Mykel Board Wonders if Suicide is Bullying (MRR 332)

 

You're Wrong

An Irregular Column

by Mykel Board

"However great a man's fear of life, suicide remains the courageous act, the clear-headed act of a mathematician.” Graham Green

"Psychiatrists claim, and most people now believe, that mental illness causes addiction, crime, suicide and countless other acts we abhor and fear. Therein lies the virtual limitless power of mental illness and psychiatry to undermine the idea of responsibility and subvert justice.” -Thomas Szasz

"Suicide is the most sincere form of self-criticism.” Robert Heinlein

I wipe the semen off my hands. Fuck! I don't spurt like I used to. Just a little dribble down that V in the back. The build up is as good as ever, but the climax is no better than a decent fart.

Ah well. I'm glad they've got free samples of those clips from Broke Straight Boys on Gaytube. I like 'em, but I sure as dripping cum don't want to pay for 'em!

After wiping up, I hit Facebook. Someone's posted a video of Ellen Degeneres. In the video, she talks about some college kid who jumped off a bridge. Someone interneted a spycam video of him giving a blowjob. It was just oo humiliating to live.

Among other things, Ellen says: "There are messages everywhere that validate this kind of bullying and taunting, and we have to make it stop. We can't let intolerance and ignorance take another kid's life."

My first reaction is: Uh oh! They're gonna used this as an excuse for internet censorship. There goes spycam.com!

“You see what freedom does?” they'll say. “It kills people! We need laws to stop this kind of thing.”

Then, somehow, they'll twist it so laws against posting cam pictures promote freedom. It's illogical. But I bet they do it. 

And what about the kids who set up the spycam? As of now, they're charging them with invasion of privacy... as a hate crime.

The more I think about it, the more it pisses me off. I've written before about the dangers of bullying and hate crimes laws. I'll get to hate crimes later. But even before that... is this bullying?

Joe Jockstrap walks up to Wimpy Pudge, pokes him in the stomach. “Hey fatso,” he says, “gimme your lunch money or I'll lift up your belly, find your balls and cut 'em off.”

That's bullying.

Showing a picture of me jerking off to Broke Straight Boys is not bullying. It may be poor taste, uncivil, humiliating, tabloid journalism, an invasion of privacy, blackmail (if it comes with a threat) or a host of other things. But it's not bullying.

My pal Tony, who used to write in these pages wrote on Facebook: I think the answer is to teach young people by example how to stand up to bullying. It was something I was never taught as a young man. If some bastard made a video of you or me at our ages today and streamed it over the web we'd get furious & SUE the freak for everything he had.

It's the fact that the kid was humiliated that caused him to make a death leap. The only shield against a weapon of homophobic humiliation is to teach the kid how to refuse to permit himself to be humiliated. It's not enough to just be out of the closet if a gay kid still thinks his sexuality is somehow more humiliating than that of a straight boy. If a straight boy had something like that happen to him, he'd just get pissed off at the "prank" and fight back. You have to open the eyes of a gay kid and tell him to stand up for himself because he's no different than any straight boy. You say: "Hey, do you know any straight boys who'd kill themselves over that?"

Nothing makes a gay boy any less equal to a straight boy.

I like Tony's answer, but disagree with part of it.

First, if a straight guy sees videos of himself screwing on the internet, he does not sue. He brags.

Second, there are several things that make a gay boy less equal to a straight boy.

Take hate crimes laws. (Please!) I've written before about how these thought-crime bills are bad for civil liberties and worse as public policy. I could go on, but that's not why I'm writing this column. Besides Alexander Cockburn said everything I had to say on that. You can read it at: http://tinyurl.com/cockburnhate.

There is another aspect to the hate-crime bills, though. They create an us and a them. A protected group (them) and everybody else (us). As long as there are laws singling out special groups... As long as victims are defined as Negroes, Hispanics, Jews, or a myriad of others... When you disallow hate on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, but allow it for clothes or eye color, you create inequality.

If I punch you because you're a Republican, I spend 30 days in jail. If I do it because you're a homo, I spend 5 years. That means homos are not equal to Republicans. And it's the law that creates that inequality.

Then, there's the question of suicide itself. If you kill yourself, who's the murderer? Imagine this:

Radley Smirton is a comedian. His shtick is SUPERNERD, like Pee Wee Herman, but less creepy. He makes fun of jocks, meatheads, blonde airhead girls.

So this football coach walks into the locker room before the game. He talks to Joe Dirt, star running back.

“I'm not supposed to let you play since you failed math, but we need you in there. So if I ask you a math question and you get it right, you can play."

Joe frowns.

"Okay,” says the coach, “now concentrate...what is two plus two?"

Joe thinks for a moment and answers, "Four?"

At that, all the other players on the team began screaming, "Come on coach, give him another chance!"

Smirton takes a bow on Leno, walks over to him, pretends to give the high five... and misses. The audience is in stitches. This guy is headed for the stars... or at least Vegas.

Then it happens. Someone bugs his apartment. Sets up a spycam. Before long, there it is on the Internet. Ridley Smirton, sitting in an armchair, bowl of popcorn by his side, feet up, watching the Superbowl!

In a few minutes, it's everywhere. Smirton's career drops from Superbowl to toilet bowl. Instead of laughing with him, his former fans are laughing at him. Anti-jock nerdboy! Yeah, right.

Unable to stand the humiliation, Smirton buys a ticket to a New York Knicks game at Madison Square Garden. At the end of the game, he hides among the vendors' carts. Then, when the Garden is empty, he hangs himself from one of the baskets.

The press is outraged! His death is a hate crime! The result of bullying. There's gotta be a law. Someone has to pay for this. Ellen Degeneres makes a video. Yeah, right. 

 

Suicide may be sad. It may even be a crime. But unless you're hypnotized or drugged, if you commit suicide, you commit the crime. If it's a hate crime... it's a self-hate crime.

