You’re Still Wrong Mykel's Blog for September 2019 or We’re Number Two

You’re Still Wrong Mykel's Blog for September 2019 

or We’re Number Two 

Mykel’s Post-MRR Blog

September 2019

We're Number Two

by Mykel Board

"Travel  is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime."
―Mark Twain

It was a more brilliant idea than the invention of masturbation…. a bigger adventure than petting a live crocodile… a riskier task than walking into a room of black lesbian feminist vegetarians. Disappear! Go away… vanish. Not permanently (sorry folks), but for more than a month. Just go off and not tell a soul where I’m going. POW! Be gone.

By the time you read this, I will be gone… a brief trip to help celebrate my nephew’s college graduation. Then POW… off to I-know-where to disappear with only a few scattered traces. Here are the first two of a slow series of hints to my location:

1. Saturday Night Live

2. It’s a place I’ve never been to, but MAYBE not a country I’ve never been to.

More to come (check my travel facebook page for hints).

So for my last blog before I go, I want to talk about travel.

While I make the necessary preparations for my disappearance, I’ve been thinking about my trips in the past. Once, while hiking through the woods somewhere, maybe Estonia, I squatted to take a shit. There’s something wonderful about being alone with nature… trees, leaves, shrubs. And then just squatting and taking a shit. It’s a Buddhist-like communion. I am one with the bears, the chipmunks, the boars… my fellow creatures who shit in the woods.

It’s a medium shit… the consistency of toothpaste… the size and shape of Katz’s pickles. But the wipe… What about the wipe?

I open my wallet to look for an old receipt or any other scrap of paper…nothing… only green bills: three ones, four fives, and a twenty. It would be a great statement to wipe my ass on hard cash. It’s a statement I do not make. I pinch my cheeks together and pull up my pants.

FLASH TO GREENLAND: Until Trump’s offer to buy it from Denmark, most Americans had never heard of Greenland. Half of those who have confuse it with Iceland. Denmark controls much of Greenland’s foreign policy. It issues passports and prints the money for the country… but it does not OWN the country… at least not in the way the US owns Puerto Rico.

It’s 2017, I step off the plane from Oslo, Norway to Nuuk, Greenland. At the door to the plane is a roll-away staircase. The other end sits on the small tarmac below. I climb down and follow the other dozen or so passengers into the main building… fishing out my passport ready to present it to the immigration officer who’ll ask why I’m there, do I have anything to declare, and can I open my bags so he can see if I have any booze or munitions.

I don’t see an immigration officer. There is a guy in a sort of uniform (black shirt and pants), sitting at a desk.

“Are you immigration?” I ask.

He nods.

I hand him my passport. He opens it, looks at my picture and hands it back.

I clear my throat.

“I know this is an odd request,” I say, “but I like to keep records of places I’ve visited. Would you mind stamping my passport?”

He shrugs.

“Sorry,” he says in better English than mine, “we don’t have any stamps. We don’t do that in Greenland.”

So began a journey, like all others, different from any journey I’d had before. A country with NO SECURITY. No x-rays at the airport, no immigration, no bag inspection, no taking off belts and shoes. A country where people watch whales frolic from their windows… and then eat them. Where locals can see the aurora from those same windows. It’s a place where caribou hunters video their kills on iphones. A place where a fine halibut steak costs $5… and a single cucumber costs more. All the land is owned by the government. You have a right to use the land where you want to build a house, but you can't buy or sell it.

We sit at a bar near the center of town. I’m with Inuarq my couch-surfing host for my time here. I raise my glass.

“Kazuta!” he says.

“Kazuta!” I reply, downing the beer.

A beautiful Greenlander enters the bar with a bunch of young men in tow. She reminds me of those young Japanese women who die their hair blond. Oriental-looking, like most Greenlanders, she’s tall and thin, unlike most of the other locals. I figure she’s a local celebrity. I figure right.

“That’s Ursula,” says my host. “The only transsexual in Greenland. She’s a superstar here. On television... people follow her around. The biggest thing in Greenland since the igloo. EVERYBODY wants to be her friend” [NOTE: I forget what her name REALLY is, so I use Ursula, because it’s a sexy name.]

In Greenland, the stranger, the novel, the outsider revels in her strangeness, her novelty, her outsiderness. Rock-star status… The way it should be.

FLASH TO MONGOLIA: In Mongolia, at least in 1996 Mongolia, there are no roads between the cities. You drive over the desert in the general direction of the city. When you come to a ger (one of those big round tents Americans call “yurts”), you ask the way, and the ger-owner adjusts your path a bit, and you go on to another ger and get adjusted again. When the sun begins to set, you stop at a ger, tell ‘em you’re a traveler, and the people feed you, put you up for the night, and adjust your direction the next morning.

