While city mayors and governors across the country are in a contest for the dopiest lockdown restrictions, mayor of Los Angeles, Eric Garcetti, recently banned walking in the city of Los Angeles.

All travel, including, without limitation, travel on foot, bicycle, scooter, motorcycle, automobile, or public transit is prohibited.”-Mayor Eric Garcetti

With exceptions, of course. If you’re a liberal Hollywood type who needs to walk to your set to film, you’re exempt. If you’re homeless, you’re exempt. If you’re a crack addict walking the streets and stealing packages off of other people’s porches during this holiday season, you’re exempt. If you’re out on a nice day walking to fight the lockdown blues, you’re willfully defiant, apparently.

Film-maker, and “super-spreader” (as he calls himself on Twitter), Nick Searcy, has been going on (gasp) illegal walks in defiance of Eric Yoga Pants Garcetti:

I went for an illegal walk. You’ll never take me alive, ⁦@MayorOfLA⁩ pic.twitter.com/ROVSVvfmCH

— SUPER-SPREADER Nick Searcy, INT’L FILM & TV STAR (@yesnicksearcy) December 3, 2020

Remember when downtown Los Angeles had a typhus problem? Remember when rioters walked the streets in what you all encouraged as “peaceful protests” this summer? Yeah. Neither does Garcetti.

My message couldn’t be simpler: It’s time to hunker down. It’s time to cancel everything. And if it isn’t essential, don’t do it.

Don’t meet up with others outside your household. Don’t host a gathering, don’t attend a gathering and follow our targeted safer-at-home order, if you’re able to stay home, stay at home. Just be smart and stay apart.”- Mayor Eric Garcetti

Nick Searcy, on his walks, muses about the ridiculous amount of PPE one must wear when sojourning outside for a few minutes of walking, calling the times we are living in “The Dumbest Time in American History”. The smog in Los Angeles is probably far more dangerous than breezing past a massless stranger on the street. Don’t forget your mask and your face shield and your latex gloves if you must venture outside in L.A. though. The deadly ‘rona may strike you down. You may actually kill someone.

Can’t believe you pulled the mask down and let all that UV light kill the viruses on your face! That and you likely boosted your levels of Vitamin D. Criminal.

— cfm56 (@cfm56dash7) December 4, 2020

Among other things Eric Garcetti has prohibited: golfing at a municipal golf course unless the foursome golfing are all members of the same family. (Huh?) Dining outdoors. For those of us living in other cities and other states run by equally liberal Democrats, I guess we should consider ourselves lucky. We get to dine in outdoor tents. The “commoners” like us need to be grateful. All of this while the career politicians, the “public figures”, dine inside for private parties.

Nobody walks in L.A., (to quote the Missing Persons tune from the 80s). Walking is illegal. Walking down the street will get you looked at cross-eyed by people fearful and locked down in their homes. If other people are walking, they will purposefully risk being hit by a car and walk in the middle of the street to avoid you. If you are walking (gasp), mask free, letting the sunlight hit you in the face, you will be glared at by the drivers, in their car, all masked-up and ready to make that “essential trip” to Costco to hoard apocalyptic amounts of toilet paper. How do I know this? I have seen it myself.

During this time of year, it gets dark early. The sun comes up late. Walking in the daytime hours when the sun is out can be a saving grace for individuals who suffer from seasonal depression. Yesterday, my husband and I went for a walk to one of our local restaurants where they have set up heaters and a small indoor tent outside on their patio. They have quite an expansive indoor area that they cannot currently use. Every table outdoors was occupied. A kind couple, an 81 year-old retired Marine and his 78 year-old wife, invited us to join them. Like a crazy person, I found myself hesitant to join them for fear of “exposing compromised individuals”. Working in a very masked culture at my job, I actually did hear that little voice in my head. But here they were, in the “high-risk” group, enjoying an outdoor dinner and inviting a younger couple to come and sit with them, mask-free and talk. While my husband and the man were telling Marine Corps stories, we ladies were talking. This elderly couple has done nothing different since the pandemic hit. They go out to dinner, they go on walking dates like my husband and me. They get together with friends. They don’t live in fear. Heck, they invited two total strangers, as we were, to sit at their table!

We came as strangers and left as friends. We left, feeling a sense of humanity. I also left feeling very angry. This couple happens to be around the same age of our parents, who are hunkered down, in fear. The staff, at the bar and grill, was a skeleton staff. Some of the very same staff one would see on a weekend evening were not there. Some of those servers have children expecting a visit from Santa. Some of those very children visited “Santa” in masks, sitting behind a plexiglass screen. Talk about DUMB and depressing! They will miss gingerbread house/pajama days at school, and their parents, may or may not be able to get them that bike they wanted this year. It’s okay, the law-makers say “stay inside, no walking, no biking, no scooters”, anyway. As I was walking this morning, free of a mask, with the cold, morning air hitting my face, I thought of how we could keep walking in spite of restrictions, in spite of lockdowns. Go walking with your family in support of your neighbors, your local businesses. Walk in protest, walk to stomp out fear, walk to keep your head straight. Go out and talk a walk and stand tall, walk in spite of the Dumbest Time in American History. So, go on that illegal walk today. Hopefully, eventually, some of these over-reaching mayors and governors will get their walking papers. Before it’s too late.

Photo Credit: FlickR/Creative Commons/Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)/Cropped