You’re Still Wrong Mykel's Blog for APRIL 2019 or ME... NOT ME

You’re Still Wrong

Mykel's Blog for APRIL 2019
or

ME... NOT ME

And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.

-- King James Bible, Matthew 5:30a

April showers bring May flowers. People also consider this month the start of REAL spring… rather than the official start at the end of March. Reality sometimes is difficult to pin down. I don’t have the answers here… Let others decide, for me that’s not what’s important. For me, it’s the time to consider what the hell ME is in the first place. Or maybe it’s better to say, to reconsider. Only death… or its fear... is more powerful than simple deep thought in making a decision. Let me completely frank here. Some of what follows was inspired by others, but the actions were all mine.

Here’s what happened:

Getting out of the shower, I see a naked me in the steamed bathroom mirror. Instead of standing in front of it and jerking off to me jerking off… as is my usual wont… I stop to consider.

“That is not me.” I say… out loud to the no one else who is there. “That is a reflection of me… an image formed by light bouncing off my body into the mirror… and then bouncing back to my eyes. A series of bounces… that’s all… certainly not me.”

That leads me to consider anew… as is done in the spring when the leaves and grass are new… what is ME. I can say it’s not the reflection in glass, but what is it?

Standing in front of the mirror I rub my hands over my body… not in an erotic way, but as a blind man might determine the shape and consistency of a new object by feeling it.

“Is this me?” I think. “This nose, this nipple, these ribs, this asshole, these knees?”

Of course not. They are things I use to walk, to shit..., to smell… my nipples? I can’t think of a time I ever used them to do anything special. Old age has taken away their even minor erotic content. They do nothing for me now. These legs? I could use a wheelchair to move. My legs --like a wheelchair-- help me go from one place to another. If they help me, then cannot BE me. This asshole? Thousands of people shit out of a hole in their abdomen… into a bag that gets emptied at night. They are still THEY… with or without a working asshole.

Holding on to the towel rack to steady myself, I lift my leg so I can rest my foot on the closed toilet seat. I consider its blue veins and stubby toes with nails that always get caught on the side of my socks. I focus on the little toe. What does that even do for me? Why do I need it?

I lift the foot off the toilet and balance on one leg. The foot that touches the ground and keeps me balanced just uses the big toe and first two little toes… that’s all. The little toe just wags there… useless... not me and not helping me.

I put my right foot down and head to the medicine cabinet to find a razor blade. I have a pack of those old-style single edge razor blades. I keep them in the bathroom out of habit… I never use them for shaving (does anyone?), but I have a box-cutter I use to actually cut boxes so I can mail stuff out that I sell on eBay. I don’t need the box cutter now. Somehow, I want to get closer… with the blade… this is personal.

I put a towel on the top of the toilet and then rest my foot on it. With my left hand, I hold the towel rack like one of those rails cripples use to transfer from their wheelchairs. My left foot is firmly (I hope) planted on the tiles of the bathroom floor. Taking the razor blade, I set the sharp edge on top of my foot… the one on the toilet… right where the little toe connects to the meat of the foot. Then I press down… hard.

I expect a squirt of blood… like in the movies… a money shot… but that’s not how it is. The blood only leaks…. around the sides of the razor… Two little rivulets... joining at each end... to flow down over my foot to the towel below.

I expected massive.. unbearable pain… instead it’s more like the throb of arthritis… a dull pain that somehow seems to be happening to someone else. I press harder… the blade stops… makes a scraping sound… bone, I guess… I wiggle the blade, looking for the soft spot between two bones. FUCK!!! THAT HURTS!!! I clench my teeth to stifle a scream… close my eyes… take a deep breath… and cut deeper.

I’m moving closer to sawing than just pressing down... like you’d use a knife to separate a drumstick from the rest of the chicken. The blood puddle has grown and now drips down the towel to splash drop-by-drop onto the floor. I take a washcloth to wipe away the blood from the cut. My toe hangs from my foot on a piece of something yellow. Cartilage? A tendon? What do I know? I never went to medical school.

