The Cleveland News Circus

Welcome to my hometown.

Here’s a video clip from our local news that's actually being blogged about nationally. These are the kind of people I deal with on a daily basis. Sigh.

The town where it happened (Berea) is actually on the other side of town - -what we call the West Side. Berea also happens to be the summer training home of the Cleveland Browns.

This video is great, especially at the end. It’s worth the wait.

And for the record - - most of our news is this sensationalist. This channel (WKYC – Channel 3) is considered the ‘respectable’ news team in Cleveland. On the other end of the spectrum you have Channel 19 (WOIO), which is crazy and off the hook. Believe me. It’s like Jerry Springer meets the National Enquirer. Classic! (Springer, by the way, is an Ohio native. Before he got famous herding the unwashed, redneck masses he herded OUR unwashed, redneck masses. He was actually the mayor of Cincinnatti. Cincinnatti, it should be noted, is on the extreme other end of the state. Ohio doesn’t really admit to owning Cincinnatti. It’s down in that whole Cincitucky area. If Kentucky wanted to annex Cinci; Cleveland, Columbus, Youngstown, and Dayton’d probably be okay with it.)

And Channel 19 has the hotter correspondents. Mmmm… Lynna Lai…

Channel 19 also has Catherine Boseley. If you’ve never heard of her, I’ll refer you to this wonderful link at awfulplasticsurgery.com…

I’ve been thinking recently that I might be interested in giving this blog more of a purpose. There’s something to be said for using the power of blogs to root out corruption, or expose hypocrisy, or right wrongs. And I’d like to think I could use this as a forum for greater social consciousness and as a means to fulfill a civic and moral responsibility….

Ahhh, who the hell am I kidding. If I did try to go that route I’d just use it to meet celebrities, or do the sort of stuff in the video clip at the beginning of this entry. It would be cool to go undercover to, say, the Church of Scientology, and blog my experiences, but I’d need to take time off of work. And truthfully, journalism is cool and everything, but the good Doctor’s gotta pay the mortgage and my other bills ain’t gonna pay themselves. It would be cool to go all Bob Woodward, or even better – all Doctor Gonzo, but I doubt I could rise all that much above the caliber of local Cleveland news anyway.

Cool idea though…

Groan

God, I hate summer.

So hot.

This insane heat makes me sooo cranky.

Things I said this last weekend:

• "I'm an evil undead scientist. I don't work in the sun on 95 degree days. I burn easily."
• "If I ever talk about transfering to my company's Florida office again, please kick me square in the nuts."
• "Is it wrong to want to rub a lime popsicle all over my body?"
• "I don't know what you're complaining about... you try living with sweaty, sticky balls.
• "I'm an adult, and I contribute a not insignificant part of my salary to the mortgage...that's why I feel I am perfectly within my rights to sit in front of a box fan, in my underwear and nothing else, while drinking a cold beer. I don't care if your mother is coming over."
• "If these fucking dogs don't stop laying on me or against me, I swear to god I'll give them the needle myself. It's like sitting with a furry, panting, hot pillow on my lap."
• "Don't touch my leg with your leg! It's like I'm sitting against a microwave-warmed slab of meat!"
• "You're not a doctor. How do you know that extreme heat doesn't give me diarrhea?!?"
• "Oh god! I've got sweat in my ass crack!"
• "It's a vast global conspiracy against me! The CIA's targeting Cleveland with a orbitally platformed laser just to get me. And stop looking at me like I've lost my mind!"
• "My brain's melting."

I'll be in my crypt until this heat wave passes. It's cooler there and Mrs. Zombie told me I'm not allowed out until I promise to be nicer.

Like that'll happen anytime soon.

The Same Deep Water As You

It’s trite to comment on how music can teleport one to specific times in one’s life; or that one’s life has a soundtrack. People say it so much that the sense of wonder that hearing a certain song evokes is somehow lost in the banal, the commonplace, the cliché.

I thought about this all afternoon.

Last week I received, in a swooping logo-ed Amazon.com box, a DVD that I’d been dying to get my undead mitts on since I’d first heard about it. You see, part of being an old Goth dinosaur is that I still hold on to certain music and styles that may not necessarily be in vogue anymore. It’s like in the movie Trainspotting, when Diane tells Renton that there are new things in the world besides Iggy Pop and New Order. I feel like Renton at times; wallowing in my past and reveling in the anachronism that is old school Goth and Industrial music. This DVD was just one of those things.

The DVD is The Cure's Trilogy. It is a concert video of The Cure in Berlin playing the ultimate, quintessential, and definitive Cure albums in their original order and back to back. The albums, of course, are Pornography, Disintegration, and Bloodflowers. These three albums, together, define The Cure’s body of work. Additionally, as most Cure fans agree and as Robert Smith confirms in the DVD extras, these three albums are linked ‘spiritually’.

