“The Great Graffiti War,” Feature, 3/25
Don’t Silence the Bake Sales
Thanks for covering this issue. I hope graffiti artists and “blight”
warriors appreciate that what’s being sacrificed in the middle of this
expensive conflict is community information, not only newspapers but
also fliers letting us all know about lost cats, bake sales to support
schools, and district election events.
The city should take a more creative approach and make sure every
neighborhood has walls dedicated to community bulletin boards and, yes,
graffiti space. Laws which demonize public expression backfire,
especially in punk/anarchist circles, and end up costing us all.
Community volunteers as dedicated as Jim Sharp are citywide, ready
to step up and assist in the maintenance and upkeep of community kiosks
so that vandalism, art, and information are no longer confused.
I want newspapers that I can hold in my hand over coffee, but I also
want to know about the yard sales, middle-school talent shows, yoga
classes, and other events which could never afford advertising. Fliers,
legally posted, are an important part of a healthy community, and
should be respected as free speech.
Carol Denney, Berkeley
Don’t Silence the Bands
I’ve “caught” Buff’s little actions while waiting for the bus more
than a few times on my way to work. I commend his actions as far as
graffiti goes because it is unattractive and a genuine defacement of
public property. But the fact that he feels it necessary to remove the
“illegal” posters and flyers for social causes, jobs, ads for bands and
artists is ludicrous. The local bands and artists rely (albeit, not
solely) on the posters for advertising and to help their own business.
After playing in bands for over twenty years and putting up flyers for
years, I have to say that if I saw him taking down even one of my
flyers, I would slap a class-action suit with the other parties
involved on him so fast for loss of business, he’d have a headache for
years.
Igor Davis, Berkeley
Graffiti Tagging Is Lame
I read with interest your article “The Great Graffiti War” about Jim
Sharp and the graffiti vandals in Berkeley. From time to time I
pull down an illegally posted sign, mostly those posted on fences
surrounding vacant properties, and I’m glad to read about another
concerned citizen taking action against blight. Graffiti is a
problem in many locales, but the City of Berkeley’s weak response to
blight complaints, which is well known by many neighborhood activists,
compounds the problem. Evidence of the City of Berkeley’s
implication in continuing blight problems can be found on WeFightBlight.blogspot.com, a
web site helping those concerned about blight in Berkeley. It
is ridiculous of the City of Berkeley to contemplate fining newspapers
for graffiti appearing on their boxes.Â
Some people, like Max Good and Nate Wollman, apparently believe with
the graffiti writers that doing graffiti on other people’s property
constitutes “free speech.” I’ve seen graffiti that could qualify
as good art, placed in industrial wastelands, where it actually
improves the landscape, and I’d want to leave that graffiti alone as it
could be seen as a positive contribution to the neighborhood, even
though it’s an art contribution done in an illegal or
“vigilante” style.  However, most graffiti that I
see around Berkeley and Oakland is not art, and beyond the signing
of a “tag,” does not appear to have anything to do with any
“speech.” Graffiti tagging is of the lame “Kilroy was here”
variety, and so is at the same level of meaning as a dog peeing on
a fire hydrant. Police agree that the best way to deal with
graffiti is to paint it over as soon as possible. If more
neighbors were concerned about graffiti in their neighborhoods, and
would clean it up right away, rather than leaving it up for days,
weeks, and months, Jim Sharp wouldn’t be scapegoated for having to take
this on himself, and the “Pigface” graffitiers wouldn’t be so excited
to run out and up the ante on the only person who’s apparently cleaning
up the city after them. Â
Deborah Cloudwalker, Oakland
Where’s the Police?
Your author, Robert Gammon, appears to be correct. The Berkeley
police do little or, in some cases, ultimately nothing about
graffiti.
In March 2008, I attempted on multiple occasions to get a follow-up
on a case of graffiti sprayed on a sidewalk. After some initial good
response, nothing happened. There was a witness less than fifty feet
away in bright daylight who observed the vandal using a spray can. So
the usual rationale for no following-up, namely the lack of a good
witness, did not apply in this case. Perhaps the Berkeley Police
Department could correct public perception by reporting the number of
alleged graffiti vandals they have arrested in the past year.
