LIBERTARIANS ARE LIKE BIKE-RIDERS: aka YOU'RE STILL WRONG Post MRR Columns: Number 4

YOU'RE STILL WRONG

POST MRR COLUMNS

(or Why Libertarians are Like Bike Riders)

by Mykel Board

He fell asleep murmuring, "Sanity is not statistical," with the feeling that this remark contained in it a profound wisdom. --George Orwell

When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. --H.G. Wells

Nothing is more patent, indeed, than the fact that charity merely converts the unfit - who, in the course of nature, would soon die out and so cease to encumber the earth - into parasites - who live on indefinitely, a nuisance and a burden --H.L. Menkin

Here's to you oh left and right, you brutal double pack of slime. Basically you're not too bright. New ideas are a crime. --Mykel Board

I type this lying naked on a bed in the air-conditioned guest room of my host here in Trinidad. My laptop is propped on one knee. It's freezing in here. I have the guest AC turned to 60 degrees. This freeze lets me cover myself with a heavy blanket, though outside it's over 90^o. The blanket is the only way to keep off the mosquitoes.

I type knowing that I'll soon be called to visit a humingbird sanctuary and have tea with my host's mom and mom's friend. It's an odd luxury of long-term travel. You're always involved in new situations, new experiences, adventures... but you also have more time. Just nothing to do except lie naked on a bed with your computer.

Unfortunately, in the ubiquitous internet age, too much time goes to xvideos.com, and facebook. And worse (better), I found a facebook group of Jim Goad fans that's been so engrossing, I can hardly tear myself away to write this.

For those who don't know: Jim Goad is the man behind ANSWER ME! one of the best, most disgusting, zines in history. He also wrote THE REDNECK MANIFESTO and what may be the best prison memoir ever: SHIT MAGNET.

Jim is a smart misanthropic libertarian. His fans, as you'd expect, are also misanthropic libertarians... some of them smart. Before me, his page was a mutual stroke fest. Like a PETA site, where everyone shares horror stories about turtle abuse, Jim's site was where everyone shared horror stories about the evils of gypsies, the excesses of feminism, and the creeping dangers of big government, immigrants and welfare recipients,

For me it's a strange mix. I LOVE immigrants, admire welfare recipients, am not really concerned about gypsies, and feel much the same as these guys about feminism. What draws me into the conversation here is the LEVEL of the discussion. There's a lot of humor, a touch of know-it-all-ism, some stridency, and with the exception of one asshole (soon blocked), there is no name-calling or hysteria. Often, there is actual THOUGHT that goes into posts. That's not something you usually associate with an internet discussion.

Of course, I'm the bad guy... the intruder. BUT, they put up with me. They er... ANSWER ME (usually) and give me a window into the way some people think. Probably my proudest moment is when someone writes:

I've never before heard ANYONE, liberal or conservative, say they want their tax money to support some lazy asshole who simply refuses to work.

That's right buckaroos, I am not like ANYONE, liberal or conservative.

That's what I want to talk about... it's a topic I return to a lot. Words. Liberal or conservative. And how if you're LIBERAL you've gotta support laws against hate speech and if you're CONSERVATIVE you've gotta believe the world is 3000 years old and created by G-d in 7 days. I showed them (and they showed me), that's just WRONG.

Each side accuses the other of some wildness, something against logic... against basic fundamentals that everybody knows. (Clue... as soon as you hear EVERYBODY KNOWS, what follows will be wrong.)

The libertarians complain about PARASITES. They talk about SOCIAL LEECHES who live off of the work of others. They say everybody knows that people should stand on their own two feet. It's obvious. WHY is it obvious?

First, and clearest to anyone who is NOT a libertarian, there are plenty of people who DON'T HAVE TWO FEET TO STAND ON! Old people, sick people, cripples, babies, parents who struggle with feet that can't even walk yet. It is NOT obvious how these people can stand on their own two feet, let alone why they should.

Yet, there is some sort of quasi-religious mantra: do it yourself, that's good. Help is bad. Taking charity is bad. Why?

If no one else is there and you HAVE to do it yourself... okay, you have to. But because it may be a necessity, doesn't mean it's a virtue.

One word these guys throw around is parasite. They usually use it for people who receive money from the government... like old people... but mostly a vast network of mostly colored people who just are “too lazy to work.”

Their idea of PARASITE is strange. They define it as some one who lives off the work of others. Or that's what they say. But let's see if that's right:

I work an hour for $20. Of that, $2 goes to Jasmine, on welfare. Because I worked for that $2, rather than Jasmine, that means that Jasmine is a parasite. Right?

Wrong!

I work an hour and make $40 for Big Joe, my boss. That means my boss is living off of my work... work he didn't do. He gets $20 of my money. Jasmine gets $2. Who is the parasite?

But, because the word is used so many times in the context of WELFARE RECIPIENTS, people can't think of any other way to see them. Liberals or conservatives... Both say, MORE JOBS! MORE WORK! Both are wrong. Both make MORE PARASITES. BIGGER PARASITES!

This is where we get to the bicycle riders. I've written about them before. If there is a more annoying group of self-righteous humorless Bozos, I can't think of one. They ride like they own the streets. Get out of the way, I'm environmentally correct. Defer to me, you gas-guzzling polluters of Mother Earth.

They care even less about pedestrians than car drivers... pedestrians who pollute less than they do. After all, how much energy was used to make that fuckin' bicycle? How much petroleum goes into that grease you put on the chains?

I've heard bike-riders yell at walking people standing in the bike lane? Get out of my way. I'll run you down. You're in the bike lane! Follow the rules! But Traffic lights? They're for cars! I'm saving the earth, so fuck your traffic lights.

GET A BIKE! PEDAL WITH YOUR OWN TWO FEET. You're just like those libertarians.

Er... aren't you forgetting something? Some people don't have two feet to pedal with. Some people are old, crippled, have more kids than'll fit on a bike. People carry furniture, groceries for a brood. Who are you to judge the car driver? And who are you to judge the pedestrian whose day you just ruined with your self-righteousness? Bicycles do not make you a good person.

CHANGE THE SUBJECT: And what do you learn in school? What is evidence? When I told the Goad-folks that Giuliani, declared war on the poor... they wanted statistics, reports.

I said I SAW street bums harassed. Cab drivers, food venders, street artists all the worst-paid, lowest members of society bullied by cops, forced to leave Manhattan during Giuliani's regime. But it wasn't enough. I saw them. That makes it anecdotal evidence. These guys want numbers, reports from respected places. I respond with a How 'bout Fox News crack. They said something about MSNBC... the topic is lost. But it keeps coming up in different forms.

It happens all the time: BOTH SIDES throw out numbers, statistics. A MILLION FRAUDULANT votes screams the right as they try to pass a poll tax in the guise of VOTER ID.

A MILLION WOMEN WILL BE RAPED IN THE NEXT 12 MONTHS scream the feminists, explaining that something has to be done about violence against women... as if it were any different than violence against anyone else.

