|
“Sign, Sign, everywhere a sign
Blocking out the scenery, breaking my mind
Do this, don't do that, can’t you read the sign?”
- Five Man Electrical Band, 1970
As I read the letters to the editor over the last couple of weeks, that song has been running through my head, and I just can’t shake it. You can tell an election is coming up when you have a full page worth of letters to the editor and none of them are bitching about something Dana or I wrote.
This time around somebody, besides me, is complaining about the amount of candidate signs, their suspect placement, and longevity after the election is over. Bravo, it’s about time! Now I don’t feel so alone. Although this time it seems to be directed at only one candidate, Ed Chen. Granted, he may have been caught putting his signs in places he didn’t get prior authorization for, but I find it hard to believe that every candidate in every election hasn’t done the same thing from time to time.
I also didn’t get the mail “sign” he sent out that got another group of letter writers all fired up. I must admit, I felt left out. After all, I did get mail from the other candidates, so why not from Ed? Maybe because I’m not a registered Republican. I guess it’s a good thing he saved the postage. Had I received it he would have lost me at “Republican”, but I wouldn’t have joined the “Chew on Chen” campaign. I would have just chalked it up to the exuberance of youth and a lesson learned that this is a non-partisan election.
After all, the one thing you have to keep in mind is, that despite his mature looking picture in his ad, Ed is, well to me, still just a kid. He graduated from Temple City High School just a couple of years ago and was one of those exceptional students that Matt Smith is using as an example of the great students that were churned out during his tenure on the school board. To my knowledge, Ed is the only product of our school system that is in the running and that in itself is a testimony to the entire system and all involved.
But back to the signage which, during every election, is out of control. It is as though they just materialize overnight and continue to reproduce until the election is over. They are tricky little beasts. If you want them to be noticed, they have to be bright, which is where Matt and Joe seem to have the edge. Matt, with his neon green, and Joe, with his fluorescent orange, pop at you from blocks away. Ed’s dark green and gold signs, while TCHS colors, are just too conservative. I guess that’s the Republican in him.
It is not just election signs that are out of control these days, there seems to be a resurgence in the temporary sign world of late. I don’t know what is happening with Kmart lately but it is as though they are using some cut-rate ad agency that told them that cardboard signs are the way to go. It seems like every other week they put out a ton of these signs surrounding the store, like a wall, touting a never-ending sale.
They have got the color right, bright Kmart red, screaming 40 to 50% off their already supposedly low prices. As it is, Kmart doesn’t have what I would call a reputation for quality, and the use of these signs certainly does nothing to reverse that perception. If anything, it supports it. Which, in turn, reflects badly on the community. I personally would like to see K-Mart replaced with something else, like a multiplex theatre or the world’s largest Krispy Kreme outlet.
Speaking of perceptions, if you live in this area, watch what happens the next time there is a bridal show out at the Pomona Fairgrounds. Due to the fact that Temple City is home to the largest grouping of bridal shops in the known universe, when that yearly bridal show hits, so does the barrage of signs advertising it all over our city.
One warning, you will have to look up to see the signs because they are usually placed half way up the street light poles. Which makes me wonder two things. First, why put them up so high? Are they afraid somebody is going to steal them? And second, how the hell did they get them up there? Does a crew sneak into Temple City, under the cover of darkness, armed with long ladders and bailing wire? Or do they hire an ex-NBA center to cruise the boulevards to put them up as high as he can reach? I don’t know how they do it, but they stay up there for what feels like a year.
Another concept that seems to be in vogue in the signage world is the use of human beings as a means of sign support. I know you have seen them. To be honest, they’re a little hard to miss. They are usually standing on a busy street corner with an oversized sign, similar to one of the election signs, spinning the sign around like they are in a parade. Sometimes the sign carriers get into it, talking or shouting to the passing cars as they manically wave their signs.
This takes place more times than not at local pizza joints or temporary auto sales. Kmart uses these human sign supports as well, but for some reason they don’t appear to be as excitable as the pizza/auto signers. In fact, sometimes it’s hard to tell with the Kmart signers if they are holding up the sign or the sign is holding up them. But it’s nice to know that there is gainful employment available for those who don’t graduate from high school.
I was thinking, maybe we can pass an ordinance to meld the two approaches and find some middle ground that will make everyone happy. We should ban all stationary signs and make the candidates hire people to carry around their signs. That way, when the day is over and the human signers are gone, so are the signs. That also means that when the election is over, these signs won’t continue to be a part of our scenery for weeks afterwards, and during the elections, the candidates would be giving temporary employment to some of those ex-students that slipped through the cracks.
Now that’s something I could sign off on.
|
