Tips to surviving a Zombie Apocalypse

It very well may just be a "guy thing*," but there are certain movies and TV series that, after watching, it is nearly impossible NOT to imagine yourself in similar circumstances. Cases in point: Red Dawn, Castaway, Alive. I rest my cases!

Let's take Red Dawn for instance. Any red-blooded American male who watched that movie and didn't imagine themselves fighting off Soviet and Cuban invaders guerrilla warfare-style should be put into a time machine and sent back to 1980s Russia, cuz youz a COMMUNIST!

On to the meat of this blog post. So, AMC has a series called The Walking Dead, which is about a zombie apocalypse, and also which is freaking fantastic. And which, YES NERDS**, is based on a comic book I never read because I'm not a "comic book kinda guy," whatever THAT is. I won't get into the particulars of the show, because you already watch it, RIGHT? Suffice it to say that zombies are fucking everywhere and they are hell bent on eating you, as zombies are wont to do.

A quick aside. I'm not really a horror movie, blood and guts and gore kinda guy. It's just not my thing. That said, I've had a soft spot for zombies ever since I saw The Return of the Living Dead and Night of the Comet as a tween.

OK, back to the matter at hand - surviving a zombie apocalypse. Watching The Walking Dead has given me some REAL insight when it comes to tips to staying alive while the world is crawling with flesh-eating zombies. Here are my suggestions:

Homeward bound

It's dark now as I make my way out of the building after work and head to my vehicle. I don't mind the cooler weather fall brings, but the early nightfall, I could do without. Another nondescript day of work like so many before it, gone by the wayside. Another day, another dollar, they say.

I hop into the driver's seat of my metal and plastic mode of transport after throwing my laptop case in the back seat. I have my iPod, but decide to see what the talking heads of drive-time AM sports talk have in store for me first. What else - NFL talk. The NFL dominates the sports landscape during its off season, so it's no surprise the topic of conversation 24-hours-a-day while games are actually being played.

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all

Why this clip? Just watch.

Arcade Fire "The Suburbs" Video

Spike Jonze-directed video for the title track from the newest Arcade Fire album. I don't post videos just for the sake of posting videos, but this is pretty good. And a bit unsettling.

It's not you, it's me (well, maybe it's you)

Our relationships with bands isn't too dissimilar to our relationships with people. Some are built to last. Some start out great and then fade over time. Some just weren't meant to be. Sometimes it's the band's fault. Other times, it's the listener who's to blame. And sometimes, it's no ones fault - listeners and bands simply grow apart.

This, of course, happens on a monthly basis when you're a teenager. One week it's hip-hop, the next it's classic rock, the next you meet a cute goth chick who works at Starbucks and you're all about Bauhaus and eyeliner. You get the point. Sure, everyone's musical palette refines at a different rate, but I'd guess for most, by the time you hit your mid-to-late twenties, you have a pretty good grasp of the music you will probably listen to till you either can't hear anymore or you die (just pictured myself listening to Fugazi as a 90-year-old).

So, with this in mind, here are a few bands I've more or less broken up with over the last few years, along with a brief history of the torrid affair. Scandalous!

The forgotten song

Look, people, I'm getting old. I forget things. My back gets sore for seemingly no reason. I change into sweat pants or pajama bottoms the minute I get home from work. It takes every ounce of restraint for me to not yell at the neighborhood kids when whatever "game" they're playing spills onto my lawn. Anyway, let's get back to me "forgetting things" before I forget the point of this post. I forgot about a song. Not just any song, mind you. A song I would consider in my top 15 or 20 songs of ALL TIME.

"How could that happen?," you might ask.

Well, I'll tell you as soon as I finish this Werther's Original.

Mmmm, tasty. OK, so my iPod crashed maybe two years ago. I had recently moved, so my CDs (see, old) were all boxed up and the computer that had since served to house all my mp3s (whatever those are) was no longer functioning. No biggy. My Bridge partner, Terry, had nearly everything that was on my iPod on an external hard drive. Problem solved! Now, let's go to Hometown Buffet, it's nearly 6:30.

Flash forward to last week. I'm sitting where I am now, at my desk at work, and I'm not quite sure how, but something triggers this forgotten song. It's a Pixies song. I know it's a song on Bossanova, but it's not the version that's on Bossanova. So I fire up the old Google machine and within seconds, my memory sufficiently jogged, I remember the song is the Pixies At The BBC version of "Is She Weird."

The Pixies are one of my favorite bands. EVER. Top five as of right now and that ain't changing anytime soon (I'm set in my ways, just like any self respecting old person). So why the fuck wasn't this song on my iPod? Well, my Bridge partner and I share many musical interests. The Pixies aren't one of them. So when I restocked my iPod with all his digital goodies, the Pixies were left out in the cold. And as of me typing this, I still only have Surfer Rosa on the iPod because I'm lazy and don't want to find the box that has all my Pixies CDs.

Total sob story, huh? I need another Werther's.

"Island 5" Albums

This is a well-worn subject. The old "you're stranded on a desert island and you can only have five movies/albums/etc..." We've all played it, numerous times, for sure. So why not again?

The impetus for this post was reading this on the NPR Music blog. The writer, Robin Hilton, made some interesting points while revisiting his own "Island 5" from a few years ago. Namely, it would be easy to just list your five favorite records, but what if a few of them are really similar in tone, mood, tempo, etc.? As much as you may love them, having virtually the same sounding album may not be the best choice when you're "stuck" with just five. One must choose wisely and account for differing moods and states of mind. I'm not sure if I did that or not. Essentially, I picked an album from each of my five favorite bands, and I did cheat and pick a compilation (gasp!) for one of them.

Here are my "Island 5" albums:
The Clash - London Calling
The Smiths - The Smiths
Fugazi - The Argument
Radiohead - Kid A
Pixies - Death to the Pixies

Before cheating with my Pixies compilation, I had The Thermals album The Body, The Blood, The Machine on the list. I needed an up-tempo rocker as my picks were decidedly mid-tempo. I tried to settle on just one Pixies album, and I couldn't. So I copped out and picked a compilation. Sue me, I'm stuck on a freaking desert island for chrissakes!

But wait! I do have an original caveat to add to this VERY ripped off post. From your five albums, pick the song you want playing when you're being rescued. Picture this: You board the rescue boat, weak from a diet of coconut and shellfish. You're handed a bottle of water and you immediately begin guzzling, so fast you nearly choke. You're lips are dry and chapped, you're face is weathered and sun burnt. The boat takes off and you're in the back, looking at the island you called home for a few months slowly disappear from sight. You're saved. What song from your list of five albums is playing?

Mine: "How to Disappear Completely" from Kid A. It's actually an insanely prefect song for the occasion. The mood, the lyrics, the title - EVERYTHING. Oh, my rescue would be magnificent with this song playing in the background.


So, go ahead and list your five albums in the comments along with your rescue track.