Repeating Myself or Mykel's Blog for May 2023

 

You’re STILL Wrong

or

Mykel's May 2023 Blog/Column 

Repeating Myself

by Mykel Board

“Tomorrow you promise yourself will be different, yet tomorrow is too often a repetition of today.”
                                  - James T. McCay

Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat It.                                     – George Santayana

“Don’t repeat yourself. It’s not only repetitive, it’s redundant, and people have heard it before.”
                                  - Lemony Snicket,

The nouns go first. Proper nouns…names.

I lie in bed… turn on my side… raise a hand to touch my face… instead I touch skin… someone else’s... warm, supple. I raise the hand to a shoulder... round and soft with a little roughness… maybe a pimple just above the scapula. I pull my body next to the other one. Bury my face against the neck beside me.

“Ah you are wonderful. You are my… my… my… “ The name? I can’t remember the name.

“Oh Mykel,” comes the answer. “I never want to leave you. It’s not only this…” A hand comes between my legs and squeezes gently. “It’s you. You. Yes Mykel! Mykel! Mykel!”

I want to answer with a name… but I can’t remember it! It starts with an M… I think. One syllable… a nickname… Max? Maybe two syllables… Mani? Morgan?

That’s what I want to write about this month. Not only my own ever-failing memory. (Did I tell that story before?) But my writing… and more… our COLLECTIVE memory where, if I hear the word unprecedented one more time, I’ll bite the tits of the utterer… hard!

It’s mostly on the news. With unprecedented climate change, unprecedented insurrection, unprecedented aggression… and more.

FLASH TO 1968, May 17. Nine Catholics, including Philip and Daniel Berrigan. both priests, go to the Catonsville office of the Selective Service… the army draft center. They restrain an employee while gathering records into wire bins, They then take the bins to the parking lot and set them on fire. After that, they recite the Lord's Prayer and explain to news crews that they’re protesting the Vietnam war. Three hundred and seventy-eight draft records are destroyed. Destroying government property! Wow! That never happened before… or since… right? Can you say January sixth 2020?

FLASH TO ME! (Did I already write about this? I don’t remember.) I’ve just graduated from High School... on my way to my first year at Beloit College. But before that, a stop in Chicago… the Democratic Convention. I spent the last year or so in New York… as a Yippie. Going to meetings by Union Square, hangin’ out with Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman… reading their books.

I listen to/read Jerry Rubin telling me to just DO IT! Then there was Abbie Hoffie talking about Revolution for The Hell of It. We’re going to change everything. Overthrow the government… but with a smile. We’re pranksters too.

Abbie jokes about a plan to put LSD in the Chicago water supply. They… the press… the government believe our joke. The army corps of engineers comes to see if it’s possible. It could be done, they report… the suckers.

Wait! Is that QAnon revealing child-sales at the Wayfair Furniture Company? Is Hillary Clinton funneling children through a pizza parlor? Get it? QAnon is the yippies of the 21^st Century… as funny as costumed pirates throwing British tea in Boston Harbor.

Back in the 60s there were trials… one main trial actually... the Chicago Seven… with a side trial of Bobby Seale who is gagged and tied to his seat. I remember Jerry Rubin appearing dressed as a South American guerilla… with shoulder bullet belts over his naked chest. Abbie Hoffman is draped in an American flag. Sound familiar? Maybe like a fur vest and hat with horns on it?

Is there a Congressional investigation of the Yippies? Calls for years in prison? I don’t remember any. There is a big trial… with Judge Julius Hoffman pounding the gavel and calling contempt... as prejudiced as any Liz (What’s her name? Wait, I’ll look it up.) Cheney. There are some convictions and sentences… some exonerations. They call it a circus… kangaroo justice.

On appeal, in 1972, all of the criminal convictions were reversed. The majority opinion of the appeals court unanimously found several errors by Judge Hoffman and censured the judge and the prosecutors for their conduct during the trial.

After the battle of Chicago, we are more convinced than ever that there’s going to be a revolution and “Amerikkka” will never be the same. We’re going to lead the insurrection.

