Monday Mayhem – Page 9 – Looking to God

The Walking Dead: Violence

Posted on January 19, 2015January 21, 2015 by Jack Flacco

Terminus. Bent over a trough with their hands tied behind their back, they await their fate. A baseball bat to the back of the head. Their throats slit. Another episode of The Walking Dead makes a debut.

For today’s Monday Mayhem I would like to talk a bit about the level of violence in The Walking Dead. Why is it there? And—is it necessary?

[Spoilers lie therein.]

If you have followed The Walking Dead for any length of time, you will know the show has gone through a transformation of sorts that, for lack of a better cliché, has pushed the envelope of dramatic series television. Season 5’s premier episode caught viewers off-guard with one of the most brutal scenes ever depicted on the small screen. If a phrase ought to typify the episode, it would be this one: “You’re either the butcher or the cattle.” If the viewer thought they had seen it all in the final episode of Season 4, they had miscalculated the show’s ability to deliver an even more shocking story.

You see, up to that point, the violence had always centered around the undead ending up splattered all over a wall or torn apart from gunfire. Humans receiving the brunt of their destruction typically came from walkers searching for food. That is until the absolute terror-inducing scene in the slaughterhouse of Season 5’s premier. It was then the viewer realized just how cruel a human could be toward another human.

The increasing level of viciousness from season-to-season attests to one thing the show has accomplished well—depicting that humans left to their own devices will kill without mercy.

Necessary? Yes.

The violence in The Walking Dead has become a symbol of what society would be like should an actual apocalypse take place. Brother will turn against brother. Hatred will spawn more hatred. And the concept of family will extend to those who will come to the aid of the less fortunate. If it sounds pessimistic, you’re right. But if you caught that last sentence, there will always be those who will not succumb to the human compulsion of killing. They are the ones who will make the world a better place.

Does that sound idealistic? Perhaps. But who’s to say how it will all play out until it actually happens? All I know is in every disaster, there are heroes.

And the heroes are the ones who will make a difference.

RANGER MARTIN AND THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE, on sale now.
RANGER MARTIN AND THE ALIEN INVASION, on sale now.

What do you think about the violence depicted in The Walking Dead? Have you had any nightmares yet?

Monday Mayhem

The Walking Dead Revisited

Posted on January 12, 2015January 14, 2015 by Jack Flacco

I’ve been binge watching. Is that an addiction? I’m certain one day I will be part of a support group for binge watchers everywhere. Until then, I’ll admit my fault, and say I’ve been binge watching The Walking Dead. It doesn’t sound so bad when I put it into that context. Doesn’t it? Well, binge watching is this: take a television series and watch it one episode after another until you’ve consumed every single one in a relatively short span. Who needs to wait for the next episode when you’re binge watching? Not me.

Anyway, for today’s Monday Mayhem, I have an observation for you Walking Dead fans.

Let’s talk about Season Three. Now, if you’ve never seen The Walking Dead, I suggest you skip to the last paragraph to see what I have to say about the series because I will certainly spoil it for you by revealing key elements of the plot.

Back to Season Three—I know The Walking Dead is a Drama/Horror show. I know that. AMC has established that by the story and plotlines. And I love that about the show. But what I’d like to see more of is humor. Inject a few bits of humor here and there, and I’ll love you even more. It’s not a criticism. Not at all. I just find after long stretches of binge watching, as a viewer, some levity would bring me back to focus on the stories.

For instance, when Rick and the other survivors take over the prison, they encounter the remnant of the prison population who haven’t turned. That to me is a great story. Even better is when the survivors try to explain to the former prisoners how to kill the walkers. They specifically instruct them how to aim for the head. Get rid of the brain. Get rid of the problem. Well, what happens? As soon as the group meets with walkers, the former prisoners hit prison riot mode and they assault the walkers in a flurry of body blows, which, by the way, has no effect on the undead other than to prove they can withstand stabbings and mutilations to the torso. In some respect, it’s a funny scene due to how it all went down. None of the former prisoners listened to any of the instructions, but instead did their own thing.

The other funny moment in Season Three, is when one of the former prisoners is hanging out with Beth as she coddles Lori’s baby in a prison cell. A known felon, he asks her how old she is. She says sixteen (I think that’s how it goes—I can’t remember). He then says, “Interesting.” All of a sudden, I roll my eyes thinking the worst. Fast forward to a minute later when Carol and the former prisoner have an off-the-cuff conversation away from the rest. He had convinced himself that she wasn’t interested in men. Guess what he says when he discovers otherwise. Yep. He says, “Interesting.” Of course, she says something that totally shoots him down. And there lies the humor.

I wish for more humor in subsequent seasons, not only for us binge watchers, but also for the new viewers.

What do you think?

