Ron Howard represent.

yowzas!


Don't you love how Tupac was in Digital Underground, the masters behind The Humpty Dance, All Around the World, and Kiss Me and I'll Kiss You Back, then when he first went solo, he was about social awareness, i.e., Brenda's Got a Baby, but then followed the road to sell out with that gangsta thug crap? Filling the white kids head, with the glory of ghetto violence is where records are sold.

This is how we roll-

so the ghettos will scare the crap out of me, cool, nice way to skirt around the issue. thank god ive never traveled to other citys and went to the bad neigborhoods

am i wigger?

because apparently white people that like graffitti are wiggers

thank god those rolling stones stopped making music

if you want to discuss the merit of writing on other peoples property, go ahead. i think that is a very good topic.

what did that oliver guy say....my right to swing my ....


what constructive goal are you striving for?

are you going to help TJ or anyother small business owner by insulting people he has a problem with?

im horrible communicating on the internet, thats why i gave my address.
so i geuss ill take wes's cue and stop responding. im always down to talk to anyone that wants to improve the situation we are living in. so if you see me say hi, i wont bite.

bye

Wes, I appreciated the info, views, rules, and philosophies you're sharing here. While I'm not familiar with some, none are all that new or surprising to me either. I mean, I saw the whole idea of the illegal aspect actually helping legitimize the art and artist coming from 10 miles away. I get that.

Art for art's sake is wonderful, beautiful, grand, and (unfortunately) rare thing. No one here is really arguing that graffiti isn't art or isn't part of a relevant culture. Much like tattoos, I think graffiti has worked it's way into society enough that it can be accepted on its own merits.

I'm not asking you to justify the art form. That's done. I practically love it. If I owned Mags, I woulda had ya graffiti the outside wall the week I moved in.

However, I am asking you to justify these infringements upon property owner rights. All I'm really hearing is it's cool. It's part of your culture. Maybe that justifies it in graffiti and artistic circles, but you're encroaching on other bigger and smaller circles.

Even your own graffiti tenets and heros seem to be saying there is some bigger statement behind the art. Not that it makes it legal, but where is the big cause? Where is the social message? Where is the grander meaning? I and others could possibly at least understand and respect the illegal tagging and graffiti if there was some real substance and justification to it. As it stands, you've basically said there is little thought or meaning or consideration for any of this. That's classic "rebel without a cause" syndrome - except I don't even think you're doing it to be rebellious. It's just exciting fun with and for friends.

Not that it really matters, but I have to challenge whether you really get this culture you've embraced when what is probably the biggest impetus for modern graffiti - some form of social outcry or social realism - is not even in your mindset. Or maybe that is the realism - you have nothing socially significant to relay. As I said before, I'm finding the explanations somewhat disappointing.


P.S. Sorry Wes, it's not fair for me to ask you specifically justify this. You're just the person most associated with PBJ that I know participating in the discussion. No one really has to justify it to me. But the above are the thoughts and questions going through my head.

It is about people trying be something they are not and in turn turning something cool into a mockery, all the while ruining other peoples' porperty. it is not cool, it is bullshit and to try to act like one has street cred, when they don't is hysterical.

Apparently, you haven't read the entire thread, or if you have, you are not so hot with reading comprehension.

I agree with Envelope, Annie. It seems like he's asking you one set of questions, and you're answering a whole different set. Need to sync up a bit better.

There seems to be an epidemic of that in this thread.

Considering I don't know who he is, I can't answer it.

I have to do things like, work, so I most likely won't be driving up to Columbus to see his show.

If he is trying to be something he isn't, then, yes, I think he's a poseur.

APPLE!!

My 4 year old daughter thinks it stands for Peanut Butter and Jelly.

"Yo,yo Roxanne, you wants a PBJ baby?"

"Fo hizzie daddy, slap dat shit on a plate!"

Then she goes and writes on my fuckin' walls. Wait....could she be a part of them?

Had you read the thread, you would know this is not the case. the guy who started Scribble Jam was a pretty good friend of mine, and I still enjoy seeing him around and his work and I have also tired to find store fronts for him for his business. The wall at Annies is awesome after SJ.

Also, my good friend Doug does commissioned wall murals I think are beautiful. he has one of the "Ghettotopia" on the corner of Orchard and Main in Over the Rhine.

I know many people who own warehouse in Brighton where they commissioned many of the grafitti artists that opened the CAC's Beautiful Losers show, and had them blow up on their buildings and it looks awesome.

I love Hip Hop.

