Mykel's MRR Column for #326 (July 2010)

  You're Wrong
An Irregular Column
by Mykel Board

"If God didn't exist, it would be necessary to invent him." --Voltaire

"What if God is not as imagined? What, for instance, if he disapproves of gamblers, especially those whose purported belief in Him is dependent on some acorn-beneath-the-cup mentality? God might prefer the honest doubter to the sycophantic chancer”. --Julian Barnes

For months I've been reading about how the Texas Board of Education is trying to insert Intelligent Design in the school curriculum. What's all the fuss about?

For those who don't know, Intelligent Design is a kind of creationism. Instead of the usual creationist 7-Days-Pop-There's- The-World!, I.D. people believe that someone or something set things in motion. Then, there was evolution. Instead of lightning striking a primordial soup, there was a creator who did the designing.

I.D. doesn't use the word God right out, but who else could it be? Aliens? Even if it were aliens, who designed the aliens? Ultimately, it has to be God.

Christians use Intelligent Design to get around the evidence that the earth is millions of years old. The universe is much older. These facts make it hard to swallow the mere 6000 years that Biblical creationism can explain. I.D. people try to bring God to Darwinism. Their basic argument though, is the same as that of the creationists:

 

When you look at the workings of a watch, if you see that the gears move against one another... What one does, affects the other in calculated precision. You know there must be a watch-maker. A watch cannot happen by accident.

Creationists say that, given enough time, the watch can, in fact, happen by accident. Like moneys at the keyboard writing Shakespeare.

In the current evolution discussion, then, there are three theories: Darwinism (chance and the survival of the fittest), Intelligent Design, and Creationism. I will propose a third theory, but to understand it you have to come take a shit with me.

 

FLASH TO THE JOHN: It must be all that matzo. Binds me right up. It's lucky I cut my nails because my middle finger is now inserted into my anus, all the way to the third knuckle. I just touch the edge of a turd. As dry as the Gobi.

I grunt it down a little, tightening my abdomen as I give a peristaltic push. Ahh, it's a little farther down now. I can just wrap my finger around it. It's about the size and shape of a Brussels sprout. Push a bit more. Pull with the finger. Come on. A little more. Almost out. Kerplunk! There it is. Sinking in the toilet like a drowned kitten. I reach back in to coax out another one. Jeezus. This is awful.

Why can't your rectum come with a little more lube? Your nose comes with lube. Your mouth comes with lube. Why not your asshole?

I push again, trying to squeeze down the next one. Silver lights pop in my brain... behind my eyes. I nearly faint. In that moment I have a revelation... a vision. I see God-- the designer. Yes!

Let's look at the evidence: it's as plain as the dried dung in my rectum.

Take my balls... please. What a stupid invention. The most sensitive, painful part of a guy's body and where is it? Hanging outside, ready for the slam of a stepped-on rake or an errant baseball. My appendix is protected by layers of muscles and fat... and how often do I use that? But my balls?

 

“Hmmm, well I think I'll just leave 'em out to dangle in the air. Leave those fragile glands in a spot they'll most likely get damaged.”

What kind of thinking is that? Dumb!

And what about the other part of that dangly device?

“Oh baby, I'd love to, but...”

How come I can't? Or at least can't always. Why can't I just raise my dick like I can raise my middle finger? I can lift that finger to tell someone to fuck off whenever I want to? But (especially after a certain age) I have to take a little blue pill to raise my penis. Why?

But the moronitude extends to more than just me.

And how about the history of the world? Before humans?

90% of all species that ever existed on earth are extinct. They didn't work and died out. Is that intelligent design? Sounds pretty dimwitted to me.

Besides stupidity, there's downright evil in the history of the world. Is it “intelligent design” for some people to be able put others in ovens?

Once, I answered a Facebook critic who said he drove an SUV because he “wanted to show you PC people that we are free to drive whatever we want.”

“You're free to nail your penis to a tree,” I said. “That doesn't mean you should.”

But why should we even be able to nail our penises to a tree? Is that a useful ability in the year of our iPad, 2010? Isn't it plain stupid?

Oh, I know what the Christians/Jews say. That's free will™. God gave the gift of free will™. It's up to individuals to use it for good or to toast their fellow humans-- or nail their own penises to a tree.

Free will? Free will??? I don't have free will. Can I walk through walls? No! Can I flap my arms and fly? No! Can I make myself invisible? Keep an erection for an hour? No. No! NO! Why aren't those things part of free will?

I can imagine God designing free will.

“Let's see. I have a choice. Either I allow people to murder one another... in huge quantities, and build ovens for the bodies... or I let them fly. I think I'll choose mass murder.

Hmmm, should I let people be able to turn invisible or should I let 'em be able to nail their penises to trees? Hah, the answer is obvious. Nail those dicks.”

It's crazy.

****

What I propose is an alternative to evolution, intelligent design, and creationism.

The I.D. people say “Look at the world. Look how everything works in one beautiful pattern. Even if the world is old, you can see it must have been designed by some great intelligence.”

I say, “Look at the world. Look at earthquakes, hurricanes, war, capitalism and American Idol. It must have been designed by some great idiot.”

And that's my theory. STUPID DESIGN.

Why does it hurt so much to have a kid?

Why are black holes eating the universe, destroying everything in their path?

Why are newborns so fragile that they'll die when left on their own?

Why are our heads supported by such a flimsy thing as the neck? Ripe for the axe or an accident under a truck?

Why do teeth rot just when an animal (or person) gets too old to chew effectively?

Why are there mosquitoes, cancer, viruses, swine flu?

These things cannot happen by themselves. There's just too much wrong, too much ugliness to happen by accident. The answer is clear: STUPID DESIGN.

