Losing The Urge or Mykel's November 2021 Blog/Column

 

Losing The Urge: Mykel's  November Blog

 

You’re STILL Wrong

or

Mykel's 

November 2021 Blog/Column 

Losing The Urge

by Mykel Board

With some, inhibitions and urges may be neutralized by other tendencies. But with every being the primal emotions are there. All men have an emotion to kill; when they strongly dislike some one they involuntarily wish he was dead. I have never killed any one, but I have read some obituary notices with great satisfaction. - Clarence Darrow

“That animal is not your possession. He doesn't exist for your amusement. He has needs, instincts... urges."

The way he said that word, in that deep, earthy growl, had chills rippling over her skin.

She swallowed hard. "Urges?"

"Yes. Urges." He sauntered toward her- as much as a man could saunter in knee-deep water. "But what could a lady like you know about those?"

"Oh, I understand urges. Right now, I have the powerful urge to do this."

She shoved him hard in the chest, hoping to send him flailing backward into the river. --Tessa Dare

“If you feel the urge, get up and dance; and if you don't feel the urge, get up and dance.” - Marty Rubin

When I lost the sex urge I felt as if I’d escaped from a frantic and savage master. – Sophocles

I measure the progress of my traveling adventures in what my body chooses to show me. My bowels produce a chronicle of time and place. 

Stages reflect themselves in toilet water. Every trip starts with nothing… a whiff of gas… a pffffft… no more. After the gas come the raisins. Tip… tip… tip… like a rabbit spitting out sunflower seeds. Then come the cherry tomatoes… plop… plop… plop... hard and loud as they fall into the water and splash up against me. 

Next are the fuzzy caterpillars, each as long as my thumb… edges unclear… worms clothed in dust bunnies. Then a day later… maybe two… it’s Vienna Sausages… sliding effortless out of my body. 

Then, the kielbasa. Thick… like a turd blimp. Wider than my waist… like being fist-fucked by Mike Tyson… only in reverse. 

Then, if I’m still away, I return to normal… gobs of half-solids… turning the water brown… little floating pieces… undefined shapes… exploding below. 

Today I’m in Pittsburgh. I’ve reached the cherry tomato stage… or what should be the cherry tomato stage. Things are not as smooth as they should be… noisier… with a smell like the night after a Mexican lunch. 

And it feels weird… like I’m releasing a playing card… Ace of Spades… one-eyed Jack. I check. It’s New Jersey.

I shit you not. It’s a turd, about the size of my hand, shaped exactly like New Jersey… From the boxy edge of Bergen County, across to the Delaware river… down to a perfect little Cape May at the tip. 

Don’t get me wrong. I LOVE New Jersey… the state. Some of my best friends live there. Others are from there but have moved away. New Yorkers who can’t stand the cootiephobia, the noise, the high prices, are moving there. 

Mitsuwa is in New Jersey. AOD is FROM New Jersey. It’s a great state. The shit is not a metaphor… not a judgment… but a real statement… made by my body… sculpted from the refuse of my food… hewn from the pressure of my large intestine… I have the urge to reach in… pull it away from its more normal siblings… lift it up… examine it closely, turn it over… match it to a Google map. 

I don’t. 

Instead, I flush. 

FLASH to 2017: The Museum of Modern Art has a show featuring the art and characters of CLUB 57… a performance-space in the East Village during the 80s and 90s. On the wall are several posters of ART, my first “band” (guitar player, metronome player/vocalist, sign-language signer, and me). 

The You’ll Hate This Record Record, on the Seidboard Label, is framed and hanging on the wall. I put together that record… compiled the bands… the most hated in America... pasted the rubber vomit on the cover.

Now it’s in the fuckin’ Museum of Fuckin’ Modern Fuckin’ Art! Amazing… dazzling… depressing. I’m not sure why… Then comes the email. It’s from Sophie… at MOMA. 

“We’re having a party for the Club 57 Show. We’d like you to put ART back together. Just one show, downstairs in the VIP space. Of course, we’ll give you compensation. $1000 for the show.” 

I’ve never been paid $1000 for a show. I think ART got $900 opening for Public Image… and that was the most. Usually, “gas money.” That’s it. Sometimes an extra twenty bucks. 

I think about other old guys playing punk rock. Old men trying to reprise –or at least sell–  what was their youth. Angry young bands on a tired old man road. 

