NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH? Mykel's October 2024 Blog

Tuesday, October 1, 2024

The Truth! or Mykel's October 2024 Blog: YOU'RE STILL WRONG

You’re STILL Wrong
Mykel's

October 2024 Blog/Column

THE WHOLE TRUTH

If you tell the truth you do not need a good memory!

--Mark Twain

The truth. It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and must therefore be treated with great caution.

– J. K. Rowling

Gossip needn't be false to be evil - there's a lot of truth that shouldn't be passed around.

– Frank A. Clark

Somewhere in the south of France an invasion has come from somewhere in the north of Africa. A row of tanks… just left the warship… works its way from Marsailles toward Paris. Somewhere in the middle of that row… not the exact middle… maybe a place best described as forward middle… is a tank with a driver and two gunners.

The line of tanks stops … somewhere in an open field… maybe a farm. It’s quiet here in the late afternoon. The driver stands to open the hatch at the top of the tank. He’s a young soldier… mid-twenties at the latest. He reaches up to push the hatch open. As the young man stands... his right arm above his head holding the hatch open… a whistling comes across the sky. Then... an explosion… several. One of the little missiles hits the open hatch… explodes… blowing the man into the air… separating the man from the arm that opened the hatch. Carrying the man up and away from the tank… into the field. A pool of blood next to him makes a Rorschach pattern destined never to be interpreted. The next little missile hits the tank dead on… blowing the gunners inside into little pieces.

The now one-armed tank driver awakens on a cot in a field hospital. He barely notices his transfer from there to a truck… filled with portabeds… several of those lying on the beds moan loudly. A few scream out in pain. Others are dead still.

FLASH TO Emma Silverberg now looking into her mirror. She sees how her neck wrinkles where it meets her chest. There’s a little hollow in that spot… shaped like a sideways eye. She reaches behind her neck with her right hand… grabbing the skin of her neck… pinching it between her palm and fingers… watching the ugly little pocket disappear as the skin pulls tight.

“Maybe if I taped it,” she thinks. “Duct tape would hold… it holds everything.”

I’m imagining this as I sit in her living room waiting for her to meet me for dinner at Arby’s. I’ve been visiting her for almost ten months now. It’s part of a program called VISITING NEIGHBORS where lonely people who want company meet and go out to eat… or see a movie. Sometimes they need help getting around. Usually, they just need company.

Emma is slightly older than I am… just past eighty. It’s easy to see that she used to be a beauty. Her eyes remain bright blue and though the lids wrinkle on them, those eyes show an intensity that clearly melted the hearts of dozens of young men… and maybe women.

She did not grow fat in her old age, but I can tell that her weight shifted. Her breasts drooped. Her muscles turned soft and flabby. She still dresses like I imagine her dressing 50+ years ago. Tight black sweaters, short slinky skirts, shoes with heels so high and thin that, more than once, I’ve had to catch her in a stumble. It’s time for a change. I know that. And this evening I’m going to tell her.

She’s coming down the steps now. Gripping the banister tightly to keep her balance. She’s dressed like she always does, except tonight, she wears dark stockings with a single seam up the back… from ankle to that small area I’m unable to see.

“How do I look?” she asks me.

I take a deep breath. “I’m sorry Emma,” I say. “But someone has to tell you… You’re older than I am but you dress like a teenager. People laugh behind your back. They’re annoyed when you stumble in front of them in your too-high heels...” and I go on.

FLASH TO CALVIN, SITTING ON HIS MILK CRATE ON BLEECKER AND LAGUARDIA “Yo Calvin!” I say to him, “You been waitin’ for me?”

He laughs. “I’m always waitin’ for you,” he says, “or somebody else who’ll give me a dollar.”

I fish in my watch-pocket were I keep my homeless single dollar bills. I pull one out and hand it to Calvin.

I feel a tap on my shoulder. I turn to face a very stern-looking woman, about 40. She frowns… pulling her eyebrows closer together… wrinkling her forehead.

“Why do you give him money?” she asks. “He could be working. You’re keeping him on the street. Let him get a job…. Do something.”

She walks away in a huff... like I’ve insulted her. I hope I have.

HANG ON: That story about the tank commander is true. That man was my father. The story was right from my one-arm dad’s mouth… I wasn’t there, but I believe every word of it. The story of Emma and my comments to her was a lie… made up on a bus on its way to from New York to Boston. (We’re almost in Danbury as I write this).

