You Might Be a Zombie and Other Bad News Read online

  The Hollywood fact-checking process.

  Of course the law is the law, and the law said Carter could go free. But it’s probably not quite accurate to use Carter’s story as proof that the criminal justice system is run by the Klan. The whole thing has really made us question Bob Dylan’s research skills.

  OH THE PLACES YOU’LL GO (WHEN YOU’RE DEAD): SIX INSANE THINGS SCIENCE MIGHT DO WITH YOUR CADAVER

  CHRISTIANITY, Islam, Jediism—many of the world’s great religions teach that the soul lives on forever. But what about the rotting hunk of Schlitz-cured blubber your soul leaves behind? If you leave your body to science, you and your soul might find yourselves watching jealously from the other side as your meat suitcase gets to …

  6. LAUNCH HEADFIRST THROUGH A WINDSHIELD

  Regardless of how kick-ass it looks in super slow motion, head butting a windshield at eighty miles per hour is generally a poor idea when you’re alive. “But why would anyone want to be filmed flying into a windshield?” you might ask, if you’re a nerd. The answer is simple, and also largely explains the teenage smoking epidemic: Brad Pitt made it look awesome in Fight Club.

  The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) will be more than happy to toss your stiff corpse into a car, drop a cinder block on the gas pedal, and send you flying into a ditch. In fact, the NHTSA and other agencies routinely use cadavers as crash test dummies, closely studying the carnage, frame by frame, to extract valuable insights about vehicle safety and, presumably, the occasional belly laugh.

  If you are one of the aforementioned nerds, we’ve got you covered too, since dying qualifies you to …

  5. GET SHOT INTO OUTER SPACE BY NASA

  All little boys dream of strapping into a captain’s chair and hurtling up into space atop a puffy white fireball oddly reminiscent of Anderson Cooper’s pubic mound. Unfortunately, unless you’re reading this book while doing quadratic equations upside down in the deep end of a pool, NASA probably isn’t all that keen on letting you pilot their multimillion-dollar spacecraft. At least not while you’re alive.

  However, while developing its Orion spacecraft, which will begin shuttling nondead astronauts to the international space station in 2015, NASA admitted to testing its landing systems on human cadavers. In fact, NASA’s been using crash test zombies since at least the 1990s, when Department of Defense- sponsored shuttle missions brought the head of a human cadaver along to test the effects of space radiation.

  While NASA probably won’t be changing the motto of its space camp to “You’re more useful to us dead than alive,” for anyone reading a book that equates space shuttle exhaust with Anderson Cooper’s pubes, that’s probably not far from the truth.

  4. HAVE SEX IN FRONT OF MILLIONS OF PEOPLE

  Back in 1994, a Polish man named Gunther von Hagens looked at the museum scene and realized something was missing. Namely, terrified, weeping children. Thus was born Body Worlds, an exhibit featuring corpses that had been stripped of their skin and pumped full of plastic to preserve the appearance of every internal organ and viscous fiber. Realizing he’d created an army of terrifying meat monsters, von Hagens decided to pose them in a variety of active positions to make the exhibit fun for the whole family. After 27 million spectators across the world flocked to see his cadavers posed to mimic everyday activities such as javelin throwing, in late 2009 von Hagens decided it was time to just make them bone already.

  That’s why, if you die at exactly the right moment and donate your body to a sufficiently shady laboratory, you could pass from this mortal plane directly into the bone zone (medical term). While critics have denounced the exhibit as an affront to God, for those of us who spent the better part of our lives lobbying to have our gift for boning honored with a museum exhibit, there is finally hope.

  3. SOLVE A MURDER

  Body farms are outdoor research facilities that allow scientists to monitor decomposing corpses as they bloat and waste away in the sun for months on end. Essentially, it’s like summer at the Jersey Shore, except the purpose is to better inform law enforcement about the decomposition process (as opposed to nailing a half-literate hairdresser).

