Since my fat ass has actually been going to the gym consistently, I’ve had to add several songs to my workout rotation. What will follow is a periodic update of whichever song has given me added juice on the lifting machines or elliptical trainer. Download these yourselves and enjoy.

“Zombies Ate My Neighbors” – Single File

When I ran in the Highland Running of the Bulls, I found that being chased really aided my motivation. I cannot run for the sake of running. I get 30 seconds into it and think, “What the fuck am I doing? Why don’t I just walk? Or if it’s too far, I should get a bike… or a car! I’m sad Dennis Farina is dead. Whose dad did he play that I really liked? Oh right, Jennifer Lopez’s dad in Out of Sight.” And then I realize I haven’t been running for, like, a half hour and I’ve just been drinking espresso in a café reading the newspaper.

So yeah, running doesn’t really work for me.

Unless I’m being chased. And that’s why I’ve taken a shine to “Zombies Ate My Neighbors” by Single File. I hadn’t listened to this song in probably a good three years, but somehow stumbled upon it again and put it in my rotation ever since.

Single File is from Westminster, and they hit the scene right about that time it seemed like every new band to break mainstream was from Colorado. The Fray, The Flobots, Tickle Me Pink, 3OH!3, Meese… it was a Colorado onslaught. Of the popular songs of those bands, Single File’s big hit was my favorite.

It’s an airy pop rock song that sat on the leading edge of the zombie craze that has now taken hold of the nation. Despite its endless, dreadful, half-witted ruminations on the nature of existence, The Walking Dead still is a show I tune in for. One of the best analogies I’ve ever heard about the second season, when everyone seemed content to take long walks around Doc Cornpone’s farm and pontificate on “what it all means,” was that The Walking Dead was the finest distillation of the worst, most pretentious parts of graduate school ever put to film. For anyone who’s been to graduate school, you know just how true that is.

If the writing is largely terrible, the characters basically unlikable (except for Daryll, of course), then why keep watching? Because zombies are the virtually the only villain it’s acceptable for everyone to hate without getting a stern tsk-tsking from the ACLU or whoever. So you can cheer without remorse when Carol shoves a piece of rebar through a chain link fence right into some zombie’s ugly fucking grill.

And because the idea of getting chased by a zombie is abjectly terrifying. Which helps you work out.

So, call the neighbor kids, with trash can lids, and buckets on their heads… cuz I’m telling you, we’re gonna need a little help tonight.

Best of luck to you as you escape your own imagined zombie apocalypse, and chase down your fitness goals.

Enjoy!