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YOU'RE WRONG! An Irregular Column by Mykel Board I was more out of place than a leg razor at a lesbian bar. It was the great ANARCHIST UNCONVENTION in Toronto. I figured there'd be lot's of sex, beer, and free food. And the best part; I could cause some trouble. Maybe the last issue of MRR had a report of what went on. Here's the truth I rode up there with Mike Gunderloy, editor of FACTSHEET FIVE. Mike's an anarcho-capitalist who believes, among other things, that highways should be privately owned and you should have a choice between driving on those that require a license and those that don't-- the latter presumably more expensive than the former. Mike planned to distribute a leaflet from some Chicago Anarchists. They didn't like the way things were run at the convention. They objected to senseless "death-demonstrations" that trashed things for no reason. They said that the organizers spend time raising money for food and future meetings and all of it winds up being used for bail. Besides rioting could give anarchists a bad name. The Chicagoans also objected to completely open workshops that included seemingly irrelevant topics. "What if someone proposes to give a workshop on 'Why Anarchists should join the Churches?'" They asked. The Toronto newspapers gave the convention a lot of hype. "15,000 Anarchists, skinheads and Nazis to descend on Toronto," they said. Local politicians called for a full scale investigation of the city. How could they let a bunch of mostly foreign scum use a public Civic Center for their nefarious purpose? Organizers planned the auditorium for selling stuff, another big room as a daycare center, and the small rooms for a bunch of "workshops" on all kinds of things. The banana-colored journalists were outraged. Because of all the publicity, Mike and I decided to cross the border near Montreal, then drive on to Toronto. When I arrived I heard people shouting numbers. "Eight! Six! Forty two! One!" They said. They were all shouting at the same time, but each of them said a different number. I peeped into the room and saw that as they shouted, the people kicked up their legs, opened their arms wide or tilted their heads to the right or to the left. Everybody moved in unison, but no two people did the same thing at the same time. I looked at my schedule to see what this was. "Anarchist Aerobics Workshop," it said. I went to find the "bomb making" workshop listed as being in room 723. Of course there was no room 723. All the other rooms were numbered randomly and those numbers kept changing every five minutes. I tried to find the men's room, but there were only two "person rooms." Hardline anarchists objected anyway. It was fascist to assign a specific function to a specific room. Each room should be allowed to seek its full potential and not be hampered by arbitrary human restrictions. That was "animist." People pissed in ashtrays and shat in coffee urns. None of that is true. I wish it were. Instead of anarcho- weirdness, I got hippies. Long haired, barefooted, patched clothed, hairy legged, dope smoking, love-in hippies. Punk hippies, homo hippies, lesbo hippies, veggie hippies. The free food was lentils and spinach-- mmmm boy! I went off to Colonel Sanders and spent the three days of the convention with a chicken bone in my mouth. You'd think that might rile up these organo-veggie hippies. Ho, ho, not the Canadians. They are so proper and polite you could gag. Steve B., one of my many hosts, said he saw a Canadian anarchist with a button that said, "QUESTION AUTHORITY. . . PLEASE." If it weren't for the Americans there, you could've never gotten a decent riot out of these folks. Fortunately the Chicago anarchists were right and there would be lot's of window breaking. The entire city reeked of veggies. Their big politicos were "The Kentucky Fried Five" who graffitied the local you-know-what. How radical! My hosts, Sean, Ruth, Al, and Ron were otherwise fine folks, but they just would not chew the bone. Two Californians and a Brit also stayed at this house. The three of them were part of the "vegans", an extreme veggie sect who wear veils over their faces so they didn't inadvertently inhale any insects. They carried their own Soyburger mix with them, just in case the local stuff was tainted. Of course they ate bread. "How could you eat bread?" I complained. "Don't you know that the wheat used to make that stuff is factory farmed? First it's cut down ruthlessly, while still alive, with no anaesthetic. Then it's herded like cattle up tiny shoots where it's sadistically ground into tiny slivers and packed like sardines to be cooked for your pleasure." They weren't too pleased with me.