Mykel's MRR Column for #319, (December, 2009)

If you want to read more about Mykel's adventures in Albania, The US South-- or life in General-- check out Mykel's Diary For a look at the weird, the scary and the funny in real life, check out Mykel's Article's and Propositions.         

You're Wrong
An Irregular Column
for MRR 319, December 2009
by Mykel Board

“"They knew that in politics, like religion, power lay in certainty-- and that one man's certainty always threatened another.”-- Barak Obama

L'shona Tovah. Today is the first day of 5770. Pretty amazing we made it so far. At least I made it so far. Jim Carroll and Lux Interior did not.

SETTING THE SCENE: I sit in Café Café, a small place on Greene Street, tucked far enough into Soho to charge $9.50 for a sandwich. Too far south to be crowded with horrible NYU students, it's café enough to have teeth-grinding jazz blasting at the inmates. It's better than home, though. Fewer distractions. No dishes that suddenly need washing. No garbage that suddenly needs to be taken to the basement.

In front of me, behind my laptop, is a covered cup of coffee, the cover torn just enough to let me sip from it. The lid slowly melts in the coffee beneath.

In my lap (there's not enough room on the table), is a children's book called ALBANIA IN PICTURES. It's open to the page about Shkodër, one of the few “big” cities in the north of that country:

The residents of Shkodër rebuilt many of its buildings after a strong earthquake in 1979. One of the city's main attractions is The Museum of Atheism, which Albania's Communist government built to celebrate its ban on all forms of religious practice...

The Museum of Atheism??? Holy Pentateuch Batman! Sounds like my kind of place.

By the time you read this I'll probably be back from Albania. I leave in two weeks. No punk connections. No nothing. I just take the plane to Rome, a train across the boot, and a boat from Bari to Durres. I can't tell you what I expect to find (except, maybe, a museum of atheism.) That's why I'm going.

Give the Context: A couple months ago, I wrote about factives. This group of verbs creates truth... or at least the image of truth.

To review: verbs like know, realize, understand are factives. Phrases like everybody knows that, or nobody knows that... are factives.

If you say, “Everybody knows that Arnold is a piss drinker,” Arnold is a piss drinker. If you say, “Nobody knows that Arnold is a piss drinker,” Arnold is still a piss drinker.

Extend the context: There's another kind of factive-- a truism-factive. This one involves a cliché that unconsciously controls your point of view. It's a phrase that molds what we think. A one-sentence assumption.

My father used to say, “Never assume. It makes an ASS of U and ME.”

That phrase itself is one of these truism-factives. People say it all the time. Utter the words I assumed... and someone's sure to spit it out. Sometimes they'll just say “never assume.” You're supposed to fill in the rest. Everybody knows it. But... it's WRONG!

You assume all the time. You can't live without assuming. If you drop a marble, you assume it will fall to the ground, not shoot upwards through the ceiling. If you buy a cup of coffee at a Soho café, you assume it will not be laced with acid, tearing your stomach out, bubbling blood from your mouth at the first sip. As I type these words, I assume when I push the F key, the letter F will appear on the screen.

These assumptions come from 70 years of marble dripping, coffee sipping, and F-pushing. But even babies assume. If they press their lips against a warm nipple, for example, they assume it will dispense some tasty milk. Sometimes it doesn't happen, but to live, they have to assume.

Life is assumptions. Sometimes we're wrong. But we HAVE to assume in order to live. It's obvious. But people think in truism-clichés so they miss the obvious. The cliché trumps the reality.

More Context: It's 1989, somewhere on Second Avenue. This guy in Doc Martins wears a plastic jacket with a bunch of patches on it. He runs his hand over his smooth head.

Having recently been punched and booted by a colored skinhead, the image does not attract me. That this guy is white is scarier. As I turn to walk back to the Mars Bar, I read one of the patches on his jacket: IF IT DOESN'T KILL YOU, IT MAKES YOU STRONGER.

What the fuck? How many people have this truism-factive doing maneuvers in their mental battlefield? It's easy to see where it came from. If you give chickens antibiotics, the antibiotics kill off the weak bacteria. The strong ones survive. They do the bacteria screw, and the surviving bacteria get stronger. But that's it. Bacteria. Otherwise, the truism is WRONG.

