Mayor Bill White and Vice Mayor Pro-Tem and Council Member Sue Lovell have announced a new City of Houston Web site for citizens and organizations that want to fight graffiti in their neighborhoods. The site, www.houstontx.gov/graffiti, provides resources for abating, or painting over, graffiti. There is also information on government agencies and groups that provide positive alternatives to graffiti.

The main section of the site will list contact numbers and links to City of Houston departments, other governmental agencies and community organizations that work to abate graffiti. Citizens will also be able to participate in discussions about dealing with graffiti.

Citizens are encouraged to report graffiti by phone to 3-1-1. For more information, contact Lovell’s office at 832-393-3013 or by e-mail at atlarge2@cityofhouston.net.

Click here for more.

Our Babelgum channel launched today at www.babelgum.com/bombit!

To celebrate, I’ve put a new special on the store:  The Bomb It DVD and 20 Stickers for $14.95.

Already Babelgum has tons of new episodes up on the site – never before seen footage – Nunca, Os Gemeos,  Pez, Sixe, Shizentomotel, Wagner.  More coming in the next few days!

Let me know what you think.

Jon

By Ksenia Galouchko / Special to The Moscow Times

Heating units, which regulate heating in the city, can be found in most courtyards and are usually squat, drab, utilitarian buildings with little architectural value.

The only people attracted to the buildings seem to be the homeless and graffiti artists whose art work has never, until today, found favor with the energy companies who own the buildings.

If you look around the city, you can see more than 300 heating units covered in graffiti — official graffiti — as part of a festival organized by the city government and energy companies as they attempt to co-opt graffiti artists.

“At MOEC [Moscow United Energy Company], we were constantly faced by the issue of vandalism of our heating units: As soon as we would repaint over inappropriate images, new ones would appear,” said Rayfa Bitkova, the head of the company’s press center. “As a result, the idea of the festival was born.”

Click here for more.

By Alfredo Aleman, EGP Staff Writer

All around Los Angeles, murals can be readily seen on the walls of pharmacies, clothing stores and markets, usually depicting some sort of message to the community.

While artists may see the murals as cultural and artistic expressions, many of the businesses where the murals are located see the purpose of the murals differently. For many business owners the murals are a defense mechanism, a way to keep “taggers” and graffiti artists off their property.

And for the graffiti artists who venture off into the business of mural painting on private property, their business model is simple: get paid to keep the graffiti away.

Click here for more.

City’s graffiti clean-up detail averages 100 calls a week.

“I just consider it a national virus,” said William Wheel, looking out the window of his car.

Across the street, were white storage containers owned by Thompson Building Materials, surrounded by barbed wire fencing. But there weren’t just white, not any more: Graffiti had been scrawled over the outside of most of them, ranging from small tags done with markers to huge spray-painted names taller than a man.

San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Service Specialist Pam Balsitis walked around the containers, taking pictures of the markings with a digital camera and taking notes on a clipboard.

“It costs about $500 a piece [to clean up the graffiti], with the decals,” said Wheel, a property manager for the company. He estimates about half of the 65 storage containers were tagged, and said that the company’s insurance company won’t pay for the clean-up. “We’re a company that keeps their equipment in top style. … Mr. Thompson was quite irate.”

Click here for more.