Blog Love Omega Glee: Zine Rhymes With Keen (25 January 2012)

"How come you didn't do a zine instead of a blog?" Masani says, holding up a zine from the magazine racks at Apocalypse Books, the last remaining independent bookstore in the Cleaveland city limits. It's a nice airy space in front with hard wood floors but towards the back it becomes just stacks upon stacks of printed matter daunting even the most intrepid reader.

"I thought about it," Francine says, petting the store cat, "But with the costs of postage and printing, doing a blog was cheaper, and seemed to reach more people anyway. I did give a shoutout to zines by naming the blog Franzine after fanzine."

"Yeah, but the stuff you write about is pretty risque. I'd think you'd want to keep it more underground," Masani says, paging through the zine, an old copy of drinkdrankdrunk, "Sometimes I worry about you Franny."

"Well, for living under martial law, life doesn't seem much different than before. Basically all he did was cancel the one election and stay in office," Francine says, looking through the zine selection too, "I don't think most people even notice. They're too busy watching wrestling on television or whatever. Of course, it's a country where only about half the people bothered to vote every election anyway, and for most of those people voting was the extent of their political activity."

"I don't think Dick much cares what happens as long as he gets to do what he wants," Masani says, picking up another zine, "I can't believe I live in a country that is led by a vending machine."

"I wonder if you have to bribe him in coins only."

"No, those machines accept dollars. They usually spit the bill back at you five times before it goes in, but they take them. Dick probably has a credit card system hooked up anyway."

"He probably doesn't even need that, and just gets the Bureau of Engraving and Printing to print him up however much money he wants. All this war and terrorism stuff is just to scare people into coughing up tax dollars so Dick and his rich friends can vacuum all the money up through government contracts with the corporations they run. He canceled the last presidential election because he knew his side couldn't win no matter how much they cheated. Since then, aside from starting more wars, he hasn't been able to get away with much else because he's so unpopular. He either must have figured out a new way to rig the election this time or he knows that he can't get away with canceling it again."

"But don't you always say that both sides are working together and it's all for show?" Masani asks, picking up a book called The Pornographic Flabbergasted Emus, which she quickly puts down thinking it might be porn.

"For the most part it is, but I think sometimes they fight among themselves, and 2008 was one of those times."

Francine and Masani wander over to the poetry shelves. Masani, who wears glasses outside the house, puts her glasses up above her forehead, resting on the front of her hair as she browses. She says, "What do you think is going to happen to Poorpeople?"

"He says that he's still running and welcomed Dick into the race. He said he looked forward to a 'spirited exchange of ideas'," Francine says, crouching down to check out the bottom shelf.

"I bet. What's your take on things?"

"I don't know. It's confusing. I still think most of the political stuff we see is all a big production for the masses, and that Dick's just a tool of even more powerful people, but it could be after the assassination attempt that he's decided just to actually run things himself. There's no telling what having Poca-Cola instead of blood in your circulatory system will do to a man."

"Or just a head."

"I am a little disappointed that this may mean another four years without a presidential sex scandal."

"Hang on girl, Dick could get it on with a photocopier or something in the Oval Office."

"And maybe the baby would be a zine. That'd be keen."

"Well child, he's been screwing with the Constitution for years so it's certainly possible."

Blog Love Omega Glee is a novel by Wred Fright about two bloggers who fall in love while the world falls apart, which is being serialized on his blog. To start reading from the beginning or read another installment, please visit Blog Love Omega Glee Central on WredFright.Com. If you like what you've read, or you've read all of Blog Love Omega Glee and want more Fright, then please read his first novel, which is available in print and as an ebook.