YOU AREN'T SUPPOSED TO KNOW (MRR 335, April)

You're Wrong

An Irregular Column

by Mykel Board

Mykel's Column for MRR 335, April, 2011

---------------- 

Let us, however, in our plans, direct our attention not so much to what is good and moral as to what is necessary and useful. --Protocols of the Elders of Zion

“And you're just going to tell everyone?” he asks. “Pretty soon word'll get out.... Ruin everything... It would destroy thousands of years. Let me tell you: Forget it! Only don't come running back to me. Once you do this, it's over. Like I said before, you won't survive.”

“I'm an old man, George,” I tell him. “I don't have much time left anyway.”

I'm talking with George Tabb. We're in the dressing room of The Continental. I'm there for Revival Two, the second annual reuion of ever-older farts. Downstairs is the dressing room. In a corner of that room, George and I talk about... well, you'll read it.

“After this blood libel thing with Sarah Palin... I gotta speak out.” I tell him.

“Ya gotta do what ya gotta do,” he tells me. “But you're destroying 5000 years of history in the process. It's worse than the holocaust. It might even lead to another one.”

I nod grimly. We hug. It's like we're parting forever. Maybe we are.

 

Flashback: The year is 1952. Six months before my bar mitzvah. As with every Jewish boy, it's during this time we're introduced to the wonders and mysteries of Jewishness. My parents have driven me to the synagogue.

“You won't forget today,” says my father as I get out of the car. Are his eyes wet?

It's early April, a week before Passover. An air of solemnity... awe... fear... blankets the inner chamber of the synagogue. There is no Hebrew school teacher today.... just the rabbi, Rabbi Alterkake.

Looking back, I guess he wasn't a very tall man, but to me, he seemed like a giant. A fierce looking face with a long gray beard and big eyebrows... two fat caterpillars above deep set eyes.

“Mykel,” says the rabbi. He speaks with a slightly Eastern European accent.... like my grandfather. His deep voice sounds like the voice of GOD.

“You will never forget today,” he says. “It is time for you to know what it really means to be a Jew. You might have heard whispers... rumors dismissed with a wave of the hand. Still, you wondered. Today you will know.”

If you've ever been inside a synagogue, you'll remember that on the Eastern wall, facing Jerusalem, is a tall boxlike structure. It's called an ark. It contains one or two scrolls... dressed fancy with chestplates and crowns. If you've attended a Jewish service, you might have seen the rabbi read from one. When not being read, the scrolls rest on velvet in the back of the ark.

Rabbi Alterkake takes me by the hand and leads me up to the ark. He removes the two scrolls and sets them on a stand. Then he reaches to the blue velvet. There is a snap or zipper or some kind of fastener. I'm not exactly sure. Whatever it is, he unfastens it and pushes against the wood underneath. It is a door. And it silently swings open.

On the other side, a staircase leads downwards. It looks unimaginably old... wooden... rickety... like those staircases in horror movies. The rabbi leads, entering the back of the ark and going down the stairs. I follow.

If this were a movie, the rabbi would have a candle in his hand. We'd be casting eerie shadows on the wall. It isn't. We aren't.

I'm not exactly sure where the light is coming from. There must be bulbs in the staircase ceiling that I don't notice. What I do notice is that the stairs end at a large door... like a giant refrigerator door... white, with a metal handle. Rabbi Alterkake pulls the handle and it silently swings open. We step inside a room.

It's dark. Before my eyes can adjust, the door swings shut behind us with a little whoosh! I feel like I'm in a church crypt... like those I read about in old European cathedrals.

As my eyes adjust I make out a very plain room: four concrete walls. On each of the four walls is a white scroll with a giant Hebrew letter on it.

 

Aleph, Peh, Lamed, Feh. And hanging from the ceiling in the center of the room is another giant Lamed.

In the middle of the room is a cross. It's on an alter, and it's big. Bigger than my 4 foot eleven inch self. A Christian cross. Why?

I wonder if the synagogue is constructed over an old church. But why did they keep the cross there? Why would the rabbi take me to visit it? I can't imagine what Jesus has to do with getting ready for a bar mitzvah.

We approach the cross, circling around to the other side... facing the Aleph on the wall.

It is not Jesus on the cross. It is a little boy... naked... tied to the cross beam by his wrists.

“This is the fate of the goyim,” says the rabbi. “God made us His chosen people. In every generation, the goyim have tried to destroy us. We survive because we respect God. We follow God's instructions.”

He walks to a shelf attached to the concrete wall, just to the right of the Lamed. On that shelf lies a huge pair of scissors-- like the Jewish tailors use to cut cloth in midtown New York.

