Tao

I went to a theme park yesterday. I hate the plasticity and forced fun of theme parks. Being strapped into a contraption that moves too fast or too slow doesn't scare me and it doesn't make me sick. I almost wish it did, because then waiting four hours to ride the Big Fat Whatever would actually be fun. The most fun I had the whole day was carving my name into the fiberglass seats I chained myself into.

When we left the park, my family and I went to Concord for dinner at some place called Margaritas. It was Mexican food, in the sense of deaf people singing and the restaurant used to be a jailhouse, so some of the booths were jail cells.

Anyway, I promptly ditched my family to take a walk around Concord, the capital of New Hampshire. I started taking pictures of street art that was everywhere. Behind a fancy restaurant, a waiter was smoking. He watched me bound, literally bounce, up to a wall of sticker graffiti.

Graffiti turns me on. I mean, when I was watching the Departed, I noticed graffiti and wanted to travel to Boston just to see it for myself, if it's even not still there. It doesn't matter if it's just scribbles or an entire mural or just a sticker, I love it.

I one day realized I was just getting excited about art, nothing more. That made me happier. Graffiti is just different from what's hanging in a gallery. It's free, in multiple senses of the word. It's not following some curator's rules and it is done by people just like me. More importantly, it is done by people nothing like me. I experience so much and take in so much from it. It's far from an eyesore, it's eye candy.

It is the most pure and amazing type of art.

Anyway, as I was snapping this picture, the waiter asked what I was up to. I told him about my obsession with street art and he smiled. Said he used to be into that kind of shit too. He said he personally hated the sticker variety because it was so easy to do. I wanted to refute that the message is more important than the medium, but I bit my tongue.

He told me the best place to find some street art. I grinned and shook his hand and before I ran off, I asked his name. Tao, he said.

I found the place he was talking about. I climbed up onto the roof of an abandoned thrift store to get the shot I wanted. I was expecting beautiful, colorful murals, but what I discovered wasn't much. It's entirely possible that Tao did them himself, but they weren't bad. Still, I was loving many of the stickers I found. I adored exploring the city. Getting lost. Becoming one with the pavement and surrounded by people.

I still appreciated Tao's directions. I like strangers. They can be wonderful.

I returned to my family and ate crappy Hispanic food, but didn't tell them where I went. It was my secret.