a bird, apparently

[above] sticker graffiti street art found 2017 in Fishtown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, that depicts an appealing cartoon bird and these decipherable alphanumerics: goest
[ americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan ]

haiku 11 Oct 2018

There is tons of hype
Around versatile graphene.
The stuff knows no bounds

[ americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan ]

esh x arc

sticker graffiti street art found 2016 in Boston, MA, that depicts crossed arrows, two snarling wolves, a necklace, and these decipherable alphanumerics: esh arc
[ americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan ]

spie stacks spie

sticker graffiti street art found 2016 in Boston, MA, that features these decipherable alphanumerics: spie spie stacks spie; hello my name is
[ americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan ]

tiger tentacle trainwreck

sticker graffiti street art found 2016 in Boston, MA, that depicts a tiger cub, grasping green tentacles, an old-fashioned scroll, and these decipherable alphanumerics: trainwreck
[ americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan ]

house of slaine by @belowpovertylevel @slainesworld

sticker graffiti street art [by artists @belowpovertylevel @slainesworld] found 2016 in Boston, MA, that depicts a three-leafed clover and these decipherable alphanumerics: bpla below poverty level Los Angeles; house of slaine; Boston
[ americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan ]

dirty dek cactus

sticker graffiti street art found 2016 in Boston, MA, that depicts a cycloptic and moustachioed cactus as well as these decipherable alphanumerics: dirty dek
[ americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan ]

paparazzi air fight

sticker graffiti street art found 2016 in Boston, MA, that depicts a man with dreadlocks jumping and these decipherable alphanumerics: paparazzi; fight
[ americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan ]

2em 2em

mural graffiti street art found 2016 in Los Angeles, CA, that appears to feature these decipherable alphanumerics: 2em 2em; ufor; bout2

[ americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan ]

a terrifying visage

sticker graffiti street art found 2016 in Los Angeles, CA, that depicts an hirsute demonic male face that has horns, an occluded third eye, flippers or gills, fangs, and a protruding tongue

sway the vote

“It’s an eyesore, a blight on our city, which not many of our citizens enjoy,” said an older council member who’d received a handful of complaints from his affluent neighbors. “Therefore, I propose we keep allocating funds to get rid of it.” A few of his younger colleagues knew that it drew people to the city and gave it an authentic and inimitable character. They disagreed with him, but there were too few of them to sway the vote.

And, so, New York City joined a thousand other municipalities across the United States and fitted out squads of workers with paint rollers and long-handled scrapers. They loosed the workers on up-and-coming parts of town, giving them license to paint over, deface, scrape off, and otherwise remove the vast collections of street art that had theretofore covered otherwise blank and underutilized street poles. The workers attacked ten thousand and one unique examples of cunning artistic expression deemed mere trash by a group of disconnected bureaucrats who cared not for the creative potency of Big Apple denizens.

The workers scraped and sprayed and rollered, destroying countless pieces of the city’s unique cultural heritage. Adding insult to injury, the city council had not even had the decency, poise, or foresight to at least take pictures of said priceless works of art before having them trashed. In the wake of the art desecration squads, the city lay bare, raped of its color, efficiently monetized, franchised, and sterilized for the benefit of profits-hungry corporations. New York City’s street-side art museums are dying at the hands of her elected officials, and the world is a less beautiful place for it.

americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan

approaching 7 figures

Los Angeles, CA 28 July 2015

Shirleigh Ratchthwana, former war-crimes prosecutor and current head of Public Relations for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), denounced today the destruction of priceless cultural artifacts within a stone's throw of the museum's main entrance. “We regularly watch as groups of vandals deputized to their duty by the City of Los Angles (City) strip layers of art from our town's various walls, sign-posts, and switching boxes – daily and without relent. Examples of this art include stickers en collage or solo, pasted-up paper pieces, and those that are sprayed-on. By its actions and those of its deputies, City demonstrates an alarming lack of appreciation for such art as it presides over, regardless if that art should hang in a gallery or on a street corner.” Art that happens to be located in public, or street art, is created by daring and talented individuals who risk fines and abuse if caught in the act of application. Pieces by the most famous modern graffitos can fetch sums approaching 7 figures. Fundamentally human in its chaotic and spontaneous nature, street art – graffiti – is one of mankind's oldest documented yet least hallowed forms of artistic expression. Whether in the walls of Teotihuacan and Giza or the ruins of Stonehenge and Sumer, the scratches and scribbles of a million faceless graffiti-writers bridge the gaps of time.

