Tagging Things

Just a couple days ago, I added category ‘tags’ to most of the blog entries I’ve made over the past couple years. A quick bit of advice: if you intend to start a blog of your own, start labeling (tagging) your entries from the outset. Doing it a couple years after the fact is a bit of a drag, if you keep any kind of writing habit going. Anyway, my tangent righted, the point of that was to mention the tags. I grandly called one of the categories “My Los Angeles Life in General”. Not surprisingly, it’s a catch-all for things that happen in my daily life that are fairly specific to – living in Los Angeles. Tada!

Today’s entry will be such.

Across the street from the front gate to my house is a retaining wall. Made of bricks, it’s not the prettiest thing, It’s functional – it holds someone’s property off the sidewalk. This morning, as I was grinding my coffee, I looked out the kitchen window to see, a distance down the street, several of the neighborhood’s more colorful characters, pointing and angrily talking amongst each other. I looked to where they were pointing, through my front gate to the wall across the street, and saw the reason for all the gesticulating…

It’s Graffiti.

Well, yes—but Graffiti is a catch-all word for “scribed vandalism”. More specifically, that is Gang tagging, a fairly well developed form of communication among the underbelly of any urban area. It’s obviously vandalism as well as a visual blight. Additionally, there are many other meanings underlying these tags, which would be understood by gang members, rival gangs or someone involved in the street gang world. Exactly what gang did this and why? There could be many reasons. After I took a couple pictures, I nodded acknowledgement to the guys down the street – middle aged Latinos, each with their own faded gang-type tattoos, revealing a past, and walked toward them. We all agreed that “this was bullshit” and one said his brother had gone to get some paint and a brush. I offered, as a form of neighborhood solidarity, to help paint the wall. Twenty minutes later, when the paint and brush arrived, an interesting ritual transpired. Though there was only one brush, everyone took a turn with it. It was a symbolic way of saying, “Look, we all live in the same neighborhood and, though we might all have different reasons, the bottom line is the same – we don’t want graffiti on the wall.

After my symbolic brushing, I did some googling to see what I could find out about the gang tagging.

Here is my deciphering thus far. If anyone has any ideas, please leave a comment. I don’t know that any of what I’ve ‘determined’ is right. I may be completely off base.

So, there you have it; My Los Angeles Life in General. Though gentrification has pushed out much of the old element (meaning poor – meaning higher crime, unfortunately), all it takes is one spray can to remind you of what the ‘hood’ was like, not too many years ago. One slightly amusing anecdote I read; in this area of the city (Silver Lake, Echo Park), because the revitalization/gentrification (whatever you want to call it) has pushed out most of the gangs, much of the graffiti is done by what the police are calling “commuter taggers”. They have to drive to the old hoods to leave their marks, even though they no longer live there. The police are commenting on how this is a new thing. Ghosts, still unwilling to let go. Sad, isn’t it?

Another note: I want to commend the efficiency of the city. The official city painters arrived within a couple hours, and sprayed the entire wall with a fresh coat of paint. By noon, there was no sign that wall had ever been touched. They say that immediate removal is the best way to prevent reoccurrence.

We shall see.