Ever wonder how a zombie apocalypse would treat those with disabilities? Or what the barking of dogs might add to the quality of a podcast? Grab your headphones and join us as we navigate ableism in the zombie apocalypse. We discuss the unexpected potential of clay cats as currency in the apocalypse and the portrayal of people with disabilities in apocalyptic media. We're serving up a concoction of humor and depth that’ll have you pondering and chuckling in equal measure.
This episode is not just about survival against the odds; it's about the nuances of strength and the unexpected triumphs in adversity. As we recount the tales of Greg, our everyman turned hero in RPGs, and explore the lived experience of using a wheelchair, we're breaking down stereotypes and building up a narrative that's as diverse as our listener base. Characters from "The Walking Dead" like Connie and Herschel take the spotlight, as we examine how apocalypse narratives can either challenge or reinforce biases, and we share an array of survival tips that go beyond the normative expectations.
Finally, we wrap up with groans from the hoard and discuss underrated survival tools and muse on ideal locations for outliving the undead. Our journey is peppered with personal insights, a touch of whimsy, and a commitment to inclusivity that we hope resonates with you. So, let's celebrate the quirks and the quiet strengths that come into play when the world goes to zombies. Thanks for joining us, and remember, the end might be near, but so is the next episode of our podcast.
Follow our linktree for social media links, and links to all the places you can find our podcast!
https://linktr.ee/zombiebookclub
Zombie Book Club Voicemail
(614) 699-0006
Zombie Book Club Email
ZombieBookClubPodcast@gmail.com
The Walking Dead TTRPG on StartPlaying
Dans StartPlaying.games referral link
https://startplaying.games/referral/clq9q3fqz00047g1xlgn9544l
KT Beauchamps Walking Dead game link
https://startplaying.games/adventure/clpiooapp000b07kz5lt02x4g
Follow our linktree for social media links, and links to all the places you can find our podcast!
https://linktr.ee/zombiebookclub
Zombie Book Club Voicemail
(614) 699-0006
Zombie Book Club Email
ZombieBookClubPodcast@gmail.com
Our Secret Website That Isn't Finished
https://zombiebookclub.io
Our Merchandise Store (Where you can find our Evil Magic Chicken Zombie Shirts)
https://zombie-book-club.myspreadshop.com
Ever wonder how a zombie apocalypse would treat those with disabilities? Or what the barking of dogs might add to the quality of a podcast? Grab your headphones and join us as we navigate ableism in the zombie apocalypse. We discuss the unexpected potential of clay cats as currency in the apocalypse and the portrayal of people with disabilities in apocalyptic media. We're serving up a concoction of humor and depth that’ll have you pondering and chuckling in equal measure.
This episode is not just about survival against the odds; it's about the nuances of strength and the unexpected triumphs in adversity. As we recount the tales of Greg, our everyman turned hero in RPGs, and explore the lived experience of using a wheelchair, we're breaking down stereotypes and building up a narrative that's as diverse as our listener base. Characters from "The Walking Dead" like Connie and Herschel take the spotlight, as we examine how apocalypse narratives can either challenge or reinforce biases, and we share an array of survival tips that go beyond the normative expectations.
Finally, we wrap up with groans from the hoard and discuss underrated survival tools and muse on ideal locations for outliving the undead. Our journey is peppered with personal insights, a touch of whimsy, and a commitment to inclusivity that we hope resonates with you. So, let's celebrate the quirks and the quiet strengths that come into play when the world goes to zombies. Thanks for joining us, and remember, the end might be near, but so is the next episode of our podcast.
Follow our linktree for social media links, and links to all the places you can find our podcast!
https://linktr.ee/zombiebookclub
Zombie Book Club Voicemail
(614) 699-0006
Zombie Book Club Email
ZombieBookClubPodcast@gmail.com
The Walking Dead TTRPG on StartPlaying
Dans StartPlaying.games referral link
https://startplaying.games/referral/clq9q3fqz00047g1xlgn9544l
KT Beauchamps Walking Dead game link
https://startplaying.games/adventure/clpiooapp000b07kz5lt02x4g
Follow our linktree for social media links, and links to all the places you can find our podcast!
https://linktr.ee/zombiebookclub
Zombie Book Club Voicemail
(614) 699-0006
Zombie Book Club Email
ZombieBookClubPodcast@gmail.com
Our Secret Website That Isn't Finished
https://zombiebookclub.io
Our Merchandise Store (Where you can find our Evil Magic Chicken Zombie Shirts)
https://zombie-book-club.myspreadshop.com
Welcome to the Zombie Book Club, the only book club where the book is a living room filled with dogs who start barking. The second we sit down to record the podcast. So the book is a podcast with dog sounds.
Speaker 2:Dog sounds cute puppies.
Speaker 1:It's what the internet's about it is. We'll get us more likes, I'm sure. Yeah, give us a like if that's an option. Every time you hear a dog sound, give us a like yeah whenever you hear a tippy tap or a woof-woof, give us a five-star rating or a very loud dog drinking and $10. I'm Dan, and when I'm not playing pretend-make-em-ups with Dyson, whatnot, I'm writing a book about some regular peeps trying to not get unalived by the undead.
Speaker 2:And I'm Leah and I'm wondering if anyone would be willing to trade me food for clay cats in the zombie apocalypse. Is that a fair trade, dan?
Speaker 1:Oh, in the apocalypse, yeah For sure, food is the currency.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but no, I'm saying, oh, I'm giving you the clay cat, you're giving me the food.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're going to have to try to sell them on that, because you're going to be asking for their food, a very valuable item.
Speaker 2:I think that art would be extra valuable in zombie apocalypse.
Speaker 1:To the right person. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but just was like here's a cute little clay cat, can I share some of?
Speaker 1:your food Today. This is the second casual dead episode. This is like a new thing that we're doing, because we used to do episodes every two weeks. Now we do it every week on Sunday it comes out.
Speaker 2:We're even recording. Oh no, it's Monday.
Speaker 1:I was going to say we're recording on a Sunday but it feels like a Sunday because it's holiday. Yeah, so this completely distorts like the illusion that like we're doing it, right, right right now as they're downloading it. No, this was Monday, probably last Monday for you, a couple of days ago, actually, realistically, oh right.
Speaker 1:Don't tell them that. Yes, two Mondays ago, so, being a casual dead episode, we're going to be talking about the walking dead RPG, writing zombie books and ableism in the zombie apocalypse genre. Something really bothering me lately, yeah yeah, something that I will admit is like the last thing that I still have to work on for myself is to not be ableist.
Speaker 2:It's the last thing. You're perfect in every other way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, perfect, in every possible way. I am the perfection of man. Like I said, we release episodes every Sunday everyone now which is very exciting, but also means more work. Yeah, but it's a zombie church. Yeah, this is a zombie church.
Speaker 2:Welcome to zombie church. We need like a tithing little tray or tithing like this. I'm trying to remember where they used to. Oh no, it was like a wooden bowl kind of thing at my church growing up.
Speaker 1:I've been to church a couple of times and it was always like a platter of some kind. Yeah, sometimes silver.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's fancy. The arse is like a wood bowl, like a little bit of velvet on the bottom, so that if you threw change in there it wouldn't make a clitter. I used to just roll, dice it up.
Speaker 1:As part of your makeup. I was like I'm going to roll for initiative. Life update Leah. This is when we're doing our life updates now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but trying to keep it zombie focused as much as possible.
Speaker 1:These episodes are special because we talk about ourselves and we're special. It's all about us. So this week I got a little bit of writing time. I like to talk about writing because it's what I like doing. I really truly do enjoy it. Now, like I feel like for quite a while I was writing because I want to have a story told in the ears of people or eyes, I guess, with a book. So you just suffered for hours. Yeah, I liked telling the story, but the act of writing was like the grueling labor. But I'm getting to a point where I'm actually liking the writing part In the flow. Some might say it's become cathartic in a way. But yeah, I had a writing session on Monday but there was a lot of snow blowing happening that day. There was a situation with a lot of rain and slush. Then that slush turned to ice and then that ice turned back to slush and now we have more snow. Do you remember?
Speaker 2:a regret, moving from Georgia no.
Speaker 1:No, the summers are just too hot. I'll take frozen snow that you can't walk through over. You might slip on and break a limb Over unbearable heat.
Speaker 2:Got it.
Speaker 1:Bad news for climate change. For me, I guess that is true for you Regarding climate change? Yeah, so I didn't really have as much time to write as I wanted to do. I wanted to do the whole day. Like Mondays, I try to be like that's my writing day, that's when I'm doing it, but other things ate up my time. So when I finally did get to sit down, suddenly I'm hit with this like category five migraine, category five. Yeah, there's five categories.
