Everyone Needs a Hobby
When we saw the “Talk About Town” headline “Tilting at unsightly windmills,” we were expecting something about the NIMBY liberals on Cape Cod who oppose nearby windmills because they “occupy scenic landscapes” (the Sierra Club, surprisingly to those of us mainly familiar with the A2 branch, supports the windmills.) But instead, the column profiles an Ann Arborite who’s embraced an even more critical cause: ridding the town of signs and posters. Described as “the white knight that rides through” by the Main Street Area Association’s event coordinator, he asks why “such a pretty town,” as exemplified by the industrial stretch of State Street by I-94, must be defaced with these ugly signs.
Sing it with me, you hippies: “Sign, sign, everywhere a sign…”
posted by Dave on August 22nd, 2005 at 12:14 pmDid anyone else see the letter to the editor in the News on Sunday (I think) decrying the terrible, awful eyesore of advertising on the AATA buses? Apparently a rolling yellow Crispin Chevrolet ad is a thousand times worse than a purple Link bus.
posted by Lehigh Valley Refugee on August 22nd, 2005 at 1:04 pmA plethora of signs and posters in a place usually demonstrates that there’s a lot going on. Imagine how much more boring Ann Arbor would be if all the bulletin boards, kiosks, and telephone poles were spotlessly clean.
posted by Larry Kestenbaum on August 22nd, 2005 at 3:34 pmQuote from the article: “Do porches on sofas, another hot potato locally, offend him?”
The “white knight” may not have much to say about the issue, but if I ever see a porch on a sofa, recliner, or ottoman I’ll tear it down myself.
posted by FAA on August 22nd, 2005 at 6:13 pmLarry: I’m glad you’re on the side of the good guys with this one. I was wondering how long it’d be before talk of a flyering-ban came up in old A2.
posted by Real Big on August 23rd, 2005 at 9:56 amLarry, here’s some photos of Ann Arbor coffee shop bulletin boards:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/35034346184@N01/tags/bulletinboard/
the best single community indicator for a coffee shop is pictures of smiling patrons or vacation postcards up on a bulletin board, plus a hot spot for flyers for community events.
posted by Edward Vielmetti on August 23rd, 2005 at 11:16 amWhat, am I not usually on the side of the good guys?
posted by Larry Kestenbaum on August 23rd, 2005 at 11:38 amGod knows, Ann Arbor can’t be having any of those unsightly windmills.
posted by fml on August 23rd, 2005 at 2:39 pmLarry: That’s not what I meant!
posted by Real Big on August 23rd, 2005 at 4:14 pmCool City indeed.
Speaking of fliers, I think the State Street Area Association must’ve recent hired someone to take fliers down almost daily– they aren’t lasting in the State/Liberty area very long, much to the dismay of some.
posted by Brandon on August 23rd, 2005 at 6:08 pmThere’s some old guy in the paper who is in an article at least once a year patting himself on the back for making it his mission to walk or bike around town with tools to dismantle all the old handbills.
posted by OFWinsurgent on August 23rd, 2005 at 9:48 pmoops, guess I didn’t read the original article here…
He’s back. Sorry for the redundancy.
posted by OFWinsurgent on August 23rd, 2005 at 9:51 pmThat’s white knight to you, OFWI.
posted by Dave on August 24th, 2005 at 1:11 amThat’s the same old guy who yelled at me for sneaking across an empty intersection on my bike before the light changed.
Intersections all over Ann Arbor are safer thanks to him.
posted by Lehigh Valley Refugee on August 24th, 2005 at 10:05 amSo I’m leaving ann arbor in a few days, but I hope to god someone makes a show flyer with this guy’s face on it.
posted by Real Big on August 24th, 2005 at 4:34 pmit wasn’t more than a day or two ago that i saw brandon z putting up flyers on state street, and today they were gone. why would someone do this? is a neon piece of paper in the corner of your eye really bothering you? seems to me that it just takes away from the community.
posted by guest on August 25th, 2005 at 12:10 amI’m so not a fan of busybodies.
posted by Dave on August 25th, 2005 at 11:15 amThey were gone in under an hour on State Street today (and as best I can tell from the ordinance mentioned in the article they were even legal). Steve, Barry, Ben, Jerry, and the Einstein Bros. must have a lot of time on their hands.
posted by Brandon on September 1st, 2005 at 12:59 amThe f-er took down all my fliers on Ashley and First less than an hour after I posted them today. Even the pole outside the Old Town which had been lazily accumulating fliers for weeks without him bothering to touch it. Meanwhile, he left plenty of smaller poles full of ancient, ratty fliers as-is. Anyone know what this a**hole looks like?
