(MRR 354) The COLUMN THEY WOULDN'T PRINT

 



MAXIMUM ROCK'N'ROLL refused to print this column. That is their right. They did so without comment, or explanation. That is their wrong. If you disagree with their decision, or if you agree or if you have any other comment, please email  MRR at: mrr@maximumrocknroll.com. Thanks, Mykel

You're Wrong

An Irregular Column

(Mykel's Column for MRR 353, November... not printed)

by Mykel Board

"These self-anointed Protectors of the Overprotected endlessly yammer about breaking the "cycle of abuse," oblivious to the concept that imprisoning someone is a particularly vicious perpetuation of that cycle." --Jim Goad

"In a patriarchal society all heterosexual intercourse is rape because women as a group are not strong enough to give meaningful consent.” --Catherine MacKinnon

I'm madder than Putin at a Pussy Riot show. I get a letter from Amnesty International... one of the few charities I donate to. (Not counting the guys on the street with a cup. Them, I give to every day). A.I. fights torture and government abuse all over the world, usually without giving a fuck about ideology.

But now? What's the first paragraph of their appeal letter?:

I regret to inform you that more than a decade into the 21^st century, women and girls are still being raped, beaten, killed by family members and trafficked every day.

What the fuck?

Flash to Abu Ghraib prison: An Arab man lies naked, face up, on a sheet of plywood. His hands and feet are tied to the corners. He's stretched like someone ready to be drawn and quartered. Pulled tight over his face, a cloth immobilizes his head. An American soldier holds a giant watering can. He pours it down... over the man's face... into his nose and mouth. Involuntarily gasping for breath, the tied man inhales the water. His lungs fill. He gags... pukes... inhales his own vomit... chokes... then more water. It's like death... he wants to die.

Says Wikipedia: Waterboarding can cause extreme pain, dry drowning, damage to lungs, brain damage from oxygen deprivation, other physical injuries including broken bones due to struggling against restraints, lasting psychological damage and death. Adverse physical consequences can manifest themselves months after the event, while psychological effects can last for years.

Google Waterboarding Women and the only reports you'll see are people arrested for the CRIME of torturing women. For women, it's abuse. For men, it's business as usual.

Flash to 21^st century American laws linking Selective Service registration (compulsory military service) with getting a driver's license.

Here's the scoop:

Federal law (50 U.S.C. App. 451 et seq.) requires virtually all male U.S. citizens, as well as immigrant men residing in the U.S., to register with the Selective Service System (SSS) when reaching age 18. In an effort to ensure compliance among young men, many states have enacted legislation which links SSS registration with the process of applying for a driver's license or state identification card.

MEN, get it? Check out the war reports. When they talk about horrors... evils... who gets mentioned? Women and children, of course. Killing men? It's all in a day's work.

The Amnesty International letter has a PS that says:

Mr. Board, (I HATE being called MR. BOARD) when you hear of girls in Sierra Leone being genitally mutilated against their will... I'm sure you think “What can I do to help?”

Jeeezus fuckin' Christ. BOYS are genitally mutilated against their will in the U.S... thousands every day. It's called circumcision. And is there a PEEP against it? Maybe, but not from Amnesty International.

And don't give me this shit that it's different because boys only loose the tips and girls have to give up the whole shebang. That's wrong! With very few exceptions (and these are evil, I'll grant that), so-called female circumcision is just that. The equivalent of female foreskin. Snip. Snip. Gone. That's it... not the whole kit and caboodle. In any case, it's certainly as painful and as involuntary in boys as in girls.

Even this punkrock magazine is guilty of survivor syndrome... at least the letters section.

I sit on the toilet, a beer shit survivor, reading a letter from a woman who is an inappropriate touching survivor. I don't have the exact quote, but it doesn't matter. Just the idea of a touching survivor should make you puke.

You name it, and some female is a SURVIVOR: a cancer survivor, survivors of “Intimate Partner Violence,” domestic violence survivors, an alcohol abuse survivor, a partner of alcohol abuse survivor, sexual harassment survivors, and, of course, touching survivors.

Some feminists (see the Catherine MacKinnon quote at the beginning of this column) believe every woman who has ever had sex with a man is a rape survivor. Oy vey!

