Mykel's Inauguration Speech or You're Still Wrong!... Blog for November 2024

 

Mykel's Inauguration Speech ! or Mykel's November 2024 Blog: YOU'RE STILL WRONG

You’re STILL Wrong
Mykel's

November 2024 Blog/Column

Mykel's Inauguration Speech

[This blog was written between October 15 and October 21, 2024. BEFORE the presidential election]

My fellow Americans:,

Thank you from the bottom of my dark little heart. I proudly accept your choice of me as the first official dictator of the United States of America. [pause for applause]

Besides to all of you, I’m giving credit for my victory to the new and fairest of election systems: The Unpopularity Vote. As you know, I ran for dictator as the unpopularity default candidate. And this year, as most years, the majority of qualified voters either voted for someone other than the “winning” candidate or did not vote at all. That means the winner is a loser and I have won the office. My first act will be to abolish it.

Presidents… except for Jimmy Carter… suck. The presidential system sucks. It cannot be reformed, so I have abolished it. As your new dictator, there will, of course, be big changes. I want to talk about some of them now.

My first action as dictator will be to abolish that fuckin’ song with bombs and rockets in it. All that flag waving and hand over heart stuff. It will be replaced by the great Clash classic: I’m So Bored With The USA. Of course, there will be a spelling change: I’m So BOARD With The USA.

But that’s not the only change that I, as your new dictator will put into place.

For example, it’s clear that a large number of Americans oppose gay marriage. And, as your dictator, I will do away with that. But I’m not one to follow a good idea only halfway. I will also do away with hetero marriage. No laws will be made requiring or legalizing marriage. No extra government benefits will be given to married people. Marriage certificates will not be issued by the government. Divorce, like marriage, will be the province of religion. Should we have legal documents for first catechisms or baptism? Let the church (or synagogue or mosque) do its job. It’s no business of the government.

Of course, if couples… or groups… want to be married as the religious act it is, they’re free to do so. I see no reason why any gender shouldn’t be able to perform this act with any other gender. Gay marriages will be like gay bar mitzvahs. If you’re interested, find the right guy or gal to perform the ceremony. And POW you’re married... for whatever that’s worth… to you. The government will not be involved.

One place where the government WILL be involved is in education. Everyone has the right and the duty to attend public school. Church schools, private schools, home schooling… POW! ALL GONE! At least all gone as institutions REPLACING public education.

If parents want to teach their kids about a giant purple cabbage they call God, they can do it… but not on OUR time. Public schooling allows kids to experience people different from themselves. Different races, nationalities, colors, genders, ways of thinking… Parochial schools only separate kids… by religion. Private (pay) schools separate kids by family income. That will end.

Schooling will mean meeting Sammy from Siam and checking out the goods on Maya from Malaysia. If you want to send your kids to Sunday school… do it on Sunday. If you want special tutoring on the weather changing conspiracy… hire someone OUTSIDE OF SCHOOL. But, from now on, all Americans will share a common history, a common knowledge, a common understanding of the world and of each other. That’s what school does-- or at least what it will do under the Board Reich. I don’t get religious school, but if you want the vagaries of another system, you can have it IN ADDITION TO public schools, not INSTEAD OF those schools.

And speaking of schools… of kids… of God… God has done some pretty fucked up things. She has condemned all of us to a deadly ending. She has strewn her favors unequally. She has created AIDS and Covid (if you believe). But one of the few GOOD things she’s done is to invent puberty. There is a reason 13-year old Jews say TODAY I AM A MAN/WOMAN. God knows when it’s time to fill in the pubic hair and sends biological messages when that time comes. We should respect those messages.

We should know too. Instead of completely arbitrary drinking/sex/voting ages, why not listen to God? Childhood ends when girls ovulate and boys can spill the seed. Kids can see movie super-heroes slaughter dozens at 13… but they can’t drink a beer? That will end NOW. Children will cease to be children on their 13^th birthday. Their full rights will be bestowed on them when nature says they should be bestowed.

And now, my fellow Americans, let me focus on the idiocy of this election. History will decide if it was won or lost because of “the border crisis,” with both sides “acting tough” on allowing people to step over some line in the desert.

Just as teachers learn from their students. Large countries should learn from smaller ones. This election may have been won or lost because of border crisis stupidity. How do you end a border crisis? Easy! End borders.

Take a look at this PowerPoint map. Check out the border between Germany, France, and Belgium. In the 1980s, I lived awhile near where all three countries come together… in a German town called Aachen. I could (and did) have breakfast in Germany, lunch in Holland and dinner in Belgium… and walked freely… no walls, no immigration officers, just a little road… from one country to the next.

That’s the way it should be here. Ronald Reagan famously said to Gorbachev TEAR DOWN THAT WALL. Well, I’m saying the same thing… no, not saying but doing. NO WALLS! Boardian Rights of Passage® makes people free to move wherever they like. Cross from Nogales Arizona to Nogales Mexico as easily as I cross from Manhattan to Hoboken. No passports, no ID, no visas… just do it. Get it? A dictator can make the world a freer place than any so-called elected official.

Thank you for your attention and for your support. Enjoy the free booze (over 13 years old only) and the free food. This election cycle has been long and grueling. Luckily, it has been the last ever.

