You’re STILL Wrong Mykel's October 2018 Blog/Column "The Sermon"

You’re STILL Wrong
or
Mykel's October 2018 Blog/Column
I’m Sorry, You’re Forgiven

[I write this blog 3½ hours into my Yom Kippur fast. As usual, I am doing no work during the fast. For me… work is anything having to do with money… Today, I allow myself only to write, clean my apartment, and prepare for my month and a half in India.]

Barefoot, dressed in itchy sack cloth, I enter The Holy of Holies to pray for my congregation. Around my waist is a rope… the other end dragging outside. If I faint, or lose my balance, the congregation can pull me to safety without having to enter this place themselves. Only I-- head priest/rabbi- am allowed inside.

Only me… and G-d. I bet they’re all thinking it’s a massive golden room with dancing girls … and jugs of wine stamped from grapes… barefoot by naked angels. Emeralds, rubies, adorning human skulls… cups for the wine.

Sorry to disappoint you. It’s just a bunch of rocks… just a place for me and G-d to talk things over. For me to get straight with G-d… to confess my sins… and the sins of the congregation. That time I ran out on the poor drunk girl… just left her in the club to fend for herself because I couldn’t stand her dragging on me. Then there was taking advantage of my sister… not that way… but in a more perverse way… exercising my penchance for stirring up shit… I pushed her Israel buttons… more interested in being right than in being compassionate. Then there was that guy on the subway… walking car to car… showing off his disfigured legs… legs, he said, scarred in a motorcycle accident… unable to take care of… blah blah blah… I clicked my tongue and felt annoyed that he was keeping me from my reading. Then there was me… sitting at a table with others… having a discussion… but not discussing… only waiting… not listening… not learning from the people around me… but only waiting to bust in… have my say… preach what I already know. Then there was that girl… the shiksa… on her hands and knees… whimpering… “Yes, you can do it Mykel… but please… be gentle… I have hemorrhoids.” I wasn’t gentle. The list goes on.

This confession is easier than it would be if I were to make it in anyone else’s presence. G-d shows no judgement… just a simple nod of the head for each sin… and a patient wait for the next one. After my sins come the sins of my congregation… much longer and more perverse than mine. I feel faint... out of breath... wonder if I’m going to collapse and need to pulled out by the rope. I continue… there’s a sin for every letter of the alphabet. Oy vey! And then I’ve got to come out and give a sermon. Why can’t I just have a little Manischewitz and some matzoh balls and be done with it? Wrong holiday.

Holy of Holies

We have a deal... G-d and me... Since she can only forgive me for sins against her (working on the Sabbath, saying Goddammit, stuff like that) she takes my other forgiveness requests and holds 'em until I'm forgiven by the people I actually sinned against.

The deal works like this: If I forgive everyone who did bad stuff to me... and THEY forgive everyone.. then we can have a whole set of slates... all wiped clean. But I gotta go back more than a year... who knows who I missed in the past.

Those guys who mugged me from a bicycle in Mexico city... You're forgiven. That girl who fucked my friend on my bed when she was supposed to be apartment sitting for me... You're forgiven. My friend who fucked that girl on my bed when she was supposed to be apartment sitting for me... You're forgiven. Those big guys in the East Village who stole my black leather jacket.... You're forgiven. My parents who made me cut the lawn in Hicksville, even though I had hay fever... You're forgiven. The cops who tear gassed me at the Chicago Democratic Convention in 1968... You're forgiven. The guy who punched me in the face for not having a cigarette... sent me to the hospital for stitches in my lip... You're forgiven. That guy... I forget his name... the one that didn't tell me about his anal wart... You're forgiven. That girl who threw a chair at ARTLESS, knocking over our crippled drummer and nearly breaking my leg in the deal... You're forgiven. The editrix who fired me from Maximum Rock'n'Roll for not using an asterisk in a taboo word.... That's a tough one... but you're forgiven. The list does not end there.

But finally I’m done. G-d smiles, wishes me well, says “All is forgiven” (At least that’s what I THINK she says… My Hebrew is lousy.) And I head out to give my drasha (sermon).

