My Life as a Zombie.

I'm jumping the gun of course, completely bypassing 'My Life as a Teenage Werewolf'. But I'm not in the mood for that one, and can't really remember it anyway (I was cautioned for chasing a duck one night - across St James's Park in my underpants, and that's all you really need to know).

The life of the zombie is, predictably enough, quite dull. But there is, if you like, a certain 'Zen' quality to its dullness - if (like me) you are of the 'proper', old-school, slow-moving variety (these new-fangled fast-types completely miss the point: The Fast Zombies are to the Slow Zombies what these (now universal) shaven-scalped 'patriots' and white-supremacists are to the original skinhead. They've got no fucking taste for one thing).

So, you know. You plod about. You wander aimlessly around gaping and glazed. You decay at a rate so inhibited that you could probably out-live your average human. Except that you are already dead.

The complex 'macro' living organism is the evolved 'contract' between all the micro-organisms that go about their business within the metabolic construct. But make no mistake, it is a hierarchical-contract, a contract of biological plutocracy, which in real terms, is no contract at all. The anti-organism that is the living-dead, is the perfect manifestation of Marxist ideology. The intellect has been dethroned and sent into exile.

The Zombie does not 'think' in the conventional sense. It is like a jellyfish in that respect, an animated city of micro-(quasi) life.

Free of the chains of the conceptual, one achieves a state of 'pure mind'. The mind is not that which might happen to float or buzz about in it if you among the living. It is a fluid and timeless thing.

But, like you breathers with your precious pulses, it is always hungry. But not for sustenance, for nourishment, or the fulfilment of any sensual pleasure.

It is hungry only to - in the most primordial sense - 'embrace'. The devouring of the flesh of the living is done, not - as some suppose - out of some surviving instinct still in circulation in the 'reptile brain' (the brain is an organ long-gone, replaced by endlessly re-organised soup, much like perpetual pupa-phase), but to extend this 'embrace'. But an embrace of what?

That's (in part) where the 'Frankenstein-factor' kicks-in: The answers to all of these questions (and more) require apparatus no more sophisticated than a fork and a toaster. But operating a toaster is more than just a bit problematic for your 'de-conceptualised' zombie, and it can therefore only be achieved by accident - and don't let anyone tell you that "there is no such things as 'accidents'", because - aside from the poor grammar of such a statement - if it wasn't for the Accident, there would be no such thing as anything at all. Take it from me, accidental zombie pioneer...

My Life as a Christian.

It was a bit on and off, my Christianity thing, First of all I was five and sent to a Protestant School. But only cos it was the nearest school. Apart from the Catholic school (I suppose they were full-up). My parents were a-religious types, coming themselves from a mix of Catholic/Protestant/Jewish/Hindu, and bleeding Zoroastrianism . Though my mum had an interest in Christian-theology - mainly derived from her obsession with the paintings of da Vinci - all them secret-codes and such (now so very popular - everyone pointing their fingers at everyone else). She used to enjoy chats with the local vicar about these. Then she had her 'vision': She was visited by Christ-no-less, who more-or-less told her that Judas was the true martyr in the equation, as Jesus had merely given-up his physical- life for humankind's salvation, where as Judas had consigned his very soul to hell for the cause - or some such ( It is worth mentioning that my dear old ma used to also spend hours arranging tea-towels on her arms in a way that would be perfectly symmetric as this would defy gravity and she would levitate). Anyway, she shared her experience with this local vicar, over tea, who was very intrigued and suggested a special meeting at the church. When she turned up, there was about 12 of them waving crucifixes and chanting 'THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELLS THEE!' - so that was the end of that.

Anyway, for whatever reason it didn't occur to either my mum or dad to brief me on the basics before sending me to Jesus-School. I was told-off during the Lord's Prayer as it confused me as I had no Idea that all our dads were doing 'art' in Devon or why everyone was kneeling and putting their hands together all of a sudden. That was Day 1. Then they didn't like my drawing which they misinterpreted as Jesus and all the angels perishing in Hellfire whilst Satan looked on laughing. It was a drawing I did right out of the bible, and they just misunderstood the symbolism.

Well Protestant school didn't do much for my spiritual-indoctrination. Then when I was about 9 I met a kid in the park. He told me that he had had a terminal spinal-condition and then he'd prayed to God and had levitated in a 'golden light' and was healed. That sounded pretty cool. For further information he obligingly pointed his Dad out to me who was this comb-over in an anorak handing out leaflets... I read the bible and prayed at night. I prayed for a terminal spine-condition so I too could levitate in the golden light (when all I needed was two identical tea-towels, obviously). It occurred to me that my prayers were selfish, and that in the eyes of God the Almighty my soul was naked and I must therefore only pray for worthy, selfless things of the empathetic and spiritually integral... But underneath everything there seemed always be some subtle layer of self-interest. The impurity of my soul went right down to the marrow. I was a hopeless case. I would never develop multiple-sclerosis at this rate. Then, obviously, I discovered masturbation and drugs and It all went sideways from there.... But I'm sure Jesus was a very interesting fellow, despite his bad hair

The Church of Frankenstein.

The Church of Frankenstein was founded about 6 years ago in my bedroom by accident. Practitioners are subjected to high-voltage electrical shocks for no particular reason. Our 'theology' is confused by definition. Confusion is the key state to which the Frankenite aspires. We encourage and exalt in contradiction. It is the very certainty of uncertainty that brings forth the friction necessary to generate the diametrically immiscible reconciliation of everlasting-mortality. We strive for the infinitely unsustainable dynamic between truth and reality. In this way we are never transformed but ever-negotiated: for the conflict of the composite is never the sum of its parts. We also serve sandwiches.