But wait, there’s more:

In 2022, The Shadow runs a story by Paul DeRienzo. It’s titled The Time The Left Took The White House. You can read it here. In short, the story talks about a left-wing invasion of the White House in 1982, during the Reagan regime… government property destroyed! Eeeek!

Get it?

The costumed invasion of Congress is nothing new. And the destruction of government property by the capitol invaders. What a horror! Destroying government property… just like the Berrigan priests.

Let’s take those lefty Catholic protesters… again!

On September 9th, 1980, the brothers Berrigan entered the General Electric missile factory in Pennsylvania. They hammered on two nuclear nose cones... poured their own blood on warhead documents and order forms, and prayed for disarmament and peace.

You think that’s different from pissing on a congressman’s desk?

And then there are whistle-blowers. Chelsea Manning went to jail for exposing the evils of the Afghan war. Barack Obama, in one of his few good moves, pardoned her. Still, whistle-blowers have a bad rep these days. They’re vilified as Russian spies or enemies of the state. They’re not new.

In 1969, Marine Corps veteran Daniel Ellsberg released stolen top secret government papers, later known as The Pentagon Papers. They revealed that, early on, the government knew that the war most likely could not be won. Further, as an editor of The New York Times wrote, these documents "demonstrated, among other things, that the Johnson Administration had systematically lied, not only to the public, but also to Congress.”

Ellsberg was a hero… all charges against him were dismissed. Today’s whistle-blowers, like Edward Snowden and Julian Assange, following the same kind of heroic journalism as Ellsberg and Manning, are vilified by Democrats and the (barely) left as enemies, and “Trumpists.”

It all repeats. Down to the Hunter Biden scandal.. an errant member of the presidential family. How embarrassing! THAT never happened before. Can you say Billy Carter? The brother of my favorite president was up to his pupik in scandal from alcoholism to secret deals with foreign countries. Hunter Biden’s laptop and his dealings with Ukraine is a rerun of Billy Carter’s adventures in Libya... and his love of booze. It doesn’t stop!

History repeats itself, you see. But it gets reported from different sides. And most of the people who supported the originals, now tsk tsk over the reruns… with a new cast.. Or even worse, they deny that the reruns are reruns at all.

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]

→ Legal but not moral dept: Dorothy Parker and I were discussing the idea of privacy last week. And I just came across this article about protesters picketing the house of a State Senator because they didn’t like his stance on some climate and other issues. Every person should have the right to be secure in his living place. It’s so easy to be driven out of a neighborhood… or harassed by neighbors.
              In the 1990s, A. J. Weberman (yes, THAT A.J. Weberman) spray painted the outside of my building Mykel Board Is A Nazi, because he found my name on the mailing list of a rightwing racist newspaper… as if reading what other people think makes you one of them.
           I would never advise you to go over to his place and spray paint on his building in retribution. If any of my friends can dig up his address, please post it on facebook as a comment so people know where NOT to go to pay him a visit. I repeat, I’d never advocate such a thing.

→ I was wrong department: I’ll admit it. I’m pushing 80, and during that ¾+ century I’ve been wrong at least twice. Once was when I complained about Political Correctness. It was PC this and PC that. It became a kind of shorthand, and without explanation I used PC-itude to dismiss behavior I didn’t like… lazy thinking.
So, in my annoyance at someone using the word houseless when it should have been homeless. I wrote, Anybody heard the word "houseless" or "unhoused" as the woke word meaning "homeless?" This is just crazy! I live in a tiny NYC apartment. I rent. It's an apartment not a house. Am I houseless?
    In response, someone sent a photoshopped picture:

Okay, you’re right. I learned my lesson. If I use the word again, you have my permission to insert a thick-but-sterile wire into my urethra. That should get me woke.

And, oh yeah, a nice cartoon from In These Times. Wokeness Explained: 

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.

This time there’s a great article that involves true investigative reporting. The Democratic war-masters blast the Russians for helping steal Hillary Clinton emails to support Trump in his election. But there was another country involved in the spying and promotion of Trump. The NATION reveals who it is.

Then there’s a nice column by Adolph Reed Jr. (people still name their kids Adolph???) about the stupidity promoting diversity among rich people… or others who do bad things… like real estate developers.

