No, not a suicide note, I’m sure. The bridge spans a small creek. The fall would be about 10 feet at the most, into water about 9 inches deep.
OTOH, maybe the person tried jumping, failed, and came back to write the note.
Nah, that would’ve been tragic. Haven’t you paid attention to the thread?
-Joe
I bet it could do it real quietly, too, so the kid wouldn’t realize until it was too late.
What I don’t like about graffitists is that they are thieves. They steal canvasses. They steal the labor of the workers who built their canvasses, as well as the labor of the owners of the canvasses who have to clean up after them. It matters not how good or bad someone judges their art, they are thieves, plain and simple.
Why not scrounge construction sites for scrap plywood, frame it up, and use that? Too much like work? That’s what I do for my art.
Thet are poseurs, in my opinion. They want things to be easy; they want not to have to think about it. A good friend of mine has a son who does graffitti. He also owns a vintage VW Bug, with a cherry paint job, that he keeps under a car cover. When I asked him if it would be OK to paint his car “as an artistic statement” he mumbled something and walked away. Clearly, the notion of private property extends out about an arm’s length from him.
A motorway bridge near me had ‘Hoot 4 Hunting’ daubed on it in white block lettering. Some witty fellow then altered it to spell out ‘Shoot A Hunter’. About the only instance of graffiti that I’ve ever been thankful for witnessing.
That is the most bizarre argument against graffiti I’ve ever seen. Easy? They can get nabbed through the whole job, while you comfortably paint your stolen plywood at home. And FYI, “scrounging” on construction sites isn’t exactly in the spirit of private property either.
Just wondering…
Does all that “scrap” plywood belong to you? If not, don’t you think you’re being a little hypocritical by calling folks “thieves”?
OK, I’ll bite how did the FIQ* get in front of the train? Last time I checked trains run on tracks. Since there was no mention in the link of the FIQ being pushed, I can only assume he jumped on the tracks of his own free will. Or did the train chase him down? :rolleyes:
Really, no shit? They aren’t breaking the law? On this planet (at least in my state/city) they are breaking the law. That would make them um, what is the term, oh yeah a law breaker. Since they did it on purpose, I think that malicious could be used as a modifier. ::: checks Dictionary.com::: “#2 Law. vicious, wanton, or mischievous in motivation or purpose.” Since you are maintaining that these are just mischievous kids I think that calling them malicious law breakers is exactly the correct description, don’t you?
The FIQ was a middle class Jewish boy “Ari Kraft was a bright 13-year-old who had celebrated his bar mitzvah in Israel.” I seriously doubt that he was poor since he had his bar mitzvah in Israel. Need some extra straw?:
Look at this link that Miller posted. It is a beautiful picture of a horse. That is completely ruined by various fuckwit taggers spraying tags all over it. I like street art. I fucking hate taggers. There is a beautiful mural painted on a wall on the Golden State Freeway near Dodger Stadium. Shows people running a marathon. It got tagged bad. The PTB spent many months and god knows how much money to restore it. During the restoration, it got tagged again. It got finished and got tagged AGAIN. I will be 100% honest here. If somebody went to tag it again and got hit by a semi, I would not lose any sleep over it.
Thanks for the offer of prayer for my kids, but really not necessary. They were both raised to be responsible. They have both grown into fine functioning adults. Neither one of them tagged.
So here is a question. If I am as fucked up as you and Howie seem to think I am, why did my kids turn out so great? I mean if an asshole like me can raise two kids that don’t tag, what is wrong with all the parents of the taggers?
*Fuckwit in question
You act like tagging is the only way a kid can be a fuckwit. There is almost an infinite number of ways a person can get themselves killed by doing something they shouldn’t be doing. I’m sure even in your blameless life, you’ve doing something that–given a different set of circumstances–could have ended up in your death. Does karma work for you like it works for thirteen-year-old boys? You better watch out if it does!
My parents did a great job raising me, but when I went to Paris as a 10th grader, I nonetheless risked my life breaking the law. You want to know what law I broke? Jaywalking across the Champs-Élysées with a group of other kids. We were giddy and silly, drunk on freedom and being in a beautiful city millions of miles from home. Our concept of “crosswalk” was momentarily forgotten in all the excitement and bright lights. It was a fuckwit moment that had absolutely NOTHING to do with how I was raised or how bad a person I am. Your own kids could easily find themselves doing the exact same thing I did, but not find themselves so lucky. I somehow don’t think your first reaction would be to call them “fuckwits”. I think, unless you’re an evil fuck, you’d be able to summon some friggin’ compassion. Or at least pretend you have some.
If your first reaction to hearing about the death of a child is KARMA IS A BITCH,then yes, I’m surprised that your kids have turned out so great. Perhaps they turned out great DESPITE you rather than BECAUSE of you. That happens a lot, I hear. So I wouldn’t go around patting my back too hard.
I find the proliferation of graffiti in urban areas an interesting sociological phenomenon actually.
My personal hypothesis (not yet tested, but I WILL do a research study one day 
) is that as individuals, particularly youths, have become more and more disenfranchised from the community at large, they have an increasing desire to leave their mark literally on the landscape.