Speaker 2:What is category five's name? What's the title?
Speaker 1:It's migraine Martin. Migraine Martin. Yeah, I'm in the EMS at this point. It's Martin. The next one has to be N, but a lady name, so Nancy, no, nancy.
Speaker 2:Remember Nancy? I do, we had a Nancy in our life once. Yeah, I worked for a Nancy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she was the reasonable one because she was high.
Speaker 2:Oh, I didn't know that about her. That makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I was like a big high person. But yeah, despite the migraine which wouldn't go away with drugs or alcohol, I managed to scrape out 2,300 pretty decent words, which I felt like it was a pretty good accomplishment, considering like I was debilitated with a migraine. Yeah, that's pretty rough. And then the following day I was like I was making dinner and I'm like I could probably write during this time and get another 1,000 in. So I'm kind of like going for like a weekly word count instead of like a daily word count.
Speaker 2:I think that's fair because life happens and like it's been, it was like raining all the time and flooding around us, and now it's sunny yeah.
Speaker 1:So, but yeah, I really liked what I wrote. I wish I could share some with you. Why don't you? Because it's in a book and I want you to buy the book.
Speaker 2:And you can share, like some teasers.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I don't. Here's the thing. I don't want to tease too many things because I might end up just deleting like entire things.
Speaker 2:You can't do that. I'm invested in a lot of this stuff, like just for record. Dan doesn't always let me read the words on the page that's a rare treat, yeah but it does tell me about characters and storylines and like there's quite a few that I now have some attachment to that. If you kill them, I'm going to be upset. I guess that's the point, yeah, that is the point. You want me to be upset?
Speaker 1:Yes, that's so loving of you. In other news, I've talked a little bit about the Walking Dead tabletop RPG.
Speaker 2:Role playing game for those of you like me, who just learned about. Rpg a year ago. Yeah, yes, a pen and paper, you know, like D&D, but in this case it's Zombies, zombies and D and like very much based off of the walking dead genre because all the different kinds of character types align pretty closely with different characters in the Walking Dead.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so so I've been talking about how it's been really hard finding like a third player. I started using this website called startplayinggames and have a nice weekend and I found a game master to play the game with. Yay, and it's been a long like I've been waiting for weeks and weeks and weeks to start this game and we finally did it on Sunday.
Speaker 2:Yeah, dan was downstairs. I'm here occasional shooting like no, stop Get away, stop killing me. Is that what you said? I don't know, because it's a muffled, a muffled, but I'm like up here making my clay cats that I'm gonna train for food. Dan's actually practicing for the apocalypse, yeah.
Speaker 1:I played a person named Greg Greg. His archetype is a nobody Like Glenn from the Walking Dead, is a nobody who becomes a somebody, who becomes a somebody. His whole thing is that he wasn't very important before, like people didn't know him, he didn't have much of a life before he delivered pizzas. He was just kind of like a normal person, you know, and as a result he kind of like when the apocalypse happens he's like this is my time to be somebody.
Speaker 2:This is such an example of why nobody's are really important, but we don't appreciate them because the person that delivers pizza yeah. Like all hail the person who delivers pizza. If somebody delivered pizza at our house, I'd cry oh my God, I'd give them like $50.
Speaker 1:Yes, I'd be like thank you. Yeah, so Greg was based pretty much entirely off of Greg from Succession.
Speaker 2:I love that so much. I wish I could have seen you play. I even used Greg's picture as my icon. So awkward. I love that character.
Speaker 1:Yeah, greg didn't last long.
Speaker 2:See, that's devastating because, like Dan, I went for a walk to decompress after his RPG Make Him Up adventures and I was like, tell me all about your character. And he like told me, you know, he's a Uber driver, he's got 2004 Toyota Camry, is that right? Yeah, and I'm like I know I remember things, dan.
Speaker 1:You remember?
Speaker 2:this. I do remember things, just not always for very long, and I was like getting really invested, especially because he was Greg from Succession. And then you told me what happened and I was like what the fuck? He died in the first campaign.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I came around, we got into a gunfight and I ran around a corner trying to get the jump on somebody and we both ran into each other and a gunfight ensued and we both killed each other. So he was definitely a lot more dead than me because I was able to crawl away and then bleed to death.
Speaker 2:I got, I got the other guy in this scenario. If you're going to die anyways.
Speaker 1:Greg suffered an aorta hemorrhage from a gunshot, so there was no helping Greg. But the other guy got part of his head blown off.
Speaker 2:And then the other guy you were playing with.
Speaker 1:he was very badly injured, yeah, he got shot before Greg got shot, and then also he's like also I have to leave early, so see you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what I love is I love that before you died you planted a grenade booby trap. Yeah, and that this guy, when he comes back because Greg is dead and can't tell him that this is there, he might get killed by Greg. You know, greg's gone Postmortem to have a break.
Speaker 1:I pulled a pen on a grenade and I just wedged it in a self-closing door so that when the bad guys came through I was trying to lure them through. But I kind of feel like maybe the GM wasn't going to let that happen because he knew what I was trying to do. I don't know. I don't know. We'll see. I'll have to question them next time.
Speaker 2:Interesting. Also, why would Greg the nobody have that kind of like? First of all, why do we have a grenade? Well, he got it from the other guy, ok, but how did he even know how to use a grenade?
Speaker 1:Because if somebody handed me a grenade, I don't know how to use a grenade.
Speaker 2:If somebody handed me a grenade, I'd be scared. I would just be like what the fuck is this? I mean, I've seen it on movies, but that's about it and I would be very worried about doing it properly.
Speaker 1:Well, you know what I should teach you how to use a grenade. I don't think that's necessary. I think it will come in handy in the future.
Speaker 2:No, I'd rather just trade cats for food Clay cats, to be clear, not food cats. So what did you love most?
Speaker 1:about it, Dan. I loved that I got to play.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Dan's been talking about RPGs for as long as we've been together.
Speaker 1:And I really haven't found a player group. So getting on this website and finding somebody who's actually running this game, because it's new and it's obscure, Not many people know about it. It's not like Dungeons Dragons you can go almost anywhere and play Dungeons Dragons. There's a competitor to start playing called Roll20, and it's been around much longer and if you wanted to find a D&D campaign you could have found thousands on Roll20. So I wasn't able to find the walking dead RPG on Roll20 because it was just too new. They didn't even have it listed in a category. Like you can have these dropdown categories to select what type of game you want to set up, because I was like I'll just set up my own and see who joins, and you couldn't even select it.
Speaker 2:Wow, it wasn't there. That's disappointing because this is like your special interest. There was like three days. I feel like you lost one week. Like every time I'd take a break from working, I'd come out here and Dan's face would be in this. What is it? Like? A book and then like a weird campaign thing. I don't even know what you're looking at, but you were like really sucked into it and then you made a whole mural game board. We're going to play this eventually and probably record it for the podcast with some friends. We'll see.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean I definitely want to talk about it. So if we can also play it, that would be helpful. But doing this actually, I mean this kind of was for the podcast, because I did want to talk about it and so far all I've done is read the book. So there's a lot of things that I didn't fully understand yet and that helped me out to do that, to actually talk to somebody who understands how to run games and had a better understanding of the rules than I did. Well, that's fun, yeah. Yeah, I do want to say first of all, we're not sponsored by start playing Dot Games, but I will say that my, if you want to join in on the game that I'm playing, my GM is looking for one, two, three more players and that would make my game experience so much better if somebody else joined. I'm going to leave links in the description and one is for our referral code. Like, if you use my refer a friend referral code, I'll get credits.
Speaker 2:So I'll have to pay.
Speaker 1:A little cheaper game experience, and also my GM.
Speaker 2:His name is Katie Beauchamp, or Beauchamps as I like to call it, Dan literally wrote the name on a computer and was like how do you pronounce this? Because he knows that I'm Canadian, which means I have some basic French ability, and it's Beauchamp. Yeah, which I know, I'm still staying with a Canadian accent, not the beautiful French way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but we play on Sunday at 1 PM. If you join this game, that's when it is. And yeah, maybe we'll see somebody there.
Speaker 2:That would be really fun, like what a nice surprise. 1 PM Eastern. By the way, we have folks all across the world listening, so got to be clear about that.
Speaker 1:Also this guy, katie. He also has a full discord. That's just all role playing games. And he runs several other games, like he also does the Alien RPG, which is based on the same people who made the Walking Dead RPG, like Alien, the movie franchise.
Speaker 2:Is this like a hobby for him or his full time gig?