Numbers fling from one side to the other like shit into the audience at a GG Allin show. 87% of the numbers are just made up. The rest are from studies, which almost always give the stats to prove whatever they started out wanting to prove. Just google your topic and find a report that gives the stats you want. It's easy.

The climate change deniers quote numbers to show the supporting scientists don't really believe in global warming and climate change. The other side quotes numbers to show that during the past 20 years the average temperature blah blah blah.

Wake up and smell the wreckage. Look at the glaciers disappearing in Greenland. Look at the first LAKE ever in Antarctica. Look at the rubble of the Philippines hit by the largest storm in history... and Superstorm Sandy in New York just the year before. Look at the real world, NOT statistics.

Stats? Reports? They're bullshit. The anecdotal evidence they tell you to ignore? THAT'S THE REAL STUFF! Anecdotal is what happens to people.

First there's the howling of wind. WHOOOO WHOOO WHOOO Then the beating of rain like a drummer against the tin roof of your hovel. Then harder. Then the roof shakes... pulls off fragments. Roof pieces blow razer sharp... cutting your hands... your arms... you try to protect yourself. Water is shooting at you now... like tiny pellets from a shotgun. There's no longer a roof to protect you. The walls shake from the wind. A piece of adobe falls, PLOW! On top of your head. You feel the blood stream down your face. Then another blow. And another... the wall falls on you... crushing you.. burying, filling your mouth with clay and dust. You inhale it. It burns in your lungs. You feel like you're going to explode... then you die.

THAT'S anecdotal evidence. And that's what's real.

Show me the paper on how Hugo Chavez built up Venezuela. Show me the stats on the improvement of the lives of poor people. Bullshit! I was there. People are miserable. They live in fear, of crime, of the government. At night, people break open the garbage bags to eat out of them. I've seen it! Don't give me statistics. Give me truth.

A geologist in the state-run oil business loses her job because she signs a petition saying that Chavez should honor the constitution. That is not a statistic! It's my host in the country. Those are MY ANECDOTES.

Statistics aren't real. Numbers don't mean shit. Tell me what happens. Put me there. Show me. THAT'S real. The anecdotal evidence they told you to avoid in Social Studies is the ONLY evidence. The rest is just playing with numbers.

OK, buckaroos, that's it for this month. No travel adventures, though there've been many. No punk rock reports. Though there's plenty to report. For more on that stuff check the travel blog... and wait until next month.

ENDNOTES: [You can email me (god@mykelboard.com) or connect to my facebook page.

Postal contact: send those... er... private DVDs..or music or zines... or anything else (legal only!) to: Mykel Board, POB 137, New York, NY 10012-0003

If you'd like to read my travel blog, you can do it at mykelsdiary.blogspot.com.

If you like my writing in general, you can be notified when anything new is available. Just join the MYKEL'S READERS Yahoo group readmboard-subscribe@yahoogroups.com]

-->Reclaiming dept: Taki Magazine reports that over 100 tattoo shops worldwide offered free swastika tattoos in an effort to “reclaim” the symbol from the Nazis. People who chose to receive the tattoos were required to sign a waiver stating that they did not intend to “use it as a pro-Nazi symbol.” Jewish reporting on the event has been mixed.

-->More than one holocaust dept: The same Taki Magazine had an article by Jim Goad about something called Holodomor. This relatively unknown event took place in the former Soviet Union in the 1940s. Apparently, more than 7,000,000 Ukrainians were starved to death by Stalin and his crowd. Why was this ignored? Maybe because Stalin was our ally in WWII.

In any case, genocide is NOT the property of one group, or one period in history. We need to take note of this, make amends where possible, and then move on.

-->Truth is no excuse dept: The NSA (government agency that reads your email, spies on the German Prime Minister, and copies your internet friends), is suing a novelty store LibertyManiacs.com, for printing t-shirts about them. My favorite: NSA, the only government agency that actually listens.

-->Speaking of the NSA department: Social Reader reports that those guys have broken into a link to Yahoo and Google data centers. This enables them to get EVERYTHING that goes through those servers anywhere in the world. Yeah, I have a gmail account and a picassa picture site, but when I want to do any kind of research. It's duckduckgo.com for me.

-->Things we already knew dept:

• DO PSYCHOPATHS MAKE GOOD CEOs? asks Fortune Magazine. According to a recent book, The Wisdom of Psychopaths, the answer is yes! The characteristics of a psychopath: inability to empathize, ruthlessness, single-minded focus, murderous competitive nature, fit perfectly with what's needed to run a corporation.
• CNN REPORTS: People with lots of facebook friends are more likely to be narcissists. Do we need to do a study to find out this stuff? What's next? NEW STUDY FINDS THAT THOSE WHO SPEND THE MOST TIME ON FACEBOOK GET LAID THE LEAST?

-->How to get gun control dept: Long-term readers of this column know that I oppose gun control. Violence has nothing to do with guns or video games or Hollywood. Violence is a reflection of the culture. American culture solves its problems by killing people. A culture that values flags more than life, is gonna be violent.

That said, if the anti-gun crew REALLY wanted to pass anti-gun legislation, there'd be an easy way to do it. Have BLACK militias, armed, trained in the Montana mountains, toting guns to church. You'd see anti-gun laws pump up like penises at a porn show. It's happened already. In fact, the NRA SUPPORTED anti-gun legislation when the Black Panthers were active. (The details are here.) Can you guess why? Hint: it's in the name of the group and NOT the word PANTHERS.

-->Keep up the pressure dept: I'm happy to report that reader pressure on MRR is making them invent new excuses for my firing. The latest? I “refused to answer criticism in the letters column.” It's a lie, of course. I said that I'd agree to answer such letters anywhere. I only wanted the right to mention that I'd prefer it if the letter writer got the last word. That's an offer that still holds.

Keep the pressure on. You can send your protests to mrr@maximumrocknroll.com. Please do!

YOU'RE STILL WRONG Post MRR Columns: Number 3

YOU'RE STILL WRONG

POST MRR COLUMNS Number 3

aka How You Think

by Mykel Board

(Note: Parts of this column have appeared in different form on the STREET CARNAGE website.)

“Ok class,” says the young sexy teacher. “If there are 10 birds on a telephone wire and Farmer John shoots two of them, how many are left?”

Little Tommy raises his hand. The teacher calls on him.

“None,” he says. “the bullets would scare the other birds and they'd fly away.”

“Actually,” says the teacher, “the correct answer is 8... but I like the way you think.”

“I got one for you,” answers Tommy. “There are two women eating ice cream cones. One takes deep bites and eats it right down. The second one slowly licks the top of the cone, swirling her tongue around the tip and then slow widening her lips to suck in the goodness.... Which one is married?”

The young teacher is visibly embarrassed, but she decides to stand her ground. “The second woman, of course.” she answers.

“No,” says Tommy, “the one with the wedding ring. But I like the way you think.”

