YOU'RE WRONG
An Irregular Column
by Mykel Board
I find it difficult to listen to the words of a really attractive person. Instead of listening, I watch the lips. I imagine my stubbiness in their mouths- sliding in and out. The blue veins appear and disappearing as my skin-coated spheres hit against the chin in front of me. I steer the conversation to produce words like pool or food. The OOOO sound of these words rounds those lips, like they were wrapped around my blunt thruster. If the speaker smiles, I see my own semen dripping white and fluid down the mouth corners, gathering at the chin.
I start to write this column on the plane to Mexico city. I've got my new Toshiba notebook computer-- to be paid for sometime early next century. Ominous signs abound. I sit next to someone who doesn't smell very good. And the movie on this flight? Lassie.
WEEK 1: Mexico City sucks
December 21: I'm staying in a $30 a day hotel. The only entrance is called The Emergency Exit. It's padlocked after 10PM. To get in later, you have to open the door as far as you can. Then you rattle the chain. A white haired old man grumbles from the depths. He appears rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. Unlocking the padlock, he allows you to enter.
The lobby stinks of glue. They seem to be renovating. Pieces of formica and tile are everywhere.
December 22: I'm constipated. CONSTIPATED! In Mexico! (Even more ironic since I used this as a joke in my last column!) I'm the only tourist in the history of the world to visit Mexico and get constipated!
I'm also depressed. I'd found this leaflet in Zona Rosa, the hip, touristy area of Mexico city. On the front of it, is a picture of a naked girl. Videos, Strippers, Sexy Fun! it promised. The address is in a weird part of town-- not dangerous, just empty: all offices and stores; all closed at night.
I get out of the subway at 10PM and walk to the club. I pass dark buildings with gates pulled down-- looking like silver teeth along the sidewalk. A beefy guy in a tuxedo smokes a cigarette in front of the only open doorway. He stands alone behind a velvet rope. Then, he spies me approaching.
"Welcome sir," he says in English, unbuckling the rope. It's as if he were making room in the crowd to let me-- special me-- pass into the mysterious place. Of course, there is no crowd. There is, however, a ten dollar admission fee.
From the street, I stumble into a black room. Black walls, black bar, black furnishings. My eyes adjust to the dim light. I can see a place about the size of my parent's walk-in closet. Two guys huddle in the corner drinking beers. Videos? Strippers? I look around.
High on one wall, a small TV monitor glows quietly. On the screen, a videotape shows some gringo woman (and I use the word loosely) taking her clothes off. There is my stripper AND my video. I've been taken!
I drank the beer included as a bonus with my admission. (Tip, of course, is extra.) Then, I leave. Well, I attempt to leave, because the tuxedoed guy starts speaking very angry Spanish to me.
My own Spanish doesn't go beyond "Buenos dias, yo quiero comerte." or in Mexican, "Chinga tu madre." But by his gestures and the few words I do get, I realize he isn't going to let me out.
I go back in and ask the waiter how to leave. He points to another door. It's the bathroom.
"Not that way," he said, "it's the bathroom."
Very funny.
Unfortunately, the waiter is as big as the guy at the door. I begin to get scared. He can tell by my panicked look that he'd better let me out or deal with a shivering bowl of jello on the floor. He takes a pad of paper out of his pocket and scribbles something on it. Then he leads me by the hand to the guy at the ropes.
I hand tuxedoman the paper. He looks at it, laughs, opens the velvet rope, and I'm on my way.
December 23: My only other adventure during that first slow week is at a homobar. This place is recommended by A Man's Guide To Mexico.
You enter through swinging doors like in the saloons in old Westerns. On the other side of those swinging doors are a bunch of men.
"What'd you expect in a homobar?" you might ask.
Good question. But there are guys, barely legals, attractive fellows, and there are MEN. Of all the sexes, men are the ugliest, least appealing.
