Brains, Glorious Brains!

Because of Twitter, I am frequently forced to wonder why people are obsessed with zombies. Specifically, the zombie apocalypse.

I’ve never understood the appeal of zombies. I have worked on a preserved cadaver & that smelled bad enough. Imagine rotting flesh all around you. Mobile rotting flesh. When does that get fun?

“Well, you can whack them in the head with a baseball bat, guilt-free,” one enthusiastic afficionado told me. Wow, ya know, I had been praying repeatedly for an opportunity to whack someone in the head with a baseball bat, guilt-free. Could God have provided this person for that very purpose? Come on! People who fantasize about whacking anyone in the head with a baseball bat are antisocial at best, sociopathic at worst. Or, apparently, me.

Zombies also are easy to out run, apparenly. Nuclear bombs are not, and neither are earthquakes, so a zombie apocalypse is apparently preferable to any other kind. We have some semblance of control during the zombie apocalypse: baseball bat oriented control.

Nobody, of course, thinks they’ll be turned into a zombie themselves.

And yet…isn’t that possibility just as feasible as you saving the day with your bat & an amputee Rose McGowan at your side? Especially since most of you touting the sexiness of the zombie apocalypse are not the picture of fitness? I’m sorry, Double Down scarfing, soda-swilling 20-something, but your chances of outrunning a zombie are the same as your chances of outrunning colon cancer. I say this with love. Also with love: add fibre! Or shit into a bag through a hole in your abdomen by the time you’re 55. Totally your choice.

But why are zombies so hip & happening right now? I think it’s because we are them. Gasp! Yeah, that’s my big fat deep screamingly insightful insight. We’re so happy to swallow platitudes, succumb to marketing, & forget that people hire body language coaches that we just…enjoy. Which, ya know, is fine. Until we occasionally look around us and go “My God, how did I get here?”

I myself am a zombie. Yup, it’s true. Somehow, without my knowledge or permission, I became exceedingly fond of the Pussy Cat Dolls. Yeah, me, the gal with Recoil, Curve, Joy Division, Chuck D, Jay Z, & The Pixies in my car’s CD changer. I LOVE THEM. I have “Bottle Pop” as my ringtone. My Facebook bio says “If you pop my bottle, all the models gonna hate me.” I can’t tell you why I like them, or what insidious marketing campaign convinced me that I had to download “When I Grow Up” the second it dropped, especially since I don’t watch TV that advertises that kind of thing. I just had. To. Have it. Zombie.

Also, I like “Pretty Wild”. In truth, it is loathsome. It is full of the whining, crying, decadent nothingness that middle America has come to associate with the “famous for being famous” crowd. They seem to be a family of strippers or Playmates or something. I’m not sure, as they are at cafes & parties when mom isn’t taking naked pictures of the eldest in the shower. YEAH. Yet, when I’m flipping channels & it comes on, I stand there, transfixed, like a pot head with a lava lamp. I am as incapable of switching it off or looking away from it as I am from removing my own arm. Zombie.

I also surrendered to zombiehood when I recently purchased car insurance. My entire decision was based on the fact that the policy was being shilled by a kindly middle aged black man who seems calmer than me. In truth, they cancelled my policy without warning & failed to tell me when I called them two weeks later to discuss some documentation updates. I found out it had been cancelled before that phone call after receiving my first AND final bill. I have a perfect driving record & there was no reason for a cancellation. So that was alarming. Zombie. “That man seems nice. He doesn’t actually work in the insurance industry, as he is an actor, but I’m a moron, so I’m just gonna go with it.” And honestly I’d rather buy a policy from a kindly black man than a lizard or a neurotic pseudo-rockabilly chick any day.

I say we rise up against our zombiedom. When you feel your brain turning off & your reactionary emotions kicking in, take a stand. Use your brain to analyse what you’re doing. You may find on careful analysis that you simply like something with good reason. Or not & turn it off. You may learn something mildly terrifying about yourself, that your life is on autopilot, subject to slick editing, marketing, & hormonal cascades. Either way, you will be a more thoughtful, engaged human being, less inclined to pray for the zombie apocalypse.

I will join you in the self awareness crusade, but right now Tess is pole dancing for her mom to “Buttons”. Gimme a minute…