“We stand now witness to a great extinction,” said Dr. Horatio B. Gherrt, professor of art history at Harvard's Schoullenbarg School for Contemporary Art. “This extinction, however, this mass die-off, is not of beast but of beauty, not of aardvark or antelope but of art itself. A solitary artist working by herself would take months – even years, or never – to create such pieces of perfectly blended chaos, such though-evoking combinations of logo, typeface, cultural icon, and slogan – old and new, obscure and obvious, crude and tender. Yet such collages spring into being on otherwise unadorned and publicly-accessible spaces virtually overnight and completely free of charge to the city, which then expends resources to scrape them down or cover them in dull, gray paint.”

With municipalities across the world continuing to criminalize the application of street art and refusing to recognize its value and beauty, the future still looks bleak for artists who follow the ancient human urge to mark their passage with note or scrawl (but without a by-your-leave). “So long as there are people, there will be graffiti,” said Ms. Ratchthwana. “Instead of simply destroying things they don't understand, we hope that City leaders will soon treat street art as they would treat a Van Gogh painting or Ming-era vase – as part and parcel of mankind's cherished cultural legacy, something that deserves to be protected.” City declined to comment for this article.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

Grigovia preserves past

Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, Franz Kafka, and Hunter S. Thompson are but a few of the authors who slept at the Faraway Home for Travelers in downtown Grig. For the last 150 years, the three-story structure on the north shore of the Yalung River has sat wedged between an abandoned brick factory and a defunct dirigible manufacturer. Growing interest and trade in the Glorious Republic of Grigovia's vast reserves of lithium and other rare-earth minerals has allowed this landlocked Central Asian nation to skirt the worst of the ongoing global recession and to sink large sums of money into improving the lot of its citizens. As part of a neighborhood revitalization project that has included purchasing the Statue of Liberty from a tyrannical U.S. federal government, Grig's city planners have decided to expand the footprint of the Faraway House for Travelers and turn it into a national monument. The first and second floors of the adjacent brick factory to its west will become additional dormitories as well as workshops and living quarters for local artisans, and the roof – all 4 square city blocks of it – will be converted to green-space complete with groves of trees, meandering walking paths, and wilderness areas set aside for local weeds and plants. A portion of the cavernous interior of the dirigible hall to its east will be strung with zip-lines, and a climbing wall will grace the entire 5-story expanse of that building's southern wall. Additionally, there will be an archery tunnel, a paper airplane launching platform, numerous sitting and viewing perches, and a green roof reserved for persons seeking to exercise their Liberty (do a bunch of drugs) while watching the setting sun grace the majestic spires of the Yiptlong massif to the north. The Faraway Home itself will be completely overhauled inside and out (while preserving any priceless graffiti left behind by its illustrious former inhabitants), wired with an encrypted T-1 data connection, outfitted with a enough solar panels to make it nearly self-sufficient, and staffed by friendly and accommodating multi-lingual Grigovians versed in self-defense, first aid, and the art of hangover elimination. If you are looking for a place to let loose, love Liberty, and languish luxuriously, Grig's own Faraway Home for Travelers is the place for you. Please, come soon. For more information visit farawayhomeingrig.gv.

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥

on UNUBG

Have you seen on television United Nations soldiers standing around in hot, impoverished places with blue helmets on their heads? Have you ever wished you could shake the hands of these bored-looking people and thank them for their service? If so, keep an eye out in your own neighborhood for a member of the United Nation's Urban Beautification Group (UNUBG), which is a loose affiliation of self-directed urban beautification specialists (SDUBS) licensed under a mandate from the U.N. Special Assembly for the Perpetration and Preservation of Street Art (SAPPSA) to apply their graffiti on any otherwise unadorned and drab-looking public surface.

You will identify these SDUBS by their patented blue UN windbreakers and by a rambunctious spirit common among today's young people. But act quickly, because the SDUBS who are executing Operation Coverall (OPCOV) in cities and towns across the globe are wily and suspicious individuals who strike hard and fade away into the night. This is the first graffiti campaign to be waged by an international body; it is the most aggressive and best-financed street art campaign ever launched, to date. Authorized last year by an executive mandate signed by Ban Ki Moon himself, OPCOV has been criticized by civic leaders and property-owners alike, who claim that the action infringes upon their right to own and to erect structures of boring and repetitive design.