Mexicans aren't very tall and tend not to have a lot of facial or body hair. Two things that, when lacking, normally are attractive. However, the macho built into their blood requires them to make up for it. So they all dress in these cowboy clothes and let whatever facial hair they've got grow until it gets like Emil Zapata or Fu Man Chu. Yuck!
I order a beer and look around. At the bar, a young man with a sharp nose and intense stare catches my eye. His face is like an Aztec statue, smooth proud and very attractive. Eventually, he looks at me, makes a tsk tsk sound with his tongue, and walks out.
I order another beer. The more I drink, the better looking become the rest of guys in the place.
By my fourth beer, I see someone I would settle for. He sits at a table on the other side of the room. Slim. No facial hair. A shortish unstyled haircut. Not really good looking, but at least non-ugly.
I stare at him. He stares back. I stare some more. He stares some more. This goes on for twenty minutes or so. (Into beer five). Finally, I wave my hand for him to come to meet me at the bar. He waves his hand for me to sit down at his table. I walk over and realize that, up close, he's not as non-ugly as he is from further back. But, since he's better looking than my right hand, I stick around and order another beer.
Then he starts to talk. He doesn't speak English. I answer whenever there's a word or two I understand. He keeps talking. And talking.
This, I discover, is a very common trait among Mexicans. A nation of teenage girls with their first phones. We talk about NAFTA, why I like "Latinos" (a word as irritating as "Asians"), the weather, his clothes, my clothes.
Eventually, I finish my beer. He finishes his beer.
"Well, I think that does it." he says.
I manage to hold the grin down to a polite smile.
"Yep, I don't think I'll have another one."
"Let me give you my name and phone number," he says. "Call me tomorrow and we can meet and I'll show you Mexico city and we can go out."
Tomorrow! I can't believe this. A homo who won't fuck on the first date!!! This is incredible. Only in Mexico! He wants some courtship. Like I should buy him flowers or hire a mariachi band to play under his window and serenade him! Why the hell be a homo if you're gonna play hard to get? Oy vey.
I take his number on the back of a napkin. As soon as we part company, I blow my nose in it and head back to my hotel. I don't think I'm gonna like Mexico very much.
December 25: Christmas Day. Not being Christian, this isn't important to me, except everything is closed. There's nothing to do. I don't even get to break a pinata.
WEEK 2: Mexico is great!
December 24: I know it's out of chronological order, but it belongs in this section. El Chopo, the punk market. The entire street is closed off. There are booth after booth strung together with wire and blue tarps. Tapes, records, zines. Things you've never seen before.
Jose Jimenez has a stand here. He sells stuff on his label, from all over South America, as well as Mexico. He's brought his video camera and lends it to me to shoot what's going on in the street.
The market is huge. A meeting place for punk rockers from all over the world. Shoulder to shoulder, buying, selling, passing out leaflets. Shooting the shit. One stall sells heavy metal shirts for kids up to the age of five. They're doing a good business.
An attractive died-blonde guy with a nosering comes up to me. "Hey, didn't you stay in my house in Ottawa?" he asks. He was right.
I talk with some guys from Guadalupe. They tell me about their fanzine and their lives. They buy me lunch. I see this skinhead in a SHELTER t-shirt. Oy vey, I think. I'm wrong.
He's a fine guy, the singer from the band ATTOXXXICO. He introduces me to even more people, Fernando from the band 34-D, for example. Fernando gives me a tape.
"You'll like my band," he says, "everybody hates us. We're politically incorrect."
He invites me to a the band practice the day after Christmas.
December 26: At that practice, I meet their hefty bass player Roberto. Roberto is also the drummer of ATTOXXXICO. He's a fat guy with a wispy mustache, beard and girlfriend. [Another proof that fat people make good musicians.]
"Mykel Board!" he says, "somebody told me you were gonna be here."
I quickly look to see if he's concealing a weapon. He's not.
"Hey man, you don't have to stay in a hotel. You can move in with me!"