Listen buckaroos, if you get through someone calling you a name... you are NOT a survivor. If someone touches you in the wrong place... you are NOT a survivor. If someone shows you dirty pictures at work... you are NOT a survivor. If some construction worker makes sucking sounds when you walk past... you are NOT a survivor.

FLASH TO THE TURN OF 21^st THE CENTURY: I stand on the sidewalk in front of Sophie's bar... fishin' for drinks. The NY SCUM cassette just came out. It's a documentary of a CBGB scumrock festival. I'm the head producer, yah dee dah... man of the hour... now buy me a drink.

Also hangin' out are now columnist George Tabb, and then columnist Jane Guskin.

“Hey George,” I say, resting my arm on his shoulder, “pretty good cassette huh?”

“I'm not buying you a drink, Mykel,” he says.

How'd he know I was gonna ask?

Behind me I hear a voice... loud... threatening.

“Where's Mykel fuckin' Board?” it says.

I turn.

BLAM! A fist to my jaw. I'm down... lying fetally on the sidewalk. CABLOOEY! A boot to my ribs. I curl deeper into the helpless position. Above me is TC, a local who did some postering and organizing for the scumrock festival. He wants money from the tape... for his work... for his effort... I should pay him from the tens of dollars I got from ROIR for producing the cassette.

His foot draws back for another boot to the ribs. I tense. A pair of legs appears between TC's boot and my chest.

“STOP! NO!” shouts the voice belonging to the woman ofthe legs. It's Jane.

“NOW STOP IT!” she yells.

TC cowers... mumbles something... walks away.

In this culture, it's okay for guys to whack away at one another. You gotta be good with your fists. If you don't fight back, you're a sissy. (I'm a sissy.) But girls? Oh no, you should never hit a girl! You just can't hit a girl. That's abuse. It worked for me. Thanks Jane!

Jane is my hero... my heroine. But I'm not in danger of dying.

I was punched and kicked, but I'm a punching-kicking VICTIM at best... not a survivor.

[Note: Being punched or kicked repeatedly by someone you live with does not make you a domestic violence survivor... It makes you an idiot. Get the fuck out of there!]

I am neither a jock-itch nor a hemorrhoid survivor, though I've had both.

Survivors are people who barely beat death and live to tell about it. Those guys tortured in Guantanamo Bay... THEY are survivors. Pakistani families that live through American bombing... THEY are survivors. George Tabb who lived through the World Trade Center attacks and had half his intestines removed because of the aftermath poison air... HE is a survivor.

Foreigners (almost all MEN) forced into the US army to kill in Afghanistan or Pakistan or who-knows-where's-next-stan... THEY are survivors.

[Note: Many U.S. courts give political and economic refugees (men only) the choice of possible death by entering the US military and killing Afghanis... or returning to their home country to a more certain death. Which would you choose?]

FLASH TO NOW: I sit at my desk in nothing but my underpants... boxer briefs. I type with my left hand as the thumb of my right hand digs into my right nostril... fishing out the discomfort. As a booger survivor, I know the strain, heartbreak and suffering of intranasal offal.

I'm thinking about the victims of the Christian shootings at the batman movie in Colorado. And how about the one at the Sikh temple in Wisconsin? People killed. People survived.

[Note: with one exception ALL the mass shootings and other terrorist murders in the last 20 years have been by CHRISTIANS! Why don't the NY cops have a Christian task force? Why aren't they monitoring churches? Infiltrating the Salvation Army? Don't they understand Christianity is a VIOLENT religion? It's very symbol, the cross, is a weapon of death!]

I'm wondering what those who lived through the Sikh attacks... those with bullets in various body places... with friends and family killed or maimed... I'm wondering what they think of survivors of inappropriate touch.

A bubble of gas rises in my bowels. I can feel it on the lower right side... it rises up crosses from right to left... settles above my anus where I blow it out in a burble... a very long burble. As a flatulence survivor, I know I need to make adjustments, to get beyond my pain and get on with my life.

FLASH TO NEWSPRINT: As if survivoritis weren't bad enough, the same issue of MRR as the I-was-touched letter has an interview with some NYC group whose job it is to help survivors. 

