Hurricane Joe Blows On Through

To sit across from Joe Connolly is to face a hurricane in full force and try to figure out what it’s saying.

His words come at you like debris flying in the wind and you only get snatches of meaning as they go hurtling on by.

They all say something about how much Connolly hates graffiti and how he’s the only one in America who can solve the problem of graffiti and how . . . well, I missed that one, it went by too fast.

I have never been in the path of anyone quite so involved with one subject and so desperate to have that involvement revealed.

The force and abundance of his unpunctuated syntax battered me backward throughout an interview and a drive-around with such devastating energy that I had to crawl into a martini later for safety and comfort.

What it all amounts to is this: Joe Connolly wants a standing ovation, or at least a little respect. He also wants a job as L.A.’s graffiti czar, although he’ll settle for being a paid outside consultant.

Connolly bears the problem of graffiti the way Atlas bore the weight of the world on his shoulders. His wife calls it an obsession, he calls it a passion, I call it an enervating experience just to hear him talk about it.

“I am the answer to graffiti in America!” Connolly will tell you, his bright blue eyes glowing with fevered enthusiasm. And then he adds in words that whistle out the door, “I may be loud and I may be like a speed freak BUT I’M SINCERE!”

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Everyone calls him a graffiti guerrilla because he drives around confronting taggers and painting out whatever they scrawl on fences and buildings and telling them to stop doing what they’re doing.

Near the borders of his Westside neighborhood, he’s left some inscriptions of his own, but with permission. On a fence he’s written, “Dear graffiti vendors: you will earn no respect until you stop!” On the front of a building, “Graffiti no longer accepted here. Find a day job!”

As a result of his efforts, he has been threatened by gangs, and despite his efforts he has been ignored by the city, but the man is not going to go away, no matter what. Hurricanes don’t die easily.

This all began about three years ago. Connolly, now 40, was a carpet salesman living a somewhat ordinary life with his wife and two children in a nondescript upstairs condo off Fairfax Avenue.

He attended a neighborhood meeting at which the question was asked, who would like to handle the problem of graffiti? He can’t tell you why now, but Joe Connolly raised his hand.

Sometime after that, he wrote the sign on the building front about graffiti no longer being accepted in his neighborhood. Janice Berman, the city’s director of intergovernmental affairs, heard about it and mentioned somewhat casually she’d like to talk to Connolly.

He instantly hit her with phone calls and faxes and came up with a plan called “Operation Wipe-Out” to end graffiti in the city within three years.

What you do basically is paint over the stuff as fast as it goes up. Not the world’s most original idea, but it makes sense.

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Once into the role of graffiti guerrilla, Connolly embraced it completely and was everyone’s favorite interview.

He spent two months with taggers learning everything he could about them, wrote a brochure, co-produced a video and churned out voluminous reports to police, paint companies and the city.

Meanwhile, Janice Berman, who was involving Connolly in the war on graffiti, resigned from Mayor Richard Riordan’s administration and Hurricane Joe found himself blown out to sea.

His “Operation Wipe-Out” was pushed aside for a city-created “Operation Clean Sweep.” Part of the reason, Connolly concedes, may have been because of wall messages he painted chiding Riordan for not doing enough about graffiti.

“I’ve saved more money for the city than anyone else in history,” Connolly says, “and I haven’t even received a thank you for it.”

Janice Berman agrees he ought to get something. “Give him a plaque,” she says. “What’s the big deal?”

Well, she’s right. Connolly is determined to make graffiti abatement his life’s work. He’d like to get paid for it but, lacking that, he’d like a little recognition for what he’s trying to do.

He admits sort of that he may be a little, you know, difficult to be around because he jumps into your face WITH SUCH MANIC FERVOR, but it’s all because he cares so much about kids and the city.

I haven’t seen Riordan caring about anything too much, so maybe it’s time to let a little passion into City Hall. There’s nothing like a hurricane to blow things around a bit.

Al Martinez can be reached through Internet at al.martinez@latimes.com