This is, like, a Mission Impossible revenge situation.
The more I look at it, the better it gets. Speculation after the fold.
It seems clear that the property owner’s the one that’s been targeted for the revenge. To sum up: Mister X (we know it was a dude, or at least the front man was) pretended to be the actual property owner and found a local artist to do the mural on the building. He then paid the artist in full – this is where you can kind of relax a little, because the artist getting screwed out of his fee would have been pretty unfair – and got his mural of Cookie Monster blasting the world with Commie Rainbow Cookie Beams.
No, really.
The property owner went ballistic – which is fair – and then painted over the mural. Which is also fair, but unfortunate, because now everybody’s pissed at him for covering up the drive-by artwork and they’ve turned that corner into a shrine to the original. The property owner also managed to get in a feud with the artist, which is right on the cusp between fair and not-fair*, but he’s backed off on that. He’s going to put up a new mural, which will piss off still more people, and it’s amazing how little sympathy I have for this guy, considering that somebody stole his identity to slap up an insulting mural on his wall.
This is how you know it’s high-grade revenge, brothers and sisters. The property owner hasn’t done anything really wrong here, but the tacit assumption is that he must be some kind of burning, rotating jackwagon on wheels to be worth this kind of response. You don’t do this because the guy won’t fix your radiator right away. No. This kind of payback has to be earned.
Moe Lane
*Dude was being paid, dude probably should have asked why payment was in cash (I assume it was in cash). If he wasn’t, then the artist is actually in on the whole thing and that’ll shift the fair/unfair needle.
Does Larry Correia know about this?
I dunno. I should tag him on Facebook.
100% team landlord. Anyone who says different is a commie. Landlord probably did war crimes for Reagan.
What do we know about Fake Nate, aside from his rather generic appearance as described?
1. Knew that Real Nate would be absent for enough time to complete the mural.
2. Knows enough about art to know how much time it would take to paint said mural.
3. Has sufficient scratch to pay for said mural.
4. Reasonably imaginative.
Dollars to donuts that Real Nate knows who it is.
Unquestionably.
But can he prove it in a court of law?
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That can be amazingly difficult.
(I have unfortunately had some experience with malicious renters. Or at least, cleaning up the mess and replacing doors/windows/pipes.)
I’ll just point out that the property owner has completely, 100% f*cked up by the numbers on this.
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I view that as the main indicator this was a *very specific* revenge – someone knew how to jump up and down, in Doc Martens, on the property owners’ hot-buttons. It’s not just tailored revenge, it’s bespoke.
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I suspect the artist knows who the imposter is .. but I also suspect, from the property owners’ reaction, that the property owner .. has some awkward social and/or ideological issues. The style and subject matter of the mural is clearly also tailored, we just don’t know enough to see the knife slip home.
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Alas, poor Peoria .. good Soviet-influenced Soviet-mocking art is rare, these days.
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Mew
The article mentions that the mural was painted over Thanksgiving Day weekend. That would explain why the real Comte was absent. It does make me curious what the building is used for, though. The article never mentions that.