Speaker 1:I don't know, but he also does D&D, he has a Witcher RPG, he has a whole bunch of them and I'm sure that he makes some money from it. I think like these sessions are about $20 per session. That's kind of like the going right for most and how long did they? Last for Three to three and a half hours, that's a fucking deal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like that guy's not making any money.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like I think if he's probably only running like maybe one session a day at best, so like it's enough to, like you know, buy some D&D minis. Maybe I don't know yeah.
Speaker 2:There's six of you. That's 120 bucks for three hours of his time, and that starts to become a little bit more worth it. Yeah, but then there's all the prep work. Anyway, sorry, I'm such a business person. How many Zeds would you give your first experience?
Speaker 1:Oh man, I'm going to give it like nine Zeds.
Speaker 2:Nine Zed works.
Speaker 1:That's pretty damn good, yeah, I think we kind of ran like a mini, like episode zero pilot game where like nothing really matters, it's just throwing us into the thick of it. I think there's a lot of things that would have been handled better and more detailed if, like if we were doing a full campaign, like most of the time, most of this time, we were just building character sheets.
Speaker 2:So yeah, that's what I want to understand. Better is like Greg's dead. Rip Greg. Yeah, he never got to be a billionaire.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he did say that I could just recycle Greg and like because that, because?
Speaker 2:that was a practice run Like that could be a dream. Oh my god.
Speaker 1:I had a dream where he died.
Speaker 2:We know how I feel about that cop out.
Speaker 1:But I kind of, I kind of just want to make a new character, because oh, but I'm attached to Greg.
Speaker 2:I kind of like him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, greg has has an underwear gun. What, yeah, so?
Speaker 2:we're not discussing his genitals right, no.
Speaker 1:It's kind of like a gun. So the other guy that I was playing with was playing a soldier and this guy was like geared to the teeth, ready for combat. And here comes Greg and he and I'm like in my inventory I have a Toyota Camry and a sleeping bag, a snub nose revolver that I keep in my underwear in a sleeping bag. I had nothing like to the point where, like when, when we actually got into combat, the first thing that I did is I ran into a kitchen. I'm like is there any knives in here? I need a knife, my god, I need, I need so many things.
Speaker 2:I appreciate the realism of that because that'll be most of us in these scenarios.
Speaker 1:But anyways, it was a lot of fun. The most beneficial part of it was actually jumping into the session and like building a character with somebody that knows that knows a little bit better than I do what they're doing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm so glad you get to do it. It gave me lots of time to work on my cat. Cat faces are really hard to do. I learned much harder than mushrooms.
Speaker 1:Also, I learned how to use foundry, which is a table a, a tabletop simulator for role playing games, and it's actually really great and Streamlines a lot of the things that you know. Especially newer players would have a lot of difficulty with like knowing knowing what dice rolls to do and like the calculations of like what modifiers you have. It just does it all based on your character sheet.
Speaker 2:So if you're a listener right now, like, and you're like me, or you've never done anything like this before, do you think that you could just join and go for it Like you get what you need to play, yeah.
Speaker 1:That's good and especially like if you have a good GM, like I think Katie was was a really good GM in that Like what is GM?
Speaker 2:No, no Game.
Speaker 1:Master Game.
Speaker 2:General Manager, game Master Got it.
Speaker 1:OK, he did a really good job of guiding everybody through like basically like everybody's a newbie and doesn't know anything, and guided everybody through like creating a character and like what the rules are and how a game works. So for like a, for a beginner experience, it's it's excellent because you know, first of all, he was a really nice guy, it wasn't awkward at all and I have social anxiety, so that's amazing, and you didn't have to be on video right. Right, I just joined in the discord voice and it was that everybody.
Speaker 2:Or could you see Katie and the other? No, that was everybody. That's really great too. There's no pressure, you can be in your pajamas, you can have stains on your shirt.
Speaker 1:Oh my god you're playing with your underwear gun? I don't.
Speaker 2:That would make. I don't want to think about people are doing. That's weird. That's weird, but at least you know they're paying to play, so hopefully they're not there. We pay to play my goodness.
Speaker 1:Well, it does. It does say something that you know that if people are paying, they're like nobody's gonna be messing around because they're like this costs $20. Well, you never know, and I've, and I've committed to like like a whole, like a whole Session, you know, like like my, my agreement is that I'll, I'll come every week for as long as my, as I'm involved with the storyline. That's nice, yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm really glad. I would like to try with you sometime. But I think it's also nice that you're like down there shouting while I'm up here having a good time at art. Yeah, it's a little parallel play, as you call it.
Speaker 1:Leo, what are your life?
Speaker 2:updates. Oh, I was actually googling to see if I'm a bionic person now, but I'm not. But I did get a wheelchair, but it does not count as bionic. I was hoping.
Speaker 1:What about? Are you a mech? What's a mech Like a Like a mech is like a big machine that a human being rides inside of to do battle.
Speaker 2:Oh, like a, like a power rangers, like uh what are those?
Speaker 1:power rangers had the Swords like the big dinosaur robots. Those are mechs mechs.
Speaker 2:But what about the? What was that show called? We were kids, full strong, you know we finished. They would just change it from like cars to like giant transformers, transformers.
Speaker 1:Yes, Um I think there are more robots. But like if, uh, if, bumblebee Rolled up and some kid got inside he's like, yeah, I'm driving a car and then bumblebee transformed into a, into a robot. Um, that would technically be a mech if the if the kid had control, but likely the kid would be crushed to death. Well, I don't even have control of the wheelchair.
Speaker 2:Because you're pushing me, so I mean I could, I could push myself around. But yeah, I got a wheelchair because At first I was thinking about getting like a scooter to scoot around, an electric one, just because you know, for as long as I'm gonna have these chronic pain issues, which maybe Maybe's forever, but nobody's told me that. So I'm holding out hope that that will change. But, like for right now, I'm just tired of having to say no to go places that I really want to go. There's a lot of things that are off limits to me that I used to love to do, like hiking in the woods, which unfortunately, wheelchairs are not good for, not the best especially uh climbing, but a paved path.
Speaker 2:Oh god, yeah, not gonna happen right now, but, um, but I was like I'm, I looked up with the cost to get a scooter and like the cheapest scooter was 700 dollars and I was just like that.
Speaker 1:And it's probably rickety. It probably creaks when you probably sucks.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like I. Just I don't have the money to do that for one, and especially when I don't know it's gonna be forever. If it was forever then we would probably invest some money in this. But, um, we decided to get a wheelchair, or rather, I decided to get a wheelchair, I cried about it, um, which just shows you, like, how incredible it is to be able to use your own Limbs and then realize that maybe it would be. You know, you need some help. It's humbling when I've never been in that situation before, um, and we went to the art gallery opening with four of my pieces on the wall and dan was my chauffeur. It was really scary and uh, feeling of major loss of control while having dan steer me. But, um, I'm learning on giving up control. There's just a few times where he like put me way too close to like a person, but I couldn't like say anything. Like, dan, give me away from this person who's breathing heavily on me.
Speaker 1:It was also very, very tight quarters.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was.
Speaker 1:It was a really successful event, like they had a ton of people there and people didn't always move when you uh, you know rammed them in the ankles with a, with a wheelchair.
Speaker 2:Well, please don't do that.
Speaker 1:I don't want to be like the moving weapon.
Speaker 2:But, uh, yeah it was. It was humbling, but I'm really glad I did it. I put a sticker on it that says beware of magical unicorns. That made me happy. I don't think anybody saw it because it's so far to the ground and we actually saw some old friends there that we hadn't seen in a while. I mean, mostly if I wasn't crying like cranking my neck up, I was looking at their belts.
Speaker 2:But got to see him and they were really nice. They just did usual chat, didn't ask why I was in a wheelchair. Um, I think one of them is somewhat aware of the issues I have, but probably not in detail. Um, and then I met, um, some really wonderful, witchy people that made me very happy and talked to them for a super long time, which would have just been impossible for me without a wheelchair. So all in all, it was worth it, um, but it did make me start to think about, like, okay, if this is my life and I need to move around, what does that look like in an apocalypse, which we'll get to in a minute, because first I got to talk about some things. Please, just if you're an able-bodied person or not, just please don't do these things In the future. One of them is or stare yeah, research.
Speaker 1:You know what these things are.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it'd be good to like look up do's and don'ts of how, to you know, be polite and respectful to people who are visibly disabled. Lots of people are disabled that you don't realize. But yeah, the the stares were weird. Um, being looked at was really uncomfortable. Now, granted, I was wearing some very brightly colored, beautiful clothing. I like to think that's why people were looking at me, but it's definitely part of it. Yeah, I, I don't know for sure.
