Coyote Ugly… By Whitney Farmer – Un Pop Culture

October 12, 2011 Whitney Farmer 32 Comments

Whitney runs a rock music venue on the beach in L.A.. She has an M.B.A, and TiVOs classic Looney Tunes cartoons.

The Occupy Wall Street movement is spreading to the rarefied addresses of Upper Manhattan where the billionaires live, to nearly 300 other U.S. cities by last count, and to other countries that have been dismantled by the modern day robber barons.  Whether the perpetrators that are housed in the economic 1% were inept, blinded by greed, or knew precisely what the global consequences of their actions would be, it’s unlikely that they forecasted the rising tide of rabble rousing.  No blood has been shed, thankfully. But the previously undifferentiated 99% of the U.S. population with a median individual income of less than $40,000 annually has homogenized into one featured characteristic: They are waking up. Now, they – or rather ‘we’ because I have yet to make $1 million bucks – now realize that life as we have known it has been changed. The future will not look like we had anticipated. Individuals and communities now are faced with discovering how they will make a living in a barren landscape.

A story ran yesterday that a coyote had snatched a Yorkshire Terrier from a yard in Huntington Beach at 7:30 am on Sunday morning. That the predator had, incredulously, dared cross into a gated community to hunt was carefully noted.

I’ve crossed paths a few times with coyotes since moving here. Once after fires consumed a good portion of Griffith Park and threatened to require the evacuation of the L.A. Zoo, I saw one at the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Alvarado Street. It was late at night, and I was driving home past the music of clubs, shuttered bodegas, and taco trucks.  The coyote was running down the middle of the street, his stride uncompromised by any fear of my headlights. It was clear that he had been chased from his home by the flames, and that he had a plan to get back to whatever wilderness home he could find. I decided to provide him with what I do for motorcycles on the freeway and give him an impromptu escort, coming behind him and body blocking him from drivers that might not be paying attention. I watched him as he continued his even-rhythmed lope down the middle of Alvarado towards the eventual foothills that surrounded Montrose where Billy Ray Cyrus and family would be his new neighbors. And he watched me over his shoulder, fearless, without breaking his stride. He left the road near Eagle Rock.

I encountered another coyote just before dawn off a road near the Seal Beach Naval Base on my way home. I was driving towards a suburban cul-de-sac at the end of my work night dodging predators, and he was trotting away after a work night full of being one.  He glanced up at me as we passed each other, and his coat was thick from good nutrition provided from hunting cats and yorkies.

I have no doubt that coyotes and the majority of creation would prefer to never encounter humanity. There are few if any upsides to being around us. The promises of domestication in exchange for a cease-fire never end up being a fair trade agreement. We devour territory and resources, and then hunger and confusion causes a push-back from displaced former inhabitants turned involuntary tenants. Generally, humans send out exterminators or other similar eviction officers when there is a conflict of interests.

I’m a pet lover and dog owner, but I have sympathy for the coyotes. What do we expect?  They have nowhere to live, and nothing left to eat, and we have displayed the luxury of kibble-fed pedigrees like a forbidden buffet. Like CEO bonuses on Wall Street…

The frantic physical comedy of Wile E. Coyote always tugs at my heart even though I am compelled to laugh out loud, watching Looney Tunes by myself at 4:30 am. He is skinny and hopelessly inept, his failures made worse by his assurance that he embodies the title “Genius” written on his business card.  Acme giant rubber bands, earthquake pills, jet packs and Bat-Man acquisitions lead only to freefalling failures. Precisely like high risk loans that were packaged into mortgage-backed securities and fell faster than gravity, taking the hopes of a better life for the 99% with them over the cliff. In the skewed perception of the financial pirates who did the pillaging, they recall the last frame being a wide-eyed stare to the audience with a scribbled sign saying “HELP!” that couldn’t stop the coming apocalypse. Poignant, comedic, and powerless.

I encountered the real-life coyote who had come into the gated community to eat cats and Yorkies after his territory had been lost to subdivisions. As he trotted by the driver’s window of my car, he didn’t shy away from my car or from me. He met my gaze without fear and continued to do what was needed to survive. He was magnificent. There was nothing cartoonish or powerless about him.

He was mad as hell and he wasn’t going to take it anymore.

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Quote of the Blog, from Bugs Bunny, after a guy with a gun tried to shoot him for fun: “You realize, this means war.”