--Old Joke

It's the mother of all beershits... a massive movement... I trace it inch by inch... starting on the lower right side like appendicitis. The massive ball of excrement moves inch by peristaltic inch through my large intestines... upwards... from right to left... downwards... exquisitely... to the final sphincter where it forces a relaxation and downward blast... like a rocket exhaust... propelling me upwards toward the ceiling... an anal orgasm... After landing, I tilt to the left, raising one cheek from the pot... to examine my accomplishment. Wow! All that! It's like giving birth. I sit down flat again and allow a few straggling turdlets to make their final escape. When I stand up, I see that the toilet seat is covered in squished shit. So is my naked ass. I guess that when I twisted to examine my achievement, fecal remains must've clung and rubbed off on the seat. When I righted myself, I squeezed them down fouling the toilet and myself.

CLICK: Belly sweat collects in the folds, forms little rivulets... puddling in my navel... spilling over... streaming midrifly downwards... curling... running through pubes like swamp water through mangroves. Collecting salt to feed my already chafed groin...turning the pink to black-speckled red. One. Two. Three showers a day. Doesn't help. As soon as I step out, the heat and humidity again start the sweat. And the atmosphere refuses to evaporate it. A kind of diaper rash covers every crevice from knee to navel. Mosquito bites cover the rest.

I start writing this column in Georgetown Guyana. Both paragraphs above happened here. Readers over 40 might remember Guyana from The Jonestown Massacre in the late 1970s. The rest probably think it's some place in Africa.

If you imagine South America as a breast, halfway between the shoulder and the nipple... facing the Caribbean Sea... is Guyana. But I don't want to write about Guyana here. You can read it in my travel blog or in a special article I did for Street Carnage.

I want to go back to that joke at the beginning of the column and tell you that I DON'T like the way you think. Self-evident logic makes as much sense as 8 birds on a phone wire after two are shot. Self-evident logic is wrong. What your life experience has taught you is mistaken. I want to take a look at some of your thinking. Examine it carefully. But you've been warned. After the examination, you might find your ass in a mess.

FIRST CASE: What inspired this revelation was my pre-Guyana visit to Trinidad. In New York City, there are no Costcos, SamsClubs or other giant warehouse companies. I never had the experience. In Trinidad there is at least one: PriceSmart, a San Diego based chain specializing in warehouse stores in the Caribbean.

I go shopping there with Randy, an oft-mentioned pal from ANTI-EVERYTHING, the only punk band in the country. Floor to ceiling metal shelves. Bins, boxes, tables filled with useless things... and one or two things I might need one or two of. There are huge hunks of meat, whole cows, unrecognizable pieces of unrecognizable mammals plastic wrapped and ready for massive consumption. (One package says BEEF OXTAILS, and guarantees me it is halal. Aren't ALL beef oxtails halal?)

Why would a family of four buy a half cow? What the hell are you going to do with 240 rolls of toilet paper? But the thinking goes like this:

If I use one roll of toilet paper in a week, then 240 rolls will last me 240 weeks. I'll eventually have to pay for those 240 rolls. So, here they'll cost me 50 cents each, that's $120. If I pay for them one at a time, they'll cost me 75c each. That's $180. I'm saving sixty bucks.

THIS IS SO WRONG! If you have 240 rolls of toilet paper lying around, you'll use twice as much. You'll use it to blow your nose, to wipe up last night's beer puke, to sop the pus up from a broken pimple. You'll throw one to a friend with a cold... here, take this, I've got hundreds more. You'll use a fistful to wipe after that dainty superclean dump. You'd use one sheet, if you only had one roll. Those 240 rolls will last less than half the time and make twice the waste of your one roll a week. With that roll you'd stretch... use less... maybe buy a handkerchief for the occasional sneeze. Your savings are flushed down the toilet.

With food it's worse. You have more, so you eat more. A never ending supply of beef oxtails or whatever else you don't need. Nothing fresh and healthy... only in gross and grosser for it. Sure,if you're having an oxtail barbecue for 20 people, buy at Costco. If you're in Endangered Feces and need Charmin to throw at the crowd, buy at Costco. But if you're just this guy (or gal) and you think that buying a gallon of ice cream for $40 is cheaper than buying a pint for $7.95... WHAT YOU THINK IS WRONG.

SECOND CASE: Right now, the internet in the Guyanese house I'm staying in is down. All the electricity is off. It happens a few times a day-- like in California during the Enron era. I wonder how many times the average Californian was blacked out then. I can just Google it and find out. No I can't. I forgot. There's no electricity. Too bad... NO IT'S NOT!

I can still wonder. Speculate, imagine, use my mind. WONDER is NOT the same as WANT TO KNOW. Wonder is the joy of thinking, imagining, guessing.

I've seen pictures of the Amerindians here in Guyana. They look like the pictures I've seen of the Brazilian headhunters-- or the New Guinea ones that shrunk a Rockefeller's head in the 1960s: Vaguely oriental features, a bowl-cut haircut, loin cloth (probably an evil relic from some Christian missionary), curare-tipped spears, a bone through the nose. Just what you'd expect. I wonder if the local Indians were cannibals in per-Christian times. I wonder what cooked human flesh tastes like... but, I DO NOT WANT TO KNOW.

Google and Apple have destroyed wonder. Everyone and her pet pig walks around i-plugged into Wikipedia. If I wonder out loud what animal has the largest penis, BLAM, someone comes up with THE BLUE WHALE at 8 feet. End of wonder. Before I can fantasize about some unknown rodent dragging a 5 foot tube of flesh around... bigger than its body. My wonder's been killed. Like my foreskin, it's something I can never get back. I want to wonder without wanting to know. WHAT YOU THINK IS WRONG.

LAST CASE: Cut to a typical Guyanese house. Two stories, wood, the second floor has a covered porch as wide as the building. It's where the parties are... especially here in this house. Jamal, my host, is a gadabout, a man around town, party at his place every night. Beer, rum, and girls.

One of the many things I like about Guyana is the girls. Not that they're so beautiful. Some are. The average Guyanese woman is not average, though they all have some beautiful shade of skin color that puts any white guy/gal to shame. (No wonder tanning salons are so big in America.)

Except for the universally erection-inducing color, the girls here are either spectacular... combining the best of the Indian and the Negro... big eyes, Caribbean S-shape... strong, muscular legs that look like they'd squeeze the life out of you... and you'd love it... OR... ugly as an anal wart, rotund, hairy as a coconut or … so concentration camp skinny you're afraid to touch them. They might break.

I just like the fact that they're THERE! Unlike in many other third world countries-- Gambia, Senegal, Trinidad, for example-- girls go out by themselves... singly... just to lime (hang out). They don't need to be attached to anyone... they just are some of the guys. And many of these girls, not conventionally attractive, have such great personalities, that you WANT to be with them. They've got friends up the ass... as they should.

