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This bank was between the apartment I lived in and the Pizza Hut I worked at as a waiter. I lived in an apartment on N.W. 9th Avenue right off N.W. 13th St. The Pizza Hut was up on N.W. 16th (I think). I can't remember why I walked to work that summer. I think I was totally broke and something was wrong with my car. I definitely had my white Toyota Corolla station wagon by then. This was the summer of 1989. I made the above protest image that same summer too. I waited tables five nights a week, stayed up all night every night, and slept all day, every day. It's hot as hell in Gainesville during the summer. It's very humid there and the air is unusually still. I remember at the time thinking to myself that it had been a mild summer and then I realized I'd hardly been outside during the day for an entire summer.

I walked by that damned sign for weeks. At some point I started thinking about what sort of alternate sentences I could create using the letters they had used to make their statement. It originally had some sort of loan offer. So early one Sunday morning, on my way home from a Saturday night shift, at 2 a.m. or so, I altered the sign. It stayed that way all day that Sunday. Monday morning they discovered it and returned it to its original dignity -- with the addition of a locked plastic cover for good measure.

As I recall Phil took the picture. I may have a copy of it somewhere but I found it on Brian's MySpace page. And Tom had posted it there! What a trip.

I met Jill in September of 1988. She had a major lasting impact on me in two ways: I learned about the Fall from her and I discovered Re/Search #11 Pranks! because of her (her roommate had a copy of the book on the bookshelf in their living room).