I visit my father in an old folks home. I see people in wheelchairs. I see blind people. I see folks unable to speak, howling like wolves howl at a full moon. These people have diabetes, alzheimers, emphysema. Thousands of medical problems that don't kill them.. but make them WEAKER-- not stronger.

Of course, you die in the end, so you can say EVERYTHING kills you. But at any moment, if it doesn't kill you (unless you're a bacterium), it will probably make you WEAKER... not stronger. It's as obvious as the cancer on your nose, but you think in truism-clichés and miss the obvious.

The Crux: It's not only verbs, and truism-clichés that act this way. It's an entire mindset, a brainbug.

You hear something and it triggers a string of thoughts. Newspapers headline that a highschool girl is gang raped in the bathroom. Cops arrest four guys. They're looking for a fifth. The public is outraged.

Our girls, our daughters. How could we let this happen? We need more security in schools. We have to protect our women.

Here is the NY Post front page of September 19^th, several days after the “rape.”

Danmell Ndonye, 18, told cops she had been raped during a restroom romp at a Hofstra dorm early Sunday.

Stalin Felipe (left) and his cousin Arvin Rivera talked about their ordeal yesterday. Felipe credits Rivera, who had filmed the bathroom orgy, with clearing his and his friends' names.

He and his stepbrother, Kevin Taveras, 20, and pals Jesus Ortiz, 19, and Rondell Bedward, 21, were all charged with first-degree rape, which could have landed them in jail for 25 years.

"We went to Hofstra just to have some fun, and it turned out to be a nightmare," Felipe said. "Cops were telling us, 'You are going to rot in jail.' "

They were exonerated only after the fifth man -- Felipe's cousin Arvin Rivera, an 18-year-old senior at Harry S. Truman HS in The Bronx -- contacted prosecutors through his lawyer and said he had videotaped the sex romp with his cellphone. The video showed the sex was consensual.

Get it? The girl was lying! But we're so conditioned to believe the woman, the cops who were investigating reached their conclusions before they started. So did you.

How many innocents are in jail because people believe the victim. How many times have you heard cries against blaming the victim, when it may be that the victim is to blame!

This happens again and again. Remember the Duke University LaCross scandal in 2006? Even if you do, it probably won't matter. Let a woman cry rape and the guy is guilty. It's in your brain. Everybody knows men rape and women are victims, right?

The innocent woman/guilty man image is an idea thousands of years old. It's responsible for most of the gender inequality in the world. Woman's circumcision is mutilation. Men's is “protection against disease.” Husbands defend women's honor. Women can't defend themselves. Men are perpetrators. Women are victims.

Take Sweden... please.

“Enlightened people” say that Sweden has found the right way to handle prostitution. Instead of punishing the whores, as in most countries, Sweden gives them the right to ply their trade. BUT, if you frequent a prostitute, if you pay for the offered service... then you can go to prison.

Huh? That's the opposite of enlightened drug policy... or any criminal policy. It would be like saying, it's okay to sell heroin, but if you buy it, you go to jail. Talk about blaming the victims!! This is jailing the victims.

Where does such perverse thinking come from? It's a brainbug. An unconscious everybody knows it's true. The same brainbug that creates the knee-jerk reaction to cries of RAPE!

Women are victims. Most prostitutes are women. Most purchasers of prostitutes are men. That means the victims are the women. If that's the case, the criminals are the men. Jail them. Bullshit!

Careful thought shows the only victims are those created by the law. Prostitution, even more than drugs, is simply a paid relationship of mutual agreement. How could it be legal to have free sex between consenting adults, but illegal to have paid sex? Is there anything else in the world that's legal to give away, but illegal to pay for? I can't think of it. It doesn't make sense.

But sense has nothing to do with this. It's the mindset. Women are right. Women need protection. If there's a crime, women must be the victims. It never occurs to people that there may be NO victims.

Throwing up my hands: Ah fuck it. I'm going to Albania. There are no clichés about Albania. No performatives. There's NOTHING everybody knows about Albania. My brain will be free to make its own discoveries. Let's see what happens.

*******

ENDNOTES: [email subscribers (god@mykelboard.com) or website viewers (www.mykelboard.com) will get live links and a chance to post comments on the column]

-->Gimme Nuuk department: Greenland had its first election since it won near-independence from Denmark, my favorite country. The leftist Inuit Ataqatigiit Party of Greenland took control.
   Why? Global warming has melted the Greenland ice. Suddenly, the natives have access to natural resources worth exploring. The Greenlanders wanted control of their own resources. Danes, being Danes, let them have it.
    Speaking in the Greenlandian capital, Nuuk, the new leader said, “Greenland deserves this.” I hope he's right.

