Like the Space Age, the Zombie Apocalypse Is Far Behind Us

Like the Space Age, the Zombie Apocalypse happened long ago. It happened long before we ever started talking about it. It ended in a total rout of humanity. Long ago. You still see a few human beings walking around with confused looks on their faces, but sightings are becoming few and far between.

Working on the Humanity Abatement program was one of the more satisfying challenges of my life. I call it a challenge less because the objective was so entirely easy to achieve than the fact that the greatest resistance came from a surprising source. There were those who had been quietly feeding on humanity for several millennia and certainly didn't want to see their prize power source slowly drained of their life energy.

Vampires, demons, gods, governments, corporations, religions—call them whatever names make you comfortable. They had all made the same fundamental mistake. They believed human beings were valuable.

We knew better.

The problem with humanity had never been its evil. Evil is efficient. Evil gets up in the morning with a plan. Humanity's problem was the enormous amount of useless psychic debris generated by several billion creatures simultaneously believing their opinions mattered.

Once we understood this, the solution became obvious.

We didn't have to kill humanity.

We simply had to convince it to express itself.

The Internet accomplished in twenty years what plague, famine, warfare, organized religion and network television had failed to accomplish in thousands. Humanity voluntarily converted the remaining substance of its inner life into photographs of lunch, arguments with strangers, inspirational quotations and opinions about motion pictures featuring superheroes.

The old parasites panicked.

There was nothing left to feed on.

This is why you don't see many vampires anymore.

Zombies, naturally, were perfectly adapted to the new environment. We require almost nothing. A little electricity. Occasional bandwidth. Something resembling a brain every few weeks.

And patience.

Mostly patience.

There are still rumors of surviving humans somewhere beyond the shopping districts. People claim they've seen them reading books without photographing the covers. Sitting silently beside rivers. Looking at the moon without informing anyone.

I don't believe these stories.

But I have instructed the Department of Humanity Abatement to investigate.

There can be no exceptions.

The universe has spent fourteen billion years trying to achieve silence.

We are not about to let a few poets screw it up now.

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Dark Shadows Episode 1109: The Final Destruction of Collinwood?

I figured if Dark Shadows can slip around from era to era, so can I , and I decided to watch episode 1109, mostly because I read that zombies are involved and I wanted to see how they were handled on the show. Also, I really just wanted to see an episode in color.

Barnabas and Julia enter through a door, which I am assuming is the door to another time, and discover a painting of this zombie. What does it mean? I haven't any idea. 

1970 Quentin Collins, just unearthed from the grave by Barnabas and Julia, explains that something that happened to 1840 Quentin Collins is going to lead to the 1970 destruction of Collinwood. Also, Kate Jackson is now in the show. 

Then there's a bunch of mumbo jumbo about the children and stars and Quentin says some sort of spell that is supposed to defeat Gerard Stiles and claims he has defeated him, but Gerard says not as long as I still have my vaunted choke slam, old friend, and now I see zombies are coming out of the ground in the next scene this is craziness. 

Then these zombies rise from the ground and Barnabas says it is the final destruction of Collinwood. This seems serious. 

The zombies enter Collinwood. Is it all over?

The children are dead. Now Daphne is dead. The zombies are just breaking shit. Now the zombies are running up the stairs. That seems to violate some rule of monsterdom. Now there's a fire. 

"This house belongs to the dead," says Quentin as zombies press at the door. The stairway reappears. 

Zombies overtake Barnabas. So much for vampire strength versus the sheer determination of zombies, and he yells for Julia to take the staircase. But the staircase is gone. She goes through a door and realizes she is in 1840. How will this end? I'm going to find out right now by watching the final episode. 

Reaction: That was heavy, sort of like the show went from being a horse and carriage to a supercharged Camaro. 

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I Wonder What Skullduggery Ross Martin Is Up To Tonight

Did Ross Martin ever not play a bad guy after The Wild, Wild West? I guess he just has one of those faces. He's on McCloud tonight, and although he hasn't done anything nefarious yet, I'm convinced that he will. And get caught at the end.

I think I saw him a few weeks ago on Banicek, trying to match wits with Banicek and generally being an arrogant jerk. 

