Coming Out Feminist or Mykel's Post MRR Column 20 April 2015

YOU'RE STILL WRONG

POST MRR COLUMNS

Column 20, April 2015

by Mykel Board

Feminism is a collection of movements and ideologies that share a common goal: to define, establish, and achieve equal political, economic, cultural, personal, and social rights for women. --Wikipedia

I never doubted that equal rights was the right direction. Most reforms, most problems are complicated. But to me there is nothing complicated about ordinary equality. -Alice Paul, feminist

[Note: I promised a continuation of last month's column... but I was...distracted... you'll read about it. I'll continue with the “sucking column” next month.]

It's more annoying than a jazz solo in a punk song. I sit in a tiny Russian bar on the Lower East Side. Bang. Right up against the band. The bass headstock knocking against my thoracic vertebrae... BANG! Chugga Chugga Chugga...BANG! Chugga Chugga Chugga...BANG! Chugga Chugga Chugga.

The TV on the wall is silent, but running through a series of pictures... like PowerPoint slides. Some senators... Abe Lincoln... famous historically dead colored people... a few girls.

At first I don't know what they're on about, but then I see a mark... looking like a distorted KOSHER sign. After the mark I see MENFORWOMEN. The same thing repeats on each slide. Wait a minute, it's women's something month or week or... I dunno. Oh yeah... that mark... it's a hashtag: #MENFORWOMEN, like #BLACKLIVESMATTER. I get it. I try to concentrate on the band and my shrimp something in something rice-ish.

In the corner of the bar, under yet ANOTHER TV, sits a twenty-something couple. Drinking vodka shots from the bottle on the table, they gaze blurrily into each other's eyes. The guy is handsome, slicked back dark hair, a 10 o'clock shadow, light eyebrows looking almost manicured. Mentally, I name him CHASE. The girl is... er... plain. White, with shoulder-length scraggly blond hair, puffy cheeks and puffy eyes. Too heavy powder doesn't cover her skin problems... even in this soft light. I call her CALI.

Cali reaches her hand up and presses it against Chase's neck... forcing his face into hers. I know where this is going. I can see the scene... 12 hours later... both naked in her bed. Chase wakes up first... slowly the girl comes into focus. She's lying on his arm. Along with the hangover headache comes the thought... JEZUS, What happened? Did I fuck HER? My God! How'm I gonna get out of here? I'm really gonna have to chew my arm off to avoid waking her up.

That's when I think about equality!

If we had equality, the guy could claim rape. Right now, only girls can use booze as a sex excuse. No matter what they did... or who started it... or it they both were drunk... if the girl was drunk she can claim RAPE! She's not responsible. Legally, DRUNK WOMEN CAN'T GIVE CONSENT. ALL sex with drunk women is RAPE!

With a little equality, Chase would be able cry RAPE... and explain to his friends how he would never have given consent to such a pairing. It was the alcohol! She should have known! She took advantage of his condition!

I can't take my eyes off the couple. On Cali's blouse-- a frilly thing with tiny pictures of vines-- is a pink ribbon. I think it's for breast cancer... I'll look it up when I get home. Then I think some more about equality.

If we had equality, I could have my own ribbon. Right now, in this country where the average man dies a septuagenarian and women live on into the next decade... who gets the ribbons? Breast cancer pink. Cervical cancer teal. Wife-beating victim purple. Bulimia periwinkle, for God's sake! Ribbons for diseases that WOMEN get. Where's my ribbon? Prostate purple? Testicle tangerine? Hernia heliotrope? How 'bout some equality?

BACK TO THE RUSSIAN BAR: It's a different band now... an awful cover band... on a break from Bar Mitzvah duty. I'm ready to spit up my pierogi! They're playing YESTERDAY!

The couple in the corner howl along... chins raised, singing to the ceiling:

all my troubles seemed so far awaaaaaaaay,

Now it looks as though they're here to staaaaaaaaaay,

Oh, I believe in yesterdaaaaaaaaaay

I picture them ten years from now.

CALI and CHASE. Chase comes back to their Williamsburg luxury apartment. It's been a hard day at the bank. (It's a running joke... worn out by now: Chase works for Citibank. Ha ha.) He rubs between the thumb and forefinger on his left hand.

“Damn carpal tunnel,” he says. “Doc wants to splint it, but it'd look too ugly. I got clients to meet.”

Cali sits on the couch. Her skin has cleared up since the days at the Russian bar. She's also plumped out a bit. She wears a pink nightgown and a loose green terrycloth robe.

“I managed not to leave the house all day today,” she says. “Got completely caught up on The Big Bang marathon. Those guys were soooo hot!”

Divorce is 18 months away. Cali will get the apartment, and $20,000 a month alimony.

BANG!

Equality! If we had gender equality, WOMEN would pay MEN alimony. All that time MEN worked so women could SHOP! Let's return some of that! All that nail salon, beauty parlor, days out in the cafe with the girls... let's see some of that back! Yeah!! Bring on equality!

