Zombie Logic

Halloween 1974 (Tiny Drawing Poem)

2012-01-28T18:43:00.000-08:00

I got my Halloween costume in 1974 from Ben Franklin's. It was indeed Batman. Adam West TV Batman. The font here was the hardest part because I wanted to use Batfont, which emulates the pows and biffs and sock-os from the show, but it didn't match the somber nature of the poem. We finally decided the Carbon Type typewriter font was the most appropriate.

My Top Ten Favorite Hot Wheels of All Time

2012-01-28T01:09:00.000-08:00

Hot Wheels first appeared in 1968. I first appeared in 1969. It's a safe bet I crashed my first Hot Wheel soon after. If I recall the incident clearly, the girl next door, named Jody, ran a stop sign and totaled my 1968 Fleetside. Orange in color. Girls, right? Here's where I say that pink Hot Wheels from the early years are some of the most valuable because the marketing department decided they didn't need to make very many because little girls would not play with them. Tell that to Jody next door who's pink Custom Volkswagon destroyed my first car.

1968 Fleetside

The first thing I can say about the original 16 Hot Wheels released in 1968 is that they are all favorites. I recently completed a full collection of the first year and I could spend a long, long time just collecting 1968 Hot Wheels. I love the Fleetside. Mine is orange. I'd love to have all the colors. By far the best year for Hot Wheels. They got it right the first time.

1968 Green Enamel VW

My personal favorite Hot Wheel that I have because the green enamel paint floors me, but it also reminds me of four years old. We lived in Freeport, Illinois, and my uncle Bill tried to sell us a Volkswagon Bug at one time. Even the full-sized car seemed like a toy to my young mind. Every morning we followed the postman, Charlie, to the end of the block where there was a box he emptied. Jody lived around the corner. She didn't actually wreck my Fleetside. I just made that part up.

1970 Paddy Wagon

The 1970 Paddy Wagon. Everything about this Hot Wheel just seems to come from a Saturday morning cartoon. How could a small boy (or girl) not love this whimsical creation?

1973 Alive 55

The Alive 55 is the re-release of 1970's Nomad. All of the Nomads from 1970 had white interiors, and for some reason I don't care for a white interior, but I love this piece. It reminds me of the Brady Bunch wagon even though it's nothing like that. 1973. The year my favorite movie, Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things was made, but i didn't know that for 12 more years.

1974 Police Cruiser

In 1974 my family moved across the river into Byron, Illinois, from the house we were renting from my uncle on Devil's Lane. Soon after I met a boy the same age as me, Brad. We were best friends for all the time I lived on River Road. Soon after we moved in they used the vacant field near the river to dump hundreds of heaps of dirt from excavating projects. Hundreds of small piles of dirt about five foot high. A paradise for five year old boys. Many Hot Wheels suffered I am ashamed to say, but can rest in Hot wheel heaven knowing they are fondly remembered. This particular car gives rise to a story I tell now for the first time, hoping the statute of limitations has lapsed. I love this car. Old 442. It's maybe my favorite of all. But in 1974 I didn't have one. But Brad did. So one afternoon I cleverly used a dime to remove all the paint from his police cruiser then took it home with me. let's just say he was not fooled the next time he saw it. Grand theft Hot Wheel.

1974 Rodger Dodger

Although I didn't have the Police Cruiser, I did have the Rodger Dodger. I called it the Donny Osmond-mobile. I don't know why I called it that, I guess maybe I saw Donny Osmond wearing something purple on the television. Or maybe I felt like if Donny Osmond were to drive a life-size Hot Wheel it would undoubtedly be the Rodger Dodger. What i know about this Hot Wheel is that it is the last one I remember having as I soon developed an interest in baseball and by age ten can't remember having Hot Wheels anymore. This one I sold at my grandmother's garage sale for the neat sum of fifty cents. When i finally earn enough money to reclaim one in that condition it will cost me a hundred times that amount.

1975 Ramblin' Wrecker

No Hot Wheel saw more action than the Ramblin Wrecker. It was a must have. Because no matter how crazy things got. No matter what mass carnage occurred in a day, the Ramblin Wrecker always showed up at the end of the day to make it right.

1976 Neet Streeter

The next three Hot Wheels are especially fond to me because I remember receiving them as Christmas presents. If memory serves, Christmas 1976 my brother Dan and I received the complete set of 1976 Hot Wheels and a crisp two dollar bill. There's nothing not to love about the Neet Streeter. It's all things Americana.

1976 Street Rodder

I seem to remember the Street Rodder was the star of the commercials at that time. If there were commercials, and I'm sure there were.

1977 '56 Hi Tail Hauler

And finally, the '56 Hi Tail Hauler. My grandfather had a similar truck in real life. I really adore this piece. It's probably the last of the great Hot Wheels. Probably the last significant redline.

When I set out to reclaim a part of my childhood by putting together a collection of Hot Wheels on Ebay I didn't know there was so much emotion invested in these little cars. There were times when I would see one and remember a story and literally start crying. Recently I was having a beer with one of my uncles and Hot Wheels came up and he said you probably don't remember this because you were too young, but your dad was mad for Hot Wheels. he used to buy miles of track and run them all over the house. And it would make sense: the person he was then is more than half my age as I write and younger. A boy.

My Top 10 Favorite Zombie Movies of All Time That Even Zombie Fans Might Not Have Seen

2012-01-26T22:10:00.000-08:00

My Top 10 Favorite Zombie Movies of All Time That Even Zombie Fans Might Not Have Seen

In the late 1980's when I started scouring the shelves of the local video stores for zombie movies the pickings were slim. And if the video store didn't have it, and if the Late Late Show wasn't running it, the only way to see it was rent or buy it from Facets Video, and that was very expensive. I can assure you zombies were not all the rage in those days. And if you were a fiend for this genre you often ended up trying to explain yourself to people who just couldn't understand what the fascination was. Now, over twenty-five years later, not only are zombies all the rage, there are hundreds of zombie movies to choose from. And you don't have to wait for them to arrive at your nearest video store. But this is a list from a previous era. A time when you did have to wait, and when you saw a new zombie title on the shelf it was a cause for celebration. These are ten of those movies. Not the ten best zombie movies of all time, but ten video store classics that I rented again and again in those days.

1) Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things. 1973. Not only is this my favorite zombie movie, but it's my favorite movie of all time. For reasons that are as much emotional as intellectual. I first saw it on Elvira's Movie Macabre season 5 episode 17 when I was sixteen years old. The next morning I remember a cross country meet where I was running through the woods. Everyone on the bus had seen the movie the night before and what is forgotten in the descriptions of this movie as campy is that it's a scary movie. The scene where they look out into the night and the female zombie is eating Paul floored everyone. It was what everyone was talking about. Now it's more years since I saw CSPWDT for the first time than it was years since the movie was first made when I saw it that first time. Twice as many years, in fact, if any of that makes sense.

"Satan: you tweeker of puppy dog tails... Hail!"

A couple more things to watch for in this movie. Notice in the beginning Alan pulls a shotgun out of his trunk of magical items, but when the shit hits the fan no one thinks to get the shotgun out again. That seems unlikely. Also, I want the viewer to contemplate when watching the movie whether it is Alan's Black Magic spell or Valerie's curse upon Satan that actually makes the dead rise from the grave. It's an interesting question concerning that the book of spells does apparently send the undead away temporarily, but if Val's curse called them from their graves why would Alan's counter spell be effective since it wouldn't have been his original spell that caused them to rise from the grave?

Also, I have an original movie poster from CSPWDT, which I had framed at great expense. When it was sent to me it was wrapped in a 1970's meat wrapper from a national food chain. Seemed appropriate.

2) Zombiethon. 1986. Ken Dixon. Okay, okay, before you propose I be drawn and quartered, let me explain this list is NOT a list of the top ten best zombie movies of all time, and as an executive decision I just decided the rankings are also irrelevant. I just saw Zombiethon on the list I had scrawled on my clipboard and wanted to talk about it. It's a clip show. A compilation of five zombie movies interspersed with original zombie shorts created by Ken Dixon. The shorts are actually the most original and entertaining aspect of this movie. This is a movie I found at Dollar Video, a store neatly tucked in behind the video arcade where I used to play Adam's Family pinball machine. Zombiethon was one of those big box movies. Who knows why some videos had enormous boxes. This one did. I won't tell you what the five, or is it six movies compiled are, because aside from one you'll never be able to find no matter how hard you look, the interstitial pieces are why you're going to watch this one over and over.

When is a really bad movie a really good movie? Zombie fans know the answer.

3) Shock Waves. 1977. Ken Wiederhorn. This one combines zombies and Nazis. But here's the twist... underwater Nazis. That come ashore to cause mayhem on an abandoned island with a huge resort. Why they didn't do it in any of the thirty years previous to the main characters becoming shipwrecked there is anyone's guess, but nonetheless, these two events coincide, and as a teenager I couldn't have been any happier that they did. peter Cushing is in it, and that's a good thing. Also, an eerie, abandoned location, ala Session 9, The Shining, Ghostkeeper, Humongous, Mansion of the Living Dead... is a character in itself.

The best of all the Nazi zombie movies? A bold claim. But possibly true.

4) Sugar Hill. 1974. Paul Maslansky. It's a blackspoitation film with zombies. And another desolate, eerie location. Seems to be a theme with me. This is one of those voodoo, revenge zombie movies. So far we have zombies created by Black Magic, wartime experiments on soldiers, now voodoo. I have another one later with a great zombie creating plot, but you'll have to wait for that. You're going to like this movie. Baron Samedi is in it. And some good swamps.

Where are all the white women? The Baron himself.

5) Messiah of Evil. 1973. William Huyck I IMDB'd to see if the director made any other movies so you can get an idea if he accidentally made something intentionally off center or if the whole thing was a mistake. No mistake here. Another very eerie movie, beautifully shot, with some magnificent scenes. One that gets a great deal of play on my DVD player, when I have one. One of the great mispronounciations of the composer Richard Wagner's name occurs in this movie, and is purported to be just a straight read of the script, not an intentional gaffe.

A nice nuance to this movie is that the artwork is really something.

6) Tombs of the Blind Dead. 1972. Amando de Ossorio. I used to joke that all I ever knew about the Knights Templar I learned from Tombs of the Blind Dead. Of course I used to do the joke before that book came out so hardly anyone ever knew what the hell I was talking about. Even after the six thousand books over the past decade I still consider this the definitive document on the Knights Templar. It's the first of the Blind Dead series, and the best one, for my money. I'm a fan of the dry look with zombies, so I appreciate these bone-faced undead. I once composed a soundtrack to accompany the movie but it only had the words "Tombs of the blind dead" repeated over and over. I had meant at one point to contact de ossorio to see if he wanted to use that should he ever re-release the movie, but I moved on to other things.

The dry look. No Karo syrup for these august gentlemen.

7) Mansion of the Living Dead. 1985. Jesus Franco. This is a bad movie and it's a stupid movie, but it has one of my favorite horror-inducing devices in the entire world... a desolate place. Even schlockster Jesus Franco can't mess up a location like this. He tries, with cheap sexual exploits, a really stupid plot, and not much to distinguish this from any of his other movies. But it's a Mansion of the Living Dead, and by mansion we of course mean abandoned resort. And if you're in an abandoned resort about to be attacked by the corpses of Conquistadors, or Conquistador Priests, or whatever the hell is happening here, I'm there with you in Rockland, Carl Solomon.

They're dead AND they're Catholic. they're all messed up.

8) Let Sleeping Corpses Lie. 1974. Jorge Grau. back to interesting ways in which the dead are coaxed to tear themselves from the Earth and seek human flesh. Sound. I said it. Sound. There's a sound device the British government is using in the countryside to control pests. You know the rest, but it's one of the more interesting setups. A setup that has a pretty damn good payoff and a hugely entertaining cemetery scene. Near the end of this movie is one of the more entertaining out of the blue lines from a character that might have been part of the plot at one time but now is so non-sequitur it's funny. I'll let you figure out what that is, but this is a very good and well-shot movie.

