S.G. Browne

(This is a feature from Undead Anonymous where Andy, the main protagonist of Breathers, answers your questions.)

Blysse Burnerchic from Black Rock City, NV asks:

When you’re dining out with a zombie and their ear falls off in their soup, is it considered proper etiquette to point it out to them?

Dining etiquette is always a touchy subject when it comes to the undead.

What’s an appropriate finger food?  How do you handle a dinner guest with leaky orifices?  And should you serve a Cabernet or a Pinot Noir with your mother’s broiled ribs?

These dilemmas aside, when it comes to spontaneous dismemberment at the dinner table, it can be quite embarrassing for both parties.  No one wants to be the bearer of bad news.  But much the same way it’s polite to let someone know they have spinach stuck between their teeth or a glob of mayonnaise on the corner of their mouth, it’s always proper to let someone know when their ear has fallen into their soup.  Unless of course you’re out at a five star restaurant and looking for a good lawsuit.

Thanks for the question.

Come for the pub crawl, stay for the brains…

All you zombies, stagger on down to Santana Row in San Jose for a pub crawl and Book Signing Event to help support the rights of reanimated corpses everywhere:

5:00-5:30pm Meet at Straits in Santana Row

6:00pm Stagger to El Jardin in Santana Row (outdoor restaurant at end)

6:30pm Stagger to the Giant Chess Game for a quick Zombies vs Breathers chess match

7:00pm Finish at Borders Santana Row where S.G. Browne will be signing and reading from his dark comedy Breathers: A Zombie’s Lament

“A terrific comedy about the perils and joys of life beyond death…A zombie comedy with brains.”
—Kirkus Reviews

BECAUSE ZOMBIES ARE PEOPLE, TOO

(Breathers and zombies welcome)

(This view on zombie ‘life’ brought to you by Andy.)

It’s not easy being a zombie.

In addition to post-reanimation stress and spontaneous dismemberment, the undead have a host of unique challenges to contend with:

Putrefaction.
Discrimination.
Fraternity pledge scavenger hunts.

We can fight off putrefaction with regular formaldehyde fixes.  We can laugh in the face of a society that no longer considers us human.  We can run away from fraternity pledges or even bite them.  (Which doesn’t turn them into zombies, by the way.  That’s just more Hollywood propaganda.  But it can lead to a nasty infection.)

We can do all of this and more.  But none of it matters if we don’t maintain our personal hygiene.  All it takes is one fly to lay its eggs on an open, festering wound and before you can say George Romero, you’ve got a full-blown maggot infestation.

When a corpse is fresh, it tends to draw flies to it like Republicans to a Democrat sex scandal.  Fortunately, since zombies mimic the living in their movements, flies don’t get a chance to lay their eggs on the various points of entry: eyes, mouth, genitalia.  But exposed flesh wounds are open invitations for a maggot smorgasbord.  Once the eggs have hatched, the maggots eventually eat their way under the skin, feasting on subcutaneous fat.  As I’ve mentioned before, if you get close enough to an infested corpse, you can hear the maggots feeding.  It sounds like Rice Krispies.
There’s nothing more disheartening than coming back from the dead and avoiding random dismemberment and staving off the effects of decomposition, only to let careless hygiene turn you into a walking Rice Krispies treat.  Whereas the average embalmed zombie can expect an undeath expectancy of anywhere from three to seven years depending on the climate, once you’re infested with maggots, you can figure on lasting about as long as a vow of fidelity at a Playboy Bunny orgy.

(Next entry:  N is for Naomi)

(This is a feature from Undead Anonymous where Andy, the main protagonist of Breathers, answers your questions.)

Dane Zomboy Patrick from the cyber land of Yahoo! asks:

Do you guys ever have any problems with parts falling off? My left arm keeps dropping to the ground?

Yes Dane, parts falling off is a common problem among zombies and a constant source of embarrassment and shame.  Imagine the humiliation of impotence, only instead of not being able to become physically aroused, your uncooperative member falls off.

While I personally haven’t suffered the indignity of spontaneous dismemberment, as it’s called in the community, I know a number of zombies who have had to seek counseling to deal with the emotional fallout.  And if that’s not bad enough, fraternities often send their pledges on scavenger hunts for zombie appendages.

As for the problem with your arm, I suggest suturing it in place or even using a staple gun.  But if the flesh at the point of attachment has started to turn and the sutures just keep tearing out, then you might want to try some duct tape.

Thanks for the question…

You wake up on Wednesday morning after a restless night with a cold inflating your head and dripping down the back of your throat.  You pump yourself full ofEmergen -C and Day-Quil, then catch the 6:30AM Super Shuttle to SFO for a flight to Denver.  After a two-hour layover in Denver and a vegetarian burger on a crunchy role with questionable tomatoes and limp lettuce, you climb aboard a subway car disguised as an airplane for the two hour flight to Winnipeg, Canada.You land in Winnipeg and, on the cab ride to the hotel, you look out the windows and see condemned buildings and vacant lots and people shuffling along the sidewalk in a daze and you think, “If the zombie apocalypse started here, no one would notice.”

You check into your hotel, grab some questionable sushi, meet a few of the volunteers and invited guests from the convention, then call it an early night so you can get some sleep.  At 1:50AM, you’re woken up by the couple in the next room having wall pounding sex and you realize the walls are as thin as the Bush Administration’s reasons for invading Iraq.

The next day you realize this convention is going to be very small.  Maybe 50 people if everyone brings in a homeless person from the crime-ridden streets.  And you’re wondering if you’ve wasted $1000 on airfare and hotel.  But then you get to spend time with the volunteers and guests and you realize this is going to be a different kind of convention.

You enjoy a reading by Conrad Williams from his new novel ONE and a panel about the unique writing journey of Edo van Belkom.  You have drinks at the hotel bar with Joshua Gee and F. Paul Wilson, who not only both enjoy the TV series LOST but who help judge the Gross Out Contest, which you hosted.

You host a panel and have a reading and sell all six copies of your novel (which you told customs were just samples and not for sale).  You take cold medicine that containspseudoephredrine, the main ingredient in crystal methamphetamine.  You find out your hotel is frequented by aboriginal prostitutes.

You hang out with Rhonda Parrish (who thinks you have a good singing voice) and Gavin Hughes (who you strong-armed into reading for the Gross Out Contest).  You hang out with Kelly Young (who took compromising pictures of you) and Tommy Castillo (who won the Gross Out Contest).  You sing karaoke with these four people.  You’ve never sung karaoke before, but you manage to pull off a rendition of Sinatra’s “Fly Me To The Moon,” which isn’t as good as Kelly’s version of “Walking in Memphis” or Tommy’s version of “The Rainbow Connection” in the voice of Kermit the Frog, but you have a great time.

You go out to lunch and dinner with these people.  You hang out in the bar with them.  (Because that’s what writers do at these conventions.)  You have a conversation about surviving a post EMP Winnipeg and how you would get home during the breakdown of society and how when you leave the room to take a leak you come back to find out the hypothetical you in this scenario has just been violated.

In addition, you meet Cliff and Linda and John.  You meet Derek and Tim and Sherry.  You meet Nicole and Shad (who got engaged at the convention).  You meet Toni Stauffer and Thomas Sippos and Chris Angus and a dozen others who you fail to mention because your memory isn’t as good as you thought it was.  So you apologize to those forgotten and hope they forgive you and still buy your book.
When you leave Winnipeg on Sunday, you realize you had more fun at this convention than at perhaps any other convention and you realize you have fond memories of the murder capital of Canada.  But it still looks like the zombie apocalypse is just waiting to happen there.