Mykel Board says: You're Wrong

January, 1998

You're Wrong

An Irregular Column

By Mykel Board

 

In fighting can be fun dept: "Some will call it in-fighting, "writes Bob Black in his new book Anarchy after Leftism. And in-fighting it is. The entire book is an attack on another book. That one by Murray Bookchin, who’s "Post-Scarcity Anarchism" inspired me during my college days.

Bob Black is one of those assholes who are usually right. A man close to my own persuasion, who’s "The Abolition of Work" continues to inspire me.

Black's attack on Bookchin splits the anarchists like Camille Paglia's attack on Andrea Dworkin split the feminists. Like feminism, the old style is conservative, totalitarian, and dogmatic. The new style is... well... fun.

In both cases, I'd say change the names already. Feminism should be equalism. And anarchism? They tried situationism but got so bogged down in their own philosophy (if you call yourself one you're not) that it self-destructed. How about funism?

Anyway, Black's analysis is cutting and interesting. He weakens his case, though, with too many personal attacks on Bookchin. The worst are repeated references to his old age. Loose dentures are not a very useful form of political criticism. Then again, old age is a problem Bookchin hopes Black will never suffer from.

Still for such gems as "As for 'decadence,' that is an eminently bourgeois swearword for people perceived to be having more fun than you are," Anarchy After Leftism is certainly worth a read. ($7.95 Columbia Alternative Library, POB 1446, Columbia, MO 65205-1446).

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If that looks like an endnote, it was. But I decided to make it the header because this column is about: being old.

Younger than Timmy Y, Jeff Bale or Larry L, my prostate still pangs with approaching late middle age. I've defended getting old before-- it's certainly better than the alternative, but for some folks not much.

Scene one: I'm picking up Mom and Dad from the house in Hicksville. They're moving to the old age home in New Jersey. Their house for 40 years is empty. It's the only house I've ever known. The new owners, Armenian, with two kids, sweep out the last of the Board dirt. Mom and Dad stand on the front porch.

Marsha Shikowitz is over from across the street. Her mascara runs a bit as her brown wig tilts slightly over her left ear. A wisp of gray peaks from beneath. She and Mom hug.

"Don't forget us," Mom whispers in her ear.

Dad, his weight leaned forward on his half-walker, gazes off, scanning the identical houses as if looking for permission to leave. I turn away, pretending to tie my shoelaces as I feel the tears well up in my eyes. Using one sleeve, I wipe them away, along with the sad snot dripping from my nose.

"I… ahh... need to use the bathroom." I say, hoping my voice isn't too shaky. Instead of turning left at the top of the stairs, I go straight ahead. Right into my room, no longer my room. I look at the bookcases, the place where my bed used to be, the closet where I used to hide porno and commie literature. Iput my hand against the wall, then my lips. Whispering good-bye, I again wipe my eyes and nose and go back down the stairs.

Then it's off to Teaneck. To the two-room apartment I'll never call home. They probably won't either.

Inside, a Filipino attendant piddles along with a woman stooped over a wheeled walker. The attendant, about 30, walks with a smile and a light step. The old woman, in her eighties, looks up as we enter, carrying our boxes. Her eyes work to focus. Slowly, she lifts one hand from the walker. Her face expressionless, she waves. It's a slow mechanical wave, like the wipers on a car driving through mist.

"Hello," I say.

"This is Mrs. Goldfarb," says the attendant.

"Hello, Mrs. Goldfarb," says my mother.

The woman continues to wave. Back... and... forth. Back...and... forth. Still expressionless.

"Time to go now Mrs. Goldfarb," says the attendant, gently moving the woman's waving hand back to the walker. Haltingly, they shuffle off to a room down the hall.

Mom stares at them as they walk ahead.

"Well," she says, "I guess this is it."

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I've been a vocal (scribal?) opponent of "family values" ever since I pissed on my mother when she was changing my diaper. Family values are destructive. They perpetuate bigotry, narrow-mindedness and hatred. Like sickle cell anemia, these qualities pass from one generation to the next.

In a recent heated discussion on the punk list, we talked about home schooling.

