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Hot 110

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"SUBWAY TAKE OVER"

Basically I just liked to paint trains, and I was an angry young man. I had quit my work at IBM in 1981, and was truly a sick and deluded man in regard to the intricacies of being able to exist as an oppressed Afro-American in the USA. I hated everything except women and rock-n-roll. I

  PART , NOC 167, etc or DONDI could do such a few paintings and create the impact to change the look and direction of graffiti in the subways. And a real bomber could king  the #1 and #3 lines in one week with hard work...Jesus! I was the only RTW painter to go all city...so don't believe

 the hype. My favorite spots to bomb were Van Wyck Blvd., Union Turnpike and the E & F yard in Queens, Sheepshead Bay, Grant Ave. tunnel, Esplanade and the 168th St. Manhattan IND tunnel. I had pieces on every single subway line, and hopefully with some impact. My favorites My Talking Heads series on the A lines, and a hundred or so window down whole cars titled FUKiN'QUIK and QUIK COUNTRY on the E & F trains.

 >MOBY QUIK! ***

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In ’78 I had been writing alone because I felt more secure. BILROCK and REVOLT surprised me in the Van Wyck lay-up they looked like work bums. They were mellow, way cool and had a big bag of cheeba. I liked there writing style, and RTW was the coolest interracial I met in years. But

weeks before I met them I was bombing like crazy. I would stand at the 71st street station and the trains were blasted with huge BILROCK, FUZZ ONE and HUGHIE throws; there was no way I going to let them take over my line. By 1980 I met the entire network of good writers. I bombed mostly with SACH, MIN, DEMO, IZ THE WIZ , BILROCK 161 and REVOLT. I clearly had a bad sense of humor, and after all I wanted to be a throw up master bomber, so writing the same stuff over and over got boring after the first 1000, eh. OE 3 had nice faces in his throw ups, and my cartoonish images were an extension of the stick figure tradition of putting characters in your burners. Some of my favorites were a series called Adolph, Seth, and Leroy faces.....those of Hitler, a rabaai and "Step n Fetch It' motifs. Unfortunately I do not have many photos of my work, and most were given to me by friends. Maybe I only have 500 mages of my shitty trains; it was too difficult to photograph in color on the subterranean lines upon which QUIK's madness streamed. I also had no patience waiting hours and hours on end for my stuff, whilst I could be working, studying, obtaining paint, dating etc. Besides, I rarely used the trains for any reason after mid 1979...I only wanted to destroy transit, while admiring the beautiful

 works created by artists such as  like LEE, Blade, Seen, Revolt, Mitch77 I won all battles on the trains by painting in sheer numbers. My most memorable battle was against TD4 and the Crazy Writers. Once on a Friday they had come to one of my Queens lay-ups to surprise and find me. I had even stood on the tunnel entrance that night at Parsons Blvd debating whether or not to paint there. It was not my Friday not spot, and it only contained 3 trains, so I went somewhere else. The following afternoon I did go into that tunnel, and saw that at least 10 of those writers from Brooklyn had come and bombed, leaving me messages and death warrants! What a beat down I would've gotten!!! Consequently, I ragged all their stuff. That was true competition! The only other great comp was with COMET, he's a true king! I was never blessed with the opportunity to meet any vandal cops except SKI (after the fact). I was more professional and successful with my labor.

I went to Pratt Institute. Art school hated me , but what was cool about Pratt was there were PHASE 2 tags all over the place. of course I bombed the school and they wanted to throw me out . every time I would do my work , they would give me a falling grade. If they said to do a 9x11 self portrait, I would bring them something huge, in 9x11 proportions. they said if I took that to an art  agency I wouldn't get the job , so they failed me. I thought Art school was a crock of shit, because I was pulling out whole car top to bottoms every evening, then coming home and doing my home work. I would look at people next to me and think their work looked real good and they were going to make allot of money on Madison Avenue, But there was something about what I was doing that they didn't get. I know that people were going to know my type of work, to know this type- I would not be anonymous, and I was determined. I quit art school and went to work at IBM to make allot of money and fuel my addiction for sex, drugs, cars and Rock and Roll. I got sick of IBM because I realized that after 20 years I'd have a car and a house three times as big as my dad's, but there wasn't anywhere to go with it.

After IBM I went back to art school. I hit the papers in 1980 along with FUTURA 200, ALI and ZEPHYR.  The same fucking art teacher ask me to do the same homework, and do it 9x11. Id bring these giant painting in, and they be like, " Hey", Grafffiti is hip. you're our resident Graffiti artist, and I'd get an "A". Whereas a few years before, they failed me. I was like , fuck this, and once again I  left. Luckily, FUTURA  forced me to meet a gallery dealer at a DONDI opening. FUTURA and said "Hey, that dude over there, he's actually buying Graff painting and I know you have painting, so go meet him. " I look over, there dudes like A-ONE, KOOR and TOXIC, all those types of people jumping up and around this guy. I didn't bother to go meet the guy, and later in the evening FUTURA said "Hey, did you go meet him? I said no, and he literally dragged me across the room and made me shake the guy hand. He said, Allot of  people talk about you, do you have paintings? He made an appointment to see me in my house. the guy came and bought a couple of paintings. Then it started again in Holland in 1983. We started doing shows over there and I ended up staying there. In the 80's I flew across the Atlantic like ten times in a year. to do exhibitions and sell my work. The work I sold in New York, 90% of the time, went back to Europe for collectors. then I realized that America is 280 years old and Europe has a History of thousands of years supporting people who are painters, artist and sculptors. So its part of European culture to maintain creative people.

Thank you for the props and this opportunity. Much respect to all my friends who have supported me over the years (you know who you are). And, much respect to DONDI, BLADE, SEEN, LEE and COMET: the best whole car Top to bottom kings ever!

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