Mykel's MRR Column for #312, (MAY, 2009)

You're Wrong
An Irregular Column

for MRR 312, May 2009
written in Feb. 2009

by Mykel Board


"I feel very old sometimes... I carry on and would not like to die before having emptied a few more buckets of shit on the heads of my fellow men.” --Gustave Flaubert

 “You talkin' to me?”

 I stand at the far end of a row of urinals. The farthest end. Urinal Number 8. Away from the prying eyes and ears of the other full bladders. The only other person in this row is way over there at Number 2. Far enough.

 A glorious river of the evening's beers floods out of me. As the liquid joyously pours out, a tiny fart nestles itself just inside my back door. A little stomach jerk and it's out. 

 Pfffft! 

 Slightly louder than I expect, but not a jet engine. 

 “You talkin' to me?” says the guy at number two. 

 Wiseguy. I pretend I don't hear him, but it wrecks the ecstasy of the moment. The joy of simultaneity. The beauteous bliss of synchronous urethral and rectal expulsion. Pffft! Gone in the wisecrack of a jerk at the other end of the porcelain street. 

 Experienced at making lemonade from a life full of lemons, I pick up the spoiled moment and roll it into a ball. Then, I press in the edges, and shape it. Sculpting with my thumbs and forefingers,

I whittle this spoiled moment into a metaphor. It's life, sex, politics. It's getting what you want. Then spoiling it.. easy as piss. We won that election. President Obama... just saying that gives me a thrill. President Obama. President Obama. Obama. Obamarama. Obamamamamamama. The sound slips through my lips like a fart at a urinal. It would be so easy to sit back and wait for my bailout. 

 It ain't gonna happen. It's a big country. A big new government. And I gotta log of shit to throw. 

 Cut to the senate: Imagine there's a senator. (It's easy if you try.) Now imagine his views are so outrageous that you wonder how even Americans could be evil enough to elect such a guy.

 Examples? Make “illegal immigrants” pay a fine for their illegality. Yep, force the bottom rung, hard-working poor to pay for coming to the U.S. Like this guy's grandparents DIDN'T pay, I bet. Like mine didn't pay... or yours either. 

 Annie Moore, the first Irish immigrant through Ellis Island... they gave her a ten dollar gold piece and said Good Luck! Welcome to America. But Mexicans? Well, they're not white, so I guess they don't count.

 But there's more with this guy. Consider the two kinds of immigrants: the big majority, who work, pay taxes, contribute to the economy... and the tiny minority, who steal, scam welfare, use resources. Imagine punishing one group. Which would you pick?

 This senator picks the working immigrants! He wants to terrorize THE EMPLOYERS. Make 'em pay stiff penalties for the evil deed of giving people a job. Fines will encourage the bosses to fire the peons. Put more people on the streets. Penniless. Collecting welfare... or stealing-- instead of paying taxes. Does this guy have stock in jail-building companies-- or what?

 There's more with him. 

 If you go to the grocery store, and not dumpster dive for your food, you've been paying more than ever for it. In places in Africa, and Asia, people can't pay. They then suffer a food deficiency disease called STARVATION. 

 In Central Africa, a young man has left the countryside to look for work in the city. There is nothing. He has no money. Slowly his stomach distends. His belly button looks like it's going to push itself out of his skin. Somehow, he pan-handles enough money for a loaf of bread. Enough for a loaf of bread yesterday. Today, the price has gone up. It's harder to get bread. Nobody grows wheat these days. Land that could be used for wheat is used for corn. But not corn this guy, or anybody can eat. Corn that's grown to be burned. 

 Yeah, stuff stuffed inside your car and burned. Biofuels. Instead of growing what people can eat, farmers grow food for your gas tank. And this senator LOVES IT. He wants more. Fuck carrots! They're too hard to grow and what can you do with 'em except eat 'em? Now, BIOFUEL! We can just burn that up. Then buy more. Yeah, it makes as much pollution as gasoline, but it's renewable. Okay, it causes starvation, but that's a small price to pay for the comfort of driving. Right?

 How 'bout raising the federal gas tax so people will just drive less? Fewer fuels of all kinds! 
 NO GAS TAX HIKE, says this guy. SUV owners applaud.

 “Okay,” you tell me. “But senators are shmucks. That's a given. Just because Obama is president doesn't mean everyone is a good guy.”

 Hang on to your hairpiece, buckaroos. The senator I'm talking about is AL FRANKEN!! Yeah, that liberal guy from Minneapolis. Check his website: www.alfranken.com It's all there, under issues. Immigration. Biofuels. The whole kit and caboodle. 

 So what the fuck do I care? It doesn't have anything to do with the hair on my balls or the way I've recently been shitting what looks like Mazola oil. (True! It's the weirdest thing. The toilet water looks like a lavalamp after I take a dump... er... a spritz.)

 Mental Scene shift: I think the reason MRR doesn't get any mail about me is that I don't talk about punk rock. The letter writers seem to be continuing the time honored punk rock tradition where That guy in DesMoines charges too much for postage is more important than dead people litter the Sahara Desert because Americans put corn in their SUVs.

 Such is the triviality of punkrock in the twenty-first century. 

 In the seventies, when punkrock began, Gerald Ford was president. Then too, it was trivial. It was CBGBs local, fun, a music-- and a clothing-- style. Nothing more. 

 In the eighties, hardcore burst out like a fartfull of Mazola oil. There were two reasons. His name was Ronald Reagan and hers Margaret Thatcher. The bad guys were in control. The Dead Kennedys stopped singing playfully about the dangers of Jerry Brown. 

 “We've got a much bigger problem now,” said Biafra. 

 And so we got Reagan Youth, and a ton of angry, fun, wild, political, punk bands from Agnostic Front through Conflict to Nausea to Warzone. 

 So what now? We have a lousy economy, but Barak Obama is president. Democrats control the congress and the senate. South America is electing pinkos left and right. Only Israel can manage to vote for a fascist when it has the chance. Oy vey! 

 What's left, but to do what liberals do the best: eat our own. Go back to complaining about Jerry Brown's denim jackets or Al Franken's stand on immigration. When you win a war, who do you fight? The people on YOUR side, That's who.

 It'll still take me awhile to get on Obama's ass. Even though he's 

1.Perked up The Whitehouse Faith-Based Office, instead of closing it.

2.Sent more troops to Afghanistan

3.Had Hillary rattle her saber against North Korea.

 And this is only FEBRUARY!! 

 But, I'm gonna leave him alone for now. The magnificence of his Negritude still overwhelms these other considerations. Instead, I'll lower my sights. Aim for the balls. 

 Al Franken wants to fine “illegal” immigrants? Bang! 

 Hillary refuses to talk human rights in China? Bang!

 You? The biggest bang of all.

 What're you gonna do until the next Bush? Until the next Iraq? Until the next market crash? How are you gonna stay punk when there's nothing to punk against? I already know. I know you.

You're gonna get soft. 

 First, you're gonna powder your own economic acne. Gee, I hope I can get back that job as a bag packer at A&P. 

 You hope Obama's stimulus package will work well enough to pay for your iPod replacement battery. You'll put on a tie and smile at K-mart customers. 

 Yeah, I'm talking to you. 

 You'll be there, begging mom and dad not to take you out of SF State. You'll promise to wash dishes, anything, just to stay in school because there are no jobs out there and that's the whole point of school, isn't it? 

 Using the technical language that has developed over years of punkrockdom, I salute you with that most punkrock of phrases, Fuck You! 

 You're hopeless, more worried about your MySpace photo than that just-fired Mexican. You stand right in the middle of that row of urinals, making it difficult for me at the edge. 

 I'm going to edge passed you. I want to talk to your little sisters and brothers, the 10-year-olds who watch you with disgust. They're the ones who see your punkitude drain into the porcelain when you move back with mom because the punkhouse fell apart. 

 They're the ones who'll have heard what you've been talking about during the punk times and who'll wonder what you meant. 

 “Rise above.” 