I'm usually not big on laws, but if there should be one, it should be against home schooling. What more evil way to allow parents to own and completely control their kids? What more insurance that the hate and prejudice of one generation will infect the next? What surer way of limiting the input of people who don't act, think, and feel exactly like Mom and Dad? If it weren't for public schools, I'd be working on Wall Street. How many Klansfolk spread their ideas, unchallenged to their kids.

Still, despite my abhorrence of these "family values," we still have families. How we deal with them, in this culture especially, is WRONG.

Last month I wrote about cultures. About how, whenever another culture makes you feel uncomfortable, you have to assume your culture is wrong and find out why.

Example: I suggest to my married sister (two kids) that she visit my parents in the old age home. She replies, "Mykel, I can't! I just don't have time. I have a family, remember?"

"I have a family too," I remind her, "they live in New Jersey."

In Japan and Mongolia, two countries I've actually lived in, "family" is much different from here. In those countries, you're ALWAYS in a family. In Mongolia, your family lives with you or next to you. Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, everyone, just a big family that grows as the tents you live in become a bunch of tents.

In Japan, more urban than Mongolia, you start life in your parents' house. You live there until you get married. Then the new family finds a place of its own.

When your parents begin having difficulties, they move in with you. The generations mix. Your family grows, but doesn't change... until someone dies.

That's why homos get married in Japan. It's not that their closets are any bigger than ours, it's just that marriage is more than the legalized sex it is here. It's a way to extend the family to a different place; to keep it moving along a continuum. It's as natural as Americans getting our own apartment at 18.

But what Americans do to old people is not natural. I seethe effects every day. From the hunched and depressed looks on the old beggars on the street, to Hilda, the frail old woman who sits in the park and tells me, "Don't get old. It's better you should die first."

"It can be different" I tell her, leaning over and pressing my mouth against hers. The faint strands of her mustache tickle my nose as I push my tongue into her mouth. I taste the bits of cream, squeezed from the sides of her dentures. I run my tongue between those dentures and those gums, feeling them pop down with a slight fffft.

I taste her gums, as she responds, sticking her tongue back into my mouth, reaching up behind my head, pressing my face into hers.

Gently, I press against the loose skin under her forearm. Ihelp her stand. She rests her weight against her cane. A hollow metal one, with four rubber feet.

At home we lie naked. One against the other. I see her hand, blue veined with brown spots on the back. Tenderly, it holds my blue veined organ. Hard with anticipation, I thrill at doing something I've never done before.

Her teeth now rest on the night-table next to me. I suck on her bare mouth. My tongue rides the ridges bumps and holes. There is no sharpness, only the smooth glide of gums.

I let my tongue trail down her body. Her breasts, long and loose, flop on either side of her chest like a pair of police black jacks. I lift them, one at a time and nibble on the wrinkled nipples, sucking hard, trying to draw milk from these dry spigots.

Downward I go, using my chin to spread the wrinkled skin, making it momentarily smooth, glistening with my saliva. I reach the pubic patch, thin and grey, revealing the dry slit beneath, in a quiet dignity.

As I lick, I turn my body. I feel my hardness drawn into her toothless mouth. Her breath quickens as my tongue reaches the spot. I nibble. I taste and wonder how many years its been since someone else tasted this bud. How long this wine has been aging, waiting to be savored by the right connoisseur.

Her thin legs wrap around my face. I lick deeper, rising my hardness and again thrusting it into that eager mouth.... Stop! Stop!

As I write this fantasy, it becomes too much. Here I sit at the computer. Typing with one hand, savagely pumping myself with the other.

"Hilda! Hilda! Hilda!" I think, realizing that I've done it. I've created a reality where old people are not objects of disgust, but sexual beings. Real humans with more to give than old war stories.

"Hilda! Hilda! H-I-L-D-A!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Ah, time to get out the handkerchief and wipe up. Try it yourself some time. Maybe old won't always be followed by fart. Maybe you'll get hard-- or wet. Maybe if enough folks do, life won't be so bad after 70.

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Oh yeah, I'm dedicating this column to Donny The Punk who wanted me to write about "ageism in the punk scene." I told him I would, but he died before I did.

ENDNOTES:

 

***I don't even consider myself bisexual. Frankly, I just think of myself as a"people person." --Michael Duane ****

 

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