Old Yeller Zombie

I know several people with contingency plans for the Zombie Apocalypse. It seems to have developed, for some, into a full scale hobby. Intricate planning is involved in terms of where to make their stronghold, how to survive, but the heavy emphasis seems always to be on how to kill the zombies.

Similarly, there are a lot of video games where your prerogative is to kill a bunch of zombies. There are even Nazi Zombies, so if you had any qualms about killing zombies, you can write it off by saying they were also Nazis. (I suppose the inverse is also true...)

Now, this is all fine and good, but I can't help but consider: if it came down to survival of the fittest, I don't think I'd make the cut. Odds are that despite my best efforts, I'd end up with deteriorating flesh, shuffling around craving brains, and eventually get decapitated by a machete, burned with a flame thrower, or shot to death with a semi-automatic, depending on which weapon the zombie killer that got me had on hand.

I don't want to die a zombie! If somebody kills me I'd at least like a little remorse! Not everyone patting my murderer on the back saying, "good job!"

So maybe I'll get lucky, if the zombie apocalypse happens. Maybe someone will rescue me. Or better- I'll surprise myself with my own abilities. But even if I avoid infection, to have a full-on zombie apocalypse, a large amount of people who used to be regular humans, are going to have to become zombies. So here's a crazy thought:

can't we all just get along?

I know, its not easy being friends with someone who wants to eat your brain. I'm not suggesting a group hug: the zombie would probably go for your head. But it seems like zombies have been labeled as one of the groups that its OK to kill on grounds that they aren't human, and therefore those who kill them are not obligated to feel the normal ethical repercussions associated with murder.

By the way, do you remember that book/movie "Old Yeller"?

I do. I remember it because I cried like a baby when poor Old Yeller got rabies while defending the family, and had to be shot. Now, I am not a medical professional, but rabies seems to have certain similarities to the zombie virus. But the family and the audience feels sorrow for killing Old Yeller. Why not zombies? Its not their fault they've turned into grotesque flesh eaters, its their disease.

When you come down to it, even though they aren't nearly as cute as a yellow labrador retriever, zombies were people too. Therefore I advocate cautious compassion towards them in the event of a zombie apocalypse. I propose the survivors adopt one of two policies:

1. secure enough supplies to wait it out and stay put. Zombies cannot reproduce, so cut your losses and let them die out on their own.

2. if you catch it early enough, secure a zombie containment facility, and let them live on a sort of compound. You could feed them cow brains. I am reasonably certain we have a surplus of them with all the beef consumed globally. (unless that is whats REALLY in hot dogs.)

They may not be cute, they may not be fully conscious, and they may not be amongst the living in the strictest sense. They may be after our brains, and spreading their virus amongst the masses in the quest to quench their insatiable thirst for living flesh. But we must not surrender our humanity in the face of adversity. If we do, we've already lost the war.

And if you really still hate them, you can always shoot the fuckers to your heart's delight on your gaming console of choice.

High School Musicals

This weekend I went to see a high school production of "A Chorus Line". It was the first high school musical I have seen since I was in one myself. (Including the disney "High School Musical" movies, which I have worked tirelessly to avoid seeing. No small accomplishment when you live with a tween.) It was a good production, and it really brought me back to my years of high school plays.

...damnit.

Usually I'm not one to reminisce if I can avoid it. But to be fair, the drama program was all I ever really cared about when it came to school. It was also the only place in my heavily acedemic college-prep school that let students be remotely creative. And while drama class was good, and drama club was good, the highlight of the year was the spring musical. It was what I lived for every year, what I worked for, hoping one day I'd finally win the ultimate prize-

*~*~*A Lead Role*~*~*

buuuut yeah, it never happened.

What did happen was this crazy loophole in the system, where somehow I ended up getting credit for my chemistry class by writing a play instead. (To this day, I am still unclear on how this worked out.) After a long, confused road of rewrites, the end result is a short play entitled "Kid in a Cardboard Box". My stab at a satire of my school, and processing my initial experiences there.

= ...?

Now, I never intended this play to actually do anything except get me out of chemistry. But now, gods help me, I am assistant directing it's first production. If I had known it would ever actually be performed I would have

a. probably never written it in the first place
or
b. want it to be performed at the school it was written about.

But since we are basically using it becasue -unlike every other author we looked at- I am not charging my director any royalties, it is up to a brave band of public middle school students to make my play look good. Godspeed, tiny actors.

