Me: Hey, God. What up?
God: Hey, I have a proposition for you.
Me: Yeah?
God: Yeah. Here's the deal. 99.6% of the world's population -- including your friends and family -- will be dead.
Me: Oh. That kind of sucks.
God: Well, maybe dead is the wrong word. Dead-ish. In short, it'll be a zombie apocalypse.
Me: Oh, AWESOME.
God: I knew you'd like that. Here's your Ruger.
Me: Cooooool.
I have to admit that I wouldn't be too bummed out if the unthinkable happened and some Arrowhead Project created a virus that caused a zombie apocalypse. To escape the drudgery of cardio workouts, I usually picture myself on a motorcycle with a shotgun strung across my back, weaving in and out of ruined American roads on my way to the North Carolina coast, where I hear some of their islands have become safe havens for survivors.
I then ignore the voice (which some call reason) that says, "Bro, you don't know how to ride a motorcycle, you'd probably shoot yourself in the foot, and if zombies can swim -- because, let's face it, why couldn't they? -- you and all your friends on those islands are effed."
So I ignore that voice, as is my wont, and continue to imagine myself scavenging for food in an abandoned roadside diner. As I find pancake mix that my sense of smell tells me is still OK, I try to remember how the heck you make pancakes. Then I hear a noise. I think it's a zombie, but when I try to shoot, I find that the safety is on. Cursing, I switch it off, but then I see that it is not a zombie, but a hot chick who kind of looks like Blake Lively. She was here scavenging first, but hid because she heard me coming and doesn't have a gun. I say something to the effect of, I'm glad I didn't shoot you because I don't know how to make pancakes. And then she laughs and says something like, good, because I do. And then she holds up a bag of chocolate chips. Score.
Hey, laugh at the huge nerd all you want, but if given the choice between that and 40 years of reviewing purchase and sales agreements, everyone would choose the zombies. And Blake Lively. And the chocolate chip pancakes.
Sigh.
But that, as they say, is why we have fiction. There's the excellent Dawn of the Dead remake, Shaun of the Dead, and Danny Boyle's gorgeous 28 Days Later, where the zombies can actually sprint. Max Brooks' World War Z remains the best zombie novel ever. It is also the only good zombie novel ever, but it is incredibly enjoyable, and what happens to North Korea still haunts me to this day. Heck, even Community did an awesome zombie episode, with the great line by Troy: "OK, I been bit, I been bit y'all. Stop. Congratulations, you did what zombies do." And, of course, Zombieland, with what is perhaps the best cameo of all time.
Even with all of that, I cannot understate how good last night's outstanding premiere episode of AMC's The Walking Dead was. Sure, there's all sorts of awesome zombie action, but nearly every scene in the episode was spot on (mild spoilers), from the very opening scene in the gas station to Lennie James going upstairs to try and take care of something to that lush, beautiful scene in the park to the part where Rick Grimes rides into Atlanta on a deserted inbound lane next to abandoned cars leaving the city and all you can hear is the clip-clopping of the horse's hooves. The production values are incredible, and it gets extra double excellent points for incorporating Frank "I made The Shawshank Redemption" Darabont as the show-runner. I know zombies ain't for everybody, but there's so much more going on here. Trust me and give it a try.
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