Horace Mann Middle School never had graffiti this cool on it when I was going to school there :(
Photo by Amor de Cosmos.
Previously on Mission Mission:
Horace Mann Middle School never had graffiti this cool on it when I was going to school there :(
Photo by Amor de Cosmos.
Previously on Mission Mission:
Mission Mission 
Great, now our tax dollars will be spent cleaning up after the graffiti vandals. That is certainly better than spending the money on books or something for the kids attending Horace Mann. Yep this is a great thing. Good that Mission Mission is giving it attention and encouraging it.
yay! hipster batman! he is coming to save us all.
Dog, please. As a kid, I learned a lot more from art and street art than I did from any textbook or other school supply.
Allan — I am sorry you had such a miserable education but that is no reason to encourage graffiti vandalism now. It just wastes money and degrades the public space. Stuff like this isn’t art– it is just junk. There is lots of good public art in the Mission; unfortunately many of the murals are defaced by graffiti vandals. No reason to encourage that.
No distinction between boring tags and fun stuff like Hipster Batman and Ribity? Why, if there were no Ribity, there’d be no Mission Mission. And then we’d all be getting real work done right now.
Also, the fact that I got more out of art and street art than I did out of textbooks doesn’t mean I had a “miserable education.” I had a great education.
It’s Kanye! Everyone run!
Alan: yeah no distinction between boring tags and crappy arty that defaces public buildings. They are both blights on the Mission.
I love crappy arty.
This might be a good time to mention that I giggle whenever I see that “Count Chocula” tag. Even though it sucks.
that doesn’t qualify as graffiti (see banksy.) this is just mindless, shitty vandalism.
You want me to grab a dictionary?
is this even funny?
thanks for giving props to mission graffiti and graffiti artists even when people irrationally jump down your throat for it. without graffiti, the mission would not be the mission. people need to learn their history.
Word up, CK. I’d go so far as to say that without graffiti, there would be no Mission Mission. Noodle that, haters!
it really is unfortunate that people who don’t understand the mission try to live in it and “clean it up” so to speak. sf is not for the culturally challenged, and just because this isn’t the best example of hipster batman’s prowess doesn’t mean you shouldn’t welcome a little life into an ailing city. and by ailing i mean the people who made this place great can’t even afford to live here anymore. they have to move to oakland because this is no longer a sanctuary city for artists, it is a sanctuary city for rich people who want a french dry cleaning service and boulangerie on every corner. and lets face facts, hipster batman would really mar the decor of those boulangeries they’ve been dreaming about.
oh and graffiti and vandalism are two different things. just because this doesn’t ride on a social or political message doesn’t mean it isn’t valid
first, i love hipster batman. and i love street art when it’s meaningful (take orfn, for example…or reminisce back in the day. or even banksy, the sell out). i love all kinds of art. i’m a regular fucking culture junkie.
that said, it’s a royal pain in the ass when one has to paint over tags on one’s property. and it is the responsibility of the property owner to do so. legally. not to decide whether they like it or not, but to remove it. and a lot of folks don’t or won’t discern between orfn and ms13, and i think that’s OK. it’s up to them. it’s their hood too. and in many cases, it’s their building, and their money to clean the tag up lest they be fined by the city.
so as usual…it’s a grey area. and one as old as the fucking hills in city environs.
that said, i gotta take umbrage with the line of reasoning above. using someones opinion that tagging is wrong (which is a reasonable opinion) to go on the bullshit “the mission aint what it used to be” tirade is juvenile and selfish and shortsighted.
“they have to move to oakland because this is no longer a sanctuary city for artists, it is a sanctuary city for rich people who want a french dry cleaning service and boulangerie on every corner. and lets face facts, hipster batman would really mar the decor of those boulangeries they’ve been dreaming about.”
i am fucking puking. no one ever said anything about dry cleaners and bakeries. one guy says “tagging (on a school) is wrong…it costs money to clean up. maybe it shouldn’t be shown as heroic” and emilyd the “down with the hood” hipster gets on a cultural high horse?
give me a fucking break. tagging is fucking vandalism. graffiti is fucking vandalism. it might be art too…but it’s vandalism. that’s the hipster chic, isnt it? if this guy was sitting in his room painting hipster batman on a canvas, no one would give a flying fuck. but he paints it in the middle of the night in naughty places. that’s why people notice it. that’s what makes it “edgy”. and that’s why it’s vandalism. so the fuck what in my opinion…but my opinion is no more or less valid than SFDoggy’s.
oh, and also, grow the fuck up. this city hasn’t been a “sanctuary for artists” for 15 fucking years at least. cities change…all over the world. it’s the nature of the creative cultural class to move from place to place in search of cheap rents that allow an artistic pursuit, or to buy into the mainstream and get a job. those are the choices. none of my friends that have moved out of central SF, or NY, or Paris, or Amsterdam over the past 15 years to pursue a less costly living arrangement that allows for an artistic pursuit gripe about it after the first month, because they know it’s the way of the world. and because they’re fucking grownups. and because they’re TOO BUSY MAKING ART to care about it.
the only people i DO hear griping about how “the city is too expensive for artists” wouldn’t know an artist if he tagged “hipster batman” on their ass, in the middle of the night.
