YOU'RE WRONG
An Irregular Column
by Mykel Board
"You mean I can't write about the naked teenage groupies on the front lawn?"
"No." says Ben.
"What about your problem removing that... er... inconveniently stuck bowling pin?"
He shakes his head.
"Can I write about your who's-got-the-biggest and who-can-do-it-more-times contest with Sam McPheeters?"
"No." he says again.
"What about the shrunken heads?" I beg. "At least let me write about the shrunken heads!!"
"Absolutely not." he says. "There are two requirements if you want to stay in my apartment. One is that you don't write ANYTHING about what goes on here, or about me or my girlfriend. The other is...."
I'm not allowed to say. I can tell you it doesn't hurt anymore.
I'm back from a short trip to Chicago where I went to the UNDERGROUND PRESS CONFERENCE. I met lotsa fine buckaroos there, both in and out of the conference.
I'll talk about Chicago later. I just wanted to start with that because the teenage groupie quote is such a good first line. Right now, lets back up a week. I'm in my New York apartment. The phone rings. It's Jennifer.
"Hey Mykel," she says, "I'm right downstairs on the corner. You know, by that bar that's in your building?"
"Sure," I tell her, "you wanna drink? I'll be right down."
"Wait," says Jennifer, "there's this new bartender down there. She's cool and fabulous-looking and she used to write for Maximum Rock'n'Roll.
"Great!" I answer, "I'll be right down."
"Wait," says Jennifer. "Her name is Sharon and she hates you. When Ben wrote that prank about you getting busted in the airport, she believed it. She wrote. that she'd quit writing if they let you continue on the staff."
So I go downstairs. One of the many joys of my life in New York, is the ability to take an elevator from my apartment to a bar.
I walk in the door and see the tough hispanic busboy who doubles as a bouncer. Never smiling, he watches me with cool Latino eyes and a very bad haircut.
Then there's Sharon. At about five foot two inches, she's an inch shorter than me. Her long dark hair flows like a thick river. Below her neck, she has a body. No yucky playboy figure eight-- but more like sleek seven. She's got a stained glass window tattooed on her arm. She's a Jewess, so I ask her about it.
"It's a Chigall window." She says, "He was a Jew."
She's got cheery eyes and a smile. She's funny and smart. Treating me like an old friend, she buys me a Bud from her tip money. A fine sexy non-shiksa who buys me drinks, could I ask for anything more?
"I really like tall blonde men," she says. "Big guys, with muscles."
What a strange coincidence? Whenever I find myself with an unwanted erection for someone, I pretend they say those very words. Instant droop.
Despite the droop, I decide to visit the bar a few night later to do some serious drinking and talking.
We talk about Jews and stereotypes. I say that stereotypes don't come from nowhere. They've got foundations in reality. Jews DO tend to be cheap. We come from a history of poverty and insecurity. The historical mentality lags behind the external reality.
Besides being cheap, Jews are defensive. We see attacks in the mildest passing statements. Every innocent remark is a threat. Events like the recent anti-Jewish bombing in Argentina, continually feed our paranoia.
I suggest to Sharon that many Jews actually like these events. They bring Jews together; unity in the face of a threat.
Sharon calls me self-hating.
[Note 1: My first choice in names for an all-Jewish band is THE CHRIST KILLERS. My second is THE SELF-HATERS.]
[Note 2: Sharon tells me there IS a band called THE SELF-HATERS. And yes, they're Jews.]
A few nights later, I'm sitting at the same bar. Sharon tells me about Heather. Heather's a tit-wiggler at The Babydoll Lounge, the best topless bar in The City.
I tell Sharon, I'm anxious to meet this girl and right then-- like in a movie-- in she bounces. (Well, it wasn't really right then, like in a movie. It was more like three beers later.)
Heather girl comes in with her boyfriend. She has squeezed her nippled bulges under a leather vest cut low enough to relieve the burden of imagination. Her round face and rounder butt complete her sphericality.
