@@!*%@&%** Graffitti scribbling bastards! What is the friggin’ appeal of spray painting a damn wall? Or a street sign? Or my fence, you worthless low-lifes? :mad:
Man, my neighborhood is getting completely overrun by this crap! (And Lord knows our do-nothing Mayor Bill Campbell isn’t going to take any steps to correct the problem!) :mad:
Any “taggers” / “artists” out there? Show yourselves! Justify yourselves! (Oh that’s right. I guess you wouldn’t, you little cowards, since you only have the guts to do your thing under cover of darkness.)
Does anybody know of any city that has an anti-graffitti program that works? If so, how does it work? Also, any tips on removing spray paint from a rock surface? (@@%%%@&%***!!!)
Is there some king of “tagging” fad happening right now, because it seems to be more of a problem than it has been in the past. I suspect northern transplants! Damn Yankee no-goodniks! (OK, just kidding on that one!)
spoke, I saw a great program in Chicago that was advertised on one of the news programs.
They had caught a number of ‘juvenile offenders’ spray painting the city buses as they were parked in a holding area.
The officer in charge took the spray can and started spraying one of the boys! He asked why didn’t the kid like it, it was a nice picture. The kid yelled back, ‘this is MY shirt!’ The officer pointed to the bus, and said, ‘and those buses belong to the city, not to YOU!’
The ACLU probably didn’t like it, surely their civil rights were interferred with in some way, but they mentioned that none of those in that program had spray painted anything again, or maybe they just weren’t caught, who knows?
But, I thought, how neat, that someone captured and got the boys to think how they would feel if ‘it was their stuff’ being ‘tagged’ like male dogs marking their territory.
But, I don’t think this is a high priority issue with Mr. Campbell, though, I’m not sure what is either!!
Judy
“Um, according to who? Nothing more than a high brow troll, though occasionally the bi polar personality swung in a constructive direction on innocuous topics.” Omniscient
In Pittsburgh, about 8 years ago, the city went on a semi-serious anti-graffiti crusade. They gathered the “tags” of the mmost serious offenders, the ones that appeared repeatedly all over the city. Then they put 10 or 15 on flyers, promising $500 to anyone who revealed the RL identity to match the tag. They hung these flyers EVERYWHERE. I don’t know how effective it was, but I’m sure it made some of those dudes thinks twice about tagging, as $500 goes a long way in a town oveerflowing with poor college students.
In your situation, spoke, there isn’t much anyone can do if some 14 year old jackass wants to spray on your property.
Yes, I am a “Damn Yankee no-goodnik northern transplant” living in Atlanta.
A hearty “fuck you” is in order for your last statement.
And, BTW, Bill Campbell is worse than do-nothing. He sucks shit.
El Paso has a fairly new program that is getting national attention.
Taggers, when caught, are sentenced to community service. The service? They go around town painting over graffiti and cleaning it off rock walls and other structures.
Since caught taggers usually know some uncaught taggers, there’s been a marked decrease in graffiti.
“You can be smart or pleasant. For years I was smart.
I recommend pleasant.”
Elwood P. Dowd
the only way I know of to get spray paint out of a pourous surface, such as rock, would be pool deck cleaner. You can get if from most pool stores. I cleaned all the oil from my driveway with it.
You want a psychological reason for graffiti? These are people who know they will never “make a mark” any other way. Most of them are poor, uneducated, have no hopes or ambitions or talents; so they feel the only way they will ever make a difference or change the world is to spraypaint all over everything.
I have never spray painted or tagged anything, but my roommate is a regular graffiti guy. He knows a lot of artists here in NYC and I see his tag name all over town. He’s been in jail once for it, too.
In this city it’s not true that graffitiers just “get community service”. One of Krissy’s friends was just sentenced to two years for vandalizing property.
Why do they do it? I’ll ask Krissy and his friends to justify their actions and post his response.
For the record, it’s mostly white or Asian suburban kids who tag/graf.
One hilarious website that the graffiti kids all scream over is www.stopgraffiti.org
My favorite graffiti solution was actually a joke from Rudy Guiliani’s guest spot on SNL. The idea is that each time someone spraypaints their name on something, the city comes along and sprays “sucks” underneath it. Pretty funny.
Yeah, I actually suspect that’s the case here. A lot of suburban teens come into my neighborhood on weekends. There’s some good skateboarding near where the graffitti popped up on my wall. I figure it’s probably one (or several) of the skateboarders who jang out around here. (Note: I have no problem with skateboarding or skateboarders; it’s just vandals I can’t abide.)
I like the “post a reward” idea. We do have several taggers whose names seem to pop up all over town, and the graffitti on my wall is an elaborate “tag” itself.
Bill Campbell is the sorriest excuse for a mayor this city has ever seen, so I don’t really expect any action from his office. Maybe the next administration. %%&%@Y**!!
ultress-
Before you put that marker away, what was that number again???
mouthbreather-
You fuckin’ blue-bellied, torch-totin’, scrapple-eatin’, “well-here’s-how-we-do-it-up-North” -yammerin’, black-socks-and-shorts-wearin’, Pepsi-drinkin’, pasty-faced, soulless Yankee bastard! When I want your opinion, I’ll call Rush Limbaugh and get it from him before he tells you what it is!
I am 33 years old. In my youth, ( 15-18 ) I was a “tagger”. Actually, I was more of a graffiti artist. I mostly did large “pieces” that took several hours to complete. To understand what I mean, picture a NY subway car. We’ll take this in two parts.