I feel sorrier for the poor guys who set up the cam. In the case of the homo bridge-jumper, it was a pair of non-American born, non-whites: an Indian guy and a Chinese girl. Easy targets. I bet they feel worse about the death than any of the critics calling for their blood. And, unlike the bridge-jumper, they have to live with it.

Wake up, buckaroos. This is 2010. You EXPECT a camera behind every dorm room mirror. Your sexting photo today is gonna be on Facebook tomorrow. In England, 20% of all divorce cases involve Facebook. What were they thinking? Mark Zuckerberg says, “I don't believe in privacy,” then goes on to prove it.

Your morning wood, my jock itch, her foaming yeast infection, they're all out there. Videoed, tallied, reported. There are no secrets. That tube of KY you bought at CVS has been recorded and broadcast to every CVS in America. Check out the coupons at the end of your receipt. THIS WEEK 20% OFF ON KY JELLY. Hey, isn't that private?

The problem is not invasion of privacy. It's what needs to be private. What people are afraid others will see. That too is part of the crime. That kid who jumped from the bridge because he was videoed sucking cock. That he felt he had to jump is a crime, and America is the perpetrator.

[Aside: a former governor of New Jersey was caught in a similar video. He resigned, but has since become active in homo rights groups. See? You don't HAVE to kill yourself. There, Tony's right.]

Ah, what's the use? Americans are vengeful people. If somebody dies, somebody's got to pay. The victim and the society can't pay, so we'll find someone else. Hate is bad, so we'll put it in jail. That poor Indian guy is gonna go get raped by a bunch of thugs in a little cell somewhere. That'll teach him to love homos. Right? No more hate coming from him, right? It's sick.

I'm finished now, I think I'll go back to spycam.com. Maybe the next orgasm will be better than the last.

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]

-->Speaking of unequal dept: Chuck Shepherd reports that until August, 2010, Nettleton Middle School in Mississippi had a strict policy for election of class officers for 6th, 7th and 8th graders: Only white students could be president. Only black students could be vice president.

       Officials explained that it was the only way to insure black representation. Three-fourths of the students are white. A school memo was leaked to  The Smoking Gun website in August. A day later, the school district rescinded the policy.

-->And on the bullying front: The Smoking Gun also reports that: With school bullying and harassment now the subject of a growing national controversy, the rapper Eminem has his own bully story.

As an elementary school student in Detroit, young Marshall Mathers was the target of bullying so severe that his mother sued the local school board for failing to protect her child.

      In her 1982 Circuit Court complaint, Deborah Mathers alleged that her nine-year-old child endured repeated assaults while enrolled at Dort Elementary School. Her son, she reported, was beaten so severely that he suffered a cerebral concussion, post-traumatic headaches, intermittent loss of vision and hearing, and other injuries to his head, face, back, and neck. 

         The lawsuit, which asked for more than $10,000 in damages, was eventually dismissed on the grounds of governmental immunity. 

-->And what's replaced it? dept: In an interview with a British newspaper, the singer Prince says that the Internet is completely over.

       I donno. I must be jerking off to all those sites on the medium formerly known as the Internet.

–->International conspiracy dept: Ever wonder how China and Syria get the technology to censor all those pro-Democratic Internet sites? They buy it from the U.S.

      Two particularly noxious programs: SmartFilter and Websense are marketed to parents in the U.S. They're supposed to keep junior from learning there's more he can do with his floppy than piss out of it. But as bad as that it, those programs do worse.

Governments even more repressive than our own use these programs to block access to unapproved pro-Democracy sites. Check out opennet.net for the scary details.

-->On the other side dept: Walid Al-Saqaf, former editor of the Yemen Times has developed Alkasir (alkasir.com). This program resides on a USB flash drive and lets a browser circumvent the censorware. Download it and give it to your friends in China... or to the kids at the elementary school down the block.

-->My kind of politician dept: Florida Congressman, Alan Grayson has complained that “next year's budget allocates $159,000,000,000 to perpetuate the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. That's enough to eliminate federal income taxes for the first $35,000 of every American's income.” He's introduced a bill to stop those wars and cut those taxes. You can join him at: TheWarIsMakingYouPoor.com

-->I'm writing this just before my Mexican trip. No right-as-it -happens blog on that one. No computer. If I die in Tijuana, you'll probably read about it here. I donno, I've always admired Ted Rall for his war reporting. I guess I'll be doing the same thing. (Or maybe the danger is just the press exaggerations. Maybe I'll even get laid.)

you can connect to Mykel's homepage and a bunch of other stuff here

Geriatricophilia Defined (MRR 331)

You're Wrong

An Irregular Column

by Mykel Board

If The Beatles were making music now, they'd be thrown in jail. I mean “She was just seventeen. You know what I mean.” That's pedophilia! --Peter Crowley

It's a season for nostalgia... for reunions... for old photos. The Mudd Club will have its reunion in October. PIL just finished its latest tour... Johnny Rotten the only original member. Other bands tour with one or two more obscure members, the rest dead or feuding. Some pick-up bass player who spent ten minutes with SUICIDAL YOUTH, now leads the SUICIDAL YOUTH REUNION tour.

And the audiences? If it's not old men, the remains of their gray hair scooped together in a pathetic ponytail. It's old women, obscenely trying to stuff themselves into too tight pants, their too-tight t-shirts bulging over their not-tight-enough bellies. Those bellies poke six inches beyond the flabbed-out tits hanging loosely over them.

I used to find these reunion shows as pathetic as you do. A bunch of old farts hiring some new farts to support something that should have died decades ago. Ok, I thought, you were great in the 80s, but you don't make it now. Move aside and let the newest punkrockers move in. Have the good taste to die... Now!

Then there's the fear of youth in the modern world, at least in America. You have prove your age to buy a bottle of beer. Consensual sex is rape if you're too young for government approval.