Aliens... God... The master planner... They're idiots. Morons with power. Retards. Mentally challenged.

I say, image a watch that spins out of control... Where the gears fight each other... Which is right only once every several thousand years... Which requires you to take it apart before you can know what time it is...

You'd say that watch was designed by an idiot.

I'd say, EXACTLY!

The letter X is better designed than this universe. That letter is simple, with clean lines, easy to understand, and causes no pain. The parts work together, getting along well, even when they cross. 

The same cannot be said of the rest of this universe.

I propose schools teach STUPID DESIGN. Textbooks could be any history, geology, astronomy book. Students can learn about an earth too weak to hold in its own insides, causing volcanoes to wreck havoc like pus out of a pimple.

They can learn about cosmic collisions like the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs.

The can learn about human slavery, or the universal tendency of all matter to move to chaos.

Any subject. Any time. Anywhere. It all points to the same unavoidable conclusion. A unified theory of the universe. STUPID DESIGN.

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]

--> Bambi does it again dept: President Obama disappointed millions of Americans by announcing his plan to open vast coastal areas to offshore oil drilling.

    When we need clean energy and climate solutions, this plan is a giant step backward -- allowing oil companies to reap billions, while feeding America's addiction to dirty fossil fuels.

Of course Candidate Obama said in 2008, "We can't simply drill our way out of the problem. And we're not going to be able to deal with the climate crisis if our only solution is to use more fossil fuels that create global warming."

      The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that by 2030, the new oil drilling regions would yield only two months worth of oil in the next 20 years.

Talk about Stupid Design...

-->Naughty Boy dept: Army chief warrant officer Lewis Welshofer will spend ZERO months in jail after a military jury convicted him of homicide. The trial was for the murder of political prisoner, Abed Hamed Mowhoush. During the interrogation, Welshofer forced Mowhoush head-first into a sleeping bag, tied him with electrical cord and sat on his chest. There was a penalty, however. Welshofer was sentenced to 60 days restriction to his home, church and office. How horrible!

-->Naughtier people dept: The St. Patrick's Day Four is a group of anti-war protesters who threw blood on a military recruitment center in upstate New York. A judge sentenced them to an average of 5 months each for "damaging government property and entering a military station for an unlawful purpose." Shows where priorities are, huh?

-->Make up your mind to be naughty dept: In Ashland Oregon, the mayor cast a tie-breaking vote. That vote defeated a proposal to ban nudity within 1000 feet of schools. Yeah!... But, wait.

     After the vote, the mayor sent out an email saying he was rethinking his position because a tourist from Minnesota wrote that he wanted to be naked near Ashland schools. I don't get the fuss. But in any case, it ruins MY vacation plans.

-->666 dept: The Virginia House of Delegates has passed a new law. That law will prohibit employers and insurance companies from requiring people to implant microchips into their bodies. Why? Well one lawmaker gave the reason:

    “It might be the mark of the Beast,” he said.

  Pet owners and parents are exempt from the ban.

  Pet owners, I can understand, I mean those sub-skin microchips ARE the mark of the beast. But parents? Already some are doing it... in their children's best interest, of course. Nya hah hah!

-->Look at the right-center lobe for that one dept: Stanford Magazine reports on the new scientific field of decision neuroscience.

     Using MRIs to map the brain. Scientists are learning to determine “what triggers certain responses during purchasing decisions.” The idea is that if merchants/advertisers can create something to pull that trigger, they can sell more product. 

    I don't know why they bother. Apple has had that information for years. They can spit into a thimble, name it i-Sputum, and people will line up around the block to buy it.

-->Keep this under your towel dept: The French magazine Maisonneuve writes that Islamic clerics have decided “there's no opposition to a husband sucking his wife's breasts, but he should avoid drinking her milk.” This is related to an earlier decision that “a married couple may engage in oral sex as long as no semen is swallowed.” 
   Sounds positively Christian to me.
 

-->What the f**k? dept: Google finally admitted that it's Nexus One voice recognition software is constructed to censor “offensive words.” The software, used on iPhone competitor Android, drives that system's voice activated commands.
   That's not STUPID DESIGN. It's malicious!

-end-

visit Mykel's homepage here

Mykel's MRR Column for #325 (June 2010)

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
by Mykel Board

"The purpose of having boundaries is to protect and take care of ourselves. We need to be able to tell other people when they are acting in ways that are not acceptable to us. A first step is starting to know that we have a right to protect and defend ourselves. That we have not only the right, but the duty to take responsibility for how we allow others to treat us."   --Robert Burney

“I never met a fence I didn't want to climb over, nor a border I didn't want to sneak across.” --Mykel Board

I've told this anecdote before. The year is 1970. I'm at Big Sur in California. It's the College-Summer-Across-America trip. Everybody does it. I'm traveling with my Beloit pals. The car. The acid. The air. Ah, the air. 

Big Sur freedom. Like a Keroac novel. It smells like grass, growing grass, not mowed lawn grass. Each blade sings as the air whips by. Open spaces. I run here and there... Absolutely free. A Zen slap to my acid-addled consciousness. 

I walk away from the others. A straight line. Knee-high shrubbery. Looking out for miles over the Pacific. It's a view you can jerk off to. I do. Then, I walk some more. Something catches my pantleg. I reach down.   

Jeezuz fuck! It's barbed wire. About 7 foot by 7 foot. A fenced-in patch of land. Here! In the freest place in America... a fence! About 3 feet high, rusted, it's not much of a fence, but still, it's a fence.  

The Great Wall of China didn't stop Genghis Kahn. He couldn't go over it, so he went around it. Ptuuuiii, Great wall, my ass!