If you were to ask me who my favorite band of all time is – I’d have to say that, undeniably, it is The Cure. Which is funny because, for a long time, I would have probably said it was The Police. Which is true to an extant, but not entirely. As I’ve aged I’ve become more cynical, much darker of mood and temprement, and drawn to the melancholy and world weary gloom of Robert Smith.

And it goes back to high school, as these things inevitably must. I had my first taste of The Cure on a mix tape my friend Jason had made to play in the background while we role-played Call of Cthulhu. And yes, my high school years were spent role-playing in my friend Sean’s attic. Yes, I am a nerd and a geek. Anyway, the tape had an eclectic mix of Peter Gabriel, Sting, Suicidal Tendencies, The Sex Pistols, and Duran Duran. And then there was this one song, stuck in the middle. It had a droning, building, rage and pain and loathing of love that resonated with my young mind. I learned that it was The Cure, and had to hear more. So, after tracking down Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me from our other friend Curtis (we did that often; shared music, books, games, girlfriends), I fell in love with The Cure.

My last year of high school, as I prepared to go off to college, the Cure released Disintegration. I was never the same after that and this album, above all others, would be the soundtrack that most defined my college experience. Yes, there were other albums that resonated, and fill in the spaces. Albums like Peter Gabriel’s Us, or Sting’s Soul Cages, or even Nine Inch Nails Perfect Hate Machine. But none of them reached the depth of resonance that Disintegration did.

I thought of this as I watched Trilogy today. I’ve seen The Cure in concert probably close to a dozen times. I once even followed them as they did shows on three consecutive nights in Cleveland, Dayton, and Fort Wayne Indiana. My own sort of black clad, Gothic, Grateful Dead thing - - as it were. This DVD, though, was the best performance I’ve seen them do.

And as they started the Disintegration set I found myself back in my college apartment.

I imagined myself lying on my bed beside the window, looking down at the blowing, swirling cold and snow of a northern Midwestern winter. The room is dark and flickering with the single light of a mulberry candle given me by my friend, Doctor Michelle. I imagine that, outside of my half open door, I hear my roommates Stephen and Barb arguing about doing the dishes. Or perhaps my other roommate Kimber is downstairs, singing as she does her homework, her voice like a beautiful ghost dancing in the echoes and shadows of the 150 year old house we lived in. Or perhaps my other friends, Sean, Jay, Richie, and Amy Lynn are laughing at something on the TV in the downstairs living room. And I am there, alone amidst all of this activity, absorbing the hiss of the radiator in my corner and feeling the bliss of being with those I love and who are now gone on their own lives’ paths. I look to the candlelight-lapped ceiling and breath deep, hoping that this perfection never ends, but knowing it must.

And in the background, my CD player begins playing The Same Deep Water As You, by The Cure.

All of this came rushing back to me as I half watched and listened to the DVD this afternoon. And I felt that swell of bittersweet remembrance and the coppery-tasting throat constriction that one gets when tears might come.

Robert Smith’s a god, man. A god.

An additional note on the DVD, besides the fact that I obviously loved it. They only did two songs as an encore and they were both from Kiss Me…. Remember that droning, angst-ridden song I mentioned earlier? On Jay Jay’s role-playing mix tape? It was 'The Kiss', and it was how they ended the concert. This wild idea of playing albums back to back, that Robert himself called The Cure’s greatest accomplishment, ended with the very song that made me fall in love with them.

Nostalgia can be a bitch, ya’ know?

Eep! I may have been wrong when I said...

So with all of the political posting I’ve been doing lately, I’ve gotten a couple emails I wanted to address:

The first was from my good friend Chrissy. She said she likes it better when I post about “…dogs. or flowers. or sunshine and cotton candy.”. And I here what she’s screaming. I like when I post about dogs also. (I’ll NEVER ‘fess up to the other stuff. I’m far too dark and brooding to even entertain the thought of such happy, cheery stuff. No sir. Nope. No way.) Anyway, part of my recent rants against the vast right wing, executive branch, fundamental Christian conspiracy can be partly blamed on my mood. I’ve been in an especially ogre-like mood lately; as Mrs Zombie, the Boy Zombie, and Wolfgirl will readily attest to. And I don’t really know why. I’ve just been kind of mad at the world lately and – unfortunately - when this sort of mood strikes me, my tolerance for bullshit goes way down. So, Chrissy - - I promise I’ll try to post more funny stuff. Really.

Just not today.

