11.02.08
Yo,
Happy Daylight Savings Time! And, I suppose, Halloween to a lesser extent. I'm just happy for that
extra hour of sleep, a bit too much I'd imagine.
Main topic for the night tangents from, as many of my thoughts do, my lack of a social life. Halloween has always been a commercial holiday and paper-thin excuse to publicly roleplay in the oddest getup you can find, which is awesome. My hope for some future All Hallow's Eve is to be able to afford the construction of an Evil Mickey Mouse costume (I do a dead on impression, and enjoy making Mickey say horrible, horrible things.) It would most likely be the lame Mickey suit you see on Main Street U.S.A. at Disneyland/World, with a bit of a baroque/gothic touch. Maybe a bloodied mouth here, with a bit of entrails hanging out; maybe more claw-like hands and a forked tail...you get the idea.
I speak of the future because this year was absolutely nothing special. I left University directly after my discussion on the Western genre of cinema and took a direct bus to the local mall to check a screening of 'Zack and Miri Make a Porno.' I was charged to review the flick for the campus newspaper (you'll get the review posted up here around Monday, to correlate with the paper's printing,) and barely made it inside before the previews ended, thanks to an inept bus driver. After the flick ended I chowed down on a Sicilian Burger at Red Robin (burger, mozzarella, pepperoni slices, herb mayo, foccaccia bread), very satisfactorily I might add. I walked the 2 1/2 miles home (no more buses running) and raided my roommate's trick-or-treaters stash before chilling in my room like any other day.
Whenever a holiday rears its ugly head and I'm not distracted by partying or visiting family, I tend to find little factoids about the origin of that Holiday and how it came to be its modern incarnation. Unfortunately, Halloween's origins aren't as fun and scandolous as say, Christmas, being a harvest celebration and all, but some of the iconography of All Hallow's Eve is fascinating. The one that had the most information for me to sponge up was the Witch, that which I relate to you now.
The Origin of the Witch's Image
Christians have been widely successful in pegging anyone practicing earthly religion/tradition as a witch, often times the word has been synonymous with pagan, and heretic (the Christian Church also included Jews in this definition.) The sorted and imperialist affairs of the Christian nomads imposing their claustrophic values on an indigenous culture are for another day, however, as this little nugget of an article gives focus to the kinds of witches that you can stick to your windows, or buy statues of to decorate your spooky lawn. We've all seen it in the Western world; tall, pointed hat, black robes, broomstick, old and warty, with a cackling laugh. But the origins of this gruesome creature is not in the darkest corners of colonial Salem or in hovels in ancient Scotland, but, like many modern icons, in the times of the Bubonic plague.
The Black Death inspired many now blase concepts. 'Ring around the Rosies' is a haunting little children's rhyme that depicted the all-to-common occurrence of people dying in the streets, and the things taken up by those still alive in order to survive. Look up the words, its not particularly pleasant. Our Witch friend, like 'Rosies' has a simple but rather morbid origin in this time as well. Church and Government officials charged elder volunteers within the community to become 'searchers' (if my memory serves.) The duties of this line of work were to enter into areas of high Plague concentration and identify corpses for the families and records. The black garb of the robe and hat were their uniform, used to recognize their profession across town. The reason for this was two-fold; one, many residents hated the idea of people coming that close to infected bodies and returning to civilization, so officials drafted the obvious uniform to placate these protests, and two, so that the support for those employed that didn't flinch away when they saw them could recognize them and give them amenities if needed. It was not a respected job, elders were employed for their already advanced years (better an old codger get the Plague and die rather than a kid, right?)
The broomstick was a simple tool of the 'searcher' trade, used to flip over bodies in order to minimize bodily contact with the infected. It became synonymous with the trade very shortly, as not many 'searchers' wanted to do any alternate means of body-flipping. The warty appearance and cackle are fabrications of these elders that arose from the horrible rumors and children's stories that came later on. It became all too easy to hear tales of little children that wandered too far into plague-riden territory, and saw hunched, demonic looking women roaming around in the fog. The image stuck, and was used more and more often in popular media (Shakespeare's Macbeth trio come to mind), drilled into the public's head, and extremely easy to cast upon a woman to immediately ostracize later on in colonial America.
A Practical Approach to Zombie Survival
Another thing that occupied my mind for much of the Halloween night is deep consideration to how I, personally, would survive a zombie infestation like that in classic horror movies. My former roommate was a horror fanatic, his love of gore and b-horror lead him to a career in special effects (I've spoken about him before, Tom, for those that remember earlier blogs), and one of his favorite books was a dead-pan humorous approach to a guide for anyone wanting to outlive the undead holocaust. He and I would have long discussions on the subject, and that combined with musings last night (and more conversations with my soi bruddah Bennett) lead to me to my plan in case my neighbors suddenly felt hungry for my brain. Maybe others can also use this plan as a jumping off point for themselves...just in case.