 They won't get it, as they watch you sink below.

  They're the ones who'll pick up that guitar you abandoned, and start figuring out chords. Yeah, I'd love to stand next to them at the urinal, but I don't need to. Those ten year olds? They'll know what to do all by themselves. And you'd better watch your back.

 Yeah, I'm talking to you. 

ENDNOTES: [email subscribers (god@mykelboard.com) or website viewers (www.mykelboard.com) will get live links and a chance to email comment on the column]

-->When cool things happen by bad people dept: Bill Gates, one of the world's most disgustingly wealthy people, impressed me for the first time. He released a cloud of mosquitoes at a technology conference in California.  
     "Malaria is spread by mosquitoes. I brought some here," he said. "There is no reason only poor people should be infected."  
       In reality, the mosquitoes were malaria-free, but the tactic was punkrock. Get those fuckers to feel the sting of life-- and death-- in the hotlands! 10 punk points, Bill.

-->Death Be Not Proud dept: I'm writing this in the middle of February 2009. Already two notables have kicked off. It does not bode well for the rest of the year. At my age, I could be entering the watch list!
     Actually, BILL LANDIS died in December 2008. But I only heard about it this year.  For those who don't know, Bill was the founder of THE SLEAZOID EXPRESS, the first newsletter of scum cinema. He liked the sleazy horror, the bizarre, and the camp. Although he was a difficult person in real life, he was a pioneer in print. If it weren't for him, the movie world would be much different now. You wouldn't be able to find DVDs of Cannibal Holocaust and I Spit on Your Grave. There would be no Grindhouse or Scream I,II or III, if there were no Bill Landis.
     LUX INTERIOR, singer for The Cramps, died on February 4, the fiftieth anniversary of Buddy Holly's death. The Cramps were maybe the world's first Psychobilly band. (If you don't count Hasil Atkins.) I saw them at CBGBs in 1976-- and several times since-- including a great show at SaltLäger in Copenhagen. Yeah, there would've been a GG Allin without a Lux Interior. But would there be a Reverend Horton Heat? I don't think so.
     Uh oh! I just heard about PAUL HARVEY. He's number three!

-->I thought it sucked from the git-go dept: Remember when every corner threatened to have a Starbucks? I even had a plan to map out Manhattan with a green square on those few blocks without one. 
     Well, buckaroos, those days are gone. Hundreds of the corporate sludge factories have given up the ghost. Even better, a recent review in Consumer Reports ranked Eight O'Clock Coffee as the best-tasting coffee. Starbucks, which costs a fuck of a lot more, didn't even get an honorable mention. 

-->Rare victory for the good guy dept: The Senate voted for part of the economic recovery bill that deals with giving money for school building construction. It said that tax funds used for school construction and rehabilitation may not be diverted to religious institutions. Religious Right groups complained that the bill was “hostile to religion.” 
 I say, I hope so!

-->I think it was Tolstoy who wrote “Without God all things are permitted. He meant it as a criticism. I only wish it were true. Life would be a fuck of a lot more fun.
    Still Christians, Muslims and Jews use this argument to say that if people didn't have the threat of God's punishment, they would not act in a moral way. God keeps people moral, they say.
     Science Illustrated (July/August 2008) says they're wrong. It reports that Yale researchers have found that pre-God-aware babies can still judge right from wrong, good from evil. 
 The researchers created a puppet show where one puppet tries to climb a hill and another either helps it, or holds it back. When they gave babies a chance to choose one puppet to hold. 93% chose the helper over the hinderer. The babies were all under 10 months old. God need not apply.

-->The obvious dept: So far, I've had no mail referring to my “rape” at the hands of Jello Biafra, Noam Chomsky, and Oprah Winfrey. I can't believe the 15-year-old readers (an oxymoron?) of MRR had enough sense of humor to realize the April Fools' joke. It was one, of course.

-end-

Go to Mykel's homepage here

Mykel's MRR Column for #311, (APRIL, 2009)

You're Wrong

An Irregular Column

Column Number 311 April 2009

by Mykel Board

"The hitter can never be the judge. Only the receiver of the blow can tell you how hard it was, whether it would kill a man or make a baby just yawn.” --Edward P. Jones

April is supposed to be the month of rebirth, refreshment. Spring. Waking up from the frozen winter. But I'll be lucky if I can get out of bed this April... and I know I'll never completely recover. Soon you'll know why.

Fools may continue to believe the old sticks-and-stones poem your mother told you. But believe me, words CAN hurt. Not so much the one they're directed against, but the one who creates them.

Here's the story:

It starts in January. Just before my birthday. 65. I should retire... like normal people. Yeah, right.

The phone rings. I usually don't answer it. This time, I make a mistake.

“Hello?” I say.

“Hello.” The voice from the other side is deep, gentle, almost fatherly voice. “Is this Mykel Board?”

“It is,” I say. “If this is about the MasterCard bill..”

The voice on the other end of the line chuckles....

After the call, I run to take the Chinatown bus to Boston. Four hours and fifteen minutes later, I walk into his office. It's a modest place, walls lined with bookshelves. On one side is an incredibly messy desk, papers, folders, books open, face down, curved like birds in flight.

As he stands up, I notice his hair... Grayish, but full... like Ronald Reagan's only puffier. He's ten years my senior, but he's got twice as much hair. Is he really Jewish? Jews go bald. Why do you think they invented those yarmulkes? It's a cover up.

The man smiles, then shakes my hand.

“Mykel,” he says, “I've been waiting a long time for this meeting.”

“I never expected it,” I say. “I thought you were pissed off at me because I called you a holocaust revisionist.”

His face is static, as if molded into a perpetual smile.

“I don't even remember that,” he says. “I'm not one to hold a grudge.”

He motions for me to sit down. There is a vacant straight back wooden chair. Slatted, like something you might find in an old library.

“Professor Chomsky... can I call you Noam?... I've always wanted to ask you about that part in Aspects of a Theory of Syntax,” I say, “I mean the pronoun and anaphora. How does that relate to Dougherty's anaporn relationship?

And in John promised Bill to go, John goes. But in John persuaded Bill to go, Bill goes. Or is that more Government and Binding.”

The professor pulls his chair opposite mine. From behind some papers, he takes out a coffee pot and a cup. He pours me a cup of coffee.

“Here,” he says. “Relax before we converse”

He stands to hand me the coffee. But instead of handing it to me, he throws it in my face. The hot liquid burns my skin and blinds me.

“So, I'm a holocaust revisionist, huh? Revise this!” I feel a sharp pain on my cheek, where I guess he struck me with... his hand? A book? Before I have time to consider, I feel the pain on my other cheek. A small trickle of something warm runs down the side of my face.

“I'll give you an anaporn relationship,” he says, slamming something really big against the side of my head.

I pass out.

At first, it's just the pain in my wrists... like a dream about handcuffs. Then consciousness returns. My wrists really do hurt. I move my hand to rub away the pain... I don't move my hand. I can't. It's tied down. The other one too.

Then I feel the cold. A cool wind, washing over my... my naked body. I'm here. Exposed. Slowly, the awareness overtakes me. I smell sawdust. Feel something rough against my skin. I'm folded... folded over something. Maybe a sawhorse. My wrists tied to the legs in front. My ankles to the rear ones. My hips rest on the top of the sawhorse... rest? No, they're pulled tight against it. My balls forced back and downward from the pressure.

Through my slowly opening eyes I can see backwards-- and upside down, between my legs. There's Chomsky, naked from the waist down, fisting a surprisingly large erection-- his, not mine.

I close my eyes and lift my head. Someone's in front of me. I can only see from mid-thigh down. A pair of jeans, and some politically correct non-Nike sneakers.

“Hello Mykel,” I recognize the voice.

“Biafra!” I say. “Thank God you're here....” As I speak I notice my mouth hurts. My teeth hurt. I run my tongue over them and feel a back molar... loose... I wiggle it with the tongue tip, then speak.

“Jeezus fuck!” I say. “I don't get it.”

