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Zombielogic

Thomas Vaultonburg


Last Updated: 11/19/2009

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Gender: Male
Status: Single
Age: 40
Sign: Aquarius

City: ROCKFORD
State: Illinois
Country: US
Signup Date: 10/24/2005

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Thursday, December 17, 2009 

Category: Writing and Poetry
I created Zombie Logic Press in 1996. I'd been using the screen name and the concept for years before that, but I didn't create the press until 1996. The first book, Detached Retinas, rolled off the assembly line in 1997.

Back then there wasn't a whole lot of interest in zombies. Therefore, I could pretty much be guaranteed I could get the screename zombielogic no matter what I signed up for.

Then about five or so years ago things started to change. For some reason Pabst Blue Ribbon, rockabilly music and zombie movies became all the rage. I couldn't understand it but that's the way things roll.

One day poetry will become trendy, but not the type of poetry I write, just the type some knockoff hipster writes. That will be the ultimate insult, but what can you do?

In 2005 I noticed a band in Ireland was using the name Zombielogic, so I wrote them and said groovy, would you like to do a link exchange or something, considering Zombielogic is pretty much a term I coined and did the work to create. But I hear nothing. Then last year I get an email from these guys asking if it's ok to use the name. I say no, it's my intellectual property. 

But they use it anyway. 

They have good taste, but they're still stealing my property.

And they didn't have the decency to offer me a reach around in the first place.

So what I'm asking everyone who reads this to do is pick up the link address for Zombie Logic Press and put it somewhere that a spider bot can find it so I can knock their My Space profile out of the search rankings. Wherever... in your My Space profile, blog, wherever. 

Thank you.




1:47 AM 
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Tuesday, December 15, 2009 

Category: Parties and Nightlife
Being responsible for security in many bars I used to think there can only be a limited amount of assholes in the Universe and if you weeded them out eventually you'd have just cool people in your bar, but I was wrong, there must be a factory where they produce assholes nonstop, even on holidays. I find this unusual because if such a factory existed it would no doubt have been outsourced to India by now and I've never met an Indian asshole. 

Maybe that Shammalammadingdong guy.

I've learned a lot about country and Western lately, but I don't want to learn too much because I find learning too much impairs your ability to feign ignorance in any given situation, and once you lose that trump card, you're fucked. 

I've learned a good cowboy hat is made out of beaver, not wool. You can insert your own joke here or wait for the one that is swirling around my head like a gumball in a machine (mixed metaphor) and is about to drop.

Here it is now: something about a beaver on your head. Crazy, because I'd have seen most of these guys as being more up to their necks in the sheep first. 

I've been perplexed by the term honky tonk. Not so much the honky as the tonk. 

All that said, my new bar has a lower percentage of assholes to human beings than any I've ever worked at, and I bet a lot of you would find that surprising since most of them are farmers and ranchers and shitkicker boondocks dwellers. The last group of people on the planet you can reduce to a stereotype with impunity. 

It set me to thinking: because in the area my bar sits between a large town (Rockford) and a smaller one (Byron), people do the type of work almost no one ever gets any recognition for: they grow the stuff people eat and raise the animals people eat. And I don't mean they grow stuff for the corner farmer's market, they grow the real stuff that feeds the world. And then they come into my bar.

That seems pretty cool. But I still don't know what the fuck a tonk is.



12:58 AM 
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Thursday, December 10, 2009 

Category: Food and Restaurants
I like it when people say hamburger sandwich. It never occurs to me it's a sandwich.

I'm high.

And I'm drunk.

You know why?

Because I like weed and I like beer.

I don't care what you think about that.

It occurs to me I haven't blogged in weeks and some people might actually give a shit how I'm doing.

Good.

The bar is going well and there's talk of people shooting movies there and I got more good friends than a prick like me deserves so....

It's good.

I could go on a lot longer but I won't. Because I'm drunk and high. I wish I could say something more profound, but...

Just fucking make life better for someone else. This isn't a competeition, it's a co-operation. And it's good. Real good.


8:50 AM 
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Saturday, November 14, 2009 

Category: Food and Restaurants
So, last night, my new bar, Boonies, opened.

And we killed!!

The lease was signed on Monday, we turned it around and opened the door Friday night. And people came.

Yay.

Not what I wanted to talk about.

So, I wake up today ravenous. After serving people food all night I realized I hadn't eaten, then fell into coma sleep when I got home. 