Supreme Leader Moon says that he mistakenly authorized Operation Coverall when he signed a document that he thought was a birthday card for a niece. He claims to have never before heard of SDUBS, or of graffiti.

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥

on quartering artists

Throughout the ages, Grig has attracted all types of artists. From dreamer and schemer to musician and entertainer, clown and pickpocket to acrobat and whore, visionaries from all walks of life have made this city their home. Some came to gaze upon the towering spires of the Yiptlong massif, others to exploit the skills of local craftsmen, but anyone who was ever here yearns above all else to bask once more in the generosity of the local inhabitants. Glad to share freely of their hearty food and strong czabtyip wine, Grigovians support unfettered artistic expression by participating in a privately-operated lottery. (5% of revenues cover the lottery's operating costs; the rest is used to maintain live-work galleries that for centuries have lined the foothills east of the Yalung River.) Among the artists to have made names for themselves here are Albrecht Dürer, Felix Mendelsohn, Lewis Carrol (who taught briefly at the Academy of Mathematical Computation), Salvador Dali, Earnest Hemingway, Tom Wolfe, Hunter S. Thompson, and Quwvin Olyast. (In 1914, in Pyltagrad, Quwvin founded a commune for artists and their families. Shortly after the Second World War, he organized and presided over the first Artists' Congress, which provided art-based shell shock treatment to soldiers returning from war and organized the world's first Artists' Support Society [ASS], a group that still provides talented people with the tools they need to be creative.)

In line with the ancient traditions, today's Grigovian artist is painter and sculptor, poet and carpenter, urban survivalist and compassionate philanthropist. He is a Consummate Caleb, not a One Track Jack. He is as comfortable in a graffiti-stained sewer as he is in a fine Parisian salon; his tools are spray-can and chisel, pencil and computer mouse, papier mâché and fluorescent bacteria; he accepts challenges both daunting and laughable, exploring society's weak points by shaking it to its core. His is a world where private behavior is unregulated but the boundaries of public behavior are clearly defined, where the default emotional state is quiet humility, and where few quarrels occur because everyone is armed.

The Nonnia Olyast Work-Live Gallery Block is named for Quwvin's wife, who shortly after her death was declared a national heroine for her efforts to cure homelessness. In addition to funds from the national lottery, the new Block is partly financed by princess-in-exile Thallandia Yündlennd and her fiancé, Reginald Augustus Steele. Now 24 years old, the princess studies mechanical engineering in Los Angeles, at the University of California. On an early-morning bicycle ride from Little Tokyo via Sunset up into Hollywood (i.e. the Ord Run), she met Mr. Steele, who is considered by prudent observers to be somewhat of a loose cannon, although he is a talented artist and good with kids. In an official statement from the Artists' Support Society, Grigovia is now a safe haven for any artist who has ever been abused, neglected, or under-appreciated. Come and all, make beauty wall.

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥

graffiti removal team warned in court

In county court today, seventeen members of a graffiti removal team were charged with destroying and defacing public property. Seen to be armed with metal-scraper-tipped poles, the individuals were witnessed poking at and otherwise leaving large and prominent scratches upon dozens of utility and traffic-signal poles throughout the greater Los Angeles area (LA). In their defense, the accused stated that they had been hired to remove accumulations of stickers, wheat-paste posters, and other street art, and that the scratches were merely a byproduct of their lawful efforts. Judge Geisternand, presiding, allowed as evidence tapes from cameras operated by the city's Department of Transportation (LADoT) that had filmed inadvertently at least eight of the seventeen individuals using paint-brush-tipped broom-sticks to paint a great number of poles with layer upon layer of a light-gray paint so thoroughly underwhelming as to cause passing drivers to fall asleep at the wheel. Pictures of the damage perpetrated by these Artwork Desecration Teams can be found at the LADoT's own website, under subsection Lunacy, by clicking the tab entitled Oh My What Have We Done.