“We survive,” continues the rabbi, “because we follow the rituals of our fathers... and our fathers' fathers.”

He walks up to the Christian boy... a blond kid, about five years old... Dutchboy haircut. The rope around his wrists is red with blood. He must've scraped the skin off trying to escape. His knees are about eye level to the rabbi.. His face wrinkles in fear. Tears smear his cheeks. His nose drips snot.

A small bucket lies on the floor, directly beneath the child. I recognize the Hebrew letters etched into the metal. One looks like a fiery N. I recognize it as Aleph, the first letter of the alphabet. The other is long, a bit like a P. It's the Hebrew Feh. 

The F-sound. I have no idea what they mean. They must be related to the symbols on the wall. It's all mysterious... foreign.

A drop of blood falls from boy's tiny wrists to the floor. The rabbi reaches up between the boy's legs. The kid tries to twist his knees to protect the tiny glands he will eventually surrender. Slapping the offending legs, the rabbi presses onward.

Pushing his right hand between the child's legs, the rabbi uses the scissors in his left hand to point to the bucket. Then he points to a spot on the cross, under the legs of the naked boy.

“Hold that here,” he says.

I lift the bucket and hold it where I'm told.

The rabbi's right hand is tight between the kids' legs. He hooks his fingers around the tiny testicles. He pulls and a horrible scream comes from the kid's mouth. Reaching up with the scissors, he puts the two tiny glands between the sharp edges, then presses the handle together. A worse scream issues from the child's mouth. Worse than anything I've ever heard.

That sound still haunts me, 60 years later. It was a scream like the pain of the world. A scream that pierces every bone, like the cold of a wet winter day. A scream that made my 12 and a half year old body tremble as if it were happening to me.

“And they think matzo ball soup is made from balls of matzo,” says the rabbi with a small ironic smile.

The scream dies to a whisper. A kind of sob/hiccup. The bucket I'm holding fills with the blood dripping from the open wound between the boy's legs. At first it's a torrent, splashing out, over my hands, onto my shirt. The torrent turns into a river. The river to a stream. The stream to a trickle. Time slows as the flow of blood slows. TICK... TICK... TICK... DROP... DROP... DROP. Eventually it's over.

The boy is quiet now, his naked legs covered in red rivulets, like a Jackson Pollock painting. The terror is gone from his face. It's almost like he's sleeping, his chin resting against his small chest. His skin is as white and pale as the paper I'm typing this on.

The rabbi walks to another shelf, this one next to the giant Alef. He takes a book from that shelf. It looks like The Koran. At least my 12 year old image of what the Koran looks like. The writing is certainly Arabic, not Hebrew. The book looks old-- but gilded... and holy.

He rips a page from the book and places on it the two little testes he's snipped from the goy on the cross.

He folds the paper around the glands and puts them in the pocket of his long coat. He then spits into the book, rubs it on the seat of his pants and puts it back on the shelf.

I don't know what happens to the little body. My guess is that it's taken down, and walled up behind one of those giant Hebrew letters. It's one of the many things I never find out.

I follow the rabbi back up the stairs. The blood of the little blond boy swishes in the bucket I'm carrying. Kerblub! Kerblub! Telmwirl! Telmwirl! It sounds like it's talking to me.

 

Tell the word! Tell the world! it's saying.

It's a scene that every Jewish boy has witnessed for the past thousand years. Two thousand. Five thousand. And until now, no one has ever told... or if they have, their reports have been ridiculed as blood libel.

Now you know. Blood it is. Libel, unfortunately, it is not.

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]

-->Credit where its due dept: There are very few big internet corporations that I like... though I use them. Facebook is a privacy horror. Apple has turned itself into a God. eBay spawned the Meg Whitman monster. But sometimes, you've got to give credit.

    In December, the U.S. government got a court order demanding Twitter turn over information about people connected to WikiLeaks. The court order added a gag demand that prevented Twitter from telling anyone, especially the targets of the order, about the order’s existence.

    Instead of caving in Google-like, Twitter successfully challenged the gag order in court. Then they told the targets that their data was being requested. That gave the victims time to try to quash the order themselves.

     Twitter’s move comes as a ton of spineless companies, including PayPal, MasterCard, Visa, and Bank of America banned donations to WikiLeaks. Amazon.com voluntarily threw the site off its hosting platform, though there’s nothing illegal in publishing classified documents.

     By standing up for its users, Twitter showed guts and principles. Ten punk points for you, Twitter.

    Late news: maybe the kudos were awarded a bit too early! 

