US and THEM or Mykel's Post MRR Column 23

YOU'RE STILL WRONG

POST MRR COLUMNS

POST MRR COUMN 23

Mykel Divides the World

by Mykel Board

At one extreme, a person might step into a social identity and BE it. Another might step into the same one and surprise you because they struggle against it or play it down in light of their unique biography. --Michael Agar

Ah, finally, he's here... visiting from Morocco... my pal El Habib. We met in Agadir, a city on the North African coast. He's coming to New York. In Agadir, he took me all over the place... cooked for me... great guy. All he gets in return is my couch.

When he told me he was visiting in July, it hit.

“Uh...” I profoundly start my email. “That's Ramadan. Isn't it going to be tough for you to hang out and not eat? In New York... in America... everything goes around eating and drinking... all day... every day. Ramadan? Most Americans think Ramadan is a city in India.”

He sends me back one of those laughing “stickers” that facebook uses to disgust readers.

“I'm tired of Moroccan culture,” he says. “I'm tired of Islam. I'm sick and tired of the whole thing. Let's eat!”

“What about drinking? Are you gonna drink alcohol?” I ask.

“Mykel, I'm gonna get drunk with you!” He says.

There is no facebook sticker with a grin wide enough to react. I love drinking with Muslims as much as I like eating ham with Jews... and that's a lot.

The plane was due at 3:30. I figure it'll take an hour to get through immigration. They won't know he isn't celebrating Ramadan. Then, if he comes by subway, that'd be another hour. He should have rung my doorbell around 5:30... It's coming on seven... no sign of him.

BEEP BEEP... the doorbell!

I buzz him in... take the elevator downstairs to meet him.

He's there... in the lobby... with someone else... two someone elses... each with a huge backpack... and instruments... a large conga drum... animal skin, Senegalese style, a guitar, and bags... half a dozen of 'em... two as big as my stove. They're all staying here... in my tiny apartment. We squeeze into the elevator and I reach around to push the button.

My apartment is now so crowded I have walk ON suitcases to get from the couch to the bathroom. The drummer sets up the drum in the only 2 square foot open space. It's the table for their stay.

“Hey guys,” I say. “I want the perfect photo. Mykel and 3 Arabs eating pork together. You up for it?”

They look at each other. I wonder if I went too far. [ASIDE: Actually, I NEVER wonder if I go too far.]

“Mykel,” he says, “I guess you forgot. We're not Arabs. We're Amazighs. You might call us Berbers. We were in Africa BEFORE the Arabs... before the Muslims. We're the Indians of Morocco.”

“Okay, Chief,” I say. “Let's you and me drink the peace pipe and eat some pork belly. And what happened to the word Berbers?”

“We don't really like it,” says El Habib. “It comes from Latin. From the Romans... You know Barbarians. Anyone not Roman was a Barbarian.”

“I see,” I tell him. “It's like Goyim.”

He doesn't get it.

One of the guys... the guitar player... speaks up.

“I donno, Mykel,” he says. “I am a Berber, but my name is Mohammed. Don't you think I should change it? How far will I get in America with a name like Mohammed?”

“You should call yourself Osama,” I tell him.

He elbows me in the chest.

He gets it.

We have plans to meet later that night at Bar 13 where El Habib will read poems of The Beats that he's translated into Arabic. He'll also read some poems he's written directly in English.

FLASH TO THE CLUB: We're at the door. Ready to go in and Rock the Casbah to Allen Ginsberg with guitar and drum backing.

The doorman, a huge black doorman-looking guy, sits on a stool outside the bar. We approach... Me in arm boots and black jeans. The Berbers in shorts, with Moroccan equivalents of yarmulkes.

“Ok, fellas,” says the doorman. “I need to see your IDs.”

They stop... freeze. The color drains from their faces. They look at each other... then at me.

Habib whispers to me, “Is he speaking Amazigh?”

“Somehow I doubt it,” I tell him. “Most doormen come from the Bronx, not the Sahara. Just show him your ID.”

I reach for my wallet. The three of them are somewhat panicked, conversing in Berber.

“Is this the American way?” asks the guitar player.

“This is America,” I tell him. “Everything is ID, ID, ID.”

“It must have a different meaning in English,” he says, shaking his head. “Aidee in Berber... er... Amazigh... means penis.”

I share this information with the doorman. He laughs.

“He's right,” he tells the guitar player. “Everything in America is Aidee, Aidee, Aidee.”

Inside the bar, Habib greets the hostess.. a short Semitic-looking woman who hugs him on arrival.

“This is Sarah, I met her at the Kerouac school,” Habib tells me. “We've stayed in touch ever since. She runs these poetry things here.”

Sarah turns to me, gives me a big hug... like I'm a family member.

“I'm guessing you're a poet too,” she says to me.

“I'm not exactly a poet,” I say, “but a lot of people consider me some kind of artist.”

“Poet. Artist. It doesn't matter,” she says... exuding such a love of life... of enjoying every second... I nearly cum. “Any friend of Habib's is a friend of mine.”

Then she hugs me again. I cum.

FLASH TO TIMES SQUARE: There is a big black guy... Not very black... more bank clerk black than club bouncer black. He wears khaki pants, a gray t-shirt, black moccasins with no socks. In his left hand is a piece of thick white paper... oaktag. He holds it high. On it... written in thick marker... is:

JEWS FINANCED BLACK SLAVERY... GOOGLE IT!

At first I'm pissed off... then confused... wondering if FINANCED means something different in Negro than it means in English.

I know the history. Some Portuguese and a lot of Dutch-- through the Dutch East India Company-- funded most of the slave trade in the West. Some major backers of the D.E.I.C. were Jewish. That's who lent money to the corporation at the time.