Now, if some one is injured, raped, beaten, shot, they need support. I'm happy that people volunteer to help... though from the sound of this one it's women only as victims... er... survivors, and men as perpetrators. But that's not the worst of it.

Oh no, one of the prime functions of this group is not help, but REVENGE. Helping the victim... er... survivor is not enough. But they've got to PUNISH the perpetrator. Give 'em the old backhand. Put 'em in jail. Break 'em. Let 'em get raped by some big stud. That'll cure them of their violent thoughts, right?

Jeezus fuckin' Christ! Prison BUILDS rapists. Your push for revenge MAKES MORE VIOLENCE. (Please don't call it justice. That's what everyone calls revenge.)

Girls, if you don't like being touched, slap that hand. If you want to prevent violence and abuse then act like Jane acted when she bravely stood between me and that kicking boot. More than anything, learn to defend yourselves... to fight back like I never did. That's VICTORY. There's no survivor about it.

ENDNOTES: [email subscribers (god@mykelboard.com) or blog viewers (mykelsblog.blogspot.com/) will get live links and a chance to post comments on the column. Your zines, Cds/records, and... er... private videos... can and should be sent to me at: Mykel Board, POB 137, Prince Street Station, New York NY 10012]

-->A horse is a horse, of course, of course dept: The Progressive Magazine reports that Rafalca, the Romney's horse, costs about $29,000 a year in housing. The average American family spends %16,000 on housing. Hey, turn that barn into cheap accommodations. The horse? Dinner for ten!

-->Are they news agency survivors? dept: Reuters reports that The Japanese Atomic Energy Agency devoted a page on its website on how to "make the hard words used in the nuclear power industry easier to understand, particularly for women."

-->Another report about America's worst hip company dept: Democracy Now says that two Iranian Americans in Georgia were barred from making purchases at local Apple stores. Why? Employees overhead them speaking Farsi. Apple employees cited US export laws on Iran to justify their actions.
          My question: How the fuck did the shlubs who work at Apple identify FARSI when they heard it?

-->Makes perfect sense dept: As I write this, the Presidential campaign wages on. It's as predictable as the hate mail from this column.
       Romney has just named Paul Ryan as his running mate. Ryan is a handsome right-wing lunatic, who likes Rage Against The Machine. He's a wacko who Romney picked for the same reason Obama said he supported gay marriage. Gotta shore up the fringes... balance the ticket. Conservatives would stay away from Romney like Lefties from Obama. Gotta have some bait to bring 'em back to the fold. Let's hope it fails... on both sides.

        Jill Stein already won the Green Party nomination. Her running mate is another woman... a great fuck you to “balancing the ticket.” They've got my vote. Maybe after November, Stein and her running-mate will call themselves election survivors.

(MRR 352) Mykel Learns How to Top Himself

You're Wrong

An Irregular Column

by Mykel Board

[NOTE: I have translated a bit of French here for the linguistically untalented. The translated part is in BOLD CAPITAL ITALICS]

"America has Race Fever. It's not an actual race war, but a sort of racial Cold War. A grinding war of nerves. And it's impossible to escape. A race war would be anticlimactic at this point... Let's cool down just a tad. We don't need MORE sensitivity. If we got any more sensitive, we'd all break out in a rash.” – Jim Goad

I love the way my white penis looks against black flesh. The way its blue veins contrast with the smooth bumps of tight dark brown skin.

1998: THE HELLFIRE CLUB: a notorious New York S&M bar. I'm a regular... took Jennifer Blowdryer and Dave Diktor here... an exciting and painful place... blaring disco music... the slap slap slap of the patrons keeps the beat.

I like S&M more for the novelty, the weirdness, the adventure, than actually giving or receiving pain. I mean, I enjoy rubbing alcohol on my balls as much as the next guy, but I don't like them in a vice. Fuck, if it's an adventure... and it gets me laid... it's what I do.

Tonight, I meet this incredibly beautiful Negress. Half-foot taller than me, slim, with Grace Jones hair, skin the color of Africa, and a face that would harden a eunuch.

She wears, when I meet her, something between a bikini and a harness. Bright red leather, cross belts, the good parts barely covered in leather and metal ringlets.

