My Last Day or You're Still Wrong... Mykel's February 2023 Blog

 

My Last Day or Mykel's February  2023 Blog

  

My Last Day

or You're STILL Wrong,

Mykel's February 2023 Blog

by Mykel Board

That's what moving about, traveling, is; it's this inexorable glimpse of existence as it really is during those few lucid hours, so expectional in the span of human time, when you are leaving the customs of the last country behind you and the other new ones have not yet got their hold on you.

--Louis Ferdinand-Celine

[NOTE: This blog is late because I’ve just returned from 6 weeks in Europe. (Fuck you UK, I’m including you in EUROPE! Wanna make somthin’ of it?) A lot has happened on the trip, but right now I want to focus on my last day.]

Ding ding deedle ding ding ding ding. Ding ding deedle ding ding ding ding. Ding ding deedle ding ding ding ding.

That fuckin’ wake-up tune on the cellphone. I don’t need it. I’m already awake. I can never sleep the night before a big trip. I try. Younglezbos.com and a shot of bourbon (Scotch in London)… does the trick most nights… except the night before the return trip to New York.

It’s freezing. The Brits believe in equality… not human equality, of course. They have a royal family, for fuck’s sake. But temperature equality. If God says it’s hot outside, then it has to be hot inside. If God says it’s cold outside, then it has to be cold inside. It’s below freezing outside… inside, my testicles have pulled themselves up into my body… to their ancestral home… anything to get warm.

I feel the cold in my chest… my back… my muscles tense… fighting it. I pull my pants up from the floor, underneath the down duvet… and slip… one leg at a time... into them. I sleep in a t-shirt, boxers, socks… with the heater on full blast... as close to the bed as it can be. Now I slip on my new down vest... under the covers... over my t-shirt. Then to the bathroom… even colder than the bedroom… pissing snowflakes into the ecotoilet.

Downstairs for a cup of coffee… careful not to overfill the kettle… a full kettle takes a full minute more to boil… electricity is expensive, don’t you know? Especially here.

My hosts are more awake than I am. Already sitting around the kitchen table… having tea not coffee. This is England, for God’s sake.

Looking out the back window, I see frost and the remains of yesterday’s snowfall. It would be beautiful, if it weren’t so damn cold. It’s 9 AM.

Anant is due to pick me up at noon. He wants to take me out for Peking Duck… my favorite food. There’s a place on the way to the airport… sort of. It’ll be our last meal together for some time.

I’ve got more stories about Anant. You might hear them later. He’s a pal I met in New York... at least 10 years ago. I’ve visited him in New York… in Bermuda…in India... now in England. About 30 years younger than me, I feel like his errant uncle.

Anant has a car. And, unlike my British hosts Claire and Alastair... who are my age and smiling through their own ailments to take care of me, Anant is as sound as a sitar. He runs marathons.

“Here are your housekeys,” I tell my hosts, handing them the keys. They trusted me this entire month... with their housekeys. There is even one like in those old movies where you look through the keyhole. The set allows me to come and go as I please. Would YOU trust me with YOUR housekeys? Their house is my house.

They want to cook me breakfast. Make me toast… welsh rarebit, cake from Claire’s birthday party yesterday. I decline, settling for another cup of coffee. I need to stay hungry for my duck lunch.

Right now, it’s back upstairs… pack my computer, my medicine bag, my dirty jeans now changed for a slightly cleaner pair… one not walked through the muddy banks of the Rhine.

The contents of my Ben Ten backpack (bought in India) and computer bag have expanded to an extra bag… filled with goodies for the folks back home. It takes me two trips to bring everything downstairs... close to the front door. I also have my heavy winter coat… an anathema here, as it is in tatters, and has a tendency to crush houseplants and wreck portable heaters.

By now it’s 11:45. Anant is one of the most punctual people I know. He should be here any minute now.

I open the front door… step out to look for him. He’s there, waiting in his car.

“Close the door, Mykel!” comes a shout from the kitchen.

“I can’t,” I shout back. “I don’t have the keys.”

“Close the door, Mykel,” comes a second shout from the kitchen… this one punctuated by a rasping cough.

“I can’t,” I cry again, feeling the pain I’m causing my host and hostess. But what can I do? I have to greet Anant, then take my bags out to the car and get in. How can I carry my bags through a closed door? And I have no key if I close it behind me.

By this time, my frozen hosts are pissed off enough to stomp into the hallway preparing to slam the door shut. Then, Anant appears.

