Poland dundalk heaven

[above] mural graffiti street art found 2017 in Baltimore, Maryland, that depicts these decipherable alphanumerics: Poland dundalk heaven
[ americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan ]

haiku 2 May 2018

Bathed in morning light
Part horse yet also part fish
A golden wonder

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

on reducing stress

There’s a disc golf course in Montebello Park, Baltimore City, MD. I go there at 5pm, after a day’s work, to throw plastic. I find disc golf to be a cheap way to get exercise, hone my skills, challenge myself, and practice patience.

Until the past weekend, however, the path I took to bicycle there lead through gang-controlled neighborhoods and busy intersections. I’d arrive at the park agitated and stressed out from not only trying to avoid aggressive, distracted, and inconsiderate drivers but also worrying about drug-dealer hostility. Hence, my disc golf game suffered, and my peace of mind was compromised.

After consulting with a psychiatrist, I have decided to take a new route, one that skirts the rough areas and the hurtling, gasoline-powered, one-ton, steel battering rams driven by people ignoring their surroundings in favor of looking at their mobile phones. In terms of distance travelled, the new route is actually shorter than the old one, with fewer hills. Now, when I step up to tee off, my my anxiety levels low and I can disco stress-free, and contented.

americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan

a standard response

Whilst waging war bodily against the false but deeply entrenched Baltimorean idea that pedestrians do not enjoy the right-of-way while crossing a road using a crosswalk, I have had this standard response hurled frequently my way:

“Get the fuck out of the road, dumbass.”

Regardless of his apparent social or economic class, these tend to be the first words from a driver’s lips when forced (by nothing but my raised hand) to abide by the laws of the state of Maryland and bring his gasoline-powered steel battering-ram to a halt using slight pressure applied to a hinged pedal by one of his feet so as to avoid running headlong into a foot-mobile fellow citizen who is seeking to gain lawfully the other side of a roadway. To protect myself in the event of someone violently violating my pedestrian rights in a premeditated fashion, I have taken to using my cellphone to capture video of oncoming vehicles while negotiating a crosswalk, which seems to have the desired effect of forcing drivers to stop. Otherwise, few people operating automobiles appear to find anything wrong with driving in such a manner as to barely miss hitting me as they race toward the next group of cars stopped at the next red light.

Among the worst offenders are Baltimore city police officers, who as a whole don’t seem to mind breaking state law §21-502, which is but one among many of the laws they swore a sacred oath to uphold.

americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan

car v. ped

Among the duties of citizens working for police departments is to set the example for how their neighbors ought to behave. With this in mind, here are some modified rules for operating a motor vehicle in the city of Baltimore, Maryland. (The author has personally witnessed Baltimore police officers break these laws operate according to these modified rules.)


Ignore crosswalks. It doesn’t matter if children are trying to cross the road or there’s traffic stopped at a red light ahead - if you’re in a car, you have the power to crush any living human being. Use that power to intimidate pedestrians into leaping backward out of your way. Both Maryland and Baltimore laws require drivers to yield to pedestrians who are trying to walk across a road in marked or unmarked crosswalks. Fuck those laws.

Ignore road markings. If you’re in a car, feel free to use any lane, including bicycle-only lanes. Also, feel free to cross double yellow lines and veer into oncoming traffic to avoid slowing down - even for a fraction of a second.

Ignore stop signs. As long as you’re marginally confident that no one else is coming and you’re the only person driving that day, don’t come to a full stop at a stop sign. Coasting through a stop sign is as good as fully stopping. The cops do it - why shouldn’t you?!

Don’t use turn signals. If other people can’t read your mind or accurately guess what you’re about to do before you do it, they shouldn’t be out on the road. Also, don’t put on your hazard lights when double-parked - cause a traffic jam by just sitting there.

Turn your headlights on only at night. Using daytime running lights reduces the risk of getting in an accident significantly. Fuck those statistics. Flicking one knob, once, with your left hand, is simply too much work.

Park wherever you like. If this means blocking a marked crosswalk or the entrance to a shopping plaza so you can go and get a soda on a hot day, do it. Pedestrians have legs and can walk around your illegally parked vehicle, and other drivers can hurry up and wait while you do your business.


Fit in by following these modified rules. Drive it like you stole it, and don’t slow down for nothing.

