Zombie Book Club
Welcome to Zombie Book Club! We're a Podcast that's also a book club! We talk about Zombie / Apocalyptic horror novels, TV and movies.
Zombie Book Club
Existential dread, Queens of the dead, and other personal updates | Zombie Book Club Podcast Ep 53
Join Dan and Leah in this special episode of the Zombie Book Club as we swap apocalyptic life updates and laugh about our social media antics. From a hilarious poll determining the most unhinged face on Instagram to a shoutout for our listener Gerard Clark’s thrilling new book, "The End," this episode is packed with humor, reflection, and zombies.
We share the emotional highs and lows of pet ownership, including the significance of pet insurance, and give an update on Nero's recent hospital adventure. On the creative side, we explore the progress of Dans book and the joy of drafting scenes that may or may not make the final cut.
Movie buffs and drag fans, you won't want to miss our chat about Tina Romero's upcoming film "Queens of the Dead" – think zombies meet a fabulous drag show in a queer New York nightclub. We fantasize about potential casting choices and even dream up a Mad Max-style drag queen survival crew. To top it off, we dissect a recent political incident that shook the nation, debunking conspiracy theories and emphasizing the importance of staying informed and practicing self-care in these turbulent times. Tune in for a rollercoaster of emotions, laughter, and some good old zombie escapism!
Follow our linktree for social media links, and links to all the places you can find our podcast!
https://linktr.ee/zombiebookclub
Join the Brain Muncher’s Zombie Collective: https://discord.gg/rn3nPDa4CB
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 real life and it sucks. I'm Dan, and when I'm not in shock from recent events and reeling with anxiety about what might happen in the foreseeable future, I'm writing a book about corrupt politicians taking advantage of a zombie outbreak to overthrow the government.
Speaker 2:Like that would ever happen Never. I have full faith in the government.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm Leah and I'm out of ideas for introducing myself today, so hi everybody, hi leah, this is a casual dead episode, so we it is. It's been a while since we've done one of these it's like every other episode it feels like a long time ago. It feels like an entire lifetime ago it does. Many things have happened. So much can happen in a short span of time.
Speaker 1:Sometimes, it's like we're talking about the roman empire of our own.
Speaker 2:Last two episodes crumbling before us yeah we're gonna give you some of our own apocalyptic life updates today, chat with you about some exciting zombies in the news and hear from our listeners, because we have had some very excellent groans from the horde lately including a very compelling groan by Gerard Clark, who is sharing a little bit about his book today with us in a elevator pitch.
Speaker 1:We're going to get in an elevator.
Speaker 2:We're going to get in an elevator today to learn about the end.
Speaker 1:Just so you know, we release episodes every Sunday. Today's Sunday we're recording on a Sunday.
Speaker 2:We are, and this is coming out next Sunday.
Speaker 1:The seat of our pants. So, yeah, it comes out every Sunday, so subscribe and give us some stars. Five please. Yeah, five stars, please Put them in there.
Speaker 2:Come chat with us on Instagram especially, and sometimes threads Dan's on threads I kind of gave up on it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I should probably just link my threads instead of our zombie book club's threads, because I rarely get time to go on our zombie book club thread, yeah, but I, you know, I I kind of park myself in my own dan the zombie writer thread. Yeah, that's your brand on threads, that's fair, and I gave up because it's like threads for me as somebody who has zero following and doesn't know how to do that.
Speaker 2:Own dan the zombie writer thread. Yeah, that's your brand on threads. That's fair and I gave up because it's like threads. For me, as somebody who has zero following and doesn't know how to do that, it's like screaming into the void.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there is like a it's. It's a little bit different because it's like it rewards you for using it more and engaging with people more. So if you're not on there like liking people's posts, following people doing doing stuff, then you know you post something and no matter how good of a job you do with your search engine optimization, it's just like fuck you, man. Do you think you could just come in here every two weeks and make a post about your dumb podcast and people will see it? No, give us money.
Speaker 2:Or in my case, it's like do you want people to see the painting of your cat? No, get out of here. And, honestly, all I'm spending my time on lately is the Zillion Book Club podcast Instagram, because the real world has gotten so fucking bleak that I didn't realize I was doing it on purpose. But I have really stopped spending a ton of time on my personal account and now I just read personal account. Yeah, and now I just read about zombies.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's so much easier to read about zombies.
Speaker 2:On the note of reading about zombies, we had a competition between Dan and I on Instagram because I took a video or a picture, sorry of you editing yesterday for today's podcast that came out with Jack Callahan and the zombie nerd and the half term harrowing book, which is awesome. Hope you all enjoyed that episode. And I asked the question because I took a picture of Dan from behind and then he caught me and he gave me a very unhinged looking face and then I zoomed in and it was even more unhinged and then there's one picture of me from a few weeks ago in there, where I also think I look at least a little unhinged.
Speaker 2:from a few weeks ago in there, where I also think I look at least a little unhinged. So I asked the horde which of us has a face that is more unhinged? And we did a poll and we got nine responses between I don't know like 12 hours ago. 11% of people say that Leah looks like they're lost at the hinge store. Yeah, you got lost there. Thanks everybody.
Speaker 1:Looking for those hinges.
Speaker 2:But 89% overwhelming, dan, you've won the presidency of everybody Looking for those hinges. But 89% overwhelming, dan, you've won the presidency of Unhinged. Dan's face is fresh out of hinges.
