Mykel's MRR Column for #324 (May 2010) Mykel is saved by lesbians

  You're Wrong
  An Irregular Column 

Number 324 May, 2010
 by Mykel Board 

A weed is a plant out of place. --Jim Thompson 

I didn't think it was possible to catch Tourette's Syndrome, especially from a book. I was wrong. I'm reading Motherless Brooklyn, By Jonathan Lethem, it's fiction about a detective who barks, curses, twitches through a complicated plot about Buddhists and giant Polaks.

Now, I've got it. The syndrome, that is. Every time I pass an attractive person on the street I shout AAAAHOOOGAH! Like one of those cars from the 1920s. So far it hasn't got me punched. Hasn't got me laid either.

It could be my mood, though, not the syndrome.

Usually, I'm a jolly guy. Easily entertained. I enjoy the simple things in life... getting drunk, jerking off, taking a shit, being kidnapped in Albania. So how come I've been feeling so rotten lately?

It's not the politics. Dubya was as bad as Bambi.

It's not the age milestone. Just that I made it is cause for celebration, or at least amazement. 

It's not the state of punkrock... In fact, sometime I'll write a column about the great state of punkrock in New York... especially the NEW SCUM scene.

I think I'm depressed by something I hinted at in an earlier column. Something you see in iTunes and Facebook. Maybe I'm barking at Twitter and Netflix. At the TV-sized screens in the local multiplex and the theater-sized screens in the apartment across the street.

 
Scene shift: Lefty Hooligan already complained about it. Now I will: I've got 764 friends on Facebook. What does it get me? Can I suck the squack from 764 vaginae? Can I wrap my rectum around 764 throbbing Vienna sausages? Can I ask 764 people to share my can of PBR? Sure I can. But will they show up?

For the past 12 years, I've had a group called DRINK CLUB. It started with me and a couple Japanese students. We went to the same bar every Monday. Gradually, more people joined us, and we started moving. Then I saw Fight Club.

“Yow!” I thought, “that's us! Not Fight Club, but DRINK CLUB!”

I made a website. All kinds of folks joined us. Once we had 35 people... from seven countries. Alcohol is the world's greatest social lubricant. Have a drink, talk, laugh. Have another drink. Music is good too. But if the music is good, it's hard to talk.

At the turn of the century, at least a dozen people joined us every week in our quest to discover new bars, cause trouble, slap each others' shoulders, nibble on each others' buffalo wings.

Then something happened.

Right now I sit in Bamboo 52, in Hell's Kitchen. It's a long narrow affair. Up-front is the bar. In back are tables and a waitress. As is the fashion in New York, people stand at the bar trying to pick each other up. No one sits. So I snag a couple tables, push them together, put up the DRINK CLUB sign, and let the manager know to expect some people... both Occident-- and Orient-- al. Maybe even a colored gal or two. It's 9:15pm. Drink Club officially starts at 9:37. I pick weird starting times so people will think it's like a train schedule and rush to be on time. It doesn't work. People usually show up at 10. I'll wait.

Recently, I found out that Coors owns BLUE MOON. I order a Hoegaarten. The menu offers spurious Japanese food with a decidedly New York bend. Not a sushi roll, but a Bagel Roll: Eel, salmon, cream cheese and Tempura. Yuck.

I order noodles.

9:30: No one but me here.

I order a Kona Fire beer... a nice hoppy brew that's rare in New York. It comes with a lemon in it. What is it with bars these days? If it's from some warm place, throw a lemon or lime in it. Yuck!! If I wanted a fruit drink, I'd order a Fuzzy Navel or one of those other girl/yuppie abominations.

10:00: No one but me is here.

The only guy at the bar not hitting on one of the girls at the bar comes over to me.

“Hey,” he says. “Did anyone ever tell you that you look like Jeff Van Gundy?”

“Ben Weasel told me that,” I tell him.

He laughs like he gets the joke. There is no joke.

10:30: No one but me is here. I leave.

“Maybe if I find a gimmick...” I think. “People like gimmicks.”

 
Flash ahead to next week: Drink Club will be at Local 138 in the Lower East Side.

After a little bit of Googling, I find out that Drink Club Day is also National Battery Day. Huh?

On Facebook, I post that everyone should bring a battery operated something to Drink Club. It'll make for an interesting theme night. A gimmick.

 On the Friday before Drink Club, I stop in the bar to make sure there's going to be enough room for us.

It's about 4 in the afternoon. I walk through the front door, halfway down on Ludlow Street. The place is empty except for the bartendress cleaning glasses behind the bar.

AAAAHOOOGAH!

I walk up to her. Six steps from the door to the bar. Six steps until my penis achieves full erection. When I reach the bar, I come.

You guessed it. The bartendress is the sexiest white female I've ever seen. Brown almost crewcut hair. Tall, skinny, with two teacup-sized breasts pertly and naturally aroused behind her t-shirt. If Lesbian Nation makes a recruiting poster, here's the model. I'll sign up. Now!

You know that Guys With Pies series? The butch lezbo equivalent of Chicks With Dicks? This girl is even better.

I push up against the bar so she can't see the wet spot on my pants.

“Oh hi,” I croak.

“Is it so cold outside?” asks the enchantress. “Your face is bright red. You want something warm?”

“You bet, and it's right between your legs,” I don't say.

“I just noticed it when I came...er... came in,” I say.

She smiles one of those okay-bud-tell-me-what-you-want-or-leave smiles.

“A...act...actually,” I stutter, “I do this thing called Drink Club...”

I hand her a card.

“Every week we go to a different bar. Next week it's here. I just wanted to make sure there was enough room for the crew.”

“How many people will there be?” she asks.

 
“I donno,” I tell her. “The biggest group was 35 people. The smallest group was... only me. We'll be here Thursday.”

“No problem,” says the messiahness. “You can have the back room.”

She walks around the bar, toward the back. I follow at an admiring distance.

She shows me the room and I thank her.

On my way back home, I buy a toy tank from a shop in Chinatown. 

When you turn it on, it flashes. A TRANSFORMER pops out the top and shouts FIRE! FIRE!