“Oh,” says Claire, “he’s here. We thought you were just keeping the door open to look for him. Hello Anant, it’s great to see you again. Come on in and sit down.”

(Note: Anant is the perfect guest and perfect host… we’ll talk about that in a future blog. Everybody likes him, and he’s saved my ass more than once when I’ve faced a… er… sticky wicket situation.)

“I’d love to,” he says, “but I’ve got to get Mykel to his Peking Duck… and then the airport.”

He picks up Ben Ten and the computer bag. I carry the third bag… and before you know it we’re in the car.

Google tells us how to get to the duck place. Take the second right at the roundabout. Anant has it set for an American accent, but it still talks funny. What American would ever say “roundabout,” or ever “fuckin’ roundabout?”

We end up in North China… that’s the restaurant name. And, from my Japanese, I recognize the Chinese character for North.

“I know the second character means North,” I tell the waiter. “What does the other character mean?”

He looks at me… eyebrows narrowed… like I’m putting him on. Then, he smiles and tries to act nonchalant, as if you met a really rich, really stupid, person and had to indulge him.

“China,” he answers with a straight face.

Lunch is great. Peking Duck, and… an absence of vegetarian options…right up my meat-eating alley. I noticed on this trip that, even in Germany, there were more “vegetarian options” than there used to be. It’s such a fashion… like torn jeans and Doc Martins… except with more religious-type overtones.

After Peking Duck, we’re off again. Ms Google, with her American accent is guiding us past the lorries... through the roundabouts... onto the motorway.

As we drive, Anant explains my non-vegetarian options. “At the airport, I can pay for short-term parking,” he tells me, “and stay with you until you leave… or I can drop you off at the terminal.”

“How far will I have to walk with my bags?” I ask.

“We’ll be at terminal 4,” he says. “That’s the Virgin Atlantic terminal. If I drop you off, it’ll be right there. Even if you have to change gates or terminals you can easily change… except to Terminal 5. That’s the new one, British Airways exclusive... far away from everything and a pain in the ass to get to… but you’re not taking British Airways.”

“Okay,” I tell him, “just drop me off. It’ll save you some money and I’ll have less distance to go with my bags.”

“Terminal 4 drop off.” Anant tells Ms Google, “Virgin Atlantic.” She continues her directions.

I didn’t plan on taking Virgin Airlines. I HATE Virgin Airlines. I took them around 1990. The service was so bad… (I had to walk to the stewardess’s room to ask them for my dinner) and the flight was so late, I vowed never to take them again. So I booked my return trip from London with Delta… you guessed it. I got a ticket on a “partner airline”: VIRGIN fuckin’ AIRLINES.

So here we are, pulling into the parking lot at Terminal 4. There is a sign:

£5 service charge for drop offs…automatically billed to your license plate

Then there’s, VIRGIN ATLANTIC in huge letters on the side of the building. Anant helps me with my bags and we hug goodbye.

Inside the terminal is a line… a huge line… it snakes around the entire building 8 rows deep when you finally get to the ribbons and stanchions. Before that, the line passes some self-service machines, then to the lounge stairway on the other side of the terminal, then to the elevators where people exiting, just stand at the end of the line, making it longer...… There are hundreds of people… maybe a thousand.

I hate self-anything, except pleasure. I never use self-checkout at CVS. I don’t punch in my order at McDonalds. I use New Jersey gas stations that don’t have self-service. But I’m 3 hours early, and this line must be at least two and a half hours long. I head for the self-service check-in machines.

I slide my passport into the machine. It correctly identifies me and bids me hello. It asks for my flight number… I enter it. It asks if I’m checking any bags. I tell it NO. It asks me to wait. I wait.

SEE AGENT

Says the screen. I slam by fist against the machine, just missing that screen.

“I PUT MY PASSPORT ON YOUR FUCKIN’ SCREEN SO I WOULDN’T HAVE TO WAIT 2 HOURS TO SEE AN AGENT,” I yell at it.

A big man in a uniform begins walking toward me. I pick up my bags and walk to another uniformed attendant, standing and directing traffic.

“That machine told me to see an agent,” I tell her. “How do I do that.”

“You just get at the end of this queue,” she says, pointing toward the elevators.

By now the line passes the elevators and continues toward who-knows- where. Two hours pass before I reach the beginning of the roped, official line-standing line.

Another hour passes, and I’m beginning to wonder if I’ll miss my plane. There are still 4 long rows of people ahead of me in the check-in line.

