You Are Not Responsible or Mykel's June 2023 Blog

 I Was Wrong or Mykel's Blog for June 2023

 

You’re STILL Wrong

or

Mykel's June 2023 Blog/Column 

You Are Not Responsible       

by Mykel Board

“A sign of wisdom and maturity is when you come to terms with the realization that your decisions cause your rewards and consequences. You are responsible for your life, and your ultimate success depends on the choices you make.” - Denis Waitley
               “Bullshit!” – Mykel Board (a lesson learned)

“A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them.”
            – John C. Maxwell

“All men make mistakes, but a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong, and repairs the evil.”
            – Sophocles

“You make mistakes. Mistakes don’t make you.”
                  – Maxwell Maltz

Check out young Mykel Board… not even fifty… hunting and pecking his way to infamy. Writing about getting mugged… leather jacket ripped from his shoulders... getting punched by some random homeless guy. “Ya got a cigarette bud?” Mykel shakes his head no. KABOOM. Fist to chin, driving the young man’s lower canine teeth into his upper lip.

Yeah I know he’s homeless, writes Mykel, Had a tough life. But we’ve all got problems, tough spots. We all don’t randomly sock people in the face… or rip the clothes from their backs. SOCIETY has to stop someplace and PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY take over.

What a load of horseshit!

Yeah, I WAS WRONG. I made a mistake. It took me 20+ years to realize it, but I got it now. Me and Sophocles… we gotta clean up our act. I’ve been right about so much. (Can you say Crassdriver?) But in this, I fucked up… missed something… and it’s time to correct it.

FLASH TO MORTON-WILLIAMS, my local super market: open 24 hours 7 days. I shop after sunset... fewer people to squeeze the fruit.

My carrier basket: bananas, mandarin oranges, organic blueberries... organic maple syrup, some almonds… unsalted of course… Now to the dairy aisle... yogurt 2% fat… then the meat organic chicken… $20 a pound… Do I care? I have food fuckin’ stamps. I can buy anything. Fish? Wild caught salmon, oh yeah.

On to the TV dinners.... I used to buy Amy’s. They’re frozen, organic, healthy... no sugar.. low salt. Just what the doctor ordered... Oops. Strike that. News report: Amy’s is shitty to its employees. Low pay… union busting… slave-labor hours. I pass them up. Move on to EVOL, a bit more expensive but Consumer Reports gives ‘em good grades… and I like their packaging, low-tech/homey-looking. Something chicken… something fish… full basket.

On to the cashier, Donna, my favorite. We talk about what’s on sale this week… what’s good... what sucks...what happened to Cafe Bustelo prices.

During the plague, I gave Donna a $5 tip… to thank her for taking such a risky job… and for being an essential worker. She knows me.

After registering my purchases, she waits for me to slide in the footstamps card, punch in my PIN number and then press PRINT for the receipt. On the bottom of the receipt they print how much I’ve got left in my foodstamp account and when the next payment will come. It’s usually about $150 a month on the 10^th .., good enough to cover almost everything… except beer. Donna sets the receipt inside the bag.

I take off.

“Good night Donna,” I say over my shoulder… leaving the store to carry the groceries home. “See you soon.”

It’s about a 10 minute walk from Donna to my apartment. Elevator up to the fifth floor… open the door and start unpacking my purchases.

I put away the food, stuffing the freezer...half-filling the refrigerator. Then I check the receipt. I figure I should have about $400 left in the account, with the other hundred fifty coming in the next day or two. I figure wrong: $327. The next payment will be in ten days… for $36.

Jezzus fuckin’ Christ! What happened? Benefit cut by near 75%. No change in my income (or maybe a little less)… I didn’t get any younger in the last year. $36 dollars???? That’s lunch at a New York diner… without the tip.

Overnight, my grocery habits change. Organic? I can’t afford that anymore. Maple syrup? Am I kidding? Time for pure high-fructose corn syrup. EVOL… are you kidding? I’ll stoop to HUNGRY MAN.

