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Graffitti
02 July 2008 04:14:53

Tag you're it
Graffiti has been with us for centuries from the first scratches of our ancestors on cave walls to Harlem back streets. We opt for the visual image before the written word. Tagging has emerged as a sort of street sign, it can be anything from one's name to a good song lyric. 

I'm trying to think of a tag for myself. I think I made one up when I was 12 or so but it wasn't styled anyway different from my day-to-day chicken scrawl. It has to have about four letters and some kind of double entendre or phonetic style. Its gotta' be good. Maybe a bit rude and funny at the same time too. It's gotta' be memorable.

Sure there are more conventional paths for this, I could cure a disease or be great at some sport or even write an article for Pulse and gain some note. Nothing however is as instant as 'graf' (slang for graffiti). I can have my name in public in a matter of seconds, and I can do it a thousand times in a thousand different places. Everyone will read my tag, even if they don't realize what they are.

Then I guess it location. Trains are the obvious but anywhere will do. Starting small I might get a black felt tip and scribble it in the bottom corner of a window. That should suffice to start with. I mean technically its illegal art. Its illegal before it even gets to insult every ones sensibilities! Blacklisted!
That's instant credibility right? Hell yeah I'm going to tag the 3:45 train to Essex. I don't even want to go to Essex but that doesn't matter.

I wait at the platform looking out for any beefy dudes in grey. My new enemies: the train guards. 'Excuse me is that a marker in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?'
I know they are very unlikely to catch me anyway but still, would be good to see a couple hop on the same train after me. It would be even better if I got to do a runner from them, I suppose.
I wonder if they have some kind of tagger database. Like 'SKITZ' is actually Steven Jackson from Auburn or whatever. That would have to be like a phonebook. A who's who if you will. I have to get caught to get on the list I guess.

I kinda' feel like I'm too old to be doing this, 'where's your skateboard and backwards hat grandpa' I think to myself. But it's a social experiment. I want to see if I feel more liberated or if I feel like I have made some form of impact on society. I take my seat in a quiet carriage and write the letters with the fat marker. 'BOKZ'. It's done. I think about doing another one but it looks too pretty the way it is. It's not New York but it's a start.

What my new word might mean could be so different to so many. Could be sexual or Czech or cardboard. Maybe a South African rugby gent will be like, 'hell yeah- go you boks.' At least I'm out there. I'm something and some random people will spend a bit of their life thinking about who I am or whatever. At least it's something. It's not a boring window. It's a vandalized boring window! Hehe. I get off the train a long way before Essex.
Its art really in a true sense, self-expression and not even corrupted by money. Banksy sells his stuff now but I guess that's not too core really is it. It's too pretty and legible. Tags are gory and quite hard to distinguish if they are good. Mine will get good in time. Then I will be known. BOKZ!! Hell yeah.

Matt Booker

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