Then there is a man… dark suit, white shirt and tie. He unhooks one of the ropes from a stanchion… near the start of the line. He slides forward… stepping sideways. 

Him: Anyone for the 6:15 flight to New York?
Me: Me
Him: Do you have a seat reservation?
Me: No.
Him: Come this way.

He pushes his way through the winding lines. Open the connecting ribbons.

“Please go to window 2 or 3,” he says.

It’s another line, shorter, but not moving. A young official-looking man behind the window talks to an older touristy-looking man with perfectly groomed gray hair.

I can’t hear what they’re saying, but the gray-haired man looks upset. From another window, a woman in a uniform comes to our little line and talks to the people in front. I can’t hear what they’re saying, but she runs off and returns several minutes later.

There is a pile of paper in front of the next window. I grab a sheet:

Suddenly, I find myself at the head of the line… talking to the guy behind the window.

Him: I see you’ve read the letter.
Me: Yes, but I don’t understand it.
Him: You cannot take the flight tonight. The plane is full.
Me: (I swallow)
Him: You have a choice. I can put you on a British Airways flight to Newark tonight. Or you can take a Virgin Atlantic flight tomorrow to your original destination.
Me: I’ve got to get out of here. This is crazy. I’ll go to Newark… anything.
Him: Just a moment sir, I need to see your passport.
Me: (I hand it to him)
Him: (types into the computer. There is a whirring sound. He hands me a piece of thick paper) Here is your ticket sir. You have to go to Terminal Five. You have a new flight on British Airways.
Me: Terminal Five??? How do I get there?
Him: Just go to the elevator over there. (He points to where the line used to start.) Instructions are on the wall.
Me: Will I have to wait on a huge line again at the other terminal?
Him: I’m sorry, sir. I don’t know the situation at other airlines.

The signs by the elevators explain that I need to take an airport train to terminal five. I can find the train by following other signs that say TO TERMINAL FIVE. My shoulders ache from carrying the bags and the backpack. Every step is painful… and there are a fuck of a lot of steps… Tunnel after tunnel... fork after fork... up stairs and downstairs. To the train… change trains… I somehow make it toTerminal 5.

The gate for my flight is not posted yet. I get a beer at the terminal bar… paying a ridiculous price… and not caring.

Then, a quick trip to duty free. A bottle of booze for me, and one for my landlord. (I give him one every year… for Chinese New Year.)

I check the schedule board. There it is, gate C62. I go through ticket check-in, take-off-your-belt security and come out the other end.

“How do I get to gate C62?” I ask a beautiful black woman, dressed like a stewardess.

She points to a tunnel in the opposite wall. Just follow the tunnels to the train to the C-section.

I do not make a C-section joke.

Through tunnels... up stairs... down escalators… through more tunnels… onto a train… two stops… through another tunnel… into the evil TERMINAL 5.

Not too long after, I’m on the plane. Way in the back, within smelling distance of the restrooms. At least I’m sitting down. In a plush seat… next to the window. A frail older woman sits in the middle seat next to me. Next to her, in the aisle seat, sits a monster: 9-feet tall... fat as a sumo-wrestler.

I know I’ll have to crawl over both these people to take a piss. I can already feel my bladder filling. Okay, I’ll read… keep my knees tight together... my book club book: The Unseen Body. 

It’s about medical stuff most people never talk about: shit, piss, snot, blood. Written by a doctor, It’s a revelation… I’m learning how much doctors are disgusted by the same things normal people are. Did you know your doctor does not like sticking his finger up your ass? Wow!

I try to turn on the overhead light. I find a lightbulb icon in the TV screen in front of me. I press it. The light over the giant’s seat turns on. He reaches up to try to operate it manually. I turn it off from my video screen. He settles down, probably thinking he fixed it himself.

I try reaching up to turn the light on manually. There is no manually. I reach across the old woman and tap the giant on the shoulder.

“Would you mind trying to turn on your light?” I ask him. “I think it’ll turn on my light. Just press the bulb icon on your screen.” I point with my chin.

He frowns, looks at the screen, presses the icon. Sure enough, the light comes on. I start the MUCUS chapter.

After an hour, dinner comes. I’d promised myself not to eat it because something has been making me sick every night around dinner time. I eat. I cough. I cough more… I puke up dinner… rinse repeat. I can’t figure if it’s the time of day, the eating itself or the booze that invariably comes with it.

Talk about disgusting! When I have these coughing fits, I run for the bathroom. Usually, I make it to the toilet in a blast of gags, lung loogies and more… the remains of a dinner eaten, along with beer, whiskey,.. splash out of me into the toilet… in great gobs… then again and again... every night… a little bit in the morning too. But in the evening and later, it strikes with such vengeance I expect it will kill me.