I can feel the plaque build in my arteries.

Jim Goad is usually right. I was a fan of his last century zine ANSWER ME! His book, Redneck Manifesto, was a combination of John Wayne and Bernie Sanders… though Goad would probably disagree. He was one of my influences during my time of personal responsibility. He wrote about FAT PEOPLE and how he objects to socialized medicine because he doesn’t want to pay for people who are unhealthy because they eat too much. That’s THEIR responsibility.

That’s wrong.

In the old days, caricatures of rich people always made them out to be fat.

Is Bill Gates fat? Jeff Bezos? Wanna see fat? Take the subway to any poor neighborhood. Eating thin… eating healthy... takes MONEY… You can’t do that on $36 a month.

And yo! There’s more to unhealthy than being fat. Muscles take steroids. STDs come to those who can afford whores. Cancer comes from cooking in teflon pots. Covid doesn’t come from your not wearing a mask. It comes from a virus that walked out of a lab in China. In America, YOU are the cause of your disease… but you’re not.

It’s more than even teflon, China, or steroids. It’s the social system… the income disparity... that’s responsible for your disease and your not being able to afford to treat it properly. You are no more responsible for diseases than you are for your height.

FLASH TO THE SUBWAY. I always keep about half a dozen singles in the watchpocket of my jeans. There are guys on the street… in the subway… who need a buck more than I do. Sometimes subway performers do something extra to entertain…dance… play mariachi, tell jokes... make people feel they’re paying for a performance.

Other times the beggars just stumble from car to car… drooling… asking for anything you can spare… anything at all. Sometimes there’s a looneybird... belligerent about it... shouting at people for not helping him… cursing the world because he’s alone… on the street… no home… no nothing.

Today, in this car, rides Daniel Penny. Penny is a former marine… not long out of service… went to high school on Long Island…not far from Hicksville, my hometown. He’s an ordinary young man who I hear went hitching through Central America while he was in college.

Also in this car is Jordan Neely, a sometime Michael Jackson impersonator… now a drooling hostile train beggar. I’d give him a dollar. The passengers in this car are not as generous as that. No one reaches into his watch pocket.

Neely gets angry… yells at them… maybe threatens them. “I’ll kill you… you white SOBs!”

Little kids cringe… maybe a baby cries at the sound of the yelling. Penny watches all of it…. Until he doesn’t.

“No!” He projects to Neely, “You’re not going to threaten these people. I’m going to save them... hold you so you can’t get out. They’ve done nothing to you and you want to hurt them. I will save them.”

Penny jumps up… wrestles Neely to the floor… wraps one arm around his neck… the other over his head… a chokehold… like they taught him in the marines… hold it until all movement stops… until you’re sure he won’t fight back. Got him… women and children safe… saved.” Neely dies.

In his mind, Penny’s saved the passengers. Protected them like the Marines protect people in the countries they invade. He’s a hero… No he’s not.

The demonstrations begin. ARREST HIM! HE’S A MURDERER! It’s the new white knee on George Floyd’s neck. I CAN’T BREATHE!

Subway stations fill with people. LOCK HIM UP! Protesters jump from the platform onto the tracks… risk electrocution… LOCK HIM UP! LOCK HIM UP!

Penny is in shock. He thought he was a hero and now he’s a villain. He shudda known.

When the BLACK LIVES MATTER marches began, I was on them. But, even then, I had an inkling of the real problem. I wrote that it wasn’t the police that were the problem, but POLICING. Cops don’t know how to deal with people except through violence. They learn that in cop school… during target practice. Throwing a cop in jail for doing his job may make some people feel better, but it won’t stop the problem until policing itself takes a different tack.

Now I think I was only part right. Yes, policing is the problem. But it’s bigger than that. It’s the idea of personal responsibility. That’s the problem.

You grow up in a society that seeks revenge. That says wrong-doers must be PUNISHED. That says INDIVIDUALS are responsible for their actions and it doesn’t matter where those actions come from. Hey buckaroos, get this: Individual fish are not responsible if they shit in the water.

