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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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Tuesday, October 13, 2009 

Category: Writing and Poetry
I used to have this unconscious habit of saying "And that's how you do that," every time I did something I thought I was doing well. I never even knew I was doing it until someone I worked with pointed it out. Then I realized I was doing it a lot. I'd make the perfect martini: "And that's how you do that." I'd throw a hat trick at darts.... "And that's how you do that" etc.

Then life kicked me in the balls about six thousand times and I stopped doing it. 

Which is probably a good thing, except I've been told I'm marvelous with a little confidence.

So, on the way home from a Cheeseburger and fries intended to fill the void left from another disheartening fantasy football defeat a poem I've been putzing around with for ten years came to me. I came home and wrote it down. First poem in six months.

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."


     And that's how you do that.



2:59 AM 
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Monday, October 12, 2009 

Category: News and Politics
I remember 9/11. I remember it mostly for two reasons: I was working in a strip club and it was football season. The actual morning I was playing internet hearts with someone from France, someone from England, and someone from Australia. Then I went to bed because I had to work later.

This blog isn't about 9/11. I have nothing to say about it. When you work in a place without windows and are drunk all the time they could drop a bomb on your city and if the club still opened that night that would be your only reality. 

This is about perspective.

Specifically the trite statement people make after any disaster that "This just puts things in perspective."

No it doesn't.

Well, actually it does, but in the opposite way of which the statement is usually intended.

Life is stupid and petty and vain and shallow and people are ignorant and selfish and cruel.

That's the perspective we live in.

Post 9/11 they canceled the football games the first week (I think) saying it just puts the game in perspective. And for that whole season no one would say football cliches like "We're going to war or it was a battle out there today." 

That season.

Then Hurricane Katrina introduced nature to New Orleans. They hadn't seen it much before that. Like me they were in a place and time that seemed removed from reality.

And the cliches began again. The New Orleans Saints won a few games early that year, and despite the fact that the owner had wanted to move the team all spring and summer, no one seemed to remember that. Then the Saints played on Monday Night Football. And the shit that came out of the national media's mouth was not to be believed. Football was saving New Orleans. The Saints were bringing the city back. 

So, which is it I've been wondering. Is football just a game, a distraction, and something to be put on the back burner during more pressing times. Or is it what the media postulated: a savior?

I think I got an answer Saturday evening when the latest football messiah, Tim Tebow, suited up and took the gridiron for the Florida Gators.

Alright, so a college kid played football. So what? you might be asking.

So what is the previous week Tebow suffered a pretty nasty hit and a concussion.

Concussion? So what, they've been getting them since the beginning of the game.

A concussion is when you get hit so hard your brain dislodges and strikes the skull. Not much has been known about it until recently, only that boxers and players in contact sports seemed to get them from time to time.

But the latest research is showing it's a huge deal, leading to early dementia and a variety of motor and cerebral conditions. Point is, it's a very serious deal and it's unlikely there's anyone in college sports that doesn't know that by now.

But the Florida Gators, Tim Tebow, the national media, and perhaps worst of all, his parents, didn't seem to care. A week after being struck so hard his brain was bruised because it dislodged and struck his skull, Tim Tebow was out there slinging a leather ball around. 

If you research Tim Tebow you'll quickly find out he's this season's darling. Last year, too. A lot of people are calling him the best college football player ever. He's a big deal and a lot of people are invested in him throwing that ball.

What they won't tell you is he's actually not very good. Any person in the know about college football knows he's not even in the best 100 players to ever play, probably not in the top 1000, and will never play a single day on a professional football team. 

But none of that mattered the past week leading up to the game with LSU. This kid's brain didn't seem to matter to anyone. Even his parents didn't seem to care one day maybe not too far down the road he might wake up and not remember how to tie his shoes. All that seemed to matter was the game. The trophy. The adulation. And the ultimate payoff (which isn't coming). His coaches, his parents, all the hangers-on were willing to risk his brain for their gain.

And that put the game in perspective for you.

The game is bigger than 9/11. It's bigger than Hurricane Katrina. It's bigger than Tim Tebow's brain.

Because it's what we are. Mean, ignorant, cruel animals trying to gain ground against anyone we consider our opposition. Willing to sacrifice our humanity, our children, our morals for a shiny cup. A shiny cup full of blood.

And that's the real perspective and what you need to know about humanity.








7:20 PM 
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Sunday, October 11, 2009 

Category: Life
Here in Northern Illinois long about October it's become very fashionable for couples and families to go pick apples. People seem to show the same exhuberance every summer over corn boils. I see women surrounding the bin of corn at Walmart like crows as if they've never seen corn before.