Speaker 1:It's corrupt. This whole voting poll is rigged. The machines have an algorithm and that algorithm made you vote for me and I'm not going to change it because that means that I win.
Speaker 2:so I don't know why I'm arguing I wasn't paying attention because I was scrolling through the comments life updates leah leah, we have life updates we do you know, for a first, um nero has a life update oh, we're gonna start there okay yeah, nero, do you want to give your life update?
Speaker 1:Only Ziggy's here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, nero's. Well, that's fair. That actually tracks right now because Nero is recovering from eating something he shouldn't have.
Speaker 1:Well, Nero wrote his life update so I'll just read it. Okay, he said that he had to spend the night in the hospital, but the food was good and the doctors were nice. I barked to let them know I was feeling better that is such a sweet letter from nero yeah, he had to spend the night at the hospital. Yeah, he did um, he had to have some x-rays. Uh, he's okay now, but he, he was, uh, he was throwing up. He was just acting really weird. He was very stumbly like he was.
Speaker 2:He looked very confused, he was just, he looked miserable, he was, his hair was falling out, he was molting he was so sick and the vet asked us because he was staring into a wall and like swaying a little bit, yeah, and she was like, is there any chance he's consumed some cannabis? And I was like, yeah, I guess that that is possible, but that was not the case actually that would have been such a more interesting story yeah, still terrible. I don't know what he ate we.
Speaker 1:We assume it might have been a stick or like a small piece of charcoal from our fire pet maybe, but it obstructed his, his intestine and uh and he, he could not digest things and it really hurt his stomach yeah, and he puked a lot and I for those of you who don't want to know, I'm not going to give you dirty details, but it was gross and it was scary, yeah, and he was, he kept us all.
Speaker 2:He kept us up the first night before we took him to the vet, all night pretty much, and he was just really distressed, like pacing back and forth and acting really really strange and then vomiting a lot, yeah, a lot of food. Yeah, I think he'd stolen ziggy's food because there was so much.
Speaker 1:That's all I'm gonna say.
Speaker 2:And then all of a sudden he's like also, I'm not that, none of this is moving through my body yeah, and now, I'm now, I'm fucked so the first x-ray showed showed that he had three obstructions in his small intestine and then they kept him overnight because the radiologist was worried about it and they said he needed an IV to recover, which I think made a big difference in some anti-nausea medication. And then they rechecked his x-rays in the morning and gave us a call at 6 am saying that two of the three obstructions had resolved themselves so he could come home.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the best news of all, we went for a walk and nero pooped yes which was like the first time in like days that we'd seen him do that. Yeah, that that made me really happy yeah, he's eating, he's being sweet.
Speaker 2:The one weird like side fact I want to share is that Nero is a Southern boy. Both the dogs are Southern boys, got them in Georgia, both rescues. One of them, ziggy, I found in our front yard abandoned. And then Nero is basically feral and whatever experiences he had had with humans were really, really bad, because he was very afraid of people.
Speaker 2:The only person he had trust in was the person who had rescued him when I got him, and it took a lot of time to build that trust, and one of the first things that I noticed when he finally let me touch him, which was like days and days after him coming to my house, was that on his left side there was like this little round nub thing inside of him and I didn't know what it was. And somebody said to me at some point like oh, that might be a BB gun pellet. And I was like what, who does that? So it was the first thing that the vet asked us when they came back out after looking at his x-rays Like did you know that Nero has a BB pellet in his side? And I was like, damn it, it's true. And then she told me that she'd worked with a lot of animal rescues that bring dogs up north from the south.
Speaker 1:And apparently it.
Speaker 2:It's incredibly common that people shoot their dogs with bb pellets, yeah, or just stray dogs, I guess.
Speaker 1:Birdshot for coming onto their land?
Speaker 2:yeah, she said that, like sometimes they'd have hundreds of of bbs in them and because they just fired birdshot from a shotgun it's really upsetting to think about and it also helps me piece together why he really didn't like humans and still requires a proper introduction to trust people birdshot is a really weird choice.
Speaker 1:Like, like you know, I I get it that there's a lot of stray dogs in the south and like maybe there's people that are like I don't want all these stray stray dogs on my land, so I'm gonna start shooting them. Like I kind of understand that, but birdshot's not gonna do it, it's not gonna kill a dog, and like they have to know that I don't think they want to kill them, they just want to scare them and seem to think it's okay to shoot them with birdshot.
Speaker 1:I don't get the logic, sorry well, it's a messed up logic, but I at least understand some of it.
Speaker 2:You know I don't agree with it, but I get it it's the kind of logic that allows you to think of animals as objects and not sentient beings that can feel pain and suffer yeah, it's like they also shoot their stop signs true stop signs and stray dogs I remember this one little boy at a farm where we kept our horse atlas for a while, who loved to shoot squirrels with bb pellets and he just hated squirrels. I'm like why do you hate squirrels? They're just up there in their tree being stupid.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I hate squirrels Hates them.
Speaker 2:Okay, a little disturbing, I don't know, so teaching him young.
Speaker 1:He was fairly normal at other capacities, but when it came to squirrels, well you know what Him and Nero got along in that respect. They both hate squirrels.
Speaker 2:That's true. Dan or Dan hates squirrels. Dan hate squirrels. That's true. Dan or Dan hates squirrels. Dan loves squirrels. I love squirrels. We saved a baby squirrel. We did that's a very long ago life update. We saved a couple day old baby squirrel that fell out of the nest. Yeah, his name was Stevie. Yeah, he told us that. Yeah, we took him to the local his eyes weren't even open.