And finally, the often correct Jeet Heer, takes aim at those Republican AND Democratic government officials calling for a US invasion of Mexico. And you thought it was the Russians who were invasion happy. Maybe the US will get support from Ukrainian troops in the invasion.

Late addition: There’s a great editorial by Jeff Faux about the US and Joe Biden’s love of war and its cost to Americans. War is, lately, something most everybody can get behind. Right? You wavin' your Ukrainian flag?

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:

Jason Rodgers sent me his book Invisible Generation… free! And I lost it. Jason, a long-time partner of Suzy Poe, has been bugging me to review it… and I can’t. So the best I can do is promote it. I have a lot of respect for Jason… he is a libertarian (in the best sense of the word), and a super-smart guy. When/if I find the book, I’ll give you some more details.

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 ANTI-SEEN... a tour diary of sorts.

Andy Shelton has an interesting blog here

Savage Hippie is a guy who has been YouTubing for a long time. Our opinions largely overlap... but he complains that I'm a Communist. I'm not! I'm a communist.

Chris Stecher publishes a zine called PRECIS. You can see the back issue links there... and he promises a new issue soon.

George Fertakis has a very nice graphics-heavy blog... with music and books featured prominently. If there’s no link here (I can’t find it temporarily), then Google… er… Duckduckgo him for information.

And my long-term pal Sid Yiddish contributes with his Mishegas Master Blog.

And connect to TRUST Zine, a long-running German punk zine… that STILL PRINTS!!! Yeah, they have a website too… of course! It’s here.

Here are a couple video links.

This from Jon Cox https://squelchchamber1.bandcamp.com/album/down-so-low

And this one from my very long-time friend Roger Armstrong.

Jim Testa moved his long running zine, Jersey Beat, to the blogosphere awhile back. You can read it here. Jim also recommended a kind of unique album… in a style you don’t see to much of these days… or any days. Neo-Hassidic Rock Opera. You can stream the album here.

Kyle Nonneman is in prison in Portland. At least he can’t be kidnapped by the secret police… I think. I post his blog for him, he can’t do it from the klink. Lots of stuff about noise metal… and some very weird politics that will either fascinate or repulse you… or both.

My long time pal, Jim Hayes rightfully complained about my leaving out his blog. He’s a great writer, so it was a tragic omission. Here it is.

Oh yeah, then there’s me. I have a blog of stuff I’ve written mostly from last century. You might enjoy it. Then again, you might not. It’s here.

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

You're Still Wrong, Mykel's Nov 2020 Blog or Truth and Nothing But

 MYKEL'S NOV. 2020 BLOG

OR

Is That The Truth In Your
Pocket Or Are You
Happy To See Me

You’re STILL Wrong

or

Mykel's November 2020 Blog/Column

by Mykel Board 

[Back to once-a-month now. Though I only had 14 days to think about this one.]

As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of demand. --Josh Billings

Dearer to us the falsehood that exalts than hosts of baser truths. --Anne Landsman

Ashley and I are clothes shopping. Neither of us likes shopping for clothes on-line. We want to feel the material... try it on... look in the mirror... support the local shops. Me? I usually hate clothes shopping except at thrift stores. Ashley likes… er… higher end.

Flash to a hoity toity designer shop in Soho. Ashley tries on a blouse that looks somewhere between a Hawaiian shirt and a Whole Foods shopping bag. It’s too tight over her belly.

She looks at herself in the mirror.

“Waddaya think, Mykel?” She asks. “Do I look good in this?”

“You look like shit in it,” I say. “It makes you look fat and your tits look lumpy… like potatoes stuffed too tight.”

Tears form on those parts of her eyes closest to the nose-bridge. They dribble down symmetrically. She wipes them away and sniffs.

“Can’t you say something nice?” she asks. “I know you don’t like expensive stuff. But what do I look good in?”

“You look good in a black t-shirt torn at the shoulder, and molded to show some nipple,” I tell her.

“You asshole!” says Ashley. “Why do you go shopping with me if you’re only going to insult me?”

“Because I know YOU like to go shopping,” I answer, “and I figure if I do something you like, it’ll get me laid.”