FLASHBACK A FEW SECONDS: I'm watching a very ordinary-looking white woman getting fisted by a somewhat less than ordinary-looking white guy. The woman is saddled in a sling... her legs wrapped around chains hung from the ceiling. The man stands between her legs with his right hand wrist-deep in her twat.

A crowd grows around the couple, as it often does at The Hellfire Club. Voyeurs out-number performers by at least twenty to one. I stand in the middle of the watching crowd, trying to look over the shoulder of the tall hippie in front of me.

Then I see her... the Negress... Actually I don't see her at first, I feel her. There's pressure... a squeezing on my crotch.

“I want this,” demands the velvet voice next to me... Then, I see her.

“It's yours,” I say.

“I'm Tanisha,” she says.

“I'm yours,” I say.

We walk to the exit. At coatcheck, Tanisha hands over a ticket and retrieves a bright red raincoat. Even in New York in the 80s, you can't walk around outside in just leather straps.

We don't have to go far.

Tanisha lives in a Hell's Kitchen apartment... a dangerous neighborhood. If you're as horny as I am, danger means nothing.

We walk up the creaky stairs to the third floor... a classic tenement... bathtub in the kitchen... tiny room for a toilet, no sink in the toilet room. It's the bedroom, though, that interests me.

The bed is an old metal cot with a thin mattress. Attached to all four corners of the bed, where the legs meet the spring frame, are leather handcuffs. Padded, black, each with a pair of shiny buckles.

Yes! Lie me down on that mattress. Strap me down. Use me! Abuse me! Just do me! Press your naked blackness against my hairy whititude.

That's not what happens.

Tanisha takes off her brief body belts. Then, she lies naked, face down on the bed.

“Cuff me,” she whispers, “and don't be gentle.”

She's so beautiful, I'll miss seeing her face as I lay myself down... but that ass. Wow! It'll be my blue-veined hardness against that double black mound. That'll more than make up for lack of face.

I struggle with the buckles, opening and closing the cuffs until she's in tightly. Then, I peel off my clothes and nestle in to seek that brown hole within the blackness.

“Not, so fast,” she says. “Abuse me. Talk to me. Call me a slut. Slap me around. Use me. I'm your slave.”

My hardness begins to wilt at the word SLAVE. I can't treat a colored girl like a slave. That would be... I donno... WRONG.

Okay, I concentrate on the task at hand. Rub my hands along her risen mounds. Reach around and grab handfulls of nipples. I bring one hand to my mouth and wet my middle finger. I slide it between her delicious glutea, seeking to soften that inviting hole.

“Talk to me!” she says over her shoulder. “Call me a slut, a whore! Tell me how bad I am. Abuse me. Don't soften me... go in dry! Hit me! Spank me! I'm your slave!”

I feel myself slowly drooping.

“I... I can't,” I say.

”What the fuck?” she yells. “I don't have to put up with your white guilt shit. This is the 20^th century, not the civil fuckin' war!”

“But, I just feel so bad...” I stammer.

“Your bad feeling is your racism,” she yells back. “Pure and simple. If I was a white girl, you'd spank me in a second. Oh yeah, that red handprint on a white ass..... But Mr. Namby Pamby liberal can't top a black girl without shriveling up to pig-in-a-blanket. You can't call me a slut and a whore because all you see is a black girl! A former slave, someone you should take pity on... Fuck you! I'm not A BLACK GIRL! I'm ME, Tanisha!”

“But... I just can't,” I say.

She looks between my legs.

“I can damn well see you can't,” she half says, half spits. “Unhook me, get dressed and then get the fuck out of here. Go fight oppression someplace and feel sorry for The Poor Colored Folk. I don't want to put up with your racist baggage. You disgust me.”

FAST FORWARD: Senegal, West Africa May 2012... Goree Island. It's right off the coast. You go by ferry. Tourists pay about $10 for the boat. Senegalese pay half that. I'm with my pal and host Osman.

Goree is an artist colony and home to a Senegalese history museum. There's a beach. Several fishing crews work out of the place. There's an old fort that used to belong to the Portuguese. But that's not why Goree is famous.

Goree Island is home to the Maison des Esclaves, the House of Slaves, a slave holding pen during the eighteenth and nineteenth century. Slaves were brought here from all over Africa and kept in very tight quarters... men and women separate... ready for shipping.

