Usually when you see a stranger holding up a sign with a message scrawled in marker, you brace yourself. You wonder if they’re trying to tell you where to get the best sandwich in town, where you can find the best deal on police-auction cars, or if they’re just letting you know that God hates you. Long Beach’s own “Sign Guys” are doing everything they can to buck the assholes-with-signs trend and for the last several months have been trying to help turn the city into a better place, one passing motorist at a time. If you’ve driven Ocean Boulevard and stolen a glance towards Bluff Park lately, chances are you’ve seen them there, holding homemade signs that say “Love Everyone” and “Thank You.” Maybe you smiled. Maybe you waved. Maybe—as one on-duty police officer did—you flipped them off as you went by.

The Sign Guys, Ryan Duggan and Zach Perlman, don’t mind. They are Long Beach locals who’ve known each other for nearly 20 years. As we walked down Junipero from Fourth towards their usual spot on Ocean, cars sped by us, their drivers’ eyes fixed on their radios and iPods. People walked by us and ducked their heads or scurried to the side. Nobody was looking at each other or at us. Ryan was talking to me about society’s disconnection.

“A lot of people seem to believe that there is this fundamental lack in the world . . . It causes this discord, makes people think that we’re not connected, that we’re all separate and vulnerable, striving to meet our own goals and our own agendas.”

The signs are Ryan and Zach’s way of trying to put the pieces back together, to make brief but powerful bonds between themselves and others and to try and get passersby to think a moment. They’re realistic about what they’re doing; neither suggested to me that they thought they were going to turn people instantaneously into all-loving founts of joy. Zach said he’s “hoping that the person driving by who sees the sign that says ‘Love Everyone’ is gonna maybe, just for a moment, consider the vague possibility that they’re capable of unconditional love. And if they’re willing to even consider that, then I feel awesome.”

To that end, one of their favorite reactions to the signs—because it was honest—was from one man who pulled up in front of them and stared at the “Love Everyone” sign. He looked away, then he looked back, rolled down his window, and said: “I can’t.”

Still, the pair say the overwhelming reaction has been positive, with some drivers getting out of their cars to talk to them or give them a high-five or a hug. They see their interactions, positive and negative, as a way to help stitch a fragmented world back together.

“It’s easy to look out and see that things are really grim,” Zach said. “But I think that we’re so close to a huge leap forward, that the most eloquent response is to evolve. We’re going to really start to feel our connection, strongly and profoundly.”

That being said—by them—the two are nonetheless uncomfortable with any kind of idealization of their actions. They see themselves as two ordinary people who refuse any kind of credit or ownership for what they’re doing. “This isn’t our project,” Ryan said. “This isn’t ours. I mean, really, anyone who likes this idea should come out and do it.”

While we were doing the interview, a middle-aged biker rode by, noticed Ryan and Zach, and asked them, “No signs today?” The Sign Guys are becoming recognizable Long Beach fixtures; but is the message taking root? There hasn’t yet been a significant drop in the crime rates or a rise in courteous driving; but for the Sign Guys, that’s not the kind of mission they’re on.

“It’s not a ‘Do this until,’” Ryan said. “It’s just a ‘Do this.’”