"I'm mad for apples." Sorry

9) The Dead Hate the Living. 2000. Dave Parker. I was surprised when i just looked that this one was rated so low on IMDB. It's not a classic movie, to be sure, but it's better than the rating it gets there. And I like it for the abandoned hospital motif, and the colors. I could do without all the clever, self-referential noise, but I guess some writers want other people to know that they know something. You'll probably like this one.

But we all hate Carrot Top, and that's the important thing.

10) Pontypool. 2008. Bruce McDonald. I wanted some variety on the list, and maybe one new movie, and this one fits the bill. At first you'll probably react the same way I did, wondering why this guy who doesn't look like he should be in a movie at all, is in a movie. But you'll soon forgive that, and that it's set in Canada. It contains another unique method of zombie generation: the spoken word. The spoken word as a contagion that causes people to go bazonga. A good and interesting movie that takes a different path and succeeds.

What the fuck do you mean I look like a fifth rate Lance Henricksen? I'm starring in this movie, bitches.

There are a handful of other movies that easily could have made this list, and I deliberately decided to not include more popular movies. This isn't a remedial list of the top ten movies of all time, nor is it a micro-examination of movies too obscure for the reader to probably enjoy. Just a list of pretty good zombie movies that are second-tier.

Amongst some of those other honorable mentions I might list Hard Rock Zombies, Fido, Revenge of the Dead, City of the Walking Dead and revolt of the Zombies.

Not an exhaustive list, and if I had written it yesterday or tomorrow it would contain different movies. Please add to it.

Shingetsu (Tiny Drawing poem)

2012-01-26T13:26:00.000-08:00

Some afternoons there's more afternoon than things to do, so my mind wanders. On occasion I'll fall into a rabbit hole and end up somewhere I never expected. The afternoon I discovered the music of Japanese progressive rock band Shingetsu was such an afternoon. It began quite innocently. One thing I like to do is give another look at something I feel I may have overlooked, or dismissed without a fair trying out. Progressive Rock is one of those things. So, I started what became an afternoon long excursion into the heart of prog rock by listening to "In the Court of the Crimson King" by King Crimson. A natural entre into the early 70's world of prog rock, and one I enjoyed quite a bit. But the thing about You Tube is it branches out and you end up in places you might never have expected . This happened to me. By nightfall I had learned every country has it's own Prog Rock band. Shingetsu is Japan's.

Perceptive readers will surely note the figure in the Tiny Drawing is not playing a gong at all, but a drum. very true. Because the Tiny Drawing is inspired by a performance of Houston's Japanese drum ensemble, Kaminari Taiko. Tiny Drawings and Tiny Drawing Poems cannot occur simultaneously any more than two subatomic particles can occupy the same space at the same time. But after I wrote my tribute to Shingetsu I remembered the Tiny Drawing from the performance.

The font is Atomic Sushi, not because I did an exhaustive search and Atomic Sushi was the most appropriate font, but because once I saw the words Atomic Sushi the search ended. as always please feel free to share Tiny Drawing Poems and if you're interested in purchasing a Tiny Drawing you can do so Tiny Drawings but probably not an original because only I have those.

Roller Girl (Tiny Drawing Poem)

2012-01-23T16:30:00.000-08:00

In 2005 the paperwork to start the Rockford Rage flat track roller derby league was signed in the ladies room of Castaways, the dive bar my brother and I owned at the time. For the first year while the league was going through the growing pains of learning how to find a venue for the bouts, recruit fresh meats and dot the i's and cross the t's or filing the legal and financial paperwork needed to field a professional sports league, Castaways was the home of the Rockford Rage. It was every bit of drama and chaos you would expect. And almost no one thought it would work. Until 1,500 people showed up to see one of the first bouts.

One of the early challenges of women's flat track roller derby was overcoming the stereotypes that it was the same roller derby people had seen in old footage, or the glamorized, phony version that had been shown on television only a year previously. This was flat track roller derby, and these women were really hitting and blocking and elbowing each other. For the first few weeks they practiced on an asphalt parking lot. These women were tough. And great athletes. They broke legs and fingers and arms and came back to play again

Anyway, this isn't meant to be an exhaustive history of women's flat track roller derby in Rockford, Illinois, just a short backdrop to this Tiny Drawing Poem. My co-creator happens to have been one of those original Roller Girls. This is her drawing and the poem I set to it. The font is AR Delaney. It seemed to convey the boldness apropriate for such a subject.

Women's Flat Track Roller Derby

The Fourteenth Way of Looking at a Blackbird (A Tiny Drawing Poem)

2012-01-21T13:55:00.000-08:00

In 2011 several thousand blackbirds mysteriously fell from the sky in Arkansas. Prompting a storm of conspiracy theories concerning everything from weather modification to tests of electromagnetic pulse weapons. My suspicions of something nefarious being afoot were allayed soon after by hearing several credible ornithologists state that it's not a particularly uncommon phenomenon. It happens several times every year all over the globe.

Last week the Baltimore Ravens beat the Houston Texans to advance to the AFC Championship game. One more win and they will advance to the Super Bowl. The team is named for the creation of a poet, but I doubt many of the hardcore football fans know that. Still, something about that tickles my sensibilities.

There is no real difference between a crow, a raven, and a blackbird. Only size.

Earlier this week a mysterious figure who showed up every year at Poe's grave to make a toast to the writer failed to show up for the third straight year.

I wrote this Haiku when I heard the news story about the blackbirds of Arkansas. The font is, of course, a Gothic font called Uberholme. And as all readers of poetry know, the inspiration for the poem is Wallace Steven's poem Thirteen Ways of Looking At a Blackbird. Here's what I did with a Tiny Drawing I remember Jenny had drawn earlier in the year...

And here is what a master of poetry did with the subject

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

Wallace Stevens

Among twenty snowy mountains,

The only moving thing

Was the eye of the blackbird.

I was of three minds,

Like a tree

In which there are three blackbirds.

III

The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.

It was a small part of the pantomime.

A man and a woman

Are one.

A man and a woman and a blackbird

Are one.

I do not know which to prefer,

The beauty of inflections

Or the beauty of innuendoes,

The blackbird whistling

Or just after.

Icicles filled the long window

With barbaric glass.

The shadow of the blackbird

Crossed it, to and fro.

The mood

Traced in the shadow

An indecipherable cause.

