Arrest of 73 Year Old Sticker Tagger Answers Question ‘Who Is John Scott?’

By Steve Delahoyde on November 18, 2009 11:00 AM

Banksy might be the biggest of the big in the street art/vandalism game, but our new favorite is John Scott, reportedly the oldest tagger ever apprehended (in California at least). For more than half a year, the 73 year old had been slapping stickers everywhere in areas around Los Angeles which read simply, “Who is John Scott?” According to the few blogs we found mention of the sticker, prior to his arrest, most assumed it was some sort of marketing effort for a movie or a new album, given that the “Who is…?” ploy seems to have been thoroughly overused the past couple of years (e.g., in music, we’ve recently been asked who both Sasha Fierce and Jill Scott are, without receiving much of a worthwhile answer to either). But nope, turns out it’s just an older guy who apparently wanted to spend some money on a bunch of stickers, hosting for a simple website, and a few t-shirts to sell on the street and online, all to hopefully make a buck or two and get people saying his name. But while we now know who John Scott is (here’s a far more friendly photo than his mug shot), we’d like to hope that the question will survive. As he says himself on his site:

Who is John Scott? As soon ask yourself, Who am I? John Scott–world traveler, entrepreneur, producer, but, above all, mystery–an ordinary man with an extraordinary idea of himself. A real person with a real history, he is also you and me, the face in the window, the voice on the bus.