My favorite bar is a place called Buttsy's. Reminds me of the scummy bars on the Lower East Side when the Lower East Side was good. A couple pool tables, cheap beer ($300, about $1.50US), the kind of loud people others call characters, rather than the kind of loud people others call jocks. Girls as loud as boys. ID? Hah, if you can see over the counter to buy a beer, you buy one. If you can't see over the counter, the guy behind you will give you a boost. At the outside tables, you'll find easy banter among friends-- and friends to be made at the other tables. All they need is a stage and it's CBGB.

Conversation is not about whale penises, but it could be. Lots of laughter, body touching, innuendo. Makes me happy to be here. One of the guys says, let's just buy beer and come over to my place. The party continues... smooth and as easy flowing as a beer shit. That's where we are now. On the balcony, limin', drinking Banks beer. (I know the Beer Advocate doesn't like it, but it's the perfect beer for this hot humid climate... meant to be drunk ice cold.), a bottle of rum and a liter of coke make the rounds. There aren't enough cups, so we use the tops and bottoms of old water bottles to make our own.

“How do you like living in a primitive third world country?” I ask the goddess pouring rum into my half-water bottle.

“Depends on how you count,” she answers with a twinkle in her eye that make my nether parts ooze. It also gets me thinkin'.

Who decides which countries are in which world? Are they in order of average annual income? I don't think so. That would put Saudi Arabia in the first world and Greece in the third. How 'bout majority race? Nope, by that criteria, Japan and Cambodia would be in the same world.

I've heard lefties talk about North countries and South countries, instead of numbered worlds. That doesn't work either. Australia is south of the equator and Afghanistan north. Which one is first world?

How about flush toilets and internet access?

I haven't been in a house here that doesn't have both.

Gap between rich and poor? By that criterion, America would be fifth world... or sixth.

And what is the second world? Anything that used to be SOVIET? Anything with a -STAN at the end?

Has a country ever graduated? Moved up? A former third-worlder now second... or even all the way to first? I don't think so. Countries have moved down: Azerbaijan, for example. Maybe most of the seconds moved to third after the fall of the Soviet empire. Maybe the only second worlders left are Russia, Cuba, North Korea, and whoever the US is attacking at the moment. In any case, I've never heard any country called second world.

I figure is it's a cold war relic. In commie times, America and its friends were the first world. The Soviet Union and its allies were the second world. Everybody else was the third world. These terms stuck. After Russia broke up, the newly independent republics instantly joined the third world-- or the first.

This is just wrong. Countries are NOT in worlds. They are not worlds apart: luxury vs poverty. Flush toilets vs holes in the ground. It's much more complicated than that. Either there are no worlds or there are hundreds of worlds-- not three. WHAT YOU THINK IS WRONG.

This weekend I'll be in Suriname. That's not in Africa either.

ENDNOTES: [You can contact email me (god@mykelboard.com). Postal contact send those... er... private DVDs..or music or zines... or anything else (legal only!) to: Mykel Board, POB 137, New York, NY 10012-0003]

-->How Much Punk Rock Do You Hear in Guyana dept: Most of my time here has been with members of the only punk band in the country: Keep Your Day Job. (How come counties with only one punk band have punk bands with such great names?) I sang an acoustic version of BEER IS BETTER THAN GIRLS ARE and will be a roadie for them in Suriname. In a country with very little live music, and no punk, they've got a tough job ahead. I hope they keep it.

-->Related dept: Those of us old enough to remember the 80s, put down later punkrock as bland and commercial. Green Day? Blink 182? Sellout arena bad punk copies, we'd say. But, for many people (like Keep Your Day Job), they are the bridge between the punk we know and the punk they're going to forge. If it weren't for those bands we dismiss, there'd be NO punkrock in places like Guyana. So we gotta give 'em credit... THEN, we teach 'em about GG Allin.

-->Beer and girls dept: A great man (me) once made a song by rhyming those old gas station posters of 20 Ways Beer Is Better Than Girls. Clearly, the list is a comic lament by some teenage guy who can't get laid and drowns his sour grapes in beer. It's almost feminist in its pathos. But, with the typical sense of humor of feminists, they don't get it.

Now, a Texas beer company has introduced a new beer with the motto: Goes down easy. The reaction has been predictable. Check it out here.

-->Keeping on the pressure dept: If you want to see me back in Maximum Rock'n'Roll (or if you don't) you can tell them directly with an email to: mrr@maximumrocknroll.com You SHOULD contact them.

--end

[My sadly under up-kept travel diary is available at: mykelsdiary.blogspot.com. And you can subscribe to updates, and notification of new columns and other writing by joining my Yahoo group at: http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/readMBoard/]

Between Columns Mykel Solves the Syrian Crisis

Spending my free time:

An Inter-Column Post

by Mykel Board

I've got a weekend free before my journey to South America. Since I have some free time, and not much else to do, I figure I might as well use that time to solve the Syrian crisis. After hours of thinking, I present my solution:

Step 1: The U.N. Security Council gives New Jersey to the Syrian rebels. There are at least a hundred people of Syrian decent already living in the state, so it's a natural. The state is to be renamed NEW PHOENICIA.

Step 2: Anyone of Syrian descent will become an automatic citizen of New Phoenicia. I expect the population to initially increase from refugees avoiding the government gassings in Syria. But the state will act as a homeland for dissident Syrians everywhere.

 

Step 3: Because the surrounding 49 states have so much room. The American population of New Jersey will be encouraged to emigrate. We expect the other states to take them in quickly, though there is a possibility that there will be refugee camps on the borders. Those Americans who wish to stay in New Phonecia can do so, but they will not be allowed to serve in the NP army. Also, if they move out of NP, they will not be allowed to return. Only those of Syrian blood will be allowed to be new citizens of New Phonecia.

Step 4: There will be some time where Kuwait will have control over New Phoenicia. During this time, Syrian terrorists will blow up a few hotels and murder all residents of Secaucus. But this period will be short, and the Syrians soon will be allowed to rule themselves.

Step 5: After independence, Russia will donate billions in money and arms to keep New Phoenicia alive. It will be the largest receiver of Russian foreign aid. Syrians in Russia will keep putting pressure on the government to increase aid. They will point out that New Phoenicia is “the only democracy in North America.”

Step 6: We expect there might be some dissatisfaction with the new country by both the surrounding states, and residents of the former New Jersey. The latter will now be in other states, mostly in refugee camps. They may even attack the new country. Fear not: supplied with arms and money from outside, New Phoenicia will beat back the attackers, and expand it's territory, taking what is now Rockland County (called THE NORTH BANK) and Brooklyn (called the EAST BANK). They will settle those areas, forcing local people to become refugees or captives in their own counties, subject to starvation by the New Phoenicians. If humanitarian boats try to bring in food, they will be mounted by the New Phoenician army, and the food-deliverers shot.

Step 7: Residents of Rockland and Brooklyn, may attack the citizens of New Phoenicia, but, because of overwhelming technology, and a policy of YOU FIRE ONE ROCKET WE KILL A THOUSAND PEOPLE, the New Phoenician army will maintain control.