“Don't you Mykel?” he answers, laughing like a villain in kids' cartoons. “You've played the tune long enough. Now it's time to pay the piper. Remember that (his voice changes to a wimpy New York accent) I guess it was interesting, but it sure went on a long a long time...? Remember that? How about The Dead Kennedys were great, but Lard???... I'd just... greasy. Remember that Mykel?”

I hear the sound of a zipper unzipping.

A pinch. A brutal pinch of my nose...squeezed shut... nearly broken. I can't breathe. I open my mouth to take a breath. Immediately, something thick and hard enters, pressing against the back of my throat, making me gag.

“We'll see what lasts a long time,” comes Biafra's voice above me.

I feel like I'm going to puke... but I can't... No place to let it out. I gag.

Then the pain comes. Not from my mouth, but from behind me. From my anal rosebud.

“I don't have to plow you a new one.” It's Chomsky's voice behind me. “This one will do just fine.”

I want to scream as the dry scraping against the tender brown ring is stretched and torn. I can't scream. I can hardly breathe, as the Biafran kielbasa knocks my loose tooth free from my lower jaw.

I feel blood filling my mouth. Simultaneously, the sandpaper sound behind me changes into a soft squish. I must be lubricating with my own blood... Confirmed...in a warm trickle down the back of my legs.

“Yeeehah!” whoops the voice behind me. Then a slap to an asscheek. “Ride 'em cowboy!”

Porno stars look like they're having the time of their life when they all their holes are filled at the same time. The brutality of what's happening to me may be giving me the time of my life... but it's not a good time.

I hear a groan above me. The pace and intensity of the shoving into my mouth quickens. If I throw up, the vomit will be forced back into my lungs. I'm not sure I can hold back. I'll suffocate. Die. I have to keep control.

Hands press behind my head, forcing my nose into the mass of pubic hair in front of me. I swallow my tooth. Washed down by a mass of thick liquid that dribbles down the back of my throat.

He pulls out of my mouth. My head released, now limply hangs a few inches above the ground. A thin steam of blood, semen and drool dribbles up the side of my face.

I gasp as fresh air fills my lungs for the first time in what feels like an hour, but probably was no more than a few minutes. I can barely lift my head. I don't have to.

Someone has grabbed the hair on the back of my head and is yanking it upwards. One of my eyes is swollen shut from the hot coffee and the blows inflicted on it. Through the other eye, I make out a wide black face with a mass of curly-but-not-kinky hair. There is something familiar about the wide body and the loose wool sweater. I know that face. If only I could concentrate.

I let my eyes drop from the out-of-focus face, down the body, to the nude lower half... nude lower half???

I try to speak, but only a sputter of blood leaves my mouth.

The woman holds my head up, taking a fistfull of hair. Spreading her legs, she forces her naked crotch into my face.

“What's black and sits on three hundred pounds of crack? Huh Mykel?” she says.

“I thought it was funny.” I say through the muffle. Then think, FUCK! IT'S OPRAH WINFREY!

“Here's some crack for you Mykel,” she says grinding into my bleeding nose and mouth. “Funny, isn't it?”

My neck feels like it's going to snap off. Her thighs tighten around my head. I'm inhaling the entire Seattle fish market. I can't breathe. My lungs are going to explode.

At the edge of whatever vision I have left I see a vague outline... a black leather jacket. Levis. Short blond hair.

George Tabb! I think. He's here to save me.

“George!” I say through the massive twat in front of me.

“Yeah, Mykel,” he says, walking around to where my bloody asshole lies naked and abused. “Remember that time when...”

I can't hear the rest, because those black Oprah thighs have tightened around my head. The last words I hear before I lose consciousness are “Take my dick, please!”

ENDNOTES: [email subscribers (god@mykelboard.com) or website viewers (www.mykelboard.com) will get live links and a chance to email comment on the column]

-->At the bottom of my pile dept: I found this clipping. It's about the father of a 7-year old Wisconsin boy. Dad was so upset his son wouldn't wear a Green Bay Packers jersey during the playoffs, that he forced it on the kid. Then he duct-taped it to him.

The father was arrested, fined $186 and released. My question: What the fuck kind of fine is $186? I'm not a football fan. Does that number have some kind of special meaning in football land? A quarterback number or something? Jeezus!

-->Making progress department: Until March 3 2008, Verizon wireless included the contract provision that subscribers agree that the company "does not own or manage the internet." The provision has since been dropped. However subscribers still have to acknowledge "Verizon assumes no liability for the accuracy of things that may be read over the Internet or received in e-mails." Does that mean that guy in Nigeria doesn't really want me to hold his money?

--> To avoid a trial, Karen Fletcher of PA, plead guilty to obscenity for fictional kiddie sex stories on her subscription only website. There were no pictures on the site. She was fined $1000 and given 6 months house arrest. This is the first obscenity conviction based solely on written material in more than 30 years. Is Obama gonna fix this???? And it gets worse:

-->Pssst, Hey kid, wanna buy a book? Let's see your ID dept: A new 2008 Oregon law makes it a $125,000 crime to furnish "sexually explicit" materials to a minor. This includes health-education materials and fiction. Booksellers would be liable, even if the minors were only browsing.

-->Life imitates art dept: Doctors at Bellevue Mental Hospital in New York have identified a new syndrome they call "The Truman Show Delusion." These, mostly young white men, believe they are the subjects of their own reality TV show. Some seem pleased, ready for the million-dollar payout at the end. Others seem upset.

One syndrome victim came to NY to climb the Statue of Liberty. He believed that he'd be reunited with this high-school girlfriend at the top, and finally be released from “the show." Hate to spoil it, buster. But there's only one way we get released from the show, and It's not by climbing... It's by jumping.

-->I missed the TOP TEN MRR issue. Actually, I submitted my ten early, but the MRR tyrants at the top rejected them. I didn't follow the rules, they said.

They told me my top ten had to be PRODUCT, something you could BUY. A drunken night on the town in Port of Spain didn't qualify. No UPC on that, ya see.

So, out of the front pages, here's my top ten for 2008-- four months late. (After the first two, they're in no particular order). No product here. Just the bands... and my life. :

1. Trinidad Wining

2. Trinidad Liming

3. WORLD WAR IX

4. KISSY KAMIKAZI

5. BLACKOUT SHOPPERS,

6. ENDANGERED FECES.

7. ANTI-EVERYTHING (Trinidad)

8. TRIGGER EFFECT (Canada)

9. SUCIEDAD DISCRIMINADA (Mexico)

10. @PATIA NO (Venezuela)

-->Obama or not dept: Good Magazine (Dec. '08) reports that 20 percent of NYU students recently polled said they'd give up their right to vote in 2008 in exchange for an iPod Touch. What I want to know is... where was McCaine on this offer? He shudda been handing out those iPods. He cudda won!

Mykel's Column for MRR 310, March 2009

You're Wrong
An Irregular Column
for MRR 310
by Mykel Board

The phrase "healthy life style" is a mask for concealing phobic maneuvers aimed at avoiding the dangers of life, both real and imaginary, especially the temptations of drugs and sex.--Thomas Szasz

SCENE 1: It's a pug. Like the obnoxious little bug-eyed runt in MEN IN BLACK. This one's not black. It's yellow. Piss colored... not a Guinness piss... a Bud-lite.

Attached to one of those expanding leashes, it meanders across the sidewalk, tripping up students, office workers, and anyone else who uses the sidewalk to actually go someplace, rather than sniff around trying to find a place to shit. At the other end of the leash is a young woman. She wears a long black coat. The ends of a brown scarf show over her back next to the perfectly cut edge of her black hair. On her head, is a white furry bell. Not an actual ringing bell, but a bell-shaped hat that would do DEVO proud.

That's all I can see of the girl. Of the dog, I can see more... full view. Sniffing garbage, staircase edges, the shoes of passing pedestrians. Its little chopped-off tail sticks straight into the air. I can see its gray-brown sphincter. An anal stargate. Closed up tight. Clean as a Disney movie.

