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Monday, June 21, 2010

Life after Jacob's Foot: Zombies and Mad Men

Some mistakes are made in The Foot. The mistakes are mostly minor such as omitting certain things from an episode or a series or whatever. One such grave omission was made in my last write-up on Waiting To Fall and Miles To Go. Today, that mistake will be rectified.

You see, the "Get Ya Popcorn Ready" EP isn't so much an EP about love and heartbreaks. It is a much more sweeping narrative with an epic scope that re-imagines and re-tells the historic Battle of Borodino.

The Russian figures remains the same. In fact, the Get Ya Popcorn Ready opening song "Zip Tie" is not what it appears to be. The masses have been told that "Zip Tie" is a romantic piece about a dude's love for his girlfriend. The thing is: it is NOT about that at all. They only WANT you to think that. There was a famous General for the Imperial Russian Army in the early 1800s. His name was Kutuzov. He displayed tremendous resolve in that Battle and he had tremendous devotion to the country he loved.

Zip Tie" is ABOUT General Mikhail Kutuzov's love for his country. The song also foreshadows AND celebrates the legacy of Kutuzov in Russian history. He's the man who defeated Napoleon's army. Of course, Zip Tie also takes one into the mind of General Kutuzov. Here was this man with the fate of Russia in his hands at Borodino. It's a battle that was the bloodiest and largest in the entire war. The Russian's lost many, many soliders but knew they could replinish because of their country's population."Zip Tie" not only had to introduce and tell the story of General Kutuzov but it had to set up the rest of the story for the album while setting up for the unbelievable twist at the end of the song:

IN THIS RE-IMAGINING OF THE BATTLE OF BORODINO, THE FRENCH HAVE BEEN REPLACED BY ZOMBIES!

As for why, the band refuses to comment on the matter even so far as perpetuating this lie that it's about love and heartbreaks when, in reality, it's about this one day in history that resulted in over 70,000 casualties. Napoleon lost a third of his army but managed to capture the main positions on the battlefield but failed to destroy the Russian army. The battle was broken off because of how exhausted both sides were. It was one of the more pivotal points in the battle because this marked the last offensive action taken by Napoleon. Kutuzov preserved the strength of his army by withdrawing. Russian eventually would win the war.

Of course, with zombies, a few liberties are taken with history. For example, You Tonight is a story about how Kutuzov FALLS IN LOVE with one of the zombie women. It's weird. Tracks 5 and 6 juxtaposes the battle itself with elbaborate zombie drinking games.

Well, I've clearly lost my mind.

HERE'S SOMETHING NEW:

I'm going to link things that should be read or watched. Why? I don't know. Feels right. Here is today's link:

1. Mad Men--"Pilot"--Written By Matthew Weiner. http://leethomson.myzen.co.uk/Mad_Men/Mad_Men_1x01_-_Smoke_Gets_in_Your_Eyes.pdf

It's a terrific script and pilot. The old adage goes: a Pilot must be a singular episode and a microcosm of the entire series. The Mad Men pilot succeeds on both counts. I've become a big fan of the show since I began watching it in my post-LOST life. If you have watched this episode or haven't, it doesn't matter. It's an excellent script. Just read it.

THE YOUTUBE CLIP OF THE DAY

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About The Foot

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Originally, I titled the blog Jacob's Foot after the giant foot that Jacob inhabited in LOST. That ended. It became TV With The Foot in 2010. I wrote about a lot of TV.