Which is sort of funny because...

In Northern Illinois we're literally fucking surrounded by corn and apples.

I'd say what has happened here is an absolute disconnect between people and the environment. A disconnect so profound they consider the fruits and vegetables growing around them to be foreign delicacies. Spooky, really. 

I think people really have lost track of anything that exists outside of the Walmart that seems to create the border between "civilization" and whatever exists "out there." 

Corn?

Apples?

Heard of them?

I know, I'm an asshole, and probably the only person in the world who sees harmless, romantic, family activities like obsessing over apples as a symptom of a larger sickness in society, but that's how I feel.

Is it possible one day Walmart will sell virtual apple picking tours to young lovers and families who are too oblivious to their surroundings to know these objects once actually grew somewhere "out there?"


2:04 AM 
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Friday, October 02, 2009 

Category: News and Politics
I don't really have a topic for this blog. I"m really more curious what some of you think. Especially on this Roman Polanski issue. I'd always had it in my brain that this was a woman closer to eighteen and someone who was hanging around the scene and that maybe it was more of just a legal technicality. But that's not the case. I just actually read the details of the conviction today and it was a pretty horrific crime. 

So, my problem isn't with bringing Polanski back to answer for the crime, it's more with the application of the law to one person when I have this sick feeling if they had the inclination they could put half of Hollywood in prison for this same crime. And not just Hollywood. It's like this mob mentality we have in America where we like to find one person and make them answer for the crimes of the society itself, as if by scapegoating that monster we purge the land of all sin.

Not true. And especially not true in the case of violence against women. If the DA in Los Angeles is serious about this crime I encourage that person to go ahead and seek out and prosecute EVERYONE guilty of this crime. They can turn the whole area into one large prison. 

Shit, wouldn't it have been great if Bin Laden had had sex with a thirteen year old girl in LA...

Maybe after the Mayor of Chicago gets through spending his year trying to get the Olympics to come to a city that can't even fill it's potholes and the DA there in LA finally gets to the bottom of this forty year old case they can start thinking about how they can stop the students from beating each other to death in the schools.

Roman Polanski is a sick son of a bitch. And would you like to know something: he's got plenty of company. You've got a pedophile or a wife beater or a rapist or a child abuser right there on your block. But I bet we don't even get down to having a serious discussion about that because we already got the guy in custody responsible for all the villainy in the world. And all it took was forty years and a few million dollars and fuck there probably isn't even sex crime going on in Hollywood tonight. 

Warren Beatty?

Jack Nicholson?

C'mon, now. 

If we're going to get the lynch mob together let's go ahead and clean some house. 

We're living in a society that absolutely sexualizes teens and profits from it. It's fucking Swingerland, baby. So until someone starts taking sex crimes seriously across the board I ain't buying any of this shit. 

What I don't understand at this point, and now actually having read the details of the crime, is how anyone can defend the man. It's almost like Hollywood is saying "Ya, he brutalized this child, but he made Chinatown."

It looks bad, Hollywood.

And yet (two conjunctions) somehow I have this sneaky suspicion this type of depravity isn't the exclusive property of Hollywood.

What do you say America, should we go ahead and shine that bright light of truth and justice into the dark corners of the human experience?

I see some of you balking now. I happen to be one of those sickos who likes woman about two to four years younger than me, naturally born female, straight sex, no beating, fetishes or need to hurt anyone. Monogamy. Don't like to share my toys. Don't want to degrade, diminish, dismiss, tie up, tie down, beat up or in general put down anyone to get off.

I know, I'm a sick fuck.








10:31 PM 
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Wednesday, September 23, 2009 

Category: News and Politics
Around two this afternoon I see the post office jeep drive away, which can mean only one thing... a new bill in my mailbox. 

But which will it be: Con Ed, AT+T, who knows.

None of the above. Or neither of the above, more correctly. What I found in my mailbox made my day.

A bill for $4,149 for an MRI at Swedish American Hospital, where I was born.

I was dancing. Literally. This made my day. Four fucking thousand dollars for an MRI. You could buy one of those fancy Indian automobiles for that kind of money. 

So, what the fuck about receiving a huge medical bill made me so ecstatic?

One simple thing...

I have no intention of paying it!

I just got $4,149 worth of free medical attention. I feel like I won the lottery. 

It's Christmas for the crazy. It's Halloween for the homeless. 

