YOU'RE WRONG 

An Irregular Column

by Mykel Board

"I'd say it's Ben Weasel," says Gavin.

"Come on!" I yell, "Get serious!"

"Well, then it's gotta be Bruce LaBruce." says Big Mike.

"Of course, it's Bruce." I tell him. "No question about it."

ARTLESS: The mini-tour is over. We're long-driving from Montreal back to New York. We've already discussed who was the sexiest, the dorkiest, the dumbest, the worst dressing of all the people we'd met. Now we discuss who was the smartest.

Bruce (who should have a column here!) had provided me with one of those rare epiphanous moments. You know, when something happens, or someone says something that suddenly explains things. The blurry becomes sharp. The fuzzy goes acid clear.

Right now, I'll splatter before you various incidents. Strings left untied. Cases left unsolved. Problems left unanswered.

One: In 1970, I visited a botanical garden in London. I'm with Chris and Clare, some Britpals from the Lin Piao Commune. Chris is a gardener. Pinks, whites, yellows; meadows of happy colors fan out to the horizon. Petal smells waft through the air in breeze induced waves. Everything is so pretty, so perfect, it makes me boil with anger. While my friends gaily explore the roses and rhododendrons, I seethe. I take a piece of gum from my pocket. Open it up, put the gum in my mouth and throw the wrapper among the flowers.

"There!" I say in triumph. "That's what they needed."

"Why did you do that?" asks Chris, angrily.

I can't answer him.

Two: I talk to Tad. He brags about torching an American flag. I think it's stupid.

"Why did you do that?" I ask.

"Don't I have the right?" he asks in return.

"Of course, you have the right. People are allowed to be idiots. Why do it? You're giving away a mighty powerful symbol."

"Well," says Tad, "it pisses people off."

I can't answer him, but I'm still angry.

Three: I'm just back from Japan. I talk to Timmy on the phone. We compare notes. I brag about my Thai adventures. Tim tells me about his nookie-quest among the West Coast MRR-worshipers. Then talk turns to "the old gang."

Tim tells me music is out. Now punk rock is spoken word. Rollins started the trend. Biafra probably gets more money though.

"Maybe Biafra will start doing Reebox ads." says Tim.

I don't get it.

"Didn't you see that ad for The Gap?" He asks.

I didn't.

"Henry Rollins has a full pager in Rolling Stone. He's doing an ad for them."

I think Tim's joking. He isn't.

For months I ponder that ad. (Not continually, just while sitting on the john.) What do I think about it? Was it a cool move? If he got a lot of money for a little work, he's got my vote! Right! But why The Gap? Middle America unbound? Mr. & Mrs Normalland, the folks Henry rails against?

I read a fanzine interview. Henry says he only got $750 for the ad. Less than he makes in a night of spoken wording. Why did he do it, then?

"I did it to piss people off, more than anything else." He says.

I still don't know what to think.

Four: ARTLESS started somewhere around 1981. The original idea is to fight the emerging PC-itude. We take every lefty cliche and stand it on its head. We call ourselves Republicans, support nuclear war and supply side economics. It pisses people off. Some folks think it's funny.

Five: ARTLESS is in Toronto, Canada, 1992. We're greeted by a crowd-size crowd and some polite applause. Then we start. Somewhere during Sisterhood Is Powerful the heckling begins. I think it's the line where I say, Don't tell me sisterhood is powerful. The only thing powerful is the smell coming from between your legs.

"All men should be branded!" shouts a female voice. I think she says "pregnant," not branded.

"I tried," I yell back, "but it didn't work."

There's more heckling. Things get even better during Beer Is Better Than Girls Are. We build up a quick repartee with those audience members who choose not to leave. Gavin takes off his t-shirt and changes to one that says Don't blame me. I only write the music.

After the set, most of the people who come up to me are happy. We impressed them. They smile and shake my hand. They got it. The hecklers were too dumb to see the joke. We sell a lot of records and the rest of our t-shirts that night.

