By Mario Barros (Lenguaviva)

(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries of The Somerville News belong solely to the authors of those commentaries and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville News, its staff or publishers.)

The positive feedback I got on a recent body modification article that I published in this paper has encouraged me to do two things: I’m getting my first tattoo (very soon, I promise), and I’m devoting a few lines to another type of drawing that I find equally inspiring: graffiti.

I have been a graffiti lover since I was a kid. I used to scribble all kinds of things on the walls of my Cuban high school and felt a huge adrenaline rush whenever I did it. Man, was it exciting! I never stopped doing it, even when my girlfriend urged me to knock it off one day. ‚ÄúWhat do you have to do that for, you idiot? It’s horrible!‚Äù she told me. Needless to say, I broke up with her right there. No unappreciative young lady was going to derail my artistic dreams at such an early stage.

The only problem with developing my wall-tagging skills in Cuba was the lack of paint. There is always a shortage of anything and everything on the island and paint is no exception, so I was forced to draw my hieroglyphics in pencil or chalk, like everyone else. The scarcity of paint, however, did not prevent the proliferation of an interesting breed of signs that always called for the fall of one and only one person. Those DOWN WITH FIDEL tags became so ubiquitous that they soon lost their suggestive power. Something similar is happening with SUV commercials lately. They are losing their mojo, for obvious reasons.

In case you didn’t know, the history of graffiti dates back to the ancient Greeks and Romans. But my friend Ken, who knows a lot about the topic, swears that the first wall artists were cavemen who enjoyed painting beasts on their dwellings for the fun of it. Lack of television can lead people to do weird things, believe me. From there, tagging evolved slowly until it experienced a revolutionary change with the invention of spray paint. Then some critic claimed that graffiti could be considered an art form‚Ķ and millions of people became artists overnight. And I really mean overnight, because the hours of darkness are the best ally for the artists to express their ideas on places that are not necessarily theirs. Most exterior walls, train coaches, bus stops and trashcans can attest to that.

New York, of course, became the graffiti capital of the world, but the Big Apple does not have the exclusive rights to the fashion. Tagging flourished in other countries as well, the defunct Berlin Wall probably being its most visible example. Which reminds me of that other wall being built on the Rio Grande to keep our graffitists from bringing their intricate designs south of the border. You know how overprotective those Mexicans can be of their historic buildings.

Like any other art form, graffiti can be controversial: some people hate it, while others, like me, find it simply delightful. I like it so much that I would love to see every city in the world set aside some space for its preservation. Hence I am strongly advocating that every community build a wall on which graffiti artists can express themselves in a free manner. Isn’t it a great idea? Particularly if the said walls are built way under ground and access to them is granted only to the artists. In that way their works will be sheltered from the criticism and misunderstanding of selfish, closed-minded, petit bourgeois citizens who only care about the neatness of their communities. Graffiti lovers of the future will appreciate it.

The author is a Cuban-American humorist who lives in the Boston area. He can be reached at mario@lenguaviva.org