Daniel Penny was acting like he believed heroes should act. Like heroes act in the movies, in TV news reports, in White House award ceremonies. Like Marines act when confronted with danger or when ordered into war. Daniel Penny acted like every marine in every invasion. They are doing it to defend America. To protect freedom. To shield the helpless. They are supposed to be the heroes. It’s the American way.

You don’t talk. You just kill the bad guy. Look at the government… and model of Correct Action^®. Russia attacks another country. Do you jump in to negotiate? Do you try to talk to both sides? Reach a compromise? You bet your rocket launcher you don’t. Instead, you boost your Defense (sic) Industry by giving away weapons of death. There’s trouble… the answer is KILL PEOPLE!

Get it? The villain is not the guy who pulls the trigger when he believes he’s in trouble. The villain is the culture that says that the way out of trouble is by pulling a trigger. The problem for revenge-loving lock-him-uppers is that you can’t put a culture in jail.

The question becomes: if there’s no personal responsibility, should you feel remorse? If you don’t CHOOSE your actions, then how can you feel guilty about them?

NO! That isn’t the question at all. Of course you should feel guilty. But you should feel guilty for being a sucker. You should feel guilty for separating your garbage and thinking that “every little bit helps” in recycling. SUCKER!

Recycling is a scam. It’s a trick to make you feel YOU’RE RESPONSIBLE if you don’t wash off that plastic container and put it in the specially marked bin. Recycling is a plot to make you not feel guilty about consumption. It’s okay to buy shit as long as you recycle the shit package. It’s YOU who is responsible, they say. Not Pepsi. Not the plastic sealed, plastic containered yogurt companies.

So it is with welfare. It’s okay to object to free money. If you work for money, why shouldn’t everyone work for money. WRONG QUESTION: The right one is: if they get money for NOT working, why shouldn’t you get money for not working? Ask the culture. Ask about the American Way. Don’t blame the victims. WE’RE the victims.

It’s time to give up the personal responsibility idea and look at who/what’s REALLY responsible. We need to shift the blame from you and me to THE CULTURE, THE POLITICIANS, THE NEWS MEDIA, THE RICH. It’s time to realize that neither the choker nor the chokee are to blame. It’s time to realize they’re both on the same helpless side.

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]

→ Mighty Christian of Y’all Dept: People Magazine reports: Oklahoma State Representative, Jim Olsen helped defeat a bill outlawing corporal punishment of retarded kids. His logic? THE BIBLE! “The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame.” Kids, you can’t lust for them, but you can sure beat the shit out of them.

→ A Problem I’ll Never Have Dept: The British newspaper The Independent reports that British TV will air a documentary about people with very large penises. The documentary titled Too Large for Love, shows a “hidden minority of men who have an extra-large penis that is ruining their lives”.

→ Anything Fun is Bad for You Dept: Of course, this had to come. New research finds that muff-diving causes infection... a perfect example of blaming the individual. It’s not the perfumes, “sanitary” napkins, artificial lubricants that cause vaginal infections? No! It’s tongues! She gets sick.. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE. PLEASURE MAKES YOU SICK. Yeah, right.

See you in hell, redux,

MB

THE NATION AGAIN

I’m a long-time subscriber to the The Nation. It’s the only lefty publication that I find myself not only agreeing with, but also getting inspiration from. Strangely, when I post this stuff on facebook, no one looks at it. My “friends” would just rather call me a “Trumpist” or a “Republican” for all the times I don’t follow the party line. If it’s printed in THE NATION, it should give me street cred, right? Yeah right.

This time there’s fine op-ed style editorial about the US proxy war in Ukraine.

You’ll also find a great investigative piece showing what we all knew from the beginning about the INTERNATIONAL cover-up of Covid’s origins.

And finally, a slightly different point of view than mine, but a related piece about the subway choking.