The next problem is debt. Joey Biden wanted to free students from university debt. BFD! What about credit card debt? Housing debt? Medical debt?… Fuck it. It’s all gone. As of today: NOBODY OWES ANYTHING. All debt is canceled… abolished. We start from zero… and move toward a GREATER society where we stay at zero for as long as we live.

If you have money now, you can keep it… but take it out of the bank… in cash. In the great move to FULL UNEMPLOYMENT, banks will be among the first to go. How many useless people just sit around all day shifting ones and zeros from screen A to screen B? Why not free those people to make art, music, sports, or babies? Old bank buildings will just provide that much more space to house the homeless.

Yes, first we stop credit cards and other instruments of debt. Then we enforce price controls… limiting what we need to pay. Think of how many jobs we can get rid of… no banks… no stock exchanges… no mutual funds… It’s just crazy that the presidential idiots before me wanted to create full employment, when the goal should have always been full UNemployment. Imagine spending more than half your waking hours doing something you hate… and preparing for that… and getting to it and coming from it. You don’t have to imagine it… you’re probably already living it. It’s crazy… and we’ll end it as soon as we can.

After we rid ourselves of banks, let’s get rid of guns, bombs, fighter planes, aircraft carriers. What a bunch of worthless shit! Joe Biden knew that when he gave it away. His plan was to let the government pay the factories to make stuff that kills people. We don’t have to use it. We’re over that. Let others do it. People who kill people are the luckiest people in the world. We give them the tools. And help pay for them to do it. That ends now.

Yeah, we have some cultural changes to make. We need to stop praising veterans. The US has been on the wrong side of every war since WWII. And even in WWII our veterans committed some extreme atrocities… can you say Hiroshima and Nagasaki? 140,000 people smoked.

Veterans who “died for their country” are worshipped with their own national holiday… and those who made it out alive appear at home plate for baseball tributes. I say no. Instead of worshiping veterans, we should pity them. They are state-hired killers, most of whom do it in order to earn enough money tos live. Movies and TV portray them as heroes. The real heroes are those who refuse to fight.

During the Vietnam war, the government found that citizens don’t like seeing their kids returning from war in body bags. Joe Biden was smart enough to figure out how to keep building tanks and bombs… and giving them away for OTHER PEOPLE to fight wars… passing the body bags on to other countries and other fighting people. When armyless people fight back in the only way they can, they’re labeled terrorists. Is death by a plane flown into a building any less death than death by bombs falling from a plane flown overhead? Under the Board dictatorship, planes will be used to carry people and goods from place to place… that’s all. Tanks will be converted to rural/roadless food delivery trucks.

The death industry will itself die. Machine guns will be changed into industrial bolt setters. NATO will become a free trade zone… and free will mean FREE. FREE means you don’t pay! The ultimate goal is a free society, where you don’t pay for anything.

We already spoke about an end to passports, borders and WALLS. But where do we put all those people who want to escape from the climate change or criminal culture the US created in their country in the first place. We need thousands of buildings to house these people. Yeah, we’ll already have the banks, but that won’t be enough. Where can win find houses for thousands of others?

Yo, buckaroos...We have them already. Imagine hundreds of buildings wasted on people who don’t want to be there. No, I’m not talking about factories and offices. Those will ALSO be eliminated under the Boardian doctrine. Now I’m talking about prisons. You know, someone steals a wallet from Mr. Richguy. What is the resulting revenge? He loses his home if he has one. His job if he has one. He is confined in some hellish place, fed bad food, and when he gets out has no place to go and no money to live on except what he can steal from the next Mr. Richguy.

Jails must end… be turned into decent housing for anyone who needs housing. Right now the US has a higher percentage of incarcerated people than any other country in the world. Over a million and a quarter Americans are in prison. How do we end this? By ending prisons, obviously. How do we end cash robbery, internet scams, bank theft? By ending money, obviously.

I spoke about the need to create a society with full unemployment. How do we achieve that? First we cancel debt... that means stopping credit cards and other instruments of debt. Then we enforce price controls… limiting what we need to pay. But there’s more.

Right now the top 4 percent of Americans make as much money as the bottom 51%. And that’s just in wages. It doesn’t count investment income. If we want a country where equality counts, the fastest way to achieve it is to end the grossest inequality! That means ending money. How could we be the land of the free if we have to pay for everything? Again I’ll say it: Free means you don’t pay!

[applause]

See you in hell,
MB

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]

→ By The Time You Read This dept: The 2024 election will be over by the time you read this. Whoever won, we lost. I expect the wars to continue with our bombs and dollars. I expect the rich to get richer and the poor to go to jail. I expect a continuation of identity politics, created (successfully) to divide people instead of bringing them together in the fight against the rule of money. Sorry, I don’t have a Greenland address… yet.

→ I Never Support A Winner dept: This year, as I have in the past several elections, I will have cast my presidential vote for Sid Yiddish. Thanks to our great electoral system, in New York, the only time a Democrat loses is when it doesn’t make any difference to the final ballot. For most of you suckers, if the one you voted for loses… you’ll be angry. If the one you voted for wins… you’ll be disappointed. Me? I won’t have that problem.

→ In case you didn’t get it dept: “Anarchism is democracy taken seriously.” is a great quote that I can’t find a source for. If you see tendencies of Bob Black anarchism and Marshall Tito dictatorship in my victory speech, you see right. You can read about some good dictators right here and you can read Bob Black for yourself here.