BUT, the D.E.I.C. controlled the tea trade, the salt trade, the furniture trade. They were a TRADING company, for G-d's sake! Why not say THE DUTCH funded the slave trade? Or The Dutch East India Company funded the slave trade? My ancestors in Kiev had nothing to do with it.

FLASH TO AUSTIN TEXAS: I gotta take a piss. BEERLAND is living up to its name. Shiner Bock... almost makes up for G.W.B. Shiner's a great beer, but it does what beer does and I need to get rid of mine before the next round.

I stagger over to this very Texas-looking (blond, large and jiggly on top) girl. Brushing against her prominent-though-covered nipples I slur, “Air da mess oom?”

“Excuse me?” she says, stepping back a bit.

“Men's room?” I say forcing my mouth into proper linguistic position. “This is an emergency.”

She laughs. “This is Austin,” she says. “We don't do men's rooms.”

A trickle begins its decent down my leg.

FLASH TO THE NEWS: Austin has become the first city in America to legislate gender-free bathrooms. When you gotta go... you find a stall and go. That's it. No penis-bound division. Just go... just restrooms... just toilet... stand... sit... or hover... no one checks the danglies.

FLASH TO THE THEORETICAL: You probably get it by now. I'm writing about the way we divide up the world: us and them... Jews and goyim... Romans and Barbarians... gays and straights... men and women... trannies and cis-men. This division does not only come from our view of the world... it CREATES our view of the world.

Some Saudis and a couple of their buddies fly 747s into the World Trade Center. KAPLOW! Suddenly, they become ISLAMIC attackers. Not Saudis. How come?

Israel with several American Jewish volunteers kill thousands of Palestinians in Gaza. The attack was an ISRAELI attack, not a JEWISH attack. How come?

Homosexuals try to show scientific evidence they “are born that way.” What way? Every time a new sex or gender group defines itself, another letter gets added to the LBGTQ alphabet soup, expanding US, but not changing the whole view of US vs THEM.

I'm a Jew, a writer, a punk-rocker, a social libertarian, a contrarian, a pansexual, a short old bald guy with a bad hair transplant. No, that's wrong. I'm NOT a (fill in the blank). I DO (fill in the blank). I write. I shit. I fuck when I can, jerk off otherwise. I fast on Yom Kippur and don't eat bread on Passover.

I want to suggest a wee change to the paradigm... I mean a WE change. It's about how WE divide the world. It's about how WE see US and THEM. It's about how there is only US. THEM is a myth... an artificial arbitrary result of picking a few characteristics and using those to draw a line between US and THEM. It's about identity politics... where the politics should be about erasing identity.

Humanity is a hodgepodge of individual characteristics, tastes, genders, religions, skin colors. There is only US.

White Pride, Black Pride, Islamism, Jewish Nationhood... they're all dangerous divisions that come from dividing up the world in into US and THEM. Take down those MEN and WOMEN signs from the toilet world. Learn that THE JEWS (White People, Africans, Germans, The Arabs) didn't do anything-- good or bad. PEOPLE did things. And that's all the dividing we need.

ENDNOTES: [You can contact me by email at god@mykelboard.com. Through the post office: 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 like my writing, you can be notified when anything new is available by subscribing to the MYKEL'S READERS Yahoo group readmboard-subscribe@yahoogroups.com]

-->Free means you don't pay dept: 11-year old Margaleet Katzenblickstein in Weston MA applied for a permit to hold a rally against the police murders of unarmed colored people. The police of that town said she needed to pay a hundred dollars (a couple hundred according to other reports) for the police presence at the demonstration.

Amazingly enough, the town declined the police request for cash and allowed her to hold the demonstration without charge... though I wouldn't want to be little Margaleet walking through the city on her own on a dark night. Look at what happened (6th arrest!) to the NY good citizen who filmed the police murder of Eric Garner.

-->Compassion trumps religion dept: This is the way it should be! Harman Singh, a Sikh student in Auckland New Zealand took off his turban (something forbidden by Sikh law) to aid a 5-year old who had been hit by a car. He tucked the turban under the child's head to help him ease the pain. That's the kind of US I've been talking about in this column.

-->Productive dept: Representative Steve La Tourette announced his retirement from congress by saying, “I'll go back and find something productive to do with my life... as opposed to the last eighteen years.”

Three days after that announcement, he joined a lobbying firm based in Washington DC.

-->It was on Fox News so it must be true dept: Thanks to D Keith Dobson Jr. for this Fox News Denver report: A Chinese man successfully sued his wife over “an extremely ugly baby girl.”

Jian Feng filed the lawsuit after his wife gave birth to the girl. Why did he win? Apparently Feng’s wife underwent more than $100,000 in cosmetic surgery before they met and never told him. He said she tricked him into thinking she was beautiful.

Feng sued on the grounds of false pretenses and a judge agreed with him. The judge also ordered Feng’s wife to pay him $120,000.

Since Fox News reported this, Snopes has investigated and found it to be complete fiction.

Fox, reporting fictional News? Who wudda thunk it?

My question: When will the viewers of FOX NEWS sue for being made stupid-- on the grounds of false pretenses?

-->Keeping the Pressure on Dept: I want to thank reader George Metesky for suggesting a continuing Bring Back Mykel effort directed at Maximum Rock'n'Roll for their firing me as their contribution to the world of censorship. Send your comments to mrr@maximumrocknroll.com (or post on their facebook page) with the subject line: BRING BACK MYKEL! Let me know how they answer.

