Later on, I met SOLID’s brother, Kenny, who wanted to tag along with us and ended up writing BOT 707, We both did some real high powered pieces together one car that I remember was a whole car top to bottom that was running on the 7 -line, which had to be

 the best car to run on that line in the early mid 1970's. But we did not get the credit because we did it in the 4 yard, another was a VECENT - BOT that had some real hot colors to it. The TFP crew grew into KINDO 1, FUZZ ONE, SOLID ONE, and BOT 707, then BOT’S younger cousin joined us, writing HASH 161.  BOT 707 also brought in his other cousins FRED 163, and OG 2.  Then the TFP crew really started growing and hitting the trains and streets hard.  This is the original, TFP that I remember!  As time went on, graffiti crews were building and a lot of groups started to emerge.  There were so many graffiti writing groups like WANTED, IND’S, THE KILLERS, and THE EBONY DUKES.  It came to a point, that if you weren’t part of their neighborhoods, you would end up getting stomped out. I became miserable cause people from my neighborhood started hating me.  They didn’t like

 that I hung out with black and Spanish dudes whom I brought back to my building.  I was being called “Nigger lover” and “Spic lover”.  Even Marty’s Doughnut Shop wasn’t happy with my friends, no matter how many times I explained that they were only graffiti writers and not criminals like burglars or rapists.  It was hard for me cause it was getting really bad, and was no joke.  The people in my neighborhood were racist’s guys who didn’t accept any of my explanations.  I knew I had to prove to them that I was white, that’s what it had to come down to.  So, I moved to Notts Place which was the most dangerous neighborhood in the Bronx and started listening to rock’n roll and had my own drum set.  Then, I started listening to disco and getting into the scene and getting away from the graffiti scene.  The disco scene brought me down to a different part of Webster Avenue away from my neighborhood, where I met some dudes who claimed to have been with the The Fantastic Partners.  These disco freaks claimed that FUZZ ONE wasn’t part of the original TFP; they even went as far as wearing jackets with TFP on it!

 I met this guy named Timmy Powell at a dance club, and started talking to him.  When I told him I was a graffiti writer who wrote FUZZONE, was part of the TFP crew and a gang (THE EBONY DUKES), he became intrigued.  As a result, he too wanted to start writing graffiti.  Timmy, some of our friends and I were trying to come up with a name for him…that’s when Timmy chose SPIDER (cause his favorite character was spider man).  This guy was Italian and Irish so we clicked and started going to the four yard where we bombed really hard (FUZZ & SPIDER) non-stop down the trains.  We were kings of the 4 lines for a time; we raced for the line against guys like STOP 700 aka 007, SPIN , A TRAIN, and MAD MARK 1.  We used to do black pieces with yellow outlines.  Also, we put polka dots and stripes with ribbons through the pieces.  SPIDER started writing SPIDEY and I started writing FUZZOLA.  It was like every

train had our names on them, back then there were only 10 trains parked at a time.  SPIDER advised me not to hang out with black guys and Spanish dudes cause he felt they were bad people.  I don’t know if he was a racist, but he kept telling me not to hang with them cause one day they might take my money or get me in trouble.  I told him that in order for me to get where I want to get in life I have to hang with these guys, regardless, cause this is the only way it will happen (to get up and be a king).  He suggested me to get down with the white guys and be in a gang with them…it would be a lower division from the street gang the Golden Ginnies, and name the group THE HENCHMEN.  So we wrote THE HENCHMEN with  magic markers, on the back of our jackets.I figured that would keep everyone in the neighborhood off my ass, that’s why I did it.  Unfortunately, these guys weren’t as kind as the black guys.  These guys were like real gangs, they stole from your mothers, they were all over Jerome Avenue and Mosholu Parkway, and always in your face.  One day, SPIDER called a meeting at this place called THE TUNNEL, across the street from Marty’s Doughnut shop.  It was the scariest freakin’ spot I’ve been to; It was an abandon Mosholu parkway station.  From one side of the station to the other it was pitch black, inside were

 tags of some of the most famous graffiti writers during that time.  I had a feeling these guys were going to jump me, so I got all messed up on weed. When