I do, the next day. That's when the fun begins.
Roberto and his girlfriend Fernanda are fans of the same things I am: social freedom, sleazy movies, and sex. They are both meat eaters and extremely unpopular with the orthodox anarchists and commies. What better hosts!
Roberto is poor and lives with him mom and pet car. (I say pet, because it's domestic, never leaves home or runs away. Never runs at all, as a matter of fact.)
They're incredible hosts. I'm getting hungry and ask Fernanda how to get to a decent restaurant.
"Restaurant!" she says, "Never!"
She then uses the sausage, spices, beans, bread and whatever else lies in Roberto's moms cupboard to cook me dinner.
December 27: We go to as very expensive strip club. Ten dollars to get in. Roberto and Fernanda pay. A single beer costs $12. I pay for my own.
Pretty girls perform both on and off stage. They're mostly slim with long brown or dirty blonde hair. They dance naked on a platform in the middle of the room. All the tables are up close.
The other folks in the place are better dressed and more intoxicated than we are. I point to a bottle of champaign on another table. Fernanda grabs my hand.
"Don't point!" she whispers loudly. "You could get us killed. Those guys are drunk. Who knows what's in their pockets?"
It's gonna take me awhile to learn these exotic customs.
I go back to watching the girls. Under the stage, right in front of us is a smoke machine. It's aimed at my face. Every minute or so it blows this chemical smoke. My eyes water and I start coughing.
Through the smoke, however, I spy a colored girl who is so amazing, I have to fix my pants the moment I see her. Skinny as a little boy, her pert breasts have nipples a good 3/4 inch long. Not a spot of flab on her rippling body. She's shaved her very curly curlies into that porno cut that compliments but doesn't conceal.
Roberto and Fernanda have their collective eye fixed on a brown-haired girl. Somewhat rounder, she's not quite as good looking as the Negress, but she's sexy as an eyebrow-scar. And she's friendly! When she finishes dancing, she comes off the stage to talk with us. I don't understand most of what they talk about, but I really enjoy the casual conversation with a nude girl.
It takes awhile to figure out the system, though. You don't tip, like in the states. (For the novices amongst the readership, you slide a dollar bill into a bra or bikini strap.) Here, the girls are naked. There's no place to put the money. Well, there is one place, but nobody is putting anything there. In fact, no one is touching the girls on stage at all. They dance, flash their wares and then take care of the real business offstage.
An attractive, slightly butch looking woman goes from table to table selling tickets. You can buy a $20 ticket or a $25 ticket. The $20 ticket entitles you to a "table dance." The girl comes over, sits on your lap and presses herself against your crotch. She rubs back and forth and up and down and back and forth again. You're only allowed minimal touching.
For the $25 ticket, you get to go into a closed area in the back for the special treatment. They don't tell you, however, what exactly the special treatment is.
Since I'm unable to successfully milk my udder through two layers of cloth-- I declined the $20 tickets. I also declined the $25 ticket, having been burnt before with the "video and stripper."
Roberto asks the ticket seller if he and his girlfriend can pitch in for a table dance. The ticket seller says no. Two girls are not allowed to do anything together on the main floor. The customers would be offended. It might insult their manliness. But, if they want to both take one to the back...
They pick the friendly/sexy one, pay the $25 and go into the back. I watch their belongings and the girls on stage.
While they're gone, the ticket seller comes back to me at least three more times. She asks me to buy a ticket.
"Yo soy un Christian!" I tell her.
She makes a grand sweeping motion with her hands.
"Todos somos Christianos" she says. (So what? We're all Christians.)
I figure next time she comes around I'll say I'm a homo. If that doesn't work, I'll tell her I'm a cop. There's no need to. Roberto and Fernanda are soon back.
"That was quick," I say. "What happened?"
"Well," says Roberto, "She got completely naked and let us pop in a finger or two-- wanna smell?"
He offers his fingers in front of my face. I take a sniff. Smells like teen spirit.