} There were lots of homos up there. Besides the natives, came California computer wiz, Tommy J, and the truly flaming Tad K from Kansas. Tad took me to my first homo bar in Toronto, but it was too early for the action to have started. Over nice Canuk beer, Tad told me about his new band, THE GRATEFUL DEAD BOYS. An album should be out soon called, "Young, Loud and On Acid." The most interesting homo there was Bruce LaBruce, editor of JDs magazine and future guest editor of the all-homo issue of MRR. Bruce is the founder of the "homocore" music movement. He lives with this artist girl named Candy and their little female dog-- a pug. They make 8mm movies. Speaking of movies, he's got a sure winner you'll want to see. Dave D., of MDC stayed with Bruce while he was in town. After the MDC show, a punk girl stumbled up to Dave. He took her with us to Bruce's house. The girl varied in consciousness from semi to un. Because of her heavy use of eye make-up, you couldn't really tell if the lids were open or not. Back at the house, Bruce showed me his collection of film noir porno videos. Through the open door I saw Dave carry the crewcut girl into the bathroom. During an extremely arty blowjob on the TV screen, we heard Dave call out. "Bruce, come here quick! Bring your camera!" Dave and the semi conscious girl were in the shower. Dave had his face nuzzled between her legs and was licking furiously. Bruce ran in with the camera. The dog followed. I didn't. From the bedroom I heard running water, a gentle moaning, a slurping and an occasional yapping. It's all on film. That, by the way, was one of three MDC stunts that raised my opinion of the band 100%. Another was how they got into the country in the first place. You see, M.D.C. was banned from Canada for either politics or beastial sexual practices, I'm not sure which. In any case, they chose to brave the border to play for the anarchists. The band flew to Syracuse NY then waited in the airport for more than six hours. A Canadian finally picked them up and brought them to the U.S. side of an Indian reservation. That reservation spans both the U.S. and Canadian border. No national cops are allowed in. From inside the reservation, Indians canoed them across the river to the Canadian side. There, in the woods, they again had to wait in fear of helicopter cops. Finally they were brought out by I-can't-tell-you-who to play for the @-boys. Those guys have balls! (For proof, just ask Bruce to look at the movie.) Now let's back track. Let's go into the community center where all these "workshops" were happening. The organizers posted a schedule on the bulletin board. Vertically were listed the times of each workshop, horizontally were the room numbers. I looked down the schedule and saw the "wymyn's" workshop. (They like spelling it like that because "woman" has the word "man" in it. They want to avoid that. Get it?) In parenthesis was the notation, "wymyn only." Fortunately, there was a blank square under this listing. Even more fortunately, I had a pen with me. I filled in the square with a fake "Klanarchy workshop." In parenthesis, I made the notation, "whites only." I hope they would appreciate my biting satire. Within half an hour, my graffiti was crossed out. Within a full hour the entire poster was torn down so no one could read through the crossout. I went to a workshop called "Loving Alternatives." I liked the name and was attracted to the fact that it was being held right next to the "Animal Rights" workshop. I figured there should be some pretty wild alternatives if they combined the two. They didn't. About 50 people sat on the floor in a big circle. A bulky girl started things by explaining how she had formed this "arrangement" with her boyfriend so he could see another girl on Mondays and Wednsdays and she would get Tuesdays and Thursdays. Pretty daring, huh? Then people talked about their own ideas. The big problem was making sure that at all times the relationships involved "love and understanding." "What the fuck does love and understanding have to do with sex?" I asked. "Why should sex with someone involve love anymore than eating dinner with them?" Oh boy, did they get mad. I was just a stupid male, with a male understanding and girls felt the connection more deeply. I could just never understand how a womyn felt. Even the guys yelled at me for being "a man." The nasty thing was how I wasn't allowed to defend myself. This was an anarchist workshop, you see, so they had very strict rules. They couldn't have a leader or a moderator. Each speaker had to pick a person to