Night of the Living trumps

Word came out today that trump plans to sell off NPR and PBS to the highest bidder. He also plans to slash funding to NASA. It's not clear if the descent into chaos will be sudden or gradual, but it seems clear at this point we're in for some cultural devolution to the magnitude we've never seen. I, for one, welcome our moron overlords.

So, from what once was an apartment, in what once was a city, in what once was a country, on what once was a planet, this is WGON signing off for the last time...

"Our responsibility here has ended."

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Guest Outsider Poetry Blog: Dr. Millard Rausch

We're going to turn Zombie Logic over to the capable hands (and frontal lobe) of Dr. Millard Rausch tonight, who has a few words about dummies, Hamm's beer, and Outsider Poetry, in no particular order. 

Back in 1978 Dr. Millard Rausch was a second year professor at Penn, just trying to perfect his syllabus when the Zombie Outbreak of 1978 changed everything. Being one of the world's foremost experts on Xenobiology, Dr. Rausch was made an offer he could not refuse by the military to become a government spokesperson on zombie awareness. It was in the green room at WGON studios in Pittsburgh that he wrote this poem.

Dumb Questions

In every zombie movie 

From Zombie Lake to 

Children Shouldn’t Play 

With Dead Things, 

The living wonder 

What motivates the undead 

To clamor for human flesh, 

As if the undead are method 

Actors in a bad Fellini movie.

In one movie a coroner 

Asks the torso 

Of a bound zombie woman 

Why she lusts for brains.

Seems like a stupid question 

To ask someone 

Who wanted to eat your brains. 

Meanwhile, things had gone from bad to worse back at the WGON studio, and Dr. Rausch had just called 200 million Americans dummies. Americans are dummies, but they really don't like to be called dummies, so after the show Dr. Rausch found himself surrounded by a nation of angry dummies who were armed for a zombie Apocalypse. Second choice of enemies: Dr. Millard Rausch. Fortunately, the good doctor had prepared for just such an occasion, and repaired to Zombie Logic Ranch in Vermont where he wrote Outsider Poetry for the next decade, including this ditty...

True Romance

In the movie 

A zombie impaled 

Through the throat 

By a five iron gurgles 

“Must blend, 

Must pass for human,” 

To a woman he loves 

Too much to devour 

Until a shovel separates 

His head into two neat 

Hemispheres pretty much 

Ending his dream. 

Dr. Millard Rausch explaining zombie tribal behavior to dumb Americans in 1978

 

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Wooly Booly, an Outsider Poem By Millard Rausch

Back home at Zombie Logic after a couple of weeks of tending to other blogs. I find it interesting what you've been looking at while I was away. Ghouls, pennies, Elvira's boobs. Today is the last day of the kids' vacation in Texas, and while their mama is off to the airport to pick them up I have just these last couple of hours of to direct whatever rational thoughts I might have into words. Not much to say. Maybe a picture is called for. let me see what's on the old hard drive.

I've decided to go ahead and play fantasy football again this season. I really had ethical concerns about participating last year because of all the domestic abuse scandals and hypocrisy, but when the Women's World Cup team refused to address the domestic abuse case of their goaltender and just let her continue playing I knew Wanda Sykes was right and we've achieved real equality and I can just go ahead and take whatever guilty pleasure I can in watching people beat the hell out of each other on the field and off. That has nothing to do with Jack Soo or Barney Miller, but none of the other pictures on my hard drive make any more sense than this one.

I'm trying to talk Jenny into paneling for our basement. I'm also trying to avoid buying any beer collectibles. When I was a kid I remember the commercials for Hamm's. There was a bear. We had this big beach towel that must have been given away as a promotion. I think the best Hamm's sign is the one where the water seems to move. I think they had that one at the Cave Inn in Byron. Sometimes where we were young my dad would drag us in there late at night. I probably even bartended there when I was a kid. I don't think anybody thought anything of it. Stuff like that is probably why I never went into a bar again until I was thirty.

Now I'm mostly just thinking about Dawn of the Dead and waiting for the Cubs/White Sox game to start. Seems like the weather will never allow them to finish. I have been writing a lot about Dr. Millard Rausch lately and  hypothesizing about what might have happened to him after he appeared on the emergency broadcast at WGON studio. I see him getting into a very large automobile, calmly driving to a small airstrip, pulling the tarp off a small private plane he had readied for just this occasion, and flying off to Maine or some other remote location where he a fully-stocked ranch where he waited out the Zombie Apocalypse of 1978. I figured he had invited several of his brainiac friends there, all of whom were specialists in some field of study, and none of them really shed a tear or batted an eyelid as humanity slowly disappeared from the Earth.  Also, he wrote what could literally be considered Outsider Poetry and whittled a lot. I imagine this is one of the poems he wrote...

Wooly Bully

But what better way to enter this

Chamber of antiquity but ass-backwards,

Inviting the citizenry of Ohio to come in,

Take a look around, buy a souvenir

Made of cheap plastic?