Speaker 2:And then one stranger like came up to me and was like the first thing that she said to me was basically, was what's wrong with you? And I was just like I don't want to talk about it. And then she was like no, no, no, no, no. Like my husband was in a wheelchair and it's just such a sad life. It's such a sad life. And I was just like Wow, I don't know what to say to this because, like right now, I'm riding the high that I even get to be here. Like this is a big deal for me that I'm here and you don't even realize that. And also, it's not your business why I'm in a wheelchair.
Speaker 1:It's just not yeah, in moments like that, do you have any like any, any conflicts where you do your? You know you feel like they're telling you like oh, my, my, uh. My husband was in, was in a wheelchair, was paraplegic and like you know that you can just get up and walk away.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's the other thing is, like one of the things I want to talk about is it's just an assumption that if you're using a mobility device, that it means that you you're paraplegic or something, and like, obviously, lots of people who need these kinds of devices are. I'm not, I can stand, I can walk. People to look at me would not know that I have any pain issues. The problem is I can't stand or walk for a certain periods of time and so, like the wheelchair allows me to be At an event for like two hours, which, like literally every time I would go into the gallery before this. I'd be like all right, dan, we are going to the world's fastest tour. I've got 15 minutes that I can really manage.
Speaker 2:Yeah and then like get out of there, if that sometimes, yeah, and then I'd pay for it later with the pain that I would feel. So I mean like yeah, I felt for her that obviously she'd been through something, but I don't think it's appropriate to like put that on a stranger and also it was dehumanizing. The last time I felt this way is when people would be weird, um, with me, like the first time they'd meet me and I'd be with my partner who was the same sex as me. But this is obviously before, before, dan, like listeners are like which?
Speaker 1:one of them is she.
Speaker 2:Well, for the record, I would love you if you. I don't really care how you identify, as long as you feel good oh man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know you self-identify as a cis man and that's great, yeah, but my ex did not, and that was the last time I really like had moments of being Just feeling like dehumanized, like having one time I had somebody come up to me and be like, you know, if I was a lesbian, I would totally have a threesome with you and your girlfriend, and I was just like what the fuck? That's the first thing you think about when you see us and also it's the first thing that you say. Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, and the same thing with like, oh, this must be a sad life and what's wrong with you. It's like the first thing they see is a wheelchair and like, granted, I understand, I was the only person at the event in a wheelchair. Um, we often don't see people out and about in mobility devices, and you know why you don't? Because it's really hard to get fucking around. Our world is not made for us In that way. But like, you might have those thoughts, but just don't say them out loud.
Speaker 1:I don't know. Just keep them to yourself.
Speaker 2:I like to be like okay, I'll give this person some grace. They were an older person. Maybe they have impulse control with what comes out of their mouth.
Speaker 1:I know my girl, I'm going to start to say some really wacky shit when you got old. The one at the, at the gallery, yes, not the one that was propositioning you.
Speaker 2:No, they were an average age person that just thought that because I was in a same-sex relationship, that they could immediately sexualize me and make that. That's one of many. Also, I used to get RU sisters, which was weird. Are you roommates? Oh yeah, don't even get me started. But my point is that was not so great but also societal assumptions.
Speaker 2:I don't want to have to explain why I'm in a chair. I don't want to explain why I can get out of a chair. Being able to get out of a chair doesn't make my need for a chair when I need it less valid. It was a lot to experience. It was partly what held me back before, but now I'm into it. I'm like let's go back. I want to go back to the gallery when it's quieter and be able to actually wheel around and look at stuff. My only other complaint would be that my neck hurt a lot from looking at taller people and I have a new appreciation for short people. Shorties of the world. You are so much easier to talk to in a wheelchair. I love you. I've named the wheelchair Wheelie Pop.
Speaker 1:Wheelie Pop. Yeah, that's your faithful steed.
Speaker 2:Yes, Wheelie Pop, it's a unicorn. Having gone through that experience, it really and it's already occurred to me before, but really became very real is like, if I'm in a wheelchair, how will I survive? Even prior to getting a wheelchair, I think we mentioned a few times in this podcast that I think about. Okay, well, is that a wheelchair? I have limited amount of time I can be on my feet, which is a significant disadvantage in an apocalyptic scenario. So I've been kind of thinking like how would I survive? And then I realized that I've seen almost no examples of visibly disabled folks in zombie apocalypse genre, and I think that's because it's just an assumption that we're not going to make it, which I think is extremely individualist and sort of shitty. I think my clay cats have value. I think I have value when I'm in a wheelchair. Yeah, Definitely I value you. Thank you, I think you're great. Yeah, I think you liked me around. I did.
Speaker 1:It was kind of fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it got me thinking oh go ahead, Mellif.
Speaker 1:So when I stand for long periods of time, my lower back hurts. I've got some like compression issues with my spine started in the army and one thing that I liked about pushing you around in a wheelchair is that I had a place to lean my upper body on. I could just grab those handles and just kind of like lean on it and stretch out my back a little. Look totally normal doing it. You might benefit from a cane? I think I would. I'd probably benefit from like crutches.
Speaker 2:No, okay, I just yeah.
Speaker 1:For a full mobility chair.
Speaker 2:Yeah, maybe, but I think, like also, you made an excellent head rest. I would just like lean back on Dan's.
Speaker 1:As I'm stretching my back, you're using me as a head rest.
Speaker 2:Was it comfortable for you? Yeah, I think it was excellent, but yeah, so I've been kind of like toying with this idea and thinking about ableism and zombie media for a while, but then I decided you know what I'm going to like a list of examples of ableism and zombie media for us to start watching out for. I think I've said before like there's no test for this, so maybe we can make our own test.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, maybe there is a test for it, but we just haven't found it True, we should also make our own.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, the first. There's seven examples that I found. The first is physical bias, which is this assumption, I think, in general apocalypse media promotes quote unquote survival of the fittest mentality, which don't even get me started about how incorrectly we understand that term from Darwin. It is not about the best person, the most fit person, literally, it's about that organism's ability to adapt to the very specific circumstances of their environment. So, like you know, humans are not going to survive. Be the survival of the fittest. If all of a sudden, the world becomes ocean, we're going to die. It doesn't matter how quote unquote fit we are.
Speaker 1:And I know, I know, like personal scenarios where, like Jim Bros that I knew would not have survived the things that I've been through, exactly Just based on their physical fitness, they just they just wouldn't have had what it took.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a lot of zombie media and apocalypse media is sort of like these power fantasies of super strong hero people and anybody who's not like that is like easily killed or just not visible, like again. I only have ever seen somebody in a wheelchair in any apocalypse media I've ever watched.
Speaker 1:But you know, I mean we'll talk about this later, but I think there's some some good examples that we've seen lately, like in things like the Walking Dead and a few movies that we've watched, where they do toy with the idea of, like maybe you don't have to be the most jacked dude to survive. Definitely a dude to yeah. Yeah, you don't have to be a dude, you don't have to be jacked, yeah.
Speaker 2:And I think like that is that fantasy around the physical bias for sure being like super fit and you're not going to survive unless you are those things. But the other piece is that it's just a representation gap, and that gap of not seeing folks reinforces the notion that only able-bodied people would be suited to survive.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Like if somebody saw like a movie that was about somebody in a wheelchair scooting around the in the apocalypse and doing just fine they're like their bias may change.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's interesting. We'll get into this more in a little bit, but I think it's interesting because I think if you are living with a disability and you've had to figure out other ways of navigating the world, in some ways that might be an act or others don't have right. They're used to just things being easy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, or there's just things that they're blind to, that they don't think about, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Like when Daniel's pushed me into a puddle and I was like dear God, steer to the left.
Speaker 1:That was, that was my, my truck driver skills coming into play.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I get it.
Speaker 1:You didn't trust it because you didn't have the sense of the keen senses that I had about holes in the road.
Speaker 2:I think I was there wheeling myself more and get, and I don't get jacked up or jacked up or body from all my shoulders are going to be awesome.
Speaker 2:I can't wait. Okay, I'm going to wheel myself some more. The other thing is that, like because these apocalypse scenarios don't have anybody with physical disabilities in them, for the most part, then you don't see any characters who are facing real world accessibility issues, so just continues to be invisible to people. Like I know, before I ever had to think about being in wheelchair, I was never thinking about, like, how accessible is this place? Can I get in there? Are there stairs? And now I think about, like okay, there's this new shop I heard about in a town near us. My first thought was, well, I'd need my wheelchair to be able to hang out there for a while and actually look at things and enjoy it. But are there steps? Yeah, like in my case, I'm lucky enough that I have a man who can lug up my wheelchair while I walk up the stairs, but if I couldn't do that anymore, I just wouldn't be able to go.