In the 70s, The Blessed was a kiddie punk band whose 13-year old members played together at Max's Kansas City. They were cute and punk at the same time. Billy, the singer, looked like an adolescent Stiv Bators. I often fantasized about things with these guys that, in 21^st century America, are probably illegal to fantasize about. No wonder old farts think they're the shit. Young farts are illegal.

CUT TO 2010. DELANCY STREET. THE BASEMENT OF THE DELANCY STREET BAR:

It's the Max's Kansas City reunion. The second night of a three-night stint. As I go in, I wish for Photoshop glasses. I'd set them to reverse time so when I looked at people, I'd see them like they were thirty years ago. Wrinkles removed. Bellies tightened. Hair restored both in quantity and color.

Do I know you? runs through my mind as I peer at everyone, wondering if, at some time, I shared body fluids with them.

“Hey Mykel,” comes a voice next to me. I look over at this middle-aged guy, somewhat rounded, wearing the kind of baseball hat those of us who have “nothing to hide” hide it with.

He can tell I don't recognize him.

“It's Billy,” he says. “From The Blessed. Remember me?”

My heart sinks.

Somewhere in a drawer at home I have a t-shirt. It's a drawing of a woman holding a baby. A word balloon comes out of her mouth. He's so cute. It's too bad he'll grow up to be a man. My thoughts exactly... except in retrospect. It's too late. He's grown up.

Billy and I talk for awhile. He tells me he's living in New Jersey now and has plans for new music. He wants to do something else. He's not 13 anymore.

You're telling me! I don't say. Then I think, I'm not 13 either. Or 30. Or 40. Or 50...

Despite the growing up, it's good to see Billy. And to see the others I used to know in a different form. I wonder why it's such a tragedy that we grow up and grow old. I wonder if it's life's tragedy or one of our own creation.

Then, I see Teddy.

I recognize him immediately. It's the old Teddy. The guitar player from Just Pants, Max's house band. Boy did I have a crush on him in those days. It was him and Tish, one of the singers of THE SICK FUCKS.

[Aside: The Sick Fucks played tonight. That's why I'm here. Both girl singers look real good for their years. A little jowly, a TINY bit turkey necked, but still, after all those years and drugs. They're sexy enough to jerk off to. Especially in their nuns-in-nylons costumes. Oh yeah!]

Teddy isn't wearing the years very well. He's allowed his remaining fringe of gray hair to grow long-- Benjamin Franklin like. His formerly skinny body droops. It's as if, in the contest between gravity and the connective tissue that holds skin to bone, the tissue just gave up.

His belly bulges downward over his belt, like it's trying to hide his cock. His chin doubles... triples... beneath his neck. His formerly tight smooth cheeks now sag into bulldog jowls. His eyes show their whites as the bags beneath them pull the lower lids into a fleshy mess. A wart pokes from his jaw where his chin used to be.

“Mykel,” he says unselfconsciously, “you look the same as 30 years ago. Well, less hair, I guess. But who doesn't? How'd you avoid gray beard?”

“Just For Men,” I answer.

He laughs like I'm kidding.

We talk for awhile. But we don't talk like old men. We don't discuss our prostates. We don't lament about those were the days. We don't talk about punk rockers who kicked the bucket while they were still good-looking.

Our talk is the talk of people living. Of people drinking, fucking, going to clubs, listening to Cojoba and World War Nine. Of getting drunk, getting in trouble, running from cops, causing trouble. It's a terrific talk.

“You wanna come over for a drink after the show?” he asks me.

“That would be great,” I tell him.

The show itself is terrific. Besides the Sick Fucks, are The Bullys, who I associate with The Continental more than Max's. Wow. Ruby and the Rednecks play, with Ruby bravely singing from a walker, wheeled on stage. It's more like a victory flag than a prop for a cripple. Amazing!

Like I said, the Sick Fucks were masturbatorily good. As was Walter Lure who did Heartbreakers/Johnny Thunders songs, backed by a band of young Japanese guys. Peter Crowley, Max's main man back in the day, put together a masterful show... on its own... not (just?) as a piece of nostalgia. When it's over, I go to Teddy's place.

His apartment is on Bedford, in the West Village. It must be rent-controlled. A huge place... right near Houston Street. A sunken living room. A bedroom off to the side. A kitchen as big as my entire apartment.

It's to the living room we go. There is a couch in that room. Black and white, like fake cowhide... ripped right off your local milking cow. In fact, the whole room is black and white cow. The wallpaper. The lamp shades. The carpet, for God's sake. The lava lamp on the coffee table is NOT black and white, but its cow-spot-shaped bubbles fit perfectly with the rest of the décor.

The woman on the couch, however, does not fit perfectly with the décor. She's lounging like a sultress on the cover of a romance novel. Her arm rests along the back of the couch. Her tilted body radiates come and get me.

Her jowls, bushy gray hair, and flaccid breasts, however, do NOT radiate come and get me... at least that's what I'm thinking when I see her.

She wears, I donno what to call it. It's black, shiny, some kind of plastic material. It hugs her bulging belly, and flattens her mammarian paucity even further. Through it all, though, there's something familiar about her. As if we'd met before. Again, I long for my Photoshop glasses.

“Mykel,” says Teddy, “this is my wife, Edith... Edith, this is...”

“I know,” she says, “we... er... had a relation... Before you were around, Teddy.”

I smile, still unable to place her... or our relation. It's all too obvious that I don't have a clue.

“You don't remember do you?” she asks. “It was the bathroom at Max's. End stall. You asked me, Can I just watch? I like to watch girls. Will you squat on the seat for me?”

It vaguely comes back to me.

“And then...” she continues and stops. She makes a fist with one hand and raises just the pinkie. “See?” she says, “I remember you.”

“Me too,” says Teddy. Pushing me gently to the couch. He leans over me, pressing a hand on each of my shoulders. His face approaches mine, the jangling jowls slowly disappearing on either side of my peripheral vision. His lips press against mine. His tongue pushes its way into my mouth. A hand... Teddy's? Edith's? wiggles like a five-legged spider on my crotch.