You can read more, or even subscribe at: https://www.thenation.com/



LINK TRADE DEPARTMENT:

I did a nice interview with The Aither zine. Interesting questions, complete, and questions I’ve never been asked before. You can read it here. It’s a good one.

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:

Jason Rodgers sent me his book Invisible Generation… free! And I lost it. Jason, a long-time partner of Suzy Poe, has been bugging me to review it… and I can’t. So the best I can do is promote it. I have a lot of respect for Jason… he is a libertarian (in the best sense of the word), and a super-smart guy. When/if I find the book, I’ll give you some more details.

Video of the week: My long-time friend Sid Yiddish appears on a YouTube DatingGame-like video. Guess who wins the bachlorette!

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

Repeating Myself or Mykel's Blog for May 2023

 

You’re STILL Wrong

or

Mykel's May 2023 Blog/Column 

Repeating Myself

by Mykel Board

“Tomorrow you promise yourself will be different, yet tomorrow is too often a repetition of today.”
                                  - James T. McCay

Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat It.                                     – George Santayana

“Don’t repeat yourself. It’s not only repetitive, it’s redundant, and people have heard it before.”
                                  - Lemony Snicket,

The nouns go first. Proper nouns…names.

I lie in bed… turn on my side… raise a hand to touch my face… instead I touch skin… someone else’s... warm, supple. I raise the hand to a shoulder... round and soft with a little roughness… maybe a pimple just above the scapula. I pull my body next to the other one. Bury my face against the neck beside me.

“Ah you are wonderful. You are my… my… my… “ The name? I can’t remember the name.

“Oh Mykel,” comes the answer. “I never want to leave you. It’s not only this…” A hand comes between my legs and squeezes gently. “It’s you. You. Yes Mykel! Mykel! Mykel!”

I want to answer with a name… but I can’t remember it! It starts with an M… I think. One syllable… a nickname… Max? Maybe two syllables… Mani? Morgan?

That’s what I want to write about this month. Not only my own ever-failing memory. (Did I tell that story before?) But my writing… and more… our COLLECTIVE memory where, if I hear the word unprecedented one more time, I’ll bite the tits of the utterer… hard!

It’s mostly on the news. With unprecedented climate change, unprecedented insurrection, unprecedented aggression… and more.

FLASH TO 1968, May 17. Nine Catholics, including Philip and Daniel Berrigan. both priests, go to the Catonsville office of the Selective Service… the army draft center. They restrain an employee while gathering records into wire bins, They then take the bins to the parking lot and set them on fire. After that, they recite the Lord's Prayer and explain to news crews that they’re protesting the Vietnam war. Three hundred and seventy-eight draft records are destroyed. Destroying government property! Wow! That never happened before… or since… right? Can you say January sixth 2020?

FLASH TO ME! (Did I already write about this? I don’t remember.) I’ve just graduated from High School... on my way to my first year at Beloit College. But before that, a stop in Chicago… the Democratic Convention. I spent the last year or so in New York… as a Yippie. Going to meetings by Union Square, hangin’ out with Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman… reading their books.

I listen to/read Jerry Rubin telling me to just DO IT! Then there was Abbie Hoffie talking about Revolution for The Hell of It. We’re going to change everything. Overthrow the government… but with a smile. We’re pranksters too.

Abbie jokes about a plan to put LSD in the Chicago water supply. They… the press… the government believe our joke. The army corps of engineers comes to see if it’s possible. It could be done, they report… the suckers.

Wait! Is that QAnon revealing child-sales at the Wayfair Furniture Company? Is Hillary Clinton funneling children through a pizza parlor? Get it? QAnon is the yippies of the 21^st Century… as funny as costumed pirates throwing British tea in Boston Harbor.

Back in the 60s there were trials… one main trial actually... the Chicago Seven… with a side trial of Bobby Seale who is gagged and tied to his seat. I remember Jerry Rubin appearing dressed as a South American guerilla… with shoulder bullet belts over his naked chest. Abbie Hoffman is draped in an American flag. Sound familiar? Maybe like a fur vest and hat with horns on it?