The sound of water brings me back to the present. The Mexican busboy is filling our glasses and taking away some plates. They always smile, these busboys, but with a hint of fear. U.S. immigration... hot on their brown little tails. Any day, they could be swept away in a round-up organized by some over-eager candidate for higher office.

Wait a minute! If we had gender equality, they could be victims of HUMAN TRAFFICKING! They could get amnesty... maybe some cash from the government. Instead of being ILLEGALS, they'd be victims... entitled to all the sympathy that Russian callgirls get when they shed tears at how they thought they were going to be movie stars.

These poor Mexicans are TRAFFICKED! Human cargo... brought to America on the promise of riches and trapped into sometimes two or three jobs... servicing gringos... hundreds in a night... just to feed their kids. Where are the calls to end their exploitation? The petitions to penalize the traffickers, and allow the misled immigrants to live decent lives in America?

The band leaves. The show's over, and I head home. Back home, I check facebook. There's a picture of a girl... her face is bruised... two black eyes... Next to her picture is a photo of the perpetrator, a white guy seated with his arms folded, looking somewhat smug.

WHAT HASN'T THIS MAN BEEN CAUGHT? screams the headline. PASS THIS ON TO YOUR FRIENDS. DON'T LET HIM GET AWAY!

How do we know the guy didn't look worse than her after the fight? How do we know the girl didn't hit him with a steel pipe before he turned on her? How do we even know she was assaulted, and not simply the victim of a drunken car crash... using the opportunity to get back at a guy who dumped her for someone less possessive?

We don't know any of this. We don't know his side of the story at all. We're supposed to believe the VICTIM, because she has a twat. ONLY because she has a twat. Presumption of innocence? What's that?

80% of murder victims are MEN. The statistics are about the same for assault and robbery. So what does congress do? It makes a VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN ACT. Could anything be more UNequal? The same people who call for gender equality want to make laws AGAINST that equality.

Yo! Let's have some gender equality here. How many women are fired from their jobs for whacking their husbands on an elevator's surveillance camera? Does it never happen? Or is it that it's just not newsworthy? With gender equality it WOULD be newsworthy.

With gender equality, I could have a bill demanding MEN receive “equal pay for equal work” even though the people I'm working with have worked the "equal" job for 10 years more than me and have twice as much education.

I could have my own “safe spaces,” places that excluded girls. Places where I could watch porno movies, drink beer, belch, fart and do all that MEN stuff. I could go there and relax. Nobody would call me SEXIST, let alone question my right to such places.

FLASH AHEAD: The year is 2130. I've been dead for 100 years. In heaven, they throw you a big party on the 100^th anniversary of your death. In heaven, they've also achieved real gender equality. Saint Peter has retired from the gate. Now, the entrance is (wo)manned by Saint Jolie the deBreasted.

I'm lucky, I've persuaded the VERY DEAD BOYS, an angelic punk group, to play at my party. Usually, they don't play cover songs, but tonight they're doing a heavenly version of RISE ABOVE. They sing it as RISE WAY ABOVE. I'm getting soused on Celestial Bourbon. It's late (by heaven's standard) and I find that-- in my old agelessness-- I get tired before noon the next day.

I quietly leave the party and walk down the half deserted streets. The sun is just coming up and some early workers are carrying bricks and pipes to heavenly construction sites. People keep dying so there's an eternal housing shortage.

A pair of women carry a large sheet of plywood-- one on each end. They wear flannel shirts and hardhats. I have to turn sideways to pass them. As I pass, I hear a whistle behind me. I look over my shoulder.

“Hey,” says one of the women, “nice ass.”

I smile, wink, and walk on.

So, feminism means gender equality! Yeah, I'm a feminist!

ENDNOTES: [You can contact me by email at god@mykelboard.com. Through the post office: send those... er... private DVDs..or music or zines... or anything else (legal only!) to: Mykel Board, POB 137, New York, NY 10012-0003. If you like my writing, you can be notified when anything new is available by subscribing to the MYKEL'S READERS Yahoo group readmboard-subscribe@yahoogroups.com]

-->Presidential Politics Part One: Presidential candidate Scott Walker, as Milwaukee County executive, promised the local Jews that a menorah, as well as a Christmas tree would be shown in the courthouse. He signed his letter to the Jewish community: "Thank you again and Molotov."

-->Presidential Politics Part Two: Another presidential candidate, Louisiana governor, Bobby Jindal, has campaign workers distributing literature blaming Hurricane Katrina and deadly tornadoes on gays and abortion. "We have watched sin escalate to a proportion the nation has never seen before," one of the "prayer guides" says. Hurricanes and tornadoes come because of "the people's negligence to worship and serve God with their whole heart."

