You are what you eat...Zombies eat brains

I know most of you will probably not get to this till Tuesday (bad 80's band pun...sorry), but I figured I should post while I had the chance. I had a busy few days. On Thursday night we went to see "Land of the Dead", the new zombie flick. Although I am not the biggest fan of the genre, I have to admit, the last few films I have seen have all been great fun.

First, I saw the remake of "Dawn of the Dead" which I desperately did not want to see. But, Ali wanted to see it badly and I certainly have made him see some junky flicks. Anyway, it was great. I laughed the whole way through (which I believe was the intention of the writers). The screenplay was fantastic and there wasn't a boring moment.

So, after that, I certainly wanted to see the Zombie spoof, "Shaun of the Dead." That flick was really great too. They did a commendable job keeping to the ideas and concepts of zombie movies and played with the genre with fun and cleverness.

So that brings us to "Land of the Dead." I won't ruin it for those of you who will make the trip to the cinemaplex to catch it, but rest assured, they hit the mark. It is the next logical step for the story to take. What if zombies were smart(er). Usually they are mindless, slow and only after food. This movie gives them a bit of a brain (but not too much). The movie starts where most zombie movies end...the world is affected and there is no hope. Now there are small communities of humanity, gripping to some semblance of normalcy and trying to keep the zombies out of there towns while raiding zombie infested cities to get supplies. When the zombies smarten up, it's war. The sad part is, there really is nowhere to go from this. But it is a good way to end the saga.

One interesting thing to me is how communication is a bench mark in our society for civility. Once the zombies are thinking, it is difficult to decide who the bad guys are. Do they have a right to survive? Are they the next step in our evolution? I talk to my vegetarian friends all the time about why we eat animals. I think a big reason for it is that they don't talk (at least a human language). I know not everyone will agree (Ed), but I think most of us would have a pretty tough time eating a chicken who could plead for its life. Most of us don't eat dogs. Probably because of their ability to show some communication skills. Of course that makes a difficult task of explaining the current state of the world and people killing people.

Tonight we played a show down at Lower Greenville: a large street in Dallas dedicated to bars, clubs and shops. It was outdoors and hot. We played in front of a cool little tattoo parlor with another band as part of the fourth of July festivities. I'm sure there were fireworks to follow, but we left pretty quickly after we played. It was fun though, We played a lot of cool tunes...mostly originals..almost all pretty rockin. I am starting to really love the Mandolin. I liked it enough before, but the more I get to play with Anthony, the more I really dig it. He really makes that thing sing! The one thing that sucks though is the fact that I still get distracted while playing Nick's tunes because I really dig them so much and get caught listening and forgetting to play. I can say the same for Anthony and his playing. Sometimes I just start listening and then catch myself and say "oh F*#k! Where are we!?!?"

I hope all of your 4th plans go well. I'll be with my students at the Rangers game for baseball and fireworks.