Mission Accomplished

Yeah, I did it. Put on a dark jacket over my best "go to jail" clothes: button down collar shirt under a v-neck sweater. Snug fitting jeans on top of under-armour for extra warmth. It's only a night in September, but it was all worth it.

Snuck out early. I am prone to make my own decisions. Some of these I may regret, but as long as she knows that I'm not out looking for someone else. It's a thing Im searching for. Somewhere between freedom of thought and the ability to share those thoughts, with more than just her. It's no longer meaningful to me, that I ramble to her about my political musings.

Shall I command a can? I can.
A can of spraypaint, in the pocket of my jacket. In my jeans, a ton of caps, few of which haven't been clogged.

Nothing ia quite as nerve-racking as climbing a billboard at night. The guys who get paid to put these up, they do that shit in the daytime. And even then, it's with ropes and harnesses. Climbing a new one for the first time took some mental preparing. I walked by the gas station. It's 11pm. I walk around where the car mechanics shops are. Everything is quiet except for the traffic.

I observe the distance from where cars can see me. Only in one direction, there is a road and an intersection with traffic from a highway exit ramp. The cars are sparse, but I still can't quite get up the nerve.

I decide to partially chicken out, thinking I need a beer or something to get me started. On my way back to the gas station, there is a bicycle, unlocked. I kick the tires gently: they've still got air. I don't need a bike (choice TL opportunity). I continue.

Just then a rough looking ghetto wildchild comes walking from the gas station. He sees me checking his bike and he isnt pleased. But my hands are in my pockets, and I look more curious than theif-minded. We cross paths and he takes his bike. I continue on.

After that, my mind is settled. Enough screwing around, its time to climb the damn thing. I turn around, back where the auto mechanics shops are. I hop the fence when no one is looking. No cars.

I make my ascent. The first 10 feet have no rungs, just steel to shimmy up. Once I reach it, I grab the ladder and pull myself up. Up. Up.

At the top, the catwalk is narrow. i turn around and the moon is glowing orange, behind a cloud. I climb to the top, and write F-.

Then, down I hike, desxending the ladder to the bottom portion of the billboard, where I complete the rest.

I make it dowm, once again evading the authorities. As well as, yet again, the odds of being caught, which feel as though they are always increasing. A scratch on my hand, one on my noss from a branch that scrapes me as I make my way baxk down in a hurry.

On the walk home, I feel free. I am liberated yet again, from being caught in an existence where I can think, but I can't share. In spite of the questionable legality, was it worth the risk? And the danger? At this point, all of that is irrelevant. It becomes a matter of considering if it's worth it to breathe, but not to speak. As humans, we are blessed with pur consciousness but cursed when we choose to ignore our common sense when we oppose something and we know it's wrong, and yet stay silent.

African slaves were forced to relocate, and prodded with weapons when they didn't move. We say they're free, but statistically they are still largely impoverished and imprisoned.

That's not by choice. Nor is it due to some kind of ethnic moral failing. When we allow members of society to think this way, we increase the possibility of more of those conditions to spread.

The evil of humankind is not extinct. It isn't like cavemen had slaved and we have evolved since then. Evil waits for opportunities, and when it cannot wait, it creates.

So when we continue to hold back and allow the classes to divide, we run the risk.

Becoming a have-not, living only on state assistance and otherwise deatined to starve, is not only what we risk, as those numbers grow.

We also risk being responsible for allowing this to happen, by our own stupid complacency.

I am not here to profit from these statements. I don't judge anyone for their political beleifs. All I am asking is for you to wake up, and stop believing
all of the polarizing news about politics, which keeps us from actually progressing. Don't think you are a "have" or amongst the lucky few in society, while more are impoverished, more are imprisoned, uneducated or addicted to drugs.

Most of our leaders are elected, and we chose them to be in their positions. Nobody elects TV or movie stars, I guess. But you can, now.

Vote for Stereomedia by watching it because it won't disappoint, and it will never stray from the force that has guided it since the beginning.

The end, for now.

At the end of the night, as I walked home, an asteroid burned in the upper atmosphere. They used to call that a shooting star. i still call it a sign.

I can still think of seeing that as my reward.