I return home, set down the toy and scrape the semen from my pubes. Then, I send out 500 reminder emails, text a few people, print out more Drink Club business cards, and get a very good night's sleep.

 
The night of Drink Club: I'm at the bar half an hour early.

Her majesty is not working tonight. And the back room is closed. Locked.

Dejected, I take a table, put up the DRINK CLUB sign, and wait.

In about a half hour, Evan walks in. Yeah, that Evan. The one who wrote I Was A Murder Junkie. The one who played in every George Tabb band since Roach Motel. That's the one who smiles and sits down next to me.

This is terrific. Last time I saw Evan was at my birthday party where I was almost as happy to see him as I was this girl Erin. Her, I'd met only a few times, but she was sexy as a lesbian and twice as friendly. I like Evan. Since he doesn't drink, it's strange for him to come to Drink Club. Still, I'm glad he's there.

“Well,” I say to him. “Thanks a lot for coming. I thought it was gonna be only me... like last week. Did you bring a battery toy?”

Evan shakes his head. “Sorry Myke,l I don't have one. But don't worry. I think someone else will be here.”

“I hope you're right,” I say, starting my second beer.

Three-quarters of the way through it, my cellphone buzzes. A text message... from Erin.

“I'm in Chinatown,” she texts, “I'll be there in a few minutes.”

Yow! Maybe it's too bad it won't be just the two of us. Me and Erin. How do I tell Evan it was nice seeing him, but...

“It's from Erin,” I tell Evan. “Maybe you met her at my birthday party. I have such a crush on her.”

“Me too,” he says. “That's why I arranged with her to meet me here.”

I shudda known!

The night is Erin, Evan and me. Two guys who like the same girl. 

Two writers: My book is bigger than yours. Two smart guys, one nearing 40, the other just past seventy. Who has the best chance? I ask you?

Still, I'm game and I want to give it the ole' Drink Club try. 

There's nothing else to do anyway. Nobody else is gonna show up... and I need some human contact.

“I kinda set my partner limit at age fifty-five,” says Erin sometime between the sixth and seventh beer. “Sorry Mykel.”

Can you believe she actually says that? Set her limit? What's the deal? Is she afraid I'm gonna keel over on top of her like Nelson Rockefeller? (Look it up.)

I get home at 4am. Sloshed. A hangover pre-curser... or maybe just a headache from butting horns with Evan. Two horny rams. What's to do now? I can't sleep. Maybe I'll go to xhamster.com and check if they got anything new to jerk off to? I usually search under Emo.  
You may not like the music, but the porn is great. Or maybe they've got some excerpts from Guys With Pies.

AAAAHOOOGAH!

Instead, I check Facebook. There's a message from Jennifer Blowdrier, former MRR columnist, and one of the few Facebook friends worthy of the word.

 
Hi Mykel, she writes. You know I had this writer's group here in LA? Looks like it fell apart. You can't do anything face-to-face anymore.

I Facebook her back, telling her how right she is and how I've been thinking the same thing. And, oh yeah, isn't it ironic that we complain on Facebook about how virtual the world is becoming. I do NOT include a smiley icon.

Below Jennifer's message is an invitation to The Bull Dyke Chronicals. Shelly Mars, my pal, former nextdoor neighbor, and George Tabb stag party performer, hosts a lesbian variety show in a small performance space on the Lower East Side. I think I'll pass on that one... yeah right.

I'm there.

 
Flash ahead: It's a little tough to find the small club. Dixon's Place is on Christie Street. Used to be a whore street in the days before people traded whores for virtual sex.

Now, there's a crowd of attractive young men standing on the street. As I approach, I see they are not young men. AAAAHOOOGAH!THIS MUST BE THE PLACE.

As cross the last street before the bar, a giant Whole Foods truck slams into me, running me over. I die instantly.

I don't actually remember that, but it must have happened, because when I enter the door to the bar, I'm in heaven. Wall-to-wall girls! White girls. Black Girls. J.A.P.s and Japs. The only girl missing is that bartendress from Local 138. I'm sure she's here somewhere.

I stare.

Not the casual look-out-the-corner-of-my-eye-don't-want-'em-to-know-I'm-staring stare, but a Jezus-fuckin'-Christ-I-can't-believe-this-is-happening-to-me stare.

And these girls are just standing around talking. Elbows resting on palms. Drinks in hand, like being the sexiest creatures in an infinitude of simultaneous universes is no big deal.

 In the back of the bar is a tiny stage surrounded by folding chairs. One each of these chairs rests the glutei maxima callipygious of the audience. Other girls stand and face the small stage in friendly conversation, waiting for the show to begin.

And begin it does.

The lights dim. There's Shelly, dressed in sparkly tights and a gold lamé shift. She does a shtick about Joey Heatherton... a minor luminary. (Three people who read this might have heard of her.) She leaves the stage to applause; does a quick change; and returns as herself, the Mistress of Ceremony.

“Welcome to the Bull Dyke Chronicles,” she says. “You know, I've been Facebooking, and Tweeting, and virtually virtualizing everything. It's a bitch, huh? Nobody really sees anybody anymore.”

I can't believe it. It's me channeled through a lesbian body.

“Even if you go to a bar,” she continues, “you never really talk. You just stand there with your arms folded, trying to pick up some girl. And what does it get you? A hangover?”

“Yeah!” I shout.

Everyone looks at me.

Shelly laughs.

“But when there's a performance, something to see and watch. People get together in a more human way. Audience and performers and all kind of mixes. It's... I donno... like real people....”

“Enough philosophy... And now, our first guest, from Macon Georgia, we have Debbie Mae Sue.”

There's applause.

A pert twenty something with a huge blond wig mounts the stage.

“Howdy ya'll,” she says in a drawl. “It's sure a pleasure being here with you tonight for the Bulldog Chronicles. The Bulldogs, that's the team from my hometown. So it's great to be celebrating with y'all.”

She leads the crowd in a rousing football song, complete with barking. A hundred and twenty lesbians singing We are the bulldogs, arf arf arf.” I don't know whether to laugh or come.

Following Sally Mae is Sugarbutch, a guy-with-a-pie and more personality than anyone I've seen on stage in the last 10 years. 

