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/

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

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.

(MRR 354) The COLUMN THEY WOULDN'T PRINT

 



MAXIMUM ROCK'N'ROLL refused to print this column. That is their right. They did so without comment, or explanation. That is their wrong. If you disagree with their decision, or if you agree or if you have any other comment, please email  MRR at: mrr@maximumrocknroll.com. Thanks, Mykel

You're Wrong

An Irregular Column

(Mykel's Column for MRR 353, November... not printed)

by Mykel Board

"These self-anointed Protectors of the Overprotected endlessly yammer about breaking the "cycle of abuse," oblivious to the concept that imprisoning someone is a particularly vicious perpetuation of that cycle." --Jim Goad

"In a patriarchal society all heterosexual intercourse is rape because women as a group are not strong enough to give meaningful consent.” --Catherine MacKinnon

I'm madder than Putin at a Pussy Riot show. I get a letter from Amnesty International... one of the few charities I donate to. (Not counting the guys on the street with a cup. Them, I give to every day). A.I. fights torture and government abuse all over the world, usually without giving a fuck about ideology.

But now? What's the first paragraph of their appeal letter?:

I regret to inform you that more than a decade into the 21^st century, women and girls are still being raped, beaten, killed by family members and trafficked every day.

What the fuck?

Flash to Abu Ghraib prison: An Arab man lies naked, face up, on a sheet of plywood. His hands and feet are tied to the corners. He's stretched like someone ready to be drawn and quartered. Pulled tight over his face, a cloth immobilizes his head. An American soldier holds a giant watering can. He pours it down... over the man's face... into his nose and mouth. Involuntarily gasping for breath, the tied man inhales the water. His lungs fill. He gags... pukes... inhales his own vomit... chokes... then more water. It's like death... he wants to die.

Says Wikipedia: Waterboarding can cause extreme pain, dry drowning, damage to lungs, brain damage from oxygen deprivation, other physical injuries including broken bones due to struggling against restraints, lasting psychological damage and death. Adverse physical consequences can manifest themselves months after the event, while psychological effects can last for years.

Google Waterboarding Women and the only reports you'll see are people arrested for the CRIME of torturing women. For women, it's abuse. For men, it's business as usual.

Flash to 21^st century American laws linking Selective Service registration (compulsory military service) with getting a driver's license.

Here's the scoop:

Federal law (50 U.S.C. App. 451 et seq.) requires virtually all male U.S. citizens, as well as immigrant men residing in the U.S., to register with the Selective Service System (SSS) when reaching age 18. In an effort to ensure compliance among young men, many states have enacted legislation which links SSS registration with the process of applying for a driver's license or state identification card.

MEN, get it? Check out the war reports. When they talk about horrors... evils... who gets mentioned? Women and children, of course. Killing men? It's all in a day's work.

The Amnesty International letter has a PS that says:

Mr. Board, (I HATE being called MR. BOARD) when you hear of girls in Sierra Leone being genitally mutilated against their will... I'm sure you think “What can I do to help?”

Jeeezus fuckin' Christ. BOYS are genitally mutilated against their will in the U.S... thousands every day. It's called circumcision. And is there a PEEP against it? Maybe, but not from Amnesty International.

And don't give me this shit that it's different because boys only loose the tips and girls have to give up the whole shebang. That's wrong! With very few exceptions (and these are evil, I'll grant that), so-called female circumcision is just that. The equivalent of female foreskin. Snip. Snip. Gone. That's it... not the whole kit and caboodle. In any case, it's certainly as painful and as involuntary in boys as in girls.

Even this punkrock magazine is guilty of survivor syndrome... at least the letters section.

I sit on the toilet, a beer shit survivor, reading a letter from a woman who is an inappropriate touching survivor. I don't have the exact quote, but it doesn't matter. Just the idea of a touching survivor should make you puke.

You name it, and some female is a SURVIVOR: a cancer survivor, survivors of “Intimate Partner Violence,” domestic violence survivors, an alcohol abuse survivor, a partner of alcohol abuse survivor, sexual harassment survivors, and, of course, touching survivors.

Some feminists (see the Catherine MacKinnon quote at the beginning of this column) believe every woman who has ever had sex with a man is a rape survivor. Oy vey!

Listen buckaroos, if you get through someone calling you a name... you are NOT a survivor. If someone touches you in the wrong place... you are NOT a survivor. If someone shows you dirty pictures at work... you are NOT a survivor. If some construction worker makes sucking sounds when you walk past... you are NOT a survivor.

FLASH TO THE TURN OF 21^st THE CENTURY: I stand on the sidewalk in front of Sophie's bar... fishin' for drinks. The NY SCUM cassette just came out. It's a documentary of a CBGB scumrock festival. I'm the head producer, yah dee dah... man of the hour... now buy me a drink.

Also hangin' out are now columnist George Tabb, and then columnist Jane Guskin.

“Hey George,” I say, resting my arm on his shoulder, “pretty good cassette huh?”

“I'm not buying you a drink, Mykel,” he says.

How'd he know I was gonna ask?

Behind me I hear a voice... loud... threatening.

“Where's Mykel fuckin' Board?” it says.

I turn.

BLAM! A fist to my jaw. I'm down... lying fetally on the sidewalk. CABLOOEY! A boot to my ribs. I curl deeper into the helpless position. Above me is TC, a local who did some postering and organizing for the scumrock festival. He wants money from the tape... for his work... for his effort... I should pay him from the tens of dollars I got from ROIR for producing the cassette.