Soon, disassembled and reassembled

Bone by bone, Conway the Mastadon

Will make the 10,000 year turn to the East

And greet visitors to the Ohio Historical Society

Face to face.

Forcing the sentimental among us to long

For the olden days when history was still

Showing us its wooly ass.

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Why Dr. Millard Rausch Went Into Seclusion

Millions and millions of American's saw Dr. Millard Rausch's appearances at WGON studios during the Zombie Apocalypse of 1978. The good doctor thought he was only addressing the people of Pittsburgh, but little did he know his words were being broadcast to every emergency broadcast affiliate in America. Millions and millions of people heard only the words "dummies, dummies," and completely tuned out advice from the doctor that could have saved millions of lives. 

When it became apparent to Dr. Rausch that he was now the most hated man in America he didn't have time to wait for zombies to eat the brains of every single person who remembered him calling them a dummy, so he did the next best thing: he changed his name to Dr. Henry Wolfsburg and assumed the alias of  the mild-mannered cultural anthropologist and zombie bikini contest judge. But he just couldn't quit calling people dummies, so he formed The Hall of Bad Dudes to draw the proper attention to several historical dummies. 

Eventually, virtually every human brain was either eaten or converted to zombieism due to utter ignorance and dummietood, yet Dr. Rausch had holed up at his ranch in Vermont waiting for the zombies to run out of food. 

Dr. Millard Rausch leaving Club 54 October 6, 1978 after partying with Mick Jagger and zombie Charo. Shortly after he was forced to go into hiding after calling millions of Americans dummies. 

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November 18th Is Dr. Millard Rausch Questions Your Intelligence Day

Dr. Millard Rausch cares about your well-being. But like most scientists he has serious questions about your intelligence level. He has slightly ambivalent feelings about humanity surviving the Zombie Apocalypse. On one hand his dry cleaner is a human, and as often as Dr. Rausch spills jelly donut filling on his snappy blazer he'd be in some deep shit if his dry cleaner became a shambler. But everyone who knows Millard Rausch knows he's a terrible driver and would benefit substantially if 99% of the human race would abandon driving for a slower, more unobtrusive method of transportation, such as shuffling. 

Dr. Millard Rausch is conflicted. He really couldn't give two shits if most of you survive the Zombie Apocalypse, but some of you make those prune danishes he really likes. On November 18th keep Dr. Rausch in mind as you slug through your day hoping that everyone in front of you in traffic or at the Walmart would die so you could get home thirty seconds faster to watch Dancing With the Stars.

Dr. Millard Rausch, the eye-patch wearing scientist from Dawn of the Dead who tries to remain rational and calm in the face of zombie pandemic, was played by actor Richard France, who appeared in seven movies in all, and according to IMDB is a noted Orson Welles scholar. One wonders in the end why he even bothered. 

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The 2012 Zombie Academy Awards

The Academy Awards will be handed out tonight. A pet peeve of mine probably not worth mentioning is when people call them The Oscars. That's the name of the trophy, not the award. I haven't seen any of the movie nominated tonight, and I won't be paying attention, but I will be handing out some awards of my own. Welcome to the First Annual Brainies, the award show for zombie movies. I'm going to cheat because I don't watch new zombies and make the Brainies a lifetime achievement award spanning the entire spectrum of every zombie movie ever made. Much like the actual Academy Awards, none of this will have much to do with the actual quality of the movies or performances, rather my whims and temporal predilections. Feel free to correct my imprecisions, omissions and (forgive me here) Brainy snubs. Let's get at it. Here's tonight's host... Bub the Zombie.

"Hey, how you all doing out there tonight? (silence). What a dead audience. (groan). I would have been here earlier but I got trapped in a flash mob of zombies on the El Dorado. Zombies, am I right, am I right? They were all the over the place munching on brains it was like old people at the Golden Coral Buffet. Hey-o. let's get right into it. Tonight's first award is for best lighting in a zombie feature. And the Brainy goes to...

Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things

No budget, no crew, inexperienced actors, no problem. Director Bob Clark's set and the lighting all take place at night. The movie used to be dismissed as just a campy, low budget schlockfest that attained a cult following, but it's amazing how things that have substance and are well done prevail in the end. This movie is a text book on how to work with a limited budget and make a movie that will be remembered a hundred years later. Pay attention to the violet and green hues that are obtained here, plus the ambiance that is created on what is essentially an outside sound stage. Make fun of the wardrobe all you want, but this movie is a study in color and lighting choices. With a really good electronic score by Carl Zittrer.

Let's Get right into our first of the five major categories, best supporting actress in a Zombie feature. Pretending to be scared out of your mind by a zombie extra you saw five minutes before eating a jelly donut and playing with a Slinky is no easy task, but throughout the history of zombie cinema lots of actresses have pretended to be deathly afraid of schlubs that probably would never allow within ten feet of them in real life. It requires more than just a willingness to scream at the top of your lungs and show your boobs to be a supporting actress in a zombie movie. Not a whole helluva lot more, as our winner has shown over and over (ba-bump), but without any further do whacka do , the Brainy for supporting actress in a zombie feature goes to...