Speaker 1:He was a. He was naked. It was a naked squirrel that fit inside of the palm of my hand. It was so tiny, yeah, and we saved it, and now it's a big, strong squirrel, probably dead now because they don't live for very long, yeah.
Speaker 2:But hopefully Stevie had a good life. I think he did so. You know, I feel like when I tell this story it feels so anticlimactic, but the experience of it was not good. We didn't sleep for two nights, basically, and I love Nero but he's 12 years old and so I'm aware that every day I get with him is like precious. He's getting older, he has arthritis and you know when those things happen, you're like is this it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you also have to think, like you know at what? At what point do you not take on $10,000 worth of debt?
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, this is where I have the PSA about. I know pet insurance sucks. I know, frankly, private health insurance sucks. Sorry, if you like it, I'm a Canadian, I don't. It's dumb, that's another podcast.
Speaker 2:I can just tell you from my lived experience, living in a place where you don't have to worry about medical bills is really good for your health, shockingly, and also results in a longer lifespan. Regardless, we got Nero and Ziggy pet insurance after my horse, atlas died, because he was a very expensive pet friend of mine that I loved a lot and he took a lot of money. So when he, when he died, another thing that I did was give them pet insurance because I couldn't afford it before that. So if you're one of those people in that situation where you couldn't afford it, totally get it, or can't afford it right now, totally get it. But I will say that it saved us thousands of dollars. Yeah, in this circumstance, and I felt very grateful that we did, and I'm gonna try my best to always have pet insurance from now on.
Speaker 1:The earlier you can get it, the better. Yeah, because they, they like, they like to uh, to point out when they think that something is a pre-existing condition yeah they're like. They're like. You know, this says this injury from a recent car accident. We think it was pre-existing. This dog's always been. I am a little worried because I submitted the claim.
Speaker 2:I am a little worried they're gonna come back with some bullshit, but hopefully not. We'll see.
Speaker 1:My life update, leah, this is, you know, over the past couple of months. This is a past couple of months update. I've been talking about it a little bit on threads, but I've been making a lot of writing progress, which I'm really happy about. I usually don't write during the work season because there's no time, um, and it's it's usually just a really good time to reflect on what I've written over the winter time. Um, but this, this year, I decided to do things a little bit differently because I was able to make uh transcription work with otter, uh, otter, ai, um, so I can like trend, I can vocally write with my mouth and uh.
Speaker 1:Previous years I did not have good success with this. Like I couldn't understand what I was saying. The background noise was too high. I couldn't make it work with my headset, the. The accuracy of the transcription was so bad that, like it was unreadable and to an extent it's still not 100 at all, but, um. But I can, for the most part, get the things that I'm saying down on paper so that I can understand it at least yeah, it's a good first draft.
Speaker 2:And where are you at in your book now? Um, I don't know like are you done the first act, you in the second act, or do you feel like you're in multiple places with different characters?
Speaker 1:Because I know you're writing, I am definitely in multiple different places, okay, but I, at the end of this winter, I realized that all of my writing, I'd only gotten to the end of the first act. Wow, because I'm kind of pantsing a little bit. I started with a plan and then, as I started writing things, so many things changed, so many things got fleshed out and I realized, oh, this thing that I thought was the whole book, actually it's just the first act. Wow. I realized, oh, this thing that I thought was the whole book, actually it's just the first act. Wow. And that's where I got to at the beginning of the work season and since then I've probably my best estimate is that I've written about 50,000 words since.
Speaker 2:April Wow Sorry.
Speaker 1:I thought that was like total.
Speaker 2:Yeah, how many words are in a book 80,000 usually is.
Speaker 1:Is that's like a short your book is going to be a long book.
Speaker 2:It's going to be like a 12 hour lesson Probably.
Speaker 1:But what this also allows me to do is it allows me to write things that I have no intention of putting in the book. Oh, so sometimes I'll just I'll just write something because I'm like I need to know what happens at this point of the story. I need to know it so that the story after has this information. I have to figure it out Interesting. The only way I'm going to figure that out is by writing it. Or I usually just write it with the intention that it's like, oh, this will be part of the book. But then when I finish it I'm like, well, this was good for me to know, but it's probably not part of my book. Yeah, it's the part where you kill your darlings, yeah, and then some things. I'm like that was good, but I don't think it belongs in this book, and maybe I'll just recycle this for a book after.
Speaker 2:I have an important question. Yeah, are any of the characters I really love dead? I'm not going to answer that Ah. I get this really weird like version of the book, in the sense that I hear little updates from Dan when we're on walks. He's like, oh, I figured this out with this character and this thing happened that I never expected with this person, that I didn't even realize was going to be a main character. But now they are.
Speaker 1:And then I get invested in all these people yeah, and then you're like so what happened to so-and-so? And I'm like who?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, one time you're like, oh yeah, she's not really important anymore. I'm like what you really sold me on ludmilla, what's going on?