Is there a Congressional investigation of the Yippies? Calls for years in prison? I don’t remember any. There is a big trial… with Judge Julius Hoffman pounding the gavel and calling contempt... as prejudiced as any Liz (What’s her name? Wait, I’ll look it up.) Cheney. There are some convictions and sentences… some exonerations. They call it a circus… kangaroo justice.

On appeal, in 1972, all of the criminal convictions were reversed. The majority opinion of the appeals court unanimously found several errors by Judge Hoffman and censured the judge and the prosecutors for their conduct during the trial.

After the battle of Chicago, we are more convinced than ever that there’s going to be a revolution and “Amerikkka” will never be the same. We’re going to lead the insurrection.

But wait, there’s more:

In 2022, The Shadow runs a story by Paul DeRienzo. It’s titled The Time The Left Took The White House. You can read it here. In short, the story talks about a left-wing invasion of the White House in 1982, during the Reagan regime… government property destroyed! Eeeek!

Get it?

The costumed invasion of Congress is nothing new. And the destruction of government property by the capitol invaders. What a horror! Destroying government property… just like the Berrigan priests.

Let’s take those lefty Catholic protesters… again!

On September 9th, 1980, the brothers Berrigan entered the General Electric missile factory in Pennsylvania. They hammered on two nuclear nose cones... poured their own blood on warhead documents and order forms, and prayed for disarmament and peace.

You think that’s different from pissing on a congressman’s desk?

And then there are whistle-blowers. Chelsea Manning went to jail for exposing the evils of the Afghan war. Barack Obama, in one of his few good moves, pardoned her. Still, whistle-blowers have a bad rep these days. They’re vilified as Russian spies or enemies of the state. They’re not new.

In 1969, Marine Corps veteran Daniel Ellsberg released stolen top secret government papers, later known as The Pentagon Papers. They revealed that, early on, the government knew that the war most likely could not be won. Further, as an editor of The New York Times wrote, these documents "demonstrated, among other things, that the Johnson Administration had systematically lied, not only to the public, but also to Congress.”

Ellsberg was a hero… all charges against him were dismissed. Today’s whistle-blowers, like Edward Snowden and Julian Assange, following the same kind of heroic journalism as Ellsberg and Manning, are vilified by Democrats and the (barely) left as enemies, and “Trumpists.”

It all repeats. Down to the Hunter Biden scandal.. an errant member of the presidential family. How embarrassing! THAT never happened before. Can you say Billy Carter? The brother of my favorite president was up to his pupik in scandal from alcoholism to secret deals with foreign countries. Hunter Biden’s laptop and his dealings with Ukraine is a rerun of Billy Carter’s adventures in Libya... and his love of booze. It doesn’t stop!

History repeats itself, you see. But it gets reported from different sides. And most of the people who supported the originals, now tsk tsk over the reruns… with a new cast.. Or even worse, they deny that the reruns are reruns at all.

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]

→ Legal but not moral dept: Dorothy Parker and I were discussing the idea of privacy last week. And I just came across this article about protesters picketing the house of a State Senator because they didn’t like his stance on some climate and other issues. Every person should have the right to be secure in his living place. It’s so easy to be driven out of a neighborhood… or harassed by neighbors.
              In the 1990s, A. J. Weberman (yes, THAT A.J. Weberman) spray painted the outside of my building Mykel Board Is A Nazi, because he found my name on the mailing list of a rightwing racist newspaper… as if reading what other people think makes you one of them.
           I would never advise you to go over to his place and spray paint on his building in retribution. If any of my friends can dig up his address, please post it on facebook as a comment so people know where NOT to go to pay him a visit. I repeat, I’d never advocate such a thing.