When asked about the reasons why LA chooses to defile indiscriminately its very own precious and irretrievable works of art, the honorable K. D. Geisternand stated from among the darker recesses of her chambers: “How these people are allowed to deface and to destroy this city's street art; how they are paid to thoroughly scratch up previously untouched metal telephone poles; how they are sent out, in broad fucking daylight, to unceremoniously paint over some of the finest graffiti the world has ever seen; these things I do not understand.” The seventeen were released with a severe warning, but Judge Geisternand docked the graffiti removal teams' organizer, a company owned by the company formerly known as Halliburton, a surliberty of ten whorphans, and sentenced its executive officers to life without joy.

場黑麥 ioanni elymucampus fecit

on operation coverall

Have you ever seen on television footage of United Nations soldiers standing around in hot, impoverished places wearing blue helmets on their heads? Have you ever wished you could shake the hands of those brave and self-less people and thank them for their service? Keep an eye out in your neighborhood for members of the United Nations Urban Beautification Group (UNUBG), a loose affiliation of self-directed urban beautification specialists (SDUBS) licensed under a mandate from the U.N. Special Assembly for the Perpetration and Preservation of Street Art to apply their graffiti on any otherwise unadorned public surface.

You will identify these SDUBS by their patented blue UN windbreakers and by a rambunctious spirit uncommon to the youth of today. Be alert: they are executing Operation Coverall (OPCOV) in cities and towns across the globe. The first graffiti campaign to be waged by an international body, this shall be to date the most aggressive and best financed street art campaign ever launched. Authorized by an executive mandate signed personally by Ban Ki Moon, OPCOV has been criticized by civic leaders and property-owners alike, who claim the action infringes upon their right to own and to erect structures of boring and repetitive design. Supreme Leader Moon says that he may have mistakenly authorized Operation Coverall when he signed a document that he thought was a birthday card for his granddaughter – he claims to have never before heard of SDUBS, or of graffiti.

場黑麥 ioanni elymucampus fecit

encylopediamericanifesto - phaltworthiness

  The street art vagabond has sworn to preserve for Posterity the diversity of graffiti – it is her duty to capture, isolate, and upload photographs of any urban artwork she locates by bicycling or walking or skating around a city. Looking, however, does not always slake her thirst: in order to perpetuate the phenomenon of artwork that seems to appear suddenly on previously unadorned urban surfaces, and to prove her passage through the area, she leaves her unique mark, a hand-drawn image that serves as her Glyph of Personal Identification, her own meager tribute to the maddeningly prolific beautification campaign known as street art (or, alternately, as vandalism).

  The urban artist spends resources such as time and money on his efforts to fill the urban environment's many empty spaces with colorful and bizarre pictures; for his troubles he is hounded by police and harassed by them likewise. In addition to such acts of state-mandated repression, he suffers from repeated and chronic bouts of a newly classified condition known as phaltweariness (the individual suffering from this condition will commit frequent acts of frugality and self-sacrifice; his actions will reek of virtuous behavior; he will act not out of a desire to prove himself to another person, or to claim for himself glory, but because the majesty of the human spirit has rewarded his sacrifice of time and self by filling him with a transcendent vigor not seen since the dawn of humankind).

  No grasp as fleeting as that of Big Brother might contain, however, the inexorable and all-nullifying tempest that is Virtuous Action. The street art vagabond therefore who hurls without ado the bounty of her artistic labor upon the phaltscape's expectant canvasses while showcasing freely upon w³  her fellow street artists' work (where it shall be judged and ignored until all servers crash at once), she who does these things simply because they need doing, she who refuses to claim ownership over any part of the process, that street artist is phaltworthy – she acts for the good of the world by leaving well enough alone.

  Spes Mea In Ratio Est - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp

encyclopediamericanifesto entry - phaltweariness

  Phaltweariness is a state of fatigue caused by bicycling for many kilometers on sun-baked city streets. The phaltweary person is known to go to bed easily, to sleep well through the night, and to exhibit a healthy and flexible physique. People suffering from PW (the peedubs, the phaltweariness) will experience aching muscles, 1000 yard stares, and prolonged periods of wild-eyed, fundamental indifference.