Step 8: The U.N. may decide to reconsider it's original plan for New Phoenicia. If they do, the New Phoenicians will accuse them of anti-Syrianism. This will justify the New Phoenician actions and insure the continued existence of that country.

SO, that's my plan. What do you think?

--Mykel

 



YOU'RE STILL WRONG
POST MRR COLUMNS
Post MRR Column 2
by Mykel Board

Strip clubs don't appeal to me... If I was inclined to seek the company of a bunch of angry drunk women who hated me, wanted all my money, and were determined to tease me but not have sex with me, I would just open a bar in Edinburgh. --Craig Ferguson

 

 

I follow an actual red carpet to the inner room. Plush. Plush. Soft red chairs, like in the corners of a romantic restaurant...by the fireplace. White table cloths, thick carpeting... inviting me to take my shoes off... run the shag between my toes... I don't. The host is dressed like a Russian hitman. but softer and friendlier. The lighting says QUIET... not dim, but diffuse... like looking through gauze. On stage is Ona. Vaguely Oriental, she's beautiful. Not make-up-silicone-centerfold beautiful, but a real-girl beautiful. My sleeping mini-me begins to awaken.

There is no pole on this stage. The lighting (black light?) makes Ona's skin glow indigo. Her now visible nipples are only slightly darker than the perky, but natural breasts supporting them. I take a bite of my eggs benedict.

The place is two-thirds empty. Who (else) goes to a strip club for brunch? Even if it is the bacon and legs special. I take a single out of my wallet and walk up to the stage. Ona doesn't notice me. I quietly lay a bill on the stage floor and walk back to brunch.

Next up is Kirsten, a colored girl wearing a blond wig that glows in the stage lighting.

Meanwhile, Ona comes over and sits in the empty chair next to me.

“Sorry,” I tell her, “I can't do lap dances... just had a hernia operation.”

“That's okay,” she says. “I'm happy just to talk. How come you're sitting at such a big table by yourself?”

Her voice is as soft as the lighting. Not a trace of an accent.

“I'm expecting friends,” I tell her. “Sometimes my friends are flaky.”

She laughs.

“Sounds like my roomates,” she says. “I had to move out of Brooklyn... to K-town. They just forgot to pay the rent.”

“Are you Korean?” I ask her.

“No,” she says. “I don't understand much Korean. I'm Chinese... from Shanghai.”

“I tried to learn Cantonese,” I tell her. “My favorite movies are from Hong Kong.”

“That's tough,” she says. “They have eight tones.”

“I know,” I tell her. “I gave up on it.”

“Shanghai-ese has five tones,” she continues, “Mandarin four. The levels are different too, Mandarin only has moving tones. Shanghai has a plain high and plain low tone.”

The conversation continues. Here I am, in a strip club, talking with a stripper NOT about a lap dance, but about Chinese linguistics! Yowsah!

By now, Kirsten is down to her g-string. I pull another dollar out of my wallet.

“Excuse me,” I tell Ona, “I gotta tip the girls. It's a pretty thin crowd today.”

“You're telling me!” she says.

When I get back to my chair, Ona's off, giving a lapdance to some fat white guy at the bar.

Kirsten soon leaves the stage and-- you guessed it-- appears on the chair next to me.

I give her the hernia story.

“No problem,” she says. “Could you buy me a drink? I just need to talk.”

I nod and call over the waitress. I know strippers earn commission on these girl drinks, but the club is empty and she needs the money.

By this time, my pal Richard, his 30-year old son and friend have shown up.

“I'm having trouble with the Florida Condo,” he tells me.

“You're from Florida?” asks Kirsten.

Richard nods.

And she begins her story.

I was working in a club in Florida, The bosses were all Russian mafia. Well, I had a private dinner with one of them... took me to a fancy place... you could smell the money... oozed out of the wallpaper... women in dresses that'd cost a year's rent... and I live in New York... so the boss buys me a fancy dinner... caviar, wine, the whole caboodle... this guy comes over with a spoon around his neck. Pours a little wine... into the spoon, then tastes it.... makes a smacking sound... then offers me a taste... Jesus! I don't want to taste from that spoon, it's been in thousands of mouths.... It IS a good dinner, but I know the piper is gonna ask me to pay.

'So,' says the big muttha, 'think it's time we go to my place?'

I'm sure the guy has a gun, I gotta get out of there.

'Sure Boris,' I tell him, 'just let me take care of a few girl things.'

I stand up. He pats me on the ass. I head for the ladies, lucky... it's out of view of the table. I split. Bang, out of there. Take a cab to my place in Miami. Grab a few clothes... Bang. I'm on the train, running away. Bye bye Florida. You think the LAW has a long arm? It's a baby-prick compared to the long arm of the RUSSIAN MOB.

“Yow!” I tell her. “You should write about this. It would make a great book. You know that book Girlvert?”

She shakes her head.

“This pornstar wrote it. She started as an actress and then went on to direct. You should read it.”

“I'm already writing a book about my life,” the Negress tells me. “It's called Homage to Catatonia.”

“What?” I ask.“That's a play on a George Orwell book, Homage to Catalonia. Three people in America know that book. And you've got a parody?”

She smiles. “I'm glad you know it. Most of my friends don't get it.”

“I'll bet,” I tell her. And we go on talking about writing.

The conversation continues. Here I am, in a strip club, talking with a stripper NOT about a lap dance, but about writers and writing!

In my experience, most strippers are just taking care of their families.... paying for the kids. It's a living... making ends meet... for those who can't do anything else. This is a room full of intellectuals with tits and twats! Not one of the (other) customers in this place has half the brains of these girls. Yowsah!

What a commercial for heterosexuality, huh?

FLASH ACROSS THE ATLANTIC: Russia has the Olympics and America's homos call for a boycott. Jeezus fuckin' Sodomy! You've got citizens of the most mass murderous country of the millennium: America! America, who has killed A MILLION PEOPLE in Iraq and who knows how many more in the rest of the world... America, who right now is asking for permission to bomb Syria for killing the same Al-Quidists that America has killed. To kill Syrians for … I donno. And citizens of this most evil country want to boycott the Russians because Russians are unfair to homos??? Can you say misplaced self-righeousness?

They can do that though. They're GAY. GAY is the new Negro. Everyone talks about my gay friend. No party is complete without the PARTY HOMO, not prancing, not faggy, not Freddy Mercury butch, but just like you and me... only talking about MY HUSBAND (if a guy) or MY WIFE (if a girl)... and being congratulated by the other guests on the legalization of gay-marriage... and how finally the world is realizing that gays are just like everybody else.

In the 60s, there were rent-a-Negro agencies. You could make your party ethnically complete. Be hip! Too bad they don't print the yellow pages anymore. There'd be pages of PARTY GAYS. Ouch!