-->Did it happen to you? dept: If you have a website that has been threatened with a suit or received a letter asking that material be removed... there's help for you. A website called Chilling Effect (http://chillingeffects.org/) will help you stand up for your first amendment rights... and least the few you have left.

-->Telling a man by his friends dept: TV preacher Pat Robertson was told he may not have to testify in the war crimes trial of his business partner, former Liberian dictator, Charles Taylor. Robertson got ten percent of the profits of a Liberian company ironically called Freedom Gold. In 2003, Robertson pulled some strings for his pal by criticizing GWB for "destabilizing Liberia," which meant trying to get rid of the dictator. Robertson had made no such similar comments when GWB tried to get rid of another leader... Saddam Hussein.

-->Secular sectarianism dept: The French government has banned the burka in France. The excuse? "We're a secular nation." They have not, however, banned Jesus bling or mezuzahs on doorposts.

-end-

Mykel's home page is here

VIVA LA CORRUPCIÓN (MRR 334)

If you want to read more about Mykel's adventures in Albania, Mexico-- or life in General-- checkout 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

Column for MRR 334
by Mykel Board

aka  VIVA LA CORRUPCIÓN!

Corruption is nature's way of restoring our faith in democracy. -- Peter Ustinov

I was gonna use this column to chronologically follow the last with my further adventures in Mexico. But despite my jock itch and whooping cough, I decided to hold off. I have bigger fish to fry.

 

Sometimes, events change the way you think. An epiphany, the Christians call it. A flash of insight that makes you realize something you've never considered before. Take corruption. I used to think it was bad.

Here are three stories:

Guaymas: (Northern Mexicans don't like to pronounce G's when they start words. So the town is pronounced Why Mas? I say, Why not?) I wasn't exactly in the middle of this adventure, but heard about it from Gilberto, who was.

Here's Story 1.

It's late. Sometime after the big punkrock show. There are weird laws in Mexico, as there are everywhere. Here, you're allowed to drink in the bar, but not in the attached music hall. After 10, you can drink anywhere. But, you can only buy beer retail until 9PM. After that you can only drink in a bar... until 10, when you can also drink in a music hall.

We'd just driven 15 or so hours to get to this town. From Tijuana. By now, beers are needed by all. While the early bands played, those of us not playing run back and forth from the bar to the band area. Sin Arte, the Mexican version of Artless, had to cancel. Ivan, the bass player, was evicted from his Arizona apartment earlier today, and had to move to Tuscon. It was gonna be our first show. Sad.

Some of us went out to stock up on booze before the stores closed. We hear there are a couple illegal places that sell after hours, but only Gilberto has the details.

I drink while Cojoba plays. Despite 38 seconds of sleep the night before, they play a good show. Also playing is one of my favorite bands in the world, VERBAL DESECRATION. I've probably already said it, but I'll say it again. Alan Jr., the singer, is one of the best performers in punk rock today. I could watch him all year.

Gilberto, who had driven the whole way, is enjoying beer number I can't count. I'm still racing back and forth from bar to stage, gulping from a can of Tecate in the bar and then racing back to see the bands. Gilberto disappears to buy some of that illegal late nite booze.

When he returns, here's what he tells me:

He's driving along the streets of Guaymas... no idea where he's going... completely sloshed... with a truck full of illegally bought beer. He's careening that pick-up truck right and left across the streets of the town, which is pretty much shut up for the night.

Sure enough: AAAARRR RAAAAARRRR WOOOOWOOOOWOOOOWOOO.

Flashing red and blue lights in the rear-view mirror. Uh oh. The cop gets out, flashlight in hand. He's not a big guy, slightly chubby, a bit haggard looking. I'll translate the conversation for the gringos.

Cop: You know why I stopped you?

Gilberto: I...uh... I... who? Where am I?

Cop: I think you were maybe having something to drink? And you maybe were buying it after hours?

Gilberto: I... uh... huh?

Cop: You know, I've had a long night. Just give me money for a cup of coffee and then get out of here.

Gilberto hands him 20 pesos (about $1.80). The cop shakes his head, gets back in the cop car and takes off. Somehow Gilberto finds his way back to the club.

Story 2. We've just been to a beach near Guaymas. Only Ray actually went in the water. The rest of us just took our shoes off and played with the scorpions in the sand. We were with Sabo, aka The Buddha of Guaymas. He's a really fat guy whose nicknames for everyone catch on immediately. Ray is Michael Jordon. I'm Pinche Viejo Marihuano, (loosely translated: Fuckin' Old Stoner).