Speaker 1:uh, you know what that's. That's a good example. I wrote this character um, ludmilla and um, and she, she, she does have a big role in that story, but what I'm realizing is that I think she is like a character for my second book Interesting, okay.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm glad to hear that she's still going to be around, because I enjoy her Her story. Well, in completely opposite news, I guess not. I guess it's good my feet are healing, yeah, and for those of you who have been listening for a long time, you know I've been complaining about that on a biweekly basis with you for quite a while on this podcast. The experimental treatment that I got I think it's like three months ago now. I would say I don't even think I had noticed a difference, actually until Molly came to visit a few weeks ago and Molly was like you're on your feet more, like you seem to be a little bit better. And then I was like, huh, I guess I am doing better. And I would just say, incrementally, I'm feeling like I can do more, like yesterday.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna list briefly all the things I did because I felt very accomplished. I watered the garden, I cleaned up the pool that's all standing stuff, feet stuff. I uh, what else did I do? I tidied up the house also feet stuff. I showered, which is also feet stuff. Uh. I made lunch, which is feet stuff, wow, yeah, and there was lots of other stuff I did. Thank you, thank you, I would say I was probably on my feet for like 90 minutes yesterday, maybe even two hours that's like double the amount of time that you would ever be able to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah I was.
Speaker 2:I was like this winter I was keeping it around 20 minutes, so almost nothing. So I'm excited. Uh, my feet. Do my feet hurt today? Yes, but is it unbearable? No, so I'm feeling good about that.
Speaker 1:My back's hurting less.
Speaker 2:That's good, you were not. You were not well off last week.
Speaker 1:Yeah, last week I was almost like Don't tell the VA, it's feeling better, dan.
Speaker 2:Last week I was almost like Don't tell the VA, it's feeling better, dan. Last week I was almost immobile. Yeah, you were in really rough shape. We tried to go for a walk and just like the slight incline of the walk was hurting you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was just like, I'm just going to lay down.
Speaker 2:Bodies are precious and complicated and we do our best with what we've got. You know, that's what it comes down to, but I will say I have gratitude for being able to walk at all because of this experience. So yeah, that's a big thing.
Speaker 1:Well that makes me really happy that, yeah, you're feeling better yeah, I have.
Speaker 2:I, for the first time in a long time, I have hoped for the future. Wow, what's that like? Well, only in the future of my feet specifically, and it's still tempered hope. I think I'll always have to be careful, but, um, yeah, I'm not talking about the shit storm. That is our world, which we'll get into in a minute. Oh, we're gonna talk about the shit storm. Yes, before we get into said shit storm, which I really actually that visual when I actually think about the word shit storm together, I don't know if anyone else is imagining a tornado of shit yeah but that is what I'm imagining.
Speaker 2:It's not. It's not a good. It's not a good visual, but it's where I'm going, anyhow, for a brief period of time. I had five days off last week and all I did was lie in the sun in our very lopsided, under inflated pool and looked at the clouds go by very high, and it was wonderful. We're gonna do that after we finish this recording, actually some more. I don't get to be high, though I'm probably not gonna be high today. I was high yesterday and take a break, yeah I'm really jealous.
Speaker 1:I wish I could be high today. I was high yesterday. I'm going to take a break. Yeah, I'm really jealous.
Speaker 2:I wish I could be high Soon. We have a plan, actually a little sneak peek for the future when Dan's done work for the season, or forever because of your disability rating we're going to watch Zombie Beavers, but first I'm going to make Dan get very high and I think I'm going to make we record the episode while we're watching it.
Speaker 1:Possibly we could actually.
Speaker 2:That's a great way. We could have a screen over here in the zombie bunker. Yeah, get our comfy chairs. I love it. All right, so those are our life updates. Let's talk about zombies in the news. Is there zombies in the news? This is kind of old news, but we haven't talked about it, so I feel like we have to talk about it. And there's a slight twist to this news, which is that tina romero, the daughter of george romero, is working on a film right now, this summer, called queens of the dead. Did you know this, dan? You knew this.
Speaker 2:I knew this because you've told me about it yeah, um, I'm gonna just read the plot briefly for you all, because I'm very, very excited about this and you're about to see why. If you do not yet know about queens of the dead, queens of the dead drops the classic romero zombie outbreak onto the sexy sequined fablo of a drag show in a queer new york nightclub. Yes, what? Is a fablo I don't know, maybe it's fabulous and a tab, a fabulous tableau, I think that's accurate. That checks out.
Speaker 2:It takes place over one night, at the beginning of the Dead Rising. We find ourselves at a big warehouse party in Bushwick. We've got a party promoter for whom everything's going wrong and her lead act is dropped out. So she needs to call upon a friend, a retired drag queen. If this isn't RuPaul, it's gotta be RuPaul or it's gotta be Latrice Royale. Actually, I take that back. I would really love it to be latrice royale.
Speaker 1:What if it's not a drag queen at all and it's like matthew mcconaughey? It?
Speaker 2:says retired drag queen. I believe in tina romero. They're not gonna do some bullshit, yeah.
Speaker 1:But if mcconaughey was like'm on board, I'm on board for this zombie movie. He just comes in and is like, hey guys, I want to do the zombie movie and I'll do the drag queen role. I think they'd probably say, yes, you want to get a big name on that ticket, but you know, if it's RuPaul, that is a big name. So you know, I take it back.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think RuPaulul would be incredible. He couldn't pull it off. Uh, bob the drag queen would be great. I'm trying to find the name of this one very funny drag queen. I cannot believe I'm forgetting her name. I feel terrible right now. All right, here's every winner of rupaul's drag race. Let me scroll down here. Okay, I'm gonna scroll down every winners of rupaul's drag race and I'm gonna say yes or no, whether I want to see them as the lead on this show. Okay, bb sahara bene. Season one yes, I'm unfamiliar james ross, slash, tyra sanchez.
