Having no shortage of left-over house paint from the previous owners, I took the cheapest Chinese brush I have, a 5/6ths empty can of paint, a paint can opener, a few rags to wipe up any mess I made, and my digital camera out to McDowell and 99th. 20 minutes later, problem solved. Yes, the sad little boys will probably take another 3 or 4 months to cover the box again with their spray painted urine to "reclaim it", but I've got alot of paint, and a paying day job, and a strong disdain for pathetic little boys who feel it's their obligation or right, to deface public property. Yes, "OKIE", "FREMS", "KOZ", "Vaper", "JDG", get a real job, move out of your parents' houses, put your "art" up in a gallery somewhere, and stop defacing public property, and then maybe you'll get noticed and make something out of your life.
And as a post script, on my way home, I noticed a few utility poles on 91st Avenue, adjacent to the Maryvale DMZ covered with white tagger paint. I pulled over, and covered those as well, and a lady in an SUV drove past, rolled her window down, and yelled "Thank You!" to me as I was painting over the tags. That was a nice feeling.
We can sit back and be "victims" waiting for a nearly financially bankrupt city to come by and clean them up, or we can take action and reclaim the city, peacefully, fastidiously, determinedly, one block at a time. I choose the latter.
In Chicago, at least on our block, it was SOP to paint over, ASAP, anything tagged. Typically the alley-facing garages would get tagged, and we would just paint over them, except in the rare cases it was fresh enough just to clean off. Even the elderly German couple a few doors down seemed to take this in stride and just get on with it.
ReplyDeleteThe strange guy the next block over, who paraded around the neighborhood in camo attire, once caught a youngster tagging. In his own words, he grabbed the youth, "pulled down his pants and spray-painted his pecker." I don't recommend that particular corrective measure, but kudos on the proactive painting-over.
Thanks. I agree, constant vigilance is important to squash this sort of thing before it grows into a malignant cyst. My friend (and occasional commenter here) Joe M did a similar thing on his block in San Francisco as your camo Chicago neighbor, and that tagger has not been seen again.
ReplyDeleteIn retrospect, after years in London, have you seen as much graffiti there as you did in Chicago residential neighborhoods? Paris (inside the old city) had little. Milano had a great deal of graffiti everywhere. Atlanta, depended on the neighborhood. Brooklyn, seemed to be covered in it, in the one mile hike I took from subway station to Rick's old place.
Downtown Phoenix has gotten a good grasp on graffiti control, and does a adequate job of eradication. In some places, they've embraced the street art, and have had large citizen murals put up, and that's wonderful. It's these piss-ant prepubescents who think it's fine mark everything as their "right" who bug me. Oh no... Maybe I am turning into McCain?
If the cities really wanted to get serious they'd pass legislation requiring the removal of one thumb per infraction. Guaranteed results on the first penal implementation. Hard to hold a spray can with only fingers. I figure word will spread fast, with not many thumbs sacrificed.
ReplyDeleteI've been reporting graffiti for years now to Graffiti Busters and saw a good deal of results but now the PLBs have moved up the hill to my ally. These little jerks really get under my skin so I'm looking hard for new ideas.
dalton, I like the idea... but it almost sounds like a Sharia solution, and in today's Islamo-phobic America that might not be well received.
ReplyDeleteI try to not let the miscreants bother me or raise my blood pressure... it is better to just obliterate their "hard work" and re-gain control over the territory. It is an aggravating nuisance, regardless.