Ross Martin on The Twilight Zone

Anyway, I want to talk about this apple I'm eating. I needed to buy some for the kids at the supermarket over the weekend, and I know they know make apples with actual flavor after decades of red delicious apples that tasted like eating cardboard. The closer I got to the apples the more people swooped in and seemed intent on not moving. Normally when people do this I just go look at something else, but this time I really just wanted to get in there and get some tasty apples and get moving on, so I hung in there. I saw one bag that said Pacific roses, and that sounded tasty, so I grabbed a bag. I'm trying one tonight for the first time, and it's not that great. After a lifetime of expecting apples to taste like pulp I now really get excited about biting into one, but these are very lackluster. 

No moon again tonight. Too much cloud cover, which is a shame because this cleansing snow moon, as I have heard it called, has been fun to look at. I could see it if I went up to bed. It was really bright last night, but I'd like to see it outside the window as I work downstairs and wait for Ross Martin to unveil whatever villainous plan he's about to hatch.

Maybe Ross Martin will reveal he's from Saturn at the end of tonight's McCloud episode

I was writing earlier about the difference between outsider and outlaw poetry, but only just earlier I had a feeling I might be near the end of this jag I'm on. 

I wonder how long McCloud was in New York City in the span of the television series, and if the police chief was threatening to send him back to New Mexico in every episode. 

Maybe I will go upstairs to bed and look at the moon from there and listen to the radio with my earphones. 

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Was Vic Tayback The Zodiac Killer

Was Vic Tayback the Zodiac Killer?

Was actor Vic Tayback of the sitcom Alice fame the Zodiac Killer? We know he was one of several suspects in the early days of the investigation, along with other celebrities like Christopher Walken and Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys, but is it possible there was a Hollywood celebrity moonlighting as a serial killer in Northern California during the late 60's and early 70's? Many experts think so. In my ongoing Poopsicles painting series I investigate whether or not an actor of Tayback's stature could have committed these ingenious crimes. The Zodiac Killer was never caught and his identity never discovered. Many people still believe to this day that it might have been Vic Tayback.

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Don't Go In the Woods, Unless You're a Nozzle, Then, Please, Go In

As the 1970's turned into the 1980's The Man was still trying to tell us what to do. Don't Go In the House, Don't Go In The Bathroom...

Don't Go In the Woods. Listen, ugly is a good word to describe this movie. These people are ugly. Nobody cares if they die. Plus, they don't listen.

Uhh, did you get that last part about the woods?

Speekin zee English?

How about now? I feel like going into the woods might be a good idea.

I'm just going to go into the woods for a while. Anyone want to go with me?

The woods are a little stabby lately, I think I'll just go for a swim. D'oh.

Best thing about the 2012 remake of Don't Go In the Woods? It will be your pleasure to see every one of these Guantanamo Bays die. of course by the end of it you'll wish you'd gone in the woods, but that's your headache, not mine. 

February 21, 2013 update: I think I mixed pictures from the original version of this movies and some crappy remake from 2012, but none of this really bothers me very much I'm just updating the blog to resize the text. 

January 25, 2015: I used to do a lot more picture to text in my blogs. I actually didn't see either version of this movie and have no idea why I blogged about it when there's about 10,000 movies I did see.

May 22, 2018. Looks like I wrote this blog after I read that Google loves lots of pictures. I saw this picture today on Night Flight's Facebook page. 452 shares. Zombielogic's Incredibly Brief Movie reviews was a good idea that was poorly executed, and what I should have been doing is longer reviews of movies I actually cared about.  

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Don't Go In the Basement, Or Anywhere Else, Or Answer the Phone

In the early seventies nowhere was safe. Don't Go In the Woods, Don't Go In the House, Don't Answer the Phone. In the 1973 schlock-fest The Forgotten, they're saying not only should you NOT go in the basement, Don't Even Look In the Basement. Don't even think about the basement. The basement is not for you. 

However, if you would like to detach your enormous head from your body and "stand" at the top of the stairs looking down and yelling out of your cavernous mouth that would be just fine. Here's sort of what might have happened in this movie.

One of these people is about to have his ridiculously misguided anger therapy used against him. 

The building is filled with loonies. This one appears to be dead.

This one is named Sam. I'm going to ruin the rest of your life by telling you as the credits roll he's eating a popsicle and mumbling something about white folk.

Didn't I tell you not to look in the basement?

February 21, 2013 update: You did tell me not to go in the basement, but I thought my raquetball raquet was down there. Now I got this hatchet in my head.

