Nazis: Known For Their Fashion

A teenager in Perkasie was recently arrested for scrawling swastikas and other Nazi-related graffiti on his high school bathroom walls. Here’s how The Intelligencer described it (emphasis mine):

In addition to swastikas, the teen wrote a symbol that means “Heil Hitler” and also scribbled “SS,” a reference to the Schutzstaffel, the group of Nazi troops known for their loyalty to Adolf Hitler. The drawings were done in pencil and pen.

The SS was, indeed, a group of Nazis. But I think they’re best known for… hell, let’s just quote the Wikipedia entry for the Schutzstaffel:

Built upon the Nazi racial ideology, the SS, under Heinrich Himmler’s command, was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity perpetrated by the Nazis during the World War II, and most of the worst of those crimes.

So… yeah. Loyalty to Hitler, though, that’s what I remember ‘em for. As such, I remember Hitler as the guy who widened roads in Germany.

Teen charged for scrawling Nazi graffiti [The Intelligencer]

Report: Incidents Of Buzz-Harshing Up 55 Percent In Fitler Square Area

Spotted earlier today in the vicinity of 22nd and Spruce.

Fixing Tagging Typos

Took a shot of this a while ago and recently rediscovered it on my phone. (It’s at Locust and Camac.) It’s nice to see that there are some people who still care about proper grammar.

Philly.com Comes Up With Joke We Missed

I must admit, “Is graffiti vandalism or art?” — can’t it be both? — would have been a fine addition to our list yesterday. I’m not so sure about the other one, though. “Have you succeeded despite great challenges?” Please. Succeeding is hard enough. What Philly.com commenters are going to have succeeded with great challenges?

Update: Hey, that story about overcoming great challenges is actually pretty good; it’s by ex-PW staffer Kia Gregory. And this is my favorite comment on the graffiti story:

What a typicial Polish-American dweeb with a skinnt face and long yellowed teeth, living at home being “chad”. Probably brings ugly NE Philly tramps to his room for a quickie, while his parents are at Pathmark.

I do appreciate the use of the PC term “Polish-Americans” in the otherwise vitriol-filled comment.

Mega Man Graf Is Mega Awesome

In case you’re a new reader here, you no doubt know that I am a huge freaking nerd. Naturally, Geekadelphia is on my RSS reader, and today the site posted some movie graffiti from Star Wars.

Now, I hate Star Wars and everything about it — I’m one of those nerds — but it reminded me of the photo at right, which I snapped with my camera phone on a Metro box at 10th and Lombard. It’s Mega Man! I’m too lazy to look up what weapon an orange-colored Mega Man means, but I will say that if I start seeing images like this posted as sticker art around town, I am going to flip.

‘Blue By Day’ Cop’s House Vandalized

Philly narcotics cop Scott Schweizer, who allegedly had a blue by day/white by night poster in his locker, is in the news again; this time, somebody spraypainted “KKK” and “die pig” on the back of his place which appears to be in Mayfair from the photo.

He chased the vandals off and says the believes the men attempted to break in as well. Sounds pretty open and shut. Oh wait!

Rochelle Bilal, president of the Guardian Civic League, which represents 3,000 black officers in Philadelphia, questioned the validity of Schweizer’s story. “I would do a handwriting analysis first before making a decision that there was a crime committed,” said Bilal, who declined to elaborate.

A handwriting analysis… on graffiti? Honestly, I’ve just never heard of that. Also, according to Bilal, Schweizer possibly spraypainted “KKK” and “die pig” on the back of his own house. (A self-hating cop?) Having KKK stickers in one’s locker is a stupid, if plausible, thing to do. Are we to assume this dude is the stupidest man in the world, spraypainting his own house just to get attention? This isn’t a Princeton conservative we’re talking about here.

Anyway, don’t worry, all of this is going to blow over; after all, having a “white power” sticker in your locker is no different than pink power or blue power. Ohh, boy, I love me some Power Rangers!