The boyfriend, ironically named Dylan, is a tallish blond guy with shoulders out to here and a chin out to there. Sharon meets him for the first time. When she sees this Aryan lug, the thump of her heart pushes itself into a third bulge between her breasts.
The guy doesn't interest me, but Sharon's interest in him, does.
He joins our conversation, by this time focused on human rights.
"There are no human rights," says the big blond guy. He smashes his right fist into his left palm. "Power is the only right. You take what you can get. Fuck anybody who gets in your way."
"This guy's a fascist." I don't say, for fear of getting hurt.
"That's how I run my life!" he says. "Somebody comes up to me on the street.... If I don't like his looks.... Pow!" He bangs his hand down on the bar. "Hit first and ask questions later. Especially street people. Just hit 'em."
"Don't you think that's a bit...er...extreme?" I ask. "What if the guy just wanted directions or something?"
"Fuck 'im" says the big blond.
During the conversation my eyes ping pong from the guy to Sharon. She sits in rapt attention; nodding her agreement to every mal mot that escapes his throat. I'm getting madder and madder. Here's a sexy Jewess, carried away by this guy who in another time and place would've put her in an oven.
"Look," I tell him, "these people who live on the street have more integrity than you'll ever have."
"Mykel, you sound like an anarchist," Sharon says.
An anarchist!? The final insult! I down my beer, stagger to the door and leave.
Never one to let politics get in the way of friendship-- especially friendship with someone smart and provocative as a Catholic Girl's School uniform, I'm back in the bar the next night.
I'm working over my new looks-make-the-theory theory. It turns out to be wrong.
In it's formative stages it says: People-- especially girls-- change their opinions to match those attract them. They do this even if those opinions are destructive to themselves.
Later that night, comes a chance to prove the theory. This shlub walks in. He's a nice enough guy, about five six, long black hair, a mustache thicker than Sharon's hair. He sits down by the bar. His furry arms reach around Sharon's slender shoulders to hug her. His chestpelt pops black and thick over the top of his t-shirt. He wears a leather cowboy hat.
"Hi Steve" says Sharon, giving returning his over the bar hug. From this instant, the guy starts talking. He talks about his music. (He's a guitar player.) He talks about recording. He talks about being Armenian. He talks about life-- and the world.
Sharon listens to him, nodding her head. Her eyes have the look of friendship, not the drooling goo goo look of love.
During his discourse, Steve mentions that he went to look at an apartment. The landlord asked for $1100 a month. Steve bargained him down to $950.
"Are you sure you're not Jewish?" I ask.
Sharon turns to me. Her friendly eyes narrow to hostile slits.
"There you go again." she said. "Don't you realize that you're just perpetuating stereotypes? You sound like a fascist."
I go into my stereotypes don't come from nowhere shpeel. The tension builds. Although he speaks no English, the hispanic bouncer/busboy, is suddenly aware of the change of atmosphere. His biceps tighten.
Just then Steve comes over to me. He puts his arm over my shoulder. His mustache tickles my ear.
"There are all kinds of people in the world." He says. "That's what makes it the world."
This is not the profundity of a Rhodes Scholar, but suddenly Sharon smiles. I smile too. The tension is diffused. The tattooed divinity is swayed by this guy. This just-a-guy. This not a lust object, not a scholar, but just a guy. There goes the Aryan theory. There goes the girls-change-according-to-sexual-attraction theory. The whole thing, blown to smithereens by a single platitude.
OK, let's leave that New York bar and go to Chicago. The scene is the first ever UNDERGROUND PRESS CONFERENCE. Ben is kind enough to put me up for a week, but I can't tell you anything else about that.
Besides the conference, this is going to be interesting because I'll have the chance to meet people I only knew via computer. Slimy, who describes himself as a 'blue-haired Oriental'; Rick, who wants to know if I'll consent to do an interview with him even though he's only fifteen; Vickie and Joel, a couple who frequent the BISEXU-L computer list. All of these people I've 'talked to.' None of them have I met.