The sounds of zippers unzipping break the silence of the room.

We're naked, on the floor. My mouth follows the flab of skin from under Teddy's neck, down to his chest. Gray chest hair covers skin folds that droop from his beneath his arms and down his side. Like one of those Chinese dogs... Sharpees, I think they're called.

I run my tongue under each fold, savoring the sweet smell of sweat... lighter than most... from the dry skin flaking under my mouth. Then I lick over his bulging stomach, past a hairless wart-- just like the one on his face. I nosh the fine gray hairs that act as a downward trail for my tongue.

Edith is between my legs now. Slowly nibbling her way from my knee up to the good part. Teddy's tongue probes my navel as his hand pumps my spouted little sprout.

Wait! He says, lifting his head up and looking at me.

His cheeks puff like a sax player's. His mouth moves as if he were using his tongue to dislodge an errant piece of chocolate mousse. In fact, he is dislodging his teeth.

First the top set. Then the bottom. He carefully removes the dentures and places them on the coffee table. The moving blue light from the lava lamp plays eerily over the whiteness of the false teeth.

He returns to my navel then licks southward sucking my suddenly limp limpness between his gums. It feels like sideways labia. It feels like... It feels damn good.

Teddy runs his gums up and down my again stiff Vienna sausage. Edith has pulled one of my hairy... no both... of my hairy hangers into her mouth.

As she sucks, she rotates her body... crawling upward so her knees are just above my head. I get the hint.

Where I expect tuna, I get sawdust. A dry smell. Like an old leather couch. I press my face deeper into the gap. Using my nose to separate the labia, I lick up and out. I bring my hands behind her, to press her into my munching mouth. My hands lose themselves in the loose flesh of her ass. My middle finger strikes a hemorrhoid, wiggles it playfully, then presses inward.

Ouch!

Edith reacts by biting down on my aching testicles. But the pain isn't bad pain. It's just what I need to push me... ahhh... ahhh. Ahhhh!

Who cares if the Beatles are illegal in 2010. Just change the lyrics.

She was just sevenTY, you know her and me. The way she felt was way beyond compaaaarrrrre! So how could I fuck with another oooooooooo When I saw her layin' there.

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]

-->Corporations United dept: Citizen's United is the ironically named group that filed the Supreme Court case. You know, the one that said corporations are people with the same "free speech" rights as real people. In their latest strike for freedom, C.U. has been trying to force the "Wisconsin Democracy Campaign" to change its Facebook name. They don't like: Citizens United Against Citizens United. So much for free speech.

-->Is there anything else tobacco companies can do for their image dept: Human Rights Watch has found that Philip Morris buys tobacco from Kazakh farmers that use child labor. They have documented 72 cases of children working in tobacco fields. According to the group, in a day, workers absorb the amount of nicotine equal to thirty-six cigarettes. And, unlike here in New York, they don't have to pay $12 a pack to do it.

-->If that's a pickle in your pocket, why's it glowing dept: Nukewatch Quarterly reports that the Studsvik Memphis Nuclear Processing Facility will pay $650,000 to 23 black employees who protested being exposed to "far more radiation than their white counterparts." The workers complained that the company manipulated the black workers' radiation monitors. Those monitors would then falsely indicate lower levels of radiation than was actually the case.

-->No inmate left behind dept: According to The Nation, BP has recruited prison labor to clean up the oil spill. Businesses in Louisiana earn a tax credit for every inmate hired. So why not make some money on slave labor? Guess what color most of those prisoners are.... And oil? It's much more toxic that tobacco.

Was someone complaining about Kazakhstan? We have Kazakhstan right here in Louisiana... and Tennessee. Who needs kids when you've got Negroes to do the dangerous work?

-->Wal-Mart does it again dept: A Wal-Mart employee was stripped of his responsibilities and forced to wear a yellow vest after telling his manager he was gay. The employee says his boss asked him if he was gay in front of four of his co-workers and then, presumably, when he answered yes, "alienated him from the other workers." To be fair, there are other factors involved in this case. But this is WAL-MART! Do we want to be fair?

-->The Progressive reports that the Pentagon is investigating Defense Department officials and contractors who have purchased and downloaded kiddie porn. What's the danger to our national security?

       "It puts us at risk of blackmail and threats." 

       Now, is it the PORN that does that, or the laws against it? Hmmm.

     Reminds me of Obama's refusal to release the Gitmo torture pictures because "they will incite anti-American feelings." Yo Barak! It's not the pictures that incite. It's the torture! 

-->More on Arizona dept: Jan Brewer, the horror governess of Arizona, has appointed a tourism task force to "address concerns about the state's recent immigration law." The new PR campaign will promote the state as a "safe and welcoming destination."

Safe and welcoming? For whom? I guess it depends on your accent or skin color. I'm bringing my passport, just in case.

-->Out of the frying pan dept: I'm writing this at the end of September. In November, I'll be breaking my Boycott Arizona pledge by doing a reading in Tucson. I'm doing it with a FUCK ARIZONA t-shirt or maybe one that says Habla Español o muerte.

     I feel a bit guilty about this, though I expect there will be as many Mexicans (Yeah!)in the audience as Arizonans. And I'm also sure NONE of these Arizonans supported the racial laws.

After Tucson, I'm going to Tijuana and the Mexican side of the border areas to pay my dues for reading in Arizona. Here's what the US government says:

     Much of the country’s narcotics-related violence has occurred in the northern border region. For example, since 2006, three times as many people have been murdered in Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, than in any other city in Mexico. More than half of all Americans killed in Mexico in 2009 were killed in the border cities of Ciudad Juarez and Tijuana. 

-->Just as I was finishing up this column, the news comes that a Princeton university student jumped off a bridge because he was spycammed in dorm homosex. Liberals are calling for blood I won't comment on it here, because my thoughts would take a whole column... they will... next month.