Demons! Well, Okay, Not Demons

Ahh, remember how the all the local media reports on the church vandalism in Bucks County were about how a pair of “demons” showed up at a church. The police wouldn’t even report the demons’ names so as not to taint the investigation.

Anyway, it looks like it was just a bunch of stupid kids! Everyone already knew this anyway, but it’s more fun to write about demons and devils and whatever other shit was printed.

Four kids from Falls were arrested for allegedly vandalizing Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church earlier this month. There was also graffiti all over the area, but, you know, demons. Oh, and when one of the kids parents apologized the church was all like “OMGWTFHOWDAREYOU!!”

“He’s not a demon. He’s not a monster. This was not a hate crime,” Klein said. “He’s a smart kid who made a stupid mistake.” Klein said the vandalism had nothing to do with religion. He said Stetson’s parents are “mortified” but standing behind their son.

“Harry has never even tagged [done graffiti] before,” Klein said. “He bowed to peer pressure that night. He’s very sorry and willing to scrub it off if the church will let him.” It’s too late for that, said Kay McFarland, a spokeswoman for the parish.

“We took care of that already. We’re not going to let that kind of hatred and dirt stay on our statues. Come on, we weren’t going to leave that on our church,” she said.

Let’s just throw these stupid kids in jail for 30 years so they can be in prison with the rest of us. DEMONS!

Teens charged with church vandalism [Bucks County Courier Times]

Childish Graf Taken To New Levels (Penis!)

Penis graffiti is a well-known tradition on subway ads and school posters. Meh. But when somebody goes out all, like on this Robbins Diamonds sign on 76 near Spring Garden, one just has to applaud:

This has since been taken down, sadly, but Art of the excellent Foobooz had captured it on his iPhone a little bit back. The replacement billboard is the same one, so it’s only a matter of time ’til it happens again. Only one the guy with the jewel in his beard this time.

Graffiti Now Outpolling Al Taubenberger

If you weren’t around this weekend, you missed a pretty eventful weekend in the City of Brotherly Love. Case in point, this headline in my Google Reader Sunday:

Yes, somehow graffiti acquired sapience and up and decided to write itself on a wall and vandalize a school. I am confused as to how this wasn’t a bigger story.

Graffiti Vandalizes School [6 ABC]

Darrell Clarke Wants To Track What You Buy

Hey, know what’d be fun? Having your driver’s license scanned every time you want to purchase cigarettes and beer! That sounds like a gay old time, honestly. Well, if City Councilman Darrell Clarke has his way, that’s what you’ll have to do in Philadelphia! Yes, Clarke wants to track purchases of every can of beer or carton of smokes sold with in city limits.

However, faster than you can say “the lobbying arms of the tobacco and alcohol industries would shut that down in a second” — so, actually, not really all that fast — the plan is kinda dead, since it would require intervention at the state level. But since he can’t pass a law tracking how much we smoke and drink, Clarke came up with a better idea: Tracking purchases of spray paint!

Apparently, graffiti is a out of control here in Philadelphia. Need proof? “Graffiti is out of control in the City of Philadelphia,” said Darrell Clarke. And, so, Clarke has introduced a bill requiring the scan of a driver’s license for anybody purchasing spraypaint, since he says the stores are selling to minors, who are then tagging City Hall and the Comcast Center.

“Unless that information is inserted through the scanner into the register, the product will not register, so therefore there cannot be a transaction,” he told KYW 1060. The problem, of course, is that most of the graffiti done in this city is done by adults. Clarke might just as well have introduced a bill telling kids to get off his lawn.

I can’t wait ’til the regulation of adhesive paper passes, in order to combat El Toro and Bob Will Reign and any of the other cute characters who pop up on the backs of stop signs.

Councilman Wants Stricter Controls on Spray Paint Purchases [KYW 1060]
Attn. City Council: Most Graf Nerds Are Grown Ass Men [Philebrity]