Saxapahaw Sam

Did a double-take when I passed this paste-up graffiti in Ybor the other day. Some sort of parody of noted groundhog Punxsutawney Phil called Saxapahaw Sam, and with the cognitively-dissonant caption "I Will Kill You."

(What is up with Florida and "kill you" graffiti lately?)

According to this:

Richie identified the work as that of Saxapahaw Sam, a well-known Franklin Street tagger in her UNC-Chapel Hill years. He was popular until he took it a step too far, rather than defacing an abandoned or under construction building, as is the case in Durham, he painted on the walls of an open establishment, which was naturally quite upset.

That article, from 2013, made it sound like Sam is retired from the tagging game, but this graffiti is new. New enough that a fellow seeker of arcane lore, one BXGD, took this picture of the very same graffiti in Ybor just days earlier. And then there's this recent aggregation of Sam's oeuvre in other locales.

I haven't delved much further into the matter because it's often the case that finding the story behind enigmatic graffiti is disappointing, and I usually much prefer not having it explained. I just like Sam in all his mystery the way he is, on his own merits.