She's a poetess who is not funny, but riveting. She's like those great actors you hear about, who can read the phonebook and make you cry. But her poems are much better than any phonebook, not sappy, not funny, but... well, you gotta be there.

“You don't like poetry?” she says. “Maybe you haven't had the right poet.”

There's so much more. It would take another column to describe. You can't imagine.

The place is packed. People are friendly, laughing, chatty... even to me. Leave it to the lezbos to touch lips across the Facebook wall. I only wish I could fit in.

Last year, Jesse made me an honorary Hispanic. This year, I want to become a lesbian. I'll pray tonight for the goddess to shrink my outtie even more. I'll let you know what happens.

 
AAAAHOOOGAH!

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

--> Last month I made a mistake on Kyle N's MySpace page: it's nothingisttrue. Note the two t's in ttrue... or is it the German "ist" plus true. Ask him. Besides he needs your support in jail. Write to him at: Kyle Nonneman, #691768, 1120 SW 3rd St, Portland OR 97204

-->Only in America dept: Everything has its price. A new web service PriceDoc.com will let you bid on the cost of hundreds of medical procedures if you pay cash or with a credit card. You can also reserve a price from published fees, make a lower offer or "name your price.” If you "win," just call the doctor for an appointment. Cancer? Get a discount operation. It might work. Pretty sick, huh?

-->I didn't realize dept: The deadline for the APRIL issue of MRR came and went without me realizing it. I think I managed to squeeze in a couple lines about being in jail. Of course, that was a lie. So far, they haven't got me.

-->More on Obama dept: The Family is a Charlie Manson-sounding secretive Religious Right group. It sponsors an annual National Prayer Breakfast in Washington DC. The group supports David Bahati, a Ugandan legislator who is pushing a super-hardcore anti-homo law.
    The Ugandan proposal calls for the execution of gays and the imprisonment of those who promote homosexuality. Obama attended the breakfast and said nothing about the Ugandan proposal. Did you expect otherwise?

-->Save a life in lust dept: My pal Sid Yiddish sent me a link to a story about a town in Switzerland that is providing its brothels with defibrillators. Seems like... er... older gentlemen have been Viagring with the young women then kicking the bucket... mid-thrust. It's a good way to go, but it's even better if you get a second chance.

-->Contact her dept: I wrote about the great, Sugarbutch. Go to her website www.sugarbutch.net to find out more about her. And there, you'll find a great link to the lesbian porn of your dreams. Yeah, they sell the entire Guys With Pies series.

-end-

visit Mykel's homepage here:

Mykel's MRR Column for #323, (April, 2010)

  You're Wrong
  An Irregular Column 

Number 323 April, 2010
 by Mykel Board 
(posted by Maximum Rock'n'Roll for Mykel at his request)


Don't know what I want but I know how to get it. --Johnny Rotten
Know what I want, but I don't know how to get it. --Mykel Board

Out my window, rain streams in torrents against the glass, bouncing drop-by-drop on the gray Manhattan streets. Rainwater soaks the legs of my pants... a walk to the bank... and back. Why did I walk to the bank in the rain? Someone has used my debit card number to buy $1,000 worth of disco DJ equipment from Radio Shack in New Jersey.

The appropriately named Chase Fraud Department said that all I had to do was fill out an electronic form. The money would be back in my account “the next business day.” Yeah right. 

It's been a week. Imagine a thousand bucks missing from your bank account for a week. There go the credit card bills, the rent, beer. I'm gonna have to mug a wino to survive. But that's only the end of week 3 of the beginning of the worst decade of my life.   

Back up: I shudda been happier than a feminist at a castration. New Year's 2010. The start of my seventh decade. Seventy years, Jesus fuckin' Christ. 

God said, “Let there be light.” 

I turn on the switch. That's how old I am. 

This is the first month of my seventieth year. New Year's Eve was good. The Bear, my best Japanese friend was there with Gilberto, my best Mexican friend, and Marilyn, my best New York friend. We got pleasantly soused at The Peculier Pub, my favorite locale in The City. 

Part of why I've lasted this long is that I have reasons to live. I knew I could never die before going to Mongolia. So I went to Mongolia. OK, I will live through writing a book. I wrote a book. Two books. Okay, now, I want a party where a girl comes out of a cake. 

Everybody has seen a girl --usually a blonde with tits out to here-- come out of a cake... in The Movies,. It's a mainstay. I guess it also happens on Broadway and in advertising.

But who's seen it in real life? Anybody you know? I didn't think so. But I want to. I want to really have a party where a girl comes out of a cake. Where, she dips her hands in the frosting and tickles my nose with it. I lick it off her breasts. Mmmm lemon. Can't die without doing that, can I?

AND, I found the girl and I found someone to make the cake. My best pal, Marilyn (right name for a girl to come out of a cake... but she's making it) and Lola (right name for a girl to come out of a cake... and she's coming out of it.) Marilyn's making me a great surprise birthday party at the end of the month.

She forks over $1,000 reserving Bar One-Oh-Eight, where we drink every Monday night. We're pals with the bartender and should score a bunch of extras... as well as tolerance for er... unusual activities. 

Marilyn paid for three hours of free booze, an open bar, and food... Dozens of my friends (whose number always increases when there is free booze and food) will be there. Marilyn is a goddess!

As for the rest of the month, I was going to go through a narrative. Go to each item, just when nothing else can go wrong, something worse happens. January may be the worst month of my life where no one dies. (I'm so not sure about that either. I still have six more days for someone to keel over.)

I was gonna tell you about the crashed computer... the $1000 replacement, the pictures, data, writing, lost... me, leaving my apartment the next day... locking the door... the key spins... nothing happens... it's 8:30 AM... I can't lock my apartment and I have to be at work in 20 minutes. The door stays open all day.

Next day... I replace the lock... and lose the new key... a wart develops on my eyelid, $50 at the dermatologist's.

“Maybe it won't come back,” says the doctor as I leave with a patch.

At work, I throw a hissy fit because the office manager complains about me wasting money making copies... I throw three quarters (25 cent pieces) at her...There! That'll pay for your fucking copies!!! Now she hates me... won't talk to me... Workplace harassment or something.

