Obey Giant Page #2

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She goes, "What is it?"

And he goes,

"I think it's a band,"

and she says,

"Nah, I don't think so.

I think it has something

to do with skateboarding."

And he goes, "It's a band.

I've heard them before."

He just made that

up on the spot.

I thought, that's so fascinating

how, you know, people want to...

really trust their instincts

and their interpretation,

and then they're

gonna argue for that.

This paper in Providence

called The Nice Paper

printed an Andre

sticker, and they said,

"Anyone who knows what

the Andre the Giant

sticker campaign is

about wins free tickets

to The Living Room

show of your choice."

The Living Room was where

I saw Jane's Addiction,

the Ramones,

Suicidal Tendencies,

Bad Brains.

I wanted those tickets.

But I wasn't gonna let

the cat out of the bag,

so I put some

stickers in an envelope

and wrote a note that says,

"I'm sorry, I can't

tell you what it is

'cause that would ruin it,

but here's some stickers

if it's any consolation,"

and left them at their address.

Then the next week,

they ran another

picture of the sticker

with my note, and it said,

"No answers, but we do now

have a handwriting sample."

Within two weeks,

that's 30,000 impressions

in The Nice Paper,

which is 15 times

what I'd put out there.

Now this made me

think about how

certain media centers

in the United States

can make something

seem more pervasive,

more powerful,

more relevant,

more important

by just giving it attention.

At that point in my life,

I was still in college,

so I was working

on school projects.

I worked at the skate

shop for part of the time,

then I worked for

a small clothing company

called Jobless Anti-Work Wear.

They were one of the first

street wear companies.

And one of the designs

I made for Jobless

that I was paid $50 for,

they sold tens of thousands

of units of that shirt.

All I did was I took

the still from The Shining

where Jack's doing

the "Here's Johnny,"

and then I went to Kinko's

and got on a typewriter

and typed,

"All work and no play

makes Jack a dull boy,"

a little off, you know?

It's a little off,

just like his mind.

Immediate hit,

and that was

an exciting thing for me

because it made me feel like

I could do this stuff.

We knew that he was

extremely artistic,

and back then our neighbor,

who was the art teacher

at Porter-Gaud, said,

"That child is so talented.

Don't dare give

him any lessons.

You'll ruin him.

Just let him

develop on his own."

My little circle of

friends at Porter-Gaud,

we were not the super cool group

and we were not the nerd group.

To be in the cool group,

you had to be an uber jock,

which I wasn't interested in.

And I definitely

didn't want to be teased

like the nerd group.

What you were made fun of about

was frequently things like

if you wore Toughskins jeans

instead of Levi's jeans,

or you didn't have Polo shirts.

And my parents

always said to me,

"We're not spending the money

on that type of stuff,

and if people are

mean to you about it,

then they're not real friends."

And I said, "I know,

they're not real friends."

I need all the help

I can get to survive

because it was all

preppy, spoiled,

smart little fucks.

In early high school,

I was still having to wear

a coat and tie to school,

but my rebellion

was to wear my dad's

really ridiculous

'70s paisley ties

that to me just looked like,

you know, barf on a tie,

and, okay, I have to wear a tie,

but it's not gonna be one

that everyone wants to look at.

By that time, he was into

the skateboard culture,

and he was fully

into wanting to do

nothing but what

he wanted to do.

I really just thought,

"No one here gets it,

and I'm gonna find my way

and not worry about

what anybody thinks."

We'd sat down with him

one weekend and said,

"Okay, things are

not working here,

and you would like

to run your life,

and we're gonna let you."

He very quickly said,

"I want to be an artist,

and--and I want to

go to art school."

And we said, "Fine."

So he went from

studying 14 minutes a day

to working 14 hours a day,

and created a portfolio

that got him into

Rhode Island School of Design.

Hard to do in a year.

Hard to do.

Growing up in South Carolina,

watercolor, charcoal,

oil painting,

that's the only legitimate art.

But then I go to art school

and I learn about Jasper Johns.

Duchamp.

Rauschenberg.

Andy Warhol.

Barbara Kruger.

And an artist whose name

I didn't know yet

had put these posters up

of Ronald Reagan

that was

an unflattering painting

and it said "contra" above

and "diction" below

in bold type on

a yellow background

with this black and white

unflattering painting,

and I thought,

wow, this--you know,

this is political.

Just like the way

the Dead Kennedys

were protesting Reagan,

you know, this artist

is protesting Reagan.

It's good wordplay.

It's got a little bit of

a, you know, sense of humor

but it's also

painted really well.

It's just to provoke

people a little bit,

get 'em thinking,

and also entertain them

on their way to work.

This has kind of got

all the ingredients

I'm excited about.

Take that, Ronald Reagan.

Even in death,

you're not safe from me.

That was a pivotal

moment for me.

It was the work of Robbie Conal.

Robbie Conal.

He calls his work

"urban beautification."

Others call it

a mutant media fungus.

In any case,

there is guerilla artfare

in our streets.

I was just trying

to participate,

you know, in the

national conversation

about these issues

that I cared about,

like "democracy."

You know, I put it out there,

and hopefully

it might stimulate

a little bit of thought

or get people to

talk a little bit

about who is that,

you know, ugly old white guy?

And it was illegal on purpose,

I mean, as a minor form

of civil disobedience,

you know,

like your higher crimes,

like Iran-Contra

and all that stuff,

versus my municipal

code violations.

F*** you, you know, go ahead,

arrest me if you can find me.

This was Providence

before the vision

of a new young mayor

started to pull it back

from disintegration.

That young mayor

was Buddy Cianci.

I had an illustration class

in the fall of 1990,

and I decided that I have

to do something spectacular.

There was this billboard

for Buddy Cianci

that was just him

standing there waving

that said, "Cianci:

He never stopped caring

about Providence."

Seemed like a really

stupid billboard to me.

I didn't understand.

It didn't say anything

about a position

on any issue.

So I made a big Andre head,

put it over Cianci's head,

and then I photographed that

and I turned that in for

my illustration assignment.

One day, I got a call saying

that "your billboard on

South Main Street there

is posted with

Andre the Giant stickers

all over it."

The very next

night, I was out,

and people started

bringing me beers

to say, "Amazing,"

like, "Cheers to you."

And then on top of that,

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