  While any avid bicyclist will occasionally encounter PW, phaltweariness affects the street art vagabond in particular, that isolated individual who prowls the Earth's cities on foot or on bicycle taking pictures of street art and uploading those pictures to the available data networks. Although the forces of homogeneity and societal control look upon him with blatant mistrust, the street art vagabond labors to perpetuate and to preserve for posterity as digital photographs the beautiful diversity of posters, stickers, paintings, and other graffiti that constitute the global Street Art movement.

  Spes Mea In Ratio Est – 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp

federal browbeating, et al.

The events portrayed here are true. They have haunted me every day since they occurred. I find myself unconsciously running through the confrontation at random points throughout my days, repeating the things I said that kept me from being black-bagged and shipped off to Gitmo. This is a therapeutic writing to try to process them better, and more fully.

 The Thai Airways jet, on a direct flight from Bangkok to LAX, banks hard from the usual approach vector (with which I am well accustomed, having flown into El Peublo de nuestra Seniora la Reina de los Angeles many times), heading over Whirlywood, around Downtown, and approaching the airport from the east. The stewardesses are tense. The mood within has become hostile. We land well, all gears touching smoothly, nary a flutter along the big plane's long axis, and taxi for an unusual amount of time. It is nine fifteen in the evening, right on schedule. Sitting by the window, I can see our police escort, lights blazing, follow us to a darkened section of asphalt.
 For nearly an hour we sit. Roughly half of the passengers are south Asian. Elderly Indian women make frequent sorties to the restrooms, but any time a man unbuckles and rises from his seat, the stewardesses, thin, elegant Thai women, scream at him to sit back down. People begin to ask questions, demanding to know what is going on, requesting a reason for our unexpected and unexplained delay. I am near the rear of the aircraft, and have not used the restroom in nearly seven hours. Having purposefully dehydrated myself to cut down on disturbances to my neighbor, a somewhat rude older man whose English sounded a little too groomed, I am in considerable need of a good long piss. I get a funny feeling about my right cargo pocket (where I always keep a pen and at least one permanent marker), and reach inside to pull out my portable gaming device. A wave of enemy troops fall before my well-placed defenses, and I beat the level.
 Finally we begin to deplane. I thank the stewardesses on the way out, bowing to them and saying sawadee krap like a good boy who has learned his manners. Dozens of officials line the mobile staircase, asking each man as he passes to see his passport. "Are you Russian?" one agent asks me. I say no. A helicopter flares its rotors overhead. We pass through a phalanx of airport police, TSA agents, and people wearing FBI counter-terrorism jackets, to board buses that will hopefully take us to the distant terminals.
 I am in the back of the third and last bus to depart. My hair is long and bleached nearly blond from three weeks of sun and surf. My clothes, of which I only brought one pair, are ripped and stained with sweat. The tattoos on my arms and chest are clearly visible. My bag, a cheap Nike knockoff I bought in Chiang Mai, is also ripped. We are packed in tightly, with TSA agents sewn heavily amongst us. The men are hyper-aware, scanning faces, trying to figure out who is looking at whom, changing locations at times to get a better view of whomever they are trying to find. A man behind me asks when we will have the chance to use the bathrooms, as we were not allowed to on the plane, and as there are none on the bus. The TSA agents answer sporadically, sometimes not at all. Having no knowledge of what is going on, and knowing that asking questions to any type of law enforcement officer is a bad idea, I stand quietly wedged against a short man with bad breath and the window, and enter a semi-trance so as to pass the time and to control my need to void.
 After nearly another hour we are allowed to leave the bus and to enter a terminal building. Shouting agents direct us toward a bank of metal detectors, through which we pass, jostling with departing passengers eager to board their flights. More agents direct us through a maze of narrow hallways into a waiting area that has seen better days. As one of the last to enter, I have no seat, but I find a space against a wall where I stand at parade rest, my torn bag at my feet. I reenter the semi-trance, eyes fixed on the far wall, and do my own time, as they say in prison. FBI agents rush back and forth clutching clip-boards, normal looking, sometimes down-right unattractive people you would never be able to pick out of a crowd.