So three feet of barbed wire? Hah! I can almost step over it. Climb it. I do, wondering what it could be protecting. I search. Figuring it's a potpatch or buried loot. I can't find a thing. I don't get it.
 

Fuck it. Anyone who fences-in freedom deserves to be shat upon. That's what I do. Take a shit. A fierce beer shit. A stinking pile in the midst of the barbed-wire corral. Grabbing a few leaves from the ground, I wipe my ass and climb back over to the other side.

Soon, I'm back with my friends. We finish the LSD picnic. Have more beer, then head back to San Francisco.
 

In a few hours, I learn why the fenced in area is fenced-in. It's filled with poison oak. Poison oak?? My ass!

Flash ahead: It's 2010. I'm in the teacher's lounge at work. As is often the case, one of the teachers is laying into me.

“Mykel,” she says, “What is it with you? I go to teach this new student. I introduce myself to her and she says, Oh you're Sara. You're the one who lived in Bali. I never met her and she already knows about my life.”

“And?” I ask, “Is there something embarrassing about living in Bali?”

“Of course not,” she says, “but my life is MINE. It's not yours. You just don't respect boundaries! You've got to learn. I am here. You are there. If I want to tell a student about my life, I can. But it's got to be my choice. You don't know where you end and other people begin.”

I check to see if I have a Siamese twin.

“I mean it, Mykel,” she says. “You're not like most people, I know. Still, would you like me telling everyone about your life?”

“Sure,” I say. 

“Well, most people wouldn't,” she says. “You've got to respect boundaries.” 

Before I can answer, she stalks out of the lounge in a huff. 
 

“Boundaries,” I think. “I don't really get this boundary stuff. A few fences are there for a good purpose, like keeping your ass out of the poison oak. But most fences keep your ass in, more than out. It's like Mexican immigration. Fences pretty much suck.”

As I leave the lounge, I pass one of my favorite teachers. One with a perfect ass. Exactly right curvature, the smooth roundness... bulging behind, not to the side. So beautiful she could be Dominican. (How many perfect asses has U.S. Immigration law kept out of America? I hate to think about it.) 

Passing her, I rest my hands... just briefly... on that gluteal masterpiece. 

Whooosh! Pain. An elbow to the chest. I fold, like a Democrat supporting the public option.

“Keep your hands to yourself, Mykel,” says the callipygious queen.
 

“Don't you go touching my body without my permission.”

I'd like to say I come back with a witty answer, but I can't come back at all. I think she's crushed my sternum.

I don't get it. If I had an ass like that, I'd be running the gauntlet. Touch me you fools. Look what I got! Yeah! Pretty hot, huh?

Maybe it's an extension of what I wrote about a few columns ago. The iPods, and the iPhones. The plugged ears and turned-off senses. Barbed wire fences, pulled so tight they scratch the skin. I'll build a little wall around myself. Don't touch me. I'm poison oak!

Flash to the Silent Club, a Hispanic/anarchist punk club near the border of Queens and Brooklyn: R-Tronika has played, as well as another Latino band, and a whiteboy band that I can't remember the name of... but was fuckin' good. 

Right now, Taina, one of the R-Tronika singers, is signing my ass. Marking pen, sure to leave a good impression on the guys at the gym. Yeah! 

“There it is Mykel,” says Taina. “You sure like to push the envelope, huh?”

Flash to Annie Moore's, a local Irish bar: My weekly Drink Club has been flagging lately. The weather? The economy? This week it's only me and Eiji, a Japanese student. We're discussing how hard it is to meet people in New York and why Drink Club-- established to help relieve that isolation-- seems like a flop. 

“Why don't teachers come to Drink Club?” asks Eiji.

“Last time I asked,” I tell him, “they said they spent all day with students and got paid for it. It's a job. They don't want to carry their job outside of working hours.”

“Why is that?” he asks. “If they like their job and the students, they should enjoy it anytime. If they don't like it, they should quit. I don't understand.”

“Boundaries,” I tell him. It doesn't help.

Boundaries. Boundaries. Boundaries. It's the current word. Parents are supposed to teach their kids boundaries. Conservatives want them around countries. Liberals want them around (especially women's) bodies. Workers want them around their jobs. This is my job. This isn't. Now I'm at work. Now I'm not.

Me? I will not respect boundaries. If I get elbowed in the chest, I'm going to have to observe them... but I will not respect them.

If you're sitting in the corner with your friends, talking about your latest herpes outbreak. I'll be there. Offering you my Lysine. 

If you're blithely walking down the street, minding your own business. I'll be there minding your business with you. You cannot talk on your cellphone about your boyfriend, without me asking how big his dick is. Your business is MY business. 

If you build a fence, I'll climb over it. I might get an assful of poison oak, but I'm still gonna climb. Make it a wall, and I'll break through. If I can't break through, I'll go around. 

I don't want to push the envelope. I want to puncture it. Tear it apart. I want that envelope to disintegrate into a hundred scraps. I want to see the paper turned into confetti... shredded around me. 

Boundaries? Fuck boundaries. You can sign my ass. 

******

A Note on Bruce Roehrs: I don't cry very easily. Those few times I do, it's either legit... like when my mother died, or manipulative... like when I saw They Once Were Warriors. 

For me, a good cry is not cathartic... not at all like a good 

shit. The last MRR cry I had was when Timmy Y died. If you believe in the afterlife (he didn't), I'm sure he's having a good laugh at that one. But crying did not make me feel any better.

I didn't cry when I heard Bruce died. But I felt like shit. We are (were?) about the same age. Both MRR vets. We'd only met a few times over the years. The first was when Timmy introduced us sometime last century. On my rare visits to the left coast, we saw each other at the MRR house. 