Speaker 2:Eh sure, maybe raja. Oh, okay, a raja. I know you don't, you haven't? Dan has not seen past like or before like season 10 no, I've seen like six yeah, I tried to get you to start watching season one, and it's it really is old.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the lighting is not great raja.
Speaker 2:I would be team raja being in this also sharon needles filter on everything yeah, sharon needles needs to be on it because I for those of you who have never watched drag race, listen to the name sharon needles they're like the first horror drag queen I've ever seen before yeah, I get, I get it.
Speaker 1:It's a like. The joke is that their name is sharon. Ah, here's the one I was looking for.
Speaker 2:The last name is needles yeah, the next winner is jinx. Monsoon also would be incredible, but definitely not retired. I think bianca del rio could sell it.
Speaker 2:Bianca del rio did you watch bianca del? Okay, yeah, I don't want to go any further. Those are the ones I want to see, other than I'm lying, yeah, everybody. After that it's fine. Those are the ones that I would love to see as the actual retired drag queen or just in the world of drag queens. There's so many that could be in this movie and for a long. Dan knows like. We actually almost had an episode which was just about like our dream drag queen survival crew. Oh yeah, and then I was worried that not enough people would understand who the fuck we're talking about including Dan.
Speaker 2:So let us know if you want us to do that episode, because it's been a long time on the backburner list.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I thought, I always thought that it would be a really great idea to have like a drag queen zombie apocalypse movie. A really great idea to have like a drag queen zombie apocalypse movie Like I could totally visualize like a Mad Max style drag vehicle. Yes, just roaming around with a bunch of drag queens that look scary as hell, with weird like dildo bats and going around whacking zombies and I mean, why not be fabulous in the apocalypse? Yeah, that could be the tagline all right, maybe that's our tagline yeah, do we make this movie?
Speaker 2:now? Well, I think tina romero's making it, tina call us.
Speaker 1:We have ideas.
Speaker 2:Well, on the note of tina calling us, they were actually making a call for extras for zombie hordes. And what did you say when I asked you if you wanted to be up all night to be an extra in a zombie horde in new jersey?
Speaker 1:I, I don't remember, but I probably said something like which makes you perfect for the part, yeah I I'd nail that role because I'd be like Pass my bedtime. My feet hurt, my back hurts. I want to lay down and be dead.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was really tempted to do it and I still am, and I sat with it for a couple of weeks and then I emailed them and I said, if I can't be on my feet all night, because it's from 1130 till 530 in the morning, yeah, who does that? People who are healthier than me, people who have feet that don't hurt, and there was a time where I could have been one of these people, people that don't pave for a living?
Speaker 2:Yeah, people who probably are younger and can sleep the next day, people who are closer to the shooting area, so like New Jersey, sleep the next day. People who are closer to the shooting area, so like new jersey, new yorkers would probably be what they do. This is like a five hour drive for us, plus stops, yeah, to get there. But I, they probably don't need us, they probably don't. Which is why I said I wrote an email and was like hey, I can't walk the whole time, but if you think a wheelchair zombie would be fun and there's not a ton of hills or stairs because I'd be manually wheeling myself, I'm in, in. And they said they'd let me know and I haven't heard back, so I might have been ghosted.
Speaker 1:You know what? At least they went back and said they'd let you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I thought I'd try because why not? You know, I think that'd be a really fun thing to do and it's also 13 minutes being filmed, 13 minutes away from where Dan and I met for the first time. Cl yeah. Clifton, new jersey yeah, scenic clifton, new jersey at the howard johnson. If you want to relive some romance, spend a night with your zombie in the parking lot of the howard johnson in clifton, new jersey yeah, the the world, the, the us, is most romantic city it has to be raining lightly.
Speaker 2:You have to pretend that you are. Uh, one of you is about to leave for Kuwait just after 9-11. And the other one of you is 18 years old and on a school field trip. That's me and worried that they're going to get caught by one of the teachers or their friends while making out with Dan in the car.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, just imagine all that. That's what happened.
Speaker 2:So it's like I don't want to go here Just to feed two birds with one seed, or whatever they say.
Speaker 1:That's what they say. But yeah, let us know, Tina, Tina listens.
Speaker 2:I'm sure I'm sure they don't, but I would love it if they did.
Speaker 1:They seem cool. That would be life goals if Tina Romero listened to our podcast.
Speaker 2:Here's my pitch for Tina. Tina, you need a wheelchair zombie.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Named Leah. I can do really good groans yeah give us your best groan? Oh no, I can't actually do really good groans.
Speaker 1:Leah's really good at lying about her groaning ability.
Speaker 2:I can look really dead. I'm already extremely pale.
Speaker 1:So yeah, needs very little makeup.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just put some. I can just put some black around my eyes and some blood on my face and you're good to go. You've got a zombie and a wheelchair zombie. That's different, that's fun. Also, I could glam it up. Ok, I could be a glammed up wheelchair zombie.
Speaker 1:Yeah, different, that's fun. Also, I could glam it up. Okay, I could be a glammed up wheelchair zombie, yeah, and uh, you know, do you need a zombie that looks like a human refrigerator with a bad back? I can't stand up for very long, but I I can groan, not like this liar across the table from me I think I'm just having performance anxiety right now, which I guess doesn't bode well for recording. Do you want to do? Do you want a zombie groan together?