I adjust my tallis and clear my throat before starting. My right testicle itches like hell, but in front of a congregation of yarmulkes I fight the urge to scratch. I lose the fight.

“Fellow Jews,” I begin. “I forgive you.”

Stephen Miller

“If there’s anything lacking in America in 2018 it is forgiveness. It is the ability to say… okay, it’s over. You fucked up and that was then and this is now.”

“In this age of cellphone ubiquity every time you scratch your balls it’s recorded and posted on Twitter. Every OK sign becomes a flash of WHITE POWER! Even if the flasher isn’t white.

“Trump adviser Stephen Miller flashed the sign in back of Kavanaugh. Yeah right, take a look! He’s fixing his tie! Even Snopes says it’s bullshit.

“I say it's likely not true, but even if it is... He's forgiven.

“Another sign was “flashed” by Zina Bash, a Jewish-Mexican American. Just resting her arm on her hand. BANG! She’s “flashing racist signs.”

“People are so quick to judge… so unable to forgive…

“Well, intentional or not... she's forgiven.

“Forgive… When we think of for we usually think of fore... BEFORE. But here it means completely not... like forego. When we forgive, we completely give up the idea of punishment… of retribution… or guilt. We forget about past sins, mistakes, errors, malice. We put a fresh coat of paint over the toilet wall of phone numbers and graffitied vaginas.

Zina Bash flashing signals

“Forgiveness is built into the law. That’s why we have statutes of limitation. People change. Sins of youth… of passion of the moment… of immaturity… they’re over… forgiven. We’re allowed to make mistakes and move on.

“Yes, fellow penitents, America… and maybe the world… has a huge grudge-on. There is no MORE forgiveness… especially with mistakes made about sex! My fellow circumsizees… is there anyone among us who has not lusted… who has not poured that extra drink in hopes of nookie payback? Is there any one of us who has not pressed too hard or begged BUT PLEASE... hoping to G-d NO didn’t really mean NO?

“Yet when an Alabaman runs for the Senate… one with a POLITICAL record (as reported by Wikipedia) as an advocate of far-right politics. He attracted national media attention and controversy over his views on race, homosexuality, transgender people, and Islam, his belief that Christianity, as interpreted by him, should order public policy,and his past ties to neo-Confederates and white nationalist groups. Ray Moore was a leading voice in the birther movement, which promoted the false claim that former President Barack Obama was not born in the United States.

“But for what was he unforgiven? For encouraging his three pack to be touched 30 YEARS EARLIER! No forgiveness there. He denies the allegations. I say it doesn’t matter. There is a moral statute of limitations. We have to FORGIVE. We have to allow people to move on in their lives to paint those toilet walls. I… opposed Moore for his CURRENT beliefs… for his political platform… But I supported him in the name of forgiveness…. I emailed a letter to him showing that support. I wrote about this before.

“Now there’s Brett Kavanaugh, on tap to be a Supreme Court Justice. In 2009, the guy wrote: "Congress might consider a law exempting a President -- while in office -- from criminal prosecution and investigation, including from questioning by criminal prosecutors or defense counsel." And he’s appointed by a president under investigation! Just awful.

“There are a ton of things… opinions… judicial things... to oppose the guy on… but what happens? HIGH SCHOOL! Decades earlier some one claims he put his hand over her mouth. Rape? Naw! Physical injury… fuggeddaboudit. He put his hand over her mouth and rubbed up against her. 30+ years ago! What the fuck? My fellow Jews… are there any of us who have not done something in High School that we regret… that we’re sorry for? We were TEENAGERS! Stupidity and aggression is in the nature of teendom. Forgive it!

“Kavanaugh, who had my opposition for a host of legal, moral and judicial issues… now has my support in the name of FORGIVENESS. I hope he gets the job.

“When we talk about HATE GROUPS… what better criteria for hate than lack of forgiveness? If we find an offense-- real or imagined-- and we hold a grudge... refuse to let it lie. Refuse to delete those pictures on our iPhones… then we hate.