LINK TRADE DEPARTMENT:

LINKS

I did a nice interview with The Aither zine. Interesting questions, complete, and questions I’ve never been asked before. You can read it here. It’s a good one.

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 Ricardo Wang with a “micro-label” in Seattle “specializing in 8-track tapes and CDs. WOW! Check out one of their label staples: The Dead Air Fresheners.

Also on bandcamp: My very long time faves in NYC, the BLACKOUT SHOPPERS. Featuring pals Seth and possibly the next vice-president of the US

Sid Yiddish has posted a video of a show done for WZRD in Chicago. Great live performances, and if you catch the video around the 20+ minute point you might see a familiar face doing the lyrics to his songs (some unrecorded) as poetry. You’ll find it here.

And this sounds right up Sid’s alley. The Bilderberg Jazz Arkestra on Bandcamp!

Eric Grayson has an online music review zine, Sobriquet. Full pictures of the sleeves too! Something missing from too many zines. Sometimes you CAN judge a… er… book… by its cover.

Steen Thomsen is a Dane I’ve known ever since Lincoln was shot. I put his band THE ZERO POINT on the great WORLD CLASS PUNK Cassette for ROIR. It must be worth a mint now. I don’t have any left, I’m afraid. You can (and should) connect to the Zero Point on facebook. Tell ‘em Mykel’s blog sent you.

Sorry Dorothy, we are STILL in Kansas. And it’s as weird as OZ. Check out Bob Cutler’s DISTOPEKA.

You already know Murder & Mayhem zine… those guys who did the Mykel Board centerfold. (No genitals shown… and probably for the better.) Their online version is here.

The Clean Boys from Denmark are also longtime friends of mine. In Denmark we recorded as _{The Bend-over Boys}. Only one 10-inch available… but at least now I can say I have a 10-incher!

Finally, for this month, Margaret O’Brian asked me to include the site: anti-war.com They seem to be folks after my own heart.

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.

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

NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH? Mykel's October 2024 Blog

Tuesday, October 1, 2024

The Truth! or Mykel's October 2024 Blog: YOU'RE STILL WRONG

You’re STILL Wrong
Mykel's

October 2024 Blog/Column

THE WHOLE TRUTH

If you tell the truth you do not need a good memory!

--Mark Twain

The truth. It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and must therefore be treated with great caution.

– J. K. Rowling

Gossip needn't be false to be evil - there's a lot of truth that shouldn't be passed around.

– Frank A. Clark

Somewhere in the south of France an invasion has come from somewhere in the north of Africa. A row of tanks… just left the warship… works its way from Marsailles toward Paris. Somewhere in the middle of that row… not the exact middle… maybe a place best described as forward middle… is a tank with a driver and two gunners.

The line of tanks stops … somewhere in an open field… maybe a farm. It’s quiet here in the late afternoon. The driver stands to open the hatch at the top of the tank. He’s a young soldier… mid-twenties at the latest. He reaches up to push the hatch open. As the young man stands... his right arm above his head holding the hatch open… a whistling comes across the sky. Then... an explosion… several. One of the little missiles hits the open hatch… explodes… blowing the man into the air… separating the man from the arm that opened the hatch. Carrying the man up and away from the tank… into the field. A pool of blood next to him makes a Rorschach pattern destined never to be interpreted. The next little missile hits the tank dead on… blowing the gunners inside into little pieces.

The now one-armed tank driver awakens on a cot in a field hospital. He barely notices his transfer from there to a truck… filled with portabeds… several of those lying on the beds moan loudly. A few scream out in pain. Others are dead still.

FLASH TO Emma Silverberg now looking into her mirror. She sees how her neck wrinkles where it meets her chest. There’s a little hollow in that spot… shaped like a sideways eye. She reaches behind her neck with her right hand… grabbing the skin of her neck… pinching it between her palm and fingers… watching the ugly little pocket disappear as the skin pulls tight.

“Maybe if I taped it,” she thinks. “Duct tape would hold… it holds everything.”

I’m imagining this as I sit in her living room waiting for her to meet me for dinner at Arby’s. I’ve been visiting her for almost ten months now. It’s part of a program called VISITING NEIGHBORS where lonely people who want company meet and go out to eat… or see a movie. Sometimes they need help getting around. Usually, they just need company.

Emma is slightly older than I am… just past eighty. It’s easy to see that she used to be a beauty. Her eyes remain bright blue and though the lids wrinkle on them, those eyes show an intensity that clearly melted the hearts of dozens of young men… and maybe women.

She did not grow fat in her old age, but I can tell that her weight shifted. Her breasts drooped. Her muscles turned soft and flabby. She still dresses like I imagine her dressing 50+ years ago. Tight black sweaters, short slinky skirts, shoes with heels so high and thin that, more than once, I’ve had to catch her in a stumble. It’s time for a change. I know that. And this evening I’m going to tell her.

She’s coming down the steps now. Gripping the banister tightly to keep her balance. She’s dressed like she always does, except tonight, she wears dark stockings with a single seam up the back… from ankle to that small area I’m unable to see.

“How do I look?” she asks me.

I take a deep breath. “I’m sorry Emma,” I say. “But someone has to tell you… You’re older than I am but you dress like a teenager. People laugh behind your back. They’re annoyed when you stumble in front of them in your too-high heels...” and I go on.

