TOXIC or You're STILL Wrong, Mykel's Blog Sept 2021

 

You're Still Wrong: Mykel's  September  Blog... Toxic 

 

You’re STILL Wrong

or
Mykel's

September 2021 Blog/Column

A Toxic Environment!

by Mykel Board

“I’m not perverted, I’m just Italian.” --Andrew Cuomo

“No one should ever work.” --Bob Black

“Capitalism is slavery where the slaves have to pay their own room and board” –Mykel Board

“I had complained to friends that the Governor would go out of his way to touch me on my lower back, arms and legs” --Lindsey Boylan

=======================

“I can’t breathe!”

“Quick, clean out his nose… I can see it... filled with coal dust. He’ll smother!”

Cough… answer, “I’m not putting my fingers in another man’s nose! That’s disgusting.”

“He’ll die! Get it? He’ll die!”

Virgil knees on the filthy mine floor. Tentatively, he puts an index finger into Homer’s left nostril… scrapes it around… pulls it out… black with snot and coal dust.

“Now the other one, fast!”

Virgil pushes his finger into the right nostril of the man under him… twists… then back… and again loosens a pile of black dust. The tip of his finger is coated when he pulls it out of the man’s nostril.

“Now push on his chest… hard… make him breathe.”

Virgil puts a hand on either side of Homer’s chest… pushes hard… again… a thin stream of black drool oozes out of the corner of Homer’s mouth. Another chest press… another black drool down the side of the man’s face… then a cough… then another cough. Tears run from the corners of his eyes to the black ground beneath his head.

“He’s gonna make it. We’ll fix up a side-tipper and get him out of here on the tracks. The fresh air will bring him back.”

“Can’t we get him a doctor?”

“Are you kidding? The boss’d kill us! That’s just what we need... a safety-hazard report at some fuckin’ hospital. Joe Biden already wants to shut us down.”

FLASH TO a huge farm... hundreds of acres... somewhere in the West...strawberries. Bare-handed and bare-headed... dozens of workers bent over… stooped,,, to pick the berries. They too cough.

“Ay, madre-mia,” says a 22-year old Maria, just starting to show her pregnancy. She coughs.

“No puedo hacerlo mas. Voy a morir,” she coughs again. It’s the Round-up… pesticide...carcinogenic… dangerous to a fetus as well as to the mother.

No time to worry about cancer now... earn that $7500 for a year’s work. Bend and pick… bend and pick… bend and pick.

Ay, me duele la espalda,” she says.

“Shhh!” says the next worker. “Screw your back pain. You want to pay for that baby? You want to get pushed back to Mexico? Don’t complain! At least you have a job.”

She doesn’t know it yet, but she also has cancer. Her baby will be stillborn. 

And there’s this, directly from the internet

Amazon delivery drivers are reporting working ten to fourteen hours in a shift. This is in part because drivers are not allowed to return any packages from their routes, meaning drivers can make over 160 stops per shift.

With the Mentor app constantly monitoring drivers, every stop has to be accounted for. That leaves most drivers with no time to use the restroom on their ten hour shifts. Drivers need to use public restrooms such as ones inside grocery stores, so if their route does not include an area that has such a location, drivers have to make a long detour that could cost them their job. Because of these strict measures, drivers report using empty water bottles in their vehicles instead of stopping to use the restroom

LeRoy Jackson’s truckseat has molded itself to his ass. He spends nearly 14 hours a day there. On the floor, in front of the passenger seat… in a basket… half-filled with piss… is a jar. It’s that time again.

Pull over… hate to waste a minute or so… but if you gotta go… Could do with a shit too… but this rig’s got spyware up the ass. Too long stopped… not making deliveries… and you’re outta there.

Just a quickie… pull over… pull it out… just over the lip of the jar. Aaahh aaaahhh, shit. Filled the jar, spilled all over the place… and I got a delivery… 17 minutes to make it… computer checked. .. Better pull out... haul ass… Now!

Off the shoulder... into traffic… fuck!!! Nooo! Nooo!!!! BLLLLANNNNG!