A second email I got mentioned that my political party (The Zombie Party! Join today and live through TEOTWAWKI tomorrow!) may already be out there. He said that, politically, I might find myself more in line with the Libertarians. I found this odd because I know that I am very much a liberal Democrat. That's how I've always thought of myself, anyway. Besides, the Libertarians have that whacko Lyndon Larouche. In fact, I’d always thought the Libertarian party was always slightly more conservative than the Republicans. Sort of like George W. mixed in with some Adolph Hitler, with a splash of Pol Pot for color. The thing is, I just spent about an hour scouring the internet for political affiliation quizzes.

And, for every one I took, I found myself falling squarely into the Libertarian camp. It was scary.

The first political quiz I found and took was this one. It turns out that this is, according to everything I read, probably one of the most accurate indicators of your political leanings out there. Which is funny, because it comes from a Libertarian website. This fact set off quite a few strident and klaxon-like warning bells in my skeptical skull, so I decided to see if it always gave a Libertarian skewed result.

So, I tried to answer like my friend, Doctor Michelle (who’s a real doctor, BTW. She just got her Doctorate in Psychology. Which is cool, but not as cool as my Doctorate in Evil Genius Sciences. Yeah, she can analyze people’s dreams and do Rohrshach Tests, blah blah blah… but can she put together an oscillating, multiphasic, fission powered death ray to take over the world? I don’t think so.) Anyway, she’s the most liberal person I can think of. (Which I love her for. She is one of the purest, most socially conscious people I know. And she’s kinda hot- - but don’t tell Mrs. Zombie!) Anyway, I answered like I thought she might have and it came back with a very liberal Democrat response.

Next I answered like my father would. My father is the bane of my existence. He is so goddamned conservative it makes my whale eye pucker. He has an autographed picture of George W. and Laura Bush hanging in a place of honor in his basement. (He got it because he gave SOOO much money to the Republican presidential campaign. Sigh.) He and I fight so bad about politics that we’re not even allowed to mention it at ANY family function because we end up screaming at each other. We are banned from political discussion under warning of death by my mother and Mrs. Zombie. To give you an idea of how inconsistent my father’s views are with mine; if I were to run for political office my father would NOT VOTE FOR ME. His own son. The fruit of his loins. And do you know why? Because I’m a Democrat. He’s a Bush apologist and a Republican who would never, ever dream of breaking from the party line on any conservative issue. So I answered like he would.

As my dad would have answered:

• "Death to gays!"
• “Death to the dark ghetto people who are suckling at the teat of the working man!”
• “Give more money to subsidize big business because Ronald Reagan was right about Trickle Down Economics!” (“Hey, when do we knock FDR off of Mt. Rushmore and put Reagan up there?!?”
• “Iraq needed to be invaded because they have weapons of mass destruction. What? No WMD? Well, then we needed to do it because Saddam was an oppressor. What? The UN sanctions were working and Saddam was coming around? Well, dammit! They…uh…ummm…they helped…Al Quaeda! Yeah, that’s it!”
• “If Kerry or Al Gore was president, we’d all be speaking Arabic right now!”
• “George W. is soooo dreamy!!! Waitaminute! That sounded kinda like one of those fags! That’’s not what I meant…”

And so on…

So, after this nauseating exercise of trying to think like a Conservative, I found that the test still seemed accurate. Take it and let me know where you fall….

Another good one I found was this one. Although I have to say that, seeing where you are politically while simultaneosuly taking the test tended to make me want to answer to make myself seem liberal. Honesty works best on this one….

So, that’s all for tonight. I need to go and replenish my undead minion zombies (a small accident whilst assembling the oscillating, multiphasic, fission powered death ray to take over the world. A few undead zombie minions may have been accidentally imploded.) A minor setback, really…

Unpleasant dreams, dear reader…

Conspiracy Theory?

So, once again, Bush has been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. This time, it’s been learned that he has been keeping track of who we call. The official party line? “Don’t worry, we’re just tracking the terrorists! American citizens don’t need to worry, we’re protecting their privacy.”

Excuse me if I don’t trust that in any way shape or form.

This administration feels it can do whatever it wants, and it’s all being done under the auspices of protecting us in our ‘War on Terror’. Well, do you know what? The government has done this in the past. Hoover kept files on those who might have been threats to America. McCarthy blacklisted and deported Americans because they might have been Communists. Need I mention how we treated the Japanese during World War II? Trite as it may be, the saying “Those who fail to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it” is appropriate here. It wasn’t right then, and it isn’t right now. And if you don’t think the government doesn’t have their analysts dissecting YOUR call patterns and contacts, you are woefully naïve. The Bush Administration has this information now? Do you think they WON’T use it?