Fuck, next they might start passing out eye exams and dental care.

But let me tell you one thing, my friends: being disabled has this one very great benefit: time.

And let me tell you why...

Bill collectors.

Pain in the ass, right? Well, maybe not. These are people who have to get things done. 

I, on the other hand, am someone who doesn't have anything to get done.

Call me up, dumbfuck. I'll tell you about my hernia, the tomatoes I'm ripening on the windowsill, how I really want to add Legedu Naanee to my fantasy football team beacause he has a funny name but I don't think he'll really help me win. Two, three hours later maybe we can get down to finances. And here's the lowdown, Dog the Bill Collector... I ain't got none. I ain't getting any. And since they don't have debtor's prisons anymore there ain't a motherfucking thing you can do about it, but feel free to continue calling because I got plenty of stuff I'd like to talk to you about. 

So, I'm having a great day.

And let me make a recommendation to you: quit paying for shit. Just stop. There ain't a motherfucking thing anyone can do about it. Credit card debt: fuck it. Corporate America just showed you how they handle debt: they don't pay it. They stick their creditors and vendors, declare bankruptcy, then keep the profitable aspects of their businesses and let you hold the bag.

Do the same thing.

Bills out of hand... don't pay them. That's fucking capitalism, man. Stop for paying for shit you already consumed. 

As for me: joy. I have an arthritic back and will probably lose most of my mobilty in the coming years, but victory is mine because at least I have a pretty little picture of my deformed back now and for a scant $4,149. 

By the way, this is a pretty decent argument for the public option because guess who's going to pay for the fact that I'm not going to pay for this anyway....

Ding, ding, ding.

8:47 PM 
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Tuesday, September 22, 2009 

Category: Writing and Poetry
I was recently called out for being classless. 

No shit, huh?

Never had it, never will. I am the Uncola of class. 

What sort of took me aback was the context of the charge. A freind had made a Facebook status update about bacon-flavored beer and my retort was something like: "Really, the word is just getting out on bacon? Wait till people hear about these things called titties."

Not one of the funniest things I ever said and certainly not the most classless. But a few minutes later some chick I never met calls me out for being classless. Apologies to this friend but he's not exactly Mr. Sauve, either. Masturbation, beer and bacon were kind of the topic of the day, but this keeper of class wanted to single me out as the Rodney Dangerfield of Facebook, on a status update about beer and bacon nonetheless.

Alright, I'm getting to it. Profanity. Vulgarity. Cursing. It's been said profanity is the crutch of small minds. That it's the last refuge of the callous, coarse and ignorant. That when one resorts to profanity it's because they aren't smart enough to say something clever or profound.

Bullshit.

Profanity is the worksong of the downtrodden,  the national anthem of the damned, and the birdsong of the forsaken.

What other response to a douchebag in a Mustang cutting you off in traffic is there than "You motherfucker from motherfuckerville?"

Seriously, is there some appropriate word or diplomatic turn of phrase for that moment when you see Steve Bartman come from nowhere in the left field bleachers to destroy your hopes of ever seeing the Cubs playing in a World Series? 

Conversely, let's say you're fucking? Hypothetically. And someone is doing something to you that makes parts of you send them thank you notes. What are you going to say: "Golly, gee, Beaver, that sure is swell?"

No.

You're going to unleash a torrent of vulgarity so vile and so absolutely context appropriate that the transcript of which would set Barbara Bush's false teeth on fire.

Life is a continuous stream of high and low experiences, most of which are inexplicable and really just don't want to be captured in words. Stand-ins like shit, fuck, or just plain dammit get the job done admirably. Most days there just isn't much more that you can say about it.

Lately I saw someone use the word "recockulous." 

Recockulous.

Isn't that great? 

I think so.

After centuries of miners and sailors and the Irish and brandy swilling grandmothers laying down the final word in profanity someone wakes up one day and says "recockulous."

You'd think there just wasn't anything left to add to the lexicon of vulgarity. 

Gives me hope.

Maybe one day I'll hear Pat Boone call a nun a cocksucker and I can rest in peace. 

How about you?

What's your Go-To phrase. I tend to like "Fuckers from Fuckerville." If you hit your thumb with a hammer or saw God had decided to resurrect Jesse Helms what would be you're A number one curseword or phrase in response?










11:11 PM 
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Friday, September 18, 2009 

Current mood:  amused
Category: Religion and Philosophy
So, I figure I'll knock off early tonight. The one person I want to most talk to is already asleep, I just showered, and there's not much left to do.