The waitress at a seaside restaurant is Verijas Lilas (Purple Snatch). On our only free day, Sabo takes us on a tour of the area. He has his own pick-up truck. Moe and Ray ride inside, the rest of us in back. 

What a glorious trip! Riding in the back of a pick-up... 6 people, among the cactus and desert... Mountains and sea... Downing can after can of Tecate... Wow! Do I feel Mexican! Here's a toast to Mexico and Mexicans! We all raise our cans to the passing cars. It's a steep road from the beach to the highway. It takes careful maneuvering, quiet, sober, thoughtful. 

Then there's us.  

SLAP! Sabo hits the curb. We back up. BAALOO BAALOO! Some one leans on a horn behind us. We toast him too. We're off. Down hill. Seems like we're going pretty fast. Do the breaks work? SCREEEE!

BLAM! We're all thrown to the back of the truck. I manage to grab a kind of lead pipe that keeps me from being flung over the edge. I guess the breaks DO work. BLAM, we hit the curb on the other side. 

Careening through the street, toasting every cute chiquita and necktied businessman. Salud! Salud! (I try Potato Salud! but nobody gets it.) We all grab more beers. I don't know how they do it, but Mexicans have developed an endless sixpack, similar to the bottomless cup of coffee at IHOP. You take a beer out of the cardboard and there are still six beers left. It's magic! The beer just keeps coming.

Uh oh, we're suddenly in a land of strip malls: McDonalds, Walmart, everything except Taco Bell. Did we cross the border and not know it? We park in a parking lot. Sabo and Moe go into THE GENERIC GIANT SUPERMARKET to do some shopping. The rest of us wait in the lot, sitting in the back of the truck, continuing to exploit the endless sixpack. A car pulls up next to us. It's a black and white car, with lights on top. Uh oh. 

Three cops get out. Two short ones, about my height. One taller with heavy jowls and a bad complexion. 

Although Taina and Javier both speak perfect Spanish, they are Puerto Rican and their accents would stand out like a hard-on in church. Gilberto, our only real Mexican, gets out of the truck to talk to the cops. He speaks to the big one. I translate. 

Gilberto: Hello. Is there a problem?

Cop: You know there is a problem. You were all drinking. Where's the driver?

Gilberto: He went inside with a friend. They're going to buy groceries.

Cop: We can take you all to jail. If anyone is drinking in a car or drinking in public we have the right to take you to jail.

Gilberto: Come on. I'm Mexican. I know you can't do that.

Cop: Okay, you're right. But we can make trouble. We can wait for the driver and take him to jail.

Gilberto: I understand. How's a hundred pesos (about $9)?

The cop nods.

Gilberto hands him the money. The cops go on their way. And the party continues.

 

Story 3: Agua Prieta is a dusty Mexican town just across the border from Douglas Arizona... a dusty American town. It's where Gilberto's aunt and uncle live and it's now one of my favorite places in the world. According to Gilberto, it's controlled by the drug cartels. All the fancy restaurants, bars and clubs in town are owned by them. Gilberto's uncle owns the best “non-drug cartel” restaurant in town. You'll probably read more about this amazing city in future columns. It's filled with colorful characters, a great strip club, and the world's only BURGER QUEEN.

Right now, I need to introduce you to one of the colorful characters: Barichu. He's a tall handsome guy in his mid-20s. He wears a black leather jacket, is talkative, and notorious in this small town. His picture was on the front page of the local newspaper... under the headline: POSSESSED BY DRUGS? OR BY SATAN? The story tells how he started yelling at the police. As they surrounded him, he pulled out a plastic gun and shouted BANG! BANG! at them. In America he'd be dead. In Mexico, he got beat up and thrown in jail for awhile. Every cop in town knows the guy. He often suffers from black eyes and bloody noses.

One of the many other reasons I like him is he said to me “Mykel, tu eres una leyenda aquí.” A third reason is that he's known as “Sonora's GG Allin.” (Sonora is the Mexican state where this column takes place.) One of his more notorious tricks was to pound dried dogshit into a powder... and snort it. 

So it's the middle of the night. We've been at the strip club (boy, THAT'S a story), finished a couple buckets of beer, seen... well you'll hear later. Right now we're piled in Gilberto's rent-a-car. He's driving. There's me and Barichu in the back. Gilberto is in the front with Paige, a girl visiting from Boston, and another local guy whose name I can't remember. 

The town looks deserted. Good thing too, as we're skidding across the street, from side to side, like a stripper's hips against a pole. Up ahead is a red light. 

 “Go! Go!” shouts Barichu in Spanish. “There's no one around. Just go.”