He continues, "she let us each take a tit in our mouths and we played with her nipples."
"That's it?" I asked, "What about IT, didn't you do IT?"
His forehead wrinkles. Then he realizes what I mean.
"Oh no," he says, "You have to take her home for that. That would've cost 1200 pesos." (That's about $350.)
"What!" I said, "that's worse than New York!"
"Don't worry," he told me. "Next time we'll go to someplace more at your level."
Little did I know what I was in for.
December 29: Luche Libre, Mexican wresting. I'm at the ring with Roberto, Fernanda and Fernando. This is one of the reasons I came to Mexico: capes, masks, real athletes that make Hulk Hogan look lame.
Now it's a tag team match. THE BLUE DEMON and somebody dressed up in an American flag costume. They're the good guys. The cubby PORKY, and BLACK DEATH are the bad guys. BLACK DEATH wears a skull mask-- with a mohawk.
They're off. Porky distracts the referees while BLACK DEATH goes for a boot to the nuts. BLUE DEMON is down. BLACK DEATH is in the air, flying from atop a ring post. BLUE DEMON turns. BLACK DEATH lands on his face. PORKY bursts in. He hurls BLUE DEMON out of the ring, knocking over the first row of chairs and the people in them.
PORKY jumps over the ropes and out of the ring. Bang! He sits hard on THE BLUE DEMON. AMERICAN BOY flies from the ringside onto the floor amidst the chairs.
The crowd boos as BLACK DEATH joins the melee. I cheer "Viva el punk!"
The entire row in front of me turns and glares back. Roberto and Fernanda look up at the ceiling in a who-is-that-guy-we-don't-know-him parody.
Meanwhile, our caped heroes are in the air. Tumbling, back flipping, dancing on air. They're back in the ring. BLACK DEATH has BLUE DEMON on his stomach. The villain sits on the hero's back, his hands around the star's throat. He goes for the mask. He's gonna take it off! The ultimate humiliation for the son of one of Mexico's all-time greats. The mask is off.
THE BLUE DEMON covers his face, burying it in the mat. CAPTAIN AMERICA brings a towel for THE DEMON to cover his shamed face. It's over. The punk won. I cheer... Boy do I love Mexico.
January 3, Morning: We're at the radio station, me, Roberto, Jose Jimenez with his video camera, and Fernanda behind the microphone. She's the pro. The show is called Talking About Men.
"Today we have a special guest with us: Mykel Board, a sexpert from New York. Mykel enjoys all kinds of sex-- with men as well as women. Now Mykel, in all your travels, what's the most interesting sexual experience you've had."
I talk about my trip to Thailand and the brothel with girls using their bodies as sponges. (I didn't then know that I was yet to have my REALLY most interesting sex experience.)
"And now we'll take questions from the audience..."
The first one is from a local listener "After you've had sex with a man, don't you find it difficult to go back to women?"
"After you eat tacos," I answer, "do you find it hard to go back to burritos?"
My favorite question comes from a person of indeterminate gender," Can you please tell me how to meet you in person? I'm very interested."
I give my PO Box-- just in case. The callers all promise to send photos.
January 3, Evening: There is a huge burlesque hall in a plaza known as Garibaldi. It's not a tourist area. It's a place where the low-class Mexicans go for drinking, and other thrills. Guys walk around with car batteries attached to cables. As the end of each cable are two metal grips.
To test your manliness, you pay three bucks to hold onto those grips. The battery owner gradually turns up the juice. The longer you can hold on, the more of a man you are. The Mexicans have this thing about manliness.
Near Plaza Garibaldi is the Burlesque house. It's a rundown theater that holds about 300 or 400 people. Outside posters show a bending over women proclaiming. The most famous burlesque in Mexico.
Entrance is $10. Fernanda and Roberto buy a ticket for me. We walk into the darkened theater. In front is a large stage. About halfway through the orchestra seats is a raised carpeted platform that runs the whole length of the theater. Two long planks split the platform into thirds. Perpendicular, they run from it to the stage.