I set the razor blade down on the towel. Holding my hanging toe between the thumb and first two fingers of my right hand. I tug on it, stretching the yellow tendon… or is it cartilage… like a stubborn rubber band. Then I twist it. A complete revolution… two of them… a third… there is a crackling sound… something gave way… at the same time I feel my body react. Maybe the pain went over the edge… maybe it’s loss of blood… I can feel my anal sphincter lose its tension… I shit… a thick liquid… shit. I can feel it drip down the back of my leg… the standing one… I pull the toe completely free from the foot. I stand.. that toe is not me.

I set the severed toe on the towel and reach for the washcloth to bandage the foot. Reaching… reaching… In the mirror, I catch a glimpse of the feces running down the back of my leg just before I lose consciousness.

First it is warm, then it is cold. I feel the tile… an irregular hardness beneath me… but something is wrong… different. Then it’s a soft… gooey feeling… under my hip… I reach down and scrape the goo from the floor next to me. The smell of shit hits my nose like a prizefighter’s glove…. powerful.. almost physical in its strength. Unable to lift my head, I raise the hand to my face, covered in brown nearly a glove of feces… Nausea rises from my stomach… I retch. Warm liquid rises in my throat and drips out my mouth to the tile below. I feel it flow between my face and the tile on the floor.

It’s only then that the pain hits.

Not a sharp stabbing pain, but an intense throb… in a vague location on the lower half of my naked body. The pain narrows… like a camera focusing… my right leg… my foot… ah the toe! I remember the toe… I pass out again. 

Next time I awaken I feel a bed beneath me. At least I think its a bed. Soft… with the cold feel of linen over my body as well as under it. I’m on my back. a thin line of something wet drips from the side of my mouth. I raise an arm to wipe it away. Something stops me… at the wrist… as if my arm were tied to something by a rope. My arm IS tied to something by a rope. I feel the strap around my wrist… I open my eyes… above me… on the ceiling is a super-bright white light. Closing my eyes I try to turn onto my stomach to avoid the light. I cannot turn. My legs as well as my arms are restrained… tied to the edges of the bed… or something… like kinky sex play… this is not sex play.

I scream… happy to find out there is no gag in my mouth... I scream again… not a word just a deep lungful of scream… I hear a door open. Over me… bent from the waist… looking at me like a one of those view-from-the patient operating room movie shots… is a nurse… or at least someone dressed like a nurse.

“You gave us quite a scare,” she says… her raspy voice reminding me of some sexy movie star whose name I can’t remember.

I look around the room… there are a couple other beds… near me is one of those hospital trays on wheels… In another bed, a patient lies on his back… longish gray hair spills on to his pillow. He too has a rasping voice… It’s not his voice. It’s the sound of air pumped from a small white machine into a hose that goes directly from the machine into a hole cut at the base of his neck.

“What were you high on when you tried that stunt in the bathroom?” the nurse asks.

“Cartesian philosophy,” I answer.

She frowns.

“Your dinner is on that tray,” she nods to the tray on the wheelie thing. “I’ll be back to feed you in an hour or so. Right now, get some sleep.”

I look at the tray. Some nameless junk food with a fork, spoon…. and knife!!! Yes! I can’t believe the luck. Stretching my hands... my wrists... my body… pushing against the restraint… I reach for the tray… just managing to get the edge… a fingernail grip. Scratch… scratch… scratch… I claw it toward me… I reach… got it!!! Running my hand up I feel for the knife… I can turn my head enough to watch my hand… up onto the table… feeling the thin paper on the tray… closer… closer… Yes! I got it. The handle anyway.

Moving ever so slowly… afraid to drop the thing… I hook the edge under the cuff that holds me to the bed. I slip the blade between my skin and the cuff… cutting into the cloth… sawing as much as I can… half an inch at most… I can expand the tear… an inch… an inch and a half…I saw back and forth… slowly… agonizingly slowly… the knife works its way through the cuff that binds me. Ah… ah… ahhhhhh! I pull up hard and hear the rip as my hand breaks free.

Yes! Yes! There!

