Borf

Walking around D.C. over the past year or so from time to time you'd see signs tagged with graffiti by someone named "Borf." Most of it was pretty lame stuff that would just say "Borf was here," typically on the back of a stop sign or something. Well, Borf has finally been caught, and a story in today's Washington Post reveals that -- shockingly-- he is just some left-wing teenage twit with rich parents.

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I really can't stand this type:

If you've seen Borf's graffiti -- the stencil of the little girl who holds a sign saying "Grownups are Obsolete" or the impish face that appears throughout the city -- you, too, might be wondering what Borf's message is. Once upon a time, Borf said, he was "just, like, some liberal, like anybody," but then he started reading, and found out he really wanted to be an anarchist. He decided he doesn't believe in the state, capitalism, private property, globalization. Most of all, he doesn't believe in adulthood, which he considers "boring" and "selling out."

"Growing up is giving up," he said. "I think some band said it."

Borf recently turned 18, a fact he revealed with hesitation because "I'm against age. It's just another way of dividing people." At least until recently, he lived at home -- where exactly he would never say -- and cut cardboard stencils on his parents' living room floor. He spoke sneeringly of "rich people," though sometimes when he parked in the city his parents gave him $14 for the garage.

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...He said in the spring that he'd been reading a book by the situationist Guy Debord "about modern capitalism" and "how the status quo is maintained and perpetuated by a series of spectacles." Borf often finished his graffiti early in the morning, just in time to see a spectacle he despises -- rush hour. "People all heading downtown," he said. "Like, it's ridiculous if you think about it. Like, Orwellian-ridiculous. And they do this with so-called free will."

His clothes are usually frumpy and speckled with paint, and the baseball cap covering his dark hair has a broken band . He is fond of phrases like: "Property is theft, as Prudhomme says." He labels the Cosi cafe chain "boojy" (for bourgeois) and despises Starbucks. ("Instead of police on every corner we have Starbucks on every corner," he says.) He thinks young people have it really bad. He hated high school, which is why he finished early, taking his last few courses online. It bothers him that those younger than 18 can't vote, "as much as I don't believe in voting or anything." He complained that folks in stores assume "all young people shoplift," and when he's reminded that he himself shoplifts spray paint, he says that's just more evidence of how messed up society is.

He said he was an activist long before he got into graffiti. The first protest he attended was against capitalism in September 2002. It's possible he would have been arrested if he'd gotten there on time, he said, but the protest was "too early."

The Post story also notes that in recent months that the amount of Borf graffiti had started to wane. Well, now we know why:

If you followed Borf graffiti carefully, and there are those in this city who did, you'd have noticed that he sort of disappeared in the last few months. That's because, according to Borf himself in past interviews, as well as his mother yesterday, he was traveling in Europe, stopping off in Scotland to protest the G-8 summit. He returned to the Washington area Monday, his mother says.

No doubt Borf paid for that trip himself. No, wait, that would require getting a job. I can't believe this idiot got a full page profile in today's Style section.