WTF: Window Stickers

1) I wear backwards baseball hats and don't listen to Korn.

2) Not enough people listen to Terry Riley though.

3) Some cars do look better with stickers in the window. They distract from the wretched state of the car itself.

4) No one really cares what anyone else likes.

I had a Girls Against Boys bumper sticker but no car, so i stuck it on a mirror which is long since broken

The one that used to throw me was seeing Portishead amidst a field of goth-metal-industrial atrocities. Until a friend speculated that PH had crossed over, so to speak, by appearing on a bunch of soundtracks of that ilk. Can't recall the films now.

When I see the NIN sticker alone on a care, which is often (even in 2002!), I assume it's a desperate cry to engage in animal-like fucking with like-minded folks.

a terry riley sticker! yes! his name would look sooo good in spiky megadeth-type writing! i think we should get a lot of these made up!

anyway, some things i can discern about this individual:

1. he has a sensitive, feminine side (the cure) 2. he has a desperate need for catharsis (korn) 3. he has probably smoked marijuana more than once (dave matthews)

you know ... this guy seems a little confused but on the right track, probably like a younger version of a lot of people here. despite the seeming incongruity of his sticker choices, he's trying hard to develop his identity any way he can.

so i guess for people that need them, stickers are okay.

okay, so let's get some terry riley, john cage, phillip glass and morton feldman stickers.

I wish I had a car and just so I could put a Morton Feldman sticker on it. Or a Morton Subotnick sticker. Any Morton would do, I suppose.

I consider this an extension of the "state your affiliations on a T-shirt" phenomenon which faded out about 10 years ago. I've always had reservations about a certain shallow element which seems implicit in the need to express identity via bumper stickers. (admittedly, I *do* own a yellow "[eyeball = Residents]On Board" sign for my rear window, but it isn't in my vehicle and I consider it a pisstake on that whole phenomenon). I heard a very interesting interview somewhere where the interviewee claimed that as the lines blur and people bcome more "global", our modern affiliations/identifiying symbols are more closely aligned with brand names than they are with nationalities and ideologies. Think of this as consumerism which pretends it isn't consumerism. Personally, I'd rather keep 'em guessing...identification = pigeonholing. -jeff

Ever see one of those Grateful Dead "Steal Your Face" skulls with the Volkswagen logo in the space where the lightening bolt usually goes? I had one of those on my '90 Golf. I liked it, too.

I have a Touch & Go Records sticker on my car. I don't recall why I put it there and I haven't bought a Touch & Go album for about four years, but you know, it's personality. I had a Kurt Russell sticker as well 'til it got ruined, and these two dudes in a huge green SUV pulled up next to me at a traffic light in Frederick, MD and said "Hey, Kurt Russell! Cool! Why?" And I said, I have no idea, someone gave it to me & I've never seen any of his films. So they replied, "Hey, Touch and Go! Do you like Big Black then?" And thus *I* was thrown. I mean, two surburbanite dudes in a posh SUV who like Kurt Russell, and THEY knew who Big Black were.

They make Kurt Russell stickers? Dude, dubya tee eff?! He doesn't even have the camp value of, say, Corey Feldman or Kirk Cameron! Sometimes it's the little things that remind you you're living in a bizarre world.

I don't see band stickers on cars much in my neighborhood...it's mostly weathered "Nader in 2000" stickers around here. But I was fascinated by how many I saw the last time I was in San Francisco--one car I saw was like the total Gothmobile, plastered with tons of black stickers (Bauhaus, Neubauten, Cure, etc.) When the driver caught me gawking at them she glared at me. How chilling! But I dunno. Somehow I'd rather see those than see American flags pasted everywhere.

..Kurt Russell ...He doesn't even have the camp value

That's the genious of the sticker. He's the last person you would expect to see a sticker for. Perfect.