Ellen’s face hurts from smiling. Bad jokes… send it back to the kitchen… too cold… too hot… “Miss… excuse me Miss!” She smiles. On her feet all day… rushing from table to table… balancing enough dishes to compete with a circus juggler… She smiles. $2.13 an hour, the U.S. minimum wage for tipped workers. (Look it up) plus what the cheapskates leave on the tables… That’s it. She smiles.

On her feet all day, Ellen comes home beat… ready to go to sleep… to hit the hay. She’s working six days a week to pay the $2000 a month she needs for her one-room NYC apartment. On the seventh day, she barely moves.

She puts up with the tugs on her skirt… the food complaints… the no tips for bad food as if she were personally responsible for the cooking. Sometimes she can wiggle her ass for a few extra dollars… or wink at a regular who stands so close to her when he speaks that she feels the saliva spray on her face. His handlebar mustache and affected cape make him look like a magician. If only he’d disappear. He’s there every day and she wants to kill him.

She’s a robot, she thinks. Same thing… day after day… no… I guess not... robots don’t collapse exhausted. Back to work… “Hey miss,” the tug on the skirt… the wrist-grab of the customer when she hands him the bill… the smile she gives in return. 

Hey you! Got it? Yeah you… you Karen… you whiner who thinks that being touched on the back is toxic. People die from their jobs… lung cancer, skin cancer, exhaustion… death… That’s toxic. Having a brain-dead job just to pay the rent. That’s toxic. Working with coal, asbestos, insecticide… that’s REALLY toxic.

But for you… another person touches you?… eeeewwww cooties. Joking about boyfriends? Intolerable! The job conditions have to fit YOU rather than the other way around.

Those at the bottom… the miners, the truck drivers, the waitresses... can’t just quit and find another job like you can… They die from work or they die from hunger… or a firing squad in a nation you can’t imagine. Or they suffer for two dollars an hour or whatever else they can squeeze out of people they hate.

Let me tell you… You fragile little Faberge egg… YOU are the toxic one. You are the one who has others shaking in their Nordstroms from fear of saying the wrong thing or touching you any more than shaking hands… and even that… don’t you just bump elbows these days? Doing push-ups? Oh, the horror!

Yeah you… You know how many people WISH they could get a $20,000 raise by fucking the boss? And you’re complaining that he asked.

Andrew Cuomo is rich enough to find other things to do. But how much fear is he bringing with him anywhere he goes. How much do John and Jane Doe fear from doing or saying anything inappropriate?

All jobs are bullshit. It’s the nature of work. Yours isn’t hunky dory? Then quit and get another bullshit job. Work 60 hours a week shifting ones and zeros from one computer to the next. As long as no one speaks to you.. or (Goddess forbid) touches you… you’re okay. Then the work isn’t toxic, right?

You wear a skirt and high heels to work… and (get this!) he looks at you!! How will you ever recover?

Do me a favor. Sniff some asbestos before you go to sleep. Do it often enough and you’ll learn a bit about toxic.

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]

–> Can’t find a webpage dept: A great story on the deteriorating conditions in the mining business appears in In These Times the September 2021 issue. I can’t find it on-line, so try to get a print copy. Called Dying To Make A Living, the coal conditions the article reports on are just horrible. 
          Wait, a reader, Don Smith, has found a link to the article. Here it is: https://inthesetimes.com/article/contracted-coal-miners-illinois-injury-danger

–> Dying for a job dept: The World Economic Forum reports that more than 2.3 million workers die every year as a result of occupational accidents or work-related diseases. That’s the entire population of Houston, Texas... killed every year from WORK. The alternative? Ah, how many times have I referenced this? You should have it memorized by now.

–> Evil Governor dept: While the women of America are sticking their pins in Cuomo dolls, the former governor has used his last days in office to grant pardons to 22 immigrants who were at risk of being deported. "New York stands strong in our support for immigrant communities," Cuomo wrote in a statement.

