George Romero never called them Zombies

Neither did any of the characters in any of the Romero films. The characters referred to them as “them” or “those things” or “the creatures”… In Romero’s internal notes he actually referred to them as “Ghouls” though neither definition fits the creatures we have come to know and … love?

I promised last journal to tell you about my final week in Minneapolis; Let us start first with Kansas City coming to the Twin Cities…

You see – one of our favorite things about Kansas City is Bob, and Ann Brown. Besides being our dear friends, and great drinking partners, Ann is our stupidly-talented photographer, and Bob is my Xbox 360 partner-in-crime.

So many of our friends wanted to shoot with Ann, and so few of them seemed to be able to “aggregate-their-fecal-matter” enough to make the trip to KC. So we brought Ann, (and Bob) to shoot many of our friends right here in Minnesota.

Prior to the release of the 1985 Zombie comedy Return of the Living Dead, itself a satiric send-up of the Romero films, Zombies never spoke, or showed a predilection for brains. Or as they say, “Braaaiiinns!”

With some clever scheduling, a little diligence, and a portion of Jack’s ceramics shop converted to an impromptu studio – Ann managed to shoot nine different shoots in just three days. Heather was make-up artist, coach, secretary, assistant, and overall facilitator. Ann worked her camera magic. As for Ann’s husband Bob and I? We played HALO ODST on my 360 (in 42 inch HD glory) baby! We managed to finish the game while he was here… XLNT!

I even tried to organize a gaming event with Both Bob (my primary 360 partner), Byron (my on-the-road 360 partner) and I playing Resident Evil 5 or Left 4 Dead at the same time… only to be defeated by the damn mechanics of split-screen gaming. In fact; at one point, due to the miracle of over-indulgence in shots, Bob and Byron got to play together while I napped, and eventually threw up in the bathroom.

Heather has rarely been so proud.

“When there is no more room in Hell, the Dead will walk the earth” is the tagline from my favorite of the Romero Dead films… and Google lists 506,000 entries relating to it (in quotes even!)

Also during this short period of intense action it was time to do our Drum Company dinner for the Minnesota show. We got to include Bob and Ann, as well as our treasured employees Justin, Meghan, and Vaughn. On the Boy-drummers recommendation we went to King and I Thai in downtown Minneapolis. The food was amazing, the décor was lovely, Scarlett was rambunctious… and we discovered that Vaughn has a bizarre passion for all things curry.

The “monsters” in the 28 days later/28 weeks later films are not Zombies… they are “infected” (by the Rage Virus, to be specific) this doesn’t make these movies any less fabulous, but … Don’t call them zombies!

So we finally got the RV tanks repaired, only to discover that they still leak (only this time from a completely different fitting)… but wait, there’s more! We’ve been having problems with the electro-magnetic trailer brakes for quite some time. The failure is intermittent; but getting more consistent. The brakes overload and shut down in the rain, when activated too strongly, or too quickly, you know… any time you really need them. This problem is not insurmountable; my truck is so massive, and so over-braked that even without the trailer brakes it can still stop… though it is entirely too much of an adventure, a crapshoot to do so… especially at highway speeds.

I asked my RV guy to come fix the brakes, and of course he waited until the last few days to do so. He spent an hour (maybe less) under the trailer, and reported exactly the sort of thing every travel-trailer owner wants to hear. “I can’t fix your trailer brakes in this parking lot, and I found so many other problems under there, you have much more stuff to worry about”.

Great.

Some discussion revealed that my shocks, and springs needed re-bushing. That they MIGHT make it to the Carolina festival, or the axles may simply drop off en-route. The repair guy suggested I make a Monday morning trip to a spring repair place… a trip that, due to our many business concerns, I had to forego… and just risk taking the journey to Charlotte.

We made it… though I have to tell you; coming down the mountains with iffy brakes was loads o fun… but we really didn’t have much of a choice. We were about to enter “Ten Days of Hell”

As I mentioned in a previous post; one of the founding members of the Arizona, Georgia, and Carolina joust teams was actually the stuntman, and “Lead Zombie” on both Dawn of the Dead, and Day of the Dead.