I have a problem with idiots running rampant with markers and vandalizing peoples' property. Especially, when there is obviously no message. You tend to start thinking that way when you grow, but a building and some shit stain puts a weak tag on the side of it.

ironically, "blowing up" is also a part of my new Immolation Movement. I just need to find a good location for my first artwork.





to the NSA: the above is entirely a joke. I realize that my 1st and 4th ammendments have been removed for my own good, but I can't stop my damn smartass sense of humor from making sick jokes.

For the record, the Cringe graff was not me

Carry on

I'm amazed that CMO hasn't been tagged yet.

Thread closing at MIDNIGHT EASTERN TONIGHT. Start saying your final thoughts.

If there's still demand for this discussion, you can start a new thread tomorrow.

talk about your 'low hanging fruit'....

Titled "COOKIE IS TEH OLD."

I tried to link that pic earlier, but wasn't able to. Kudos!

Cookie. I <3 your avatar. That f'ing rocks. I'll have you know though, that I was on the phone when I saw it.... oops!

Damnit. It's from the same website as mine. Hers is better though....better find another.....

I was going to change it every so often anyway.

Some of these are freakin' brilliant.

The amount of insults made to people simply because they are over the age of 26 and no longer in college shocks me. I have never seen so much age-ism...I am not sure if thats a real term.

Kudos to Wes for going thru the pains to give folks some perspective on the history of Graffiti.....

But also......kudos to Unpossibles and Cookie and Annie Oakley for speaking the truth....in the adult world, mindlessly putting graffiti on local businesses is just plain stupid.

I like Grafitti, but I have never seen a graf piece that moved me emotionally or thrilled me intellectually. Ive never seen a piece of graff that made me feel extraordinary. When I first saw Citizen Kane, when I first heard The Sex Pistols, when I first heard Blue Monday by New Order, when I first heard The Message by Grandmaster Flash, when I saw my first Caravaggio painting........those things thrilled me and inspired me and made me feel a way that I never had felt previously.

Grafitti has never made me feel anything like that.

But my feelings on that dont really matter, because graff has obviously inspired people as much as any art form.

However, PBJ seems more like a group of mostly rich white dudes getting off on living out an adolescent fantasy of the some sort of Outlaw Graffitti writer.

They are not a group of socially disenfranchised poor folks makimg statements about thier existance, they are upper middle class white kids getting kicks out of breaking the law, and pissing people off. They seem to have no real reason or motivation for thier actions, other than to seem cool and edgy.

Well, rebelling without a cause is stupid and childish.

its funny. I am 24, roughly the same age as most of the PBJ dudes.....

But I think that thier vandalism is ignorant and disrespectful of business owners.

I have worked my ass off to get where I am in life. TJ Steppe and every other small indie business owner on High St. has worked thier asses off to get thier shops of the ground. And if a bunch of rich white kids from PBJ wanna piss all over that, then I conclude that they prolly have very little idea of what it really means to work hard for something.

I dont mean getting a college degree or organzing a parade. Those things take work, and it was awesome of Wes to organize a parade for Daymon (who was one of my all time favorite people). But spending years putting time effort and money into a business, only to have a bunch of bratty wanna be college kids piss all over it.......that shows no respect or comprehension for what hard work actually is.

I mean, if PBJ were to say that they are speaking for the plight of the poor thru thier grafitti..they would be like me saying I am speaking for every gay guy thats been beat up by a homophobe because I make dance music and love the Pet Shop Boys. its dumb.

In short, its ludacris, absurd, and stupid.

As a whole, I think a lot of the PBJ fellows need to grow up and re evaluate why they are doing what they are doing...because what they are doing is not profound, its not deep, and its no revolutionary. It is in fact, rather stupid.

A bunch of upper class white CCAD students adopting the culture and art forms of poor inner city hispancis and blacks, is, if anything, absurd and laughable.

However, I do think that honestly do PBJ value and deeply appreciate graffitti as an art form, and they want to express it, and thats great..........but when they parade around town acting like a bunch of gangster hard asses, looking down their noses at everyone, all they do is succeed in pissing hard working people off because they look like a bunch of rich white kids faking it.

Dont act like what PBJ is doing is revolutionary....it isn't. its all been done before.

"The world looks just the same
History ain't changed
Those banners were all flown in the last war.
And nothing in the streets
Looks any different to me.

Meet the new Boss
Same as the Old Boss".

Maybe I think like one of the old dudes, but at least I can sleep at night knowing I have a grasp on how the world operates.

I will end on a positive note. I like Wes, and I like Tony/Envelope, and they did a good job defending thier PBJ people. I can't say the same for Mike Carney and his comments about paying more taxes than the rest of us......but Mike Carney is a funny guy, thats for sure. Good sense of humour.

Now...

SHINY HAPPY PEOPLE HOLDING HANDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!