I t’s a hot, sticky summer night in August and Penis Man has come to midtown Phoenix with a purpose. The infamous local graffiti tagger moves like a shadow along Seventh Street, dressed in black to disappear into the darkness. Penis Man says little but moves quickly, the kind of pace that indicates he’s got work to do before the cops pass by. A plastic grocery bag dangles from his hand, spray paint cans clinking inside like dirty secrets. He stops short just before a large rectan- gular sign outside a vacant building, spotting trouble. Plans are changed on the fly. “That’s a camera right there,” he says, gesturing to a mobile surveillance trailer a few hundred feet down the street. “Gonna have to settle for this. I was going to do the side of the building.” He quickly crouches low, grabs a can and lets loose, spraying his moniker across the sign. Less than 30 seconds later, the deed is done. Penis Man returns the can to the bag and turns away from his latest tag, beating feet back to his car. Similar late-night taggings have appeared across Phoenix, Tempe and other Valley cities since Penis Man began scrawling his virile nickname in 2019. He’s tagged trash cans, vacant buildings, street signs, utility poles and alley walls. In the years since, he’s become a local countercultural icon, quasi- folk hero and viral sensation. You can buy Penis Man T-shirts at Valley boutiques and listen to folksy ballads performed by local singer-songwriter Jesse Yonkaz on YouTube. Photos of his tags have flooded social media. Many Valley residents consider it hilarious. Cops consider it vandalism. In 2020, Tempe SWAT officers busted Dustin Shomer as the mastermind behind the graffiti after a tagging spree on city property. The Phoenix resident later confessed he was a copycat and not the real Penis Man. In late August, Phoenix New Times was granted a lengthy telephone interview with the real Penis Man and the opportunity to shadow him on a tagging excursion. True to his clandestine nature, our discussion, during which Penis Man shared his motiva- tions and memories, but not his real name or deep background, was conducted on a burner phone. A month later, such precautions became moot. Tempe Police arrested Tanner Ballengee on two misdemeanor counts of criminal damage in connection with two Penis Man taggings. Research by New Times into the 36-year-old’s background jibed with details he divulged during our interview with Penis Man. His mugshot were of the person we shadowed in August. After five years, it appears as though Penis Man has finally been collared. Here now are excerpts from our inter- view with Penis Man. The interview has been edited for length and clarity. Phoenix New Times: So you’re the original Penis Man? Penis Man: Yes. As far as I know, the first in this area. I don’t think I can confidently say the first in the world, but I’m definitely the first in the area to start writing that on surfaces in public. Are you Dustin Shomer? I have to ask. No. Was Dustin Shomer a copycat? Yeah. I believe he admitted to that, too, right? Yeah. What was your reaction to his arrest in 2020? I was pretty shocked. Moreso that he just kind of got lost in the sauce with that shit, I believe. I never met him. I was (familiar with him) through the media. And it seemed like he thought he was Penis Man, but really went balls to the wall with it, all in one weekend, and just made every worst mistake you could make. He made the effort to wear gloves and wrote “P” on one and “M” on the other. He drove his dad’s car to every spot that had security cameras. Did he give Penis Man a bad name with that spree? I mean, at first, yeah. At the time, I was kind of letting it get to my head, no pun intended. I was taking it a little too seriously. I seemed to think that I had morals or at least guidelines or a personal set of rules that I’d follow on what I’d desecrate and violate. And he obviously didn’t know what those personal little rules that I followed (were). So he broke ‘em all pretty quickly. What were the rules? Well, I’d try to stick to, like, buildings that are abandoned, or vacant or already have graffiti on them. Just property, I guess, that’s not historic. But I also (tag) garbage dumpsters or discarded stuff and mattresses. Things of the sort. So you’ve never tagged houses or people’s cars or personal property? No, never. Because it’s fucked up. Even if it’s a rich person with a fucking Cybertruck, that’s still fucking with somebody’s life. And even the fucking city workers that have to paint over a wall and a vacant lot, sometimes I feel bad for them. But it gives them something to do. Or a vacant building, even ones that are under construction, I don’t really feel bad about that because it’s like, “Dude, you got the buckets of paint right there. It’s going to take you two seconds. It’s fine.” So why did you start tagging “Penis Man” in Tempe? Well, I’m afraid of death. Meaning what exactly? I thought this was a way to achieve my immortality. You know how they say there are two deaths: first, when your body dies or whatever, and the second death is when the very last person says your name for the last time? I felt like this was a way to prolong the second death. Was it a midlife crisis where you wanted to make your mark while you were still here? So I have ADHD pretty bad and (get) hyper-fixated on something for a while and get pretty good at it and I’ll just drop it. And so (I’d do) graffiti every once in a while, but I never got much into it. I didn’t have friends that did graffiti. I didn’t live in a very big city like I do now. So when that spark came up again, I went for it. I had the name ready to go. I knew it was what my name was going to be and I could write it everywhere I went. People would be able to read it and they’d think it was funny and remember it. So you picked Penis Man because it would be memorable? Yeah, there was really nothing else I could write. That’s what it was going to be. What was always going to be. How’d you come up with the name Penis Man? It was actually given to me at birth. It’s on my birth certificate. Pardon me if I actually doub that. Obviously, it wasn’t on my birth certificate. I was just trying to be funny. But it’s the dumbest thing. It was just me and a friend, both alcoholics. I had a thing where I’d call people, especially this particular friend, I’d Penis Man tags a sign along Seventh Street south of Missouri Avenue in Phoenix back in August. (Benjamin Leatherman) BY Benjamin Leatherman A probing chat with Penis Man, Phoenix’s most notorious tagger.
