Zombie Nightmare - Lick the Snick | Zombie Book Club Ep 155

This is an unfiltered check-in where the laptops stay closed and we just talk like the two zombie-obsessed humans we are, and discuss an internet video of a man de-veigning a snickers bar to make Jesus happy.

We have two big community updates: a new Kickstarter for the Path of the Pale Rider trade paperback (issues 5–8), and our next book club pick, Intercepts by T.J. Payne; a novel that hooked us so hard we couldn't stop reading until it was finished.

Then we swing into a full teardown of Zombie Nightmare, calling out what doesn't hold up; racist framing, misogyny, and assault played for plot; before widening into camper life, remote work on the road, and the small joys keeping us upright through a heavy news cycle. We close on the stuff a lot of people are sitting with right now: politics, protest, direct action, and how loaded words like "terrorism" get weaponized. Lick the Snick, everyone!

Relevant Links:

Path of the Pale Rider Kickstarter Trade Paperback 5-8: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pathofthepalerider/path-of-the-pale-rider-trade-paperback-5-8

Intercepts by T.J. Payne — publisher page: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/833286/intercepts-by-t-j-payne/

T.J. Payne's author site: https://tjpayneauthor.wixsite.com/tjpayne

Zombie Nightmare (1986/87) — Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie_Nightmare

MST3k Zombie Nightmare (1994) — Fandom   https://mst3k.fandom.com/wiki/Zombie_Nightmare_(film)

Transcript

Cold Open With Mom Spaghetti

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This is basically the beginning of Eight Mile when I get up on stage.

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Are your palms sweaty? And then I'm like There's vomit on his shirt already. Mom spaghetti. Oh, he choked. He choked. Don't go, Dan. Dan, everyone can still see you on stage. Doesn't matter if you're trying to pretend that you're not on stage. We can I can still see you. Okay, now I can't. Oh, I can see you in your arms. Nope, now nothing.

Welcome And Quick Life Updates

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Welcome to the Zombie Book Club, the only book club where the book is so casual, it's just by the seat of our pants. Because we're tired. And Leah just got back from a trip.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

That that's it. I'm writing a book.

SPEAKER_01 0:56

How does my intro go usually? Yeah. I'm Dan, and when I'm not tired from getting back from a trip, I'm writing a book about zombie people.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

Yeah, zom there's people who are zombies.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

It's important to put the word people in there so we remember. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:14

Zombies are people. People too. And you know, you might be thinking, like, yeah, but zombies um want to eat people.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Dead on the outside, alive on the inside.

SPEAKER_00 1:24

Yeah, there's a lot of people that want to hurt other people. And they're people too. Yeah. Probably.

SPEAKER_01 1:30

Yeah. They want to hurt other people because finding out that some people who are boys like also like boys makes them feel uncomfortable. Oh, it gives them really uncomfortable feelings.

SPEAKER_00 1:40

I just I saw a video and it was a reaction to a video. You know how those go about a guy who can't eat Snickers bars that have the veiny side on them. Oh my god, because it reminds him of a dick. And um he said he said that ever since becoming a born-again Christian, he can't eat Snickers bars with the veins on them. So he he designed a Snickers bar D veiner. No, he did not. To make it smooth. And that says all you need to know about that guy.

SPEAKER_01 2:14

Oh he's trying not to be gay. He really is. He just wants to lick that veiny Snickers bar. Just lick the Snickers bar.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

The snick. Lick lick the veins. He's like, I tried everything. I tried turning it upside down. You know, I thought maybe if like my tongue didn't touch the veins, it wouldn't it wouldn't be a sick. It reminds him of something. Yeah, he thinks it's a sin to lick the Snickers veins. Hi, Leah. Who are you?

SPEAKER_01 2:41

Now I'm thinking about licking the snick. Uh hi, I'm Leah. And when I'm not licking the Snickers bars.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

Leah just licks all the Snickers bars at the store.

SPEAKER_01 2:53

Yeah. I unwrap them, give them a little lick, and then put them, close them back up. Yeah, Leah puts them back. I do not. But I did eat. I'm Leah, and in 2009, I was in the United Kingdom, and I did have a deep-fried Snickers bar, and it was good. In the UK? In the UK. I feel like where it was exactly. No, it's a it's a UK. You know what it is? I mean, we have UK listeners, so folks, hi. Uh tell us, is this a thing that you all do for funsies just cut because, or is it a tourist trap for Americans? And at the time, total Canadian had no idea I'd be living in the United States. In fact, that trip is actually what ultimately propelled me to move to the US.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

Yeah. Maybe the deep fried Snickers bar was like have a taste of America. Yeah. Was it was the restaurant like like Amer uh little America?

SPEAKER_01 3:46

No, it was like a really it was in the countryside, really quaint little, uh I don't want to say like castle. I did see a lot of castles, of course. But I uh like a little old stone house farm and like then a little like restaurant that also was a stone building. And there was uh there was a deep fried Snickers bar, and I was like, I have to do it. And that's how you know I've grown as a person because I was just in Kansas City and I could have gotten a vegan Monte Cristo. Um I've never had a Monte Cristo before, vegan or not. And when I learned that it was deep fried, I just was like, I can't. It's a whole deep fried same. I can't deep fry Sam. Plus then the powdered sugar, I like my whole body was like, if you put that in me, you're not gonna sleep tonight. You're gonna miss real terrible. She's gonna miss your plane ride. Um, my plane was delayed, so I got to sleep in, which was nice. Yeah. Um, but hi everybody. This is this is a casual dead. It's the kind of casual dead where our laptops are closed. We're sitting in the bunker. I have two things that I want to talk about, and I'll just say them right now before I forget. Yeah, because we will forget. Yeah. Uh number one, Path of the Pale Rider, trade paperback issues five through eight is coming out with a Kickstarter. Lori is uh launching it on July 3rd. You should go check that out. And if you haven't listened to Lori's episode with her updates, you should. It's a really funny one because it's Lori. I mean, Lori basically just makes us look good. She's always like, Y'all are such a great podcast. I'm like, well, I think it's because you're on the show. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:05

I mean, no shame to everybody else who's on the show, but you're also great. Lori Calcatera is a is a different level of of entertainment whenever we have her is charisma plus. Yeah. Like Lori's got the ris. We don't have to do anything.