So let me tell you our schedule for the first bunch-o-days in North Carolina:

• We arrive in NC Wednesday noon-ish. Safe, sound, tired… and scared of our lack of brakes.
• We have half-a-day to set up our trailer… Scarlett somehow invented a new game that involved her closing herself into the doggie-kennel. I’m kind of concerned that this photo may cause us to lose our child.
• Heather had two days to co-ordinate and set-up two full booths (all of the Souvenirs at the North Carolina show.)
• I was (once-again) required to set up Heather’s company’s damn tent… stupid, damn tent…
• Meanwhile I also was responsible to help load-out and set up for the twins… all while watching my rambunctious daughter.
• Don’t forget, there was still the standard house and satellite dish set up… a little more problematic than usual. (Grrr!)
• Our opening weekend was A-MAZ-ZING!!! Great crowds, loads of happy people, better weather than promised… very nice!
• We had Monday off; and by “off” I mean we had paperwork, inventory, and maintenance to do from the weekend before…
• Three days of rainy, crappy student days.
• One of the few bright points from the “three days of heck” was that Heather organized and cooked for a great lunch for us all… lasagna, smoked gouda mac n cheese, drinking, rambunctious daughter
• We also managed to sneak away, albeit briefly, to dine with some of our favorite folks, Frank and Kelly DeFeo. You can tell we love the DeFeos… because otherwise there was no damned way we’d have gone out during student days.
• Finally; we were supposed to do a show on Friday night, “Family Fun Night” in Matthews North Carolina… only they double-booked the venue, and we (surprisingly) had the night off. - Though we still got paid!
• After the unexpected respite, we sailed into a rainy, chilly, and not-well-attended weekend two… at least we got some quality time with Sharyn Watson… and my daughter invented another game... this one involving a puppy, and our laundry basket.
• Our good friend, employee, and uber-nerd Brian Holloway managed to score some cloth that was used to make the original command uniforms in the Classic Star Trek. He did what any costume literate nerd would do – fashioned a ship’s captain, a’la Kirk uniform. This photo indicates that none of us are cool at all.
• Monday morning Jef, Jamie Harvey, and I departed for our yearly trip to Louisiana… to repair, maintain, and upgrade our business concerns there.

The Zombie Apocalypse is a clearly fictional event… or IS it? The following document was prepared by the University of Florida… I DID NOT MAKE THIS UP!!!

This trip has been horrible in the past, but this one was easy, beautiful, and even fun. We left at 10 am on Monday… rather than 8pm Sunday night like we’ve done. We drove quickly to the house of Bayou Goddess Jamie Haeuser, after a stop, of course for Daiquiris! Man we love Louisiana’s Drive-thru Daiquiris!

We had only a little to do this year. Some repairs, a little maintenance, some cleaning… no major construction. We fixed a roof leak, repaired some storm and vandalism damage. Had a really nice dinner with the Haeusers… mmm Venison burgers, and early Thursday headed home.

The trip would have been flawless were it not for the fact that I caught some weird bug… ghastly. Jef had to drive 70% of the way home as I battled explosive diarrhea. I only forced two stops on the way home… but had to crawl into my house. Jamie Harvey threw-up on the way home from my house and was afflicted thereafter. Jef was struck down that night. Even Scarlett got it late Friday… necessitating two bed linen changings and a Saturday night trip to the laundrymat

The third weekend was just-about on par with my slowly-recovering butt. Sluggish, squishy, slightly depressed and down… but still functioning!

I realized as the weekend started that I lacked enough photos for this journal, so I took a shot of us at the 9 AM morning meeting…, and the secret to how I get from the extreme back of the festival, all-the-way to our cart near the front, before anyone else can, after our R-rated show

And that’s about it for now… I have so much more useless Zombie info for you all… I sawZombieland. (Awesome) I read more zombie books… I eagerly await the release of the sequel to the zombie Game Left 4 Dead… this one is set in New Orleans… it releases while I am in New Orleans… awesome!

I have to tell you about my Kayak and my boat’s maiden voyage, about RV shopping … and finally, leave you with one final shot of my zombie-destroying army!