-->What's up Doc? dept: It used to be that doctors were the biggest block to healthcare in the U.S. In the old days, doctors opposed Medicare and any other government interference in the health biz.
    After a taste of rule by insurance company, a bunch of doctors are now head-banging to a different speedmetal song.
   Physicians for a National Health Care Program includes more than 16,000 healthcare professionals. It was started by Dr. Linda Farley who has since died of cancer.
   “The doctors who have been on the front lines can tell you,” Dr. Farley said, “there only one real 'public option.' It's single-payer.”
    That means socialized medicine. Yeah!

-->Plugging myself department: During my trip to Albania, I'll be blogging my adventures. And, depending on if I can find an internet site... and if my computer gets stolen, you can read that blog regularly at: http://mykelsdiary.blogspot.com/

-->A weird church-state issue: A Washington D.C. Christian Science church has sued that city's historical landmark department.
    They asked for the right to tear down their own church. It looks like a windowless war bunker, they said.
   At a press conference, church leaders said, “Little is more representative of a church’s theology than its architecture, and this building is not us.”
   The landmark department has reversed its ruling because of the suit. But since there is no plan for a replacement, the building still stands.
    A windowless war bunker, huh? Sounds like a pretty good representation of any religion to me.

-->A tougher church-state issue: During the last days of the Bush administration, the president issued new regulations about healthcare. The rules say the government will cut funding to any group, state or local government that does now allow workers to follow their religious conscience.
    That means pharmacists don't have to fill birth-control prescriptions if it goes against their beliefs. Lab workers don't have to give lesbians in-vitro fertilization if it goes against their beliefs. Catholic hospitals can refuse to provide morning-after pills to rape victims, if they believe it's a sin.
    Who is right? Should the government force workers to violate their beliefs? Or should there be equal treatment for all in need of it?
   I say, if you're gonna go for the belief side, you gotta go whole hog. My belief system says that wage-slavery... expending effort for the profit of someone else... capitalism... is immoral. For me, to participate in such a system is a sin. I want the right to my paycheck without the duty to actually work. If my employer has to respect MY BELIEFS, then I agree with the religious guys. Let 'em follow their conscience.
   Otherwise, face it, in capitalism, we DON'T respect the beliefs of working people. That's the whole point.

-->Good news department: Ward Churchill, the guy who was fired from the University of Colorado for saying the World Trade Center victims were little Eichmans, won a lawsuit against the university. It's not clear whether he'll be rehired, but it is still one small victory in the fight for free speech and academic freedom.

-end-

Mykel's MRR Column for #318, (November, 2009)

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Mykel's MRR Column for #317, (October, 2009)

NOTE AND WARNING: This column was written for the MRR Queer
Issue. It is addressed to the "gay punk community," although
anyone can understand the criticism. It is somewhat
more graphic than usual.If you're squeamish, or have just
eaten, you might want to think twice about reading it. 
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

---

---

THE COLUMN:

All the ugly things, the things people expend so much energy denying, have more permanence than the sweet sucking-candy lies about equality and justice and everlasting happiness. Ugliness is God. --Jim Goad

First there's the rose. I don't know who put it there. But there it is. Lying like a sash across his chest. I didn't expect that. Agim was not the type to go in for roses. He was a punk rocker-- and now I find out-- a junkie. Punk rock, junk and roses don't mix.

Next to me is an older woman. His mother? An Aunt? I donno. She's dressed in black. Equally black circles surround her eyes. She forces a smile as I introduce myself and tell her how sorry I am.

I am sorry. Agim was the cool kid. A cute punk rocker with a weird name. He came from someplace in East Europe. He had a high squeaky voice. He often came out of the mosh pit bruised and happy. He'd shake his head and say nothing more than WOW!

About 20 years old, he had a smooth face that'd take years to grow even a jazz spot. I'd often had fantasies about burying the bologna between his light brown buns. It ain't gonna happen now.

This is my third open-casket, Catholic funeral. I'm not getting used to them. There's something creepy about looking at a dead person you knew when he was running around doing things. Like having your pet dog stuffed, mounted and set in the livingroom... with a bone in her mouth.