Being Saturday, and living downtown, I figured I'd go to Bamboo or one of the places I haven't been able to afford all summer. So I start walking. Walking. Still nothing open. Walking. And it's Saturday afternoon so I know most places won't be open.

Walking.

Eventually I get all the way to the Subway. And I'm hungry so I say screw it and go in. And they literally ignore me for over five minutes. And then a manger type come out and greets the two ladies who have been in line for five minutes, and ignores me.

So I leave.

And eventually I find Happy Wok, and I rejoice because the worst experience I ever had at Happy Wok I waited five minutes, right?

Not this day. Five minutes to get waited on, fifteen minutes no food. So I'm reading the local paper and I see the food under the heat lamp but at this point it's more of an experiment with me to see how long it will sit there.

Eventually it comes out and it's the same as every other time, dependably ok. My stomach is full and I even eat the fortune cookie and it says: "You will soon gain something you have always desired," so I figure someone os about to call me with financing and tell me to go ahead and start shooting my movie Dead Drunk at my bar, Boonies.

But that's not even the part that made me happy. I'm crossing the bridge and this man starts to shamble towards me, which doesn't freak me out like some people, and he says something about a quarter for the bus.

All summer I've kept my head down and when asked had to say "I have nothing," and it was true.

But today I had it. And I gave it to him. And that's what I'm happy about.


9:34 PM 
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Wednesday, November 11, 2009 

Category: Food and Restaurants

                            

Actually, since that logo is black and my background is black, you probably won't be able to see it. 

There you go. That's my bar. It's a roadhouse. I run it. If I wanted to I could go there right now, get on the stage and wave my dick around for a half hour and call it performance art.

"Some people are born great, and some people have greatness thrust upon them."

And sometimes you just plain get tired of greatness being thrust upon you. 

But you play the cards in your hand and this is my hand. I run Boonies Rock Bottom Bar and Grill. 

Friday night at six p.m. I will be much like Mr. T in Rocky 3.... "I predict pain."

The good kind of pain. Car accident bad pain. Yoko Ono trying to sing pain. That pain you get when you have water in your ears and then it pops out suddenly pain. 

Fuck it, I'm already tired of trying to sell this fried turd. Show up, or don't. The Dude will abideth either way. There's a chance of schadenfreude beyond your wildest imaginings. 

And anyone who wants to work with me on this project... lay an idea on me. 

Logo by Jenny Mathews.


8:54 PM 
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Wednesday, November 04, 2009 

Category: News and Politics
The Democratic party can reasonably expect to lose two Governor's seats tonight. And they might slowly but surely be losing a lot more than that.

I'm a Democrat.

I'm a Liberal Democrat.

And call me crazy, but when the American public gives the Democratic Party a huge majority in both houses of Congress AND the Presidency, to boot, I expect something to get done. Quickly. 

I'm still waiting.

And frankly, I'm a little sick of hearing about Blue Dog Democrats and Arlon Specter Democrats and forgot-who-the-hell-they-are-or-who-voted-for-them  Democrats. Pass something, or I'll tell you what, this newly minted Stray Dog Democrat might get up off the porch and start taking a look around the neighborhood to see what else is going on.

Regardless of how I cast my vote, it seems pretty likely the Democrats will do something that seemed virtually impossible after last November: lose both houses of Congress.

But being gutless, divisive, lazy, unprincipled and abandoning those who elected you to lick the ass of those who buy you off will do that.

You're not bulletproof, and the American public is VERY fickle. If you're assuming even fifty percent of the people who voted for you in the last election even know the difference between a Democrat and a Republican, you got it wrong. They wanted change. And in long about twelve months, unless you grow a pair (and that includes you, too, ladies) they're going to want change again. 

Another thing you did this week that has lost a lot of my respect, and I have to be fair because I called bullshit on this when the Republicans did it, too, is you're lying about the economy.

You're lying.

You're well-selected cabinet and cadre of oh-so-much-smarter-than-the-rest-of-us advisors has been burning the midnight oil trying to cook the numbers so you could tell us the Stimulus Package is working and the economy is recovering.

Really? I called bullshit when the Republicans told me the economy was great because all of their friends seemed to be doing ok and the stock market was booming and now I'm telling you you're full of bullshit when you tell us the economy is recovering. Why, because Ford is making money? Because the banks and insurance corporations you gave OUR money to seem to be doing better. No fucking shit, Sherlock, if you gave me a bunch of someone else's money I'd probably be doing better, too. One number, and one number ONLY should be important to those who actually work for a living... the unemployment numbers. And those numbers are NOT going down.