Several times, Jim Testa has complained to me that touring 90s bands are what’s keeping new young bands from getting shows. “No one wants to see new bands, Mykel,” he says. “Hardcore and punk is creaky old people… like us.”

At the time, I believe it’s this anti-nostalgia that leads me to reject the $1000 bucks (split 4-ways of course). I don’t want to be the balding old guy on stage trying to resurrect a performer who had hair and enough energy to tear apart 10 different t-shirts. 

It’s only later, I realize I was flattering myself. What really happened was… I lost the urge to perform. It used to be all you had to do was ask… not even that. I’d jump on the stage. Furious George… BANG! I’m up there, holding up the I WEAR A WHITE HAT SIGN. The first Polish Punk Festival in Kolobrzeg, I’m there… singing SWEET JANE with my friends in KANAL. 

The urge to perform… to be in front of people… to get a reaction… cheers… laughs… boos… hit by a pie… I loved it. 

Then, I lost the urge. I didn’t feel the almost sexual need to perform…  to be hated…  to be laughed at... or even admired enough to be bought a beer by a fan. 

The urge left me. I no longer need to perform… I no longer WANT to perform. When I did a short reunion tour about 10 years ago, before it was over, I realized it was a mistake. 

FLASH TO EARLY SUMMER: Girls are out… in their short shorts… the ones that show leg… all the way from hip to ankle. Bare… naked leg... perfectly shaped.. hairless... disappearing into a barely hidden camel toe. Boys’ legs too –usually too hairy to excite my urges–  but every once-in-awhile there’s an Oriental… Oh yeah!

But this year, there’s no urge. I don’t feel a stirring between my own hairy legs. No pressure... no dream of spreading those legs. The urge has deserted me. Gone like a flushed turd shaped like New Jersey.

Sure I still choke the chicken, but these days it’s a soporific rather than a stimulant. I’ve lost Sophocles’ frantic and savage master. The Meth of a screw has turned into a Quaalude. 

I’m worried. If I become completely urgeless, I’ll be dead... one of those depressive zombies who roll out of bed only to piss and return to the covers. It’s scary. 

FLASH TO THE BATHROOM… The place for serious reading… in snippets. I have the latest copy of THE NATION on the tank, waiting for me to take in bit by bit. 

There’s an article about Frank B. Wilderson III, the godfather of a philosophy called Afropessimism. The basic tenet of this philosophy is that slavery makes the Black Experience® in America unique. Indians, Transexies, Hispanics, other “allies” in racial America… are not allies. They don’t suffer the same. They are higher on the totem pole and will become white when it suits them. 

The ideas are fascinating. I never heard of this guy before. He evidently mixes humor, his family history, his personal adventures, and his philosophy. He teaches in California. Sounds smart, cool, deep… and wrong. 

You know what? I want to go out to California. I hear plane fares are low now. I want to sit in on a class. Then, talk to the guy. 

Wilderson: You can’t get it, Mykel. My ancestors were slaves. 

Board: So were mine! 

Wilderson: This country was built on our backs. Our slave labor built America.

Board: Ours built the pyramids.

Wilderson: Don’t pull the that stuff on me. Black… just the word is evil, dangerous, negative in all aspects.

Board: Sure. When I go into a bar and order top shelf, I always ask for Johnny Walker Jew. And in my karate class, everyone is clamoring for a white belt.

I can see the whole thing. Describe his facial reactions… picture how I’ll stand up... pace… Wilderson sits at the edge of his desk... sometimes laughs… sometimes wrinkles his brow. I gotta leave now… check plane schedules to California. 

WAIT! The urge! The urge to confront. The urge to disagree… to say YOU’RE WRONG! THAT hasn’t left me. It’s as strong as it ever was. 

In 2021, I’m not going to play in a punk band. I’m not going to drop $100+ in a “massage parlor.” But I still have an urge that hasn’t deserted me. The urge to not think like other people… to find new Jersey in a turd… to tell smart people they’re wrong. THAT urge hasn’t deserted me. 

See you in hell,

Mykel Board

ENDNOTES: [You can contact me on facebook or by email at mykelboard@gmail.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. Send me an email with SUBSCRIBE in the subject line.  Back blogs and columns are at https://mykelsblog.blogspot.com]

–> Breakfast-free companions Dept: OZY reports that sex dolls are all the rage in Asia, with hotels springing up in Taiwan and mainland China where people can book a night with an almost lifelike companion. In addition: Australia, Norway, Finland, Denmark and the U.S. lead in Google searches for “sex dolls.” As A.I. matures and robots become more “life-like”... with human pimps matching customers with their ideal companions. “Robo-prostitution” will replace pornhub. There is already a term for mechanized lovers: B.O.B. . . . battery-operated boyfriend. 