Case in point: The grotesqueries of the current administration, as led by King George II, have made clear their conservative Christian agenda. It has made clear their flagrant disregard for the rights and civil liberties of their own constituency. For the love of Pete, they are showing more respect for the mythical rights of illegal immigrants than for those of eUS born citizens! As it pertains to the wire taps and call tracing, consider this: the Bush Administration has made it exceedingly clear that they hate leaks of any kind. They are notoriously tight lipped. And any leaks that have occurred have been squashed with an iron fist. Do you think perhaps they are using the call records to track leaks, or ‘national security risks’ as they are wont to call them?

And think about it this way. What DON’T we know? Blogger and Myspace are the internet crossroads for individual self expression. The gods know I’ve railed against the Bush Administration repeatedly from my little internet soapbox. Do you think it’s never crossed some Republican, boot-licking, mid-level bureaucrat’s conniving, conspiracy theoried, conservative little mind to start looking for any dissent in this forum? It would be stupid to think they haven’t dissected the blogs of some of us and started Homeland Security files on us.

It’s been determined that especially outspoken anti-war activists have been ‘inadvertantly’ added to the TSA No-Fly list. How are they terrorists? Their only crime was to openly disagree with the Administration, so they’ve been lumped in with the Earth Liberation Front, Hamas, and Al-Quaeda. Don’t think for a minute that someone close to that drawling, big-eared, underachiever at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue wasn’t responsible for that.

And I’m so tired of the knee jerk conservative response to anti-war rhetoric as unpatriotic. I’m a member of several Jeep forums and firearms forums and I’m a minority in both incidences in that I’m a liberal. I’ve seen open calls to shoot traitors who disagree with the President and deport anyone who doesn’t support the war in Iraq. There have been calls for a reissuance of the Treason and Sedition act, and apply it to all war protestors and the ‘liberal’ media (which is patently moronic – the press is a constitutionally protected entity. Dumasses.) And, I’ve heard Conservatives spout out that, regardless of what a liberal says – we hate our troops because we don’t support Bush’s war of aggression against Iraq.

Bullshit.

Newsflash – I love my country. I would die for my country if called on to serve. And I would do so willingly. I would do it regardless of the current administration, or the rightness or wrongness of the conflict. That being said, how am I unpatriotic?

I would argue the opposite, in fact. I am being a patriot for voicing my opposition to a corrupt government that has damaged our domestic agenda, damaged our foreign relations with Western Europe, and killed 2500+ American soldiers in a war that was started under false pretenses.

And I’m what a Christian, Conservative, Bush loving fuck knob would call his worst nightmare. I’m an angry liberal with guns. So, when they make Atheism and Liberalism illegal, I will not go quietly. I’ll take a few with me.

Which leads me, rather circuitously, back to a point I was trying to make before. I’m certain that this blog, and the divisive, anti-American (rolling eyes) views I’ve been spouting here have gotten me on a watch list of some sort. My response to that is…good.

Worry about me. I won’t shut up, and I won’t back down to the bullshit and bluster of the fundamentalist right wing.

Here’s some more fodder for my FBI file if you haven’t already gotten it, assholes. I, in a round about way, have supported terrorism. You see, I am a firm believer in reunification of Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland. I have extensively studied my own Irish heritage and I sympathize with the Irish Republican Army. In fact, I feel that violence is sometimes the only response to oppression and intimidation; such as the oppression and anti-Irish attacks by Ian Paisley’s Ulster Loyalists on Irish Catholic children.

Let me up the ante for you…in the 80’s and 90’s, I was active in and donated money to Irish Northern Aid; an organization that is an American money raising branch of Sinn Fein – which is the political arm of the IRA. Some of my money, I’m sure was used to buy weapons or finance Republican operations in Ulster. I’ve supported terrorism.

So there.

If you don’t hear from me, assume that the Secret Service has put a bullet into my brain or I’ve been detained as a ‘person of national security interest’. Either way, I did it for a good cause.

Freedom.

Ask and you shall receive...

(Second post tonight, but I couldn't let this go without writing it down - Dr. Z)

Dear dark pagan gods, I hate Ohio sometimes.

So I put a Darwin Fish on the back of my Jeep about a week ago. You know what I’m talking about, don’t you? Those little fish things that the Christians use to let the world know that they’re devout? Well, I got one that says ‘Darwin’ because a) I am an evil, atheist bastard, b) I feel it necessary to let Intelligent Design proponents know that they’re fucking stupid, and c) I feel it’s my duty to piss off the fundies.

