Gone Painting

Some guys get up early on a Saturday or Sunday morning to go fishing, or golfing, or in the winter they might go hunting.  But on a hot June morning in West Phoenix, when I wake up at 530am, WIDE awake, and I remember that the night before as my wife and I drove to dinner, the gas station, pet food store, and the pharmacy, I saw quite a bit of graffiti tagging some of the main thoroughfares of my fair city. 

As I laid in bed, completely awake, I couldn't stop thinking about all the pathetically sad little boys who were compelled to spray their territory with their initials, their pseudonyms, their 'gang signs', in their on-going futile efforts to try and claim ownership, entitlement, possession, of public property.  the vigilante in me could not rest.



So I left Dr Desert Flower (she's un-wakable on 1200 of the 1210 weekends we've lived together, without massive amounts of caffeine, a funeral to go to, an injured son to rescue, or a vacation island to be explored) a note on my office chair, put on a long pair of pants, long sleeved shirt, and wide brimmed hat. Gloves, paint can, old yogurt container (doubles as a great small paint can), old sheets to cover the car's interior, and a nasty old paint brush completed the ensemble and I was off for my third weekend morning of destroying all the "hard work" of neighborhood miscreants (links to one and two are here and here).

3 hours later, I'd used up 1.5 gallons of paint, sweated 6 pounds of water, and burnt up 2 gallons of gas.  I feel much better knowing that the little piss-ants of Tolleson and Maryvale can leave no permanent markings on the landscape, that with the vigilance of my neighborhood association, the city of Phoenix, and other concerned citizens like myself cannot remove, paint over, or obliterate.


I found myself humming "Another One Bites The Dust" and singing "And another one's gone and another one's gone! another one bites the dust, Heh HEY!" ("how long can you stand the heat?")


I also saw lots of ants, busily going about their female ant days, back and forth, and Dave Matthews Band got stuck in my head from time to time, repeatedly.

It was after I painted a viaduct that was previously filled with graffiti near Banner Estrella Hospital, that I stumbled upon an enclave of homeless people living in the viaduct under Encanto and 91st Avenue.  They had a small motor pool of stolen Walmart shopping carts & had strung up a tarp for privacy across part of the viaduct entrance.  Indeed the tunnel was full of graffiti, but I was not about to intrude on this hidden lair. 
City of Phoenix public service can check there (I called the non-emergency line to let them know about my unexpected Saturday morning discovery once I returned home).

"SCA" does not mean "Society of Creative Anachronists in this context.

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An "F" in Penmanship

The Public Utilities try to keep the poles clear of graffiti, but 91st Avenue is somewhat of a "DMZ" in regards to low income neighborhoods to the east with home worth 1/2 or less as much as homes to the West of 91st Avenue.  

No "Fig", No Pudding for you

And "Loser" who writes on rocks and walls, yes, you truly are a "Loser", but you DO NOT have to advertise.   Everyone know you are already, without you pissing on everything in sight, really.  Just stay in your mama's extra bed room, and watch TV or listen to gansta rap... stay out of my neighborhood, you pathetic little nuisance.

There were about a dozen other instances of tagger obliteration, but DDF is making me a pomegranate and Cruzan Dark Rum drink, so its time for some lazy pool floating, covered in SPF 50 sun screen, and Google Blogger's picture editor SUCKS royally, so I'm done for the day.