Usually I think tagging is kinda stupid and egotistical, not the most creative form of expression, but this just makes me laugh. It’s an ad for the Coney Island hospital birthing center, and is translated to “We’re the one for birthing… visit the most modern birthing center in Brooklyn” (my Spanish isn’t actually that great, I’m using the English language version of the ad for reference). This photo was taken during a recent trip back home; it’s location is the Sheepshead Bay Road station of the B/Q train, which was basically my portal to the outside world during adolescence.

Like most people, I’ve had a love/hate relationship with my hometown over the years. Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn in the ’80s and ’90s nurtured me on scrunchy socks, hairspray, fast food (one particularly fond memory includes eating a bucket of popcorn chicken — then a recently-added menu option — at KFC on Nostrand Avenue one extremely humid August afternoon, and shortly thereafter puking my meal outside near the garbage can), litter, friends and family, but eventually it was time to move on. I wanna thank all the sexist, illiterate jerks in my neighborhood for providing sufficient reason to explore the world further, and also thank my friends for being fun, creative, and just ridiculous enough to keep me going.

I guess not all the illiterate jerks were that bad… some of them made cool graffiti.

Here is an awesome mural near the Gravesend/Neck Road train station, also photographed recently.

Hey, and if you think writing on ads is just plain vandalism, please consider Banksy’s take on the topic: “Brandalism: Any advertisement in public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It belongs to you. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.” Food for thought… not quite popcorn chicken, but close.