FLASH TO CALVIN, SITTING ON HIS MILK CRATE ON BLEECKER AND LAGUARDIA “Yo Calvin!” I say to him, “You been waitin’ for me?”

He laughs. “I’m always waitin’ for you,” he says, “or somebody else who’ll give me a dollar.”

I fish in my watch-pocket were I keep my homeless single dollar bills. I pull one out and hand it to Calvin.

I feel a tap on my shoulder. I turn to face a very stern-looking woman, about 40. She frowns… pulling her eyebrows closer together… wrinkling her forehead.

“Why do you give him money?” she asks. “He could be working. You’re keeping him on the street. Let him get a job…. Do something.”

She walks away in a huff... like I’ve insulted her. I hope I have.

HANG ON: That story about the tank commander is true. That man was my father. The story was right from my one-arm dad’s mouth… I wasn’t there, but I believe every word of it. The story of Emma and my comments to her was a lie… made up on a bus on its way to from New York to Boston. (We’re almost in Danbury as I write this).

The third story, about Calvin, I’m not sure of. I remember somebody somewhere complaining about my giving money to street people, but the details are lost on me. File that one under I Don’t Know.

That’s what I want to write about this time: TRUTH… during this last political month… charges of truth and lies hurl back and forth like missiles in a battlefield. I’m here to tell you IT DOESN’T MATTER.

ASIDE: I’ve often written about my friend Dawn. We’ve known each other for around 40 years. Our opinions overlap: she’s a Democrat. I’m a social-libertarian. She’s a feminist. I’m a social-libertarian. She’s interested in the possible. I want the impossible. In any case, I respect her as a deep thinker… and one area we agree on is TRUTH. We both think the made-up Mykel mistreated the made-up Emma. Her feelings, her pride, her self-esteem are more important that THE TRUTH. My father’s dead now. The truth won’t hurt him.

AN EXAMPLE OF TRUTH AT IT'S WORST

=====================
This blog will be posted a month and a few days before the presidential election. I predict a Trump victory. Most of my readers will be happy to know my predictions are usually wrong. I, of course, will be voting for SID YIDDISH, as I have in most every presidential election since Harry Truman.

As I write this, the election has turned into a bunch of LIAR LIAR PANTS ON FIRE charges and counter charges. An army of fact-checkers calls out each side when one side says it advocated SHIT, where in TRUTH they advocated FUCK.

“I built a wall to keep out migrants,” says Donny the Trump.

“I helped draft legislation to make it hard for illegals to stay here,” answers Kamala the African-Indian.

“I helped draft legislation to make it hard for illegals to stay here,” answers Kamala the African-Indian.

No one says, “Let’s open up. Let’s let people go where they want to… live where they want to.” Oh no. That’s not realistic. (Code for able to be true.) Fuck realism. I want the impossible.

I don’t care if George Santos is really a gay son of holocaust survivors. I love the way he urged fellow-Republicans to come out of the closet. I love his creativity in making up an entire life: schools, jobs, personal history. These… er… trump any notion of TRUTH. His falsehoods are better than the truth can ever be.

FICTION is/can be more accurate than TRUTH… and it can reveal a greater truth than the truth itself.

“I stopped American jobs from going to China!” shouts Don in his brag about saving factory work.

“Together with President Biden,” counters the former and possibly future Prosecutor in Chief, “we have created more jobs than any president in the history of America.”

“No one should ever work.” is the opening sentence in a book by Bob Black called The Abolition of Work. Bob Black gets it. He tells both sides to fold the truth… the realistic…. the possible... into a long thin tube… and shove it up their collective asses. He does not talk about what’s real… likely... not even what can be achievable… but he’s right!

I don’t care if the Civil War was about slavery… as modern historians say… or only about not losing territory… as Abraham Lincoln said. It doesn’t matter which is true. Slavery had to go.

TRUTH is sometimes important… it’s how we learn and how we transfer knowledge… but it’s not the MOST important.

Like in my fictional account with Emma Silverberg, compassion is usually (always?) more important than truth. During that awful presidential debate there were “fact checkers” galore looking to catch a lie here or there. Who checks the fact checkers?

After the debate, factcheck.org wrote: Trump repeated his false claim that everyone — liberals and conservatives — wanted to end Roe v. Wade’s right to abortion.

That’s not true. Trump’s claim was that liberals and conservatives wanted THE STATES to decide about abortion rights. This may or may not be true, but the “fact” reported by factcheck is false.

Factcheck also said: The vice president claimed Trump’s economic policies led to “one of the highest” trade deficits in American history. But the annual trade deficits during the Biden administration have exceeded those under Trump.

Even by Factcheck’s own account, Harris said ONE of the highest trade deficits… not THE highest. It is likely BOTH had one of the highest. The fact-checker lied.

We could go on... but why? Why have a fact check at all? Why not just assume from the get-go that both sides are lying, and that there are things more important than the truth… especially compassion, vision, and goals… even if those goals are impossible... what people would call lies... they’re still more important than THE TRUTH.

Where are the compassion-checkers. Where are the source-checkers… what the source says may be fact or conjecture. Isn’t it more important to know if the source wants the same things you want? Where are the language manipulation checkers? The ones who value meaning over truth. The ones who catch the trick in I never shot John Smith… but you did stab him to death.

