Zombierama
So the other day, I find myself alone in the house and I decide to watch the remake of Dawn of the Dead. I’ve watched it like a dozen times and keep rewatching it because I’m all about seeing the dead come back to life. It’s like, inspirational or something. It’s comforting to know that death is not the end. Beyond death is rebirth as an ambling corpse with a neverending bloodlust and hunger for human brains. Just like it says in the Bible.
For some reason, I really dig movies where the world ends, which is strange because if the world actually did end, I’d be totally bummed out. Still, in movie form, it’s total win. And a movie gets bonus points if the end of the world is populated by zombies.
Like the 28 Days Later movies. British zombies, with regrettable extensive shots of Cillian Murphy’s unit.
And just when you think the Brits got rid of all of the zombies? BOOM, some dumbshit Typhoid Mary lets that monkey loose again in the sequel and Britain is once again overrun with zombies. I told this British guy
I know, FUCK THAT, I’m NEVER coming to Britain because you’ve had two large rage zombie outbreaks and CLEARLY don’t have the resources needed to contain them, and he responded that that was cool, that he’s never coming to America because he’s seen Dawn of the Dead. Which is kind of where this whole thing started, anyway.
Why do I like zombie movies? Because they give you perspective.
Dawn of the Dead totally trumps Slumdog Millionnaire as a “be thankful for what you have” movie. Sure, you’ll appreciate your life more if you see how shitty conditions are in India, but it’s far more sobering when you realize how lucky you are that you live in a country that is not overrun with the living dead. Imagine a “my life is hard” showdown with someone in the middle of a walking dead plague. You’d say, “I
can’t pay my bills,” and he’d be all, “Oh, I feel so sorry for you; zombies are eating my face.” I’ll bet even the kids in Slumdog could watch that movie and feel better about their lives. And can you imagine if the two were combined and Indian slums were overrun with zombies? Oh God, imagine the diarrhea.
So I laid down on the couch, set my laptop on my stomach, and started
kind of live blogging on Twitter while watching the movie. Because there were things I needed to know, and had thoughts I needed to share. We all come closer together when the dead roam the earth.
JohnnyBTruant: On the set of this movie, what were the zombies like in person? I’ll bet they were assholes.
JohnnyBTruant: …but on the upside, I’ll also bet they didn’t eat up all of the stuff on the Craft Services table.
See, I’ll bet zombies make shitty actors. Sure, nobody portrays a zombie like a zombie (”you do what you know,” and all that), but I’ll bet they keep trying to eat the live actors. And you know they don’t make good conversation.
And there were a LOT of zombie extras in this movie, too. I think extras usually get this tiny little fee for appearing in a movie. But you know how zombie extras are — they probably spent all of their pittance on
brains, and then came back so that the bigger stars could take advantage and have sex with them. Except that you should never let a zombie perform oral sex on you. Seriously.
JohnnyBTruant: On set, how could you tell the zombies apart from the regular actors who were just real douchebags?
But by this point in the movie, I was caught up in the illusion and was starting to forget about actors and sets. The characters are all bunkered in the mall (ironic that unlike in real life, the zombies are outside of the mall) and there has been much limb-tearing and bone-shattering and a few head shots and at least one broken pool cue through the head. Everyone has blood all over themselves and everyone is carelessly getting it on the walls, on the floor, on Ving Rhames. Nobody is bothering to Swiffer anything.
JohnnyBTruant: There’s so much blood all over walls and everything in this movie. If you hired a zombie as a janitor, you’d have to fire him like right away.
But what about the more pressing concern? All of this co-mingling of gore: Your gore in my cuts; my gore in your cuts; zombie brains on everyone’s sleeves following a saw incident.
JohnnyBTruant: Hey, do you think zombies can get AIDS? Because that’s some high-risk shit right there.
And really, I thought — why couldn’t they get AIDS? They can get pregnant. Or rather, they can become zombies once they’re already pregnant, and then inevitably the baby becomes a zombie, too. A zombie woman would squeeze out her baby and if you could keep her from eating it, you could totally get her a copy of Social Distortion’s Mommy’s Little Monster album as a shower present, except that you’d have to throw it at her from a high place because otherwise she’d devour you.
And so I just kept coming up with questions that nobody can answer. Do zombies have dinner parties? Because they’d surely be ironic if so. And what do the animals think during a zombie attack? A lot of zombie movies suggest that zombie people like to eat people, but not so much animals. Animals would rule the world and even during the chaos, they’d basically just think, “Oh, everyone’s acting like Ashton Kutcher now.” Until everyone died (again) and the animals then learned how to use DVD players so they could watch Resident Evil, which is the only movie I can think of where zombie dogs get any play, and even then, those dogs aren’t so much zombies as they are inside-out.
Fundamentally, a zombie plague changes the culture of any country it touches. In fact, it homogenizes us. That’s strange to think about, because you’d figure that Iraqi zombies would be different from American zombies. You’d think Iraqi zombies would be more fundamentalist and maybe wear turbans, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. All zombies are the same. We’d be so much better off as a world if we could just learn from the zombies. Except for the implications it has on the whole “staying alive” thing, and on popular culture.
