The Secret Diary of Desmond McTagger: UPN Taggers Caught

Remember the graffiti bombers who were tagging signs and buildings with the old UPN network logo? I wrote about them back in February 2006.

Turns out it wasn’t bitter “Shasta McNasty” or “Homeboys in Outer Space” fans, but an actual crew of taggers who used the name as an abbreviation for “your property next,” or “under pig’s noses.”

And turns out — I hadn’t noticed this until I went back right now to look at the post — they left a couple of comments on that blog post in late 2007. One, “Droogsta,” wrote:

WERE NOT A GANG OR TAGBANGERS…WERE ARTIST WERE BOMBERS…
AND YEAH IT STANDS FOR ALOT OF DIFFERENT THINGS….
UR PUSSYS NEXT
UP NASTY
UNDER PIGS NOSES
USIN PERMISSION? NAW

I gotta admit, I kinda like that “Usin Permission? Naw” one.

Now, according to KABC Channel 7, cops arrested 11 of the UPN members on Thursday.

And no, the UPN krew didn’t include Dean Valentine or Lucie Salhany. The details:

Deputies staged a major bust on tagging crews in Los Angeles. Eyewitness News went along for the bust Thursday morning.

The first target was a father whose work can be seen all over a Wilshire Center neighborhood. The man’s group is called “UPN.” On Thursday, authorities arrested 11 of their members.

“UPN stands for either ‘your property next,’ or ‘under pig’s noses,’ depending on what mood they’re in. This is a tagging crew that’s responsible for between $480,000 and $1 million worth of damage to the L.A. County transit system,” said Commander Dan Finkelstein, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has begun cracking down on taggers recently. Earlier this summer, 24-year-old Cyrus Yazdani was arrested for allegedly painting the infamous “Buket” signs all over Los Angeles freeways.

Authorities used internet sites, like YouTube and MySpace to track down taggers. In some instances, all they needed was their signs.

“The most obvious tip is their tag, which, in a way, is them signing their name,” said Commander Finkelstein. “If a bus is tagged, we can find out where this bus was tagged. And then we start working that neighborhood. And, no surprise … street signs in that neighborhood are tagged. And then you find out that it might be this person. Go to their house … the lawn furniture is tagged … the thermostat is tagged.”

That is similar to the type of evidence authorities found in one suspect’s home on Thursday. There were pictures of his work, bus passes to places he had possibly tagged, and a gun. It was kept loaded in the same room where he sleeps with his 4-year-old daughter.

Still at large: The notorious PAX TV and DUMONT tagging gangs.

Writing the Network Wrongs

My Variety colleague Cynthia Littleton and Lifetime Entertainment president Susanne Daniels were the toast of the Paley Media Center (formerly Museum of TV & Radio) Thursday night, as TV heavyhitters stopped by to celebrate the publication of “Season Finale: The Unexpected Rise and Fall of the WB and UPN.”

It’s a good read, especially for you TV geeks out there. For me, it also brings me back to my early days in Los Angeles, covering the beat for Electronic Media magazine as a 22-year-old obsessed with all things TV. I still remember my very first day in L.A.: I had barely found my desk when I was sent to the Warner Bros. lot to cover a WB affiliates meeting. This was pre-”Dawson’s,” pre-”Buffy” WB — as a matter of fact, the execs mentioned they were developing something called “Slayer” — and I grew an affinity to the scrappy, small network and its eager, young staff of execs. I got to know the folks there as the WB rose to “It” status… and watched as it began to crumble. (Of course, I was also there watching UPN as it continually struggled for relevancy… I still have a “Shasta McNasty” hat, and a pic of me with “Moesha” star Brandy.)

The turnout at Thursday’s party was strong: Studio chiefs like Warner Bros. TV’s Peter Roth and 20th Century Fox TV’s Gary Newman; Lifetime CEO Andrea Wong; agents like Endeavor’s Richard Weitz and Lisa Harrison; CW COO John Maatta (who’s also a board member of Trader Vic’s); Warner Bros. TV Group’s Bruce Rosenblum; former Paramount Network TV president Garry Hart; and even Daniels’ husband, “The Office” genius Greg Daniels.

It was almost like one final weblet shindig. TV screens played old WB promo clips (“The Night is Young”) and one-time Frog execs like distribution head Ken Werner (now at Warner Bros. TV Distribution) and marketing guru Lew Goldstein (now at Lifetime) reminisced about the old days. There’s still some lingering regret out there that the WB wasn’t able to live on — perhaps as a cable network, or as the ultimate victor in the baby network wars. But it wasn’t meant to be… and with the recent announcement that Kids’WB! would shut down at the end of this season, the brand has now been relegated to the history books… like “Season Finale.”