Then, there's the four-hundred dollars' worth of dental work to replace a gold inlay lost in Italy... the twelve hundred dollars' worth of Radio Shack goods I already told you about... charged falsely on my debit card. (No I still haven't gotten the money back)... 

There's more. My doctor says I've got Macular Degeneration. I'll probably go blind in two years. I figure it's from the “generic Viagra” I got in Trinidad all those months ago... I used it three times and only scored once. Want more? 

Fuck it. There's too much for the 2000+ words I'm allowed here. The headaches and skin eruptions. The food spilled on my only clean clothes. The toilet backed up and overflowing all night. What gets me through it all is THE GIRL, THE CAKE. Things are so bad I consider sticking my head in the oven... the microwave... but I've got a birthday party coming. A girl coming out of a cake.

Do you think this portends? Does it sound like a set-up? Like a joke where this guy walks into a bar and asks if he can have a girl come out of a cake? You bet! The joke's on me. 

Marilyn walks past the bar today. On her way to work. The place is closed. Papered up. Gone. Skedaddled. Outta here. Nothing. Bar ONE OH EIGHT is Bar ZERO ZERO ZERO. Not only has this decades' luck set me back several thousand dollars, it's set my best friend back a grand. 

So what am I going to do? How can I face it? It's unrelenting. Every day there's something else. Today, my statement comes from Chase. The $1000 from Radio Shack is still listed. There's also an Albanian restaurant claiming I owe more than $100 for a meal I ate two months ago! I'm so depressed I ignore it. Don't give a rat's ass. Can't pick up the phone to complain. 

I'm rarely depressed. My life's been pretty good. But now, I want to kill.... passers-by... that nice bum on the corner who I give a quarter to every day... Anybody. None of the usual shit works any more. Find something worse?.. Someone in shittier shape than me? Haiti? Of course their lives are worse than mine... well, maybe not. They're dead.
Afghanistan? They've got a cause. Me? A girl and a cake are not enough. I feel like my head's gonna explode. I've hung up on a dozen people so far today. Tech support! Chase! Amex! FUCK YOU! (click) FUCK YOU! (click) FUCK YOU! (click) My skin burns, like it's been sanded or scraped by a sharp knife...

I want to destroy. Break something. Knock someone's teeth out. Sounds like punkrock, doesn't it? Maybe it's time to start a band again. In the meantime, I'm gonna stay 69. Refuse to have a birthday. If God wants to fuck with me, I'll show her. Come on! Think you can take me? Try it!

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

-->Thank heaven for little boys dept: In Chattanooga Tennessee a 4-year old boy was found roaming around at night. He was drinking beer and wearing a little girl's dress, taken from a neighbor's house. The reason?
        It's not clear, but the boy's mother said he wanted to be with his father, who was in jail.

-->Small victories dept: Thanks to a lawsuit filed by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a federal judge has ruled that a South Carolina license plate, sporting a cross and the words "I Believe," is unconstitutional. It's not clear whether it would be constitutional if you had a choice between a cross, a Star of David, a Crescent, or a Pentagram. But only a cross, for some reason, violates the establishment of religion clause of the constitution. I can't imagine why.

-->Kyle Nonneman is back in jail dept: That doesn't surprise me. once they get you, they want to keep you. What does surprise me... but shouldn't... is the reason stated in the “report to the judge”
I quote:
 Samples of Nonneman's work under the name "Nothingistrue" include the following:
    The Passion of Misanthropy
    Cunt Envy
    Right to Kill
    Dead Little Girls
     Once You've Killed Someone Life's Shit
     (That last one sounds like a plea NOT to kill!) 

   Worse than that, the parole-ending guy writes in his report:   it appears he (Kyle) subscribes to a Nihilist philosophy.... Typically Nihilists reject social, legal, moral and religious norms. His thoughts and beliefs are clearly spelled out in his writing, music and posts on his MySpace page.
     Can you believe the cops/courts using music, thoughts, beliefs, and MySpace to jail someone? Uh... yes, you can believe it. This is America, after all.
      Write to Kyle at: Kyle Nonneman, #691768, 1120 SW 3rd St, Portland OR 97204

-->I wonder if she called them "old farts" dept: One of my new heroines is Teanne Harris of DesPlaines IL. Six days before her scheduled wedding, her fiancé... er... pulled out. Instead of trying to get whatever refund she could, she just gave the whole celebration (food, DJ, drink, kit and caboodle) to the local old folks' home. This turning a tragedy on its head is just great.
    It's even better than the original plan. Marriage is a sucky slave-related government institution. Old people are cool. Ten punk points Teanne.

-->Polling the 'digitally active' dept: PC Tools recently commissioned a survey investigating online habits.
     Here are the results: 57% of people surveyed would give up alcohol before giving up the Internet. Eleven percent would give up their job and 8.6% would go without sex to stay connected!
Why is it so hard to give it up?
      Social media ranked first with 68% of participants responding that socializing with others would be the hardest Internet activity to give up. 30% indicated that one of the hardest online activities to sacrifice would be porn!
      I don't think PC Tools gets it. People don't GIVE UP sex for porn. Porn IS sex. You just don't have to make breakfast for it in the next morning.

-end-

As you probably know, Mykel is due to spend the next 20 years at a medium security facility in Tuscaloosa. MRR will handle his correspondence. You can write to him c/o Maximum Rock'n'Roll, POB 460760, SF CA 94146-0760, . Thanks.

      

visit Mykel's homepage here:

Mykel's MRR Column for #322, (March, 2010)

If you want to read more about Mykel's adventures in Albania, The US South-- or life in General-- check out Mykel's Diary For a look at the weird, the scary and the funny in real life, check out Mykel's Article's and Propositions.         

 

You're Wrong
An Irregular Column
for MRR 322, March 2010
by Mykel Board

I'm all for complaining about a worm because it's an ugly dirty little thing. But I don't believe in complaining about it because it might be a snake. --Brad Crandall

It hurt worse than a cactus dildo. My Chanukah present from my sister. A new vacuum cleaner. Just what I need. Really. My old one lost a filter. Whenever I used it, it spewed offal into the air, filling my lungs with 30 year old dust bunnies. I'd cough for a week. Chronic bronchitis.