“Er... I don't think that's a good idea,” I say. “Cops don't sleep at night. They may be looking for...”

Gilberto steps on the gas, ending me mid-sentence. FOOOOOOT. Right through the red light. And the next red light. And the next. Although it's physically impossible to drive both on the right and the left sides of the street simultaneously, Gilberto does it. I cover my eyes.

I do not cover my ears, however, and so hear the police sirens coming from behind us. I knew it.

We stop. Pull over. Lights flash in the rear view mirror. Gilberto gets out of the car.

Jeezus: drunk driving, running three lights, speeding. It'll probably cost us $20 to get out of this one. Then Barichu gets out of the car, yelling at the cops.

There's more shouting. Lots of Spanish words I don't know. What sounds like boots stomping in mud. Suddenly a cop gets into the driver's seat of our car, the place vacated by Gilberto. He wears no hat, but he does wear a turtleneck sweater. Pulled up high, the turtle neck covers most of his face. Everything except the eyes. He looks like a giant uncircumcised penis... the glans just peeking through, above the foreskin. With three of us in the car, he starts it and drives... somewhere.

“You're taking us home?” asks Paige.

Wishful thinking.

Without a word to us, the cop pulls over... somewhere. It's even more deserted than the already deserted center of town. He gets out of the car. A few seconds later, Gilberto gets in the car and kneels on the front seat.

“Barichu pissed them off. We got to get a thousand pesos together or we go to jail,” he says.

Barichu gets in the back seat. The rest of us pull out our wallets. I've got 300. The guy whose name I forget kicks in a couple hundred. Gilberto puts in what he has. Paige has no pesos, but throws in about forty U.S. dollars. Barichu yells at all of us. He has no money.

Gilberto counts what we give him. Twice. “I think we got it.” he says. “Let's hope so.”

Barichu yells at him.

Outside, there is more talking. Barichu gets out of the car again. Uh oh, this is gonna do it. I'm gonna spend the night getting buttfucked by the Frito Bandito. But no. They got their money. They let us go.

Barichu and Gilberto get back in the car. Barichu says he wants to move to Boston where Gilberto lives because the cops here always beat him up. I tell him that in Boston, they'd kill him. He doesn't believe me.

On the trip back to Gilberto's uncle's house, I think about corruption. Three times. In the U.S., each would've landed us in the slammer. We'd have to spend days in court, probably get licenses taken away, have a criminal record, spend thousands on fines and lawyers fees, and what do the cops get for their work? Bubkas.

In Mexico, we're stopped by the cops three times. All for legitimate reasons. It costs us a total of around $100 to get off. Every cent of that goes into a hard-working cops' pocket. We have no criminal records (at least not here in Mexico). No time in jail. That is corruption. And contrary to what I've long thought, I now say: VIVA LA CORRUPCIÓN!

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

-->And they call it welfare dept: Former candidate for NY Governor, Carl Paladino, said he'd transform some NY prisons into dormitories for welfare recipients. "Instead of handing out the welfare checks, we'll teach people how to earn their check,” he said. “We'll teach them personal hygiene.”

 

-->I wonder if it teaches them personal hygiene dept: Democracy Now! reports that an LA country jail plans to use prisoners as test subjects for a U.S. military high-tech ray gun that cause extreme pain. Seeing as they're only prisoners, it doesn't really matter, does it?

-->Where rights are privileges dept: New Republic editor, Martin Peretz, said he wonders if Muslims "are worthy of the privileges of the First Amendment which I have the sense that they will abuse." He also wrote "Muslim life is cheap, most notably to Muslims."

     Seems to me that by writing that Peretz is abusing his first amendment rights.

-->But he's not cheap dept: David H. Brooks, the CEO of DHB, a body-armor company contracted to the US government, has, according to the NY Times, used company money to pay for pornographic videos for his son, plastic surgery for his wife, prostitutes for his employees, and a $100,000 American-flag belt buckle encrusted with rubies, sapphires and diamonds.

-->Who's abusing the first amendment? dept: Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association said that the US should have "no more mosques, period." Why? "Each Islamic mosque is dedicated to the overthrow of the American government."

-->Today's friend, tomorrow's prisoner(ask Noriega)dept: Jailed Afghan drug lord, Jama Khan, has been a CIA informant for years, The New York Times reports. He was paid large sums of money to provide information about the Taliban, Afghan government corruption and other drug traffickers. In 2008, Khan, described as the most dangerous drug lord and Taliban supporter, was arrested and transported to New York to face charges under a new American narco-terrorism law.