The third story, about Calvin, I’m not sure of. I remember somebody somewhere complaining about my giving money to street people, but the details are lost on me. File that one under I Don’t Know.

That’s what I want to write about this time: TRUTH… during this last political month… charges of truth and lies hurl back and forth like missiles in a battlefield. I’m here to tell you IT DOESN’T MATTER.

ASIDE: I’ve often written about my friend Dawn. We’ve known each other for around 40 years. Our opinions overlap: she’s a Democrat. I’m a social-libertarian. She’s a feminist. I’m a social-libertarian. She’s interested in the possible. I want the impossible. In any case, I respect her as a deep thinker… and one area we agree on is TRUTH. We both think the made-up Mykel mistreated the made-up Emma. Her feelings, her pride, her self-esteem are more important that THE TRUTH. My father’s dead now. The truth won’t hurt him.

AN EXAMPLE OF TRUTH AT IT'S WORST

=====================
This blog will be posted a month and a few days before the presidential election. I predict a Trump victory. Most of my readers will be happy to know my predictions are usually wrong. I, of course, will be voting for SID YIDDISH, as I have in most every presidential election since Harry Truman.

As I write this, the election has turned into a bunch of LIAR LIAR PANTS ON FIRE charges and counter charges. An army of fact-checkers calls out each side when one side says it advocated SHIT, where in TRUTH they advocated FUCK.

“I built a wall to keep out migrants,” says Donny the Trump.

“I helped draft legislation to make it hard for illegals to stay here,” answers Kamala the African-Indian.

“I helped draft legislation to make it hard for illegals to stay here,” answers Kamala the African-Indian.

No one says, “Let’s open up. Let’s let people go where they want to… live where they want to.” Oh no. That’s not realistic. (Code for able to be true.) Fuck realism. I want the impossible.

I don’t care if George Santos is really a gay son of holocaust survivors. I love the way he urged fellow-Republicans to come out of the closet. I love his creativity in making up an entire life: schools, jobs, personal history. These… er… trump any notion of TRUTH. His falsehoods are better than the truth can ever be.

FICTION is/can be more accurate than TRUTH… and it can reveal a greater truth than the truth itself.

“I stopped American jobs from going to China!” shouts Don in his brag about saving factory work.

“Together with President Biden,” counters the former and possibly future Prosecutor in Chief, “we have created more jobs than any president in the history of America.”

“No one should ever work.” is the opening sentence in a book by Bob Black called The Abolition of Work. Bob Black gets it. He tells both sides to fold the truth… the realistic…. the possible... into a long thin tube… and shove it up their collective asses. He does not talk about what’s real… likely... not even what can be achievable… but he’s right!

I don’t care if the Civil War was about slavery… as modern historians say… or only about not losing territory… as Abraham Lincoln said. It doesn’t matter which is true. Slavery had to go.

TRUTH is sometimes important… it’s how we learn and how we transfer knowledge… but it’s not the MOST important.

Like in my fictional account with Emma Silverberg, compassion is usually (always?) more important than truth. During that awful presidential debate there were “fact checkers” galore looking to catch a lie here or there. Who checks the fact checkers?

After the debate, factcheck.org wrote: Trump repeated his false claim that everyone — liberals and conservatives — wanted to end Roe v. Wade’s right to abortion.

That’s not true. Trump’s claim was that liberals and conservatives wanted THE STATES to decide about abortion rights. This may or may not be true, but the “fact” reported by factcheck is false.

Factcheck also said: The vice president claimed Trump’s economic policies led to “one of the highest” trade deficits in American history. But the annual trade deficits during the Biden administration have exceeded those under Trump.

Even by Factcheck’s own account, Harris said ONE of the highest trade deficits… not THE highest. It is likely BOTH had one of the highest. The fact-checker lied.

We could go on... but why? Why have a fact check at all? Why not just assume from the get-go that both sides are lying, and that there are things more important than the truth… especially compassion, vision, and goals… even if those goals are impossible... what people would call lies... they’re still more important than THE TRUTH.

Where are the compassion-checkers. Where are the source-checkers… what the source says may be fact or conjecture. Isn’t it more important to know if the source wants the same things you want? Where are the language manipulation checkers? The ones who value meaning over truth. The ones who catch the trick in I never shot John Smith… but you did stab him to death.

DONALD TRUMP: These are the people that she and Biden let into our country. And they're destroying our country. They're dangerous. They're at the highest level of criminality. And we have to get them out. We have to get them out fast.