But then, this comes over the transom.

Issue #2 of Sofa King by Tim Stotz. I figured I'd open it, get a laugh, forward it to my web mistress, and get in bed.

Wrong.

This is the type of thing that must be posted NOW. I mean NOW.


These are the type of friends I have. Talented people. Opinionated people. Funny people. So I'm posting Sofa King #2 here for you with the hope you'll go to Zombie Logic Press http://zombielogicblog.blogspot.com (and you'll have to actually pick that up and put it in the address bar) and tell T exactly what you think. Love it? Hate it? Agree? Disagree? You got to give the guy props for a set of balls an elephant would admire.

Well, without any more ado-whack-adoo, here it is, the comic strip that just might get me killed. Thank you, Tim Stotz.

Sofa King,Zombie Logic Comics 



6:26 AM 
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Thursday, September 17, 2009 

Category: Art and Photography
Single Zombie Female is a strip drawn by my friend Jenny and "written" by yours truly. I think it's really good. This is issue number three, which we (I say we, but my involvement is very minimal) finished early this afternoon. I really like it. How about you?


 

If you have a Blogspot account please go there and become a follower of the Zombie Logic Press blog and comment on the really good work being done there by Jenny, Andrew Davis, and Tim Stotz.

http://zombielogicblog.blogspot.com   and you'll actually have to copy that link and put it in your browser. 

Also, no one knows this yet, but I'm adding SanDiego wide receiver Legedu Naanee to my fantasy football team tonight. I doubt he'll be very good but I just like saying Leg-a-doo Nah-Nay. Quirks of character like this are probably what keep me from succeeding in life, but what the hell.




2:05 AM 
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Monday, September 14, 2009 

Category: Art and Photography

 

There. Panel number one of the brand spanking new web comic Demoted, by Andrew Davis. I bet you'd like to know what happens in the next three panels. Bet your sweet bippy you would, because it's brilliant. 

These are all emerging artists at Zombie Logic Comics. I don't pay them. They live off of your tips. So how about it? Just leave a comment if you see something you like. Share the link so other people can see it.

A lot of hard work goes into these projects, and I feel badly when I can't drive a large enough audience to show their appreciation.

It's either this or poetry, people, and no one wants that.

Here's the link, and keep in mind you have to go the long way around because My Space disables Blogger links. Go to Zombie Logic Press and click the Web Comics link you see to the right.

And when you are there don't forget to share some love for Single Zombie female and The Sofa King.

8:02 PM 
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Saturday, September 12, 2009 

Category: News and Politics
The Tenth Amendment.

What?

The Tenth Amendment.

Why should I care?

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Uh, oh. What the hell does that mean?

It means we're in for three years (at least) of hearing about the Tenth Amendment. 

What it means is every time the Democratic Congress and Presidency, elected in vast majorities by the People (remember them in the Amendment) pass any legislation the Conservatives (overwhelmongly trounced in the last election by the aforementioned People) don't agree with we'll hear that anyone who doesn't want to obey the new laws of the land doesn't have to because of the Tenth Amendment. In short they'll just say "It's not the law where I live.

Isn't there a rather shameful example of what happens when states and local governments set aside the law of the land in favor of their own personal beliefs? I'm certain I remember something. Oh, ya, the Jim Crow Laws. Despite Lincoln's Emancipation Procolomation, Southerners (and others) just weren't buying it. Free black men and women, not in my backyard. That led to a hundred years of backwards cocksuckers basically keeping Blacks in a state of slavery and without any ability to vote or exercise their Constitutional rights, even though it was the law of the land.

We're not going to let this happen again. Places like South Carolina don't need to make their own laws. And if they do want to change the laws the Constitution offers there are these remedies:

1) Vote. It's a democracy. The reason Conservatives are up in arms in the first place is they got swept out of office at all levels by a vote of the people. The People. But instead of waiting two years and making their case to the people and turning Democrats out of office they stamp their feet like children and say "Well, we're not going to obey the law." That's pretty dangerous, don't you think? Because these people aren't even willing to work within the broad freedoms Democracy offers to change things, they just want to take their ball and go home after a loss. Experience tells me people like that are dangerous, childish, and impossible to work with.

2) Amend the Constitution. If you don't like it, change it. You have two ways to do it. What you don't have the right to do is ignore the law of the land. 

UNLESS. You want to secede. I'd love to see South Carolina on it's own. I'd love to not have those inbred, toothless, hilrods living in the same country I do, a country that showed the rest of the world what Democracy can be and what freedom is and what happens when good people do the right thing. 