-->Letter reply dept: Last month(?) Naomi wrote a thoughtful letter about how there seemed to be a conflict between my complaining about child tobacco labor in Kazakhstan and my opposition to kiddie porn laws in the U.S. She said that since most children don't “consent” to be in porn and that they aren't paid for it, kiddie porn is slavery. Since I believe the letters column should be for readers, I didn't answer there. Here is my answer:

The reality of child porn is that most of it was made decades ago and is still being distributed. (By the way, the number one 

distributor of kiddie porn is the U.S. government... for entrapment purposes). There's no way of knowing if the kids consented or not. In the stuff that I've seen in Europe and Asia, the kids look pretty happy... like they're playing.

In any case, most of the images of children (family pictures, street snapshots etc)... in fact most images these days... are distributed without the consent of the person photographed. That's life without privacy in the 21st century.

Of course, I oppose people forced into doing things against their will, but I'd say a fuck of a lot more adults are forced into working jobs they hate than children are forced into doing something sexual for others to take pictures of. Capitalism is slavery. Most of us are slaves.

-end-

Mykel's personal website is here.

OR you might be interested in Mykel's Travel Blog (more on Mexico)

OR random musings and collections

Mexico and Selling Out in Arizona (MRR 333)

If you want to comment on this, you should go to the BLOG version, that allows you to say whatever you'd like! 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

Column for MRR 333
by Mykel Board

aka Mykel Sells Out and Goes to Arizona... and Mexico

Imagine twin clown noses tightly squeezed together. Glowing red, so bright they seem lit from within. Those are my balls. Worse case of jock itch I ever had. Jock itch. I hate that term. How about jungle rot? Crotch mildew? I donno. I've got so much fungus growing between my legs that every time I take a piss, the air smells like mushroom soup.

I read on the internet that something called tea tree oil will fix you right up. It comes from Australia and costs $20 for 4 ounces. It smells like Eucalyptus... Halls cough drops, Dr. Bronners... I try it. Hurts like hell.

It makes my balls redder than ever. The itch... the pain has spread to my legs, to the taint. Used to be I couldn't go a minute without thinking about my dick. Now it's my balls that provoke even less noble thoughts.

And we three... my balls and I... are on a plane to Phoenix of all places. But let's zoom out a bit to get some perspective.

I'm glad I already wrote a column in praise of hypocrisy. Here I am... the month after urging my surging fandom to boycott Arizona. Here I am, Mr. Vivan Los Chicanos. Here, I am, Mr. Ethnically Correct. Sitting on a back porch in Tucson, waiting till Mr. Beef finishes the steak on the backyard barbecue grill. Do I get points that this house belongs to a Mexican American? That it's in a Mexican neighborhood? That the whole purpose of being here is Mexico... not Arizona? I don't think so.

Not by way of excuse, but by way of ego boost, I'll tell you why I'm here.

“Hey Mykel,” writes Gilberto, “some of your Mexican fans want to put together a band, learn your songs, and then have you come down and sing with them. You'll tour Mexico with Cojoba (a Puerto Rican band). What do you think?”

What the fuck do you think I think? I'm so there!

“Umm...,” he continues, “a couple shows will be in Arizona.”

“I'm boycotting Arizona,” I tell him.

“You're with Mexicans, Puerto Ricans. It's okay,” he says.

I'm convinced.

So the tour will be Sin Arte (the Artless coverband), Cojoba, La Merma in a reunion tour, plus shows with other groups in other places. It'll last 10 days, 4 shows in Mexico and 2 in Arizona. Every band will be Mexican or have Mexicans in it... except Cojoba. And they are half Puerto Rican, and a quarter each American Negro and Dominican American. Gilberto will be the tourmeister, pay for the van rental, take care of our special needs. He's also invited me to his birthday party... with his family in Agua Prieta.

Juarez is the most dangerous city in Mexico. Numbers two and three are Tijuana and Nogales. My pal Ivan, who lives on the US side near the Nogales border was awakened one night by the sound of a hand grenade. I will not be going to Juarez. The rest, oh yeah!

I wear my Greetings To Arizona from Mexico t-shirt. It shows a sunset behind a cactus... the cactus giving the finger to the gringos across the border.

I wear the boots I gave up because of severe leg pains. I can't tour Mexico wearing Payless sneakers. It's gotta be combat boots. Only ten days, what harm could they do in that time? Yeah right.

Flash to now: Medium shot inside the plane, still on the ground in New York: Me, my red balls and my combat boots. There are only a few empty seats. One next to me. Pretty good luck, I think.