Weirder is the girl now standing by the coffin. I've never seen her before. Somewhat goth, with a long black dress, but it is a funeral after all. Still, she's got black fingernail polish and lipstick... not exactly Catholic. Her long flowing hair is NOT black, though. It's somewhere between brown and redhead- like Lindsay Lohan's.

She's not beautiful in the classic sense. A bit too thick in the rear. Tits petite and free hanging. Because of the way she faces the coffin, I can only see her in profile.

Behind the chairs that face the coffin, is some food. I head for it. Laid out on a small card table, there's Merlot wine and cheese, like at an art opening. There are also a bunch of little strawberry tarts and crackers next to a pile of meat-- maybe chopped liver. A plastic spoon sticks in the meat at an odd angle, like a chimney in a fairytale house. I use it to scoop some of the meat onto a cracker and then shove the combo into my mouth.

“I think that's not such a good idea,” suggests a voice behind me, to my right.

I turn. It's the girl who stood at the coffin. Her face is plain, slightly freckled.

“Why not?” I ask her, taking another meat-on-cracker in my biological urge to DEFY.

“Funeral meat is always bad,” she says. “I think they make it from the remains of other funerals.”

“That's disgusting,” I say, reaching for yet another cracker and meat. I spoon it on thickly, as if I were teaching her a lesson.

During our short conversation, the girl moves forward. She now stands with her hand tangling centimeters from my leg. She bridges the gap, stroking the inside of my thigh.

“My name is Wanda,” she says. Then her voice becomes a whisper. “Let's stay. Whatisname would like it.”

“You mean Agim?” I ask. “You don't know him?”

“I go to funerals,” she says, rubbing my leg less subtly than before, “and I want to know you... Follow me.”

I don't get a chance to introduce myself. I just follow as the strange girl leads me through the hallway to a small storage closet. The only possible way she could know about it is from being here before. I begin to wonder.

Wanda opens the door and gets in, sitting on the floor. She extends her hand. I take it and enter. Wanda reaches up and pulls the door shut.

In the dark closet, she presses her body close to mine. I press my hand on the inside of her thigh. Then, run it downwards. I smell an oceanic mix of bread and tuna. She tightens her thighs around my hand. The warmth radiates through my body. Agim, you're gonna get me laid... but it won't be you!

The faint light under the door goes out with the last footsteps of the funeral guests. We are alone.

“Let's go,” she whispers.

I start to unbutton my shirt. But that's not what she's talking about.

Slowly, Wanda opens the door, looks around and heads out. We're back at the coffin. It's closed now. Wanda pushes up on the lid and it creaks back to open. There's Agim. Looking eerily shiny in the tiny bit of light that comes from the streetlamp outside the window. The rose, slightly crushed, still lays across his chest.

“He looks fake,” says Wanda.

I reach in to touch his face. It has a waxy feel, like an apple on a supermarket shelf. I have the urge to scrape and see if the wax will come off under my fingernail. I do. It does.

Under that wax is a small spot, maybe brown. It's impossible to see color in the dim light. It looks like what I imagine cancer would look like. I quickly pull my hand back.

I look back at his face. His closed eyes. What's under those lids? Are the pupils staring straight out like a vampire? Or, are the eyes rolled back in the head, showing only white... like a zombie.

I again reach into the coffin, putting my hand on his left eye, thumb on the bottom lid, forefinger on the top. I tug on the lids but there's a kind of stiffness, as if Agim is trying to force his eyes shut against my effort.

I'm distracted by a fzzzz sound. I turn. Wanda is at Agim's crotch. She's opened his belt and now unzips his pants. Reaching into the open fly, she pulls out his penis. It's the first time I've ever seen the penis of a dead guy. Maybe it was proud in the day, but now it's shriveled and worn, with what look like bloody stripes up the side. The head looks like a mushroom-sized scab. I can't see it for long, though, because Wanda takes it into her mouth. She suck up on it, pulling the skin taught, stretching it. I think I'm going to be sick. I begin to choke. To heave.

“Here! Here!” whispers Wanda, pulling up her skirt and taking down her panties. “Do it here!”

She grabs my head and forces my face between her legs. That powerful Neptunian smell adds to the nausea.

