Remarks below to be delivered at the Friday the 13th 1:30 pm Zombie March from Sylvester Park to the State Capitol:
Greetings! We’re so pleased to see so many zombies & fellow-travelers here on this Friday the 13th. With the sun shining down today, the smell of rotting flesh coming from the crowd is almost as rancid as the odors emanating from the State Capitol as they do business.
Friday the 13th is the perfect day for a zombie monster mash budget slash. It’s perfect because it’s our day — a day when we can consume flesh freely and count on our prey to consider it “bad luck” when they get gashed. But of course, we know it’s not just luck. Our hunt is rigged to benefit those of us who eviscerate humanity — just like the legislative debate is.
Today is our day… but we shouldn’t have to be here. Our supposed allies are in positions of power. We have a vampire installed in the Governor’s mansion, where she talks openly about being up all night, and about how well she knows the impact of the bloody cuts she’s pushing. We have a werewolf — Senator Joe Zarelli — effectively leading budget negotiations in the Chamber of Horrors — the State Senate. And the gossamer sheen of humanity some saw around the edges of the Houses budget proposal has grown so transparent it’s not even clear it exists. (Much like the ghostly Speaker of the House himself.)
We shouldn’t have to be here today. But we have no choice.
This week, the House Ways & Means committee passed a proposal that would close some tax loopholes and direct the money collected towards K-3 education. Some call this grandstanding. Others, with limited appreciation for Japanese stage traditions, call it Kabuki Theatre.
But we call it worrisome. And more may be coming.
A few wily humans are trying to divide us among ourselves. They propose to raise taxes on goblin-run banks and use that money for children’s education. But they forget about the impact on bank CEOs who would then have slightly less money and could be forced to send their kids to slightly less prestigious Swiss boarding schools. Doesn’t their education matter too?
A few humans propose to tax chicken bedding and use that money for programs benefiting disabled adults. But they forget how critical chicken sacrifices are to the very fabric of every worthwhile human religion. Do Christian religions deserve to get a property tax exemption while chicken sacrificers continue to get the squeeze?
A few humans even propose to tax elective cosmetic surgery and use that money for all kinds of state programs that serve the poor, the vulnerable, and other delicacies. But without Botox subsidies from our state government, how else will our legislators flash frozen smiles at constituents when they puff up with rage over relatively minor issues of waste and fraud? Without state assistance smoothing their faces into a non-communicative haze of emptiness, legislators may even be tempted to engage the public in a conversation about the dirty little secret of state government: that the vast majority of the money spent here in Olympia goes to things like education, health care, affordable housing, support for the poor and vulnerable, and other areas that truly reflect the values of most humans.
So we’re here today on our day — Friday the 13th — to say: don’t let them divide the graveyard. Don’t let them pit zombie against werewolf, ghost against mummy, goblin banker against chicken sacrificer. Don’t forget how much we have deep down 6 feet under that unites us with each other and with the budget proposals under discussion — particularly our shared desperate passion to consume vulnerable human flesh in an orgy of destruction and good eats.
So we march today to our headquarters — the State Capitol. We march slowly, with rotting fists raised, determined to strike out against programs that provide food assistance and children’s health. We march mindlessly, our empty skulls rattling with the bad-faith nonsense tax debates of election season. We march united, towards our headquarters, the place where our business will be done — unless the humans can stop us.
We march to the place where brains go to die. We march to the State Capitol. It shall be ours. Again
Onwards! Brains! Uhhhhhhhhh!
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For more information on the Zombie march, visit the Facebook event page.
For more information on Undead Olympia, email info@undeadolympia.com