Then they let on the stand-by passengers. A 30-something blond wearing a business suit. Her expression so stern and her demeanor so I-Mean-Business, that I don't even look at her tits. She sits down, crosses her legs, pointing the top one away from me. Then she begins to dribble snot.

Coughing, sneezing, nose blowing. By the time the plane takes off there is a Berlin Wall of snotty tissue between me and her. Fuck, just what I need on the way to Mexico, some dorky gringa to make me sick.

When the plane lands in Phoenix, I load up on vitamin C, but it's too late. The cough has already started and there's more to come.

It's three hours in the airport until the others show up: Gilberto, the best thing to come from Mexico since Texas, Pamela, a cute little Chicana whose got more balls than most guys and Ivan La Merma, a pal and the guy from Nogales who heard the grenade.

They're coming from Spain via Boston.

A recorded voice comes through the airport speakers: Welcome to America's friendliest airport. The current terror alert level is orange. When you proceed to the gates, please be advised that all liquids must be in containers of no more than three ounces each. They must be placed in clear plastic bottles, sealed in a Ziplock bag, and put separately in a tray. You will be subject to search at any time. Do not accept any gifts from strangers. Do not accept any ride offers from drivers inside the airport. The airport is equipped with surveillance cameras.... Welcome to America's friendliest...

Inside the airport are empty food concessions. A Starbucks. No. A McDonalds. No. I go to DICK CLARK'S for some too-expensive food and a beer to take care of my waiting time.

I remember Dick Clark's from a Michael Moore movie. Something about taking welfare mothers away from their babies. I can't recall the details.

When I walk in, there is no one on the floor. A blond bartender is talking with the only customer, somebody commenting on the football game on the TV. I'm trying to get someone to help me, but there is no one. The place looks deserted.

Behind the cash register is a bored-looking white woman-- as bland as daytime TV. Blond, mid-40s, completely forgettable. I ask her if I should just take a seat.

“See that sign behind you?” she says, pointing with her thumb.

PLEASE WAIT TO BE SEATED it says.

Couldn't she just say, “I'll be happy to show you to your seat?” Does she have to be an Arizona equivalent of Wassamatta you dumb?

She's the first of the Arizona White Girls. You'll hear more about them. One of 'em was elected governor. They are serious. They are nasty. I do not like them.

“Can I get you something to drink while you're waiting?” she asks when she shows me to my seat. I'm the only customer and it's 7PM. Maybe the boycott's working.

“I'll have a Sam Adams,” I tell her.

“Can I see your I.D.?” she says.

I'm 70 fuckin' years old, pretty bald, with gray chin hair. I can only guess she wants to check my ID to make sure I'm not an illegal Mexican.

I show her my driver's license. She nods and leaves.

The beer is okay. The food is awful. Before long Gilberto, Ivan and Pamela arrive at the airport. I meet them at the baggage collection area. Gilberto and I go from there to the car rental office. He hands his debit card to the woman behind the counter.

“Sorry,” she says. She's a white girl with a scrubbed face and an I'm gonna grow up to be Sara Palin smile.

“I see this is a one way rental,” she says, staring at Gilberto's DON'T WORRY GRINGO, I'M LEGAL t-shirt. “We can't rent one way to... I mean on... debit cards. Only real credit cards.”

“What do you mean...” starts Gilberto.

I kick him subtly.

“No, problem,” I say. “We'll bring it back here.”

He looks at me with wrinkled brow. I flash a wink, then rub my eye like it's got something in it. The white girl takes the debit card.

As we walk to the parking lot and the 7 person van, Gilberto speaks.

“You mean, all you have to do is lie?” he asks.

I nod... Then cough... uh oh!

“You tell 'em what they want to hear,” I say. “It's like speaking to the cops. Yes officer. I realize I shouldn't have run that red light. My mother is in the hospital I was just trying to reach her before she sucks in her last breath of air. I panicked, but it was wrong and I know it. I'm sorry. Just tell 'em what they want to hear. They don't care about truth anymore than your girlfriend does when she asks How do I look?”

I don't know what happens to Ivan and Pamela. I guess they take her car. It's only Gilberto and me who drive the 2 hours to Tucson.

“This is the only Mexican neighborhood I know that's right downtown,” says Gilberto.

“I wonder why?” I ask. “Don't they have any pretentious white artists to move in and kick out the Mexicans? In any case, we'd better lock the car doors and turn on the alarm when we get out.”

He knows me well enough to laugh. Others in the neighborhood, it will turn out, do not.

When we arrive, Güera meets us at the door. She looks like your typical Arizonan. Blonde, light skin, cute in a tough-looking country way. Weird that she lives in this Mexican neighborhood.

