What the fuck is wrong with people?

No seriously, what the fuck IS wrong with people? Yesterday, I went into the store to find out some stupid piece of shit decided to graffiti all over the windows up and down Divisadero st. Graffiti is a part of urban living, I suppose, though it is one that I've never really understood. If 99% of the people who see it can't read it, don't know what it means, don't understand your affiliation, and think you're a ignorant asshole for doing it, then I don't see the benefit whatsoever.

The different between "the usual" graffiti and yesterday's adventure, is that the small-dicked little morons used acid to "etch" the windows, which permanently stains them, and is (as I understand it) impossible to remove without warping the glass. I could spend a couple of hundred dollars to replace the glass (then just have some OTHER idiot hit is a few days later), or I could spend a couple of thousand dollars to get specially coated glass that makes it "impossible" to tag in that way -- but then I'm afraid someone will just throw a brick through the window, y'know?

I'm a child of New York in the 70s, so I appreciate the graffiti ARTIST -- those guys who spent serious time decorating the subway trains? Wonder and awe from me. The big elaborate and colorful pieces on 8x12 foot sections of abandoned walls? There's some urban attraction in that.

But just taking out your dick and randomly spraying piss everywhere? You're a stupid, pathetic piece of shit who should get dumped in prison, and cornholed daily for the crime of being a moron. At the very least, I'd like the punishment to be that a squad of homeless people are dispatched to the taggers room, where they proceed to take a shit over every object the tagger cares about whatsoever. Maybe they'd get it then.

(that would presuppose that there was a reasonable way of catching such shit-heads -- it's not even like we get a police car rolling by the store more than 3 or 4 times a day though. Let alone at 3 AM when they hit nearly every store I checked in a 4 block stretch)

Its not just the vandalism, but society as a whole seems like it is filling up with unsocialized morons faster and faster. On Wednesday, I was taking the bus home, and, as usual for the 24-Divisadero it was pretty unreasonably crowded (Man, remember when Muni was just 25 cents, and busses came every 5 minutes? Now they're $1.50, and you've got to wait 20 minutes between runs). There's two kids on the bus, a brother and sister I think, one maybe 12, the other 14 or so. The 12 year old boy is standing across the aisle, hands on either side of the rails of the bus, making it so no one can get past him at all. People are trying to get on the bus, but he's (consciously) creating a bottleneck. I don't really mind riding in the "driver's area" of the bus, but a lot of people do, and it's not really safe for the driver anyway (can't see his side mirrors), so I say to the kid "Excuse me, could you move in, so everyone else can board?". His sister spins on me and screams "Ain't you never heard of 'please'?". "Uh, yeah, that's what 'excuse me' means" The kid says something about there being no room, and I'm like 3 times his size, and you could fit 4 more of me into the space he's occupying but I don't really care that much -- like I said, I'm cool with being in the driver's area.

Driver isn't though. "MOve in, move in!" he starts to yell at me. "I'd love to, bud, but little man here won't move." Meanwhile his sister is unleashing a steady stream of invective at me in the way that only an ignorant selfish 14 year old that's going to end up with 3 babies by age 19, and will die with a glass pipe in her mouth before she's 30, can. Bus Driver says "The bus isn't moving until everyone moves in!" and the kid finally relents and moves aside while moaning all of the time. At the next stop, they make a big show of getting off the bus.

Children like these need to be slapped. Repeatedly. Where the hell are their parents. You know, when *I* was a kid (again: 70s, New York, not Leave it to Beaver) I don't know of any teenager that would have dared disrespect a grownup like that. It just wasn't done.

The only reason I didn't smack the kid was, just a few minutes before they were talking with another lady who seemed to know them - even asked how their mom was. She looked like a young school teacher or something. I pretty much expected HER to say something, but she never did.

Just before the boy gets off the bus, he stares directly at me and says "Some niggers ought shut up before they get they asses shot." I looked at the adult-who-knew-them. She had that helpless liberal smile on her face suggesting "Boys will be boys" or some other nonsense. I'm reasonably sure she'll never mention to the kid's parents that he just threatened to kill an adult, on a bus full of people.

So, what the fuck is wrong with people? Who are this kid's parents? Do they not care that their boy is likely to end up in prison or the morgue within the next decade?

If I ever caught even a whiff of that kind of insubordination from Ben, he wouldn't be able to sit down for a week. I may be an asshole, but I try to have a modicum of manners. I even usually thank the bus driver as I get off every day. I feel like George Constanza some days, screaming "Don't you know we live in a society? A SOCIETY?!?!"

No reviews this morning -- I'm too grumpy.

-B