But wait..there's a little pressure. A tiny bulge in that chocolate spiral. The pointed tip of an emerging turd. The dog stops and squats. There on the sidewalk, as if squeezed from a Crest tube, first one, then the other: two perfect turds, the second slightly shorter than the first.

The woman removes a plastic bag from the leash end. She puts her hand inside, turns the bag inside out, wearing it like a glove. Then, she scoops up the two brown sausages, unfolds the plastic around them, ties the bag shut, and drops it in a litter bin. That's not very interesting.

What IS interesting is, when the dog stands up, its tiny little anus is still perfectly tight, and clean. Just like new. After I take a shit, I spend half a roll of toilet paper cleaning up. Sometimes more... depending on the beer brand of the previous night. Sometimes I need to wipe up my back and down my legs. Ripping the paper, wiping up, down, front to back, back to front. The white paper turns brown, no matter where its whiteness touches.

And here's this little mutt, two perfect pieces, anus clean as Whistler's Mother. It's not fair.

Then again, there's something special in that act of wiping. Something satisfying, like an accomplishment. The outside of my body covered with the inside... like my heart on my sleeve... controlled and made nasally presentable to the outside world by rubbing with soft white paper. Maybe I have the better life after all.

Cut to scene 2: I stand outside the St. Barnaby's Middle School playground. It's the first warm day. The youngsters have shed their heavy coats and run back and forth teasing and testing each other. In one corner, several skinny guys in bluejeans flip a haki sak back and forth: Adidas-to-Nike-to-Nike. Right in front of me. A group of girls in pleated dresses huddle over a cellphone, backs to the oblivious teacher,

One youngster, skin the color of chocolate milk, stands against the school wall. He's the only one wearing shorts. His thin yet adolescently muscular legs disappear appetizingly into his silver shorts. He puts one leg in front of the other, as if posing for a Greek sculpture. I imagine the callipygian youth naked, turning. I imagine his sphincter, much-wiped, but probably eternally closed to me. I imagine... Uh oh.

There... on the other side of the street... this NYU jock. Six and half feet tall. Shoulders out to here. Crewcut. Xanthrocroid. A square hairless face. Some football team barely visible on his hooded sweatshirt. I can see an O and a piece of another letter. TROJANS? WARRIORS? GORLOCKS? I can't tell.

His simian right arm drapes over a girl's shoulder. She's half his height. Long “blond” hair... tits as frontal as his shoulders are side. She looks up into the guy's eyes as if he's the only human in the world. In profile, I see Mr. Muscle look down at her. The shadow from his baseball hat hides his eyes, but I can imagine their practiced blueness, penetrating the otherwise empty brain of his big-boobed girlfriend. He bends down. Kisses her lightly on the forehead. Yuck. That's sick.

The meat: This is the health issue of MRR. I expect most columnists will focus on the sorry state of healthcare in America-- or on their own particular health problems. We've got some ill amongst us. Maybe George Tabb will talk about his own problems. That is, if he can stop talking about me. (I love it, of course!)

There are three main concepts of disease:

ONE: The Western version says disease is like war. An army (of cancer cells, bacteria, viruses) invades. The job of the doctor is to kill or repel the invading army. Drugs and surgery are the weapons. If you have the flu, for example, it's caused by a flu virus. If you kill the virus, you get rid of the flu. The more you kill, the healthier you are.

TWO: The Eastern version of disease says disease is like juggling. As long as everything balances, it works. But if the balance is off, you drop your balls. If you have the flu, for example, it is because an imbalance in your body allows the flu virus to have a bad effect. There are always viruses and bacteria in the air... on the land... in water. Some people get sick, others don't. The reason? You get sick because your body is out of balance. In that weakened state, the flu bug can take over. The job of the doctor is to restore the body's balance. They use herbs, pressure, needles and food, to restore that balance.

THREE: In America, “healthy” and “sick” have replaced “sin” and “virtue” as a way to judge others. Drinking too much... eating too much... homosexuality... gambling... “too much” everyday sex... even “over-shopping.” These are sick, in America in 2009. They are no longer “sins.” No longer “bad.”

In Spanish, you tiene (have)sickness. In English, we ARE sick. Disease of new, like sin of old, defines the individual: I am an alcoholic. You are not what you eat. You are your sickness.

In the past, I've ranted against this definition. I've stood outside America's linguistic gates, banging my hair-plugged head against the lock... demanding change inside.... a new way of speaking... a way that allows people just to be, rather than to be sick. For some unimaginable reason, the linguistic gates, like that little colored guy's much-wiped sphincter, never open for me. So I'll try another stratagem.

I'll accept your definition. You got it. No sin or virtue. No good or bad. Just sick or healthy. But my kind of sickness is Eastern sickness. An imbalance. A tilt, like the leaning tower of Pisa. It's not an invading army. It doesn't need surgery to cut something out. It doesn't need poisons to kill the invaders. It needs a gentle tug the other way. A pull back to equilibrium. Let's take a look at what's sick-- and what isn't.

RULE ONE: Nothing that occurs in your mind is sick. Your mind is where you can do ANYTHING. You SHOULD do anything. It is the center of freedom, a test zone for all ideas. The wildest things are possible here, with NO REPERCUSSIONS. Put a bullet through some evangelist's head in real life... you're outta here! But do it in your mind... and you're free. NOBODY KNOWS!

RULE TWO: This kind of freedom is available to anyone. Every prisoner in every cell in the world has this freedom. It is healthy. Mental freedom is healthy.

Included in this rule is knowledge that some things should remain in your mind. You learn to see them in your mind, smell them in your mind, do them in your mind and then let them go. A fantasy about ripping through your highschool class with an AK47 is healthy. Actually doing it, is not. 

RULE THREE: Outside your own mind you can lose your balance... begin to tilt on the slippery slope of disease. And it is DIS-EASE. Your body feels uncomfortable. You aren't satisfied with life in your mind. You're worried about life in other people's mind. You're worried about what THEY think, or worse, what THEY think of YOU. You have something to prove.

“I'm getting laid and you're not,” is what you have to prove to the guy next to you. So you drape your arm around your big-boobed catch, and mark your territory with a kiss to the forehead.

You need to show you possess this girl. You need to keep her in your hand. She might run. You might be alone. Your fears push you off balance. You become sick.

What else is sick?

RULE FOUR: Acting immorally in the world... that's sick. I'm not talking about Christian morality. That says anything that makes your body feel good... is bad. Or the new Christian morality that says anything that makes your body feel good... is “unhealthy.” I'm talking about human morality. A morality that says anything that contributes to the pain of others is ba... er... sick. Buying sweatshop shoes that create the pain of poverty... that pushes the world off balance. That's sick. Withholding money from the bum on the corner, when you're going to use it to download some crustpunk song from i-tunes... this guy's starving in front of you. That's sick. Becoming a temp-lez, so your politics will look right to your fellow students before you find Mr. Corporate Right and move to the burbs to drop puppies. That's sick.

SO: Jerking off to fantasies of sucking the eyeballs out of severed baby heads is NOT sick. Dreams of wallowing in entrails pulled through the hairless vaginae of 10 year old daughters of British aristocracy are NOT sick. Holding hands with your girlfriend while waiting to try on a pair of Nikes. That's really sick.

ENDNOTES: [email subscribers (god@mykelboard.com) or website viewers (www.mykelboard.com) will get live links and a chance to comment on the column]

--> Celebrities go free dept: No, I'm not talking about the Lillo Brancato Jr. murder trial. I'm talking about another case.

  Most of America knows that Rush Limbaugh was caught with a bottle of Viagra prescribed for someone else. It was at U.S. customs on a return trip from the Dominican Republic. I guess me and Rush have similar tastes in colored girls. Unfortunately for Radioland, Rush will not have to face charges for the illegally possessed drugs.

  The local DA (or the feds, I'm not sure which) have decided not to pursue the case.