-->More on Ferguson dept: An assistant district attorney distributed to the grand jury in the Darren Wilson case a copy of a law governing the use of force by police. That 1979 Missouri law said it was legal for police to shoot fleeing subjects. What the assistant DA DIDN'T say was that the law was ruled unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court in 1985.

-->With regards to crime dept: Someone is bound to point out that women are rape victims more than men. I ask, why?

The answer? The law defines a PENIS as a requirement in committing a rape. Usually, that means a man doing it. In most places, a rape victim, by definition, CANNOT have a penis.

Bend over boy as she rams that broomstick up your ass. Too bad for you she's a girl, because that makes it NOT RAPE.

->Keeping the Pressure on Dept: I want to thank reader George Metesky for suggesting a continuing Bring Back Mykel effort directed at Maximum Rock'n'Roll for their firing me as a contribution to the world of censorship. Send your comments-- to mrr@maximumrocknroll.com with the subject line: BRING BACK MYKEL! Let me know how they answer.

-->And: I'm still on a massive clean-up/divest kick. I'm giving away DVDs, cassettes, VHS videos, CDs, posters, and a few 7-inch singles. Just pay separate shipping and handling. Details at: MykelsGiveaway

-end

A Good Column That Sucks or Mykel's Post MRR Column 19

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Conspiracy! aka Mykel's Post-MRR Column Number 18

YOU'RE STILL WRONG

POST MRR COLUMNS

CONSPIRACY! or

Mykel's Post MRR Column 18

by Mykel Board

It's BisexualTeens4Cash.com, all models over 18 years of age. Ok, if you say so. Who am I to question it? It's not exactly questioning that I'm doing right now. It's one handed typing. It's... it's... yes! YES! Oh baby yeah!

Where's that tissue box? It's never around when you need it. Damn... good thing I'm 72 years old and have less of a mess to clean up... but fuck... the mouse is all sticky, and there are pubes caught in the keyboard.

Naked, I pad from the computer to the shower... turn on the hot water... full blast hot... then a bit of cold... adjust... get in... ahh... I don't take many showers... especially in the winter... but sometimes you just have to peel off the crust.

That feels so good... a hard hot spray... turning my skin red... like in a Japanese onsen... It hurts so good... like a finger deep in... Huh?... The water's cooling down... I've only been in five minutes and it's already getting cold... I turn down the cold water... that's better... for a couple of minutes... then it's cold again. Shit! I'm a rent-controlled tenant in prime real estate. They put a timer on my hot water. $800 a month does not buy me more than 5 minutes. It's a conspiracy!

FLASH TO an official complaint. State of Utah: (This is an edited version of the letter. The entire thing is available here.)

October 18, 1988

Dear Sir:

I am currently involved in a crisis of a bizarre nature which I'm sure will be of utmost interest, providing you can find credence in what I relate and not summarily dismiss me as being a fantasy-stricken space case.

I'm being subjected to some type of remote control electronic brain punishment, in severity nothing less than outright torture, and the technology being utilized to execute this action is not only highly specialized and sophisticated, but causes me to wonder whether knowledgeable authorities are even aware that a device of this nature exists. The credentials I can offer as to the veracity of these allegations are slim and none. I'm standing in a bad light to begin with, as a 38 year old inmate serving a 1 to 15 year sentence for 2nd degree burglary.

It is a difficult story to tell--and I swear to you that what is written on these pages is unembellished and 100% true. Eleven months ago I ran afoul of prison officials as a result of a minor altercation with other inmates. It has since been a battle of wills, and what they have done to me for my failure to kow tow to them is incomprehensible. The hostilities commenced with guards being ordered to launch an intensive campaign of harassments against me. Day after day they tampered with my food, smashing and removing items from my tray, and threatened to poison me with carcinogens and diseases. These methods were employed to provoke me into losing my temper, giving them sufficient cause to impose disciplinary measures and isolate me in the maximum security unit where I could be dealt with without witnesses. I have since discovered that these set-up tactics are standard operating procedure at this prison.

Once isolated, some extremely peculiar things began to occur. I became disoriented to the extent that my cell and surrounding area would take on a surrealistic appearance as though I were under the influence of a hallucinogenic drug, and I was plagued by severe headaches and insomnia for weeks at a time.

I began to receive, or hear, high frequency tones. Like the test pattern on a TV set. The volume or intensity of these frequencies is adjustable and some are so high and piercing that they've literally had me climbing the walls. When I complained or acted out, I was beaten and thrown into a strip cell with no clothes, mattress, toilet paper or drinking water. Nothing--and the intensity of these frequency transmissions would be crescendoed to maddening levels. This is still being done to me three shifts, 24 hours a day, and the combination of these demoralizing mental torments and sleep deprivation for weeks on end has exacted a heavy toll.