JohnnyBTruant: Zombie humor is bad. You’re like, “What has four wheels and flies?” and they’re all “AAARGAGEGHG.” And their timing sucks.
Of course, it doesn’t stop there.
JohnnyBTruant: You know, I’ll bet zombie karaoke is TERRIBLE.
They all seem so totally zoned out and high, but I have to wonder if it’s the living humans driving them wild. Would they settle when all of the humans were dead and zombified?
In fact, if you could get all of the zombies in one place and keep them from going anywhere (maybe maroon them on Iceland and just keep telling them their passports are expired if they try to leave), it’d be an interesting social experiment to see if they ever developed a government. Or a theater district. Both relate; I’ll be zombies are excellent at both long rants and at filibustering. I’ll bet diversity would suffer, though, and all art would be like watching Dane Cook movies.
Eventually, the movie ended and I had to stop thinking about zombies. Except that you can never really stop thinking about them, because that’s when they get you — when you feel safe. And modern zombies? They’re so fast that you can’t look away for even a second. Used to be, in the Night of the Living Dead days, you’d see zombies coming for like ten minutes before they got anywhere near you. And then you could probably just put up some red velvet valet ropes and a set of dress code rules to keep them at bay. Not so much with these modern zombies. Zombies 2.0.
Your perspective is skewed when you return to reality after something like this. I have to use a hedge trimmer. Will I have to disembowel anyone with it? And what about that chainsaw? Because in the movie, the hot chick gets accidentally chainsawed, and even though it’s gross, it does cut her bra strap and I got all conflicted. What is acceptable behavior in this zombie-heavy world? If I’m going to be trimming limbs, am I allowed to remove clothing with my power tools if I manage to polish off a few zombies in the doing? These are the things that keep great thinkers awake at night.
It’s hard to say in this crazy, modern world we live in.
What? This post is totally innocent.
The Max & Erma’s restaurant near us has this stupid game that’s like a cross between pinball and skeeball. There’s a set of ringed holes (this is the skeeball part) on the far end of the game, and you try to shoot a small metal ball into them by pulling back a plunger and letting it go (the pinball part).
Each of the ringed holes has a point value assigned to it. You get seven balls, and your goal is to score as highly as possible using those seven. The game promises that you’ll “Win a prize every time!” but the joke is on the sucker who plays it because it costs 50 cents and the prizes are various-sized superballs. So even when you win, you lose.
Of course, every time we go, that sucker is me. We played on Friday, Austin and I taking turns shooting the balls into the holes, and walked away with two brightly colored superballs that I’m sure will eventually end up lodged in someone’s throat.
On the ride home, Austin stuck the superballs into his pockets and decided to try to outsmart us.
Austin: “Daddy? Mommy? Do you know where my balls are?”
Me: “Your balls are missing?”
Austin: “I can’t find them. My balls are gone.”
Robin: “Austin, your balls are your responsibility.”
Austin: “Daddy, do you know where my balls are?”
We were at a stoplight, so I looked back. He was all smiley, like he was hiding something. Or two things.
Me: “Are they in your pants?”
Austin: [searching] “Haha! Yes! My balls are in my pants! Did you know that my balls were in my pants?”
Robin: “Well, it’s where they should be.”
Austin: “I’m going to play with them.”
Me: “Hey! Don’t play with your balls in the car. Keep them in your pants.”
Robin: “Always a good policy. In fact, I want you to keep your balls in your pants until you turn 18.”
Austin, of course, proceeded to defy us by taking his balls out and playing with them on the drive home. Eventually he started showing them to Sydney, age 15 months. This was a problem since she tends to eat everything, including the 7, 9, and plus sign off of a calculator.
Me: “Austin! Keep your balls away from your sister.”
Austin: “She likes them.”
Robin: “She could choke on them. Keep them to yourself.”
Austin: “I’m just putting them on her.”
Me: “Don’t put your balls on your sister. I’ll bet your uncle never put his balls on Mommy when they were growing up.”
Robin: “Damn right.”
Austin: “Did he even have balls?”
Me: “That’s what I hear. Big ones. And yet he managed to keep them to himself.”
Austin: [seeking a happy medium] “I’ll just put them next to her.”
Me: “Keep them to yourself or you’re going to lose them. I’ll… separate you from your balls.”
Austin put them away, back in his pants, and proceeded to stare out the window. He’d normally suck his thumb in the car and fall into a sort of coma, but he can only do that when he has Brown Bear, and Brown Bear was in Robin’s car. We like having Brown Bear around because it keeps him quiet. It’s like doping him up, so that car rides with him are kind of like to transporting cargo.
Austin: “Mommy? Can I take my balls to school on Monday?”
Robin: “No.”
Austin: “But I really want to.”
Robin: “Why?”
