I think I’ll have that “geek speak” tag now, please

Hey, somebody thinks the dominant pop-culture metaphor of our generation is the next big thing.

I gather he’s become something of a lightning rod, so I should say straight up that I’m prone to take David Sirota’s side in most of your internet dust-ups and what have you. What I’m not prone to do is stand idly by while someone thoughtlessly co-opts the language of my people.

Oct. 10, 2009 | What’s with all the zombies lately?

That could be a question about one of the hippest retro fads that pop culture has going these days.

You’re gonna try to pull off “geek?” With that chin? Okay, look, setting aside the fact that zombies are no more retro than any other subgroup of monster, that sentence sounds like someone making fun of their dad. Or “Archie.”

Inspired by horror genres of past,

Maybe this makes sense if you’re not a horror geek but I don’t even know what he’s referring to. Zombies are influenced by what? I mean, vampires were “big” first, but the idea of returning from the dead surely predates them. The mummy’s closer, but no, I’m pretty sure Sirota’s just tossing it out there because that’s the way a paragraph should start, not because he’s trying to contextualize anything.

zombies have lurched back to preeminence in books like “World War Z,” video games like “Left 4 Dead” and blockbuster films like “Zombieland.”

Oh, I get it, he thinks there was like a big zombie explosion back in the early eighties or something and now history’s repeating itself, because that’s how it always is, with columns. But dude, no, they were “lurching back to preeminence” before Bush got re-elected. “Resident Evil” has been huge for over a decade and the zombie market was saturated by the time “Shaun of the Dead” came out. As far as I can tell, zombie popularity has grown more or less steadily since Romero retooled the myth with “Night,” but even if we’re talking about a comeback here, it already came back. (hey, aptness)

Even the highbrow producers at National Public Radio recently devoted a segment to a University of Ottawa study titled “Mathematical Modeling of an Outbreak of Zombie Infection.” Indeed,

Gah! Sorry, I just hate it when sentences start with “indeed.” I’m sure I’ve done it myself but yuck.

the undead have become so popular, they’ve spurred “zombie walks” in cities and spawned Weird Al-ish parodies through Jane Austen knockoffs like “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” and bands such as the Zombeatles (with their hit “Hard Day’s Night of the Living Dead”).

Like? Such as? They’re the only examples of that which you declare them illustrative of. We’re knee-deep in zombies, Dave, there’s no need to pad.

So that’s the first paragraph. The rest isn’t too bad, just trite and full of the dumb Cryptkeeper puns you’re supposed to use ironically, but he doesn’t. I liked this though:

Decrepit zombie politicians with the funk of 40,000 years

You’d expect him to follow up with “so rapped Vincent Price,” but no, he just tosses it out there, the way a reference should be made.

I don’t generally end on a congratulatory note but what can I say, ‘tis the season. Oh, and by the way, “Zombieland” a) is awesome and b) has a line that could apply to Sirota-esque figures who hold their own side to account just as doggedly as they would the enemy.

Here, let’s try this out as a meme: “I hate Glenn Greenwald. Not the taste, the consistency.”

In conclusion, see “Zombieland” immediately. Also see “Pandorum,” because I need someone to explain to me what the fuck it is I just saw.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 10/12/09 at 11:21 PM • Permalink

Speaking of Greenwald, here’s an excerpt from his Obama vs. the gay-fringie-lefty column (sorry for the length, but, well, it’s Greenwald):

It’s often forgotten or obscured, but the central political fact now is that the Democratic Party controls everything in Washington—from the branches of government to favors doled out to lobbyists to the policies that Congress and the President enact.  Wars that are fought and bills that are or are not passed and policies that are maintained are, by definition, Democratic actions.  The dreaded Right can’t dictate or stop anything.  That’s the burden of having massive majorities in all areas—everything that happens is the result of what the Democratic Party does, and that’s why the divisions and conflicts that truly matter are ones with the party itself.  The “right v. left” and even “Democrat v. GOP” drama dominates most of our discourse, yet at this point it is a distracting and largely irrelevant food fight.  It’s the Democrats who have won the last two elections by large margins and wield all the power, and increasingly the defining conflict is between those whose overarching allegiance is to Obama and the Party as ends in themselves, and those who see those things as mere means to more important ends.

[Emphasis mine for reasons that will become clear eventually.]

Well, that last sentence is a bit self-serving—it’s possible many people see Obama and/or the Dems as the most viable means to the same ends. So they get bent out of shape when someone ostensibly on their side shits all over what they perceive as the best means.

I dunno. I was reading the Balloon Juice thread(s) about the Obama vs. LGBT activists kerfluffle and found myself sympathizing with opposing points of view. Yeah, Obama has only been in office 9 months, and he’s expressed solidarity with the cause of LGBT equality more than any other president. Ever. So maybe cut him some slack, give him some time?

But if my husband were gravely ill in a hospital, my legal right to be by his side, make medical decisions and manage our joint assets and children would not be in question. So who the fuck am I to counsel patience? No one, that’s who. I guess I’m with Paula in the “Great Day to Be Busy” thread below: It doesn’t wound my feelings if the White House fails to show sufficient attention to blogger-activists, but yeah, gay activists have every right to say “screw you” to Obama if they think he’s not coming through.

Anyway, back to Greenwald; in the fourth (!) update to the post linked above, he says:

The challenge—and it’s a difficult one—is always how to combat that cynical Emanuelian approach (how to criticize and pressure the White House when warranted) without strengthening and rejuvenating the incomparably vile Palinesque Right.

True dat, but wasn’t he just telling us that the right is a non-factor? At what point on the criticism continuum are you actually harming your own cause? Like Potter Stewart, I know it when I see it. But it’s damn hard to define.

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