Once we're seated, we notice that Fernanda is the only girl in the audience. Later on two matronly looking women come in and sit down.
There is a comedian/singer on stage. I don't get the jokes, but the audience laughs a lot. Occasionally, I say something, in English, to Fernanda who sits next to me. On the other side of her is Roberto. On the other side of Roberto is this drunken Mexican who keeps shouting stuff-- heckling the comedian.
"Mata los gringos!" he shouts. [Kill the white foreigners!]
"Pienso que ahora, tenemos que hablar in Espanol." says Fernanda. [I think we should only speak in Spanish now.]
The audience is a surprise. Unlike the businessmen types of the first place, these guys are a commie's delight. You couldn't get more working class if you went into the saltmines! All ages too. There are a lot more 16 to 20 year olds than I'd expected. No one checks IDs at the door.
After the comedian, comes the first of the three strippers. She's slightly chubby, relatively light-skinned. She wears almost nothing-- high heels and a band-aid size bikini. Within a minute, she's down to just the high-heels.
She walks over to the left runway and starts up. The audience-- almost en mass-- gets up and rushes to the runway. Dozens of hands reach up. They crawl over breasts, stomach, legs, under, around, between. The audience members crawl over each other, using their fellow-member's bodies as step ladders to get a boost to reach the walking lady.
The woman does not look happy. She speeds up her walk, brushing away the hands like you might brush away wasps after accidentally knocking over a nest.
Now, folks who have read me before, know that I tend to romanticize the sex biz. It's an exciting job, usually with good pay. You can travel and easily take with you all the tools you need to ply the trade. The fact that you're appealing to others is the basis of your employment-- quite an ego boost.
But the reality of this situation is that this girl is NOT having a good time. The reality of the sex biz, is that, in many ways, it's just like any other biz. That means MOST people in it probably would rather be doing something else. That means there are sleazy customers and jobs you don't want. Sometimes, it's no better than being a waitress or a cab driver.
This realization depresses me. I like sex. Sex is good. It's fun. It's sad when people do sex stuff and don't enjoy it. I get further depressed, when the second dancer came out. The same thing happens. Then, the situation changes.
It's time for the grand finale. The smell of sweat and girl still lingers in the musty air. The lights dim. The music starts. The announcer talks very fast. The crowd cheers. It's time for Carmen! (I don't know if her name really is Carmen, but that's the only Spanish name I can think of right now.)
A chubby woman swishes out onto the stage. She wears a one-piece bathing suit, and a skirt made of large feathers. It drapes onto the floor in the back.
The conga drums start. Then the guitars and trumpets. It's a kind of calypso. Carmen wiggles her hips, shaking the feathers to and fro. Then she lets the skirt float softly to the stage. Next comes the bathing suit. Her too-firm breasts move strangely as she wiggles. I get out of my seat and walk up to the stage for a better look.
Pushing through the cheering, reaching, crowd, I look up at the girl. She's now completely naked, gyrating. Boy, is she ugly! She's got a paunch. Her hips merge wrinkly into her belly. She's got a square face with a jaw that would put Popeye to shame. She's got an adam's apple... an adam's apple.....
Wait a second, girls don't have adam's apples-- not that you can see anyway. And those breasts, no wonder they move so funny. They're not originals. This girl wasn't always a girl.
My gaze moves between her legs, no scars, but things are a little too perfect down there. Back to the face, the body, this girl must've been a forklift operator or jack hammerer before she was fixed. And these guys in the audience scream for her in all their macho fury. They don't have the slightest idea.
Carmen heads toward the ramp. Again comes the flurry of hands all over her. Carmen loves it. She smiles and waves. She grabs the hands and rubs them all over her body. Every few steps, she sits on the platform, spreading her legs wide. In less time than it takes to hook a fish, a fresh young face from the crowd buries itself in her crotch-- licking long, hard and deep into that recently built fissure. I can hear the slurping and sucking three rows away.