None of that really happened. But, although not true, it reveals a deeper truth. TRUTH, you see... despite protestations, charges of “fake news,” “conspiracy theory...” is something that NOBODY wants.

We get along in our everyday life through lies. Lies are the grease that keeps friendships together. Lies are the sandpaper that smooths out friction between one government and the next. Lies are our entertainment. Parody is lies. Satire is lies. Borat is lies. Even awful love dramas… at their most basic… are lies.

Twitter marks tweets as “fact-checked… untrue” or something like that. Facebook marks a parody of Trump’s birtherism.. accusing Trump of being born an Arab… “fake news.” Of course it’s fake news, you idiots. IT’S A JOKE!

Maybe the chicken had a deeper motivation for crossing the street. Maybe it was existential insecurity. Maybe it was rooster sexual-harassment that forced the traffic-challenging change. Maybe getting to the other side had nothing to do with it.

Fact check please!

No!

Take post-modernism.

My understanding of post-modernism is that it comes from the theory that there is no truth… or rather... that the truth varies depending on your point of view. What’s true about traffic cops for Miles Davis (If you didn’t know, he was stopped while driving his Lamborghini. The reason? The cop said, “You don’t fit the car.”) is different than what’s true about traffic cops for Mykel Board. (The reason? The cop asked, “You get your license at K-Mart?”)

It’s Schrodinger’s Cat… dead and alive at the same time… for EVERYTHING.

Post-modernism used to be the philosophy among most academics. Now, these the same people complain about “fake news.” Hey buckaroos, it’s ALL fake news.

We’ve entered an age of POST-post-moderninsm. We’ve entered a time where there are only FACTS… and those who don’t understand the facts. Sometimes this is called SCIENCE. Sometimes it’s called The Truth^®

It seems like the world… or at least the United States… is filled with people who only accept their own views as THE TRUTH. Other people are idiots, hillbillies, socialists, capitalists, or whatever epithet fits. Worst though, are the questioners.

When I tell people I’m a “Trump agnostic,” I have to duck as the shit flung from the fan comes spinning at me like a tornado.

“How could you say that? The man is evil. You support his banning abortions and jailing little children at the border?”

“How can you say that? The man is the best thing since oral sex. You’re against his freeing of non-violent criminals, his lack of invasions of foreign countries, his fight for lower drug prices?”

Aaaaahrgh!!!

There is no room to question when opposite sides think they have a monopoly on the truth.

As I write this, I realize I have a problem. (People have been telling me that for years.) I admire whistle-blowers… the Daniel Ellsbergs, the Chelsea/Bradley Mannings, the Julian Assanges, The Edward Snowdens.

I admire their bravery... their willingness to reveal what others want to hide... their dedication to the freedom to KNOW. Sometimes their activities are called “revealing the truth.”

I won’t call it that. Instead, I’ll call it: alternate realities... different stories… other possibilities.

I read complaints about “information overload”… but instead of suppression, we need education on how to decide among the alternatives.

The whistleblowers have shown that: One of the best ways to judge the “truth” (or ONE truth) of something is by how quickly people want to cover it up.

I have over 3000 “friends” on facebook. That’s true. What’s also true is that my “friends” are not necessarily my friends. Most of them I don’t know. Some that I know --and like– I have “unfriended” or have unfriended me, because of the poisonous nature of facebook communication. Those people are not poison. Facebook itself is poison.

In its quest to suppress “fake news,” it suppresses humor. In its quest to suppress “hate speech,” it suppresses speech. (I was in facebook jail for “hate speech” because I wrote that Americans were “barbaric” for not using bidets.)

I get bounced from Amazon for selling a copy of the King James Bible, autographed by the author. Twitter gives me bad marks for saying Joe Biden’s tax returns include a deduction for a charitable contribution to Pedophiles without Borders.

Humor is lost in the quest for the truth… No it isn’t.

It’s likely you’ll be reading this after the presidential elections. The election is America’s biggest joke of the millennium. A president who frees hundreds of non-violent criminals running against the author of 3-strikes and you’re out (jailed for life) law. Guess which one is the liberal?