Afterwards, Gavin and I go upstairs with some other folks. We sit around a table. Steve Beaumont is there. Some fanzine guy and a radio station interviewer also sit at the table.

The thin, clean-shaven interviewer tries to control the conversation. He asks me about the relationship of provincial size to a Canadian weltbild. I never get to answer. People shout questions and statements from all over.

"What about smoking?" yells a chubby kid in a dirty t-shirt.

A thin pretty girl asks if I think women are inferior.

The interviewer frantically moves the tiny microphone, trying to thread an invisible needle. It's chaos. Passers-by jump in.

Steve Beaumont talks about baseball. Voices jumble like open trading on the stock exchange floor. The poor official interviewer tries to restore order. He's overwhelmed by the forces of true democracy.

Bruce LaBuce walks by the table. I point him out to the radio station guy. He points the microphone at him.

"As a local celebrity, what did you think about the ARTLESS show today?" he asks.

"As a performer," answers Bruce, "Mykel has a very nice hairweave."

Bruce says nothing else. Like a cartoon-style one ton weight, a silence slams down over the crowd. Bruce leaves. After the shocked pause, the interview continues.

Eventually, we get kicked out. We go to Bruce's house where we're planning to spend the night. I have a bet with Ben Weasel that Bruce will bed our bass player, Big Mike. I've got ten-to-one odds: my five against Ben's fifty. Besides worrying about the cash, I also want to find out why Bruce was so cuttingly sarcastic about the show. He should have been fawnishly adoring.

A little party waits for us when we arrive. Bruce greets us in red pajamas. Other people sit on stools and smoke cigarettes.

Bruce tells me that Ben called to warn him to keep away from Big Mike. He didn't want to loose all that money. I tell him the bet's off, that cheater!

A stern woman with henna-red hair sits at the kitchen table. She sucks on one of the bootleg cigarettes we smuggled to help pay for the tour. The little bone in her temple clenches and unclenches as she struggles to put her words together.

"Why did you say that stuff?" she asks, wheezing smoke out her mouth and inhaling it again through her nose. "Some of that was really offensive. Do you hate women?"

Another girl, a bit younger and darker haired, takes a chair and moves it next to me. She smiles at me and strokes the back of my neck.

"Mykel you are a bastard," she says, "until people get to know you. Then they realize that it's all sarcastic."

"That's what I mean," says Bruce. "Sarcasm's so fashionable these days..." [Note for future enemies of mine: few things grit my teeth more than being called fashionable.]

"It's such an excuse." He continues, "It lets you get away with anything. You can say what you really mean and then run away by claiming you were sarcastic. You never have to stand up for what you believe. If someone attacks you, you say you were only being sarcastic."

I open my mouth to defend myself. No sound comes out. I'm hit. Bruce's verbal bullet tears my throat with an entrance wound to the left of the adams apple. Expanding as it travels, it rips apart my esophagus and windpipe. It exits, blowing a tennisball size hole through the back of my head.

The epiphany. Sarcasm's a wall, although I would've used another word. Maybe just-kiddingism or piss-people-offism. It's a dodge, a shield you can hide behind when the shit starts flying. I scream about people not taking responsibility for their actions. But what about me? What is I didn't really mean it or I was just being sarcastic or I just wanted to piss people off? You can do anything, then run away and hide behind these excuses. Get it?

Why did I throw that gum wrapper in the flowers? To piss people off, of course. Why did Tad burn the flag, or Rollins do a Gap ad? Same reason. Why did ARTLESS claim to be Republican? It'd get people mad.

I could buy a can of paint and fling it on old ladies. That'd piss 'em off. I could use it as an excuse to do anything, no matter how stupid or worthless. There's got to be more than that.

Picture this: my friends are punk rockers, so I start wearing a suit and tie. That'll get 'em. Yeah, I'll get married and buy a picket fence house in the suburbs-- and a Mercedes Benz. Ho ho, won't folks be pissed off then? I'll sign to a major label for big bucks and help put bootleggers in jail. Everybody will get mad at that!