Speaker 1:And even like the thing that we went to the gallery, we showed up right as one of the last people who owned a business there was leaving the back door. The back door is the only way that you can access the elevator, the lift for the wheelchair, and she let us know that like the door was locked. And she let us in luckily, like it's lucky that she was coming out as we went in, because she unlocked the door for us. But she's like, yeah, after a certain time, like that door was just locked.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then let's not even get into that elevator. It was terrifying.
Speaker 1:I mean, I would call it a trash compactor.
Speaker 2:It didn't make a very loud sound. It was a whole thing, was an experience. But my point is more like these kinds of issues would exist, whether or not for disabled people in apocalyptic scenarios, whether or not we are seeing them Like. It immediately made me think about currently disabled people on Gaza and then all the people who are newly disabled, like I forget the stats around people with lost limbs, particularly kids. It's pretty fucked up, but I know that, like I watched, particularly one video about a man who was disabled and the issues that he faced being in a wheelchair trying to get out of areas of Gaza that they told people they were going to bomb, even though they're not really. They're bombing places that tell you you're safe. So, whatever you know, it's a mess, but it was, I think, refreshing to actually see his experience. And, yes, there are ways that it is harder, but that's because societally we've decided we don't care that much. Yeah, it doesn't have to be that way. Another issue is the stereotype of the super Crip.
Speaker 2:Oh, tell me about the super Crip, which I'd like to point out, that the sound like disability activists are okay with the term super Crip or Crip if it's somebody who has a disability to use that term. But I wouldn't be walking around calling people Crips if you are not somebody who has a disability. But basically the super Crip stereotype is like somebody who has extraordinary abilities. That may actually be unrealistic.
Speaker 1:Like laser vision.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like that, make up for their disability. So it's like you know, it's the exact opposite of seeing disabled folks is nothing but a problem, instead being like well, they're in a wheelchair, but so their arms must be like super powerful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they could probably monkey bars like crazy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, basically. So that's not good. And then I think this is a really interesting one, and I've seen this before in other groups, with other groups of people who are marginalized, like black folks, indigenous folks, like a lot of the storylines are about like how hard things are and not actually about like joy, romance, emotional drama, life experiences. It's very much like look at how difficult this is for this person, so that's not really a cool thing, right Like we live full lives just like everybody else. So, yeah, that was interesting. These are things I'm now going to be looking for in anything we watch, and I'm probably going to be consistently disappointed at their lack of presence.
Speaker 1:You know, I think a lot of these things can be applied to many different groups of people, like, like you mentioned, like BIPOC, characters being portrayed a certain way Like how hard it was growing up for them because they're from this neighborhood yeah, which are valid stories, but if that's all there is to them, then there's not a well-rounded story.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think, just to make a point, just because you don't see people in wheelchairs very often Out and about, again, that is not because we don't exist, it's because the world is not designed for us. So around 13.5% of the United States is actually physically disabled and I want to ask you like is one in 10 people that you see using a cane or some kind of mobility device?
Speaker 1:I don't think so. A lot of them might be invisibly disabled as well. So like maybe that person needs a cane, like me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, or they have a hearing disability or vision loss or cognition, so that's quite a few people. We're out there, yeah, we deserve representation.
Speaker 1:I do kind of want to get a cane. I want to get that survival cane that I showed you. It's like a viable yeah, it's like this, the steel pole, and on one end there's like a tip that you can like smash concrete with, oh yeah. And then on the inside there's like survival tools, like you can store some matches in there, and stuff. I want that. I'm going to get it.
Speaker 2:You should find it and put in the show notes for folks who may also benefit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm going to, I'm going to find it, I'm going to put it in there. Look and look in the description for it.
Speaker 2:But there were actually some examples of media that do feature disabled characters. I do want to say like I want to get some shout outs to the ones that we know about that have actually done this. So, Dan, what's the first one?
Speaker 1:You know this talking about this is going to be my favorite part of this podcast Is it's talking about where, where we did it, where we did a good job as people. The Walking Dead Walking Dead is my favorite.
Speaker 2:Were there? Disabled characters in the RPG.
Speaker 1:No, but maybe I'll play one. That would be interesting. Yeah, you know I like not to get too far off topic, but when I play in RPG I like to play very unconventional characters, like the guy I was playing with played a soldier, which is pretty conventional. I played great with an underwear gun. So you know what? Maybe maybe putting my next character in a wheelchair might be a very interesting way to play.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So yeah, the Walking Dead, this, this the Walking Dead includes some characters with disabilities, such as Herschel Green, who gets his leg chopped off. How does Herschel die? He gets his head chopped off.
Speaker 2:Well, that's right. So he doesn't even die from zombies. He dies because of.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he gets around just fine.
Speaker 2:Who chopped his head off.
Speaker 1:The governor with Michelle the governor. Yeah, you know. And also, like it should also be noted, that in the comic series very early on Rick actually is bitten on the arm and the first amputation that they do is Rick chops his own arm off. Oh, in the comic book. In the comic book, yeah. So for the rest of the comic series, rick deals with only having one arm Interesting and he's in and his signature weapon is not the revolver that you have in the TV series, it's a hatchet Interesting.
Speaker 2:He's, he's a hatchet In the movie. Yeah, later on they bring it back.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, but it was a much bigger deal in the comics series. Second character from the Walking Dead I wanted to throw in here. Later on I think it's season nine that these characters come in is a character named Connie, who's deaf Also. Connie's sister is also losing her hearing as well.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:But I forgot what her name was.
Speaker 2:That's OK, but Connie is a really great character and I actually really appreciated the moments where they allowed us into her world of like what it might be like in terms of what she could hear. Yeah. Or her sense of like vibrations. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And you could. You could definitely see from Connie's experience that there are times when this is a drawback, like not being able to tell where zombies were in, like in the tall, like cornfield that she was running through, yeah. But then there's also times where it's it's really helpful, like, first of all, her and her crew can communicate with sign language.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's like. It's like a code talker in World War Two.
Speaker 1:And she can also read lips from long distances so she can see what people are saying very far away. And also I got to imagine I don't think that they covered this, but I got to imagine that, like early on, there's a lot of psychological pressure from hearing zombies like outside your door. That's true, and she probably didn't have to suffer through a whole lot of that because she couldn't hear them.
Speaker 2:Interesting. Yeah, I think, like any person, you're going to have skills and drawbacks because of who you are. I think any gift you have is usually also a bit of a curse, and I did appreciate with Herschel, like the community care aspect, like they didn't give up on him. Yeah, his life was worthy. He provided value to the group, even if he couldn't be the biggest fighter. That wasn't the value he necessarily held. His wisdom, I think, was what people valued about him. And also the way that he died was not because of his disability.
Speaker 1:Yeah, In fact he was very adamant, especially in the following season, that he not let his disability hold him back. So when everybody got sick from the flu he left the safety of the prison to go collect herbs with Carl. Carl went with him because he didn't think that he could take care of himself and Herschel told him that he's not going to. That hasn't slowed him down any. Yeah, herschel's a badass. Yeah, the next one actually the next two we actually haven't watched yet.
Speaker 2:So we got them on our list. Now. Cargo is already on our list.
Speaker 1:We have to. We have to trust the Internet on these sources. But number two is Cargo 2017 movie. This Australian post-apocalyptic drama features a protagonist with a disability who navigates the challenges of a world affected by a pandemic, deals with issues such as cancer, seizures and dementia.
Speaker 2:I appreciate that. Yeah, oh, you know what? The walking that also had cancer in it because of Negan's wife was dying of cancer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's true, but I don't know if they necessarily showed how I mean she. She did just fine, but yeah, actually she saved Negan from from walkers that he didn't want to kill. Yeah, he was too soft to kill him. She came out and she's like fuck these fucking zombies, just beat their heads into the hammer or something.
Speaker 2:Is one we got to add to our list. Other one I want to add to our list is called A Quiet Place. I haven't watched. You haven't watched that one, right, Dan?
Speaker 1:I haven't seen it. I don't think so.
Speaker 2:So this is. I'm not sure if there are zombies in it, but it is sort of apocalyptic. It's a horror film that depicts a world invaded by creatures that hunt based on sound. That's fucking scary, yeah, although I guess zombies kind of hunt based on sound they do, yeah. And the daughter in the film is portrayed as deaf, so her disability becomes crucial to the family's survival. So that's interesting. And then last one at least the last one we thought of, was Z Nation.