So I just ran out at lunch to pick up a prescription (I work nights). I’m merging onto I-271, and some guy in a blinged out Mustang speeds up as I’m merging and starts waving at me and giving me a thumbs up. Not recognizing him, and thinking it’s probably just some nutjob, I wave back and get up to highway speed. As he passes me, I see that he has a fish sticker, with ‘Jesus’ on it. ‘Ahhhh,’ I think, ‘it’s raining like hell, and he can’t see that my sticker says ‘Darwin’”. I shrug, thinking nothing of it, and pass him to go two exits up to the pharmacy.

When I passed him, he must have seen my decal more clearly.

So, some ten minutes later, I park my Jeep at the local Giant Eagle Grocery store and begin pulling the collar of my trench coat up to brave the torrential downpour. Just as I’m about to step out of my Jeep, the guy in the Mustang comes whipping into the spot next to me. I crack my door as he gets out of his car to better hear him over the thumping bass of his "killa system".

My first glance at the moron tells me a lot about him. He is a skinny, white guy with a manicured goatee and frosted hair. He probably weighs all of about 150 pounds, soaking wet (which he is, standing in a grocery store parking lot during a thunderstorm as he is.) He’s also wearing a FUBU coat, size 60 something jeans, and an angry look. ("Yo! Icy Cold Stunnaz for Jesus, Boyyyy! Whitey D and his Suburban Posse! {Insert some gay gang signs you made up in study hall here.}"

This is how our conversation goes:

Moron/Fundie/Kevin Federline Worshipper: You think that sticker’s fucking funny?
Dr. Z: Yeah. Actually I do.
Moron: You’re an asshole!
Dr. Z: I know that. So you followed me ten miles down the interstate and 2 miles through the suburbs to tell me something I already know?
Moron: I should key your car.
Dr. Z: It’s a Jeep. They don’t like being called cars. And if you even breath on my Jeep I will kill you.
Moron: I'm serious!
Dr. Z: And so am I. I'll seriously kill you. And eat your liver.
Moron: You’re an asshole!
Dr. Z: And I’ve already acknowledged that. Go away.
Moron: I should kick your ass.

At this point I open my Jeep door and step all the way out. I’m wearing my black trench coat, black boots, and a baseball cap. I take off my hat to reveal my shaved head and shrug out of my trench coat. Dude quickly realizes that I am about 3 inches taller than he is, that I have about 75 or so pounds on him, and that I am not going to back down to his gangsta blustering.

Dr. Z: Do what you have to do, but do you think your Christ would approve of what you’re doing?
Moron(as he scurries back into his Mustang): Fuck you.
Dr. Z: And thank you for showing me the milk of Christian kindness.

So – just in case the coward swung back and really did try to key my Jeep, I had to forego picking up my prescription tonight.

Dammit.

Addiction

So, I've mentioned before how much of a SciFi/Horror movie junkie I am, right? With the biblical rains we received all weekend, I had some time to indulge my addiction. And I heard some great news (this may be old news to some, but I still feel it's important to let the world know...)

Han shoots first. About fucking time! The love I have for the Star Wars movies knows almost no limits. That said, even my love is not enough for me to stop hate George Lucas for tampering with the original three. For a time there it seemed that Ole George was never going to release the original movies in their original, unaltered, un-digitally remastered states. This weighed heavily upon Doctor Zombie’s sci-fi loving heart. Especially when I started having little zombies of my own. I felt anguish that The Zombie Boy (who is a chip of the old man’s sci-fi block!) would never get to see the original Star Wars movies in the version I did when I was his age. He’d never get to see Han get the drop on Greedo like the bastard he is, or to hear the original “Chub Chub” song the ewoks sing at the end of Return.

Now though, he will. And it is good.

Speaking of The Zombie kids, The Zombie Girl is not a sci-fi geek like her dad. She’s my little horror movie fan. I suspect that, when she hits high school, she'll become my little vampire Goth princess. She has this fascination with vampires and, while her friends want to play dolls and dress up, she always wants to play superheroes. Her unsuspecting playmates agree and say things like, “I want to be Wonder Woman,” or “I want to be Starfire from Teen Titans,” or “I want to be Lavagirl!” My daughter smiles sweetly; says, “Fine”; and then howls, pouncing on them with snarls and chomping teeth. You see, my 5 year old daughter is convinced that she is a werewolf superhero named Wolfgirl(!). We’ve had a few parent teacher conferences, and a few complaints from other kids’ parents about this; but I say it’s just Zombie Girl being creative and expressing herself. My wife blames me and says that I’m an evil, sociopathic bastard who’s turned her once lovely children into little monsters.

MY response is: “You knew what you were getting when you married an evil, undead scientist with plans for total world domination. This surprises you?!?”

