internet sites, on subway posters, on billboards. Even the government gets in the act. I see it reflected in New York laws against smoking in parks... even if the park is just a slab of concrete at an intersection. Buildings are banning smoking by tenants... in their own apartments. The wildest logic... ignores everything EXCEPT smoking.

“Statistics show that children from buildings with more smoking have higher incidence of cancer and emphysema than children from smoke-free buildings.” What the fuck?

How 'bout that rich white folks tend to smoke less than poor folks. How 'bout that buildings with smokers tend to be closer to factories or frackers than buildings with non-smokers? Naw, that's not important. Yeah, right.

While smoking is (barely) legal... this is the time to act. This is the time to START SMOKING! If any one thing symbolizes the loss of freedom, it's the loss of the right to smoke. If any one thing symbolizes rebellion in America in 2014, it's smoking. Smoking is the great Satan of activities. It is the only legal (for now) way to flout convention... to say

I REFUSE TO BUY INTO THE MYTH THAT I CONTROL MY DESTINY. I REFUSE TO BUY INTO THE LIE THAT IF I GET SICK IT'S MY OWN FAULT... OR THE FAULT OF MY NEIGHBOR WHO SMOKES. I REFUSE TO BUY INTO THE LIE THAT MY BAD LUNGS ARE NOT THE FAULT OF CORPORATE AMERICA AND THE SHIT THEY POUR INTO THE AIR AND WATER, BUT RATHER SOMETHING I DO MYSELF.

More than this. Smoking in 2014 attacks the entire idea of Your comfort is more important than my freedom... The easily offended society... The whiners who call for the boycott of everyone they disagree with. The censors who, instead of answering free speech with speech, answer it with calls to end that speech. The bullies, who in the name of stopping bullying, bully people into keeping their mouths shut and their opinions to themselves. The totalitarians who say that my emotions are more important than your art... who can't walk away or put something down because it triggered emotional distress. The single act of lighting up a cigarette is a proclamation as loud as any protest poster that says. I AM AN INDIVIDUAL... AND I WILL NOT COWER.

IN PRAISE OF ALZHEIMERS

"Nothing is more responsible for the good old days than a bad memory.” --Franklin Pierce Adams

With age comes senility--- that disease of forgetting. Maybe it's not so bad.

I've written before about how the 70 years since World War II is enough time to FORGET ABOUT IT! So much evil has been done in the name of that war... from genocide to opera censorship. So much continues to be done. I've written plenty on that memory... and there are other things to forget

In Texas, they still Remember the Alamo and use that mudhut... a holdout in a war FOR slavery and AGAINST an innocent nation... a war that was nothing more than a land grab. Texans don't want you to REALLY remember the Alamo. You should remember it THEIR way. I say FORGET IT.

In the South, the Civil War still plays hard and anyone from George Bush Senior to Bill Clinton is a carpet-bagger. Remember the some-fucking-thing is the rallying cry of so much death and destruction, that just hearing those words should be an instant code to tell you blood's a-comin'.

Remember the Armenian holocaust. Remember the Lusitania. I cannot forgive... forget... absolve...release... relent... accept... bury the hatchet... let bygones be... let it go... let it pass... wipe the slate clean...

Remember means I can do what the fuck I want to you because someone, someplace did something to my ancestors. Remember means revenge. Revenge triggers counter-memories. I remember what you did to them because you remembered what we did to you.

Jews and Germans. Hatfields and McCoys. Clan Chattan and Clan Kay, Hamilton and Burr, Stalin and Trotsky, Jack Benny and Fred Allen, Snoop Dogg and Iggy Azalea. I donno. To all of 'em I say forget about it. It's OVER.

What you do starts NOW! If I fill a bag of dogshit, light it and put it on your front porch, that's NOW! You called my mother a slut 4 years ago? It's over!

