YOU'RE WRONG
An Irregular Column
by Mykel Board
Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine.
--Patti Smith *****************
Sometimes I wonder what comes first: my need to irritate people, cause trouble, stir
things up? Or my principles of maximal freedom. Is the latter a rationalization of the
former?
Or does it come out of it?
I admit, I love a riot. I love people yelling. I love to see staid people taking offense.
I love to see beliefs shaken and veneers abraded. I love to see people making fools of
themselves, trying to defend what they don't understand. I love to catch the pompous and
the self-righteous with a carrot up their asses.
Ultimately, however, it doesn't matter which is first. They each feed and reinforce the
other. Causing trouble, stirring things up MAKES maximal freedom, at least when it's done
right.
When it's done wrong, of course, it makes dictators. Just look at how Hamas elected
Netenyahu in Israel. Troublemakers, more than anyone, need to be careful.
--Mykel Board
*******************************
Sometimes being Mykel Board is more annoying than a rectal itch. I don't mean being AROUND
me. I mean the actual experience of being in this particular body with this particular
reputation.
I'm at ABC NO RIO with my pal Esben, visiting from Denmark.
"I don't think I've ever seen a smaller or worse venue," he says.
He doesn't mean "worse" like in nasty or unpleasant. I know how he uses English.
He means worse like in "scummy." So I thank him for the compliment.
I've worn my Skrewdriver t-shirt for the occasion. I want to show Esben what confrontation
is like. I want to .... well, we'll discuss reasons later.
So I'm leaning against the wall, watching the bands, when I see this guy staring at me.
About 20, he's skinny with the short hair and sincere look of many young emo-ites.
He's not particularly attractive so I don't stare back. I do notice that he's looking at
my t-shirt and whispering to others.
Then, he disappears, upstairs. He doesn't say a word to me. He doesn't even approach me,
but he's gone to report me.
Like the kid you hated in school; like the worst cowardly prissy "I'm telling"
cry-baby; like every person who will not take responsibility for themselves but hides
behind cops, flags or heavy weaponry; this guy won't confront, but will only report to the
authorities. If anything is less punkrock, I can't think of it-- except maybe no smoking
or no drinking rules.
In a few minutes, in a panic, down the stairs comes Tribal War/Neurosis-- and my friend,
Neil. The cowardly emotwerp points me out to him. Neil looks at me, laughs, shakes his
head and whispers to the guy. The guy shrugs, turns toward me and smiles, and walks back
where he was standing before. I don't smile back.
After the band, I go upstairs. Neil calls to me from behind the records.
"Ah Mykel," he says, "always one to cause trouble. If it's not a chicken
bone in your mouth, it's a Skrewdriver t-shirt."
A pal of the worm who told on me walks up to me. With short dark hair and absolutely
hairless cheeks, his face reeks of sincerity. He points to my shirt.
"I understand you do that with a sense of humor." he says, "I hope
so."
"If your friend wanted to say something to me," I say, "why didn't
he?"
No answer.
Jeezus fuckin' Christ. Was the guy afraid of me? I'm five foot three inches tall. 50 years
old. And this just-post- adolescent is afraid of me? What am I going to do, fart and gum
him to death? Why does he need an army to take care of his personal problems? He's not
Bill Clinton.
Scene shift: NYU. Eisner and Loeb are not song writers. I don't know who they are, but
there's an auditorium named after them. Tonight Jello Biafra is speaking. Despite the feud
between he and Timmy, both have remained my friends for a long time.
Biafra's harangue starts at 8. It lasts three hours.
Afterwards, at a very late dinner, Biafra is surrounded by friends, admirers, hangers on,
and people who want something. I'm with Peter, an attractive American Oriental who I met
on the punk list.
During his talk, Biafra mentioned that a proposed government law would make it legal to
call irradiated foods organic. He said the food could contaminate people, spread
radioactivity.
At dinner, Peter challenges him.
"That's wrong," he says.
Biafra looks up.
"Passing radiation through food doesn't make it radioactive," he tells him,
"Just like getting a tooth x-ray doesn't make your teeth radioactive."
Biafra looks up from his handkerchief, where he's just blown the snot of 46 hours without
sleep.
"I didn't know that," he says, "I thought..."
"Nope," answers Peter, "no radiation."
"Well, it still could change the character of the food itself." he answers.
"That may be," says Peter, "but its no more than a microwave. Both are
radiation."
Biafra pauses and considers. "I didn't know that," he says.
"Thanks for the information."
