Cliches... or Mykel's March 2021 Blog

 

Clichés

 (Mykel Board's March 2021 Blog)

 YOU'RE STILL WRONG.. 

MYKEL'S MARCH 2021 BLOG

OR

Clichés

by Mykel Board

You’re STILL Wrong

or
Mykel's

March 2021 Blog/Column

Clichés

by Mykel Board

We just have to have the courage to turn against our habitual lifestyle and engage in unconventional living. --Christopher McCandliss


I write this in front of my cheap HP hooked up to an ancient monitor and an even more ancient keyboard. I’ll squeeze out 500 words before I allow myself dinner and TV.

In the old days, before numbered impeachments and numbered COVIDs, I watched very little television. Now with scam subscriptions to Netflix, and Amazon Prime… plus the miracle of ROKU… I can’t get away from it.

It’s been years since I sat with a TV dinner in front of a TV. Now, it’s every night I don’t have Drink Club… or a meal with one of two non-cootiephobic friends… one a super-cook… the other a walker who loves to eat out.

King Cuomo... happily (for me) in trouble for forcing corona-sick people into nursing homes and then lying about how many died there… has just opened the bars and restaurants to 25%... with name, temperature and contact address requirements. I’m Dirk Diggler. I live in Times Square. I can’t fake my temperature. The bars fake it for me.

One thing about watching TV again… Whoa… the commercials. SUVs, car insurance comedy skits, supplemental medicare plans, a few pizza and fast food chains, and lots of razor and vaginal blood-stopping ads.

Not at all like I remember them... not filled with white guys playing doctors… or lawyers… or anything. Are there any white guys at all? Maybe it’s a mix and I’m just seeing it different… fresh eyes.

Google tells me 60% of Americans are white. Let’s say half those are men. So 30% of the commercials should have white guys in them. I watch a dozen commercials… keep track of the honkies… there are 4. 4/12 = 1/3 = 33%. That’s about right! So the problem is me! Just the change in the way I see TV makes me fall all over myself with racial correctness and pity poor whitey.

But wait, there’s more!

One commercial catches my attention above all others. There is a black woman, hefty... in the sexy way black women are hefty... standing against a plain gray background… hands folded at her crotch. She looks directly into the camera and says,

“I never say CAN’T. That’s a word I never use. Anything you want to do, you can do. You’ve got to believe in yourself and….”

Huh? That’s the same crap my father told me when I was a boy. It’s the American ideal. The Nike Just do it. That’s still here? With all this disease and killer cops… They’re still peddling this You can do anything you really want to do shit???

NO YOU CAN’T!

I fantasize kidnapping that lady… forcing her at knifepoint up the stairs to the roof. Pushing her to the edge.

“You can do anything you want? I bet you want to flap your arms and fly as you head down past those windows below. I bet you REALLY want to be able to pigeon down and and rest lightly. You can do it, right? You can do anything you want to do, right?”

Then I push her over the edge.

I’m 5-foot 3-inches tall… pushing 80 years old. No matter how much I REALLY WANT to play center for The Wolves… I CAN’T DO IT. You can do anything you want is a cliché older than I am… more American than a revolution... and it’s WRONG.

There’s another cliche I want to pull the rug from under. QAnon and its pals get banned from facebook, twitter, and amazon. The censorship is so strong that even censorship-free sites are censored by their carriers.

“Mykel,” says liberal Lucy, “that isn’t censorship. That’s done by private companies. The first amendment only applies to the government. These are corporations.”

“Yo Lucy!,” I reply, looking at her breasts, “there’s a difference between censorship, free speech and the first amendment. Corporations can and do censor… same as the government. AntiFa can and does censor… same as the government… one is covered by the constitution and the other by the principle of free speech.”

“Yo Mykel,” says Lucy, not looking at anywhere in particular. “Free speech does not mean free from consequences.”

Flash to Pyongyang, North Korea: Kim Jun Un, is explaining what a free country North Korea is. People are free to work, play government-approved games, and say whatever they want to say.