That chopped liver. Those strawberry tarts. That glass of Merlot. Like a movie run frame by frame, I feel the slow motion rise of the vile mixture, from my stomach... to my throat... to my mouth... forced into my nose... and out. Out from my mouth. Out from my nose. Out into the hairy crater in front of me. The smell of vomit added to the smell of yeast and the smell of sea bass make me even sicker, I puke again and again, until I'm stuck in dry heaves.

“Now fuck me,” says Wanda. “Fuck me hard!”

She tears at my proper funeral pants, pulling open the belt, pulling down the pants and boxer- briefs in one fell swoop. I step out of them. But, I'm not quite ready yet. Ninety degrees. I'm looking for forty-five.

Wanda reaches between her legs and scoops up my fresh vomit. She rubs it back and forth on my ninety degrees. The smell cuts to my throat and sickens me. But it doesn't sicken my little friend who pops up like popsicle fresh from the deli case. Wanda sucks on the popsicle. Rubbing the vomit around my testes, Wanda sucks, then reaches around to press me deeper into her face. A puke-lubricated finger slips into my little brown hole in back.

I tighten the sphincter around her digits. That's the trigger.

“That meat.” I say.

Wanda makes some MMMMMMMMing sound around my penis. Then my bowels contract.

“Not THAT meat,” I say. “The meat that we ate. It's hitting now. I'm getting sick. I think I've got the shits. You were right!”

She removes her mouth from my medium-on.

“Shit!” she says. “Shit on me! Shit on Agim. It's the least you can do... and it's the most punk rock.”

She's right, of course.

I climb onto the coffin. Resting one knee on each side, I fear I'll lose my balance and the whole kit and caboodle will come tumbling down. Tough. I can't hold it anymore. I'm going to explode. I position my asshole directly over Agim's face. Wanda squeezes his cheeks. His mouth opens. I let go. A torrent. Not water, but not turds either. More like a thick paste. Brown toothpaste, with globs of this and that. Direct hit. Right over that mouth. Filling it. Spilling over. Up his nose. Onto his eyes. A great thick brown mass. The joy of emptying my stomach raises my staff. Pain released calls for joy.

“Suck me!” I breathe. “Suck me now!”

Wanda scrapes her hand against the corpse face, bringing up my fresh fecal paste. She rubs it up and down my hardness.

“Suck me!” I say, “I can't stand it.”

“Wait,” says she.

Suddenly, she is at the garbage can where we scraped the plastic cups and dishes from the funeral food. She reaches inside. I can't make out what's in her hand until she returns to the coffin. I climb down to take a look. It's a plastic spoon, probably the same one I used to eat the tainted meat.

“Share!” she commands, scooping some brown paste off Agim's face. Open wide.

I open my mouth and she pushes the spoon in. It's a foul taste... like... well, like shit. I gag, but swallow it down. She scoops some more, and puts it into her own mouth.

Gagging to hold down my own excrement, I choke out a, “More!”

Wanda answers by shoving another spoonful of shit into my mouth. And then returning to the shit-covered face of Agim's corpse.

Taking the plastic spoon, she presses the end against the dead kid's eye-socket. It slips, spraying shit onto the coffin lid. She tries again. This time the spoon sinks in, behind the eye, underneath. She pries upward. The handle bends. Then, with a little PTTT sound, the eye falls loose and hangs by a nerve along the side of his face. A few grains of shit fall into the empty hole.

Wada grabs the eyeball and gives it a tug. With a snap, it pulls loose.

“Yes!” I hear her whisper.

She takes the eyeball and inserts it in her cunt. Squeezing shut, she closes her eyes and moves those internal muscles that only girls can move. Her face is the picture of bliss.

“Now you,” she says, taking the eyeball from insider her vulva.

I know what she's asking for. I rest my hands against my knees and feel a light pressure against my anus. It opens and the eyeball is inside.

The new pressure against my prostate propels the little soldier between my legs to full attention. Wanda pushes me to the floor and straddles me. I push her off and climb back onto the coffin. Pressing hard to keep that organic dildo inside me. I again squat with my feet on either side of Agim's head. I lean forward, lower myself, and insert the head of my penis into the empty eye socket.

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

This is the queer issue of MRR. What you just read is queer. You? You're as queer as a one-dollar bill. You had your chance. Your homosexuality could have been a ticket to queerdom. Being a homo used to be special, different, weird... Queer.