Linnea Quigley as Trash in Return of the Living Dead. For her willingness to be groped  and crawled over by a legion of old bums in the mud and pretty much not even bother to come to the set dressed, Linnea Quigley is the best zombie supporting actress of all times.

Hoe. Is everyone as stiff as me right now? Oh, ya, I'm always this stiff. But if there were an extra measure of stiff I could be I assure you this would be the case. Linnea Quigley, ladies and gentlemen. Great scream, great scream. Just ask her accountant. Our next Brainy goes out to the best supporting performance by a male in a zombie feature. And the Brainy goes to...

Joe Pilato as Captain Rhodes in Day of the Dead. One of the most comically manic dickhead performances of all time. if Pilato wasn't on coke for this entire shoot he's even a better actor than I think. Captain Rhodes wants you to know he's in charge of this monkey farm now, and he wants to know just the what the fuck you're doing with his time. This performance is actually rather good because in my estimation the movie is about entropy in civility and communication and Rhodes is just a screaming, blathering, oblivious example of rudeness, anger, and complete lack of concern for others. Well played, sir.

Playing the male lead in a zombie feature requires a great range of skills. One has to lead, to be able to fly a helicopter, be proficient with a wide array of weapons options, kick some serious hand to hand ass and never look flustered. Tonight's winner of best male performance in a zombie feature did all of this while delivering one of the most quoted lines in zombie movie history. The award for best performance by a male in a zombie feature goes to...

Ken Foree as Peter in George Romero's Dawn of the Dead. When there's no more room in Hell, virtually everyone on Earth will return to write and direct a very bad zombie movie. Peter saw the future of zombiedom coming. he shot Wooly, and he delivered a line I will now quote to you. "We're thieves and we're bad guys, that's exactly what we are." In response to Fly Boy rationalizing that they are justified in stealing the helicopter and commandeering whatever they see fit. I think it's another example of Romero really getting it right and foreshadowing a societal change where everyone feels absolutely justified in doing whatever they have to do to get what they want. Just win, baby. Dawn of the Dead is mostly a commentary about blind consumerism in most peoples' estimations, but Romero is adept at addressing multiple cultural issues simultaneously. Dawn of the Dead is considered by most critics to be the best zombie movie of all time and following Roger Ebert's lead is considered a masterpiece of biting social commentary. Rightly so.

Tonight's penultimate award is for female lead actress in a zombie feature. Nothing is more scarce than well-written lead roles for women in zombie movies. In any movie, really. One of the many reasons George Romero is the master of this genre is that he writes real characters. The primary reason the first three Romero zombie movies are film classics is that the viewer can easily believe this is happening, and a large part of that believability is that the actors seem real. Almost none of the actors Romero used in his movies were experienced actors or went on to long acting careers. Many never appeared in another movie at all. Tonight's recipient of the best female lead in a zombie feature goes to an actress who's performance embodies strength in the face of chaos....

Lori Cardille in Day of the Dead. I chose this photo because it's from a nightmare sequence. It demonstrates how her character feels about her surroundings. Terrified, like everyone else, she  never cracks under the pressure. In the midst of a bellowing maniac commanding officer who threatens her and her fellow scientists, hordes of zombies that want to use her head for an ashtray, and a civilian support team that doesn't seem to be concerned about anything but themselves, Cardille steps up and becomes the voice of reason, the last real hope for humanity. It's a great performance and a shame she didn't work more after this. 

I'd eat Lori Cardille's brains any time. Ha cha cha. But seriously, folks, before we get to the award for best zombie movie of all time, we have one special award. An award for greatest zombie of all time. The nominees are Thomas L. Vaultonburg for Kept and some guy named Bub is a little known movie nobody has ever heard of. And the winner is...

Not Thomas L. Vaultonburg. Are you fucking nuts? Despite maybe the second greatest performance in zombie history, all of which with a can of beer in his overall pocket the whole time, there can be only one. The greatest zombie of all time is...

Me, bitches. Duh. For being the only zombie of all time you'd actually like to have a beer and shoot pool with, the Brainy for best zombie of all time goes to... Bub. And now, the reason you're all here. The award for greatest zombie movie of all time. The nominees are: Cemetery Man, Night of the Living Dead, Day of the Dead, Return of the Living Dead, Shaun of the Dead, and Dawn of the Dead. And the Brainy for best zombie movie of all time goes to...

Roger Ebert's review of Dawn of the Dead rightfully places the movie is its place as one of the great horror movies of all time, and a brilliant piece of biting social commentary. It's the best of all the zombie movies because it combines adventure, horror, social commentary, and even dark humor into a portrait of a world gone mad that is truly frightening. 

There you have it, boys and ghouls, the first annual Zombie Academy Awards. Feel free to move to the lobby and make your own suggestions and nominate your own favorites. 

March 4, 2013 update: I knew I forgot something. The 

2013 Zombie Academy Awards. Maybe next year. 

And while you're still here why not read a Zombie Haiku

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