KAMALA HARRIS: And let me say that the United States Congress, including some of the most conservative members of the United States Senate, came up with a border security bill which I supported.

COMPASSION CHECK: Bing: Lack of compassion-- BOTH candidates: People come to our country because conditions in their own country… often caused by US policies… are so bad they need someplace better. They are Emma Lazarus’s Retched refuse from foreign shores. Kicking them out is like kicking away a dog huddled under a roof to get out of the rain. It is pure cruelty… true or not.

KAMALA HARRIS: What Goldman Sachs has said is that Donald Trump's plan would make the economy worse. Mine would strengthen the economy

SOURCE CHECK: It is likely TRUE that Goldman Sachs said that. But do you want a country run by Goldman Sachs? Do you want Wall Street making the decisions on what’s a good economy and what’s a bad economy? Do you want a view of a “strengthened economy” where the stock market is up and the streets are ever more crowded with homeless people?

KAMALA HARRIS: And now in over 20 states there are Trump abortion bans which make it criminal for a doctor or nurse to provide health care

LANGUAGE CHECK: Is abortion “healthcare?” Nowhere in the world is it criminal for a doctor or nurse to provide healthcare. There are different definitions, however, on what healthcare is. Sometimes, abortion is clearly healthcare… where a birth can lead to the death of a mother, for example. Trump said he supports abortions in that case. In other cases, abortion may be provided by a healthcare worker, but it is not healthcare… except maybe mental healthcare, I’ll give it that.

Don’t get me wrong. I support abortion. Just walk down the street. You’ll see dozens of reasons to support abortion. There clearly should have been more of them… so many missed opportunities… But don’t call it healthcare just because a doctor does it. Is a facelift healthcare?

Get it? In national politics like in everyday interaction, there are things more important than the truth. I don’t care if Donald Trump improved the economy more than Joe Biden did. I care about what each consider an economic improvement. The truth is secondary (tertiary?). I don’t care if Kamala Harris came from a middle-class background and loved her nanny. How will a woman, who, for most of her life, worked to put people in cages, think of me if I end up on the street… needing to steal bread to eat for a day?

Catch words: extremism/ist leftwing, rightwing, fascist, authoritarian, communism/ist, air strikes… these are all ways to manipulate the language... truth or not.

Sometimes the truth is important, but, more often, there are things that matter more.

See you in hell,
MB

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]

→ MAYBE IT’S THE FUGU DEPT: In Japan, the number of people aged 100 or older has hit a new record – 95,119. Most of the centenarians are women, The world's oldest person, Tomiko Itooka of western Japan, is 116. Japan's oldest man, Kiyotaka Mizuno, 110, told local media that he has "no idea at all about what's the secret to my long life.”

→ BEFORE YOU WERE BORN DEPT: In the 1950s and 60s, nuclear weapons were considered insurance of peace through the theory of M.A.D. Mutually Assured Destruction. If you destroy me, I’ll destroy you, so we’d better not start anything.
    I haven’t heard that term in ages. But I did hear of a new “Global Strategy Company” a national full-service political consulting firm with expertise in government affairs, public relations, and electoral politics. You probably guessed right. The name of the company is just perfect for politics 2024:

More at: https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?pli=1#sent/KtbxLwgsxqWWLGLgRcRcqFZqjlxngZhkHL

→ BETWEEN THE LEGS DEPT: The NY Post reports that men with small dicks, on average, earn about triple what men with large ones earn. Since, elderly rich men get more nookie than elderly poor men… I hope the rumor spreads… just like her legs. Truth or not, for someone pushing 80, it’s certainly a better hook than my bank account.

→ SPEAKING OF SHORT DEPT: Our (unwarranted) obsession with truth is best exemplified by a website that says (among other things): Napoleon wasn’t short, Marie Antoinette didn’t say “let them eat cake,” and no witches were burned during the Salem witch hunts. That’s another problem with “the truth,” it keeps changing.

See you in hell, redux,
Mykel Board

LINK TRADE DEPARTMENT:

I did a nice interview with The Aither zine. Interesting questions, complete, and questions I’ve never been asked before. You can read it here. It’s a good one.

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

Here's a start:

Here’s Ricardo Wang with a “micro-label” in Seattle “specializing in 8-track tapes and CDs. WOW! Check out one of their label staples: The Dead Air Fresheners.