-->And: I'm still on a massive clean-up/divest kick. I'm giving away DVDs, cassettes, VHS videos, CDs, posters, and a few 7-inch singles. Just pay separate shipping and handling. Details at: MykelsGiveaway

-end

Inner Beauty or Mykel's Post MRR Column 22

YOU'RE STILL WRONG

POST MRR COLUMNS

Post MRR Column 22 aka

Inner Beauty

by Mykel Board

Problem, problem

Problem, the problem is you

What you gonna do?

--Sex Pistols

It was more out of place than Hillary Clinton at an anti-war rally. On facebook... Zine Chatter... an answer to a random comment about the value of old issues of Maximum Rock'n'Roll... some random feminist:

I've never met you Mykel, I don't think I'd want to. But I need to ask you when are you going to get over it. Let MRR go. Get on with your life. Instead of harping on the past... always looking for answers OUT THERE...on the outside. Examine yourself. You'll find the problem there. Stop looking out. Start looking in. You'll find the problem inside.

In haiku, they call the discovery of a MOMENT... a unique insight into something... something usually banal or taken for granted... an a-hah! moment. Finding these moments are one my life's many joys. This facebook moment, though, is not an a-hah! moment. It is a huh? moment... I just don't get it.

Then, I do.

This is how America works. If you get sick, it's YOUR fault. It's not the poison spray on your vegetables, the antibiotics in your meat, the sulfur dioxide in the air... it's YOU. You smoke. You don't watch your diet. You don't take vitamins. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE. If you're poor, it's YOUR fault. Not your race, or the lack of meaningful (or any) work, or your parents' income. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE. Don't look to the government for answers... look inside yourself.

Flash ahead to my worst hangover of the month... a brainbuster... a stomach pumper... a body wrencher. Sunday morning... thrown out of bed by the need to pray to the porcelain goddess... I turn... fall the two or three feet from the couch where I passed out last night.

I'd returned from The Patriot... best bar in New York. She was back.. that bartender who sets her nipples on fire and lets the birthday boy blow them out. I only wish it was my birthday. Whose birthday was it? I forget.

No time to worry about that now. Naked, fresh from bed... I'm kneeling next to Big Mariam... the porcelain goddess. I just manage to reach her. I trace yesterday's beer... and Buffalo wings... and dollar hotdogs... and sliders... follow them on their passage from my stomach... heaving in a painful bulk... upwards... around the bend... burning... burning... into my throat... exploding from my mouth into the toilet... the force pushing... prodding upwards... into my nose... filling my sinuses with an acrid poison.... running out my nose... dripping downwards... self-processed food... mixing with yesterday's liquid remains... dripping into the toilet as my stomach empties its contents.

A post-orgasmic collapse... facedown in the toilet. I don't want to die Elvis style... I won't get a postage stamp with my picture on it. I've got to lift my head out of the mire. It's getting hard to breathe. Small chunks of things hit my cheek... puke-filled water squirms up my nose... I slump... fall back on the bathroom floor.

I lay prone, barely aware of the hard tile and vomit splotches. Then it hits me... I have just emptied my insides. The contents of ME! Right there, available for my examination.

Using the toilet rim, I pull myself up to a half-sitting position. I look inside: the beer-colored former contents of my stomach. Great chunks of red, green and brown float at their respective weight levels. Blotches of mucus... translucent and viscous... rise to the top.

I reach into the slough.

Plunging my hand downwards, I scoop up the most solid of the goop. Some chunks of red... a few identifiable peas and carrot pieces... something white and very thin... shaped like a babushka. I bring my hand toward my face... my nose, now clear enough to smell... the unmistakable smell of puke but with overtones of beer and jalapeño.

I stick out my tongue and touch it to the mess in my palm. It stings-- not like eating a Mexican pepper stings, but like the up-chucked bile of too much pepperoni stings. I suck some of the glop into my mouth... re-chew... re-swallow... the ultimate human recycling. I eat more of it... Smear it over my face... my body... rub it between my legs... the liquid is cool and sticky against my skin.

I scoop more from the toilet. Suck it in... something gets caught... goes down the wrong pipe... I cough up... spew more... this time over my naked chest... Another scoop... this one with more green than the last. Look! A kernel of corn... whole... undigested. I suck it in, chewing well, making sure next time out it'll look different.

Then, it hits like a punch, knocking the wind out of me. This is pain... not the nausea of vomit... but the pain of a rumbling large intestine... begging for release... a piercing exploding pain... a pain like giving birth... a screaming bulge that forces me to stand... slide in the floor vomit... skin a knee in the slop... stand again... just poised... frustrated sphincter bulging. My insides tear to fight the release. Relax, don't fight it... push... a drip.. a drop... two. Push more... a stream squirts downward splashing itself and the vomit below... up onto my hovering twin cheeks.

More... great gushes... clods, wads, globs... assonance up the ass... or out of the ass... Here it comes... it's ripping me open.. a huge hard one... like it's coming out sideways... bigger than my thigh. Down it comes, like a soldier whose parachute didn't open... like a building cornice in an earthquake... like an angel, fallen from God's kingdom to hell.

I look between my legs at the mess in the toilet. My ripped rectum bleeds softly into the morass... the red mixing with the shit brown and multicolored heave-itude... swirling in a psychedelic blend... It's postpartum ecstasy. I do nothing but sit... breathe... eyes closed... the ebullience of evacuation outweighing the pain of my torn sphincter.