It’s the evening, I sit with a family I’ve never met. We’re someplace in the Gobi desert… not a city… not a town… just a ger, not close to anything else except sand and a few mountains. It looks about 6 o’clock from the sun and the sun is all we have to go from.

I’m the only one here who doesn’t speak Mongolian (except for the phrase Mongol-hun bain? (Are you Mongolian? Not very useful in Mongolia.) Tsengel, student and the driver on this trip, translates when it’s necessary.

Dinner tonight is lamb, bread, and vodka. Dinner EVERY night is lamb, bread, and vodka. Our hosts, a man and woman in their late 40s, open the cupboard to fetch the bread and vodka. There is one loaf and one bottle. The man pours a rather large single glass of vodka, then dips his ring finger into it. Holding his finger with his thumb, he releases it spraying vodka into the air.

“It’s a first offering for the Gods,” Tsengel tells me.

Then the host passes the glass among the rest of us… and we all take a sip. Then he refills the glass, takes a drink and passes it around again. While we’re drinking, his wife takes the loaf of bread and cuts it into the same number of pieces as there are people. She passes it around.

After we finish, there is no more vodka and no more bread.

“What are they going to eat or drink tomorrow?” I ask Tsengel. “They have no more bread. No more vodka.”

“It’s never tomorrow… always today” says Tsengel, “so we don’t worry about it.”

Further on in the desert, we’re almost out of gas. There is a small town with a handpump filling station that will be our last stop for 2 hundred miles. I suggest we fill all available containers with gasoline. One of them is ¼ bottle of vodka.

“We’re going to need that container,” I tell Tsengel.

“I can’t drink a quarter bottle of vodka,” says Tsengel. “I have to drive.”

“Then dump it out into the sand,” I tell him.

“That’s vodka,” he says, looking like I’d asked him to cut off his testicles.

“I know,” I say, “just dump it.”

“But, that’s VODKA!” he says. “You can’t dump it out.”

But we do. I can see the tears in his eyes as he pours it into the Gobi sand.

FLASH TO NY: Gavin, a pal from Guyana, is visiting me. He’s spent some time in the Amazon, trying to synthesize traditional music from escaped slaves with punkrock. You can see some of what he does here.

It’s Drink Club night at the Peculier Pub, Gavin shows up late as the Guyanese are wont to do.

“This is my friend Gavin,” I say by way of introduction. “He’s from Guyana.”

“Really,” says a friend from New Jersey, “tell me about it. I’ve always wanted to visit Africa.”

Flash to any American patriotic rally. I’m here because I have to be doing something ELSE… and the rally is blocking my way. This one is on some street in a small town between New York and Baltimore. I’m driving to visit my friend Kesha and it’s Memorial Day (or Labor Day-- I always get them confused) weekend.

WE’RE NUMBER ONE! WE’RE NUMBER ONE! WE’RE NUMBER ONE! comes the shout from the crowd.

“More like we’re NUMBER TWO,” I think-but-don’t-say for personal safety reasons. Then, the idea strikes me, what do these people REALLY think is the number two country.

I tap the shoulder of a blond girl in a blue tanktop.

“Hey!” she says –not in a friendly way.

The massive white guy standing next to her turns around. He looks down at me, like a vengeful god might have looked down at Moses when he (Moses) smashed the Ten Commandments.

“What’s up with you, Mister?” asks the white guy.

“Sorry to bother you,” I say, “but I was just wondering. If America is number one, what country is number two?”

“What the fuck?” says the big white guy. “They’re ALL number two.”

“I see,” I say. “Well then, of all the countries you’ve been to, what’s the difference between them and us?”

“Are you serious?” he asks. “What kind of question is that? I’ve never been out of the U.S. I don’t need to go. Everything is here. Purple mountains majesty… that kinda shit. And the biggest army in the world. We RULE! Don’t you know that? Are you some kind of foreigner?”

“I don’t really know,” I tell him.

One facebook friend says he’s been to over 100 countries. Turns out he went to most of them with the army. Spent all his time killing the locals, so he knows how awful they are. Otherwise, he was with Americans and it’s just like he never left home

Others of my “friends” tell me LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT. These are usually the same guys who want to ban immigrants.

“I can’t leave it,” I tell them. “The other countries are banning immigrants and won’t let me in.”

It’s a facile answer, I know. I have a cousin and several friends who’ve left. I’ve already written about the colonies of American expats in Mexico City, Prague, Paris, Roppongi Tokyo, Belize, Thailand… and more. They had the courage to leave. I don’t.

Americans don’t know who won the Civil War or that Guyana is in South America or who was the “enemy” in World War Two.

