[Low Odysseys]

So the diseased are stalking the earth, rending and devouring the flesh of the living. The hoarse, rattling wheeze of their undead breath heralds their appearance.

What do you do? What do you do?

Truth is, you die.

Courtney Summers is this wonderful, strange, funny young woman who writes tales that are tragic, operatic and true. True in that the emotions that run rampant through the characters in her novels feel very, very real. Courtney don’t do 1-dimensional. In fact, I think she might have a vendetta against cartoony, one-note characters.

Her most recent novel, This Is Not A Test is her first book to step outside of the world we know and take a step into fantasy- zombies. Or zombie-like creatures anyway. Ok, so these guys aren’t unlike Danny Boyle’s rage-infected puker/spitter/bleeders (and most importantly, runners) from 28 Days Later.

But what KIND of zombie isn’t the issue. What kind of story has them in it is.

And Courtney has- consciously or not- taken a page from the originators of the genre, from Richard Matheson and from George Romero. The story is about the (for now) survivors, about the people in crisis. Replace the wheezing horde outside with rabid dogs or acid rain or bug-eyed alien monsters from Planet X and the story remains the same.

Well, that isn’t entirely true- part of the reason the Zombie subgenre (does it still rate a sub? I mean really, is it a full blown genre by now?) resonates is because “they are us”, and we are them. We’re all gonna die sooner or later, and the frailty of mortality is everywhere in a zombie story.

As it should be.

This is a pitch perfect zombie novel that isn’t as far a detour as one might expect from the mean halls of high school that are Courtney’s usual stomping grounds. In Courtney’s world(s), nobody is perfect, everyone has cracks in their facade, flaws in their personality, and bad shit happens to people who don’t always deserve it.

Now Courtney doesn’t pull her punches, like I said, and her protagonist has essentially given up on life but maintains to it more out of habit than interest. C’mon, y’all! This is a gut-punch of a lead character. She isn’t exactly likeable- but how stable would any of us be during the zompocalypse?

I mean, other than me and Courtney. We’ve got our go bags packed and a rendezvous point selected. The undead don’t stand a chance.

Did I mention that this is a funny book? It is- it can be- amidst the bleak and horrible. And there is some bleak and harrowing shit to survive. But this isn’t “mean for the sake of putting the protag through the ringer” writing.

Courtney sidesteps the knee-jerk nihilism of the post-credits “Easter Egg” of Snyder’s remake of Dawn of the Dead - which seemed to me to be a sort of “fuck you” to the audience.

She comes closer to the “choose your own tone” that accompanies the helicopter ride at the end of Romero’s original Dawn of the Dead- is there hope, or is any escape futile, a temporary relief?

This Is Not A Test is a test though- it isn’t a fun read, a lot of people aren’t going to “enjoy” it. I loved it.

Especially the finale image Courtney leaves us with- an achingly beautiful, haunting moment.

This morning one of the security guards asked if my kids were ready for Easter.

Beyond the kind of annoying automatic assumption that my family is Christian, “ready” for a holiday two weeks out?

Ok, for Christmas I understand asking if the kids are “Ready” two weeks out. But Easter? Is that a big “holiday” in most Christian households?

Regardless.

Two weeks is a long, long time in the mind of my kids. Hell, for Annika and I “two weekends from now” is a vague kind of nebulous thing.

“Is that a weekend with or without a payday?” is usually our only question (I get paid every other Friday). Two weeks from now. What will we be doing 2 weeks from now?

Sam is 5 going on 6 years old. Grace is 2. I’m thirty-seven. Dude. I could actually have a mid-life crisis, because in another 37 years I’ll be 74. Sam will be 42 going on 43. Grace will be two years older than I am right now.

We celebrate life by living- because we don’t know what else to do.

If I can’t say a lot, I don’t tend to say anything.

Some wise fool somewhere probably said something about the message being more important than the volume of words, but I’ve never had much luck in parsing myself down.

I am my own worst editor, writing and speaking.

But I’m working on it.

It sure can. Here are some more personal favorites, rarely on the standard Office Party Xmas Mix alongside Mariah Carey.

The Everly Brothers brought some blue to Christmas, because “Christmas Eve Can Kill You”.

Spinal Tap celebrated “Christmas With The Devil”

The Kinks extorted “Father Christmas”

Tom Petty warned us that it was “Christmas, All Over Again”

The Mighty Mighty Bosstones warn us that “Christmas Time (It Sure Doesn’t Feel Like It)”

Don’t bite too hard into Dolly, she is having a “Hard Candy Christmas”

And finally (for tonight at least) Rosemary Clooney and Gene Autry know what happens in “The Night Before Christmas Song”

Goodnight! And merry Christmas!

Some Christmas songs are just purty, others are purty awful but giddy fun. John Waters assembled a Christmas CD some years ago which had a number of tunes that straddled the line of sublime and shitty. Shockingly, there were two truly bad songs that I kind of love that didn’t make the cut.

