MYKEL'S APRIL 2021 BLOG or Side Effects

 You’re STILL Wrong

or
Mykel's

April 2021 Blog/Column

Side Effects

by Mykel Board

With some things we are trying to solve some of the problems that are caused by some of the things with which we are trying to solve some of the problems that are caused by some things. -- Mokokoma Mokhonoana

April is when the world slowly opens up and I have to compromise. People will only come out of their cubby holes, masked, vaxxed, and rubber gloved. Really? I find it hard to believe that image of the typical New York wimp is a “tough New Yorker.” Like other images, I guess, it’s only an image. Few people match the image. Out of a hundred, maybe one. Or fewer. Lot’s of other places have people with balls-- here, you can’t even say that word without some feminist saying Yo! I have more balls than you’ll ever have... and being right about that.

I give up. New York is one of the most diverse cities in the world… yet it’s one of the most conformist. I’ve been to every US state, and 70 other countries. The MOST conformist city in the world is San Francisco. Next may be Stockholm, but Stockholm isn’t nearly as cowardly as New York.

The only way you can actually meet people here... have non-virtual social intercourse... go out to eat… to a bar… to a hotel lobby with Dorothy Parker to talk about the state of the world… is to show your Covid test results or your vaccine certificate… otherwise ewwwww cooties!

Bullied into getting shot, I’m on my way to Duane Reade by Walgreens to get the second poke of the government Pfizer-subsidy program. The first shot was free of side effects, but there are all kinds of reports about nasty reactions to the second. 

I’m inside a little white room next to the drugstore pharmacy section. (You’re too young to remember when drugstores WERE pharmacies.) There’s a chair, a tiny table, a sink, and a garbage pail that has a hand-written sign taped to the top of it.

NO FOOD IN GARBAGE. Thanks

This is clearly to discourage patients from rummaging for lunch. A slightly chubby woman, glasses, stern, smile-less... looking more like a security guard than a nurse... asks me to roll up my sleeve. I take my shirt off.

“I need to see your vaccine card to indicate your second dose,” she tells me. I pull it out of my wallet where it lies right next to my new food stamp card. The unfriendly needle-sticker writes some stuff on it. Then...

She wipes an alcohol swab on my arm and BLAM! ...jabs my shoulder with the pre-loaded needle.

“Have a seat outside for fifteen minutes,” she tells me. “If there are no side effects you can go home.” 

“What if there are side effects AFTER fifteen minutes?” I ask her.

“Then stay, home,” she says… in a serious cop voice, “take Tylenol and drink some tea with lemon.”

“You’re shittin’ me,” I don’t say as I put my shirt back on and go outside to wait for the rest of my hair to fall out. It never occurs to me that there could be side effects other than something horrible

The outside room brightens suddenly, as if someone turned a knob that had been only halfway up.

About 10 minutes into sitting out my 15 minutes, the nurse passes me to talk to another patient. It’s then that I notice her ankles… like a dancer’s… a sheet of muscle pounding between bone and skin… and her calves… like tight black eggplants… begging to be skinned and boiled. And the way they disappear under her white lab coat… begging to be followed… explored… lifted. Those legs will be the most beautiful thing in the world. I knew then that the smile missing from her face could be found between her legs. I feel a stirring between my own legs.

The RN loudly clears her throat, and looks at her watch. “Your fifteen minutes are up,” she says. “You can leave now.”

“Did anyone every tell you,” I don’t say… but think… “that you’re the most beautiful woman in the world?”

Somehow I manage to get myself to the door. I glance back, but the goddess in white is gone. As I leave the store, I can still feel the blood pulsating between my legs.

Outside, a Mexican delivery boy dismounts his bicycle. On his back is a square backpack with the word CAVIAR in white against a red background. He wears a heavy jacket that does not conceal his Alfred Hitchcock profile. He also wears a black mask with more ridges than a Ruffles potato chip. Above his mask I can see his eyes. Deep brown… the kind that draw you in… the kind that hook your own eyes and pull you closer. The kind that you just want to look at for the rest of your life.

I stare into those wide brown eyes. The guy looks at me, clucks his tongue, then looks back at me. Then he looks skyward, heads to an old apartment building and rings the bell. I watch him move… sexy as a ballet dancer… one leg kicking out… then the next. I’ve never seen anything like it…I’m in love... more stirring between my legs.