So my sister gets me this new thing. Dirt Devil, it's called. “Powerful enough to suck up the deepest dirt.”

It takes me about 15 minutes to put it together and attach the hose and other equipment. I need to try it out. I unzip and pulled out my own equipment. From previous experience, I know that the obvious grease and insert is not nearly as much fun as vacuum tea-baggin'. Yowsah!

It works better on the right testicle... the left one hangs lower anyway. Vacuum induced equality, I say.

I go to http://tinyurl.com/3someok and get ready. In a few minutes, I've risen to 45 degrees. Then, pump it up a final five more degrees. Insert that ball. Step on the switch.

YOW!!! JESUS FUCKIN' CHRIST! Holy shit, is that thing strong! It feels like my tongue's been sucked down into my scrotum! I won't be able to walk for a week.

Cramped, I fall over into the bed and examine the injury. It looks like a bruised prune. I don't think I'll be going anywhere today. I can barely move.

I reach over to the night table and drag off a half-read magazine. I'll just lie here and read while my body resets my internal organs.

Check it out: The Utne Reader, a liberal journal I've often quoted in this column... the January 2010 issue.

I turn to an article called A Conspiracy of Hate. It's a reprint from Intelligence Report, a Nazi-baiting publication of the Southern Poverty Law Center. I wrote about those guys before (MRR 317). They want right-wingers banned from the military because they're too violent. Makes a lot of sense... huh? Military people shouldn't be violent, should they?

The article in the new issue conflates all kinds of right wingers on the flimsiest of evidence.. Militias are racist. Conspiracy theorists are Nazis. Gun owners are anti-Jewish. They all believe in the Protocols of The Elders of Zion, a notorious middle-ages fake document on the Jewish plan to take over the world. Oy.

Check out this quote from a typical anti-militia lefty, “The militia movement today believes in the conspiracy theory of the Protocols, even if some call it something else and never mention the Jews...” Huh?

What pisses me off most about this article are the flimsy connections the I.R. uses to show a vast violent right-wing conspiracy. Want a connection between the tax protesters who want an end to The Federal Reserve and violent racism? Check out this quote:

In March, a Spokane, Washington, man pleaded guilty to illegally possessing two grenade launchers, 54 grenades, 37 machine guns, eight silencers, and a variety of explosives. The man had an “End the Fed” bumper sticker on his vehicle.

That's right. He had a bumper sticker! That's the connection.

Jesus fuckin' Christ. I better watch my back, since who knows how many crimes are committed by people with BABY ON (Mykel) BOARD bumper stickers on their cars?

This rankles my dander so much I feel like canceling my Utne subscription. I sit up, but the pain in my groin knocks me back into a lying position. Good thing too. Because, unlike me at the moment, Utne has functioning balls. They follow this horrible article by a piece of brilliance from Reason Magazine, a publication of the U.S. Libertarian Party.

The title of the article is The Paranoid Center. It is so exactly right, that I'm tempted to reprint the whole thing, and call it my column. Unfortunately, it's too long (now THAT'S a phrase I rarely hear!), and a bit too dry. So I'll abridge it some here. Those interested can get the complete article at: http://tinyurl.com/reason-paranoid.

I do want to quote the first few original paragraphs though, because they lead to the meat of the article.

On June 10, 2009, an elderly man entered the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, raised a rifle, and opened fire, killing a security guard named Stephen Tyrone Johns. The killer was soon identified as James Wenneker von Brunn, an 88-year-old neo-Nazi. Von Brunn acted alone, but there was no shortage of voices eager to spread the blame for his crime. The murder was quickly linked, in a free-associative way, to the assassination 10 days earlier of the Kansas abortionist George Tiller. This, we were told, was a "pattern" of "rising right-wing violence."

More imaginative pundits tried to tie the two slayings to a smattering of other crimes, from an April shootout in Pittsburgh that killed three cops, to a year-old double murder at a Knoxville Unitarian church. The longest such list, assembled by the liberal blogger Sara Robinson, included nine diverse incidents linked only by the fact that the criminals all hailed from one corner or another of the paranoid right. One of the episodes involved a mentally disturbed anti-Semite who had stalked a former classmate for two years before killing her in May. "This is how terrorism begins," Robinson warned.

After this, the article goes on about various ways that lefties and their friends manufacture conspiracies from picking unrelated facts and grinding them together like I grind cholesterol- lowering turmeric with my coffee beans every morning. Okay that's to be expected. The right-wing does the same with lefty “crimes.”

A great band (mine) once wrote a song called Crassdriver about how the right and the left are pretty much the same. Both are totalitarian, and anti-sex. They're also both paranoid, seeing plots in every historical accident --like other paranoids see hidden threats in the pattern of sidewalk cracks.

So, say the lefties, the militias are a bunch of anti-Jewish (usually called anti-Semitic, but that term is as vague and misguided as Asian), fascist racists. Everybody knows that, right?

Not so fast. Robert H. Churchill, in a recent book about the militias says they are anti-government and anti-government inspired violence. (Remember Waco?) They are not particularly anti-Black or anti-Jew. He backs up his interpretation with lotsa quotes from militia figures. These include denunciations of the beating of Rodney King and the rape of Abner Louima, a Haitian man who New York police sodomized with a broomstick in 1997.

According to Churchill:

The militias formed and grew as their members "came to the conclusion that the federalization and militarization of law enforcement had created a paramilitary culture of violence."

In other words, the militias are like you and me! They're anti-government, especially anti-government violence against the helpless.

And what about the Timothy McVeigh-style militia's own violence... like the Oklahoma bombing? It's like the Unibomber bombing, and exactly as representative of the movement. In fact, in at least three cases, police arrested fringe militiamen after other militia members got wind of their violent plans and called the cops.

Even more parallel to the left, the older right wingers didn't like the newer upstarts.

"They are not for the preservation of the white race," Aryan Nations chief Richard Butler complained. "They're actually traitors to the white race; they seek to integrate with blacks, Jews, and others."

Yeah, there are racists in the militias, but even as bigots sometimes appeared in militia circles, so did blacks, Hispanics, and Jews.