Bruce was jolly. Always in good spirits. Always talking about this band or this show or this music. He didn't care if the MRR orthodoxy was to hate Agnostic Front... He didn't care about orthodoxy at all. His life was ruled by music, not politics. Obama? Rush Limbaugh? Dominican ass? What excited Bruce?

Fuck! A blistering slab of hardcore appeared at MRR the other day! This fucking record devastates everything in its path. 

So much energy. So much enthusiasm. So much life. He was the kind of guy that NOBODY hates. He was a spark. A breath of punk air. I didn't cry, but I will fuckin' miss him. 

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]

-->Politically Correct dept: Bambi adviser, Rahm Emanuel apologized to the Special Olympics Committee for using the word "retarded" when he criticized activists who were pushing for true healthcare reform, not the lame law that actually passed. Of course, without real healthcare, the retards will probably have no chance to improve their lives... But it's the apology that counts, right?

-->Small Victories dept: At first, YouTube censored the videos of Amy Greenfield. The National Coalition Against Censorship and the Electronic Frontier Foundation protested. 

The videos are rather tame. A naked girl rolling in the mud, mostly. But in today's atmosphere, you need to wear a raincoat in the shower. 

After the protest, YouTube undid the censorship... sort of. If you want to watch to the videos, you'll be met with the following warning:

“CTS_Element by artist Amy Greenfield” This video or group may contain content that is inappropriate for some users, as flagged by YouTube's user community.

To view this video or group, please verify you are 18 or older by signing in or signing up.

So is it a victory? Yeah, it's a small one. Like the healthcare bill.

--->Fee this baby! dept: As if airlines, phone and cable companies didn't have enough fees and surcharges, CONTINENTAL AIRLINES is charging extra to be tall! Yep, those “premium seats” in the exit rows. You know, the ones with legroom. They now cost up to $59 extra. Ah, the joys of being short!

-->Obama at the pulpit dept: A presidential advisory council, filled with priests and rabbis, is scheduled to offer recommendations on the “faith-based” initiative and other issues.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State said, however, that the Obama administration needs to take action, not spend time studying reports. 

“I am deeply disappointed at President Obama’s handling of the faith-based initiative,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United executive director. “He has kept the harmful Bush-era policies in place and added a constitutionally inappropriate council of religious leaders to offer policy advice. This is not separation of church and state.”

My feelings are summed up in this quote from THE NATION:

AUDACITY fits nothing on the list of (Obama's) last year's activity save the suggestion that this is the administration the candidate had promised.

-->I've been saying it's a disease for years dept: Now the American Medical Association is considering a resolution in support of BANNING NECKTIES in hospitals. According to allbusiness.com, studies show that neckties harbor bacteria that creep down and spread from doctor to patient and back again.
 I say, why only doctors? Neckties are a hazard to all humans. Ban 'em everywhere... Okay, I guess they're all right among consenting adults... in private!

-->Private cop for fun and prizes dept: The Calgary Herald reports that interneteyes.com is setting up a system where stores pay $32 a month to be members. Once paid, the stores' surveillance monitors are broadcast on the website. Netsurfers watch the cameras and turn in shoplifters. The viewer who turns in the most shoplifters in one month wins more than $1000. 

 

It's probably illegal to suggest some hacker switch the video feed to sweatshops in India... so I won't do that.

-->My new heroine dept: My jailbird pal Kyle sent me a link (http://wadvpress.org/?p=81) to a great article by Barbara Kay. I don't have space to go into detail, but you can guess the content from the title: OCTOBER IS DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AWARENESS MONTH. HOW ABOUT MAKING NOVEMBER FALSE ALLEGATIONS AWARENESS MONTH?
Men are screaming and no one is listening. Why do women assault men? Because they can! (Thanks, Jim Goad)

-->Free Speech on the other side dept: Sid Yiddish, sent me a link to an article about a Dallas County jail guard fired over supporting slavery (“It's in The Bible”) and saying gay people should be put to death.

Where are the liberal free speech defenders in this case? Yeah right, that's what I thought.

-->Holy (beer) shit dept: Yow! Nothing like a birthday party to put you on to a new beer. I discovered HOP STOOPID, a gift from a guy who usually drinks wine. It is the best beer I've tasted this century. It comes in big 22 ounce bottles, but I was drinking it with some Mexican pals, so I didn't get most of it. Ah well, I could savor my third... quarter... fifth. I wonder if it comes in 6-packs.

 

-end-

visit Mykel's homepage here

Mykel's MRR Column for #324 (May 2010) Mykel is saved by lesbians

  You're Wrong
  An Irregular Column 

Number 324 May, 2010
 by Mykel Board 

A weed is a plant out of place. --Jim Thompson 

I didn't think it was possible to catch Tourette's Syndrome, especially from a book. I was wrong. I'm reading Motherless Brooklyn, By Jonathan Lethem, it's fiction about a detective who barks, curses, twitches through a complicated plot about Buddhists and giant Polaks.

Now, I've got it. The syndrome, that is. Every time I pass an attractive person on the street I shout AAAAHOOOGAH! Like one of those cars from the 1920s. So far it hasn't got me punched. Hasn't got me laid either.

It could be my mood, though, not the syndrome.

Usually, I'm a jolly guy. Easily entertained. I enjoy the simple things in life... getting drunk, jerking off, taking a shit, being kidnapped in Albania. So how come I've been feeling so rotten lately?

It's not the politics. Dubya was as bad as Bambi.

It's not the age milestone. Just that I made it is cause for celebration, or at least amazement. 

It's not the state of punkrock... In fact, sometime I'll write a column about the great state of punkrock in New York... especially the NEW SCUM scene.