Hah, I thought that was just another word for dildo.

–>The world continues to prove me right dept: I've long been an opponent of recycling. My main argument is that it's used to ease consciences in more and more consumption. This from Consumer Reports saying that more than 90% of what goes in the recycle bin ends up incinerated or in landfill. And that doesn't mention the energy used in picking up the recycling, sorting it, and powering the recycling plants. 

Message: DON'T RECYCLE. JUST DON'T BUY IN THE FIRST PLACE.

–> Not quite Annie Sprinkle dept: The Irish Mirror reports: The owner of a U.K. bakery went viral for ranting about regulations that are hurting his profits and his art. Rich Myers, 32, of Leeds, can no longer sell his most popular items because they feature "illegal sprinkles" imported from the US. The sprinkles contain an additive which has been linked to "hyperactivity disorders and tumors in rats."  An anonymous customer tipped off  the local regulatory agency. Myers swears he won't switch to approved sprinkles from his home country, because “they don't hold their colors during the baking process.” 

"If I can't use the imported sprinkles, I won't use any," he said. "I will be on sprinkle strike and won't budge for no man." 

That’s what I like! A man who stands up for his principles. I wonder how much I could make as a sprinkle smuggler.

See you in hell, redux,

MB

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:

Here’s Richard Goldberg: goldberg.wordpress.com

Poetry and humor fans will like Justin Martin in The Latency

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. If there’s no link here (I can’t find it temporarily), then Google… er… Duckduckgo him for information.

And my long-term pal Sid Yiddish contributes with his Mishegas Master Blog.

And connect to TRUST Zine, a long-running German punk zine… that STILL PRINTS!!! Yeah, they have a website too… of course! It’s here.

Here are a couple video links.

This from Jon Cox https://squelchchamber1.bandcamp.com/album/down-so-low

And this one from my very long-time friend Roger Armstrong.

Jim Testa moved his long running zine, Jersey Beat, to the blogosphere awhile back. You can read it here. Jim also recommended a kind of unique album… in a style you don’t see to much of these days… or any days. Neo-Hassidic Rock Opera. You can stream the album here.

Kyle Nonneman is in prison in Portland. At least he can’t be kidnapped by the secret police… I think. I post his blog for him, he can’t do it from the klink. Lots of stuff about noise metal… and some very weird politics that will either fascinate or repulse you… or both.

My long time pal, Jim Hayes rightfully complained about my leaving out his blog. He’s a great writer, so it was a tragic omission. Here it is.

Oh yeah, then there’s me. I have a blog of stuff I’ve written mostly from last century. You might enjoy it. Then again, you might not. It’s here.

Let me know if you have a blog… or a print zine… or a YouTube and want to be added to the list. You show me yours… you’ve already seen mine. god@mykelboard.com

Sad Song: You're Still Wrong: Mykel's October Blog

 

A Sad Song: You're Still Wrong: Mykel's  October Blog

 

You’re STILL Wrong

or

Mykel's 

October 2021 Blog/Column 

A Sad Song

by Mykel Board

There are two types of people in the world: those who prefer to be sad among others, and those who prefer to be sad alone. 

                                                                                  --Nicole Krauss

Staring at my picture book, she looks like Mary, Queen of Scots.

She seemed very regal to me, just goes to show how wrong you can be. I'm gonna stop wastin' my time. Somebody else would have broken both of her arms. Sad song, sad song. Sad song, sad song.

                                                          --Lou Reed

The way sadness works is one of the strange riddles of the world. If you are stricken with a great sadness, you may feel as if you have been set aflame, not only because of the enormous pain but also because your sadness may spread over your life, like smoke from an enormous fire.

                       – Lemony Snicket

It starts in that no man’s land between your belly and your chest. It’s a pressure… something on your diaphragm. You struggle to breathe...  your chest rises and falls in deep sighs. Slowly it creeps up… deep in the back of your throat… the spider in the old lady who swallowed a fly… then you feel it in your nose… your eyes… those little parts of your eyes closest to each other… wet… they fill ever more... soon you can’t see… you squeeze your eyelids shut... tears pour out... dripping down the side of your face… You look to the right and left to see if anyone’s watching you… Your nose runs. You wipe the tears… the snot… on your sleeve.

