In The Paint

It takes a certain amount of wonderment to read and listen to the tale of Tiger Woods. And let's leave for others the discussion about whether his flagrant penchant for being caught in flagrante delicto is just between him and his wife, or the proper fodder for all those shows that come on between 7 and 8 PM with Breathless Billy Bush.

No, I'm just hung up on his use of the term entitlement, as in "I am entitled to have meaningless sex with a veritable plethora of hoydens...because I've worked hard all my life and learned to hit a little ball a long way." Good to hear that he's back in therapy, getting the help he needs. Whether or not his wife cares to resume this "sham of a marriage," to quote Victor Newman, is also between the two of them. It sure seems like there is a lot between them, and yet not so much of it involves love.

ANY way...this entitlement theme came to my mind today on the way to work. One of those big greenish ugly roadside electric transformers now bears the stupid spray-painted logo of a "tagger." (Ironically, in pure Baltimorese, the name of the professional baseball team from DEE-troit is the "Taggers.") I don't know why it is so important for people to deface the property of others just so as to display their handiwork to the motoring public. Perhaps it has something to do with recognition, wanting to be seen, to be noticed.

But the older I get, the more I realize that if these guys really wanted recognition and proper attention, they would get more of it, and it would be more genuine, if they first worked and earned the money to buy the property to spray paint all over. In other words, work hard, buy yourself a nice building at some high-visibility intersection, and then write your name and slogan all over it in a rainbow of air-propelled colors. What gives people the sense that they are entitled to spray their bizarre tags all over the property of other people is the same confused perception that had Mr Woods playing hole-in-one with cocktail waitresses all across this great spray-painted land of ours.