→ I was wrong department: I’ll admit it. I’m pushing 80, and during that ¾+ century I’ve been wrong at least twice. Once was when I complained about Political Correctness. It was PC this and PC that. It became a kind of shorthand, and without explanation I used PC-itude to dismiss behavior I didn’t like… lazy thinking.
So, in my annoyance at someone using the word houseless when it should have been homeless. I wrote, Anybody heard the word "houseless" or "unhoused" as the woke word meaning "homeless?" This is just crazy! I live in a tiny NYC apartment. I rent. It's an apartment not a house. Am I houseless?
    In response, someone sent a photoshopped picture:

Okay, you’re right. I learned my lesson. If I use the word again, you have my permission to insert a thick-but-sterile wire into my urethra. That should get me woke.

And, oh yeah, a nice cartoon from In These Times. Wokeness Explained: 

See you in hell, redux,

MB

THE NATION AGAIN

I’m a long-time subscriber to the The Nation. It’s the only lefty publication that I find myself not only agreeing with, but also getting inspiration from. Strangely, when I post this stuff on facebook, no one looks at it. My “friends” would just rather call me a “Trumpist” or a “Republican” for all the times I don’t follow the party line. If it’s printed in THE NATION, it should give me street cred, right? Yeah right.

This time there’s a great article that involves true investigative reporting. The Democratic war-masters blast the Russians for helping steal Hillary Clinton emails to support Trump in his election. But there was another country involved in the spying and promotion of Trump. The NATION reveals who it is.

Then there’s a nice column by Adolph Reed Jr. (people still name their kids Adolph???) about the stupidity promoting diversity among rich people… or others who do bad things… like real estate developers.

And finally, the often correct Jeet Heer, takes aim at those Republican AND Democratic government officials calling for a US invasion of Mexico. And you thought it was the Russians who were invasion happy. Maybe the US will get support from Ukrainian troops in the invasion.

Late addition: There’s a great editorial by Jeff Faux about the US and Joe Biden’s love of war and its cost to Americans. War is, lately, something most everybody can get behind. Right? You wavin' your Ukrainian flag?

LINK TRADE DEPARTMENT:

I did a nice interview with The Aither zine. Interesting questions, complete, and questions I’ve never been asked before. You can read it here. It’s a good one.

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:

Jason Rodgers sent me his book Invisible Generation… free! And I lost it. Jason, a long-time partner of Suzy Poe, has been bugging me to review it… and I can’t. So the best I can do is promote it. I have a lot of respect for Jason… he is a libertarian (in the best sense of the word), and a super-smart guy. When/if I find the book, I’ll give you some more details.

Video of the week: My long-time friend Sid Yiddish appears on a YouTube DatingGame-like video. Guess who wins the bachlorette!

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.  mykelboard@gmail.com

Going to Pieces or Mykel's April 2023 Blog

 

Going to Pieces or Mykel's April 2023 Blog

  

You’re STILL Wrong

or

Mykel's April 2023 Blog/Column 

Going To Pieces

by Mykel Board

Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing. There is a time for silence. A time to let go and allow people to hurl themselves into their own destiny. And a time to prepare to pick up the pieces when it's all over. – Octavia E. Butler

It is better we disintegrate in peace and not in pieces.
–Nnamdi Azikiwe

Thaw with her gentle persuasion is more powerful than Thor with his hammer. The one melts, the other breaks into pieces.

– Henry David Thoreau

As you stay on in a given place, things and people go to pieces round you; they rot and start to stink for your own special benefit. –Louis-Ferdinand Celine

Ah, April, despite its showers, it brings winter’s thaw. People say it’s the rainy month. Really, it’s change. I love April. Lowing like a cow, it moos itself into your consciousness. Forget the winter. Only vague memories of the chill remain. Other cold thoughts disappear. Let’s see what my thoughts are… Still, April might not be the month for me.

“I wouldn’t call it pain,” says, Dr. Provet, the urologist, “I’d call it discomfort.”

I kneel on the examining table, naked from the waist down. Next to me, on a metal table are the tools of the trade: A hypodermic with a needle as long as my thigh, what looks like a drill topped with a thin test tube, several empty sample jars, rubber gloves, what seems like a half-deflated balloon at the end of a drinking straw.

