The Zen of Beard Trimming: Stories of Punk Rock, Poverty, and the Search for Peace" by C.J. Campbell

We are proud to announce Zombie Logic Press' 6th book,"The Zen of Beard Trimming: Stories of Punk Rock, Poverty, and the Search for Peace" by C.J. Campbell. C.J. Campbell is a speaker, writer and activist with cerebral palsy, from Rockford, IL. He has spent the last 10 years sharing stories with a wide range of crowds from small dive bars to classrooms. The book chronicles seven years of C.J.'s travels, painstakingly detailed in this memoir. Punk rock meets leaving Christian Evangelism, meets Scandinavian models, meets a mismatched cast of unlikely characters and scenarios in a fearless, brutally honest story of the time honored search for (meaning, love, peace, an apartment, food and a microphone that works.) C.J. is currently working as the Director of Storytelling at Conveyor. He keeps a blog called "The Running Search" where most recently he chronicled his 75 mile walk, from Rockford to Evanston, IL, to raise disability awareness. "The Zen of Beard Trimming: Stories of Punk Rock, Poverty, and the Search for Peace" by C.J. Campbell is the latest in Zombie Logic Press' "River Valley Literary Series" It will be on local store shelves in February and now available for pre-order HERE

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The Most Dangerous Poet In America

Zombie Logic Press is located exactly in the geographical center of  Rockford, Illinois: America's 3rd Most Dangerous City. Furthermore, within that dystopian wasteland, Zombie Logic Press anchors the 5th most dangerous neighborhood in America, which I believe entitles me to make the claim that I am the most dangerous poet in America.

Every one of my grade school teachers seemed to agree. 

Each one of my grade school teachers in succession made very great efforts to convince me poetry was the type of thing that gets a small boy into trouble and leads to a life of depraved indifference to societal standards. They sure were right about that. I should have listened. But I had the poetry bug bad. To their credit, they warned me. 

I was a pretty shady character back in those days, and if they hadn't made such an effort to deter me from the path of goodness, truth, and creativity, there's no telling what type of destruction I might have unleashed on an unsuspecting world. Glad they stopped me. But if they hadn't I soon learned countless others were willing to take their place. Drill instructors, professors, bosses, editors, whoever felt they might have a penile insufficiency or a vaginal surplus. They wanted me to know poetry simply wasn't going to fly, not on their watch. 

My first book was published when I was still a teenager. Many people were furious, mostly because they hadn't published a book and they didn't think I should have, either. The only place you can buy this is at Google, because it sold out over twenty years ago. Every subsequent book I have published at Zombie Logic Press was modeled after this one, largely because it's the only way I knew how to do it.

For some reason, I decided to come back from San Diego, one of the most beautiful cities in the world, to Rockford, one of the ugliest. I spent a few years letting other people pay for me to go to college, where I maintained a 4.0 and won a bunch of scholarships I didn't need because everything was already being paid for. Once again it was re-affirmed to me that being good, working harder, and outperforming other people was irrelevant on this planet. Then, mysteriously, at age 30, my life began. I remember the moment clearly. I had just re-read Richard III, and like a lazer beam boring into my amygdala it became clear to me being a good guy was for chumps. I published my second book that year.

Detached Retinas. Go ahead and be a dear and buy that here. This is a compilation of poems I wrote while in college. They tend towards the surreal and innocuous. Some are even slightly romantic and nice. Mostly people didn't like it. I can really relate to their feelings. It's the last gasp of any true romance or naivete that I might have had in this life, or ever will have again. In that sense it's the only book I have written I can pick up and enjoy reading. I wouldn't but if I did. Then I started my fifteen year career working in bars and restaurants. Which led to my third book.

Flesh Wounds. I'm making the picture bigger because I have a lot more to say about this. Be a voyeuristic lech and buy this here. These are the sordid tales of the time I spent working in dive bars, strip clubs, dance clubs, sports bars, fine dining, and the most scumbag ridden location of them all... the country club. Fast money, fast chicks, drugs, violence. I got paid to do the things most people dream about. And I was good at it. At first. Actually, I was still good at it later, too, especially when me and my brother owned our own bar, Castaways, but that long, drawn out perversion of the senses might open the doors to wisdom, but once wisdom is acquired it's time to move on.