Speaker 2:Can you do it first, so I can have it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, then you join in.
Speaker 2:Okay, Click, click click.
Speaker 1:What's the clicks? That's what some do. They chirp.
Speaker 2:They're like oh yeah, they sound like a velociraptor, look at that's my, that's my zombie dinosaur it's horrible, see, this is why I would never have done well on the evil magic chicken zombie cluck. Yeah, you wouldn't give away, I would not, in fact, we all.
Speaker 1:We still don't have shirts, and maybe this is why we haven't earned it it's true, other people have shirts and we don't have shirts.
Speaker 2:That's hilarious.
Speaker 1:Um to get some leo, let's let's move on to a far less exciting news about the apocalypse.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's currently ongoing in real life I think that's what being an elder millennial is is having witnessed the first 40 years of the apocalypse yeah, this apocalypse fucking sucks. So anyways, um, donald trump was, uh was shot yesterday and this is week old news for you all listening you already know you guys are living in the aftertimes, yeah. How is it out?
Speaker 1:there. Presumably, you're out on the roads fighting each other for gas right now, yep, and food ration cards, battling it out against roaming gangs of red hats. Um, but we're in the past, so we're just processing this information and, um, and I and I wrote some notes here about how I feel about this. Uh, do you want to hear my, my feelings about what just happened? Yeah, please do, let me know. Fuck, fuck, not that kind. No, oh my god, I already had existential dread and now I have to. I'm going to have to witness where everybody else is a week from now. We're gonna have to witness all that up until one week from now, where, uh, we, we see all of the, the right-wing nutters come out of the woodwork and be like, oh, president, biden assassinated, or tried to assassinate donald trump.
Speaker 1:It was. It was an inside job. It's. It wasn't even a real gun there's.
Speaker 2:There's no such thing as guns and then we're gonna have a left-wing conspiracy theorist, which I'm gonna admit. I'm gonna just admit it. I did have this thought. My first thought when dan told me was they set this up, and then I was like, whoa leah, slow down. Conspiracy theory, like that would have that. That would have to been the level of like, uh, what's the word?
Speaker 1:uh, marksmanship to be able to oh yeah exit to just shoot trump in the ear from from 200 meters away trying to just clip the ear on somebody. That'd be, I mean, it's not impossible, but you would have to be pretty skilled and very confident that you were just going to completely turn somebody's head into a fucking canoe yeah, can you?
Speaker 2:can you debunk a few things for myself and listeners, because I need. I need to like walk away from my own conspiracy, paranoia, because that's what I actually think is scary about this to me is that all of us are I shouldn't say all of us many of us, including myself, may feel very tempted to just go there and like it's only going to polarize us further and lead to civil war. I don't know, you know maybe.
Speaker 1:Let me let me hit you with some of the first ones I heard. Ok, because this was before they knew who the shooter was, where it came from, before they knew anything. This is like 20 minutes after it happened. The first conspiracy theories I saw were that it sounded like a BB gun or an airsoft rifle. And no the fuck it didn't, Because if that was the case you would have never heard it. You might have heard maybe like a click, because you know BB guns are not that powerful. Yeah, I'm sorry, it's just a little tiny spring with some compressed air but it's a little tiny ball.
Speaker 2:They timed the sound of a gun while there was a time that being shot yeah, oh, and what do they find I'm hearing?
Speaker 1:oh, okay, well, um, immediately, when I when I saw the video of it, I'm like, yeah, that those bullets are breaking the sound barrier. I know that sound anywhere. And what they were hearing was not necessarily the gunshots, because the gunshots were about 200 meters away. They probably heard pop, pop pop in the distance, but what the camera heard was the crack of the bullet whizzing by. Oh, wow, most rifle rounds will break the sound barrier, got it? So you'll actually hear. When you're down range of a shot. You'll hear like a lightning strike, like thunder passing by your head.
Speaker 2:Okay, what about this and then? You hear a pop a few seconds later Got it. What about this left-wing conspiracy? I've already heard, which is that it was clearly planned because the secret service didn't really do anything and the crowd cheered.
Speaker 1:They. They did exactly what they were trying to do. Like they rushed in and they covered, like they dogpiled on top of them and covered him. And while they were ushering him off the side of the stage because that's the only direction they can go is to the side there's no, there's no escape hatch in the bottom of the stage that goes through a tube into a fucking mech robot so he can shoot into space or whatever. Like he just has to walk off the side of the stage to his armored SUV and drive away. That's all he can do. Yeah, so that's what they did. And for the people that are like yeah, but he was like posing for the camera and it's like the Secret Service didn't want him like reaching through them and like shaking his fist, fist, bumping the crowd, they were trying to like cover him with their hands and arms so that the shooter couldn't follow up. Another shot.
Speaker 2:Do you think Trump's trauma response is fight?
Speaker 1:Well, he dropped to the ground first. That was definitely a freeze response, um, and then and then he went to fight like that that was, that was definitely a moment of defiance and like I've, like I saw the look on his face when he got up. That's the look of fear, that is. That is somebody who's afraid for their life. Like he was shaken up, his comb over, went straight. You could see his full noggin in a way that nobody's ever seen that noggin before.
