Writing on the Wall

Graffiti personifies the concept that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Some see it as a symbol of urban decay, some as art, some as vandalism. Its spontaneity and unsavoriness attract me.

Cave drawings are not considered graffiti; they are assumed to be "societally approved." But the troublemaker is part of our collective unconscious. I know that some paleolithic prankster drew an arrow to the backside of a cave-drawn beast showing the other dwellers that Atok was an ass.

Graffiti disconcerted the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans. From Napoleon's troops to WWII dog faces, soldiers' names and/or obscene bon mots marked the military global presence. During the 1968 French student revolution, graffiti functioned as a political call-to-arms.

By 1977,  New York artists like Jean-Michael Basquiat brought media attention to graffiti. Ten years before that, a Philadelphia kid named Darryl McCray began what is considered modern graffiti.  Cornbread (McCray's tagger name) became a legend in the City of Brotherly Love. Known not only for his art, but for his unique placement of graffiti, Cornbread tagged the side of an elephant at the zoo and Jackson 5 airplane.


The dorm bathrooms at Siena College provided my first, and only, canvas for graffiti. Always more garrulous than graphic, my scribblings tended to be more literary. No dirty limericks, or "Here I sit broken-hearted..." ditties, my stall scrawls gravitated toward the satiric and sardonic.

A favorite work was the on-going poem. During a morning meditation, one would write a single line. As more guys dropped in, other lines were added. By the next morning an entire verse was composed. A new day would bring a new oeuvre - as ever BB

Soyez réalistes, demandez l'impossible. (Be realistic, ask the impossible.) - graffiti in Paris during the 1968 student protests

That Guy

He’s that guy, you know, the guy who played in…Anyone who has watched an old movie or television show with me has heard that phrase. 

Growing up during the Golden Age of Television, I overindulged in cathode ray tube emissions. Not sated by the torrent of effluvia produced by episodic programs, I immersed myself in old movies.

For reasons unknown even unto myself, I enjoyed sitting through the credits putting the players’ faces to their names. Ergo my encyclopedic (and somewhat useless) knowledge of character actors and “B” movie stalwarts.

From the westerns: Royal Dano, Dub Taylor, Jack Elam, and Arthur Hunnicutt

From gangster flicks: Mike Mazurki, Brian Donlevy, Elisha Cook, Jr and Murray Kinnell

Cue the ones who change genres faster that cold cream removes pancake make-up:

Akim Tamiroff, J. Carroll Naish, Aldophe Menjou, Helmut Dantine

Unlike the Avon lady, some of these names may not ring a bell. (Another pun becoming anachronistic in the age of the Interweb) However, most will recognize the faces. These actors lent their talent to hundreds of movies and TV shows. Yet, they remain anonymous images flickering on late night TV.

Don’t despair old friends. I still remember. As ever BB

“I don't mean to be forward, but ain't I had the pleasure of meeting you two broads before?” – Mike Mazurki in Some Like It Hot