149/365: 05/28/10 The Memphis Zombie March was a Bloody Success!

(photo by xxxjermxxx)

At least 500, maybe even 1,000 zombies, ghouls and generally bloody folks limped their way from Earnestine & Hazel’s to Beale Street in one glorious gory group. 1,158 people (last I saw) RSVP’d to the march on Facebook, so I’m pretty sure the estimate’s solid. But maybe I’m overzealous. Nah. It was a lot of people. Veterans said there were many more people than last year, which is a great sign. I know annual events sometimes lose steam around the fourth year, but hopefully this year’s attendance means the march is here to stay.

This post is getting really photo-heavy, so click to see the rest after the jump. It’s worth it!

In typical panic mode fashion, I arrived downtown super early (3:30) and then ended up awkwardly standing around realizing I was too early and not knowing what to do. I thought there would be more obvious places to hang the targets, but nope. Our makeup lot was a grassy field. I hung a few at E&H, then when Lindsey got there, we ran around like sweaty dogs (OK, that was just me) hanging a few more at Club 152 and the corner of Beale and Main, but for some reason (convenience? laziness? shyness?), I only used six of the 18 I bought. Duane has the rest, so if any of you want one, I’ll check into that for you. I know Lindsey took two.

When we’d left to hang signs, the makeup lot was empty and I started to worry. We rode the trolley back to see how the makeup lot and starting gate were holding up. We wondered aloud how we were gonna signal to people that it was time to start walking. She said she always tries to ask folks to lead the horde, but no one does. “Funny how 500 people want to walk as a mindless zombie in a group but not one wants to be a leader.”

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By our return, about 50 zombies were in the makeup lot and about 20 more were milling around E&H. But still not a ton of folks. Hrrrmmm. I took some shots of pre-zombies getting deadened by the generous and talented Duane and Patrick, makeup artists extraordinaire with serious resumes in the horror business (check the links!). Lindsey poured some syrupy fake blood on my shirt (“to cover the sweat,” I joked) but I stepped out of the free makeup line. I figured it would be bad form for a planner to hog the resources. “Excuse me kid! (Boot!) I NEED FACEPAINT.” I never did get made up, which is just as well. The blood on my shirt was enough. “Sufficiently splattered,” someone said.

Around 6:15, we went to check the starting corner. And DAMN. Where there were 20 zombies only 30 minutes ago, there were now 500. The corner was TEEMING. I cheered when I saw them. People might have thought that was ridiculous, but hell, I’m covered in blood and sweat and looking like a sunburnt beanbag, what’s not ridiculous at that point. Right about 6:30, the crowd starts lurching. I guess Lindsey had a hand in them being on time, but I’m not sure. We were separated by that point. I noticed a zombie with helium balloons floating above the front of the crowd and I thought, “dude I hope Lindsey saw him and asked him to lead the horde because those balloons are effing PERFECT.”

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I let the horde surge past me, taking photos as fast as I could. In retrospect, maybe I should have stayed at the end of the route. By the time the group was past, I was too far behind to get in front of them again for the Beale Street entrance. I missed the Thriller dance at Club 152, but I hear it was well-received and was even joined by a few flashmobbers who knew the Thriller dance. Because that’s a thing you should know. I also missed Dr. Toboggans‘ Zombie Therapy table, although I did see him passing out pamphlets to some folks before the march.

But what I DID see was a nice view of the horde when they were still fresh. The photos won’t show you the zombies’ hilarious blank stares, shuffles and pained lurches. Some of these folks are great actors. But, you can see a little of what I saw. Costumes and makeup were on POINT.

And blood was EVERYWHERE. The entire route is covered in blood. I hope a good strong rain washes this stuff away before we get in trouble.

As far as we know, we had all this mayhem but no one got hurt or complained. Three cheers for peaceful zombie parades. And a big THANK YOU to everyone who came down and made this event so much dang fun!!

(Want to see more? My photos are HERE, and the Flickr group for everyone is HERE. That Flickr group is well worth a look, because not only were there amazing zombies, there were amazing photographers too. I never saw so many SLRs in one place.)

JUNE 8 2010 EDIT: Here’s Zombie Me, which isn’t so much zombie as it is Bloody Me. Or “Bitchy Zombie,” as Alissa tagged this on Facebook.