SPEAKER_01 5:20

No.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

We we react to Lori. Lori takes control, and then we're like, whoa, really? That's so interesting, Lori.

SPEAKER_01 5:30

Tell us more about that. Yeah. I'm jealous of Lori Calcatara's brain.

unknown 5:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:35

I want to eat it. It's a big thing. I mean, we do eat it in the form of Path of Pale Rider. Yeah. What's your second thing? Oh, right. Glad one of us is keeping track. Because I don't remember anything. The second thing is we finally caught up on our book club duties. And um, as of this recording, we have selected our next book club read, which is I actually forget what the book was. Uh Intercepts. Is it intercepts with an S? That's why I was like, is it Intercepts? Is it Intercept or Intercepts?

SPEAKER_00 6:02

I think it's Intercepts.

SPEAKER_01 6:03

Intercepts by TJ Payne. Yeah. Uh it is a book that Dan and I actually listened to on our road trip home from Living Dead Weekend and were obsessed from start to finish. Really captivating book. Uh non-traditional zombie story, but it does fit our zombie definition. Dan, do you want to remind folks what that is?

SPEAKER_00 6:21

Yeah, so zombies are organisms who are controlled by other organisms. And like I will give that as a caveat is like this isn't going to be like your your typical like zombie apocalypse uh story, but I will say that uh from beginning to end, like we there was one point where we listened to it for like nine and a half hours straight. That was the drive home without breaks and we were like glued to it. Yeah. Um, sometimes you took a nap.

SPEAKER_01 6:48

Yeah, but I kind of I was like semi-conscious, so I still was absorbing it. It was interesting. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:53

And when you when you woke up, you were like, What happened? And I'm like, We're not going back, Leah. We got to keep moving forward.

SPEAKER_01 7:01

Uh yeah, but we're having TJ Payne on the show. We're recording with him pretty soon. His episode's coming out in early August. And then we will do our book club discussion probably after that.

SPEAKER_02 7:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:12

Not sure when, because it's summer, baby, and it's Dan's first summer. Yes. Not working since 2018. It's my brat summer. And 2018, you were working. Yeah. And not really spending a lot of time outside. You were in a shitty apartment. 2018? Yeah. Oh, uh yeah, 2018. 2018, you didn't have your C CDL yet. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:33

You were still doing YouTube and Twitch. I was a YouTube boy, um, which meant that I was kind of dedicated to the craft of making people feel like they needed to give me money um about 18 hours a day. And it was uh it was hard. It was by that point, I'm like, how do I stop doing this?

SPEAKER_01 7:54

All right, here's my question. How many years has it been since you've enjoyed a summer?

SPEAKER_00 7:59

How long ago was 1996? Oh, 30 years. No, twenty.

SPEAKER_01 8:07

2006 was 20 years ago. Yeah, 30 years. Wild.

SPEAKER_00 8:10

Yeah, I don't know when the last time I was.

SPEAKER_01 8:11

In 2006, you were an Afghanistan.

SPEAKER_00 8:13

Enjoyed a summer, probably teenage years. Actually, you know what? Um the year 2000 was pretty good for me. Um, my stepdad got a trampoline. I have the urge to sing a silver chair song called The Year 2000, but I won't. And um, and that whole summer, I spent like pretty much every minute on the trampoline, and it was the closest I ever got to having a six-pack. I had a four. I remember you I remember you bragging about your four-pack on the phone with me. Yeah. Um, and uh I've I've like I've like for like six hours straight, I'd just be doing backflips.

SPEAKER_01 8:45

Is it creepy that the adult version of me likes to think of the 16-year-old version of you jumping up and down on a I think it's okay because we're married.

SPEAKER_00 8:53

Yeah, and we're the same age. So like if if I was 16, you were 15, 16-ish in that area.

SPEAKER_01 9:01

It's like that young version of me is like, ooh, Dan.

SPEAKER_00 9:04

Yeah. So I think that's fine because it's like it's time, it's a time travel uh where it would still be appropriate.

SPEAKER_01 9:11

Yeah, because I've been in love with you for as long as I've known you. Yeah. I know I loved you before I met you. That's also a song. That's true. It's a dream turned into life. What is that song? I don't know. I feel like it's gotta be Savage Garden or something.

SPEAKER_00 9:23

It was Savage Garden, which was also popular at that exact time. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 9:29

And out so was the year 2000 by Silver Chair, which I thought was the best band. Um, I did listen to their album Neon Ballroom a few years ago, and it didn't really stand the test of time like Incubus stuff has. Yeah. Well, maybe I'll give it a try again. Yeah. But yeah, welcome everybody to my brain. I'm Leah, and my brain is entirely made up of musical lyrics from the 2000 era.

SPEAKER_00 9:49

Yeah. This episode, we're just gonna talk about musical lyrics from the 2000s.

SPEAKER_01 9:53

Yeah, I'll just try and weave them in everywhere I can. Yep.

What A Real Summer Feels Like

SPEAKER_00 9:57

Um I actually have no idea what we're talking about.

SPEAKER_01 10:01

Summer. Tell me what it's like to have a summer. Well, actually, I'm presuming. Happy summer, everybody. Uh, I think you're enjoying your summer.

SPEAKER_00 10:08

Yeah, I mean, it's definitely a lot different from paving um 14 to 16 hours a day. Uh, but you know, it's it's I'm still doing a lot of a lot of hard work stuff. Like we got a lot of trees that we cut down. I'm sawing up those trees, turn them into firewood so that we can have nice campfires at night. Uh, we have we talked about our um travel trailer? Like we got a camper.