PICTURE THIS: Citizens of Luxembourg feel discrimination. No one appreciates their tiny country. They have protests. Write letters. Complain because they get no respect from the bigger countries. Then there are Germans. They feel discrimination. Other Europeans don't like Germans: leftover grudges from World War Two. Then, the Belgians join in. The Belgians feel insecure. They have two main languages: French and Dutch. People say they have to choose... that there are no real Belgians, only French and Dutch who haven't made up their minds.

Then, there are the Turks. Turks live all over Europe, but because of their name and language people still call them Turks. The Turks are calling for the right to choose their nationality. Just because they were born a Turk doesn't mean they have to stay one. They might be a Belgian, trapped in a Turk's body. They want the right to identify as any nationality they please. To vote in any election. To free themselves from the restriction of one national identity.

Based on who knows what, these groups decide to hook up. They unite and call for Luxembourg, German, Belgian, and Turkish (LGBT) rights. What do they ask for? The right to BE LIKE OTHER EUROPEANS, get respect, pay taxes, run for the European parliament, own mansions in Spain. Other than being Europeans (debatable with the Turks), these groups have nothing in common. But they all demand to be included in THE CAUSE. 

 The Luxembergers, Germans, Belgians, and Turks have more in common than any two letters of the groups glommed together under GAY CIVIL RIGHTS.. But wait. There's more. The Civil Rights group has a new letter. As if LGBT weren't oxymoronic enough, now there's LGBTQ.

Q??? Queer???? GAY is as queer as a five-dollar bill. GAY is marriage and the “right” to spawn / adopt human tadpoles! GAY runs for mayor of New York, on a 100% yeah big-business platform. Oh wait, that's LESBIAN.

Then there's Bradley Manning, the hero of WikiLeaks. Tortured horribly by the army and the CIA. Stripped, strapped down, the unimaginable... all for revealing to the world how horrible the government is. His treatment proves his point. So what happens? The liberal press, says it's all because of hormone imbalance. He's really a girl trapped inside a boy's body. They want him sent to women's prison. The government should pay for sex change surgery. Oy vey!!! He shouldn't be in jail at all!

You've got a great human being. One who should be honored for risking everything to tell the truth. And LGBTQ are saying the reason for his actions is that nobody called him Chelsea. It almost makes me want to give up anal sex.

We don't need EXCUSES for Bradley Manning's actions. His were acts of greatness. Pushing them off on hormones diminishes them. He did the right thing. He acted with integrity and courage. Those nouns don't NEED hormones.

So buckaroos, last month, at least in my life, has been a great one for hetitude. Homos, on the other hand, have been an embarrassment.

ENDNOTES: [Contact: Send those... er... private videos..or music or zines... or anything else (legal only!) to: Mykel Board, POB 137, New York, NY 10012-0003 You can also contact me by email at god@mykelboard.com. You can comment on the blog version of this column at http://mykelsblog.blogspot.com/. I will delete personal attacks or violations of Godwin's Law. Everything else is fair game.]

-->Taking a bath naked dept: The National Coalition Against Censorship reports the children's book, THE DIRTY COWBOY was removed from the school libraries in Annville-Cleona Pennsylvania. The book had a picture of a dirty cowboy taking a bath... just sitting in a bathtub... no goodies showing! Why was the book removed? "Children may come to the conclusion that looking at nudity is OK, and therefore pornography is OK."

-->Ban the converts dept: Under the headline CHRISTIE SIGNS BAN ON GAY 'CONVERSION THERAPY, amNewYork reports that New Jersey governor Chis Christie signed into law a gag rule that "prevents therapists from counseling gay and lesbian youths to change their sexual orientation." His reasons include "medical research that sexual orientation is determined at birth."

I'm waiting for the law against Christian Conversion Therapy, since it's clear, that being JEWISH is determined at birth. The gay establishment is apparently happy at the signing, again not realizing that laws that shut OTHER PEOPLE up... can turn around and bite you on the a***. I'd write the word, but by the time you read this there'll be a law against it.

--> The Progressive Magazine reports that the drug company Pfizer hired private investigators to find evidence of corruption against the attorney general of Nigeria. They wanted to blackmail him into dropping legal action against the company. This according to WikiLeaks. The Nigerian government had filed a lawsuit against Pfizer alleging fraudulent drug tests on children.

-->It's for your own good dept: Schools in Fort Wayne Indiana are introducing the fingerprinting of all students. Recognition technology, they say, will allow students to pay for their lunches. School officials excuse the privacy invasion by saying the fingerprints will "reduce the risk of a student's ID card getting stolen or lost, help eliminate clerical errors, and speed up the process so kids have more time to eat.”

Yeah, right. See what the cops match when they find that next bag of weed. Eliminate clerical errors, my ass.

-->It had to happen dept: Just when a fad diet hits, another fad diet comes along telling you that not only was the first one wrong... it was actually dangerous. Eggs were healthy, then bad, now good again. Margarine was good, then bad. Diet sodas, they now say, make you fat. And the newest? CHOLESTEROL IS GOOD FOR YOU. It had to happen. You can see the details here.

-->Letting Go dept: I've said it before. It's time for Jews (and Armenians, and whoever else holds a half-century grudge) to let go of their holocaust. That period has been used as an excuse for some of the most heinous crimes of the millennium... and a good deal of them from LAST millennium. It's time for some cultural Alzheimer's. The excuse was “we remember so it never happens again.” But it DOES happen again. Over and over... just to different people.

Well, in a last ditch attempt to exploit the victims, Israel has crowned Ms. Holocaust Survivor. I shit you not. Check it out here. I wonder how she did in the swimsuit contest.

-->Not letting go dept: I still want to keep the pressure on Maximum Rock'n'Roll. They've got a new dictateress, but as far as I can see, no changes planned. If you'd like to see me back there... or if you just want to comment on my getting fired. Post on the MaximumRock'n'Roll facebook page (though all comments about me have been quickly censored). You can also email them directly at mrr@maximumrocknroll.com.

-end-

The First True Post MRR Column

YOU'RE STILL WRONG

POST MRR COLUMNS

by Mykel Board

I feel like I've been freed from a strong and terrible master. --Socrates, when he found he could no longer maintain an erection.

-----------------------

“I want you to imagine your ideal vacation spot,” the anesthesiologist tells me. “Warm. The waves lapping. You're lying... basking in the sun. Nothing to do but relax and sleep.”

“My ideal vacation spot is a jungle in Africa,” I tell him, “with naked natives begging for a crack at my white little body.”

He chuckles.

“Shouldn't I be counting back from 100 or something?” I ask.

“You could try that,” he says.

“100... 99... 98...” I start. I get to 45.

“Something's wrong,” he says. “You should have been out by 89.”

“My arm is killing me,” I tell him.

He walks to where the IV is puncturing a vein in my arm. A clear, slightly viscous liquid drips from the vein onto the floor.

“Shit!” he says.

Not exactly what you want to hear from a doctor.

The surgeon speaks this time. “Bring it around this side,” she tells him. “Here, put it in his hand...in the back of his hand.”