“So, Ray Moore, Brett Kavanaugh, you have my support. Not to do so would make me a part of a very large hate group. It’s Yom Kippur, everyone is forgiven. I don’t hate anyone at all.

“My the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing in your sight, oh G-d, my Rock and my Redeemer. Amen.”

-end-

ENDNOTES: [You can contact me on facebook or 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. Subscribe to the MYKEL'S READERS Yahoo group readmboard-subscribe@yahoogroups.com]

-→Repeat repetition Dept: I know this column is very similar to one I wrote recently about REVENGE. Like the news… sometimes I repeat myself. Like the news… sometimes I repeat myself.

    My life is not so novel at the moment… but that will soon change. In a few days, I leave for 6 weeks of travel to INDIA. Especially, I’ll be in Mumbai (the locals call it Bombay) and Delhi… old and new. Any advice, contacts, warnings, band or food recommendations would be much appreciated.

     You can email me at the above address, or post to my India facebook page. I hope to hear from you. I’ll also be posting regular updates in my travel blog.

-→Speaking of the White Power sign: Ever since the guys at 4Chan – the Yippies of the right-- noticed that Donny Trump often gestures with the OK sign, they’ve made it their business to convince the world that the sign means “White Power.” I don’t think there’s a group of bigger suckers than the totalitarians from both sides. They see, Commies, Russians, Secret signs, dirty immigrants, conspiracy this, conspiracy that, around every corner and under every bed. So, in order to stoke the ovens of the GREAT CONSPIRACY, here’s my contribution (guaranteed REAL PICTURE… NOT PHOTOSHOPPED) to the conspiracy:

--> More on teens Dept: Two 13-year old boys were charged with Sexual Harassment for slapping the asses of two 13 year old girls. Slapping the asses!!! Jeezus! Who HASN'T slapped or been slapped... It's a high school ritual, and watch any baseball or football game for more. These guys could go to jail for 10 years!!! Just incredible! I don't even think there's enough even to ask forgiveness for... except for the girl's parents who are proceeding with the ridiculous charges.

→Huh? Dept. I happened to catch this on some website or other. Seems to be an official tweet from the Lake Tahoe police warning people not to leave “scented items” in their cars in bear country. Ok, makes sense to me. Bears are hungry, they may do some damage trying to get in. (Though I’m surprised they instagram the results of their actions.) But what doesn’t make sense is BEAR CANISTERS. My spellcheck keeps trying to correct it to BEER CANS. Maybe it’s a special term that locals know but the rest of us are ignorant about. Check it out yourself…. It’s BEAR CANISTERS.

-end-

LINK TRADE DEPARTMENT:

I read that search engines like lots of links... and it's also nice to support my friends... and enemies... in their blogs. So facebook me or email me if you have a blog, webpage or something else to connect to. I add you. You add me.

Here's a start:

• David Goldberg's Busy Microbes Blog
• And another Goldberg: goldberg.wordpress.com
• I post a blog for Kyle Nonnemon, in prison for a ton of shit. He's a smart guy, with a passion for industrial metal and a general detestation of humankind. You can read his blog at: apothelema.blogspot.com
• Poetry and humor fans will like Justin Martin in The Latency
• Sometimes I contribute to an interesting multi-talented blog called OgFomK Arts see me there!
• And my friend Mike R has a nice site with recipe hits from the past! (He cooked for me once... great stuff.) Check out Yesterday's Recipes.
• And here's one by a member of ANTI-SEEN... a tour diary of sorts.
• Andy Shelton has an interesting blog here.
• Savage Hippie is a guy who has been YouTubing for a long time. Our opinions largely overlap... but he complains that I'm a Communist. I'm not! I'm a communist.
• Chris Stecher publishes a zine called PRECIS. You can see the back issue links there... and he promises a new issue soon.
• George Fertakis has a very nice graphics-heavy blog... with music and books featured prominently.
• And my long-term pal Sid Yiddish contributes with his Mishegas Master Blog.