-->Keith Dobson sent me a brochure of "Precious Gifts from the Redwoods." It lists all those great things (like vases and "three tier modern bowls") that you can buy from the deforested redwood trees. Now that's appreciating nature: cut it down and put it on your home shelf. Yowsah!

-->Nutrition Action Newsletter is published by The Center for Science in the Public Interest. The newsletter shows lots of scams Big Food uses to make you think the shit they're selling is “healthy.” The only thing I dislike about the publication is that it calls especially unhealthy food: Food Porn. That gives porn a bad name.

  But, I was dismayed to receive a mass emailing from CSPI calling for a government ban on SPARKS! That beer/Red Bull mix is as logical as spaghetti and tomato sauce. I mean, the only DISADVANTAGE to getting drunk is that you can't stay awake to enjoy it. SPARKS solves the problem.

  Sleazier than a letter-writing campaign, CSPI is asking for people to send them “bad experiences from mixing Red Bull with alcohol.” How about the GOOD experiences? How about the people who DIDN'T fall asleep at the wheel when they were drunk? How about the folks who COULD keep their eyes open to enjoy the sex that their drunken conquest got them? How about THOSE experiences? (Is there any difference between SPARKS and Irish Coffee?) 

  Let's show 'em! Send them your GOOD experiences with Red Bull/booze mixes... and your thoughts on this ban. Email Carol Walsh at: cwalsh@cspinet.org. Tell her that you think banning SPARKS is SICK!

-->Real DIY dept: So the banks and auto execs get bailouts from the government. Where's my cut? That's what the factory workers at Republic Windows & Doors in Chicago wanted to know. The factory gave them three days notice, then fired everybody and tried to shut down. Hang on! The union guys on the floor said no. They sat down and took the place over.

  Even though I'm not a big fan of WORK, it's nice to see people DOING things instead of taking it on the chin. I only wish New Yorkers had the balls to do something when it hits them... like when the transit fares go up. The mayor has 36 billion dollars, and they're raising MY fare to cover a gap of less than 1/36 of that. Yo Mayor, bail ME out! Meanwhile, I'll sit in on the subway platform floor. Gonna join me?  

-->Church and State Dept: The government of our nation's capital gives $12 million to Central Union Mission for a homeless shelter. Sounds good, huh? Well, the shelter requires church attendance, or they throw you back on the street. One man was too ill to go to the religious services. They kicked him out-- to sleep on the streets. That's sick.

-->Even in New York and Berkeley Dept: Two bastions of liberal free speech? Yeah right. In New York, City officials ordered Cooper Union College to remove Picasso's portrait of Joseph Stalin from their facade. The banner was part of an exhibition by the artist Lene Berg. Complaints from the local Ukrainian community brought the ban. They thought the banner “seemed to promote Stalin.” We wouldn't want pictures of Stalin, would we? He was against free speech.

  In Berkeley, four posters were banned from display at the city-run Addison Street Windows Gallery. The posters were banned because they contained images of guns. Oh yeah, the name of the exhibition was Art of Democracy. Yeah, right.

-->Keep them (and me) coming dept: Yeah, keep sending me those homemade porno vids! I love 'em. I'm still at POB 137, Prince St. Station, New York NY 10012

-end

You can go to Mykel's homepage for lots of other interesting, weird stuff.

Mykel's MRR Column 309 (Feb. 2009)

You're Wrong
An Irregular Column
for MRR 309 (Feb. 2009)
by Mykel Board

“Americans always do the right thing... when they have absolutely no other choice.” --Winston Churchill

Naked, I lay on the bed. I slip a hand behind my back, through my legs. Grabbing my balls from behind, I pull them down between my legs. I press my thighs together, holding the balls under me. My cock rests on top. It's no longer a cock, but a large clitoris. I've made myself a girl. I can diddle my clit to EuroAngels Hardball 4. Diddle. Diddle. Diddle.

It's election night. I can't watch. I want to diddle myself away from the hell of a McCain presidency. Worse. He won't make it a year. Sarah Palin, not MILF enough for me, will be in the Whitehouse. It'll be worse than Hillary Clinton. I don't want to watch the news. Watch the inevitable Red State creep, as the blood-colored states spread in the smear of American moronocity.

Americans are stupid vengeful people. The crackers of the Carolinas. The old Florida Jews. The hardhats in Ohio. They'd rather give up their homes to a bailed-out bank, than vote for a Negro. I know them.

Americans are the dumbest, most racist, most hateful, people on earth. Like they're gonna vote for Barack Hussein Obama. NO WE CAN'T!

I've got to stop thinking about this. My clit won't harden. That nub won't poke up. Won't swell to its girlish heights. I'm beating a dead larva. Choking a limp chicken. Spanking a... What's that?

Through my closed window comes the sound of cheering. People in the street. Screaming. Applauding. Stomping in joy. Horns honk. I can't fuckin' believe it. He must've won. Somehow, he did it.

I turn off the DVD and switch to CNN. There's McCain now, talking to a cheering crowd:

That Barack Obama managed to inspire the hopes of so many millions of Americans, who had once wrongly believed that they had little at stake or little influence in the election of an American president, is something I deeply admire and commend him for achieving.

This is an historic election, and I recognize the special significance it has for African-Americans and for the special pride that must be theirs tonight.

A century ago, President Theodore Roosevelt's invitation of Booker T. Washington to dine at the White House was taken as an outrage in many quarters.

America today is a world away from the cruel and frightful bigotry of that time. There is no better evidence of this than the election of an African-American to the presidency of the United States.

African-American? Presidency? Fuck! He won. We won!

Pride for African-Americans? Hah! Pride for Whitefolks, I'd say. Pride for Jews! Pride for everyone who voted for the guy even though (because?) he WASN'T one of them. I feel like dancing. Walking on air. Kissing a fat girl.

They did it. Those shallow, stupid Americans. Those I had so much contempt for. Those crackers. Those Jews. Those shlubs in Ohio. They did it My mind drifts to the future.

I'm in Europe. It's 2009. The Euro has declined enough to let me visit my old friends in Germany. I get off the plane and go to immigration. I flash my American passport, something that usually fills me with embarrassment, if not dread. Not this time.

“Listen, you fucker,” I think at the immigration agent. “Don't say a thing. I don't want to hear it. I don't want that Oh, a stupid American sneer. I don't want see your hands grip the passport, thinking another violent thug.

Fuck you. We elected Barack Obama. We're the first Western nation. First “white” nation to have a leader who's not white. You didn't do it. You couldn't do it. WE did it. We, America... Something I haven't felt part of since Jimmy Carter gave amnesty to the draft dodgers. Me, a United Statesian and PROUD of it. My mental flag waving strong.

Flash ahead to the real future: Gilberto invites me to Boston to see THE DWARVES. The show's before a farewell-for-two-weeks party for him. He's going back to Sonora to see the family, and prepare for the great LATIBBEAN PARTY in Mexico 2009. I'll post the details on Latibbean.org as I get 'em.

I'm at the show with Gilberto, some of his friends, my pal John R. and his daughter. (Everybody thinks she's his girlfriend.) The Dwarves, of course, are great... a little calmer than they used to be, but still a lot of fun. The surprise of the night, however, is a band called THE UP-RISING.

UP-RISING is pure hardcore fun. A big singer with So-Cal attitude. (Looks like he's been around. Mid-30s, hardcore crust on the edges... How come I never heard of these guys?). He even gets the crowd to sing along to the punkrock hits of the 80s. Can you say 6-Pack? Most of the audience was still sperm when that came out.

I forgot my earplugs, so I chew on a few napkins and stick the spitballs in my ears. Not the best sound protection, but even a daughter is better than nothing.

I love the band, but I can't hear the patter between songs. Something about the anniversary of a Bali Bombing-- with a lot of God bless yous.

Uh oh, I think. Some stupid anti-Muslim redneck garbage. I'm glad I don't understand it. Besides, the band is so good, I don't want to spoil a good time.