follow him/her. You had to give everybody a chance, so you had to pick someone who hadn't spoken before. Of course, you weren't allowed to pick two boys in a row, because this would be sexist. You could never answer a challenge, because you had already spoken and you had to give someone else a chance. It was maddening! "Who does that guy think he is?" they'd say. "He doesn't see the beauty and mysticism of sex?" It got worse from there. Whenever I would try to defend myself, someone would shout, "You had your turn, let others speak." Eventually they got tired of yelling at me and started talking about themselves again. A great moment came when a pretty blond butch girl spoke about how she was "an incest survivor." (Don't you just love these new phrases? I guess I'm a "suburb survivor".) Anyway, you could just smell the feminists' hackles raising slowly from wherever hackles raise. "Those evil men," they were stewing, "abusing their own relatives like that. Typical of penis mentality." The girl continued, "I was attacked by my sister. . . " Those hackles deflated and lay limp. I couldn't hold back the smile. Gradually, the workshop turned more and more into a group psychotherapy session. People took turns telling about their sex problems and what they did to overcome them. Each story tried to out-sensitize the others. Sometimes there was applause. One sensitive looking young man, who, if he wasn't barefoot, should've been, meekly raised his hand. "Right now," he said, "I am in pain." He brought his clenched hands to his chest. I gagged and left the room. Outside the building was a park-like space where some people frolicked in the garden and others tried to sensitive the nearest stranger into having meaningful sex with them. Tad introduced me to blond girl named Alex. He met her at the last @-fest and they became good pals. You'll read about my special "aura" later, but it was working then, because Alex said, "Hi," then walked away. Lisa Seagul, ARTLESS's first guitar player and composer of "We Want Nuclear War", walked right by me. I grabbed her. "What are YOU doing here?" she asked. "I got a ride." I said. Bob Z walked by. (Remember him? He's the guy who got $22,000 worth of postering tickets from the NYC sanitation department?) Bob had a knapsack full of beer. He offered me one. We sat drinking on the grass. Bob finished his beer. I set mine down for a second. It was the same second that a pair of Toronto's Finest chose to pass by. They saw the half filled can in front of Bob and then opened his knapsack. Another beer, same brand. Yep, Bob, the ticket magnet, got another one, $53.75, for MY beer. Of course, Bob threw the ticket out-- or framed it. Bored with the playground, I hooked up with Tad K., Bruce LaBruce and this reporter for Canadian TV. We went drinking where it was legal. Over drinks we discussed anarchism, politics, sports and stuff I don't remember. I do remember making a rapier-witted remark that struck them cold. I can't remember what it was, but it must've been good, because Tad answered, "Did you have a hair transplant, Mykel?" There was a split second of dead silence and the conversation continued as if the question had never been asked. It's taken me a long time to figure it out, but I realize that people who try to embarrass you with physical remarks are admitting they've lost. It's like the "your mother wears combat boots" game that little kids play. Stephan, singer of THE FALSE PROPHETS, pulls this all the time. "So Stephan," I ask, "How come The False Prophets play at over 21 clubs with big bouncers and rules that keep out punks and let in yuppies." "You're short and you're loosing your hair." replies Stephan. Anyway, back in Toronto, Tad eventually went off to look for boys. It was getting late, so I went hunting up some chicken wings. I could've waited on line for three hours for the evening's free service of lentil guts and cabbage brains, but I decided against it. That evening the first Americans were arrested. The locals said it was immigration and not the Toronto cops who busted them. They drove a car with American license plates. Immigration stopped them and said that they must've lied at the border. Their reasoning was this: If they had told the border patrol that they were coming to Toronto for the anarchist convention, then they would not have been let in the country. Since they WERE let in the country, they must've lied at the border. Because they lied at the border, they were under arrest. "Pretty good reasoning," I thought, "those guys should be anarchists." During the day, I heard people talk about "the orgy house." It was also called "Cathedral