You’re STILL Wrong
Mykel's
September 2024 Blog/Column
DAR!
"It's kind of like some sort of… gay radar. I call it…
the homometer."
— Ed Helms on The
Daily Show
Canadian psychologist Nicholas Rule studies social
intuitions—the snap judgments we make about people we’ve just
met. In a series of experiments, he and his colleagues tested
people’s abilities to judge others’ sexual orientation, and came
to the conclusion that gaydar is real. -- Psychology
Today
Your vibe attracts your tribe.”
– Unknown
Vibe high and the magic around you will unfold.
– Akilnathan Logeswaran
Sitting at the bar downstairs at the Peculier pub. I’m showing New York to Paula, one of a ton of my lesbo pals, just in from California. There are only a few of us here… it’s still early… clock would be striking 6 if the clock actually struck. For the moment no one else sits at the bar. A couple couples are at the well graffitied table around the main floor. Mac is the waitress. As is the custom here, the waitresses always show navel. (For some reason, all are innies… maybe that’s also a requirement.) Andrew, a former waiter who never showed navel is now behind the bar pouring beer and mixing drinks. Paula drinks a PBR. I drink an Ithaca Flower Power.”
We click our glasses and say “Baka yaroo!” Which I tell my English-speaking friends means “cheers” in Japanese… but actually means something like “you fuckin’ idiot”
“How’s the girlfriend?” I ask.
“Don’t ask…. That bitch!” answers Paula.
“Ouch!”
I say, then laugh.
Right then… like a movie where the
director cues the Enter The Mysterious Stranger®,
a girl walks in and up to the bar. Wow! I use my palms to push my
eyes back into my head. Talk about MY TYPE. Concentration camp thin…
a flawless face with just a touch of the oriental… one-hand cupable
breasts… a built in pout. She stands next to me… leans over the
bar to order an Imperial Stout from Andrew.
“You have good taste,” I say to her. “And tolerance up the wazoo for an imperial stout at 6 in the evening.”
She smiles.
I feel myself beginning to harden. Paula leans over and whispers something in my ear. It sounds like “Eyekul, Caesar Tyke,,, whore ket tit.”
I know my hearing is bad so I answer, “We’ll talk later, when there’s less noise” I say and return to my banal beer conversation with Mysterious Stranger® As we talk, the bar fills up slightly. Among the new folks entering is a young woman wearing a short summer dress. Dark hair and skin with a touch of Indian (red dot, not feather) in it. The new entrancée looks around, spots Mysterious Stranger® with us at the bar. She smiles walks over to us… to Mysterious Stranger® actually… and kisses her hello. I don’t mean a peck on the cheek kiss, I mean a tongue deep passionate guess-where-my-tongue-will-be-next kiss.
“So long,” says Mysterious Stranger® as she and the femmy girl walk to the back of the bar, and out of sight.
“Mykel,”
Paula says to me, “did you hear what I said to you?”
I
shake my head.
“I said, ‘Mykel, she’s a dyke.’ Didn’t you get the vibe?”
This brings me to the point of this blog-post. I’m notorious for not getting vibes. I have absolutely no GAYDAR. My friends who have the skill can smell one a mile away. To me, that girl just looks like an office lady. That guy looks like a CVS delivery boy. I just can’t tell. Two guys could be futt-bucking in a restroom stall and I wouldn’t know.
Of course it’s a liability…. Especially since my personal tastes go to butch girls and femmy guys… but I NEVER KNOW... unless I end up with some late night skin-to-skin. That skin-to-skin could be night-time nookie, or a fist to my jaw!
One of my friends: female… bisexual. (Not that I believe in that stuff… but that’s another post) says she’s got LAYDAR. This is a vibe detector that buzzes when the object is hot to trot. It works with any gender. What a great ability! I often wonder how many ready-to-goes I missed because I couldn’t tell… or the reverse… how many hours I wasted chasing after someone who’d get not further than “Let’s just be friends.” (Is there an uglier phrase in the English language?)
But GAYDAR and LAYDAR are not the only DARs I lack. There’s also GENDAR. It’s controversial with XY and XX and all that Olympics shit. But that’s not what I’m talking about. I mean just every day people, dressed in everyday non-gendered clothing. Sure, a beard is a dead giveaway. Balding helps too. But with a neutral haircut, neutral clothes: sneakers, jeans and a loose t-shirt… I can’t tell! Yeah, I love the middle look… “can’t tell” is sexy… but I also can’t bring myself to defile English and refer to one person as THEY. I know some girls like to hide their biology under a crewcut or even using Rogain on their face. That’s okay with me. But if you have a Santa Claus beard or the kind of face you’d want to lick the make-up from… LET ME KNOW WHAT’S UNDERNEATH DOWN BELOW! I can’t tell.