I remember people pointing and whispering He fucks boys. And now, Home Depot shows a couple of guys cooking breakfast together, plain as the cum on your lips... and it's your fault.

You've sacrificed your queerdom on the altar of “gay marriage,” and “gays in the military.” You prefer equality to queerdom. You can't have both. You've made your choice.

Your decision disgusts me more than a loose eyeball up my ass. You are more repulsive than vaginal vomit. How could you do it? Several years ago, I wrote You cannot be a man until you've been fucked in the ass. That was controversial... Queer.

These days, everybody and his mother's been fucked in the ass. Stockbrokers discuss anal lubes on their coffee breaks. It is not queer.

Queer doesn't say, accept me, I'm just like you. It says, watch out, buckaroo, because I'm NOTHING like you.

Yeah, I admire people like Matt B who are trying to make homotude queer again, but it's a lost cause. Like making Obama radical. We may wish it. But it ain't gonna happen.

We need a NEW queerdom. We have it. The necrophiles, the bestials, the coprophiliacs, the S&Ms, the pedophiles (who are so queer they can't even post their fantasies without being arrested!). The new queers should be in the face of every homosexual saying,

“We're here. We're REALLY queer. Get used to it... because you're not anymore.”

ENDNOTES: [email subscribers (god@mykelboard.com) or website viewers (www.mykelboard.com) will get live links and a chance to email comment on the column. Subscribers will no longer get the columns before anyone else.]

→ The honeymoon is over department: Speaking of marriage. Slack-cutting time is over. Obama is proving himself to be just another Democrat, maybe the next LBJ... or worse. He takes over General Motors, allows the company to shift jobs overseas. Says the government wants a “hands-off policy.” Huh? That's my money you're using, I sure as fuck want a hand ON!
   Worse is Afghanistan. That war is getting bigger, and I wouldn't be surprised if we saw a Pakistan invasion soon. It's time for that big Washington anti-war rally!
    Hey hey Oh-baman. How many kids did you drop a bomb on!

-->Homos yes, Nazis no dept: While homo activists push for more gays in the military, other liberal groups push for exclusions... of "white supremacists.
    The liberal Southern Poverty Law Center is complaining about allowing "white supremacists and Neo-Nazis" in the military. Seems like these points of view are "bad" and shouldn't be tolerated. They are HATE.
    On the other hand, homotude is LOVE. So it SHOULD be allowed in the army. Makes a lot of sense in an organization whose main purpose is to kill people, huh?

-->Elsewhere on the homo front dept: A federal appeals court has upheld an Ohio law that limits picketing at funerals, preventing an anti-gay church from protesting at military funerals.
    The Rev. Fred Phelps believes God is punishing America for accepting homosexuality by killing soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. He argues it is people's free speech right to carry signs with messages such as "Thank God for dead soldiers."
    The court said the anti-picketing law "serves an important governmental interest... at a funeral the mere presence of a protestor is sufficient to inflict harm."
    Sounds like the same rationalization they used for the round-up of demonstrators at the Republican National Convention in New York. Actually, it sounds like the same rationalization for the round-up of ANY demonstrators anywhere.

-->Elsewhere on the free speech front: The “Combating Defamation of Religion” resolution was passed by the UN Human Rights Council with 23 votes in favor and 11 votes against with 13 abstentions.
    The resolution was passed in spite of huge opposition from rights groups. The measure calls on the UN to "effectively combat defamation of all religions and incitement to religious hatred, against Islam and Muslims in particular."
    The Bush administration strongly opposed this resolution. It's unclear what the position of Obama is... but that's par for the course.

-->Partial memory department: The religious right wants Americans to remember that for some years Congress printed copies of "The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth" for its new members. But what's not mentioned is that this was Thomas Jefferson's version of the bible with all reference to Jesus' divinity and claims of miracles cut out.

-end-

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Mykel's MRR Column for #316, (September, 2009)

You're Wrong
An Irregular Column
for MRR 316, September 2009
by
Mykel Board

"History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.” --Winston Churchill

“As an Internet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.” –Godwin's Law

 “Those who study history are condemned to live in it.” --Mykel Board

I'm madder than a Klansman whose wife bought colored-- instead of white-- sheets. My fucking boss. Accusing me of sexual harassment because I ask a female student to sew a button on my shirt. Telling me what I can and can't say in class. He's a fascist.