  Body farms at the University of Tennessee, Western Carolina University, and Texas State University painstakingly chart the progress of cadavers as they decompose, providing critical information used to analyze homicide victims and helping to bring murderers to justice.

  Most of us have a difficult enough time guessing who is the bad guy in a Law & Order episode (hint: It’s the pervy guy they interview first and hastily write off). Turns out that if you want to be the next Jack McCoy, all you have to do is lie around turning into Chester Copperpot.

  2. DIE (AGAIN) FOR YOUR COUNTRY

  Stepping on a land mine is generally a risky proposition for the living, but the dead are free to throw caution—and their limbs—to the wind. If you’ve ever wanted to be turned into human chili while making a noble sacrifice for your country, just slip a note saying so into your will.

  In 2004, Tulane University found itself at the center of a media firestorm when it was revealed that seven people who had entrusted their cadavers to the Tulane science department had been blown up by the army to test land mine-resistant footwear.

  A Santa Clara University professor wrote that the army used cadavers from donors who had no idea they would end up in a million bloody pieces thanks to a detonated mine. So if you donate your body and Uncle Sam gets a hankering to make it rain with your insides, you probably won’t have a say in the matter.

  1. STAR IN A GEORGE CLOONEY MOVIE

  Forget about taking acting classes or fellating midlevel studio executives—starring alongside the sexiest man in Hollywood is just one brain contusion away. That’s because Tilda Swinton isn’t the only pale corpse to have shared the silver screen with the star of Michael Clayton.

  While directing Clooney in the 1999 Gulf War flick Three Kings, David O. Russell filmed actual bullets entering actual human innards to capture hyperrealistic visual effects. The details of how Russell obtained a body to rekill are sketchy, but one thing is clear: Some lucky bastard got the break millions would kill for, just by being dead.

  Sure, catching a hot one in the spleen is a steep price to pay for a walk-on part. But, like a true celebrity, you won’t feel a damn thing.

  THE FIVE MOST RIDICULOUS LIES YOU WERE TAUGHT IN HISTORY CLASS

  REMEMBER back in elementary school when you were at the peak of your potential as a human being? Remember all those fun stories your hungry brain absorbed about the great men who built the world around you? Yeah, that was all bullshit.

  5. COLUMBUS DISCOVERED THAT THE EARTH IS ROUND

  The story

  In 1492, a ponce named Christopher Columbus won his long-standing feud with the Spanish monarchy to get funding for a voyage to East Asia. It had been a tough battle because everybody besides Columbus thought that the earth was a flat disc and that anyone sailing east would fall off the world’s edge, presumably into the mouth of the giant turtle they thought supported it. Columbus did fail to reach his destination, but only because he crashed into the future greatest nation on earth, baby! Thus Columbus proved that the world was round, discovered America, and a national holiday was born.

  The truth

  In the 1400s, the flat-earth theory was taken about as seriously as it is today. Greek philosopher Pythagoras had figured out the earth was round about two thousand years before Spain even existed.

  The Spanish government’s reluctance to pay for Columbus’s journey had nothing to do with its misconceptions about the shape of the world. Columbus himself severely underestimated the size of the earth, and everybody knew it. He eventually scraped together enough funds and supplies to get halfway to his destination, at which point he and his crew would have died horrible deaths had he not crash-landed on a continent he didn’t know existed.

  The myth probably began with Washington Irving’s 1838 novel The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus. El
ements of the fictional account started creeping into our history textbooks when editors realized that nobody wants to read history books starring some dumb asshole who lucked into inventing a country.

  4. EINSTEIN FLUNKED MATH

  The story

  Motivational speakers love the story of a German kid who, despite his sincerest efforts, could never manage to do well in math.

  That dumb ass grew up to be Albert freaking Einstein! And if he can do it, then so can you!

