Hip Harold Is Lackadaisical

This was another find from First Fridays. Vaguely around his beloved dumpster, this was found scrawled on a building.

I don't even know what to say. Seriously. It's just kinda sad. I mean, just basic black lettering on some building that nobody probably even uses. Sometimes you'll be looking around and you'll see some really cool mural that someone did and put time into, or you'll see a stencil of some muppet character with the occasional "witty and mismatched" phrase (like a stencil of Oscar the Grouch saying "Women ain't nothin' but bitches and hos" or the like), and then there's Hip Harold.

He doesn't care. It's all about quantity over quality with this guy. He's just trying to tag himself into a reality show on MTV. He's the Wal-Mart of graffiti.

Seen on the side of a building on East 18th.

Hip Harold Still Likes Garbage

Imagine my surprise as I was perusing First Fridays when I came across this little gem. Once again, Hip Harold strikes a refuse bin. This seems to be a common theme with him. Perhaps he has low self-esteem, and sees himself as worthy of nothing greater than a trash bin? Or perhaps he feels that while other people are drawing angelic creatures and declaring themselves "CEOs" (of what I do not know, and more on this later) he feels crowded so he stakes out the trash bins. We can only speculate.

Oh, and I discovered that I hadn't been posting my pics as big as I could have been, so enjoy!

Seen on a dumpster at East 18th.

The Return Of The Spotted Angel (And Me)

Whew... it's been awhile, hasn't it? It's amazing what five classes, a part-time job, and a full-time job of graffiti-hunting can do for one's blog productivity. But I'm back, with new evidence of a growing trend of taggery.

This was seen on 39th street, in the area with Jazz, Minsky's, Jerusalem, another Middle Eastern restaurant presumably very pissed that the people in Jerusalem keep expanding (much like our problems in the real Jerusalem!). This is the last sighting of the Spotted Angel I've seen. What has happened? Did the Spotted Angel get captured? Did the hipster KCAI female (or effeminate male) graduate and move on to tagging in Savannah, St. Louis, Austin, or some other city now populated with yet another art student with no real world skills to get by?

We can only shudder and guess.

Seen on 39th street on the side of a building.

Hip Harold Loves Garbage

This was seen on a dumpster in front of an apartment building in Westport. It has a douchebag landlord that would be more willing to let a tenant out of a lease than fix the locks on the doors that was promised on move in. Also, a little bird told me that the tenants split the heat bill whether or not one person wants it hot or not thanks to one central unit.

Speaking of douchebags, many people in KC apparently think our friend Harold is one, at least according to this forum. And who can blame them? It's very rude to proclaim yourself hip, and even ruder to cost business owners money in order to tell this fact on the mountain. This is the only tag I've seen with the full "Hip Harold", but apparently he's all over downtown like homeless bums. Who knows, perhaps this "Hip Harold" will find his Javert, Lt. Gerard, or Batman?

Seen on West 36th Street.

An Angel Up On High

Forgive my crassness, but

what... the... fuck?

This isn't that great of a picture, but that's because I'm not crazy enough to go up the side of a building!!1! How did that even get up there?? What, is Spider-Man listening to Common and tagging up the city while reading Complex magazine or something?? Is there no shame, Spotted Angel? Must you taunt us mere humans, laughing at the fact that you have wings (and spots!) while we have poor American cars with bad gas mileage and greedy OPEC scumbags? Will you still be there when the world collapses like Al Gore predicted in "The Day After Tomorrow" fashion due in part to the ozone layer blowing up ?

...you scare me, Spotted Angel.

Seen on Broadway near the BP.

The Angel In The Ghetto

Seen on Linwood on the wrong side of Main. You know what I mean. Across the street from a Popeye's that smells like scrambled eggs 24/7 and on a condemned apartment building. This "Hip Harold" is outta control and off the chizzain.

This apartment building is a serious step up (or down) from the apartment building in the previous post. That building is otherwise fine aside from the screwed-up billing for heat and a landlord that is a servant of Satan. This building is straight-up closed to the non-heroin using public. The only tenants in this place are rats, roaches, and a homeless guy that carries around a mop he named Sally. It's also right next to a sketchy liquor store that is allegedly open 24/7/365 yet was robbed when no one was working. Apparently the guy working was watching a closed-circuit episode entitled "Do not stop for any reason in Linwood" and saw two extras from HBO's "The Wire" pulling a jack move in his store, so he called the cops and they had a little shootout, Killa City style. Why wasn't anyone working? Why would you skip work to watch a video of your empty store? Why doesn't Kansas City have it's own Batman, because she needs it?

These are mysteries, and Spotted Angel clearly isn't intimidated. The fact that s/he can cross that invisible barrier on Main that separates the "not especially great" area to the "worse" area, shows that s/he's apparently 10-feet tall with a pocketful of Kryptonite. And I ain't just talking about the slang for weed. (It's weed, right? I need to check Urban Dictionary.)

P.S. It is indeed "strong-ass weed". Superman has to be turning over in is grave.

Seen on Linwood near a sketchy-looking liquor store.

Concrete Is No Match For The Angel

Don't even ask me how the Spotted Angel got onto solid concrete. Was it futuretech? Wizardry? A stick and some wet cement? Nay, I think 'twere some awful concoction not meant for human eyes or ears. I just know that when I'm staring at the ground to ensure I don't trip and bust my face open, I don't want some smart-assed cartoon looking up at me flaunting their wings and ability to transform matter. I just don't.

Seen on the sidewalk at the corner of Valentine and Pennsylvania.