VII

O thin men of Haddam,

Why do you imagine golden birds?

Do you not see how the blackbird

Walks around the feet

Of the women about you?

VIII

I know noble accents

And lucid, inescapable rhythms;

But I know, too,

That the blackbird is involved

In what I know.

When the blackbird flew out of sight,

It marked the edge

Of one of many circles.

At the sight of blackbirds

Flying in a green light,

Even the bawds of euphony

Would cry out sharply.

He rode over Connecticut

In a glass coach.

Once, a fear pierced him,

In that he mistook

The shadow of his equipage

For blackbirds.

XII

The river is moving.

The blackbird must be flying.

XIII

It was evening all afternoon.

It was snowing

And it was going to snow.

The blackbird sat

In the cedar-limbs.

The Perfect Crime (A Tiny Drawing Poem)

2012-01-20T16:33:00.000-08:00

This is the poem I worked on today to accompany a Tiny Drawing by artist Jenny Mathews. The challenge here was that not only is this a Tiny Drawing, it is the tiniest of the Tiny Drawings. That flower is smaller than the head of a thumbtack, so every time I tried to use a font the text looked enormous. Finally I chose the Gabriola font. Also, I know it's against the unwritten rules to discuss a poem, but this particular Tiny Drawing is very atypical of the type of detail this artist puts into a drawing. I know this was done intentionally so I chose this drawing and coupled it with a poem I consider understated and minimalist. It's a scene I actually witnessed from my window overlooking one of the busiest intersections in my city. The Midway is a real old time theater on the next block. I like this. I want to try and make one of these every day, pairing a Tiny Drawing with a poem, using a different font for each one. Please feel free to share this if you like it. You can also see the entire gallery of Tiny Drawings at Tiny Drawings

Why I De-Activated My Facebook Account and Covet a Freudian Couch

2012-01-19T19:13:00.000-08:00

Last night at midnight I de-activated my Facebook account.

I had to. It was ruining my ability to write.

These first two sentences are a perfect example of what I mean. I have literally started writing in status updates.

Which is fine for Shecky Green, or anyone who's life's ambition is to deliver one-liners in the Catskills.

However, at the age of 42 I still dream of being a poet when I grow up.

Hopefully, as I ween myself from the habit of encapsulating of summing up an experience in 120 characters or less I'll regain the ability I once had to just keep writing until I felt what I wanted to say had been said.

Today I started working on a project of combining my poems with Jenny Mathew's Tiny Drawings. This is the first one I finished.

Submerged Structure: A Poetic Memoir of Schizoid Personality Disorder

2012-01-07T17:58:00.000-08:00

Because I doubt any interviewer will ever ask me this question, I will pose the question of myself. What does the title of your new book of poetry, Submerged Structure, mean?

The title refers to Schizoid Personality Disorder, which I was diagnosed with at the age of sixteen. It has become a rather rare and archaic diagnosis these days, but the most common symptoms are

Neither desires nor enjoys close relationships, including being part of a family
Almost always chooses solitary activities
Has little, if any, interest in having sexual experiences with another person
Takes pleasure in few, if any, activities
Lacks close friends or confidants other than first-degree relatives
Appears indifferent to the praise or criticism of others
Shows emotional coldness, detachment, or flattened affectivity

Although impediments to a career in sales to be sure, probably not so much a "career" in poetry. In as much as anyone besides Dr. Maya Angelou can be said to have a career in poetry in the modern world.

It's a disorder that involves something missing. But it's a paradoxical disorder because it's a disorder about something missing that the sufferer doesn't miss. Or doesn't know that they miss. At least emotionally.

There's a road sign, or was as of three years ago when the picture on the cover of the book was taken, between Byron and Oregon Illinois. The sign reads Submerged Structure, warning those who might be tempted to dive in to the water of the Rock River that something unseen is resident beneath the murky water. I grew up driving past that sign quite frequently, and each time I passed it the words seemed to become more and more personal to me. I would often wonder how many signs like this in the entire world there were. Not many I concluded. Maybe not even any. Maybe it's the only one in the entire world.

What lurks beneath the water there? I've never known. But to me it seemed like a perfect metaphor for those of us who suffer from Schizoid Personality Disorder. Except in our case there's no sign we can plant in the ground to warn others. Even if there were it would be virtually impossible to explain that some part of us has broken off and submerged deep inside our psyche, and is either just gone or nearly impossible to get to.

Nearly impossible.

And that's the conflict. That's one of the ongoing challenges of my life. To find ways to be with other people. To reclaim what has been submerged, to bring it to the surface, and to keep it from sinking again.

That's what the title means and by and large that's what many of the poems are about. About all the ways and all the situations in which I tried to drag myself to the surface, either successfully or unsuccessfully.

Thank you for asking.

You can find out more about me at

Zombie Logic Press

Richard Wilbur and the Impossibility of Xeno's Paradox Fixing My Hard Drive

2011-12-16T18:38:00.000-08:00

Writing for children is hard. The same way something as simple as just speaking in English is hard when they're around. Because, normally, we don't. We make a futile effort to explain something we never understood in the first place, get frustrated, then choke back the sudden, overwhelming desire to challenge the Guinness World record for amount of expletives strung together in a single sentence. Then there's the guilt of those eyes disapprovingly judging you like a puppy, grown gunshy of the New York Times for its tendency to cause bodily harm, who sees you peeing into a magic vessel and seems to be wondering aloud "What the fuck kind of cruel operation are you running here, Mister?"

I'm enjoying the process, but missing mightily the ability to just go off on a vulgarity-laced, solipsistic rant about how bad decisions and bad behavior have impeded my ability to join the ranks of middle management and buy a Volvo, and call it poetry. Fucking kids.

In Medieval times to stretch
A man was called wracking

In modern times to add useless
Words to a line is called adjective stacking

I don't know which is worse,
Stretching a man till he yelps
Or stretching a verse
Though I'm sure neither helps

But superfluosity in both cruelty
And verse make me snore
So, in all things unwanted
Remember less is more

Why Write a Book When You Can Fuck a Sylph

2011-12-16T18:15:00.000-08:00

People used to say "I could write a book." People used to say that because in almost every case where someone said that they couldn't write a book. What they were really trying to say is, "I'm an interesting person. I've seen interesting things. My life is special and unique and fascinating."