The crowd allows each licker only a few seconds before being pulled off by another enthusiastic audience member. Each places his head, his mouth, his tongue where the previous one had been.
Slowly, Carmen makes her way up a ramp to the second platform. The audience goes wild. She shakes her rump, and everything attached. Slight strands of saliva drip from the hairs between her legs.
On the upper platform, she suddenly tightens her legs around the head the young man deep in her crotch. The audience laughs as his slurps turn into chocking coughs. Then, to the applause of all, she releases him and continues her trek.
When she has completed the circuit, stage-to-left-ramp-to-second-platform-to-right-ramp-back-to-stage, I loose track of her. Some guys in the audience have said something rather impolite to Fernanda causing her to quickly shift her seat. She now sits with a scarf wrapped around her face-- hunched over to hide her gender. This solves the problem. My attention returns to the stage.
Now there are three guys on it, as well as Carmen. One of them looks like a beer guzzling redneck. He's got a big gut, a middle-aged pock-marked face. He's so ugly he could come from New Jersey. I'll call him Diego.
The other two are very attractive young men-- in their late teens or early twenties. One is about my height, with dark skin and almost Mayan features. I'll call him Don. The other is tall, lanky, with a short little nose and a beautifully hairless face. I'll call him Juan.
Diego is pretty hairy for a Mexican. Black sprouts grow like crabgrass over his droopy chest and belly. The slim Don and Juan have completely smooth skins. They even lack that line of bodyhair that rises from the pubes to the belly button in gringo men.
How do I know these intimate details? Because Diego, Don and Juan have taken off their clothes. They're completely naked on stage, furiously pumping themselves, trying to get ready for...
Carmen makes them all lay on their back, feet toward the audience. She goes to Juan. Standing by his head, facing his feet. She puts a foot next to each temple. Then the big woman squats down on his face. She rubs herself back and forth against his nose and chin. Then she leans forward to suck his limpness into her mouth.
Meanwhile, Diego and Don work frantically trying to firm themselves up for their turns.
Juan's Vienna sausage flops this way and that, refusing to build up the blood necessary to stand at attention. Unsuccessful at stiffening her prey, Carmen pulls Juan up by the rump, folding him over so his butt sticks straight into the air. She smacks it playfully a couple of times. Then she raises her middle finger. The audience applauds wildly-- egging her on.
She baits the crowd, looking up with a should I? should I really? look on her face. The crowd goes wilder. Finally, she plunges that finger into the hole beneath her. The body shakes as the finger is quickly removed. Then, just as quickly she is astride Don.
It's nearly the same for the other two. None of them can overcome their limpness despite their trying.
"Boo!" "Why don't you try REAL men?" "I could do it, why didn't you pick me!" shout audience members. (In Spanish, of course.)
After she finishes with Diego, the three get up to put their clothes back on.
"NO!" shouts Carmen, blocking the way.
Then she forces the three to march naked up the runways and across to the other platform. As they march, hands reach up for them, grabbing their legs, their danglies, anything that they can reach. The boys kick viciously at the grabbing hands. When they're halfway to the platform, Carmen shouts a "fuck me!" challenge.
Again, she goes to Juan first. She flops on his stomach like PORKY flopped on THE BLUE DEMON. A desperate "ugh" leaves Juan's body with his breath. Then she grabs between his legs and starts fondling. He's still limper than uncooked bacon.
I get up from my seat for a closer look. The men in the audience are all over the pair. Juan tries to stuff his flaccidity doggie style into Carmen. Hands from the crowd push his tight little butt forward as if to give him a boost.
All these macho Mexicans fondling this attractive naked guy, starts to make me hard. I feel like telling 'em-- "step aside, I'll show you how to do it" and then going after Juan. I don't.