–> Not related dept: This one is from the Darwin Awards… that distinguished group of intellectuals who award the prize to those who clean up the future of the human race by offing themselves in their stupidity. I like this one it because it highlights another pet peeve! Cellphone fuckin’ selfies. Besides describing the awardee’s adventures, the Darwin folks offer some great advice:

25 March 2017, Mexico: Standing on a truck on an airport runway, our Double-Darwin Award Winners, Nitzia and Clarissa, chose a regrettable location for a cell phone selfie. Ms. Corral, 18, and Ms. Miranda, 17, were attending horse races that were held on a track adjacent to the runway. The noise of the races and the desire for a new profile picture distracted the young women. They did not hear the motor of the descending aircraft, and the wing of the small plane that struck and killed them instantly.

People, wake up to the plain hard fact that a mobile phone is a deadly distraction! Mobile devices take our awareness away from the physical world, and the Darwin Awards archives are stuffed overflowing with testimony proving the tragic truth of this.

Cell phones will kill you! Put them away and allow your senses to receive input from tangible reality. Please share this regrettable cautionary lesson, a public service announcement, #yourdeathmatters

–>Speaking of cellphones dept: Apple will be putting spyware in its operating system. Ostensibly to combat kiddie porn, the spyware will be looking at your pictures and videos and reporting any nastiness it sees to “the proper authorities.” And what will it be doing with the information it gleans from those non-kiddie pix? Hey, what a coincidence, that Antifa demonstration I just filmed showed up at the FBI. Imagine that? How did that happen?
The Electronic Frontier’s details on this are here.

See you in hell, redux,

MB

LINK TRADE DEPARTMENT:

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

Here's a start:

Here’s Richard Goldberg: goldberg.wordpress.com

Poetry and humor fans will like Justin Martin in The Latency

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

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

Andy Shelton has an interesting blog here.

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

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

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

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

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

Here are a couple video links.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You’re STILL Wrong Mykel's October 2018 Blog/Column "The Sermon"

You’re STILL Wrong
or
Mykel's October 2018 Blog/Column
I’m Sorry, You’re Forgiven

[I write this blog 3½ hours into my Yom Kippur fast. As usual, I am doing no work during the fast. For me… work is anything having to do with money… Today, I allow myself only to write, clean my apartment, and prepare for my month and a half in India.]

Barefoot, dressed in itchy sack cloth, I enter The Holy of Holies to pray for my congregation. Around my waist is a rope… the other end dragging outside. If I faint, or lose my balance, the congregation can pull me to safety without having to enter this place themselves. Only I-- head priest/rabbi- am allowed inside.

Only me… and G-d. I bet they’re all thinking it’s a massive golden room with dancing girls … and jugs of wine stamped from grapes… barefoot by naked angels. Emeralds, rubies, adorning human skulls… cups for the wine.

Sorry to disappoint you. It’s just a bunch of rocks… just a place for me and G-d to talk things over. For me to get straight with G-d… to confess my sins… and the sins of the congregation. That time I ran out on the poor drunk girl… just left her in the club to fend for herself because I couldn’t stand her dragging on me. Then there was taking advantage of my sister… not that way… but in a more perverse way… exercising my penchance for stirring up shit… I pushed her Israel buttons… more interested in being right than in being compassionate. Then there was that guy on the subway… walking car to car… showing off his disfigured legs… legs, he said, scarred in a motorcycle accident… unable to take care of… blah blah blah… I clicked my tongue and felt annoyed that he was keeping me from my reading. Then there was me… sitting at a table with others… having a discussion… but not discussing… only waiting… not listening… not learning from the people around me… but only waiting to bust in… have my say… preach what I already know. Then there was that girl… the shiksa… on her hands and knees… whimpering… “Yes, you can do it Mykel… but please… be gentle… I have hemorrhoids.” I wasn’t gentle. The list goes on.

This confession is easier than it would be if I were to make it in anyone else’s presence. G-d shows no judgement… just a simple nod of the head for each sin… and a patient wait for the next one. After my sins come the sins of my congregation… much longer and more perverse than mine. I feel faint... out of breath... wonder if I’m going to collapse and need to pulled out by the rope. I continue… there’s a sin for every letter of the alphabet. Oy vey! And then I’ve got to come out and give a sermon. Why can’t I just have a little Manischewitz and some matzoh balls and be done with it? Wrong holiday.