I think I'm depressed by something I hinted at in an earlier column. Something you see in iTunes and Facebook. Maybe I'm barking at Twitter and Netflix. At the TV-sized screens in the local multiplex and the theater-sized screens in the apartment across the street.

 
Scene shift: Lefty Hooligan already complained about it. Now I will: I've got 764 friends on Facebook. What does it get me? Can I suck the squack from 764 vaginae? Can I wrap my rectum around 764 throbbing Vienna sausages? Can I ask 764 people to share my can of PBR? Sure I can. But will they show up?

For the past 12 years, I've had a group called DRINK CLUB. It started with me and a couple Japanese students. We went to the same bar every Monday. Gradually, more people joined us, and we started moving. Then I saw Fight Club.

“Yow!” I thought, “that's us! Not Fight Club, but DRINK CLUB!”

I made a website. All kinds of folks joined us. Once we had 35 people... from seven countries. Alcohol is the world's greatest social lubricant. Have a drink, talk, laugh. Have another drink. Music is good too. But if the music is good, it's hard to talk.

At the turn of the century, at least a dozen people joined us every week in our quest to discover new bars, cause trouble, slap each others' shoulders, nibble on each others' buffalo wings.

Then something happened.

Right now I sit in Bamboo 52, in Hell's Kitchen. It's a long narrow affair. Up-front is the bar. In back are tables and a waitress. As is the fashion in New York, people stand at the bar trying to pick each other up. No one sits. So I snag a couple tables, push them together, put up the DRINK CLUB sign, and let the manager know to expect some people... both Occident-- and Orient-- al. Maybe even a colored gal or two. It's 9:15pm. Drink Club officially starts at 9:37. I pick weird starting times so people will think it's like a train schedule and rush to be on time. It doesn't work. People usually show up at 10. I'll wait.

Recently, I found out that Coors owns BLUE MOON. I order a Hoegaarten. The menu offers spurious Japanese food with a decidedly New York bend. Not a sushi roll, but a Bagel Roll: Eel, salmon, cream cheese and Tempura. Yuck.

I order noodles.

9:30: No one but me here.

I order a Kona Fire beer... a nice hoppy brew that's rare in New York. It comes with a lemon in it. What is it with bars these days? If it's from some warm place, throw a lemon or lime in it. Yuck!! If I wanted a fruit drink, I'd order a Fuzzy Navel or one of those other girl/yuppie abominations.

10:00: No one but me is here.

The only guy at the bar not hitting on one of the girls at the bar comes over to me.

“Hey,” he says. “Did anyone ever tell you that you look like Jeff Van Gundy?”

“Ben Weasel told me that,” I tell him.

He laughs like he gets the joke. There is no joke.

10:30: No one but me is here. I leave.

“Maybe if I find a gimmick...” I think. “People like gimmicks.”

 
Flash ahead to next week: Drink Club will be at Local 138 in the Lower East Side.

After a little bit of Googling, I find out that Drink Club Day is also National Battery Day. Huh?

On Facebook, I post that everyone should bring a battery operated something to Drink Club. It'll make for an interesting theme night. A gimmick.

 On the Friday before Drink Club, I stop in the bar to make sure there's going to be enough room for us.

It's about 4 in the afternoon. I walk through the front door, halfway down on Ludlow Street. The place is empty except for the bartendress cleaning glasses behind the bar.

AAAAHOOOGAH!

I walk up to her. Six steps from the door to the bar. Six steps until my penis achieves full erection. When I reach the bar, I come.

You guessed it. The bartendress is the sexiest white female I've ever seen. Brown almost crewcut hair. Tall, skinny, with two teacup-sized breasts pertly and naturally aroused behind her t-shirt. If Lesbian Nation makes a recruiting poster, here's the model. I'll sign up. Now!

You know that Guys With Pies series? The butch lezbo equivalent of Chicks With Dicks? This girl is even better.

I push up against the bar so she can't see the wet spot on my pants.

“Oh hi,” I croak.

“Is it so cold outside?” asks the enchantress. “Your face is bright red. You want something warm?”

“You bet, and it's right between your legs,” I don't say.

“I just noticed it when I came...er... came in,” I say.

She smiles one of those okay-bud-tell-me-what-you-want-or-leave smiles.

“A...act...actually,” I stutter, “I do this thing called Drink Club...”

I hand her a card.

“Every week we go to a different bar. Next week it's here. I just wanted to make sure there was enough room for the crew.”

“How many people will there be?” she asks.

 
“I donno,” I tell her. “The biggest group was 35 people. The smallest group was... only me. We'll be here Thursday.”

“No problem,” says the messiahness. “You can have the back room.”

She walks around the bar, toward the back. I follow at an admiring distance.

She shows me the room and I thank her.

On my way back home, I buy a toy tank from a shop in Chinatown. 

When you turn it on, it flashes. A TRANSFORMER pops out the top and shouts FIRE! FIRE!

I return home, set down the toy and scrape the semen from my pubes. Then, I send out 500 reminder emails, text a few people, print out more Drink Club business cards, and get a very good night's sleep.

 
The night of Drink Club: I'm at the bar half an hour early.

Her majesty is not working tonight. And the back room is closed. Locked.

Dejected, I take a table, put up the DRINK CLUB sign, and wait.

In about a half hour, Evan walks in. Yeah, that Evan. The one who wrote I Was A Murder Junkie. The one who played in every George Tabb band since Roach Motel. That's the one who smiles and sits down next to me.

This is terrific. Last time I saw Evan was at my birthday party where I was almost as happy to see him as I was this girl Erin. Her, I'd met only a few times, but she was sexy as a lesbian and twice as friendly. I like Evan. Since he doesn't drink, it's strange for him to come to Drink Club. Still, I'm glad he's there.