Tagging. Yes, I did some tagging. The thrill of this is twofold. Number one was recognition. If you can get your name out to more places than anyone else, hey, you’re #1! It’s kinda stupid, but I can understand the attraction. Fortunately, I was raised with enough sense of self worth that that was not the big attraction for me. For me, the thrill of tagging was the danger. I used to hit the most dangerous spots.( to be caught, I mean) Two that I remember are these. I once tagged the Baltimore County Police sign outside the Towson station/jail. The police logo had fallen off, and that’s the space I hit. It stayed up for 4-5 months! I also tagged a bridge support right smack dab in the middle of I-695, on both sides. It seems kinda stupid to me now, but then again, that pretty much describes most of my life between 14-18.
Pieces. This is what graffiti artists call those murals that they paint on subway cars and such. Believe me, it is a very hard skill to master. We don’t have a subway* in Baltimore, so I mostly did highway and bridge under and overpasses. It can take over 8 hours to finish a large mural, and it is doubly hard because frequently you can’t back up and look at the entire piece at once( it usualy being night and sometimes cramped quarters ). I am still proud of some of the works I produced then, and think major cities would be served to invite Graffiti artists to fill up taggable surfaces with large scale graffiti art, it would cut down on random scribbles. ( it is a major sin to tag over someone elses piece. Someone once “bit”( ripped off ) my tag on top of a lovely piece, and several weeks later the artist who had done that piece faced me down at gunpoint!{scared the shit outta me!!}. I was able to prove I hadn’t done the deed, though.)If they aproved the pieces, IMHO it would improve the scenery.
One final thing, one rule I had was that I never NEVER tagged or graffitied on private property. Those areas belonged to someone else, and I felt I had no right to violate them. Public property was something else entirely. And, yes, I could poke a dozen holes in this logic now, but as a teenager it made perfect sense. ( O.K., maybe once or twice I hit a private place, but even then it was a shopping center wall or someting, and it was rare. I understand your frustration as an adult, but as a kid it might have gone right over my head.
*I know Baltimore has a subway, but the cars are all “ridgies” and “ding-dongs”. You need “flats” to do a good piece.( more graffiti lingo) If anyone really cares I’ll explain.
You know, I can accept all of that…since it’s coming from a red-necked, overall wearin, grits eatin through your 3 teeth, “The south was great before you northerners came and brought technology and good jobs”, slobbering, no socks with velcro tennis shoes wearin, Yoo-Hoo drinkin, moon-pie eatin, fly fishin, monster truck drivin, inbred hillbilly/
But, on the other hand,
That’s a cheap shot. I can’t stand that bloated fucknose. I demand an apology.
And, FTR, I knew several black kids who were into tagging/throw-ups/pieces. But plenty of whites and asians too.
“My Accountz Reeceevable Posse don’t call me Tha Troubleshoota for nothin’. Suckas think I be chillin’, but I gots to represent at all times, 'cuz ain’t nobody else reeceeve accountz right but ME.” --Herbert Kornfeld
Thanks for the perspective. As a former tagger yourself, do youhave any suggestions for fighting the problem? (Understanding that you still may not see it as a problem…)
Sadly, no. As I said above, I never tagged on private property. I know this is a rule that is not kept by most taggers. The only suggestion I have is the one I mentioned above. If you have a wall prone to being tagged, put a nice piece on it to prevent the scribbles. Other than that, I dunno.
I’m a member of a theatre group that educates kids. We just bought the Graffiti/Vandalism prevention and resisting peer pressure Kids on the Block program. It’s designed for elementary school kids, so hopefully it will help to give the kids a sense of pride and ownership in the community at an early time of life. It may not do anything about the current taggers, but we’re hoping it stops a few before they start.
On another note, there was an issue a while back about some graffiti art here. This was legitimate art. The local youth art centre wanted a mural. They hired the son of the city’s art councillor (or whatever his title is). The kid spent weeks sketching, planning, and preparing the wall for this mural, and it is very professionally done. It’s an alien done in graffiti style, and it’s saying “RESPECT.” It’s left up to the viewer to decide what the alien is asking respect for. There was a huge debate over whether it should be allowed (because, you know, it will be a negative influence on all of us evil no-good punk teenagers and it’ll make us all run out and get paint cans), but since it was a privately owned building they couldn’t do much about it. It’s been a year now, and there has been no increase in tagging so far. In fact, the Art Centre has more kids joining.
ARRGGH!! now you hit a nerve with me… taggers… I hate taggers… taggers should be made to drink the paint they spray, then swallow a light match. I never had strong opinions about this until I moved to Vegas. Now, vegas is a nice looking city, but everywhere you turn hispanics (yeah thats right… the majority are hispanic gangs) have TAGS EVERYWHERE. This isnt ment to be a hispanic bash, just a fact that most of their gangs do the taggings. There are tags an a landscape wall accross from my house… they are on every light pole and every wall you turn to. I hate it… formless scribbles everywhere. grrrr…
I don’t know how much this works, or how widespread it is, but out here on the west coast many states make it illegal for anyone under 18 to buy spraypaint. Yes I see ways around this for kids who tag, but I bet it stops some of 'em.
Rather, I was in the position of a spore which, having finally accepted its destiny as a fungus, still wonders if it might produce penicillin.
–Ayi Kwei Armah
