The Slayer

A few months back I got this crazy idea that my favorite Mini Cooper magazine, MC2, might have a place for me. So, using the crazed pen name, Hollywood Zombie--with the thought of reaching a new demographic for the Mini Cooper business, I sent in my shit and, while they enjoyed reading it, they said they didn't know where to put me, and that their demographic was too old to relate. Duh.

In retrospect, there's not many places in the world for a guy like me, but that's okay. I accept that.

So, in light of this realization, I insist in at least publishing my own stuff for the people who want to inflict suffering on themselves in a hundred years or so. With that in mind, here are 3 installments of my failed attempt at magazine publication.

"The Slayer!"
By Hollywood Zombie
(installment 1 of 3)

When I was nine years old, Danny Cahill and I one time found this dead chipmunk in a field and decided we should drive a large wooden stake through its heart to keep it from rising from the dead and coming after us. The tip of the stake was almost as big as the chipmunk and, after a few minutes of pounding on it with a large hammer, leaving the monster flattened; we gave up and found something else to do.

Yeah, I’ve always been a little different. In fact, my wife, our adult children, friends, and even the occasional acquaintance, have all been known to ask me things like, “what the hell’s wrong with you?” In which I usually just shrug and reply, “I dunno.” But the fact that I drive a 2009 Chili Red Mini Cooper S, with a white hard top, racing stripes on the hood, and distinctive white vinyl graphics on the sides—which make our Mini look like it rolled through an alien garden of robot flowers—doesn’t really convey the whole story of what’s brought me here today.

It’s true that all Mini Cooper owners have different reasons why they drive a Mini, but for me, it wasn’t the advertisements, it wasn’t seeing it in the Italian Job, it wasn’t even thinking it was a cool car. In fact, for a long time, I really didn’t like Mini Coopers. Ghasp! Yeah, you heard right. For years I thought they were kind of stupid. Even after watching the Italian Job, I only thought they were sort of cool, but mostly I thought they were a chick car (a common criticism by men with “big” hang-ups). So, even though my wife wanted one for years, I was always a little indifferent to the idea. I mean, I’m the guy who used to stake potential vampire-zombie-chipmunks! I couldn’t be seen drivin’ some crazy little foreign jobbie. I had an image to uphold!

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not the pickup truck driving lunatic pushing you to get out of the fast lane (okay, I might have done that), but, hell, most of my life I’ve driven minivans and station wagons because we’ve had so many dang kids! So, I know what it’s like to have people look down their nose at any mode of transportation they might find distasteful.

So, for years I was the angry idiot in the minivan who refused to let guys in little sport cars go faster than me. I was the guy who revved his family station wagon at stoplights. I was the guy who waved a rubber chicken at people when they really pissed me off on the road (everyone does that, right?). Of course most of that behavior stopped after all the kids grew up and left home and the doctors finally figured I had sleep apnea, so they fixed it. Now, thanks to the C-Pap I sleep with at night, my brain gets more oxygen and my road rage is a thing of the past. So, I started looking for a vehicle which could define the kind of person that I am.

Eventually, I did buy a small pickup to go back and forth to work, and let me tell ya, it was a real piece of crap! It was rusted-out, guzzled gas, and its shitty suspension jarred my innards like a angry jack-hammer. But, in the end, I guess I did reclaim a little of my (imagined) lost manhood from all those grocery-getting years; with the truck, at least I felt some freedom.

But when Old Rusty started to fail, and the US government did the whole “Cash for Clunkers” thing last summer (offering me $4500 in cash), I knew I’d better jump. “But Hollywood Zombie,” you might ask, “after all the crazy shit you just told us, why the hell did you buy a Mini Cooper?”

If you must know, it was the friggin’ test-drive, okay! Although, at the time, I still didn’t know what convinced me to buy, I just knew I had to have one. I’m actually a little ashamed to admit it, but, until the Slayer entered my life, (the Slayer is the name my wife and Chase, in the service department of Pensacola Mini, came up with), I have never loved a machine the way I love that car! The only thing left, after we made the purchase, was to find a way to make her unique from all the other Chili Red Minis out there.

So, my wife and I picked out a design we both liked (and a few of my friends apparently hate), and then had the dealer put it on for us, because, hey, I really didn’t want to screw it up (like last Spring when I gave myself a haircut so bad I had to shave my head). Anyway, the curious thing that happened in my head (now with hair) when the Slayer rolled out onto the pavement with the new side graphics, was that I finally realized what sold me on the Mini in the first place; it was different, just like me. But now it was really, REALLY different. In fact, it looked so different that I actually said the words Gene Wilder screamed in Young Frankenstein when the monster got loose, “Oh God in heaven, what-have-I-done!” (Actually, it was just in my head, but it was real loud.)

Not that I don’t like the new loud and obnoxious side graphics we chose, because the Slayer looks awesome, and is a good fit for a guy like me. But the reason I reacted negatively was because it betrayed something about my personality that I wasn’t sure I wanted people to know, yet. I mean, sure, people know there’s something wrong with me, people know I’m half-nuts, but most people don’t know that I’m a frustrated Hollywood writer/director who wants to cut loose like Dr. Frankenstein’s monster. And now, thanks to the wild-eyed lunatic inside me who I usually try to keep locked in a padded cell, my Mini seems to scream, “Look and me! I’m Mr. Hollywood! I’m HOLLYWOOD ZOMBIE! (okay, maybe that’s still just in my head).

But it’s true. I’ve even started my own independent film company. One could even say that I have “multiple projects in various stages of development,” like Dov S-S Simens teaches students at his 2-day film school, and that would be true. And, if you haven’t figured it out already, I’m really just some guy who graduated with writing degree who’s been able to talk enough friends and family into doing things in front of a camera for free (a useful skill, to be sure, but I’m no Tarantino; at least not yet).

And while you may have never seen anything I’ve done, yet, if you do happen to see the Slayer drive by here in Pensacola, you will definitely hear it silently scream my mantra, “I’m awesome! I’m somebody special, man!” which, I guess, is actually true. I mean, I AM awesome…. I AM somebody special… I drive a frickin’ MINI COOPER S, man! Just call me Hollywood Zombie. Let’s Motor!

Hollywood Zombie also answers to the name Wade Buffington. He earned a BA in English Creative Writing from the University of West Florida. He is retired from the US Air Force and currently works as a civilian supervisor and 3D Illustrator/Animator for the US Navy, and, in his spare time, writes screenplays and fancies himself an independent film director. Wade and his lovely wife, Lynn, live in beautiful Pensacola, Florida. They have four self-sufficient adult children who live all over the world, and five awesome grandchildren, that they don’t see near enough. Hollywood can be reached at: wbuffington@cox.net