Monday, June 13, 2005

the #1 stunner "You know, if you don't go through with this you're gonna be coming home with a seven hundred dollar poster of yourself." That's what Rachel said to me after an unsuccessful and disheartening first attempt to bring the "The Legend" up to Atlanta. In fact from the moment we got there, there were all sorts of stresses and pressures giving me doubts about the project.  First of all, I didn't have a billboard structure picked out before I made the eight hour trip up to the "empire city of the South".  I just figured if I made my artwork the most common billboard size (14' x 48'), the perfect sign would kind of "pop up" the weekend of the project. Second of all, I was relying on the help of friends who were up there to have a good time at the Midtown Music Festival.  I knew if I didn't make things happen quickly and efficiently, their spirit of helping would probably melt away. 5:59:56 PM    comment [] So I spent my first several hours in Atlanta driving around in miserable rush hour traffic, looking for this "perfect sign"  (looking up in the sky, instead of the treacherous roads ahead of me). But that perfect sign never appeared.  I couldn't find any blank, or out-of- service signs, and all the other signs either seemed too risky, or too obscure.  By the time the sun went down my stomach was in knots (with thoughts like: what the fuck am I doing?) and I had a few possible billboards picked out that weren't that amazing. Like I said, the first attempt was basically a fiasco.  We got a much later start than I hoped for, and my music festival friends were "antsie" that my self-indulgent project was going to cut into their fun time.  But at the same time, my girlfriend Rachel was upset that we were rushing her out of the hotel room, and rushing her through  breakfast.  On top of all that we were all pretty rough from partying the night before. (We were supposed to save the big celebration until after the billboard was up, but we just couldn't wait). But my big mistake was when I changed my targeted sign at the last moment.  As we were driving to my intended destination, I suddenly spotted this fantastic blank billboard towering over the highway.  It had the best exposure of all the signs I'd seen so far, and there was just something really bold and dramatic about it. So I turned our mini convoy around and hunted down the base of the structure.  It was inside a contruction area of some kind, but remote enough that we shouldn't have been taken for looters.  After trudging through wet, red Georgia clay that that sunk down a foot with every step I set my ladder up at the base of the sign.  After the ladder, the climb was really tricky since there was no safe way provided to get from the sign's built in ladder to the cat walk in front of the board.  To do this I had to climb Spiderman style on crossbeams that bounced with my weight, forty feet above the ground.  Because of the height and sketchinesss of the structure, my only possible climbing helper said he wouldn't be following.  All the work in the sky I would be doing on my own. 12:14:37 PM    comment [] My artwork was printed on vinyl, the same way the billboard companies do it.  It weighed sixty pounds, and was extremely awkward to handle.  It took every bit of strength I had to pull it up by rope to the catwalk.  When it was even with me I had to flip it up and over with my legs, without letting it flip me back to the ground below. Once I had it up with me, I spent several minutes just catching my breath.  My chest and head was pounding and, after five minutes on the sign I was already parched. Once my vital signs were mostly back to normal I started spreading the vinyl out along the catwalk.  As it unstretched further and further, I began to realize that there was something wrong.  My artwork was about 8 to 10 feet too long for the sign I was on.  It wouldn't fit.  Fuck. 12:11:29 PM    comment [] After several miserable moments of wondering what to do, (and the appearance of an ominous truck on the construction site) I decided to give up for the time being. I told my friends to go have fun at the festival, and in the mean time, I would measure the next sign I brought them to. Things went much better the next day, even though our hangovers were now doubled in strength.  I had scoped out (and measured) a sign north of downtown that was just above the roof of a vacant building.  We were able to do most of the prep work on the roof of the building without being visible to the traffic below.  Once again we had our safety hats to give the appearance of legitimacy.  (But once again, the safety hats didn't fit right at all.  The bands either sunk down over your eyes and completely blinded you, or the hat just got in your way and fell off). 12:08:05 PM    comment [] The second day had plenty of challenges and nervous moments as well. Despite the fact that this sign was lower to the ground, it was still an extremely difficult climb to the top.  There was just a space of about 18" between back to back billboards, and most of that space was taken up by crossbeams and cables.  Once again I would be doing all the climbing alone (which is only fitting). I had this false hope that wratcheting a fabric image to a structure would be a snap when compared to hauling up all those plywood panels in Orlando--but such was not the case. A couple of hours into the installation, these incredible winds began ripping over the rooftop.  There were  gusts of 35 to 40 miles and hour, and for a while I thought my sign would be ripped to shreds, or blown out into traffic.  Then to make things even more interesting, it started pouring down rain.  After that all the crossbeams were soaked and slippery.  Then the sun came out again full force and baked us up on that roof.  And so on, and so on... 12:05:37 PM    comment [] All in all the installation took about five hours (a long way from the 90 minute estimate I had given to my festival friends). When at last it was done, there wasn't much time for sitting and appreciating.  We had an eight hour car ride back to Florida ahead of us.  Me and Rachel were both sweaty and exhausted and stinky, but having checked out of our hotel room already, we had to suffer with ourselves for the next five hundred miles. But first, we stopped off at this awesome Jamaican Restaurant downtown.  We must have looked like we were dragged through the streets by a bus to the waitress there.  But we didn't care, we were just starving and tired and wet and sun burnt and ready to relax. "What would you like to drink?" she asked me. "A heineken," I said. 12:02:19 PM    comment [] a very special thanks to: rodney the goatbelt and Rachel (xxoo) & John Vitale 8:19:58 AM    comment []

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