There Goes The Neighborhood
March 20, 2010
There is a long-running cat-and-mouse game around Rexville between our local gangbangers and the people who come behind them and clean up their crap.
Tagging on Las Vegas Neighborhood Sign
The bangers tag, it gets removed, the bangers re-tag, it gets removed, rinse and repeat. It never ends.
Why do the perpetrators do this?
My opinion is that they do it because they have the IQ’s of primates. I’m not exaggerating or using hyperbole. I honestly and truly think these taggers are people with extraordinarily low intelligence quotients. You would have to be extremely dim to get off on the type of defacement shown on the Beverly Green sign. It’s really just destruction for destruction’s sake, and the graffiti doesn’t even require any talent or artistic ability.
I appreciate burners in or near vacant properties and eyesores. One might even say that I am a bit of a graffiti connoisseur. I enjoy well-done urban artwork, and I think it can really add character to neglected areas of a neighborhood. I frequently stop and admire new pieces when they go up. Personally, I find most street artists to have superior levels of talent and creativity over their latte-sipping counterparts. There is usually more passion in endeavors not performed strictly for financial reward.
Graffiti in Downtown Las Vegas
Graffiti in Rexville, Las Vegas
Graffiti in Rexville, Las Vegas
Graffiti in Rexville, Las Vegas
Graffiti in Rexville, Las Vegas
Graffiti in Rexville, Las Vegas
Graffiti in Rexville, Las Vegas
Graffiti in Rexville, Las Vegas
Graffiti in Rexville, Las Vegas
Graffiti in Rexville, Las Vegas
Tags, caps, and slashes, however, are stupid. It’s common vandalism. It’s graffiti for people without talent or intellect. It’s shorthand for “here stood a parasitic moron”.
Slashing over new signs is not even a legitimate endeavor in the graffiti community. It shows a complete deterioration of the honor-among-thieves ethos that used to be shared by the artists. The understanding among real artists used to be that you never wrote over higher quality work with lower quality work. It was a sign of disrespect not only to the canvas, but also to yourself. When you did this, you more or less conceded that you were a talentless piece of shit, and you were treated accordingly by the community.
At least that’s the way it used to work. People are proud of being talentless imbeciles now.
These neighborhood signs are not legitimate targets of tagging. They are being maintained, and they have not fallen into disrepair. They have been erected for the benefit of the residents. A lot of time, work, and money went into the beautification of the medians and the stone signs that adorn them. These signs are efforts made by the city and the neighbors to make the area look nicer, and most everyone likes them. As such, graffiti here makes no sense. Especially scrawling, illegible nonsense that makes the perpetrator look like a retard. This is why “legitimate” graffiti artists will forever be maligned in the public psyche. There is a distinction between being rebellious and just being pointless, and the current generation is unable to differentiate the two.
What possible statement could this have made? At whom was it targeted? Even if you are disenfranchised, what does it do?
Tagging on Las Vegas Neighborhood Sign
Tagging in Downtown Las Vegas
Tagging in Rexville, Las Vegas
Tagging in Rexville, Las Vegas
Tagging in Rexville, Las Vegas
Tagging in Rexville, Las Vegas
Tagging in Rexville, Las Vegas
Tagging on Palm Tree in Downtown Las Vegas
Unfortunately, this type of stuff reflects poorly on the neighborhood, and it’s part of the reason that the government often has contempt for the governed. This type of vandalism is visual reinforcement to folks in the suburbs who bristle at the idea of providing services to the inner-city. Much like the erection of these signs, it’s seen as waste of money. It won’t be appreciated.
Too many people in economically depressed areas shit where they eat and can’t take care of anything. As such, they deserve nothing. Trying to do anything nice for areas infested by gangs of illiterate subhumans is pearls before swine.
Anyway, unlike the “Welcome to Las Vegas” sign, these local signs are actually in Oscar Goodman’s jurisdiction. It would actually be appropriate for him to show his outrage … even though the mainstream press may not be beating down his door for a soundbite.
Those of us here in the neighborhoods are still waiting for the “Off With Their Heads!” press conference.
I hereby offer to operate the guillotine.
Written by tully on March 20, 2010 at 7:56 pm
Sad.
What a lot of tourists, and even residents of the suburbs don’t realize, is there are quite a few very livable neighborhoods in the city core. People have bought older homes and spent money or sweat equity fixing them up. They work hard to create comfortable, safe and attractive neighborhoods, because they don’t want a cookie cutter place in the ‘burbs. Beverly Glen is one of those ‘hoods—there are many more.
