War! or Mykel's Post MRR Column no 47a

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Chill! or Mykel's Post MRR Column no 47

YOU'RE STILL WRONG

POST MRR COLUMNS

POST MRR COLUMN NUMBER 47

CHILL!

by Mykel Board

No great theater director ever said to an actor, “Okay, this scene calls for some real emotion, now go out there and give me lots of offendedness.”...If I'm sad, I cry. If I'm happy, I laugh. If I'm offended, what do I do, state in a clear and sober voice that I am offended, then walk away in a huff so that I can write a letter to the mayor?

We take offense at chewing with one's mouth open as well as, say, using an ethnic slur. While I like to think that it takes a lot to offend me, I don't personally believe people that people shouldn't feel offended. I just wonder what the context is. Can one be equally offended by someone's elbows being on the dinner table, senseless police shootings and the fact that Seahawks threw the ball on second and one?

– Paul Beatty

SCENE ONE: Central Park, NYC August 15, 2004. Dawn S is walking through the park with her seeing-eye dog. It's a hot day in August... New York Summer. One of the few ways of getting out of the heat... without the electrical expense of air conditioning... a walk in the park. The trees... the reservoir... the lack of concrete... The park is a respite from the city heat.

Dennis, the seeing-eye dog, is a yellow lab. A big lumbering beast... half-dog half-yeti... bold... but friendly to those who know him. Dawn and Dennis are on that diagonal path that leads from the 59^th street fountain north to the lake. Dawn sits on a bench just where the path begins. Dennis sits on the path itself. After a few minutes, Dawn stands to walk on.

Sensing the general direction, Dawn tells Dennis, “Go!”

The dog guides her north.

In less than 100 yards, Dawn feels a tap on her should. She looks up... into space, as she doesn't know where the tap came from.

“Excuse me?” she says.

“You should take your dog inside,” comes a very austere-- animal-rights-sounding female voice... somewhere to her left. “Your dog should not be outside in this weather.”

“I'm just enjoying the fresh air and vegetation,” answers Dawn.

“But you can't tell how hot it is,” returns the voice. “You're blind.”

SCENE TWO: Los Angeles sometime last year: The local Chinese community is becoming so used to the stereotype Chinese driver that they made stickers... like those caution signs you see on scary looking metal boxes.

As you might guess, it isn't long before the complaints come. That sign is racist, offensive. It should be banned... and the first and main complainers? Offended White people.

SCENE THREE: Bill Maher answers a call to work in the field in Nebraska. “Work in the fields? Senator, I’m a house nigger.”

There are outraged calls for his firing. Bang! He apologizes for offending. Meanwhile, Paul Beatty, the guy I quoted at the beginning of this column, wins the Man Booker Prize (like a British Pulitzer) for a book with more mentions of nigger than a Klan rally... or a Hip Hop concert.

SCENE FOUR: Gyu-Kaku Japanese Barbecue May 18, 2017. It's my friend Mei's birthday. We're seated at a long table with two grills built in. While grilling... I talk to my friends about RAPEMAN, the notorious Japanese comic that is actually a hilarious parody of superheroes.

By day, Rapeman is a Junior Highschool teacher-- his Clark Kent identity. By night, he's a caped crusader (from the waist up)... raping the bad girls to turn them good. Rapeman is for hire, and the money is used in local charities... especially an orphanage.

“Good deeds through penetration,” is his motto.

I have a copy of the manga with me. I pass it around to the curious Japanese who have never seen one before. (I pride myself in knowing more about Japanese culture-- traditional and popular-- than most Japanese know.)

Both Americans and Japanese look at it with curiosity... except Sadako (name changed to protect the guilty). She glances at the book and throws it across the table. “How many times have you been afraid you were going to be raped?” she asks me.

I'm shocked. This is a satire... a parody making fun of superheroes. It isn't about rape. I'm so taken aback I bullshit... Well, that's not true... It doesn't take a whole lot to get me to bullshit.

“When I was in the Cub Scouts,” I lie, “there was this patrol leader... and in Albania... when I was kidnapped.”

“Well, women have to face this every day,” she says. “It's not a joke to us. You're saying it's okay to rape people. You're giving permission to rape.”