See where it can lead? You go full circle. Vote for Bush. Go on anti-abortion demonstrations. Be a hypocrite. Become everything you hate. Still you rationalize it with piss-people-offism. If there's nothing behind it... if there's no other reason for action, then Bruce is right. It's just a wall to hide behind when the going gets tough. Throw a snowball at a car. Then run behind mom when it stops and the driver gets out. No thanks, I've outgrown mom.

Why do I put down anti-porn feminists? Because I believe they're evil. It's not sarcasm, or piss-people-offism. I really believe it and that makes it a much more valuable statement.

I don't hate women, but I do think fat feminists probably have smelly twats. I don't really want a nuclear war, but I do think that knee-jerk lefty anti-warism is often hypocritical, or at best, not thought-out. And sometimes, I'd really rather have 40 ounces of Crazy Horse than some quick nookie with a girl who expects me to pay for her dinner and then spend the rest of my life with her. I'm not being sarcastic.

I won't enjoy being heckled any less. I'm not going to stop pushing the dander buttons. But I better have a clear reason for doing it. It may be irony or disgust, but just pissing folks off isn't good enough anymore.

So buckaroos, I mean it. It's what I think. If you agree with it, great. If you don't; write letters, walk out, heckle or we'll talk about it. But I'm not doing it just to make you mad. I'm not doing it to make you think. I'm doing it because I believe it. Eat your sarcasm. This is the real thing.

One more thing, though. Bruce, it's a transplant, not a weave. Okay?

ENDNOTES:

--> One of society's dumbest and most evil institutions is the prison. Started as a "humane" alternative to whipping (by some early liberal, probably), prison is much worse. It doesn't correct anything. Look how many folks go back! The U.S. has more jailbirds than anybody else. They make minor criminals into major ones, spread AIDS, and kill the spirit. It's a struggle to survive. Bring back whipping, I say. At least, you suffer, it's over and that's it.

I often get mail from prisoners. Gil Moreno (E09685, CMC-East 4112x, PO Box 8101, San Luis Obisbo CA 93409-001) is one. He's had some interesting experiences, including discovering his hidden homo-side, something I expect is common among prisoners. He now finds himself too one-sided and is missing contact with females. If any girls out there feel like writing-- not necessarily sex stuff just something to stave the mono- gendered loneliness-- please do.

Also Walter Johnson's (862592, D.O.C./M.C.C. PO Box 557, Westville IN 46391) lonely and needs penpals. He asked to join THE WORLD FOR FREE home exchange, but I doubt his guards would be to happy with strangers crashing on his floor. Anyway, write him just to say hello.

--> Speaking of prison, here's the newest on our pal GG Allin. It looks like he's gonna miss Halloween again this year. He's in till March 11, '93. After that, he'll be completely free. (As if he weren't to start with). Write him: GG Allin 206045, Jackson State Prison, 10 Block Division, Jackson MI 49204.

--> On the law front, I finally hit one. I correctly predicted that the Supreme Court wouldn't overturn Roe vs. Wade. They couldn't. It would've cost Bush the election. Now Georgie boy can tell the Christians that he tried, but the court said no. Meanwhile, he alienates fewer of the "Republicans for Choice." Next month'll be the election special. I'll write more about it then. But now that Clinton has chosen Al "Mr. Tipper" Gore as his running mate, anyone who votes for him as "the lesser of two evils" either has his head up his ass-- or has her head up his ass.

--> Speaking of Christians, Poland, which thanks to the Catholics, has outlawed abortion, is now in the midst of an AIDS scare. The government tries to build special AIDS hospitals. No one will allow them in the neighborhood. They're afraid of homos and junkies. They even tried to build an HIV-infant hospital. The locals said no. Can I blame this irrational fear and intolerance on the church? Is Christianity so evil as to deny hospitalization to little kids? You bet it is!

