Saturday, May 26, 2007

Evolutionary Thoughts; and D-Bags in Minivans

Finally saw 28 Weeks Later--Scott Tobias' review at A.V. Club is pretty spot-on, in retrospect. It's a worthy-enough follow-up to 28 Days Later, though it builds up some expectations that it doesn't quite make good on in the end. The beginning is fantastic. There's nothing like an act of complete cowardice (Robert Carlyle fleeing as his wife presumably gets ripped apart by rage-infected zombies) to inspire empathy from the very start. An unexpected act of heroism? Well, that's what we'd like to see in ourselves, but it's a safe bet many of us would just bolt and soak up the regret for the rest of our lives. Anyways, the movie's fictional rage virus, like any living organism, seeks to keep itself around for the long run. Especially through puked-up blood, which doesn't seem all that effective. But it's a shitty organism for sure, which made me wonder: Has there ever been a species that just decided to keep it concise?

"Hey, you guys are looking serious over there, with the fins and all. And shooting nails out of your heads, that's a nice touch. So you're in it for the long haul, like the rest of us biological groupings, eh?"

"Eh. Nah. We're just gonna do a good five generations, eat some lionfish, fuck, then call it a day. Maybe split our DNA up into some solo projects."

"But don't you seek to last forever, biologically speaking, and maybe try and dominate other creatures?"

"Nope. Fuck it. Five generations, no time to stagnate, make a good solid run of it."

At least one subspecies of the human race should try this approach. Specifically, douchebags who insist on yelling at people on the sidewalk from their cars. I seem to encounter this type at least three times a week. It's usually unintelligible, but that's fine. All they're really saying is: "I AM IN THIS VEHICLE AND YOU ARE OVER THERE AND I AM ABRUPTLY INTERACTING WITH YOU SO I WIN!" A few nights ago, I was out taking a walk and I crossed the street in front of a minivan at a stoplight. A moment later, one of the guys in the minivan yelled out "Faggot-ass bitch!" This to my back, and right as the van is pulling away--and his voice sounded really hesitant and shaky, as if he'd been building up to it from the moment he spotted me and wasn't sure if he could pull off this little masterpiece. No eye contact, of course. And no conviction! Come on! As impersonal as a randomly selected personal insult can be. All I can really say is, you're still the guy in the minivan. Maybe you just need the storage space for your tremendous balls.

2 comments:

Keith Phipps said...

No one in a mini-van has the right to make fun of anyone else.

Scott said...

Damn straight. I'd even be hesitant to yell at anyone from my relatively dignified Corolla.