Here's the fundamental problem with interpreting the Tenth Amendment: 

People are stupid. And as much as I hate the Federal government, the only thing I can think of that would be worse is the idiots I see around me on a regular basis running things. At least the Federal Government is sort of on autopilot, and although it's inefficient, corrupt, bloated, and unresponsive, it's so full of inertia it's difficult to really make a change that will cause chaos. Whereas the morons who are my neighbors (who don't vote anyway) would get a bug up their ass every ten minutes and be changing the colors of watertowers and forming pitchfork mobs nightly if they were in charge. I'll choose the bloated Federal Government over that anyday.


The second point is this: Conservatives never seem to have an issue with Federal Government when they are running it. The last administration ran the largest deficit in history and managed to suspend more civil liberties than anyone since Mao. Not a peep. Fourth Amendment gone? I didn't need it anyway. Habeas Corpus? What was that? Harassment every time you demonstrated anywhere near an important function? Assembly schmamembly. It was probably just a bunch of pinkos and fags and animal rights freaks getting sprayed and beaten down with clubs anyway, right?

Wrong. It was all of us. President Bush took back or suspended more of our Civil Liberties with his Executive Orders and Presidential Letters than any President ever. Not even close. Not one of these came up for a vote. Where were Conservatives yelling about their Rights then? It just seems a little hypocritical to make such a fuss about it now. Especially when I don't have the feeling that anyone is trying to take away my liberty right now. And trust me, as a whacked out eccentric artist with a big mouth who would be the first to go when they start rounding up people for whatever bullshit charge they hang on you when it gets down to lynch mob time, I am the first to start yelling about any loss of my personal liberties, regardless of which party is threatening them. I'm not threatened right now.

And I think that may be the very thing that has Conservatives shitting bricks. They can't control what they used to control. They aren't trying to defend freedom, they're trying to get back the iron grip on deciding who was free and who was let's just say less free (women, Blacks, Mexicans, immigrants, gays, pinkos etc.) they have enjoyed in the past. They know they have lost the power of the majority, or the Silent Majority, or the not so silent but more affluent minority, or whatever they used to be. So, they have decided if they can't use the Presidency and the Legislature and the Courts to tell you what to do they'll just retreat to their gated communities and make up their own rules. 

Trouble is you don't get to do that in America. You're still in America, and the Constitution is the law of the land. Obey it or go to prison because when you disobey you are a criminal, not a Patriot. I bet you'll be the first one's behind your walls to avail yourselves of all the services and privileges of being an American (and probably the last to serve). You'll benefit the most from the tax structure and your ceaseless lobbying for tax exemptions and no bid contracts and you'll ask us working Americans to bear the brunt of your research and development and let us pay to build your plants and headquarters and you'll live a life of opulence, but the second you're asked to return the favor by providing good paying jobs with health care and benefits you cry foul and say the governement is out to get you and redistribute your wealth (which, if you're following closely, you'll realize was the Peoples' wealth before you funneled it upwards). All you want is to sit in your gated community and enjoy all the benefits of the bounty of America and exploit the hard-working American worker, then not give back at all. 

Go somewhere else. Your headquarters are in a foreign land anyway. Go there. Don't want to obey the Constitution? Go somewhere where they don't have one.

But one thing you won't be selling to me is you're defending Freedom. All you're defending is you're financial interests. And the toothless inbreds you get to parrot your idiotic propoganda will never be what made or keeps America great. They'll always be the ones who opposed every major reform that kept  America's promise  as the shining example of potential equality, justice and decency. They'll dig in their heels (tarheels) and bitch and whine about their freedoms and slow down progress just long enough that millions will needlessly live in poverty (including themselves) and fear and  desperation, but when reform comes, as usual, they'll be among the first to benefit and see their quality of life improve. Then they'll be the first morons to oppose the next round of progress. It's hard to blame them: they're stupid and backwards and being brainwashed by the elites who actually benefit from a poor, fearful, divided America. 

The Tenth Amendment. Learn it, know it, feel it. The Tenth Amendment is like when a pop fly is hit to the outfield and there's some debate if the center fielder or the left fielder (or even the short stop) should take it. I submit to you it's almost always  best when the center fielder (The Federal Government) asserts control and takes it. Just reduces confusion and the possibility of an error being made by another fielder who is out of position and beyond his range. Everyone knows you wouldn't be in left field unless you were a butcher with the glove anyway.





8:41 PM 
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