Also on bandcamp: My very long time faves in NYC, the BLACKOUT SHOPPERS. Featuring pals Seth and possibly the next vice-president of the US

Here’s an update on the current URL for Sid Yiddish’s Dating Game (type) entry.

And this sounds right up Sid’s alley. The Bilderberg Jazz Arkestra on Bandcamp!

Eric Grayson has an online music review zine, Sobriquet. Full pictures of the sleeves too! Something missing from too many zines. Sometimes you CAN judge a… er… book… by its cover.

Steen Thomsen is a Dane I’ve known ever since Lincoln was shot. I put his band THE ZERO POINT on the great WORLD CLASS PUNK Cassette for ROIR. It must be worth a mint now. I don’t have any left, I’m afraid. You can (and should) connect to the Zero Point on facebook. Tell ‘em Mykel’s blog sent you.

Sorry Dorothy, we are STILL in Kansas. And it’s as weird as OZ. Check out Bob Cutler’s DISTOPEKA.

And for a quiet smile and a much needed break for you and the dog, try G.C. Adams’ YouTube entry.

You already know Murder & Mayhem zine… those guys who did the Mykel Board centerfold. (No genitals shown… and probably for the better.) Their online version is here.

The Clean Boys from Denmark are also longtime friends of mine. In Denmark we recorded as The Bend-over Boys. Only one 10-inch available… but at least now I can say I have a 10-incher!

Finally, for this month, Margaret O’Brien asked me to include the site: anti-war.com They seem to be folks after my own heart.

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

Nothing But The Truth or Mykel's Blog for December 2022

 

Nothing But The Truth or Mykel's Blog for December 2022

  

Nothing But The Truth

or You're STILL Wrong,

Mykel's December 2022 Blog

by Mykel Board

Truth is a shining goddess, always veiled, always distant, never wholly approachable, but worthy of all the devotion of which the human spirit is capable. – Bertrand Russell

Truth is a goddess upon whose altar we have laid down our lives, but truth without gentleness, without mercy, without kindness, without love, is a pile of bones rotting in the midday sun.

--Larry Livermore

Truth is sacred, and if you tell the truth too often, no one will believe it. – G. K. Chesterton

They are evil people, the press, the media, they are bad people, and nobody, nobody lies like they do. – Donald Trump

Postmodernists are skeptical of explanations which claim to be valid for all groups, cultures, traditions, or races, and instead focuses on the relative truths of each person. It considers "reality" to be a mental construct. – Wikipedia

********************

I lay naked, face up, on the rough plywood plank. My wrists are fastened by leather handcuffs to the top corners. I’m bent in half… Ropes pull my knees pull tight against my shoulders. My thighs press my chest. Two sets of hands push down on my belly… and again. Each hard push just grazes my bladder forcing a weak stream from between my legs… settling in a growing yellow pond in my navel.

“Come on, Mykel! Shit!” shouts the one who presses the hardest.

Then….

Hold on! Speaking of shit. Stop the bullshit. You know this is all made up, Mykel. Just a bunch of bullshit… lies.

Fuck! I’d recognize that voice anywhere. It’s the voice of Literary Device^®. I wish to hell she’d shut up. Busting in, right when I’m trying to set the mood.

“What the fuck?” I yell at her. “I’m just about to get to the coprophilic orgasm and you have to break in. Why?”

“Because it’s a lie, Mykel,’ she says. “You literally have to make shit up to prove your point. Why can’t you stick to the truth?”

Even though she’s an asshole, somehow Literary Device^® provides an introduction to what I want to write about.

This month it’s

THE TRUTH

What is truth? My email in-box today has a petition from Common Cause to ask facebook, twitter and penislength.org to “fact-check” all posts, and presumably ban the ones that don’t tell the truth. (They also want to ban “Hate Speech,” but you already know how I feel about that.)

Did you know Joe Biden shaves his pubic hair? Fact check that, buckaroo! Donald Trump likes golden showers. Is that the truth?

I know what’s happened to me. That’s the truth, right? Maybe not! Even that can be a lie. See false memories. There is no way to know what is truth and not. In everyday life, we have to live as if we know the truth… whether we really know it or not. We have to take one step after another assuming “the truth” that the ground will continue to support our weight as we move forward.

Is THE TRUTH something you see or experience personally? How many satanic cases went to court because cops convinced witnesses of what they didn’t see, but believed they saw?