I began to write letters of complaint and question to various medical and legal associations after the first four months. I was fortunate in that the folks at the "Coalition for Prisoners' Rights Newsletter" located in Santa Fe, New Mexico, were concerned enough by to conduct a little research which resulted in their sending me reprints of three articles dealing with: Electromagnetic, and Non-Ionizing Electromagnetic Radiation, and Radio Frequency Weapons”--which were published by "U.S. News," "The Nation" and "The Atlantic" in March 1987.

These articles cover most of the mental and physical maladies I've been experiencing for the past eleven months, and I'll hopefully be able to use this information to gain further insight as to what is going on, and to alleviate the hostilities being waged against me. You cannot imagine what it has been like confined to a cell 24 hours a day for almost a year now, being brain blasted by high frequency impulses--no respite, no place to hide, and having not the slightest notion what was going on.

For the climax in this series of weird events, I began to hear voices. Voices that change pitch and timbre from being a cartoonish high and squeaky, descending through the octaves, including everything from sinister Darth Vaderish to basically normal characteristics. The reception of these voices into my inner ears is as vivid as though I were listening to a set of stereo headphones, and they are able to mix, match, and blend them in conjunction with the frequency tones creating a raucous cacophony of audio discord.

In defense of both my sanity and the veracity of my allegations, I now relate part of a conversation I had with a prison paid, but supposedly independent and neutral, paralegal adviser. He stated that he has received similar complaints from other inmates, but that nothing can be done for lack of evidence. He said that one inmate in particular has been placed on forced medication (Prolixin) because of his hearing "voices." I believe his words carried an unofficial warning for me.

Prison officials deny that they are perpetrating any such activities in response to formal inquiry but will grin and smugly indicate full awareness when no witnesses are present. "Yes, we are doing this to you, but no one will believe it, and you can do nothing to deter us." This is the attitude they project, and they are engaging in a conspiracy of inmate experimentation and exploitation that defies description. The outside authorities who even made a pretense of investigating my allegations were told I'm a habitual trouble maker with a history of psychological problems, and that effectively frustrates my attempts to have this situation looked into. Who is to dispute the word of my law-abiding and honorable keepers? How to verify and impress upon investigators the honesty of my accusations? What concrete evidence do I have?

It may very well prove impossible to bring legal action against these people for what they're doing to me, but I fully intend to continue my pursuit of the answers--and shall endeavor to expose this malignant corruption for what it is. I firmly believe the truth must eventually surface.

Any consideration you can give this matter--either assisting me with information, suggesting responsible authorities from whom I might elicit assistance, or possibly forwarding this letter to someone who could cause investigation, and perhaps act to prevent further retaliation by these people, would be ever so greatly appreciated. This letter has been written in good faith, and I sincerely hope you will treat it as such. If nothing else, I ask that you at least accord me the courtesy of acknowledging receipt.

Sincerely,

David James Fratus

17886 Box 250

Draper, Utah 84020

It's a conspiracy, yeah right. Stupid paranoia, right? How could he believe that? There's no MIND CONTROL, right? It's a good thing he's in prison, right?

FLASH TO The Smithsonian Magazine November 2014 : a lab in Tonegawa Japan. Researchers put a mouse in a steel cage and shock it... presumably through electricity running through the floor. The next day they do it again. Before long, the mouse no longer wants to enter the cage. Its memory of previous shocks made it put up quite a fight before being shoved in for the next shock. Just another stupid science trick, right? Like testing to see if pornography gives men hard-ons.

BUT, that's not the end of the story. The experimenters in Tonegawa have other mice. A boy one and a girl one... locked in coital frenzy. ZAP!! Boy is dead mid-fuck. BLAM! Take his ecstatic brain cells. BLOFF! Inserted the cells (with a few technical adjustments) into the cage-terrorized brain of the shocked mouse. Voila! The shocked mouse can't wait to get back into that cage. The scientists converts his negative association to positive sexual ones. He gets a mouse hard-on just thinking about the shock in store for him. Mind control, CAN really happen. And not just to mice. Maybe the US government is doing this to its own citizens?

FLASH TO Tuskegee Alabama. It's 1930 and the U.S. government has recruited about 600 Negro men and their families. Free healthcare! Regular examinations. We'll take care of you.

Half these men have syphilis... No one tells 'em. It's an experiment, you see. To see how colored people spread VD, who among the Negroes gets it, and why. It's for science, don't you know? After colored people die, colored children are born with congenital syphilis, and more, a whistleblower finally spills the beans... in the 1970s! After 40 years, and deaths and birth defects later, the program stops... or so they say.

FLASH TO Vanderbilt University in Nashville. A line of pregnant women waits at a free clinic.

“Pregnancy leads to iron depletion,” says the doctor. “You need to keep up your iron levels. We'll give you the iron you need... just take one of these pills every day. They're free.”

What the doctor DOESN'T say is that the pills are radioactive... and the women are being used in a test of radiation on fetuses.

FLASH TO MASSACHUSETTS: The US government gives a dozen retarded boys nutritional supplements highly dosed with radiation...

