Origins of Greatness: The View from My Bathroom Window

I’m not one to make a big deal about art imitating life, but I must confess my admiration for those idiotic, ill-conceived, poorly executed attempts at self expression that unintentionally breach the realm of inspired genius.

Behind my apartment building, just beyond the narrow parking lot, stands a modest wall bearing graffiti that is both hilarious and tragic all in a single viewing. My girlfriend and I affectionately refer to this as the “VNG, Fack You, Thug Life” wall.

There’s a lot more going on here than you may realize at first glance. If you look closely enough at this wall, the graffiti reveals a story, told chronologically from left to right. I’ll break it down into seven simple steps.

(1) Somebody comes across an untagged wall and decides to claim this shitty, narrow parking lot behind a row of aging apartment buildings as gang territory. “VNG XIV”, he writes in red. Naturally, the entire neighborhood is impressed. All the ladies want to suck this guy’s cock.

(2) Later, a second tagger comes along and scribbles out the first tagger’s gang markings. Because this individual uses black paint, he will be referred to as the “Black Paint Tagger”.

(3) The Black Paint Tagger scrawls “Fack You” on the wall.

(4) The Black Paint Tagger decides that his pronoun usage is too ambiguous, and thus attempts to clarify his statement by drawing an arrow that points toward the scribbled out gang markings. “I’m not saying ‘fack you’ to the neighborhood as a whole,” the Black Paint Tagger seems to be saying. “My statement is directed only at the person who tagged on this wall before I did.” Communication is key.

(5) The Black Paint Tagger, feeling that “<== Fack You" isn't enough to fully convey his message, steps slightly to the right and jots down the phrase, "THUG LIFE". Notably, deceased rapper Tupac Shakur had "Thug Life" tattooed on his stomach, and he just barely pulled this off because he was one of the greatest rappers of all time. The Black Paint Tagger, on the other hand, somehow transcends the cringe-worthy lameness of this hackneyed phrase and lades it with brilliant rhetorical landmines that explode in a tangled cacophony of life-altering mindgasms.

(6) The Black Paint Tagger garnishes his creation with with some odd looking hieroglyphics, which he ultimately deems unreadable before he scribbles over them. Through this process, he has, unavoidably, partially dissed himself.

(7) A friend of the Black Paint Tagger approaches from behind and aptly points out that the F-word has been misspelled. Dismissively, the Black Paint Tagger makes a halfhearted effort to convert the “a” in “Fack” into a “u”.

And thus was born the “VNG, Fack You, Thug Life” wall. The world has never been the same since. Frankly, I don’t want to live in a world where this wall doesn’t exist.