After the show, I go over to the merch tables. I don't plan to buy anything. I just wanna tell The Uprising how much I liked their set... despite that God Bless You shit. I also want to ask 'em about Bali bombing. So what if it's an anniversary. Every day is a bombing anniversary. Do they mention Hiroshima? Belgrade? Are they spreading some kind of anti-Arab bullsh... Ok. I'll let 'em speak for themselves.

“Yo!” I say in my typically shy way. “You guys were great. Best surprise since Kissy Kamekaze. But...”

Before I can finish, by pal John... who's got better hearing than me, perks up.

“You a surfer?” he says.

The guy... Crab, the band's singer, nods. How the fuck did John know?

“So you were in Bali for that surfing thing,” John continues.

Looks like I missed something.

“Yeah,” he says. “I was the only American who lived.”

“I heard about it,” says John.

“You don't know,” says Crab. Then he tells the story.

I'm in Bali for this surfers fest, I guess you know about it. We all go to this disco... all the surfers, I mean. I'm not much for discos, but since everybody was going.... So we're inside and I'm just talking to this guy. A friend of mine... fellow surfer... blond hair, kinda skinny, you know, the kinda guy that girls like... well liked... see. Suddenly he explodes.

It's a huge sound. Louder than anything in my life. My hearing's still wrecked from it. Can't hear at all out of this ear. But just then I don't hear the sound at all. I just see my friend... explode.

I see his head blow off, just go into the air... just pow, it's flying... his mouth is still working... jaw going up and down... even 8 feet in the hair... just his head... Everything's in slow motion. His insides explode. Guts coming through his body. Flying into my face. Covering me. Can you imagine... imagine... imagine what it's like being covered by your friend... pieces of your friend. Blood, guts... His skin all over me... Skin in my eyes... over my eyeballs. Intestines in my mouth, my nose, breathing intestines. Inhaling intestines... I can still taste it. How many people know... know... know the taste of raw human guts. I know. I'll never forget it. They hit me so hard in the mouth... almost knocked my teeth out. Your friend. And there he is. You're inhaling him. Tasting his blood. It was warm, no hot. Hotter than your own blood, you know when you get a cut or something? And his flesh. Seeing pieces of his body.

Just blam... your pal.. turns inside out. One second he's just standing there... next second he's... he's... he's in pieces. All over you. It's not something you forget. You can't forget. Never forget...

He stops to breathe. Close his eyes. If he cries, I'm gonna lose it. He doesn't cry.

“I thought you might be a surfer,” says John. “I'm a surfer too... in Boston. But I was thinking about going to that Bali party. It's a good thing I didn't.”

“Yeah,” says Crab. “A good thing.”

“Holy fuck!” I think, forking over five bucks for the band's homemade CD. “If that were me, I'd wanna kill 'em all. Al Qaeda, Joe Ali-salaam, a random lady walking down the street in a black headscarf. I'd be a maniac. I'd move to Israel. Join ARAB-BUSTERS. Vote for Joe Lieberman.”

But here's this guy. The only American who lived. And there's not one speck of hate coming out of him. Not one phlegmspot of malevolence.

It's America. Hooey! Some new America. It's people saying Yes, We Can. It's not an eye-for-an-eye. It's compassion. It's lack of hate. Not kill 'em all. It's something more than bumper sticker brains and gunracks.

Yes, we fuckin' can.

By the time you read this, I'll be back from a trip to South Carolina. And in North Carolina, besides buying pecan log rolls at Stuckey's, I can actually talk to people. I can say “Hi. I'm an American too. Maybe we even voted for the same person.”

Back on the bed, blood rushes to my clitoris. I rub up and down. Yes, we have the best chance ever. Yes, we can. We can have a white country lead by a colored guy named Barack Obama. I rub harder. Faster.

Yes, we can. We can feel pain and not respond with hatred. Yes, we can. We can cheer and honk horns for more than a football win! Yes we can! My labia swell with blood as my little girlnub hardens in my hand. Yes, we can. I rub more. Yes, we can. Yes. Yes. YES!!!

ENDNOTES: [email subscribers (god@mykelboard.com) or website viewers (www.mykelboard.com) will get live links and a chance to email comment on the column]

-->Glad the Brits are on it dept: BBC world news reports that Maasai herdsmen in Kenya have use an age-old contraceptive, the "olor", to protect their goat herds from a drought.
The locals make an olor from cowhide or a square piece of plastic. Then, they tie it around the belly of the male goats. It keeps them from screwing. The herdsmen are using the device to limit the goat population and make sure there aren't too many animals grazing on sparse vegetation.
"We don't want them to breed in this drought," says Ole Ngoshoi Kipameto, a Maasai goat owner.

-->Keeps her a virgin dept: A Jesuit magazine has apologized after inadvertently publishing an advertisement for a Virgin Mary Statue wrapped in a condom. The artist intended it as a protest against the church's opposition to condom use.
The Rev. Drew Christiansen, editor-in-chief of America, said that the condom was not visible in the black and white proofs they used to review the final draft of the magazine.
The headline for the ad read, ''Unique Contemporary Religious Art Work for Sale.'' In the text, the statue was called ''Extra Virgin,'' and was described as ''a stunning 22 cm high statue of the Virgin Mary standing atop a serpent wearing a delicate veil of latex.''
The statue was made by Steve Rosenthal, who said he was an artist in London. Rosenthal released a statement saying he placed the ad as a protest against Vatican opposition to the use of condoms.

-->Again with the kids dept: Amazingly, the Supreme court ruled (5-4) that states could not use the death penalty against people convicted of child rape. Though they did not say they enjoyed the crime, the judges said that "in terms of moral depravity and of injury to the person and to the public, it cannot be compared to murder." They did not mention where dropping bombs on civilians fits on the moral depravity scale.

-->Mixed emotions dept: Remember Elliot Spitzer, the NY Governor who promoted stronger laws against prostitute patrons. He was caught with a $10,000 prostitute. I was sad he was a victim of a horrible law. I was glad it was HIS law he was a victim of.
Likewise, the arrest of right-wing evangelist Tony Alamo mixes my emotions. On one hand, it's a joy to see the bastard nailed. On the other, the charge is "possession of child pornography," clearly a crime with no victim. I mean, how the hell does POSSESSION hurt anyone, even if you believe making of porn does?
Oh well, bad law... but it couldn't have happened to a more deserving person.

-->Now THAT's an emergency dept: Local cops are familiar with the neighborhood cranks. You know, the guys who call 911 to complain about their neighbor's squeaky bedsprings. But my favorite crank is Reginald Peterson of Jacksonville Florida. He called 911-- twice. Why? A SUBWAY restaurant did not prepare his Italian sandwich correctly. They left off the sauce. If that's not a bigger crime than having kiddie porn, it should be.

-->Then there's the Longmont, Colorado guy who tried to get free porn from the locals. He told the clerk he was a detective who wanted to check the films to make sure there were no underage people in them. He even flashed a badge. He told the store to give him the DVDs "to inspect." Though it was a good scam, it didn't work. The store gave the REAL cops store surveillance tapes, made while the fake cop was demanding vids. They haven't found him. Yay! He didn't get any free DVDs. Awww.

-->It's catching dept: Not to be outdone by Christians with their drive-in churches, Utne Reader reports that "Mega-Mosques" are rising all over America. One in northern Virginia has more than 5000 families. Many offer church-like programs, including gymnastics and Boy Scout training. Oy vey!

-->Criminally correct dept: In Car & Travel Magazine (October 2008) they use a photo to illustrate an article about car models popular with thieves. The young man, in a hoodie, with a jimmy stuck in a car window.. is white. Hmmm, shouldn't they have made it a girl? A grandma? What's with this cliché that all car thieves are young men? Are they prejudiced?

In case you're wondering what to steal, the most popular models for 2007 were the 2000 Honda Civic, the 1994 Honda Accord, and the 1991 Toyota Camry. It is not clear from the article-- or photo-- how many of the thieves are Japanese.