BTW – it was a great weekend of further child corruption as it rained nonstop. Wolfgirl watched The Lost Boys with me. It was on the SciFi channel and it was pretty heavily edited so her fragile 5 year old mind won’t be damaged by bad words or excessive violence. There will be plenty of time for that later in life. She loved it and I fear for the two little girls who live behind us because I heard her telling her favorite doll (Sally, from The Nightmare Before Christmas) that she was going to be just like Star with the pretty brown hair from Lost Boys. You know, I forgot how much I loved this movie. I know, it has the Coreys in it, and I know it is soooo a late 80’s thing, but damn if this movie isn’t a snapshot of my high school years. I wanted so badly to get a mullet, a dirt bike, and an earring like David, or Michael in this movie. My friend Kristin and I watched this movie endlessly when we were in high school, and played the soundtrack everywhere. I actually went out later that day and bought the soundtrack on CD because I’m that much of a geek. You should have seen the weird looks the pimply faced, seventeen year old, minimum wager at the used CD shop gave me when I bought it. Yes, I’m an old geek, minimum wager! Careful or I’ll bite you…

Also, my new latest SciFi fixation has been Doctor Who. I LOVE THIS SHOW. I cannot begin to tell you how much I love it. If you haven’t had time to catch it, do so at your earliest chance. This is a great filler for the lapse between new episodes of Battlestar Galactica. Sure, the BBC still uses special effects that would have been at home in an original Star Trek episode (I’m exaggerating, but not by much). But that doesn’t matter. You know, it’s funny really - - being an American, Doctor Who wasn’t part of my Sci Fi education like other shows. At least not like it is across the pond. Doctor Who is Britain’s favorite sci fi show and is a cultural phenomenon over there. This depresses me because it is such a great concept and great show. I remember the first time I saw Doctor Who and it left an indelible impression on me. I was at a kid named Vince Barwidi’s house when I was 8 or so. I was there for a cub scout meeting that was eventually cancelled because of a snow storm. I remember sitting in his living room, on a couch beneath – I swear to god – a velvet Elvis painting, and watching tv with Vince and another kid. Vince’s dad was watching WVIZ (our local PBS channel) and this show came on. I remember being fascinated by the English accents, the special effects, and these wickedly cool and inexplicably terrifying garbage cans with lasers that buzzed “EXTERMINATE!”. Mostly though, I was struck by the really, really cool theme. It resonanted with me. It was haunting. I was hooked then and there, but the only problem was, I was only able to catch the Doctor once or twice a year because it was so sporadically shown in the 70’s and 80’s in the U.S. Midwest.

Flash forward to college - - and my roommate Stephen trots out video tapes of his favorite television show. I had since forgotten about Doctor Who (besides getting the Timelord’s Doctorin’ the Tardis. It was a one hit dance wonder that mixed the haunting Doctor Who theme with Gary Glitter’s Rock n’ Roll II.). But, Stephen was a Doctor Who fanatic. (His bank, school, and computer PIN’s were all the Gallafreyen Presidential Code.) I suddenly rediscovered the Doctor and it was cool.

Funny coincidence by the way. My roommate Stephen’s middle name was actually Elvis. Believe it or not…

Now, the Doctor’s back on and I am much pleased. And I especially like Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor. And I REALLY like Billie Piper, who plays the Doctor’s companion Rose. I have such a soft spot for hot British chicks.

So, if you like the SciFi as Doctor Zombie does, I would highly recommend the Doctor.

By the way – I still love the Doctor Who theme, especially in its current incarnation. If anybody has the capability of copying it and getting it to me, I’ll remember you when I take over the world. How does President of Australia sound? At the very least, I’ll send you your choice of a Doctor Zombie shirt from my new Café Press shop. (I was bored at work the other night and threw it together. I don’t expect to make any money off of it, but I do like being able to bribe people with my own swag.)

Unpleasant dreams, dear readers...

First my own religion, now...

I’m starting my OWN political party! That’s it! I’ve had it with the duplicity and cronyism rampant in the Republican party, and the wishy-washy PC, anti-everything Democratic stance. My party will appeal to Generation X and Generation Y. Yeah, we’re all apathetic and don’t really vote like we should, but what we need is a party that appeals to our apathy.