Sadness is inexorably… though understandably… linked with death. People cry when someone close to them dies. It’s the same everywhere. 

I ask my Kenyan pal, Albert, if men cry in Kenya. He says, “Sure, men cry when someone dies. It’s normal.”

Sometimes, we’re sad when people we’ve never met… but have admired… die. I cried when Thurman Munson died. I’ll cry when Jimmy Carter dies. Okay, got that. 

But there’s a kind of sadness that’s not about death. A kind of sadness that doesn’t reach up the throat… doesn’t end in the nose or the eyes... a kind of sadness that is like a giant press, squeezing your lungs… squeezing the air out of you… making you feel like shit for no reason except the sadness itself. 

FLASH TO THE SECRET KOREAN BAR; It’s above a deli on the corner. There are no signs for it… you just have to know it’s there. You enter through the deli, walk up the unmarked staircase in the back and POW! There you are. 

I’m walking up those stairs right now. 

“Yeoboseyo!,” I shout from below. It’s Hello in Korean, but only for answering the phone... never as an in-person greeting… except by me. 

“Mykel!” shouts Jenny from upstairs… behind the bar. 

“How’d you know?” I shout back. 

When I get upstairs, Jenny has poured me a mug of Hite beer. She pushes it over the bar to me as I sit in front of her. 

Andy, an ABK (American Born Korean), hangs out in the bar and is a friend. 

“Andy,” I shout at him from the other side of the room. “Come and sit next to me. We’ll talk. Have a Hite!”

Andy sits on the next stool. “Mykel,” he says, “nice to see ya! I’ve been feeling like shit for the past week.”

“I hope I didn’t make it worse,” I tell him. 

It takes him a second. Then he laughs. 

“How’s the deli job?” I ask. He works at a Korean deli, chopping salad, preparing the take-it-weigh-it-and-pay-it food that Korean delis invented. 

“You know, chop chop,” he says, his right hand making a fake karate move. “So close to Grand Central, lots of tourists and businessmen. Not my favorite people.”

I talk to the bartender, “Jenny,” I say, “give Andy a Hite on me.” 

She pours him a beer. “Mong chung eeee” we say in a fake toast. (It actually means You Moron!) 

“You look unhappy,” I tell him. “Did something happen today?” 

“Something happens every day, Mykel,” says Andy. “When I look in the mirror, I feel like shit. I want to cry. It’s….”

“Huh?” I say, nearly choking on the beer, “You’re a smart, good-looking guy. I wish I saw what you see when I looked in the mirror.”

He smiles halfheartedly… and puts the tips of his index fingers at the edges of his eyes. 

“See these? Slanty eyes!” he says. 

“Come on,” I say, “you speak perfect English… Well, I mean you tawk like a New Yawka.”

He looks at me… very close… fixing his eyes on mine. Then he says… very slowly and very LOUD.

“WHEN… PEOPLE... SEE... ME... THEY... TALK... LIKE... THIS... LOUD... AND... VERRRRRRY…. SLLOOOW. THEY... EXPECT... I... CAN’T... UNDERSTAND…” He speaks, staring directly into my eyes projecting  profound pathos.

“But…” I start.

“You don’t get it, Mykel,” he says. “I know you. Sometimes you play the outsider, the one who never fits… but you CAN fit if you want. I have no choice… I’m ALWAYS the outsider… always the foreigner… no matter how American I am.”

He slaps his own cheek. “I hate my face. I hate being born this way. And sometimes it feels worse than ever...”

I feel a giant press, squeezing my lungs… squeezing the air out… making me feel like shit for no reason except the sadness itself. 

My adventure with Andy took place at least 15 years ago. But all these years later, the sadness still creeps up on me when I think about it.

FLASH TO NOW… RECENTLY: TVs, newspapers… The New York press is filled with… stop the press. A restaurant worker is assaulted… cellphone videos prove it… punches traded… three against one… all girls… a catfight. 

What happened? The worker politely asked for COVID vaccine proof. It’s required by law, you know… can’t eat inside a restaurant without your Covid-card. And for that she gets punched? For that, she’s wounded and has to be saved by patrons pulling the evil Texans off the helpless young lady. 