RANGER MARTIN AND THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE, on sale now.
RANGER MARTIN AND THE ALIEN INVASION, on sale now.

What do you like about The Walking Dead? Do you have a favorite season?

Monday Mayhem

A New Year

Posted on January 5, 2015January 12, 2015 by Jack Flacco

Happy New Year, folks! Welcome back to Monday Mayhem, where zombies rule and humans run. Perhaps this is a good time to lay the groundwork for 2015—what to expect and when, and to talk a bit about where JackFlacco.com is heading.

First, two years have passed since I started writing three posts a week about zombies, strong female characters and anything else that pops into my mind. Recently, I’ve transitioned Wednesdays from my female-centric Women Who Wow Wednesday series to the testosterone-fueled Wednesday Warriors. This will continue through 2015, as the main character to my Ranger Martin series is just that—a testosterone-fueled warrior aiming to rid the world of the undead.

Second, if you haven’t caught my podcast interview with Denver Everett and TV Media Junkie Mark G. Pogue, I suggest you head on over to Everett’s Hangout to check out last week’s episode. Denver’s show is one of the few podcasts I listen to, and with Mark’s banter, I had so much fun fielding questions about my early years growing up in one of the toughest neighborhoods in Toronto, my family life, and my writing. You’ll finally have an opportunity to associate my voice with my words. Have a listen and tell me what you think!

Third, as many of you may know, the only time when I talk about my books is during release. I’ll typically write a post or two dedicated to Ranger Martin, his latest exploits, and the road I had to take in order to get the book published. Other than that, I’m the type of guy who holds his cards firmly to his chest, only releasing news when I have to.

That is, until today.

Today, I’m announcing Ranger Martin’s exploits will end this fall with the third and final book. This should not surprise anyone close to me, since I’ve talked about a Ranger trilogy for a long time.

When I began to write the first draft of Ranger Martin and the Zombie Apocalypse in 2011 for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), I mapped a three-book arc for my hero that would include zombies, aliens, and other surprises. I had always meant it to be a trilogy, but never knew when I would complete it. Sure enough, here it is 2015, and I’m ready for the final, exciting chapter. Will there be zombie deaths? Oh, yes. Will there be revelations? Of course. Will there be explosions? I wouldn’t have it any other way.

All I can say for now is stay tuned, folks.

Finally, I’m holding on to a couple of more announcements until the time is right, but until then, check here often, as this will be the place where I will release the big news.

Again, stay tuned. There’s more to come.

RANGER MARTIN AND THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE, on sale now.
RANGER MARTIN AND THE ALIEN INVASION, on sale now.

What is on your schedule for 2015?

Monday Mayhem

Anniversary Week—Part I (2014)

Posted on December 29, 2014December 31, 2014 by Jack Flacco

December 17th was the two-year anniversary when Jack Flacco: The Official Site went live. In celebration of this milestone, I would like to present the Top 5 Most Popular Monday Mayhem posts of 2014.

Before we get to that, I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who visited my site over the course of the year. It’s been quite a ride, folks. We’ve delved into zombies, zombie apocalypses and the like, and we had fun.

I don’t share this information freely, but I thought it appropriate given the nature of the festivities for the coming week. Here are some stats* you might find interesting:

Total views since going live: 113,376
The most views in one day: 1,194
Most views in one month: 7,741 views in October 2014
Most visitors in one month: 5,101 visitors in November 2014
The country with the most views: 31,520 views from the United States

* Statistics range from January 1, 2014 – December 29, 2014 as at 7:00am EST.

Let’s move along to the main attraction. When choosing the Top 5 Most Popular Monday Mayhem posts, I first wanted to present them based on amount of views. The more I thought of it though, the more it didn’t make sense. For instance, a visitor may pop into the site and hit the same post several times within the day. I didn’t think it fair, considering there could have only been two visitors for that day and a hundred views.

Next, I thought I’d use comments as the benchmark. You know, the more comments a post has, the more popular it is. Again, I didn’t think it represented a good way to measure popularity given I can comment on my own post a dozen times and push it ahead on the popularity scale.

No, what I used is the number of “likes” a post has garnered throughout the year. It will not only present a fair representation of popularity for a post but also prevents users from gaming the system with multiple “likes”.

Okay, enough chitchat.

The Top 5 Most Popular Monday Mayhem posts of 2014:

Jack Flacco takes action to a new level.

My Second Book Release—“Tomorrow, my second book in the Ranger Martin series releases. That sentence makes it sound as if something’s about to escape the San Diego Zoo. From what I know, literature doesn’t eat people. At least I don’t think it does. So I wouldn’t worry about wild books named Ranger Martin and the Alien Invasion running…” ~60 likes
Asbury Park Zombie Walk 2010 (This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.)