Whoa! Stop right now. You don't really believe that stuff, do you Mykel? It's just conspiracy shit. Paranoia.

Errr... not. The US government admitted it all during the Clinton years. http://www.ippnw.org/pdf/mgs/1-1-mccally.pdf

There's more... a history of it, from LSD testing on US troops to torture in Guantanamo. These conspiracies HAPPENED. They're not made up. They're not the products of a paranoid minds. (That is, the IDEA of conspiracy is not the product of a paranoid mind. The conspiracies themselves may indeed come from such minds.)

FLASH TO FACEBOOK: “Where'd you get that statistic...” I post in answer to someone claiming the American healthcare system saves more lives than the European, “Fox News?”

“Just because it's on Fox News,” comes the reply, “doesn't mean it's not true.”

Shit, she's right.

It's easy to dismiss something as being FROM FOX NEWS or POLITICALLY CORRECT or CONSPIRACY THEORY, without ever considering IS IT TRUE?

Get it? Sometimes conspiracies are REAL. Sometimes not. Sometimes we'll never know, or at least we don't know now. That's the lesson... learning to say I DON'T KNOW.

Were the ovens in Auschwitz used to bake bread? Did the Israelis plan the World Trade Center attack? Was Kennedy killed by the CIA? Did George W Bush work with the Saudis to save the bin Laden family? Is global climate change the result of US government experiments in weather control?

The answer is easy: I DON'T KNOW!

I do know that just a conspiracy theory is not enough of an answer. It's not an answer at all. Once we realize that some conspiracies are REAL... just like some Fox News is real (sports scores?) or some politically correct ideas are good ideas (multi-cultural education?)... some conspiracies are also real. The questions they raise deserve to be answered. Dismissing them without those answers is intellectually dishonest... and as we saw in Tuskegee, in Nashville, and in Tonegawa... it may be dangerous to your health.

ENDNOTES: [You can contact me by email at god@mykelboard.com. Through the post office: send those... er... private DVDs..or music or zines... or anything else (legal only!) to: Mykel Board, POB 137, New York, NY 10012-0003. If you like my writing, you can be notified when anything new is available by subscribing to the MYKEL'S READERS Yahoo group readmboard-subscribe@yahoogroups.com]

-->Favorite rabbi quote dept: Rabbi Michael Lerner wrote in Tikkun Magazine, "If Jews today go into any synagogue in the U.S. or around the world and say, 'I don't believe in God or Torah and I don't follow the commandments,' most will still welcome them in and urge them to become involved. But say, 'I don't support the State of Israel,' and you are likely to be labeled a self-hating Jew or anti-Semite, scorned and dismissed.

You can read a whole article here.

-->Blaming the (dead) victims dept: Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu told CNN that "Hamas wants to "pile up as many civilian dead as they can. They use telegenically dead Palestinians for their cause. The more dead, the better."

Telegenically dead? You mean like in Aushwitz? Some folks sure got a lot of mileage out of THOSE pics.

-->Twat for an eye dept: Further on the Mid-East front, Israeli professor Mordechia Kedar of Bar-Ilan University said "Terrorists like those who kidnapped the children and killed them-- the only thing that deters them is if they know that their sister or their mother will be raped in the event that they are caught."

Nothing like a man who believes in equality, I say.

-->Like Gaza dept: The owner of a shooting range in Hot Springs, Arkansas says her facility is a “Muslim-free” zone. She explains that she's allowed to do this despite federal laws prohibiting religious discrimination, because “Islam is a theocracy, not a religion”

-->Jeezus fuckin' Christ, it's about time dept: The government of Ireland is considering removing a 1937 law against blasphemy. Right now, violations of the law can be punished with a fine of more than $30,000.

I say, sucking Jesus' cock is just not worth it... at least in Ireland.

-->What a surprise dept: The British charity Oxfam reports that as of 2016, “more than half the world's wealth will be owned by 1% of the population. Right now, the richest 80 people in the word have the same wealth as the poorest 3.5 billion. How much does a machine gun cost?

-->Sometimes, I forget dept: Sometimes, I find it hard to follow my own advice. Though I no longer dismiss something just because it's Conspiracy, Politically Correct, or Fox News... I do tend to dismiss something if it falls under the umbrella of FEMINISM. It's so hard to take them seriously. Take the call to make rape cases the exception to innocent until proven guilty... please! http://tinyurl.com/fakerapecases

-->A la carte service dept: A local municipality has charged an out-of-town motorist $584.87 for calling the police. After she rear-ended another car, she called the cops, trying to do the right thing. The local municipality, Lyndhurst OH, sent her a bill. The details: $308 for the two responding police vehicles, $196.87 for police administrative overhead and $80 to pay the two responding officers.

-->Keeping the Pressure on Dept: I want to thank reader George Metesky for suggesting a continuing Bring Back Mykel effort directed at Maximum Rock'n'Roll for their (firing me as a) contribution to the world of censorship. Send your comments-- to mrr@maximumrocknroll.com with the subject line: BRING BACK MYKEL! Let me know how they answer.