New Yorkers know that Texans are violent anti-vaxxers who don’t care if the whole world comes down with the plague. Just like them to attack a helpless girl only following the law… doing her job. 

It’s all too pat. The video shows the attackers are black women. The attackee is invisible. Facebook is alive with posts… those evil Texans. Not only do they want to make the rest of us sick with their no-vaxxing, but they attack a hostess who’s just doing her job. 

The news always describes the attackers as Texans. The minions… especially the New York minions… some of the most conformist people in the world… build on the anti-Texas outrage. Ted Cruz… Trump supporters… No respect for other humans... They only love guns and their version of God. 

Looking at the rage in the three black women… looking at the reports with no comments from the attacking side… Seems as clear as a knee on the neck that there’s an unreported racial side to this. 

How could you say that Mykel? They’re from Texas. They just want to kill people… unless those people haven’t been born yet, you know, fetuses… They’re the only ones with a right to life… get it? haw haw haw.

BLEEP! BLEEP! BLEEP! The news unfolds… the waitress wasn’t white. She was Asian. The attackers were all vaccinated. They were being pestered a SECOND time to show their proof… Did someone else’s cellphone catch the word Niggers among the crowd… the staff? 

Yes, I was right. I should be happy. I should be shouting I TOLD YOU SO from the top of the Empire State Building… dancing naked with a suck this you dumb New Yorkers sign hanging from my penis. 

But I don’t feel that way at all. Instead, I struggle to breathe...  my chest rises and falls in deep sighs. Slowly it creeps up… deep in the back of my throat… Being right makes me sad. The news: all lies… the people… my friends… true believers of those lies. So sad.

Some movies are called tear-jerkers. Usually chick flicks, they’re structured to make the viewer cry. I remember one called Once Were Warriors… a New Zealand story about the Maori. I cried at that one and then was pissed off at myself for being manipulated into tears. Now that I think back on the movie, I realize I cried from the film structure, not from sadness… like I laugh at Moe, Larry and Curly. 

Tears can come from pain, laughter, anger, frustration… as well as sadness. Sadness can only come from reality… from the realization that something is really wrong. 

There are people in the world who don’t feel the sadness…. who aren’t aware of the pitiable pain of our lives… who watch the TV news and are outraged… but not saddened. That, in itself, is sad. 

See you in hell,

Mykel Board

ENDNOTES: [You can contact me on facebook or by email at mykelboard@gmail.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. Send me an email with SUBSCRIBE in the subject line.  Back blogs and columns are at https://mykelsblog.blogspot.com]

–> The Way Out dept: 

Seems to me, when the government requires creative people to be creative for those they don’t like, the answer is to do lousy or offensive work. This web designer doesn’t like homosexuals? Ok, make a website where every click on every link will bring you to queerbait.com. You want to prove a point by hiring someone who doesn’t approve of you? Have your gay wedding cake with an icing picture of a little boy impaled on a devil-dick. It’d serve you right.

–> My kinda school outing dept: Mass Live reports: Students in Boston rode a party bus, complete with a stripper pole and neon lights, on a school field trip. Why? There’s a national school bus driver shortage. They have to take what they can get from private companies.

Eleventh grade Language teacher, Jim Mayers tweeted about the experience on Sept. 17.

“It is a funny story, but there actually is a real bus shortage and it speaks to major flaws in our education system,” said Mayers. “This in no way is a reflection of anyone involved in planning the trip. We were trying to have a fun day with the kids and that’s exactly what happened.”

I say: the only way to top “a fun day with kids” in a stripper bus with poles and neon… is to have actual strippers. 

–> Rising rents dept: The LA Times reports that a family owned crypt with neighbors Hugh Hefner and Marilyn Monroe is taking bids for a luxury deathplace. Bidding starts at $2 million for the no-bedroom… er… flat. 

–> Shaving lifespan dept: CNN tells of published research that says that eating a single hot dog can take 36 minutes off your lifespan. Joey Chestnut, one of my few heroes, has won the Coney Island Hot Dog Eating Contest for the past several years. He estimates he’s eaten more than 19,000 hot dogs. He’s not dead yet, but the clock is ticking faster than for most people. If he’s buried next to Hugh Hefner, I might visit him one of these days. 

-->Speaking of Death Dept: I just wanted to give a sad nod to the death of Michael Evans... long time ARTLESS drummer and drummer around town (God Is My Co-Pilote, False Prophets, and a ton of others). One of the few people who switched easily from punk to avante garde to jazz to Afro-Caribbean... and just a great guy. 

