Griefitti

The other day I saw some graffiti on a doorway while driving home.  There's lots of graffiti here in Portland.  Most of it is just tags, you know, as it says in the Urban Dictionary, "a personal signature, usually vandalism with spraypaint, but can be any graffiti."  I don't have any real opinion about the legality of graffiti, perhaps because I don't really believe in personal property; or rather, I feel there's tremendous truth in the anarchist slogan "property is theft."  I of course judge it according to whether I like it.  From my point of view, as someone with mostly nothing, I find the ways people deal with graffiti fascinating, & of course I find beautiful graffiti stunning.

Anyway, I saw this tag which was simply someone's name, mostly recognizable, written over & over, like a child might do in a workbook learning cursive, only, you know, this was on a doorway.  & the name was the same of the name of a friend, so I took a picture (I was waiting at a light, & wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't been - the doorway was sunken into the wall of the side of a building) & sent it to him.  I asked, "Is this your tag?  It seems sad."

I continued, "Not sad in execution, sad in feeling it is meant to convey."  I guess I didn't want to offend him.

He hadn't responded, so I just wrote, "Sad tagger."

& then, "Griefitti."

This friend usually hates puns, says they're the lowest form of humor, but he acknowledged it was a nice word I had (possibly?) coined.

Last night a friend from an old radio station wrote to me about how he wasn't dealing very well with David Berman's death.  I wrote what powerless words of consolation I could.  As we get older, we carry more & more death behind us.

I should've encouraged him to get some spraypaint & work on his tag.  He's an artist of sorts, I'm sure he'd make a good one (if he hasn't already).  Mine would be simple & pretty sad in execution.  Also, I'd get caught right away, possibly because I'd do something dumb like tag someplace nearby & write my name in very simple script.

& it would be my own name.  Recently, in getting involved at Freeform Portland, I was asked what my "deejay name" was.  I've never had a deejay name.  I've always been just Gary.  Now, of course, I'm referred to as "DJ Gary" in emails.

This began somewhere & ended somewhere else.  Such is my mind these days.