Big stunts are a great way to generate publicity but slamming jumbos into skyscrapers is really hard to organise and let’s face it, I’m lazy. To raise the media profile of the Guerrilla Poetry Organisation needed I needed something that took hardly any effort and when some random American journalist emailed me global recognition seemed assured.
I arranged to meet journalist Jake Wagara at St Leonards Station along with compadre Ray de Asian. At first I thought the meeting may have just been a cunning ploy by the people from North Sydney Council to nab the organisation responsible for putting stickers all over their light poles. When I saw Jake squeeze his big arse through the turnstiles my suspicions were erased.
Jake was definitely an American – he dressed like an overweight Seinfeld; he had a canvas cowboy hat and when he first arrived he headed straight to the shops to get a Snickers bar. Unfortunately Jake didn’t seem to realise that most of the work produced by the GPO involved poems about sex with robots/mermaids/amputees/dwarves and when interviewed our saucy sailor mouths ensured nothing he recorded was suitable for broadcast. Still we persevered.
Watched on by security guards we placed lots of plastic army men (with poems attached) around the big pond in the middle of the plaza. For a ridiculously long time no one took any of them but finally an awesome old guy in a green checked Sherlock Holmes hat picked one up. He then studied it closely, put it down, picked up another one, studied it, put it down, repeated the process ten times, went to walk away and then finally came back and took one. We were excited. Then a group of four drunk people came, all picked them up and read them on the spot. They then threw their heads back in laughter (there was even back arch on a couple of the girls). Jake seemed impressed and we left him to waddle off, put together a story and make us heaps famous.
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