DONALD TRUMP: These are the people that she and Biden let into our country. And they're destroying our country. They're dangerous. They're at the highest level of criminality. And we have to get them out. We have to get them out fast.

KAMALA HARRIS: And let me say that the United States Congress, including some of the most conservative members of the United States Senate, came up with a border security bill which I supported.

COMPASSION CHECK: Bing: Lack of compassion-- BOTH candidates: People come to our country because conditions in their own country… often caused by US policies… are so bad they need someplace better. They are Emma Lazarus’s Retched refuse from foreign shores. Kicking them out is like kicking away a dog huddled under a roof to get out of the rain. It is pure cruelty… true or not.

KAMALA HARRIS: What Goldman Sachs has said is that Donald Trump's plan would make the economy worse. Mine would strengthen the economy

SOURCE CHECK: It is likely TRUE that Goldman Sachs said that. But do you want a country run by Goldman Sachs? Do you want Wall Street making the decisions on what’s a good economy and what’s a bad economy? Do you want a view of a “strengthened economy” where the stock market is up and the streets are ever more crowded with homeless people?

KAMALA HARRIS: And now in over 20 states there are Trump abortion bans which make it criminal for a doctor or nurse to provide health care

LANGUAGE CHECK: Is abortion “healthcare?” Nowhere in the world is it criminal for a doctor or nurse to provide healthcare. There are different definitions, however, on what healthcare is. Sometimes, abortion is clearly healthcare… where a birth can lead to the death of a mother, for example. Trump said he supports abortions in that case. In other cases, abortion may be provided by a healthcare worker, but it is not healthcare… except maybe mental healthcare, I’ll give it that.

Don’t get me wrong. I support abortion. Just walk down the street. You’ll see dozens of reasons to support abortion. There clearly should have been more of them… so many missed opportunities… But don’t call it healthcare just because a doctor does it. Is a facelift healthcare?

Get it? In national politics like in everyday interaction, there are things more important than the truth. I don’t care if Donald Trump improved the economy more than Joe Biden did. I care about what each consider an economic improvement. The truth is secondary (tertiary?). I don’t care if Kamala Harris came from a middle-class background and loved her nanny. How will a woman, who, for most of her life, worked to put people in cages, think of me if I end up on the street… needing to steal bread to eat for a day?

Catch words: extremism/ist leftwing, rightwing, fascist, authoritarian, communism/ist, air strikes… these are all ways to manipulate the language... truth or not.

Sometimes the truth is important, but, more often, there are things that matter more.

See you in hell,
MB

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]

→ MAYBE IT’S THE FUGU DEPT: In Japan, the number of people aged 100 or older has hit a new record – 95,119. Most of the centenarians are women, The world's oldest person, Tomiko Itooka of western Japan, is 116. Japan's oldest man, Kiyotaka Mizuno, 110, told local media that he has "no idea at all about what's the secret to my long life.”

→ BEFORE YOU WERE BORN DEPT: In the 1950s and 60s, nuclear weapons were considered insurance of peace through the theory of M.A.D. Mutually Assured Destruction. If you destroy me, I’ll destroy you, so we’d better not start anything.
    I haven’t heard that term in ages. But I did hear of a new “Global Strategy Company” a national full-service political consulting firm with expertise in government affairs, public relations, and electoral politics. You probably guessed right. The name of the company is just perfect for politics 2024:

More at: https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?pli=1#sent/KtbxLwgsxqWWLGLgRcRcqFZqjlxngZhkHL

→ BETWEEN THE LEGS DEPT: The NY Post reports that men with small dicks, on average, earn about triple what men with large ones earn. Since, elderly rich men get more nookie than elderly poor men… I hope the rumor spreads… just like her legs. Truth or not, for someone pushing 80, it’s certainly a better hook than my bank account.

→ SPEAKING OF SHORT DEPT: Our (unwarranted) obsession with truth is best exemplified by a website that says (among other things): Napoleon wasn’t short, Marie Antoinette didn’t say “let them eat cake,” and no witches were burned during the Salem witch hunts. That’s another problem with “the truth,” it keeps changing.

See you in hell, redux,
Mykel Board

LINK TRADE DEPARTMENT:

I did a nice interview with The Aither zine. Interesting questions, complete, and questions I’ve never been asked before. You can read it here. It’s a good one.

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 Ricardo Wang with a “micro-label” in Seattle “specializing in 8-track tapes and CDs. WOW! Check out one of their label staples: The Dead Air Fresheners.

Also on bandcamp: My very long time faves in NYC, the BLACKOUT SHOPPERS. Featuring pals Seth and possibly the next vice-president of the US

Here’s an update on the current URL for Sid Yiddish’s Dating Game (type) entry.

And this sounds right up Sid’s alley. The Bilderberg Jazz Arkestra on Bandcamp!

Eric Grayson has an online music review zine, Sobriquet. Full pictures of the sleeves too! Something missing from too many zines. Sometimes you CAN judge a… er… book… by its cover.

Steen Thomsen is a Dane I’ve known ever since Lincoln was shot. I put his band THE ZERO POINT on the great WORLD CLASS PUNK Cassette for ROIR. It must be worth a mint now. I don’t have any left, I’m afraid. You can (and should) connect to the Zero Point on facebook. Tell ‘em Mykel’s blog sent you.