The sleep doc walks the needle around to my right side. He pokes it into a vein in the back of my hand... tapes it down.

“100... 99... 98..” I say. I get to 92.

AUGUST 2013 It's been a few hell-months for me. Besides getting fired from MRR, I develop a hernia. Then, WITH the hernia (in my body, not as a tool), I have to move furniture so the bedbug guys can bedbug-proof the apartment. My neighbors have 'em. Soon, I'm suffering a bloody scalp where books and a heavy speaker tumble onto my head as I move a bookcase. A few days later, I lose a best friend, an Israeli, because I've posted a facebook article critical of Israel. Then, I have the hernia operation and awake with horrible pain... in my shoulder! I needed the Oxycontin for THAT! Not for my balls! Then, I find that the Oxycontin is stupidly mixed with Tylenol so that if I have a beer and take the pills my liver will dissolve. I can barely crawl out of bed. I can't use my stomach muscles to sit up. My shoulder pain won't let me use my arms to push myself up. Then, lying in bed, my apartment fills with red dust... like a Gobi sandstorm... so thick I can't see. (They're renovating the apartment next door and sanding down the bricks to make them look authentic.) Then, I start coughing from the dust, and the cough tears at my just repaired abdominal muscles making the blood trickle downward so my cock and balls turn black from collected hemoglobin. (Photos soon on flickr.)

My pal Wanda stops in to nurse me. She has the keys. We've been friends for more than two decades. Just friends... She's a lesbian, of course and she lives just down the street. It's a pleasure to see her leather-jacketed crew-cut self swagger in through the bedroom door. She brings me a cup of coffee from the Korean deli downstairs, and for some reason a bean burrito.

“I can't fart!” I tell her. “Gas just bubbles around my intestines... like a juvenile delinquent... just hanging out...no place to go.”

“It's a breakfast burrito, Mykel,” she tells me. “It's good for you. Let me microwave it up.”

FLASH TO TWO YEARS AGO. I'm with my top-tier pal Sid. We're eating at a Mexican place in some state that does not border on water. I order pig's cheek taco.

“Why do you always have to get the most disgusting food?” he asks.

“What do you mean disgusting?” I say. “How do you know it's disgusting? What if I like it?”

“I was just asking?” he says. “Just asking.”

BACK TO NOW: “Where's the microwave?”asks Wanda.

“I can't eat a burrito!” I cry. “I'm in pain. I can't fart. I'll explode.”

“I was just asking,” she says.

FLASH BACK TO SID AGAIN: This time we're couch-surfing together... somewhere in the South, I think. The hostess is a beautiful Latina. I can see both of us eying the parts she shows when she's leaving.

“Mykel,” says Sid, “do you ever think that you're too old for some of these girls. I mean, how can you expect anything more than a smile when you're old enough to be her father... her grandfather?”

“What the fuck?” I say. “Let a girl wiggle her ass and the insults start flying.”

“Insults? What insults?” says Sid. “I was just asking. That's all.”

RIGHT NOW: Yeah, I KNOW, just asking implies motive behind the question. Yeah I KNOW questions themselves can be irritating. (What's it like living your whole life as a short person?), insulting (Don't you think that people would have more respect for you if you didn't act like a 60-year old baby?), racist (Why don't Jews ever want to split the bill? ). and just asking doesn't make them any less so. But ASKING opens a door. Allows discussion. An answer, even if it's that question is :irritating/insulting/racist. It starts a dialog-- or should-- even if the dialog is about the question itself.

Lisa Carver (formerly Lisa Suckdog) posted in Facebook how she lost friends by simply asking if CLASS WAR was the same as CIVIL WAR. Just asking the question, lost her friends, probably with accusation of you're conservative, a sell-out, or who-knows-what else. She's not the only one.

Only in The Gambia have I met people who could talk about anything, answer any question with a smile and another helping of tea. Only they were not offended by the question, but offered a thoughtful answer without taking ANYTHING personally. This is NOT The Gambia.

Now, I'm writing my first column outside the yoke of Maximum Rock'n'Roll. I'm responsible to my readers, and them only. I'm gonna ask a lot of questions here. I hope I don't lose friends... but it's a writer's dilemma: ask the questions or BE NICE. The first choice will lose you friends. The second will make you a bad writer.

Some questions need to be asked. For all but two years after Timmy Y's demise, MRR has been ruled by a cabal of Iron Ladies. Like my Israeli friend who saw my criticisms of Israel as “permission to kill Jews,” critical questions about women at MRR are met with everything from vague hostility to charges of ENCOURAGING RAPE. So now that I'm relatively free, with friends, not a vocation, at risk, I will ask what needs to be asked.

FLASH TO BEDSIDE: Wanda sits on a step ladder next to the bed. She holds the coffee, with a straw for me to sip. I lay on plumped up pillows.

“Hey Wanda,” I say. “Can I ask you a bunch of questions?”

“Sure,” she says, “no harm in asking questions.”

“Okay,” I tell her, “but the questions might make you mad. I don't want to risk your pouring hot coffee on my testicles.”

“Mykel,” she says, “I've known you for 20 years. I don't think you could ask anything to offend me. Besides, you're only asking, right?”

“Right,” I tell her.”And even more. I don't want you to answer the questions right now. I want you to take 'em home with you. Sleep on 'em. Bring me some answers with my morning coffee tomorrow. You can ask me if you don't understand something. But don't answer. You can ask a question, but no comments until you think it over. Okay?”

She doesn't answer.

Wiseguy.

FLASH TO LAST MONTH: City Court. I'm here... called for jury duty. In the first case I'm called for, a drug possession case, I don't even make it to the jury box. The second case is a rape. I make it to the final stage on this one. It's a charge against a homeless guy, brought by a drunken college girl. I'd better not get on THIS jury. I might not survive.

During the person-by-person questioning, one of the prosecutors reads New York's definition of RAPE: Penetration, no matter how far, of the penis into the vagina... without consent. And I think, what the fuck?

If rape is defined as penetration, no matter how far, of a penis into a vagina, without consent... that means only men can be rapists and only women can be victims. Women cannot rape men or other women. Men cannot rape other men. If a woman is drunk she is considered unable to give consent... if she has sex, it's rape. If a man is drunk, it doesn't matter. Only the woman's condition matters. Is there another crime so divided that only one gender can be the criminal, and the other the victim? Could you imagine a crime where only one RACE could be the criminal and another the victim? What would that say about such a society?

BEDSIDE: “Okay Wanda,” I say. “The first question comes from some thoughts I had in court.”

“What were you on trial for?” she asks me.

Wise guy.

I explain the situation and ask her the question. She keep her composure.

“So you want me to go home and think about this? Right?”

“That's right,” I say. “Otherwise it'll just turn into a stupid argument.”

She nods, tapping her unpainted nails against the step ladder. “Anything else?”