“It's a comic book!” I plead. “Just a comic book. I'm not giving permission for anything. It's just a wild Japanese comic book unimaginable in the Christian west.”

“And I'm offended,” she continues, “I'm offended for two reasons. I'm offended because you joke about rape... and I'm offended because you look at Japanese people as little jokes. Oh how cute, that wacky culture. You look down on us.”

“What?” I'm too shocked to say, “I LOVE Japanese culture. I LOVE Japanese things. I love Japanese movies, manga, haiku, screen painting. I have more Japanese friends than I have American friends.”

People who know me know I believe Japanese culture is one of the greatest cultures in the world. Certainly greater than anything American culture has to offer (except maybe rock'n'roll).

Yes, part of the reason I love the culture is that they're free of the burdens of Christian (or Jewish) guilt and can explore a kind of wild side that would be completely out-of-bounds for Americans... It's American culture I look down on... not Japanese culture. Actually, I'm 5” 3” tall. I don't look down on ANYONE!

But she's offended... she throws $10 on the table (not in the barbecue pit)... and walks out.

Ok, Mykel. We know the routine. You take some shit from your life... or someone else's life and then tie it all together with some wacky philosophy that connects completely unrelated events as if there were some cosmic order... where things are constructed just to PROVE YOUR POINT. So, what's the point?

The point is CHILL!!!

CHILL!... a wonderful command asking for calm in the midst of self-created hysteria... CHILL... Relax in the midst of offendeditude... CHILL.. Breathe deep instead of getting huffy.

CHILL!

I'm a Jew. I laugh at holocaust jokes.

I'm 5' 3” tall... I sing, Short People Got No Reason to Live.

I'm 72 years old: I smile when people ask me why I'm not dead yet.

Old people texting:

BFF: Best Friend Fainted

BYOT: Bring Your Own Teeth

CBM: Covered by Medicare

FWB: Friend with Beta-blockers

LMDO: Laughing My Dentures Out

GGPBL: Gotta Go, Pacemaker Battery Low!

Even punks are offended... How can that be? Punk was CREATED to be offensive. It's essense is being offensive from Beat on the Brat With a Baseball Bat to Let's Lynch the Landlord.

Nowadays, punks are the most easily offended. Call someone a Pussy and that punk rock girl will throw a Bikini Kill record at your head.

NOT ONLY ARE THEY “sensitive” but they think they know YOUR sensitivity... what you feel and don't feel. What's in your mind... what's behind your motives. They think, with religious fervor... though most are not religious... if only you could realize THE TRUTH... you'd be sensitive in the same way.

That wacky animal rightist thought she knew that a blind person wouldn't realize the day was hot. Their overriding concern with the poor dog, made them completely unaware that there was someone attached to that dog. They were offended by the dog in the heat (though they themselves were comfortable in it), and that huffitude took over all sense of reason.

That sensitive white girl who complained about the Chinese Driver stickers, thought she knew what was in the mind of the Chinaman on the street. Her overriding concern with race and nationality, made her completely unaware that the Chinese themselves were absorbing-- and negating-- a stereotype.

That Japanese girl who accused me of promoting rape and denigrating Japanese culture thought she knew my motives for being so fascinated with Rapeman. Her over-riding concern with nationality and gender made her completely unaware that the point was satire and inventiveness... nothing to do with nationality or gender. She was offended by the comic book (a comic book, for God's sake!), and that huffitude took over all sense of reason.

Sometimes the old cliches are right. Most obviously sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me. If they DO hurt... the hurt is minor, not permanent, and necessary for life in a free world. It's even better to take the words, give 'em a twist in meaning... then claim 'em for yourself. That's what homosexuals did with queer. What the punk band, New York Niggers did with Nigger. What The Hip Nips did with Nip!. If you take a word and make it cool, the word loses its power to hurt you. 

Short? Old? Jew? Egomaniac? Oh yeah. Those words are MINE! I own them. Now let's see you use them against me.

You too (and the world) can learn how to destroy the effects of words with other words... or by taking them in and turning them around.

That takes time... In the meanwhile, calm down! Laugh at yourself. Relax. Learn that making fun is FUN. Give it. Take it.

CHILL!

