MELROSEandFAIRFAX Scandal: Fact or Fiction?

Some people have been implying that we are spreading rumor as fact.

We resent the implication.

We reported last week that Banksy's supposed billboard takeover might not have been a brazen act of illegal street art at all, but was a pre-arranged 'thank you' to the person who financed Exit Through The Gift Shop.

Then, yesterday LA Weekly posted that the spokesperson for The Light Group, the company that owned the billboard, says that "the notion that the company actually put Banksy up to tagging its billboard is 'just not true.'" They feel that it is 'just a rumor', and that sentiment has been echoed on our blog.

Maybe we are just jaded, but we believe a spokesperson's job is to protect the image of the company, not necessarily tell the truth. In fact, from the White House Press Secretary on down, it seems like the only time a spokesperson does tell the truth is when they are no longer working for the company, and they no longer have to toe the company line.

Furthermore, the quote that the LA Weekly printed from the spokesperson seems to be purposefully vague. It is not a direct quote, but a summary description written by the Weekly with only sound bites in quotation marks. Its sketchy.

On the other hand, the source of our story is an assistant moderator on the Banksy Forums, and he states that he was told this information from two separate sources before going public with the story. Unlike the company, he has nothing to gain from voicing this information, either positive or negative. And in our opinion, someone who has nothing to gain is always a better source for truth than someone who is paid to protect a certain interest.

And, to be more specific, from what we understand, it was an owner of The Light Group who financed Exit Through the Gift Shop, not the company itself. So maybe the company didn't put Banksy up to do the billboard, but maybe the individual did.

It seems the best way to verify the truth of whether or not Bankys' billboard was an 'inside job' is by looking into the financing of Exit Through the Gift Shop, not contacting the company spokesperson.

As with everything in life, there are 3 sides to every story -mine, yours and the truth. We are not putting out rumors as fact. People are free to choose what to believe.

If some people want to choose to believe that it is a random coincidence that Banksy's art work shows up on the same property as the person who financed his film, that is your choice to make. And if those same people think that it is another random coincidence that Banksy's 'This Looks a Bit Like An Elephant' just happened to show up on the side of a accused eyesore that was in the middle of a heated battle with a local neighborhood association also by random chance, that is also your choice to make. But we think that where there is smoke, there is usually fire. And where it stinks bad, there is probably some shit around. We are putting the story out there and letting the readers of MELROSEandFAIRFAX make up their minds.

We would love if some true investigative reporting was done into the financing, and that should answer all questions. (we are an unpaid blog, aren't you guys on salary over at the Weekly? does anybody do investigative journalism anymore or is the news nowadays just a "he-said"/"she-said" thing?).

We think it would be the ultimate irony if the owner of the Light House Group/Investor in Exit Through The Gift Shop were identified, and his wife was a member of the Pacific Palisades Residents Association, and the whole thing was just a scheme.