The City That Ate My Brain!
Saturday I enjoyed spending time with some fine Buffalo folks, and took part in a popular October ritual: drinking Pumpkin Spice Latte at Caffé Aroma. But while sipping and watching the life on Elmwood, things suddenly got weird and we found ourselves watching the unlife.
Covered with blood, gore, and gashes, dozens of moaning zombies began shuffling past. What could be responsible for the sudden zombie invasion, we wondered. Sunspots? A disease? The financial meltdown (one of the zombies looked at bit like a broker friend of mine)? The Bills losing ugly last weekend?
On hearing several of the zombies moan “brains…brains…” I momentarily feared for the safety of my caffeination companion, who has an unusually fine brain. But the gruesome parade continued shuffling past. Later, on the bus back downtown, another “yikes!” moment: while stopped in traffic, zombies came up to the bus, and even clawed at the windows! What was up with these zombies, and what did they want??
I got the answer a few hours later, while visiting Mobility Across the Ages. I came across one of the zombies who had managed to “zombie shuffle” over to the Buffalo Central Terminal, and found out that what we had seen was called—no surprise here—“Zombie Walk.” It was an interesting experience to chat with someone with bloody internal organs protruding from a gash in his abdomen. My zombie friend told me that he’s from western Massachusetts, and was visiting some friends in Buffalo who invited him to “get bloody” and go on Zombie Walk. Well, who could say no? I told him about my experience on the bus, and he laughed and told me that, on his way to Zombie Walk, one of the Metro drivers kicked him off the bus, even though (he said) the passengers loved his look. When I asked what the deal is with Zombie Walk, he was a bit nebulous—apparently it’s something of an “underground” phenomenon (he said without a trace of irony), and in Buffalo was meant to make a statement about eating meat.
That sounded cool to me. Although, I had to admit that I was glad I had eaten my rib dinner from Gran Gran’s—slathered in red BBQ sauce—before seeing all his gore up close…
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xosder
If they weren't going to get out of my way on Elmwood, they may have not have had to fake the blood and guts for long.
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TheatreChick73
I missed the Zombie Walk again!?! Ugh....darn it. How does one get involved with this?! I was looking for it since the end of August!!!
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joey
IS THIS CITY HALL LETTING OUT AT QUITTING TIME?
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carlmalone
Herion, anyone?
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densestmaterial
The walk doesn't have anything to do with meat, actually - it's an "art for art's sake" sort of thing.
xosder: Everyone was told, before the walk started, not to get in the way of traffic, but there was a small contingent within the group that decided to ignore every ground rule and to just wreak havoc as they saw fit.
Theatrechick: As far as getting involved, it was done through Facebook invites, but we'll maybe shoot for a mailing list next year. We had intended to put up posters around the area, but that...kind of fell through.
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beersponge
If you are into Zombies make sure to drag yourself over to the Market Arcade, Main St. on Nov 7th for the Buffalo premier of "POULTRYGEIST, The night of the Chicken Dead." Filmed here in Buffalo by director Lloyd Kaufman. www.poultrygeistmovie.com "As savage as Dawn of the Dead, as slapstick nutzoid as Evil Dead 2, as gag-on-your-popcorn gross as Pink Flamingos, and as dementedly foulmouthed literate as a Kevin Smith raunchfest. It's genuine sick fun, and there isn't a boring moment in it!"
OWEN GLEIBERMAN, ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
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AdamFIx
put up those posters and ill be there next time!! some of us just cant keep up with the facebook world!
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ChristaSeychew
aren't these group zombie gigs usually held by PETA to protest against certain restaurants, etc.?
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densestmaterial
Adam: We meant to have posters, we really did! However, our organizing team is juggling school and work, and personally I'm stuck an hour south of Buffalo with no car, so we ran into a bit of a time crunch.
Christa: I don't know about other cities, but Buffalo's Zombie Walk isn't done by PETA - it's held by a bunch of teenagers who like zombies.
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evnmn3
Very cool, I agree with Adam though, I wish there was something other than facebook to get this out. I would have loved to check it out. Next time I suppose.
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TheatreChick73
Hopefully next year those posters will actually get up densestmaterial. I tried to find the group on facebook but didn't locate it. I am REALLY interested as my theatre company does Night of the Living Dead each Halloween and it would give us zombies a great chance to test makeup and such before the performances. Beware, shameless plug......Night of the Living Dead, the George Romero classic film, live....well, undead....on stage. October 23-26 at the Ghostlight Theatre. www.starrynighttheatre.com.
So yeah, keep in touch with me about next year's zombie walk. I TOTALLY want to do it!!
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bfloghost
This is NOT fun and games it's a legitimate serious issue. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoXgRtDysLY
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