TINY ARMY OF WORKERS OUTRUNS TAGGERS.Byline: Dennis McCarthy Dennis McCarthy may refer to:
PANORAMA CITY - You ask Lefty Blasco, Walt Schulte Schulte may refer to:
turf In horticulture, the surface layer of soil with its matted, dense vegetation, usually grasses grown for ornamental or recreational use. war they'll never win, and they give you the best answer in the world. Because this is where they live, the men say. It's as simple as that. You fight for what's yours. So every Saturday and Sunday morning Sunday Morning may refer to:
n. 1. a. A blast of air or steam carrying sand at high velocity to etch glass or to clean stone or metal surfaces. b. A machine used to apply such a blast. 2. and paint to do battle with two generations of this city's graffiti graffiti Form of visual communication, usually illegal, involving the unauthorized marking of public space by an individual or group. Technically the term applies to designs scratched through a layer of paint or plaster, but its meaning has been extended to other markings. taggers. Whatever the taggers put up, Lefty and the boys take down. Because this is where they live. It's as simple as that. You only have to drive the streets of Panorama City, Van Nuys, Arleta, and parts of North Hills and Sherman Oaks to see who's winning this turf war. Lefty and the boys. Hands down. You don't see nearly as much graffiti covering walls and fences in those communities as you did before the Panorama City Graffiti Busters This is a list of Busters from the manga Beet the Vandel Buster. The Beet Warriors Beet Beet is a young boy who has always desired to be the strongest Buster. He aspires to be like his heroes, the Zenon Warriors, who are known as the strongest of all Busters. hit the streets for the first time nearly 14 years ago. Local businesses, officials and the Mid Valley Chamber of Commerce, which sponsors the graffiti busters, estimate graffiti is down as much as 90 percent in their areas. Not because the taggers aren't tagging anymore, but because the graffiti busters are taking it down almost as fast as it goes up. ``Those guys are incredible,'' says Nancy Hoffman, chief executive of the Mid Valley Chamber. ``They don't quit.'' How can they, Lefty and the boys say? They still live here. More than 300 people showed up at that first community meeting in early 1987 to see what could be done about the rise in graffiti in their neighborhoods. ``Sixty people from that first meeting signed up to help,'' Lefty said Saturday morning, hooking the group's sandblaster up to the back of his truck. ``Three of us are left.'' They've been joined in recent years by Guy Dionne, who supervises the court-ordered workers who help the graffiti busters on weekends, and Gail Lippner, whom the guys met out in the community planting trees. ``They wanted to know if I wanted to join them,'' Gail said. ``That was three years ago, and I'm still at it every weekend.'' About six months ago, Ed Cauf and his trash truck came aboard, too. That makes six graffiti/trash busters and a few dozen court-ordered workers going up against a few hundred gang members tagging walls and fences in those communities. It hasn't been a fair fight. The taggers don't know Don't know (DK, DKed) "Don't know the trade." A Street expression used whenever one party lacks knowledge of a trade or receives conflicting instructions from the other party. what hit them. Lefty pulls his truck into his driveway Monday morning and grabs his clipboard A reserved section of memory that is used as a temporary holding area for data that is copied or moved from one application to another using the copy and paste and cut and paste (move) menu options. Each time you transfer something into the clipboard, the previous contents are deleted. . He's found half a dozen new graffiti hits in the area just since Sunday night Sunday Night, later named Michelob Presents Night Music, was an NBC late-night television show which aired for two seasons between 1988 and 1990 as a showcase for jazz and eclectic musical artists. , and he's made a note of them for immediate sandblasting Sandblasting or bead blasting[1] is a generic term for the process of smoothing, shaping and cleaning a hard surface by forcing solid particles across that surface at high speeds; the effect is similar to that of using sandpaper, but provides a more even finish . ``A lot of the old gangs are gone, replaced by new ones with new names to tag on tag on Verb to add at the end of something: a throwaway remark, tagged on at the end of a casual conversation Verb 1. the walls,'' he says. ``We're dealing with a lot of second- generation taggers now.'' It's taken them a lot of years of sandblasting and painting to get ahead of the graffiti curve, says Walt, who was one of the first to sign up to help back in 1987. ``I had been complaining so much that I had to sign up,'' he said, laughing. But like Lefty and Frank, Walt never figured he'd still be fighting this turf war almost 14 years later. ``It was tough at the beginning because there weren't any court workers to help - it was just us,'' Walt says. ``We weren't putting a dent in it. ``But as the years progressed, we began to see less and less graffiti because we were staying ahead of the taggers and getting it down as soon as we noticed it was up.'' It would be easy to overlook the incredible job these men have been doing because you only think about graffiti when you see it, not when you don't. So don't be fooled. The taggers haven't stopped tagging. The busters have just been busting more and faster. ``If we quit for a month, you wouldn't see a wall in our area without tagging on it,'' Lefty says. ``If we quit for a week, we'd never catch up.'' So the Panorama City Graffiti Busters just keep going, waging a turf war they know they can't win, but one they can't afford to quit fighting, either. Because this is where they live. It's as simple as that. CAPTION(S): photo Photo: Graffiti taggers don't stand a chance with, from left, Walt Schulte, Lefty Blasco, Ed Kauf, Frank Jones, Guy Dionne and Gail Lippner sandblasting and painting over their illegal ``art.'' John Lazar/Staff Photographer |
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