A secondary implication of the above statement is that books were something special and it wasn't a simple process to write one. Or have one published. A great effort and expense was involved from more than just the person who believed that they were unique and special and fascinating. For the great majority of time that has passed here on planet Earth almost everyone on the surface knew they were neither interesting, unique, or special, and mercifully had no desire to inflict the delusion that they were upon others.

Until recently.

Modern technology has seemingly instilled in virtually everyone on the planet a simultaneous conviction that they indeed can write a book. And in addition to that small feat, are capable of great works of art, towering symphonic composition, and blisteringly insightful social and political commentary. On a lunch break.

The problem is that there are no more or less people capable of these kinds of artistic achievements than there were in 347 BCE, 1187 CE, or 1978. What has changed is the technology that allows them to generate content, then post that content with almost no effort, cost, or technical expertise. Don't know how to paint? Doesn't matter. Not a graphic artist? No problem. Never heard of an offset press? No worries. The technology will now do the work of the work for you. All those nasty distractions that once kept people who were assured of their brilliance despite never having bothered to study the discipline they considered themselves brilliant in, like form, technique, experience, well, those impossibly archaic barriers to exposing your greatness to the world no longer exist.

So, in addition to not being good at your day job at the milk processing plant, you can also not be good at countless other avocations. Filmmaking, graphic design, even poetry. Well, fortunately still no one wants to be a poet, but....

And for the would-be artist who has everything but talent... a blog. Your own world. There are seven interesting blogs in the entire Universe. The trouble is there are a billion blogs in the world. Those other 999, 999,992 blogs are the people who used to say "I could write a book." But now they also say (with a straight face) "I'm an artist, a web designer, a bloggist and in my spare time I knit."

Even as I write I fall prey to one of the points I wanted to make, if only to myself. The generation of content does not an artist make. Artistry does. And it's sadly lacking. The technology is part of the problem. What once was a novel became a blog then a status update on Facebook and is now restricted to 140 characters on Twitter. One of the founders of Surrealism, Andre Breton once wrote something like "Everyone a poet." Little did he know, when finally given the chance, almost no one was a poet, or even wanted to be.

But why write a book when you can fuck a Sylph.

Shingetsu: A Reductionist Poem In Five Linked Haikus

2011-12-15T19:46:00.000-08:00

Five Linked Haikus For Japanese Progressive
Rock Band Shingetsu

I am too wise for
The University, this
Is why I play gong

In the Japanese
Prog rock band, Shingetsu, we
Are wise beyond time

In the Japanese
Prog rock band, Shingetsu, we
All play gong, for

We are all too wise
For the wave, so inland we
Wait with gentle maids

For the wind to braid
Our wisened locks, then all
At once we gong

Haiku

2011-06-21T18:01:00.000-07:00

Working in the haiku form is sobering. For reasons beyond the august tradition of the form. There's an implicit challenge to saying something in 17 syllables.

Haiku

Winter, my love, does
Slowing the bear's mighty heart
Make you less lonely?

I hope I have.

Poem Photos

2011-06-02T18:01:00.000-07:00

There were Greek philosophers who surmised the world was made from mud, or fire, or a combination of elements, or even numbers or some underlying logos. These were all attempts to condense the totality of human experience into a convenient granule that explains it all. It's what modern Physics is trying to do. But as a poet none of this really concerns me as much as the ways in which we attempt to explain the experience we share on an everyday basis. For me this experience is primarily processed in words. I see words maybe in a different way than others. Maybe that isn't true, maybe I just pay more attention. For a brief period last summer I saw a few different examples of how words seemed to leap out of a container that was created to contain them. In my estimation these were words that existed outside of the context in which they were bound. So I pulled the words out and combined them with other words to create Poem Photos. It's all a long, long-winded way of saying words are all around us and often used with unintended consequences, or at least they evoke responses that were not intended by their creator. Here are some...

The photo was sort of hard to get at the angle, but the reader might be curious to know this picture was taken in the summer of 2010 and this sign still sits there. I wonder if anyone sees it the way I do. Want to see another one?

That one didn't blow up so well, but you get the idea. Even a can of asparagus says things to us. Here's the third of four.

The place where I live was recently found to be the ninth most dangerous city in America. Money Magazine used to find us the worst city in America on a yearly basis, which places any sort of promotional campaign the Chamber of Commerce concocts in a suspicious light. Certainly gaffs like this aren't helping, but they do provide for some unintended laughter at the expense of the already downtrodden.

The fourth Poem Photo isn't done yet. It involves a generic bag you get at many local stored that simply says "Thank you" on it. The delay in the Poem Photo is largely that I need to combine the bag with a photo a curvaceous woman's ass and I'm not about to put out a casting call for that.

Thank you for coming by and looking at Poem Photos by Thomas L. Vaultonburg.

Things I Like 2: Tiny Drawings

2011-06-01T17:35:00.001-07:00

I like the Tiny Drawings of Houston artist Jenny Mathews. I was shocked when I saw them in real life that anyone could get that much detail in such a small drawing. Drawings of everything from wine bottles to Cloud Giants to stately mansions. Each one a little Universe.

Tiny Drawing Gallery

Zombie Logic Solves Oldest Problem In the World

2011-05-30T15:34:00.000-07:00

Short and sweet on this one because I don't have time to trifle with you people. I have solved the problem of the Holy Land. And Yahoo News helped me. Here's the link to the story that led to my solving of the world's oldest problem. Read it, don't read it, stick it up your ass, I really don't care.

The Holy Land

I know you're too lazy to read the story, and I was, too, but I think it says there is a whole 2,000 year old city under the city of Jerusalem. Of course the Jews claim this proves they were there the whole time. The Muslims and the Palestinians dismiss this out of hand, of course, and still think they are the rightful inheritors of Jerusalem.

Wait a minute, guys, Zombie Logic has a blockbuster solution to your problems. And here it is...

Three levels of Jerusalem. Underground Jerusalem, above ground Jerusalem, AND aerial Jerusalem.