CONTACT REDUX: You can contact me on facebook or 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. Subscribe to the MYKEL'S READERS Yahoo group readmboard-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

You’re STILL Wrong Mykel's Sept 2018 Blog/Column "Well-Hung"

You’re STILL Wrong

or
Mykel's

Sept 2018 Blog/Column

Well-hung

The pain starts at the ankles. A rough localized pain… not a stabbing pain... closer to an intense rash that hurts rather than itches. It’s the rope... digging into me… every strand cutting its own notch… if I move an inch… try to twist or flop my body… it cuts deeper.

The hook on the ceiling stays firm. I half hope it will pull out... freeing me from the hanging, but if it gives way suddenly, the entire 135 pounds of my body weight will land on my bald skull.. likely splitting it. So here I hang… naked... my head a couple feet above the concrete floor, my elderly breasts slightly higher on my chest than they are when I’m standing. Between my legs my floppy bits hang in a limp parody of the erection that wasn’t.

It must be an hour now. The pain in my bladder is slowly becoming intolerable. Gravity fights the urge to piss. I have to piss upward… over a urethral hill… then down. The pressure wins… gravity loses... the stream pushes its way from between my legs... up over the taint… and out. A yellow stream from up to down… hitting my chin as if perfectly aimed by one of those Russian piss experts. I tilt my head forward to catch it in my mouth.

None of that is true. At least, none is true on a literal level. Metaphorically, it’s the focus of this blog… Here’s something that IS true.

It’s noon. My first class starts in an hour and a half. It’s a cloudy day… rain a minute away… in any direction. I stop at Cafe Angelique on my way to the subway. Walking in, the most beautiful girl I’ve seen this year is walking out. She holds the door… makes a chivalrous sweeping hand gesture… and smiles… not one of those tooth-gritting-I’m-doing-this-to-be-polite-but-actually-I-hate-you smiles… but a real you’re-a-person-I’m a person-and-I’m happy-we’ve-had-this-encounter-however-brief smile. The cloudy day brightens a bit… from the inside.

Inside the cafe, I pick up my usual bagel stick (cream cheese, lox, on a mini-French bread… baked like a bagel)... and head to the counter to pay for it. I pass by the second most beautiful girl I’ve seen this year. On her lap... standing... is a little boy, obviously enjoying his trip to the cafe. Not only does the woman smile at me, she says “Hello there.” And even the little boy shows me a toothy grin. One tooth is missing.

I feel like I’m walking six inches off the floor. What a way to start the day! It looks like one of those rare days… not one of those days.^® I find myself whistling Hungarian Rhapsody on the short walk from the cafe to the subway station. I never whistle.

On the platform, I walk to the end where the least crowded car will dock. I eat the bagel stick and wait for the train. When it arrives, I get in and there are about half a dozen people in the car. I sit in the 2-seat bench next to the door. Today it's more out of habit than from my usual curmudgeonly desire not to have some man-spreader force himself into the seat next to me before spreading.

On the same side of the car… the other side of the door… a tough woman sits sipping something out of an ice-filled plastic cup. I set down my backpack and pull out the latest Nation and start reading stuff I know I’ll half agree with.

CRASH!

Not the train, but the woman's cup of ice as it falls to the floor. I look at the cup laying there… mostly still filled with ice, but with a few cubes lying helter skelter on the floor. I look from the cup back to the woman. She sits.. her fist tucked under her chin… a sad parody of Rodin...

her brows furrowed not in thought but in hostility… to something I can’t see.

I look from her to the cup on the floor and back to her... then back to The Nation. In my peripheral vision I can see her stand up and move to the other end of the car… as far away from my end as possible.

I try to focus on The Nation. At the next stop a few more people get into the car. When the door closes, the icewoman stands again and walks toward her cup on the floor. When she reaches it, she pulls back a leg like a football punter… then she kicks the cup... aiming it directly at my face… It misses my face… but does not miss my shirt and pants… soon covered with melted ice.

“He kept watching me!” she shouts to the rest of the passengars… all of whom quickly bury themselves in their cellphones.