Then there’s JOKEDAR. People who know me know that I lie casually. I think lies are funny. When I’m out with my multinational friends, I pretend to show off by telling people CHEERS in Spanish is Besa mi culo… In German it’s Leck mich am Arsch. Actually, both phrases mean Kiss My Ass. I already explained how I hand the Japanese.In Tagalog, the main language of the Philippines, CHEERS is Putan ina mo! Oh yeah, that means Your mother is a whore. It’s one of my many playful habits, and I’m often at a restaurant or bar with friends, turning heads at other tables, making strangers laugh. But there’s always at least one… sometimes more… who come back with that’s not funny. Well, what is?
Lately, the only things people seem to find funny are jokes about politicians they don’t like. Are you one of those Stephen Colbert types who just says Donald Trump over and over, getting a laugh every time? Or worse are you part of the OFFENSE squad… like half of facebook and maybe all of Reddit who think nothing about politics, gender, race, or most anything else is funny… unless they agree with you? One of my “friends” on facebook banned me because I said Kamala Harris doesn’t look black. That wasn’t fully in jest… but it certainly lacks humor to take offense at it. If someone says I don’t look Jewish do I take offense? Of course not! I just unzip and pull out my ID. I’m not sure I even know what OFFENSE is! Sure I get angry at stuff. And sometimes people say things (mostly things about me) that make me sad… is that OFFENSE? I don’t know! I have no OFFENSEDAR!
Speaking of looking Jewish, another DAR I lack is JEWDAR. A story I often repeat is my visit to Kafka’s (yes, he was one too) grave in Prague. It was during Communist times, so I was an unusual American. As I stood looking at the tombstone, an older woman, who was removing branches and other debris from the grave spoke to me in English.
“Are
you Israeli?” she asked.
“No,” I told her. “I’m
from New York.”
“But you are Jewish…” she said
with some authority.
How did she know? What was there? Of course the answer is that she had the Jewdar that I lack.
Last
century, I wrote a song called Jews
With Tattoos
(which an Israeli pal of mine told me was a HIT in Israel!). In the
beginning of that song, I wrote the cliched view of Jews: Glasses
and a Hitchcock lip, big belly balding too. Lots of pimples, way too
smart…
Actually, I can’t tell. Does Ron Jeremy, the most famous male porn
star in the world, look Jewish? Does Scarlett Johansson look Jewish?
Sammy Davis Jr? David Diggs from the musical Hamilton?
I can’t tell, but the
internet says he is one of us!
Okay, this next guy “looks Jewish.”
I'd say “Shalom” to him on the street. Otherwise I wish I were like those Chabad guys who come up to everyone passing and ask “Are you Jewish?” (Someday I’ll write about Chabad… I love those guys). Oh yeah, once in a record store I was looking at an LP and mentioned to the store owner that I know the guy on the cover… a fellow Jew.
“In New York, how do you know if someone is Jewish?” he asked me… clearly the tone of a joke in his voice.
“I wish I knew,” I answered.
“He’ll tell you,” he replied.
I walk down Bleecker Street, heading from Sixth Avenue toward the Peculier. A thin young man somewhat taller than me... long hair… the kind of face you’d want between your legs. He wears extremely baggy jeans and a t-shirt that says RANDOM across the chest. He stares into the cellphone in his right hand… poking at it as if angry. I figure he’s having trouble finding some place… learning –as we all do eventually– that among tall buildings, Google maps are wrong.
“Are you lost?” I ask him… as I often ask strangers poking at their cellphones.
He turns to me… wide-eyed and whispers. “We’re ALL lost.”
He
raises one arm above his head and points to the sky. “We’re stray
sheep,” he continues, his voice getting louder. “My phone is
possessed. It’s been taken over by SATAN!” By now he’s
screaming at me. “AND YOU ARE HIS AGENT! DON’T THINK I DON’T
KNOW!”
Fuck! I have no NUTDAR! I can’t tell a looney
until he’s right on top of me. I don’t care how good-looking he
is… I don’t want this guy on top of me… I run.
FLASH RETURN TO THE PECULIER PUB: It’s Drink Club. I sit outside with my fellow imbibers, lying about how to say cheers in various languages. You know about that from JOKEDAR. We’re in one of those makeshift sheds that popped up during the plague. One of the many reasons I like eating and drinking outside is people watching. Bleecker Street is a human zoo sometimes.