B" and was supposed to be a hippy anarchist sex house. Boys and girls of all ages and preferences lived there and supposedly strangers were welcome. Of course I headed right over. I went with Tom, Bruce, Dave MDC, Tad and a couple of other folks. As I walked in I could smell the stewing Brussels Sprouts. I had hoped for something more fishy. The first floor was packed with pretty girls. They looked at my leather jacket, my leather army boots, and my face and sneered once for each. The reflection in their eyes said, "Cow Murderer!" when they looked at my jacket. It said "Man!" when they looked at my face. "I'm not a man!" I wanted to say, "I'm a myn! Do you think men are just incomplete women? Hah! We're independent beings with thoughts and feelings of our own!" I didn't say any of that, though. After all, I wanted to get laid. I went to the downstairs room where all the girls were. They didn't seem to be DOING anything yet, but I figured it was only a matter of time. "Hey, get out of here," said a pretty one with a crewcut, "this is the wymyn's rooms!" She gave me a look like I was wearing a CRASS shirt to a SKREWDRIVER show. I apologized and went upstairs to the boys. Tommy J, and Dave D. were already there. Maybe it's something about me. Bruce says I radiate a certain "hostile aura." In any case, when I walked in the room a cold silence fell like an Iranian airliner on the crowd lying on the floor. People suddenly grew intensely interested in things like cleaning their nails, or puffing up their jackets to make them better pillows. Tom & Dave MDC nodded hello, slightly embarrassed to know me. I waved back, took the hint and returned to the vegan house to drink some beer. Later I found out that, after I left, there was indeed an orgy at Cathedral B. In fact, Tom himself started the boys' part with some "cute guy with braces." Not only was there an orgy, but there was nearly a riot. The "bad guys" in the Toronto scene are not the baldies, but the hair-in-the-air crew. I met some of them at a NO MINDS show, and they seemed nice enough. I drank their beer and hung out with them. They told me they worshipped me. In any case, they're not very popular with the anarcho-homo crew, that's for sure. Now, I wasn't at the orgy/riot at Cathedral B, so I can't say exactly what happened, but here's what I heard. It was late. Tom and his new friend were starting the action upstairs. Suddenly the door opens and the hair-in-the-air crew stands hostilely on the other side. "Look at those guys," says one of them, "that's disgusting!" "Yeah, what a bunch of sick fags," said another, "I think we should teach them a lesson." They went on like this, their statements gradually increasing in hostility. Most of the homoboys ignore them. Dave MDC got up from whatever he was doing. "Hey, these guys aren't kidding!" He said. Suddenly the happy homos realize that they might actually be in danger. Dave faced the bad guys. "You'd better leave," he said. What happened after that isn't clear. There was some sort of confrontation, with a group of hard line hair people, their softer line supporters, Dave and the B-boys. Eventually the hairboys left and the orgy continued. While those guys were deep in fudge packing, I was deep in conversation back at the vegan house. The California veilfaces explained their particular brand of anarchism. I said I thought it was ironic that all these anti-censorship people suddenly spoke out of the other side of their @'s when it came to things like SKREWDRIVER concerts. (If you don't know, that band has been in the U.S. They had as much trouble getting here as MDC had in getting into Canada. They're having an even MORE difficult time playing. Most of the A-punks say they'd fight to stop any of their shows. Fortunately the NO MORE CENSORSHIP DEFENSE FUND is putting up the money to hire a hall for them.) [This is NOT true. It's just another example of Mykel's "humor." --TY] Anyway, I told those vegans that I couldn't understand that kind of pro/anti-censorship hypocrisy. "We've made sure they can't play in the open in England," said one of them with a funny accent. "They have to make special meeting places. Then someone comes to check 'em out and takes them to the concert." "That doesn't seem very anarchistic to me." I said. "We're anarcho-fascists." came the reply. To be fair, I actually liked those guys, despite the horrors they later inflicted on me. They were smart and funny and could commiserate with me, as they seemed to be the only OTHER folks at this @-party not getting laid. Anyway we drank ourselves to sleep. The next morning, the vegetable people were off to go to an "Anarchy and the