Let’s see. Here’s what I think my political party should do:

- We should say to hell with these old guys and beltway careerists who are only concerned with lobbyist money and don’t care about their constituents. I like California’s ballot initiative idea. If enough people feel strongly enough that you’re doing a shitty job, and they get enough signatures, they can vote you out. And, being a member of my party, you will go gracefully and willingly. Those who don’t will get a taser to the balls or girly bits, whichever is appropriate. True democracy at work baby…

- Since Republicans are generally Christian fundamentalists in nice suits, and Democrats are godless, atheistic heathens, my political party will have a generalized religious stereotype also. We will subscribe to one simple religious and philosophical credo – My great, great uncle Aleister Crowley’s concept of ‘Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.’ What does this mean? It means that free will and individuality shall reign. Does this mean you can’t be a Christian, or an Atheist, or a Muslim, or a Buddhist, or am Orion slave girl, or whatever and not be in my party? No, of course it doesn’t . It just means that you do what you want, and govern based on your principles. It also means you shut the fuck up about your beliefs because nobody wants to hear them. The commands or tenets of your faith have no place in governing. Sure, our country was founded by white Christians; but those Christians left Europe because of religious persecution. We are not a Christian country, don’t make it one. Religion has no place in politics or government. “Do what thou wilt…” and “the STFU Principle” – live ‘em, learn ‘em, love ‘em.

- Term Limits are essential to a fluid, dynamic democracy. One should get into politics to affect change and make a difference. If you’ve only got a finite amount of time to do so, you’ll work harder at making a difference.

- Acceptance of all others. My party will have people of all religions, ideologies, socioeconomic strata, and educational experience. We will understand this and accept that we will disagree. In fact, we encourage diversity. Diversity of culture will allow us to be better citizens and better Americans. Extreme views will not be discarded, but they will be marginalized. By working together, we will ‘stick it to the man’!

- Death to lobbyists! Lobbyists are sucking our country dry. They are using their agenda and money to do what we as citizens can’t – mainly, affect change to their benefit. In a true representative government, the people’s voices should be the loudest. This belief is inviolable. Lobbyists account for several of the other planks of our platform, so all lobbyists should be sent to labor and internment camps in Death Valley.

- Electronic Freedom is a priority – We live in a new electronic age. Freedom of expression, freedom to disseminate our ideas, and freedom to download what we want - when we want to - is of paramount importance. We will work to thwart the work of those like the RIAA, or intolerant jerks who would censor our thoughts or writing in the electronic world.

- Preservation of the Constitution – We live in the greatest country in the world, and the majority of what makes America that way can be found in the Constitution. We will work to support any and all legislation or politician who works to protect that document. And that means ALL of the amendments to the constitution. The Bill of Rights is inviolable and, that means ALL the amendments – including the second. Guns kick ass and every American should have 2 or 3.

- Here’s my foreign policy piece: Fuck the Middle East. Let them kill each other off. We will immediately push to remove all troops, pull all aid, and pull all money we send to the Middle East. This includes Israel. Look - - it’s real simple. The Muslim hate us because we’re rich, free, and support Israel. And Israel continues to give the Arabs the middle finger because their big, badass brother is standing behind them. Let Israel take care of their own problems. If this were the case, and Israel was alone against the endless stretch of swarthy, angry Islamo-Fundies, they’d be a lot nicer to the rest of the Mideast and their own indigenous Arab populace. We’ll buy oil from whoever gives us the best price, and say to hell with the rest of them.

- And while we’re cutting ties to the Middle East, let’s mess with France some. Those snotty, Eurotrash bastards need a kick in their snooty, French asses. The one thing that chafes the French asses the most seems to be the ‘Americanization’ of their (allegedly) superior culture. So - - if EuroDisney pisses them off, I imagine that Euro-Branson, or Euro-Dollywood would send them into apopleptic, twitching fits. Vive la mullet!

- We will lobby to make December 12th a national holiday. Besides the fact that it is my birthday, it will be official Science Fiction Appreciation Day. All malls and businesses will close, with the exception of video stores, bookstores, and movie theatres so we can watch or read Sci Fi. The day will be spent watching Star Wars, Star Trek, Blade Runner, BattleStar Galactica reruns or any other appropriate Sci Fi movie or show. This plank of the platform will henceforth be known as the “The Geeks shall inherit the world plank.”

Wacky Celebrities

So, I spent a great part of my lunch at the gym. Whilst sweating my fat ass off on an elliptical I read about 4 issues of Us Weekly. Yeah, I know. Trashy tabloid and sleazy stalkerazzi fare - - but damn if I can help it. I hate the gym, can’t stand to watch television while I’m there, and need to do something to occupy my time. Besides, truthfully, reading is one of the only thing I do that gives me pure pleasure. It’s been like that since I was a kid. I taught myself to read watching Sesame Street and Electric Company when I was 4. While the other kids in first grade were learning hw to read, I was in the back reading Tom Sawyer. (My parents had the belief that it would be somehow traumatic to skip me over several grades when I was in elementary school. It’s probably a good thing because, although I was a scary intelligent kid when I was in elmentary and high school, everyone seemed to catch up to me after high school. I grew dumber. Which is interesting really in that I sometimes fear that I may be the exception to Natural Selection - - but I digress… )

Anyway, I was reading all about Tara Reid’s botched boob job, Lindsay Lohan’s endless, halcyonic partying, Brangelina’s scurrying retreat to some blighted, third-world African country, and the fact that Nick still desperately loves that conniving, evil, pout-trouty Jessica; when I came across several articles about Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes.