The Pyongyang Daily News is doing “man on the street” interviews to let the citizens know how their neighbors think. Citizen after citizen explains how s/he’d never want to live anywhere else…. How the great leader has built a great nation. One man, Park Sum Nut, says, “Yes, the People’s Republic is great… It’s amazing that one little guy with a bad haircut can create such a strong power.”

An hour after publication... police arrest Park Sum Nut... bring him to Kim Square in the center of Pyongyang. A crowd builds… people know something is up. Park… face bruised and bloodied… is pushed ahead of a phalanx of cops. When they reach an old metal gate, two of the lead cops shove the young man against it… chain his wrists… his ankles. They rip off his pants… underpants. One cop grabs him between the legs squeezing… pulling down on the hanging organs. Another cop has what looks like a sheet full of ground beef. They smear the contents on Park’s exposed equipment. A smell of meat on meat rises in the square square. 

Kim Jung Un appears on a balcony, just to the right... on the edge of the square.

“Now!” he says, “release the dogs.”

The next day you read a quote from the Korean leader. “We have free speech here in North Korea, but free speech does not mean free from consequences.”

YES, IT DOES!

If speech has consequences, it’s not free. If you can go to jail for yelling “Fire” in a crowded theater… what happens when there REALLY IS a fire? You’re afraid to tell anyone about it.

I walk up Broadway toward K-Mart. My clothes and plumbing are falling apart during the plague.. I need to shop for repairs. I wear my Julian-gifted plague mask. Other pedestrians super-size their social distance from me.

Look! There’s a 30-something woman… blond hair… sun-glasses in February… and a mask? No, TWO MASKS! I can see from the double ear-straps… one of those blue paper ones... close to her face… then a large black one on top of it. You know this is just the first (second? third?) step. Next comes three masks… Social distancing of 6 miles… bars open for one customer every 30 minutes… time to drink up, pay and leave... restroom closed because you don’t know who touched what in the meantime.

When I get home, I post the adventure on facebook. Why am I surprised by friends who tell me they’ve been wearing two masks for weeks? Some wear a mask at home… even though they live alone. Several my age tell me how they’ve been up all night trying to get a vaccine... clicking the make an appointment button every 10 minutes... for hours. No success. They try again the next night.

One woman leaves her mail in the sun for a day before she opens it… figuring the sun will bake the cooties off the envelopes.

“You can’t be too careful, Mykel,” she tells me.

FLASH TO THE WORLD AS IT COULD BE

I walk up Broadway to K-Mart. This is right after the new helmet laws. Pedestrians risk a $50 fine if they don’t wear helmets while walking. Falling snow… construction debris… you never know what can fall from above. Wear your helmet!

Helmets protect YOU!

is the slogan… you see it on all the TV stations, along with the usual imploring:

Stay safe! Don’t ever touch anyone for any reason!

At the corner of Third Street and Broadway I have to wait. The crossing gate has snapped shut just as I reach it. CLANK! Christmas music plays through the speakers while cars pass and pedestrians cross the other way. After two minutes of I saw Mommy looking at Santa Claus (safe socially distant) the gate opens and I cross to the other side.

You can’t be too careful?

YES, YOU CAN!

See you in hell,

Mykel Board

ENDNOTES: [You can contact me on facebook or by email at mykelboard@gmail.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. Send me an email with SUBSCRIBE in the subject line. Back blogs and columns are at https://mykelsblog.blogspot.com]

–>More leisure in COVID dept: The Guardian reports that a Hamburg university is offering “idleness grants” to applicants who are committed to doing nothing.

The University of Fine Arts in Hamburg advertises three €1,600 scholarships to applicants from across Germany. The applicants have to convince a jury that their chosen area of “active inactivity” is particularly impressive or relevant.

The application form consists of only four questions: What do you not want to do? For how long do you not want to do it? Why is it important not to do this thing in particular? Why are you the right person not to do it?

–> Too late for Donny dept: The craft site Sticker Mule is offering to change your tweets into framed art. All you have to do is upload the URL of your tweet and the company will reproduce it… large… and give it a wooden frame. The cost? A mere $35… plus $10 shipping.

