I guess it’s about time that I tell the story of the graffiti.
I’ve only gone “tagging” once in my life. And I barely consider what I did to be graffiti. I don’t want to go as far as saying it was art, but well, others have used that term. For whatever it’s worth (and I realize how sad this sounds, but I have to say it’s true), my greatest contribution to the world may very well be something I did with a can of spray paint during the summer of 1992.
The story begins earlier than that, however. The location: a stretch of well traveled freeway known as Route 51, in western Pennsylvania, near the city of Pittsburgh. On a certain part of that four-lane highway lined with dreary warehouses, billboards covered in soot advertising plumbers and three-day blinds, and the usual convenience store every fifty yards, the roadway went under a train trestle. The train trestle was held up but a big cement wall that faced the westbound traffic, and that wall couldn’t have been a more perfect palate for an enterprising young hoodlum to create some kind of message for thousands to see every day. You’re probably thinking this is where I come into the picture, but you’re wrong. I was probably just hitting puberty when someone decided to make their way to that cement wall in the middle of some dark night and express something they felt could no longer be bottled in. On the dawn of the next day, sometime in the mid 80’s, morning commuters on their way downtown from the suburbs were greeted with this message:
Kill Satan
Free Larouche
“Larouche” apparently was referring to Lyndon LaRouche, an economist who sought the office of the President of the United States five times in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. “Satan” was referring to the devil, who currently holds the office of President of the United States. (Buh-dum-bum.) Ol’ Lyndon spent time in jail for reasons that are very confusing to me and, depending on what website you visit, his incarceration for federal crimes is either one of the greatest examples of political railroading in history, or very justified. It’s not important. Nor is the fact that he was married to a woman named Helga. What is important is that that graffiti managed to stay in the very high-profile spot for a strangely long time. It became part of the city’s consciousness, in a way, though I doubt a single person bothered to talk about it, or even really give much thought to it at all. It was just another billboard, advertising something no one really wanted.
I remember seeing it every time my father took me to a Pirates baseball game in Three Rivers Stadium. For me, getting to go downtown was a really cool thing, so things like graffiti that made political statements were really really cool. I remember asking my dad who “Larouche” was and he said “Some nut.” That’s probably what most Pittsburghers thought. Except for that one guy who wanted to kill Satan by letting him out of jail.
Anyway, I don’t know how in the world I came up with the idea, but once I did, I knew it was one of those things that I simply had to do. I’ll just skip the whole lead up to the event, but one night my friend Mike and I very nervously went to that wall at three in the morning with our own can of spray paint and, while he was the lookout for police cars (it’s amazing how much traffic there is on a major artery even at three a.m., by the way), I made an adjustment. And the next morning, the workday commuters found that a little detail of their unconscious lives had been changed to this:
Things to do today:
1. Buy milk
2. Kill Satan
3. Free Larouche
If the reason why the original graffiti was able to stay on the wall so long was because it was so innocuous and easily ignored, it should follow that the reason the new and improved graffiti lasted less than a year was because it was the talk of the town. The graffiti was famous. For years afterward, when I was actually able to convince people that I was the one behind the alteration, I became instantly legendary in their eyes. It was talked about at parties. It was mentioned in the weekly papers. A woman named Jan Beatty published a poem about it. I just Googled the words “buy milk”, “kill satan” and larouche and fourteen links came up, pretty good considering the graffiti existed a few years before the internet and blogs were a big deal.
Not only is the graffiti long gone, but the wall itself was razed and the new and improved trestle is being held up by a structure that wouldn’t function nearly as well as message board. I can’t even say why what I did was so funny to myself and others. There’s a kind of post-modernism to it that makes it indefinable in some way. Was it an anti-political statement? Was it making fun of the original tagger? Was it simply the idea that some weirdo would actually take the time to deface a defacement? Maybe it was a statement about graffiti in general. I don’t know.
I’ve only gone “tagging” once in my life. And I barely consider what I did to be graffiti. I don’t want to go as far as saying it was art, but well, others have used that term. For whatever it’s worth (and I realize how sad this sounds, but I have to say it’s true), my greatest contribution to the world may very well be something I did with a can of spray paint during the summer of 1992.