The conference is at DePaul University. There are registration tables in the lobby of the main building. Various workshops will be held in classrooms around the modern, rather foreboding school.
At the conference is a workshop about distribution. The conversation turns to making your zine appealing to advertisers. A Russian immigrant asks, "How is this underground? Is underground only what can't be completely commercial yet?"
Despite his bad English, the guy is right.
I stand and yell, "He's right! If you have ads, at least you need morals. No music zine should ever take major label ads."
"That'd be the kiss of death," someone much better dressed than I yells back.
We shout back and forth. Most folks saying that major labels are a necessary evil. And that if I really wanted to discuss this point, I should have gone to the social consciousness workshop, and not the one on distribution.
At the workshop on censorship, this colored guy talks about how editors. They refuse to acknowledge that part of their job is censorship, he says. He says his point of view (against "Jewish chauvinism") has been kept out of all the major lefty publications-- by the editors.
"It is not only GOVERNMENT censorship that we have to worry about." He says. He is rational and right.
So the conference was interesting and I got to meet lots of folks. The only bit of stupidity was having the giant zine displays held OUTSIDE in Chicago. They don't call it The Windy City for nothing, you know.
But, there's more to talk about. The bisexual pair: The boyfriend is Mr. Joe average. Baseball hat, t-shirts, jeans: big at the seat. The girl tips the scale at close to two hundred and fifty pounds. She's got excellent taste in clothes, though.
Slimy (aka Jon), the blue haired Oriental is the only one who goes to NATURAL BORN KILLERS with me. Even though I have four free tickets. (The movie sucked, by the way.)
Slimy interviews me for his zine. (I forgot the name.) We go into a used bookstore to do the interview. I start shaking. My skin grows hot. I feel like I'm ready to slump to the floor. I don't know why.
And Rick, the fifteen year old zine editor. He waits for me in a record store-- two hours! As patient and tolerant as an Armenian hippie, he blithely browses while irresponsible me sleeps off the Mickey's Malt Liquor from the night before.
We hang out most of the rest of the day. Rick turns out to be a smart guy-- so watch for his zine!
So, what's it all mean? What's the moral? The Fascist, the hippie, the human body parts Ben uses as paper weights... how do they all fit in? What does it prove?
The bisexuals? The blue-haired Oriental? The bookstore fainting. The fifteen year old waiting two hours? What's the tie in? What am I trying to prove?
I walk down Bleecker street toward CBGBs. The white bum on the corner asks me for a quarter.
"I gave you a quarter an hour ago." I tell him. "Remember? I was coming out of the subway."
"You were going in a different direction then." He says.
Get it? Sometimes there is no point. Somethings don't fit into neat little looks-make-the-theory theories. Sometimes our theories blind us to reality. We can't understand what doesn't match our preconceptions. Sometimes, trying to understand everything, we forget that things don't always make sense. They just happen.
Instead of seizing the moment and trying to stuff it into the envelope of preconception or ideology, we sometimes need to say, "Hmmmm, that's interesting." and be on our way-- no matter which direction we came from.
ENDNOTES:
--> Ben and I had a long argument about song lyrics. He complained that NO FX twists syntax to make a rhyme. I said it's fine. Sometimes it makes funny songs funnier.
Ben disagreed. He said it's important that a song has normal word order. He'd change the meaning before he'd change the word order. Here an example of inverted word order from an ARTLESS song (THE JOY (of Anal Sex)):
...
If it's tight when it you try out
use a finger just for starts
add another, till you cry out
soon you'll lay those semen farts
....
Look at the first line. It says: "when it you try out," instead of "when you try it out." Do you think this kills the flow? Would it be better if I changed the meaning? How about NO FX songs? Ben says they "sound like they've been translated from French"? What do you think?
