MissionJeff… i guess when you’re not patrolling a blog anonymously, you’re on the streets? you crimefighter, you…

I don’t think folks are claiming that this is an issue of safety – it’s an issue of narcissism. What makes SF great is that there are lots of artistic people who are open to painting their walls (or inviting people to paint their walls) with amazing murals. What makes SF suck are the people who think that their views or tastes are more important than everyone else’s. Look, if you want to paint your car to look like a turtle or you want to sport a neon pink mullet then go right ahead and rock it, but you don’t have the right to cut my hair and paint my car. It’s a shitty thing for someone to inflict their taste on property that isn’t theirs.

But, since you feel so strongly about this guy’s right to tag other people’s property then feel free to post here about how I can pick up your clothes for some quick alterations. (Don’t worry – I will do something that I think is really cool. Hopefully you will like it too, but I guess that doesn’t really matter, right?).

PD: What if I took a dump on your car, smeared it all over and called it a “good tag”. Would the person turning me in be a snitch?

Also, this tagger has used a more than “a little spray paint”. Try walking through the Mission. I could count up dozens of his tags in the neighborhood. Plus he tagged a prediction of Patriots by 10 before the Super Bowl. Moron.

In fact, I don’t even think it’s a question of whether the tagging is considered “good” or “bad” graffiti. I personally think the tagging of the palm tree in the video is bad (and, assuming it is also this tagger’s work, I think it is more than enough reason to want to see him arrested), but others may see that spiral on the tree and think it is good art. Whether someone thinks it is good or bad art is subjective so that shouldn’t be the basis for deciding whether this person should be arrested.

What is really comes down to is that freedom of expression doesn’t give you the right to determine that your art belongs on my building. Plenty of the stuff he tagged is private property and now these people need to spend time/money cleaning it up. Same goes for the public property. Why does one person get to determine that their “art” belongs wherever they want to put it? And why does this one person get to waste the private and public money that is needed to clean up that art? It’s quite selfish.

Rather than deride the video taker as a snitch I’d like to thank him for making this tagger accountable for the cost/damage that he has forced other people to deal with.

I also believe it was right to film it and turn it in to the authorities. If the graffiti doesn’t fit the mold of a well thought out message or “piece” then they should be busted for vandalism. “I wanna be a billionaire..”, really??

I’m not for vandalism, but if you have a good message to give (maybe an uplifting one or hell, even one that says “fuck the system”)then I’m all for it. But if you’re gonna do it illegally and not get caught, shit, do it right.