 A tall man with a hollow chest approaches me, sweating under his counter-terrorism wind-breaker. "Did you notice anyone acting strange on board? Was anyone visibly upset?" he asks me. "I can't say I did, sir," I respond. "Someone wrote a threat against the airline in one of the bathrooms," he says. "So I need to know if you saw anything suspicious." I tell him I was asleep most of the flight, and cannot say I did. He nods and walks away, and at that moment I realize that I am a suspect. The realization churns my innards, but the semi-trance holds, and I resume my patient waiting for whatever the fuck is going on to be over, but now I am seeing everything but looking at nothing, letting my peripheral vision do the work.
 A graceful, lithe female approaches from my right. I allow her to pass, then sneak a glance at her perfect ass. She talks with the agent with the hollow chest who approached me, and glances over as I am eye-fucking her through her immaculately tailored grey suit. "Would you come with me?" Hollow Chest says. "We need to ask you some additional questions." I am led to a sectioned-off area piled high with rows of discarded seating and introduced to a TSA agent whose name I will not here mention. He asks me about my life, about my travels in Thailand, about my primary source of income, about my activities on the flight, if I have ever had any military training, where and how often I went to the bathroom on the plane. I answer his questions, and we begin to chat amicably. The lithe female with the perfect ass walks over and says, "Where did you get those tattoos. Were you in the military?" I tell her I wasn't, but refrain from explaining why I have an American eagle and a Shield of the Union cut boldly into my left forearm. (It is because I love my country, and consider myself a patriot.) "Why are you so calm, and why were you standing against the wall like that," she asks. I explain that my father was a Navy man who taught me how to stand correctly, and how to act the gentleman. I also mention that, as an unofficial American ambassador to the Thai nation, I had been on my best behavior throughout the trip. "Oh, well, sweet tatts," she says condescendingly.
 "Do you have any writing instruments in your possession?" my TSA guardian asks. I remove me permanent marker and pens from my pocket. "Oh," he says upon seeing the marker. "Better sit down, get comfortable - this is going to take a while." The bathrooms are quite close by, but I decide not to ask to use them. He asks if I have had any trauma in my life recently, and I tell him that my father died not long ago. "You must still be pretty upset about that," he says. I refute this gently, but he does not seem convinced. Hollow Chest and an airport policeman walk over and ask me to follow them.
 Rounding the partition, I discover a sea of faces staring at me. Everyone who was on the plane, flight crew included, is staring at me, some with hatred in their eyes. Flanked by federal agents, I fix my gaze on a point at the far end of the long hallway and walk calmly and steadily down it. A door opens, and I am led into a large room. Two burly gentlemen sit along a far wall, elbows on knees, shooting daggers. "This way," someone says, and I enter a room with glass walls. Seven FBI counter-terrorism agents are waiting for me, including Lithe Female. I am instructed to sit at a cheap folding table.
 "This is federal property," Hollow Chest says. "This room is wired for recording, and we can search anything we want, here." "Fine by me," I say, sitting down. Since I have not yet passed through customs, I am in international waters, where I have few, if any, rights. I stay calm, controlling my breathing. Inside, my mind is utterly still, focused to a razor sharpness. Every second bears tremendous weight, and as the eight agents lean forward to stare at me, pens poised above their notepads, I remind myself that I have done nothing wrong.
 Hollow Chest introduces himself and another agent, a short, ugly man who looks like a Tolkien troll. I have to force myself not to laugh at the absurdity of the situation, at the comparisons my mind is making to every spy flick I have ever seen and their portrayals of coiffed and dashing agents grilling a suspect. "Do you have a camera?" Hollow Chest asks. I produce it, and as he is rifling through my saved images the trollish man asks me about which cities I visited in Thailand, with whom I associated, where I stayed, if I met any shady characters, and if I participated in any sort of military training. I answer truthfully while forcing myself not to look over at the three agents emptying my torn bag and fingering its seams.
 "You have a lot of pictures of graffiti and tagging in this camera," Hollow Chest says. "Thailand is full of amazing street art," I reply enthusiastically. "I never would have thought that there would be so much beautiful stuff there." My zeal bounces off their stony faces. "Have you ever done any tagging yourself?" he asks. I tell them I have not. "Are you willing to answer that under polygraph?" I answer that I will.
 "Well, the thing is, we have your customs declaration here, and, while we're not handwriting experts, we do see a fair bit of this sort of thing, and, again, we're going to have to run this past the handwriting guys, but the way you wrote the letters O and P on your customs form is very similar to the Os and Ps used to write the note," Hollow Chest says. "Again, we're not experts, but when the Os and Ps are similar, it pretty much indicates a match."