Speaker 1:I love Z Nation and I think about it often.
Speaker 2:I don't think I was it clear to you that Ten K had autism.
Speaker 1:I think I knew that, but it's not something that comes up very often. He's he's silent for most of the series. He doesn't talk very much, and that could just either be from trauma or maybe he is autistic. But also his autism might be the reason why he's such a crack shot. Yeah, like he's. He's a sharpshooter with everything that some. When you first meet him he has a rifle, but he's also like bullseyeing zombies from great distances with just a slingshot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so he had special skills. That sounds like it could be starting to move towards super grip. Yeah, but you know that's also kind of realistic Like yeah, I think it's got like a balance when you're doing these things about, and I think Connie is a good example where there were strengths and weaknesses because she was deaf. So I wanted to like think through a little bit probably selfishly about how someone who's wheelchair bound could actually be an asset in the apocalypse.
Speaker 1:So he came up with a list. Yeah, I love this list, by the way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the first one is silent movement. I would be a silent assassin. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I thought of this originally because one of the things that a few movies have touched on is that, like, the best way to get around is all the apocalypse is on bicycle. Because of the air filled, rubber tires, it's quieter than footsteps and faster. And I think this also applies to wheelchairs because, like, definitely, definitely, when I was pushing around, that thing did not make any noise.
Speaker 2:No, it was actually like a very considered as a cheap wheelchair, like the cheapest I could find, like they spend like the wheels.
Speaker 1:The wheel spokes were plastic, but they spent their money on those bearings.
Speaker 2:Yeah, very much like if you haven't spent a lot of time in a wheelchair it was my first experience it was like it was able to navigate bumps on the road. It looked actually pretty smooth. Yeah, I was impressed, yeah. And the other thing that I actually did think about even before we went to the gallery was like my ability to carry supplies. I was like, oh, if Dan gets hot, he can just like put his jacket on the back of my wheelchair because in some way put things yeah.
Speaker 1:If you had a big heavy box full of canned goods that you're looting from from a house. You know, just stack those right up on the person's lap.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and like, if you get extra space on or around the chair, you can utilize it for storage. You could probably like build some things that could be like helpful. Well, you have to. You probably have to adapt things so they wouldn't get in the way of the wheel or the ability to move the wheels If it's not automated you'd have to do some modification.
Speaker 1:They could hang off the back pretty easy. You could definitely do backpack style. Yeah, you can hang a backpack easily. Yeah, a very big one at that.
Speaker 2:So like that'd be helpful. Caring supplies Also, you could offer it. If you're not using it, you can be like, hey, you want to grab some supplies, use a wheelchair.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's move on to heightened awareness and adaptability, and we talked about this a little bit, but individuals use wheelchairs often develop heightened awareness of their environment, which kind of sounds like super corrupt territory. But bear with me. Okay.
Speaker 1:Because what it's what we're talking about here is we're talking about how people have to view the world when they have to navigate it in a wheelchair. They're going to look at steps. They're going to be like those steps are a problem. They're going to look at things that are in the road. They're going to look at various obstacles and find new ways around them, and it's going to make them think differently about every situation.
Speaker 2:That's true. Probably promotes problem-solving.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like creative thinking, let's say you have somebody in a wheelchair who's getting around and you have a whole group of able-bodied people that are helping loot a store or something. Um, able-bodied people might just be like, yeah, sure, there's this flight of stairs and we'll just walk these giant heavy boxes up and down the stairs and then we'll just load the truck and get out of here. But the person who is in a wheelchair might be like there's an easier way to do this, because you guys might not even notice that there's stairs, but they're draining calories from you. So they might come up with a different, an alternative plan, like being like hey, there's actually a loading dock out back. If you just pull the truck up to the back, we can just walk it right into the bed of the truck.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that would be a lot smarter. Yeah, for sure, this is a. This one is kind of weird. It makes me laugh because I don't really think of myself as I used to think of myself. As a pacifist, I would say no longer the case. But stability and defense is one hot, not skill but advantage, because my wheelchair could provide a stable shooting platform yeah, really, and not just from the roof For the bottom of this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like the person in the chair would be able to use the arm rests and be able to hold up a rifle pretty easily. But also you could design the chair to also be a shooting platform for anyone who comes up behind it and they could lean on it and use it as a rest as well. Right, kind of like how I was when I needed to stretch my back at the gallery. Yeah, it became a place to support my weight while I stretched out my back.
Speaker 2:I had no idea you were doing that back there. Yeah, that was actually. One thing I didn't like is I couldn't see your face.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was the worst part.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry you couldn't see my face.
Speaker 1:Looking at the top of your head. This next one might be a little bit, a little bit in the opposite direction, but I think it's also kind of true, even if it's not sensitive to the person with disabilities, and this is inspiration and morale. The resilience and determination of a person who navigates life in a wheelchair can be inspiring to others. In high stress scenarios, like a zombie apocalypse, having team members who demonstrate such strength can significantly boost group morale, and this is something that we've talked about as well People who have disabilities. They don't want to hear about how they're an inspiration.
Speaker 2:They're just doing daily life things, or how sad we are our sad, sad life, but I don't think that it makes it untrue.
Speaker 1:I think that, especially in a survival scenario, if somebody is like I just want to give up, it's so hard. But if you see somebody who has a visible disability, who's also doing the same exact thing that you're doing and they're not complaining, it kind of reinforces your mind to be like well then I guess I can do it with my able body.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I guess that that is probably true. It might be again in the category of like if you have that thought, keep it in your brain, Keep number five to yourself. And remember that a person with disabilities is not your inspiration porn. They don't exist to inspire you.
Speaker 2:They exist to be people, and I think that that's really why it's a problem to think of people who are disabled People who are disabled as inspirational. In fact, there's a great TED talk by Steli Young, who's a comedian and disability rights activist. The talks about why viewing disabled people as inspirational is, in fact, actually very objectifying of them, because you're just not, again, you're not seeing them as a full person. You're seeing their disability and like, oh wow, look, if they can do this in their wheelchair, then I should be able to do my thing, and it's also very self-centered. But again, you have that thought cool, just notice that. You have that thought. You can always do your thing and then also be like right, and this person is as complex a creature and human being as I am.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's why it's kind of like a murky territory, because I don't think it's untrue, but I don't think that it's something you should say out loud. Yeah, do you want to take the last one, leah?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think this one kind of goes with like having some skills that others don't, but, just to state it one more time, like there would be some specialized skills, most likely Like I would probably have pretty impressive upper body strength if I was manually moving myself in a wheelchair more often. Or I may have knowledge, medical knowledge or other kinds of knowledge that around survival that you wouldn't have otherwise. Or if it was like a loading dock, I would be aware of where places are accessible and where they're not, and that could come handy for a variety of reasons. You can't really predict an apocalypse scenario, but I would encourage us all to stretch our imagination that way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, also I'd like to rope into this that like this also means that the person who is in a wheelchair might just be trained in things that are valuable, like they might have medical skills because they're a doctor, they might be a really good communicator, they might be a mechanic. They might just have these skills because surprise their people. They're a person and they have to live in the same world that we live in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can make clay cats.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they could make you some clay cats. They're really cute ones. Yeah, they're really cute. You can do a lot of other things too Thanks. Like what you are really good at diplomacy.
Speaker 2:Oh, now you're just pulling from our past episode. I am.
Speaker 1:And that's okay, it is.
Speaker 2:Do you actually think I'm good at diplomacy? Yeah?
Speaker 1:All right, you're diplomatic with me all the time, am I now?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's true. I was pretty diplomatic when I saw you bearing our truck in mud. Yeah, I could have gone out there and screamed, yeah, I didn't. Now I've heard enough of us sort of talking about our lives, having some casual dead chats. We want to have some groans from the horde. I love groans from the horde.
Speaker 1:What does a horde grown sound?
Speaker 2:like yeah, I'm going to try to make you make a sound as much as possible like that. So I'm very excited that a couple of people actually took us up on the offer to leave us some voice messages. Again, the phone number yeah, the phone number is 614-699-0006. You've up to three minutes to give us a message of anything you want to ask us about it can also be shorter than that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it could be shorter. Regardless, we'll probably edited it a bit to fit the podcast. We will edit it, but there are two I want to play for today. The first one is from Brian of Zompocalypse.
Speaker 1:Hi Brian.
Speaker 2:Brian is looking for some zombie advice from us. So, dan, are you ready to listen to this voicemail? I am ready, very excited to see this pop up in our email, okay.