Austin: “I want to show them to Veronica and play with them.”
Robin: [turning around] “All right, give me those things.”
We're soon to be dominated by fish
I just got back from taking a five-day vacation at the beach and there were two things that occurred to me while I was there:
1. Vacation totally rules and that we should honestly never have to suffer through the indignity of non-vacation time ever. I don’t say this in a short-sighted, oblivious-of-that-annoying-oh-life-must-go-on axiom; I say it as a fact, fully cognizant that it would mean we’d never get anything done and that we’d all just bliss out drinking piña coladas and other drinks with umbrellas and shit in them 24/7 and reading novels and picking sand out of our cracks. I mean honestly, who the hell cares? So some reports wouldn’t get filed. And so we wouldn’t earn any money. We’d just live on the beach and run out of money and turn into bums and we’d never shower and we’d stink and we’d walk into Bloomingdales (probably attracted by the shiny things) and these fancy people would pass out from our body odor and then we’d fall asleep on the perfume table and that would even out the smell, and the only real problem would be that we’d owe like ten grand for spilled and broken perfumes but you could never sue us because we wouldn’t have any concept of money and where the fuck are you going to send the court papers? To the beach? That’s retarded. There’s no mail on the beach.
2. We’re destroying the world. Not by polluting it or raping it, but by making fish super-intelligent.
I thought about the latter when I was sitting in this low little beach chair under a giant umbrella reading House of Leaves again and this snake swims up onto the sand with a fish in its mouth. The snake parks himself and proceeds to try and work this small catfish down his throat.
I’m watching this, fascinated. I mean, not because a snake just swam up on the beach and not just because a snake manages to tread water without any arms or legs AND keep his head above water AND look cool doing it, but because he’s pretty much got zero shame about doing all of this right in front of me and my mom and stepdad and brother and sister.
It’d be like if you’re in the otherwise-empty food court of a mall and some woman walked right up to you, sat down across from you, and started to breastfeed a baby. Or like if a you were in a lawyer’s office and some fat guy in a torn Def Leppard T-shirt with a wallet chain sat on your lap and ate a hoagie. Or like this time that my dad and I were in an airport laughing about this sound file he had on his computer that said, “Can you ever see a woman eating a banana and NOT think about a blowjob?” when this old lady sits down next to us, eats a banana, and promptly leaves. True story.
But there was more on top of the snake’s total lack of social decorum. While everyone is marveling over this snake’s ability to eat this fish whole, I’m marveling at this fish’s ability to get caught. In the water, where fish are supposed to be at home. By a fucking snake.
“So how does a snake catch a fish, anyway?” I asked aloud.
“They’re fast,” said my stepfather.
“But not that fast. I mean, we watched him swim in. And fish are a lot faster.” I was thinking of my earlier experiment trying to catch minnows for my son. Every step we took, the fish scattered. After several hours, we had caught four minnows, two of which died instantly. We probably caught those two because they were having tiny heart attacks, and we caught the other two because they wandered into these tiny little nets we were using.
The ones we caught were old, dying, or stupid, in other words.
So how did a snake catch a catfish? Probably stopped to ask the snake for directions. Or maybe the snake told him he was the winner of an internet lottery. The smart fish were all, “Hey, Jimmy, you don’t want to dick around with that black thing over there.” But he was all, “Pro wrestling is real,” and then it was over while the remaining fish went back home to watch Masterpiece Theater and drink port.
Same thing goes when a fish is caught by a shiny lure on the end of a fishing line. It’s the stupid fish that get it. All this time, we think we’ve been building better fishing equipment, but we’re just catching more and more of the stupid fish. The ones who would get caught if you tossed a snare trap in the water and baited it with a Cheeto.
We’re helping fish evolve. And it’s not going to be pretty. Because as we catch more and more of the stupid fish and remove them from the gene pool, this situation is only going to get worse.
Each time some stupid fish get eaten or caught, the smart ones swim home and lay a cluster of eggs and pass on smart genes, and then those fish go out and the dumb ones get eaten and so it repeats, over and over again, each generation getting smarter and smarter and smarter until they’re quoting Wordsworth and building flying supermarines to explore the air world at night and creating weird water probes with Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio’s face in it like in that movie The Abyss and I’M FUCKING TELLING YOU WE’VE GOT A PROBLEM and there’s an underworld lair of superfish down there just waiting to attack. Possible targets? I’m thinking Arthur Treacher’s or Long John Silver’s.
You just think about that for a moment. Think about it the next time you go in the water, and decide if you want fish with giant fish brains that pulsate with genius fish thoughts severing your feet with their superfish fishrays.
Think about that the next time you go fishing, if you assume it’s all innocent. Think about how you’re leading this world to a kind of Planet of the Fish complete with fish armies and a fish Dr. Zaius and the Statue of Liberty buried in the sand while Young Charleton Heston is all like, “YOU MANIACS! YOU BLEW IT UP!”
Think about that, you monster. If you can.