Pet Bird Outing

GGP: 5th Aug 2005 - 13:56 GMT

This was certainly worth the wait, Peter! Great stuff--I love the halo over the graf bird's head! And very funny about encountering an actual pet bird in your wanderings! :)

Peter: 5th Aug 2005 - 14:06 GMT

its funny... that social club gets tagged up alot, being as they always have a nice, clean canvas (those black doors on the side). They generally paint over it or clean it off within a day, even hours sometimes. But those birds have been ther for over a week. I'm curious to see how long they stay. I wonder if they like them, if they got tired of cleaning that area up, or if they just ran out of black paint ;)

Also: the real pet bird was chirping loudly and happily... you could hear it from almost a block away!

Peter: 5th Aug 2005 - 16:22 GMT

no_brakes23: 5th Aug 2005 - 17:55 GMT

I wonder if they realize the historical significance of what they are doing.

Between Kilroy the bomb factory worker in the 40's and Cornbread trying to impress a girl in the 70's, after Charlie Parker died in the 60's, there was a lot of Bird Lives graff.

Could it be related? A tip of the cap?

Or just an interesting coincident?

Peter: 5th Aug 2005 - 18:16 GMT

woah, now theres an interesting twist...

i get the charlie parker connection, but dont know enough about the other two you mentioned to make the connection... explain? id love to know...

no_brakes23: 5th Aug 2005 - 18:21 GMT

I just put the other two in for hisortical context.

Of course, we all know about ancient civilizations writing on the walls, but the modern age of graff had three significant events that led up to what we have now.

During WWII, a worker in a munitions plant wrote "Kilroy was here" on a lot of the bombs. (Perhaps Kilroy was an inspector.) This became memetic and was picked up by a lot of G.I.s who tagged places they visited with the same message. Usually with an acompanying character like below.

This also popularized the practice of writing on bombs. If you look at my userIcon carefully you can see I heart NY written on the bomb I am directing in. (This was me aboard the U.S.S. John C. Stennis CVN-74 in 2002 during OEF.) The practice of Kilroy eventually died out, but ordnance writing is alive and well.

You already know about Bird Lives getting tagged up, but that too eventually died out.

The true start of modern writers and the link to Mass Transit is the legend of Cornbread. Cornbread was a Philly kid who had the hots for a girl in his school, but apparently was bashful about talking to her. To get here attention, he would write his name on walls. Then he figured out what bus she took to school, and started tagging every stop along that route. Then one day he snuck into the buss yard and tagged every bus he could. Cornbread got up bigtime, and all to get a girl. (Cornbread is still alive last I heard and eventually married the girl.) I believe it was Cornbread who also started the crown thing because as he put it "Every king should have one."

And now you know.

More info here: www.subwayoutlaws.com/History/History.htm

Older heads please feel free to add/correct any details I missed/forgot.

piranha erem: 5th Aug 2005 - 18:26 GMT

very interesting. i really am liking the birds in the first two photos.

GGP: 5th Aug 2005 - 20:57 GMT

and speaking of Pet Bird/Outing:

GGP: 12th Aug 2005 - 22:15 GMT

and an unpleasant but not quite-so-hostile fate to those who, ganking the name of God, attack those about whom they know nada.

Kon: 8th Nov 2005 - 06:55 GMT

Someone elp me out here, because I am a little confused. All the pet bird is done by one dude, right? Because of it is, holy shit he gets around. If it isn't, well then what the hell is the "pet bird" deal about. I have done a lot of searching here, but have apparently missed anything that will explain this.

Peter: 2nd Dec 2005 - 14:57 GMT