For a second... a minute... an infinity... I sit in bliss. Then I realize what I have to do. I reach between my legs... into the liquescent rainbow swirling below. I strain the liquid through my hands picking up one solid log... about the length of a slice of pizza... the width of a hearty twig. I roll it between my hands, like making a snake out of clay. Faster and faster... it breaks off, the top end... spinning... leaping over my leg on to the bathroom floor. I try again. Picking up a similar piece... a bit shorter and thicker... sturdier than the other... made of stronger stuff... I think about how this fine turd was once a Buffalo wing or maybe a piece of calamari.

Holding it in one hand, I bring it close to my nose. The obvious line would be it smells like shit... It doesn't. It smells like puke. The contents of my stomach... at least nasally... overcome the contents of my large intestines.

“This came from me,” I think. “My body made this, changing through some mysterious process... things I put in... coming out on their own. How did my body choose... separate nutrients... change colors? What happened and why did this particular turd decide to leave me at this particular moment?

I push forward on the toilet seat... lean my chest against my thighs... turd in hand, I reach back and push... relax... push again... reinserting that product... product of my body... back into its recent home.

It feels good... this fecal dildo... pressing the prostate from the inside.

Reaching back into the multi-colored stew, I look for tiny bits... grape-sized. One-by-one, I grab them... lean over... force them back inside... where they came from. I reach down and grab another one. This one breaks... shatters into tiny nubs... like Oriental nipples... before it can re-pass the sphincter threshold.

I put the pieces into my mouth. They taste... neutral... like white bread... like mashed potatoes... like rice... like nothing at all. Swallowing, I wonder how my body will treat its already-sorted waste... now a new entry. Will it be confused? Will it change it back to a Buffalo wing or a piece of calamari?

I lean back again and reach for a bigger coprolith... this one the size and shape of a large carrot. Perfect. Leaning forward once more, I force it back into its ancestral home... past the prostate... tickling, eroticizing... I feel my little friend rise between my legs.

Using more of the water as a lubricant... I rub myself hard... harder... One hand manipulating the excremental plug, the other manipulating me... yes... yes... yes! I spurt hard and white, adding yet another color to the psychedelic solution.

Yes, I've seen it... the real me. And it made me come!

Ok, I've done it. Looked inside... examined myself... penetrated my inner core... tasted, smelled, reused. I've analyzed and anal-ized. Macro-ed and micro-ed. Seen it all and... without a trace... have not found the cause of my discontent. I have not found the reason the stand-on-your-own-two-feet-personal-responsibility conservatives say I'm poor. Or the reason MRR lied to me. I've looked inside myself... gotten as close as I can to the inner me and the problem is not there.

Get it MRR and libertarian conservatives? Get it anti-welfare-ites and get-a-job-ers? Sometimes the problem is NOT inside. Sometimes the problem is outside. Sometimes we've got nothing to do with our problems. We can't control the circumstances. Sometimes it's just luck. Sometimes we're lied to, abused, taken advantage of and it IS NOT OUR FAULT. It's NOT from us! It's NOT INSIDE. Problem? Problem? The problem is you!

ENDNOTES: [You can contact me by email at god@mykelboard.com. Through the post office: 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 like my writing, you can be notified when anything new is available by subscribing to the MYKEL'S READERS Yahoo group readmboard-subscribe@yahoogroups.com]

-->Trans-racial dept: You know about the Spokane Washington organizer for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People who was outed by her parents as White. She claims to be “trans-racial.”

Amazingly, she was supported by a ton of liberals who said that trans-race was fine. Anybody can be any race they choose... just by saying so.

I don't think so.

-->Trans-racial part 2 dept: Then there is Dylann Roof who kills nine people in a church in South Carolina. The reason? They're black. Dylann doesn't like blacks very much.

Hah, the joke's on him. He didn't know that the people he shot were actually WHITE. Trans-racial... you could ask any of them. (Now, you can't.) They'd tell you right out they were white. Whoops, I guess Dylann didn't know. You gotta ask questions first, THEN shoot. Otherwise, you may be shooting the wrong race. Right, Dylann?

-->Whoops part 2 DEPT: The US Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee no longer classifies cholesterol as a "nutrient of concern." The decision, which reverses four decades of advice, reflects recent research suggesting that eating foods high in cholesterol does not significantly raise cholesterol levels in the blood. All those people avoiding the vitamins and sight-saving lutein of egg yolks... sorry about that.

-->TEXAS Drinkin' DEPT: Quintin Walker was suspended from high school and barred from graduation. Why? School officials saw a can of Bud Lite in a cooler in his truck. His mother had packed the cooler for a family picnic, and Quinton was just bringing back the leftovers.

Bud Lite? It's not like he had beer or something.

-->TEXAS Drinkin' Part 2 Dept: Meanwhile, also in Texas, a new University of Texas study found that drinking two cups of coffee a day lowers the risk of erectile dysfunction by 42 percent. There's no word on what a can of Bud Lite does for that.

-->TROLLS DEPT: Richard Valdes, a former employee of right-wing activist James O'Keefe, reports that he (O'Keefe) instructed undercover operatives to participate in BLACK LIVES MATTER protests and shout things like "I wish I could just kill some of these cops." Then fellow right-wingers use the quotes to show that #Blacklivesmatter is really a bunch of advocates for cop-killing.

->Keeping the Pressure on Dept: I want to thank reader George Metesky for suggesting a continuing Bring Back Mykel effort directed at Maximum Rock'n'Roll for their firing me as their contribution to the world of censorship. Send your comments to mrr@maximumrocknroll.com (or post on their facebook page) with the subject line: BRING BACK MYKEL! Let me know how they answer.

