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Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Wherein I Ponder the Futile System

Meanwhile, back in Minneapolis, Estefani continues to corner the market on HerbaLife post-its attached to the bus stop proper while it appears that “Lucid” and “HRSH Crew” are locked in mortal tagging combat over the garbage can just outside the shelter.

See that over there? The garbage has been "tagged" by two separate urban-dwelling non-respectors of property.

And as much as I hate the markings, the dual over a trash receptacle seems just about right.

My garbage can! No, my garbage can!

Death to Lucid! Long live HRSH Crew!

Or was that the other way around?

My only question now is, in a world claimed by the brutish insistence of the lawless in the belief that they’re marking a trashcan outlines “territory”, how will I align myself?

Where will I be when it all goes down and I'm forced to "gang-up"?

On the one hand, there’s Lucid, who appears to have learned a word outside of the standard lexicon, although why he/she/it is using this self-proclaimed lucidity in such a manner is beyond my imagination.

So he's looking promising.

Then there’s HRSH Crew. Hmm. "Crew", you say. I like that. Already, we sound tough in a hip-hop, "where you at" kind of way, although the letters “SH” – generally assumed to stand for “Senior High” – worry me. As a previously card-carrying member of a Football High School Marching Band – Go Cardinals! – I am not, lo these many years later, prepared to switch allegiances to another high school.

Let it be known: I am prepared to march on a moment’s notice.

And then there are the others. I mean, how can I side with Lucid when there’s still FST out there messing up my telephone poles? What about 4Chune, RaulZee, CashMoney, or This Side Up?

OK. I made that last one up.

Although if there was a “This Side Up”, he’d be my guy.

Seems he'd be the only one with any sense.

48 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'll go with the Cashmoney any day....in hand...you know what I mean? Good cause I don't have a clue myself.

Anonymous said...

The only good graffiti: Roll Out!

Leenie said...

At least when dogs mark their territory it doesn't ruin the landscape for years. Any tagging stinks. Some just washes off easier.

Nessa Locke said...

Word up to yer Mother...

Pearl said...

mybabyjohn, :-) I am willing to go along with that, yes.

Joshua, I'm almost afraid to look. :-)

Leenie, that's what I think. Our garage got tagged about three years ago -- whole alley did, actually -- and we all had it cleaned up/painted over by nightfall. They haven't been back. Dumb animals. (Which may actually be a slur on animals...)

Nessa Roo, True Dat!

Anonymous said...

4Chune does it for me

- Jazz

Pearl said...

Jazz, it's a neat little signature, too.

Drake Sigar said...

Don’t worry about it, they’re probably those cheesy dancing gangs from Broadway musicals.

Simply Suthern said...

OK, here we go.

Create a tagging spray by repackaging different bathroom fragrances and they can tag stuff with scents. Each Tag with a De-Stinked smell. No more ugly graffiti and they smell better too. Hopefully they might get a bit on themselves as well.

Either that or they can just get some personalized bar code stickers.

jenny_o said...

This Side Up isn't for real?? I see it everywhere! On boxes everywhere, I mean.

To be honest, I find graffiti interesting, but I've seen only a limited amount, living in a one-horse town as I do. The most graffiti we see at one time here is when a train rolls through. Or on the Omnipotent TV.

Someone educate me as to the downsides? Please?

Oilfield Trash said...

People tag trash cans? Hmm I learned something new today.

Glen said...

Are you on the HRT?

Ali - My Suitcase Full of Tricks said...

Pearl, I've said it before: You're my favorite! That was a riot.

Belle said...

Yes, I can see where choosing which gang to join would be a hard decision.
I have no idea what the gang names are in our city. But being Canadian, we might go with, "Deer Crossing", "Marmots in the Cemetery" or "Coyote Problems". All sensible names that depict our city.

Pearl said...

Drake, I've been practicing that groovy little step/snapping fingers thing. Cuz once you're a Jet...

Simply, I like that, athough I think there are some stinkers on the bus that have already thought of it...

jenny, oh, jenny. :-) While "this gum tasts awful" written on the condom dispenser in the bathroom at the bar is funny, tagging -- a giant or not so giant signature on something public -- is really offensive, at least in my eyes. For example, when the bus rolls by a building and there, on the 100 year old brick, someone's spraypainted "lo-flow" (and no, that's not a joke!), it's just ugly, not to mention expensive to remove. But you have to remove it because once it's tagged the next guy with nothing to show for himself but an imagined persona shows up and tags OVER it. Uglier and uglier! Our garage was spraypainted by "SL33PY P33W33" three years ago. Discovering that was actually shocking to me. I just walked back there to water the flowers and there it was. Someone had written all over my hard-won property. Ol' PeeWee can bite me. :-)

Oilfield, if it don't move, it'll eventually get tagged...

Glen, HRT? Not sure where that is. I live in the Logan Park neighborhood of Northeast Minneapolis, a beautiful place of mature trees, turn-of-the-century houses, and a handful of morons...

Suitcase, :-) You're so sweet!

Pearl said...

Belle, that's delightful. :-) Minnesota's, in general, might be "no parking this side between November and March..."

Glen said...

It's quite possible you just completely failed to get me..... I'm so not explaining :-D

VEG said...

Graffiti always makes me laugh. If you want to change something I'm thinking graffiti might be the LAST way you'll get your point across in a non ridiculous manner.