First of all, my plan would never attempt direct offensiveness. If we learned anything from Resident Evil gameplay, its that they will just keep coming in droves. So, I go on the defensive. Once a base of operations is established and protected, we can either leave to find other survivors or clear out a couple blocks of zombies. First stop on our way to sanctuary is an Army outpost. These you can find on the outskirks of your town, a few blocks down from the last strip mall, if you will. If one is not available in your area, than any establishment that sells ammunition and firearms would suffice. This is were liberalism would most likely bite us in the ass, as I live in Southern California, and not around any military outposts that I can think of. But, for sake of argument, say we find someone with what we need in stock. The absolute essentials you need to pick up are: firearm (take your pick, we're going for power here though), mine would the strongest shotgun they got, ammo, thick-knit clothing/body armor, walkie-talkies or other radio transmissions, and boots. This list is missing an awful lot, but these are the ABSOLUTE must-haves. See the list of utilities picked up by Marv in Sin City (book or movie) before the 'Hard Goodbye' for more details. I'm also assuming that in the hulla-balloo there is no need to pay for this equipment, as no one in their right mind would think there was enough profit to be made in this occasion. Even so, packing a credit card may not be a bad idea.
Next thing you need is transportation. Again, the left gets screwed, because we need big-ass all-terrain mothas here. If there was one at your military outpost, congrats. But, say your local sporting goods store's parking lot is empty. You need to head over to the nearest auto dealership, there is one in every city over a certain population in this country, and they are usually just off a major freeway. We are not looking for Hummers, those things may look hearty, but they aren't built for anything more than showing off in a suburbian area. Kinda like those big butch jocks that pick on you constantly, tough on the outside, a complete bitch whining to be fucked in the ass on the inside (as horrible as that sounds, my personal experiences validates that description.) Most car manufactor's have an all-terrain vehicle in their displayed library of vehicles. Do what you have to do to get you some keys and start up your bad-boy. We need a fully enclosed (no open-roof Jeeps), all-terrain vehicle here, although a solid bodied truck would work in tight circumstances. Make your way to a local gas station and break in to get some of those 2-liter/2-gallon containers and fill them up in addition to your vehicle in order to keep a steady fuel supply on hand. With that, we move to shelter.
Simply put, you are going to live at Costco. Most Big Box Marts will do, but trust me, if you are in the neighborhood, or know of a Costco nearby, get your ass there above all others. Steel shutters that go over double pane, bullet proof windows and doors. Massive supplies of both dried and wet food rations, temperature control, camping equipment if not bedding supplies, internal plumbing/heating, entertainment provisions, direct access to a pharmacy, cooking mechanisms, bulk toiletries and other ammenities, there is no need that a survivor at Costco cannot fulfill at the basic, if not full, level. You get you and your loved ones' asses in, shut the doors and pull the shudders down, and you got feet of reinforced concrete between you and the horde. If necessary, access to the roof is available, with the same protection as the front access. Hook up some electronics to all available news stations and set up camp. Worst case scenario, you are going to be there for a while.
From here you can make trips outside to either locate other survivors to bring back to your base, or to begin the undead eradication process. Always use the roof access, the front poses too many risks for those staying inside (ALWAYS leave someone inside for resource protection and a contact HUB.) Blast your way back to your all-terrain bad-boy and run over some zombie asses on your way out to the city. From here its up to you on how you want to spend the next bit of time. It is imperative that you establish contact with either news stations and/or government operations. Make your presence known, and the least you'll get is a warning and a head start before the federal government takes the iniative of eradicating the menace by bombing your town to Midgar. When you find other survivors, never trust them, check their bodies fully for any signs of infection (private regions, of course, are not included in this search) and assign them a duty in your little clan once you return to base. Have a pecking order established early on, so everyone knows who's in charge. With that, all you need to do is survive until the undead bastards are dust, how that happens is largely up to luck. Just remember: get supplies, establish a safe base and communications, and survive. Good luck.
- For the 36 other countries in the world that have better health care than us, I wonder, how deep does the health superiorities go? I mean, we know we as Americans are more likely to develop diabetes than British civilians, but are their arteries stronger than ours? Could Norwegian white blood cells kick our white blood cells' ass?
- How is an institution sacred if you can get an annulment easier/faster than a good pizza delivered in some states?
- If how guys referred to their penises was actual truth, then the manufacturing of jeans and underwear would be extrememly different. And every guy would have to wear platform shoes in order to avoid their little guy from pavement rash. And every erection would lead a guy to black from blood loss.
- Do people really not know why men have nipples? Its because the sex of the children, and the development of their genitalia, is not determined until later in the birth, leading to the unisex creation of nipples. What's so hard to figure out about that?
- We know how most sex positions get their names: doggy style and cowgirl/reverse cowgirl are pretty self-evident. But...when the hell did the term 'missionary' suddenly apply to that position?
- Do most people walk that slow just to annoy the fuck out of me? I know I'm taller than most people I walk next to, but bloody hell!
- I'm pretty sure the Second Coming has already happening. Jesus just had the stupidity to proclaim his truths next to a major freeway on-ramp with a cardboard sign.
- As always, check out my best friend for-longer-than-forever, Strayer's, pad here on GT, or be checking out his funny stuff on
Youtube at his new contributing position at
thatguywiththeglasses.com or alongside myself on
Gamepartisan - Gt user
Greeneyedcat1022 had a similar expose on the origins of Halloween in this most awesome blog. Check it out!
- More YTMND awesomeness! Here's
Bedside Surprise,
Jim's Dream,
A Tiny Glimpse, and
The Future of our World!!
zombies