Right now, polling place lines are long. The only difference my vote would make is a photo of the ballot with Sid Yiddish and Charles Bukkake written in for President and VP. Lies, fake news and half-truths burst from both sides. And I have as much interest in Hunter Biden’s Ukraine connection as I do in Hillary Clinton’s emails. It’s a joke no one is laughing at.

I still have an interest in THE TRUTH, though. Not what the truth is, but if there is such a thing as truth at all. And… if there is… is it useful or irrelevant? Clearly, it hurts people’s feelings… and it’s an excuse for name-calling. Clearly science doesn’t have it... neither does politics or religion.

I think I’m going to be newly old fashioned and go back to post-modernism. Truth is what you make it… and how you look at it. And with that, I’m going to lie down and jerk off my 11-inch dick.

- end -

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. Send me an email with SUBSCRIBE in the subject line. Back blogs and columns are at https://mykelsblog.blogspot.com

→ It takes balls dept: The Washington Post reports that a hospital in Oklahoma admitted a severely bleeding patient. The 28-year-old victim said that two men had surgically removed his testicles in their remote cabin in the Oklahoma woods. One of those men said he was a “cannibal” who kept body parts in the refrigerator.

The next day, sheriff’s deputies found what appeared to be testicles in a bag in the freezer. The two men face felony charges of conspiracy to commit and performing unlicensed surgery.

The “victim” told investigators that he volunteered for the surgery after meeting the “doctor” on a website that advertised castrations. He consented to the operation.

And I thought the whole thing was about consent. Consent don’t mean shit these days. Ain’t it the truth?

→ Here’s the sweet poll dept: Trump will win the election. At least, that’s the lead he has in the Lochel’s Bakery’s viral cookie poll. The bakery, just outside of Philadelphia, lets shoppers buy either Trump or Biden decorated cookies, and the staff keeps track of each one they sell.

Six weeks ago, the bakery launched its poll. The results have been unexpected.

Cookies Sold:

Trump - 3,754

Biden - 1,602

I say it may not be the political taste, but may have something to do with the fact that the Biden Cookies are completely stale.

→ Major campaign manager Dept: TV preacher Pat Robertson says that Donald Trump will win the election. How does he know? He got a direct message from God, saying that the election results are determined from above… WAAAY above.
Maybe it’s true. After all, his source is the same guy upstairs who brought us COVID-19… and more hurricanes than ever before… not to mention floods, and earthquakes. It MUST BE TRUE!

See you in hell,
MB

LINK TRADE DEPARTMENT:

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

Here's a start:

Here’s Richard Goldberg: goldberg.wordpress.com

Poetry and humor fans will like Justin Martin in The Latency

And my friend Mike R has a nice site with recipe hits from the past! (He cooked for me once... great stuff.) Check out Yesterday's Recipes.

And here's one by a member of ANTI-SEEN... a tour diary of sorts.

Andy Shelton has an interesting blog here.

Savage Hippie is a guy who has been YouTubing for a long time. Our opinions largely overlap... but he complains that I'm a Communist. I'm not! I'm a communist.

Chris Stecher publishes a zine called PRECIS. You can see the back issue links there... and he promises a new issue soon.

George Fertakis has a very nice graphics-heavy blog... with music and books featured prominently. If there’s no link here (I can’t find it temporarily), then Google… er… Duckduckgo him for information.

And my long-term pal Sid Yiddish contributes with his Mishegas Master Blog.

And connect to TRUST Zine, a long-running German punk zine… that STILL PRINTS!!! Yeah, they have a website too… of course! It’s here.

Here are a couple video links.

This from Jon Cox https://squelchchamber1.bandcamp.com/album/down-so-low

And this one from my very long-time friend Roger Armstrong.

Jim Testa moved his long running zine, Jersey Beat, to the blogosphere awhile back. You can read it here. Jim also recommended a kind of unique album… in a style you don’t see to much of these days… or any days. Neo-Hassidic Rock Opera. You can stream the album here.

Kyle Nonneman is in prison in Portland. At least he can’t be kidnapped by the secret police… I think. I post his blog for him, he can’t do it from the klink. Lots of stuff about noise metal… and some very weird politics that will either fascinate or repulse you… or both.

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.

I have a very occasional blog about how rich people are just like us… same needs, same desires, you know. You can read it 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