“I'm gonna take a picture of him. Then, photoshop on a little mustache and comb-over,” I say, “Post it in the teacher's lounge.”

I sit in Jennifer's kitchen. The kettle on the stove whistles. Jennifer walks over to it. Using a Motel 6 towel as a potholder, she picks it up and pours the water over some green leaves.

“Oh Mykel,” she says, “cut it with that Hitler stuff. Everything is Hitler-- or the Nazis. If you get too much cream in your coffee, it's the Nazis. Somebody takes your seat on the subway. They're Hitler. Give it up already.”

Kerpow.

News item: Will Smith finds himself in hot water with the Jewish Defense League. He told a Scottish newspaper that Hitler didn't mean to do evil, but rather, using "a twisted, backwards logic, he set out to do what he thought was 'good.'"

The JDL denounced Smith's remark as "ignorant, detestable, and offensive."

In response, Smith issued a statement clarifying his position on Hitler as a "vile, heinous, vicious killer."

This column isn't (only) about Hitler. Though, he's probably the best example. Here are some others:

Wikipedia: The Armenian Genocide also known as the Armenian Holocaust, the Armenian Massacres and, by Armenians, as The Great Calamity refers to the deliberate and systematic destruction (genocide) of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during and just after World War I. It was characterized by the use of massacres, and deportations involving forced marches under conditions designed to lead to the death of the deportees, with the total number of Armenian deaths generally held to have been between one and one-and-a-half million.

Wikipedia 2: In God, Greed, and Genocide: The Holocaust 
Through the Centuries, Grenke quotes Chalk and Jonassohn with regards to the Cherokee Trail of Tears that "an act like the Cherokee deportation would almost certainly be considered an act of genocide today".

“The Indian Removal Act of 1830” led to the Trail of Tears. About 17,000 Cherokees — along with approximately 2,000 black slaves owned by Cherokees — were removed from their homes. The number of people who died as a result of the Trail of Tears has been variously estimated. American doctor and missionary Elizur Butler, who made the journey with one party, estimated 4,000 deaths.

From the Internet: The 1831 uprising in Southampton, Virginia was led by Nat Turner, who was himself a slave. Slave rebels systematically went from house to house killing about sixty whites before they were disbanded. In the suppression of the revolt, about one hundred African Americans died and authorities hanged sixteen more.

In Turner's lengthy autobiographical statement, he says that God led him to bring judgment against whites because of the institution of slavery.

NEWSFLASH: The bloodbath began when an 8-year-old girl attending a Christmas Eve party answered a knock at the door. A man dressed as Santa and carrying what appeared to a present, pulled out a handgun and shot her in the face. Then, he began shooting indiscriminately as party-goers tried to flee.

By the time it was over, at least eight people at the party were dead and the house was torched. The gunman killed himself hours after exacting revenge against his ex-wife with the massacre at his former in-laws' home.

FLASH TO LAST WEEK: I'm at my nephew's Bar Mitzvah. I mine-sweep the tables for the dregs of the vodka bottles. Following me is my cousin, B_ who came in from Thailand. A man whose mind runs through the same trough as mine, he moved there after his wife dumped him. A new girlfriend (35 years his junior) later, he's in New York for the festivities.

“Hey B_,” I say. “Did you meet S_? She's over there and she's got a pair of lips on her that could suck a car engine out through a tailpipe.”

He looks over his shoulder.

“Yeah,” he says. “But I gotta keep away from her. We have a history.”

Flashback to 1487: It's 2 AM. You're in bed. You lay naked, face up, your knees pressed close to your ears. On top of you, Pablo lies with his tubular bell, pressed deep into your belfry. Your lips press against his. You feel each thrust, stretching that once tight sphincter into an open, welcoming ring.

Pain. Delightful pain, as Pablo bites into your shoulder, as 

he grunts to hold back the inevitable. Your own arm reaches around the back of your leg to pump yourself from the front, while Pablo comes up the rear.

BLAM! The doors smash open. You hear a shout.

SODOMIA!

A clothed arm curls around Pablo's neck. He's wrenched off you, thrown back against the wall. You smell the stench of your own body.

Then two hands grab under your shoulders, pulling you naked out of the room. Your feet scrape against the cobblestones as you're dragged through the streets. Your naked body comes to rest-- face-down-- in the basement of the cathedral.

