How the Brits see the America zombie craze

Halloween is over.. Of course for those who read this website, you’ll know that the spirit of Halloween lasts all year regardless of the calendar.. 

In the light, I was perusing some British fishwrappers and discovered some interesting commentary from Donald Macinnes in the UK INDEPENDENT and some not so kind words about America’s craze with zombies–and how dislike of the British culture being so accepting of it..

From the article,

I first noticed the bloated US obsession with the 31st day of October many years ago, during one of my annual trips to visit my sister in Florida. I tended to travel there in late autumn, mainly because the climate is at its most tolerable then, with the late summer hurricanes having abated and the mosquitos taking a breather from all the raging sucking.

Every year, I got more and more amazed at the scale of the American approach to Halloween. Unlike in this country, where it took a distant back seat to fireworks fight, the Guy Fawkes-free calendar in the US meant Halloween was the be-all-and-end-all – certainly until the next holiday, Thanksgiving, trundled into view in late November.

It’s gets meaner. Really. Written as only a Brit could write,

And things didn’t end with ringing someone’s doorbell. Now kids get a handful of responsibly sourced tofu treats just for turning up, but we had to do something to earn our fun-size Mars bar – maybe sing a song or tell a joke. I would tend to have one joke ready that I would trot out at every door.

And while this incarnation of Halloween may not have swollen the coffers of Tesco or Aldi quite as much, at least we had our dignity. I’m joking, of course.

A big giant ouch.

Of course cruel or not cruel, it does not matter.

As a matter of fact, right now as I write this brief post, my personal Facebook feed is filled with my friends’ photos of their barhopping.. adorned with the most ghoulish of attire, sexualized in nature, they are gratifying themselves at a watering hole of their choice and carelessly drinking the night away. Their makeup is running but that’s the point: It’s the makeup of blood, zombies, and gore. 

Yes, America is filled with the nightmares of Elm Streets around the world. But most of those pastimes of Halloween are borrowed. Let’s not forget where bobbing for apples comes from..where Samhain comes from..where all of the customs and traditions come from. Not America. We’re the melting pot. We get them from everywhere else. 

Including you Britland.

So don’t let your tea run cold. And we can have our zombies.

After all England.. you have your problems, too.

Kit offers all the necessities to survive a zombie outbreak

Should the day ever come when the dead do rise from their graves a new disaster preparedness kit could give you an edge in that chaotic first day for the reasonable cost of $1,499.

So get ready for that..

Kit offers all the necessities to survive a zombie outbreak

Which is Worse: A Bath Salt Epidemic or a Zombie Outbreak?

This Florida online paper perfectly sums up the horror that is drugs, particularly bath salts, in the once great coal region of Pennsylvania ..This is a great article, written from looking in from the outside. Dennis Maley, the author,  grew up in Schuylkill County PA, or as residents term it the “skook” .. He penned this article about a trip back and a sad view of how bath salts and other hardcore drugs have destroyed the last remaining goodness that was the county.

A few points from Maley:

I grew up in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, or the Skook as it’s affectionately known. It is an area that has suffered through a long history of problems with pervasive drug addiction. In that way, it’s no different than a lot of small, economically-depressed places that have fared poorly in the post-industrial economy. The stories are the same, but for some reason, the drugs are often different, perhaps reflecting the particular brand of desperation most prevalent in any particular geographical region.

He goes on..

I’d been hearing the tales for a long time, but by that last trip home the scope had become unthinkable. One after another, I heard dozens of stories about the ranks of friends and acquaintances who’d jumped to the dark side and become a “salter.” It wasn’t just the usual suspects either. Smart people with good jobs and intact families saw their lives quickly circle the drain before nose-diving down the pipe and into oblivion. 

I myself have known people, or known of people, who suddenly lost their way and changed their entire personality due to drugs.. It’s a horrible thing, too. The zombie look that the face gets is frightening.. 

Another point from the author:

All of it felt surreal. I was without a frame of reference. This many people couldn’t be off the grid, living some underground life as fiends with an insatiable craving for some drug you bought in a head shop with cartoon pictures on the box. Then it happened … I saw one.

She was a formerly gorgeous girl, five years my junior and daughter of a family friend. Her face was hollowed out so deep that it called to mind the Skeletor character from the horrible live-action movie, based on the He-Man cartoon. Her once full lips were now pencil thin and scabbed over on at least half of their surface area. The doe-eyed baby blues I remembered as her most striking feature had narrowed into slits, leaving her with only a permanent expression that seemed to drip with cynicism. Then there was the assortment of scabs and open cuts dotting her face. Her teeth looked like they’d begun rotting in place and her once-curvy body had thinned to the point that I might have missed her, had she been standing sideways rather than facing me straight on. 

I have seen the people he is describing.. I have seen beautiful young and hopeful people become destroyed because they made a choice to do some hardcore horrid things.  

While you see the coal region close up every day, looking at it from a new perspective always gives you a fresh look.. Reading an account from someone who left before the bath salt and meth fad began here is striking.. Everything that was is gone. Things that were stable are not..