If Hizzoner gave a damn for anything other than seeing his mug on TV, this is the sort of thing he’d raise hell about. But guessing we all know where Oscar’s priorities lie.
Written by ColinFromLasVegas on March 20, 2010 at 9:18 pm
The pictures you show of graffiti don’t look gang related. On the most part, they are just taggers. And these are the ones that are causing the most problems not only in your neighborhood, but in mine also (further east from you towards Sunrise Mountain).
I am on the Board of Directors for my condo association and we keep a good stock of graffiti removal spray. We address it and remove it IMMEDIATELY after it is spotted. And we keep after it. But, I have to admit that we have rare instances of graffiti in my condo complex. Which actually disturbs me. Because all around us up and down the street, we have graffiti everywhere that is constantly removed. The low number of instances of graffiti in my complex makes me believe the taggers actually live here; that idea that dogs don’t shit in their own backyards.
Anyways, I have seen the Metro PD van drive around with kids/adults doing their community service. They have a handler who takes them around neighborhoods and they are provided paint, rollers, brushes, etc. and all they do all day is remove graffiti. The problem is the fucking taggers seem to have more paint than the graffiti removers do. Plus taggers work all night and graffiti removes only word nine to five. So they probably never see each other.
And there was a press release less than a year ago that some agency (can’t remember which) installs cameras in areas that have increasing amounts of graffiti. Places where graffiti happens, then removed, then happens again, then removed, back and forth. When they determine those places, they put a hidden camera somewhere. Then they try to identify who is doing it and apprehend them. Not sure how that program is working. If it is working, it’s only a drop in the bucket. Because there is this incredible sheer volume of graffiti in and around all areas of Las Vegas/Henderson.
I think the chances of seeing Mr. Steve Wynn riding naked on a giraffe down Las Vegas Boulevard is more likely of happening than getting rid of graffiti in Las Vegas. We just gotta live with it.
Written by J. Louise on March 21, 2010 at 2:00 am
This is too bad. When I lived in Las Vegas several years ago, I just don’t remember seeing a lot of this. One hopes that it doesn’t get worse as the economy gets even worse.
I agree that grafitti can be an admirable work of art. When Princess Diana died I was living in New York City and I saw some awesome murals in tribute to her.
Written by Stacey on March 21, 2010 at 3:09 am
Well said. I have had the same thoughts about the situation out here in Boston. Tagging is for insecure, untalented dopes who want to try and be cool. But some of the graffiti pics you posted are amazing and should definitely be considered art.
Written by keith on March 21, 2010 at 3:42 am
we need to go old school vegas on the taggers – if you get caught, you get your tagging hand broken via a well placed swing of a baseball bat. get caught again, you get your other hand broken. 3rd time? its your skull.
i don’t think it would be much of a loss to society.
Written by vegasSam on March 21, 2010 at 12:18 pm
One thought.. why is spray paint sold? Nothing has ever been painted with spray paint that is worth a shit. Outlaw the stuff..problem solved.
Written by keith on March 21, 2010 at 1:33 pm
they’ll just use sharpies if you outlaw the paint – you can see that some of them already do – a lot of those lines are a little too fine to be spraypaint. besides, a sharpie is a lot easier to carry/hide.
Written by Limey on March 22, 2010 at 9:42 am
Graffiti is as old as mankind; today both Historians and Archaeologist have an orgasm every time they find a bit ancient graffiti on some old ruin. So just bear it in mind that when some sad bastard somewhere in the far distant future picks though the ruins of Rexville and happens to find a bit of graffiti, it will make their day…….Limey
Written by trakball on March 22, 2010 at 10:43 pm
I so agree with you, Rex (even though for a minute I thought you were just going to go off on a tirade against any and all forms of graffiti). I think burners are beautiful, but tags are just awful. Ugly.
Written by Wolynski on March 23, 2010 at 10:30 am
Tags are just gangs or wannabe gangs marking their territory, kind of like a cat pissing. It’s showing their rivals, we got here first. They don’t do it to just deface, it’s a declaration of their existence and (alleged) superiority.
Written by Mark on March 27, 2010 at 12:31 am
Completely agree.
I put these taggers in the same category as those jerkoffs who deface public bathrooms by writing lewd comments on the walls
Complete morons.