-->More on sackcloth & ashes dept: (I copped this from the internet someplace. I wrote about this plan before. Evidently, it flopped.)

Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford castigated a local clergy group because he doesn’t think enough churches participated in his sackcloth and ashes rally back in April. He also criticized churches for espousing prosperity theology (a valid point) but pretty funny coming from the man who accessorized his sackcloth with a Rolex and designer shoes.

In 2002, about the same time he was running for county commission, Langford had accumulated about $70,000 in credit card debts and department store bills. Most of that debt was for clothes.

-->How to get money from the government dept: Kyle wrote me that his girlfriend, Angie can't stay with him because of a “no contact” order on his probation. So she was homeless.
The solution? Kyle punched in her in the face and kicked her in the ribs. It left a couple hardcore bruises. She then went to the women's assistance center for homeless women. She told them her ex husband beat her up.
The center called the cops and took her to the battered women's shelter. With a copy of the police report, the welfare office put her in the domestic violence assistance program and gave her a $1500 check. Then, they found her an apartment, paid the deposit and the utilities.
I think Kyle should charge for his services.

-->God does it again dept: A recent Science Illustrated reports that 1,800 people participated in a prayer medical-heart-study.

The result? Those who knew that they were being prayed for, were 7 per cent MORE likely to develop complications than those who either didn't know, or weren't prayed for at all.

The authors surmise that the reason was when people knew others were praying for them, it made them more nervous and they got sicker. I say bullshit. The real reason? God got pissed off at people disturbing her (God) with their stupid supplications. She wanted to teach them a lesson! Fuck you AND your prayers!

-->Just keeps getting better dept: My pal Sid Yiddish was in town. We did a Pennsylvania talk radio show on WDIY, and recorded 45 minutes for StoryCorps-(heard weekly Friday mornings on National Public Radio or www.storycorps.net).Sid stayed at my apartment during that time.

I like having guests every once-in-awhile, but a major problem is that they use up the toilet paper. Well, this time, God was listening to ME!

Sid and I go ABC NO RIO to see the hard-on inducing Kissy Kamekaze. We not only see them, but are amazed at TRIGGER EFFECT from Montreal. Those guys were literally bouncing off the walls-- like Spiderman-- or Jet Li. I've never seen that outside the movies. And they're LOUD. Reminds me of Motorhead... if Motorhead came from Seattle.

We're also treated to the funny, and scatological ENDANGERED FECES (best name of the year?) They're ecologically (scatological?) incorrect... throwing rolls and rolls of toilet paper over the crowd. Then the crowd throws the paper at each other. I haven't had so much fun since my first night in Trinidad!

PLUS, Sid dives right in, rescues two barely bothered rolls for our own private use. I'm using some of that paper right now, to clean up after EuroAngels Hardball 4.

-end

Hail Chavez.... Not: Mykel's Column for MRR 308 January 2009

You're Wrong
An Irregular Column
for MRR 308
by Mykel Board

"If all Americans want is security, they can go to prison.” --Dwight D. Eisenhower

Recap: I'm on the plane leaving Port of Spain, Trinidad for Caracas, Venezuela. My week has been a paradise of spicy food, Stag beer, great new friends, Trini-punk, girls with asses you want to call home, and a kind of English that oozes Jamaican, Indian and African.

It's been my best first week ever in a country I didn't get laid in. Trinidad is a free place. You can drink outside, smoke inside, say hello to street-walking trannie hookers, and never show your ID for anything.

The locals, however, warned me. It's dangerous. There's a high crime rate. I shouldn't show my camera or wallet. Basking in the Caribbean sun, I begin to wonder if the price of freedom (Trinidad is one of the freest countries I've ever visited) is danger.

I don't sleep on my last night in the country. You wouldn't either if half the country were buying you drinks. So, half dead, I board this plane to Caracas. I want to see if Hugo Chavez is as cool as I think he is. He's got the balls to stand up to Bush. He gives money to poor people in New England who can't afford heating oil. The U.S. Press hates him. What's not to like? Right? Yeah, right.

No one's gonna meet me at the airport in Caracas. Johnny, my MySpace punk pal, has to work late. I won't see him until tonight.

Like in Trinidad, I'll do one night in a hotel in Venezuela. That way, I have a touristy address for the immigration man. Then I'll switch to punk rock.

The plane arrives in Caracas about 8:30AM. The flight was 20 minutes-- not enough to fall asleep. I'm so tired I feel like I'm sleep walking.

I pass through immigration and customs.

“Passport... What's your Venezuelan address?... You're a tourist?...” Stamp.... “Next!”

It's suspiciously easy, if commonly unfriendly.

On the way out, I walk through a large sliding glass panel. On the other side of the panel are two uniformed men.

One points to me. The other takes my back pack.

Uh oh, here it comes. The customs guards on the other side of the door. Just waiting for you to let your breath out. To go to the bathroom to pry the cocaine-filled condom from your asshole. To twist the heel on your shoe and spill the heroin into a plastic bag.

“You speak English?” asks the guard who took my bag.

I nod.

“Where are you going?” he says.

“I'm going to my hotel,” I tell him. “Hotel La Floreta.”

He leads the way, away from the sliding panel, carrying my bag. Tight grip.

“I want to get money from the bank. From a machine,” I tell him. In case he's a federal agent, trying to catch me playing the black market.

“The machines only give you 1.95 Bolivars for each dollar,” he says. “I give you three por un dollar.”

“I'd rather go to a machine,” I tell him.

He shrugs and grabs my bag tighter.

“Follow me,” he says.

We walk. We walk to the right. To the left. Around in circles. To an isolated machine. He gestures. I go to the machine and insert my card. It spits it back at me.

“It no work,” he says. “We try more.”

We walk. We go downstairs. Across a huge lobby, to a gaggle of machines. He gestures. I walk up to a machine and insert my card. The machine spits it back at me. Another in the same gaggle. Same result. A third. This one works... as all third tries work in stories. It's Writing 101. Look it up!

I withdraw about $100 in Bolivars. Then, I go back to the guy with my bag.

“Ok,” he says. “Now we go to taxi to hotel.”

“I want to take the bus,” I tell him. “I don't want to take a taxi.”

“No buses,” he says. “You go by taxi. 150 Bolivars (about $75).”

“I can't pay 150 Bolivars,” I tell him.

“You change money with me,” he tells me. “I make cheaper. Look,” he pinches his uniform and holds it out from his body. “I am officièl. From the airport. All is okay. Okay?”

Yeah right.

Exhausted, bleary minded, I fish $50 out of my wallet. I give it to him. He counts it and then reaches into his pocket. He gives me 150 Bolivars, counting them carefully into my hand.

“I give you discount taxi,” he says. “For you, 120 Bolivars. I ask my friend.”

For you, 120 Bolivars? Where am I? 47th Street Photo? Oy vey!

You can read about the rest of my adventures with this official. They're posted on the diary blog.

That's the potatoes. The meat of this column is my actual stay in Caracas. I meet Johnny that night. We go to a bar in “El Barrio.” It's supposed to be a dangerous neighborhood, but looks friendly enough to me.

“Is my car okay?” asks Johnny, looking out the bar window to where the car is parked... across the street. “I just want to make sure no one is breaking into the car.”

Johnny tells me that he's going to Columbia. The people are nice there. I can stay at his place if I want to, his brother is there. But I have to leave early, when his brother goes to work. And I can't come back until his brother is home. There is only one key.

You can't use keys as a sign of real danger. They're only perceived danger. Frightened people buy more locks. People may be scared because bad guys lurk on every corner. OR, people may be scared because they think bad guys lurk on every corner. They read it in the papers. See Fox 5 News... America's Most Wanted. It's hard to tell the reality. But it's easy to tell the reality that people are afraid. The more keys, the more fear.

In any case, I decide I'd rather stay in town. With a couch-surfer, actually the family of a couch-surfer ,I met in Trinidad. He said I could stay with his mom and sister in Caracas... in the room he grew up in. The family'll put me up for a week.