-->And: I'm still on a massive clean-up/divest kick. I'm giving away DVDs, cassettes, VHS videos, CDs, posters, and a few 7-inch singles. Just pay separate shipping and handling. Details at: MykelsGiveaway

-end

This Column Sucks (Part 3) or Mykel's Post MRR Column # 21 V.3

YOU'RE STILL WRONG

POST MRR COLUMNS

Column 21¾

Better Than God PT. 3

by Mykel Board

[NOTE: I promised this column as a supplement, to be done before my usual. I flaked. Too much facebook, and autoerotic procrastination. So here it is... maybe late... but here it is.]

"Although real and troubling lawlessness... had occurred, rumors of homicidal gangs and "zombies".. were revealed as overblown. Looters were sometimes foragers, searching for food and water. Gunshots assumed to have been aimed at rescuers may have been gunshots aimed, however misguidedly, at alerting those rescuers to the presence of desperate survivors.” --Sheri Fink in 5 Days at Memorial

To refresh: Picture Amanojaku, tiny... horned... ugly...born of semen and dustbunnies... on the cusp of a vacuum cleaner hose...

He challenges me to replace the chasm left when the old morality died. I complained about the current replace-ments... identity politics... totalitarianism... over-sensitivity... privatization... Me... Me... Me.. I rejected THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (too egotistical / God centered) and THE GOLDEN RULE (encourages masochists to hurt people). So Amanojaku asks me for my own set of commandments. 

 When last we left, I was giving my commandments. I gave them while the little demon lay squished on my naked leg... murdered by me... crushed like a fly on a TV screen. Last month I gave my first five commandments-- aka Basic Rules. 

 “Okay you little fucker,” I tell the mess on my thigh. “Here are the last five. If there's reincarnation, you can follow them in the next life.” 

BASIC RULE NUMBER SIX: Thou shalt SOLVE PROBLEMS BY OPENING RATHER THAN CLOSING. In politics, it's easy to see how this works. You're worried about the rebels in Syria? Offer them visas and free passage to the US or wherever else they want to go. “Supporting” people means giving them a place to go, a place where they do not feel in danger. You think the Russians are giving the Ukrainians a raw deal? Don't give 'em guns, give 'em houses in Brighton Beach... open up. You don't solve problems by killing people. Nothing is more “closing” than death. 

In personal relations, OPENING means, giving up your headphones and i‑Whatever and letting the street sounds and views and random people come into your life. Much of it you won't like, but I guarantee a few grains of corn in with the general shit. Open up! See the world... your neighborhood... your neighbors. 

 Mentally, it means not being so wedded to a gender, race, or ideology that it colors everything you do. Let in the outside world: 

Flash to Venezuela: I'm here because Chavez is in charge... the great liberator... called GW Bush Satan at the UN. Yeah! The country is a paradise: Happy workers with free land, healthcare and a leader they can trust, no? 

NO! 

Chavez is a ruthless dictator... the conservatives are right... at least on this one small point. 

 In Caracas, I stay with a 35-year-old geologist...fired from her government job. Why? She signed a petition asking Chavez to follow the constitution. That's it. Bang! Unemployed! 

I walk the streets of the city...  see dozens of people squatting... eating out of ripped-open garbage bags. These are not punk dumpster divers, but families, stuffing their skinny bodies. I walk to a store... buy a towel... pay cash... “¿Puedo ver su identificación?” 

 People don't talk to each other... to strangers. They're hostile and afraid. A teenager, dirty blond hair... an HOLA! t-shirt... worn jeans... behind me as I walk. I turn the corner. He's still behind me. I turn another corner... still there. Down into the subway... he's right behind me. A cop in the station... I head toward him... the teen is gone. It's creepy and symbolic of a crime-ridden, corrupt, totalitarian Venezuela. I was wrong about it. My open life, this time, pointed to FOX not MSNBC. 

BASIC RULE NUMBER SEVEN: Thou shalt BE CIVIL. I don't fucking mean to be polite, dainty and drink beer from a fuckin' glass. I mean don't be an asshole... be AWARE OF OTHER PEOPLE. 

I'm on a queen-size escalator... the DOWN side... running for the #7 train. I hear the rumble of the train... its approach... I run faster... the multicultural line of people on the right shifts slightly to let me pass. Down that left side... there she is in front of me... a white girl in a too short skirt and too styled hair... standing on the steps...thumbs flailing... feet fixed to the step. 

I pound down the stairs behind her... stomping... clomping... thudding... each step catching glances from everyone on the escalator... except her and her iPhone. I'm right behind her. My arm on the escalator rail... right next to her... if I were a kidnapper... I could nap her right now... encircle her waist. She's oblivious. The train leaves. I don't push her down the remaining stairs. 

 CIVIL means considering the people around you. It means not standing on the walk side... not pushing to get in the train before the people inside leave... not going the just speed limit in the left lane. BASIC 

RULE NUMBER EIGHT: Thou shalt ASSUME ANYTHING THAT “EVERYBODY KNOWS” IS WRONG. This is not only “everybody” as in textbooks, but everybody as in your friends... your fellow liberals... punks... feminists. 

 Wikipedia says: The universe is 13.77 billion years old. Everybody knows that, right? And the solar system is 5 billion years old? Huh? 

What is a YEAR? It's one revolution of the earth around the sun. One year is one trip. If there is no sun, there are no years. We can't measure time if there's nothing to measure it against. It is meaningless to say one BLARF is the time it takes for a kryptonite bullet to pierce Superman's skull. There is no kryptonite and no Superman. Measuring ONE YEAR, when there is no earth or no sun is meaningless. 

 Everybody knows: Smoking tobacco causes lung cancer. You take it for granted... even if you smoke. Smoking is bad for kids and their parents. A smoker is a bad person. Ok, let's see. 