As the Coal Speaker has followed for years, you never know where you’ll find a meth lab in the area..  The Coal Speaker has also began documenting what I feel will be the ultimate demise of the area: Closed malls, schools, hospitals, and hope. Deep down, beyond all the facts and headlines, there is something else happening.

When I was a high schooler at the now defunct Cardinal Brennan High School in the roaring 90s, life was fine. Kids did bush parties—late night beer fests in the middle of corn fields or in hideouts in the woods. That was the test of a teenager… beer. Miller or Coors.. toxic sure… but things changed.

These days drugs are rampant.. And if you think the cops are immune you’re pretty naive to how things work.

There seems to be a disconnect—county leaders don’t realize just how fast and how much the area changed.. They don’t get the immense change that happened. And most don’t realize how much bath salts, meth, and other hard core drugs are responsible.  War has come to our towns.. The drug war. And sobriety is losing.

Don’t get me wrong. The drug was has failed. But let’s not forget how it was meant to fail—the CIA has been busy beavers.. 

I feel like I am digressing.
Back to this article..

Despite your belief about drugs and whether we should jail people for them…there is something very rotten at the core of Schuylkill County. 

And I fear the when Krocodil makes its debut in the region.. Then the real zombie look will be en vogue.. 

Which is Worse: A Bath Salt Epidemic or a Zombie Outbreak?

Watch Zombies Emerge From Subway Grates and Terrify New Yorkers

New York City appears to be ground zero for horror movie or TV promotions.. the CARRIE promo where a coffee shop got attacked by a possessed soul.. the demon baby scaring passersby.. and now this: “Zombies” terrifying New Yorkers.

Is nothing real?
You were real Truman..

Watch Zombies Emerge From Subway Grates and Terrify New Yorkers

America's Number One Prescription Sleep Aid Could Trigger 'Zombies,' Murder and Other Disturbing Behavior

Ambien is becoming better known for triggering bizarre behavior than it is for treating insomnia.

Interesting story. 

Sleep well, zombies. Sleep well.

America's Number One Prescription Sleep Aid Could Trigger 'Zombies,' Murder and Other Disturbing Behavior

Well now we know.. Early humans may have been zombies. They loved to eat human brains..

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rivL5KYeBvk?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1&origin=http://safe.txmblr.com&wmode=opaque&w=500&h=281]

SHAMEFUL ACTS OF SHOPPING!
We are days into the shopping season, but here is a YouTube compilation of the most shameful of behavior displayed by supposed humans on Black Friday. Enjoy.

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

Zombies invade Scranton, PA. Mostly to get drunk I think.

I have said it before and unfortunately I am going to say it again: I am quite tired of zombies..

If it’s not the government issuing fake warnings about zombies instead of talking to citizens as adults it’s zombie conferences—much like the one now taking place in Scranton, PA. It’s the Lackawanna Historical Society’s fourth annual Scranton After Dark Walking Tour, and men and women dressed in zombie attire are roaming the streets of the Electric City.

But the premise is interesting. I’m relatively close. I didn’t actually know about this but if I did I may have tried to attend for the fun of it. The tour the Historical Society does is a virtual walking tour of the macabre of the city of Scranton, such as how bodies were stored in basements of businesses during the flu outbreak in the early 20th century, or tales of voices still being heard in some buildings. There were hangings in the town square.  And all that stuff other towns have too, probably.

But why the zombies?

This: The Infect Scranton Zombie Convention. That’s right, There is a zombie convention taking place within the boundaries of Scranton. And being a Saturday night in the Northeast of PA, there is also a bar crawl (maybe literally) of people dressed as the dead drinking like they are alive but dying.. 

However, not all are happy that the living dressed as the deceased have entered their city limits. 

The local newspapers in Scranton and Northeast PA, including the TIMES TRIBUNE, is covering the zombiethon. But naysayers are also commenting on stories posted. The comments sections is dicing up the zombie weekend. One comment pointed out that the Riverside High School is sponsoring the INFECT SCRANTON ZOMBIE CONVENTION .. Another comment from someone says this:

What a bunch of puke minded degenerates. If they want to see blood and guts why don’t some of them join the service of their country. And if they want to see torn and maimed bodies; let them visit the Veterans hospital.

Perhaps that comment is a little too much.

But what is NOT too much to me is the overabundance of zombies in our pop culture. They have undoubtedly taken over the aliens of the 20th century and the vampires of the early 21st. Zombies are everywhere. There are people even taking so many drugs that they are turning into flesh eating monsters.

And the government, constantly, warns people to be ready for the zombie attacks—they use zombies as the basis for us to get ready for natural disasters, but being it as it is, they just can’t be frank enough to tell us disasters are coming and instead rely on fictitious zombies.

But that is that. And people are dressing like the dead tonight in Scranton. Having fun. So let them. But who will clean up the vile zombie bile and drunken vomit in the morning? The city of Scranton, no doubt.