taggers suck
Tagging? It’s the worst manifestation of the American Dream. It’s all about signing your name on something in order to claim ownership – but having no real right to do so. It’s like claiming a country other people already live in. Of course our government at least had some muscle to back up their illegitimate claim. Taggers are weak. They go to the poor, the downtrodden, (wait a minute – that’s usually what our country does too…) and write all over the poor and the downtrodden’s shit. You never see them tagging up power centers like police stations, police cars, fire departments, the mayor’s office, insanely wealthy communities, or even upper middle class areas. They are afraid. So they try to take from those who can’t fight back.
It takes more than writing your name or painting your ugly malformed line-drawing on something to really own it. Ownership involves working. Taggers like to think they are outside the system. They don’t want to work the 9 – 5. Of course, the people they target work much more than 9 – 5. Usually it is the vehicles of dirt poor cardboard and bottle recyclers they spray paint. People working hard to get out of the neighborhood the young white middle class taggers come blow up. Taggers pretend to be above the system, but they want to be President. They want power. They are evil Republicans in gutterpunk hoodies.
They have no message. It’s “Me! Me! Me!” It’s “I was here!” It’s “Look where I went!” It’s “Look what I did!” They are at a fourth grade level at best. Very few are actually making something interesting to look at. There are a few rare examples of great street artists who have inspired lazy name scrawlers across the country to spray noxious chemicals and toy-ass doodles on everything they can. Artists have a message, taggers just want to put their names on things that don’t belong to them so they won’t feel insignificant. Look at that piece of shit throw up some douche bag put on my truck and ask yourself, “Is that the next generation of art?” If it is, art sucks.
How did that tag on the left get the black outline look going in some spots? Were you trying to wash it off?
Your vehicle does provide a pretty tempting canvas. You should take advantage of it.
Comment by Lyle_s — July 9, 2008 @ 9:13 am
he sprayed it on in heavy mist/fog so not much of it stuck.
Comment by Rolston — July 9, 2008 @ 9:50 am
Somewhere in L.A. a 5 year old saw some kids tagging the sidewalk, so they held him down and tagged the kid’s face. Spray painted his face. Imagine that. These are all symptoms of a much larger problem involving disassociated youth. The culture demands nothing from them, and so they invent their own challenges, their own mythology as those proto-human tags attest.
Judging by the lines, there were two taggers hitting your truck. That’s a team. That’s a bond. A street gang provides more emotional support than families and communities so that’s where some gravitate. Losers like me who fail to associate themselves with gangs or society are even worse off. We drift. We have nothing. We contribute nothing. This is a nation in serious decay.
Comment by oggy — July 10, 2008 @ 1:51 pm
Amen. There’s no hard work left to be done in America, other than keeping yourself entertained. I think it’s a pretty normal life cycle for a society.
Comment by Lyle_s — July 10, 2008 @ 5:42 pm
I had a roommate that was a “tagger.” He considered himself an artist because most of his work was done on canvas but he liked to explore the public =venue once in a while. I thought his stuff was a bit, how do you say, forced.
He tried really hard but i think he was just white guy from the suburbs trying to be cool.
On the other hand who the fuck are you to say who is an artist?
your box van just happened to be there when they had a can of paint.
You might even call yourself a hypocrite.
Or I might call myself a drunk.
Comment by Al — July 10, 2008 @ 7:12 pm
I think it was Doug.
Comment by Nate — July 11, 2008 @ 9:36 am
Kill them all.
Save yourself.
Comment by Poll — July 12, 2008 @ 4:46 pm
If you want to grant all taggers the status of artist, let’s start from there Al. I think those artists are boring and self serving. What was on my truck wasn’t really a tag, it wasn’t letters, so that might be misleading.
There is street art that I enjoy, but this branch of the arts I don’t like.
Good call Nate; Doug was arrested for tagging a few years ago and doesn’t have any problem with it. I think he still does it. Maybe I’ll get his side of the story.
Comment by Rolston — July 12, 2008 @ 11:16 pm
here’s a quote from Henry Miller in “Big Sur”:
“The most difficult thing to adjust to, apparently, is peace and contentment.”
If the hypocrisy Al refers to is the terrible destruction I wreaked on innocent people’s property, then perhaps that quote goes a long way to explaining my behavior. But I never called smashing windows and setting fires art. I didn’t think I had the right to steal.
Kids do look for a struggle, a challenge, and the only one around is the police force and school teachers. I fought them both. But the number of people still tagging in their late twenties moves it on to a different thing.
Comment by Rolston — July 13, 2008 @ 8:14 am
i see that cute little mummy guy everywhere. now, i’ve certainly done my share of bad things to innocents, but i would still empty the spray can into the kid’s mouth if i caught him doing that to my van.
if i had ever been caught for any of my capers, i would have felt i got what was coming to me. all we can do is hope that your tagger would accept the licking with as much understanding.
Comment by donny laundry — July 13, 2008 @ 10:41 pm
1. I didn’t do it. 2. You and I both knew this was going to happen, over and over again.
3. I tagged a police motorcycle once, I wrote: Fuck The Police! So there.
Comment by Doug — July 17, 2008 @ 10:08 am
You gotta get a tagger who is really into the scene to tell me why I’m all wrong. I want to hear the arguments, or his rebuttal to what I’ve said. Maybe Chris?
Comment by Rolston — July 17, 2008 @ 10:13 am
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