I gotta say, I’m horrified for this poor girl. Part of it may be that she’s from Toledo, here in Ohio, and I know the neighborhood where she grew up (I went to college near Toledo and worked there for a year and a half later in life). I just feel for her as she seemed like a normal, young, pretty, Midwestern girl. I empathize with her. And I find it damned disturbing that she was seduced by that nutjob Tom Cruise; with his perfect smile and million dollar good looks. I mean, dude’s twice her age. He could be her father - - and that’s just creepy. I’m still of the opinion that she was swept up by the romance of dating Tom “Top Gun” Cruise and she got knocked up before she could see the loathsome evil that lurked behind his blue eyes.

I seriously think that she got knocked up before she had even worked up the courage to shit in his house. You know what I’m talking about, right? That time in the beginning of a relationship when you’re still embarassed by anything that may let the person you are trying to woo know you may not be perfect? You know how it is – no farting, of running the risk of jamming up their toilet like you had lunch at Dirty Sanchez’s All You Can Eat Taco and Tequila Bar?

Add to the fact that it’s Tom Freakin’ Cruise! Can you imagine the pressure that must have put on poor dear Katie?

‘Geez!,’ Katie must have thought, ‘I’m cramping from having to crap here. But I can’t! I mean, what if he smells it? What if he realizes I just crunched in his master bathroom? I mean it’s Tom Cruise! I can’t let him know that tofu gives me farts like the septic’s backed up! He probably doesn’t even know what septic is! Christ!’

Then, suddenly, BAM! Katie’s pregnant.

And then the real Tom comes shambling into the room like some noxious, vile, foul beast from the nether reaches of hell. Trailing behind him are endless throngs of Scientologists spouting nonsense about Thetans who were destroyed by a volcano millions of years ago, Subversive Individuals who will try to steer you away from the true path of L. Ron Hubbards vision (like her own parents), and silent births.

One comment on this silent birth thing - - I observed both of my children born and it is insane and damn impossible to expect a woman NOT to make noise while giving birth. Doctor Zombie has tattoos, had a pierced nipple, and subsequently had said piercing RIPPED out on a fence (Remind me to tell you THAT story sometime). It could be said I have a high threshold for pain. Childbirth is like another planet of pain.

All of that, and now - - the latest news is that Tom told Katie on the day their daughter was born that, if she leaves him or they split up, he guarantees he will have full custody. Like the baby’s a piece of property, or the spoils of war. Are you fucking kidding me?!?

And this whole Scientology thing - - how do I start my own religion? And how do I get celebrities like Tom Cruise. John Travolta, or Kirstie Alley to tout it and give me money? I need to think about starting my own religion. The good Doctor needs to start his own church! That’s it! Doctor Zombie’s Church of the Divine Orgasm. Wait... Doctor Zombie sounds too sinister for a church.

I know... The Resurrected's Church of the Divine Orgasm. We will begin services this weekend. There will be an orgy in the field behind the church after the 10am service. Bring a dish for the potluck lunch afterwards. And we’ll need to talk more about this tithing thing. Doctor Zombie needs cash. Cold, hard cash. And the the only way to get cash is through embezzlement, politics, or religion. And I'm going the nonprofit, giving-it-because-the-good-book-says-you-gotta, religious route!

Hot damn!

Big News

Just a quick update – more to follow later.

I just got in from out of town as I was in the woods of Southern Ohio, hunting turkey. I didn’t kill any turkeys, and I most probably did some permanent damage to my liver with the amount of heavy drinking I did. I will take some time to type up some accounts of the weekend, because some funny stuff happened, but it’ll probably have to wait a day or two.

So – I’ve got some big news. Doctor Zombie’s Midnight Theater of Terror has been added to a list of local blogs at Cleveland.com. How cool is that?!? Of course, there’s a lot of other blogs on the list, but at least I’ll be getting some serious local exposure. Good or bad, it’ll get my writing out there. You can check out the listing here. It’s right down the list alphabetically…

I’ll try to post some more tonight, if it slows down enough for me to log on. I’ve got this whole schtick about my straight laced, conservative wife and her current exasperation with my out of control Sci-fi addiction…

Evil tidings, my undead minions!