He then returns to eating. Peter has issued a challenge. It was met, discussed and
finished.
Later, Biafra asks about ABC NO Rio, I explain my unsuccessful effort to rile people up.
One of his entourage, a young man with long black hair and blacker eye make-up, is
outraged.
"You wore a Skrewdriver t-shirt?" he says, choking on his vegieburger.
"Sure," I nod, "how else am I going to wake those people up?"
"That's Mykel," says Biafra, smiling, "always out to cause trouble."
This settles the case for the long-hair. I've got the star's approval so that's it. No
dialogue. No discussion. No battle of
ideas. I'm Mykel Board, so I can do it. Period
How can I challenge these knee-jerkers if I'm always Mykel Board? How can I get in the
fights, have the discussions, arouse passions? Who I am explains my motives before I have
the chance.
Maybe that's why I like to travel so much. I can be anyone I want to be-- in Mongolia.
William Pierce is another troublemaker. He wrote The Turner Diaries, a novel about a white
racist group that rebels when the government sends Negroes to confiscate America's
firearms. It's a scary book written by a racist and anti-Jew. Some say it was the
inspiration for the Oklahoma City bombing.
But the American people -- the decent, level-headed, responsible portion of the electorate
that didn't vote for Clinton -- what about them? Why are so few of them speaking out
against the government's warmongering? I mean, when our government goes in and tears up
another country and massacres thousands of its citizens for no good reason, it reflects on
all of us. Why do we not at least speak out against it?
For an answer we must examine in more detail the role of the controlled mass media in this
affair. They are not just telling the politicians of both parties that, if they want media
support at the next election, they had better rattle their sabres at Saddam Hussein; they
also are deceiving the American people about all of the issues involved.
Mass media, with their treatment of the Middle East situation in general and the U.S.
government's war plans against Iraq in particular, are doing for the rule of law in
international affairs, what Bill Clinton is doing for morality in government.
Does that quote come from Biafra's speech? Nope. It comes from William Pierce in a recent
internet posting. The ideas of anti-Jew racists are not so different from the ideas of you
and me and Noam Chomsky and Jello Biafra. Their solutions are different, but their
analysis is right. Don't you think those are ideas worth discussing?
That quote came to me an email mailing. I replied to Pierce asking for more information.
Instead of a reply from him, I got an automatic response from his Internet Service
Provider: the account <nowarwithiraq@mailcity.com> has been shut down by MailCity
for violating our terms of use. Your message to this account will not be seen or read.
Yep, they censored William Pierce. They stopped the dialog.
Conversation ended, just as if he'd been Mykel Board. Only the means were different. He
was stopped by what he said. I'm stopped by who I am.
During the sixties, a frog named Herbert Marcuse wrote a book called, "A Critique of
Pure Tolerance." In that book he introduced the idea of Repressive Tolerance. That
idea says that tolerating repressive ideas is itself repression. This concept became the
justification for lefty attacks. Newspaper office bombings, machine-gunnings of writers
and speakers, all were ok in the name of ending tolerance. Later that same justification
became the theoretical basis to bomb abortion clinics. It is the argument of Moslem
militants when they beat women for not wearing the veil.
Herbert Marcuse is wrong. Tolerance is not the enemy.
Intolerance is. Free Speech is like a muscle or your prostate. If you don't use it, it'll
atrophy and disappear. Today's repression by you will bring tomorrow's repression by them.
I want to do more than give a few buck to the ACLU. I want to expand freedom to the widest
possible margins. I want to allow everyone, no matter how extreme, the right to say, wear,
and except for giving unwanted physical pain, do what they want. I want to let people know
that it's okay to make others uncomfortable. There is no right to comfort. It's good for
you to know what it's like not to be surrounded by clones of yourself.
It makes you squirm. Maybe you'll say something about it. Maybe in the saying, you'll
learn something.
I wear my Skrewdriver t-shirt so you can wear your Crass t- shirt. I wear my Skrewdriver
t-shirt so you can go to ABC NO RIO in the first place. Yeah, you totalitarian squirmer, I
wear my Skrewdriver t-shirt for you-- and when I can't-- you're going to suffer much worse
than I am. I suffer for your sins, buckaroos.
Someday, when the censor shoe is on the other foot, you'll see it. But you'll get more
shit than I will, I'm Mykel Board, ya' know?
ENDNOTES:
-->Letters to the editor dept: Many columnists answer letters printed in the letters
section. Lately MRR has been emailing critical letters to us, pre-publication. That gives
us the chance to answer in the same issue. For newer readers, I'll explain why I never
take advantage of that opportunity.