I sit and type this… a vague smell of melting wax comes into my nostrils. I feel a tinge of pain in my neck… on the right side. I guess my head must have been in the same position too long. The left side of my neck itches… as does the bottom of my right foot. A piece of the skin around my left testicle has somehow curled itself under my leg and is beginning to ache.

These things are TRUTH for me. Can anything else be truth?

Is science truth? Some people worship it like a God.“It’s science,” they say and that’s that. Like "It's in the Bible." for the religious.

Newton’s science was undone by Einstein. Then Einstein begins to unravel in a sea of uncertainty and randomness and Quantum Mechanics. Einstein tries to fights back… even bringing God into the mix with his famous quote: God does not play dice with the universe. But the Quantum says she does.

Science... that method of thinking... has unleashed at least as much harm in the world as religion. Can you say atomic bombs, plastics, Tuskegee Experiment, poisonous fertilizers, Cyanide, germ warfare, Thalidomide… the list goes on. Still it claims to have a monopoly on truth.

In 2022, science has become politics, with Democrats urging mask-wearing (and political contributing, of course) in order to fight the “anti-science” Republicans.

 “Stop Mykel,” comes the voice of Literary Device^®, “sure science has done some fucked-up things, but that doesn’t mean it’s not the best way to discover the truth.”

You’re right, L. D. But science has other ways to show it’s falsehoods. It proves it’s not true by turning on itself. Science that explains how the sun goes around the earth is replaced by science that says the earth goes around the sun. Science that says antibiotics cure disease, is replaced by science that says, disease builds an immunity to antibiotics. Science changes… goes back… contradicts itself… finds exceptions. If truth is anything, it’s always true. Science is a lie waiting to happen. 

FLASH TO SEASON TWO BETTER CALL SAUL: Jimmy McGill is scamming a bunch of old people in an assisted living home. He walks into Brenda’s apartment with a box of cookies.

“Oh Jimmy,” says Brenda. “You’re so wonderful. You never forget me.”

Jimmy sets the cookies in front of her. “It’s because I care about you,” he says. “Have you thought about what you’re going to do with all that money from the lawsuit? Go on a cruise maybe?”

Brenda is the “class lawsuit representative” and makes the decisions about whether to accept a settlement, or hold out for more money. If she accepts, Jimmy will have big bucks coming. He has persuaded Brenda and she signed the papers.

“Oh, I don’t know, Jimmy,” says Brenda, “the other people around here are angry at me. They don’t talk to me anymore. All my friends have left me. They think I sold them out.”

“They’ll come around,” says Jimmy.

They don’t. They hate her. She’s lonely... unloved.. where she used to be the queen of the club.

Flash to the next episode, Jimmy sacrifices the case… more than a million bucks.. to trick the group into loving her again. It’s complicated… like life. Jimmy is scum. Jimmy is a hero.

There’s more TRUTH in those two episodes of TV fiction, than there is in an entire year of Scientific American. People… life… the world… It’s complicated, deep... changes from one minute to the next… from one place to the next… from one culture to the next.

I’ve written about binary thinking. How pro-Trump people will excuse… or justify his abuse of immigrants. How they’ll explain away his clearing of demonstrators so he can have a photo op with a Bible. How he used a drone in a political assassination. Anything bad about Trump is not true because Trump is Good.

Anti-Trump people explain away his pardoning of thousands of non-violent locked up people. They call his opening of communications with North Korea, “a trick.” Anything good about the guy is not true because Trump is Evil.

Take a proposition: Trump is Good or Trump is Evil… and your job is to prove that proposition is right. For you, the TRUTH will be what confirms your opinions, your culture, your preconceptions.

“Ok come on,” says Literary Device^®. "2+2 = 4. That’s TRUE. 2+2=5… That is NOT true. Always. Anytime."

No it’s not. In Roman numerals II+II=IV. If that is TRUE, then 2+2 should equal 2V.

Okay, so what is THE TRUTH? Maybe it’s not something that always reflects outside reality. Maybe it’s just a tool that helps make predictions.

I sit at my desk, continuing to type these words. It’s cold outside… 39^o (4^o C) my eyes burn from the dry air. I reach for the half-filled coffee cup sitting on the edge of the mousepad. My hand settles on the handle... index finger on top... middle finger sliding slightly down... through the handle… vagina-like.

With the support of the ring finger on the same hand, I lift the cup to my lips. If I release my grip, the cup will fall… likely breaking into foot splintering shards… the hot liquid splashing against my bare legs.