“Americans are the dumbest people on earth,” Michael Moore once said. I think he was giving them (us?) too much credit.

Americans don’t know what it’s like being able to go to the doctor when you’re sick without having to worry if that’ll take away your ability to pay rent. Americans don’t know how it feels when the stranger is a hero, rather than an “invader.” Americans don’t know how good it feels to shit in the woods.

Yeah, there are some exceptions. But they are rare.

Is that a surprise? In a country where school students grow up pledging allegiance to a flag… and a nation under God… what space is there for looking at things a different way.? And in a country, where parents can opt-out of the school system completely, and teach their kids that God made the universe in seven days, how can it possibly be common knowledge that the North won the Civil War and that Ghana is in Africa and Guyana in South America? How can there be common knowledge at all?

Common knowledge is international. Ask anyone in the world what the capital of the US is, and they’ll give you the right answer. How about the capital of Guyana?

The U.S. is a big Number Two. I stay here because I have a cheap apartment in NY, a job I like, 6 weeks a year to just disappear… and I don’t have the courage to say Fuck You and take off for a better place.

Still, we do share things with the rest of the world. Sometimes that commonality loses itself in the details, but it’s in our combined humanity. Is the reluctance to dump vodka in the desert any weirder than the reluctance to use dollar bills to wipe my ass? Only the material is different.

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]

→ An actor in one of my favorite movies portrays a transsexual Thai boxer who literally kicked ass. The actor was asked what he thinks when people say that, because of his portrayal of a transsexual , he himself must be transsexual. He answered. “That is the highest compliment. It means I was so convincing as an actor, that people believed the character was me.”

That’s how I felt when several people asked me if I really fucked a guy with two assholes. I know I usually save the blatant lies for my April Fools column, but this was not a lie. It was a story with a purpose. It was a literary way to explore an opposite point of view from mine… and give that point of view some credibility. It was a case where I didn’t have all the answers, and wanted at least to make sure of the questions. The activities did not take place in the “real” world. The questions they raised, however, were real questions.

All the events related in THIS blog are true to the best of my recollection.

→ As Freedom Erodes Dept: The U.S. representative at the UN made the right call. Kelly Knight Craft, presumably on D.T.’s instructions. made the U.S. one of only three countries to vote against a “condemnation of Nazis” resolution. While condemning Nazi ideology, Craft voted NO on free speech grounds. She recognized that denying speech to one is denying speech to all. It was a brave act, especially since D.T. is such a Netanyahu lapdog. But it was the right decision.

→ Speaking of Israel Dept: Since the U.S. has practically abandoned international news coverage (unless we’re overtly involved) that task has to go to the foreigners. Two of the best are from the Middle East.

One is Al Jazeera, from Qatar. They have reporters everywhere, and have more real news than any 10 American newspapers. The other is Haaretz from Israel. I don’t know how they’ve escaped government censorship, but they continue to publish what really happens in the middle east without kowtowing to the official line.

The latter does, however, seem to be kowtowing to their advertisers, refusing to show their website to anyone using an ad-blocker. No comment here about confirming religious stereotypes.

 → Pimp yourself dept: I’m rebuilding my LINK CONNECTION database. If you have a cool blog, or newsletter, or something else with a URL, let me know (even if you’ve already done so). You show me yours… you’ve already seen mine. If I like it, I’ll link to it and let you know. Then you link to me. It’ll give us both two extra points in the Google search engine. If I’ve linked to you in the past, send me the link again and I’ll relist it. Send the link via email to god@mykelboard.com Subject: LINK EXCHANGE. No YouTube links allowed.

In the meantime, I’m pimping a couple links here. Ones that I’m sure of.

My spiritual foil, who calls me on my shit Richard Goldberg has a great photo-centric blog at: https://goldberg.wordpress.com

Jailbird noise musician and intense critic, Kyle Nonneman has a blog at: https://apothelema.blogspot.com

See you in hell...  er… the location’s a secret.

--Mykel

  

YOU'RE STILL WRONG Post MRR Columns: Number 3

YOU'RE STILL WRONG

POST MRR COLUMNS Number 3

aka How You Think

by Mykel Board

(Note: Parts of this column have appeared in different form on the STREET CARNAGE website.)

“Ok class,” says the young sexy teacher. “If there are 10 birds on a telephone wire and Farmer John shoots two of them, how many are left?”

Little Tommy raises his hand. The teacher calls on him.

“None,” he says. “the bullets would scare the other birds and they'd fly away.”

“Actually,” says the teacher, “the correct answer is 8... but I like the way you think.”

“I got one for you,” answers Tommy. “There are two women eating ice cream cones. One takes deep bites and eats it right down. The second one slowly licks the top of the cone, swirling her tongue around the tip and then slow widening her lips to suck in the goodness.... Which one is married?”