IN DEFENSE OF FOOTBALL

“Female violence toward men is pervasive, although largely denied. Or if it isn't denied, it's excused. When a man insults or hits a woman, it's 'abuse,' but when a woman insults or hits a man, it's 'assertiveness.” --Jim Goad

“Feminism is very much like egalitarianism and if you believe that we are all equal then you are a feminist. " --Internet Website

Two months ago, I wrote about Robert Anton Wilson's book, Cosmic Trigger III. In that book, Wilson mentions violence in the movies. We always hear Christians and feminists complain about how movies cause Sandy Hooks or random street violence. What goes unmentioned-- except by Wilson-- is how that in (almost?) every major U.S. movie since the 70s, a man is hit by a woman... from the slap across the face to real ball busters.

My sister's house-- Rosh Hashanah eve.:The meal is finished. The Tsimmis is just settling in my stomach. 5775... a nice palindromic year.

“Hey Mike,” says my sister (the only person in the world who calls me Mike). “You want to watch some TV before you go to bed?”

Since I don't own a cable-connected TV, I figure why not? It'll teach me some references from Modern Culture^®. I can drop them in a column and people will think I'm up-to-date.

“Sure.” I tell her, settling myself in front of a TV that's bigger than my apartment. “What's on?”

“You'll love this show,” she says, flipping the channel to something called (I think) The Modern Family. It has all the current memes: the gay couple, the divorcees, the dysfunctional siblings. Shows like this are one of the reason I DON'T have cable TV. There's a scene... outside a restaurant... a guy and a girl-- she much younger, but still legal... his wife in the series, I think. He says something. She slaps him across the face, then grabs his chin and kisses him smack dab on the mouth. My sister laughs.

Could you imagine if the roles were reversed? Could you imagine an older man, slapping a younger woman across the face, then grabbing her chin and kissing her full on the mouth? The tyrants from Social Justice Warriors would be all over them. Boycott the sponsors! Shut 'em down. How could they allow... Violence against women!! Jeezus fuck! But this violence passes with a laugh.

What's the reality? Why is there a Violence Against Women bill, but not a Violence Against People bill? Why is the harassment of women in the military a more important issue than the military itself-- murdering hundreds of innocent people thousands of miles away?

Another YouTube video... this one of a hotel lobby. A young black woman hits a big black guy and they get in an elevator together. Flash to inside. Again the woman hits the guy... this time, he hits back. She's down. But what gets reported? RAY PRICE attacks his fiancée. Her initial violence isn't mentioned once (at least not that I've found).

Ray Price is found guilty of domestic violence. Not guilty in a legal court, but in the newsprint court... in the broadcast court... he's guilty. He's big and black so he MUST be guilty. Right?

“Hitting a woman is not something a real man does, and that’s true whether or not an act of violence happens in the public eye or, far too often, behind closed doors,” says President Obama.

Football to Get Tough on Domestic Abuse, headlines every paper in America. That is not EQUALITY. That is gender supremacy. This is Guilty until Proven... forget the proof! GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY.

Okay, let's get this straight. I HATE football. It is war in miniature... a glorification of organized violence. It's played by idiots and controlled by jocks. Yet people are surprised that football players are violent???? They're SUPPOSED to be violent. That's their job!

All that doesn't change EQUAL PROTECTION. Idiots have rights too! That includes the right to a trial and a presumption of innocence. It includes the right for both parties to say: FORGET ABOUT IT. IT'S OVER. LET'S MOVE ON!

But we won't move on. We'll run around in circles. Cheering violence, then condemning those who are violent (especially to women). It makes me sick. Excuse me while I run to the bathroom. Maybe I'll make it this time.

ENDNOTES: [You can contact me 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 by subscribing to the MYKEL'S READERS Yahoo group readmboard-subscribe@yahoogroups.com]

(Sorry buckaroos, no endnotes this time. The column, itself, takes up too many words this month. You can check out several endnote-type postings on my clippings blog.)

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