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Pictures of Norman Fell Pretending Jack Tripper is Fruity

There's absolutely no redemptive value to this particular blog entry, it's just pictures of actor Norman Fell in his Three's Company role of Mr. Roper making hand signals that indicate he believes fellow actor John Ritter is homosexual. So, here we go...

In this hand signal Norman Fell is making the Tinkerbell gesture, which shows that he believes pastry chef Jack Tripper is gay.

Here we see a slight variation of the Double Tinkerbell gesture from Norman Fell. And the conspiratorial eye roll to really let the live studio audience knows that he knows that Jack Tripper knows that he knows what's really going on.

In his final photo, World War II veteran and member of the Rat Pack actor, Norman Fell appears to be engaged in slapping this woman's bottomside. Norman Fell, please be alive somewhere in the Universe doing what it is you do.

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Mitt Romney: Once a Bully, Always a Bully

What does a bully look like? I don't know. Do you? The attack Mitt Romney participated in upon a gay student all those years ago bears haunting similarities to dozens of stories we see in the news each year. It calls to mind the type of intolerance and ignorance that led to the torture and murder of  Matthew Shepard. America is changing. Becoming a better and more tolerant place. Votes like the one taken in North Carolina this week to ban gay civil unions belies that fact, but it is a fact. Bullies are bullies, always have been. I suspect it's just something that is in one's heart and character, to see the weak, the vulnerable, and the different as less than human or less than deserving of the respect we expect to be shown to ourselves and those we care about. Someone with that type of character weakness is not qualified to be the President of all the people of America, and I think that's probably fine with Mitt Romney, who has no intention of being the President of ALL the people of America. Once a bully, always a bully. 

"They came upon Lauber, tackled him and pinned him to the ground. As Lauber, his eyes filling with tears, screamed for help, Romney repeatedly clipped his hair with a pair of scissors."

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/closeread/2012/05/mitt-romney-bully.html#ixzz1ubSrIiLF


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Death By Dialogue

In the 1988 film Death By Dialogue, a group of college students head into the California wilderness to visit an uncle who conveniently lives next to an abandoned film set. None of what happens in the movie makes any sense outside of the setup that there's a possessed movie script that is unearthed, and whoever reads it will be subject to the grisly details contained in the storyline, up to and including...

                        

Having sex with this chick, then for no damn reason at all wandering into the forest and...

                    

Discovering a heavy metal band playing, only to be decapitated moments later when the bass players guitar turns into an axe. Or...

                       

Just joking. Gary Busey isn't in Death By Dialogue. This review is over. 

More Zombielogic's Incredibly Brief Movie Reviews

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January 25, 2015: Still love this incomprehensible movie. I feel like it is shot in the same location the movie Hellgate was. Some times I think they are the same movie. But they are not. 

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Zombie Logic Press Logo Unveiled

As I update this first Zombie Logic blog entry I realize few things in life have brought me more enduring happiness than this logo that Jenny Mathews created for our literary press. I had wanted a logo since I started Zombie Logic in 1997 (I actually started it when I was 18 in 1987), but it wasn't until 1997 when I published the first book, Detached Retinas. 

I bought the web domain for Zombie Logic and Zombie Logic Press in 1997 when I published the first book

Detached Retinas. I did the cover art if that gives you any idea of how grateful I am to work with a top shelf artist like Jenny.

I spent most of the late 90's and 2000's in a nomadic fashion, often losing whatever momentum I would build up, on occasion finding myself homeless. I lost everything multiple times, including a small press library I has accumulated over the years that included chap books and small press zines I had been published in with other poets I admire like Charles Bukowski, Ron Androla, Kurt Nimmo, Tood Moore, Gerald Locklin etc. There's no way I'll ever be able to recover those one of a kind possessions, but I learned during those times to not become too attached to things. 

But one thing I did lose that I can't get over is the domain name Zombie Logic. By the time I had settled myself anywhere that seemed stable someone had purchased the domain name and never has let it lapse. I even went as far as to offer them a generous sum for a domain that isn't all that interesting, but never received an answer. 

But what I do have is the knowledge that I coined the term "zombie logic" and all these years later have four books in publication, a website, and this damn fine logo.

Update December 11, 2012. Still haven't managed to recover the domain name for Zombie Logic, but fortunately the world is going to end in 11 days anyway.  It still feels like I've lost part of myself, but I still hold out hope I'll be able to contact the person who has bought it and make a deal. 

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