Holy of Holies

We have a deal... G-d and me... Since she can only forgive me for sins against her (working on the Sabbath, saying Goddammit, stuff like that) she takes my other forgiveness requests and holds 'em until I'm forgiven by the people I actually sinned against.

The deal works like this: If I forgive everyone who did bad stuff to me... and THEY forgive everyone.. then we can have a whole set of slates... all wiped clean. But I gotta go back more than a year... who knows who I missed in the past.

Those guys who mugged me from a bicycle in Mexico city... You're forgiven. That girl who fucked my friend on my bed when she was supposed to be apartment sitting for me... You're forgiven. My friend who fucked that girl on my bed when she was supposed to be apartment sitting for me... You're forgiven. Those big guys in the East Village who stole my black leather jacket.... You're forgiven. My parents who made me cut the lawn in Hicksville, even though I had hay fever... You're forgiven. The cops who tear gassed me at the Chicago Democratic Convention in 1968... You're forgiven. The guy who punched me in the face for not having a cigarette... sent me to the hospital for stitches in my lip... You're forgiven. That guy... I forget his name... the one that didn't tell me about his anal wart... You're forgiven. That girl who threw a chair at ARTLESS, knocking over our crippled drummer and nearly breaking my leg in the deal... You're forgiven. The editrix who fired me from Maximum Rock'n'Roll for not using an asterisk in a taboo word.... That's a tough one... but you're forgiven. The list does not end there.

But finally I’m done. G-d smiles, wishes me well, says “All is forgiven” (At least that’s what I THINK she says… My Hebrew is lousy.) And I head out to give my drasha (sermon).

I adjust my tallis and clear my throat before starting. My right testicle itches like hell, but in front of a congregation of yarmulkes I fight the urge to scratch. I lose the fight.

“Fellow Jews,” I begin. “I forgive you.”

Stephen Miller

“If there’s anything lacking in America in 2018 it is forgiveness. It is the ability to say… okay, it’s over. You fucked up and that was then and this is now.”

“In this age of cellphone ubiquity every time you scratch your balls it’s recorded and posted on Twitter. Every OK sign becomes a flash of WHITE POWER! Even if the flasher isn’t white.

“Trump adviser Stephen Miller flashed the sign in back of Kavanaugh. Yeah right, take a look! He’s fixing his tie! Even Snopes says it’s bullshit.

“I say it's likely not true, but even if it is... He's forgiven.

“Another sign was “flashed” by Zina Bash, a Jewish-Mexican American. Just resting her arm on her hand. BANG! She’s “flashing racist signs.”

“People are so quick to judge… so unable to forgive…

“Well, intentional or not... she's forgiven.

“Forgive… When we think of for we usually think of fore... BEFORE. But here it means completely not... like forego. When we forgive, we completely give up the idea of punishment… of retribution… or guilt. We forget about past sins, mistakes, errors, malice. We put a fresh coat of paint over the toilet wall of phone numbers and graffitied vaginas.

Zina Bash flashing signals

“Forgiveness is built into the law. That’s why we have statutes of limitation. People change. Sins of youth… of passion of the moment… of immaturity… they’re over… forgiven. We’re allowed to make mistakes and move on.

“Yes, fellow penitents, America… and maybe the world… has a huge grudge-on. There is no MORE forgiveness… especially with mistakes made about sex! My fellow circumsizees… is there anyone among us who has not lusted… who has not poured that extra drink in hopes of nookie payback? Is there any one of us who has not pressed too hard or begged BUT PLEASE... hoping to G-d NO didn’t really mean NO?

“Yet when an Alabaman runs for the Senate… one with a POLITICAL record (as reported by Wikipedia) as an advocate of far-right politics. He attracted national media attention and controversy over his views on race, homosexuality, transgender people, and Islam, his belief that Christianity, as interpreted by him, should order public policy,and his past ties to neo-Confederates and white nationalist groups. Ray Moore was a leading voice in the birther movement, which promoted the false claim that former President Barack Obama was not born in the United States.

“But for what was he unforgiven? For encouraging his three pack to be touched 30 YEARS EARLIER! No forgiveness there. He denies the allegations. I say it doesn’t matter. There is a moral statute of limitations. We have to FORGIVE. We have to allow people to move on in their lives to paint those toilet walls. I… opposed Moore for his CURRENT beliefs… for his political platform… But I supported him in the name of forgiveness…. I emailed a letter to him showing that support. I wrote about this before.