“Take a deep breath,” says Dr. Provet. “First we’ll start with the anesthetic. You’ll feel a little pinch when it goes in.”

It occurs to me that I’ve heard the little pinch spiel before… when the dentist gives me an injection before the drilling starts… always before the anesthesia. Maybe it’s part of the instructions on the box. Before injecting this material-- no matter which end--, please tell the patient “You’ll feel a little pinch.”

The doctor picks up the syringe with the huge needle. I feel a poke, then, pressure against my sphincter… an entrance… and insertion… like I imagine I’d feel being butt-fucked by a chihuahua. Then, the stab! Yes, the stab... nothing like a pinch, but like being stabbed in the prostate with a needle. Like? Not like… but actually being stabbed in the prostate with a needle. Then the withdrawal.

“We’ll give it a few seconds to numb you,” says the doctor.

For once in my life, I can’t think of a snappy comeback.

“Now comes the camera,” says the doc, picking up the balloon-like object. You might feel a little full.

“Yeah, like I’ve never done anal,” I don’t say to him. “Like I’ve never had to hold back explosive diarrhea. I have no idea what it’s like to feel a little full back… back… back.” I hold my breath as the balloon expands in my rectum.

In somewhere between 20 seconds and 20 minutes the balloon deflates and withdraws. The doc says. “Now, we’ll take the samples. It’ll feel like a stapler inside, but it won’t hurt.”

Oh sure, I think, feels like a stapler. Everybody’s had a stapler inserted into their asshole and felt the KER-CHANG as it deposits its U-shaped load. Of course, I know the feeling.

BA-TOOM! BA-TOOM! BA-TOOM!
BA-TOOM! BA-TOOM! BA-TOOM!
BA-TOOM! BA-TOOM!

Ah, I get it… then the withdrawal.

“Okay, that’s it,” says the doc. “Make sure you read the instructions so you know what to expect.

Three days of blood in the urine. Three days of prostate pain. Three weeks of blood in the semen.

FLASH AHEAD THREE WEEKS: Xvideos dot com… those femmy boy/butch girl videos… oh yeah… oh yeah… oh yeah. What the fuck???

You haven’t lived until you cum blood. Until you go about your business and wipe maroon on your bedside toilet paper. It’s a horror movie… porno holocaust... there between your own legs… Holy shit… cumming blood, feels the same, but sure as scarlet stain… doesn’t look the same.

FLASH AHEAD ANOTHER WEEK: My life is almost back to normal, though I’m still cumming blood. I can go to the gym, the post office, the Asian spice store.

Walking back from the post office… through SOHO. I take the cobblestone streets. The sidewalk is filled with old stairs, and high loading docks. As is my custom, I climb up and over them all. Making physical progress, and convincing myself I’m getting exercise at the same time.

Yeoh! What the fuck was that? I stubbed my little toe on some kind of pipe. One of those twin head water pipes that come out of the sidewalk at odd places... near old factories, now turned into fashion emporiums.

This is serious. I can barely stand on that foot. I feel what seems like blood oozing into my sock. Slowly, I limp home, gritting my teeth against the pain. Somehow I make it to the front door. I insert my key into the door. For a second, I think of the insertions during my biopsy. The pain right now is too great to hold that thought.

Up the elevator, into my apartment, sitting on the couch, I rip off my sneaker to see my once-white sock is now dripping red. I peel off the sock and look at the blood puddled along the right side of my foot. I put a bunch of toilet paper in my mouth to stifle a scream. (What single male doesn’t keep a roll of toilet paper by the bed?)

There’s something small and hard inside the sock. I shake it and falling out of it, along with a shitload of blood, is my little toe. I don’t know what to make of it. It’s not like I’ll miss my little toe, what do I use it for anyway. But it is disconcerting… like a bloody orgasm.

FLASH AHEAD ANOTHER WEEK: It should be about time for Xvideos to update Vintage School Students list. And I hope it’ll be time for me to stop cumming blood.