Mykel Puts the World in Context (MRR 330)

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

aka Mykel Puts The World in Context

“Will the Holocaust excuse anything Jews might do now or in the future? Did the Holocaust make them innocent? Did slavery somehow make American Negroes blameless? Did the patriarchy's historical crimes wash all sins away from the ladies souls?” --Jim Goad

Suck that thing. Suck it now. You love it, don't you. You know you love it. Take more. Suck it in. That's my little girl. Keep sucking. Yes!

I'm with my ten-year old niece. On the boardwalk... on Coney Island. I've just bought her a rootbeer float-- her first. In the beginning, she doesn't like it, so I have to hold the straw for her and encourage her to try it. It's not long before she's enjoying that most American of beverages... with strawberry rather than vanilla ice cream. Not my taste.

Re-reading that first paragraph, you see it now, right? Angie, there in her pink dress. Sucking away at that ice cream and soda. But I bet that wasn't what you thought when you first read it. Uh uh. Your image was more carnal, more violent, right?

You heard/saw the image in a different context. And you brought that context with you when you read those words. The context gave you an easy answer to what was going on. It was the wrong answer.

The confusion of context leads to wrong ideas all over the place. My jailbird pal Kyle sent me a clipping about Paula Oliveira, a Brazilian woman in Switzerland. Three skinheads, one with “a Nazi symbol tattooed on the back of his head,” attacked the woman outside a Zurich train station. One of the attackers cut the initials of Switzerland's right-wing party into her stomach and legs. The trauma made her miscarry twin fetuses. Pictures of her scarred body appeared in newspapers. Even Brazilian President Lula (my favorite political leader) condemned the “violence against a Brazilian woman abroad.” 

Given what you (think you) know about skinheads, Nazis, violence, and maybe Brazilians, you're justifiably outraged. But that's not the content of the newspaper article that Kyle sent me. 

 

After a series of tests, Swiss police said Oliveira was not three months pregnant at the time (of the attack) and Zurich University forensic medicine chief Walter Baer called it a “textbook case of self-mutilation.”

Get it? She was lying!

Last year, I wrote about the Duke University LaCrosse scandal in 2006. There, a stripper claimed that members of the team held her against her will and raped her in the bathroom. Later medical tests proved she was lying. The DA was found guilty of withholding information. You believed her. Why?

 

FLASHBACK: It's 1990. I'm in Japan, teaching at the Honda headquarters, in Tokyo. It's a class for freshmen in the company. They're required to take 6 months of me... once a week.

“Mykel,” says Yaru, a slim attractive young man, whose sexiness loses itself in the white shirt and tie he wears. “Why don't you come drinking with us tonight? We're going to a piano bar.”

“I'm not big on piano music,” I tell him. “You think they can do Screeching Weasel?”

He laughs.

“I've never eaten a screeching weasel,” he says. “But there's no piano at a piano bar. You go and some pretty girl comes and talks to you. She pours your beer and laughs at your jokes. She stays with you until morning.”

“Until morning?” I say. “Are there private rooms?”

Yaru wrinkles his attractive brow. Then he laughs.

“Oh no,” he says. “It's not like that. There's no sex. You only talk. Sometimes you can touch her arm.”

“Er...” I tell him. “It doesn't sound very exciting. How much does a night of arm-touching and laughing at your jokes cost?”

“About 30,000 yen ($300),” he says.

I don't go.

But now as I think about this, I wonder. Was it so bad? When I go out with a whore what do I get? If I'm lucky s/he gives me some time, some friction, juice pumping. It's over. I get my tube stroked, but not my ego. 

I can stroke my own tube... I do, often. But I can't stroke my own ego. Is it better to pay for something I do myself or to pay for something only someone else can do? The context of Japan made me think stupid, shy Orientals...” But were they? Didn't they get more for their money than I did?

As I type this, I sit in the laptop room at the public library. I'm in a little space on a large table. The room is open, yet quiet. 

There is an occasional KFFFF of a mouse button, an internal computer click, and the crunching sound of someone eating nuts. In the relative silence of the room, the nut-crunching is annoying enough to make me stop what I'm doing and look around for the cruncher. I figure that just standing up, with my arms folded and a stern look on my face, will silence the guy.

It works for a second or two. But then, the crunching begins again. 

There he is. A jerk in a corner seat, diddling his iPhone, black hoodie protecting his identity. I stare at the back of his hood. I think colored guy. I don't know why I think that. More whiteboys wear hoods than Negroes. 

But Negroes have less respect for others. Right? 

When I'm on the subway, one guy sits in the middle of the bench, legs spread apart like he's holding a football between his thighs, arms stretched along the back of the seats... one guy taking three (or four if he's fat) seats. And it's a Negro.

So I figure, okay, here's a rude guy with a hoodie, so... I'm wrong. This guy is whiter than Sarah Palin. Than Lou Dobbs. Than Michael Jackson. He looks like some California skater or any other Nike/Chuck Tailored straight-edge brat. I transferred the context of my subway experience to the library. I was wrong. 

This gets me wondering. Maybe I MAKE the contexts in the first place. For example, if I see somebody in the subway taking up three seats, it's just somebody taking up three seats. But if I see a colored guy taking up three seats, then it becomes A COLORED GUY... and taking up three seats is what he does. 

Maybe as many white guys do it as colored, but Negroes are associated with it in my mine... they're marked. So when they spread their arms and legs, they confirm what I already have in my head. When a white guy does it, I don't notice.

I often think about the president's penis. When George Bush was taking a piss. Did he think: This is the presidential dick right here. This cock rules the world. The piss coming out of it now, dribbling slowly, soaking my fingers... that's presidential piss. That's piss that pisses on the world.

