Obey Giant Page #4

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where people would

come to my website,

especially when

my website was called

AndretheGiant.com,

where they would say,

"What are you doing with

this communist style imagery

with our hero,

the Eighth Wonder of the World?

This amazing athlete,

you're disrespecting him."

And I would just say,

"I'm sorry if you're offended,

I'm doing something else.

I think Andre

the Giant's awesome."

(laughing)

One thing that Andre's

estate said to me is,

"You can't make

the Andre the Giant

Has a Posse sticker

as something that you're

selling commercially.

It looks too much like

the real Andre the Giant.

That's gonna be

copyright infringement."

They didn't want to

come after the Star Face

or the Icon Face

because they knew

that they were too far removed,

they were too transformative

for them to say,

"This is a copyright

infringement."

There was a while that

I was doing a lot of work

inspired by Russian

Constructivist work,

which is very streamlined

and minimal color palette,

and uses exclamation points,

arrows, you know,

really, really bold typography,

dramatic angles.

When I started getting into

the Russian Constructivist work,

I also coincidentally

saw this movie

called "They Live"

by John Carpenter...

which coincidentally starred

Rowdy Roddy Piper,

a retired wrestler,

so there's this connection

to the Andre the Giant thing.

The premise of the movie

is that everybody in the world

is living sort of under

this alien control,

but they don't know it.

Excuse me.

You look like your head

fell in the cheese dip

back in 1957.

(gasps)

I thought the film

was gonna be terrible

because I rented it from

the $1 grocery store rental,

but it actually has

a fairly profound message.

I've got one that can see.

And that's that you have to...

pay attention to...

what's going on

behind the scenes,

and the manipulation,

the undercurrent of conformity

and submission.

There's a scene in "They Live"

when Rowdy Roddy Piper

puts on the sunglasses

for the first time

and he looks around

and he sees that

all the advertisements

that normally say

things like "Sale"

say "Consume,"

"Marry and Reproduce,"

"Submit,"

"Obey."

The word "obey" in that movie,

designed in

the Barbara Kruger style,

which whoever was the set

designer for "They Live"

was definitely inspired

by Barbara Kruger,

who I was already a fan of.

I'm thinking about 1984

and George Orwell,

Barbara Kruger,

and it just hit me.

What is the thing

that people do the most

subconsciously,

but that they resist the most

when commanded in a way

that they're conscious of?

You know, obey.

The first work

that I did with "obey"

was super simple.

It was just a crop in

on the grainy face of Andre

from the original Andre sticker

with a red bar below it

that just said "obey"

in Futura type.

I did that for a short time,

then later I did

the illustration

of the face that's

the simplified Icon Face

that a lot of people know now.

It's been the one

I've been using

basically since early 1996.

I started using

the word "obey" in my work

a lot more than

the word "Giant,"

even though they

both would surface,

but I became really,

really fascinated

with "obey" and people's

responses to it.

People ask me what it means

and I say, "Well, what

do you think it means?"

And they go, "I don't know,

what does it mean?"

I'm like, "No, no, no,

what do you think it means?"

And sometimes they get so mad

at being put on the spot,

it's like how people hate

to interpret poetry

or something,

or a piece of art

that doesn't--

that's abstract, like,

they get--they get mad.

They get mad because

they're uncomfortable

with their own interpretation

because it might be wrong

by the, you know,

the "experts" on the subject.

I had just moved to San Diego

and I was working as

a graphic designer.

I'd just come back from lunch

at this Mexican restaurant

that had a logo

of a cow and a pig,

both wearing aprons

holding meat cleavers

like they're about

to carve each other up

and eat each other,

but they're best friends also,

and I thought it was...

a really bizarre logo.

Just so happened that

I had moved back into town

and ran into

this guy Damon Bell

who went to, like,

the neighboring

high school to me,

and...and he...

he invited me to have lunch,

and...at his office,

and I was talking

about this taco shop.

I was saying,

"It's so bizarre

because the logo,

it's a pig and a cow

wearing aprons

and chef's hats,

and they each have

cleavers in their hands,

and they have--

they're arm in arm.

It's like they're just

gonna eat each other."

And so I say this,

and then Shepard

comes around the corner

out of the lobby

holding a 32 ounce soda cup

with that logo on it.

First thing Amanda did

was comment on the cup.

She said, "Oh yeah,

that's that new spot.

Their logo is totally bizarre."

I fell in love right away.

I didn't know who he was.

You know, I just thought,

"Oh, he's kind of

a cute skater boy,"

like, he's cute,

but I was seeing

somebody at the time.

As soon as she left,

Damon, who had

introduced her to me,

came over and said...

"She's cute, right?"

And I said, "Yeah."

And then he goes,

"Don't even think about it,

she's dating Mirko."

And Mirko was this

former pro skateboarder,

half-black, half-Italian,

total Adonis.

So as soon as I find out

that Amanda's dating Mirko,

forget it.

I've got no

chance with Amanda.

Then after that,

we kept seeing each other

around downtown

'cause I lived down there

and he worked

down there.

And so he was

like, "Oh, hey,"

and we became kind of

buddies a little bit.

Apparently things

weren't going that well

with Mirko and, uh,

one night I was at this cafe

where I always played pool

and she showed up

there and told me

that she was

there to study

and get a cup

of coffee.

So we're talking

and we're talking

and I said, you know,

"I didn't come here

to do my homework."

Um, I said, you know,

"I came here to see you."

And he was just like, "Oh."

I'm not very forward

so I was so relieved

that she said she

came to find me,

so I said, "Oh,

well, you know,

here's a...here's my card,

here's my home number

if you want to get

together some time."

So I call and

I was just like,

"All right,

he's not there."

And I called back like

a couple hours later.

Still not there.

I must have called

like five times.

I had seven missed

calls from Amanda.

That's awesome,

she likes me.

I knew he was an artist

and graphic designer.

But I don't--

I wasn't familiar with

his sticker campaign.

Later on when

we went on a date

and then we went

back to her house,

I had wheatpaste

in the trunk of my car.

So after I left her place,

there was

a construction wall

across the street, I did

a bunch of posters on it.

I started realizing

these giant

ominous face posters

were showing up

all on this wall.

And her friend was

like, "That's Shepard,

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