(This is a work of satire. Please educate yourself about your state’s laws regarding the rights of pedestrians in a crosswalk. Follow those and other pertinent traffic laws. The author is a defender of the rights of pedestrians; he regularly puts his healthy and safety on the line assisting others to cross roads safely.)

americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan

on gathering graffiti - bicycling in dangerous neighborhoods edition

Among the most dangerous places I’ve ever visited while searching for street art have been in Baltimore, Maryland. There are few other cities in the world compared to Baltimore where things go from fancy to fucked-up as quickly, first super safe then scared shitless from one block to the next. For anyone whose hobby includes combing city streets on a bicycle in search of stickers glued to and posters pasted up in dirty and dangerous places, here are three simple tips on how to stay alive and well whilst gathering graff.

1. Make eye contact with people, and greet them. Do this always, especially in dark and lonely places. Many gangsters operate on the basis of honor, and looking them in the eye and saying hello to them is an honorable act that rarely fails to calm situations. (Don’t expect them to say hello back, however; not getting shanked or shot at should be validation enough.) Greeting people lets them know that you know they’re there; it shows them that you respect their presence and are not afraid of them or anyone they may be with. If you bicycle around a corner and surprise a group of people, raising a hand in greeting (with two fingers making a V, for victory) and saying a kind word should ease tensions and allay fears.

2. KMA - Keep moving, always. Don’t linger, loiter, stay on one block without moving for too long, or appear lost. If this means backtracking a block or two until you can shoot across a road or bicycling up on the sidewalk to avoid a traffic snarl, do it (just go slowly around pedestrians). If you see some graffiti and want to stop to take a picture of it, check that the picture is well centered and not blurry, then keep moving. The entire process should take fewer than 30 seconds, rarely enough time for someone to approach or harass you.

3. Make a fool of yourself. Bicycle no-handed, pull wheelies, whistle or shout loudly, and generally look like you’re having a grand olde time. White dudes on bicycles wearing helmets and burning lights fore and aft are usually the police. But the police usually don’t pull tricks, and they’re definitely not out to have a good time. Nearly every potentially sticky encounter I’ve had of late was defused by me letting go of the handlebars and lazily cruising by whoever looked like they wanted to hurt me (while giving them a last-minute nod and V, of course).

There are few better ways to hunt street art than on a bicycle. By following the three simple rules mentioned above, you’ll hopefully stay safe and gather graff for many years to come. Mahaloalowa!

americanifesto / JPR / whorphan / 場黑麥

on trucks, ravens, and NOTW

Recently, while going somewhere atop my velocipede, I was passed by a pickup-truck driven by a solitary individual. Affixed to the back of this vehicle were two stickers, one reading “Ravens – Relentless,” the other, “NOTW.” While it will not shock this website's regular readers that I am once again writing about the idiocy of the loose affiliation of non-earth-bound, religiously-fanatical individuals who see themselves as being Not Of This World (NOTW), the dichotomy of the aforementioned stickers was, at the time, quite striking.

For starters, Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary from 1961 defines relentless as: “Mercilessly harsh, stern.” If anything is to be gleaned from the teachings of Yeshua (also known as Iesu, or Jesus), it is that one should – always, and without fail – be compassionate toward others, and that one should honor and love others as one would honor and love oneself. The teachings of this wise man focus, perhaps more than on anything else, on becoming a merciful and generous person whose only wish is to serve the lowly, to assist the meek, and to aid the disenfranchised. According to the Christian bible, the only time that this Yeshua acted in a truly harsh or stern fashion was when he drove – by whipping them with chains – money-lenders from temple in a brazen (yet obviously unsuccessful) attempt to rid faith of finance.

Next, the compassionate individual cares for the Earth and for Nature; he wishes to shelter and to promote the growing and the teeming things, no matter their size, shape, or color; the last thing that the true believer in the message of Yeshua would do would be to burn crude oil in an unnecessarily large (and lifted, or modified to ride higher and with inferior aerodynamics) truck by driving himself around the countryside in his two-ton vehicle at high speeds, to mow through clouds of insects, crushing them against the front of his car, or to live in such as way as to make any form of driving a (supposed) necessity. The last thing he would do would be to allow himself to become so engrossed in a foreign-born game that he would go out and purchase a sticker for his car instead of using that money to support efforts aimed at environmental conservation and the preservation of the myriad species.

And, finally, the true believer in Yeshua's message would not to spend his time watching, discussing, thinking on, or musing about the intricate details of such a decidedly earth-bound and petty thing as American football – the true believer would spend his time discussing, thinking on, and musing about how best to give to the poor, to help the needy, to uplift the downtrodden, and to live in such a way as to cause as little negative impact as possible to the health of this, our only planet.

To attempt to love Yeshua, football, and pickup-trucks at the same time is akin to trying to walk while sitting and standing; please, dear friends, remember the lessons of humility and mercy, and cast aside the creeping doubt of relentless and unbridled passion.

場黑麥 mentiri factorem fecit