–> You CAN be too cautious redux dept: According to a Sept 2020 Washington Post story (strangely under-reported ), more than 134,200 people died from Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia since March. That is 13,200 more U.S. deaths caused by dementia, compared with previous years.
A Washington Post analysis of weekly death data from the CDC found about 13,200 excess deaths due to Alzheimer’s and dementia.
Says the Post: Overlooked amid America’s war against the coronavirus is this reality: People with dementia are dying not just from the virus but from the very strategy of isolation that’s supposed to protect them. In recent months, doctors have reported increased falls, pulmonary infections, depression and sudden frailty in patients who had been stable for years.

–> Thanks dept: I want to thank my sister, Gayl, for putting me on her Amazon Prime account, and my Guyanese pal, Gavin, for giving me Netflix, and my facebook friend, whose name I can’t find, who sent me the Roku remote and receiver. Ain’t charity wonderful?

See you in hell… again,

MB

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:

Here’s Richard Goldberg: goldberg.wordpress.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.

Rock-writer and historian extraordinaire, Jim Testa, has continued his great zine online. Jersey Beat is still going!

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. If there’s no link here (I can’t find it temporarily), then Google… er… Duckduckgo him for information.

And my long-term pal Sid Yiddish contributes with his Mishegas Master Blog.

And connect to TRUST Zine, a long-running German punk zine… that STILL PRINTS!!! Yeah, they have a website too… of course! It’s here.

Here are a couple video links.

This from Jon Cox https://squelchchamber1.bandcamp.com/album/down-so-low

And this one from my very long-time friend Roger Armstrong.

Jim Testa moved his long running zine, Jersey Beat, to the blogosphere awhile back. You can read it here. Jim also recommended a kind of unique album… in a style you don’t see to much of these days… or any days. Neo-Hassidic Rock Opera. You can stream the album here.

Kyle Nonneman is in prison in Portland. At least he can’t be kidnapped by the secret police… I think. I post his blog for him, he can’t do it from the klink. Lots of stuff about noise metal… and some very weird politics that will either fascinate or repulse you… or both.

Oh yeah, then there’s me. I have a blog of stuff I’ve written mostly from last century. You might enjoy it. Then again, you might not. It’s here.

I have a very occasional blog about how rich people are just like us… same needs, same desires, you know. You can read it here.

Let me know if you have a blog… or a print zine… or a YouTube and want to be added to the list. You show me yours… you’ve already seen mine. god@mykelboard.com

Scientific Consensus and YouTube (Mykel Board's February 2021 Blog)

 

Scientific Consensus

 (Mykel Board's February 2021 Blog)

 YOU'RE STILL WRONG.. 

MYKEL'S JAN. 2021 BLOG

OR

Scientific Consensus

by Mykel Board

It’s Last Week Tonight with bespectacled British comedian, John Oliver. I don’t get HBO, but I can watch on YouTube. I do.

Oliver sits behind a desk. As he talks about Climate Change® the upper left corner of the screen flashes pictures of fires, melting polar caps and the obligatory polar bear stranded on an ice-floe. Then the comedian complains about network coverage of the phenomenon.

“It’s always one-on-one,” says Oliver, “the moderator in the middle, Bill Nye, the science guy, on one side, and some schmuck on the other side.”

Oliver claims this presents an unfair picture of climate science. He says that 97% of climate scientists agree that global warming is human-made-- far from the 50-50 implied by only one guy on each side.

To make the presentation more fair, Oliver brings in two people who agree with the schmuck… and 97 people who agree with the science guy.

The audience laughs.

Now, before we go on, I want to make my own position clear on this.

1. Climate change is real. Just watching weather reports over the last 10 years should prove that. It’s something every Eskimo who sees his igloo slowly melt knows instinctively.

2. With the exception of the Eskimo who never leaves his refrigerator in Point Barrow…

No educated people deny that the climate is changing. They don’t think climate change is “a hoax.” The climate has always been changing. There is only denial on the cause of the change. Oliver’s 3% believes that cause is not humans. Climate change killed the dinosaurs for fuck’s sake. Was that because of the gasoline engine?

3. I believe things are more complicated, and while there is natural climate change… and it’s probably happening… humans are responsible for making it much more destructive and faster-acting.