The young teacher is visibly embarrassed, but she decides to stand her ground. “The second woman, of course.” she answers.

“No,” says Tommy, “the one with the wedding ring. But I like the way you think.”

--Old Joke

It's the mother of all beershits... a massive movement... I trace it inch by inch... starting on the lower right side like appendicitis. The massive ball of excrement moves inch by peristaltic inch through my large intestines... upwards... from right to left... downwards... exquisitely... to the final sphincter where it forces a relaxation and downward blast... like a rocket exhaust... propelling me upwards toward the ceiling... an anal orgasm... After landing, I tilt to the left, raising one cheek from the pot... to examine my accomplishment. Wow! All that! It's like giving birth. I sit down flat again and allow a few straggling turdlets to make their final escape. When I stand up, I see that the toilet seat is covered in squished shit. So is my naked ass. I guess that when I twisted to examine my achievement, fecal remains must've clung and rubbed off on the seat. When I righted myself, I squeezed them down fouling the toilet and myself.

CLICK: Belly sweat collects in the folds, forms little rivulets... puddling in my navel... spilling over... streaming midrifly downwards... curling... running through pubes like swamp water through mangroves. Collecting salt to feed my already chafed groin...turning the pink to black-speckled red. One. Two. Three showers a day. Doesn't help. As soon as I step out, the heat and humidity again start the sweat. And the atmosphere refuses to evaporate it. A kind of diaper rash covers every crevice from knee to navel. Mosquito bites cover the rest.

I start writing this column in Georgetown Guyana. Both paragraphs above happened here. Readers over 40 might remember Guyana from The Jonestown Massacre in the late 1970s. The rest probably think it's some place in Africa.

If you imagine South America as a breast, halfway between the shoulder and the nipple... facing the Caribbean Sea... is Guyana. But I don't want to write about Guyana here. You can read it in my travel blog or in a special article I did for Street Carnage.

I want to go back to that joke at the beginning of the column and tell you that I DON'T like the way you think. Self-evident logic makes as much sense as 8 birds on a phone wire after two are shot. Self-evident logic is wrong. What your life experience has taught you is mistaken. I want to take a look at some of your thinking. Examine it carefully. But you've been warned. After the examination, you might find your ass in a mess.

FIRST CASE: What inspired this revelation was my pre-Guyana visit to Trinidad. In New York City, there are no Costcos, SamsClubs or other giant warehouse companies. I never had the experience. In Trinidad there is at least one: PriceSmart, a San Diego based chain specializing in warehouse stores in the Caribbean.

I go shopping there with Randy, an oft-mentioned pal from ANTI-EVERYTHING, the only punk band in the country. Floor to ceiling metal shelves. Bins, boxes, tables filled with useless things... and one or two things I might need one or two of. There are huge hunks of meat, whole cows, unrecognizable pieces of unrecognizable mammals plastic wrapped and ready for massive consumption. (One package says BEEF OXTAILS, and guarantees me it is halal. Aren't ALL beef oxtails halal?)

Why would a family of four buy a half cow? What the hell are you going to do with 240 rolls of toilet paper? But the thinking goes like this:

If I use one roll of toilet paper in a week, then 240 rolls will last me 240 weeks. I'll eventually have to pay for those 240 rolls. So, here they'll cost me 50 cents each, that's $120. If I pay for them one at a time, they'll cost me 75c each. That's $180. I'm saving sixty bucks.

THIS IS SO WRONG! If you have 240 rolls of toilet paper lying around, you'll use twice as much. You'll use it to blow your nose, to wipe up last night's beer puke, to sop the pus up from a broken pimple. You'll throw one to a friend with a cold... here, take this, I've got hundreds more. You'll use a fistful to wipe after that dainty superclean dump. You'd use one sheet, if you only had one roll. Those 240 rolls will last less than half the time and make twice the waste of your one roll a week. With that roll you'd stretch... use less... maybe buy a handkerchief for the occasional sneeze. Your savings are flushed down the toilet.

With food it's worse. You have more, so you eat more. A never ending supply of beef oxtails or whatever else you don't need. Nothing fresh and healthy... only in gross and grosser for it. Sure,if you're having an oxtail barbecue for 20 people, buy at Costco. If you're in Endangered Feces and need Charmin to throw at the crowd, buy at Costco. But if you're just this guy (or gal) and you think that buying a gallon of ice cream for $40 is cheaper than buying a pint for $7.95... WHAT YOU THINK IS WRONG.

SECOND CASE: Right now, the internet in the Guyanese house I'm staying in is down. All the electricity is off. It happens a few times a day-- like in California during the Enron era. I wonder how many times the average Californian was blacked out then. I can just Google it and find out. No I can't. I forgot. There's no electricity. Too bad... NO IT'S NOT!