Speaker 3:Hey you guys. This is Brian from Zompocalypse. Hi, brian, have spoken before through Instagram. What is the most underrated survival tool you can have during the upon? I found this question when I was recording podcasts for my hopefully upcoming podcast. I don't want to give too much detail about it because it mainly is questions, so I have decided the most underrated tool is a can opener. The reason being is you want to eat canned food? I do. You need a can opener, am I right? But not cat food?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Let me know Thanks. Have a good day y'all. You have a good day too. Bye Brian, bye Brian. I like the can opener. That's a good one.
Speaker 1:I can tell that Brian has played Project Zomboid.
Speaker 2:What's Project?
Speaker 1:Zomboid oh, it's a video game. Ah, it takes place in a zombie apocalypse, but man can openers are hard to find in that game and can food is not.
Speaker 2:Broken can are the worst when one doesn't work. I've been in that scenario where I've been in an Airbnb and the can opener doesn't work and let me tell you, Brian, you're right, that's not apocalyptic, but really fucks with your plans if you can't open a can. That didn't mean to rhyme.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's going to be in our survival book. Should we make a survival book?
Speaker 2:That'd be really random. Yeah, Survival tips from the Ziya Book Club why not? Will I have yours, Brian? Yeah, Bring a can opener. I mean you can open things without a can opener if you have a good knife, but it's a lot of work Actually. You know what?
Speaker 1:You know what, Brian? I see your can opener and I raise you the movie Ghosts of Mars starring Ice Cube from 1999. Okay, Not seen this. There's a scene where one of his guys is like watch me open this can with a machete. And he goes and he's trying to show off for a lady and he goes and he swings at the can that he's holding and he definitely opens the can easily with that machete. Yeah, where does all the food go? No, it's still in there. The problem is that his thumb was in the way and he cuts his thumb off too.
Speaker 1:He holds it in a really dumb way and you see it coming a mile away like don't, don't, don't know what he's thinking, man, Anyways, you can open can food with a machete.
Speaker 2:If you have skill, I could not open a can food.
Speaker 1:I'd use my angle grinder.
Speaker 2:I mean, maybe I could but I would also probably cut off a limb, and then I'd be more disabled than I am.
Speaker 1:I'd use my angle grinder Also. There's a really cool technique. If you have time, is you can? You can turn a can upside down and start scraping it on the side of a sidewalk and after a while it'll wear enough metal away that you can just pull the top off. Huh.
Speaker 2:That sounds really like a lot of effort and calories to get that food. Yeah, but you know what?
Speaker 1:if you don't have a can opener, that's your option.
Speaker 2:I mean, I probably just find a sharp knife, yeah, but in answer to your question, what's this underrated tool? You should have an apocalypse. I have one of these. I don't think it's in our emergency bag, so it should be. Should be A spork. Spork is great. I want to believe everybody knows what a spork is, but in case you don't, it is a spoon with a tint. What are they called? The end Forky things? At the end Prongs, prongs. Yeah, it's a spoon of the fork, it's a spoon fork, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because, like imagine this, I hope everyone is using their imagination. Close your eyes. Close your eyes. I'm going to take you on a journey. Breathe deeply. So you have a can of refried beans that you found. You've used the can opener to open it. Now, the only thing that you have to eat the refried beans with is your fingers Ew, but also your mouth which, like you're either going to cut yourself on the jagged part of the can, on your fingers or your mouth.
Speaker 2:That's a bad and like.
Speaker 1:I know that Darryl Dixon would do it, but like I don't want to scoop out refried beans with my fingers and scoop it into my mouth, this is how you're going to get some kind of like parasite.
Speaker 2:For sure, darryl.
Speaker 1:Dixon has parasites. Darryl Dixon has queen.
Speaker 2:It's probably why he stays so ripped yeah.
Speaker 1:He's got like seven tapeworms. He's like I just got to feed the tapeworms, but yeah it's work.
Speaker 2:I had an experience last time I had to travel for work where I ordered in some Indian food. I was super excited about the doll I was going to eat. It was some rice, but they didn't give me any utensils and I was like, fuck, oh, my God, I eat this. So I had to take a part of the rice Like it was like one of those Chinese food boxes kinds of things and I ripped off part of the lid and I had to like turn it into a scoop, but then slowly it started to disintegrate. So as I was eating the rice, I had to like rip off more of the cardboard to use as, and it just like really took away from the joy of Indian food.
Speaker 1:I had a similar situation where I was in a hotel room and I had just gotten back from dinner with friends and I might have eaten 12 edibles. That's a lot. And yeah, they just said don't eat too many. And I didn't know what that meant.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, I'm like you know, they're cookies, so I'm going to like I'll eat a bag. I guess it's one way to do it. Yeah, but yeah, I really wanted the leftovers that were in the mini fridge and I didn't have any utensils and I used like a folded up business card.
Speaker 2:Oh my goodness, Much like the way that you were describing I mean you got to be creative in difficult scenarios, but this is why you should always have a spork in there, two sporks, as many sporks as there are people, although in a pinch we could share a spork, it's true, but I'd prefer to not.
Speaker 1:I have something in my. I planned it for my book. That's exactly the situation.
Speaker 2:Anyways, wow, Okay. What would be your most underrated tool?
Speaker 1:Dan, I picked a multi-tool that has a can opener and a spork built into it?
Speaker 2:Does that exist? Yeah, yeah, those exist, even with a spork. Yeah, although I really want one of those. Give me that for my birthday.
Speaker 1:You can get a multi-tool that has a spoon, a knife, a fork. Huh, yeah, that's not a spork. Yeah, it's better. Yeah, so you can get those. I'm actually going to suggest that a like a regular multi-tool is probably a better tool because you have pliers, you have a sharp knife blade and you do have a can opener on almost every Swiss Army knife or a multi-tool, but it's manual. So you got to, you got to work for it.
Speaker 2:I will say like just you having your flip, other flip knives. What do you call them? Just a Swiss Army knife, even though it's not Swiss Army brand? What do you call a knife that you press a button and the knife part comes out of the handle? What's it called A switch blade?
Speaker 1:Is that what they're called? Do you mean? Do you mean my?
Speaker 2:Milwaukee knife.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's just a knife.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but it's a knife that's with flips.
Speaker 1:Well, it has a release on it, and then you can flip out the blade.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that thing it's a knife. Well, I, but it's more than just a knife. It's a pocket knife. It's like a steak knife in your pocket, a pocket knife. Yeah, I know that's probably not underrated. Most people would want to have them. But do you know how many times I looked at Dan?
Speaker 1:we're at somewhere and I'm like Dan, how do I open this? Or I just ask you do?
Speaker 2:you have your pocket. I don't even say I think, I just say your knife. You're right, your pocket knife. One time I tried to clean my fingernails with it while I was at Dan a lot, so I stopped yeah.
Speaker 1:We're driving, you know, at highway speed and and Leah's like, I'm going to use this open knife to clean my fingernails.
Speaker 2:It means I lack a basic sense of personal safety. But great question, brian. Thank you so much for reaching out. We're excited to hear your podcast, too, when it's ready.
Speaker 1:Yeah, work on that podcast. You know, my only advice for that is do it, just do it. Yeah don't think about it too hard, just hit record.
Speaker 2:Dinnit, yeah, do it now.
Speaker 1:Hit record and the words come out Okay, we have another caller.
Speaker 2:This is a new caller for us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, who is this? This is Jerry.
Speaker 2:Dupont and I'm going to just pull up their message to listen to so we can respond you. Ready, dan, I'm ready.
Speaker 4:Hi there, this is Jerry Dupont, and I work for Allied Star Fleet Services, fellow trucker, trucker myself up and down the Northwest Passages, taking fleets of logs up and down this whole coast. Now my question for y'all is if there was a specific place in the territory of the United States that you feel you would be most suited to handle the Zomber Apocalypse.
Speaker 2:The Zomber Apocalypse it would be and why.
Speaker 4:Thank you so much. Have a great day and a wonderful, wonderful weekend.
Speaker 1:Now. Thank you, jerry DePont.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you, Jerry. You have a great day and a wonderful, wonderful weekend.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you have a great day.
Speaker 2:Please don't let those logs up the back of your truck go flying like in final destination. I'll never feel comfortable driving behind truckers like you, Jerry ever. And that's not your fault, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know that is a bias that you have from a horror movie.
Speaker 2:It is, and you know, I'm sure, that you secure your logs.
Speaker 1:He secures his logs for sure. You know, most truck drivers actually don't secure their logs.
Speaker 2:Oh.
Speaker 1:God, gravity, gravity secures the logs. What about the top ones?