As usual, you can send your opinion, along with other letters, pornographic pictures and videos of yourself, to me at: PO Box 137, Prince St. Station, New York NY 10012. You can reach me via e-mail at mykel@wps.com.
--> Bandname of the month dept: I haven't heard the record, but HICKEY NECKLACE (Trumpeter Records, 5660 E. Virginia Bach Blvd (103) Norfolk VA 23502) wins the contest for best bandname of this month.
It would be good even if it weren't for the spate of incredibly bad names lately-- especially straight-edge bands. It just goes to show that lack of alcohol makes you stupid.
--> Amy B., aka lots of stuff, where are you??? My last mailing came back F.O.E., I hope that's Forwarding Order Expired and not something more sinister.
-->Record store recommendation dept: Joey Vindictive and his sexy wife run a THE DUMMY ROOM, a really great punk record and videotape store in Chicago. Incredibly good prices, lots of really weird gore and Asian movies, and they're friendly!! Hard to believe, eh? A record store with friendly salesfolks. It's at 1622 West Grand Avenue, (at Ashaland), Chicago IL 60622. Phone: (312) 226-0678
--> At the Chicago conference, I met Dirk Freeman. He edits BATTERIES NOT INCLUDED a porn review zine that has published stuff by Ben Weasel. If I get my hand away from the baby oil long enough to write, it'll soon include me too. You can send $2 for a sample copy to: Dirk Freeman, 130 West Limerture, Yellow Springs Ohio 45387. Yellow Springs is a liberal community, so you'd better include an age statement.
-> Double prostate pulser dept: A Japanese double feature. See this combo if you can take it. Not porno, not a nipple in the two, but... WORK ON THE GRASS is the story of two (male) grass cutters. A professional workman and a novelist. This pair of weed whackers are so good looking and the sexual tension is so great I wanted to let loose right in my seat! And nothing happens in the entire movie! They cut the grass and go home.
Then there's DREAM GIRLS, a movie about the all-girl Japanese performing school/troupe, Takarazuka. Girls play all the parts, both male and female parts. Almost all their fans are girls.
The documentary goes into the school where they train. The discipline is stricter than an S&M dungeon. The student actor/esses spend most of their first two years doing nothing but cleaning the place for the older members.
Though in the actual performance, the staging between the 'male' and female parts is quite erotic, there's no mention of lesbianism. The girls-- of both genders-- often talk about getting married.
The best parts are the romantic live performances. The best non-sexy part is an interview with a fan. She explains why she likes the women-men of Takarazuka better than real men.
"It would be no good if a man played those parts. Only a woman knows the kind of men that women want. She can make that kind of man. A man could never be an ideal man, he's always... just a man."
-->Last action hero dept: Internet reports the death of Dan, former lead singer of DETOX. The word is that he was at a party where a young woman was attacked. Ignoring punk rules against being chivalrous, he tried to intervene. The attacker killed him for his efforts. The young woman, however, was unhurt.
-->Zine of the month dept: That's got to be OUT OF BOUNDS (PO Box 4809, Alexandria Va 22303). It has record and zine reviews, but it's also got GREAT articles from a lefty/libertarian point of view. My favorite: Is Feminism Obsolete? They've got some scary documentation on Bush & the CIA working with the Central American death squads. There's also a brilliant piece by Tom Frank, editor of The Baffler. It's a perceptive account of the packaging and sales of "rebellious youth culture." Get this one.
--> Major label press release of the month: This one comes from Mercury Records, for the band DOWNSET and their CD, Anger. Mercury sends the P.R. on the back of a postcard. They use a typewriter-style typeface for street credibility.
"This is the shit, "homies"... it doesn't come any heavier than this. Period, done deal... the messenger, is focused like a laser beam... "Anger" is brutal, way too real and honest as fuck. Mmmmm yeah! That's the first thing I think of when I think "honest as fuck." A press release from Mercury records.
-end-