Back in the good ol’ days, young men had their roles in the family and society very much cut out for them. In their work, they could see the fruits of their labour transform the environment: from the hunter-gatherers, to more modern rural settings (tending animals and growing crops etc). Most young blokes throughout history have ‘made’ things that have endured…houses for the family to live in, bridges for the horse and cart to cross the river, and even the cart and saddle for the horses themselves. You can add to the list as you see fit.
Nowadays though, the social story is very different. Young urban men in particular often do not have adequate modelling to manifest their ‘manhood’. Their roles in the family (often single-parented, minus dad) are confused and ill-defined. Poor educational outcomes and poverty often mean their later employment options are equally poor . So you have a generation of kids, on the street, trying to carve a niche out for themselves where they have an identity and the community can ‘recognise’ their value.
Graffiti is one way of doing that, and amongst the subculture of taggers great kudos and ‘social capital’ can be gained.
Your hypothesis might be different of course. 
Kids make mistakes…they do stupid things. It’s part of being a kid and a kid getting killed in the act of doing a stupid thing is not sad. Someone rejoicing at it even sader.
And as for property values…I was tempted last year to tag my own property if t would get the property taxes down.
Malicious by definition of law? Yes. But they didn’t set out to harm anyone, so I don’t think I define them as have malice toward anyone or anything.
When did I say his situation arose from those conditions? You can’t present a very compelling argument if your reading comprehension is lower than a fucking slug’s, can you? I suggest you re-read what I wrote (several times if you have to) and then get back to me.
That beautiful horse is vandalization of private property, dipshit. I’d even go so far as to wager the artist intended it as a metaphor for cocaine use, but I guess you have no fucking problem with someone tagging private property as long as it’s “beautiful”.
And by the way, it would appear from a cursory glance that the image of the horse was spray-painted over the other graffiti, not the other way around.
“Easy” as in “little work required.” As in “no prep required.” Perhaps you were thinking of “dangerous?”
I work on construction sites. The scrap plywood is in the, you know, scrap pile. As in discarded. As in trash. About to be hauled away. Garbage. Kind of like your reasoning prowess. The word “scrap” should have been a clue.
bit: a small fragment of something broken off from the whole; “a bit of rock caught him in the eye”
**# rubbish: worthless material that is to be disposed of
trash: dispose of (something useless or old); “trash these old chairs”; “junk an old car”; “scrap your old computer”**
# a small piece of something that is left over after the rest has been used; “she jotted it on a scrap of paper”; "there was not a scrap left"
quarrel: have a disagreement over something; “We quarreled over the question as to who discovered America”; “These two fellows are always scrapping over something”
make into scrap or refuse; “scrap the old airplane and sell the parts”
fight: the act of fighting; any contest or struggle; “a fight broke out at the hockey game”; “there was fighting in the streets”; “the unhappy couple got into a terrible scrap”
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn*
Be fair, Contrapuntal. You left out that you worked at construction sites and so would know scrap from non-scrap. To me, that’s entirely different than randomly strolling up on a site and personally designating things as “scrap”.
I wouldn’t recommend people do that, since usually contruction sites have NO TRESPASSING signs posted.
Be fair monstro. Don’t put words in my mouth. Where the fuck do get this? ‘randomly strolling up on a site and personally designating things as “scrap”’? Who said it was random? Who said I was the one who designated it as scrap? Can you not recognize a junk pile when you see one? If I tell you that I use scrap aluminum cans, are you going to accuse me of stealing from a soda factory, or would you think I might have been doing a bit of dumpster diving? Criminy!
If you’re going to invent shit, why not invent that the business owners ask the taggers to fuck up their facades? Who said anything about trespassing?
I’m a railfan. I think trains are beautiful. I further think graffiti is ugly and the “artists” involved should have their balls cut off.
You, gentle reader, might not be a rail enthusiast. Statistically, you probably aren’t. So let’s use a different example. Would it be okay for some punk little shit to tag your car? After all, it doesn’t make it any less useful!
You own the car, so you might be unimpressed. I am a taxpayer, and I own the train. I am similarly unimpressed.
Nothing screams urban angst more than a redwood forest.
What value? They’re fucking vandals. If I caught one in the act, I’d make him aware of his ‘value’ with a baseball bat.
While I don’t really think that all ‘taggers’ deserve death, I can’t muster very much sympathy for this kid.
I’m not putting words in your mouth. Your post can easily be interpreted as a recommendation for taggers to go on to construction sites and grab things they think are scrap. Which would be wrong.
I might think something is scrap, if it’s not my property, and start riffling through it. Only to later find out that it WASN’T scrap, and that the property owner intended to use it. I don’t know scrap from non-scrap, because I don’t work in construction like you obviously do.
I don’t know why you’re acting all hostile and shit anyway. I was just explaining why there was the confusion.
Construction sites aren’t public property. Taggers who fuck up business owner’s buildings will not be improving their moral status by taking things from construction sites without permission. You used the word “scrounged”, a word that did not register as “Ask for permission from the property owner before looking for scraps”. My bias, I admit, but you were not clear the first go-round.
I could have done without the jerkface tone in your response.
One day the kids and I were sitting at a railroad crossing, waiting for the train to go by. We were all just kind of sitting there in a trance, watching car after car go by, when all of a sudden, one burst into view with a picture of the Devil giving us the finger. We looked at each other, completely stunned, and then burst out laughing.
I often wonder what the artist would think if he knew how we had enjoyed his work. 