Now and then the joke section of my inbox strays from the generational (old folks say the funniest things! young folks say the funniest things! middle-aged folks talking about old folks and young folks…) to the current-events variety. A friend who usually keeps me up to date on the former recently sent me an entry in the latter category, and in spite of myself, I got caught up in the silliness and innuendo around “Weiner-gate.”
The essence of the joke was that Representative Weiner had decided to run for president, and had selected as his running mate the Attorney General of the United States, Eric Holder. We were encouraged to get our “Weiner-Holder” bumper stickers before they ran out. This tickled my inner adolescent to the point where I actually designed a bumper sticker for the fictional campaign. Then I set about thinking of a way to promote the sticker.
I thought “hey, a blog post,” but the joke was sort of self-limited. A lot of what I could think of to write about it had already been written, and consisted mostly of puns delivered to better effect by Jon Stewart. It occurred to me that I needed to add an extra spin to make it uniquely mine. For reasons not exactly passing understanding, this brought the idea of zombies to mind. I decided that I would tie an Anthony Weiner presidential campaign run to the zombie apocalypse.
I signed up for an Amazon Affiliate account and searched for zombie-related items to include in my post. This is not nearly as fruitless an endeavor as you might think (or hope). Zombies have become quite the cultural celebrities of late.
I found a Complete (Zombie) Apocalypse Survival Kit, and as a field guide, the Zombie Survival Guide (with Complete Protection from the Living Dead). The CDC had already provided excellent supplemental material to complete my faux rallying cry and campaign endorsement.
I redesigned the bumper sticker to add my twist and set about composing my blog post, as if I believed in the approaching zombie invasion and had decided that Rep. Weiner was the best man to lead us through the impending disaster, based on various traits that I could deduce from his recent brush with national fame, and on the fact that none of the other candidates have stepped up to the zombie plate, so to speak.
I can tell you that I’m glad I slept on it before clicking the “Publish” button. I came to the conclusion that, while I do aspire to a type of humor in much of my writing, I didn’t feel that I hit the mark with the piece, it fell short of the standard I would set for myself. A lot of the fun was in making the sticker, and in designing the subsequent t-shirt (see the top of the post) requested by another friend. I wanted to get the items up in the shop, and didn’t want to wait until I had agonized my way through perfecting the tone of the announcement. I would love to see someone tackle the topic of presidential candidates suitable to lead through a zombie apocalypse, though, and there are writers who already have both the tone and familiarity with the topic of zombies who could really do it justice. (I’m looking at you, Allie “Hyperbole and a Half” Brosh and Jenny “The Bloggess” Lawson.)
But in the meantime, I do have this sticker, and the t-shirt, and inner adolescent or not, I still like them. And I still like my mixed-meme punch line, which was the other reason for the entire post to begin with…
“It takes a guy with nerves (or something) of steel to lead America through the zombie apocalypse, and Anthony Weiner has shown us his!”
