From Art to Ignorance

One day per week I “lace’em” up and drive five hours roundtrip to this special workplace. While I love the job, getting there is consuming me like this past Tuesday when the drive along California I-80 West was highlighted by three exit signs completely covered with graffiti. They weren’t my exits, but, come on, drivers, especially at night, will need to see these exit names. Let’s get these taggers.

I remember standing in a piazza in Firenze in 1984 (see old photo above) where I saw “led zeppelin” scrawled in red on the back of a statue of an armless woman. Italy may have been the birthplace of graffiti as markings have been found in the ruins of Pompeii. But “led zeppelin”? Sad.

I also remember a cartoon from nearly a half-century ago where “FOCK” is written on a wall. Yes, so dumb they can’t even spell.

Is there a land where you can go into a restroom and not see some sexual reference facing you? Remember phone booths? When they were around you could read excerpts from Last Exit to Brooklyn scratched into the metal tray that once held a phone book. Okay, some of those railroad cars look better lit up with colorful tagging. And some artists in the Bay Area have beautified buildings with mosaics in the middle of the night. Hey, here’s a bad idea: let’s make it more of a crime to write words on public property than to leave an artistic impression, provided, of course, the art doesn’t cover up an exit sign.