Now don't get all worked up about being below ground Jerusalem, my Palestinian friends, first consider the advantages. It's cooler down there. Umm, well that's about it, but it's something. Oh, this comes to mind. It's easier to undermine people if you are actually under them, and since we know there is no solution that will satisfy you aside from the absolute annihilation of all Jews from this planet, being under them literally will give you ample opportunity to do this.

Above ground Jerusalem will be left to the Jews. I just drew lots out of centurion's sandal, trust me. Where they also will be free to plot the destruction of whomsoever they choose. I wonder who that will be.

Now, aerial Jerusalem calls for an ambitious construction project. And that's a good thing because jobs, you know. But once completed aerial Jerusalem will be occupied by the Muslims. I'm sure they'll be appreciative and immediately desist from being jerkoffs.

In this plan, and feel free to go ahead and steal my work, all three cultures will simultaneously occupy Jerusalem.

What the hell is wrong with you people that you can't come up with simple solutions to complex problems the way I can?

Is That For Real

2011-05-29T18:21:00.001-07:00

I thought about it quite extensively today. Since I intend to only write once a day, what was it I thought was worth writing about. Attention whores getting arrested for dancing at the Jefferson Memorial? Meh. No, nothing really seemed all that fired-up important.

So, occasionally, I've decided to just write about things I like. Before we go any farther, here's the link to the thing I'm going to tell you why I like today.

Peopel Blog

It's the Peopel Blog. By Jesus Correa. Jesus Correa is one of those people you meet in a lifetime where everyone who meets him immediately asks the same question: is that real?

Yes, it's real. Why wouldn't it be? Sure, he has about 1% showman in him, but about 99% of it is just real, weird, genius.

Mostly he's not a blogger. He does paintings and comedy and musics and will occasionally run for mayor of a mid-sized American city for no particular reason. Or maybe he does have a reason. I don't know. I've been lucky enough to share the stage with him, or I was, until he had to pee, then he wasn't on the stage any more.

Places like this need peopel like him. He's one of the very, very few artists I've met who if you dropped him off in the most fashionable art district in New York, Los Angeles, or Paris, would just fit there.

He may never leave this place. I have doubts that he will. And that's sort of a shame.

That's about it. I have other things I like and I'll tell you about some of them, too, on occasion. Tell your mama, telegraph, telephone, tell a woman, I really don't give a fuck anymore.

How I Let Facebook Nearly Ruin My Writing

2011-05-28T19:10:00.001-07:00

By the time I was 18 I had written 1200 poems. One day I took all those poems and threw them off a bridge and watched them float down the river.

I think that was probably the day I became a writer.

I think it's important for me to throw Facebook into the river.

Lately I've found myself accepting simple grammatical errors I make in status updates and my responses to other's status updates. My justification is that it's only an ephemeral statement on a social networking site and not of any consequence.

Really?

If it's not important enough to take the time to second check for simple spelling errors, then how important could it be in the first place?

I'm a writer. These things have to be important to me. More important than blurting out whatever is on my mind unfiltered, the second I think it. When I first starting writing there was no method that would have allowed me to make my words available to other people the instant after I wrote them. And that's a good thing because 99% of what i think and write is pure shit and doesn't need to be seen by anyone. The other 1% is what makes me a writer.

But imagine a world where all of that 99% of garbage out there no longer exists. Those things that weren't well thought out or well said. That never needed to be said. Imagine doing a Google search and finding links to information that was useful. I'm going to do my part by simply shutting up. No one was listening anyway, and if they were it was the same people over and over and they never needed me to point out this is a dumb world with dumb people in it in the first place.

They don't need me, but I need me. I need me to write better. I need me to not let the ease of socially media-fied communication ruin my writing. I need me to finish a thought. To sit here and look at the cursor blink for ten minutes if need be before I tap the keys again.

There is no audience here. There may never be an audience here. And that may be exactly what I need as a writer, as a thinker, as a human being to regain what it is I've lost in the social media.

What will I write now that no one is looking? I'm not sure. Maybe politics, maybe poetry, maybe just my bland observations about people I see wandering the streets.

Who knows?

Seven of the Ten Poems Thomas L Vaultonburg Promised To Write On May 27, 20111

2011-05-28T00:39:00.001-07:00

A Poem I Also Title "The Donner Party"

After an Evening of Reading Richard

Brautigan's Poetry

"What's for dinner?"

"You."

"No, I meant what's

For breakfast."

Avocation

since you never

had time

to behold

this particular

downspout

I went ahead

and did it

for you.

Be Careful

Closing the door

Behind you

The words

You longed for

All night

Ricocheted off the wall

And fell

In a dusty corner

Where thay can

Do no harm.

Day 12,562

The Cleveland Indians

Played well into the night

Against the Texas Rangers.

My game was cancelled.

Escalator

The old regard the

Escalator's efforts

With disdain.

No one meets them

At the top.

I'm Not

writing the poem

titled

"personae vitae"

no one

wanted it.

Jack

He wants to fly

To Jupiter

He starts by crashing

To Earth

Now he's

Got it.

Oprah Winfrey's Pussy

2011-04-29T21:49:00.000-07:00

I am now a painter as well as a poet, actor, and America's First and Only Zombie(Z) Party candidate. I painted Oprah Winfrey's Pussy. It took a lot of paint. Want to see Oprah's Pussy? I didn't, but I am the only person on Earth who has. And it looked like this...

Other Pussies, Cocks and Toejams

The Gifted Program

2011-04-23T22:15:00.000-07:00

The Gifted Program at Byron

Elementary School

Was two isolated makehift cubicles

Shoved into one corner

Under a map of Antarctica where me

And Michael Robinson

Studied humanity

Antarctica is the place where

Special people go,

Ms. Stieglitz said

We spent the year alternately

Being President, Vice President

Ulitimately declaring anarchy

Though the mordent precision

Of our isolated obrbit

Assured nothing would ever be

Out of place

They fed us Animal Farm,

Rice crispy treats,

All the loneliness the "special"

Amongst us deserve as they learned

To make more and more elaborate

Dunce caps out of papier mache

You designed something I can't

Even pronounce, died last week

Maybe you've gone back to Antarctica

I hear they need an Ambassador

Swishbucklers

2011-04-23T22:11:00.000-07:00

Swishbuckler is the World's First and Only Gay Pirate Dating Site.