“The Little Drummer Boy” is a “classic” Xmas song, but unless it is the Bing ‘n Bowie rendition, most folk give it a pass. Harry Connick Jr. did a passable if incredibly overwrought version- but the most jaw-droppingly WTF recording is of Marlena Dietrich’s teutonic mumble speak-singing the lyrics and the “rum-pum-pum-pums”. Exquisitely bad. Sadly, not on youtube.

Red Sovine was a solid if non-remarkable country & western crooner who did some solid work until he suddenly became a break-out star in the early 70s due to his “trucker” songs. Most of them are awful- but his biggest hits were these saccharine spoken word sob stories- most famously the tale of the crippled kid whose trucker-daddy is dead who gets on the CB to talk to truckers and say thanks to them for being truckers. Seriously.

Red Sovine did a couple of Xmas “songs”, the grandest and most batshit awful was “Well Here It Is Christmas” in which a half-drunk narrator breaks down on Christmas Eve in a letter to his ex-wife. It is terribly and it makes me laugh which makes me a terrible person. Wait, does that mean I like it ironically? Oh god- am I a hipster?

Louis Armstrong recorded two fantastic Xmas songs- ‘Zat You, Santa Claus?” which might be an unhinged horror story of holiday paranoia in a shitty neighborhood. His more serene “Christmastime in New Orleans” is vintage Louis.

The Staples Singers (especially belt-out artist Mavis Staples) recorded an up-beat pseudo gospel Xmas tune called “Who Took the Merry out of Christmas?” it is a bit tongue-in-cheek (or is it?) but a solid groove.

Speaking of solid grooves from female vocalists, what about The Flirtations “Christmas time (is here again)”? Or the raucous Japanese grrl-pop-garage growl of the 5.6.7.8’s doing “Rock & Roll Santa”? Liz Phair did a catchy earworm version of “Winter Wonderland”

This year Noirbettie’s favorite holiday song is “(Don’t Call Me) Mrs. Christmas” by the superlatively named Emmy the Great. I don’t know how Emmy is the rest of the time, but she is pretty damn great on that little number- currently available for free download at Amazon.

But I’ve barely touched the surface. More soon.

There are probably always multiple levels to what makes a song or a particular version of it “good” to the listener. I know there are for me.

Case in point, the gooey earnestness of

“Marshmallow World” might turn some folk off immediately. If it is Dean Martin’s version, I’m a sucker for it.

Now whether Dean Martin was a factually-and-truly for real heavy drinker or not has been called into question. Was he usually buzzed on stage or off- it doesn’t matter. That his image was always half-in-the-bag does. And on his recording of “Marshmallow World” you can practically smell the bourbon wafting through the speakers. The song itself is treacle, but Martin’s grinning good-natured drunk (act or not) performance is the lovable Holiday lush, and the fun is infectious.

And speaking of drinking and Christmas Music, what about Clyde Lasley & the Cadillac Baby Specials “Santa Came Home Drunk”? A mostly forgotten old rhythm and blues classic, and possibly the greatest boozed-up travelogue ever.

And while we’re talking about rhythm & blues, I would be remiss to pass over Elvis Presley’s “It’s Christmas Time Pretty Baby”. Terrible title, great rockin’ bluesy song. Skip “Mama liked the Roses” and “Why Can’t Every Day Be Like Christmas”. Hell, skip the in-constant-rotation Blue Christmas (Johnny Cash did a fun up-tempo version of “Blue Christmas”) and just listen to “It’s Christmas Time (Pretty Baby)” for your Elvis quotient of the holiday mix.

And speaking of the blues, Tom Waits recorded a version of “Silent Night” which sounds like a New Orleans jazz funeral that got crashed by a boy’s choir. It isn’t for everyone, but I love it. And he loops his vocals on it, so it’s like four or five or six Tom Waits are singing to you. Bonus!

Otis Redding did a cover of “White Christmas” that knocks Bing down a few notches, and Solomon Burke’s incredible energy suffuses his “Presents for Christmas” and both of these performers cause me to question whether James Brown really was the hardest working man in show-biz like his press claimed.

Now how the hell did Dean Martin lead me into the rhythm and blues with a slight country detour?

Now abouts this time of year, some folks start to bitching.

“I hate christmas music”

“I’m just so sick of this fucking christmas music”

“Gah. Stop it. Please stop the christmas music.”

I’m not writing this post to bury these folks- but rather to sympathize with them. It is difficult for me to do, because I truly enjoy Christmas Music. I spend months ahead of November searching out any unique recording or one-off single from some recording artist neither me, you, my father, or the other Will have heard of.

And then at some point in November I start listening to these tracks. This can be a painful but occasionally rewarding process because- as has been pointed out- there are a lot of Christmas songs.

But as Shelby points out, there are seemingly about 17 Christmas songs re-recorded (and re-recorded, and re-recorded) by about a hundred acts.

That some Xmas tunes get overplayed is undeniable- but a lot of times there is a reason these songs get repeated so often. Some of them are fine pieces of songwriting, that have just gotten overplayed.

Others are just piles of shit.

How many covers of Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmastime” have you heard? I’ve heard exactly two. They both sucked just as much as the original.

But there are some great christmas tunes. Even for the discerning listener!