I can still wonder. Speculate, imagine, use my mind. WONDER is NOT the same as WANT TO KNOW. Wonder is the joy of thinking, imagining, guessing.

I've seen pictures of the Amerindians here in Guyana. They look like the pictures I've seen of the Brazilian headhunters-- or the New Guinea ones that shrunk a Rockefeller's head in the 1960s: Vaguely oriental features, a bowl-cut haircut, loin cloth (probably an evil relic from some Christian missionary), curare-tipped spears, a bone through the nose. Just what you'd expect. I wonder if the local Indians were cannibals in per-Christian times. I wonder what cooked human flesh tastes like... but, I DO NOT WANT TO KNOW.

Google and Apple have destroyed wonder. Everyone and her pet pig walks around i-plugged into Wikipedia. If I wonder out loud what animal has the largest penis, BLAM, someone comes up with THE BLUE WHALE at 8 feet. End of wonder. Before I can fantasize about some unknown rodent dragging a 5 foot tube of flesh around... bigger than its body. My wonder's been killed. Like my foreskin, it's something I can never get back. I want to wonder without wanting to know. WHAT YOU THINK IS WRONG.

LAST CASE: Cut to a typical Guyanese house. Two stories, wood, the second floor has a covered porch as wide as the building. It's where the parties are... especially here in this house. Jamal, my host, is a gadabout, a man around town, party at his place every night. Beer, rum, and girls.

One of the many things I like about Guyana is the girls. Not that they're so beautiful. Some are. The average Guyanese woman is not average, though they all have some beautiful shade of skin color that puts any white guy/gal to shame. (No wonder tanning salons are so big in America.)

Except for the universally erection-inducing color, the girls here are either spectacular... combining the best of the Indian and the Negro... big eyes, Caribbean S-shape... strong, muscular legs that look like they'd squeeze the life out of you... and you'd love it... OR... ugly as an anal wart, rotund, hairy as a coconut or … so concentration camp skinny you're afraid to touch them. They might break.

I just like the fact that they're THERE! Unlike in many other third world countries-- Gambia, Senegal, Trinidad, for example-- girls go out by themselves... singly... just to lime (hang out). They don't need to be attached to anyone... they just are some of the guys. And many of these girls, not conventionally attractive, have such great personalities, that you WANT to be with them. They've got friends up the ass... as they should.

My favorite bar is a place called Buttsy's. Reminds me of the scummy bars on the Lower East Side when the Lower East Side was good. A couple pool tables, cheap beer ($300, about $1.50US), the kind of loud people others call characters, rather than the kind of loud people others call jocks. Girls as loud as boys. ID? Hah, if you can see over the counter to buy a beer, you buy one. If you can't see over the counter, the guy behind you will give you a boost. At the outside tables, you'll find easy banter among friends-- and friends to be made at the other tables. All they need is a stage and it's CBGB.

Conversation is not about whale penises, but it could be. Lots of laughter, body touching, innuendo. Makes me happy to be here. One of the guys says, let's just buy beer and come over to my place. The party continues... smooth and as easy flowing as a beer shit. That's where we are now. On the balcony, limin', drinking Banks beer. (I know the Beer Advocate doesn't like it, but it's the perfect beer for this hot humid climate... meant to be drunk ice cold.), a bottle of rum and a liter of coke make the rounds. There aren't enough cups, so we use the tops and bottoms of old water bottles to make our own.

“How do you like living in a primitive third world country?” I ask the goddess pouring rum into my half-water bottle.

“Depends on how you count,” she answers with a twinkle in her eye that make my nether parts ooze. It also gets me thinkin'.

Who decides which countries are in which world? Are they in order of average annual income? I don't think so. That would put Saudi Arabia in the first world and Greece in the third. How 'bout majority race? Nope, by that criteria, Japan and Cambodia would be in the same world.

I've heard lefties talk about North countries and South countries, instead of numbered worlds. That doesn't work either. Australia is south of the equator and Afghanistan north. Which one is first world?

How about flush toilets and internet access?

I haven't been in a house here that doesn't have both.

Gap between rich and poor? By that criterion, America would be fifth world... or sixth.

And what is the second world? Anything that used to be SOVIET? Anything with a -STAN at the end?

Has a country ever graduated? Moved up? A former third-worlder now second... or even all the way to first? I don't think so. Countries have moved down: Azerbaijan, for example. Maybe most of the seconds moved to third after the fall of the Soviet empire. Maybe the only second worlders left are Russia, Cuba, North Korea, and whoever the US is attacking at the moment. In any case, I've never heard any country called second world.

