Bathroom graffiti

Hiya. I'm going to start my inaugural post with about 98% culture commentary, and 2% gaming. An inauspicious posting, maybe, but I think that all of you out there on Pete's side of the planet might enjoy a look into a nicely storied institution here in New York City -- but which is certainly not limited to the Big Apple, as it's found in most (but not all, of course) major cities worldwide.

By this, I mean graffiti in bathrooms. (What else?)

After leaving a theater where we'd just seen film -- not just any theater, the indie-theater-for-people-who-love-movies-but-hate-going-to-the-Angelika theater, the IFC Center; and not just any film, David Lynch's indie-film-for-people-who-love-movies-but-hate-understanding-them film, "Island Empire" -- my girlfriend and I swung by a Belgian beer bar that used to be one of our favorites. (It's since fallen out of fashion in part because two equally fine Belgian beer places have opened near our apartment in Hell's Kitchen, but that's neither here nor there.)

The bar, located over in the Village, is clean, well-stocked, has a literate college-y/West Side-y clientele, which is reflected in the graffiti one sees in its bathroom. Now, bathroom graffiti is certainly nothing new in NYC, nor anywhere else, but I think what it says, and how it says it, are important indicators of cultural values... and other crap. Mainly, it's just kind of funny to check out what morons are writing when other people are lined up outside waiting to piss.

Pseudosociographical rambling aside, I snapped a few pictures.

The wall (a mop closet door, really) that greets you as you walk in. It wasn't until just now that I realized that someone had tagged "HELL" at the top of the door. Not sure what this means, exactly.

Exhibit one: Some random URL. These are all over the place in the city as people take to the Web to drum (heh) up support for their crappy band.

Exhibit two: Political graffiti, the first of MANY in this bathroom.

Side wall. Tags, band stickers, doodling, and some sort of inspirational message, perhaps?

Tag detail.

More political graffiti.

Awwww.

Bwa ha ha ha

I'd say a good 50% of the graffiti on NYC bathroom walls is about mocking someone else's graffiti.

Still more political graffiti.

See?

???

Rear wall. More assorted tags, some nice X-rated doodling, and so on.

A random tag.

Truer words have never been written.

Hell yeah! (Although I guess some of you know the game in reference as "Bare Knuckle")