Billboard Liberation Front

AIM HIGH

Once upon a time there were 5 tree planters from a cooperative who, having worked very hard, took a vacation in Seattle. They saw a billboard which had a very phallic jet aircraft torqueing across the sign with the caption "Aim High." So they did.

People went onto the board, measured and got color samples. They pasted red painted letters onto white butcher paper, got squeegees and other gear, and one evening rush hour they posted a person at one end of the freeway bridge next to the board, and another near an on-ramp in the opposite direction; all armed with walkie-talkies. The others wheat-pasted the paper onto the sign.

Most observers were amused; the others were much more emphatic, even hostile. One father-son team got out and demanded that the crew "COME DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW!!!" The young vandals explained that they just had a job to do and ignored these "Love it or Leave It" types. The traffic flow soon compelled the all-American duo to leave; indeed, it was so heavy that even with immediate warning—had cellular phones been invented—the cops would have taken minutes to arrive.

Within 15 minutes the sign was corrected and our heroes departed, leaving their spattered overalls and equipment in a friend's boat, which was anchored in one of the city's canals. To celebrate they sought out a local bar, whose tinted windows turned out to have a commanding view of the scene of the crime. As they entered it was clear that virtually everyone had watched them; they were fingered ... and the room broke into cheers.

They had relaxed for perhaps 20 minutes when the police arrived like gangbusters, looking for people to assist them in their inquiries. As nobody had seen a thing, the cops left.

By noon the board had been covered with the same sign. It looked great ... until the next winter rain, when the added letters ghosted through the wet paper: next to "Aim High" were the words "Blow Up The Pentagon!"

"You do Boards Too?"

Our story begins long, long ago ... even the statute of limitations has run.

I've never been at my best at 3:30 in the morning; being acutely nervous doesn't help the experience. In the predawn darkness our voices are muffled as we wake and drink some coffee, some alcohol: Slivovitz. We leave silently, carrying anonymous black knapsacks, dressed in dark colors, wearing felony shoes (sneakers), get into our vehicles and depart.

At the prearranged area we park out of sight of each other, retrieve our sacks and bundles (rolls of paper, painting rollers with long handles, what are those—mops?) and walk calmly to the board. It's one we've hit before so we know access and visibility. Hopefully the watch teams are in place in each direction. We won't know until we all get home—or we are warned of an approaching cop by a blinking flashlight.

The board is low, so one person will work on the ground. The nimblest climbs up first, then the heaviest. Mops are passed up, a bucket appears, and plastic bottles (here now, what's this? starch?) are emptied. On the ground the rolls are unfurled and wetted lightly with a mop, while above another wets the paper of the billboard the same way. The awkward sheet is handed up, maneuvered into position, pressed down, then rolled firmly. The process is repeated for another large piece, then for two small ones.

We are interrupted by happy cries from the street—skateboarders! One of them calls his friend over—unable to believe his eyes. His friend misses us at first, then focuses. They ask what we're doing, and I tersely explain "We're correcting this billboard." They watch for a minute before heading down University Ave. We rapidly finish our work and collect our tools. The ground person has already vanished around the corner when we dismount and walk away calmly, pausing for a moment to admire our handiwork. A sign which used to advertise a condominium village in Richmond with the slogan "Once a Great Notion / Now a Great Life" now reads "Once a Great Nation / Now a Great Lie." A banner with 20" tall letters reading "US Out of North America" covers the real advertiser's name. (Let us not get into a debate about whether it has ever been all that great; we went for the cuteness.)

We corrected about a dozen boards in about a year. We were inspired by another group in Berkeley which was altering Selective Service registration boards ("It's Quick / It's Easy / It's the Law / Men turning 18 must register at the Post Office"). They had substituted—perfectly—the word "Deadly" for "the Law." Our first attempt was not as polished: we replaced the third line with ours, which read "It's a Trap for Assholes." We specialized in these signs, our alterations including "It's the Pig's Law" and "Men turning 18 must register at the morgue." We also hit other targets of opportunity.

