Zombie Deliverance

OK - First thing's first. Peter Graves is so a zombie. I happened to know from my last vist to the palatial Miller Mansion that Stew's copy of Who's Who Among American Flesh-Eating Zombies is the 2005 expurgated version, which is completely missing the sections F through K. Not only is Peter Graves not there, but also omitted are Dennis Farina, Tippi Hedren, Michael Ironside, Derek Jacobi, and Lance Kerwin. The full 2006 un-expurgated version includes a full two page special insert on Peter Graves, written by Peter Graves, with the title, "How I Peter Graves, Became a Flesh-Eating Zombie; Tonight on Biography."

Second, the ticks were not nearly as bad as I thought they would be, and I have relatively few scars as a result.

Third, we did have a very unusual experience. As regular readers of this blog know, I am a practising guitarist, and always take my guitar on any road trips. We just happened to stop at a little country shop this weekend, whilst taking a break from our sojourn into the backwoods. Whilst waiting, I pulled out the guitar and began to pick a few notes. To my surprise, my tentative plucking was echoed by a plaintive banjo in the near distance. I played a few more notes and the repeat came back on the banjo again. Finally, I began to play in earnest and looked up to find what seemed to be the strange bald boy from Deliverance playing along with me.

Fortunately, it was only political consultant James Carville, who along with wife Mary Matalin and their kids, was enjoying the same weekend wilderness. James and I finished the duet with a flourish and then he introduced me to Mary. They then digressed into a furious arguement when I asked them if either of them liked Busch beer.

I was relieved of course to discover that this "dueling banjos" experience was not the ominous portent of any strange hillbilly encounter. Although, whilst arguing with Mary, James did exclaim that he was going to "Go get it on with Ned Beatty!" apparently this was only a rhetorical device in the arguement.

As for the woods, we saw many deer, chipmunks, and birds. We hiked up the rocky mountainside, me with a large walking stick (not the insect, though the Littlest Fando saw at least one), my child with a camera, and my father-in-law with a 40 caliber Smith and Wesson with a Glock action trigger, similar to the Glocks seen in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zizzou. It was in case we ran into bears, he explained, which made me feel much less paranoid. It was nice to know though that if Peter Graves showed up to eat our living flesh, that my father-in-law had a fair chance to take him out. Also, for just a moment, my father-in-law had something in common with Bill Murray, which was quite strange.

The "cabin" itself was hardly the stuff of roughing it, as it was fully electric, with satellite television, two baths, and a complete kitchen. I never did get to play a match of darts on the porch. Still, to be so close to nature! Well, it made me want to go in and watch Star Trek on G4. It was the episode about the planet that took up Nazism, where Kirk and Spock go about dressed as Gestapo. Gripping stuff.

Footnote: I've always noticed that during the scene where Kirk, Spock and their local allies pretend to be a camera crew filming the local heroine, that Shatner holds the camera just inches from the face of the actress he is "filming;" so close that she can't possibly be in focus. There's something deeply psychologically revealing about that. Mainly, that Shatner was trying to demostrate to the Trek camera crew that they should take a similar approach to his close-ups.

I can see now that I've completely lost the thread of this post...