Yes! Yes! Holding the knife in my right hand, I plunge the blade into my abdomen… slicing hard.

- end -

ENDNOTES: [You can contact me on facebook or 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. Subscribe to the MYKEL'S READERS Yahoo group readmboard-subscribe@yahoogroups.com]

→ Truth in Rumors Dept: The urge to perform comes back… like herpes. And yes I got it again. The details are too much to put here. The short form is that Chad Kroeger and I met at Hard Apple Core… the famous NYC gay punk club. He was sitting at the bar, not looking too happy….. just staring down into his beer.

     “It’s too much!” He said, “Just too much.”

     Yeah, you’ve probably heard rumors. The schedule, the criticism, all of it was getting to be too much. Chad wanted to step back… just play and let someone else be the front man. Yep, I start on the Canadian tour beginning in Toronto on May1, exactly one month from today.

        Check the Nickelback tour schedule here.

→ Truth in Rumors Dept (part 2): You know by now that Maximum RocknRoll has gone belly up… kaput… though they will maintain a web presence… probably for a few months… until the reality sets in. In the meantime, former editrix, Miriam Bastini, has already taken the reins of a new publication Maximum HipnHop. We’ll see what happens to that one. I expect she’ll fire R. Kelly.

→ Going against my principles dept: Those who’ve been reading me for a long time know that I’ve opposed gay marriage from the get-go... straight marriage too… at least as a government recognized institution. Marriage is religious. If you want to do it, go ahead… but don’t ask for or get any benefits from Uncle Donny.

          Still, I did agree to be best man at the wedding of George Tabb and Ben Weasel. I didn’t change my opinions, but friendship beats politics any day. You can see the wedding pictures here.

LINK TRADE DEPARTMENT:

I read that the search engines like lots of links... and it's also nice to support my friends... and enemies... in their blogs. So facebook me or email me if you have a blog, webpage or something else to connect to. I add you. You add me.

Here's a start:

• David Goldberg's Busy Microbes Blog
• And another Goldberg:goldberg.wordpress.com
• I post a blog for Kyle Nonnemon, in prison for a ton of shit. He's a smart guy, with a passion for industrial metal and a general detestation of humankind. You can read his blog at: apothelema.blogspot.com (last minute note, when I tried to post a link to Kyle's blog to facebook's SATANISM (Satan's Music Lounge) and DEATH METAL (Death Metal) pages, the administrator censored the link. Wouldn't want anyone in jail (bad people!) associated with DEATH or SATAN, would we?
• Poetry and humor fans will like Justin Martin in The Latency
• And my friend Mike R has a nice site with recipe hits from the past! (He cooked for me once... great stuff.) Check out Yesterday's Recipes.
• And here's one by a member of ANTI-SEEN... a tour diary of sorts.
• Andy Shelton has an interesting blog here.
• Savage Hippie is a guy who has been YouTubing for a long time. Our opinions largely overlap... but he complains that I'm a Communist. I'm not! I'm a communist.
• Chris Stecher publishes a zine called PRECIS. You can see the back issue links there... and he promises a new issue soon.
• George Fertakis has a very nice graphics-heavy blog... with music and books featured prominently.
• And my long-term pal Sid Yiddish contributes with his .Mishegas Master Blog

CONTACT REDUX: You can contact me on facebook or 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. Subscribe to the MYKEL'S READERS Yahoo group

 readmboard-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

You're Still Wrong March 2019 or LOCK UP!

You’re Still Wrong

Mykel's Blog for March 2019
or

LOCK UP!

The prisoners assemble in the shape-up room. Standing at attention… most of them anyway… a few slump… in rows of twenty across… about a dozen deep. The warden is in front, addressing the crew.

“Okay, now listen up. New rules starting today,” he shouts in that kind of voice that means here’s an announcement and you’d better fuckin’ pay attention.

“This bag,” he says... holding aloft and shaking a cloth bag... like the ones in old cartoons. This one, however, is not stenciled with dollar signs. It jangles. It “is filled with keys. They are the keys to your cells... the keys to each section… and the keys to the jail itself… I’m here to distribute them.”