-->And: I'm on a massive clean-up/divest kick. I'm giving away DVDs, cassettes, VHS videos, CDs posters, and a few 7-inch singles. Just pay separate shipping and handling. Details at: MykelsGiveaway

-end

A PLAGUE WORSE THAN A-I-D-S...

Here's another one I found in an old zine. I know this one... and it's one of my favorites... It was written in the midst of the AIDS crisis. (Click on the pages for a full view.)

From:

My Life As A Girl (an old one!)

While on a cleaning spree, I found this old UK zine with a cool cover. (Reminds me of TRUST).

Opening it, I find something by ME!

MY LIFE AS A GIRL...

I don't remember writing it at all. But here it is between columns. (Click on the image to see the full large version):

Page 1

And here's the rest of it:

Page 2

The Santa Death March aka Mykel's Post-MRR Column Number 17

YOU'RE STILL WRONG

POST MRR COLUMNS

Column 17

by Mykel Board

"always have the police on your side...one of the things you learn in the mazes of life.” Louis-Ferdinand Céline

ARRRR-ARRRR-AH-AAAARRRR, screams “the rooster” in my talking alarm clock. THE TIME IS TEN THIRTY. I slap for the off button...WHACK... I miss it. ARRRR-ARRRR-AH-AAA, it screams again... WHACK! Got it! Caught in mid-caw.

Body point by body point... the muscle pains from yesterday's half-hour at the gym return. Back, neck, calf, thigh... Rumble by rumble, the beer from last night's Peculiar Pub adventure returns. Stomach to small intestine to large intestine to colon... pushing against the sphincter with a pain more intense than my need to sleep. Synapse by synapse, I remember that it's Saturday... a day off... a day of rest... and then...

Fuck! The second Saturday in December. A day worse than Christmas... worse than Independence Day... worse than any flag-waving, death-loving day that passes for a holiday in the United States. Memorial Day, Patriot's Day, Columbus Day, Lincoln's Birthday for God's sake... all the horrible holidays pale in comparison to this second Saturday.... SANTACON.

In 2013 The Village Voice writes, “SantaCon was a day-long spectacle of public inebriation somewhere between a low-rent Mardi Gras and a drunken fraternity party.” That was an insult to Mardi Gras. Wikipedia tells me that SantaCon started as an art project... and grew out of a Danish group that took toys from store shelves and handed them to kids as Christmas gifts... leaving it up to the store managers to pry the gifts from the crying kids' hands. A nice metaphor for capitalism... and one worth imitating.

But the American version, of course, lost its politics and became a drunken frat party. The skimpy Santa dresses worn by big-boobed girl Santas do not compensate for the trail of macho-man-shouting-girl-piss-screaming-pukesters that make the holiday unbearable... and they start at 10AM!! Santacon: a good argument against gun control.

FLASH TO FERGUSON MISSOURI: A grand jury refuses to indict a cop who shoots an unarmed black guy. The victim raises his hands and says DON'T SHOOT! After the shooting, ABC News pays the cop half a million dollars for an exclusive (rehearsed with acting lessons, paid for by the MO cops) interview about how he felt threatened by the unarmed man and IT WAS HIM OR ME!

FLASH TO NEW YORK CITY: A grand jury refuses to indict a cop who strangles a guy for selling loose cigarettes on the street. This, the result of Police Commissioner Bill Bratton's BROKEN WINDOW policy, where crimes like simple drug use or graffiti are more important than murder or the white collar theft of millions. The grand jury refuses to indict the cop although the victim is videotaped hissing I CAN'T BREATHE eleven times before he dies. The man who takes the video is himself arrested by other cops. He is not killed... yet.

FLASH TO CLEVELAND OHIO: A cop shoots a 12 year old brandishing a water pistol. Jury indictment results unknown.

BACK TO MY APARTMENT IN NEW YORK: My phone vibrates. It's an SMS from Jody:

Mykel, are you going to the march against police violence? It leaves after a rally in Washington Square Park. Moves out at 2.

Shit! I had planned NOT to go out today... I don't want to face those Santas. But these murders are just too much. I gotta put up or shut up... and I'm not one to shut up.

I stumble into the bathroom... evacuate last night's Yuengling... brush my teeth... put on my Russian navy coat and detective hat... walk over to meet Jody and go to the park. It's packed.

And what a mix! There's someone giving out leaflets from the Revolutionary Something-or-Other Party... a bunch of white college-agers with bad taste in headwear... colored young people... colored old people... signs galore, most with #blacklivesmatter someplace on them.

A lot of the signs look professional. Corporate printing with boring designs... mass produced:

STOP POLICE BRUTALITY AND MURDER or LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL. Not very exciting...