See you in hell, redux, but I expect Evans will not be there to greet us. He's jamming with Ginger Baker.

MB

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:

Here’s Richard Goldberg: goldberg.wordpress.com

Poetry and humor fans will like Justin Martin in The Latency

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 here... and he promises a new issue soon.

George Fertakis has a very nice graphics-heavy blog... with music and books featured prominently. If there’s no link here (I can’t find it temporarily), then Google… er… Duckduckgo him for information. 

And my long-term pal Sid Yiddish contributes with his Mishegas Master Blog.

And connect to TRUST Zine, a long-running German punk zine… that STILL PRINTS!!! Yeah, they have a website too… of course! It’s here. 

Here's a few video links.

This from Jon Cox https://squelchchamber1.bandcamp.com/album/down-so-low

And this one from my very long-time friend Roger Armstrong. 

Jim Testa moved his long running zine, Jersey Beat, to the blogosphere awhile back. You can read it here.  Jim also recommended a kind of unique album… in a style you don’t see too much of these days… or any days. Neo-Hassidic Rock Opera. You can stream the album here. 

Kyle Nonneman is in prison in Portland. At least he can’t be kidnapped by the secret police… I think. I post his blog for him, he can’t do it from the klink. Lots of stuff about noise metal… and some very weird politics that will either fascinate or repulse you… or both. 

My long time pal, Jim Hayes rightfully complained about my leaving out his blog. He’s a great writer, so it was a tragic omission. Here it is. 

Oh yeah, then there’s me. I have a blog of stuff I’ve written mostly from last century. You might enjoy it. Then again, you might not. It’s here. 

Let me know if you have a blog… or a print zine… or a YouTube and want to be added to the list. You show me yours… you’ve already seen mine. god@mykelboard.com

TOXIC or You're STILL Wrong, Mykel's Blog Sept 2021

 

You're Still Wrong: Mykel's  September  Blog... Toxic 

 

You’re STILL Wrong

or
Mykel's

September 2021 Blog/Column

A Toxic Environment!

by Mykel Board

“I’m not perverted, I’m just Italian.” --Andrew Cuomo

“No one should ever work.” --Bob Black

“Capitalism is slavery where the slaves have to pay their own room and board” –Mykel Board

“I had complained to friends that the Governor would go out of his way to touch me on my lower back, arms and legs” --Lindsey Boylan

=======================

“I can’t breathe!”

“Quick, clean out his nose… I can see it... filled with coal dust. He’ll smother!”

Cough… answer, “I’m not putting my fingers in another man’s nose! That’s disgusting.”

“He’ll die! Get it? He’ll die!”

Virgil knees on the filthy mine floor. Tentatively, he puts an index finger into Homer’s left nostril… scrapes it around… pulls it out… black with snot and coal dust.

“Now the other one, fast!”

Virgil pushes his finger into the right nostril of the man under him… twists… then back… and again loosens a pile of black dust. The tip of his finger is coated when he pulls it out of the man’s nostril.

“Now push on his chest… hard… make him breathe.”

Virgil puts a hand on either side of Homer’s chest… pushes hard… again… a thin stream of black drool oozes out of the corner of Homer’s mouth. Another chest press… another black drool down the side of the man’s face… then a cough… then another cough. Tears run from the corners of his eyes to the black ground beneath his head.

“He’s gonna make it. We’ll fix up a side-tipper and get him out of here on the tracks. The fresh air will bring him back.”

“Can’t we get him a doctor?”

“Are you kidding? The boss’d kill us! That’s just what we need... a safety-hazard report at some fuckin’ hospital. Joe Biden already wants to shut us down.”

FLASH TO a huge farm... hundreds of acres... somewhere in the West...strawberries. Bare-handed and bare-headed... dozens of workers bent over… stooped,,, to pick the berries. They too cough.

“Ay, madre-mia,” says a 22-year old Maria, just starting to show her pregnancy. She coughs.

“No puedo hacerlo mas. Voy a morir,” she coughs again. It’s the Round-up… pesticide...carcinogenic… dangerous to a fetus as well as to the mother.

No time to worry about cancer now... earn that $7500 for a year’s work. Bend and pick… bend and pick… bend and pick.

Ay, me duele la espalda,” she says.