“Well,” I say to him. “Thanks a lot for coming. I thought it was gonna be only me... like last week. Did you bring a battery toy?”

Evan shakes his head. “Sorry Myke,l I don't have one. But don't worry. I think someone else will be here.”

“I hope you're right,” I say, starting my second beer.

Three-quarters of the way through it, my cellphone buzzes. A text message... from Erin.

“I'm in Chinatown,” she texts, “I'll be there in a few minutes.”

Yow! Maybe it's too bad it won't be just the two of us. Me and Erin. How do I tell Evan it was nice seeing him, but...

“It's from Erin,” I tell Evan. “Maybe you met her at my birthday party. I have such a crush on her.”

“Me too,” he says. “That's why I arranged with her to meet me here.”

I shudda known!

The night is Erin, Evan and me. Two guys who like the same girl. 

Two writers: My book is bigger than yours. Two smart guys, one nearing 40, the other just past seventy. Who has the best chance? I ask you?

Still, I'm game and I want to give it the ole' Drink Club try. 

There's nothing else to do anyway. Nobody else is gonna show up... and I need some human contact.

“I kinda set my partner limit at age fifty-five,” says Erin sometime between the sixth and seventh beer. “Sorry Mykel.”

Can you believe she actually says that? Set her limit? What's the deal? Is she afraid I'm gonna keel over on top of her like Nelson Rockefeller? (Look it up.)

I get home at 4am. Sloshed. A hangover pre-curser... or maybe just a headache from butting horns with Evan. Two horny rams. What's to do now? I can't sleep. Maybe I'll go to xhamster.com and check if they got anything new to jerk off to? I usually search under Emo.  
You may not like the music, but the porn is great. Or maybe they've got some excerpts from Guys With Pies.

AAAAHOOOGAH!

Instead, I check Facebook. There's a message from Jennifer Blowdrier, former MRR columnist, and one of the few Facebook friends worthy of the word.

 
Hi Mykel, she writes. You know I had this writer's group here in LA? Looks like it fell apart. You can't do anything face-to-face anymore.

I Facebook her back, telling her how right she is and how I've been thinking the same thing. And, oh yeah, isn't it ironic that we complain on Facebook about how virtual the world is becoming. I do NOT include a smiley icon.

Below Jennifer's message is an invitation to The Bull Dyke Chronicals. Shelly Mars, my pal, former nextdoor neighbor, and George Tabb stag party performer, hosts a lesbian variety show in a small performance space on the Lower East Side. I think I'll pass on that one... yeah right.

I'm there.

 
Flash ahead: It's a little tough to find the small club. Dixon's Place is on Christie Street. Used to be a whore street in the days before people traded whores for virtual sex.

Now, there's a crowd of attractive young men standing on the street. As I approach, I see they are not young men. AAAAHOOOGAH!THIS MUST BE THE PLACE.

As cross the last street before the bar, a giant Whole Foods truck slams into me, running me over. I die instantly.

I don't actually remember that, but it must have happened, because when I enter the door to the bar, I'm in heaven. Wall-to-wall girls! White girls. Black Girls. J.A.P.s and Japs. The only girl missing is that bartendress from Local 138. I'm sure she's here somewhere.

I stare.

Not the casual look-out-the-corner-of-my-eye-don't-want-'em-to-know-I'm-staring stare, but a Jezus-fuckin'-Christ-I-can't-believe-this-is-happening-to-me stare.

And these girls are just standing around talking. Elbows resting on palms. Drinks in hand, like being the sexiest creatures in an infinitude of simultaneous universes is no big deal.

 In the back of the bar is a tiny stage surrounded by folding chairs. One each of these chairs rests the glutei maxima callipygious of the audience. Other girls stand and face the small stage in friendly conversation, waiting for the show to begin.

And begin it does.

The lights dim. There's Shelly, dressed in sparkly tights and a gold lamé shift. She does a shtick about Joey Heatherton... a minor luminary. (Three people who read this might have heard of her.) She leaves the stage to applause; does a quick change; and returns as herself, the Mistress of Ceremony.

“Welcome to the Bull Dyke Chronicles,” she says. “You know, I've been Facebooking, and Tweeting, and virtually virtualizing everything. It's a bitch, huh? Nobody really sees anybody anymore.”

I can't believe it. It's me channeled through a lesbian body.

“Even if you go to a bar,” she continues, “you never really talk. You just stand there with your arms folded, trying to pick up some girl. And what does it get you? A hangover?”

“Yeah!” I shout.

Everyone looks at me.

Shelly laughs.

“But when there's a performance, something to see and watch. People get together in a more human way. Audience and performers and all kind of mixes. It's... I donno... like real people....”

“Enough philosophy... And now, our first guest, from Macon Georgia, we have Debbie Mae Sue.”

There's applause.

A pert twenty something with a huge blond wig mounts the stage.

“Howdy ya'll,” she says in a drawl. “It's sure a pleasure being here with you tonight for the Bulldog Chronicles. The Bulldogs, that's the team from my hometown. So it's great to be celebrating with y'all.”

She leads the crowd in a rousing football song, complete with barking. A hundred and twenty lesbians singing We are the bulldogs, arf arf arf.” I don't know whether to laugh or come.

Following Sally Mae is Sugarbutch, a guy-with-a-pie and more personality than anyone I've seen on stage in the last 10 years. 

She's a poetess who is not funny, but riveting. She's like those great actors you hear about, who can read the phonebook and make you cry. But her poems are much better than any phonebook, not sappy, not funny, but... well, you gotta be there.

“You don't like poetry?” she says. “Maybe you haven't had the right poet.”

