World War Z - As True as Story as any Other

Here's a short post cuz it's a holiday for me. And look...I've had time to READ.

If you haven't read it you simply must investigate a spectacular piece of literature called World War Z. No matter what your opinion of zombies or Armageddon or post-apocalyptic nightmares may be this book is most definitely worth your time. It's a 12 hour read, if you're hungry and how many episodes of fill in the blank can you watch in that amount of time, anyway?

Don't like to read? Read this.
Hate zombies cuz they're stupid? It's not about "zombies" .... it's an extended metaphor.
Don't like gore? This is more political than gory.
Can't afford it? Ask around and borrow it.
Think it's for geeks? Only geeks who like to study the human psyche and spirit.
Figure it's another bit of pulp some Hollywood dork will just turn into the next blockbuster starring some old fart like Bruce Willis? Not a chance. Well, not the first part. This is not pulp, despite the recent resurgence of zombie pulp covering the bookshelves. And here's hoping to the supreme light that Hollywood just leaves this one alone! (As if.)

Now, if the Brits got their hands on it and turned it into a mini-series, we could talk. They did such a stellar job with (WARNING GORY IMAGERY) Dead Set.

This book is a collection of interviews from around the globe after a 10 year pandemic destroys most of our planet. Billions of people dead. Some undead, some killed by their own governments, some killed in combat, some suicides. Grim stuff but brilliant stuff, nonetheless.

Max Brooks where have you been hiding? WTF that this is your first "novel"? WTF? That I should be so talented to come up with this! And, damn, it's smart. SMART. Thank the supreme blast of energy that you're at least 36 years of age because if you were any younger I'd lose my poo. That means I'm not too far off from accomplishing something significant like this book.

(I'm supposed to write a book, see? And I keep hearing that you have to write from your expereince. CLEARLY THAT IS A LOAD OF DUMP! It's not like this Max Brooks guy can have possibly lived any of THIS? Come on. So now I know I can write a book and it can be about anything. I wish I wrote this book. I do, I do!)

Er...yeah, the book.... eerily prophetic. And retrospective at the same time (I think those things go hand in had anyways). And proof that when it comes, whatever it is, whenever it is, we will not be prepared. We're too cocky to be prepared. We're kind of too sure we'd be prepared to be prepared. We're too busy navel gazing and spitting over the fence of our neighbours and shooting snuff films and buying stuff we don't need and watching Survivor and stuff....

This book scared the poo out of me. Not because there were zombies eating folk - whatever. Seen it a thousand times in a thousand movies and graphic novels and whatever. It was scary because every reaction, every proposed solution, every possible retaliation or evasion or ANYTHING we could come up with was mostly USELESS.

I'm so rambling in this post but who cares? You could be reading the book instead of reading this post, you know?

Max Brooks thought of everything! You don't think so? I dare you to read it and come up with a solution to the zombie problem that wasn't already covered. I don't care who you are or where you come from...Brooks has got you covered. It's like this guy went into a trance and transported himself to different places on Earth and envisioned a swarm of zombies coming at him. He transmogrified into a citizen of every country he could think of. Every region on our planet. The most remote locations. He's a soldier. He's a soccer mom. He's a sensei. He's a minister. He's in Chile. In Japan. In Slovakia. In Antarctica. In Canada. In North Korea. In France. He planned. He stragegy-ized. He armed. Every piece of technology he could think of. Small armies. Large armies. Traps. Dogs. Water. Trenches. Battle axes. Heavy metal.

Anything you can think of he covered.

And it's all for naught. The zombies just keep coming. Under water. Outer space. Under ground. Over hill and dale. In a Chippendales! (Okay not in a Chippendales.)

And let me tell you something else before you say "OUTER SPACE?! COME ON NOW YOU'RE TALKING PULP FICTION FOR SHIZZLE!...Before you say that, think about it...some government somewhere would eventually put a team out there so HUSH. The book is INSANELY realistic. So real it will scare the poo out of you too, Shmoo. The creepiest part about it is that it could happen. Oh, maybe not the walking dead but....it could happen. No matter what the military system, political system, cultural system....ANY SYSTEM any where on the planet....NO SYSTEMS....there's some poor schmuk telling his/her tale from that particular perspective. And it's terrifying.

But surely a country as populated as China can take on a mass of zombies? No.
But surely the Arctic is a safe haven? Nope.
But surely a country with nulcear weapons? LOL.
But surely people pulled together and strategy-ized and .... and.... not so much.

This is one of the most gripping, couldn't put it down, eerie, creepy books I have......Yeah yeah, you've heard this all before just read it already.

It's TONS OF FUN!

OH! Canada

Previously, I wrote about our Canadian culture breeding boring TV and now I'm revisiting that. I feel like I want to stream about that.

And, oh...yeahhhhh....I'm not calling it blogging because I don't really edit much and I don't necessarily read this with a critical eye when I'm done. So I'm calling it streaming instead of blogging because it's so stream of consciousness-y and all.

Deal.

Anyway...what was I streaming? Oh yeah, that Canadian collective unconscious called NICE, is all well and good but it has direct repercussions on things like our television and our government and our syrup. That begs the question "What happens when we stop being NICE?"

Who's just nice anyway? There has to be more to it that just NICE. That's too vague. And the just nice guy never gets laid. And if he does guess what the review is - "It was nice." Great. Sounds like the perfect reason to waste some KY.