Every month I give my opinion, say what I think, explain why you're wrong. You can't
answer me-- at least not the same month or with the same visibility. The letters column is
a small space where you can have your say and present ideas different from mine. It's YOUR
space, not mine. You should be able to say what you want without my interference. Want an
answer? Send a copy to me (POB 137, Prince St. Station NYC 10012). Eventually, I'll get
around to answering it. (I answer quicker if you include a nude picture of yourself, or
even better, a videotape.) Sometimes I'll send a personal letter to an in-the-zine
letter-writer. But I won't take advantage of my position to have the last word in the
letters column. I have enough last words right here.
-->Fortuitous error dept: A guy named Jim sent his zine Ride On!
to my PO Box. It was not, however, addressed to me. Instead it was for
"Larry/Zinedomcome." Wrong guy. Nice zine though. Eighty- eight pages in issue
number one. Wow! The focus is pro-bike, but there're clipped stories from the press, a
punk guide to J.
Alfred Prufrock and tons of stuff I haven't even started yet.
It's a big thick work of love and it's only a dollar!!!! You can get one for yourself from
Jim Rice, POB 236, Abington PA 19001.
Tell him Larry sent ya, whoever he is.
--> Reuters reports that HPV, a common sex disease has increased dramatically among college-age women. However "cigarette smoking appears to be protective against persistent HPV." Now we've got alzheimers and HPV to show what smoking is good for. Soon the government will encourage smoking... yeah right. It could cure cancer and ingrown toenails and the government wouldn't encourage it. Who would be the badguy then?
--> Further on the smoking front dept: ABC NO RIO has expanded their non-smoking
policy to the upstairs lounge as well as the non-ventilated basement. Is this creeping
California-ism or what?
It's sad to see the growing intolerance there. Looks like in addition to the chicken bone
and the Skrewdriver t-shirt I'm gonna have to start smoking. Yuck!
-->Poly wanna cracker? dept: Roy Romer, the governor of Colorado, admits that he's
been carrying on with another woman for 16 years. He's polyamorous, and his wife knows all
about it. It's a good thing the Gov doesn't have any control over naval vessels.
Otherwise, they may be sailing for Utah; guns loaded, wagging the dog.
--> BTW dept:, By the time you read this, there will have been an anti-war march in NYC. (What decade is this?) I was going to join, but they wouldn't let me make a sign: "Just 'cause you did it to Monica doesn't mean you should do it to Iraq."
--> More than an Inch dept: The homorock band CHEATER is the orchestra in an amazing off-broadway play called HEDWICK AND THE ANGRY INCH. The story is about a guy who escaped from East Germany by becoming a girl-- or trying to. But they botched the sex change. All that was left was a lifeless inch of flesh. Thus the name of the show. Funny, sick, mean, and a slap at hets and homos alike. Boy, do I love musicals. Keep an eye out for this one man (...er...) and band show when it comes to your town.
--> WHERE? DEPT Florida of all places! The state that is the nastiest most censorious also has a lot going for it. I've already recommended a printer from there. Now comes another ad from another zine-friendly printer. That is Marrakech Express, 500 Anclote Rd. Tarpon Springs, FL 34689-6701. While they don't specifically say they're censorship-free, they do have quotes from plenty of zines. These include Baby Sue-- not a mild one. If you need a printer, check 'em out and let me know what happens.
--> I don't know if you can still get it, but you can try. It's way overpriced at $9.50, but My Date With Henry Miller by Suzy- formerly-David Crowbar, postscript by Bob Black, is the height of weirdness. The American anarcho-surrealist-fringe is populated by oddballs, of course, but until you take a look at this, you don't know how odd. If you got the bucks and the balls, send one or both to: Susan Poe, 116 Shepard St, Lansing MI 48912.
--> How many suckers dept: I'm writing this before the April issue comes out. I
don't know how many suckers fell for this year's April Fools' column. I bet a bunch of you
still believe that Timmy Yo has been writing my columns for the last three years. He
hasn't. He wouldn't dare.
Right now, I hear Tim's sick again. I can only wish him the best and remind him of my love
and admiration for him, even though he's consistently wrong.
--Mykel (mykelB@ix.netcom.com)
fledging webpage: http://www.freeyellow.com/members2/seidboard/
***""My advice to you...Get people to think you're a drunken no-good lush... slightly cracked... with a bit of the jailbird thrown in." -- Celine ****