You struggle. Something metallic smashes into your face. A warm liquid drips from the corner of your eye to the corner of your mouth. You taste the sweet saltiness of your own blood.

You're face down, in chains, handcuffed to a kind of pedestal. It pressed into your stomach, and feels like it will tear your hips apart.

Voices in Latin speak above you. Again, you hear the word SODOMIA!

Then you feel it. The Pear. You know what it is without seeing it. It's been your nightmare for years.

Now you feel it, the metal... like a clamp... pear shaped... shoved into your already bleeding rectum. A fist-sized metal flower bud at the end of a screw. It's massive. You'll die.

But not too soon... That's just the beginning... The screw is turned. Slowly, the clamp expands. Its petals open inside you like a flower blooming from a bud. Opening larger and larger. Your insides rip. Then they shred. Death can't come soon enough for you. Stop! STOP!

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

Yes, STOP! Everybody's got their history. Everybody's got some saga that justifies being mean to someone else. Something 50 years ago, 100 years ago, 5000 years ago. Armenians, Jews, homos.

History is a grudge factory that justifies any atrocity in the name of one that passed. Conservatives want to kill Muslims in the name of 9/11. Palestinians want to kill Israelis in the name of land taken in 1967. Israelis want to ethnically cleanse Israel from Palestinians in the name of God who “gave them” the land 5000 years ago.

Get it?

I'm writing about history. Its abuse at the hands of every vengeful despot. It provides the all-purpose excuse for the worst atrocities. Its erection rises to impale everyone who is close, but different.

History. A bunch of guys killing other guys... written by the winner. Words in a book.

The Bible, the single most deadly book in the world, is a history book. It starts on day zero, and goes downhill from there.

Find a Jew. there's a holocaust museum. Talk to Catholics in Northern Ireland and you'll wait ten seconds before Protestant Oppression in Irish History pops to the fore. Talk to an anarchist? The commies, what they did to us in the Spanish Civil War. In Africa, tribal histories resurface every few years, along with severed limbs, and spilled intestines. People hate people they've never met. Why? History!

The solution is simple... and very New York. FUHGEDDABOUDIT!

Yeah. Ignore that history. Let it go. Armenian's 3 million, trumped by Jews 8 million, trumped by Stalin's 9 million, trumped by Mao's, I donno a billion? It's over. Start again. FUHGEDDABOUDIT!

The CIA tortured. G.W. Bush conspired. OK, show us the pictures. It's important to know the truth, but then LET IT GO!

The future won't right the past. “Justice” is the drag name for revenge. Call in the Alzheimer’s! Start every day thinking about what's gonna happen tomorrow. What you do now will make that day. Yesterday's over. You won't change it. Forget it.

ENDNOTES: [email subscribers (god@mykelboard.com) or website viewers (www.mykelboard.com) will get live links and a chance to comment on and discuss the column]

-->Whoever said cops can't laugh dept: Ex-suburban Chicago cop, Drew Peterson, called into a local radio talk show. Peterson, in jail on suspicion of the murder of his third wife and the disappearance of his fourth, suggested a new on-the-air game: Win a Conjugal Visit with Drew. He did not say, however, if the winner would be leaving the prison alive.

-->Sometimes capitalism is its own best humor dept: The Aggronautix company has released GG Allin and Tesco Vee bobblehead dolls. Called Throbbleheads, the dolls will be a “limited edition” (yeah right) collector's item. The Dwarves collection is next. I shit you not. (But does the GG doll?)

-->Al and the Xenophobes dept: An organization calling
itself Repower America is spamming email from coast to coast.
Throwing Al Gore's name around, they're sponsoring a TV/YouTube
commercial promoting “clean energy.” 
 The commercial features some hick-looking actor, shucking hay
and walking in front of a horse. The focus? “We've got to stop being
held hostage by foreign oil.” And “we're still borrowing money to
buy oil from dictators who don't like us.” How about we're burning
in ways that kill God's green earth"
 Yeah, it's the new liberal strategy. Appeal to the worst in us:
Xenophobia and religion. Evil foreigners and God's earth. It' elected
George Bush, right? Maybe it'll work for the environment.
Sorry bub, I don't want to breathe clean air made for God and
against foreigners. You breathe it. It makes me sick. 
-end-

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