Speaker 2:The gravity, oh, I don't like that they're heavy, they're really heavy. I mean, I know that, but I don't like it.
Speaker 1:We're not answering. Jerry's question, though they're in a cage.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Okay, Jerry. You asked us if there's a specific territory in the United States that you feel, or that we feel would be most suited to handle the Zomber Apocalypse.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is specifically a Zomber Apocalypse, so there are special conditions. Okay, yeah, do you want to go first, or should I?
Speaker 2:I mean honestly. As I've said many times, I'm tying my survival to you. So where do we go, dan?
Speaker 1:So I would go to where I grew up in upstate New York, the very same place where I have talked of my birthright a campground, turn trailer park. Yeah, I can take it over, yeah. There's a section where both my maternal and paternal grandparents were neighbors of each other and they both owned probably about 100 to 150 acres each. I know my mother's land was about 150 acres. My family doesn't own that anymore. Well, my family, my father's side, they still own that, but I don't know them.
Speaker 2:That's why we're going to Kingdom this shit, as the Crown Prince are taking it over.
Speaker 1:I'm the Crown Prince, yeah, but my mother's father his side I am deeply familiar with. I know every inch of the forest because that's where I lived. If you read a story that I posted on Threads recently where I talked about nearly being killed by a monster truck when I was five years old, it's a good story. That's a very, very popular brand new website that we haven't even talked about yet.
Speaker 2:That's true. We'll say that for next time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a link for it, so if you find it on Threads it's. I think I have a pin right now. Anyways, you would know, if you read that, that I grew up in the woods, off grid, in a homestead, in a log cabin that my parents built with their own hands with logs that they cut down from the forest. You know, we had a hand well pump inside of our house. There was no electricity, there was no phone. It was just us, the chickens, and the pigs.
Speaker 2:This is why I'm tying my survival to you, because you were doing it early. I remember this is one of the first things you told me about yourself when you were 15 and I was 14 and I was like, oh, this is hot, I love this about him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I spent a lot of time in those woods, not just as a child when my mom would tell me to go get lost and I took that to mean literally but also later on when I went hunting with my stepdad. Once removed and you know there's, the intimate knowledge that I have of those woods would allow me to disappear into that area without anybody ever finding us, but also I would know how to provide food for us in that area.
Speaker 2:And also it's remote. It's not really near any major cities, so there's going to be fewer zombies.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's near the Fort Drum, which could be a problem.
Speaker 2:Could be a problem, could be a benefit, it could be an asset.
Speaker 1:Could be a problem Either one.
Speaker 2:You have access through your dad, through your dad. Ooh, rewind that Through your stepdad which stepdad. The current stepdad.
Speaker 1:I guess I do, I don't know and your mom, they have connections in the Army Medical area. So yeah, that'd be useful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they work on base. So, yeah, that's where I'd go. I'd just go with you. I don't have any properties. At one point I thought, like would I go back to Augusta Georgia, and then I was thinking it's fucking hot, yeah.
Speaker 1:And also, like I mean we know a few places in Augusta, but like I've never really been in the woods, Of Augusta. I've been on trails, I've been to various parks in Georgia, but I've never like just been like I'm going to just walk into the woods and see what happens.
Speaker 2:The soil is hard to grow from there too. A lot of it's sander clay, so you've got to do your raised beds. So I think like it's good farmland where you grew up. I'm teaming Northern New York. If it's got to be the United States, which Fantastic farm. Jerry, I thought I was a little bit insensitive of you because I am a Canadian and now I will not answer the question because I probably pick somewhere in Canada.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, the land is really, really fertile. There's lots of wildlife. The winters are incredibly harsh. Where I grew up, it is literally the snowiest town in North America and I know that there's a lot of people from like Lake Tahoe that are like, oh yeah, I'll see about that. But trust me when I say like this place is special. If you look at a precipitation map of Northern New York, there's always this like one little spot right up near the top. That's always a few shades darker than the rest of the precipitation, and that's all because of Lake Ontario and it just decides to take everything from Lake Ontario and dump it in one spot. And that's where I came from.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we would just stay inside in the wintertime with a nice fire as much as possible. And hot tip, hot survival tip from Dan's childhood If you're going to have to poop outside or in a outhouse in the wintertime, you bring your toilet seat inside with you to keep it warm.
Speaker 1:We had an outhouse.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:This was actually my idea. I don't know if I ever told you this. I was like maybe five or six years old. It's very smart.
Speaker 2:You were a little butt. You were like I'm not sitting up there.
Speaker 1:Well, almost every single day was negative 20 degrees. Oh, my goodness. And I remember my mom complaining about it a lot because you know, every time she goes to the bathroom she has to sit down. Yeah, Because she's a lady. I don't know if you know that about my mom she's a lady.
Speaker 2:That's how she identifies, okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it was my idea to be like well, why don't we just take the seat off and put it behind the wood stove? We had this giant wood stove that was way too big for the tiny cabin that we lived in. It took up like a third of the downstairs, Wow. But if we put it right behind it it would actually get so hot that you would have to let it cool down before you sat on it.
Speaker 2:That might not be the best place. It kind of grosses me out to like have to, but I guess you maybe cleaned it a lot. I don't know.
Speaker 1:I mean it definitely got sanitized when it was sitting next to the stove.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, there you have it. Those are our first two calls. Thanks so much, jerry and Brian, for giving us some calls. I got a call to action for you all who have not made calls. You can either call out in and answer the two questions we got today. One of them is most underrated tool you would use. The other one is where would you best survive?
Speaker 1:Yeah, let us know.
Speaker 2:Excuse me, and you can also just give us a call and ask us anything else literally anything that will not get us put in jail yeah, 614-699-0006. Or you can email us at zombiebookclubpodcast at gmailcom. Keep it short. We're slow readers and have really short attention spans.
Speaker 1:Yeah, keep it short. That also applies to the voicemails. Yeah, of course don't, because I don't want to have to edit it.
Speaker 2:If you've got a really good story which we'll decide when we listen to if you've got a really good story, you can give it a try. So your zombie homework for episode 35, which is rapidly coming up is Sylvester Barzee's Planet Dead. I'm loving Planet Dead. It is so funny, yeah. Also, I mean, it's all female main characters right now too. It's amazing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, as far as I understand, sylvester is an indie published writer, which is great. Yeah, I really like supporting indie authors.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is. We're finally at the part now in the book where the cannibal clowns are Spoiler. And it is both for oh. I've mentioned the cannibal clowns and I've seen Sylvester talk about them, so it's okay, but it's both funny and gory and scary, which I think is like a feat to have all three of those things at the same time. That's true.
Speaker 1:Sylvester, his dialogue is top notch, yes.
Speaker 2:And there were moments where the description of what was happening like I was like looking away from the book because it was a visual. I'm like I don't know how to see this.
Speaker 1:She's like trying to get through the scene and she's not looking at the book. She's like how am I going to, how am I going to get through this?
Speaker 2:without looking at the book. It's like a visual reaction, but when I typically watch gory stuff on TV I just don't look and tell Dan to tell me when it's over. Tell Dan when the book is over. He can't do that when you're reading. So yeah, make sure you go get the book. Go to his website, be in the show notes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's in the show notes Again we're not sponsored by anybody.
Speaker 2:These are just things that we like to read and also it's just cool to support local authors, not local authors, indie authors. He's a local to me, Although we apparently live in Georgia, so he's kind of local to us at one point in our life.
Speaker 1:He's our Georgia neighbor now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and again, don't forget to give us a call. 614-699-0006,. Super enjoyed the first two voice messages. We got.
Speaker 1:Don't forget to subscribe and rate and review. That's really helpful to us if you give us at least a rating. A five star rating. A five star rating is what helps us. Yeah, less than five stars does not help us.
Speaker 2:Don't do what apparently happened to Greg Dan's character in the Locking Dough, which is that somebody on Uber gave him a four star rating and he would never get rides anymore.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he was struggling. When the apocalypse hit he was actually living in his Toyota Camry. It's very sad yeah.
Speaker 2:So basically, give us five stars so that we don't have to live in our Toyota Camry.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we would have to buy a Toyota Camry first, that's true, but we could probably get one for like $300.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and come chat with us on Instagram and threads, especially threads We've been using a lot lately.
Speaker 1:Yeah, instagram is really good too. We're trying to do stories on a regular basis. Yeah. So give us some hearts on those stories.
Speaker 2:Keeping a casual on the Instagram and threads the casual dead. Yeah, we did it, we did it.
Speaker 1:Number two we did it. Thanks for listening everybody. Bye, the end is nigh. Every time, every time.