SPEAKER_01 10:34

We talked, we've like referenced it a little bit, but you can give an update.

SPEAKER_00 10:38

Yeah. Um, so this week I I did a lot of work with that because uh, you know, it comes with a lot of stuff and uh, you know, some things that you gotta kind of know your way around to maintain it. Otherwise, like the roof caves in and then the floor rots out underneath the caved-in roof, you know. Um and given that we'd spent, you know, a a couple tens of thousands on it, uh, I'd rather not have that happen.

SPEAKER_01 11:04

Um It's our emergency apocalypse house, too.

SPEAKER_00 11:08

Yeah. Uh, you know, in in the event of emergency, we just hook it up and we're like, all right, time to escape Armageddon.

SPEAKER_01 11:15

You know, we could probably stow someone away in the little like uh what's that thing called where it's called the Yeah, the little cubby hole. Yeah, there's a word for it, the something through. Oh, yeah, like the pass-through or yeah, something like that. It's this little compartment that's actually would be underneath where our bed is. Yeah, they'll never look in there. Actually, we could we we could I think we could feasibly have two stowaways. One in the compartment area that's directly under our bed where you can like lift our bed up and there's storage there. Yeah, yeah. And two in the pass-through compartment. Um, there's also storage underneath dining room benches. That would be a really small space. That would be a child. We could get a child or a very small my friend Amy might fit in there.

SPEAKER_00 11:59

Yeah. Um, I already told Simon that he can have the the pass-through.

SPEAKER_01 12:06

Like is that where Simon's gonna sit on the trips?

SPEAKER_00 12:09

And not just like uh uh as as like um, you know, uh an emergency situation, but like that's just where he's gonna live. Like if we if we if we have to leave everything behind, um, we get a nice spacious bed, um, kitchen area, dining room, bathroom, and Simon can uh curl up underneath the trailer in a tiny little box um with two cats and a large 80-pound dog.

SPEAKER_01 12:39

You know what? He's always talked about wanting to be a hobbit. It kind of goes in that direction. Yeah. Simon kind of is a hobbit. We also have tents. The problem is that if we were escaping, we'd be going north, not south, most likely, because it's it's it's scarier down there. Oh, yeah, definitely. I love I love the south, but it is it is scary having recently spent some time there. Kansas City's really cool. Shout out to KC. It's a great place. I got some good food. I went to a lot of queer and trans friendly places for eating. Um, it definitely felt like a progressive city everywhere I went. I mean, obviously I'm the kind of person that sort of picks and chooses those things naturally by eating vegetables as my source of food. Um but actually I was like, I don't, we don't drink Starbucks uh as one of the many companies that we think is an absolute piece of shit that we don't want to support. Uh and I was desperate for coffee and it was pouring rain, and I was like, okay, I tried this one place, but it was it wasn't a coffee shop, it was some kind of fast food place I'd never seen before. And um everything was damp and smelly, so I immediately walked out of there. And then I was like, okay, I guess there is a Starbucks. I could wait for the rain to go out there, but then I just like searched coffee shops near me, and there was this amazing queer little coffee shop, like literally in that plaza. Wow. Beside a Jazzer size place. Um, I saw some Jazzer sizers.

SPEAKER_00 14:00

I feel like that's a good cooperation between business owners. Like, you know that people are gonna come out of Jazer Size and you're gonna be like, I need my, you know, equivalent to my venti uh blonde uh Starbucks, but not Starbucks, because obviously, you know, um coming out of this uh uh uh queer-friendly Jazzer size studio. I don't know if the Jazzer size studio is queer friendly, but I just say let's just say they are. I want to believe that they are. It's I am I want to imagine that this whole shopping plaza or wherever it was was just like painted as a rainbow. It was not. Well, I'm imagining it as it is, so let's just go with it. Okay. So this rainbow rainbow parking lot, the whole parking lot is uh painted rainbow.

SPEAKER_01 14:48

I would love that. I was actually thinking about we had this dream, Simon and I to paint. So we have basically we live on kind of like a pirate ship. So we have the house on one side and then this the two-story garage with Simon's apartment as the top story on the other side, and there is a literal um bridge that connects the two with a set of stairs up to the second f story for Simon. And Simon and I talked about turning those stairs into a rainbow. That's cool, but it was gonna cost a lot more to do because we have to buy every color and we have to like painstakingly make sure that it's okay and seven or eight cans of paint. Yeah, it's it would it was not feasible at the time. Um we stain, not paint. Oh. So good point. Yeah. Um, I mean that there's whatever. I don't think the price difference is really anything, but it regardless, it was like we're gonna just stain it a color one color because money. Uh but I do think about that sometimes. And then lately I've been fantasizing about painting a mural on the side of our house as part of my summer adventures because I've been trying to find the perfect purple. I think I found it. But then I think like, but wouldn't it be fun if there was also like some fuchsia in there?

SPEAKER_00 15:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:54

Why not? Yeah. And some coral.

SPEAKER_02 15:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:57

Coral, coral. Um, yeah. This is this episode you should just call it the uh Leah and Dan's uh stream of consciousness episode.

SPEAKER_00 16:09

Yeah. Um, I mean, we're we're essentially like uh zombie level brains. Yeah. Um and we haven't done a truly casual dead in a while. That's true.

Zombie Nightmare Gets Roasted

SPEAKER_00 16:18

I watched the zombie movie while you were away. How dare you? I watched it so that you wouldn't have to. It's called Zombie Nightmare. Was it a nightmare? It was. Um, but I watched the mystery science theater uh version, which of course helps when you're watching a terrible movie. I've never seen a mystery science theater. I tried to show you once, but you were really put off by the um the the interstitial in-betweens that Joel and the robots would do that was like really corny and stupid and didn't really make a whole lot of sense. Um, and I get that. And and also I think you were confused by like where the voices were coming from. And I was trying to explain that it's the the shadow people down at the bottom of the screen. There's like a s like silhouettes of people like they're in a movie theater, and you were having a hard time with that. So we just stopped watching. I don't know what we were watching, but you you didn't like the jokes, you didn't like the movie, it was black and white, um, and you were just like, I don't like old movies, let's stop.