I figure is it's a cold war relic. In commie times, America and its friends were the first world. The Soviet Union and its allies were the second world. Everybody else was the third world. These terms stuck. After Russia broke up, the newly independent republics instantly joined the third world-- or the first.

This is just wrong. Countries are NOT in worlds. They are not worlds apart: luxury vs poverty. Flush toilets vs holes in the ground. It's much more complicated than that. Either there are no worlds or there are hundreds of worlds-- not three. WHAT YOU THINK IS WRONG.

This weekend I'll be in Suriname. That's not in Africa either.

ENDNOTES: [You can contact email me (god@mykelboard.com). Postal contact send those... er... private DVDs..or music or zines... or anything else (legal only!) to: Mykel Board, POB 137, New York, NY 10012-0003]

-->How Much Punk Rock Do You Hear in Guyana dept: Most of my time here has been with members of the only punk band in the country: Keep Your Day Job. (How come counties with only one punk band have punk bands with such great names?) I sang an acoustic version of BEER IS BETTER THAN GIRLS ARE and will be a roadie for them in Suriname. In a country with very little live music, and no punk, they've got a tough job ahead. I hope they keep it.

-->Related dept: Those of us old enough to remember the 80s, put down later punkrock as bland and commercial. Green Day? Blink 182? Sellout arena bad punk copies, we'd say. But, for many people (like Keep Your Day Job), they are the bridge between the punk we know and the punk they're going to forge. If it weren't for those bands we dismiss, there'd be NO punkrock in places like Guyana. So we gotta give 'em credit... THEN, we teach 'em about GG Allin.

-->Beer and girls dept: A great man (me) once made a song by rhyming those old gas station posters of 20 Ways Beer Is Better Than Girls. Clearly, the list is a comic lament by some teenage guy who can't get laid and drowns his sour grapes in beer. It's almost feminist in its pathos. But, with the typical sense of humor of feminists, they don't get it.

Now, a Texas beer company has introduced a new beer with the motto: Goes down easy. The reaction has been predictable. Check it out here.

-->Keeping on the pressure dept: If you want to see me back in Maximum Rock'n'Roll (or if you don't) you can tell them directly with an email to: mrr@maximumrocknroll.com You SHOULD contact them.

--end

[My sadly under up-kept travel diary is available at: mykelsdiary.blogspot.com. And you can subscribe to updates, and notification of new columns and other writing by joining my Yahoo group at: http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/readMBoard/]

(MRR 350) July 2012 Mykel Goes To Africa!

You're Wrong

An Irregular Column

by Mykel Board

COLUMN FOR MRR 550

Christians raise the armies. Muslims raise the buildings. Jews raise the money. – Jeraldine Brooks

TANGIER, MY FIRST STOP? LAST STOP?: Before leaving New York, I'd planned to write: The first thing you notice about Africa is that there are a lot of Negroes here.

That's not the case. Tangier is whiter than Paris and only slightly more Arabic.

I'm staying with Zayd, my Moroccan couch-surfing host. We talk politics and religion.

“So,” I tell him, “Muslim's don't eat port. Women can't show their hair. Animals have to be killed with a slit throat and drained of blood. You need to pray several times a day. Men are snipped at the tip of the good part. Some Muslims don't follow all the rules. Kind of reform.”

Zayd nods.

“That means,” I say, “that Muslims are a kind of Jew.”

He laughs... puts a finger to his lip. “That's right, but don't say it too loud.”

More talk. How religion can be a prison... especially if religious laws become the laws of the land... like in Morocco, Israel or The United States.

“I don't know about Israel or the U.S.,” Zayd says. “But here, we have a law that says if a woman is raped, she must marry the rapist! It's incredible. Women kill themselves because they don't want to live with a rapist. Can you believe it?”

“Well,” I tell him. “among Jews, if a woman's husband dies, she has to marry her dead-husband's brother.”

“That's bad,” he says, “but not AS bad.”

I have to agree with him.

“What about Arab spring?” I ask him. “Aren't people getting riled up... demanding change?”

“Arab spring touched Morocco,” he says, “but then it went away. The king is too smart. The whole thing started in Tunisia and spread. Just one guy setting himself on fire. But in Morocco... the king knows how to handle it. Focus the problem somewhere else...”

We're out looking for for a couscous restaurant. Quick, name two Moroccan foods. Yeah, I can't think of another one either. It would be a pity to leave Tangier, my first outpost in the country, without trying couscous.

Couscous places: All closed, changed to fast food... or “sorry couscous is only for lunch.”

One last chance, in the Medina... the old city by the port... twisted streets, shady characters hidden in robes like ghetto boys in hoodies.

We head for a restaurant Zayd knows. There are cops everywhere. The streets are closed to traffic.