Gravity is useful knowledge. If I drop something, it will fall down. It helps in my daily life. I can avoid broken dishes and locating that battery I just dropped out of the dildo. Gravity is truth. If you drop something it falls… oh wait, helium balloons…

Gravity is not truth. It is a useful way of predicting what will happens, but sometimes it’s wrong. Sure science can explain away why things don’t ALWAYS fall when dropped. But do we need that? Is it important? Isn’t truth only useful when it helps us make decisions or prepare for the future?

Why worship it? How is believing in science any different from believing in the virgin birth?

“Okay Mykel,” says Literary Device^®. “Whatever truth is to us, that’s what we should communicate. Whatever we believe is true, we should be responsible and pass that on the way we see it. That’s called being honest.”

FLASH TO HAPPY FACE NURSING HOME: 90-year old Mary Sunshine stands in front of me. She’s modeling her new dress... white with little Hello Kitty faces polka-dotted from shoulder to shin. She twists and turns on her feet as best as she can… first this way, then that.

“How do I look?” she asks.

“You look like shit.” I tell her. “You’re old and ugly and there’s nothing you can do about it… except maybe with twenty grand’s worth of plastic surgery.”

Tears form in Mary’s eyes. She sits down… hangs her head like a defeated boxer.

“How could you do that to her?” asks Literary Device^®. “That was so cruel!”

“But it was the truth,” I answer. 

Get it?

Truth is bullshit. A kind of truth may help you decide how to live your day-to-day life… but for every ten prevented spilt cups of coffee, there is one escaped helium balloon.

Human feelings, complexity, emotions, culture, avoidance of inflicting pain, these values are more important that the truth. Believing in them is more important than in believing in science… or the truth.

You atheists… you who say there is no God… you make a God out of science… science where the next day it admits it had it wrong and TODAY it has it right. Instead of judging Is it useful? Does it make someone feel better? Will it help? You instead judge IS IT TRUE?

Well, to again quote a great man… YOU’RE WRONG!

See you in hell.

Mykel Board

ENDNOTES: [You can contact me on facebook or by email at mykelboard@gmail.com. Through the post office: send those... er... private DVDs..or music or zines... or anything else (legal only!) to: Mykel Board, POB 137, New York, NY 10012-0003. If you like my writing, you can be notified when anything new is available. Send me an email with SUBSCRIBE in the subject line. Back blogs and columns are at https://mykelsblog.blogspot.com]

→ Cancel Culture Strikes Again Dept: This from the National Coalition Against Censorship. One of the few organizations that recognizes censorship from all sides. 

Wanna bet that the folks who are protesting this play are NOT the same folks who are protesting Transfolk Story Telling Hour?

→ A Tasteless True Story Dept: The Japan Times reports that Japanese convenience store Lawson is testing a new candy that tastes like emptiness. "Aji no Shinai? Ame," or "Tasteless? Candy," apparently has a slight odor but almost no flavor. The makers are hoping that people who use candy just to keep their mouths and throats moist will appreciate the flavorless variety.

 → Biting The Dust Dept: Punk rockers and other music folks will know that Keith Levene, best known as the guitarist for Public Image Ltd died this month. (November). What’s left out of most of the obituaries is who remains.

When living in New York, Keith married Lori Montana, sign language girl for my then band ART, THE ONLY BAND IN THE WORLD. Lori now lives in New Jersey and I see her not often enough. Their son, Kirk, along with his mom, is one of the most important people in my life.
    Keith ditched his family when they moved to Los Angeles. After several decades Kirk and Keith reestablished communications. Kirk got to speak to his father a couple hours before Keith died. Keith could not answer Kirk’s end of the conversation, but, according to Kirk, he could grunt in acknowledgment. Says Kirk, “It was a happy grunt.”

See you in hell, redux,

MB

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. 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. If it’s printed in THE NATION, it should give me street cred, right? Yeah right.

The October 17 issue has a great article by Laura Kipnis, one of my heroes. Her wonderful book Against Love put words to my long-time feelings. In this article, she debates the question Is Masculinity Worth Saving? Her answer? Yes! Especially because Masculinity includes wearing sensible shoes.

The November 14 issue has a column by Yale Prof David Bromwich called Hating Russia. It’s a superb calling out of Biden and the media for supporting the war machine by building anti-Russia hatred. Speaking of Joe Biden, there was another Joe who had similar anti-Russian views… though his last name was McCarthy.

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 bachlorette!

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 ANTISEEN... 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