SPEAKER_01 17:22

I mean, I don't. I like Night of the Living Dead.

SPEAKER_00 17:24

Yeah. Um and it was a long time ago. The original psycho is good. It's like improv in improv uh acting. So like they're just kind of like every now and then they're either telling jokes about the movie or they're like pr pretending to voice over the characters.

SPEAKER_01 17:40

Yeah, I I like you know those they were popular for a while in like the 2010s era of those like bad, bad voiceovers. You remember those bad dubbing, the bad dubbing trend of the 2010s?

SPEAKER_00 17:51

Some of them were funny, but some of them were pretty bad.

SPEAKER_01 17:54

One of my very close friends, Brittany, we do not have the same sense of humor. They love them. And they would just keep sending them to me. I'd be like, and I was just like, please stop.

SPEAKER_00 18:02

Wasn't one of them the the juggernaut one?

SPEAKER_01 18:05

I don't remember. I just like literally I can't, I just don't, I just the for whatever reason, I don't find them funny.

SPEAKER_00 18:11

Like there's this one that it's like uh it's it's like an X-Men um cartoon, and the guy just dubs over, like, I'm the juggernaut bitch. And people loved that one. And I have to agree with you that like it was funny once, but then like the 47th time that somebody told like was like I'm the juggernaut bitch, I'm like, I'm it's not funny anymore. It's out of context, it doesn't make sense. Yeah, it was funny that one time and that was it.

SPEAKER_01 18:38

I think I'm not like totally nonsensical humor doesn't really work for me. Yeah. Unless it's me stimming, then then I think that's really funny, but I do that for me, nobody else. Yeah. And Dan, thankfully, uh, something you should know about Dan is that he listens to me boop, beep, boop all around the house making random sounds. Beep boop. And you're very good at just like vibing with it, and I appreciate you for that. So this movie. Right. Um uh zombie nightmare.

SPEAKER_00 19:05

Yeah, like there's a certain joy that comes from like just vibing with your friends and all knowing that what you're watching is a piece of shit, so you stop paying attention to what the characters are even saying anymore, and you just make up your own dialogue as you go along, and it's just like the dumbest thing ever. And that's what Mystery Science Theater kind of does, is just like they're they're like, we're making our own story while we're watching this because it's so dumb. Um, and Zombie Nightmare is no exception. It's strange because most of these movies don't have like well-known people in them, but this one had Tia Carrera of Wayne's World fame, and uh um Adam West, Batman. Wow. Had both of them and probably some other people that I don't know because it was made in 1987. Um but it's uh it's it's you know, I feel like it would have been a better movie if it was better edited. Like there were like these these long holds on a wide shot where they're just playing music. Can you give me the plot? So this is like this is Oh, the plot? Yeah, just the basics. Um okay. A plot is this guy who really likes baseball. Um, well, first it starts with his dad who really likes baseball, who gets stabbed, and then without any like way of knowing that any time has passed, we just switch to the kid is a near adult who's playing baseball, um, and then he has to go to the grocery store, and then he gets run over by a car.

SPEAKER_01 20:32

Where's the zombies?

SPEAKER_00 20:34

I'm getting there. Okay. This is a bad movie, Leah. Okay, there are no zombies yet. Okay. But what there is, is a Haitian voodoo priestess who talks in a really warbly voice all the time in a really fake Haitian accent. And it is impossible to know what she's saying. Is it like was this movie made by white people? Oh, most certainly. Okay. Everyone is white except for the Haitian priestess.

SPEAKER_01 21:00

So it's definitely gonna be in the direction of racist.

SPEAKER_00 21:02

Yeah, it's also a Canadian movie. I'm so sorry for all the Canadian racists. Um, but anyways, he's hit by he's he's coming out of the grocery store. Oh, after stopping a mugging, because he's a good guy. They gotta let us know that. He's he's like mugging. Everybody loves this guy. The guy at the grocery store loves him. He's like name Raymond. No, probably not. Um, I think he's Greek. Like he has an accent, he looks Greek. Um, and as someone technically born in Greece, I can tell you all about uh Greek people. It's okay. I get a pass. No, you don't. Tatiki, delicious. Anyways, um, he's just like, Yeah, tell your mother that she's great. And he's like, I'll tell her. And then he walks outside and gets hit by a car by a group of teenagers, Leah. Teenagers who are doing drugs. It's always teenagers on drugs, and harassing. People. Terrible. And instead of uh helping the guy, they're like, we gotta get out of here, and they just drive away. Um, and then the shopkeeper comes out, and instead of helping him, he's like, I'm gonna put you in a car and take you to your mother's house. Um, and then her is his mom is like, 'Oh, if only somebody could have done something,' um, you know, like called an ambulance, possibly. Uh, but uh, he dies, he's dead. Um, and the voodoo priestess lady, uh, which we learned by the end of the movie, is the person that his dad saved when he got stabbed. But um, because of editing, it wasn't even clear that that guy was his dad.

