I keep it in a red nylon bike bag, nothing to arouse suspicion.
With feigned nonchalance I approach my target: the map display at the edge of
the trail. Scan the surroundings for trouble – all clear -- then quickly open
the bag and pull out the big sixteen ounce spray can. Pssssssshhhhhh!
Another tag…feels the sting of toluene and acetone.
That’s adventure in the life of a PEG Agent. I’m one of them,
the Petalumans Eradicating Graffiti. Here at this
spot, where the Petaluma River Trail passes under the Payran
bridge, I was initiated into PEG by master tag buster Ed Cerar.
Ed is the wiping force behind PEG, and he made a special trip to present me
with my toolkit. In a manner reminiscent of Q introducing Bond to his fountain
pen laser and cufflink homing beacons, Ed handed me my purple can of Misty
Vandalism Mark Remover, an abrasive sponge, and a ziplock
bag of blue cloth rags.
Why would I volunteer as a PEG agent? Not just for the
thrill and romance. I really detest tagging, the cryptic and often vulgar sprays
and scrawls that spread like a bad case of acne across the urban
infrastructure… especially when they land on the new map kiosks Petaluma High
School students are building for the City’s bike paths. Taggers
have an ironically apropos term for these hastily executed signatures:
throw-ups. I’m told by a friend and former tagger (we’ll
call him Pete) that such work is done to show the world “I’ve been here and was
bold enough to leave my mark.” This reminds me of when my dog has to stop every
20 paces to sniff n’ pee. Tagging is visual dog piss.
There’s another class of graffiti, one I find acceptable
when properly placed, one which can be remarkably beautiful. It’s known as
stylized writing: the large, wildly colorful, abstract blocks of letters. You
can see these “(master)pieces” at the skate park and inside the Phoenix, and
there was once an amazing display of elaborate “burner” pieces behind the scrap
yard along Hopper Street (see www.scotthessphoto.com/artpages/graffiti.html)
It could make you question your feelings about graffiti.
How should our community deal with all this scribbling and
painting? First the piss-taggers: Pete says the
longer the work is visible (“run time”), the greater the ego boost and higher
likelihood of repeat tagging. Thus the PEG strategy: find and remove it within
24 hours. What about the elaborate pieces? I think they need approved places.
Pete says that alone won’t keep it out unapproved places; we’ll need penalties
and PEG for that (to report graffiti or join PEG, call 776-3606.) But if some
of these true artists can act responsibly (e.g. pick up their litter), their murals
will enrich our community.
But we need to make it clear that writing or painting
without the surface owner’s permission is vandalism, a close cousin of window
smashing or tree mutilation. The City Council is considering enacting tough new
measures against graffiti vandalism, including higher fines and suspension of
driver’s licenses. Good.
What about alternative outlets to the tagging urge? When we
were hiking in Glen Canyon last year, my kids and I saw a lot of names and
obscenities scratched onto the sandstone. We did our best to scratch them off.
But we also found one small and fantastic motif carved in the wall just above
Cathedral in the Desert; it looked like a blend of Anasazi
pictograph and Middle Earth Elven rune. It must have
taken someone with steel tools the better part of a day, yet it was a lovely
complement to the natural setting.
Is there a way we could cut some slack for random acts of
artistry, done not with chisels but colored chalk? Could we engage kids in
creating trailside art displays, posting paintings and poems in the map kiosks?
How about a treeffiti program, where graffiti vandals
leave their mark by planting trees after removing their nearby work. And for anyone
who *must* make an edgy statement, however, another reformed tagger suggests this: anti-war and global warming messages,
white chalk, and the big black tires of the Hummer H2.
Suggested pullquote: I detest
tagging, the cryptic and often vulgar sprays and scrawls that spread like a bad
case of acne across the urban infrastructure.