(naughty).
there is a difference between being a “grownup” and being an intelligent and well adjusted member of a community. a grownup is someone who considers his or her self to have evolved as result of age and work, and/or education and claims that their ability to have a career is a valid reason to think that they are well informed and make good decisions. a well adjusted adult is someone who understands mortality and vitality and appreciates the art of their fellow community members as a bright spot in a very sick and sad world.you have demonstrated that you don’t understand the principles that made this place. sorry i live in the mission and like to see it thrive. you know nothing about me, my financial situation, or if i am a hipster or not. i also don’t think i’m the one on a high horse here. i’m no child and i know people who had to move away too. they weren’t just artists, they were also journalists and designers. cities change, but if the change is causing mass exodus of the people who give a place it’s flavor, there is something wrong wrong wrong.
conversations about graffiti always tun into conversations about changing neighborhoods these days. all i’m saying is that is used to be safe to live in the sf mission if you were below moderate income. now it isn’t because people who think they know better attack you for loving your neighborhood, loving the decorations that people apply, and wanting to settle down permanently there. no matter how hard i work i might never be able to live comfortably but dammit i’ll stick around the mission til the bitter end. maybe if your arguments didn’t sound so classist i would shut up and move to pittsburg and never smile again.
i almost never meet people who have actually lived in the mission for considerable amounts of time who share your despotic outlook. sorry you feel that way, but you didn’t manage to validate any of your points. i still don’t care and i think it is rude to tell someone to grow up because they think our high rent is unfair (the average for 2 bdrooms 1st 1/4 of 2008 was over 2700$, jackass), because they like graffiti, and because they want to make art and still live here.
where i took issue with your little speech is that you indicted someone who disagreed with your viewpoint on graffiti as “not understanding” the hood. that’s just selfish and narrow and childish. a guy that owns the house down from mine is 4th generation Mission Latino. he don’t like tagging either. hates it in fact. his family has lived here since the fucking 1940s. you think he doesn’t understand the hood?
and using someone’s opinion that “tagging is wrong” as excuse to get onto the usual bullshit sob story about the days of yore….when the mission was grittier and cheaper and more friendly to artists…that’s just not living in reality. rents are rents. the market is the market. how is that “unfair”? it might be “not to my liking” or “more than i can afford” or “so expensive it makes me puke”…but “unfair”? that’s living in fucking lala land.
a child is someone that lives in a fantasy world…a grownup is someone that lives in reality.
graffiti is vandalism. tags are vandalism. like it (me) or not (many others), that’s the simple reality, in black & white. vandalism is why people like graffiti. it’s naughty. and dangerous. and it gives us a little thrill to be near the outlaw. and if fucking hipster batman is all we have to add flavor to our hood…that’s the sad part.
(for me there’s a vast vast ocean of current, thriving, laudable happenings in the hood that – while they don’t necessarily include the folks that can no longer afford the ridiculous costs…which is sad, but it’s also reality – are still making the mission the single most culturally rich zipcode in the bay area).
listen, you’re the one that attacked SFDoggy for disagreeing with you about graffiti. they didn’t tell you to get out of the hood. all they said is “graffiti is wrong”.
but you attacked them as an imperialist gentrifier with naught but bakeries & dry cleaning on their mind.
you don’t know them…just like i don’t know you….but since you take the “down with the hood” viewpoint, you think you’re entitled to say whatever you want.
typical “progressive” bullshit. i’ll say it again….grow the fuck up.
graffiti is not “naughty,” though it is dangerous. it isn’t that you don’t understand “the hood.” what i don’t think you understand is the idea of sf as a sanctuary city. of course there will always be people who don’t like graffiti. there will also be people who don’t like sushi or muni. the fact is, graffiti is a part of the city and if you can’t appreciate it, stop complaining. and quit saying grow up…the fact that you accept the rental market as “fair” is reason enough for me to write you off as a PRICK. a minimum wage employee would have to work 100 hours a week to afford a lower end studio apt…like i said, you just DON”T GET IT.
i also did not attack sfdoggy, i simply responded to his comment. i did attack you, because you came out guns blazing with the assertion that you are right because you are capable of sounding intimidating and oppressive. i’m not a progressive or a liberal. i have no annoying social or political agenda. stop being a dick. if you are so intolerant that you have to argue like a DICK commenting on a blog that CLEARLY supports mission graffiti, you probably shouldn’t a) be reading this blog b) commenting on it.
whatever. you can’t stand to have anyone disagree with you. you’re a child.
you cursed me out on a blog comment section because you disagreed with me…you shouldn’t be talking. go bother someone else.
Woah, lots of caps there, Emily.
So I say hire grafitistas for more street art. Give them an outlet so they don’t tag our houses — designate walls throughout the city, have sessions. Or — every business *has* to have a designated square meter for graffiti, and they get fined if it isn’t tagged in 48 hours. Then all would be well in the Mission and artists would flourish. People can vote, the good ones stay, the bad ones get painted over. Girafa vs Hipster Batman vs Count Chocula? You decide. (Hey, Allan, there’s a poll idea…)
But it is kind of funny how tags are bad and posters on Valencia are OK though…
We so need a graffiti wall in the Mission:
http://buboblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/another-graffiti-wall.html
And then there’s the official graffiti box (in SOMA, I think?)
http://buboblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/protest-statement-or-laziness.html