SPEAKER_01 22:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 22:45

Or that he was the kid, or that the Haitian voodoo priestess was the young girl. And you're like, why are these these ragamuffins stabbing people looking like fit uh uh greasers from the 50s? And now we have punks from the 80s? What's going on? Nobody knows. Um, and that the guy gets turned into a zombie by the priestess, and he is on a revenge tour of hunting down these hooligans, um, and it's more like Frankenstein or just as like a single zombie Jason, just one zombie, but it's not an apocalypse, it's a Haitian zombie. One zombie. Okay, a probably a pseudo-Haitian zombie because this is written by white people, and he's yeah, and and he's and he's hyper strong and on a revenge kick, uh like yeah. Um, and then it's come becomes this like who'd done it murder investigation by the police. Adam West is the police chief, and he just keeps on trying to like close the case while this other police officer is like, no, but there's some guy, and he's really strong, and he broke this kid's neck. Um, and that's that's pretty much it. There is uh some some sexual assault scenes. Great, so that's they cut him out for the mystery science theater version. So there's just this point where she's like, Hey, get your hands off of me, you young hooligan guy who won't leave me alone. And then the next scene's like, She's dead. What happened? Or no, actually, she wasn't dead. She was yeah, she was she survived. The good the guy's dead, and by the end of it, Adam West is like, I was one of the kids who stabbed your the gut his the zombie's dad, but all almost okay, and then this zombie's dad saved you from me, but now I'm the police chief. Adam West did a great job. Considering the um the the the film quality was awful, the audio quality, terrible. Every time Adam West says anything because he's he uses like a low gravitas, like he's like, somebody should do something about that zombie. He doesn't say that because he nobody even knows it's a zombie until the very end. Um but like every time he speaks, it's like and it's like somebody could have fixed that. Yeah. Somebody could have been like somebody move um Adam's lapel mic, because he's just all up in it, and it's just blowing out the audio. Um yeah, and then uh the the police detective guy, um, after Adam West shoots the zombie and the Haitian priestess, the the p the the detective shoots Adam West, the police chief, and then just walks away.

SPEAKER_01 25:38

You know how I know this is a bad movie? Even the most entertaining version of you telling me this plot. I'm already like I just started kind of staring off in the distance, and I was thinking about um ZombieCon Volume 1 just randomly.

SPEAKER_00 25:51

Yeah. Instead of ZombieCon Volume One is a superior movie. Obviously, yes. In every possible way. And I I don't know that I want to hear the rest of the plot. That's it. That's yeah, that's a whole movie. I told you the whole movie. Great, because you don't have to watch it now.

SPEAKER_01 26:04

Uh Capitalist Misogynist Patriarchy of the Living Dead. Uh we already know it's racist.

SPEAKER_00 26:11

Yeah. Is it sexist? Oh, yeah. I mean, it has the the type of misogyny that you would expect from 1987. I'm glad I didn't watch it because I have like zero tolerance for that now. But you know what? There was a point, like after the woman who was assaulted by the main gang leader guy who like the main hooligan who was driving the car that hit the guy that turned into the zombie. Um, you know, she's talking to the police officer and she's like, He raped me. And there and the guy's like, Whoa, slow down there. Are you sure he did? And then she's like, Yes, why won't you believe me? And he's like, Well, you went over into that alleyway with him. Why did you do that? And she's like, 'Cause he had a knife. And uh I get like from a storytelling perspective, like the they were aware of the fact that like the police downplay sexual assault victims. Um, even though, like, in in the case of her, she was coerced, but with the threat of physical violence to do something that she didn't want to do in order to survive. And even then, he's still like, I don't know, I think this victim is acting kind of non-victim-y.

SPEAKER_01 27:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 27:28

So I guess there was that.

SPEAKER_01 27:29

Okay. Well, so progressive. Did two women talk to each other or something other than a man?

SPEAKER_00 27:34

Oh man. Um, well, actually, the mother. Oh no. Yeah. The mother and the voodoo priestess talk about her son.

SPEAKER_01 27:42

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 27:43

Shit. Um, and they also talk about her husband.

SPEAKER_01 27:47

Any solid queer or disability representation?

SPEAKER_00 27:50

Um boy. I no. I don't think so. And uh how many Z's? Oh. Can I give zero? Of course you can. Oh man. You know, I'm I'm gonna give it two just because um two out of ten. Just because the mystery science theater version with their added humor made it watchable. How what would you how many Zeds would you give just to the Mystery Science Theater folks? Oh, just some oh, I'd give them like uh eight out of ten.

SPEAKER_01 28:23

Okay. So if you combine those two scores and you average it out, it's maybe like a four out of ten or something like that. No, it's still two. It's still two.

SPEAKER_00 28:29

Yeah. Okay. That's how bad the movie was.

SPEAKER_01 28:31

Well, thank you for not making it.

SPEAKER_00 28:32

The movie's actually negative stars.

SPEAKER_01 28:34

But you do know I just would have walked away anyways. Yeah, that's why I probably would have been like, we're not yeah, we're not watching this. You watched a lot of zombie stuff

Food While Traveling And Home Projects

SPEAKER_01 28:41

while we were gone. What else did you watch? Or while we were gone while I was gone.

SPEAKER_00 28:43

Yeah, well, like I I uh I had some stuff on the club. Like The Last of Us. Well, I was rewatching um season two of The Last of Us. I got I did like seven episodes of The Last of Us. Um, and I watched like two or three episodes of uh Black Summer. I feel like The Last of Us and Black Summer, and then if I had if I had more time, The Walking Dead would be like the three things that I would watch to like r uh inspire creative juices in my brain.

SPEAKER_01 29:11

And and you're the primary cook in our household, aka almost the solo cook at this stage of our lives.

SPEAKER_00 29:17

Uh what did you eat while I was out? I I had tater tots and and um and attendees. Um chick on the attendees. I um I also ate an entire pizza the first night. The first the first night I was just exhausted from like really, really 10 out of 10 bad sleep the day before and then driving three or four hours and then got home and tried to sleep, but was like so like weary that I couldn't. Um also was daytime. Um and yeah, so I was just like, I'm gonna just eat a whole pizza. A pizza, just a whole one. Then I did, and it was not a good experience. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_01 29:59

I think you're missing a very important part of your diet. Your Leah's on a work trip diet. Yeah. Cereal. Oh, yeah. You were you were when you picked me up from the airport yesterday, you were delirious, you were super stressed because you'd had a whole bunch of issues with traffic and getting lost. And then at one point you were like, maybe I feel so terrible because I have low blood sugar. And I said, What did you eat today, Dan? And you said racist puff cereal and fruit loops. When Leah is gone. I mean, you I've had a whole I feel like you need to at least eat one block of tofu and like balance it out.

