My secret crush on Al Capone

I see Al Capone nearly everyday as I walk to work and school. He's the mysterious kind, you never really know what his deal is. And he'll never tell you, either, because he doesn't speak; in fact, he's not even a real person, just some paint on the sidewalk that spells out "Al Capone". But I don't discriminate. I still love him even if he is just some faded paint.

For this task, I decided to reveal my feelings to Al in a love letter from a "secret admirer". I was vexed to see, after I had already written the letter, that Bex the Hero and Kyle Crocodile had already completed similar love letters to Sutro Tower. However, I am quite confident that our task completions are different enough that they won't mind (hopefully).

I did a bit of investigative work on Al before I got to the actual task, and I think you'll find it pretty interesting, especially those of you that live in Berkeley. Some background info first: So this infamous "Al Capone" lives on the sidewalk in front of Spats, a 1920's-style bar on Shattuck @ Berkeley Ave. Every time I walk past him, I wonder who wrote that on the sidewalk, and why? I can see how Al Capone is relevant to a 1920's speakeasy, but what was the purpose of writing it on the sidewalk in the first place?

If you spend enough time in downtown Berkeley, you've probably noticed similar sidewalk messages in the same handwriting in other locations. In the hopes of having a better understanding of Al, I thought I'd find as many of these other messages as I could and document them. My brilliant plan was that I'd find some pattern or some hidden message, but it didn't quite work out that way. Here are the other sidewalk writings I found, in their geographical order from South to North:

"Blackwell"


"Authentic Composition"


"Authentic Composition" part 2


"Plastic Fantastic"


"Rod Hughes"


My honey bunny


"Gas Station"


"Shake it up"


"Second Omelet"


"Second Omelet" part 2


"The Rifle"


"The Rifle" part 2


I made lists of these words, rearranged them, sketched a map, but no hidden message. I've concluded that whoever did this was either completing an SF0-like task, or just wanted to confuse people like me. The search was a lot of fun though. I walked and walked on Shattuck with my eyes glued to the ground. People probably thought I was a depressed. Then I got home and I was depressed because my friend told me he's seen other messages like these far away from Shattuck, like on MLK. I may have to go search these out and update this post later on, but for now, this will have to do. I think I've found most of the ones on Shattuck, at least.

So on to the love letter. I made it up to look like a school girl's note, complete with doodles and all. I even signed "Mrs. Al Capone" in different ways along the edge of the note:



I thought it would be clever to work the other sidewalk messages I had found into the letter, just so some curious person might search them out.



The full text is:

"Dear Al,

You probably don't know who I am, but I see you everyday on my way to work, and I think about you all the way to the Bart station. Sometimes I wonder how you can let people walk all over you, but I guess you don't mind it.

You look so hot with THE RIFLE you hold. How did you get here? And why do you always hang out in front of that bar, Spats? Whoever put you on this earth had a trick up their sleeve. They also had very neat handwriting.

I asked your friend, ROD HUGHES to tell you I had a crush on you, but he just called me 'PLASTIC FANTASTIC' :(. Then I asked Mr. BLACKWELL, but he told me to go to the GAS STATION and SHAKE IT UP with a SECOND OMELET, whatever that means. :( Since no one would give you my message, I wrote you this AUTHENTIC COMPOSITION; I hope you like it. :)

I hope you don't laugh when I tell you, but you're my SAVIOR. If you even know I exist, I hope you'll say hi to me the next time I pass you on the sidewalk.

Love always,

Your Secret Admirer"

Here's how it looked when I taped it to the sidewalk this morning:



By the way, tape doesn't stick to sidewalk very well, but I didn't want to use super glue because this isn't the Urban Tattoo. It was still there an hour later, however, so it seems to be holding up.

I'll update this if anything interesting happens. Maybe Al will respond.