For the next few days I’m going to spend some time talking about the Christmas music that makes me happy, make me dance, make me laugh, make me sing.

I might touch on the songs that don’t (thanks, Paul McCartney. Fucker. Laugh all the way to the Scrooge McDuck room in your private mountain island) but I’d rather stay upbeat.

So put on your footie pajamas, get a glass of egg nog (or a cuppa coffee, or if you are me a glass of bedside whiskey) and settle down by the yule log.

I’ll be wearing my Santa hat the next few days.

Most everyone fears death. Probably because it isn’t really avoidable.

So Vampires are(were) Sex=Death (the vampire as STD allegory still works, even-especially in a post-Twilight world).

Werewolves can be Rage/Rape/Wrath=Death (the hidden beast within, werewolves, until Anne Rice came along, were the most guilt-ridden of monsters)

Ghosts are the past haunting us.

The manufactured revenant (see: Frankenstein and his monster) are really more of a Science-Fiction trope that has become associated with horror and falls into the “what Man Was Not Meant To Know” area of horror (see also: Pandora)

The human psycho/killer- whether solo or part of a crazed clan- tends to be the horror of random violence. You picked the wrong night/street/lake/bbq stand to be in on the wrong day.

The Zombie has certainly become, since 1968, one of the most powerful and lasting monsters in the cinematic pantheon of horror. George Romero created something new and infectious- it is hard to imagine a cinemascape without the legacy of the shambling, reaching, undead legions…

And of course that is the thing of post ‘68 Zombies- they are us, they are death, they are all we have to look forward to. We can slow the tide, but we can’t beat them truly. The best the survivors can hope to do is prolong their time.

And Romero’s certainly got that right. A movie that has little jump scares, some pretty impressive grue (even still, and even though the blue-tinted zombies are kind of funny now) but most of all it builds that utter dread of the inevitability of death.

It is a great, great horror film. And this is its pretty great trailer.

I LOVE how much of the trailer is the usage of the talking heads- the opening 20 minutes of the movie astounded me as a teenager (where is all the cool stuff, why do we have all this TV station bullshit?) but I was a dumb kid and didn’t appreciate the feeling that EVERYTHING was going askew and the world was stumbling to a breakdown- I think the trailer sells that part very well.

And yeah, sure, the social commentary (consumerism!) is kind of heavy handed. But ferchristsake- its a fucking movie where UNDEAD HORDES will EAT YO FACE.

And that trailer, honestly, excites me to watch it again. Good thing I have the Special Edition dvd at home.

Happy Halloween, fiends, I’m glad you joined me for this walk through the trailer park.

Next year, maybe, we’ll do it again…

We’re almost done with our dance through the lonesome October, my lovelies.

And why shouldn’t the macabre brilliance of Henry Mancini’s theme to Experiment in Terror waltz us up to the finale?

the last half of the trailer is pure early 60s schmaltz.

But the first few minutes? With just the Mancuni score?

Ooof.

Blake Edwards became famous for being a comedy guy, but he started out in horror.

The beats are the same, the tempo is similar. Horror and comedy.

GREAT trailer, love it. You?

“James Woods speciality is playing feral”- Pauline Kael, from a review of Sergio Leone’s Once Upon A Time In America

And finally, John Carpenter let him go apeshit doing his “speciality”.

Carpenter’s Vampires is a piece of crap.

But it is a piece of shit that comes dangerously close to being awesome.

The source material, John Steakley’s awesomely titled Vampire$ is also a piece of crap- in fact, the movie is vastly superior to the novel.

There is a big reveal in the novel (the M. Night Twist of the piece, if you will) that once someone becomes a vampire they have a letch to dress in velvet and a yearning to listen to opera. So when Jack Crow and his band of cash-hungry revenant stakers are listening to Stevie Ray Vaughan and drinking heavily, the master vampire doesn’t come in to kill them because the music upsets his head. Played for satire of the genre this could be hilarious, but Steakley plays is totally straight.

The tagline to the book always got my attention though- “What if vampires did exist? Dark. Stalking. Destroying. They”d have to be killed, wouldn”t they? Of course they would. But what kind of fools would try to make a living at it?”

Well frankly, I’d like to read that book or watch that movie, too bad Steakley was a terribly novelist and too bad John Carpenter had his budget massively cut less with only a few weeks before principal photography began. The western vibe that Carpenter (the biggest self-admitted Howard Hawks fan of all time) brings to the genre was tasty, and would have resonated better if the movie’s Peckinpah inspired finale hadn’t happened off-screen (seriously, see above about the budget)

What if it was a HBO series, or Showtime, or FX, or… what if we were given a set-up of these mercenary gunslinger vampire-killers -including the great Mark Boone Jr, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, stunt actors Thomas Rosales Jr., and Henri Kingi, Tim Guinee who briefly seemed poised to become the next Fisher Stevens, Daniel Baldwin- who was good on Homicide: Life on the Streets so it isn’t like he didn’t have some potential, right?- and then given time to give a shit about their struggles?

Compelling stuff, man. Too bad the movie was borderline unwatchable.