 "OK," I say, nodding, waiting for them to proceed. "Did he have any writing implements on him?" Hollow Chest says. Before I can answer, my TSA guardian produces my marker and hands it over. I can see the excitement in Hollow Chest's face. "So," he says, "we have the pictures of graffiti in your camera, and we have your marker, and we have the handwriting match on your customs declaration. It would be best for you to just get this over with now. If you admit to anything later on, it will be far worse for you. So you should probably just get it over with now." Variables flash through my mind, and I think, 'Shit, if I fuck up here, I'm looking at three to five in a maxsec federal prison. Just. Stay. Calm.'
 I nod and look around at the assembled agents leaning forward expectantly. Hollow Chest repeats himself, again telling me that I should just get it over with now before I reach a judge. "Look," I say, pointing at the items on the table, the camera and the marker and the form. "I realize that all these things probably indicate to you that I am somehow involved with the note..." Here I pause, for the agents have all perked up, straining to hear and thus indicating just how important is what I will say next. "That I am somehow involved in whatever happened on the plane, but I refuse to confess to a crime I did not commit."
 "That is your right, here in America," Hollow Chest says, thus enveloping me in the awesome and comforting blanket of Constitutional protections. "Will you repeat these statements under polygraph?"
 "Absolutely," I say. "I've been on a plane for sixteen hours, and my internal clock is way off sync, but if you need me to polygraph tomorrow morning, eight a.m., I'm there. I went to the bathroom once, just once, on the right side of the plane forward of my seat." "So you didn't go to the bathroom on the left side of the plane?" he says. "No, I did not. I didn't even set foot on the left side of the plane." I give him my seat number. "Sweep the bathroom for prints," I say. "You will find none of my prints in the bathroom where whatever happened occurred. You will find my prints in the bathroom nearest to my seat, on the right side of the plane."
 "Will you make these statements under polygraph?" he repeats. I again assert I will. Again he tells me to, "Just get it over with now." Again I tell him that I refuse to confess to a crime I did not commit. "As a matter of fact," I say, "take my marker. Run a chemical analysis on the ink in my marker against the ink used to write the note. You will find they are not a match." I slouch back in the chair and stare into the faces of the assembled feds, forcing my breathing back to normal, willing the rising anger to abate.
 "Well, we have your phone number, and we know where and for how long you are staying in LA, so, we'll be in touch," Hollow Chest says, rising to his feet. "Do you have a criminal record?" he says. I say I do not and rise also. "Thank you all for your time," I say politely as I turn to follow an agent back out into the waiting area. I take a seat next to an elderly Japanese gentleman. He looks at me and says, "What is going on?" "They think I am a terrorist," I say. He laughs so hard he shakes in his seat.
 I take a bottled water from a passing pushcart and, after a few minutes, walk with the rest of the passengers over to customs. While I am waiting in line, the unpleasant man who had sat next to me gives me a strange look from across the way, but then I am called to the customs desk, where a stone-faced agent dutifully stamps my passport. Having no checked luggage, I walk calmly through the baggage retrieval area, but, halfway to the exit, my TSA guardian, he whose name I will not mention, stops me short.
 "You don't have any checked baggage?" he asks suspiciously. "You're traveling alone, without checked baggage?" "I like to travel light," I say; "it cuts down on time and removes the likelihood of airline error." He attempts to engage me in conversation, but I have had enough, and keep my answers short. It is nearly one in the morning.
 I face no hassle at the customs desk, and exit into the main arrivals hall. After urinating for a glorious eternity, I make some calls (to my lawyer and to my arranged ride, who has long since gone back home), get money for a cab, and, just for good measure, check if the Flyaway bus to Westwood is still running (it is not). Sick of being followed around the airport by uniformed personnel, I jump in a cab, and speed into the night.

FIN.
p.s. If any agent of law enforcement tells you to confess, claiming that it would be better for you to, "Get it over with now rather than later," he or she is more than likely bluffing and wants you to sacrifice your rights and to send yourself to prison because he or she has no tangible evidence. Do not do this. Do not give up your rights. Ever. Educate yourself about your rights, and do not give the Man an inch, for He will surely take a mile.
p.p.s. I never received a call, and have not been questioned further.
Ultima Ratio Regum.
JPR