Playing the stickers game on city streets.

Press, 30 May 1981, Page 15

Playing the stickers game on city streets.

Bv

JOAN CURRY

It is remarkable how an ordinary rotten morning can je transformed by something is simple as a car sticker. On one such morning, vhich had started disagreetbly arid promised worse. I vas cycling to work and .•ontemplating the weather, ny life, and the future of nankind with fretful suspicion. Then I read the yel■ow sticker in the rear winlow of a parked car and immediately got the giggles. The sticker said: "Start a novement — eat a prune.” It was a small joke perhaps, but its very absurdity was enough to re-shape the day. And since then I have been conducting a small, local survey of car stickers to relieve the tedium of cycling into town and back each day.

The exercise has proved fruitful although unscientific, and progress has remained dignified if a trifle erratic. It is impossible to write while

cycling or to cycle while writing, and note-taking en route and en bicycle can be ticklish.

From.the bald display of country or civic pride — the national flag or the simply dignity of “NZ” or "Cairns'’ — the car sticker has evolved into a kind of mobile graffiti with as much variety and humour as the messages painted on walls, but enjoying.a wider distribution. There is plenty of scope for small, elderly cars to show defiance in one way or another. "At least I own if’ is a poke in the eye for those driving flashier cars, large parts of which may be owned by finance companies. The driver who declares that his other car is a Rolls-Royce,-or that this one is a recycled Mercedes, is indulging in a little harmless one-upman-ship. •'When I grow- up I'm going io be a Mercedes” is a coy and cute variation on the

same theme: whereas "This car is unrestored” has an uncompromising, take-it-or-leave-it tone. "I am owned by a lady” sounds prim and respectable, which is more than you can say about "You toucha mycar, I breaka your face.” Those with protective feelings about their vehicles, no matter how old and decrepid, might also display "No laugh my car, eh? You goin’ hurt its feelings”; or even "Don’t honk, I’m pedalling as fast as I can.”

Political slogans have always found a place on the nation’s windscreens, especially in election years. We are accustomed to'the exhortations to vote for this or that party, or for such and such a candidate, but what about "Give Rob a go — London, Paris, anywhere”? From Australia, somebody told me about "If Labour's the answer it must have been a silly question.”

After elections have been fought and won (or lost) we can see, "You voted for 'em, now we're stuck with ’em,” or "Don't blame me. I voted Labour” (or National). A double-banger, or one serving a dual purpose, appeared'during the ballyhoo leading up to the recent presidential elections in America, alleging that nuclear power was safer than Teddy Kennedy’s car. In the field of what we could call the trade personals, the advertisements are often clever and sometimes rude as well. It seems that old plumbers never die, they just go down the drain, whereas mechanics have a way with their tools. (Being of 'pure mind it took me three city blocks to work that one but.) One sticker advertised the

services of a ski and sex instructor — first lesson free. Or you may be invited to sleep with a builder because we need more of them. There had to be an Irish sticker of course. This one has been sprayed on walls and printed on T-shirts but I saw it first on a car: "Proud to be Eyerish Irich Irish.” ("Eyerish” and “Irich” had been crossed out.) Some slogans are not so much witty as heavy-handed. ‘•'This VW is really a pregnant roller skate” seems a little contrived, as does the suggestion that one should get stoned by drinking liquid concrete.

Sticker writers are more inspired when it comes to sex. There is the raunchy “I'm a mount'n man and I like mount'n women.” And who persuaded who to an-

nounce that "I'm not a dirty old man, I'm a sexy senior citizen” on a placid family saloon?

Bad losers are not forgotten. They can display a churlish message addressed to “All you virgins, thanks for nothing.”

There is an assortment of slogans which can be loosely classified as declamatory — pointed comments on life and times. "I’d rather be sailing” (or riding a mule) expresses the frustration of those who must slog it out in the city while the sun is shining on their playgrounds outside. Those who declare that “A friend in need is a pain in the ass” may not have too many friends left to worry about; others, overwhelmed by parenthood, can still be funny about it: “Madness is hereditary, you get if from your children.” Y r ou could take to drink, of

course. A beat-up waggon lurching in a ditch bore the injunction to “Drink more booze, a million drunks can't be wrong.”

I amused myself one day by seeing how many slogans I could string together and still make some kind of sense (the opportunities for amusement on any given trip to town are very limited). Here is the result:

Don't follow me, I'm lost You think my driving’s bad, watch my putting If you can read this you’re too close If I stop can you? If you can’t stop, smile as you go under

A cyclist gets to read many’’ stickers. It is a pity that there is no room on a bike to display some of our own because there are one or two comments we sometimes. feel moved to utter.

There is, for instance, "Take care, the life you save

may be mine.” And to motorists who scrape past with only an inch or two to spare, “Look, no elbows.' - ’ What motorists seem to forget as they snarl past is that the cyclist is not using any precious petrol, so how about the cyclist signalling. “I'm saving it all for you.” Perhaps “Be a courteous driver” says it all.

No, not quite-jail? One man I know was cycling along recently when a motorist overtook him -on the right and then cut across directly in front of him. This man I know, who is normally both polite and tolerant, was moved to utter a disgraceful word.

On seeing the slogan displayed in the rear window right in front of his nose, he was provoked further and issued a complete and very rude sentence. The slogan announced simply that “Jesus cares.”