“Shhh!” says the next worker. “Screw your back pain. You want to pay for that baby? You want to get pushed back to Mexico? Don’t complain! At least you have a job.”

She doesn’t know it yet, but she also has cancer. Her baby will be stillborn. 

And there’s this, directly from the internet

Amazon delivery drivers are reporting working ten to fourteen hours in a shift. This is in part because drivers are not allowed to return any packages from their routes, meaning drivers can make over 160 stops per shift.

With the Mentor app constantly monitoring drivers, every stop has to be accounted for. That leaves most drivers with no time to use the restroom on their ten hour shifts. Drivers need to use public restrooms such as ones inside grocery stores, so if their route does not include an area that has such a location, drivers have to make a long detour that could cost them their job. Because of these strict measures, drivers report using empty water bottles in their vehicles instead of stopping to use the restroom

LeRoy Jackson’s truckseat has molded itself to his ass. He spends nearly 14 hours a day there. On the floor, in front of the passenger seat… in a basket… half-filled with piss… is a jar. It’s that time again.

Pull over… hate to waste a minute or so… but if you gotta go… Could do with a shit too… but this rig’s got spyware up the ass. Too long stopped… not making deliveries… and you’re outta there.

Just a quickie… pull over… pull it out… just over the lip of the jar. Aaahh aaaahhh, shit. Filled the jar, spilled all over the place… and I got a delivery… 17 minutes to make it… computer checked. .. Better pull out... haul ass… Now!

Off the shoulder... into traffic… fuck!!! Nooo! Nooo!!!! BLLLLANNNNG!

Ellen’s face hurts from smiling. Bad jokes… send it back to the kitchen… too cold… too hot… “Miss… excuse me Miss!” She smiles. On her feet all day… rushing from table to table… balancing enough dishes to compete with a circus juggler… She smiles. $2.13 an hour, the U.S. minimum wage for tipped workers. (Look it up) plus what the cheapskates leave on the tables… That’s it. She smiles.

On her feet all day, Ellen comes home beat… ready to go to sleep… to hit the hay. She’s working six days a week to pay the $2000 a month she needs for her one-room NYC apartment. On the seventh day, she barely moves.

She puts up with the tugs on her skirt… the food complaints… the no tips for bad food as if she were personally responsible for the cooking. Sometimes she can wiggle her ass for a few extra dollars… or wink at a regular who stands so close to her when he speaks that she feels the saliva spray on her face. His handlebar mustache and affected cape make him look like a magician. If only he’d disappear. He’s there every day and she wants to kill him.

She’s a robot, she thinks. Same thing… day after day… no… I guess not... robots don’t collapse exhausted. Back to work… “Hey miss,” the tug on the skirt… the wrist-grab of the customer when she hands him the bill… the smile she gives in return. 

Hey you! Got it? Yeah you… you Karen… you whiner who thinks that being touched on the back is toxic. People die from their jobs… lung cancer, skin cancer, exhaustion… death… That’s toxic. Having a brain-dead job just to pay the rent. That’s toxic. Working with coal, asbestos, insecticide… that’s REALLY toxic.

But for you… another person touches you?… eeeewwww cooties. Joking about boyfriends? Intolerable! The job conditions have to fit YOU rather than the other way around.

Those at the bottom… the miners, the truck drivers, the waitresses... can’t just quit and find another job like you can… They die from work or they die from hunger… or a firing squad in a nation you can’t imagine. Or they suffer for two dollars an hour or whatever else they can squeeze out of people they hate.

Let me tell you… You fragile little Faberge egg… YOU are the toxic one. You are the one who has others shaking in their Nordstroms from fear of saying the wrong thing or touching you any more than shaking hands… and even that… don’t you just bump elbows these days? Doing push-ups? Oh, the horror!

Yeah you… You know how many people WISH they could get a $20,000 raise by fucking the boss? And you’re complaining that he asked.

Andrew Cuomo is rich enough to find other things to do. But how much fear is he bringing with him anywhere he goes. How much do John and Jane Doe fear from doing or saying anything inappropriate?

All jobs are bullshit. It’s the nature of work. Yours isn’t hunky dory? Then quit and get another bullshit job. Work 60 hours a week shifting ones and zeros from one computer to the next. As long as no one speaks to you.. or (Goddess forbid) touches you… you’re okay. Then the work isn’t toxic, right?

You wear a skirt and high heels to work… and (get this!) he looks at you!! How will you ever recover?