Military" workshop. I went to one called "Queer Anarchists." At that workshop a lot of homo boys wore dresses and didn't shave their faces, presumably in solidarity with the homo girls who wore dresses and didn't shave their legs. The anarchist rules were the same from one workshop to the other. Only this one was even more unfair, since we had to give the girls an equal chance and there were only about a half dozen of them. Most of the girls look like they were the type who stand to piss. I could tell the most militant because she didn't sit on her chair, but squatted on it, like a panther ready to pounce. One of the older gentlemen started off saying how these young homos now days don't respect their elders. The older folks are doing all this AIDS work and the kids don't want to hear from it. They just want to disco. They're not responsible enough to protest for more money for AIDS testing. They don't listen to their elders. A younger guy apologetically said he couldn't demonstrate for AIDS funding, because they use the money to test drugs and drug testing kills animals. The others nodded in grim agreement. It was quite an anarchists dilemma. I didn't wait to be called on. "Hey," I said, "Maybe the kids are right. Maybe it isn't the most thrilling thing in the world to establish your identity from a disease you can catch. It's bad enough to label yourself based on where you stick your penis.. . . er. . . whatever you have to stick, but to base your self-image on a sickness is pretty lame." That got 'em mad, but they were too polite to yell. "Oh, he's just a bi-sexual," said one of the dressboys. "I hate bisexuals. They're all liars. They're just queers who don't have the balls to admit it." "I'm afraid that's not right" said another, "They're just straights who think it's fashionable and politically correct to say they're bi." Being neither Canadian nor an anarchist, I didn't wait to be called on to defend myself. "Why bother with labels at all?" I asked. "Why not just say that you like whoever you like, you want to do it with whoever you want to do it with, and that's it? Why CALL yourself something?" A guy sitting in the corner responded. "Well personally," he said, "I like the label ANDROGYNOUS. I feel that way I can express both parts of myself. . . " A person is androgynous if they could be either gender. Someone in the middle; like David Bowie in his prime or the people who go to THE CURE concerts. This guy needed a shave and showed lots of curly chest hairs. He was as androgynous as Hulk Hogan, but that was the label he picked. Jee-sus! The squatting girl raised her hand and called on herself to answer. "I LIKE being a lesbian!" she said, "I'm proud to be a lesbian. It gives me an identity, a way of reaching solidarity with my sisters. It carves me a place in the struggle." She adjusted her sitting position to give herself greater vocal effectiveness. She often spoke in italics. "MEN," she said, "especially STRAIGHT MEN are the enemy when I make myself a lesbian. They just don't understand. There was a womyn's workshop and some MAN wrote something obscene on the poster because it was WYMYN ONLY. Then I heard about this OTHER ASSHOLE who tried to bed down with the lesbians at Cathedral B. THEY just don't understand. We're LESBIANS and we need our space." Applause. I left. I did get to see a couple of good bands when I was there. I didn't get to the MDC, MR. T EXPERIENCE show. I saw NO MINDS, the fun all-girl FIFTH COLUMN, THE LAYABOUTS and FAIL SAFE. All these are really good Canuk bands, who might get to play in the U.S. if the Canadian parliament passes "The Free Trade Bill". FAIL SAFE, by the way, is the only punk band I've ever seen with a blind guitar player. He goes a long way toward proving my theory that cripples are generally better than "normal people." Oh yeah, this Free Trade Bill is a law introduced into the Canadian parliament that repeals the duty on goods crossing the U.S.-Canadian border. It would make U.S. records, books and other goods cheaper in Canada. It would also make Canadian goods more available in the U.S. (I could finally get that VILETONES single, for example.) What's really odd about this thing is that the lefties are against it. D.O.A. played a benefit to help defeat it. The pink-tinged labor party sang the Canadian national anthem in parliament as a protest against it's introduction. They said (with straight faces, presumably) that Canada would loose "it's national identity" if it were passed. Can you imagine all these lefty nationalists? These guys saying "my country first, and fuck freedom of access?" Can you imagine DOA wanting to make it hard for