--> This has nothing to do with little kids. But it's still fun. I finally got 'em, two of 'em! The letters were good, but the videos are stupendous! !! Carol, you're amazing. I keep it right by the bed. It's what gets me to sleep every night-- and I don't mean 'cause it's boring. Great camera work-- I feel like I'm right up in there!

And "Bert and Ernie" I don't for a second believe those are your real names, but I don't care. You camera work isn't up to Carol's standards. (Set it on a tripod & go, huh?), but I could see all I needed. Thanks guys. I especially liked the part with the pimple.

Yo! Make me a video. The grosser the better. As usual, my address is PO BOX 137, Prince St. Station NYC 10012

--> Also on the sex front: here's a quick response to Lali's 100% retard answer to a letter from John Wilcox a couple issues ago. John told about his sex adventures with an older man. He had been 10 years old. He initiated the act, enjoyed it, and still regards it as a positive experience. In a sweeping remark, dumb by even feminist standards, Lali takes this as an affirmation of child rape. It's as if I described a pleasant sex experience with a female and that meant I support forced sex with all females.

Wilcox's point, of course, was not that there is NO child rape, but that there is child-sex that is not rape. (Just like there's adult sex that's not rape.) Only someone ideologically blinded by Andrea Dworkin, Geraldo Rivera and Jesse Helms could take it any other way.

--> Back on the law front, The London Observer reports that the German police often force citizens to undergo a "medical-psychological exam" to continue driving. They force this exam on people who "drink too much." In one case, a guy takes his bicycle to a party because he knows he'll be drinking. When he gets out of the party, he's too sloshed to even ride the bike. He pushes it instead. The cops arrest him for public drunkenness. The shrinks get him. They "examine" him. (He has to pay $350 for the exam, by the way.) Because the guy can't describe his drinking habits in detail, the psychiatrist says he "ignores his drinking problem." They take his license away. My pal Sue, who sent me this clipping wrote on top. "Crystal Balls, anyone?"

--> Unintentional funny quote of the month:

You guys must get tired of being in a band where all the

--Ben Weasel to ARTLESS in Chicago

--> Runner-up unintentional funny quote comes from the promo-kit from Glenn Danzig's new LP III.

--> On the toilet sitting front, comes a spectacular time consumer from Pressure Drop. Martin's new(ish) book Sabotage is superb anti-work propaganda. Not much (besides Bruce LaBruce) inspires me these days, but this does. It's encouraging to know so many kinds of people hate their jobs and fight back. Sometimes the fighting back is loud. Sometimes it's only a furtive whisper. Still, it gives the lie to the great accepting masses, happy in their own little work-a-day lives. Nice work, Martin. Now about that computer missing from your office...

--> Speaking of nice work, I got some nice art from SPAZ. I'm gonna use it in the next NOTHING BUT RECORD REVIEWS. (Current issue is at the printers) As good as the art, are cuttings from what looks like a personalzine. This one starts, "Don't hate me because I'm beautiful. Love me. Lick me. Work for me." Maybe you can get some stuff if you send a SASE to: Spaz, 5812 Darlington Rd., Pittsburgh PA 15217. In a personal letter to me, Spaz says he once submitted art to MRR. For his efforts, he was called a "Fatal Attraction." It had something to do with SPITBOY, I think. He'll give you the details.

--> Speaking of SPITBOY. I saw them in New York and they were sexier than girl's undies on a hot day. If they'd only shut up between songs, they'd be perfect. [You should talk, Mykel! --TY] An added plus, is that I hear they're all heteros, even though they look lezzie. Wow! My dream is for ARTLESS to play on the same bill sometime. How 'bout it girls?

--> Finally, as is proper for a just-toured band, we've got some thanking to do. So, a wet ARTLESS kiss goes out to Lynn & Stephen, Ben & Portia, Bruce, Julia, Steve, The Flint Lezzies & their pals, Mike and the @narchist commune in Ottawa, Shlonk and people we forgot who'll be pissed. We really appreciate your support. Even though Gavin and Evans didn't get laid, you still were a big help.

-END-

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