Do me a favor. Sniff some asbestos before you go to sleep. Do it often enough and you’ll learn a bit about toxic.

See you in hell,

Mykel Board

ENDNOTES: [You can contact me on facebook or by email at mykelboard@gmail.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. Send me an email with SUBSCRIBE in the subject line. Back blogs and columns are at https://mykelsblog.blogspot.com]

–> Can’t find a webpage dept: A great story on the deteriorating conditions in the mining business appears in In These Times the September 2021 issue. I can’t find it on-line, so try to get a print copy. Called Dying To Make A Living, the coal conditions the article reports on are just horrible. 
          Wait, a reader, Don Smith, has found a link to the article. Here it is: https://inthesetimes.com/article/contracted-coal-miners-illinois-injury-danger

–> Dying for a job dept: The World Economic Forum reports that more than 2.3 million workers die every year as a result of occupational accidents or work-related diseases. That’s the entire population of Houston, Texas... killed every year from WORK. The alternative? Ah, how many times have I referenced this? You should have it memorized by now.

–> Evil Governor dept: While the women of America are sticking their pins in Cuomo dolls, the former governor has used his last days in office to grant pardons to 22 immigrants who were at risk of being deported. "New York stands strong in our support for immigrant communities," Cuomo wrote in a statement.

–> Not related dept: This one is from the Darwin Awards… that distinguished group of intellectuals who award the prize to those who clean up the future of the human race by offing themselves in their stupidity. I like this one it because it highlights another pet peeve! Cellphone fuckin’ selfies. Besides describing the awardee’s adventures, the Darwin folks offer some great advice:

25 March 2017, Mexico: Standing on a truck on an airport runway, our Double-Darwin Award Winners, Nitzia and Clarissa, chose a regrettable location for a cell phone selfie. Ms. Corral, 18, and Ms. Miranda, 17, were attending horse races that were held on a track adjacent to the runway. The noise of the races and the desire for a new profile picture distracted the young women. They did not hear the motor of the descending aircraft, and the wing of the small plane that struck and killed them instantly.

People, wake up to the plain hard fact that a mobile phone is a deadly distraction! Mobile devices take our awareness away from the physical world, and the Darwin Awards archives are stuffed overflowing with testimony proving the tragic truth of this.

Cell phones will kill you! Put them away and allow your senses to receive input from tangible reality. Please share this regrettable cautionary lesson, a public service announcement, #yourdeathmatters

–>Speaking of cellphones dept: Apple will be putting spyware in its operating system. Ostensibly to combat kiddie porn, the spyware will be looking at your pictures and videos and reporting any nastiness it sees to “the proper authorities.” And what will it be doing with the information it gleans from those non-kiddie pix? Hey, what a coincidence, that Antifa demonstration I just filmed showed up at the FBI. Imagine that? How did that happen?
The Electronic Frontier’s details on this are here.

See you in hell, redux,

MB

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:

Here’s Richard Goldberg: goldberg.wordpress.com

Poetry and humor fans will like Justin Martin in The Latency

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. If there’s no link here (I can’t find it temporarily), then Google… er… Duckduckgo him for information.

And my long-term pal Sid Yiddish contributes with his Mishegas Master Blog.

And connect to TRUST Zine, a long-running German punk zine… that STILL PRINTS!!! Yeah, they have a website too… of course! It’s here.

Here are a couple video links.

This from Jon Cox https://squelchchamber1.bandcamp.com/album/down-so-low

And this one from my very long-time friend Roger Armstrong.

Jim Testa moved his long running zine, Jersey Beat, to the blogosphere awhile back. You can read it here. Jim also recommended a kind of unique album… in a style you don’t see to much of these days… or any days. Neo-Hassidic Rock Opera. You can stream the album here.

Kyle Nonneman is in prison in Portland. At least he can’t be kidnapped by the secret police… I think. I post his blog for him, he can’t do it from the klink. Lots of stuff about noise metal… and some very weird politics that will either fascinate or repulse you… or both.

My long time pal, Jim Hayes rightfully complained about my leaving out his blog. He’s a great writer, so it was a tragic omission. Here it is.

Oh yeah, then there’s me. I have a blog of stuff I’ve written mostly from last century. You might enjoy it. Then again, you might not. It’s here.

Let me know if you have a blog… or a print zine… or a YouTube and want to be added to the list. You show me yours… you’ve already seen mine. god@mykelboard.com