Why I Like Zombies—“Have I ever told you why I like zombies? I mean, I write my Monday Mayhem posts, but I don’t think I’ve mentioned the reason why I’m drawn to these ill-fated, putrid-smelling, bile-seeping maggot bags the media affectionately calls zombies. I have a number of reasons for liking them, and today, you’re going to find…” ~51 likes
The Walking Dead

Zombies and Mental Illness—“Zombies are undead eating machines. They kill, consume and hunt for victims. They have an insatiable appetite. Their goals are simple. Kill and eat. Is it a wonder zombies have a reputation of being one of the most feared creatures in Horror? Monday Mayhem has always been about the other side of madness. It will always…” ~50 likes
R from the movie Warm Bodies

Zombie Characters—“A few days ago, I watched World War Z—again. This movie will not go away, will it? I remember thinking how quickly humans had turned into zombies. The bite. The convulsing. The white eyes. The shreaking. And the cycle continues. I’d noticed this before, but never really analyzed it in depth. Not something I’m about…” ~48 likes
The Terminator

Terminators vs. Zombies—“They keep coming and coming and don’t let up. They’ll hunt you down and kill you without mercy. They have no soul. They’re impervious to pain. They are dead inside, unable to feel empathy or feel anything for that matter. They will not rest until every single human soul lies dead under their feet. If…” ~47 likes

Come back Wednesday when I reveal the Top 5 Most Popular Women Who Wow Wednesday posts of 2014. Don’t miss it!

RANGER MARTIN AND THE ALIEN INVASION, on sale now.

Do you have a favorite Monday Mayhem post you’d recommend to your friends?

Monday Mayhem

Zombie Apocalypse: The Matrix

Posted on December 22, 2014December 24, 2014 by Jack Flacco

The Matrix broke all the rules. It was the most successful March debut ever to hit the screen at the time. It also introduced Bullet Time, where the audience walked out of the theater thinking anyone can dodge bullets. The premise of the franchise was clear, the machines create an alternate reality where humans can live while the machine harvest the humans for their own nefarious reasons.

Since I’m expecting everyone to be a holiday mood, for Monday Mayhem, let’s have a look at The Matrix and how the machines represent a form of zombie apocalypse.

If you haven’t seen any of The Matrix movies, I won’t spoil it for you. I’ll try to keep the examples as high level as I can. But I won’t lie. I can’t talk about it without describing a few points that may reveal certain parts of the plot. In that case, you may want to read on to the last paragraph for the summary.

The idea of the Matrix is that of a group of machines linked together to serve the purpose of self-preservation—preservation of themselves. The resource is human, rather, what humans possess to make them a resource. In the world of the Matrix, humans function as sacks of energy the Matrix readily consumes for keeping it alive. Without human beings, the Matrix would not exist.

How on earth would the Matrix typify a zombie apocalypse of all things? Much like the Matrix, a zombie apocalypse wouldn’t be a zombie apocalypse without one thing—human. The undead could not exist without humans a) to keep them alive and b) to keep reproducing themselves. In the movie, the Matrix maintains control of the human population in order to maximize its returns by executing a slow depletion of the species.

It sounds like science, doesn’t it? And I’ll have to agree with those who will quickly point out the Matrix is smarter than any zombie apocalypse. But the fact of the matter is, zombies, on a whole, are stupid as individual entities. Multiply them over by the hundreds, though, you have yourself a formidable enemy who will stop at nothing to achieve its goal—consume human.

Not much different from the Matrix, is it? Both vie for self-preservation. Both desire human as their resource. They even go so far as to act as a single entity when threatened.

A zombie apocalypse seems disorganized when one of the undead stands on their own. But the horde mentality—the hive—lives as a single unit when many stand together as one. The Matrix is a film that brings the zombie apocalypse to life. Instead of zombies, however, computers make the bulk of the hive.

Who’s to say today we’re not living in a world controlled by a Matrix making us all part of a typified zombie apocalypse?

RANGER MARTIN AND THE ALIEN INVASION, on sale now.

Have you seen any of the The Matrix movies? What do you think of the analogy of The Matrix being a type of zombie apocalypse?

Monday Mayhem

The Book of Eli and Zombies

Posted on December 15, 2014December 17, 2014 by Jack Flacco

The Book of Eli is one of my favorite movies of all time. That’s saying a lot, considering I can name my favorite movies in a quick ten-second round. Given I’ve written about Solara, the female protagonist for one of my Women Who Wow Wednesday articles, I thought it appropriate for Monday Mayhem to write about the dystopian nightmare presented in the film. Even though the world of Eli is far from being the center of a total undead infestation, the scenarios the survivors face are the same.

Just how similar is The Book of Eli’s reality with that of a zombie apocalypse?