I go back to The Nation and read the same sentence over and over again. Something about a Trump Bump.... I'm not getting it, but at least I don't have to look at the angry woman.

Luckily, the next stop is Grand Central. My stop... I get out… jog up the stairs… move into an alcove and glance behind to see if she’s followed me. She hasn’t.

Key point, I think, ALL of the women in this anecdote are colored… the two women in the cafe… the woman in the subway car. All slight variations on the color of oak in the lobby of the Algonquin Hotel... beautiful!

So, what’s all this got to do with hanging by my ankles naked from the ceiling in an unnamed building? I’m glad you asked: UPSIDE DOWN is the connection. My day turned upside down from heart-melting kindness to maniacal hostility. Life, people, everything that comes with the modern world is turning upside down… and few people notice it!

Leftists and rightists stand on their heads… supporting exactly the opposite of leftists and rightists… with as much anger at their former selves as the colored woman with a cup of ice.

FLASHBACK: On February 1, 1960, at 4:30pm, four black guys sit down at the lunch counter inside the Woolworth store in Greensboro North Carolina. The men have already purchased toothpaste and other products from the store with no problems. At the store's lunch counter they are refused service when they each asks for a cup of coffee. Following store policy, the staff refuses to serve the black men at the "whites only" counter. The store manager, Clarence Harris, asks them to leave. The four freshmen, however, stay until the store closes. The next day, more than twenty black students, recruited from other campus groups, join the sit-in.

They are customers demanding the same rights as other customers. Consumers demanding from the giant corporation...

WE SHALL OVERCOME!

This is the call of the generation… inspired by black, but soon gone to white… It leads to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It leads to a host of others… but most importantly it establishes the basic principle that the right of the individual trumps the right of the corporation. The right of a customer to choose his business trumps the right of the business to choose its customer. You can’t just make “company rules”… post a sign WHITES ONLY and win. Anyone who can pay for your services is entitled to them. White customers complain. They are being disturbed by people who they didn’t like.

“Let the Negroes go to their own restaurants,” they say. “If they don’t like it, they should just open up a place themselves.”

Leftists/communists/liberals and my very young self applauded the sit-iners. We cheered the end of segregation and the affirmation of the rights of people over the rights of companies to just post a sign and keep people out. No more thumb over shoulder saying… “read the sign buddy, WHITES ONLY that’s the rule.”

FLASH TO 2018: Facebook, Apple, YouTube cut the account of wacko conspiricist Alex Jones. POW! We don’t like you! You’re out. If there was ever a case of corporate dictatorship... corporate triumph over individuals... this is it.

THE PROGRESSIVE MAGAZINE says in an editorial that Jones violated the terms of facebook’s agreement and “even if he didn’t, facebook is a private company and can change the rules any time.” This is THE PROGRESSIVE… previously one of the most out-spoken voices for the rights of THE PUBLIC over the rights of THE CORPORATION.

This attitude is NOT progressive. This is Donald Trump saying the right of corporations to pollute is more important that the right of individuals to breathe clean air. It’s Hobby Lobby denying contraceptives to its employees, saying the rights of the company bosses are more important than the rights of their employees. They signed a contract. If they don’t like it, they can work somewhere else.

Hobby Lobby was 4 years ago. Liberals were up in (non-lethal) arms. Then, in 2018, in a kerpow moment, those same liberals have turned themselves upside down and opened their mouths to taste the piss of corporatism…. and they love it. Alex Jones banned simultaneously from facebook, Apple and YouTube.

“How can they do this?” I ask.

“They’re a corporation. They make the rules. They can do what they want,” comes the answer-- from the liberals! Can you say WHITES ONLY?

But wait… there’s more.

In the days of white terrorism, the Ku Klux Klan wore white hoods to cover their identity when they terrorized Negroes, Jews, (sometimes) Catholics. They knew what they were doing was illegal, certainly violent, probably immoral.

These days, the only time you’ll see a klansman in a hood is in cartoons in “progressive” magazines.