And since there's begging involved let's ask again - What if we stop being NICE? Do we get good TV? Yes.

What's good TV for NICE people who stop being nice???? PARLIAMENT TV! That's what. Good TV in Canada means Question Period - Prime Time. It's like COPS but without any running. It's a bunch of politicians saying "FREEZE or I'll vote your head off!"

You just know a bunch of these guys were sitting around at the cottage with a beer thinking "Hey....what's with that American election being so INTERESTING? An election can be interesting? People can get emotional and....and....CARE? How do we get Canadians to care? We could try a cous. I guess. Ok. Sure let's call the opposition and make sure we don't wear the same thing and then form a coup."

Yeah that's right I'm streaming about all those guys on the hill. You know we should call this drama THE PARLIAMENT HILLS. Cuz there's back talk and rumors and lying and he said and she said and no cool music but still....it's like Spencer and Heidi all of a sudden.

Except there is no all of a sudden. You don't just wake up one day and there's a tree on your front lawn ALL OF A SUDDEN. Somewhere, some time, someone had to plant a seed and day by day that tree has been a-growing so there's no all of a sudden.

Why should Americans have all the fun elections? Why do we get our measly in-and-out-like-the-wind October 14th? And they get THE MOST SIGNIFICANT ELECTION ever? We want our MTV too! THE PARLIAMENT HILLS coalition deal was inevitable. So quit your "WTF happened?" attitude, Prime Minister Harper. You knew they were going to elope. You knew that relationship might blossom and they'd come and to usurp the throne. It was inevitable.

All that being blogged...In good old fashioned Canadian tradition we canceled the entertaining TV before it even began and now parliament is suspended until we get distracted by something else. Thanks guv'ner. Now what are we going to watch? Well there's always the NEW Anne of Green Gables. Starring that great Canadian actress Shirley Maclaine. Oh wait she's not Canadian. Maybe she's part of that alliance that's trying to take down our country and burn our flag! She doesn't even look Canadian. I don't trust her. Vote her out!

Nah. Keep her in. Maybe she'll have an out of body experience on the show and something good will happen on that show. On the plains. In olden times. In the school house. Or on the path. Or in the barn. Or in town or something.

Maybe it will be like Skins.

Yeah.

Non, Je Regrette Rien!

Yeah so yesterday I watched La Mome okay and WTF that has to be the most saddest life story I've ever heard! For real that is like the REAL version of Eddie Murphy's aunt Bunny falling down the stairs - but not funny. Edith Piaf lived one bad thing after another after another after another. It was like torture watching this movie. Don't get me wrong, I don't regret watching it, it was just harder to watch than I expected. It's like that cloud level in the Simpsons latest video game for DS. Or the first time you try the caves level in Little Big Planet.

Spoiler spoiler:

So little Edith....
Abandoned by her mother who left her with her mother
Abandoned by her grandmother and then rescued by her father
Abandoned by her father who left her to live with his mother in a whorehouse
Was finally taken to breast by a whore
She went blind
She went unblind
Was then torn from that relationship by her father who forced her to work in the circus (no, really)
Abandoned by her father again
Lived on the streets and sang for food
Became an alcoholic
Got discovered by a gay guy who put her on stage and became her surrogate father (WTF Gerard Depardieu of all people. Can anyone say whatever happened to???)
She gained some fame
He got murdered by the mob (???)
SHE WAS ACCUSED OF PARTICIPATING (???)
She got taken in by another “agent” who treated her like garbage but taught her to use her arms (and somehow that was crucial)
Somewhere in there she met a man, got pregnant, abandoned her own daughter who then died of menengitis
At some point Piaf became a super star singer and met Marlena Deitrich who named her the soul of Paris (probably not true....and LOL of all things NOT true in this film I bet this is the only one)
Meet a boxer and fell madly in love but he was married so when he won the championship of the world he abandoned her and went back to his family
.... but was so in love with her he decided to go back to her.....and died in a plane crash on the way
She was struck with horrible rheumatism that warped her spine
She became addicted to heroin to deal with the pain
She began to collapse on stage on a regular basis but
Her fans were so enamoured with her they just didn't accept that she couldn't perform
She got liver disease and
....as she was convinced she was nothing without her voice, she sang herself to death.

that's all based on fact. that's her story.

Marion Cotillard won the oscar for this role...like she had to try. (Meryl Streep couldn't have done a better job if she killed one of her own for x's sake! Honestly Cotillard's was one of the best frikkin' performances I've ever seen so if you can handle how tragic the thing is then go for it.)

So does that mean when XXXXX XXXXX plays me in my life story she'll win the oscar?

Exterior Scene: The playground at Venerable John Merlini Catholic School....1982...a 12 year old is contracted to do her first illustration job - a portrait of Judas Priest. She charges a mere $20 to her friend's big brother - a high school student. On the day she delivers the product....nay THE ARTISTIC MASTERPIECE THAT SHE POURED HER HEART AND VERY SOUL INTO!...he give's her two bucks, grabs the bristol board and drives away in his Camaro, never to be seen again!!!!!!!!!!

Eat your heart out Edith Piaf! That's drama! And the oscar goes to......XXXXXXX XXXXXX.

(I haven't decided who will play me yet. Suggestions are welcome.)




And she has to be hot.