I look at the sky. It is blue… a few wispy clouds form the ass of the Venus de Milo... callipygian… right there above my head. I imagine those cloud cheeks… settling themselves on either side of my face. A gluteal COVID mask… right overhead. I turn around to get a different perspective. I turn again… and again. Before long, I’m just spinning on the sidewalk... whirling... arms flung out… a manic ballet… a Dervish on Spring Street… images of those cheeks resting on my face.

I’m getting dizzy. I stop. The spinning doesn’t. The streets twist around me like chopsticks on a turntable. I feel something under my elbow… a hand… pressing to support me.

“Are you all right, sir?” comes a voice whose source I can’t quite locate. “Here, let me help you to someplace where you can sit down.”

We move to a stone porch. I sit on one of the lower steps. Slowly the spinning stops.

“Is that better, sir?” comes the same voice. I look up into his face… scruffy beard… impossible to tell where the nose hairs end and the mustache-beard begins. Bushy gray eyebrows… shooting off in all directions. A double… no triple,,, chin, pushed out by the downward look of the mysterious stranger. He’s one of the most beautiful people I’ve ever seen.

“You… you…” I start… “Thank you, you saved me,” I say.

“No problem sir,” says that melodious voice. “You think you can make it home by yourself? Should I call an ambulance?”

“I’m okay,” I answer. “Did anyone ever tell you how dazzling you are?”

A smile with a few missing teeth answers my question… I fear I’ve made the smiler uncomfortable.

“No problem, sir,” comes that voice. “Have a nice day.”

I watch as he walks away… what an ass on that guy!

Holy shit! You never think of side effects as anything but BAD side effects… but this must be a vaccine side affect. Shoot me again... and again. I’ve got to get home to take care of the pressure between my legs. I won’t need youngperps.com today. Just my memories and a glance out the window at a passing stranger. So much love… so much beauty!

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]

--> Speaking of Cop-like dept: WDJT reports that a Wisconsin security guard wound up handcuffed and had to call the cops. Police were dispatched to a local Bath and Body Works around 2 a.m. after receiving a call from the shackled guard.

When asked what happened, the guard told them he was bored and put the handcuffs on himself to pass the time. He hadn’t realized, though, he left his keys at home. He added that it wasn’t the first time it had happened either.

One of the officers used a police handcuff key to free the victim.

Reports are that the guard has since put the cuffs where he can’t easily get to them. I wonder what he looks like.

--> A bird in the Wuhan dept: [This was taken from the CRACKED website.]
Even at-least-now-I-have-time-to-catch-up-on-Netflix thinking can become a curse as you enter the ninth day since you felt sunlight. When you're isolated you crave novelty, and over 40 million people found it in the form of Chinese construction vehicles.

Chinese state broadcasters hosted livestreams of two hospitals being built, and very bored people developed a fandom around the equipment. Cement mixers were dubbed Big White Rabbit and The Cement King. A flatbed truck was declared Brother Red Bull, and the biggest stars of the show were Folkchan, "the cutest and most hard working little forklifts." Fan art was created. Viewers could vote on their favorite vehicles, and little mythologies sprung up in live chats as the construction efforts were cheered on. So please enjoy this lighter side of the corona saga before someone inevitably makes hardcore forklift porn.

–> Howdy Partner Dept: The Washington Post tells us that more than 2,000 police and fire departments across the U.S. have “cooperative agreements” with the Amazon doorbell camera Ring system. This is up from 60 in 2018. The pace of new sign-ups is now two new “partnerships” a day.

Those partnerships allow officers to ask all camera owners within half a square mile of a crime scene to share video that could help with the case, and agencies have been seeking out video at a striking rate. Police in Milwaukee, for example, now send Ring video requests for every homicide and nonfatal shooting in the city. Last year officers there requested video more than 800 times.
Credit where it’s due though. This scary report was published in a newspaper owned by… (drumroll here) AMAZON!

–> More side-effects dept: The Week Magazine reports that there have been unintended side effect from the Zoom Culture that developed over the Covid year. Here’s what they said:

–> Something fishy Dept: CNN reports Taiwan’s government has pleaded with citizens to stop changing their names to “salmon” in order to get free sushi. Restaurant chain Sushiro launched a promotion that people whose names include the Chinese characters for salmon could get a free all-you-can-eat meal with five friends. Taiwan’s interior minister complained that the rush for official name changes created “unnecessary paperwork.” But one college student now named Explosive Good Looking Salmon said it was worth it because he’d already eaten 245 dollars worth of free sushi.

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

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