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# GETTING PERSONAL The life of an elite sign spinner
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/getting-personal-the-life-of-an-elite-sign-spinner/
- Published: 2007-07-11T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-24T02:15:59.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Education, Downtown, #archive-import

*FROM PERSONAL PAGE 10 Writer tries out sign spinning*

*By Emily Skehan Special to the Daily Press*

DOWNTOWN I arrive on the busy corner across from the Santa Monica Pier entrance on Colorado Street shortly after 2 o’clock on a Sunday afternoon, ready to get my spin on.

Since I came home from college for the summer last month, I’ve been noticing these “human directionals” at seemingly every busy intersection. Using acrobatic movements to manipulate their signs in graceful arcs, these sign spinners draw attention to nearby clothing stores, open houses, movie openings, tax services and anything else with passion for promotion.Santa Monica’s corners are rife with the animated teenagers who flip, twist and twirl large plastic arrows like high school color guard pros. They make it look easy, and I’ve heard they can make some bank — up to $60 an hour!

I wanted in on the action.

At the downtown intersection, I meet Michael Thomas, a recent high school graduate suited up in a red Aarrow advertising polo shirt. I ask him to show me some tricks and he pulls out “the helicopter,” leaning back like a break dancer and spinning his six-foot, five-pound yellow arrow above his head with one hand like a feather-light propeller. He stands up and flips the sign around his back, then twists it neatly back in front of him. Throughout the show, he keeps a grin plastered across his face.

Passersby clap and smile at the marketing maestro. Each car passenger cranes their neck to get a glimpse.

OK, I’m ready for this sort of attention. Thomas hands me the arrow and I accept with confidence... only to drop it right away. The thing is damn heavy.

“OK,” he says, “I’m gonna teach you the basic spin.”

I glare at the sign, which reads “Buyer Incentives: Now Selling” in thick black letters, followed by an address. The edges are coated in black duct tape, I learn, to stop the arrow from getting too banged up when it’s dropped by clumsy people like me, and to protect spinners from getting their eyeballs skewered by sharp plastic.

The basic spin isn’t too daunting — cross one hand over the other, twist, and the sign miraculously falls back into place. Revolution accomplished, I get a little too full of myself.

“I want to learn something I can show off” I tell him.

He demonstrates the “Bruce Lee” — flip-ping the sign with ease from one hand to another in a figure-eight motion that I can’t even begin to deconstruct. It looks really, really cool.

Cool, but not easy. After about six tries, I can barely complete the trick’s first of four steps, which requires spinning the sign with one hand, flipping it over itself and catching it, only to throw it back up in a spin. I might have had more luck trying to imitate Bruce Lee by, say, learning how to karate chop a concrete block in half.

My teenage sensei is very patient as I drop the sign over and over, allow it to get blown away by the wind, and continually twist it in the wrong direction.

The tourists crossing to the pier don’t look at me admiringly the way they do Michael, but rather avert their gaze sympathetically or, like one group of adolescent boys, laugh outright. Finally, I get my left hand to cooperate, and I’m totally Bruce Lee for one try. This successful attempt is enough for me, and I let Michael get back to doing his (much more impressive) thing.

I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’ll never make $60 an hour as a sign spinner, but it was a fun try. Plus, I got something to take home from my attempt — my wrists are still killing me.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 11, 2007.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/071107.pdf?ref=smdp.com)