The 10 countries with the highest lung cancer rates (in order) are: 
1. Hungary 
2. Serbia
3. Maldives
4. Poland
5. Armenia
6. Denmark
7. Netherlands
8. Croatia
9. The United States
10. Cuba. 

The 10 countries with the highest percentage of smokers are (in order)
1. Greece
2. Serbia
3. Bulgaria
4. Russia
5. Moldova
6. Ukraine
7. Slovenia
8. Bosnia
9. Belarus
10. Montenegro 

The US is number 51. 

Only Serbia has both a high lung cancer rate and a high smoking rate. If smoking is the main cause of lung cancer, something is wrong. 

 What's wrong is how you think! 

Looking at only one aspect... one cause... one effect... is not how the world works. Cigarette companies, in the US, are the great corporate scapegoats. Asthma? It's cigarettes. Emphysema? Ditto. Companies of all kinds can spew garbage of all kinds in the air. Workers can be exposed to the worst kind of industrial pollutants... but if they get sick... IT'S CIGARETTES. One industry takes the blame for the evils of the others. Worse, it's YOU who takes the blame. You're sick. YOU DID IT. YOU SMOKED! 

That's wrong. 

BASIC RULE COROLLARY: If there's a proverb, cliché, or saying about it, it's probably wrong. 

Examples: 

The early bird catches the worm: WRONG! Recent research shows that early birditude or night owlishness is genetic. If you're in the worm catching business, and you function best at night... catch those worms at night. You'll do better. 

 Women make 77 cents to every man’s dollar. WRONG! That statistic only takes into account JOB TITLES. It does not include the number of hours worked (statistically much higher for men). It also does not include the danger and therefore work years of professions at higher pay. How many garbagewomen have you seen? Pressurized can explosions, exposure to sharp objects, medical contaminants, make this a much more dangerous job than, say kindergarten teaching. The average work life of garbage MAN is much lower than that of a (mostly female job) elementary school teacher... with disease and accidental death a major reason. 

Even in the same job, individual paychecks may be different but money earned per year, during the average work life, is the same for men and women. Variations of length of work hours, previous experience, length of time at the job, all are pay factors. The 77¢ figure is bogus... a relic of the way its supporters do the calculation. 

 BASIC RULE NUMBER NINE: Thou shalt GO ANALOG. Digital is a bunch of ones and zeros... a BINARY system. If you're not NUMBER ONE... you're a big zero. Most Western Countries are digital: one or zero. No in between. It comes from Christianity: God or Satan. You see it everywhere: Cowboys or Indians. Good guys or bad guys. Men or women. Black or white. 6 million in the ovens or holocaust denier. Conservative or liberal. Punk or mainstream. Gay or straight. No middle ground... nothing in between. Yo buckaroos, the world isn't that way. 

Why do so many transsexuals think of themselves as “a woman trapped in a man's body?” That assumes there are only women and men! Digital thinking. Why not be YOU, a unique person, a unique gender, a little of this, a little of that, and something neither this nor that? You are YOU in your body. Why change to conform to a digital idea? Why cut it off if it's there for you to use and enjoy... as any gender you'd like. 

Between black and white is an infinitude of gray... not to mention red or sienna. More than BEING an infinitude, the universe is a SHIFTING infinitude. Today this. Tomorrow not quite this. The next day that.

BASIC RULE NUMBER TEN: Thou shalt (often) TELL THE COMMANDMENT GIVER TO FUCK OFF. 

 The year is 1970. The place Beloit College. I've organized the first meeting of OPERATION MAXWELL, our political action group on campus... embarrassingly (in retrospect) named after a Beatles song. We're meeting outside, on a small concrete strip in front of a wall on front of THE QUAD... an open area when hippie students picnic, folk dance, and try to find a joint. 

Gavel-less, I bang my fist on the wall. 

 “Okay,” I say. “I'm calling this meeting to order. We've got a lot to talk about. As your leader...” 

“No leaders!” comes the call from someone. POW! A PIE IN THE FACE.... Custard.... 

“No leaders!” comes the call again... to be picked up by the others. 

NO LEADERS! NO LEADERS! NO LEADERS! 

 Yeah, I engineered the whole thing. Planned it from day one... my one and only act as leader of the group was to overthrow myself. As your new commandment giver, I want to continue that tradition. 

ENDNOTES: [You can contact me by email at god@mykelboard.com. Through the post office: 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 like my writing, you can be notified when anything new is available by subscribing to the MYKEL'S READERS Yahoo group readmboard-subscribe@yahoogroups.com] 

 -->What is it with Indiana and "freedom of religion?" dept: An Indiana Catholic school teacher was fired after she applied for insurance to cover in vitro fertilization. The church had already paid for MALE infertility treatment. The teacher sued the diocese. The diocese responded that having to go to court would be a violation of "the church's religious freedom." It didn't work and the jury awarded the woman 1.9 million dollars. The church plans to appeal the verdict. 

-->I swear, sort of, dept: A Pennsylvania judge prohibited a Muslim woman from swearing on the Koran before taking the witness stand. The law in the state requires witnesses to either swear on the Christian bible or make a non-religious "affirmation." Jeezus! Can't we just get the bible out of court completely and be done with it? 

 -->Fuck school do something useful dept: The LA Times reports that an estimated 100,000 Mexican children under 14 work on farms that supply produce to US stores. The children don't go to school and work in 100^o heat for your corn. Their parents, mostly Mexican Indians, are often in debt to company stores run by the farm owners, so the kids' "earnings" go right back to the farm. 

 ->Keeping the Pressure on Dept: I want to thank reader George Metesky for suggesting a continuing Bring Back Mykel effort directed at Maximum Rock'n'Roll for their firing me as their contribution to the world of censorship. Send your comments to mrr@maximumrocknroll.com (or post on their facebook page) with the subject line: BRING BACK MYKEL! Let me know how they answer.