“Now there’s Brett Kavanaugh, on tap to be a Supreme Court Justice. In 2009, the guy wrote: "Congress might consider a law exempting a President -- while in office -- from criminal prosecution and investigation, including from questioning by criminal prosecutors or defense counsel." And he’s appointed by a president under investigation! Just awful.

“There are a ton of things… opinions… judicial things... to oppose the guy on… but what happens? HIGH SCHOOL! Decades earlier some one claims he put his hand over her mouth. Rape? Naw! Physical injury… fuggeddaboudit. He put his hand over her mouth and rubbed up against her. 30+ years ago! What the fuck? My fellow Jews… are there any of us who have not done something in High School that we regret… that we’re sorry for? We were TEENAGERS! Stupidity and aggression is in the nature of teendom. Forgive it!

“Kavanaugh, who had my opposition for a host of legal, moral and judicial issues… now has my support in the name of FORGIVENESS. I hope he gets the job.

“When we talk about HATE GROUPS… what better criteria for hate than lack of forgiveness? If we find an offense-- real or imagined-- and we hold a grudge... refuse to let it lie. Refuse to delete those pictures on our iPhones… then we hate.

“So, Ray Moore, Brett Kavanaugh, you have my support. Not to do so would make me a part of a very large hate group. It’s Yom Kippur, everyone is forgiven. I don’t hate anyone at all.

“My the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing in your sight, oh G-d, my Rock and my Redeemer. Amen.”

-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]

-→Repeat repetition Dept: I know this column is very similar to one I wrote recently about REVENGE. Like the news… sometimes I repeat myself. Like the news… sometimes I repeat myself.

    My life is not so novel at the moment… but that will soon change. In a few days, I leave for 6 weeks of travel to INDIA. Especially, I’ll be in Mumbai (the locals call it Bombay) and Delhi… old and new. Any advice, contacts, warnings, band or food recommendations would be much appreciated.

     You can email me at the above address, or post to my India facebook page. I hope to hear from you. I’ll also be posting regular updates in my travel blog.

-→Speaking of the White Power sign: Ever since the guys at 4Chan – the Yippies of the right-- noticed that Donny Trump often gestures with the OK sign, they’ve made it their business to convince the world that the sign means “White Power.” I don’t think there’s a group of bigger suckers than the totalitarians from both sides. They see, Commies, Russians, Secret signs, dirty immigrants, conspiracy this, conspiracy that, around every corner and under every bed. So, in order to stoke the ovens of the GREAT CONSPIRACY, here’s my contribution (guaranteed REAL PICTURE… NOT PHOTOSHOPPED) to the conspiracy:

--> More on teens Dept: Two 13-year old boys were charged with Sexual Harassment for slapping the asses of two 13 year old girls. Slapping the asses!!! Jeezus! Who HASN'T slapped or been slapped... It's a high school ritual, and watch any baseball or football game for more. These guys could go to jail for 10 years!!! Just incredible! I don't even think there's enough even to ask forgiveness for... except for the girl's parents who are proceeding with the ridiculous charges.

→Huh? Dept. I happened to catch this on some website or other. Seems to be an official tweet from the Lake Tahoe police warning people not to leave “scented items” in their cars in bear country. Ok, makes sense to me. Bears are hungry, they may do some damage trying to get in. (Though I’m surprised they instagram the results of their actions.) But what doesn’t make sense is BEAR CANISTERS. My spellcheck keeps trying to correct it to BEER CANS. Maybe it’s a special term that locals know but the rest of us are ignorant about. Check it out yourself…. It’s BEAR CANISTERS.

-end-

LINK TRADE DEPARTMENT:

I read that 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
• I post a blog for Kyle Nonnemon, in prison for a ton of shit. He's a smart guy, with a passion for industrial metal and a general detestation of humankind. You can read his blog at: apothelema.blogspot.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.
• 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.
• And my long-term pal Sid Yiddish contributes with his Mishegas Master Blog.

CONTACT REDUX: 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.