SPEAKER_00 30:31

I I so like I haven't had like cereal in such a long time, and like when I do, it's like Cheerios. Um, or like I like boring cereal, and I like boring cereal too. I love boring cereal, but I was like, I want like I want my childhood, like the things that I wanted as a kid, because I also didn't have like fun cereal as a kid. Uh so I'm like, I'm gonna get Fruit Loops, I'm gonna get Reese's puff cereal because mom said I couldn't have it. So and other reason is there, and I had a plan. I was like, I'm gonna get so fucking high. Oh, we have to do that today. And I'm gonna get so high. I'm gonna get so I'm gonna get out of my mind. Like, I don't know what decade it is high, and I'm gonna eat some fruit loops. And that never happened because I was so busy with the camper and with like Ziggy stuff and going to the bank and doing like I I just I I'm like I would love to be um, I would love to just be high all the time, but I have things to do, and that's how I know I'm an adult.

SPEAKER_01 31:41

Yeah, even without a full-time gig, you still have a lot. And that's coming full circle back to Dan's first quality summer in a long time. I mean, you are you are super productive. I really appreciate all the things you've done. You've been cutting down trees, one of them almost uh destroyed our house. Yeah, that was a bummer. Yeah. Um but I saved it. It's kind of I mean, you did the cap off of the top of one of the parts, what is it called? The the pillars of our porch, which is a two-story high porch.

SPEAKER_00 32:12

Yeah, but it didn't hit the porch and collapse it.

SPEAKER_01 32:14

No, but we do need to put the cap back. How many times did I ask you, are you sure you're safe to cut that tree down?

SPEAKER_00 32:22

You know, a a lot. Um, and it would have been safe to cut it down, except the inside of the tree was was was not like it was rotted where I cut it. Um so instead of following the direction that I had planned it to fall, the trunk split in half up the middle. And then when it did, the tree twisted and then came towards the house. Um, which when it when that happened, I said, Oh shit. And I put my hands up and I pushed it as hard as I could to redirect the tree. Um, because I'm like, either this redirects the tree and I save the house, or it hits the house and I die. This is why you need life and disability insurance. The consequences of my stupid actions.

SPEAKER_01 33:07

No, Leah will. Yep. Uh we what we had some professionals. We could have just paid a little bit more money to have them cut that tree down.

SPEAKER_00 33:15

That one where it was, it would have cost it would have cost more than all the other trees. We don't know that because we didn't get a quote. I do because I have had it quoted in the past. And they were like, there's no way we can get our truck down here. This is gonna be a whole thing.

SPEAKER_01 33:30

Well, I'm glad it's gone, and I appreciate you for not being dead. Thanks. Uh, and for cutting all the tree down, and then you had to, there were three other trees that we had to get cut down. One of them uh I was really sad about because when we first moved in, I was up in the loft and there's like a little window that this maple tree is quite tall, because the trees here are are like gigantic tall trees, and uh it it smiled at me, which I know is gonna sound weird to people, but it did. It literally looked at me and was like, hi, welcome. I'm glad that somebody lives here now. Yeah, it had a tree face. Yeah, it did. It had a tree face, said hello. I said hi back. I felt very loved by this tree and I've always enjoyed this tree, but it's also leaned precariously toward our house the whole time.

SPEAKER_00 34:10

Like over the driveway in our house and everything.

SPEAKER_01 34:13

Yeah, and there was another one that right beside it that was like very dead and going to die. And then the third one was actively rotting and falling like huge limbs from up top. It was an old tree that was not healthy and also was rotted totally down the center. We learned when it got cut down.

SPEAKER_02 34:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:27

But I am sad about I'm still sad about the maple tree, except for the fact that um last week when we were in mushrooms, I hugged it for a really long time and that made me feel better. Yeah, the trunk. The trunk, because you have it now. It's kind of like a teeter totter, it's sort of bouncy. I I'm I'm torn about you cutting that one down or cutting it up and turning it into firewood. I love that tree. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:46

I'll do that one last. You know, we can we can decide it's fate. Um but the other one's gotta go because one of them's like almost in the driveway.

SPEAKER_01 34:53

But you've built you've built an entire new wing of our parking. You have cut down a bunch of trees, you have gotten a camper and set it up. Yeah. You have done a whole bunch of other shit I can't even remember, but you've been really busy. But it's been really nice. I because I feel like things that have been on the list to get done. Oh, you set up two new um eight by two raised beds. Oh, yeah. And you had to like dig into the side of the hill to make them level. You did a you've done a lot.

SPEAKER_00 35:22

Yeah, lots of digging.

SPEAKER_01 35:23

Your masculine urge to dig has been fulfilled this summer.

SPEAKER_00 35:26

Yeah, it's uh I I definitely don't feel the urge to dig anymore. Um yeah. But redoing the driveway was a was a big project, uh, which required the rental of a of a skid steer to finish it. Um we had this this ditch that was kind of useless because it went uphill. I don't know why they dug a ditch that went uphill. But um we needed a way to get into one of our yards. Um, because like the the ditch completely shut off the rest of the yard from the front of our yard, you know. Uh so it was impossible to like get a vehicle back there or even get the lawnmower back there for a long time until I built a land bridge. And then that land bridge, I'm like, let's just extend it so that we have land triangle. A r a land peninsula, really. Um and uh and yeah, it's it it was a big project, and I did a lot of dirt stuff. Dirt stuff. Yep. It's the best kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 36:25

Yeah, you know, that was that was cool. That's cool. We have a garden that's doing pretty well. Hopefully it's gonna get us some nice veggies. It's early. Yeah. Um, obviously, because it's it's Vermont and it's just the end of June now. So I mean summer j summy, summy, summy summer just officially started a couple of days ago, really a week ago. Um, but yeah, I think it's a good summer. And then we've got a trip to Canada, we got some camping we're gonna do. We have what I'm gonna go to a hippie dippy festival with my friend Molly. Yeah, which is also a camping trip. Which is also a camping trip. It's gonna be a good summer in a way that we haven't had a summer together literally ever.

unknown 37:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:03

Because the only other summer we had together was when you worked at my mom's farm and it was hell.