  The truth

  Actually, no you can’t. As it turns out, Einstein was a mathematical prodigy. Before he turned twelve, he was already better at arithmetic and calculus than you will ever be. Not only did he pass math with flying colors, he probably could have taught the class by the end of semester.

  The idea that Einstein did badly at school is thought to have originated with a 1935 Ripley’s Believe It or Not! trivia column, which probably should have been called Believe It or Not! I Get Paid Either Way, Assholes. The famous trivia “expert” never cited his sources, and the various “facts” he presented throughout his career were mostly things he thought he heard, combined with stuff he pulled directly out of his ass.

  According to Walter Isaacson’s Einstein: His Life and Universe , when Einstein was first shown Ripley’s supposed expose of his early life, he allegedly laughed and politely responded that before he was fifteen he “had mastered differential and integral calculus.” When he finally kicked the bucket in 1955, failure was the one concept that Albert Einstein had never managed to master.

  3. NEWTON AND THE APPLE

  The story

  Isaac Newton was pretty much the Jesus of physics. In the late seventeenth century, he discovered the laws of motion, the visible spectrum, the speed of sound, the law of cooling, and calculus. Yes, all of calculus. Either the man was a supergenius or nobody ever thought about anything before he was born.

  Probably his most famous discovery, however, is the law of gravity. The story goes that Newton was sitting under a tree one sunny day, when an apple dropped from a branch and bopped him right on the head. While most people would merely think, “Ouch! Son of a bitch!” Newton responded by formulating the entire set of universal laws governing the motion of gravitating bodies.

  The truth

  Newton never mentioned the thing with the apple. The first known mention of the apple thing came sixty years after it supposedly happened, when his assistant John Conduitt wrote an account of Newton’s life. Even Conduitt’s version is vague about whether Newton actually saw an apple or simply used it as a metaphor to illustrate the idea of gravity for people less intelligent than him (read everybody): “Whilst he was musing in a garden it came into his thought that the power of gravity (which brought an apple from the tree to the ground) was not limited to a certain distance from the earth.”

  You may also notice the account doesn’t mention the apple hitting Newton in the head. That was added somewhere along the line to bring a bit of much-needed cartoonish slapstick to the history of theoretical physics.

  So, why did your elementary school teachers lie? People want to believe that discoveries happen suddenly, with a lightbulb popping on over someone’s head. Makes it seem like it could happen to anyone. The other option would be telling kids the truth, which makes for a much less cute story.

  For example, Newton spent the best part of his life formulating and perfecting his theories. Hunched over piles of papers covered with clouds of tiny numbers, he put in months and years of tedious, grinding, silent, lonely work, until he had a nervous breakdown and finally died, insane from mercury poisoning. Welcome to the real world, Timmy. If you work hard enough, you too can die a lonely, broken man!

  2. WASHINGTON AND THE CHERRY TREE

  The story

  After his father’s prize cherry tree made the mistake of getting in the way of a young George Washington’s ax, the future president was confronted about the crime. While a lesser founding father might have blamed a slave, Washington was unable to lie, and confessed. Thus ends the first story Americans learn about the life and times of their first president, George Washington, the only superhero to ever run the country.

  The truth

  George Washington’s elevation to the status of deity is mostly due to a man named Mason Locke Weems. He was the author of the concisely titled biography The Life of George Washington, with Curious Anecdotes Laudable to Himself and Exemplary to his Countrymen.

  Weems recalled many fantastic stories about Washington, with particular emphasis on his overwhelming moral fortitude and infallibility. The cherry tree story is of particular importance, because it demonstrates that Washington could easily destroy things, and just chose not to.

  Of course, Weems’s recounting of Washington’s exploits were about as historically accurate as Will Smith’s 1999 Civil War documentary Wild Wild West.