“Hi,” says I.

“Ola,” says she. She Mexican.

Also at the door is Mona. Mona doesn't bother with the formalities. She's all over me. Passionately kissing me, right from the start. Just on me like a dog in heat. In fact, she is a dog in heat. And she's shedding like a rattlesnake in the sun.

Then comes a rumble, a shake. Do they have earthquakes in Arizona? No. It's just the train passing. Right outside the front door. So THAT'S why the Mexican neighborhood is right downtown. It's next to the tracks!

On Güera's back porch is Ivan, and this huge white guy with jet black hair, combed Elvis style... Presley not Costello.

Ivan and I hug. The huge guy is broiling some meat on a tiny barbecue. Smells good.

“I'm Beef,” says the huge guy, shaking my hand.

I don't get it, but figure it must be Mexican-Arizona dialect that means I'm cooking beef.

“I'm hungry.” I say. “All I ate today was Dick... Clark.”

Then I cough some more-- God's punishment for breaking my boycott Arizona pledge. The bitch-goddess pays me back for my hypocrisy. After three hours next to the sick blonde on the plane, I've suddenly got a cough--- and I'm starting to drip snot myself. Are my glands swollen or am I happy to see you?

Beef takes the beef from the grill, carrying the hot meat in the aluminum foil it was cooked in. He does not offer it to me, but takes it past all of us into the kitchen. There, he delicately cuts the pieces, seasons them, rolls them into soft flour tortillas, and hands them to us: me, Güera, Ivan, and Gilberto.

“Here you are,” he says with more than a touch of modesty. “I really hope you like them.”

They're delicious. Such a big guy, but such a good cook, and so delicate with the spices. Such a meek and modest guy.

The next time I see him, he'll be pouring a drink over a white girl's head. He becomes one of two white guys I like on this trip.

Cojoba shows up: Taina, the singer and personality of the band, Javiar, boyfriend of Taina, guitar player and Hell's Angeles wannabe (long hair and a headscarf). They're both GG Allin fans. Then there's semen-inducing Moe, bass player and Dominican American, and Ray, the black drummer born in the USA. It's his first time on tour.

Those guys brought their sleeping bags. Me? I sleep on a mattress on the floor, covered with dog hair. Soon, I'm also covered with dog.

My cough gets worse during the night. And we have to leave tomorrow and drive all night to reach the show in Tijuana.

(By the way, the U.S. government has issued a travelers advisory against visiting Tijuana.)

It's the only Mexican show Sin Arte is not scheduled to play, and we have to drive 16 hours to get there. But that's grist for the next column.

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 missed it department: I've been sick as a Chihuahua since I've been back in New York. I go to Mexico, two days after my return, go to some dumb sports bar in New York... eat bad nachos and get the shits. Go figure

     That, plus the cough and several other diseases begun on the plane to Arizona, persist in New York. Despite this, I drove to Philadelphia with the multi-talanted performance artist, Sid Yiddish and the punkrock Trididadian, Randy Ali. I don't want to spoil it for you, but think Shlomo Carlebach meets Gypsy Rose Lee. The audience was small, but the reaction sure as fuck wasn't. See Sid when he comes in your town.

 

-->There goes that e-books save trees argument: Citizens of the Dutch city Alphen aan den Rijn commissioned a study of the effects of Wi-Fi on trees. They found that all deciduous trees in the western world are affected by radiation from mobile-phone networks and wireless LANs.

      Over 70 per cent of trees in urban areas in the Netherlands are afflicted by Wi-Fi sickness They show significant variations in growth, with bleeding and fissures in their bark. That's compared with just 10 per cent showing these symptoms five years ago.

-->Basketball? That's what they do, isn't it? dept: President Obama needed 12 stitches on his upper lip after he was accidentally hit while playing basketball with friends and family at Fort McNair in Washington, D.C. The president was playing defense when Rey Decerega, an opposing player, turned into him to take a shot. His elbow hit Obama in the mouth. The president was given a local anesthetic for the procedure.

-->Milestone Dept: On Saturday Nov. 27, the US was in Afghanistan a day longer than the Soviet Union was in the same place. What's more, the U.S. announced during the NATO summit that it intends to spend at least four more years, and possibly longer. Even then, many Afghans -- perhaps even the president installed by the U.S. invasion -- appear to doubt that the Americans will succeed where their Cold War enemy failed.

-->Wadda surprise dept: New York Magazine reports study after study shows that having kids makes people less happy. Is that a surprise? Spending time and income on a drooling ball of wrinkled skin is supposed to make you happy? Yeah right.

 

-end-

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