So, you watch your ass, because I'll put up with a lot. A little corruption here and there, fuck your secretary, dance around the truth... we expect that from inveterate liars such as yourselves. But what I don't expect, and what I will not stomach, is being lied to in the same way the Republicans lied to me. The economy is NOT better, and it's getting worse for the people I know and the people they know.

And if you're going use the wealth of corporations to show me things are getting better I'm here to tell you that you might as well be George Bush. And next November, I might do something I've never done before. Because this Stray Dog Democrat ain't on a chain.




3:04 AM 
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Thursday, October 29, 2009 

Category: Food and Restaurants
I'm stopping the presses for this shit.

Monday night my friend in Texas bit into a banana and cringed. The banana was filled with a blood-like substance.

So I asked her what any of you would: has it been tampered with?

No. Not at all, she says.

So we start searching the internets for diseases or viruses that affect bananas.

Nothing.

We search for other references to bananas filled with a blood-like substance.

Nothing.

She calls the fruit company and they say it happens on occasion when bananas are dropped during harvesting and offer her five dollars and a letter of apology.

I tell her that doesn't sound right to me, call the USDA.

She does.

The USDA agent in Washington D.C. says nuh-uh, never heard of anything like this. We're going to investigate this further.

Here's my question: has science gone too fucking far. Will we all start opening fruits and finding various animal parts because scientists think it's a good idea to fuck with everything?


If I had to guess I'd say what happened here is genetic engineering gone wrong. I'd say it's a glimpse of the future. I'd say it's time to stop these sick cocksuckers before they finally do unleash a virus or create a mutation that kills us all.

Before I show you the pictures I will tell you my friend is of unimpeachable character and these pictures were taken minutes after she peeled the banana. Neither one of us has the desire or the ability to make up something like this.

I'm also going to be a prick and make you go to my site to see the pictures. Oh, boo-hoo, two clicks. When you get there just click the big yellow Mutant Banana link




1:56 AM 
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Wednesday, October 28, 2009 

Category: Writing and Poetry
Halloween is now the second most popular holiday, right behind Christmas. Adults sure have taken to it. I was engaged in a discussion about psychoanalytic defense mechanisms earlier. Reaction Formation, in particular, but adults dressing up seems to say a lot about the unconscious. Is it a surprise a lot of women want to be a slut? Slutty nurse, slutty cat, slutty slut slut slut? Just a curiousity to me. No one seems to want to dress up as Jonas Salk or Ghandi (maybe the Hare Krishna) from Dawn of the Dead.

Also, does anyone else remember a decade or so ago Halloween was so on the outs that trick or treating was canceled in a lot of places in favor of school parties? There just wasn't much interest. Anyway, Halloween is back. And I have some poems to commemorate it. 

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.





Unpleasant dreams.
8:35 PM 
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Monday, October 26, 2009 

Category: Sports
At this time last year Cedric Benson had been left for dead. He had been judged an unworthy teammate, a coward and a complete bust by those who should have known him best. That's why when Cedric Benson ran wild for 189 rushing yards Sunday against the very team (and teammates) that had made these evaluations of his worth it re-affirmed my faith in second chances, perserverance and determination. Watching the smile on his face after he finally reached the end zone after an afternoon of chewing up the gridiron and flattening Chicago Bears said something about true joy and believing in yourself. We got a unique chance to see that rarest of things in this modern society: a resurrection. 

Cedric Benson is by all accounts a strange cat. Aloof, unusual.... strange. And in ultra-conformist, close-knit patricarchal societies like the NFL (and your local country club) there is no worse crime than strange. The NFL is a league populated by rapists, woman beaters and more than a few murderers. But these crimes are covered up, or in cases where they can't be covered up, forgiven, as long as one remains a faithful soldier and is willing to crash into other human beings unquestioningly and fearlessly. In short, no crime is unforgivable in the NFL if you can block, tackle, throw, run, or catch the ball. Any crime except one.... being strange.

Cedric Benson is a jazz player in a league full of hard rock drummers who know less about a creative fill than the drummer for AC-DC. When Cedric Benson was drafted with the 4th pick in the 2005 NFL draft he did what a lot of players who suddenly realize they're millionaires do: he cried. But something was different in his demeanor. If you watched closely he didn't appear to be crying tears of joy. And when a microphone was shoved in his face he didn't utter the well-scripted cliches other top draft picks rehearse so well. He said something like "Look what they made me do."

Look what they made me do. 