Speaker 2:If you can tell, I have chosen not to watch this because I have chosen not to watch it. There are things I choose to witness and there's things that I don't, and this is on the. I'm not watching this, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I'm relying on you, you dan, for the news on this one. Yeah, and like to to stage something and have it be fake. That's, that's not how you would do it. They used live rounds and like, fired close enough to his head to nick his ear. That's just not.
Speaker 2:That's not likely, it's not feasible yeah, it's just really scary in this world, where people have so little trust in anybody, particularly in each other, if we're coming from different points of view and don't trust the news so like this is just not going to be, this is not going to be good. So what I want to really just say to everybody listening is take care of yourself, and I think it's important to be extra vigilant about what we're reading and the things that we're hearing, because I know that I definitely had the impulse in the first like minute of hearing this to say this was a conspiracy, and I don't think that it is. Does that make it any less, um, disturbing or concerning? I guess it's a different kind of disturbing and concerning if it's not a conspiracy, but either way, it's a mess out here in the united states. So just to take care of yourself and try and remain somewhat of objectivity.
Speaker 2:It's hard. I really wanted to believe that he did it to himself. Just would have made it easier. I think that's why these things are so easy to get into, because that just would have been an easier and simpler explanation for what happened.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, you know something I think that we should remember. I think that the people that listen to us are of reasonable and sound mind with good rationalization abilities. That's why they dissect the zombie apocalypse is because they think deeper about things. And if you find yourselves kind of falling into this like going down rabbit holes and trying to find the reason that things are not the way that they are presented and like going down the path of conspiracy theories, is just try to understand that the reason that you're going to believe a conspiracy theory is because you want to, and I think we all wanted the story to be different than what it was.
Speaker 1:People didn't want to believe that it was real. They wanted to believe that it was staged, they wanted to believe that it was a BB gun or a prank or a hoax. And that's just because they don't want to believe that that actually happened or that there was any legitimacy to the threat to Trump's life, and because there's a threat to Trump's life that gives him this legitimacy of actually being a victim, instead of just complaining about being a victim, which he's been doing for a very long time, even though he actually isn't a victim.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's going to be like a martyr, even though he didn't die, and it's going to be weird out there. I also just want to say we're spending a lot of time talking about this Meanwhile. Yesterday, 98 Palestinians were killed, 186 injured. In Gaza, israel massacred a gathering of palestinians praying praying near ruins of a mosque, killing 22 in shanti refugee camp in the north, hours after massacring 90 plus in a safe zone in al-mawasi. That's just a quick clip from a thing that I follow, but I'm sharing that to put all of this in context and say you know, biden, showing compassion for donald trump but refusing to acknowledge the humanity of palestinians is really fucking annoying.
Speaker 1:That's all yeah, I'm done. Everything's really fucking annoying. All of it, just all of this. I'm just this apocalypse sucks. Yeah, I want the zombie apocalypse that we were promised well, I have one silver lining about all of this.
Speaker 2:after this happened because saturday night's our date night Jan and I started profusely flirting with each other by talking about how it was the end times and that this might be our last moment together, and you can imagine where that went. But I had a moment where I was like, wow, this is our life. Now we are using the fucking attempted assassination of a presidential candidate to like get it on, we're dark, we're dark, it's a dark day out there you know, I think the the um, the wisdom to take away from that is that you have to live every moment like it's your last.
Speaker 1:That's true, and especially in these times when everything is so uncertain, like like really everybody like be extra careful out there now, because there's like it's. It's like it's like when there's a full moon and all the nut jobs come out, like this is the full moon of the apocalypse. It's. It's like the people are going to be out there like really upset and wanting to do something about it, and I'm afraid that a lot of bad things are going to happen because of this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, not going to lie, I want to look at the astrology of yesterday, but that's not this podcast either.
Speaker 1:Maybe next one yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and also I'm curious folks like how do you function in this world? How, how do you do it? Yeah, and also I'm curious folks like how do you function in this world?
Speaker 1:How, how do you do it? Yeah, asking for a friend.
Speaker 2:What brings you some joy? Is it also zombies? I guess so, because you're listening to us talk about them. On a much better apocalyptic note the kind of apocalypse I want to immerse myself in we have our second author's elevator pitch segment, this episode from Gerard Clark. Oh, wow, gerard, how do you feel following that up? Well, gerard is a bit of an international fellow. They grew up in Ireland, they lived both in the US and Canada, and so they say that they draw their stories from a very goal perspective and really hope that that's reflected in their writing. So I think Gerard might have a very interesting take on this, because they've lived a lot of different places. Yeah, and sometimes I'm worried, even though I'm Canadian and I've traveled a lot, that the longer I live in the US, the more myopic I get about what is happening in the rest of the world, because it's really easy, because it's dramatic here all the time, especially when so much is happening here yeah, so much is happening here, yeah it's hard to think about any place else.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So before we play the audio of Gerard Clark's elevator pitch for his book the End, I'm going to just read a brief description of it.
Speaker 1:That's what you say at the end of the book, not on the cover the End.
Speaker 2:The End is a fast-paced, action-packed zombie apocalypse story that will keep you turning pages until the very end. It's taken me a few years to complete juggling my career and family life, but I'm incredibly proud of the final result.