When Obama takes a piss. Does he think: See this black dick in my hand? This thick piece of black manhood. This dick that you fantasized about... that's your dream and your horror. This black dick shooting out a hard thick stream, like a firehose. That's a BLACK presidential piss. And that's what pisses on the world. 

They say that black is the marked case. In other words, in America, people notice something as special... different... when it's done by someone black. It's not special when a white person does the same thing. Do black people feel that?

There was an article in THE NATION by a Negress professor who wrote about how her white colleagues refused to mark their race on the census... or else they marked other, putting in Jew or human or something else. She never heard of a black person marking other. Obama didn't mark other. The world is changing, she says. There are only two races: Black and other. 

To check, I google (safe search off) my black ass and get 140,000 sites. Then I google my white ass and get 1,590,000 sites.

Huh? That means that white is being specified more than black. White is marked more than black. A lot more. (My yellow ass, by the way, only brings 41,000 hits.) 

I'm confused.

In Arizona, Mexican is the marked case. Even though crime in general is DOWN in US border areas (El Paso Texas is the safest city in the continental US), Arizonans see MEXICAN when they commit a crime. 

Otherwise, it's just generic criminal. Arizonans bring context to crime... and because of that, are wrong.
(By the way, My Spanish ass gets 98,300 sites. My Mexican ass, 111,000.)

You walk around with these contexts in your head. If something happens to confirm the context, you note it as a confirmation. If something contrary happens, it gets lost outside your consciousness. In a day, you'll forget all about it.

Those contexts color everything you do or say. You see what you want. The world confirms your prejudices. See? You told me so.

The solution, of course, is to look for the opposite. Start from the other side. Assume you're wrong. If the girl cries rape, she's lying. If someone breaks into your car, it's some preppy from Stamford. If people in Tajikistan spit on their hand and rub the saliva into their eyebrows before crossing the street, that's the right way to go about street-crossing. 

You can and will ignore this solution. You'll continue to keep your old contexts, wear them like blinders against the world. It's you. It's the nature of your stupidity. It makes me sick and you can just kiss my Jew ass.

 
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]

-->Different culture dept: Kyle wrote me: You go to a rave, the chicks don't give a shit if you grope 'em or dry hump 'em and will rub up on you. You'll never see that in a pit. Tis' taboo in the Hardcore scene. I had this chick rub up on me till I came in my pants at a Ministry Show. You'll never see that in a punk moshpit.
                  Hmm, I'm gonna have to start going to raves.

-->That's why they raised the drinking age dept: Supposedly the drinking age went up to reduce the number of younger drunk drivers killing people. BUT, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, "alcohol use by weekend drivers has decreased over the past four decades (largely because of the higher drinking age), but there has been no corresponding drop in alcohol-related fatal crashes." Research shows that while there has been a 71 percent reduction in drunk driving on weekends since 1973, the numbers of alcohol-related fatalities remains the same.

-->How 'bout a Whack-A-Palin dept: The head of an Allentown amusement company has removed a carnival game in which players shot foam darts at a target resembling Barack Obama.
"It was just a big, big mistake in judgment, and I feel sorry about it," said the carnival's head, Irvin Good Jr.

-->Buying the context dept: BP oil has been buying Google search ads for "oil spill" and "oil spill claims."
Any questions? Go right to the PR department of BP! Who said that with the internet our news ISN'T managed?

-->PC World magazine reports that SONY has begun blowing a BOURBON scent into the "male oriented" areas of its stores. It should serve as a reminder that you'd have to be drunk to invest in one of their products.

-->A different kind of child support dept: Shirley Anderson, 71, is suing her son Ken, 46, in Vancouver, for parental support -- even though she and Ken's father abandoned him when he was 15. A British Columbia law requires adult children to support "dependent" parents. In 2000, Shirley sued, demanding $350 per month each from Ken, a trucker, and his four siblings. A judge awarded token interim support pending a final resolution, which after years of paperwork and delay was to come in early August. It has been postponed once again.

-->Is that a superbig spliff in your pocket? dept: South African drug lord Fadwaan "Fat" Murphy, speaking at a bail hearing in January in Cape Town, revealed that he was born a hermaphrodite and has a separate identity ("Hilary"). This became important when arresting officers discovered that Murphy was wearing a strap-on penis. Nonetheless, Murphy insists he is a man: "I look like a man. I talk like a man. I am a man."

-->Homos outing hets dept: According to the publisher of Philadelphia Gay News, gay state Rep. Babette Josephs "outed" her primary opponent Gregg Kravitz... as straight. Josephs claims Kravitz was posing in Josephs' gay-friendly district as bi-sexual.
               Kravitz said he is "attracted to both men and women” and found Josephs' comments offensive.
               I say, send me a picture and then we'll talk about proving your bi-tude.

-->My kind of medicine dept: The German newspaper Die Zeit reports that the Brazilian Health Minister, Jose Gomes Temporão, has found a solution to reduce blood pressure in the general population. He suggested that people have sex more frequently. According to him, five times a week is appropriate. The physical exercise lowers blood pressure, and is strongly recommended in view of the increased rate of high blood pressure among Brazilians.

-->Not my kind of Supreme Court dept: In it's decision in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project the Supreme court ruled that human rights groups cannot write Op-ed pieces, file Supreme court briefs or work with the UN, if they provide any (including 100% humanitarian) relief to an agency the government has declared as terrorist. This is a 100% rejection of the principle of free speech.
           So, the courts say corporations can BUY speech with no restrictions, but PEOPLE are prohibited from exercising that right. Of course, I'd like to tell you what I think about that, but I'd be put in jail!

-end-

Mykel's personal website is here. 
 

Mykel Board Talks Shit MRR 329

You're Wrong
An Irregular Column
by Mykel Board

aka Mykel Talks Shit!