“YOU'RE OLD MYKEL...” says Ousman.

I wince at the introductory phrase.

“YOU ARE OLD ENOUGH TO REMEMBER AN AMERICAN BOOK,” he continues. ROOTS, IT WAS CALLED.

DURING THE 1980S, BLACK AMERICANS CAME TO THIS PLACE EVERY DAY. THEY ENTERED AND CRIED. THEY SAID THEY COULD FEEL THE PAIN OF HISTORY. MY FATHER TOLD ME ABOUT IT.

We approach the maison, a non-descript colonial building, near the beach. I walk in with Ousman. I'm nearly in tears. Not for the emotion, but from the need to take a fierce piss. I had two Cokes on the boat, and I need to let them out.

I buy us both an admission ticket. Inside, mostly white people with big cameras take pictures of the bare adobe walls.

Just inside the entrance... to the left... is a sign that says HOMMES. Yes! Just what I need.

The sign is over an archway. I walk through. On the other side is nothing. Just an empty brick room with very small windows. Am I supposed to piss in the corner? All the tourists can see what I'm doing.

“Sont il les toilettes?” I whisper to Ousman, pointing to the sign.

He looks... and laughs.

“Les toilettes sont à l'étage,” he says, pointing to a curved staircase. At the head of the stairs is a door with a sign TOILLETTES over it.

Sheepishly, I head upstairs and relieve myself. Then, I leave the bathroom and look out the window on the second floor. I gaze over the ocean that confronted the chained cargo shipped out those hundreds of years ago. I think about the packed conditions, the chains, the family separations into hommes and femmes, the crying children, the rebellious ones forced into a tiny Cellule des Recalcitrants as punishment.

I think about the actual ocean voyages. The sickness, poor food, the unknown future. And I feel nothing. Zero. No emotion. No tears. No heavy heart or lungs.

That racial baggage that Tanisha complained about when I went limp twenty years ago... it's gone. Maybe 200 years ago this was a chamber of horrors. Now, it's a piece of history and a tourist trap. It has nothing to do with me.

I expect (hope) I'd feel the same way at Auschwitz... a place I've never been, and one I want to avoid. It's a museum of the past. It has nothing to do with my own life. It's a bunch of buildings. Some ovens. Pffft. It has as much to do with me as this HOUSE OF SLAVES. The rationale is that if we remember the past we somehow prevent its repetition.

Bullshit.

Remembering the past CREATES repetition. Remembering the past is the basis of revenge. The Hatfields and the McCoys.. they remember the past...Remembering the past lets Israel torture Palestinians with impunity and keeps colored people victims in the American mind.

At this moment in the Senegalese slave museum... I can feel my baggage lost. I can feel the ability to call ANYONE a slut if that's what they want. I'm ready for Tanisha now, the little whore! I can feel myself harden at the thought.

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

--> Heart Attack Dept: My 20 year old niece gave me her old iPod. As I didn't pay for it and it would end up in a landfill... and as it's pinkish so no one else would buy it... I'm keeping it, using it while I use the treadmill at the gym. Since all music I listen to is loud and fast, I expect a heart attack soon. Right now, here's what's on the box:

-->THE DESTRUCTORS sent me their SEX, DRUGS & ROCK'N'ROLL CD. It ROCKS. Sometimes I'm not sure how pro-Sex or pro-Drugs they are... but that's part of the fun. In any case, I can't get the song I'M IN LOVE WITH A PORNSTAR out of my head! It may be a cover, but it's a great one. Info is at www.destructors666.com.

-->Let's get tough to get votes dept: I've mentioned often that the US has a higher percent of its population in jail than any other country in the world. You probably already know that the private prison industry benefits from that, as does the Republican party which knows that once jailed, the mostly Negro and Hispanic population lose the right to vote... forever. Now there's ANOTHER benefit to having all those prisoners.

The Prison Policy Initiative has found out that several, mostly Republican, counties in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Hampshire, Virginia and others are counting their prison populations as citizens. That means they can get more representatives in state and federal offices... plus more federal funding! That prisoners can't vote is an added bonus for the Republicans.

With slaves, the constitution said to count each of them as 3/5 a person. The NEW slaves get a full ONE person. Isn't that great?