(What does Nazi Santa give naughty kids for Christmas?

Jews.)

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]

-->Is that a panel in your pocket or are you marginalizing me dept: The University of Michigan was seeking student input about redesigning their hundred year old building.
Anna Wibbelman, former president of Building a Better Michigan, an organization that voices student concerns about university development, stated that “ minority students felt marginalized by the quiet, imposing masculine paneling” found throughout the 100-year-old building.

        Oppressed by quiet... and wood paneling. Pretty sensitive, huh?

-->Meanwhile in Maryland dept: A group of Maryland teachers displayed posters showing white, black, yellow and other colored women working together... and just being friends. School administrators ordered them removed. Why?

       Said the administrators, “They express a negative view of Donald Trump.”

-->Speaking of a crank call of sensitivity dept: Jordan Haskins, a Republican state councilor was sentenced to probation and sex counseling in May after pleading guilty to eight charges arising from two auto accidents in Saginaw, Michigan. Prosecutors said Haskins described "cranking," in which he would remove a vehicle's spark-plug wires to make it "run rough," which supposedly improves his chances for a self-service happy ending. Haskins's lawyer added, "(Cranking) is something I don't think we understand as attorneys."

Wanna bet?

-->Now's your chance dept: The new wiki Censorpedia is looking for input on censorship from all fronts. By government, by school, by crowd, by boycott... any way. Just go and report it... this is something that has been a long time coming. I just hope it doesn't get censored.

-->Keeping the pressure on dept: I want to thank reader George Metesky for suggesting a Bring Back Mykel concerted effort directed at Maximum Rock'n'Roll. He forwarded me an answer to a letter MRR printed where the editors excuse my firing not as censorship for content, but because I “refuse to answer letters in the letters section.”

         That's a lie.

       In any case, please send comments to mrr@maximumrocknroll.com with the subject line: BRING BACK MYKEL. Let me know how they answer. MRR also has a facebook p age. You might want to let them know how you feel.

-end-

If you're interested in my travel writing (not updated recently) check out http://mykelsdiary.blogspot.com/

You can read some of my classics as far back as the 70s at: http://mykelsoldies.blogspot.com/

I also have some random postings including several on how rich people spend their money. Those are at: http:/mykelsclippings.blogspot.com

See you in hell!

In Praise of Deportation or Mykel's Post MRR Column no 45

Mykel's

Post MRR Column no 45

In Praise of Deportation

by Mykel Board

[NOTE: My columns got switched. What should have been this month’s column (scheduled for the end of April for May reading) was released last month. This column should have been published at the end of March for April reading. Sorry for the mix-up.]

Ah April, whose showers bring May flowers. A month of renewal, where things resurrect. Jesus rises from the grave. Matzoh rises from the Seder plate. Saplings turn into little trees. Chocolate turns into little rabbits. It’s the beginning of the new.

But April is also the time of endings. The cold weather ends. Sunshine ends as the rain begins. The fiscal year ends as millions of Americans file their income tax forms. Besides ending, April also means leaving… Winter leaves us. Animals leave their homes of hibernation. Seems like half of the Netflix programs will be leaving in April. So leaving is a fitting topic. And that's what I want to talk about this month: DEPORTATION.

Let’s make this clear. I’m the grandson of illegal immigrants. I LOVE immigrants. When I hear about “an influx of new immigrants,” I think Oh yeah! More restaurants! I’m there. I love the sounds of new languages jammering helter-skelter in the streets… in the subways… ALL of my best friends are immigrants..

BUT!

And here’s the big BUT… I love big butts... immigration and deportation are not the same. I know, you think of them as a pair. In and out. Up and down. Immigration and deportation. The old coin that has two sides often flipped on immigration and deportation. You're wrong. They are not the same.

I used to be as against deportation as I was pro-immigration. My thoughts have changed. Here’s what happened.

FLASH TO MY BEDROOM: I sit naked in front of the computer. It's 5AM. My body-- as it often does-- has awakened me with one urge or another. Piss taken, it's time to relieve myself of that special morning stiffness. But wait! My eyes burn... itch... snot fills my sinuses... sneezes: One... two...three... four... in a row... like a chain punch in kung fu. Allergy... messing up my jerk off. I rub my eyes. I rub my nose. Whoa what's that? A hair... a tiny millimeter of a hair... on the outside of my nose. NOBODY has hair on the OUTSIDE of their nose... what the fuck is that?