Sorry Dorothy, we are STILL in Kansas. And it’s as weird as OZ. Check out Bob Cutler’s DISTOPEKA.

And for a quiet smile and a much needed break for you and the dog, try G.C. Adams’ YouTube entry.

You already know Murder & Mayhem zine… those guys who did the Mykel Board centerfold. (No genitals shown… and probably for the better.) Their online version is here.

The Clean Boys from Denmark are also longtime friends of mine. In Denmark we recorded as The Bend-over Boys. Only one 10-inch available… but at least now I can say I have a 10-incher!

Finally, for this month, Margaret O’Brien asked me to include the site: anti-war.com They seem to be folks after my own heart.

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.

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

DAR! or Mykel's September Blog/Column

 

You’re STILL Wrong

Mykel's

September 2024 Blog/Column

DAR!

"It's kind of like some sort of… gay radar. I call it… the homometer."
                                            — Ed Helms on The Daily Show

Canadian psychologist Nicholas Rule studies social intuitions—the snap judgments we make about people we’ve just met. In a series of experiments, he and his colleagues tested people’s abilities to judge others’ sexual orientation, and came to the conclusion that gaydar is real. -- Psychology Today

Your vibe attracts your tribe.”
                                    – Unknown

Vibe high and the magic around you will unfold.
                                – Akilnathan Logeswaran

Sitting at the bar downstairs at the Peculier pub. I’m showing New York to Paula, one of a ton of my lesbo pals, just in from California. There are only a few of us here… it’s still early… clock would be striking 6 if the clock actually struck. For the moment no one else sits at the bar. A couple couples are at the well graffitied table around the main floor. Mac is the waitress. As is the custom here, the waitresses always show navel. (For some reason, all are innies… maybe that’s also a requirement.) Andrew, a former waiter who never showed navel is now behind the bar pouring beer and mixing drinks. Paula drinks a PBR. I drink an Ithaca Flower Power.”

We click our glasses and say “Baka yaroo!” Which I tell my English-speaking friends means “cheers” in Japanese… but actually means something like “you fuckin’ idiot”

“How’s the girlfriend?” I ask.

“Don’t ask…. That bitch!” answers Paula.

“Ouch!” I say, then laugh.

Right then… like a movie where the director cues the Enter The Mysterious Stranger^®, a girl walks in and up to the bar. Wow! I use my palms to push my eyes back into my head. Talk about MY TYPE. Concentration camp thin… a flawless face with just a touch of the oriental… one-hand cupable breasts… a built in pout. She stands next to me… leans over the bar to order an Imperial Stout from Andrew.

“You have good taste,” I say to her. “And tolerance up the wazoo for an imperial stout at 6 in the evening.”

She smiles.

I feel myself beginning to harden. Paula leans over and whispers something in my ear. It sounds like “Eyekul, Caesar Tyke,,, whore ket tit.”

I know my hearing is bad so I answer, “We’ll talk later, when there’s less noise” I say and return to my banal beer conversation with Mysterious Stranger^® As we talk, the bar fills up slightly. Among the new folks entering is a young woman wearing a short summer dress. Dark hair and skin with a touch of Indian (red dot, not feather) in it. The new entrancée looks around, spots Mysterious Stranger^® with us at the bar. She smiles walks over to us… to Mysterious Stranger^® actually… and kisses her hello. I don’t mean a peck on the cheek kiss, I mean a tongue deep passionate guess-where-my-tongue-will-be-next kiss.

“So long,” says Mysterious Stranger^® as she and the femmy girl walk to the back of the bar, and out of sight.

“Mykel,” Paula says to me, “did you hear what I said to you?”

I shake my head.

“I said, ‘Mykel, she’s a dyke.’ Didn’t you get the vibe?”

This brings me to the point of this blog-post. I’m notorious for not getting vibes. I have absolutely no GAYDAR. My friends who have the skill can smell one a mile away. To me, that girl just looks like an office lady. That guy looks like a CVS delivery boy. I just can’t tell. Two guys could be futt-bucking in a restroom stall and I wouldn’t know.

Of course it’s a liability…. Especially since my personal tastes go to butch girls and femmy guys… but I NEVER KNOW... unless I end up with some late night skin-to-skin. That skin-to-skin could be night-time nookie, or a fist to my jaw!

One of my friends: female… bisexual. (Not that I believe in that stuff… but that’s another post) says she’s got LAYDAR. This is a vibe detector that buzzes when the object is hot to trot. It works with any gender. What a great ability! I often wonder how many ready-to-goes I missed because I couldn’t tell… or the reverse… how many hours I wasted chasing after someone who’d get not further than “Let’s just be friends.” (Is there an uglier phrase in the English language?)

But GAYDAR and LAYDAR are not the only DARs I lack. There’s also GENDAR. It’s controversial with XY and XX and all that Olympics shit. But that’s not what I’m talking about. I mean just every day people, dressed in everyday non-gendered clothing. Sure, a beard is a dead giveaway. Balding helps too. But with a neutral haircut, neutral clothes: sneakers, jeans and a loose t-shirt… I can’t tell! Yeah, I love the middle look… “can’t tell” is sexy… but I also can’t bring myself to defile English and refer to one person as THEY. I know some girls like to hide their biology under a crewcut or even using Rogain on their face. That’s okay with me. But if you have a Santa Claus beard or the kind of face you’d want to lick the make-up from… LET ME KNOW WHAT’S UNDERNEATH DOWN BELOW! I can’t tell.