"What is the reward for pointing out that everyone's walking around carrying bucketfuls of shit? They dump the buckets on you. They feel lighter, and you get covered in shit.” --Jim Goad

It must've been the Guinness. I can feel the rumblings on my right side, right above my hipbone. The painful gurgle-gurgle, the mucilaginous brownitude. bubbling up slowly, then across... inch by painful inch... down the left side. Ah the delicious pain. My sphincter spontaneously fights the flow. Open the gates! Please, open the gates. There's a drop... then another... then...

Mykel! What the fuck??!

It's Sid Yiddish, my friend and editor, typing in italics. Wacha doin' in my columns, Sid?

 

I don't mind doing this for you... for free... I might add... but every month there's some scat I have to... er... sit through. You're obsessed with shit. I don't get it. Can't you write about anything but shit?

He's right. I write shit. I talk shit. Why?

Mark Twain and Ben Weasel have both sung the praises of a good shit. Both complained that fecal matters get the short shrift in the war between shit and fuck. I agree. 

Shit has a lot going for it. You don't have to tell a good shit you love it... or make it breakfast in the morning. 

That's for starters.
 

But there's another reason I'm shit obsessed. There's just so much of it. 

 

Flashback: The year is 1968. It's the Vietnam War times. There is a law: Local draft boards have to include any “information” you send them. Your records much be complete as you see fit to complete them. 

The idea is that people send their draft boards all the reasons they shouldn't be drafted. The board has to consider all this information. To do so fairly, they have to add anything you want to your file. I'm packaging a dead mouse I found in the corner of my dorm room, snapped in half by one of those snappy traps. I've liberated the body from the trap, put it in tissue paper, put that in a shoebox. 

On a plain piece of typing paper, I write: Please add this to my files on record at the draft board. Thank you, Mykel (actually, then it was Michael) J. Board. I add my SS number.

Now I tape the shoebox shut. On top of the box, right under the KEDS logo, I write the name of my draft board, and its office address, somewhere in Ronkonkoma. 

I don't put a return address on the box. But I do put on a lot of postage. 

Since it costs six cents to mail an ordinary letter, I figure 20 stamps should be more than enough.
 

I take an entire stamp sheet... Law and Order stamps..., lick the back... the whole sheet, and wrap it from the top of the package around the side. I slip the package into the corner mailbox. Then, return to my dorm room. 

There is nothing left. Nothing to show. The spot where the package lay, the stamps, the box, have no record. 

No shit. 

NOW: I'm sadly packing my copy of Humungousfungusamongus. Sold it on GEMM to someone in Japan for $19.90. Plus shipping. Of course, I charge way too much for the shipping. That's how you do it these days.
 

Shipping charges don't make up for the sadness of parting with an LP I love... but sometimes you gotta eat, and pay the bar bill.

I print a shipping label and peel it off a waxed backing sheet. Then, I put the packing slip in an envelope, pull off a strip of vinyl and seal the envelope. Then, I take a stamp from another waxed sheet of paper, peel it off, and stick it on the package. 

I've sent something 12,000 miles away, and I'm left with more than I started. Stupid little strips of plastic. Label backings. Remnants of sealings that used to leave nothing. A bunch of shit.

Lately, everything makes shit. 

I can't buy a bottle of One-A-Day Vitamins without a plastic-sealed cap, an inner aluminum seal, the whole bottle in a box with six pages of instructions... and a coupon. Instructions for One-A-Day Vitamins??? Hmmm One-A-Day Vitamins, I wonder what the dosage is. 

Shit! Shit! And more shit!

Susan-of-the-Apple-Worshippers butts in: But Mykel, you are the one who rants against iPods and e-readers. Those things reduce shit. Think of all the trees not cut down to make books. Think of all the oil saved in not making CDs and records...

No! No! No! 

Books are NOT shit. Records are not shit. They are things we use. We hold them. Use them. Use them again. Give them away. Sell them on GEMM. 

 

Cut to the desert island: You've been stranded for a year. There's fruit and fresh water... you can even catch a fish or two once-in-awhile. 

What's really killing is the boredom. Jerking off doesn't do it anymore. Your dick's got a friction sore as big as your thumbnail.

Construction doesn't do it either. You've made a house, a rain-catching station, a lean-to, and a life-size special friend.

Looking out toward the ocean, you see that the sea is a bit rough today. Waves blow in from the water leaving shells, and odd debris in their wake. 

You're safe on high ground. You can watch without fear as the white caps come further and further inland. You drift to sleep to the sound of the waves.

In the morning, the beach is littered with debris. Plates, plastic bottles, an energy-saving lightbulb. It looks like wreckage, but maybe it's just garbage, dumped by a luxury cruiser. 

Wait. There's something in the distance. Small and square. Ah, to have a book. Something to hold. To read and reread. It would be a dream come true. An escape from the boredom of one day just following another. 

You walk over to the object. Too thin for Moby Dick, maybe it's The Unlimited Dream Company. That would be even better. If the pages are wet, you can separate them and dry them in the sun. In a day, they'll be readable. 

It's hard to make it out until you're right there on top of it. An iPad. 

Jeezus fuckin' Christ. What are you gonna do with that piece of shit?

 

Nowadays: Amazon just announced that its sales of e-books have just surpassed its sales of hard-cover books. What the fuck?

My kindle-totting friends agree with Susan. “Mykel! E-books are eco-friendly. You don't need to kill trees to make them?” 

Eco-friendly my shit-streaked ass!

If I read a book, I can give it to a friend. Sell it on Amazon. It'll stay in circulation. Like a bad cold, it'll go from one person to another. A traveler will pick it up, leave it somewhere. Another traveler will pick it up. Maybe someone will donate it to their local library or the university library in Mongolia. 

E-books? Try donating ten of 'em to your local library. Try selling 'em on Second Ave... or selling 'em back to Amazon. Try throwing 'em overboard, hoping they'll wash up where someone else can read 'em. 

Worse than that, in two years, new machines won't be able to read the old formats. Your collection will be out-dated, needing a new e-reader, a different format. More software. A more powerful computer. More shit. 