Oh yeah, that’s what I like. 1970s, young like I was. There’s the teacher, giving the sex education lesson... calling on the student trouble makers to stand in front of the class and be models for the lesson.

Oooo, there’s the group I like… a racially mixed… all too rare in 70s porn. First lesson: foreplay. Then comes: oral. Then missionary, yes! Yes! Then anal… then… what the fuck?

I stroke myself and then suddenly can’t stroke any more. It’s as if my hand is moving in air. My hand IS moving in air. It holds a penis, but the penis isn’t attached anywhere. There’s a bloody puddle between my legs and a now bloodless penis lies limp in my right fist.

Terrified, I throw it to the floor. It makes a soft squishing sound as it lands.

In the days that follow… one by one… parts of myself disconnect themselves. It’s as if my body was rejecting a transplant… but in this case it’s NOT a transplant. My body is rejecting ME.

I sit at the keyboard, trying to write this blog… one by one my fingers detach themselves, leaving bloody stumps on my hands…. Like a yakuza gangster who’s run out of repentance.

Things don’t stop there.

As I type this now, my head… the only part left… holds a pencil in its mouth. Letter by letter I press the eraser to the keys and type these words. My chin resting on a table directly in front of my computer.

Body parts litter my apartment: a kneecap here, an elbow there. My penis lies… tinier than ever… on the floor next to a fat brown internal organ I don’t even recognize. Key by key, I write what must be written. What’s left of a life that can’t last very long. What’s left of me, and what’s...

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]

→ What’s the world coming to dept: In the same week, I saw both a cop and a doctor with a man-bun. Doesn’t the doctor have to earn the confidence of his patients? Don’t these people have to testify in court? Doesn’t the cop play the bad guy in one of those good-guy bad-guy interrogations? If you were a serial killer, would you take him seriously?

→ Who are the censors dept? What’s most important in the government of a free society? Of course, the freedom to discuss and debate is most important most everywhere. Some Democrats may think the freedom to cut the testicles off little boys who play with dolls is important… but free discussion? Check this out from Stop Republicans… a Democrat front group:

→ Flogging the corpse of GG dept: The great bandleader/comic book artist Scott Corkern has finished his GG Allin Comic book. I’ve contributed to it, as have a host of others. BUT, Scott is the key… the genius. It’s expensive (list price around $30). I’ve got a few that’ll go for $20 each. But you have to get to me quick to get one. If you’re interested send me email: god@mykelboard.com with GG COMIC in the subject line. The first five emails will get one cheap(er).

See you in hell, redux,

MB

THE NATION AGAIN

I’m a long-time subscriber to the The Nation. It’s the only lefty publication that I find myself not only agreeing with, but also getting inspiration from. Strangely, when I post this stuff on facebook, no one looks at it. My “friends” would just rather call me a “Trumpist” or a “Republican” for all the times I don’t follow the party line. If it’s printed in THE NATION, it should give me street cred, right? Yeah right.

There is a great article by the new editor, about so-called “Democratic Unity.” It blasts the centrists for taking over, and the wimps on the left for letting them show off “their unity muscle.” Who wants unity if it’s for a bad cause.

The same issue has a piece by Sasha Abramsky about Universal Basic Income. A plan where everyone gets some money (not enough, I’d say) just for living. The rich pay to put a floor under the poor. Yes! Yes! Yes!

LINK TRADE DEPARTMENT:

I did a nice interview with The Aither zine. Interesting questions, complete, and questions I’ve never been asked before. You can read it here. It’s a good one.

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:

Jason Rodgers sent me his book Invisible Generation… free! And I lost it. Jason, a long-time partner of Suzy Poe, has been bugging me to review it… and I can’t. So the best I can do is promote it. I have a lot of respect for Jason… he is a libertarian (in the best sense of the word), and a super-smart guy. When/if I find the book, I’ll give you some more details.

Video of the week: My long-time friend Sid Yiddish appears on a YouTube DatingGame-like video. Guess who wins the bachlorette!

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