Inmate eyebrows frown in near unison.

“We’re downsizing and figure it’s a waste to pay someone to turn a key. You can just as easily do it yourself…. So, when I call your names, I want you to walk up here and collect your keys. You’ll sign your name in the book as having received them. If you lose them, it’ll cost you big… so don’t.”

“Excuse me, sir,” says a voice from somewhere near the middle of the crowd, “are you giving us the keys to our own cells? I mean, are you saying we’re going to lock ourselves in at night, and unlock ourselves during exercise periods and visits?”

“You got it, Einstein,” the warden shouts back.

There’s a low murmur among the men… like the walla walla walla background noises in movie restaurant scenes.

“SHUT THE FUCK UP!” shouts the warden. “Wait for your name to be called… then walk up here and get your keys… then go and stand back where you were….”

He looks down at a clipboard. “LeRoy Anthony!” he shouts. “LeRoy Anthony, come and collect your keys.”

A guy, late 60s, slightly stooped... walks from the far end of the third row… toward the warden. Meanwhile, the warden sorts through his cloth sack… looking at the tags on the keys.

HOLD IT! HOLD IT MYKEL… What’s the point here? What are you trying to prove? You think a prison would ever give inmates the keys and trust them to lock themselves in?

It’s that damn Literary Device. She just can’t keep her mouth shut… breaking in at key points… spoiling the flow with stupid questions and stupider statements of the obvious. Just when I’m setting the stage.

“Yo! Literary Device,” I say, “Give me a few paragraphs.. I’ll explain the point… and YES, I think inmates would lock themselves in by themselves. How many commit crimes just to get back in jail because they can’t handle the outside world? How many WANT to be there? How many would be on the street sleeping over a subway vent if it weren’t for prison?”

She (Literary Device), makes a sweeping be my guest hand gesture, like the doorman at an expensive restaurant… and says nothing.

FLASH TO 2019: I sit on my bed… laptop on a tiny… shaky… wooden table… The laptop shares the table with a postal scale, a cup of green tea, the empty DVD box of NYMPHOMANIAC VOLUMES ONE AND TWO… subtitled Forget About Love.

In the next apartment, Harry Back sits at his desk, finishing his business plan for a start-up company: Your Bedroom, Your Spaceship. Through the wall, I can hear the DINGS, PINGS, and BABOOS of his computer… every once in awhile... a heartily whispered SHIT! or YES! FINALLY!

BZZZZZ! It’s the door buzzer. Someone is trying to get in the building. They ring all the buzzers until someone lets them in. Barefoot, I pad over to the intercom and shout into it.

WHOWIZZIT? AND WADDAYA WANT?

“Food delivery for Mr. Back.” comes the staticky answer.

NEX DAW! I shout back. DIS IS D. YOU WANT C.

“Sorry,” comes the heavily accented voice, “I try once more.”

In a minute or so, I hear the elevator open and someone walking down the hall. My neighbor opens his door, mumbles thanks and quickly closes it again. The elevator closes… then more PINGS and DINGS from his computer.

FLASH TO The New York Post, December 6, 2018: It turns out millennials love Amazon so much, they’d give up sex or alcohol to keep shopping there. A new survey revealed 77 percent of millennials would go without booze for a year rather than quit Amazon, and 44 percent would forego sex.

It’s 2PM. I sit naked but for boxer shorts, and an old TRIBE 8 t-shirt. I type these words on my Lenovo laptop. A large sticker on the outside of the laptop shows a picture of an apple with a bite taken out of it. The apple is in a red circle. A diagonal red line runs through that apple. Yeah, I’m making a statement.

No classes today. I have a few minutes to spare. Yesterday, I couldn’t write before I had to catch the subway uptown. I taught until 9... as usual. Then out with my students. Thursday, was Drink Club. Wednesday was Drink Club Secret (no link to that one). Tomorrow, I’ll probably go see Jennifer Blowdryer at Otto’s… or else go out for dinner with an old girlfriend… one of many who my Midas touch has turned full-time lesbo. Tonight, though, I have some time.