Believe In People: Yale Graffiti

Chap Writes:

When I first met the "Believe In People" character, my first impression was, "which people?" of course, knowing whomever I'm dealing with, I find that people who wished to be believed in are often the least deserving.  At first, his work was horrible.  Absolutely kitchy and at the same time abhorrent in its lack of any skill.  Clearly, this person was infatuated with graffiti, perhaps a particular writer, and was practicing in front of all of us at night, for us to see in the morning.

I was walking by the old Co-op behind Morse College one day and there was a raccoon who had painted a sign, which said:

Well, you can read it, since I took a picture of it with my phone.  It said "reach for the bright side" but this clearly was not a very bright individual because the "Rs" were all painted backwards, and everybody knows that's been copyrighted by Toys R Us at this point.  Then, as you look to the bottom, you realize that this is not in fact a young Yale student painting this stuff, but only a small raccoon, in clear visibility, however made out of paper.

A painting cannot paint itself, but if the other thing is made out of paper and then adhered to the wall using some kind of glue, then I suppose it's possible.

Now that's great, I would normally say.  This person is clearly an individual capable of being recognized for his talents.  Right?

Wrong.  As I said, I would say this if it were original, but the technique of having the paper things writing the painted stuff has already been patented as well.  Except not by Toys R Us, but rather by another fool across the pond.

A really simple Google Image search for this artist displays a fairly similar piece, even if it were not for the use of stencils (which is close to the black and white wheat-pasted stuff).

Now that's additionally all well and good, but then you get into the heart of the matter, which is that this guy is clearly copying that other guy's style.  Why on earth would someone go through great lengths to disguise himself as someone famous, unless...


Clearly, he wants to be famous.
So he does this.

A giant Anne Frank.

One of the hallmarks of a propaganda machine are to use ubiquitous symbols that everyone agrees with, to propose to the masses that we should essentially "obey."  That said, who on earth could possibly complain about a giant Anne Frank piece, other than me?

Possibly no one.  And I'm not saying this to be contrary, but the other remarkable thing is how precise it is.

I can knowingly say, from looking at this person's other work, that this was not done freehand.  Sorry, but it was only a few months before when I noticed more horrendous works of art made of wheat paste and other methods made popular by other artists which were falling apart, or worse, not in proportion.  I wish I had taken photographs of that crap, but now next time I see some awful piece of street art, I'll be sure to take a flick of it, just in case the guy keeps trying.  What you can't see in this picture is the proximity to the Yale Art School.

Now here's what frightens me a little.  There's this great article here which features the artist, written with exclusive permission granted to one person, a selected journalist.  That within itself is a recipe for disaster, when it comes to objectivism, because clearly they're friends.  The problem with that is if this "Believe In People" person makes more friends in the tight-knit communities around here, it's guaranteed to turn into some ugly form of propaganda that I could just see unfolding with my very eyes.

Sorry For Graffiti,
Chap (character from Phiction).

Canadian Threat

This is a story about two guys from Canada, kind of like Bob and Doug McKenzie.  They're Indian, though.  People always confuse them for muslim extremists, but they're sikh.  They're kind of tired of all the harassment, so they start developing a plot to really scare people.  They sit around in their room playing Parcheesi.  There's a huge mound of potatoes in the fridge.  Whenever one of them get hungry, they go into the fridge and carve out a huge chunk of potatoes, and go back to playing Parcheesi.

The TV is on, and they're watching rap videos.  Botties are shaking, guys teeth are blinging.  It's a parody of some kind of Mystikal / Master P type of video from the 1990s.  There's one really huge lady in the background.

One of the two Indian guys (now there are 4) says, "Why are you watching this?  We could be watching the Indian Channel."  So he changes the channel, but basically the channel doesn't change.  Just the characters on the TV all of a sudden appear slightly different.  The scene in the background goes from tenement housing projects to the Taj Mahal (green screen).

Late one night, they decide to celebrate Sikh Independence Day, which falls coincidentally on the worst of all coincidences.  They bring lots of fireworks.  They play Katy Perry.  After several minutes of loud noises, all of the people in the neighborhood are terrified.  They call the police station.

The police station doesn't know what to do.  They think it's a real actual attack, so they forward their call to the National Guard, who are busy playing cards.  The cards have little parcheesi characters on them.  At this point it's a music video (play the end of Mucky One).