I try to pluck it out with my fingers... pressing it between my thumbnail and the skin of my forefinger. .. I can't get it. I try again. Shit... it's still there... I don't believe this. I fetch the tweezers... lying next to the computer... used... until now... for removing paper jammed in the printer. I go to the bathroom and lean close to the mirror. There it is... right at the tip of my nose... a hair... no bigger than a bedbug.. growing from the outside of my nose... a whisker... completely in the wrong place.

I put the sharp edge of the tweezers under the offending hair. Carefully, I clamp down... I've got it! I give a tug. A delightful burst of pain... and the offending hair is removed... deported directly to the waste basket.

FLASH TO BOWERY ELECTRIC: Being neither a Kate Bush nor a Brian Eno fan, I’m at a Kate Bush/Brian Eno tribute band festival. Why isn’t important. What is important is to tell you about the layout of the place. In the back is a mezzanine with a bar and merch corner. If you stand at the front of the raised part, you have a good view of the bands… if nobody tall stands in front of you.

The lower section is a bit like CBGBs for the hardcore shows. No tables, just a big space in front of the stage. I (all five feet three inches of me) stand downstairs on top of the only bench… along one of the walls.

I can see fine… for the first few songs. Then this oaf… a giant… if I were standing on the floor I could bite his nipple without bending my knees… I wish I had the chance… This oaf, with a beer... probably a Bud Light… pushes his way through the crowd and stands right in front of the stage.

“Tall people in back!” I yell.

He pretends he doesn’t hear. What the fuck? I stand right behind him... breathe hard on his OBEY t-shirt... press the toes of my army boots against his heels.

He turns around... looks down at me.

“You want something little man?” he says.

“I want you to die... a painful-but-quick death,” I reply.

He smiles and turns back to the stage. Then it occurs to me. Why not deport him? Him and all tall people. Tall people use up natural resources. They take oxygen before it can reach the ground. They pollute the air with their carbon dioxide... global warming the rest of us... those of us who are closer to the earth. Get rid of 'em. Now.

Who cares when or how they came into the country? They're bullies and egotists... randomly using their height privilege... their sense of entitlement... their long reach to grab things off the shelves before the rest of us can get to them. Send 'em to Holland. There're plenty of tall people there. Maybe the Zulus will welcome them... they seem to be a height-friendly people. I don't care. Off with them, I say. America will be a better place if we get rid of tall people. Where to, is not important.

FLASH TO THE WHEELTAPPER BAR: It's in midtown... a faux Irish bar with real Irish waitresses. A quiet place... no TVs... a place where you can have a beer or three... unfettered. There's only a murmur of voices from the other tables. I sit with three friends, two Japanese and one Cuban-American. We talk sex and beer.

“I donno,” says Yoshi, one of the Japanese guys in our group. “Beer and sex don't always mix. One gets in the way of the other.”

“It's like I always say,” I say like always. “It's blowing your nose and wiping your ass with the same piece of toilet paper. There's nothing wrong with it... provided you do it in the right order.”

“Eeeeeehahahahah! Oooooh!” An inhuman scream comes from someplace to the left. I look over at a table on the other side of the bar.

“And then he asked me out? He's a fisherman and he asked me out?” she's talking at the top of her lungs. Screaming... a voice precisely tuned to the pitch of maximum irritation. There's one in every bar.... one girl with THAT VOICE... who can spoil the best night out. 

“I bet she's from Long Island,” says Richard, the Cuban American.

“That's geographyism!” I answer.

“I bet she's a Jap,” whispers Richard... then he looks at Yoshi. “Sorry,” he says, “a different kind of Jap.”

But race, birthplace, or age have nothing to do with it. It is some sort of biology... or maybe an accident of having a lot of brothers. But if you're honest you know it. Every bar, every night, has a girl with that voice. What is to be done?