I started writing Submerged Structure on the porch of my brother's house on a yellow legal pad one summer when I was between gigs. The one at the fireman bar and the dance club, if I remember correctly. I wanted to just strip down the whole writing experience and write for the same of the image. I've never been a big believer in adjectives or jamming a line full of figures of speech. It's a fun book with a lot of silliness to it. You can buy that here. The title refers to my lifelong battle with Schizoid Personality Disorder. How the hell do you bartend with a disorder like that, it has been asked. Drugs and booze were always my answer. 

That's how I ended up becoming the most dangerous poet in America. 

2026 update.... Still crazy after all these years. Thomas L. Vaultonburg

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The Zombie Logic Press Easter Card

Newly designed, the Zombie Logic Press Easter card is available now. We'll be adding cards for all occasions soon, so check back to see what we have in stock, or write us and we'll design a card for you for any occasion you can imagine. 

Zombie Logic Press Easter card. 

$5.00

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Tiny Drawings Greeting Cards!

Tiny Drawing Greeting Cards!
You pick what artwork you'd like on them.  Make them all the same, pick 15 different tiny drawings, or mix and match.  You have over 300 designs to choose from at Tiny Drawings you just let us know what you'd like and we'll send it.

Set of 15 for $30.00

Or if you need just one card for a Birthday, Valentines Day or Get Off My Lawn, just pick the art and tell us what you need it to say.



Just one card please $4.00

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The Toughskin Rhinoceros Wrangler Company By Thomas L. Vaultonburg Illustrated by Jenny Mathews

The Toughskin Rhinoceros Wrangler Company 

By Thomas L. Vaultonburg Illustrated by Jenny Mathews

First Printing is SOLD OUT!*

* Update: The first printing of The Toughskin Rhinoceros Wrangler Company is sold out. We will be a second printing in early 2013. If you are interested in pre-ordering a copy please stay tuned as details will soon be available. 

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Buy Submerged Structure by Thomas L. Vaultonburg

Submerged Structure is the 4th book by Outsider Poet Thomas L. Vaultonburg. It is a meditation on his struggle with Schizoid Personality Disorder. It was published by Zombie Logic Press in 2012. The photo on the cover was taken by his very good friend Ryan Davis, and is from a rest stop between Byron and Oregon, Illinois warning of a concrete dock that had fallen from the shore and could no longer be seen. The sign has since been removed. 

Submerged Structure By Thomas L. Vaultonburg

$15.00 

"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 metaphore 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." -Thomas L. Vaultonburg


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Buy Flesh Wounds by Thomas L. Vaultonburg

Flesh Wounds is the third book by Outsider poet Thomas L. Vaultonburg, and delves into the seedier side of  his years in the service industry. It was published by Zombie Logic Press in 2011. 

 Flesh Wounds by Thomas L. Vaultonburg

                

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Tiny Drawings for Sale

TinyDrawings.com to browse, please note the date of the drawing you'd like to purchase and drop us a note at Jenny1386@Gmail.com  to inquire on pricing.

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Concave Buddha by Thomas L. Vaultonburg

I remember the morning I received a letter from legendary surrealist artist and underground publisher Bradley Lastname that he was going to publish my first book. My only problem was he wanted a book of 60 pages and I had sent him only 30 pages. Those were all the poems I had written in my lifetime that I thought were even passingly deserving of being published. But he insisted on doing a full-length book and encouraged me, in true dadaist style, to just write the rest of the pages as quickly as possible. So I did. I wrote the second half of my first book in the next two weeks and much to the chagrin of many veteran small press poets I had my first book at 21, consisting mainly of poems I had written as a teenager. On the cover is a work by the artist Joel-Peter Witkin. 

Concave Buddha by Thomas L. Vaultonburg

$3.85

Buy Concave Buddha here

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