His foot draws back for another boot to the ribs. I tense. A pair of legs appears between TC's boot and my chest.

“STOP! NO!” shouts the voice belonging to the woman ofthe legs. It's Jane.

“NOW STOP IT!” she yells.

TC cowers... mumbles something... walks away.

In this culture, it's okay for guys to whack away at one another. You gotta be good with your fists. If you don't fight back, you're a sissy. (I'm a sissy.) But girls? Oh no, you should never hit a girl! You just can't hit a girl. That's abuse. It worked for me. Thanks Jane!

Jane is my hero... my heroine. But I'm not in danger of dying.

I was punched and kicked, but I'm a punching-kicking VICTIM at best... not a survivor.

[Note: Being punched or kicked repeatedly by someone you live with does not make you a domestic violence survivor... It makes you an idiot. Get the fuck out of there!]

I am neither a jock-itch nor a hemorrhoid survivor, though I've had both.

Survivors are people who barely beat death and live to tell about it. Those guys tortured in Guantanamo Bay... THEY are survivors. Pakistani families that live through American bombing... THEY are survivors. George Tabb who lived through the World Trade Center attacks and had half his intestines removed because of the aftermath poison air... HE is a survivor.

Foreigners (almost all MEN) forced into the US army to kill in Afghanistan or Pakistan or who-knows-where's-next-stan... THEY are survivors.

[Note: Many U.S. courts give political and economic refugees (men only) the choice of possible death by entering the US military and killing Afghanis... or returning to their home country to a more certain death. Which would you choose?]

FLASH TO NOW: I sit at my desk in nothing but my underpants... boxer briefs. I type with my left hand as the thumb of my right hand digs into my right nostril... fishing out the discomfort. As a booger survivor, I know the strain, heartbreak and suffering of intranasal offal.

I'm thinking about the victims of the Christian shootings at the batman movie in Colorado. And how about the one at the Sikh temple in Wisconsin? People killed. People survived.

[Note: with one exception ALL the mass shootings and other terrorist murders in the last 20 years have been by CHRISTIANS! Why don't the NY cops have a Christian task force? Why aren't they monitoring churches? Infiltrating the Salvation Army? Don't they understand Christianity is a VIOLENT religion? It's very symbol, the cross, is a weapon of death!]

I'm wondering what those who lived through the Sikh attacks... those with bullets in various body places... with friends and family killed or maimed... I'm wondering what they think of survivors of inappropriate touch.

A bubble of gas rises in my bowels. I can feel it on the lower right side... it rises up crosses from right to left... settles above my anus where I blow it out in a burble... a very long burble. As a flatulence survivor, I know I need to make adjustments, to get beyond my pain and get on with my life.

FLASH TO NEWSPRINT: As if survivoritis weren't bad enough, the same issue of MRR as the I-was-touched letter has an interview with some NYC group whose job it is to help survivors. 

Now, if some one is injured, raped, beaten, shot, they need support. I'm happy that people volunteer to help... though from the sound of this one it's women only as victims... er... survivors, and men as perpetrators. But that's not the worst of it.

Oh no, one of the prime functions of this group is not help, but REVENGE. Helping the victim... er... survivor is not enough. But they've got to PUNISH the perpetrator. Give 'em the old backhand. Put 'em in jail. Break 'em. Let 'em get raped by some big stud. That'll cure them of their violent thoughts, right?

Jeezus fuckin' Christ! Prison BUILDS rapists. Your push for revenge MAKES MORE VIOLENCE. (Please don't call it justice. That's what everyone calls revenge.)

Girls, if you don't like being touched, slap that hand. If you want to prevent violence and abuse then act like Jane acted when she bravely stood between me and that kicking boot. More than anything, learn to defend yourselves... to fight back like I never did. That's VICTORY. There's no survivor about it.

ENDNOTES: [email subscribers (god@mykelboard.com) or blog viewers (mykelsblog.blogspot.com/) will get live links and a chance to post comments on the column. Your zines, Cds/records, and... er... private videos... can and should be sent to me at: Mykel Board, POB 137, Prince Street Station, New York NY 10012]

-->A horse is a horse, of course, of course dept: The Progressive Magazine reports that Rafalca, the Romney's horse, costs about $29,000 a year in housing. The average American family spends %16,000 on housing. Hey, turn that barn into cheap accommodations. The horse? Dinner for ten!

-->Are they news agency survivors? dept: Reuters reports that The Japanese Atomic Energy Agency devoted a page on its website on how to "make the hard words used in the nuclear power industry easier to understand, particularly for women."

-->Another report about America's worst hip company dept: Democracy Now says that two Iranian Americans in Georgia were barred from making purchases at local Apple stores. Why? Employees overhead them speaking Farsi. Apple employees cited US export laws on Iran to justify their actions.
          My question: How the fuck did the shlubs who work at Apple identify FARSI when they heard it?

-->Makes perfect sense dept: As I write this, the Presidential campaign wages on. It's as predictable as the hate mail from this column.
       Romney has just named Paul Ryan as his running mate. Ryan is a handsome right-wing lunatic, who likes Rage Against The Machine. He's a wacko who Romney picked for the same reason Obama said he supported gay marriage. Gotta shore up the fringes... balance the ticket. Conservatives would stay away from Romney like Lefties from Obama. Gotta have some bait to bring 'em back to the fold. Let's hope it fails... on both sides.

        Jill Stein already won the Green Party nomination. Her running mate is another woman... a great fuck you to “balancing the ticket.” They've got my vote. Maybe after November, Stein and her running-mate will call themselves election survivors.