My nearly 5 weeks in Europe, my 34 days... my 816 hours...there has been scarcely an hour where by body hasn’t been bursting with the urge to fart, shit, sneeze or cough… especially cough. Covid test negative… had my flu shot… I’ve always had a weak lungs… especially the left one… but why now? The cold? The damp? The smokers? I don’t know but… excuse me while I fart….

So I’m skipping dinner tonight. Airline food? Chicken or a vegetarian salad? I like chicken, but airplane chicken? Besides, I feel sorry for the old lady next to me. I’d hate to puke in her lap.

“What would you like for dinner, sir? We have a choice of chicken or moussaka.” The steward is big… fat with a red beard.

Moussaka? Greek lamb and cheese? Oh yeah! Tasty as Peking Duck! I haven’t had moussaka in years. Oh boy!

“I’ll have the moussaka.” I tell him.

He hands me the tray:

I eat it anyway,,, It’s awful… served with an ice-cold bun and a cup of something that looks like the toilet after I get through a coughing fit. 

The plane lands in Newark with a thud. Being in the back,  I have to wait for the aisle ahead of me to clear. It’s about 11:30 by the time I enter the airport from the plane. I expect I will be strip-searched by an unattractive customs agent... then questioned about my duty-free booze… two liters, not the officially allowed two quarts. 

Pack on my back, computer bag, filled with books as well as the computer, headphones and other shit. Plus a bag filled with omiyage… mostly Belgian chocolate versions of the manneken pis.

I’ll be busted for kiddie porn! I know it!

None of that happens. The trip through immigration and customs is as easy as taking a beer shit. From there, it’s a free train from the airport to “the train station,” as if there were only one. From the train station $8 (old people’s discount) to Penn Station in New York. Then, a subway to Bleecker Street. Then HOME.

It’s 1:30 AM. I sit on my bed… coughing up a little vegetarian moussaka… and without even a first New York self-pleasure… I fall asleep.

See you in hell.

Mykel Board

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. It’s about How the courts keep the wrongfully convicted from proving their innocence. For many people, the idea of innocent until proven guilty, has been complete lost. You can find the article here.

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]

→ A big thanks and lots of love to my friends who helped me out in Europe: Claire and Alastair Jackson Bruce and Anant of this story in London, Randy with his piss-tour in Brussels, Rudolf and pal Nelma in Hamont (where?), Walter and Maria in Aachen, Couch-surfing pals Yechen and beau in London and Lucee and Nils in Germany, Claudio, Doris, and Birgit, also in Germany. Then there was the spectacular Carmella M and (separately, but also spectacular) Andy Martin of Unit and The Apostles, and Jamie also in London. Yeah that’s a fuck of a lot of people in a month. But that was the purpose of this trip. PEOPLE more than places.

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:

Video of the week: My long-time friend Sid Yiddish appears on a YouTube DatingGame-like video. Guess who wins the bachelorette!

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 Blog November 2019 or Life With Phil!

You’re STILL Wrong

or
Mykel's

November 2019 Blog/Column

Life With Nothing But A Groundhog

by Mykel Board

Pennsylvania is Philadelphia and Pittsburgh with Alabama in between.

--James Carville

I sit at the Midway, a rundown bar in Punxsutawney Pennsylvania. On one side of the sign outside it says: OPEN E ERY DAY, on the other side is WED. NITE WINGS. They haven’t had food of any kind for over a year.

Yeungling on tap is usually $1.75 a pint. Today it’s $2.25.

“What’s up with that?” I ask Marcy, the bartendress. [NOTE: I’ve been here a couple of weeks now, and have yet to see a MALE bartender… at any bar.]

“It’s an Octoberfest beer, Mykel,” she says, “costs more.”

$2.25 a beer is EXPENSIVE around here. [NOTE TO READERS WHO DO NOT LIVE IN MASSIVE GENTRIFIED CITIES: average cost of a beer in a Manhattan bar? $8]

I sit next to my pal Vincent. He has a doctorate in economics… used to teach business before the local college decided to become exclusively a culinary school.

Behind the bar, there are two huge TV screens. Bigger than you’d see at any sports bar in New York. On one screen is a hunting show. The bearded millennial compares rifles and crossbows… showing this and that dead deer… picking them up by the antlers and making their dead heads look right, then left.