The embarrassed Juan is unable to perform. Likewise, Don and Diego can't bring their Mexican macho to that flesh between their legs. The poor boys, after being humiliated and manhandled, are allowed to return to the stage and get dressed. Carmen raises her hands in victory. Ole! The crowd applauds. The show is over.
What an inspiring evening! The essence of macho turned inside out and stood on its head in a grimy burlesque house in Mexico city. What a night!
Yep, Mexico is heaven!
Now comes the question: What is the difference between the miserable time I had during the first week and the great time I had during the second week?
I could be specific. I could say it was Jose Jimenez, Roberto, Roberto's mom, Fernanda, Alain (who also put me up and took care of me for awhile), Fernando, Paulino, and a buncha other guys whose names will come back to me the minute I modem this to Tim. That would not explain it.
In one of my earliest columns, I wrote that the great thing about punk rock was that you could put on a leather jacket and Sex Pistols button and have instant friends anywhere in the world. Things have not changed much.
There is a community out there. Folks who like the same music and clothes. Folks out of the mainstream of musical life. That's how I got connected. Not all punk rockers like sex as much as I do. That's not important. It's the connections that count. Once those start, then individual peculiarities and other shared interests can blossom and expand like a sprout of flesh at a lapdance.
But, there's a problem. Whenever I hear 'community,' I can't help but see the hardened flesh of 'identity' working its way into every orifice. The blue veins of intolerance and exclusion appear and disappear into the idea. The testes of conformity and rigidity bang against those cheeks. The same smiley face of shared interests, drips with the semen of exclusion and xenophobia. OUR bars, OUR music, OUR safe space, these are all words that one group of people uses to keep another group out.
Talk of community steers the ideas of friendship and fun into ideology and division. Identities: black, white, gay, straight, male, female-- these are all ways of dividing people-- excluding people and creating loneliness and worse. I love community, but I can't see it without identity dripping down its chin.
As bad as identities are for human relations, they're worse for individuals. If a person says I am X rather than I do X, they box themselves in. They accept a code of behavior, a way of thinking and acting-- not allowing more. Gay men don't fuck girls, because they're GAY. To do it, would jeopardize that identity. Whitefolks feel uneasy in blackfolk's neighborhoods, because both groups share a common feeling of what it means to have a white and a black identity.
So it looks like we have a problem, a dilemma, a conundrum. How can I use the punk community without being a punk?
Actually, the solution isn't so difficult. We're just looking at bad examples. It IS possible to have community without identity. Instead of homos and Negroes, we should be looking at movie lovers and baseball card collectors.
These folks have conventions all over. They meet with people who share their interests. They make friends through their hobbies and then find out that their friends share other interests. Their communities are open to anyone who's interested. You don't need an ID card. You don't have to belong to a certain race or identify with a certain gender.
If you can separate the ever-thrusting idea of identity, from the useful and fun idea of community-- you, too, might someday find yourself watching some naked Mexicans screw-- and shout Ole!
ENDNOTES:
-->OK you guess dept: Remember last column where I wrote about how self-image does not always match public perception? OK, buckaroos, here's a test: You've been reading me for awhile now. You probably think you know me well enough to predict my actions. So the question for next column is: Did I go to a bullfight in Mexico? Why? or Why not?
Don't bother sending me your answers. I'll let you know next column.
--> James from NYC has started an organization called Popsmear. It is a weird kind of zine, in an envelope. The envelope includes stuff that people send James (105 Thompson St (3), New York NY 10012-3723). It's a little more complicated than that, but you can write for info.
-->What? dept: The fine group H.E.A.R. (Hearing Education & Awareness for Rockers, POB 460847, San Francisco Ca 94146) has been helping folks out for a long time. Everyone from Pete Townshend to all of METALLICA are members or advisors.