We’re sitting outside as usual and this big guy passes us. As he does so, he looks directly at me.
“Wow! It’s great to see you!” he says, and then comes over to me and sits next to me. “Don’t you remember me?” he continues. “It was a couple weeks ago. You dropped your cellphone on the sidewalk and I picked it up and ran to you. My name’s Jim. You thanked me and said I owe you twenty bucks for that. You didn’t have it then, but that’s okay.”
“I’m Mykel,” I tell him, “in case you forgot.”
I have no memory of that incident… but I have no memory of most things. I call Mac over to the table. “Bring this guy a beer,” I say to her. She smiles and goes to fetch one. I pull out my wallet, take a twenty and give it to Jim.
“Sorry to take so long,” I say to him.
Mac brings Jim his beer. He drinks it in a fell swoop.
“Thanks, Mykel” he says. “Great to see you again.”
He gets up and leaves, heading toward Sixth Avenue and the subway. It’s only then that I realize it was fake and I lost $20 due to my lack of SCAMDAR. One of the few things I pride myself on is my ability to recognize fakes… but even that I can’t do with the accuracy I’d like. I got taken!! A sincere face... a good story... a friendly hug saying we’ve known each other for a long time. POW, I’m as much of a sucker as the tourists who fall for the pea-shuffles under the shells.
What exactly are these DARS I don’t have. Most people I’ve asked describe it as a VIBE. A feeling that transfers automatically from one person to the next,,, like the smell of unwashed armpits. Sometimes I get the impression of other people. If they’re happy… or angry… or sad. But that comes from a smile, a frown, a fist pounding on a table. Maybe a tear on the cheek. But that’s not a vibe.
A vibe is something mysterious. Something that transfers silently through the air. Happiness without a smile. Anger without a clenched fist. Lust without a pants bulge. I’m aware these vibes exist. Many of my friends have all kinds of them. Some even divide the world into people sending good ones and bad ones. These friends try to explain vibes to me, but I don’t get it. I’m like a person born blind that friends are describing BLUE to. It’s useless. I just can’t understand.
So, for future reference. If you’re an attractive tough girl… at least if you’re a girl who can beat me up… you’ll have to tell me you want me. If you’re a young femmy guy… like to start at the bottom… you’ll have to rest your hand between my legs before I’ll be aware of how you feel.
I am vibeless.
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]
-→Test Yourself Dept: Here’s a test I found on the internet. Just from visual vibes, you have to guess who is straight and who is gay. Let me know how you do. (I got 47% correct… worse than chance) Part of the problem could be that they showed a side-by-side pictures and asked to choose right or left. I couldn’t guess if they meant MY right/left or the people in the picture’s right/left. My 47% was based on the former assumption.
→ Movies about Everything Dept: In researching this blog I discovered there’s a movie called “Under The Gaydar.” (See the reviews in IMDB) And RON JEREMY is in it! I can’t find it for free on-line, so maybe one of you can tell me how to do that. The plot, by the way, is the story of a guy whose parents fear is gay. So they hire a girl to seduce him and turn him straight. The guy is actually straight, and gets to screw some beautiful girls, paid for by his parents.
→YOU’RE INVITED dept: If you’re in New York on a Thursday, come and join us at Drink Club. Just look for the Drink Club sign or ask the bouncer at the door.
RETURN
TO THE NATION DEPT:
I found a stack of old issues
of THE NATION and want to recommend some great pieces there. First
there’s an
article by Aida Chavez that says Biden is using the
same order that the Trump administration used to expel migrants at
the border without a hearing. I’m
guessing we can expect Biden’s VP to do the same if she gets the
chance.
There’s
also another
fascinating piece
about “Foundation Colonialism.” That is those charities (like the
Bill & Melinda Gates one). It seems that while they give away a
lot of money, MOST of it is to organizations based in Western
Countries. Their “help” is usually spreading Western medicine
(big Pharma), farming (GMOs, heavy fertilizer use), etc. to countries
who can and should use the more native-- and cleaner, though less
profitable for big industry-- methods.
LINK TRADE DEPARTMENT:
I did a nice interview with The Aither zine. Interesting questions many I’d 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, superstar comic writer, Justin Melkmann and
possibly the next vice-president of the US, Charles Bukkake.
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 on-line 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!
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.
Longtime writer, Randall Fleming, has a new book out about the reversal of flag desecration. In his view, the right And more generally it’s about political violence in the 21st century.
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.
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. mykelboard@gmail.com
