You know you've made it...

If you've got one of these outside your house ...

(C)Heavy Trash, 2005

What the fuck is that then?

It's a Heavy Trash "viewing platform". Heavy Trash is some sort of community arts project in LA (anonymous of course) that is opposed to people putting barriers around their homes and communities, for example, those posh estates that are walled-in with gated access and private security firms. They put these viewing platforms all over the place so that people can see into whatever area has been walled off. Apparently they got the idea from similar platforms that were used to look over the Berlin Wall from the west.

Heavy Trash's argument is "Most people want to live in communities that are safe for their families and most homeowners want to protect their property values. Although these are fundamentally reasonable goals, walling off one section of the city from another is not a reasonable way to achieve them. In fact, doing so can actually harm the very communities in need of protection."

So, Heavy Trash is organisation that wishes to remain anonymous yet it has no regard for the privacy of others. Hrrrrmmm.

Well I'm sure the people who spend milllions of dollars to live in the gated communities are delighted at Heavy Trash's concern for their welfare.

There are other words to describe Heavy Trash's "concern", these include jealousy and nosiness.

Why aren't people allowed to live in peace?