Road Trip/LA Postings

Abolish Corporate Personhood: LA

This went up over the Santa Monica Freeway around noon today. The cardboard to the left is a sign I put up four days ago (below).

"The function of the law is not to provide justice or to preserve freedom. The function of the law is to keep those who hold power, in power." -Gerry Spence

"Nothing incites to money-crimes like great poverty or great wealth." -Mark Twain

"I'll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one of them." -Sign at OWS

"The Rich aren't like us—they pay less taxes." –Peter De Vries

"It's not so much a living hell, it's just a dying fiction." -Brian Eno

November 17th Pictures

The Visibility Award goes to this sign, which, thanks to an (almost) entirely sealed overpass, has been up over the Santa Monica Freeway for three weeks now.

This sign went up yesterday around noon over the northbound 405 by LAX. Also in an

almost-but-not-quite-entirely-sealed overpass, it'll be seen by close to 100,000 people a day until it comes down.

Hollywood Freeway near Silverlake. Sign placed in between the railing and fence with about the same time and effort as it takes to put toast in a toaster.

Visibility Award Runner-Up: This Bad for America sign's been up next to the Hollywood Freeway at Sunset for two weeks now.

Pasadena Freeway: attached behind guardrail with a binder clip and a nail.

Another favorite spot over the Pasadena Freeway. You can drop a sign in here just walking by without even having to slow down.

Pasadena Freeway by Dodger Stadium.

Yukon Ave. on the 405 North

My garage.

For more information on how to make and post signs, go to Freewayblogger.com

How To Reach A Million People Tomorrow

How To Reach A Million People Tomorrow: Paint up a bunch of signs and hang them next to freeways. 13 or 14 of them hung next to five or six large freeways should just about do the trick.

Freeway signposting is a great alternative for people who'd like to make a political statement to a very large number of people without getting clubbed, tear-gassed or arrested.

Along with duct tape and bungee cords, you should bring along a hammer, nails and a couple of spring clamps: this is pretty much all you need to hang signs just about anywhere.

I put these up last week over or next to the 80, 280, 101, 85 and 99 in San Francisco, San Jose, Berkeley, Marin, Sonoma, Stockton and Sacramento.

With very few exceptions, each of these signs stayed up for at least 48 hours, easily visible to between 60 and 100 thousand people per day.

So long as a sign is placed within sight of freeway traffic, it'll get seen. A lot. If you're the least bit clever about how and where you place it, it'll stay up.

When a sign comes down, you put up another one.

Any place you can see while driving is a place you can put up a sign that'll be seen by other drivers.

Using cardboard, paint and an overhead projector, I can make dozens of these things for pennies apiece - just about any size - in just a few hours.

Bungee cords and duct tape are the quickest, easiest way to mount a sign to fencing. So long as the sign is mounted to the inside of the fencing, it's perfectly safe. And perfectly legible.

So long as it's political and not commercial speech, your sign is protected by the First Amendment. If a policeman or highway patrolman sees you putting one up, however, they'll probably ask you to take it down. I always comply with such requests. During the Bush administration I put up over four thousand signs. Police made me take down seven of them.

On my way back from the Bay Area I saw that more than half the signs I'd put up in LA (here and here) were still standing, so for this week, a million people a day is probably an understatement. Apart from gas, the total cost came to about fifteen dollars. If that.

And it's a hell of a lot of fun.

More information at Freewayblogger.com
(Attention California Occupiers: if you'd like me to make you some Really Large Signs for your encampment, free, contact me at freewayblogger-at-yahoo-dot-com)

Bank Transfer Day

I painted up some signs and hit the road again, visiting some old spots in LA.

Driving down the Santa Monica Freeway I saw that this sign, put up last Friday, was still standing and in fine shape over the eastbound lanes. According to Caltrans, this spot is passed by 277,000 cars every day (Route 10 - Crenshaw) Cut that in two, since it's only visible in one direction, and subtract those travelling at night and you still get a hell of a lot of people. Times eight.

Signs are quickly and easily attached to fencing using bungee cords and a bit of duct tape.

How long signs stay up generally depends on their size, where they're placed and what they say. Smaller signs with relatively apolitical messages like "Support Your Local Credit Union" tend to last longer than their larger more in-your-face counterparts.

Signs are made with scrap cardboard painted white and tracing the text using transparencies and an overhead projector. They cost pennies and take minutes to make.