I just learned that I lost half my hearing in my left ear. I can never get that back, but I CAN prevent further loss. WEAR EARPLUGS! You may look like a wimp, but at least you'll be enjoying the music in five years. I know I'd have ALL my hearing if I had had H.E.A.R. and METALLICA telling me to wear earplugs in 1968!
Anyway, H.E.A.R. has big money problems. So send 'em whatever you'd pay for one CD. Buy it next month. Your contribution will help you and others enjoy those CDs for a long time to come.
--> The Fully Informed Jury Association is a group of folks trying to use juries to do what the law won't-- like if there's no victim, there should be no crime. They support the jury's right to decide law as well as fact-- something judges (or schools) almost never tell you about. I give them a few bucks every year. If you're interested in finding out more about them, you can call for information at 1-800-TEL-JURY.
-->Whoops Dept: remember the sex and staples videotape I told you about? Well, as it turns out, it was NOT a personal one just for me (I think), but part of the SPUNKASFUCK series. That means YOU can get a copy too. Send $12 (and an age statement) to: Ron Gillikin, RDI PO Box 12905, Clarendon PA 16313.
--> Internet News Dept: With the recent controversy over race and age, comes an internet posting of a long SERIES of studies that find a direct correlation with lack of intelligence and religious fervor. (The studies go back to the forties and continue into the 80s. If I can dig up the source I'll put it here. If not, you'll just have to trust me.)
--> One of the many fine folks who helped me out in Mexico is Jose Jimenez Armas. He has a small record shop and label with lots of great stuff you can't get other places. His label puts out the Peruvian KAOS CD. He also has access to plenty of Mexican gems like the great REBELS 'D PUNK.
Because of the decline of the peso, he can't buy U.S. records, but would love to distribute them. That means trade. If you want to get your records into Mexico, send him half a dozen and ask him to send you a buncha stuff. He'll be more than fair. If you want a list of what he's got, write and ask. Be sure to enclose an International Reply Coupon. (You buy 'em at the post office.) Write to him: Jose Jimenez Armas, Apartado Postal 70-205, Ciudad Universitaria, Mexico DF CP 04511, MEXICO.
-->Wouldn't wanna violate the law dept: It's probably illegal to ask folks to send me a decent windows-based communication program. That would be solicitation to pirating, something I'd obviously never do. So please, DON'T send a copy of such a program to me at: POB 137, Prince Street Station, New York NY 10012.
-> Gringos as suckers dept: Roberto tells me that lots of Mexicans write to bands and labels in the U.S. claiming "we're only poor Mexicans. Can you please send us your records for free? We have no dollars and we can't buy them here." Sure enough the G.G.'s (Guilty Gringos) send those disks, CDs, LPs, cassettes. 99 out of a hundred times, they end up for sale-- at inflated prices at El Chopo; the punk market.
"Believe me," says Roberto, "any record you can get in The States, we can get here-- and more."
--> From Internet someplace:
Q: How many punks does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: 100. One to screw it in, and 99 to say they "did it themselves"
--> Can't afford the cash so I'll give publicity dept. The National Coalition Against Censorship (275 Seventh Ave, NYC 10001), has been working all over the country- -from Anchorage to Chapel Hill. They're fighting attempts to ban books and prosecute people for selling them. They, of course, need help. Newt and Jesse sure ain't gonna do it.
--> Anybody ever hear of a low budget filmmaker named Greg Nickson??? I just saw this movie called DRUM STRUCK, using all young actors, shot in black and white-- it's amazing!! If ERASERHEAD held auditions with EINSTURECENDE NEUBAUTEN for a college rock band, this movie would be a record of it. See it!
--> Quote 'o the week dept: Former VJ Adam Curry explains why he didn't like MTV (owned by Time Warner) meetings.
The only thing I ever noticed that really irked me is when I was in a music programming meeting and someone said "Wait, the meeting isn't over, we haven't added enough Warner's (meaning bands on the Warner Bros. label) today." That was the last time I was in that meeting.
Now Adam, I bet Henry Rollins never gets that huffy.
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