Here I sit, broken-hearted …
I remember seeing that particular line on the stall door of a rest stop bathroom as a kid.
Here I sit brokenhearted
Tried to shit, but only farted.
Probably as famous a piece of men’s room graffiti as there is. Granted, it’s no “Kilroy was here,” but for pure scatological aesthetic musing, I would argue that it’s unparalleled.
But here’s the question: “Who is it that writes these kinds of things on bathroom walls?” Do you feel me?
Put differently, “What kind of person believes that writing things on stall doors in a lavatory is a good idea?”
“Someone who has a desire to be thought funny” seems like a good answer. And I can appreciate good comic graffiti. It’s creative, brings a little humor to the often otherwise unpleasant task of pulling your pants down and doing private bodily things in a public place. A little wry wit in a grim circumstance is, I suppose, a good thing.
But this? Here I sit all brokenhearted …
Okay, I’ll grant you it’s catchy. I will also concede that when it made its first appearance years ago, it probably had a claim on just the kind of comic graffiti I was talking about a moment ago.
But now? You write that now and let’s face it, you’re just being derivative. Unimaginative. A hack, for crying out loud. Use your head when you’re defacing property in the head. (That’s not a comic genius, and it’s maybe a little too obvious, but at least it’s not cribbed off somebody else.)
Which brings me back to the question: Who is it that scrawls these bits of ephemeral street wisdom on bathroom walls? What kind of mind thinks a legitimate contribution to societal discourse involves carving poorly conceived poetry and seventh-grade insults onto a surface while in the act of defecating?
On the one hand, we might be tempted to dismiss these poor saps as unimaginative dullards, who have only the vaguest idea of what true humor or incisive wordplay looks like. You get a picture in your mind of perpetually slightly vexed mouth-breathers who want to contribute to the world’s fund of witticism but can’t quite figure out just exactly how to do it. So, they write things that if not laugh-out-loud funny, strike them, at least, as clever, the kind of things that will elicit knowing grins from their bruh, Bobo. You know, the kind of person who watches endless reruns of Beavis and Butthead not ironically as a form of social commentary, but for the hilarious allusions to sex and bathroom humor.
But on the other hand — and what I’m about to suggest might require its own exercise in creativity — the kind of person who defaces other people’s property with trite doggerel may be a person denied other creative outlets, who feels compelled to make some sort of dent in the world. Human beings are creative animals. To a greater or lesser extent we all possess an inner compulsion to do or make things to let the world know we’re here, that we have a point of view, that we matter. We long to prove to ourselves and to each other that, in addition to eating, sleeping, shagging, and crapping, we too are engaged in meaning-making.
Creativity is the way all of us carve our names onto the bathroom wall of existence. That some of us have only been given the means to carve those names onto actual bathroom walls is arguably a moral indictment against society at large. In the end, it’s all a question of the available media and opportunity. (Granted, it’s not only a question of media; it also involves a question of the spaces we share in common, and the extent to which our need to create is always tempered by the needs of others not to have to be assaulted by our creativity while taking a dump.)
If it’s true that humans have a need to create, is it possible that bathroom taggers paint on the only canvas on which they feel worthy to express themselves? And are our judgments about these water closet Caravaggios more a revelation about the privileged circumstances surrounding the cultivation of our own creativity? If you spent your childhood being shuttled from piano to ballet lessons, having adoring parents effuse over every doodle in your Trapper Keeper, being told repeatedly that you can do whatever you set your mind to, it’s easy to look down your nose at folks whose creative tools extend only to Sharpies and Exacto knives.
I don’t want to romanticize or excuse the destruction of someone else’s property. Nor do I want to suggest that the vandalism engaged in by the poets of the privies is the preserve of the poor or uncultured — which is itself an exercise in privilege. But I do at least want to raise the question about whether or not — destruction of property aside — this kind of graffiti serves some larger purpose, whether it indicates not just poor character formation on the part of the restroom rhymesters, but the failure of society to acknowledge the inequities it harbors and provide opportunity for creative expression for all people.
I’m not sure what the answer is, but reflecting for a moment on the boundless need for humans to create sure makes poop jokes in the loo a bit more bearable.
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Previously published on Medium.com.
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