Ok, we can expect the left and right to mirror each other in paranoia and conspiracy theories. It's like two testicles, alternating on which hangs lower. But what of The Center? What's that got to do with them?

Well, The Department of Homeland Security (as paranoid center as you can get) issued a report about the dangers of the right. They said the right

...can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly anti-government, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.

The report said nothing about any actual danger from these groups. Isn't that what Homeland Security is supposed to do? Talk about security? Not ideology.

Much to their credit, the ACLU protested the report. They said it focused on ideology rather than any real violence. That made it a danger to free speech and free thought.

Most of the mainstream ignores this logic. It sees the right-wing rhetoric itself as dangerous, just like the mainstream saw the rhetoric of the sixties leftists as dangerous. And it's the mainstream that has the most guns. It's up to us to have more (uninjured) balls.

Says Jesse Walker, the Reason article's author: It's comforting to imagine that violence and paranoia belong only to the far left and right, and that we can protect ourselves from their effects by quarantining the extremists and vigilantly expelling anyone who seems to be bringing their ideas into the mainstream. But the center has its own varieties of violence and paranoia. And it's far more dangerous than anyone on the fringe, even the armed fringe, will ever be.

Yeah the rightists are pests (though sometimes they're correct), but they're not all dangerous. And there is no vast conspiracy of militias and Klansman, any more than there's a vast conspiracy of university bombers and Barack Obama. My right ball still hurts like hell, but that doesn't mean there is a giant corporate plot to render me childless. Come on! Get a grip!

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

-->Legalized Blackmail Dept: Website magazine reports the establishment of a new website: BadCustomer.com
    Here, a merchant can report a fussy, non-paying, chargeback customer. That customer then gets listed on the site, which is free for merchants to use. They can use the customer list to deny “bad customers” credit.
    Customers, of course, have a way to remove their names from the list. Just fork over $100 to the website.

-->What's good for the gander dept: In the UK, a heterosexual couple have been refused permission to register for a civil partnership.
     Tom Freeman and Katherine Doyle said they want to challenge "discriminatory" UK laws which restrict civil partnerships to same-sex couples. They plan legal action after their application was denied in London. UK law permits only heterosexual couples to marry. Same-sex couples can form civil partnerships.
   Couples in a civil partnership have the right to the same legal treatment as a married couple - including inheritance, pension, life assurance and maintenance rights. However civil partnerships can only be conducted by registrars, not members of the clergy, and the partnership cannot legally be called a "marriage".
   Freeman said: "It would be lovely to formalize our relationship but we are completely turned off by the whole institution of marriage because it discriminates against gay people."
   He added: "We think gay people should be able to have a standard marriage and straight people should be able to have a civil partnership."
   Local gay groups support the couple.

-->Palindrome of the month dept: “Dennis and Edna dine,” said I, as Enid and Edna sinned.

-->Oxymoron of the month dept: From The Internet Oxymoron List: Religious tolerance.

-->It must be that part about rich people not getting into heaven dept: The Progressive reports that a group of U.S. conservatives, led by Andy Schlafly, son of the rabid Phyllis Schlafly, has proposed a rewrite of the New Testament. They want to get rid of its "liberal bias." The idea is to amend the King James version of the bible to include more "free market parables" and "the logic of hell."
     Wasn't it the right-wingers who complained when The Beatles said they were "more popular than Jesus?" Now look who's talking about rewriting The Bible. Bigger than Jesus, I'd say.

--> Chainstore blues dept: While my longtime curse against Starbucks worked in forcing the java-giant to close 200 stores, I didn't expect people to actually pick up the gun and march en mass. I guess I don't keep up with the news.
     Green Anarchy newspaper (I forgot who sent me this. Kyle?) reports that in 2002, police found two bombs in Dutch outlets of IKEA. It appeared to be an anti-corporate chain protest.
     Could you imagine the chaos of the likes of Walmart if an explosive device were to be found there? They'd have to install airport bomb detectors and make the whole shopping experience even more unpleasant than it already is. Not that I'm advocating anything like that. Who me? Never!

-->My Kind of Terrorism dept: In Santa Cruz California, artists spray painted 65 SUVs with slogans including "No Blood for Oil," and "SUVs Suck."
    I can imagine a few more creative sprayings like "The bigger the car, the smaller the dick." Or "Stupid Ugly Vehicle." But it's a start. Not that I'm advocating anything like that. Who me? Never!

-->My senility dept: During my Albanian trip, I learned how to say I want to kill you you motherfucker in Albanian: De të të vras o të qitsha nonën. I forgot to mention that last time. Email me for the details on how I happened to learn that phrase.

-->Shame on you Obama dept: The last website I want to talk about is probably the most important. It's ourbombs.com/striketracker.
   Check it out and see what that asshole in the Whitehouse is doing to the people of Afghani and Paki -stan. For their own good, of course.

-end-

visit Mykel's homepage here:

Mykel's MRR Column for #321, (February, 2010)

You're Wrong
An Irregular Column
for MRR 321, February 2010
by Mykel Board

"I do not take any pleasure in suffering the torments of travel merely so that I could dine out on them.”--Paul Theroux

It's amazing how easily my thumb slips into my right nostril. How it perfectly conforms to the skin inside. Better than an ice scraper on a windshield. It scales the inside nasal wall as New York's pollution collects under the fingernail. A little twist... a pinch... a pull. A bloody booger comes out with two hairs crossed through the middle. 

Yeah, I'm back in THE CITY. My trip to Albania behind me. Gone. But far from being forgotten, despite my creeping senility. Last week I wrote about being tricked by a mysterious bus rider, into a spooky house? Hotel? Abattoir? “You can stay at my place,” he mimed, unable to speak a word of English, and my Albanian limited to less than a hundred words.Now, I'm in a room that only locks from the outside. I'm in the middle of the countryside, on a hill, in Albania. I don't know how to get to anywhere from here. I don't even know where here is. My tormentor's only motive for keeping me like this has to be torture and then (mercifully?) murder.

I don't sleep very well that night. When I do drift off the dreams are terrible. Fortunately, I can't remember most of them. Only one. I'm standing outside. Just standing... eyes closed... seeing nothing. I feel a hand grab the front of my shirt, at solar plexus level. In the dream, I know it is a dream. This is not real. I reach down and feel the hand. A human hand, masculine, holding tight. I grab the hand and squeeze. It crumples like hollow plaster in my grip.