There was a dude (I assume it's a dude!) who used to go by ClitBanger on walls around town. I'm not sure that's exactly advertising your skills. I mean no one likes that kind of treatment in the sack surely... Methinks he's either a)14 or b)gay and pretending to be straight or c)a women hater

Jocelyn said...

During the Apocalypse, when all of us Hard Workin's are freaking out and feeling the need to gang-up, wouldn't the best choice just be to start our own new crew--one fueled by ageing hormones, the rage of failed relationships, protectiveness towards Me And Mine, and a respectable tolerance for hard liquor? I mean, there'd be you and me, but then we could pull in my mom, and what she can do with a quilting needle would have the Lucids hightailing it back to Compton.

Anonymous said...

From your recent stories, it sounds like you & your friend Mary are already "ganged-up"... the "Herro Kitties!"

Just don't go tagging anywhere. That stuff IS a pain to remove.

Pearl said...

Glen, I hate when I'm dense! He'p me!

Vegetable Assassin, sounds like a charmer, doesn't he?! :-)

Jocelyn, I have a collection of crochet hooks I can throw in as well. Antimacass-- antimass -- doilies for everyone! And we'll get 'em to pull their drawers up, too!

Doubting Thomas, I love it! We'll get matching jackets and secret handshakes...

Tom G. said...

I think we Minnesota bloggers need for form our own gang, and come up with a virtual "tag" that we can leave in comment boxes all over the interwebz, to mark our territory.

Now we just need an appropriate tag. How about "Hot Enuf 4 Yu?", or "We like it here, ya know!"

Pearl said...

Tom G., I'd like to throw in "U Betcha". Just to play to type. :-)

Bretthead said...

There are no gangs in Minnyhaha!

Dawn@Lighten Up! said...

Guess I could call myself a "tagger," I was well acquainted with the spray paint in the 80s...
Hey, did you know? "87 Tops!" and "Springfield Tigers Rule!"
Nah...I was just a little thug sometimes. It was the Old Milwaukee talkin'.

Unknown said...

Did a see something about Gang Bloggers? Is that anything like Gang Bangers?

Pearl said...

WTWA, we don't need no steenking gangs!

LOL Dawn! :-) Don't think I ever sprayed anything, but I do recall toiletpapering a whole yard full of trees once...

Eva! :-)I did not see that one coming... :-)

Anonymous said...

Does one ever see someone coming in that kind of situation?

Anonymous said...

Taggers should be shot on sight and then spray-paint their corpses and mount them in the town square. Read Malcolm Gladwell on the matter.

Pearl said...

Joshua, touche. :-)

Pearl said...

mrwriteon, I've long advocated their being affixed to traffic lights, rotting fruit sold on the side lines...

Cheeseboy said...

I don't understand any "Crew" that is not related to sailing.

Kristy @Loveandblasphemy said...

We have a giant sticker on our trash can that says "Customer Suggestion Box."

Notes From ABroad said...

For the first time in so long, I live in a place where the porter comes to our door where the garbage has been placed for him, he puts it in the right cans etc and puts them out on the street when the right time comes. I just have to remember to put it out before 8 pm.
You only have to live at the Bottom of the World to enjoy this too :)

Gigi said...

Our local newspaper just did a piece on all the recent "tagging" going on around here. I seem to recall the journalist "dissing" the tagger for his/her lack of style and creativity. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure our tagger can't read so he/she doesn't even know that he/she is being laughed at in respectable society.

Bill Lisleman said...

How about the Italian gang fragile? They probably eat well.

Bushman said...

Yeah I dig it. I tag my stuff to. J's shed. Back off the mower Byatch! and don't forget Bushman's kitchen enter and die!

jenny_o said...

Thanks for the info, Pearl. I so small-town :)

HermanTurnip said...

I'm rollin' with "High Voltage". Cat has his tag all over da hood. Dude gets around town!

Lynette Killam said...

Very clever and entertaining, Pearl...I enjoyed that thoroughly! Canadians are too darned polite to do any serious tagging, so I don't see a lot of it until I travel. That's a good thing...while I may admire the art, I abhor the disrespect of other peoples porperties that it displays...:]

Sandra said...

Your such a beautiful writer!

Crystal Pistol said...

The last line was sheer genius. If I were a snickering type of gal I'd snicker my approval at "he'd be the only one with any sense" ...because he's "this side up"...

HAHAHAAAA! It actually gets funnier the more I think about it. What once would have been a snicker or a snort has become a belly laughter in my head. :) Well done.

River said...

I don't like tags. Graffiti murals can be quite artistic though. There's one near my home that covers the whole side of a building and gets changed every couple of years or so.

Unknown said...

This is verrrrrrrrrry interesting! It is also new to me. I'm all about gangs, tagging and whatnot. You teach me so much, Pearl. So much. I should send you flowers or something. Or pearls.

Unknown said...

I hate elections. I never research the candidates properly, and the guilt...it haunts me....

Douglas said...

I had "This side up!" tattooed on the back of my head. It will become more readable as the years pass.

I notice the use of "He/she/it". Perhaps that can be shortened somehow into a pronoun all its own... Maybe "hsheit"?

Lazarus said...

OK, everything else aside (funny post that it was), I love that you always take the trouble to say "of the Minneapolis Biteys." I find that hilarious and, of course, it shows that there's a bit of a screw loose upstairs, but that's what we love Pearl!!!

On My Soapbox said...

We call them "scribblers". You can never read the tags, and they're probably spelled wrong anyway.