From somewhere far away comes chanting. Not religious, but like at a demonstration. A dumb chant... like

WHAT DO WE WANT?

JUSTICE!

WHEN DO WE WANT IT?

NOW!

“It's a manifestation,” says Zayd. I guess he means demonstration.

Down the street flags wave.

“What's it about?” I ask.

“I don't know,” says Zayd. “Let's go see.”

We do.

The demo is split into little blocks. One section, then a space... another section... another space.

I don't notice at first, but Zayd sees it right away.

“Look,” he says. “It's men... then woman... then men again. Not both together. Maybe it's a protest against the rape law. The women want their own space.”

Whatever it is, it certainly is vehement. Chanting, flag-waving... some dancing... in a big circle... like a man-only hora.

After a while, Zayd turns to me.

“Now I know why the men and women are separate,” he tells me. “It's conservative. Islamist.”

I raise my eyebrows... the universal language for just keep talking.

He looks at me and gives an oh-well-I-guess-I'd-better-tell-him shrug.

“It's an anti-Israel demonstration,” he says. “It's pro-Palestinian. I hate it.”

“Are you a Zionist?” I don't ask him, but he knows what I'm thinking. He shakes his head like a math teacher explaining calculus to a retard.

“Mykel,” he says, “Israel is on the other side of Africa. We can do nothing about it except make noise. That's what I was talking about. The government loves manifestations like this. It stops people thinking about what's going on here... what we CAN do something about... like the rape law...”

In disgust, he turns from the demonstration. We go to a restaurant for a fine dinner of Moroccan pea soup-- served so hot it continues to boil while you eat it-- and a sweet green mint tea-- the tastiest drink I've had on this trip.

After dinner, we return to Zayd's place. He hasn't let me pay for a thing! No food. No taxi. No nothing. Here I am the rich $20 an hour American and this Moroccan guy, an intern at an insurance company, zero salary... nothing... pays for me!

Yeah the streets are dirty... the air dusty... and they don't drink (in public, anyway)... yet these people are the quickest friends this side of Trinidad.

Friday is Zayd's last full day as an intern. On Saturday, he'll be home by noon... as a free man!

Flash to Friday 11AM: I'm in a park, near Zayd's place. I sit on a bench, soaking up the clouds, alternately writing in my journal and reading Tropic of Cancer.

I put stickers all over the cover of the book. It showed a breast. Most of my travel will be in Muslim countries where they're not too fond of breasts on book covers.

On another bench in the park is a young man(early 20s?) with two women about the same age. One of the women wears a headscarf. The other, has a freer, more bouncy look. I see them looking at me, giggling, looking away, then looking again. I look back and smile.

Both girls come over and start speaking to me... in French. The one in the headscarf asks, “Est-ce que tu es un philosof?”

“Philosof?” I ask, “Pourquoi?”

“Tu escris.” she says.

“Je suis ecrivain,” I say. “Mai je ne suis pas philosof.”

We talk a bit more. As soon as it comes out that I'm from New York, they call in the boy. He's a big guy, bad skin in an adolescent way, with a very friendly face and big smile. He introduces himself as Joussau.

I explain to the crew that I need to go to the train station to buy Sunday's ticket to Agadir. Only I have no idea where the train station is, let alone how to get there. They speak to each other in Arabic. The guy speaks to me.

“The girls will take you to the train station,” he says. “You can go by bus. They will show you.”

“Wow, that's great!” I tell them. Yeah, Moroccan instant friends.

We walk together to the bus stop. They're students, they say. They show me a text book. One book: science, math, French, English... two pages of irregular verbs.

“Before we go,” I ask. “can I have a picture of all of us together?”

They giggle, but agree and stop an old lady who takes our picture.

Joussau asks me, “Can you give me your face?”

“Huh?” I don't say. “I've only known you for half an hour. Isn't that a bit quick?”

What I do say, in French, is pardon?

“Your name on Facebook,” he says. “We should be friends.”

Not sure whether to be relieved or disappointed, I write Mykel Board on a scrap of paper and give it to him.

“Let's meet again tomorrow,” says Joussau.

“Sure,” I say, really liking these guys.

I give them my phone number and point to the building I'm staying in. “I'm right over there,” I tell them. “I'll see you tomorrow.”

The bus shows up. The girls and I get on. They wave good bye at the train station and go on their way.

I buy my ticket, then go back to Zayd's to give some Face.

Flash ahead: Back at Zayd's apartment, I upload the picture to Facebook, add my new friend Joussau and wait for Zayd's return.

In the meantime, I start this column, keep up my travel blog, and check out my next couch-surfing host.

You know how those little numbers pop up over the Facebook tab? By the time I'm finished couch-surfing-- 15 minutes at the most-- the number is up to 37.