Before we get to the meat of my bar visit, let’s zoom out… helicopter view…

Punxsutawney PA... famous one day a year, it sinks into depression for the other 364 days. The entire spirit of the town is the groundhog. There are groundhog statues everywhere… in all sizes. There’s groundhog beer, groundhog pizza, and the Weather Museum. The city motto is Weather Capital of The World. Maybe, but surely for only one day a year.

I’m here learning about small town America. What it’s like… what the people are like… how they think… how they live.

I thought I knew. I thought I grew up in a small town. Hicksville... yeah, that’s really the name of my hometown... has a population of 36,000. One Catholic high school, and one high school for normal people. It’s changed since I lived there… but when I did it was all white. For foreign food, we had Frank’s Alibi (Italian) and Long’s Chinese (later closed down for serving cat meat).

It took 45 minutes to take the train into THE CITY and another 45 minutes to take it back. My father did it every day… I did it on weekends. Some of my friends had cars and girlfriends and rarely left the county. We had a house with three bedrooms, an attic, and a basement.

I used to tell people I grew up in a small town on Long Island. A month in Punxsutawny has taught me there is a difference between a small town on Long Island and A SMALL TOWN IN AMERICA.

Take Jews. (I won’t say it.) In Hicksville, about ten percent of the population was Jewish. There was one synagogue in town… and half a dozen within ten miles. Hicksville High had the track system. Smart kids in Track One. Normal kids in Track Two. Dumb kids in Track Three. Most of the Jews were in Track One. The Poles and Italians in Track Two. The Irish in Track Three.

Up until Punxy, Hicksville was the SMALL TOWN I grew up in. Now I know I didn’t know jack shit about what that is. Hicksville is not a small town. It’s a suburb. A NEW YORK CITY suburb. It’s about as small town as East and West Egg… though much less opulent.

In Punxsutawney in 2019, there is one Jewish family. The nearest synagogue is 20 miles away… and on Yom Kippur there are fewer than 20 people in attendance.

“Punxsutawney is all bars and churches,” my landlady tells me.

I haven’t visited any churches, although some are beautiful… but the bars… that’s where I go to find out about the locals in any non-Muslim location. And believe me, Punxsutawney Pennsylvania is as non-Muslim as The Vatican.

What else can I tell you?

Well, people here are fat. I don’t mean overweight. I don’t mean obese by government standards. I mean HUUUUGE… MONSTER-SIZE… Three airplane seats width… asses from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia… especially the women. There are almost as many motorized wheelchairs as there are cars. It’s hard to know if people need them because

A. They’re too fat for their legs to support.

or

B. They’re so fat because they use the wheelchairs and never walk.

It doesn’t matter. People here are also kind… amazingly kind. My landlady drives me from one end of town to the other… and to several towns nearby... so I can explore the nooks and crannies of the local culture. Her husband walks with me through the back roads that lead to the train tracks that lead to trails that lead to grown over coke ovens… reclaimed by the woods after decades of non-use… overgrown remnants of richer coal-mining days.

Guys at the bars buy me a drink just to start a conversation. A woman at the historical society drives me to the nearest T-mobile facility… at least 90 miles away… so I can replace my recently deceased cellphone. Why did she drive me? BECAUSE SHE’S NICE… and people here are nice.

They smile and say hi to strangers on the street. Waitresses ask how I am. At the local beer, blues, and BBQ fest, a matronly woman warns me against the sour beer making a sour face. A writers’ group at the library asks me to join them for their monthly meeting. (Note: The quality of the writing among the group members is spectacular.)

FLASH BACK TO THE MIDWAY:

“Mykel,” says Vincent, “I got my bank statement in the mail yesterday. I have ten dollars in the bank. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“I’ll buy you a beer,” I tell him.

“That’s not it,” he says. “Marcy knows me… I have credit here...”

“One of the things you need,” I answer, “credit at the bar and a friend in the police force.”

“There are maybe half a dozen cops in Punxsutawney,” he says,. “They pick up drunks. Who needs ‘em as friends? I need a job.”

“You’re a PhD!” I say. “You can’t find a job? Why don’t you tutor?”

“The school here is a small school,” he answers. “The department heads don’t like me. And there’s nowhere else to go.”

The door to the bar opens and a man in his mid-forties comes in. Ruffled blond hair, an unintentional beard, dirty t-shirt, jeans and work boots. People say “Hi Ernest,” as he passes them to sit at the bar.

“Hi Ernest,” I say as he passes me.

He looks at me… squints… “Do I know you?”