Then I wake up.

I must have drifted off yet again, because I'm again awakened. This time by the sound of the glass door sliding open. There he is, my abductor, impossibly old, pillow-shaped, face frozen into a perpetual frown. He carries a large cup of coffee and more fruit. 

The only thing I've eaten in the past days is fruit. Figs, pomegranates, and a mysterious cactus fruit. It all grows in the garden 30 or so feet directly below. Fertilized, I'm sure, by many others who have stood in this exact spot. The fruit keeps constant pressure on my bowels. I don't take shits. I explode them. 

I understand why he asked me how long I'm staying. He hates what he has to do, and wants to postpone it until the last possible minute. I could escape, maybe. But I'm so far out of town, so lost, how would I ever get anywhere? And he'd see me with my backpack. That'd be a... er... dead giveaway.

He tells me his name. Cocho. I'm horrible with names, but somehow I feel if I don't remember this one, I'll be in even worse trouble. It becomes the most important task of my life to remember it. Let's see: Ocho is eight in Spanish. Co-means together like co-worker or cooperate. Two eights together. I fix the image in my mind and superimpose it over his face.

I take out my camera and motion that I want to take his picture. I figure when my remains wash up on shore, they'll find the camera and catch the guy. Surprisingly, he agrees. I guess he'll dispose of the camera when he disposes of me.

After the photos, he points out to the sea. He asks if I'm going to go swimming. I tell him it's too cold. He says maybe tomorrow. I say, “No I'm leaving tomorrow.”I can see the sadness in his face when I make it clear I'm not staying another day. The longer he can wait, the better. I know he doesn't want to do this, but he's got to. And now, it has to be tonight. 

Dua te shikoj Himara. (I want to see (the town of) Himara.), I tell him. 

I'm not thinking clearly. Even if I manage to get into town, I could never find my way back to his place. I get lost in Soho, for God's sake. And I can't take all my bags with me. He'd know. I have to come back here.

He points to me, then himself, and then makes a two-fingers-next-to-each-other sign that means together. Ok, we'll go together. People will see us. When they find the body, they'll be suspicious. 

At least that will get me back to the death chamber. 

So together we climb the stairs to the alley that leads to the tunnel that leads to the ditch that leads to the stone steps that lead to the road where the bus will come to take us to Himara. We wait for a bit. The bus does not come. 

I take a picture of the stone staircase, another of the garage door close to it, another of a sign that says QEPARO FSHAT, right near the descent from the highway. Qeparo is the name of this tiny village. I have no idea what “fshat” means, but maybe some cab or bus driver will recognize the sign. Besides, if I escape, like that girl in Texas Chainsaw Massacre, I can use the photos as clues for the cops to find Albania's Ed Gein. Still, the bus doesn't come. 

A car pulls out of a nearby driveway, off the main road. Slowly, it makes its way to the outer street. Cocho walks over and signals the man to stop. They have a conversation. Cocho opens the front and back doors of the car. He motions for me to get in the rear. I do. Then he closes both doors and waves good-bye. We head into town.

The driver lets me and another passenger off at the post office. I look up the word return in the Albanian-English dictionary: kthim.

Ku kthim? I ask him. (When return?)

He shows me two fingers, one bent halfway. I guess that means in an hour and a half. I figure he'll park his cab here and return to it when it's time to leave. That doesn't give me much time, but I can buy some stamps and mail my postcards, go for a stroll down the beach, look at the ocean, have a last cup of coffee before I die. I figure wrong. 

When I get out of the post office, the cab is gone. 

I'll never find my way back now. My bags, most of my money is with Cocho. My computer, too. I know the only logic is death, but what if I'm missing something? What if he's just this nice eccentric old coot who really does want to take care of me? It's not logical (or true, it turns out), but what if?

I walk to a taxi stand near the post office. Maybe my driver will be there. He isn't.

Most of the cabs are empty. In the only one with a driver, the driver is asleep on the front seat with the door open and one leg out of the cab. Knowing my own consciousness on just awakening, I decide not to wake him for the drive.

From a nearby restaurant, another guy, late thirties, needing a shave as do all Albanian men, walks toward me. [Note: Albania joins that list of countries: Turkey, Mongolia, Brazil, where the women are neck-wrenchingly beautiful, but the men are as ugly as the Bush family.

Taksi? he says.

I pull out my camera and flip through the pictures until I find the garage on the main road. 

Ju dini ketu? I ask. (You know here?)

He squints at the picture and then shakes his head. “Po (yes),” he says. Then he says 13 Euros in English. I try to bargain, but he sticks to the price. 

Taxi-meter he says. 

During the ride, he never turns on the taxi-meter.

He does, however, get me to the garage. And actually a little past where the QEPARO FSHAT sign is. I get out and go down the stairs, trying to remember the way to the house of horrors.

A strange kind of trance music comes from someplace. It's like a pop version of Phillip Glass. I've never heard it before. It may be what's popular these days. I'm out of touch. But it sounds spooky to me.

I walk down some steps, through a tunnel, another tunnel, past a ditch, through an alley. I see a pile of bricks I never saw before. A door with a large round knocker... never saw it before either. I'm lost.

I turn to retrace my steps. An old man comes the other way. 

“Cocho?” I ask him.He laughs, and points back where I came from. Then he makes a downward motion with his hands, and a sweeping curve with his arm. I retrace my steps, and soon get lost again. 

“The sea, the sea,” I think. If I can find the sea, I can look up at the houses. I'll recognize my jail from the blue front and the sheer drop. If I go down, any path down, I'll find the sea. 

I pick a downhill path. The music is louder here, more menacing than mellow. Like a horror movie soundtrack. I follow the path until it ends... dead ends. Then I go up a little and take another path through a bunch of fruitplants, and then down again. Sand, plastic debris, I've found the sea. 

Turning my back to it, I scan the houses. There it is. Blue, in its glory, ready to fall with me, into the sea. I head right for it, up the path to the lower gate to the house. I know this gate, Cocho took me through it yesterday, to show me the fruit and the way to the beach. I'm sure this is the way back to the house. 