--> Can they Photoshop the West Bank? dept: A new Israeli law requires magazines to identify models who've been Photoshopped. It's a kind of truth-in-advertising. An interesting idea, although PC World reports that it is not necessary to reveal real-life cosmetic surgery.

-->That takes REAL balls dept: Speaking of Israel, a former Israeli soldier has renounced his Israeli citizenship and move to a Palestinian refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. Andre Pshenichnikov, a 23-year-old Jewish immigrant from Tajikistan, says he plans to live in the Deheishe Refugee Camp near Bethlehem. He used to work there as a waiter and a construction worker. He began questioning Israel's policies toward Palestine while he was still serving in the military.

-->It's always “Protecting the Children” dept: It's called: The Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act of 2011.

What it does is force any business offering paid Internet access--airports, hotels, coffee shops, and ISPs--to keep records of users’ online activities. If the government wants to inspect them, it easily can.

Americans are such suckers... Call anything “protecting the children” and they'll cut their own toes off to do it. Makes you hate kids EVEN MORE, doesn't it?

-end-

(MRR 351) August 2012 Mykel Faces His Fears!

You're Wrong

An Irregular Column

by Mykel Board

Mykel's MRR Column for MRR 351

where Mykel learns about his predjudices

 

 

It conformed to my idea of Africa and Africans, an obvious contrast to the growing isolation of American life... the insistent pleasure of other people's company, the joy of human warmth." --Barack Obama

Imagine an old fashioned faucet. The kind with a handle on top... made of iron... the way it curves... bending downward three-quarters of the way toward the spout... an iron hard L-shape... the opening of the L pointing South.

 

That's the shape of the erect penises of African men. At least it's the shape of the one now in my mouth as I lie with a Gambian... in The Gambia. Lights off, my bed partner is as dark as the night. My hands and mouth explore the braille of his body.

He too explores me, but doesn't take me into HIS mouth. Maybe, he's afraid of getting something... maybe it's just fear... the unwelcome novelty of a white stubby. He does manipulate me... very well... I mean.. Yes! Yes! There we go... I explode white into the darkest continent. Aaahhhh!

 

Whew! Now that's over, we can return to last month, where I was in a somewhat less orgasmic position.

 

 

FLASH BACK: I'm in Tangier. I inadvertently insulted some Arab students... posted a picture of their girlfriends on Facebook... invited lascivious comments.

 

The boys are mad: TAKE THE PICTURE DOWN... WHY YOU INSULT US? WHY YOU MAKE FUN OF US.

 

Before this, I thought these guys were cool. I met them in the park... friendly as kittens. They invited me to join them on-line with the invitation: Can you give me your face? We were supposed to meet... see the town.

 

Electronically, I apologized for the pictures and removed them... no response.

 

The next day, I meet them by “accident” on my front steps... all friendly again. They invite me to go out with them. I can even bring my friend Zayd if I like. They'll take care of me. Yeah, I bet.

 

I soon realize that the meeting was no accident. They had it in for me... were waiting on the steps all morning, just for me. I insulted their women and would pay with my life... or at least my testicles.

 

In the morning, there they are: three very big guys in a car. Zayd and I get it. They take us to the chopping block. Zayd dies quickly. Me, they take a little extra time with... NOT!

 

They take us to The Largest Arab-African Manga Festival in the world. It's sponsored by the University. My friend, Soufiane, (how could I have doubted him?... He is one of the heroes of this

trip!) knows everybody. He introduces me around. Takes me to the kung-fu show..

 

The rest of the day is a non-stop tour of an amazing Arab city. I meet a dozen people. I can feel their interest... not because they want something, but because they want to KNOW something.

They love their city and want to show it off, but they also want to learn about the world, America, Obama, everything. These are some of the best people I've met... and only in a short time. We're instant pals.

 

I feel like shit for doubting them. I feel worse than shit for letting my America-induced anti-Arab anti-Muslim feelings get in the way of my real-life experience. Me, Mr. anti-America! Still carrying American baggage in my bowels! Expel that shit now! I think I do, but you never know what remains... impacted in the mental large intestine.