We used rolls of colored artist's paper from various stores; originally we tried spray-painting but gave it up as too much work and too expensive. We made letters with the appropriate color of paper and applied them with white glue. The actual application to the board was done with ordinary laundry starch. It only works on paper or cardboard signs, but it is cheap and easy to obtain. (We'll point out that we saw this as fun & worthwhile & all that, but also as training for more adventurous endeavors. We had read "Traces"—a manual useful for those who perform actions which they do not want to be caught doing— emphasizing the use of untraceable, ordinary items, and lots of caution about pieces of the perpetrator remaining on the crime- scene, and vice-versa.) We were indifferent to the ease of removal—we figured that the workers who did so would be paid anyway.

One afternoon I saw a worker replacing an SS board that we had hit; we worked furiously, made calls, assembled the team, and had a newer—better—version up by 4:00 the next morning. Fast service!

We never went onto a board in advance; a certain feeling that it wasn't all that necessary and that it exposed you unduly. In fact, some LAGgards (Livermore Action Group—an anti-nuke group) were caught measuring on a board and charged with trespassing. Needless to say, they also became some of the "usual suspects" for any billboard operations in the area. We worked with photos and visual inspections on foot, as we were mostly hitting small boards in urban areas. Freeways are a different matter.

Most of our work was "corrections" and small alterations. We learned the hard way that what the BLF says about small pieces of paper is not just a good idea; it's a law of nature. We only tried to take over a whole board once. A dozen of us were involved—tremendous racket, lots of work, big failure. If we had scouted first we would have known that this beast was enameled metal. Our staple-guns and starch were ineffectual. At least we got the size right. They closed off the access after our attempt. Ah well. Wish we'd had the BLF's manual then.

Unwilling to limit ourselves to existing "authorized" locations, we also hung banners—large ones. Both were initiated by others; we merely provided "technical assistance." One, strung across the last overpass before the toll plazas on the SF-Oakland Bay Bridge, was in honor of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Imitating a movie marquee it read "LEBANON - Featuring: A Casket of Thousands / A US-Israel Production." It went up at 6:30 a.m.; CalTrans crews took this cotton sheet & rope creation down in less than a hour, but not before countless people saw it.

The other was done in support of a LAG blockade, and was a light paper/balsa sign that read simply "US Navy Supports the Livermore Blockade." Intrepid climbers were dropped off on Treasure Island (a US Navy & Coast Guard property) at about 6:15am. They climbed up and hung the banner above the tunnel for west-bound traffic. We had several cars, each making a quick automotive stop—with excuses ready—on the lower deck (east bound) periodically until the party was retrieved (or captured). The sign was quickly removed, but at least one AM radio DJ reported it, wondering idly if the Navy knew about it. A cautionary note here—we were VERY careful about these—if your sign comes down on traffic it will be very counter-productive. Make sure the sign can be removed safely.

We also did a spraypraint campaign—about a hundred stencils in 1/2 mile and 1 mile arcs, as well as BART stations, ATMs, schools, etc. We painted a silhouette of the U.C. Berkeley campanile with a red ball over it, and a caption: "Ground Zero / Range (1/2 mile, 1 mile) / Wind Speed (2400, 1700 mph) / All structures reduced to rubble. Result: You are Dead." On churches and hospitals we changed the "Result" line to read "This structure unavailable for emergency services." (We love bad puns.)

You want to be careful with stencils; one of us applied anti-nuke slogans to the labels of cans going to a local "national security" company. His boss called him in and told him that he had just finished reassuring the place's head of security that the person who had done it was fired (the FBI proved that the paint was applied before the labels were put on the cans). Fortunately for him, his boss had lied.

So, what's the point ? Get out there and have fun; spread the good word! Sometimes it's disheartening—you'll find that lots of people never look at billboards, and some people who do don't see what it really says. But such methods represent alternate communications that subvert commercial and social space.

Hope to see your writing on the wall, real soon, everywhere!

And remember—Be careful; Be funny; Be Audacious.

—Unos de Nosotros