SPEAKER_00 37:07

Yeah. But yeah, I've got a lot more projects that I gotta get done this summer too. Like uh camper-wise, I'm gonna be installing solar on the roof. Um, and also we have to get uh an internet solution because Leah is going to work on the road uh in the fall. We're gonna go across the country. Yeah. Um, and it's important that we have internet connectivity everywhere we go. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:33

If it's I gotta zoom in with all my colleagues, I'll have my um fake work backdrop so nobody can tell that I am in a car. I mean, my colleagues will know because they're gonna probably meet you and the dog at an event that's happening. Oh yeah. Um that's sort of like the halfway point of this thing. Yeah, I I want them to well, I mean, they don't have to meet you if you don't want to meet them, but I want them to meet Ziggy.

SPEAKER_00 37:55

It it's important that they meet Ziggy. Yeah. Um, I'm usually just like a random hand or a shoulder in the frame as I bring you a cup of coffee.

SPEAKER_01 38:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:05

So maybe like I just come around the corner and I just like hand you a cup of coffee and then disappear. Perfect. Um, because I mean that's that's true. That's true to how they know me.

SPEAKER_02 38:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:17

Um, but also that's that that trip's also gonna be, in a way, a big writer retreat for me uh at some points.

SPEAKER_01 38:23

Yeah. You're gonna have when I'm doing work events, you're gonna have writing time. Yeah. And then we're gonna go and see some things. We're gonna go to a good friend's wedding in Palm Springs, uh, which is really what inspired all this. Uh and then next year I want to go see my friend Leona in Manitoba, which was actually the plan this year until I realized that we were gonna have my friend's wedding in Palm Springs, and I was like, we can't do two cross-country trips. Yeah. I actually do want to also be home for some part of the summer.

SPEAKER_00 38:49

Yeah. So that'd be a bit of a stretch.

SPEAKER_01 38:51

Yeah. So none of that has anything to do with zombies, but that's what we've

Burnout Politics And Direct Action

SPEAKER_01 38:54

been up to. Um as usual, the news is terrifying, and I don't really have anything to say about that right now because I feel like it's it's um it's a nightmare.

SPEAKER_00 39:06

It's hard out there.

SPEAKER_01 39:07

Yeah. It is. Uh election's coming soon. See what happens there. Uh we're all doing our best. I saw I saw a part of the White House website now that's really really fucked up. And I don't want to talk. I don't even want to talk about it. That's and I I I worry that this means that I don't want to talk about these things because it's working, that I'm burnt out from it all.

SPEAKER_00 39:29

Well, I think that's the beauty of having so many people that are that are thinking about this is that we can take turns. Um I don't think that worrying yourself into a burnout is necessarily helpful for bringing about change. Um I think it's about sustainability. And you you involve yourself as much as you can without it f steering you directly into a mental breakdown. Yeah, I already had one of those. Um and that's the thing, like that's the thing that they did not account for, like the whole flood the zone um strategy where it's like if we do so many horrible things, they'll forget about the old horrible things, and then they forget that there are like hundreds of millions of us to remember each and every single horrible thing. It's impossible for us all to forget every horrible thing.

SPEAKER_01 40:25

Yeah, and there are people documenting it right now.

SPEAKER_00 40:27

We're documenting history and keeping track, we're getting involved. Um I've gotten involved with a direct action group, um, and I'm waiting for some direct action to happen. There was one, but I had to I had to dip out of it, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_01 40:44

Um, some protesters who are protesting an ICE facility, I just read this, um were labeled Antifa terrorists and are in jail from anywhere between thirty to a hundred years. Yeah. So it's um it's it's bad out there, but I refuse to let that be the thing that deters us from doing stuff. I just would request that you have life insurance and disability insurance, so there's something happens to you, I'm not fucked. I think it's really cool that you're a part of a group, Dan. You've done your training and you're ready to go.

SPEAKER_00 41:12

Yeah. You know, I mean, it's one of those things that like like pretty much anything that you do right now, the government just has full authority to just label you anything. Um they can they can label you a terrorist if if you touch the water at the Lincoln Memorial. That's what they're doing. They're arresting people who just touch the water. Um because it's embarrassing to Donald Trump that the water is green. So that's where we're at. So I I don't personally care if what I'm doing could be seen that way, because touching water could be seen that way. You know, uh d getting involved with the community could be seen as terrorism. Going going to support your local library, if it was something that the government decided they didn't want to support, could be seen as terrorism. I fought in the war on terror, which was propaganda in itself. But at least in that case, we were up against people who would drag you into a van and saw your head off with a rusty machete, and you could actually say, that sounds like terror. Touching green water isn't terrorism. Wanting to vote for whoever you want to vote for isn't terrorism. Reading a book isn't terrorism, and using your uh using using your rights as a citizen also isn't terrorism. Like I know what it looks like. I know what it looks like when it is terrorism.

SPEAKER_01 42:48

I mean, I'm gonna challenge that and say that the entire concept of the war on terror uh is it's the term terrorism has always been a mechanism for making it okay for there to be state-sanctioned violence, and any form of resistance to state-sanctioned violence is terrorism. So while your very visceral description of a person getting their head sawed off with a rusty machete is terrifying to think about. Um, and I am not saying that I am for some of the philosophies of folks who were involved uh in that era that you were fighting back against. Obviously, I didn't think Saddam Hussein was a good guy, uh, but I or Al-Qaeda, but like it's the same, you it's the same justification. Any form of resistance that is not state sanctioned, and not specifically US state sanctioned, yeah, is labeled terrorism. And I that is just an excuse of that's just that's just a way of enforcing compliance through fear of any form of resistance. So like I understand um your desire to create some differentiation. And I would say that the people who have gotten arrested and are have been convicted and are now going to be serving like 30 to 100 years in jail. The worst they did, I think, was like all the same things that folks did on January 6th, who are pardoned. Yeah. Right. So terrorism is a political tool of whoever is in power to decide whose values and who has a right to resist and who doesn't. That's all it is.