-->And: I'm still on a massive clean-up/divest kick. I'm giving away DVDs, cassettes, VHS videos, CDs, posters, and a few 7-inch singles. Just pay separate shipping and handling. Details at: MykelsGiveaway 

 -end

This Column Sucks (Part 2) or Mykel's Post MRR Column # 21 V.2

YOU'RE STILL WRONG

POST MRR COLUMNS

Column 21

Better Than God

by Mykel Board

“Thou shalt not kill... Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's ass.”

--God and Tuli Kupferberg

I skipped a month in this saga... went off on a feminist tangent... Now, let's get back to business.

When last we left, I was sitting... post orgasm... in front of my favorite bi-porn. My trusty DIRT DEVIL vacuumed me into ecstasy. That sucking became a metaphor for the city, the country, the world, the universe. An American middle class, sucked away, replaced by Chinese nouveau riche. The morality of God, family and country, sucked away, replaced by rules on speech, and avoiding other people's sensitivity. Destroyed governments of Libya and Iraq, sucked away, replaced with Al Qaeda and ISIS. Black holes in space sucking away at the rest of the universe, replaced by who-know-what. A great sucking... vacuum after vacuum, begging to be filled. Billions of vacuum cleaner nozzles filled with dripping semen.

Back in my apartment: We ended with a rustling... at the vacuum cleaner nozzle. There... breast-stroking through the pubic hairs is my muse... the amanojaku to my amanojaku personality...born from dust bunnies and semen... naked except for a lotus leaf skirt... fat as a Buddha. Its two lower canine teeth stick up outside its jaw... over its upper lip. Crawling out of the hose... spurted forth from the Dirt Devil... like Aphrodite from the brow of Zeus... it approaches me.

Using its tiny arms, it pulls itself out of the hose and crawls over the wooden floor. Then, it digs its tiny-though-nasty claws into the side of my leg and climbs upwards until it's sitting on my lap.

“So Mykel,” it says in a squeaky voice with just a hint of a Yiddish accent. “You and your vacuums. What do you want? You want to go back to a standard? Something we can all agree on? Something to fill the moral vacuum so the shit doesn't get sucked in?”

I nod.

“So Mykel,” it says again, “what might that be? The Ten Commandments?”

“I'm not a big fan of the Ten Commandments,” I tell him/her.

S/He frowns... or at least does a demon impression of a frown.

“The first one: “I am The Lord Thy God,” isn't even a commandment at all. But it continues:

“Thou shalt have no other Gods before me.”

What a lame way to begin the most important set of rules in the world. God wrote this and it begins with ME FIRST? It's as self-centered as toddlers fighting over a bowl of M&Ms. That's how you start off the rules of life?

On top of that, God says, “I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me” It's right there in the unexpurgated version.

Jeezus Fuck! God, the all masterful and loving, is jealous? No thanks. Besides, if s/he is A jealous God, then there must be other Gods. It's grammar, ya know?

Besides, all those commandments are so negative. Just saying what you CAN'T do gives as much guidance in your life as: DON'T EAT FUCHSIA-COLORED VEGETABLES. Not very helpful. Rules to live by should be telling us what we CAN and SHOULD do.

“What about thou shalt not kill?” says Amanojaku.

“That's not bad,” I answer, “but it's only number six... Coming AFTER the one that says NOT to say GODDAMNIT! Which is more important?”

And it doesn't say what KILL is. Only people? Animals? Plants? Only those who have not tried to take over your oil fields? It's not detailed enough.

“Ok,” says Amanojaku. “Forget about the Ten Commandments. How about The Golden Rule^®? You know, Do unto others as you'd have others do unto you.”

“That's better,” I tell it, “but there are too many masochists out there. Masochists want to be hurt. Following the golden rule, they'd be tying up people and sticking pins in their captives' nipples. The Golden Rule^® turns masochists into sadists.”

“Come on, Mykel,” says Amanojaku, adjusting a lotus leaf that's in danger of revealing its gender. “That's a stretch. People want to be treated politely and just left alone.”

“Left alone?” I say. “That's part of the problem. Leave me alone. Don't tax me. Leave me alone. Don't tell me I can't put shit in the air and water. Leave me alone. Don't tell me I can't hire Sri Lankan immigrants for 26 cents an hour. This is a SOCIETY. People live together. If you want to be left alone... move to Nepal... but even there, God won't leave you alone. Take earthquakes... please! You think those buried in snow and rock... nearly dead... want to be left alone?”

“So tell us, oh great Mykel,” says Amanojaku... his sarcasm dripping like semen in a vacuum cleaner hose. “What is the principle? How can we fill the moral vacuum left when family, country, and God died?”

“That,” I confess, “is something I haven't figured out...”

Amanojaku smiles smugly.

“But,” I continue, “I have an idea where to start. We need some basic principles...”

Amanojaku raises his/her eyebrows

“Like Civility,” I say.

“Oh pull eeese Mary,” s/he says looking skyward and limping his wrist like a drag queen in training. “You're supposed to be a punk rocker and you want CIVILITY??? Isn't that a bit... er... dainty?”

“I don't mean simple politeness,” I tell him(?). “I mean something closer to SLACK. I mean thicker skin. I mean some basic tenants of tolerance.”

“Ah,” says Amanojaku, “what are the TEN COMMANDMENTS OF MYKEL BOARD?”

“I'm glad you asked me that,” I say, slapping hard with my hand and squishing him/her into blood and cartilage against my leg.