 

 

Right now, I LOVE Muslims. I LOVE Arabs. They are fun, generous, funny, and more open to discussion than most anyone I know in the US. Governments ruling in the name of Islam... like governments ruling in the name of Judaism or Protestantism... are evil shits. But the people? Wow! I could live here.

 

FLASH AHEAD 3 WEEKS... TO THE GAMBIA: Back in bed with the Gambian who won't suck me off. I'll call him Barbour. I can't use his real name... he might get in trouble... though I can't imagine how he'll get in trouble from a blowjob!

 

(FYI: You have less of a chance of getting a disease from giving or getting a blowjob than you have of getting anal warts from toilet paper... except for herpes. Getting Type II herpes from someone with an active cold sore is possible. BUT, type II herpes is easy to cure AND once you get it, you're immune from getting type I: genital herpes-- the much nastier kinds. That means, a blow job is actually an exercise in preventive healthcare!)

 

For someone old enough to be out of college and into the REAL WORLD of employment, Barbour seems inexperienced. What about my balls? He could at least do my balls! That won't get him herpes! Even the good kind!

 

Wait, I have an idea. Maybe if he only manipulates me, it won't really count as AN UNNATURAL ACT. Later, I find this on the BBC website:

 

“The Gambian Criminal Code states that any person who has or attempts to have, "carnal knowledge" of any person "against the order of nature" is guilty of a felony and could face imprisonment. The Gambian courts may interpret homosexual acts as falling under this part of the Code. The Code also states that gross indecency between men, whether in public or private, is a felony and anyone committing this felony could face imprisonment. Any private citizen has the power of arrest for these offenses. The police have recently been actively enforcing this code. On the 10^th and 11^th of April 2012, 18 Gambian men and two Gambian women were arrested accused of indecent practice.”

 

 

And it gets worse.

“Gay rights activists have condemned Gambian President Yahya Jammeh's threat TO BEHEAD HOMOSEXUALS.

Last week he told a political rally that gay people had 24 hours to leave the country.

He promised "stricter laws than Iran" on homosexuality and said he would "CUT OFF THE HEAD" of any gay person found in The Gambia.”

Wow! Maybe that's why Barbour didn't give the head he should have. Giving me head may mean losing his.

On a side note, the president of The Gambia is an interesting guy. Luk Haas calls him the Juju President because of rumors he rules by black magic.

Jammeh took the office in 1994 in a coup d'etat. Since then, there have been elections every 5 years. People are encouraged to vote... and they do. Somehow, Jammeh always wins.

Unlike in Russia, though, people don't complain when the dictator wins. Many celebrate it. A funny guy, he often travels the length of the country. (That's not very far. The country is about the size of Maryland.)

When he travels, he throws t-shirts to the crowds clustered around his car. Each t-shirt has a quote from (you guessed it) the president. The quotes are not very profound... on the order of EDUCATION IS GOOD or WOMEN ARE IMPORTANT FOR A NATION. But I see them all over. Most Gambians love them and the man who threw them. I expect Barbour doesn't. I don't either.

But, like in Morocco, it is the PEOPLE of The Gambia that make it great. Governments are as fucked as corporations. And that's pretty fucked. In the US, the government IS corporations. But, as in Morocco, the people here are great.

Flash ahead to a university classroom: I've left my faucet-shaped host and moved to another Gambian city. Abdou, my new host is not so intimate, but he is twice as friendly.

He's invited me to sit in on two of his university classes.

I walk into the math class.The blackboard is villed with equations.  Totally beyond me. Weird stuff... sines... cosines... square roots...

Students sit at long tables... about four chairs to a table... Gals and guys mixed... equal numbers. About half the girls wear headscarves, about half the guys wear African-looking robes.

The girls are beautiful. Thin, oval faces with high cheekbones, soupbowl breasts-- and asses! Such asses! The bulge in my pants is NOT faucet-shaped, I can tell you that.

The professor walks in... a young guy... early 30s... he looks like a grad assistant... Abdou introduces us.

“This is Mykel, my friend from New York,” he says.   

We shake hands.

“Please don't call on me in class,” I beg him. “I don't get any of this math stuff.”
   

 

“You're in the class,” he answers with a mischievous smile, “I call on EVERYBODY in the class.”

I sit in fear of being asked something quadratic.    