Now back to our regularly scheduled program.

I’m at the podiatrist’s. My passion for long walks.. and my love of army boots and cop shoes has injured my left foot. The doctor is putting a cast on the foot. He talks to me through a black mask over his mouth and nose. I talk to him through a blue one.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “Would you mind removing your mask? My hearing is lousy and I can’t understand what you’re saying.”

He takes off his mask. I see that he’s smiling.

“I’m happy you don’t care about that mask stuff,” he says. “I know the government and the medical establishment don’t want people to feel helpless in the midst of this pandemic.”

“I prefer to call it a plague,” I tell him.

He laughs… and continues, “If people feel there’s nothing they can do, they’ll panic. You’ve got to give them something to hold on to. Some way they can believe they have control over this pandem… er… plague.”

I laugh. “You got it!” I say.

On facebook, I connect to a video of a doctor lecturing about how useless masks are… and how they might, in fact, spread the disease. She gives the example of going out to eat, taking off the mask, setting it on the table next to the food, possibly contaminating fingers, the table, the dishes, etc…

Soon after I post the video on facebook, come the answers:

“Yeah, Mykel, you found a doctor who doesn’t believe in masks... one in a hundred. Leave it to you.”

“One in a hundred? Who do you think you are?” I don’t ask. “John Oliver with the Science Guy?”

Now before we go on, I want to make my position clear:

1. COVID-19 is real. I know several people who have had it, and the father of one of my best friends has died from it.

2. I don’t think most people who are against mask-wearing think COVID is “a hoax.” The virus is real and a killer. But they believe mask wearing… especially the paper things and kerchiefs you see on the street… are not effective against it. They are a palliative… and may actually spread the disease. (Watch the video)

3. I believe things are more complicated. In many ways, the virus is nature’s way of keeping house. Cleaning out humankind… the most destructive force on earth. We can mitigate the effect, but we should not over-react. 

Lockdowns kill people, depriving them of income, doctor visits, and the security of not being isolated. Lockdowns drive people nuts, impoverish the nation, instill a fear of other humans as deadly. They spread a philosophy of “Don’t Wait... Separate.” Social Distancing is anti-social. 

FLASH TO POLAND 1514: There’s Nicolaus Copernicus up on roof of the student dorms. Looking through a telescope… making notes… checking and double-checking.

He sketches the sun… its path through the sky… the stars… the way they move. Then checks and double-checks.

“It must be,” he thinks… in Polish. “I’ve done the research. I’ve confirmed it… tested it. It must be. The earth revolves around the sun… not the other way around. It’s the only explanation.”

For weeks, young Nic checks and double checks his figures. He tells a few close friends. Most pooh-pooh his theory… call him a nut. A few agree to go with him, to check their own telescopes… to check their own figures... and see if they match. They do.

FLASH AHEAD TO 1633, Italy: The Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei, has heard about the Copernican theory and bought his own telescope to check it out. Amazingly, it checks out. He can see with his own eyes and his own figures that it is the earth moving in an orbit… not the sun.

Galileo is not as shy as Copernicus was. He broadcasts his finding. Italy is stunned. His fellow astronomers gather to condemn the man… call him a conspiracy nut… a follower of the mythical PeeAnon.

“But it moves,” Galileo famously says, talking about the earth traveling around the sun.

The Polish nation turns to TuTube to watch La Scorsa Settimana Stasera where Johanus Oliverus talks about astronomy. He talks about the earth-centric deniers… and how the SCIENCE says that earth is the center of the solar system.

On one side of the host is Galileo, on the other side is The Pope. Johanus introduces each side, then explains (in Italian)… that in order to make an accurate representation of scientific consensus, he will bring in two astronomers of the sun-is-central Galileo school… and 6483 followers of earth-is-central Papal school. And the debate begins. Galileo loses.

Get it? Science isn’t politics. It’s not a democracy. That a majority of scientists believe something, doesn’t make it true. Science is always going back on itself. There are a few dissenters and either they disappear, or get a bigger following… then there are more dissenters. Isaac Newton, then Albert Einstein, then Max Planck… All right in their theories... until a few dissenters show they’re not.