  Nevertheless, Weems’s lies were taught in American school textbooks for over a century, probably because the truth—that Washington was a bullet-charming borderline lunatic—is much more likely to encourage behavior that will put an eye out (see page 208). The story still resonates today—delivered to your children’s impressionable minds through such reliable media as Sesame Street—mostly because the central message still holds true: it’s much easier to tell the truth when you’re the one holding the axe

  1. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, THE KITE, AND THE THUNDERSTORM

  The story

  Another great American mutant superhero is Ben Franklin, the scientist and statesman whose inventions included bifocal spectacles, the urinary catheter, and freedom. But maybe his most famous experiment was the one that led to the invention of electricity.

  Franklin went out into a raging thunderstorm and released a kite with a lightning rod affixed to the top and a metal key attached to the string. Annoyed at Franklin’s bravery, God threw a bolt of lightning at him, Franklin blocked it with his kite, the charge passed down the string and into the key, and thus electricity was invented (somehow).

  Ben Franklin’s typical morning ritual (according to your sixth grade social studies teacher).

  The truth

  It’s certainly true that Franklin at least proposed a kite experiment. It’s less likely that he ever got around to performing it. Most scientists familiar with the concepts of electricity and kites agree that if someone flew a kite into a storm and it was struck by lightning, they and everyone around them would be turned into a fine mist of smoldering meat jelly.

  In reality, Franklin’s proposed experiment involved flying a kite into some clouds to collect a few harmless ions, in order to prove that the atmosphere carries a charge. The exaggerated story comes down to us by way of revisionist historian Walt Disney and his classic cartoon Ben and Me (a film that also suggests Franklin’s innovations are actually attributable to his pet mouse). The kite story persists to this day, presumably because anyone who’s tried to replicate it hasn’t survived to call bullshit.

  In addition to teaching questionable lightning safety, Franklin’s lightning high-five, like Newton in the apple story, portrays one of history’s great geniuses experiencing naive wonder at a now-common idea, as if everyone who lived before the twentieth century was a childlike simpleton.

  Why can’t there be some other legend about Franklin that’s closer to his real personality? Like the time he pleasured six women at once. Sure, we made that up. But if you go out and repeat it enough, it’ll be in textbooks by 2050.

  THE SIX CUTEST ANIMALS THAT CAN STILL DESTROY YOU

  IF animals could talk, they’d spend most of their time calling us dicks and telling us to get off their land. The traits we think of as cute are often simply tricks animals have developed to get tourists to throw food. Here are six animals that you’ll probably want to steer clear of, no matter how adorable they look on that wall calendar.

  6. HIPPOPOTAMUS (HIPPOPOTAMUS AMPHIBIUS)

  How cute!

  Hippos are the very definition of Disney cute. There is no way you
could look at a big, fat, squishy, huggable hippo and not think, “If she could talk like a human, she would sound just like Jada Pinkett Smith and be oh so sassy.” You would totally name her Sassy-baskets, and she would be your tutu-wearing, ballet-dancing, strut-walking pal for life. Just you and Sassy-baskets against the world!

  Oh shit! Run!

  The next time you settle in for a game of Hungry Hungry Hippos, take a moment to reflect on the fact that hippopotamuses kill more humans per year than any other animal in Africa.

  See, there’s this word territorial that nature takes pretty seriously, especially when it’s applied to a two-ton animal with teeth the size of bowling pins. It’s the sort of word you either pay very close attention to or ignore and end up with “Killed to death by hippo” on your tombstone.

  “Come on, kid. Just a little bit closer …”

  A hippo attack usually consists of two phases. The hippo first smashes its giant head into your boat, tossing you into the water. Spencer Tyron is a good example of what happens in stage two. Tyron was hunting on an African river when, according to a 1974 Science Digest article, a bull hippo flipped his canoe, and then for good measure “bit off his head and shoulders.”

  That’s probably why the late Steve Irwin, a man who used to tackle twelve-foot crocodiles for fun and wave angry snakes filled with kill-you-before-your-next-heartbeat poison at a camera, considered a five-minute sequence where his camera team had to cross a river filled with hippos to be the single most dangerous moment ever filmed on his show.