Still, a part of me wants to have my old fellow thespians come see it. Would they see the reflection of those confusing, frustrating, exciting years, or just a bunch of middle school kids in a play, one in a head-to-toe cardboard box? (No, I'm not kidding. You saw the title.)

So cheers to the actors in "A Chorus Line", and cheers to my budding thespians in "Kid in a Cardboard Box", and most of all cheers to my drama teacher, and all my fellow drama students who made high school just a little bit more livable. Come see the play. It can't be much worse than sitting in chemistry class was.

Spider Songs

Spiders freak me out. I'm perturbed by the way they look, unnerved by the way they move, and totally pissed if they bite me. But I also hate squished dead things, so I am not a spider squisher. I have spent countless occasions trapping spiders with the ol' cup and paper routine, taking them outside, and fearfully flinging it out into freedom, praying the little bugger won't pull a fast one and try to crawl on me.

Songs, generally speaking, I like. So what happens when you cross the goodness of songs with the freakiness of spiders? Well, it depends. While I love the band Gogol Bordello for their crazed, maniacal music, their song "Sex Spider" left me about as freaked out as spiders do, with lyrics like "...for even thousand of creatures/ Won't have enough orifices for all the arms/ Of a spider." It comes off more like a bad Japenese hentai than a spider song. (Also? Never google spider hentai. Mostly its spiderman porn, but the other stuff will require a strong dose of brain soap to get out of your head.)

The first spider song I learned was probably "the Itsy Bitsy Spider". I'm not sure what I was supposed to learn from that nursery rhyme. (Maybe that spiders are fucking tenacious.) But I liked the thing you do with your fingers while you sing it.

My next spider song was by children's musician Linda Arnold, entitled "Hey, Mister Spider". This was a song with a message, and a pro-spider agenda. My young brain poured over the concept that this spider is "a living thing, and he's got feelings too." This song-along with my sqeemishness for dead things- was probably responsible for me never becoming a spider squisher. The only problem was it proposed no alternative to getting the spider the fuck away, as Mr. Spider politely crawls away of his own acord in the end.

Years later I found "Boris the Spider" playing on a friend's cd of The Who.

Best.

Spider.

Song.

Ever.

A simple narrative in the first person of an encounter with a spider, that manages to totally capture the caution, paranoia, and heebie-jeebies shared by me and my fellow spider wimps. Granted the person in this song crushes Boris the Spider. "He's come to a sticky end. Don't think that he'll ever mend." But I'm ok with imaginary spider abuse.

The Who: Visionary imaginary-spider killers.

My new spider coping method: Mostly when I see a spider in the house, I remove it right away. But there are those times, like when I'm going to bed at 3 a.m. and am too tired to find proper spider trapping equipment, where other arrangements have to be made. My favorite course of action? I sing "Boris the Spider" to the spider in question. I think the Who must be famous amogst spider-kind as well as people, because remarkably, the spider almost always crawls away. (That, or my singing voice is worse than I thought.) Either way, it gets the job done.

Susan Boyle and The Wizard of Oz

I was in a checkout line with my mother the other day. Susan Boyle was on the cover of some trash magazine or other, and my mother asked me who she was. (Susan Boyle, I mean. As far as I know my mother knows who she is. In the basic sense, at least.) So I did my best to explain. It went something along the lines of:

Susan Boyle is a middle aged British lady who went on a popular British tv talent show. Because she was unattractive, everyone assumed she would suck, but then it turned out she could sing well, and everyone was astounded and she became famous overnight. Becasue apparently no one unattractive or middle aged could possibly be talented.

I know I am not the first person to say this, but that is fucked up.

At the same time, I look back to the early teachings of my childhood, and it fits. Glinda tells us flat-out:

"Only bad witches are ugly."

Glinda is also fucked up. Or more specifically, she seems to love to fuck with tourists. Granted she gives Dorothy the red shoes, but despite the fact that she could go home right then, with three clicks of the heel, Glinda sends her on a wild goose chase around Oz. "Oh, you need directions home? Well see that friggin longass yellow brick road? Well follow that till you get to a green palace. Ask them to take you to their leader, and he'll totally get you home! Good luck! Oh, and don't be surprised if a green witch and her cronies try to kill you on the way." The amazing part is she is never held accountable for her actions. While the "Wicked Witch of the West" gets melted just for trying to collect on her inheritance after Dorothy inadvertantly drops a friggin HOUSE on her sister, Glinda gets away with her shenanagins with a version of "teehee! gotcha!" Lesson learnt. Pretty people are not punishable.