One Middle Eastern-looking guy has a sign that's more a manifesto... it takes me awhile to read it all:

Down with the racist police who kill Blacks and Latinos in America And down with Barack Obama Police Chief of the world who kills more innocent people in the Middle East with his bombs and drone missiles #Arabslivesmattertoo

I wonder if everyone being systematically killed has his own hashtag. I also wonder if, given the liberal/leftist tendency to attack each other, there's going to be a fight... or several of them. Wait, here's a guy in a yarmulke... holding up a sign... maybe something suitably anti-Arab?

I'm (pleasantly) surprised. His sign says I CAN breathe, and when I do I smell racist injustice.

Oh yeah.

The best thing about this crowd is that THERE ARE NO SANTAS!!! Not one! No red-pants fratboys, walking through the crowd with dripping cans of Bud! Yowsah!

“Hey,” I tell Jody, “the crowd is thinning.”

“Look!” she says pointing to the arch. “They're leaving, walking up Fifth Avenue. The march has begun.”

“Follow me!” I yell, like Custer leading the charge against the Indians. “Full speed ahead!”

We shoulder our way through the mass of masses. Little kids in strollers... black teens in hooded sweatshirts... a gray-haired man walking arm-in-arm with his gray-haired wife... both serious and organically thin.

STOP: Before we go any further, I want to give you my take on all this police stuff.

Imagine you're on a grand jury. You're white... your friends are white... the cops are white... which side are you on? Vote to indict a cop... and your ass is an extremely well-mowed lawn. The DA, who needs the cops for his job, is the guy “presenting the evidence against the police.” I'd have voted the same as those grand juries. You can bet your grassless ass I'm not going to indict a cop. I gotta live here!

The problem is not this or that jury or this or that town-- or even this or that cop... but the jury system itself. The system of PEERS... the openness... the possibilities of revenge... retaliation. In New York, the guy who videotapes a cop murdering a man for selling illegal cigarettes... is arrested by other cops. Can you imagine what would happen to someone who actually voted a cop guilty of murder? Who's gonna trust the courts? The jury system? Not me. Make something up... sneeze... anything.. I'll vote NOT GUILTY!

It's illegal to advocate rioting or destruction, so I won't. If it WERE legal, I might say DO IT! Right now, the police get away with murder. The consequences are a few days in court, and then the life of Riley. But, what would happen if every time a cop killed an unarmed black guy, a bank got burned down? Or a different cop got shot? Murders by cops would have consequences-- real consequences-- that might have the deterrent effect the law is SUPPOSED to have. No grand juries on this one. You shoot LeRoy and BLAM, good-bye Starsky and Hutch.

Of course, I'm not saying people SHOULD do this. I'm just asking what would happen IF.

Extra Note: All cops are not murderers (though a code of silence^® makes all cops accomplices). There are cops who enter the force for idealistic reasons... who really expect to help people... who have a view that the world would be a more dangerous place without them. During the World Trade Center aftermath, the compassion, spirit, and volunteerism of all the police was a testament to their basic decency. Cops are not good or bad. They're mixed-- like everyone else. Sometimes one aspect wins, sometimes another. The focus shouldn't be on these cops, but on a grand jury system that makes it nearly impossible to bring ANY cops to trial. That's what's got to change. In the meantime, all consequences for police actions now take place OUTSIDE the realm of trials and grand juries. The consequences are on the streets.

BACK TO WASHINGTON SQUARE: Jody and I shoulder our way through the crowd... past an NYPD ARE THE BROKEN WINDOWS sign and another that says:

Number of Americans killed by:

Isis 5

Ebola 2

Police 500

A not-bad sign shows some understanding of how things are rigged to prevent indictments: The system isn't broken... it's working.

Not a Santa in the crowd. And hey... look at that! Someone gets it right. A woman with a hand-drawn sign: We must change the law-- no grand jury.

Yeah! Now all we need is a little humor and we've got it.

“Mykel,” Jody tells me, “you can't expect humor. Those guys were murdered... You can't laugh at that.”

“George W killed a million people in Iraq,” I say. “And THAT'S funny... I can laugh at anything!”

She frowns.

By now we're through the arch on to Fifth Avenue.

HANDS UP! shouts a skinny white girl with a very semitic nose.

DON'T SHOOT! answers the crowd.

HANDS UP! she repeats.

DON'T SHOOT! answers the crowd.

This goes on for the next half a dozen blocks until someone I can't see begins shouting.

I CAN'T BREATHE, he says, sounding quite accustomed to chant leading.

ONE! answers the crowd.

I CAN'T BREATHE, comes the repeat.

TWO! answers the crowd.

This goes up to ELEVEN.

Then there's an older black guy with a hint of gray-streaked beard. He's holding a generic #blacklivesmatter sign. He shouts, NO JUSTICE

NO PEACE, shouts back the crowd.

NO JUSTICE, again.

NO PEACE, again.

