Graffiti? At the Hult? Surely you jest.

Byline: Best of ... by The Register-Guard

Just as an animal pees in the corner to let you know he was there, so too does Kenny G write his name in big obnoxious letters on the backstage wall at the Hult Center.

But it wasn't Kenny G's moniker on the Silva Concert Hall wall that led us to crown it the indoor graffiti champ. It was the presence of true greats such as Red Skelton, B.B. King and David Byrne, who left his signature and dubbed the Silva "Best Rehearsal Hall Ever" in black Sharpie.

The Talking Heads, who rehearsed at the Hult from Nov. 26 to Nov. 29, 1983, in preparation for their national tour, apparently liked it there. So too did Bonnie Raitt's band, Mel Torme and Marilyn Horne, who helped christen the hall when it opened on Sept. 24, 1982.

"Whoopee," Horne announced in cursive, "I got to be here on the big night."

There are other signature walls in town; the now shuttered Wild Duck boasts a long backstage hallway with lots of autographs and the McDonald Theatre has been collecting signed tiles for a public wall in the theater lounge. But none of them comes close to the Silva, which pulls you in like a giant Jackson Pollack painting.

Untangling the different signatures, which are written in no particular order, takes time but it's worth it - especially if you're looking for hidden gems such as a joint John Hancock from Tom and Dick Smothers, a Marcel Marceau from February 1983 or the first message ever - penned by country singer Tommy Overstreet, who played a show for the construction workers on Sept. 21, 1982.

In many cases, the artists themselves weren't the ones doing the signing.

Kenny G probably did not draw his own soprano sax, and the Grateful Dead - apparently too messed up to sign anything when they played there in 1983 - had a member of the road crew leave behind a skull and lightning bolt. Eddie Money, Night Ranger and the Alvin Ailey dance company all made their mark with a stencil and some paint.

There are plenty of freehand doodlings, including an accordion (Myron Floren), an alligator (Bruce Cockburn), two shoes (Pat Boone) and a paw print (Eric Burdon and the Animals).

Oscar the Grouch signed his name after a performance of the `Sesame Street' production "Where's the Birdie," and the entire cast of Les Miserables signed the wall after their show was canceled Sept. 11, 2001; alongside are the words "Let Them Rest."

If the size of signature is, as we suspect, directly proportional to the size of the ego, Toto's big yellow signature and the Nylons' giant white sig are both cause for concern. And Kenny G's big purple, yellow and green "G" is seven times the size of Merle Haggard's two G's.

We still prefer the more modest Byrne, who wrote one more thing about the Hult in average-size letters:

"This must be the place."

Jasmine Trias is our favorite "American Idol" contestant. Best of ... is a weekly column. To access the Best of ... archive, go to www.registerguard.com/bestof.

BEST INDOOR

GRAFFITI WALL

Silva Concert Hall

Where: Hult Center, Seventh Avenue and Willamette Street

Can I see? To tour the Hult Center's indoor graffiti wall, call Support Hultcenter Operations at 682-5733

CAPTION(S):

Red Skelton and Pat Boone are among those who have signed on the backstage graffiti wall at the Hult Center.