RBasil

http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.d...0339/1009/EDIT

Sponsors should pay for Scribble Jam cleanup
BY PETER BRONSON | ENQUIRER STAFF WRITER

Taggers have names like Sneke, Dizne, Toonz and Tack-Fu. They hit the streets after dark in stage-robber bandanas, and leave their Krylon spray-paint "tags" on buses, walls, overpasses, water towers and Dumpsters, like Zorro on amphetamines.

They call it "urban art" and compare it to Picasso. Except that Picasso painted on his own canvas, not boxcars. Tag me Squareguy, but I call it vandalism. Colorful. Interesting. Sometimes beautiful. But still vandalism.

Hundreds of taggers will come to Cincinnati Aug. 10-13 for Scribble Jam at an East End club called Annie's. "We're doing a hip-hop festival and it has a small part to do with legal graffiti," said promoter Nick Accurso of Clifton.
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But Linda Holterhoff of Keep Cincinnati Beautiful would rather host a swarm of litterbugs. "People ask me why are we supporting this event when we are out here scrubbing it off the walls every day," she said. "Every year hundreds of graffiti vandals come to Scribble Jam, and every year the city spends thousands of dollars to wash the walls."

She has asked the biggest sponsor of Scribble Jam, Toyota's youth-appeal Scion division, to pay cleanup costs, which she says were $30,000 last year. Accurso says that's an exaggeration.

And Toyota says no way. "No, we're not going to commit to spending on cleanup," said Steve Haag, corporate manager for Scion in Torrance, Calif. "We don't promote graffiti and we don't even use the word. We call it urban art."

Joe Gorman calls it art for anarchists. "On the one hand you see it and groan," said the community organizer for Camp Washington. "But on the other hand you think, 'That took a lot of work, man.' Sometimes it's up there in places where you wonder how the heck they even got there."

Gorman also wrote to Toyota for Cincinnati's Good Neighborhoods Consortium, asking them to pay cleanup costs. He hears from angry business owners who get tagged on trucks, signs, walls, even etched windows. "Scribble Jam is a good idea, but after dark guys go out through neighborhoods with spray cans and blast everything," he said.

Some tags are fat letters like soggy Alpha-Bits, others are knife-sharp symbols of gang turf, teenage angst, anarchy or the same "look at me" impulse that gouges initials in desktops and restroom walls.

Accurso says he's working to reduce vandalism. "On the positive side, this is 10,000 people coming to Cincinnati, making our city a hotbed for music and culture. We will help and do everything we can to make sure three or four bad apples out of 10,000 get the message that what they're doing hurts our event."

But Gorman says disrespecting property is the whole point of tagging anarchy. A tagging Web site says it's not graffiti unless it's done without permission. And hip-hop culture is to crime what acid rock is to drugs.

Holterhoff said her agency will deploy vandal-proof flash-cams to snap pictures of "middle class white boys who think they can come to town and do this to our city." She said: "The neighborhoods are tired of dealing with graffiti vandals. I personally feel the only way to stop the vandalism that comes from Scribble Jam is to stop the event."

Toyota is listening. "This is the first I've heard of (complaints)," Haag said. But probably not the last. And they will drop Scribble Jam like an empty spray can if their corporate name gets tagged with vandalism.

That would be too bad. Scribble Jam brings color to the city - even if it spills outside the lines. The sponsors - Toyota, CityBeat and others - should take responsibility and pay for cleanup.

That way they score hip-hop points with Dizne and Toonz, but still look good to Squareguys who would rather scrub Scribble Jam than pay for vandalism.

E-mail pbronson@enquirer.com or call 513-768-8301.

wow

What a jerk, how old is this guy. This is why we will never advance as a human race because of retards like this still have a voice.
" Zorro on amphetamines" What in the hell does this mean, I can see it now, the smile on his face of how clever this out of touch he really is.
This Linda lady, wow, I bet she is in control f making those beautiful grey squares that every city feels looks better than the actual graffiti.

Man, this article is outageous. Scribble Jam is so much more than what these people are trying to li about.

I don't know anymore, maybe we are better off killing ourselves with somebody like this in charge. Thank God she has no real power.

scionlife

Yeah, there is a HUGE difference between urban art and graffiti. Gangs tag to mark turf, kids tag because they are trying to rebel. Real urban artists respect the boundaries and are "using their power for good", so to say.

I can understand her frustration, but it isn't right to go after the sponsor of an art event for unrelated vandalism.

cherryBox

I would like to see Linda Holterhoff saddled with the burden of proof. I'm pretty sure that tagging would not disappear if Scribble Jam went away.