I still hear Harry through the wall. I mute my beeps and pips… he doesn’t. I wonder if he has his pants on yet. He’s not that good looking, so  thoughts of him sitting at a desk in his underwear do not bring blood to my limp asparagus. I bet his computer doesn’t have a NO APPLE sticker on the front.

I wonder if he ever goes out. I know he works from home. On at least one of the few occasions we’ve met, he’s told me how lucky he feels that he can be in the corporate world and not have to put on a tie. He did not mention putting on his pants.

I imagine his life: He sits… possibly pantsless... at a high-tech desk... One with an actual keyboard tray rather than just pulling out a drawer like normal people do. Behind him sits a small table… swivel distance… so he can type… turn... eat… maybe watch television… swivel back and keep working.

Lightbulb burns out? Pull up Amazon… he’s gotta be a prime member… maybe super-prime if there is such a thing. BING! Lightbulb delivered… right to the door. Time for dinner…. Uber Eats… this time… Chinese or Indian? Indian… great, there in half an hour… Wow! Vindaloo you could die for… uh oh… speaking of dying… it’s kind of a heavy hitter.

Pow! Off to the bathroom… exploding toilet inevitable… Whoa!! Almost out of Charmin! Use that last bit and call CVS for an emergency supply. They deliver and it’s quick… they’re just around the corner. Better order a dozen rolls. That’ll take care of Indian, Szechuan, and a runny nose for a month… almost.

You’re gettin’ it, huh? It’s not a fantasy about prisoners locking themselves up… with the keys to their own cells. We already have that. I go to a punk club… the only people in the audience are recent immigrants who don’t have the delivery system figured out-- or-- THEY are the ones delivering all the stuff to the voluntary inmates… self-locked in their apartments The bars empty out around 10PM… Few people eat out any more… restaurants close… unless they’re just a window… for delivery only. Ms Literary Device, do you get it now?

People don’t leave home… not even to work. They lock themselves in their private apartment cells and turn the key. They think they’re CONNECTED to other people, because they see a few memes on facebook. They think they’re involved in the world, because they can watch a YouTube video of sheep-herders on the steppe.

Folks in modern times have less physical contact (the Japanese call it skinship) than jailbirds. Don’t jailbirds fuck all the time? Isn’t that where the original meaning of PUNK comes from? The Harry Backs of the world jerk off to XNXX and that’s what passes for sex. It’s safer that way, huh? No disease. No pictures from someone else’s cellphone to get them in trouble when they run for… I donno, City Council?

The Harry Backs of today don’t go out into the world… they expect the world to come into them. They don’t go to India… they have it delivered. They don’t shop… meet neighbors at the supermarket… handle produce… squeeze the fruit. They have it FRESH delivered.

Jews and Latin folks are famous for touching each other… for making bodily contact. I once read about a 1960’s sociologist who watched same sex pairs at a table in an outdoor cafe. Two WASP American men talked to each other for an hour… they touched each other once. Two Frenchmen talking touched each other 160 times. Two Puerto Ricans… 180 times. (The report did not include Jews… but I think it’s clear that there’s not much difference between Jews and Puerto Ricans.) Two Brits… NEVER TOUCHED in an hour of conversation.

But now? NO ONE will touch. The way we’re going, there will be no one to touch! We’ll just sit in our little cells, locking ourselves in… opening the door for home delivery… then shutting it quickly again. I’m fuckin’ glad I’m old and won’t live to see 8 million jail cells in New York City. Delivery please! But then again….

Shit! There’s the doorbell. Hold on a minute…. Oh hi, you must be from the escort service… Your name’s Literary Device??? Come on, you’re shittin’ me. Well, come in… Can I get you something to drink before we start?