I go back to Facebook. It's the picture I posted from Tangier... with the tagline “Can you give me your face?”

There are a ton of comments.

• Those girls are hot.
• Mykel, you should give them all your face.
• “Wow, Mykel you move fast.”

and more.

There's also a message from Jousau.

TAKE OFF THE FOTO. TODEE! NOW! THE GIRLS ARE OFFENDEDED. THEY DON LIKE IT. WHY YOU DO THAT? TAKE OFF NOW!

One of the comments under the picture is from a friend of Joussau's.

Hey man. They make fun of us. You see man?

I immediately take down the picture and write a fawning letter of apology... I'm sorry... I didn't realize... I didn't mean to...

I don't get an answer. I guess they're still pissed.

Flash to Saturday: I was supposed to meet those guys today... hang out... but that won't happen now. They're mad because of the picture.

Ah well, Fayd will be back by noon, so I'll have something to do. Maybe find a couscous place.

I walk downstairs to get some coffee at the local cafe.

On the front porch, with two friends, is Jousau. He's all smiles... introduces me to his friends... we shake hands.

“Hey Mykel,” he says, “we still meet you at 4:30... after school.”

“Sure,” I say, a bit shaken, but happy I ran into him and saw that everything's okay. “I'll meet you right here in front of this building.”

I think about Zayd. “Can I bring a friend?” I ask. “He'd like to join us.”

Joussau is startled by the request, but agrees.

We part company. I go to buy a toothbrush and some water. He goes to school. Then I sit in a cafe and enjoy a cup of coffee with an omelet. I rip apart a piece of baguette, and use it to soak up the yolk. The yellow stain, slowly seeping through the bread, inspires the deadly insight. A finger snap: Of course!

It was no coincidence that Joussau was there on the porch... exactly when I walked out. What are the odds on that? No! He and his friends were there all morning... just waiting...talking... planning their day. They needed to be sure they wouldn't miss me... to trap me... catch me off guard... guarantee I'd meet them... no way to give 'em the slip now, right?

Are they working with Al Qaieda? Is there a bounty on my head? Sure meet me at 4, get me in a car, and Pow! Off with my head.

What doesn't make sense is taking Zayd. Maybe they didn't want to arouse suspicion. He'll be a sacrifice for the cause. He'll go quick. Not like my rusty scissors castration.

Jeezus! I'm gonna be murdered here... head shipped to Barack... maybe they'll name a war after me.

I finish my coffee and return to Zayd's apartment. It's time to get my affairs in order.

The phone vibrates. A text... from Zayd... Sorry Mykel. I won't be home until later today. Something has come up.

Fuck! He's in on it. Part of the conspiracy. Probably told them about my Is a Muslim a Kind of Jew joke. That should up the reward on me.

It's noon now. Joussau will be waiting for me at 4:30. At 3:35 he texts me: Don't forget about meeting me today!

Yeah, like I could forget.

Zayd is back by 4. Maybe he's not part of this after all. He's just in time to meet the carful of young men downstairs... waiting for us when we leave. He gets in the car. I get in the car. There are already three others inside.

Joussau introduces me to them. The ones who will do the actual beheading, castrating, or worse.

“This is Mehdi,” he says pointing to the driver. “He speaks English very well. He commented on the your Facebook page.”

Fuck! That's the guy who said, They make fun of us. He hates me! I shake hands with him.

Then he gestures to the guy sitting next to me... dark-skinned... extremely handsome... and a giant... six-six at least... hands bigger than my face.

“This is Rachman El Batoum,” says Joussau. The guy takes my hand in his. He can touch his thumbs to his knuckles on the other side. He does.

“Rachman is a boxer,” says Mehdi, “one of the best in Africa.”

So, he's trying to scare me. Well, I don't scare very easily.

I'm scared.

The car starts and we're on our way... to Al Quaeida headquarters? To the tree stump chopping block?... To the rusty castration scissors?

Maybe the cops will find something. I wonder if I'll make the history books... a footnote at least?

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]

-->Told you so dept: In the last column, I wrote how boycotts are a bad way to deal with speech issues. If you use them, others will use them against you. So Starbucks supports gay marriage. And... here comes the boycott. The National Organization for Marriage is organizing it. Will Starbucks apologize like Rush did?

-->You should know dept: Couchsurfing.com is a great website. It has members from everywhere. You can stay with people around the world... for free. I've stayed with people in Italy, Morocco, Trinidad, France, and Australia. People from a dozen countries have stayed with me, including a pair from Lebanon, who cooked... on my own stove... the best meal every cooked there.

         Even with punkrock cred up the urethra, you still need couch-surfing. Give me your face there.

-end-

You can read about Mykel's African adventures in more details on his travel blog.