The gate is locked.

I do not scream. I do not pound on it. Instead, I keep the house in view, and go up through the trees, catching my sleeve on a cactus, then pulling free. The music continues, insistent, droning. Up to a small trail. I've lost sight of the house, but I think I know where it is. I follow the path. The house comes into view again. I can see it slightly below and to the right. I reach the set of steps I recognize. They lead down toward the house. They end at a gate.

The gate is not locked.

I walk through it and escape into my room. It's warm. I collapse on one of the two beds in the room and fall into a dreamless sleep. 

I awaken when it's still light outside. There is a rattle as the glass door slides open. Cocho brings a tray with more figs and other strange fruit on it. Much of the fruit from yesterday lies rotting by the sink. He doesn't seem to notice. He moves the food in smooth motions, like a robot. Gliding the tray to the plastic table in my room. 

He makes an eating motion, putting his hands to his lips. 

Bukë? (Bread?), he asks. 

Po (yes), I say. I need something besides all that fruit. It just goes right through me. I'll be a pretty messy corpse. He'll deserve it.

“Did you take a shower yet?” he mimes. “Yo (no),” I say.He shrugs, goes away and comes back with a couple slices of bread and a few cubes of cheese. He also brings about a cupful of cold spaghetti with tomato sauce. Everything looks homemade. Too homemade. 

Then he goes away for a bit and I write a little more. As the sun is setting over the Adriatic, he returns. He looks grim. 

Opening the sliding glass door, he takes a chair and puts in next to mine. 

The miming starts again. You eat. You sleep. Now you pay. I recognize the Albanian word. Pagoni. You pay.

“Pay with my life?” I don't ask.He holds up one finger. A thousand Lek?? That's ten dollars. Hah, that's wonderful. I give him two thousand. 

“You're my friend (I use the Italian word amici, since it was a word I never needed in Albanian),” I say. “Take more.”

He nods NO.I don't understand. 

He shows me with more miming. His face never changing: One night, four thousand lek. Two nights, eight thousand.

That's robbery. That's more than I paid in my Jacuzzi hotel in Vlora. This is a haunted house! $80, that's ridiculous. I'm not going to... Yeah, right.

I hand him the money. It's most of what I have left. But, he's only robbing me! He won't kill me. It's just extortion. He's a hustler, a con artist, not a murderer. Take my money, please! I could kiss the guy.

I ask him what time the bus leaves for Saranda tomorrow. He tells me 9AM. I say I'll get up at 8. Too late, he says. 

OK, I tell him. Statë ore. Seven o'clock.

I set my cellphone alarm (that's all it's good for, it can't make calls here) for 6:30. I want time to clean myself up and empty out all the fruit. 

At 6:15 Cocho opens the door to wake me up. He stands and watches as I get dressed, stuff my remaining clothes into my pack and go out the door with him. He leads me back upstairs through the alleys and ditches to the road. 

My bus comes and I get on it. He does not say good bye. I watch him cross the street to go back to Vlora, where he found me.

He'll wait at the bus stop. Someone not from around here, will get on a bus headed South. He will ask them where they're staying. Then he'll offer his own place. Eventually, someone else will say yes, and move into the room I just left.


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

-->Somehow it sounds like propaganda dept: Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal reports that the family of a protester in Iran was told that they had to pay a $3000 BULLET FEE-- a fee for the bullet used by security forces-- before they'd get the body of their son.

I don't believe it. Sounds like the Saddam Hussein dead babies stories, or the Qadaffi drag stories. Or the Japanese-women-built-differently stories, during a much earlier war.

-->Democracy Now, yeah right dept: Democracy Now, a liberal magazine, complains that a Tennessee Republican State Senator refused to fire a staffer who sent out a racist image of President Obama. The staffer sent out an email with images of all the Presidents. Obama was in the bottom right hand corner-- only a pair of bright white eyes on a black background. 
It was Nat Hentoff who wrote the book "Free speech for me, but not for thee." Go Nat! Now more than ever!

-->Clark University, in enlightened Worcester Massachusetts, canceled a talk by Norman Finkelstein who is both a Holocaust scholar and critic of Israel's occupation of the West Bank. The reason for the cancellation? The university said the talk "would invite controversy." 
I say, what the fuck are universities for if not to invite controversy?

-->Also from Massachusetts dept:, a bill in the legislature proposes to criminalize nude pictures of people over 60 and people who are disabled. Why? For their own protection, of course. We can't have old people or cripples thinking about sex... or even nudity, can we? It just wouldn't be... er... liberal?

-->1984 Redux dept: Many people who read their books with Amazon's kindle e-book reader suddenly found that Amazon had deleted copies of George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm from the device... even after they purchased it. The reasons are obscure, but just that they CAN do this, should scare people back to paper. But then again, paper can be deleted too. Fahrenheit 451 anybody?

-->It's all happening in South America dept: Lawmakers in Uruguay approved a bill to legalize gay adoption. It's not finished yet, but it should become law later this year. In the same week, the Argentinean Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional to punish anybody for possession of small quantities of cannabis. The week before, Mexico passed a law that decriminalized possession of small quantities of most drugs, including marijuana, heroin, cocaine and LSD. Then, earlier in the year, a Brazilian appeals court ruled that possession of drugs for personal use is not illegal. Mind you, they are way behind Portugal which decriminalized all personal drug possession back in 2000.
Time to move?

--> Progressive Pollution dept: The EPA in 2006 named BP (British Petroleum) as the worst polluter in the U.S. Guess who advertises in the liberal NATION magazine... with a green flower as their logo.

-->Spy vs. Spy dept: Jim Hightower reports that Starbucks' newest competitor is... well... Starbucks. According to Hightower, the awful coffee giant is finally getting the message that people don't want to drink coffee produced by an awful coffee giant. According to Hightower, Starbucks will open new shops, keeping their name off the marquee. 
Hightower reports, “The new shops strive to be the anti-Starbucks, with funky stylings and localized names that disguise the corporate presence behind them.” 

  So, before you buy from that new coffee shop down the street. Ask 'em who signs their paychecks.

Mykel's homepage is here.