- end 1-

ENDNOTES: [You can contact me on facebook or 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. Subscribe to the MYKEL'S READERS Yahoo group readmboard-subscribe@yahoogroups.com]

→ I’ve been saying it for years… part one dept: I’m usually as interested in the Oscars as I am in the Superbowl... as I am in gardening or macrame. But this caught my eye from Pop-Buzz.com. It said,

After thanking his parents, the Academy, his cast and Queen, Rami stated: "We made a film about a gay man, an immigrant who lived his life unapologetically himself and the fact that I'm celebrating him and this story with you tonight is proof that we're longing for stories like this". The sentiment was sweet but fans were disappointed that Rami called Freddie "gay".

Bisexuality invisibility came the complaint. And going even further, the complainers pull out this 2005 study that questions whether straight (or gay) people exist at all.

          In the 80s, it took real OUTRAGEOUSNESS to outrage people… Today, publicly scratching your balls is enough to start a twitterstorm.

       There is something to learn from this, though. The evils of BINARY THINKING:

GAY or STRAIGHT.

Trump is GOOD or Trump is SATAN.

And its corollary,
YOU EITHER SUPPORT ANY SHITHEAD THE DEMOCRATS NOMINATE or

YOU PERSONALLY ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR TRUMP’S REELECTION.

       The second facebooker I ever banned, I banned on the stupidity of his binary thinking. “Most of my friends are not white.” I wrote. “Mykel is playing the MY BLACK FRIEND card,” wrote the now-banned “friend”… as if the only two racial choices are WHITE or BLACK. Where the fuck does he live? South Africa?

        Binary thinking is too common for outrage… but it’s just about right for stupidity. You’ve heard me talk about that for years.

→ I’ve been saying this for years… part 2: An article in the Financial Times says that the vegetarian/vegan boom is a bigger boom for corporate agriculture than it is for the earth. Much of supermarket vegan food is genetically modified… usually so it can take heavier duty insecticides… which in turn pollute everything around them. Also, the harvesting of crops is done by petroleum-heavy tractors.. and processed by resource-using electricity. Cows and other animals are “harvested” on horseback.

          One thing the article does NOT mention is how veganism is bad for animals. Instead of choosing to purchase humanely killed /organically raised meat, vegans take their money out of the meat-voting pool. This means fewer meat-eaters care what they eat, which means less demand to raise animals humanely… So the farmers, antibiotic users, and legislators simply don’t care.

→Moving to Vietnam dept: I’ve often thought about leaving the US. It really is an awful place to live… a shithole country. My cousin voted with his feet and now lives in Thailand. I have plenty of friends who’ve ditched the US for places far and wide. I don’t know anyone who’s gone to Vietnam, though. But given that medical care is so bad here… there do seem to be doctors after my own heart on the other side of the world. Check out this Vietnamese doctor who successfully saved someone’s life by pumping beer INTO his stomach.

LINK TRADE DEPARTMENT:

I read that the search engines like lots of links... and it's also nice to support my friends... and enemies... in their blogs. So facebookme or email me if you have a blog, webpage or something else to connect to. I add you. You add me.

Here's a start:

• David Goldberg's Busy Microbes Blog
• And another Goldberg:goldberg.wordpress.com
• I post a blog for Kyle Nonnemon, in prison for a ton of shit. He's a smart guy, with a passion for industrial metal and a general detestation of humankind. You can read his blog at: apothelema.blogspot.com
• Poetry and humor fans will like Justin Martin in The Latency
• And my friend Mike R has a nice site with recipe hits from the past! (He cooked for me once... great stuff.) Check out Yesterday's Recipes.
• And here's one by a member of ANTI-SEEN... a tour diary of sorts.
• Andy Shelton has an interesting blog here.
• Savage Hippie is a guy who has been YouTubing for a long time. Our opinions largely overlap... but he complains that I'm a Communist. I'm not! I'm a communist.
• Chris Stecher publishes a zine called PRECIS. You can see the back issue links there... and he promises a new issue soon.
• George Fertakis has a very nice graphics-heavy blog... with music and books featured prominently.
• And my long-term pal Sid Yiddish contributes with his  Mishegas Master Blog.

CONTACT REDUX: You can contact me on facebook or 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. Subscribe to the MYKEL'S READERS Yahoo group:

readmboard-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.