Flash forward: I write this in the apartment of my Venezuelan hosts. A middle class place in the center of Caracas. Mom and her daughter. Both bigger than the World Trade Center (used to be). They don't go out. Never get any exorcise except walking from one room to the kitchen. It's dangerous outside. The city is full of criminals. They just stay in and eat. Crime is everywhere, they tell me. Keep a few Bolivars in your pocket and leave your wallet at home. Don't show your camera. Don't show your computer. Don't walk past that street you can see from the window. It's dangerous!

Right now I'm trapped. My host family has gone to I donno where. Because of security here, you need a key to get in and out. A key... what am I talking about? Five keys. Ten keys. Dozens of keys.

To leave the apartment building and complex you need:

  1.   Key#1 to the apartment door (key necessary from both sides-- enter and leave)

  2.  Key#2 to the metal gate just outside the door. (key necessary from both sides-- enter and leave)

  3.  Key#3 to the gate protecting the alcove of 2 apartments on the left side of the elevator. (key necessary from both sides-- enter and leave)

  4.  An electronic key to call the elevator to your floor. Inside the elevator, you need the same key to push the buttons to move to your chosen floor.

  5.  The electronic key to leave the building through the main entrance. (key necessary from both sides-- enter and leave)

  6.  The electronic key to leave the building courtyard... It opens the gate. (key necessary from both sides-- enter and leave)

  7.  The electronic key to leave the entire apartment complex-- about half a dozen buildings and a small park. (key necessary from both sides-- enter and leave through the main gate)

And if there's a fire? It's all electronic! So much can go wrong with electronics. It's not a simple key in a simple lock. I don't want to think about it.

So my hosts are gone. Not home. I'm trapped. Can't leave. I can't get out the front door, let alone the two gates before the elevator. Okay, I'll just sit here and write. Wait for them to return.

Flashback#1: I walk into a discount luggage shop. I need to buy a bag to carry the punk stuff I pick up from my friends. And a beach towel. Somehow, I lost mine during my one-night stay at the hotel.

Gabriella, the woman, I'm staying with, told me there was a 30% inflation rate in Venezuela.

“You'd better buy today,” she said. “If you buy tomorrow, it'll be a dollar more.”

Only gas is cheap. Cheaper than water. Caracas has five million people and four million cars. You'd drive too if gas were 45 cents a gallon. Whoops, I bet you drive anyway.

Back to the shop. I pick out my towel and bag and head to the cashier. A young salesgirl, who's been following me since I entered the store, follows me to the front.

“That'll be thirty-eight Bolivars,” says the man at the register (in Spanish).

I fish out my money.

“I also need your...” I don't understand the word, but it sounds like secaro.

“I don't understand.” I tell the guy, in Spanish. “My Spanish is not that great.”

“SECARO! SECARO!” shouts the salesgirl, as if by shouting, she could make me understand better.

“MY SPANISH IS NOT THAT GOOD!” I shout back, in English.

They both look at me like I'm dangerous. But I open my wallet, fish out my driver's license, and show it to the cashier. That's the ticket.

So Venezuela becomes the first country I've ever been in that makes you show I.D. to pay cash. And I was in Poland during Commie times!

Back to the present: Still stuck here. What else can I write about? Well, there are posters of Chavez everywhere. Wall posters, most in that cut-out Communist style that Castro used to like.

There are also photos. Every politician wants his photo next to a photo of Chavez. And there's Che. Not quite as many Che posters as Chavez, but it's close.

Chavez tried to change the constitution. He wanted to give himself more power. Take decision-making away from the legislature and put it in his own hands. He rewrote the constitution and put it to the vote. He lost.

Then, like Mayor Bloomberg here in New York, Chavez decided to ignore popular opinion and put in the laws himself. There were immediate protests. They continue to this day. The protester's motto? NO ES NO!

There were petitions. Thousands of people signed, opposing Chavez ignoring the popular vote. Gabriella, my hostess, was one of them.

Soon after signing the petition, she lost her job. She is a petroleum geologist in a country where the government owns the petroleum industry. Because she signed the petition, she can no longer get a government job. She can no longer work at all.

I wonder where she and her mother went. Maybe they went to buy food, a ton of it... since it'll cost a lot more tomorrow.

So I'm thinking. Maybe my idea about Trinidad was only half right. Maybe danger is a necessary by-product of freedom. But not only that. It can also accompany vengeful totalitarianism. Control doesn't mean lack of danger-- or fear. These feelings can co-exists, or maybe MUST co-exist with control.

Maybe I'll talk to Gabriella about it. She's coming now. I can hear the key in the lock.

ENDNOTES: [email subscribers (god@mykelboard.com), blog subscribers (mykelsblog.blogspot.com) or website viewers (www.mykelboard.com) will get live links, a few more endnotes and a chance to comment on the column]

-->I went to the right school dept: The National Coalition Against Censorship reports that in 2005, the U.S. Secret Service visited "Axis of Evil: The Secret History of Sin." It was an international exhibition of stamp art at Columbia College in Chicago. (One of my almae matres) Two federal agents took photos of Al Bradtner's "Patriot Act." The art project showed fake 37-cent stamps with a revolver pointed at GWB's head.
     Turns out Columbia was the brave school. When the same exhibit was shown at U.W. Green Bay, the chancellor removed Bardtner's work before displaying the exhibition.

-->It only took 'em 600 years dept: In an extreme example of good news-bad news, England has finally removed a law against blasphemy. It is now legal to say "God is an asshole," but it may be illegal to say “Satan is a homo.”
      See, the same law that allows blasphemy, makes “free” speech illegal if it "incites hatred against gays." It also makes “free” press illegal if it includes "violent pornography." The law punishes possession, as well as creation of such material. Ouch!

-->Keith Dobson from York PA sent me a bunch of clippings from the local paper. My favorite is about the arrest of Janet Brannon in Delhi Illinois. What was she doing? Tending bar... in the nude. The charge was "public indecency."
  Seems, however, that nobody actually complained about her bartending. The cops just discovered it on a "routine check."
     Yeah right.
     I say some cop missed getting a blowjob THAT week.

-->Maybe the bartender shudda been dancing dept: The Iowa state attorney general's office asked the Iowa Supreme Court to review a judge's ruling that nude dancing is a legal "art form."
  Seems like the lower court judge ruled that a strip club was protected under a law allowing nudity in relation to art.
    Yippie!
    I say some judge GOT a blowjob that week.

-->Funny if true dept: I got a postcard from a save-Tibet group. I don't know if its true, but it's so close to THE ONION that I believe it.
     According to this postcard, on September 1, 2007, China passed a law that says, "all Tibetan Buddhist teachers, including the Dalai Lama, cannot be reincarnated without the permission of the Chinese government."
     Talk about totalitarian! Yowsah!

--> AMNewYork reports that Serita Armstrong, a former Brooklyn traffic agent, has sued the NYPD. Why? Undercover narcotics cops, cuffed, frisked and arrested her because she "blocked their access to crullers and chocolate glazed.”
     When she told them she was a traffic cop, they arrested her for “impersonating an officer.” The Brooklyn DA latter dropped all charges against Armstrong. Who knows what happened to the charges against the cops?

-->Not all cops are donut thugs dept: Cook County Sheriff, Tom Dart, ordered his deputies to stop evicting people from foreclosed property.
  "Many people we've helped throw out on the street are just renters," he said. "We will no longer be a party to something that's so unjust."
  Yeah Tom! This donut's for you!

-->Thanks dept: My pal and Howard Stern look-alike, Stewart Brodian is a DJ on WDIY, an NPR station in Pennsylvania. He loves playing indie music on the air-- especially if you're from PA! So send him CDs, rip one if you don't have one handy. He's at POB 1253, Easton PA 18044.
S tew invited me and my pal Sid Yiddish (the famous shofar-blowing-throat-singer) to his show in October. After what we did, I hope he still has a show in November.

-end-

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