Robert Gable, Berkeley
Newsrack Vandalism Blows
As the first distribution manager of the Berkeley Daily Planet
(1999-2004), I dealt with newsrack vandalism in a big and totally
frustrating way. We went through a LOT of paint, screws, solvents, and
windows to repair our freestanders and green “pedmounts,” and again,
and again. My temps would crap about doing a few blocks’ worth, only to
find the first one re-wrecked by youth, the ignorant, or sociopathic
“First Amendment” champions. Naturally, our city’s finest never busted
these phantoms, or the creeps who made a living stealing our —
and yours, and others’ — papers to sell to recyclers.
Worst of all, as always, were the well-oiled bureaucrats who seized
our boxes for hefty fines, pointing to irrational and unrealistic
ordinances rubber-stamped by the city council in a simpler day. There
was no plan or discussion to deal with this now-intractable issue. As
for the publishers of freebies, they were apparently asleep. This
problem isn’t universal; the racks of our once-sister paper, San Mateo
Daily Journal, were in pristine shape but for normal weathering.
In this tragedy, Frank Miller’s gang owns the town; Gary Cooper has
left. Should legal redress be sought, please count on me as an expert
witness.
Phil Allen, BerkeleyÂ
You Made Sharp a Target
Robert Gammon usually does a good job. It is shocking that he gave
out the street name where anti-graffiti spray-painter Mr. Sharp lives,
along with the model of his car. That was an invitation to the
aggressive taggers mentioned in the story to find his home. The street
name was not important to the story, nor the car model, nor the name of
Mr. Sharp’s live-in friend. I consider those disclosures irresponsible
journalism.
But, Gammon provided a valuable community service by telling us that
Max Good (quite the ironic Dickensian name) and Nate Wollman “view
graffiti and stickers as political speech.” Retrograde flapdoodle. PBS
finances these guys? Help!! Graffiti is not “free speech” because it is
SECRET. “Free speech” is that which would otherwise be suppressed for
political reasons. The government suppresses graffiti to stop the truth
from coming out? Please.
Graffiti on your neighbor’s fence, or on the facade of the Fox
Theatre, is latent aggression with fascist impact. In the 1980s TAKI
186, marker pen in hand, nearly took over New York City. He was, it
turns out, just a jerk. Taggers do not accept their mortality. No
intellect, just fear and loathing. Babies smearing their feces in the
night.
Casting Mr. Sharp as a “vigilante” is intellectual thuggery. Better
that PBS cast out Wollman and Good and spend the shrinking PBS budget
on journalists who have actually learned something, somewhere, somehow.
You boys want to examine political speech? Analyze the Dellums
potholes.
Alexander van Broek, Oakland
I Applaud Sharp
Jim Sharp should be applauded, not attacked. He is performing a
valuable service, abating visual blight. He picks up litter whenever he
sees it, too. Yeah, H Jim.
Cherie Donahue, Oakland
“Soup to Go,” Food, 4/8
Workers Make the Difference
Thank you for printing the article on the SF Soup Company. I live
and work four blocks from the Downtown Oakland branch, and I’m a big
fan of this local chain. However, I was disappointed to read that the
owners do not have any restaurant industry background. I think it would
have been a much more interesting article if you had included
interviews of the chefs and staff to find out how they come up with
such innovative recipes, and what the production system is like. I find
that too often, reviews of local businesses fixate too much on
ownership (even if they are absentee) rather than the people in the
company who actually produce the value.
Ener Chiu, Oakland
“Berkeley’s Patron Saint of Go,” Events, 4/8
Like, Duh!
Rachel Swan didn’t do her homework. A simple Wikipedia check on the
CDC 6400 would have pointed out that the central memory of a CDC 6400
was measured in 60-bit words, and a minimum configuration was 32,768
words. The UC Berkeley 6400 was larger than that. A byte is 8 bits, so
there is no direct comparison of words to bytes, but a character in the
6400 was 6 bits, so 10 characters per word. That said, the minimum
memory of a 6400 was 327,680 characters, which is a whole lot more than
480 bytes. C’mon.
Somebody should have caught this!
Charles Stevenson, Berkeley
Correction
In the article “Surface Noise,” (Music, 4/15), the band pictured in
the photo is called Torso.
Introducing the Body & Soul Section
We are adding a new category of listings to our weekly print
edition. Starting this week, our online listings dedicated to health,
fitness, and spirituality will also appear in our Arts & Culture
section. With next week’s issue, we will expand upon this coverage to
include weekly previews and picks like our other calendar sections.
We also are taking this opportunity to relocate our weekly astrology
column, Aquarium Age, up to this new section. Advertising related to
these themes, including our classified Mind, Body & Spirit
listings, also will appear in this new section.
