(still busy, puishing almost 20 hours/day on the pre-show season rush.... so I thought I'd throw another classic from my blog vault at ya. All wrapped-up nicely with an almost-Halloween theme!)

...yes, vampires. Late nights and store-brand coffee have taken their toll, and the mind begins to wander... Sadly, I'm sitting here, thinking about vampires, and vampirism (actual word? Sounds all professional!) in general. I'm not thinking so much about the whole "feasting on blood" blah-blah-blah... but rather about the more subtle nuances of immortality. The stuff that books and movies never really touch on. (I am so writing this book...)

Consider: Almost all vampires have a steady stream of money pouring in. They're financially set. You never see a vampire portrayed as waking up every day, and having to head off to work at some dead-end job. They always live in a huge, mostly victorian-era mansion with black painted everything and goofy-looking, Pier-1 derelect lighting fixtures. They never seem to have a crappy, one-bedroom apartment on the lower east side that offers parking eight blocks away. Certainly, you could argue that over the course of many generations of living and feasting on blood, that maybe they've gotten lucky, and made some cash... How, well, is beyond me. I mean, day trading is out by the very nature of BEING a vampire. You're pretty much doomed to the night shift... and consider how often you'd need to change jobs... Not even so much from drinking your co-workers lifeless (who'd be left to send out memo's?), but imagine if you chose to feast outside of work. What if you stained your shirt? Furthermore, someone would eventually pick up on the fact that you NEVER AGE. Hmmm....

Thus, I'm thinking you'd have to marry into money. Which opens a new can of worms: All vampires are usually very attractive. Why is this? Observe:

Tom Cruise--
no need to work

Steve Buscemi--
possible zombie

Hypothesis: Good-looking people get dates, and meet other people. Simple fact. Unattractive people are lonely (and probably write about vampire life tribulations when not drawing cars), and do not live la vida Dracula. An attractive vampire can move up the corporate ladder easily, and amass fortunes by marrying into money, or having it thrown at them by other vampires. Unattractive vampires are usually portrayed as the lackeys, and are killed off by the stunningly handsome king vampires (or run over by holy water delivery trucks. They are to vampire life what anyone in a red shirt is to Star Trek: Dead in 20 Minutes. -- which is a great band name. Contact me for use...). Ponder the lonely, lonely life of an unattractive vampire. A lifetime of chat rooms and night shifts. Not a good thing.

You should also consider the hard times a modern vampire has at the supermarket, or even just eating out. "Is there any garlic in that? Oh, there is? Shit. I guess I'll just have to lure you out back and drink of your neck. I mean, I'll have the salad."

Another consideration is renewing a driver's license. "Age?" "744." "Step over here for your eye test, Mr. Nosferatu." "Can we, uh, do without the flash on the photo?" ?Although, to punch a hole in that theory, you'd never be able to just go down to the DMV and renew, 'cuz they close too early. You'd literally expire because your license did, wandering out in the daylight like that. Unless you did it online... which, of course, breeds the conspiracy theory that the DMV caters to vampires. (and why not? They obviously employ the living dead... but like the old-school living dead that move really slow and stuff. They need to upgrade to a more modern zombie... the speedy, efficient ones rule.)

I know, you're thinking "So why the zombie talk now?", right? I just thought that, well, if you're too unattractive to be a vampire, I'd bet there's a lot of work available in Zombie-ism. But that's another thought for another time.

Another down-side to modern day vampire life is underground night clubs (especially those converted from old churches -- a popular thing to do in France I suppose. I've seen movies. I'm hip to what's cool over there.). Obviously, to be a good vampire, you need to enjoy the club and rave scene, and develop a tolerance for crappy techno music and blinking lights. And fog machines. I wonder if the REALLY old vampires sit around and complain... "In my day, we'd take the ladies out under the stars in our coach, and seduce them with song and poetry and sonnets... and then we'd chomp into their necks and have Jeeves bury the bones. Not this thirty bajillion beats per second, dry humping crap. Whippersnappers... wouldn't know an honest day's bloodlust if it bit 'em in the neck."

...and don't even get me started on the wonders of combining cannibalism and vampirism. It'd be a time-saver for the vampire on the go... and makes good food for thought.