SPEAKER_00 44:15

Yeah, I I completely agree. And even when I was out there fighting the Taliban and Al-Qaeda and Fadain and various other groups, um, I knew that they were fighting for their own freedom. They were fighting us because we were there. Um and there's a lot of nuance about who did what and when and where to who that could be argued. Uh but I d I knew even then that the word terrorist was just being thrown around just as a label. Um they were they were insurgents and enemy combatants. Um and they were fighting a war on a front that they could. They they couldn't they didn't have the numbers or the firepower or the capability or the logistics to to come out with muskets on a battlefield and like line up like br British versus American soldiers in in uh volley lines. You know, those days are gone. Like the the way that you fight a war now is uh asymmetrically because you know wars are started by countries with power and means and defended against by people who don't. And all they have is home field advantage and tactics that are effective against large groups of of combatants.

SPEAKER_01 45:37

Yeah. But summer's nice. Summer's nice. And I hope that people are finding some joy. Uh I guess we just had we we can't help ourselves. I was like, What I don't have anything to say about it. Then apparently we did.

SPEAKER_02 45:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:51

Um But it's it's like a constant thing in the background, uh, for all of us. And aren't we so lucky that it's only in the background?

SPEAKER_00 45:59

Yeah. Until it's not.

SPEAKER_01 46:01

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this time last year, did I know that I was gonna be laid off yet? No. But I'm pretty sure my bosses did.

SPEAKER_00 46:08

They knew that it was coming. I think you were feeling hints of it, like it might be coming. Yeah. Um, but I think that also the there was the possibility like you'd been there a while and you know, you were you were running important things, and uh it's like, well, surely it would be these other people who are much less experienced and more expendable that would go before me.

SPEAKER_01 46:30

Um I mean, that wasn't what I was hoping for or thinking either. I just didn't know. Yeah. That wasn't my that wasn't my take. My take was uh I think I am more expendable than some of the people I was working with. Like I actually, uh based on what my job was, which I don't give details about my work, uh, but based on what my job was, it was an important job, but it was an equity-focused job. And it was behind the scenes. So you mean terrorism? Oh, absolutely. Yes. I mean, yeah, D my focus was on diversity, equity, and inclusion. And it was in the background and it wasn't on the front lines, and uh it made sense.

SPEAKER_00 47:06

Yeah. Um I'm pretty sure that they that they did actually uh label DEI as terrorism. I think so.

SPEAKER_01 47:14

And one of the many absolutely obscene

The “He’s Dead” Celebration Kit

SPEAKER_01 47:16

executive orders. But in other news, I think one thing we have not prepped for, we've we've been doing some good prepping stuff, but we do need our He's Dead kit.

SPEAKER_00 47:24

Oh, yeah. One for for the celebration. Yeah. Oh. Uh what would what would that look like?

SPEAKER_01 47:32

Well, there was I saw some I saw a reel that had some good suggestions. Like you need a bottle of champagne in your fridge that's cold. Yeah. And you need another one that's just ready to like spray everywhere. For spraying. Yeah. You need uh really made me laugh because the guy was like, if you're over if you were an adult the first time a uh Trump was elected, then you're gonna need Pepto Bismol, and you should coat your body, coat your throat and your stomach with that before you even start drinking. Make sure you just in this like the one day you can take Tylenol and drink, even though they say you're not supposed to. Um one day is fine. Yeah. You know, I mean get ready for your to have your effigies to burn.

SPEAKER_00 48:05

Yeah, get your effigies ready.

SPEAKER_01 48:06

Yeah. Um, whatever. You know, I just know we're gonna celebrate.

SPEAKER_00 48:10

It was also like you're gonna need fireworks.

SPEAKER_01 48:12

Yeah, I'm not a fan, I'm not pro-fireworks.

SPEAKER_00 48:14

But what if we had sprinklers?

SPEAKER_01 48:16

Sprinklers are fine. Um, light shows. I mean, we have like a really cool light show laser with some music is also fine. I'd like more lasers. Not loud boom booms that can scare adults, young people, and and wildlife. Yeah, and our doggo.

SPEAKER_00 48:28

And he's like, Me, I'm a Roman candle guy. I love that you can light it and you hold on to it and shoot it in the air.

SPEAKER_01 48:35

It's basically a it's basically a metaphor of a dick, I'm just saying. You think so? Yes. Uh a phallic shape with stuff shooting out of it that just happens to also be bright and made of fire.

SPEAKER_00 48:46

I always thought it was like a gun or a missile launcher. Think about the way think about the way that it's held though. Um, like like this.

SPEAKER_01 48:53

I've seen a lot of people hold it in a very different way.

SPEAKER_00 48:56

That's true. That's true.

SPEAKER_01 48:58

Yeah. Um I think it's full circle because we talked about licking the snick at the beginning of this.

SPEAKER_00 49:03

Yeah, everybody, make sure you lick the snick. And uh thanks everybody for listening.

SPEAKER_01 49:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:09

You know, um, get get your get your kit ready. Get lots of sticks.

SPEAKER_01 49:15

Yeah, because we will be having an episode when that happens. Yeah. Um, unless we're dead. So many snakes. But if we die before, I'm that's that's not I'm I'm haunting. I'm coming back. Yeah. Uh we we all deserve to outlet outlive this fucker. Absolutely. And on that note, for all the rest of you, truly, don't die. Yeah, stay human. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Love y'all. Bye. Bye.