The story begins earlier than that, however. The location: a stretch of well traveled freeway known as Route 51, in western Pennsylvania, near the city of Pittsburgh. On a certain part of that four-lane highway lined with dreary warehouses, billboards covered in soot advertising plumbers and three-day blinds, and the usual convenience store every fifty yards, the roadway went under a train trestle. The train trestle was held up but a big cement wall that faced the westbound traffic, and that wall couldn’t have been a more perfect palate for an enterprising young hoodlum to create some kind of message for thousands to see every day. You’re probably thinking this is where I come into the picture, but you’re wrong. I was probably just hitting puberty when someone decided to make their way to that cement wall in the middle of some dark night and express something they felt could no longer be bottled in. On the dawn of the next day, sometime in the mid 80’s, morning commuters on their way downtown from the suburbs were greeted with this message:
Kill Satan
Free Larouche
“Larouche” apparently was referring to Lyndon LaRouche, an economist who sought the office of the President of the United States five times in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. “Satan” was referring to the devil, who currently holds the office of President of the United States. (Buh-dum-bum.) Ol’ Lyndon spent time in jail for reasons that are very confusing to me and, depending on what website you visit, his incarceration for federal crimes is either one of the greatest examples of political railroading in history, or very justified. It’s not important. Nor is the fact that he was married to a woman named Helga. What is important is that that graffiti managed to stay in the very high-profile spot for a strangely long time. It became part of the city’s consciousness, in a way, though I doubt a single person bothered to talk about it, or even really give much thought to it at all. It was just another billboard, advertising something no one really wanted.
I remember seeing it every time my father took me to a Pirates baseball game in Three Rivers Stadium. For me, getting to go downtown was a really cool thing, so things like graffiti that made political statements were really really cool. I remember asking my dad who “Larouche” was and he said “Some nut.” That’s probably what most Pittsburghers thought. Except for that one guy who wanted to kill Satan by letting him out of jail.
Anyway, I don’t know how in the world I came up with the idea, but once I did, I knew it was one of those things that I simply had to do. I’ll just skip the whole lead up to the event, but one night my friend Mike and I very nervously went to that wall at three in the morning with our own can of spray paint and, while he was the lookout for police cars (it’s amazing how much traffic there is on a major artery even at three a.m., by the way), I made an adjustment. And the next morning, the workday commuters found that a little detail of their unconscious lives had been changed to this:
Things to do today:
1. Buy milk
2. Kill Satan
3. Free Larouche
If the reason why the original graffiti was able to stay on the wall so long was because it was so innocuous and easily ignored, it should follow that the reason the new and improved graffiti lasted less than a year was because it was the talk of the town. The graffiti was famous. For years afterward, when I was actually able to convince people that I was the one behind the alteration, I became instantly legendary in their eyes. It was talked about at parties. It was mentioned in the weekly papers. A woman named Jan Beatty published a poem about it. I just Googled the words “buy milk”, “kill satan” and larouche and fourteen links came up, pretty good considering the graffiti existed a few years before the internet and blogs were a big deal.
Not only is the graffiti long gone, but the wall itself was razed and the new and improved trestle is being held up by a structure that wouldn’t function nearly as well as message board. I can’t even say why what I did was so funny to myself and others. There’s a kind of post-modernism to it that makes it indefinable in some way. Was it an anti-political statement? Was it making fun of the original tagger? Was it simply the idea that some weirdo would actually take the time to deface a defacement? Maybe it was a statement about graffiti in general. I don’t know.
5 comments:
Whatever it was at the time, and whatever it is now, dude, it's fucking hilarious to me. You just made me choke on the coffee I'm not supposed to be drinking.
Nice work. Truly.
I wish it was true.
Is it true?
I am so full of doubts.
I used to play in trestles too!
Why do we have to go to the gay baby play?
I can assure you it's true.
i remember this both vividly and vaguely. like visually i definitely remember doing all of it -- did i hoist you up on my shoulders to do the painting? or give you a boost? what we were doing that night was just driving around the south hills looking for something to do, listening to music, hanging out...
but again the details are also vague: i vaguely remember us writing what the changes should be as we drove past the trestle, i remember stopping to buy the paint, i remember the pulse-pounding thrill of doing it, and laughing like hyenas for the rest of the night. how many times did we drive past it afterwards? i'm still kind of ignorant and in awe of how (in)famous this thing is, but each time i go home i never mention it. should i? will i get the royal treatment if i do it?
Well, I remember that the first phase of the evening consisted of buying the paint, as well as procuring a few of those plastic milk cartons for me to stand on. We had the whole night planned out for at least a week.
I still can't believe neither of us ever took a damn picture.
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