MDC to play in Canada? I wonder how many other Canadian anarchists are against free trade. Politics does make funny bedmates-- no? On the next to last day of festivities, there was the giant party in the park. If you weren't around in 1966, you didn't have to be. The Toronto @-people brought their own time machine. When I got there, a bunch of them beat on drums, oil kegs and who knows what else. Another barefoot crew was wildly dancing to the drumbeat, carried off to mental Grateful Dead land. There were boxes of green things and pita bread for those who wanted to eat. Off to one side, another bunch of folks discussed the next convention. It'll be in San Francisco. They also discussed the demonstration scheduled for the next day. The U.S. had shot down that plane, so they had a good excuse to riot. I didn't hang around for the discussion. I'd rather go shopping than rioting. Overhead, two blimps circled. One was from Goodyear, the other from a Canuk company called OV. These companies paid the bail bill for the anarchists in exchange for being allowed to advertise at the gathering. A stage was set up. An all girl band played and they invited lot's of people on stage to beat on things. The hot weather let people pull off their shirts. Couples were making out on the grass. Under a tree, Tom prepared his latest find for future drilling. Alex, the girl that Tad had introduced me to, came running up to me through the crowd. "Hey," she said, "when Tad introduced us, I didn't realize you were MYKEL BOARD." I smiled an "aw shucks" smile and kicked the dirt with the toe of my boot. Alex called to another girl. "Hey Collette," she said, "this is Mykel Board. LET'S GET HIM!" Before I knew what hit me, they tackled me. Alex pulled at my shirt. As I reached up to keep it on, Collette went for my belt. It was the second time in a year that I was to become an attempted rape survivor. When I let got of the T-shirt, Alex pulled it up over my head. Trying to keep my pants closed with one hand, I reached up to save my shirt with the other. It was too late. Alex took my arms and pulled them up over my head. She managed to pull the shirt completely off me while Collette fumbled at my waist. Then she sat on me. Collette grabbed my legs. By this time another girl, Becky, had joined the gang bang. I managed to roll over onto my stomach. While still fighting for my pants, I realized that Alex had gotten a marking pen from somewhere. The girls held me down. Alex used my back as a public billboard. "I support the struggle of oppressed wymyn everywhere," she wrote indelibly. Then they turned me over. Collette sat on my pelvis and Becky held my hands. Nearby, Bruce took movies and Mike G. smiled. So much for male solidarity. Alex drew two arrows on my chest, one pointing to each of my nipples. The base of the arrows came down to my stomach where she printed, "These are tits too!" "OK," I shouted, "you've had your fun. Now give me back my shirt." "Nope," said Alex, "you've got to walk around the whole city like that. It'll help you pay back some of the shit you've been doing for these past years." She stuffed the shirt in her pants' pocket and ran. Later at the festival, Tad managed to corner her and grab the shirt from her pocket. "I always wondered what it would be like to get into a girl's pants." he said. The victory was short lived, though. Alex soon stole it back and-- to my knowledge-- still has it. Was that it? Was that the end of my torture at the hands of sadistic anarchists? You bet it wasn't. I want back to the veggie house to get something to cover my upper body. The vegans were waiting for me. "Hey Mykel," they said, "come on out to the car. We want to show you something." I should've smelled a rotten turnip right then, but I was still stunned from my attack in the park. I walked out to the car. They took out the box of "instant Tofu-loaf mix." "Uh oh," I thought. I was right. Again I was tackled. Right there on some stranger's front yard. One of the veggies must've eaten a lot of spinach, because he weighed almost 200 pounds. It only took one of him to hold me down, while the Brit opened the box of Tofu mix. Sean squeezed my cheeks to force my mouth open. The stuff tasted like salted sand. I choked on it as it filled my mouth and spilled over into my hair, over my chest, in my ears. Meanwhile, the regular residents of the house were happily snapping away with their instamatics. Anything else? Oh yeah, there was a riot. They burned flags. The papers said, "We told you so." A bunch of people got arrested. Lot's of money was used for bail. I went to a Blue Jays game with Steve B & Al. The Blue Jays lost.