Time Traveling Penis, Episode 1

2011-04-03T21:33:00.000-07:00

I wanted to write a blog, but I don't seem to have the energy for that. It's not that there's nothing going on, it's that EVERYTHING seems to be going on. And not just for me, for everyone. Fortunately I have a very extensive backlog of content to fall back upon. So I'll offer you instead of original content, episode one of Time Traveling Penis.

Papers

2010-05-14T16:41:00.000-07:00

Death Will Become You, and Me, Too

2010-02-15T18:38:00.000-08:00

It has come to my attention that the delicate, and oh so conscientious, sensibilities of millions of Americans were offended this week when they were "forced" to watch the gruesome death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili during the opening ceremonies Friday.

My bullshit hand just went into epileptic seizures.

Is this the same audience of Americans that has fetishized stylized depictions of death to the point of absurdity (CSI: Insert city here)? I very rarely turn on a television, except during football season, and unless I'm seeing different commercials than everyone else on the planet, a whole lot of Americans love to see depictions of other human beings being tortured and suffering and dying in grotesque ways.

I haven't heard a whole lot of complaint about that lately.

And am I mistaken, or is our country engaged in at least two wars (that we know about) that require our fellow citizens to both kill and sometimes be killed by people that don't like us?

Yes, I'm certain I saw a movie about that on the American Idol network.

Are we also the same society that in a very real way decides who lives and who dies in impoverished regions of the world by either offering food, medicine and monetary aid, or withholding it? A society where two-thirds of us support the death penalty? A society that just can't seem to see enough violent and cruel depictions of psychopaths torturing and maiming our fellow humans (Saw 1-infinity, Hostel etc)?

But when a man died last week defying death and his particular case of failing to defy death was shown to America millions of Americans were outraged.

Which shocks me because I'm surprised anyone in this dumbed-down, numbed-up dystopic nightmare of a society can feel anything at all, let alone outrage.

But maybe I'm on to something.

Bullshit hand twitching again.

Maybe they didn't feel anything. Maybe they're feigning outrage. Maybe they saw something they thought should elicit some emotion in them, but not knowing what it was, instead of plumbing the depths of their humanity to figure out what it was, just turned their anger outwards at whoever it was that "forced" them to be victimized by this atrocity.

I think what people are actually angry about is the uninvited intrusion into the daydream that the corporacracy has drilled into their brain. The warm cocoon of ignorance and pre-packaged distractions that never allows in reality. What they're outraged about is feeling at all. Human emotion is so rare these days they don't even know how to define it. So they call it outrage.

You're not outraged.

You're not capable of it.

You want to pick and choose what offends you in a world where the most heinous and unimaginable atrocities are occurring at this very moment to innocent people. You want to hide behind your brain-stealing television monitor, probably watching some glorified story about the unimaginable death of some human being, and tell me you're offended.

I'm offended.

We need more death. More realistic depictions of death and disease and poverty and starvation and the awful conditions that plague most of the humans alive on this planet right now.

We need, and deserve, the right to see OUR soldiers after they've been killed in what they believe is a defense of our way of life. How dare you minimize their sacrifice by refusing to look. What's beneath that flag is what you should be honoring, not the symbol.

But we're not looking anymore. And the media isn't going to make us look. So, we have this Pollyanna attitude that if we keep our noses buried in the ass of this corrupt and bloated reach-around we call America, death will just pass us by.

A man died. A man who was engaged in a death-defying sport. It was a sad death. Wasn't tragic. Tragic is reserved for the noble and the innocent who didn't court it, deserve it, or see it coming. None of our deaths will be tragic, because almost none of our lives are epic. Live with it.

But you're not outraged.

How dare you.

I Haiti Your Guts

2010-02-04T15:10:00.001-08:00

There is no God. We all know this. We all know about my infamous blogs denouncing the Catholic Church. We all know at best I dislike Christianity.

So, why am I about to defend a cabal of evil Christians who were trying to steal a bunch of Haitian children and condemn them to lives of misery beyond anything they could have imagined in Haiti?

Short and simple: as those Christians were spiriting those children out the front door to whisk them away to an awful life of video games, Stryper concerts and Bible Camp, I'll guaranfuckingtee you another group was sneaking kids out the back to sell them into lives a sick fuck like Michael Jackson would build an amusement park in honor of.

The Christians were wrong. Wrong because they didn't pay off the right people. This story has nothing to do with children or their welfare, it has to do with the one true God... MONEY. The Christians didn't pay off the right people. Anyone knows if you want a bunch of nubile, Haitian children you go through the proper channels, you pay the proper bribes, then you can do whatever you want with those children.

What you don't do is disrespect the local slave trafficking officials by simply snatching the children and running.

And the outrage. Everyone is outraged.

Fuck ya'all. Where was your outrage last month, last year, last decade? Next week after the press moves on and everyone forgets about this issue they'll still be selling those children in Haiti, Thailand, Africa, Chicago, Detroit, New York City, your hometown.

Oh, did I go and do the unforgivable and suggest maybe YOU might have some sort of complicity in another crime against humanity so heinous and so subhuman that you might have to sit down, turn off American Idol, and wonder just what the hell you're real value as a decent human being is?

Poorly constructed sentences aside, we sure do love to pick out some person or some group and blame them for an entire problem, then smugly kick the shit out of them, then promptly take our outrage and file it away until the next time the press gets us worked into a lather.

These Christians were wrong. They didn't follow the proper channels. And that is foolish because they have the money and the connections to do it the right way. But in a landscape where almost no one is even trying to do the right thing. Women are being raped and children snatched up and sold to whoever has a pack of smokes, are these people the wrongest?

No.

We all are. Because we don't really care. Do we? We just want someone to kick the shit out of so we feel better about not really doing a damn thing ourselves. Really, we just want to be in control. We want to believe we decide who is the bad guy and who is the not so bad guy.

We're all the bad guy.

Live with it.

Tigress

2010-01-31T14:51:00.000-08:00

Haiku

when a wise man meets

Tigress in the jungle, he

says, thank you, my love

JD Salinger, An Asshole, Has Died. So What?