To quote a great dissenter: “John Oliver… YOU’RE WRONG!”

=============================
I want to write a little about the Capitol protests. I’m writing a few days before the inauguration, and state capitals (and capitols) are on high alert.

I’m disgusted by the whole thing, but not surprised. A fratboy protest, complete with costumes and facepaint, is called “an insurrection.” Four people die…so it’s a DEADLY insurrection. One protester is shot by the cops. One cop is hit in the head by a flying fire extinguisher. Three protesters die from their own excessive stupidity... wall climbing, balcony jumping… like that.

An effigy noose is “evidence” that the protesters planned to hang the vice president and the speaker of the house. Despite the rope’s non-useability as a hanging device.

Insurrectionists do not wear Viking hats... unless they're real Vikings. They enter firing. They’re soldiers, not jocks…. But Congress takes its revenge. In the name of healing®, they impeach the president ten days before he leaves office anyway. In 50 years, this’ll be a Netflix comedy. It’s already a very sick real-life one.

Time has passed. It’s now 8:10 on the day of the inauguration. Looks like I was mistaken. Here’s the apology I post on facebook:

“I want to apologize for my earlier skepticism. I just didn't see the coordinated rebel attack on every state capitol, the violence in the streets, the machine gun fire in Washington. I was making fun of this whole "armed revolution all over the country" bit. I thought it was incredibly stupid panic, by a population over-reacting to little more than a fratboy party gone wrong... but these massive attacks have proved that I was mistaken.”

See you in hell,

Mykel Board

ENDNOTES: [You can contact me on facebook or by email at mykelboard@gmail.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. Send me an email with SUBSCRIBE in the subject line. Back blogs and columns are at https://mykelsblog.blogspot.com]

–> Go vegan and smoke dept: Research done in India seems to show that vegetarians and smokers are less susceptible to the disease than others. When that was reported in the US… vegetarians went on an I-TOLD-YOU-SO rampage. You can see the carnage… er… vegage... all over facebook and twitter. But smoking? Few people will dare believe that smoking can lower your risk. But it moves,” say the few brave doctors.

–> Meanwhile dept: The trusty New York Post reports that two Chinese boys died while (and likely FROM) wearing masks while doing strenuous exercises. In their case, heavy running. The masks restricted their breathing. How many kids are going to suffer brain damage from their parents trying to protect them?
According to The Post report about the Chinese deaths,

The death certificate listed the cause as sudden cardiac arrest, but no autopsy was performed.

The boy’s father said he believes that the mask his son was required to wear to school played a role in his death.

See you in hell… again,

MB

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:

Here’s Richard Goldberg: goldberg.wordpress.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.

Rock-writer and historian extraordinaire, Jim Testa, has continued his great zine online. Jersey Beat is still going!

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. If there’s no link here (I can’t find it temporarily), then Google… er… Duckduckgo him for information.

And my long-term pal Sid Yiddish contributes with his Mishegas Master Blog.

And connect to TRUST Zine, a long-running German punk zine… that STILL PRINTS!!! Yeah, they have a website too… of course! It’s here.

Here are a couple video links.

This from Jon Cox https://squelchchamber1.bandcamp.com/album/down-so-low

And this one from my very long-time friend Roger Armstrong.

Jim Testa moved his long running zine, Jersey Beat, to the blogosphere awhile back. You can read it here. Jim also recommended a kind of unique album… in a style you don’t see to much of these days… or any days. Neo-Hassidic Rock Opera. You can stream the album here.

Kyle Nonneman is in prison in Portland. At least he can’t be kidnapped by the secret police… I think. I post his blog for him, he can’t do it from the klink. Lots of stuff about noise metal… and some very weird politics that will either fascinate or repulse you… or both.

Oh yeah, then there’s me. I have a blog of stuff I’ve written mostly from last century. You might enjoy it. Then again, you might not. It’s here.

I have a very occasional blog about how rich people are just like us… same needs, same desires, you know. You can read it here.

Let me know if you have a blog… or a print zine… or a YouTube and want to be added to the list. You show me yours… you’ve already seen mine. god@mykelboard.com