Then there’s JOKEDAR. People who know me know that I lie casually. I think lies are funny. When I’m out with my multinational friends, I pretend to show off by telling people CHEERS in Spanish is Besa mi culo… In German it’s Leck mich am Arsch. Actually, both phrases mean Kiss My Ass. I already explained how I hand the Japanese.In Tagalog, the main language of the Philippines, CHEERS is Putan ina mo! Oh yeah, that means Your mother is a whore. It’s one of my many playful habits, and I’m often at a restaurant or bar with friends, turning heads at other tables, making strangers laugh. But there’s always at least one… sometimes more… who come back with that’s not funny. Well, what is?

Lately, the only things people seem to find funny are jokes about politicians they don’t like. Are you one of those Stephen Colbert types who just says Donald Trump over and over, getting a laugh every time? Or worse are you part of the OFFENSE squad… like half of facebook and maybe all of Reddit who think nothing about politics, gender, race, or most anything else is funny… unless they agree with you? One of my “friends” on facebook banned me because I said Kamala Harris doesn’t look black. That wasn’t fully in jest… but it certainly lacks humor to take offense at it. If someone says I don’t look Jewish do I take offense? Of course not! I just unzip and pull out my ID. I’m not sure I even know what OFFENSE is! Sure I get angry at stuff. And sometimes people say things (mostly things about me) that make me sad… is that OFFENSE? I don’t know! I have no OFFENSEDAR!

Speaking of looking Jewish, another DAR I lack is JEWDAR. A story I often repeat is my visit to Kafka’s (yes, he was one too) grave in Prague. It was during Communist times, so I was an unusual American. As I stood looking at the tombstone, an older woman, who was removing branches and other debris from the grave spoke to me in English.

“Are you Israeli?” she asked.

“No,” I told her. “I’m from New York.”

“But you are Jewish…” she said with some authority.

How did she know? What was there? Of course the answer is that she had the Jewdar that I lack.

Last century, I wrote a song called Jews With Tattoos (which an Israeli pal of mine told me was a HIT in Israel!). In the beginning of that song, I wrote the cliched view of Jews: Glasses and a Hitchcock lip, big belly balding too. Lots of pimples, way too smart… Actually, I can’t tell. Does Ron Jeremy, the most famous male porn star in the world, look Jewish? Does Scarlett Johansson look Jewish? Sammy Davis Jr? David Diggs from the musical Hamilton?


I can’t tell, but the internet says he is one of us!

Okay, this next guy “looks Jewish.”

I'd say “Shalom” to him on the street. Otherwise I wish I were like those Chabad guys who come up to everyone passing and ask “Are you Jewish?” (Someday I’ll write about Chabad… I love those guys). Oh yeah, once in a record store I was looking at an LP and mentioned to the store owner that I know the guy on the cover… a fellow Jew.

“In New York, how do you know if someone is Jewish?” he asked me… clearly the tone of a joke in his voice.

“I wish I knew,” I answered.

“He’ll tell you,” he replied.

I walk down Bleecker Street, heading from Sixth Avenue toward the Peculier. A thin young man somewhat taller than me... long hair… the kind of face you’d want between your legs. He wears extremely baggy jeans and a t-shirt that says RANDOM across the chest. He stares into the cellphone in his right hand… poking at it as if angry. I figure he’s having trouble finding some place… learning –as we all do eventually– that among tall buildings, Google maps are wrong.

“Are you lost?” I ask him… as I often ask strangers poking at their cellphones.

He turns to me… wide-eyed and whispers. “We’re ALL lost.”

He raises one arm above his head and points to the sky. “We’re stray sheep,” he continues, his voice getting louder. “My phone is possessed. It’s been taken over by SATAN!” By now he’s screaming at me. “AND YOU ARE HIS AGENT! DON’T THINK I DON’T KNOW!”

Fuck! I have no NUTDAR! I can’t tell a looney until he’s right on top of me. I don’t care how good-looking he is… I don’t want this guy on top of me… I run.

FLASH RETURN TO THE PECULIER PUB: It’s Drink Club. I sit outside with my fellow imbibers, lying about how to say cheers in various languages. You know about that from JOKEDAR. We’re in one of those makeshift sheds that popped up during the plague. One of the many reasons I like eating and drinking outside is people watching. Bleecker Street is a human zoo sometimes.

We’re sitting outside as usual and this big guy passes us. As he does so, he looks directly at me.

“Wow! It’s great to see you!” he says, and then comes over to me and sits next to me. “Don’t you remember me?” he continues. “It was a couple weeks ago. You dropped your cellphone on the sidewalk and I picked it up and ran to you. My name’s Jim. You thanked me and said I owe you twenty bucks for that. You didn’t have it then, but that’s okay.”

“I’m Mykel,” I tell him, “in case you forgot.”

I have no memory of that incident… but I have no memory of most things. I call Mac over to the table. “Bring this guy a beer,” I say to her. She smiles and goes to fetch one. I pull out my wallet, take a twenty and give it to Jim.

“Sorry to take so long,” I say to him.

Mac brings Jim his beer. He drinks it in a fell swoop.

