Gimme, Gimme Some of That Vampire Money...

"Gimme, gimme some of that vampire money..."  -  My Chemical Romance


Well, yeah. That would be nice.


I just read the latest Tweet from Gerard Way and it simply said "Gimme gimme some of that vampire money."


And I thought, what does that mean? (I've not got the new album yet and only seen a couple of the new videos online, so I didn't realize Vampire Money was one of the tracks on it.) I figured he was going to be in a vampire movie or something.

So I Googled. Found it was a song title and then came across this article -

http://www.musicrooms.net/alternative/20448-gerard-way-twilight-has-romanticised-goths.html


(Check out the second tower ad, right hand side. Oh, the irony.)


The article made me really sad. I thought, well shit, he's not gonna star in the movie version of Vampire Vintage now, is he? Damnit! (Vivant was actually in-part inspired by Gerard Way's look and his theatrics.)

Joking aside, (yes, I know he won't star in my movie, nor will I probably ever have a movie,) but, the thing that made me sad about the article was this - Gerard Way said he is now totally over the whole vampire/goth thing.

Why?


Because of the sparkly one. Because of the overexposure and watering down of the subculture. Because of the cynical packaging and marketing of the goth / vampire as a commodity.


In essence, I can see his point and to a greater degree, I concur with his analysis.


But.

I remember a day, a day before My Chemical Romance were famous, before they were the apple of every purple-haired emo goth's panda-eye. They were nobodies. Virtually unknown. But I loved their music. They inspired me. And now that everybody else loves them and is inspired by them, I still love their music. I am still inspired by them. Because what the music meant to me, what it said to me, what I felt when I listened to it, I felt in my heart and in my soul. And there is nothing on this earth that could possibly tear that out of me. Nothing. And just because they are now one of the top bands in the universe, I have no intention of turning my back on them nor withholding the cash I spend on CD, DVDs etc. I cannot switch off what I feel for their music just because a few million other people like them now too. Those few million people have taste, I say. And I'm a till death kinda girl.


If I could talk to Gerard Way and to anybody and everybody else who are burned out on vampires, just because of misplaced media overexposure, this is what I would say. Some of us loved vampires before they sparkled. Some of us wrote vampire fiction before they went to high school and had strangely-named offspring. Some of us have always written about vampires - even before they were part of every-day tween memes.

And some of us loved vampires and gothy things when it seemed that nobody else did, and, indeed, would laugh at at those of us who did for doing so.

For me, the whole Twilight / paranormal romance / teen / tween slash, slash - whatever - aren't even part of the genre I write in, or the genre that I love. Twilight has never been marketed as a vampire book and is not being made an icon by vampire lovers. It has been adopted by those who read romance books.


But for every icon that's made there's always an iconoclast waiting in the wings. There's always something else will come along to capture the hearts and minds and The Big Thing of today will be fish and chip wrappers tomorrow.

I say keep the faith! Don't turn your back on us - we didn't do it. We were hijacked by High School Musical with fangs and a million canine-toothed Fabios on bad POD covers. I'm waiting for the day I see a picture of Kim Kardashian and Justin Beiber with fangs. That day, I may slit my own throat in despair. (Not really, but you know what I mean.)


None of this is meant with disrespect to The Twilight Saga or the Twilight movies or Stephenie Meyer - I've never read it, seen it, met her. There is a place for Twilight and there is a place for us - for everybody. It just makes me sad that people who loved what we love don't want to be on our 'team' anymore because of those things. And they don't really have anything to do with us.


But no matter what anybody else does, what anybody else writes, anybody else says, no matter how uncool or out of favor they become (they won't,) I will still love vampires. I will still love goth and the gothic. I will still write really cool vampire books. Because that's me.

Never give up.

Never lose hope.

Never let anybody take from you that which you love.

And above all - "Be yourself, don't take anyone's shit, and never let them take you alive." (G Way.)




- Alex. <--- Runs with vampires. Stakes boys who sparkle. (I'm just kidding!)

HEAD SHOTS : Scenes from the Zombie Apocalypse

OUT NOW in Kindle Edition!

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DESCRIPTION -


Meet Vic.

She used to be a cheerleader but her heart was never in it. She'd much rather have spent her time curb-stomping the high school Rah Rah Girls than cheering with them.


The daughter of the local "Vet who never left 'Nam," Vic had to fight tooth and nail for every single popularity point she ever earned.

But it was the skills her not-so-crazy father drummed into Vic her entire life that made her excel at surviving, starting with the day the world ended.

HEAD SHOTS : SCENES FROM THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE is a novella-length taster of a future full-length novel, HEAD SHOTS : LOVE SONG FOR THE APOCALYPSE.


Taking a slight departure from the usual continuous narrative, this 10,000 word novella is told in scenes, allowing for a lean, mean, rip-roaring read.

Excerpt from the opening of HEAD SHOTS : Scenes from the Zombie Apocalypse -


THE CHEERLEADER


WEEK 12

She stood in front of a broken window in the abandoned house they'd just looted. She was still. Silent. Others in the room whispered and whimpered, all of them terrified. They all knew what was coming.


Vic didn't even screw up her face when she caught their scent anymore. The stench carried over distance and you could always tell they would be here soon when the breeze smelled like the dead.


She heard shuffling coming from the left of the window. She stiffened, knife raised, ready to strike, muscles taut and glistening with sweat in the evening heat.


There was a gargling noise and the stink intensified. A young man behind her – no more than seventeen – bent double and heaved his guts up on to the floor as the scent of one of the dead fucks assaulted his nostrils. Some people just never got used to the aroma of rotting flesh.


That was what Vic usually called them, dead fucks. Each time she said it, she said it with venom. She said it with hatred. The F sound elongated when she spat it.


And then it was right in front of her. She grabbed at its head with a gloved hand, getting a fistful of maggots as well as hair.


She plunged the buck knife into its eye and wiggled it back and forth, up and down. She remembered her dad telling her they called it scrambling in Vietnam, “cause it leaves the brain looking like scrambled eggs – and 'bout as useful.” Then he would laugh, joyless, hollow laughter. Darkness would descend behind his eyes and color his gaze.


Vic knew that darkness now, she saw it in her own reflection.


She knew how it felt to be haunted, the way he was.


She pulled the blade out; it made a wet sucking noise; rancid vitreous humor dribbled down the loose meat face of the dead thing. The room voiced its disgust but she didn't even flinch.


Almost too easily she sliced through its neck, down to the bone. She hacked and stabbed at it, shattering vertebrae.


Then she punched it, just out of pure anger, needing the sting of pain in her own flesh to know she was hurting it, just to have that feeling of bone connecting with bone. The force of her blow separated the head from the neck and it fell backward, making the thing look like a rotten hoodie top. She laughed at it, but it was mirthless laughter, just like her dad...