Not to give away anything from the plot of the film, the future according to The Book of Eli is that of doom and gloom. Gangs rule the earth searching for wealth—but not the wealth you and I might think as valuable. Huge swaths of land lack the basic ingredient to make it flourish into a viable ecosystem. The ingredient? Water. Whether it’s a small blade of grass or an ox, life needs water to survive. Without water, life ceases to exist. What are the chances water can become the new currency? In a zombie apocalypse, all the employees who worked at the dams and water treatment plants will have disappeared, swallowed by their fall into the vortex of the undead. With no one supervising the flow, malevolent humans could easily capture the resource and use it to control those under their supposed jurisdiction.

Next is the food chain. Survivors will need to eat things. If the film is any indication to what humanity has to look forward to, then there will be more to deal with than a mere food shortage. Lack of sustenance gives rise to the unthinkable. Cannibalism could become the norm. Not only will the survivors have to pay close attention to attacks from zombies aiming to make a meal of them, but they would also need to be mindful of attacks from within. Hunger will do strange things to a person’s mind. It will lead someone, who otherwise in a civilized society would be a model citizen, to commit the most heinous of crimes—to consume a fellow human for the purpose of self-preservation. How farfetched does that sound in light of the fact that we don’t know what humanity is capable of until that day when placed in those circumstances where everyone’s forced to choose?

Lastly, The Book of Eli suggests the barter system will work when all else fails. A pair of gloves, cat oil and a trinket from the past may buy a charge for an iPod. That is all a survivor may need to get them through another week of wandering through zombie-infested farmland in order to find a hospitable environment where they could call home. It won’t be easy. To deal in the barter system one will need to expropriate goods for the sole purpose of trade. Those goods will need to be high-demand items on everyone’s list. It’s unrealistic to assume those items would also not fall under heavy guard by those who’d want to keep them for themselves. And if zombies have anything to do with it, what’s to say survivors couldn’t use the bodies of the undead as trophies for their morbid trades?

Therefore, again I ask. Just how similar is The Book of Eli’s reality with that of a zombie apocalypse?

RANGER MARTIN AND THE ALIEN INVASION, on sale now.

What do you think would make a zombie apocalypse less dangerous than a real end-time scenario?

Monday Mayhem

Why Don’t Zombies Eat Each Other?

Posted on December 8, 2014December 10, 2014 by Jack Flacco

Everyone has their ideas of why zombies do the things they do. Why do zombies eat brains? Why do zombies from forty years ago lurch while today’s undead sprint toward their victims? Do zombies ever have to go to the bathroom?

I’m dedicating today’s Monday Mayhem post to the ultimate question: Why don’t zombies eat each other?

To answer this question I’m going to speculate, hypothesize, and take a few wild guesses. I’m sure everyone has an opinion, but how scientific are unsubstantiated opinions? Does science have an answer? I’m totally going to throw a dart with the hope it sticks and makes sense. Let’s see how far I get.

This is my theory.

Whether folks are talking about zombies bred by a curse, a virus or a freakish experiment gone wrong, the undead know only one thing—to eat. I’ve mentioned this before in the context of sharks. If anything is true about zombies, they are like sharks that smell blood in the waters. They hunt until there’s nothing left of their prey. Similarly, the undead search for the living as a means of nourishment in order to satisfy a craving deep within their bodies. That craving dictates their actions to terrorize humans for their own personal fulfillment. No matter what they do, they can’t feel satiated by their latest conquest and have to kill again in an endless cycle.

Of course, the next question to come from the astute reader is why. Why do zombies search for humans to fill the void in their souls? With all the meat around them—although undead nonetheless—why go for human? Won’t eating their kind stem the hunger burning within their bowels?

The answer to that is no. The question references the same question posed throughout the decades: why do zombies eat brains? It’s the same answer as to why don’t zombies eat each other?

John A. Russo’s film The Return of the Living Dead popularized the idea of zombies eating brains. Brains? Yes. Zombies need endorphins to sooth the pain of decomposition. Since their own kind can’t provide the endorphins needed to quell the agony of a slow death, humans will fill that void.

Located at the base of the brain, the pituitary gland produces the endorphins zombies need to relieve the pain of their immanent demise. To get to the gland, the undead would have to capture a human, bash the skull and draw the prize by scoops. Zombies simply can’t fulfill this order from other zombies. For one thing, in death their pituitary glands no longer secrete endogenous morphine (a.k.a. endogenous opioid inhibitory neuropeptides) as the nervous system is dead. No nervous system, no endorphins.

What was that analogy I’d used earlier? Right, sharks smell the blood in the water of their victims. Can it be zombies also smell the endorphins from humans as they go about their daily lives trying to stay alive during a zombie apocalypse?

What do you think?

RANGER MARTIN AND THE ALIEN INVASION, on sale now.

Why do you think zombies don’t each other? Is there a better theory?

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: