Do I approve of defacing public property? No, of course not. Costs a fortune to keep cleaning it up. And tagging for the most part is just boring; an expression of territorial pissing matches between gangs or individual taggers rather than a heartfelt feeling of pure emotion or sentiment (or the boredom of lovelorn teenagers).
Still, graffiti carries with it the signs of the times- whether they are popular musicians, songs, slang, current favored methods of altering your consciousness- or even current events. You read it, you get a picture of what is going on in the street, even if on the surface it seems rather crude and for the most part ignorant.
Jack Lessenberry doesn't know what he is missing. (By the way, Jack was talking about wingnut bloggers, if that makes you feel better). There are nuggets of truth to be found in the scribbles, a snapshot in time on the thoughts of those kids, sometimes adults, who are hanging out with a pen or knife in their hand and have nothing better to do but to write down whatever they are feeling.
Just recently, I was surprised to find this one on a picnic table in Riverside Park, located on the north side of Grand Rapids. Amidst the "JM loves BT" and "50 Cent Rulz" and "smoke more hash" (hash is back?), I noticed this-
The kids are alright. We just need them to stop vandalizing public property.
And we need to help them out if they are sent off to war.
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This is a Blogging For Michigan Troop Care post. From November 11 through November 25, 2007, Blogging For Michigan will use 100% of every dollar received in the Troop Care fund to purchase and ship items to Michigan troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Learn more about BFM Troop Care here. Click here to contribute to Troop Care. Contributions are not tax deductible.