2010-01-29T16:41:00.000-08:00

So, JD Salinger is dead.

I guess my initial response to that was, so what?

But my more considered and enduring response is something like, maybe that's not such a bad thing. He'll stay dead, and he can't die again or any more than he did, but in terms of raw humanity I think the Universe might have just become a slightly better place.

We have this tendency in America to worship people who succeed. As Raider's owner Al Davis used to say, "Just win, baby." He still says it, but when he does applesauce tends to ooze from his mouth and his Swedish nurse says, "There, there, Al, the Raiders have moved to San Diego." She knows it's not true, but it's one of those lies meant to alleviate suffereing.

Unlike JD Salinger, who really didn't do very much to alleviate the suffering of those around him. In fact, like Robert Frost or Charles M. Shulz, he was the cause of much of that suffering.

But he wrote a book about people being phony and hypocritical.

God, what an insight.

Life, and good art, in MY opinion, is about what you do AFTER you come to that rather simpllistic conclusion that all is phony and false.

I read Catcher In the Rye. It's a good book. But in terms of message or influence it's on my list right after the movie Used Cars and that Leave It To Beaver episode about telling the truth.

Salinger was a misguided person. By all accounts he made those around him suffer. He didn't care much for humanity and didn't show very much respect for those who sought him out to share his "wisdom."

So, I pretty much say the same thing I would to any old man who died after a lifetime of not contributing much to the lives' of others... take a fuckin' hike.

Having talent doesn't entitle you to be cold, cruel and dismissive of others. Empathy IS a talent. The people I respect the most aren't the ones who can throw a baseball or turn a phrase cleverly, it's the ones who have no discernable gift except caring about other people. You didn't have it, JD Salinger, and you have not earned my respect.

But the rest of you can go and lick that ass if you want.

Thomas L. Vaultonburg

2010-01-26T19:07:00.001-08:00

Thomas L. Vaultonburg says tsk tsk to those of you out there who are stealing his intellectual property. I created Zombie Logic, Zombielogic and Zombie Logic Press over two decades ago and I don't appreciate having my work stolen. Do the right thing and quit passing my work off as your own. Zombie Logic Press

First Annual Spooktacular Poetry Blog

2009-10-29T15:55:00.000-07:00

Vampyre

Who's vein will my fetid fang
Flay this night and let flow
The scarlet scroll that feeds
My perfidious thirst?

What trick in my trove
Or treat of the flesh
Will she trade for
That hearbeat brief
Flight into fancy
And aeon's Fall
Into damnation?

Zombie

with your brains
in my brawn
we're unstoppable

Wolfman

being a Wolfman is
tear tear tear
terrific.

Ed McMahon

2009-10-12T19:57:00.000-07:00

Whiskey Spills, Bad Lovers, and Celebrity
Deaths Come In Threes

"You know Johnny fucked
Farrah Fawcett when she
Was still on Charlies' Angels,"
Says celebrity sidekick Ed
McMahon from behind a Scotch
Too cheap for an ex Marine
To a second rate bartender/actor
Paying too little attention.
"And he always said that Michael
Jackson was a fucking child molester,"
Says McMahon, pretending not to notice
The celebrtity tabloid show
Flickering in the corner.
As late night sidekick Ed McMahon's
Shaky hand spills a third trickle
Of rot gut onto the bar he knows
Back home his trophy wife
And the three Pekignese are already
Staring at the couch like
They're seeing a ghost.
Ex Marine Ed McMahon beckons
The two-bit bartender closer
And offers: "I can only tell you
One thing kid: Whiskey spills,
Bad lovers, and celebrity
Deaths come in threes."

Zombie Bill Collectors Ltd.

2009-09-25T17:10:00.000-07:00

Sofa King # 2 by Tim Stotz

2009-09-17T23:06:00.000-07:00

(Click to view full size)

SZF Week 3 - Buffet

2009-09-16T11:24:00.000-07:00

ZOMBIE LOGIC COMICS INTRODUCES DEMOTED #1 BY ANDREW DAVIS

2009-09-13T19:26:00.000-07:00

(Click to view full size.)

Sofa King

2009-09-11T07:40:00.000-07:00

(Click to view full size)

Put That Coffee Down

2009-09-09T19:57:00.000-07:00

SZF Week 2 - Holla Back the Zombie Apocalypse Edition

2009-09-08T12:33:00.000-07:00

Armadillo or Boy?

2009-08-31T17:02:00.001-07:00

This is number one (boy with bicycle).

This is number 2 (armadillo).

Remember, there are no wrong answers. Zombie Logic Comics is a democracy and we're interested in what you think. So vote 1 or 2, boy and bicycle, or armadillo. Your votes are appreciated and your comments.

Single Zombie Female

2009-08-27T17:13:00.000-07:00

Zombie Logic Press Lives!

2009-08-25T13:02:00.001-07:00

Thank you for following me from My Space. Look around. There will be new web comics from talented artists shortly, plus new poems and of course my blogs. Become a follower, please, and check back often.

Please go to the webpage and place my banner somewhere in the Universe.

Roller Girl - Thomas Vaultonburg

2009-08-22T20:33:00.000-07:00

You're all elbow

And hip

And heart

A blur and a

Bruise

And a booty

Block into

Love's suicide

Seats.

Ratatosk

2009-08-22T17:44:00.000-07:00

Dolphins - Thomas Vaultonburg

2009-08-22T11:50:00.000-07:00

The night is so clear
Dolphins swim through it.
All the noises in the world
Become my noises and
Even the stars tiptoe
Across the sky
To shine brighter in Texas.
Some of us deserve more pain
Some more happiness
I just deserve more
And I get it in small but
Potent doses throughout the night.

Dumbing It Down - Thomas vaultonburg

2009-08-22T11:47:00.001-07:00

I dumbed it down.
I fed it McNuggets
And put it to sleep
With pop tunes.
I made it join
The Republican party.
I drugged it with
Cable television,
I bribed it with
Guilt-free sex
And threatened it
With religion.
I spent a lifetime
Beating it
Into submission and
The ungrateful bastard
Still writes this poem.

ZLP

2009-08-22T11:46:00.000-07:00