“Yeah,” I tell her. “You know I'm pro-abortion. Look around. It's obvious we need more of them. But there's something else. If abortion is legal, who should decide if the woman gets one or not? The father? The pregnant woman? If it's the woman who makes the sole decision (In my opinion, it should be), then why should she be able to sue for child support? If a man says, ABORT, but the woman says I'LL KEEP IT, then it's the woman's choice ONLY. Should the man be forced to pay for something he had no say in? If the baby were a 50-50 choice to make it and keep it, okay... split the costs 50-50. But if it's only up to ONE SIDE to have a baby or not, why should the other side pay anything?”

That's a lot to get out in one breath... too much. I inhale and my lungs fill with brick dusk. I start coughing. The pain is unimaginable. I feel like I'm going to split open. Stitches tear. My entire large intestine slide down the inguinal canal. At least it feels that way.

Wanda comes to the rescue, sliding the coffee-with-the-straw under face. I take a sip. Spit up all over my pajamas. Wanda gets a paper towel from the kitchen and pats up coffee. I'm breathing hard now. My lungs whistle with each breath.

“Are you okay?” she asks.

I nod.

“Did you get that question?” I try to say, dribbling more coffee into my beard..

She nods.

“Anything else?” she asks.

I nod... and hold up a finger to tell her I'm trying to get my insides together. More gas rumbles through my guts. It presses against my anal sphincter in a desperate bid for freedom. Freedom denied.

I talk some more.

“If abortion is legal,” I say, “then a mother choosing to destroy her fetus is not a murderer. BUT, the law says that making a pregnant woman lose a baby, (say someone hits her in the stomach), is MURDER in the eyes of the state. How come? Either killing a fetus is murder, or it isn't? If it ISN'T murder, than why is the fetus destroyer charged with murder? If it IS murder, than why do mothers have the right to murder their children in the womb and not after they're born?”

“Does it matter that I'm a lesbian in answering all these abortion questions?” asks Wanda.

“Naw,” I tell her. “It matters that you're smart and you're a girl... It also doesn't hurt that you're here nursing me.”

“Okay,” she says, “Is there a way you can get more girls to nurse crotchety old men with hernias? I think it'll help make more lesbians.”

I laugh.

“OW! OW! OW! Jeezus fuck that hurts,” I groan, “Please, even a chuckle makes it feel like my insides are tearing themselves apart.”

“Okay,” she says, “you have more questions?”

“Yes,” I tell her, “Why are liberals outraged at U.S. MILITARY RAPE? Why is that more important than military murder? Why are we worried more about soldiers abusing each other, than about soldiers (or drones) murdering non-soldiers? Why is equality among killers more important than preventing killing in the first place?

“You finished Mykel?” she asks.

I can see that she's not very pleased.

“You're not going to hurt me?” I ask. “Roll me onto the floor, make cough, do something that will pull at my delicate sutures?”

“Of course not,” she answers. “What makes you think that?”

Then, she tickles me.

--------------------------------------------------

NOTE TO READERS:

Ok, I know that I'm not just asking. Behind each question is a motive. Maybe the question itself is the wrong question. But now that I'm free from the constraints of a strong and terrible master... er... mistress... I can ask these questions. Your comments are welcome, either on the blog, on facebook or in an email. Personal attacks, however, will be deleted and GODWIN'S LAW will be ruthlessly enforced.

I'm looking for civil rather than hysterical conversation. Maybe that's not possible on the internet. Maybe it's not possible outside of Western Africa. Let's see what happens.

ENDNOTES: [You can contact me by email (god@mykelboard.com). Postal contact (send those... er... private videos..or music or zines... or anything else (legal only!) to: Mykel Board, POB 137, New York, NY 10012-0003]

-->Credit where it's due dept: MRR finally ran a pro-Mykel letter and my letter to the editor where I explained the facts and lies of my being canned. They did it without mentioning my rather childish mis-spelling of the editrix, Mariam's, name. And so far, it seems that I've remained on their comp list. New issue, fresh as a daisy, in my PO Box. Ten punk points guys. As usual, I urge you to express your opinion about my firing to mrr@maximumrocknroll.com.

--> Salon reports that the Tennessee state legislature is considering a new bill. It would allow graduate student counselors to refuse to offer services to clients with "goals, outcomes or behaviors that conflict with the sincerely held religious beliefs of the counselor.”

The bill was created specifically for counselors to be able NOT to work with gay students, I hope some smart kid waits for a student who wants to become a priest!! No service for him, buckaroo! It's against her religion to service future priests!

--> The return of the anti-porn feminist monster or the what good is jerking off department: Just when you thought the beast was dead, it rises like a penis at a porn convention. AM New York reports that feminists now argue that internet porn is “rewiring boys' minds.”

That's bad for the boy, the report says, “Eventually his brain wires itself to everything associated with porn such as: Being alone, constant clicking, voyeurism, shock and surprise. This conflicts with learning about real sex, which involves interaction with a real person, courtship, commitment, touching, being touched and emotional connection.”

I'm not sure how much REAL SEX the report-writer has had, but a fuck of a lot of it doesn't involve courtship, commitment, or emotional connection. Prostitution and one-night stands, you know, are slightly older (several thousand years), than internet porn.

-->And who abolished slavery? dept: The Nation reports that England has fined companies hiring "interns" at zero dollars... er... pounds per hour. This is a violation of the UK minimum wage law. Several of the UK's leading universities are now refusing to advertise unpaid internships. These include Oxford, York, Leeds, Liverpool, and more. Check out InternAware.org for more information.

-->How do you spell Kangaroo dept: 3 years after hero Bradley-Manning was captured and tortured for WikiLeaks revelations, his trial finished in Meade, Maryland. Manning was being tried on charges including "aiding the enemy" that could result in life in prison or even the death penalty. The Obama administration continues being the worst in history at the persecution and torture of whistle-blowers and truth-tellers. As of this writing, they still haven't gotten poor Edward Snowden for revealing how the US has broken into Chinese government and company offices... while complaining about China doing the same to the US.

-->The Week magazine reports that Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, has threatened to boycott US talks with the Taliban. The talks are scheduled in Qatar and the Afghan government is pissed because they wanted the talks based on a Taliban recognition of Karzai as the president. Karzai has threatened to suspend negotiations to allow US troops to stay in Afghanistan after next year. I wonder how long before Karzai will suddenly be struck with some kind of "incurable cancer." Don't these guys ever learn?

-->Thanks dept: My friend Sid Yiddish is one of the most inventive people I know. You can see his current radio project on facebook. His newest band is Sid Yiddish And His Candy Store Henchmen. Watch for them in a place of creative weirdness near you.

-->Downsizing dept: During the huge move for the bedbug prevention guys, I realized how much stuff I have. I'm almost dead, so I'll never get to it. Though I like it, I gotta ditch it. SO, here's a bunch of stuff I'm giving away. You've gotta fork over the postage, but the merch is free. You can see the whole deal at: http://tinyurl.com/MykelsFreeStuff. I hope you want some of it.

-end-