The Billboard Liberation Front

Photocredit: Paul Stamatiou

Paul Stamtiou spotted this wonderful liberation along the 101 near San Francisco. If anyone has any backstory on it, we’d love to hear more.

The bulk of our email communications are from media students doing a report on culture jamming. Occasionally the BLF get asked to speak at conferences or art shows, but I have to say this invitation caused us to soil our monitor with a hearty spray of coffee.

Emphasis ours, blinding gall theirs.

International Design Firm IDEO (www.ideo.com) is conducting an UNFOCUS group on COMMUNICATION in our Palo Alto location on Wednesday August 15th from 6:00-9:30pm. You will be compensated for your time with yummy dinner plus $100.

YOU ARE:
* You use new media for social change.
* You organize Smart Mobs
* You are a politically subversive or artistic grassroots organizer.
* You are an artist who does public space media events that are confusing or inspirational (street theater… Dada…)
* You are from the Bilboard Liberation Front
* You are a TV show super-fanatic! Your life revolves around a particular TV show. You have every episode AND you also watch it on your laptop, iPod, or TV depending.
* You are an extreme soap opera fan, Buffy maniac, or SciFi fanatic! You go to conventions in support of this lifestyle you also participate in on-line forums about them too!
* You are a Hyper-Wired person – You talk on phone while texting somebody else all the time.
* You are College Student who is a Hyper-Wired person!
* You run a LARGE online community ˆ mega blogger/myspace/freindster type. You have tons of friends online BUT you also have friends that you meet with in person as well
* You are an Ambulance driver or ER Doctor ˆ communication and technology are key
* You are a mom with the latest technology. Your family embraces technology to the extreme.

If interested please take a few minutes to fill out the below survey and send to {redacted}@ideo.com:
(all information will be confidential) {uh..sure -Ed}
Name:
Age:
Ethnicity:
Phone:
Cell Phone:
Address/Location:
Level of Education:
Married/Live-In/Single/Divorced:
Number of Children and Ages:
Do your children live with you?
Occupation:
Job Title:
Describe in DETAIL how you fit into the criteria above?
Can you make it to Palo Alto by 6pm on Wednesday the 15th?

Feel free to forward this to folks you know who might be a good fit for our unfocus group!
Thank you for your time,
[redacted to save you from yourself]

So of course I replied:

YOU ARE:
* Out of your fucking mind.

Most of us are in Marketing, you think I want to trek down to the Peninsula so I can sit in on the same meeting I was nodding off at around 3pm for $100 and pasta salad? If you need someone to tell your clients what the kids nowadays are calling ‘hip’, I suggest AdBusters Magazine. Its run by Media Studies hacks and design student interns who dream of running to a comfy agency job the minute the bill from Miami Ad School comes.

covertly yours,
Milton Rand Kalman
BLF Chief Scientist

Clear Channel, the BLF patron saint, has taken a bold stand on free speech in Tacoma Washington with their CONSTITUTIONS MATTER {sic} campaign, we here at the BLF was not aware we had more than one. We applaud CC taking a moment to not look at the bottom line and think of the little people, their clients. The City of Tacoma gave Clear Channel a mere ten years to take down billboard considered too big or too ugly, why didn’t they just stand in front of the CC headquarters and demand, “you kids get off my lawn!” A billboard too ugly, surly you jest.

Well the patriots at Clear Channel aren’t going to stand for such blant attempts the squelch their clients God Given Right(R) to promote the latest soaps and beers and in the great spirit of Thomas Paine used their billboards to demand great freedoms for the huddled masses of corporations who have but no other voice to sing the triumphs of packaged muffins. When asked about the campaign, Tacoma City Councilperson responded, “Clear Channel cares about the constitution? Who the fuck do they think they are, ATT?

The BLF thanks NW sleeper cell operatives JL Staves and RR Anderson for this vital intelligence.

We also suggest a minor copy change, the first words changed to BLIGHTS would be apros. Good luck kids.