Hey little taggers, I wonder how good you're going to be feeling about all your stupid "art" in about ten years time when you start paying taxes too???

Today is an incredible fall day in Toronto, so amazing that we leashed up the three knuckleheads and took them to their favorite spot, the ravine. We walked peacefully for almost two hours, so thankful to have so much nature within walking distance from our front door. I’m also happy to report that Kohl, who was on leash the entire time came out of the ravine, incident free.

Although it was a beautiful time there was one thing that kept pulling me out of nature; and that was all the tagging. There were tags on trees, brand new bridges, and picnic tables. Tagging annoys the shit out of me. Because you know why? It’s not art. Newsflash all you punk ass kids who go and buy spray paint to tag your “name” all over the city, you’re not cool, you’re so the opposite of cool that you don’t even know how far from cool you are. I drive around and there are tags on bridges, bus shelters, sides of buildings, hydro boxes, and in some cases delivery trucks.

Have you taggers got any idea how fucking ignorant you are? This question makes me go “hmmm” every single day when I drive around my beautiful city. The other thing that makes me go “hmmm” is how come parents don’t know that they’re kid is defacing the entire city? Do parents NEVER go through their kids rooms, or backpacks? I mean seriously. If you’re kid is tagging shit, their backpacks are going to smell like spray paint. And if your kid is a pain in the ass tagger, I have other tell tale signs for you to look for proof that they’re doing it…there is no latex glove on the market that is going to keep their trigger finger completely absent of all paint. It’s a fact. If you’ve bred a tagger, that means they do it a lot, which means they’re finger will have some sign of being a waste of tax payer’s dollars. So please do the rest of us tax payers a favor and snoop on your kid if you suspect them of being a pain society’s ass. Because I mean your kid might not have any idea about the cost of things, but you sure as hell should have some concept of how much a delivery truck costs a small store/business owner to purchase. Never mind what it costs them every single day to make their deliveries and to keep it on the road? Now as they drive it around they look like they’re business is struggling because their company vehicle has been sprayed painted to shit by a dumb-ass tagger.

Are you little taggers aware that when you spray paint the side of somebody’s corner store, small coffee shop, etc, etc, etc, the local government has a bylaw in place that forces that small business owner to pay for your stupid ugly tag to be removed with that business owners own money?? Do you also know that, that same small business owner pays HST, PST, Canadian Pension, Employee Tax and Employee Health Tax along with having to pay to remove your disrespectful NOT ART tag?

Nah I betcha you didn’t know that either.

I’m going to go for 3/3 here and say that I also bet that your ignorant asses don’t know that every single time you tag a bridge, or a retaining wall that is on city property my tax dollars, which are ridiculously high thanks to shit like this, goes to pay to have it removed. You probably don’t know that you’re parents taxes also pay for this removal. Our collective tax dollars are also having to be spent on these latest trends that the city is cleverly doing, painting actual murals on all the phone/hydro boxes and bridge underpasses, because apparantly your ignorant asses know enough that you do not tag over real art. Which is a small miracle.

Besides why do you even care if some of the tax dollars the city collects are being used to remove your tag, you already know you’re just going to go right back and tag it again. Because that is SO COOL, and SO BADASS, and SO REBELLIOUS. I mean why would you care that these same tax dollars could be better used on more important things, such as air conditioning in schools, or breakfast and lunch programs for low income neighborhoods, or better roads, or safer bike lanes? It’s so not important in comparison to your freedom of expression through “your art.” And as much as all this annoys me, I’m surprisingly okay with all of it, in fact I get a great deal of comfort from this entire ugly, degenerate trend that seems to show no signs of slowing down; which is the complete and utter satisfaction at knowing that one day you will grow up, you will probably eventually go to university or college, get a real job, marry somebody, and have a kid or two of your own. And somewhere down the line, whether it is in ten, fifteen or twenty years from now, as you sit staring at your bank balance wondering why the fuck you pay so much in taxes you will think back to all those days and nights you ran around the city with your crew, backpacks filled with spray cans defacing and vandalizing your great city. Then I imagine you looking at yourself in the mirror at your no longer dumb ass self and putting the pieces together, knowing you brought this pain upon yourself. And that my friends makes me very, very, very happy.