American Graffiti.

Bathroom graffiti is always the most vile, deranged, racist, bigoted, homophobic stuff you’ll find. At least that’s the case most of the time. Once I saw a phone number with the obligatory “call for a good time”, but under that someone had written, “No! Don’t! Gives terrible blow jobs!” That still makes me laugh.

And then there was this that I captured in an Alabama rest stop.

It’s etched into the mirror which took someone a lot of time and effort. It can be a little hard to read even if you click the picture to embiggen it, so I’ve done my best to recreate it:

I would assume this was some kind of white supremacy statement if not for the peace symbol. Maybe the halo and the triangle that gives the N an upward pointing arrow is a memorial to someone named Saxon. If that’s the case I think it’s a nice tribute, and one that will last longer than most graffiti. You can’t paint over the mirror or scrub that off.

Completely unrelated: The Bloggess spotted some much more hilarious graffiti. That’s one more reason it’s such a shame office supply stores all over the place are closing. For a little comfort here’s another bit of graffiti from a restaurant bathroom:

Dumpsters are easy targets. They’re out of the way and not really owned by the resident of where they’re usually placed. And since they hold garbage it doesn’t really matter if they look trashy. Is that a fair description of this dumpster, though? There’s something impressive about the number of artists who’ve used it as a canvas.

And then there’s this strategically placed sticker. This is social commentary on the level of—I’m not kidding—Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal. It’s ironic and kind of funny, but also sad when you think about the real implications.

Nothing bugs me more than graffiti that’s poorly spelled or uses sloppy grammar. If you’re going to go to the trouble of making a public statement at least do it well.

Technically this isn’t graffiti, unless you define graffiti as any kind of defilement of public property or signage. I’d call that a stretch. I’d also call this sign awesome. I love it that Nashville wants to promote its live music venues by, well, designating them as live music venues, but better than that I love musical groups using that sign to promote themselves.

Who is the artist? What did they mean by this particular work? I know I’m going out on a limb treating graffiti as art, but I don’t know what else to call it. And some of it I find just as fascinating as something I’d see in a museum–maybe more so.

Who made this? Is Medusa a specific artist or is there a Medusa gang? Do members have to get stoned? Joking aside, what does the logo underneath the name mean? I see something like this and I want to know more. It stops me in my tracks.

I’m sure it’s happened to every person who does anything creative: inspiration hits, you can do no wrong, everything that you’re about to make is going to be worthy of a Nobel prize, and then, just as quickly as it came on, it dries up.

I think that’s what happened here.

I feel for the artist. Sometimes you spread your wings, leap from the perch, and fall flat on your face.