posted by Brandon on September 1st, 2005 at 4:13 pmIf it’s the same guy I saw ripping down flyers outside Sweetwaters Sunday morning, he looks to be in his 50’s, long flowing white hair, thick black glasses, riding a bike. What was weird was that he ripped down some flyers but not others. I was not close enough to see what he left and what he took down.
posted by tom on September 2nd, 2005 at 8:39 amI’ve seen several people on campus recently tearing down reams of flyers. They were quite methodical about it. They were even taking them off kiosks, not just phone poles.
posted by MMM on September 9th, 2005 at 10:06 amLately someone is merely chopping up fliers with a razor blade, cutting out the centers and leaving the edges on. Yeah, great aesthetic improvement, asshole.
I recently talked to a small business owner who have had someone call them telling them they were littering the town by hanging fliers (completely legally!) and that he really enjoyed ripping them down.
…apparently it is also legal to take fliers down, unfortunately.
posted by Brandon on September 9th, 2005 at 5:44 pmSomeone should steal the front tire off his bike.
posted by Annie on September 9th, 2005 at 7:18 pmchillax — this too shall pass.
posted by peter honeyman on September 9th, 2005 at 10:26 pmFeel lucky - in my city it’s apparently illegal to hang flyers, period.
Course, they’re usually nice enough to let us get away with it for garage sales. And it does give minimum-wage employment to people who stand on the streetcorners with signs for discount furniture warehouse out of business or five dolla pizza at little cesear’s.
You could always wheat paste ‘em up, I suppose. Or clear tape around the whole thing so it would take five minutes to remove each flyer. There’s an aesthetic improvement for the razor-blader. Who does that shit, honestly? Fucking white knight my -
posted by Jen on September 12th, 2005 at 10:38 amSo I just had a confrontation with this guy. Blue t-shirt; long, mostly white hair; blue eyes; about 5-11; teeth decent but one a little chipped; about 60. And this guy was RAVING. I saw him at State and William with a utility knife, where he walked up to the utility box on the wood pole, scraped his knife over a Madison House flyer in four directions, then yanked off part of the paper (leaving the border of the flyer up).
I walked up to him and asked him why he was doing it. He got in my face and said that it was trash and he wanted his city clean. I asked if he was uninterested in the community and social life that such events and flyers promoted. He cranked it up a notch and started yelling that he had raised $20,000 in two weeks for people in New Orleans without posting a single flyer, so what had *I* done about Hurricane Katrina, and why was I getting in his face about community? It was trash and it was unsightly and it was disrespectful the way people flyered over other flyers and it was the worst of capitalism. I told him it was legal to flyer like that and he said, “Then you put them up and I’ll tear them down.” Then he started swearing, which i asked him to stop (as my girlfriend was right next to me), and he yelled that I was accusing him of things and did I ever even bend over to pick up trash? Then he went on to college kids, who don’t have any respect for each other, and they just throw things on the ground (here he gestured at the litter-free sidewalk on the campus side of State where we were standing for emphasis), whereupon he began waving his utility knife around my face (with the blade in). This exchange went on for about 5 minutes, wherein I asked him to answer my question about community and social life several times to his increasing agitation. When he referred to his New Orleans fundraising again, I said “Congratulations. I hope you are enjoying living in Ann Arbor,” and turned away. He yelled after me, “I love Ann Arbor and I’m keeping it clean!” or words to that effect.
Quite a nice chap.
posted by Dale on September 25th, 2005 at 2:20 pmthat guy is a menace. let’s see if we can get a picture of him up on flickr as a precaution.
i don’t think you’re describing tourette’s guy (who interrupted a cascade of ruh RUH ruh rub! and RUH! rubrubrub RUH ruh!s this morning to ask me politely for a cigarette). tourette’s guy seems harmless, although he probably scares the kiddies.
posted by peter honeyman on September 25th, 2005 at 5:12 pmWord. I think we should dedicate a show to him sometime… if you know what I mean.
posted by Brandon on September 27th, 2005 at 10:00 pmI think I saw this dude outside the Fleetwood a couple days ago. Long, flowing white hair and riding a yellow bike? I was driving and at a stop light and I saw him getting off his bike at the corner. I thought, “Ah, yes, here is a typical Ann Arbor freak.” Then he began ripping flyers off the post and I thought, “Heyyyyy… that’s that dude I read about on AAIO.”
posted by Dave on September 28th, 2005 at 12:00 amhere is a picture of ann arbor’s notorious handbill vandal
posted by peter honeyman on September 20th, 2007 at 5:20 pmWell done, Peter!
posted by Dale on September 20th, 2007 at 6:47 pm