Who wears the hoods in 2018? Who tries to hide their identity knowing that what they are doing is illegal, certainly violent, probably immoral. Is that a cross burning behind that guy? It might as well be one.

Had enough? Tough shit! There’s more.

Flash to 1950.

“I have here in my hand,” says Joseph McCarthy, “ a list of two hundred and five people that were known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party” shills for a dangerous Russia.

Russia was the bad guy. Those associated with it were bad. People were black-listed. Hollywood wouldn’t hire “Communists.” In order to get any work at all, Russia-lovers had to use assumed names to hide their identity.

Last month I wrote about how these former Russia lovers and CIA/FBI haters have suddenly turned into their upside down counterparts and now HATE Russia and love the CIA/FBI. But there’s more...

These days, actors still get black-listed, thrown off their programs… censored for their political beliefs or past sexual history. Roseanne Barr loses her job in a day, for a few words on Twitter. Kevin Spacey gets digitally edited out of a movie he was to star in. And the same political leaning that was the VICTIM of blacklisting, now applauds it. Upside down!

Yeah, there’s even more, but I need to stop now… my brain hurts… I probably should hoist myself back up by my ankles and let the blood rush to my head. It’ll give me the perspective needed to function in America in 2018.

-end-

ENDNOTES: [You can contact me on facebook or 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. Subscribe to the MYKEL'S READERS Yahoo group readmboard-subscribe@yahoogroups.com]

-→Speaking of Antifa dept: During protests in Portland Oregon, one anti-Trump protester carried an American flag to show that he thought that it was patriotic to protest the president. Well, that didn’t sit well with the Antifa crew… one of whom beat the guy and put him in the hospital. In an exchange after the event, an Antifa member said, “Well, at least we didn’t kill him.”

-→Make Canada Great Again dept: Meanwhile, a manager at the Stanley Park Teahouse in Vancouver Canada was fired because he refused service to someone wearing a M.A.G.A. hat. The company said they fired the guy because he acted in a way violating the company’s philosophy of tolerance. 10 punk points to the company.

In America they’d be boycotted. If there’s one thing the current crop of left-totalitarians can’t tolerate… it’s tolerance.

-->Something for tolerance dept: Seems like the anti-Muslimites are always finding quotes to bolster their opinions. So I offer this one: Beware! Whoever is cruel and hard on a non-Muslim minority, or curtails their rights, or burdens them with more than they can bear, or takes anything from them against their free will; I (Prophet Muhammad) will complain against the person on the Day of Judgment. (from the Hadiths)

Put that in your Islamaphobic pipe and smoke it.

-end-

LINK TRADE DEPARTMENT:

I read that the search engines like lots of links... and it's also nice to support my friends... and enemies... in their blogs. So facebook me or email me if you have a blog, webpage or something else to connect to. I add you. You add me.

Here's a start:

• David Goldberg's Busy Microbes Blog
• And another Goldberg: goldberg.wordpress.com
• I post a blog for Kyle Nonnemon, in prison for a ton of shit. He's a smart guy, with a passion for industrial metal and a general detestation of humankind. You can read his blog at: apothelema.blogspot.com
• Poetry and humor fans will like Justin Martin in The Latency
• Sometimes I contribute to an interesting multi-talented blog called OgFomK Arts see me there!
• And my friend Mike R has a nice site with recipe hits from the past! (He cooked for me once... great stuff.) Check out Yesterday's Recipes.
• And here's one by a member of ANTI-SEEN... a tour diary of sorts.
• Andy Shelton has an interesting blog here.
• Savage Hippie is a guy who has been YouTubing for a long time. Our opinions largely overlap... but he complains that I'm a Communist. I'm not! I'm a communist.
• Chris Stecher publishes a zine called PRECIS. You can see the back issue links there... and he promises a new issue soon.
• George Fertakis has a very nice graphics-heavy blog... with music and books featured prominently.
• And my long-term pal Sid Yiddish contributes with his Mishegas Master Blog.

CONTACT REDUX: You can contact me on facebook or 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. Subscribe to the MYKEL'S READERS Yahoo group readmboard-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.