Speaker 1:I know how that feels.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was immediately when I read Gerard's email. I thought like, yeah, dan gets this. Yeah, so we're going to go ahead and play a clip so everybody can learn more about this book. And you should definitely go check it out and learn more about gerard clark. And you should check out gerard's instagram it's at gerard clark author and also go to his amazon author page. There'll be a link to the book there to support him. It's really important to always give some love to our indie authors out there. All right, dan, are you ready to get in the elevator?
Speaker 1:I'm ready. Um what, uh? What floor should I hit? Uh 52 oh, just because we're already on 50.
Speaker 2:We are, yeah, so just two floors oh well, um so what fast it went fast last time. Yeah, let's go. Two floors up to 52 are you ready? Let's listen to gerard.
Speaker 3:All right, hit the button I'm jared clark, author of the end. If you crave a heart-pounding post-apocalyptic tale, then this novel is for you. The world ended not with a bang, but with a groan. Lieutenant Commander William Hawkins, a decorated soldier, finds himself on the front lines of a horrific new reality a zombie apocalypse. As the dead rise and civilization crumbles, hawkins realizes the fight for the country might already be lost. His one purpose becomes ensuring the survival of his family. But escaping the hordes of the undead is only the first challenge. The end plunges us into a world where the biggest threats come not just from the decaying flesh eaters, but from the desperate survivors who would stop at nothing to take what you have. The end is a story of resilience, of a family banding together in a world measured in bullets and blood. It's a fight for survival against all odds. The End is available now exclusively on Amazon, in paperback or download on Kindle or Kindle Unlimited.
Speaker 2:That was great.
Speaker 1:Gerard. Yeah, that sounds pretty good. That's exactly what I'm looking for in a zombie apocalypse book. What especially about it. It sounds exciting, yeah, yeah, it sounds like a fun time.
Speaker 2:You can tell he's a good writer just from that description. Yeah, that's a good description Like blood and bullets. I love a good alliteration and I feel like there's a little bit of assonance there too, a little bit.
Speaker 1:Because you got the blah, blah, blah and the blah blah, blah and the blah Is I failed English class, so Assonance is when you're repeating a vowel and alliteration is when you're repeating a consonant.
Speaker 2:And now I need to look those things up because I've been a real long time Consonant. Let's see if I'm right. You know what? Who knows? We're just going to go with it.
Speaker 1:No, one knows no one knows, the internet knows. But what's more important here is you should check out Gerard Clark's book the English.
Speaker 2:Language is a Mystery. We've downloaded it on Kindle. We're going to listen to it or not listen to it. Read it eventually. It's on our To Be Read list. Yeah, and we really appreciate you, gerard, for participating in the elevator pitch.
Speaker 1:Thanks for riding the elevator.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:We're at the 52 now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we'll have to see you later, gerard, have a good day.
Speaker 2:This is a big building it is. Before we move on, I would just like to say, gerard, you could definitely read your own audiobook. You've got a great reading voice. Give us an audiobook. I think it's the combined accent of a lot of living different places. You just have a very good, crisp, clear voice, but also like a bit of a different and interesting timber. That was really lovely to listen to. So, sidebar, you could also make a living at doing voiceovers, if you're not currently yeah, I'd be into it.
Speaker 1:You know who. I don't know who is talking about what was me which means it's the end of the episode, because I could no longer make words. Yeah, we need to go out into our pool now. Yeah, it's pool time, possibly hammock time also.
Speaker 2:I need to cook several pizzas yeah, it's pizza night, pool time, hammock time, so we're gonna end this one, but before we do, we are only. This is episode 52, so there's only two more episodes before we're talking about the remaining something. Oh, this is episode 33, so there's only one more episodes before we're talking about the remaining something.
Speaker 1:Oh, this is episode 33.
Speaker 2:So there's only one more episode. Only one more episode that we do not talk about the remaining by DJ Molle.
Speaker 1:Yeah, have you read it? I have read it.
Speaker 2:I am hooked. I have so much to say about it, uh, and I need more. It's exciting. However, things happen that I'm not happy about. Yeah, that'll happen. This person definitely kills your darlings and DJ. I accept that that's what I was in for when reading this book, but I did realize when reading this book and other zombie literature in general, there's a lot of times where I'm like can't we just have like a nice story where, like, things go well in the zombie apocalypse?
Speaker 1:That would be a truly unique thing if, like you know, in my all turns in my book, everything um goes really well, yeah, all the humans die, and then, uh, the the world returns to being a normal planet, got it?
Speaker 2:yeah, happy ending mean. In some ways, that is a good thing, because our world is very beautiful and Western civilization has really contributed to it. The rapid demise of many animals via what's called the era of the Anthropocene, where more animals are going extinct than literally ever before, all at the same time. That's us, that's what we did, that's why it's called the. Anthropocene, because it's humans. We did it. We are noticed on the geological record of billions of years folks, we did it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know what?
Speaker 2:That's awesome. That's what I think about every time I buy something from Walmart. I'm like here I am contributing my little human.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we contributed.
Speaker 2:We definitely did. We pitched in on the device.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening. Everyone. We contributed to the downfall of civilization and thousands of species of animals during this podcast episode. So thanks for listening and we'll see you next week.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the end is nigh. Stay safe out there.
Speaker 1:It's so nigh, it's really nigh. The end is Bill Nigh the science guy the science out there.
Speaker 2:It's so nice, really nice.
Speaker 1:The end is bill nye the science guy, that's true.
Speaker 2:Watch that show. All right, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye. We'll have fun stitching that one together, jesus.