“Thanks, Mykel” he says. “Great to see you again.”

He gets up and leaves, heading toward Sixth Avenue and the subway. It’s only then that I realize it was fake and I lost $20 due to my lack of SCAMDAR. One of the few things I pride myself on is my ability to recognize fakes… but even that I can’t do with the accuracy I’d like. I got taken!! A sincere face... a good story... a friendly hug saying we’ve known each other for a long time. POW, I’m as much of a sucker as the tourists who fall for the pea-shuffles under the shells.

What exactly are these DARS I don’t have. Most people I’ve asked describe it as a VIBE. A feeling that transfers automatically from one person to the next,,, like the smell of unwashed armpits. Sometimes I get the impression of other people. If they’re happy… or angry… or sad. But that comes from a smile, a frown, a fist pounding on a table. Maybe a tear on the cheek. But that’s not a vibe.

A vibe is something mysterious. Something that transfers silently through the air. Happiness without a smile. Anger without a clenched fist. Lust without a pants bulge. I’m aware these vibes exist. Many of my friends have all kinds of them. Some even divide the world into people sending good ones and bad ones. These friends try to explain vibes to me, but I don’t get it. I’m like a person born blind that friends are describing BLUE to. It’s useless. I just can’t understand.

So, for future reference. If you’re an attractive tough girl… at least if you’re a girl who can beat me up… you’ll have to tell me you want me. If you’re a young femmy guy… like to start at the bottom… you’ll have to rest your hand between my legs before I’ll be aware of how you feel.

I am vibeless.

See you in hell,
MB

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]

-→Test Yourself Dept: Here’s a test I found on the internet. Just from visual vibes, you have to guess who is straight and who is gay. Let me know how you do. (I got 47% correct… worse than chance) Part of the problem could be that they showed a side-by-side pictures and asked to choose right or left. I couldn’t guess if they meant MY right/left or the people in the picture’s right/left. My 47% was based on the former assumption.

→ Movies about Everything Dept: In researching this blog I discovered there’s a movie called “Under The Gaydar.” (See the reviews in IMDB) And RON JEREMY is in it! I can’t find it for free on-line, so maybe one of you can tell me how to do that. The plot, by the way, is the story of a guy whose parents fear is gay. So they hire a girl to seduce him and turn him straight. The guy is actually straight, and gets to screw some beautiful girls, paid for by his parents.

→YOU’RE INVITED dept: If you’re in New York on a Thursday, come and join us at Drink Club. Just look for the Drink Club sign or ask the bouncer at the door.

RETURN TO THE NATION DEPT:

I found a stack of old issues of THE NATION and want to recommend some great pieces there. First there’s an article by Aida Chavez that says Biden is using the same order that the Trump administration used to expel migrants at the border without a hearing. I’m guessing we can expect Biden’s VP to do the same if she gets the chance.

There’s also another fascinating piece about “Foundation Colonialism.” That is those charities (like the Bill & Melinda Gates one). It seems that while they give away a lot of money, MOST of it is to organizations based in Western Countries. Their “help” is usually spreading Western medicine (big Pharma), farming (GMOs, heavy fertilizer use), etc. to countries who can and should use the more native-- and cleaner, though less profitable for big industry-- methods.

LINK TRADE DEPARTMENT:

I did a nice interview with The Aither zine. Interesting questions many I’d never been asked before. You can read it here. It’s a good one.

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 Ricardo Wang with a “micro-label” in Seattle “specializing in 8-track tapes and CDs. WOW! Check out one of their label staples: The Dead Air Fresheners.

Also on bandcamp: My very long time faves in NYC, the BLACKOUT SHOPPERS. Featuring pals Seth, superstar comic writer, Justin Melkmann and possibly the next vice-president of the US, Charles Bukkake.

Here’s an update on the current URL for Sid Yiddish’s Dating Game (type) entry.

And this sounds right up Sid’s alley. The Bilderberg Jazz Arkestra on Bandcamp!

Eric Grayson has an online music review zine, Sobriquet. Full pictures of the sleeves too! Something missing from too many zines. Sometimes you CAN judge a… er… book… by its cover.

Steen Thomsen is a Dane I’ve known ever since Lincoln was shot. I put his band THE ZERO POINT on the great WORLD CLASS PUNK Cassette for ROIR. It must be worth a mint now. I don’t have any left, I’m afraid. You can (and should) connect to the Zero Point on facebook. Tell ‘em Mykel’s blog sent you.

Sorry Dorothy, we are STILL in Kansas. And it’s as weird as OZ. Check out Bob Cutler’s DISTOPEKA.

And for a quiet smile and a much needed break for you and the dog, try G.C. Adams’ YouTube entry.

You already know Murder & Mayhem zine… those guys who did the Mykel Board centerfold. (No genitals shown… and probably for the better.) Their on-line version is here.

The Clean Boys from Denmark are also longtime friends of mine. In Denmark we recorded as The Bend-over Boys. Only one 10-inch available… but at least now I can say I have a 10-incher!

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.

Longtime writer, Randall Fleming, has a new book out about the reversal of flag desecration. In his view, the right And more generally it’s about political violence in the 21^st century.

Finally, for this month, Margaret O’Brien asked me to include the site: anti-war.com They seem to be folks after my own heart.

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. mykelboard@gmail.com