“My last action was a violation of one of them,” I tell the mess.

So here are the my commandments. Sure, there are details and problems... but it's a start in the quest to fill the vacuums left by the deaths of The Old Morality, The Old Feminism, and The Old Privacy. These are calls to ways of acting. They are not calls to legislation.

BASIC RULE NUMBER ONE: Thou shalt CUT PEOPLE SOME SLACK. People are different, use different language, have different values. We can live with those differences. Relax.

What people say and how they say it is something to discuss. It is wrong to stop them from speaking. That includes by law or by boycott or by social pressure or by shouting down. That's related to...

BASIC RULE NUMBER TWO: Thou shalt ANSWER SPEECH YOU DON'T LIKE WITH SPEECH YOU DO LIKE. Discuss, discuss, have a drink, a laugh, listen to music and discuss again. If you don't like what someone says, answer them. Show the other side. Don't organize to stop that speech or make someone lose a job. Talk!

BASIC RULE NUMBER THREE: Thou shalt first consider CONSENT. CONSENT. CONSENT. A key part of any relationship must be consent. If someone is forced to do something either by law, by hunger or something as simple as lack of money... that is NOT consent.

If you want to kill and eat your next door neighbor and that neighbor hands you the gun, fork and knife... Shoot and dig in!

But consent is more than just saying yes. Consent is not being intimidated or bullied into action. If I have to work at Walmart because the other stores have closed and I have to feed my kids and the government has taken away my welfare... that is NOT consent. I'm FORCED to work. Economic bullying is no less bullying than governmental or big ole jock bullying.

BASIC RULE NUMBER FOUR: Thou shalt TREAT HUMANS LIKE PEOPLE. Okay, you can't afford to give a buck to every guy on the street asking you for spare change... but you can learn his name.. you can say “Hi, howzit goin?” You can respond to a stranger's “Hey babe, how ya doin'?” with “I'm okay... just late for work... see ya!” Considering humans as people makes it more difficult to cut their heads off, put them in jail or drop drones on them.

In personal relations, it means not being an asshole to your waitress... not ignoring the poor K-Mart cashier who's smiling at you while you're on your iPhone dissing someone on facebook. It means stopping your car when someone by the side of the road has his hood up. It means winking at the ugly girl or smiling at the fat guy.

BASIC RULE NUMBER FIVE: Thou shalt BE USELESS. Your last year in High School:

“So, where are you gonna go to school?” she says.

“I donno, I heard that Monsanto U is pretty good. It's my first choice. Maybe I can get a wrestling scholarship,” he answers. “I need to take some finance courses. I gotta get a good job.”

“Finance?” she says, “I guess that sounds good. You'll be landing the big bucks. I'm going for marketing myself.”

STOP! STOP! STOP! Why not go to air conditioning repair school? or become a dental hygienist? What the fuck? Learning, discovering new things is FUN. It's a challenge. It takes you places you've never been and teaches you thoughts you've never thought.

Learning how to make people want things they don't need is not an adventure. It's a waste. Learning how to use other people's money to fill your own bank account-- or worse, your boss's bank account-- is not an adventure. It's sleazy in the BAD sense of that world.

Take art history... please! Take Gilyak, theoretical (NOT APPLIED!) physics, philosophy, gender studies, ANYTHING that exists for itself. That has a thrill in learning... that is not to be USED for a good job, exploiting people, or contributing to the general distress.

Your twat should drip in anticipation of your class... of each adventurous day exploring new ideas... like Starship Enterprise explores new worlds... for your adventure and the adventure of your fellow explorers... not despite that it's useless, but BECAUSE it's useless. Because it exists only for knowledge, because there are erection-inducing thrills to be had in THE KNOWING, THE LEARNING, THE UNDERSTANDING.

If you want useful, take air-conditioner repair. Get a job. Make money. Hate your life... Do it for the kids. What a waste!

…

Oh no! I did it again. Ran out of self-imposed space after only five commandments... er... basic rules. I think I'm gonnna have to have a supplement later this month to finish up.

ENDNOTES: [You can contact me by email at god@mykelboard.com. Through the post office: 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 like my writing, you can be notified when anything new is available by subscribing to the MYKEL'S READERS Yahoo group readmboard-subscribe@yahoogroups.com]

-->Beverage Dept: The Journal of the American Geriatrics Society reports that they followed 749 senior citizens for over 9 years. This doesn't mean stalking, but checking what the oldsters were drinking. They found that the DIET SODA DRINKERS gained nearly three times as much belly fat as those who didn't drink any soda. Yet there are still people who want to tax SUGARY DRINKS (take former Mayor Bloomberg... PLEASE!), and force even MORE people into Diet Soda hell. Sometimes (often) I think HEALTH is a cult rather than a science.

-->TMI Dept: Under the heading "Innovation of the Week" THE WEEK Magazine on April 3 tells of a "new system... to give police more real-time information on locations where shots were fired" The system will be linked to "license plate readers, radiation sensors, and 911 calls."

Of course that means every street will be watched by "license plate readers and radiation sensors." Makes you feel safe, doesn't it?

->Keeping the Pressure on Dept: I want to thank reader George Metesky for suggesting a continuing Bring Back Mykel effort directed at Maximum Rock'n'Roll for their (firing me as a) contribution to the world of censorship. Send your comments-- to mrr@maximumrocknroll.com with the subject line: BRING BACK MYKEL! Let me know how they answer.

-->And: I'm still on a massive clean-up/divest kick. I'm giving away DVDs, cassettes, VHS videos, CDs, posters, and a few 7-inch singles. Just pay separate shipping and handling. Details at: MykelsGiveaway

-end