Of course, DEPORTATION!!! Get rid of them. Send in D.I.C.E. (Department In Charge of Expulsion). Let 'em raid every bar. Find THE GIRL WITH THAT VOICE in each one. Out! Dump 'em on Mexico or Canada... anywhere... but get 'em out NOW!! Pack 'em up and ship 'em out!

FLASH TO DELAWARE: In an effort to be more ecumenical, the Delaware state legislature allows a mosque member to give the invocation. The guy removes all Allah references from the text before he gives it. Still, one of the legislators walks out.

“How could I stay?” he asks. “The Quran tells people they should kill Americans.”

The Quran was written in 600 AD... about a millennium before there was an America. Only a total moron could say that a book he's never read (authorized Qurans are only printed in Arabic), predicted the existence of a country a century later... and then told the readers to kill the people of that country. Of course, the legislator is white.

Then I start thinking about white people. Ya know, most people don't like to admit their racism, but if you look at history, you gotta see it. Who dropped the atom bomb? White people! Who built concentration camps? White people! Who made selfishness into a philosophy (called Capitalism)? White people! Who runs Chase, Citibank, and Pfizer Pharmaceuticals? White people! Who are the presidents of Starbucks, Spirit Airlines, and Walmart? White people! White people! White people! If there is a race with NO redeeming qualities... it's WHITE PEOPLE.

America must have been a great place to live (under a different name)... before there were white people. I'm sure the Indians had their skirmishes, but there was nothing to compare to the massive trail of tears... or the Civil War... or WWI or WWII.... Yeah, I know the Japanese were involved... but it was mainly a war of WHITE PEOPLE.

The answer? DEPORTATION! Get rid of them. I don't know who's anxious for an influx of savage white dolts, but there must be someplace that will take them. Maybe England... they seem to be begging for white people. Why not give them what they ask for?

Who else? Jocks! People who stand on the walk side of the escalator! Rude clerks at fast food places! Train station cellphone talkers! The list goes on. Get them out! Deport them like an errant nose hair!

Ah, what a great place this will be when deportation is finally able to work its magic. What a beautiful place, when there's only me.

-end-

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 joining the MYKEL'S READERS Yahoo group readmboard-subscribe@yahoogroups.com]

-->Gender inequality Dept: The U.K. is trying its first case of Female Genital Mutilation. You can read reports about it all over the internet. I wonder how long before a US doctor is tried for the same crime. Of course, MALE genital mutilation continues on a daily basis in the US. No one cares...Business as usual... of course.

-->Gender inequality pt. 2 Dept: Anti-fascist^® attacks on peaceful protestors or speech-makers continue. In Australia, a politician was punched in the face on national TV because anti-fas disagreed with him. In Berkeley, during a protest which included attacks on wheelchair bound veterans and old people... A woman throwing bottles at “Nazis”(aka anybody she disagrees with)was punched by someone trying to stop her. Instant outrage? (Not at the bottle thrower, of course.) Why? He hit a woman!
Sounds like 1950s Christian morality... but if it fits, the anti-fas wear it. Sorry folks, but you gotta expect the other side will eventually fight back. That eventually is now.

--> Take that and shove it dept: The Daily Dot reports that an expensive “personal vibrator” is equipped with an internet camera so that the vibratees can record and watch the action on their personal devices. Of course, hackers found the device easily hackable, and now, somewhere, there is a site for the rest of us to watch. Oh, the default password for the vibrator is 88888888. Though I don't know why you'd need that.

-->Keeping the pressure on: I want to thank reader George Metesky for suggesting a Bring Back Mykel concerted effort directed at Maximum Rock'n'Roll. He forwarded me an answer to a letter MRR printed where the editors excuse my firing not as censorship for content, but because I “refuse to answer letters in the letters section.”

That's a lie.

In any case, please send comments to mrr@maximumrocknroll.com with the subject line: BRING BACK MYKEL. Let me know how they answer.

MRR also has a facebook page, (as does as Mariam Bastida, the girl who fired me). You might want to let them know how you feel.

-end-

If you're interested in my travel writing (not updated recently) check out http://mykelsdiary.blogspot.com/

You can read some of my classics as far back as the 70s at: http://mykelsoldies.blogspot.com/

I also have some random postings including several on how rich people spend their money. Those are at: http:/mykelsclippings.blogspot.com

See you in hell!