i went out to cover the william/lonsdale ads again this morning at about 6:45 (this was the fifth time i’d covered it recently).
i went later in the night (so late as to be clearly ‘the morning’) because yesterday morning i covered the ads at about 4:30am and then they were gone the next day.
i think the staff in the county court must have been asked by the ad company to tip them off when it gets covered so they can clean it immediately, that or the cleaning crew had been told to swing past william & lonsdale just before they knock off.
i figured if i was going to go to all the trouble of trying to explain myself with posters it would be better if it stayed covered for at least a day (but i guess really it doesn’t matter at all), so i thought i’d do it after the cleaners had finished and before it gets too busy down there at court central.
i am still under the impression (possibly false) that they don’t do cleaning during the day (because of all the people about and the need to park their pressure hose truck next to the shelter, which would block traffic somewhat), i’ll have to go down and have a look this arvo to see if it’s still up to test my hypothesis.
it seems the county court p.s.o.’s started work at 7, they must have called the cops and when i was just ready to leave the police pulled up and took my details.
they just let me go after they had taken photos of my work* (they even took one glamour shot of me), saying that the informant brooks (charging police officer) would contact me soon, but i haven’t heard from him/her yet (it’s now nearly 2 in the afternoon).
it seems doing the same thing with paper and wheat-paste as opposed to paint (which i really don’t think is much harder to clean off glass with a pressure hose) has lowered me in the eyes of the police from wild-and-threatening-criminal-damager down to harmless-eccentric-wierdo-with-somewhat-defective-brains.
there was classic good-cop-bad-cop behaviour going on, one of the cops making a ‘you’ve got to be kidding me you little whack-job’ noise when i explained to him that i thought corporate advertising should be illegal, the other cop being understanding of my point and even stating with certainty that the majority would agree with me about the corruption of the media by for-profit operations.
good cop seemed to want to save me from myself (extremely common reaction, despite the fact that it’s ‘the system’ that’s going to hurt me, not me, i’m doing good for myself).
he asked me about my employment and relationship status (extremely common reaction).
he also asked if there was any other ways i could go about trying to raise my point (again a very common reaction, although he made the more novel suggestion that i could approach ‘a current affair’ about it — i told him i didn’t talk to corporate media, but even if i did talk to them, they are extremely unlikely to help me and, in doing so, seriously threaten the legitimacy of their own source of funding).
the p.s.o. guy called neil even came out to say hi, asking if i remembered him and telling me that i was his first arrest — he said he was going to send security footage of me doing my recent work to the police, i can’t hold that against him, it makes no difference to me and he’s a super-friendly guy.
now i guess i just wait to hear from brooks and keep up with my work in the meantime.
oh yeah, and i never bothered to remember in the past, but seen as everyone always seems to ask, the ads i covered the first three times were a hollywood movie-star posing with a ridiculously expensive watch and a fashion model plugging the reality/challenge pay-t.v. series she presents.
the last two times its been a movie (sounds shit) and a for-profit, stock-exchange-listed bank (definitely shit) claiming to be our friend.
justice kyrou is right to be concerned that i have interfered with the ability of the public to receive the information contained in these advertisements — i deeply regret denying the public the knowledge that for-profit companies exist that produce expensive watches, t.v. shows, movies and banks.
i don’t know how the public would have known of the existence of these things if it wasn’t for constant advertising of these things in as many corners of our lives as possible — i also regret denying the public the information that really hot people like these things heaps when the companies that produce them give them a stack of their surplus cash.
* just for the record, i am taking the piss when i refer to my work as ‘my work’ — i am unwilling to explain exactly why i find that funny.