Remember when you could just visit someone and look at their family photo album? Now? Fuhgeddaboudit. You need a computer, an internet connection and Facebook. Shit, shit and more shit. 

 

Exactly Now: I sit at McDonald's off the Garden State Parkway in New Jersey. I'm on my way to read at a place called THE LOFT in New Brunswick. Chris, the guy who invited me, ran the shows at the loft. It's also a living place, hangout, and art studio. 

A couple months ago, Chris Facebooked me that he wanted to meet me. Set up a show around my reading. A few bands, a music stand to read from, a place to crash for the night, beer. What more could I want? (Yeah, I know.)

After hemming and hawing for a couple months, I decide to go. Chris seems like a good guy, and says he wants to meet me.

 Besides, New Brunswick is the home of Rutgers University, alma mater of MRR founder and first patriarch, Tim Yohannon. It'll be fun to go there.

As far as I know, Tim's not buried there, though. I don't think he's buried anywhere. His ashes were spread, I hope, among the buffalo dung in Golden Gate Park. That's the way he wanted it.

Just before the show, I check back onto the event site on Facebook. 

 

Is the show still going on? 

 

Is it going to be a memorial?

 

I think Chris would've wanted it to go on. We'll have it.” writes his girlfriend, Jupiter.

Huh? 

The organizer died? He invites me to speak and then goes joining Tim with the buffaloes? Holy shit! What's going on?

So here I sit wondering what's gonna happen tonight. 

I stopped in McDonald's only to get a drink of water and write this column. 

Water? 

No water fountains here. 

If I take a drink from a drinking fountain, that's it. The water travels from the fountain to my mouth. A pure transaction... like a blowjob. 

Now? 

I can BUY water. Plastic bottled water where the chemicals in the plastic leach into the water. This includes an especially dangerous material called antimony:

 

...small doses of antimony can make you feel ill and depressed. Larger quantities chemists say, can cause violent vomiting and even death. 

Instead of a drinking fountain, I get chemical death. Water wrapped in shit. Not only that. The number one ingredient in the so-called vitamin water (after water, that is) is SUGAR... in “crystalline fructose” form. The next ingredient? SUGAR (cane sugar). 

VITAMIN water, my shitty ass! It's a blowjob with a condom. Yuck! 

And I have a bottle left over. More shit.

From here I go to The Loft. My reading turned into a memorial. I'll let you know what shit goes down.

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]

-->You want wings on that airplane? dept: Federal watchdogs are demanding that airlines disclose their fees up front. That $99 flight to Philadelphia, can end up costing a month's pay. A few people think you should know before you go.
          Ryan Air was the worst, promising to charge for bathroom use. Shit on the floor, I say. Now, Spirit Airlines is adding a fee for carry-on bags, starting at $20 per bag each way. Spirit's CEO told Congress that bringing luggage on vacation is "not essential to travel."

-->What about exposure to Christians dept: An industry group established by Congress recommended that the federal government provide financial incentives for companies to “address the psychological impact on employees of exposure to disturbing images on the internet.”
     Mr. Nigam, co-chairman of the Online Safety and Technology Working Group, said global outsourcing firms that moderate content for many large Internet companies do not offer therapeutic care to their workers.
The group says that workers who have to censor photos for MySpace, Facebook and other websites are “seriously damaged,” by the content of some of those photos.
          The group’s recommendations have been submitted to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which advises the White House on digital policy.

-->You can teach, but you can't preach dept: Americans United for the Separation of Church and State reports that Christian punk band You Can Run But You Cannot Hide performs in schools with the goal of speaking to kids in our schools about the Constitution and suicide prevention. The schools go for it.
Then, they learn the method of suicide prevention. According to the band, it's “our own testimony of how Christ turned our lives around.” And why do they perform in public schools? “So we can get the light into kids’ hands in public schools.” Now what was it about The Constitution? You know that separation of church and state thing? How do we get THAT into kids hands in the public schools?

-->But is it okay to talk to her about capitalism? dept: The same organization reports that Pennsylvania's top court has ruled that a father has a First Amendment right to discuss polygamy with his daughter.
The court said Where there is no finding that discussing such matters constitutes a grave threat of harm to the child, there is insufficient basis for the court to infringe of a parent's constitutionally protected right to speak to a child about religion as he or she sees fit.
          The court was asked to rule during a custody dispute between defendant and his ex-wife. The wife told the court that the man's belief in polygamy ended their marriage and she did not want her 10-year-old daughter exposed to that concept.

-->Times change dept: The Boy Scouts of America are now offering a merit badge in video gaming. I wonder if it's a virtual merit badge. As for me, I had to skin raccoons for my merit badges.

-->Sounds like Birth of a Nation dept: An Israeli court convicted a Palestinian man of rape. Why? Because he told the girl his name was David instead of his real name, Sabbar. The girl thought he was Jewish and fucked him. Word got out and she sued... and won. Rape by deception was the verdict. And what non-virginal male wouldn't be guilty of that?
        Can you imagine? A light-skinned Negro saying he's white. Then the truth comes out? Lynch him! If there were any doubt about the racist state...both of them. Well, how can you answer that?

-->Oh yeah, the show in New Brunswick. It was GREAT!!! The crowd was great. The other bands were great (including one with members of the Murder Junkies... and yes, Dino stuck drumsticks up his ass... but only two!) Most of all Jupiter... Chris's girlfriend... put together a spectacular show... followed the next day by an even more spectacular memorial.
            This was the shit! in the best possible way. Chris must've been pretty special to have so many great friends. The memorial was filled with Chris's drawings, some photos, lots of candles and even more loving people. I'm not a sentimental guy, but who couldn't have been touched by it all. Chris surely didn't die... but lives in Jupiter... and others. You can see some of my photos from the show here.
Thanks, Chris. It was great to meet you!


 =end=

Mykel's personal website is here.