The fear is unnecessary. The girls in the class take up the slack. Raising hands, answering questions, challenging the teacher.    

Amazing. Another stereotype... dashed in the sub-Sahara... Muslims have no respect for women... girls can't get into university... Muslim guys do all the talking... IT'S ALL BULLSHIT!

Hand raising, question answering, question asking, teacher challenging. GIRLS! GIRLS! GIRLS!    
  

I can't believe how American I am-- again. I pride myself on beating cliches. On not falling for anti-Muslimism or any other American prejudice. But I keep doing it. Headscarves and terrorists and burkas and... you know.

The Muslim countries of Indonesia, Pakistan and Bangladesh have or have had female presidents or prime ministers. How many women have sat in Washington DC's oval office? It took 200 years for our first Negro! (Africa has had 'em for decades.) Women? Fuddedaboudit!    
  

Here in The Gambia (and Senegal) women rule the roost. Husbands are there to fatten them up, to plant a seed and move on to the next wife. The home, the streets, the classroom are controlled by women.

Yeah! There's nothing like travel to show me when I'm wrong... when I'm American in spite of myself. This is stuff YOU'll never know. You're too attached to your own prejudices. You see a headscarf and you think slave. You see a woman carrying a day's groceries on her head and you think oppressed. You're wrong.

Your electronic i-chains oppress you more than a headscarf could ever do. You'll never learn about the world from Fox News OR Wikipedia. You'll never learn at all.


ENDNOTES:            

 

 

-->Tooting my own horn dept: Those who want to read the details of my trip to Africa... with more pictures but less sex than the columns, can follow me at: www.mykelsdiary.blogspot.com I've cut the sex in some entries because of the possible penalties for those involved. Me? I'm not shy.

-->Evils of Arizona part 2141032 dept: The public school district in Tucson has banned Mexican American Studies and taken books away from schoolchildren, teachers and libraries. The incredible censorship happened in a place where the ONLY decent thing is the Mexican influence. I'd love to see the Mexicans just pack up and move to New Mexico. Let the Arizonans trim their own gardens... and make their own tacos. See how far they get.    

-->Calves, pigs or women, what's the difference? dept: Georgia state Rep, Terry England was speaking in favor of a bill that would make abortion illegal even if the fetus is DEAD.    

Said England, “I've had the experience of delivering calves dead and alive. Delivering pigs dead or alive. It breaks our hearts to see those animals not make it. It's the same for women.

-->Frack that dept: With gas companies taking some heat for causing earthquakes in previously safe areas (like Oklahoma), it's ironic that Time Magazine has found that THE SIERRA CLUB “has accepted more than $25 million in donations from the gas industry.” Strange how the Sierra Club has embraced natural gas as a coal/oil alternative. Yeah, as strange as the Sierra Club's CEO's 6 digit salary.

-->Quote of the week dept: Alan Dlugash, a member of the 1% at the accounting firm Marks, Paneth & Shron complained

“People who don't have money don't understand the stress.”

 Aww, doesn't it get you right here.


-->Drip this dept: By an 8 to 4 vote, the Wilmington Delaware City council officially recognized the “personhood” of semen. Said their resolution “each sperm (person) should be equal in the eyes of the government

-->Let God pay 'em dept: Alabama state senator Shadrack McGill, says it's important to keep teacher's salaries low.    

“It's a biblical principle,” he says. “If you double a teacher's pay, you'll attract people who aren't called to teach. All these teachers that are called to teach, regardless of the pay scale, they would teach. It's just in them to do. It's the ability that God gave them.

-->Language flip-flop? dept: So Mitt Romney says he doesn't like the Obama healthcare program. That program was modeled after one instituted in Massachusetts by Governor... you guessed it... Mitt Romney. The Democrats point fingers and you see Romney's picture with FLIP FLOP sandals for ears.

But hold on! In an early debate among Democratic presidential candidates, Democrats were asked about their positions on homo rights. One candidate said, “I don't support gay marriage, I can tell you that much.” The candidate? Barack Obama.

So, what about Obama's recent statement of support for gay marriage?

“President Obama's position has evolved,” said a spokesman.

Yeah, like my shower sandals.

-end-

 

You can read about Mykel's African adventures in more details on his travel blog.