There's so much more. It would take another column to describe. You can't imagine.

The place is packed. People are friendly, laughing, chatty... even to me. Leave it to the lezbos to touch lips across the Facebook wall. I only wish I could fit in.

Last year, Jesse made me an honorary Hispanic. This year, I want to become a lesbian. I'll pray tonight for the goddess to shrink my outtie even more. I'll let you know what happens.

 
AAAAHOOOGAH!

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]

--> Last month I made a mistake on Kyle N's MySpace page: it's nothingisttrue. Note the two t's in ttrue... or is it the German "ist" plus true. Ask him. Besides he needs your support in jail. Write to him at: Kyle Nonneman, #691768, 1120 SW 3rd St, Portland OR 97204

-->Only in America dept: Everything has its price. A new web service PriceDoc.com will let you bid on the cost of hundreds of medical procedures if you pay cash or with a credit card. You can also reserve a price from published fees, make a lower offer or "name your price.” If you "win," just call the doctor for an appointment. Cancer? Get a discount operation. It might work. Pretty sick, huh?

-->I didn't realize dept: The deadline for the APRIL issue of MRR came and went without me realizing it. I think I managed to squeeze in a couple lines about being in jail. Of course, that was a lie. So far, they haven't got me.

-->More on Obama dept: The Family is a Charlie Manson-sounding secretive Religious Right group. It sponsors an annual National Prayer Breakfast in Washington DC. The group supports David Bahati, a Ugandan legislator who is pushing a super-hardcore anti-homo law.
    The Ugandan proposal calls for the execution of gays and the imprisonment of those who promote homosexuality. Obama attended the breakfast and said nothing about the Ugandan proposal. Did you expect otherwise?

-->Save a life in lust dept: My pal Sid Yiddish sent me a link to a story about a town in Switzerland that is providing its brothels with defibrillators. Seems like... er... older gentlemen have been Viagring with the young women then kicking the bucket... mid-thrust. It's a good way to go, but it's even better if you get a second chance.

-->Contact her dept: I wrote about the great, Sugarbutch. Go to her website www.sugarbutch.net to find out more about her. And there, you'll find a great link to the lesbian porn of your dreams. Yeah, they sell the entire Guys With Pies series.

-end-

visit Mykel's homepage here:

Mykel's MRR Column for #323, (April, 2010)

  You're Wrong
  An Irregular Column 

Number 323 April, 2010
 by Mykel Board 
(posted by Maximum Rock'n'Roll for Mykel at his request)


Don't know what I want but I know how to get it. --Johnny Rotten
Know what I want, but I don't know how to get it. --Mykel Board

Out my window, rain streams in torrents against the glass, bouncing drop-by-drop on the gray Manhattan streets. Rainwater soaks the legs of my pants... a walk to the bank... and back. Why did I walk to the bank in the rain? Someone has used my debit card number to buy $1,000 worth of disco DJ equipment from Radio Shack in New Jersey.

The appropriately named Chase Fraud Department said that all I had to do was fill out an electronic form. The money would be back in my account “the next business day.” Yeah right. 

It's been a week. Imagine a thousand bucks missing from your bank account for a week. There go the credit card bills, the rent, beer. I'm gonna have to mug a wino to survive. But that's only the end of week 3 of the beginning of the worst decade of my life.   

Back up: I shudda been happier than a feminist at a castration. New Year's 2010. The start of my seventh decade. Seventy years, Jesus fuckin' Christ. 

God said, “Let there be light.” 

I turn on the switch. That's how old I am. 

This is the first month of my seventieth year. New Year's Eve was good. The Bear, my best Japanese friend was there with Gilberto, my best Mexican friend, and Marilyn, my best New York friend. We got pleasantly soused at The Peculier Pub, my favorite locale in The City. 

Part of why I've lasted this long is that I have reasons to live. I knew I could never die before going to Mongolia. So I went to Mongolia. OK, I will live through writing a book. I wrote a book. Two books. Okay, now, I want a party where a girl comes out of a cake. 

Everybody has seen a girl --usually a blonde with tits out to here-- come out of a cake... in The Movies,. It's a mainstay. I guess it also happens on Broadway and in advertising.

But who's seen it in real life? Anybody you know? I didn't think so. But I want to. I want to really have a party where a girl comes out of a cake. Where, she dips her hands in the frosting and tickles my nose with it. I lick it off her breasts. Mmmm lemon. Can't die without doing that, can I?

AND, I found the girl and I found someone to make the cake. My best pal, Marilyn (right name for a girl to come out of a cake... but she's making it) and Lola (right name for a girl to come out of a cake... and she's coming out of it.) Marilyn's making me a great surprise birthday party at the end of the month.

She forks over $1,000 reserving Bar One-Oh-Eight, where we drink every Monday night. We're pals with the bartender and should score a bunch of extras... as well as tolerance for er... unusual activities. 

Marilyn paid for three hours of free booze, an open bar, and food... Dozens of my friends (whose number always increases when there is free booze and food) will be there. Marilyn is a goddess!

As for the rest of the month, I was going to go through a narrative. Go to each item, just when nothing else can go wrong, something worse happens. January may be the worst month of my life where no one dies. (I'm so not sure about that either. I still have six more days for someone to keel over.)

I was gonna tell you about the crashed computer... the $1000 replacement, the pictures, data, writing, lost... me, leaving my apartment the next day... locking the door... the key spins... nothing happens... it's 8:30 AM... I can't lock my apartment and I have to be at work in 20 minutes. The door stays open all day.

Next day... I replace the lock... and lose the new key... a wart develops on my eyelid, $50 at the dermatologist's.

“Maybe it won't come back,” says the doctor as I leave with a patch.

