Interpreting graffiti

[Warpigs]

Working on an outdoors column concerning playground graffiti. In my research, I am looking up various terms. One specifically is the word "LiFe" spray-painted on two signs withing a half-mile of each other near a playground. Any idea what this term may be alluding to? I'm sure there are multiple meanings, but I wanted to get the word "on the street" as to what this may be.

Thanks
WP

[Metroid]

It's most likely just an artists/taggers handle.

[Madison]

*Bzzzzzzt*

What is: "The prison sentence I'd give idiots that spray paint things they don't own"?



Seriously, I dunno, but idiots doing that is annoying (not enough to give them life in jail - was just joking - but graffiti is annoying and classless ).

[Warpigs]

Mad,

I agree wholeheartedly. I took my daughter to a local park on an unseasonably warm day Monday and was disgusted by all the graffiti whittled into the plastic equipment by loser kids who have no idea of responsibility. Not the stuff I wanted my three-year-old daughter to see when she should be in a safe place. I figured this would lead to a pretty powerful column (hopefully). Thanks!

[Madison]

Mad,

I agree wholeheartedly. I took my daughter to a local park on an unseasonably warm day Monday and was disgusted by all the graffiti whittled into the plastic equipment by loser kids who have no idea of responsibility. Not the stuff I wanted my three-year-old daughter to see when she should be in a safe place. I figured this would lead to a pretty powerful column (hopefully). Thanks!

Yeah, would be nice if people could do something as simple as leave what others own alone, or at the very least, don't destroy things they do not own. Sounds like it could turn into a really good column.

[Tiki]

I don't why it should scare a little kid.....Although, I do agree graffiti can be stupid and ruin things. But, there is no reason why you feel unsafe because of it. I am a fan of people who are genuinely good though.

[knapplc]

I don't why it should scare a little kid.....Although, I do agree graffiti can be stupid and ruin things. But, there is no reason why you feel unsafe because of it.

Man, it’s a good thing you’ve got me here to explain how the world of kids works.

I’m sure you know that graffiti and tags in general are often used by gangs to mark territory, so that’s one reason why it could make people feel unsafe. A three-year-old might not know that, but her dad certainly does. Plus, the three-year-old has probably been told umpteen thousand times to keep her room clean or to pick up her toys, so when she goes to the playground and it’s “messy” with tags I’m sure that sends a mixed message to her.

I am a fan of people who are genuinely good though.

I am too. There are a LOT of really talented people out there, and the genre is definitely an art form. I have found far more relevance in a piece of ink up on some brick wall than in some canvas monstrosity in a museum many times.

There’s an alley down in the Haymarket (old downtown) area of Lincoln where they let some local guys go crazy, and it was a really cool thing to see while it was up. Then about two years ago they painted over it with some cows on hills and blue sky with puffy clouds nonsense, and it’s atrocious.

Taggers are the people who really piss me off. In college there was this guy named Booger who thought the band Yellow Rat Bastards was pretty cool, so he got a bunch of bumper stickers and miscellaneous stickers and stuck them all over Lincoln. That was ten years ago and some of them are still up, since you’d have to ruin the sign to take them down. He also tagged a bunch of downtown shops with his little marker, and then when he got busted for all of that he was all pissed at the cops. Guess how much sympathy I had for him?

In the last several months we’ve had another tagger here in town, and again the dipstick went after the downtown stores, and when he got busted it turned out it was some 26-year-old twit who looked like you would imagine a 26-year-old tagger would look – stupid, stringy and defiant in that ignorant way only a moron can pull off. In fact I just walked by one of this idiots tags on my way into the building this AM – just his initials scrawled in marker on a switch box for the stoplight. Really, really cool.

Those are the people I’m all for stringing up, the ones who just deface things for the hell of it. But the real artists who do some really nice work, those people are tolerable, as long as they’re not destroying property.

[Metroid]

Word knapp...word.
This girl I knew in high school started running with some kids that were "taggers" like junior year I think. Anyway she wanted to go out with them but couldn't figure out what she wanted to tag so she made a little stencil of a turtle(I know lame). So they're out and they hit up a few places and blam she gets busted...first time out.

Her parents were called to pick her up and she was charged with vandalism and had to pay for what she "tagged" to be cleaned.

Like knapp said thems the types of craps that pisses me off, there is nothing artistic about it. You're just destroying private and public property.

[josebach]

Word knapp...word.
This girl I knew in high school started running with some kids that were "taggers" like junior year I think. Anyway she wanted to go out with them but couldn't figure out what she wanted to tag so she made a little stencil of a turtle(I know lame). So they're out and they hit up a few places and blam she gets busted...first time out.

Her parents were called to pick her up and she was charged with vandalism and had to pay for what she "tagged" to be cleaned.

Like knapp said thems the types of craps that pisses me off, there is nothing artistic about it. You're just destroying private and public property.

Even if it is artistic, unless you have the owner's permission, you're still destroying property.

There's not a lot of graffiti in Tallahassee, but whenever I do see it, it irks me.

[Metroid]

Word knapp...word.
This girl I knew in high school started running with some kids that were "taggers" like junior year I think. Anyway she wanted to go out with them but couldn't figure out what she wanted to tag so she made a little stencil of a turtle(I know lame). So they're out and they hit up a few places and blam she gets busted...first time out.

Her parents were called to pick her up and she was charged with vandalism and had to pay for what she "tagged" to be cleaned.

Like knapp said thems the types of craps that pisses me off, there is nothing artistic about it. You're just destroying private and public property.

Even if it is artistic, unless you have the owner's permission, you're still destroying property.

There's not a lot of graffiti in Tallahassee, but whenever I do see it, it irks me.

Totally, I didn't mean for that to be read that if it was artistic it was OK.