Is it possible we had another University of Texas dreadlocked, pot-smoking Hippie running back on our hands? A man who didn't feel that his genius for carrying an inflated leather ball and running over other men in a blind rage to acquire ground obligated him to do so, or was ultimately even a useful application of a body and and a will akin to a musician's talent?

To complicate matters Benson held out on signing his contract and didn't appear to work very hard when he did join the team. His heart just didn't seem to be in it. He didn't run very hard and he shied away from making hard contact. These are unforgivable football sins, especially on a team that already had Thomas Jones, a workout fiend who stays in top shape year round, lives in the weightroom and will run blindly into a brick wall to gain one inch. Thomas Jones was loved by his teammates and Benson was, at the very least, misunderstood.


After fumbling in the Super Bowl, Benson's fate with the Bears was sealed in the summer of 2008 when he was arrested on alcohol related offenses twice in one month. I worked and made my living in the booze industry for most of my life so I won't be a hypocrite by either defending or condemning anyone for an alcohol-related offense, but what I will tell you is he wasn't operating a vehicle in either case and there's good evidence to suggest that all he was really guilty of was being a dreadlocked black man hanging out with white women and seeming to have too good of a time. 

Last September the Cincinnati Bengals took a chance and signed Cedric Benson. And for the rest of that season Benson played well above average. So well, in fact, when this season began he was considered by some to have a chance of being one of the NFL's better running backs. But others were more cautious. Still others were just downright negative about Cedric Benson and wanted to warn anyone that had the audacity to believe in him that he is a coward, a criminal and a weirdo. 

As a Bears fan I can understand the frustration. But when Benson started running over opposing defenses like a Sherman Tank it should have been a time for one of those infamous cliches sports is famous for about effort, determination, hard work and improbable comebacks. But instead it just fueled the growing resentment and even hatred some Bears fans had for a player they think has wronged them and their beloved team in some personal way.

So, this Sunday when Benson insisted upon staying on the field and running over the team, and in some cases, teammates, who had judged him so harshly, even after his own team had the game well in hand, it did seem personal. And who can blame him? 

When he finally scored a touchdown and Chad Ochocinco came over to hug him, Benson was where you might typically expect to find him: in a corner by himself. But when Cedric Benson finally smiled for the national audience that had witnessed him use the team that had given up on him as his personal highlight reel, it said everything that is good about second chances, believing in yourself and insisting on following your own drumbeat even when those around you are marching in lock-step formation.

Maybe it's just possible Cedric Benson has done what a lot of people refuse to do in this society: grow up. Maybe some Bear's fans need to do the same.



8:14 PM 
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Friday, October 16, 2009 

Category: News and Politics
     Rush Limbaugh spent the first fifteen minutes of his radio program today explaining that the reason he was dropped from a group of his buddies that are attempting to buy the St Louis Rams is the players union and that the whole incident is a portrait of "Obama's America on full display,".

      No it isn't, you fat, hateful, piece of shit. There is only one reason you will never, ever be allowed to participate in any civilized part of American society, and that reason is simply this: people despise you because you represent the lowest, basest, most ignorant aspects of human nature. People hate you. Maybe you didn't know that because you stay within the insulated cocoon of your little radio show where everyone looks like you sounds like you agrees with you. But outside of that very small sample of America you're hated more than the Swine Flu. Forgive me swines and flu. 

     Rush Limbaugh was just put on a ballot of sorts and put before the American people. ALL of the American people. Not just the small sliver of Americans that are slavish sycophants to his daily dose of misogynist, racist, moronic babbling, and the people overwhelmingly said "Take a fucking hike."

Amazingly, Limbaugh is the first to cry foul. Let me get this straight: your complaint is that you've been excluded from a small, private club based on your race and/or political views? Hmm, isn't that sort of like what has been happening to African Americans since, well since forever? But when the deer is the one toting the shotgun suddenly you got problems with hunting season.

I don't want to go on all day. I'm extremely happy and proud of the American people for just standing up and saying "Fuck you, Rush Limbaugh." On his little radio show he gets to make the rules. He gets to pretend he's the voice of God. He gets to belittle others and put down anyone he chooses to attack with no one to oppose him. But in the REAL world you don't get to do that. He found out this week just how small and out of touch his audience is. He found out he has far less influence on the opinions of the American people than he likes to believe.

He found out a lesson every stinking bully finds out sooner or later: you're just a scared, infintile, weak little boy with an inferiority complex. And you're right to have it.

Now skulk back to your little bitty audience and leave the rest of us decent human beings alone.
2:11 AM 
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