At work, I throw a hissy fit because the office manager complains about me wasting money making copies... I throw three quarters (25 cent pieces) at her...There! That'll pay for your fucking copies!!! Now she hates me... won't talk to me... Workplace harassment or something.

Then, there's the four-hundred dollars' worth of dental work to replace a gold inlay lost in Italy... the twelve hundred dollars' worth of Radio Shack goods I already told you about... charged falsely on my debit card. (No I still haven't gotten the money back)... 

There's more. My doctor says I've got Macular Degeneration. I'll probably go blind in two years. I figure it's from the “generic Viagra” I got in Trinidad all those months ago... I used it three times and only scored once. Want more? 

Fuck it. There's too much for the 2000+ words I'm allowed here. The headaches and skin eruptions. The food spilled on my only clean clothes. The toilet backed up and overflowing all night. What gets me through it all is THE GIRL, THE CAKE. Things are so bad I consider sticking my head in the oven... the microwave... but I've got a birthday party coming. A girl coming out of a cake.

Do you think this portends? Does it sound like a set-up? Like a joke where this guy walks into a bar and asks if he can have a girl come out of a cake? You bet! The joke's on me. 

Marilyn walks past the bar today. On her way to work. The place is closed. Papered up. Gone. Skedaddled. Outta here. Nothing. Bar ONE OH EIGHT is Bar ZERO ZERO ZERO. Not only has this decades' luck set me back several thousand dollars, it's set my best friend back a grand. 

So what am I going to do? How can I face it? It's unrelenting. Every day there's something else. Today, my statement comes from Chase. The $1000 from Radio Shack is still listed. There's also an Albanian restaurant claiming I owe more than $100 for a meal I ate two months ago! I'm so depressed I ignore it. Don't give a rat's ass. Can't pick up the phone to complain. 

I'm rarely depressed. My life's been pretty good. But now, I want to kill.... passers-by... that nice bum on the corner who I give a quarter to every day... Anybody. None of the usual shit works any more. Find something worse?.. Someone in shittier shape than me? Haiti? Of course their lives are worse than mine... well, maybe not. They're dead.
Afghanistan? They've got a cause. Me? A girl and a cake are not enough. I feel like my head's gonna explode. I've hung up on a dozen people so far today. Tech support! Chase! Amex! FUCK YOU! (click) FUCK YOU! (click) FUCK YOU! (click) My skin burns, like it's been sanded or scraped by a sharp knife...

I want to destroy. Break something. Knock someone's teeth out. Sounds like punkrock, doesn't it? Maybe it's time to start a band again. In the meantime, I'm gonna stay 69. Refuse to have a birthday. If God wants to fuck with me, I'll show her. Come on! Think you can take me? Try it!

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]

-->Thank heaven for little boys dept: In Chattanooga Tennessee a 4-year old boy was found roaming around at night. He was drinking beer and wearing a little girl's dress, taken from a neighbor's house. The reason?
        It's not clear, but the boy's mother said he wanted to be with his father, who was in jail.

-->Small victories dept: Thanks to a lawsuit filed by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a federal judge has ruled that a South Carolina license plate, sporting a cross and the words "I Believe," is unconstitutional. It's not clear whether it would be constitutional if you had a choice between a cross, a Star of David, a Crescent, or a Pentagram. But only a cross, for some reason, violates the establishment of religion clause of the constitution. I can't imagine why.

-->Kyle Nonneman is back in jail dept: That doesn't surprise me. once they get you, they want to keep you. What does surprise me... but shouldn't... is the reason stated in the “report to the judge”
I quote:
 Samples of Nonneman's work under the name "Nothingistrue" include the following:
    The Passion of Misanthropy
    Cunt Envy
    Right to Kill
    Dead Little Girls
     Once You've Killed Someone Life's Shit
     (That last one sounds like a plea NOT to kill!) 

   Worse than that, the parole-ending guy writes in his report:   it appears he (Kyle) subscribes to a Nihilist philosophy.... Typically Nihilists reject social, legal, moral and religious norms. His thoughts and beliefs are clearly spelled out in his writing, music and posts on his MySpace page.
     Can you believe the cops/courts using music, thoughts, beliefs, and MySpace to jail someone? Uh... yes, you can believe it. This is America, after all.
      Write to Kyle at: Kyle Nonneman, #691768, 1120 SW 3rd St, Portland OR 97204

-->I wonder if she called them "old farts" dept: One of my new heroines is Teanne Harris of DesPlaines IL. Six days before her scheduled wedding, her fiancé... er... pulled out. Instead of trying to get whatever refund she could, she just gave the whole celebration (food, DJ, drink, kit and caboodle) to the local old folks' home. This turning a tragedy on its head is just great.
    It's even better than the original plan. Marriage is a sucky slave-related government institution. Old people are cool. Ten punk points Teanne.

-->Polling the 'digitally active' dept: PC Tools recently commissioned a survey investigating online habits.
     Here are the results: 57% of people surveyed would give up alcohol before giving up the Internet. Eleven percent would give up their job and 8.6% would go without sex to stay connected!
Why is it so hard to give it up?
      Social media ranked first with 68% of participants responding that socializing with others would be the hardest Internet activity to give up. 30% indicated that one of the hardest online activities to sacrifice would be porn!
      I don't think PC Tools gets it. People don't GIVE UP sex for porn. Porn IS sex. You just don't have to make breakfast for it in the next morning.

-end-

As you probably know, Mykel is due to spend the next 20 years at a medium security facility in Tuscaloosa. MRR will handle his correspondence. You can write to him c/o Maximum Rock'n'Roll, POB 460760, SF CA 94146-0760, . Thanks.

      

visit Mykel's homepage here: