I thought it would never happen, but this past summer I was recognized and stopped on the street by a complete stranger for the first time in my life. Granted, it was the street of a college campus, and I make my living off college basketball, but it was still weird.

"Hey, aren't you Kyle Whelliston?"

It was uncomfortable for sure, I wasn't quite prepared to answer questions about basketball in July. I was just trying to get to a Store 24 and get a candy bar because I had skipped lunch and was hungry as a motherfucker. As the 3 Musketeers melted in my mouth, I thought a lot about how I wouldn't mind if my life was never interrupted by strangers again. Especially if the question was, "Didn't you used to be Kyle Whelliston?"

After living in New York and Philadelphia for many years, I know my vandalism. Entire quadrants of those metropolises have been given over to the imperial aerosol kids, who take possession of signs, vehicles, buildings and bridges by way of spray-painted symbology. With their tags and codes, they tell each other who owns what, and any street or place in view of the marking is dominated by proxy. Outsiders and downtowners can't begin to pretend to understand the language, but the basic message is very clear: this doesn't belong to you.