Days of the Dead - Day Two continued -
Saturday July 2, 2011. Indianapolis, Indiana - by Shrub

I’m wondering if you people driving around up in Indiana know that gas is a full 30 cents cheaper just across the border in Kentucky? What’s going on there? State taxes?

Here we are. Back at the day jobs, as they gradually suck the Days of the Dead energy from us… well, not that gradually actually… so let’s see if we can get this story going again.

Other stuff we attended on Saturday afternoon included the Nightmare On Elm Street prop museum which was a great collection of gloves and wardrobe pieces. This guy had the best spot of the whole show too, the AC in his room was cranking. People would walk in there going Ahhhh.

We also thought the tattoo contest would be cool so we got some chairs for that. Then we realized there was no way to show the tats to the crowd so we were just sitting there as contestants took turns walking up to the judges, so we split from there pretty quick.

There was also a Zombie Stripper contest, or somesuch, put on by Girls and Corpses magazine, with blasting Led Zeppelin music and a handful of dancing girls. The room was full but the energy was lacking during this show. If you ask me the contest went south when they quickly booted all of the costumed contestants and tried to milk it with 2 bikini girls for about 45 minutes. Zombie Strawberry Shortcake got robbed!


Ashley Williams and 'Pedo-Bear' kick off the Human Centipede.

The Human Centipede reenactment was going for a new record (there was an old record?) and it was a pretty big hit. They made it up to 50 people, marching on their hands and knees, up and down the hallway… the poor suckers in shorts got all torn up. People had beer bottles in their mouths, were struggling with backpacks, pulling their pants up… but they were centipedin’! The Walking Dead’s Melissa Cowan even got in on the action. It could have been much larger, there were twice as many people just standing, watching and taking pictures (yeah that includes me), but The Human Centipede star Ashley Williams was working the crawling beast and show promoter Adolfo was pulling people into the line left and right (while he was wearing a “pedo bear” costume by the way). You know, at the time it didn’t seem as strange as it does now that I’m describing the scene, but it was fun and resulted in a lot of energy out in the hallway and kinda was the gateway to the insanity that the night exploded into.

I’ve pretty much lost the sequence of events from here on. The beer cooler was being hit hard now. I know at some point we hooked up with this crew from Chicago as they were making fun of one of their friends who was sitting on the floor near a potted plant, leaning against the wall with his head in his hands. This guy was “Ralph”, which was not his name but it is what he was doing. There was also “Cherry”, named after his frightening paper cup cherry coke cocktail. These great natured guys and their friends were a lot of fun to hang out with. We were making up songs on the piano, taking pictures, and goofin’ around with Princess Leia.

Oh, I didn’t mention that there was a goddang bearded Slave Leia running around?? I think this guy had more pictures taken of him than Ace Frehley did.

There were a couple of fellas that came all the way from London for the show too. For making that type of trip they really did not deserve my drunk mug grilling them on Rik Mayall, Hammer films and whatever else British I could think of in my state at that point of the night. Really great guys though and hey, at least I didn’t ask them about William and Kate.

Chris from Kentucky was still hangin’ on Saturday. Sal made a brief appearance in the club, long enough to bite Kara’s neck. Adolfo was a blur all night long (heck all weekend long), he never stopped moving from what I saw. Saturday night was the best part of the trip for us and we hope to relive it with some of our new friends again soon.

I’ll try and get serious for a bit now and wrap this up. This was a first year show which had a ton of buzz built up around it so it was set up perfectly to crash and burn, and if it had, it probably wouldn’t have surprised anyone being a rookie show with such high expectations. However, Adolfo and his crew simply would not let that happen. Sure there were setbacks like the heat in the hotel, last minute guest cancellations, the pool area being locked up when there was supposed to be a pool party, even some guest no-shows, but all of those problems were not of the show’s doing, and when problems did arise, they were met head on. The organizers did not hide out, they were on the scene, recognizing what was going on and doing everything they could to make sure the fans were getting their money’s worth, and I’d have a hard time arguing that anyone did not.

So congratulations Days of the Dead. Two more 'Days' shows have already been announced for 2012, one in Atlanta and then another back in Indy. With the positive word of mouth coming from attendees, celebrity guests and vendors at this show, I think we have witnessed the birth of a beast. And it was great to have been a part of it.

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