“I’m in town for a month… doing some research… I’m going to be writing about the town… or at least using the town as a setting for something I’m writing.”

“Oh,” he says, shaking my hand. “You’re that guy.”

I smile.

“You have an unfair advantage,” I say. “Tell me about yourself.

He sits down on a barstool on the other side of me from Vincent. Marcy brings him a Bud Lite.

“I used to work in the coal mines,” he says. “I had an accident… cracked my spine… was in the hospital for a month… then almost a year in a wheelchair. After I got through with physical therapy, I got a new job.”

“What do you do now?” I ask.

“I’m a roofer,” he answers.

“You like danger, huh?”

He laughs.

“I like working with my hands… being outside now… looking up at the beautiful blue sky… ”

“I know,” I tell him, “I LOVE the blue sky here. Any direction, as long as it’s up… blue… blue… blue. In New York, we’re lucky if we get ten minutes of blue sky a week.”

He shakes his head.

“I just like standing on the roof, looking up… the sun, the sky, nothing between me and them.”

“I get it,” I say, “and I love it. New Yorkers would never notice a blue sky. They all walk with their heads down, nose to their iPhones… blocking anyone who really has a place to go… If, by some miracle of awareness, they realized the sky was blue, they wouldn’t look at it. They’d just hold their iPhones up to take a picture.”

He laughs again.

“Watcha been doing in town?” he asks me.

“Taking in the sights,” I tell him. “I walked along the back trails and saw the coke ovens… or what’s left of them”

“Obama did that,” says Ernest. “He just shut ‘em all down.”

“That’s not fair,” answers Vincent. “That started a long time before Obama… he was just the latest in the move.”

“Let me tell you, Mykel,” says Ernest. “Before Trump I didn’t have a job. After Trump I do have a job. That’s what you’ve got to know. We all thank him for that.”

Yes, this is Trump country. And it’s white… Fox TV-watching… gun-owning America. And the people here are great. Here, like in bars everywhere, they gossip and talk politics. And boy, do I have a fuck of a lot to learn from them.

BANG!

Can you tell me what the fuck a constitutional crisis means if you have ten dollars in the bank? Can you explain what collusion is if the coal mines… where you and your father and his father worked for years… have gone out of business?

Can you clarify obstruction of justice when the stores on Mahoning St. (the main drag) are empty, and jobs (low-paying, long hours) have started to come back to the city just after the last presidential election?

It should be a requirement… every city slicker should be forced to sit down with the locals in a small town in Pennsylvania… or Wisconsin… or Indiana. And they should be forced to SHUT UP AND LISTEN!

The locals are not interested in conspiracy theories... on how some Russian Putin agent is hiding under every bed… remote controlling every voting machine… beaming secret signals directly into a receiver embedded in Donald Trump’s hair. They don’t care if Trump paid off a whore… or if his skin looks orange under LED lights. They have closer --more important-- things to worry about.

Back in New York:

Ah, looks like we’re finally going to get rid of that orange guy… impeach… he’s trampling on the Constitution… of course he does… Putin told him to… all roads lead to Putin.

I sigh and shake my head. “You’ll never get it,” I don’t say.

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. Back blogs and columns are at https://mykelsblog.blogspot.com. Subscribe to the MYKEL'S READERS Yahoo group readmboard-subscribe@yahoogroups.com]

-→A shit solution is a good solution dept: Springfield, Missouri authorities have come up with an effective shame campaign to reduce dogshit in the downtown area. Turd piles are being tagged with recycled paper flags saying Is this your turd? 'Cuz that's absurd, and This is a nudge to pick up the fudge. The city says it spends $7,500 a year to pick up 25 pounds of shit per week from downtown parks and parking lots. My question: who weighs that shit?

-->Open your wallet for God dept: CBS news reports that if you have enough bucks, you can buy a pair of Nike Air Max 97s Jesus Shoes from a Brooklyn company called MSCHF. Introduced Oct. 8, the shoes have 60ccs of holy water from the Jordan River injected into the soles so you can literally walk on water.” The shoes also have a crucifix in the laces, red insoles related to “Vatican traditions,” and a Matthew 14:25 inscription. They are also scented with frankincense and are a god-like white and light blue color. The Jesus Shoes originally sold for $1,425, but are now fetching anywhere from $2,000 to upwards of $11,000. No need to buy me a pair. I’m waiting for the Satan Shoes with blood from a virgin in the soles.

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
• 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.
• Carol Bergman has a blog about writing that features one of my favorite people: Me.

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