Zombies!

I don’t know could’ve been a lame jogger maybe
Or someone just about to do the freeway strangler baby
Shopping cart pusher or maybe someone groovie
One thing’s for sure, he isn’t starring in the movies.
‘Cause he’s walkin’ in L.A.
Walkin’ in L.A., nobody walks in L.A.
Walkin’ in L.A.
Walkin’ in L.A., only a nobody walks in L.A.
-Missing Persons

A number of loyal SurviveLA readers have forwarded us links to a new book, The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks. We haven’t read this book but we were, about a month ago, nearly run over by a zombie motorist. So get out the tin foil hats, and we’ll tell you the story.

But first some background. One of the first things we did when we founded our “homestead” a few years ago was to increase the amount of walking that we do in the interest of our environment, to squeeze in a little more exercise, and also to save money on gas. Like most Angelinos we used to drive everywhere, including destinations that were just a few blocks away. We discovered the power of traveling by our own two feet after a friend of ours convinced us to join him on a 42 kilometer walk-a-thon from East LA to the ocean as a benefit for the brave folks at the Los Angeles Catholic Worker. On that trip we realized that walking, even up to 24 kilometers is perfectly feasible, though admittedly beyond that distance it starts to get hard. While we don’t walk such long distances in the course of a normal day, it’s still perfectly reasonable to take trips up to 5k.

Incidentally, for you engineering types, there is a handy way of estimating travel distances on foot devised by Scottish mountaineer W.W. Naismith in 1892. Naismith says that it takes an hour for each five kilometers. You must add a half hour for each 300 meters of elevation gain – though there probably won’t be much elevation gain in the course of your urban journeys unless you reside in San Francisco.

So, SurviveLA started walking more, taking trips to the bank, post office and other destinations in our neighborhood. Distances that once seemed too far on foot, now were a matter of routine and the sphere of what we consider walkable has increased dramatically in the past few years, changing our view of the city and acquainting us with many things we overlooked while driving.

Unfortunately it’s no coincidence that the Missing Persons wrote their song about Los Angeles. Walking sucks here — sidewalks are cracked, twisted and broken, the Los Angeles Department of Transportation considers pedestrians to be a nuisance, old people get tickets for taking too long to cross the street, and drivers are either oblivious, chatting on their cell phones, or outright homicidal.

In response to this SurviveLA has adopted an aggressive pedestrian style and we are relieved to hear that amongst our friends we are not the only ones to have yelled and banged on people’s cars. A certain punk rock Canadian type we know of once kicked out the headlights of an aggressive motorist with his steel tipped boots when the idiot almost ran down the guy’s kid who was in a stroller he was pushing. We don’t recommend this militant pedestrianism, but in the heat of the moment we often lose our normal zen like tranquility.

The award this year for the most militant LA pedestrians must go to a duo we found out about when we discovered the poster here at a crosswalk where we frequently have issues with motorists. It reads,

Please help me find this man and his wife (both in their late 50’s) – they were walking & stepped out in front of my car – angered (in a rage), he hit my stopped car w/his hand (denting it) . . . After hitting my car they both fled on foot – splitting up. I followed the man for an hour as he ran through the hills – but he got away.

Aside from their somewhat older age these angry pedestrians could have been us. We’ll note the fact that the motorist left out the part where he, no doubt, almost ran the couple down. SurviveLA congratulates this subversive pedestrian duo and we wish we could take credit for their revolutionary actions!

Which brings us back to the zombie issue. Last month, after returning from our thrice a week run along the western edge of the Silver Lake Reservoir we were walking home and attempting to cross West Silver Lake Drive in a crosswalk at a stop sign at the same spot where the angry pedestrian duo had their showdown, when a brand new sparkling Mini-Cooper came at us at a high speed making use of the rounded corners our city has thoughtfully designed to allow motorists to take turns as fast as they can. We threw our hands up in anger and prepared to smack the car when the driver stopped finally, allowing us to cross. Now here comes the weird part – we made eye contact and we swear that the driver was a genuine zombie! We’re talking literally here not making another one of our gratuitous swipes at the so-called “zombie hordes”. This Mini-Cooper zombie had deep set eyes, slightly tattered clothes and was obviously having one of those fresh out of the grave bad hair days. This was well before Halloween, so we don’t think this was some sort of costume. The brand-new and clean condition of the car suggested that we were dealing with a zombie of means and not some homeless person. She didn’t seem “goth”, and the nearest nightclub is Spaceland, hardly a goth hangout. As we crossed the street she continued to stare at us with a look that suggested the desire to consume the flesh of the living. All joking aside, it was a truly strange interaction, beyond the normal “The Great Architect of the Universe gave me the right to drive however I want” attitude that we expect from the motoring public.

Our encounter with the Mini-Cooper zombie proves that there may actually be a zombie menace out there and perhaps Zombie Survival Guide author Brooks should take his subject more seriously. SurviveLA suspects the cause of contemporary zombieism to be the effects of consumer culture and/or television viewing. What’s the cure? In short, we think it’s the exciting new urban homesteading lifestyle. What’s the strategy to overcome zombieism? We are no fan of the Unabomber, but he may be right about this one – just substitute the word “zombie” for “American” – which is perhaps redundant, anyways:

. . . it would be bad strategy for the revolutionaries to condemn Americans for the habits of consumption. Instead, the average American should be portrayed as a victim of the advertising and marketing industry, which has suckered him into buying a lot of junk that he doesn’t need and that is very poor compensation for his lost freedom.