“I don't get it,” I tell Jody. “This is a march up Sixth Avenue and down Fifth Avenue. There's a permit. Nobody is breaking any windows. Nobody is burning police cars. Nobody is even stepping out of the parade route. Where is the NO part of NO PEACE? It looks pretty peaceful to me.”

“It's just a slogan, Mykel,” she answers.

A groups starts chanting THE NYPD IS THE KKK!

A few of the crowd pick it up. I look at the cops on the sides of the march. They're NOT in riot gear. No horses. No hostility. A few black cops... a few hispanics... a few women... a few black women. They're chatting with each other, guns safely holstered. They don't even look angry.

THE NYPD IS THE KKK! shout a few more people.

Since when did the KKK allow Negro and Hispanic members? The NYPD may be Wall Street, but it's not the KKK.

Uh oh, here it comes, a flash of red. My Santa-free Santacon is over.... at a protest march. This is just wrong!

Three big guys in Santa suits-- one of 'em colored. They appear to be sober. The colored guy moves to the front of the march... raises his hands... DON'T SHOOT! he says.

Yes! That's what I've been waiting for. A colored Santa.. hands raised saying DON'T SHOOT.... THAT'S funny. The whole idea of cops shooting Santa is funny. Cops shooting a colored Santa is funnier. SantaCon has done good for once.

The parade turns on thirty-second street, goes over to Fifth Avenue and starts going downtown again.

“I made my statement,” I tell Jody. “Now I need a beer.”

She suggests Old Town Tavern near Union Square. We split from the Parade at 20^th Street... walk East and have a couple of Edelstoffs. We sit among the Santa-less tourists in the place. The two of us share a burger and something else. Jody pays for it all. After beer and lunch-- at least 45 minutes-- we go out again. The march is still moving down the avenue.

We join it again... for a few more blocks. The newspapers will say 25,000... seems to me it's a lot more. Near Union Square is a guy dressed in an American Flag. He wears an American Flag kerchief around his mouth and nose. The skin that shows above the kerchief is light brown. His sign: USA Your racist hypocritical judicial system must be changed. 

Ah, someone else who gets it... now if only he could just make it funnier.

POSTSCRIPT: Who wudda thunk it? Four guys attack cops with a flying garbage can. There's a manhunt. Somehow, when police kill unarmed black guys, that's not indictable... but let a garbage can fly... hoooey!! I was just gonna add that to this post when:

TWO COPS ARE KILLED WHILE SITTING IN THEIR POLICE CAR. The alleged killer allegedly killed himself in a nearby subway station... denying a cycle of revenge that may start anyway. Nadav, a pal of mine who works in the emergency room here in NYC, was assaulted by cops when he tried to enter his workplace. It was the hospital where the ambulance took the just-shot police. I guess they attacked Nadav because he looks Middle Eastern. (He's Israeli.) But the cops must've been in a state of shock... where ANYBODY looks like the enemy. 

The police clearly are on an easy tripswitch... high alert... and I'm having second thoughts. What if, instead of considering their actions, the police just gone on even MORE of shooting spree? What if revenge brings revenge... blacks and cops the 21^st century Hatfields and McCoys? I don't know.

On the other hand, if someone were to always provide consequences for police murdering unarmed people, it might make them think twice before they do it. Riots and bank burnings may be less likely to invite retaliation than cop shooting. Of course, I'm not advocating any of this, I'm just considering the IFs.

ENDNOTES: [You can contact me by email at god@mykelboard.com. Through the post office: send those... er... private DVDs..or music or zines... or anything else (legal only!) to: Mykel Board, POB 137, New York, NY 10012-0003. If you like my writing, you can be notified when anything new is available by subscribing to the MYKEL'S READERS Yahoo group readmboard-subscribe@yahoogroups.com]

-->Give it away dept: Ten different school districts in Texas have received free... or low-cost... gifts from the Pentagon. Including 64 M16-rifles, 18 M14 rifles, 25 automatic pistols and fifteen surplus military vehicles.

Ok, just try to come in here and hurt OUR kids! I dare ya!

-->Mohammad and the Mayflower dept: Justice Ray Moore of Alabama spoke at a "Pastors for Life" Luncheon. "Buddha didn't create us. Mohammed didn't create us, it was the God of the Holy Scriptures... They didn't bring the Koran over on the pilgrim ship."

-->You can see my... and Jody's photos of the march by clicking here.

->Keeping the Pressure on Dept: I want to thank reader George Metesky for suggesting a continuing Bring Back Mykel effort directed at Maximum Rock'n'Roll for their (firing me as a) contribution to the world of censorship. Send your comments-- to mrr@maximumrocknroll.com with the subject line: BRING BACK MYKEL! Let me know how they answer.

-->And: I'm on a massive clean-up/divest kick. I'm giving away DVDs, cassettes, VHS videos, CDs and a few 7-inch singles. Just pay separate shipping and handling. Details at: MykelsGiveaway

-end