I got there I saw about 25 dudes with sticks, pipes, chains etc…  I knew they were going to fuck me up, cause I was hanging with black dudes, but later I found it was really an initiation to get into their gang.  I had to let them beat me up if I wanted to be in thegang.  Then SPIDER asked me, “Could you really do it?”…”Fuck It! Let them do what they got to do!” I told him.  So the next thing…BOOM some guy hits me on top of the head, and another guy hits me in the back.  The guys were tall and had hands like sledgehammers that they didn’t even need to use their weapons.  After they all beat me up, all the guys left.  They all left me there, even SPIDER.  I waited 15 minutes in agony, and finally SPIDER came back, with his blue windbreaker on, in the back was written THE HENCHMEN.  He started kicking me in the back, “Yo FUZZ, you alright?”  Jimmy, a.k.a. SPIDER, then said “FUZZ I got your jacket”.  On that day, I finally became a HENCHMEN!  Not only was I a member of the HENCHMEN, I was down with THE EBONY DUKES, and THE FANTASTIC PARTNERS . 

 When SOLID died, it was the end of TFP, The Fantastic Partners .  SOLID’s funeral was devastating.  It was there, in 1976,

 that KINDO 1 told me he was quitting for good and gave me TFP crew.  No one else had anything to do with TFP, except for me, KINDO 1 and SOLID.  BOT 707 had quit writing two years prior, when PHASE 2 quit writing.  I know there are a lot of stories about TFP, but I don’t give a fuck what anyone says, I was the GOD of TFP!  I don’t care how many styles they had, but I got up more with the TFP crew than any other writer.  I locked that shit down!  When SOLID died, I was really upset…it was hard to get over it; I wanted to stop writing graffiti and find another outlet.  I loved that dude!  At times I had nightmares, with trains going by and SOLID’s face in the window.  For six months, I was lost, walking the streets, just thinking of my best friend and how we used to fly birds together!  I continued to write, bombing trains in the Bronx, politicking with all kinds of writers.  As the years went by, I started reinventing myself, and took SOLID’s name.  FUZZ ONE became SOLID ONE, and he lived through me!  I remember doing a SOLID ONE in the tunnel, all fucked up and drunk.  The piece had tombstones on it with a whole

 bunch of characters hanging around.  When I was done, a whole bunch of black dudes, with bats in their hands, came in and surrounded me.  I had a shopping cart behind me filled with about 60 cans of great colors, federal safety paint, and the best paint available in those days.  Little did I know, right in the 1 tunnel at 145^th Street, I won’t say any names (cause these guys know who they are), these guys beat me with golf clubs.  They beat the fuckin shit out of me!!  It was the worst beating of my life!  There was this one dude that sort of had my back, and was yelling, “Yo, this guy FUZZ  is cool.  I don’t think you should fuck him up anymore.”  On the train ride home, I was all fucked up.  I thought to myself that this was sure to happen again and again, especially if I’m by myself in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

I decided to stop racking up paint slowly, and finding ways of getting thousand of cans at a time.  Not twenty cans, or fifty cans here or there, but thousands!!  I started making moves, traveling around with dudes, partners in crime (kind of guys).  We had the whole

neighborhood on lock down.  However, they were not interested in graffiti, but robbing jewelry stores and doing diamond heists.  These guys were high line skillful pro’s, they knew how to get in and out of stores.  I was prowling around with three of these characters; they were the best ever known in the Van Cortland area, then they got up to Pelham Parkway area and eventually out to Queens.  I followed them all the way out there to Queens in my first years when I didn’t live out there (I went as a prowler).  I learned how to do things like get into big spots, where there were money and paint (but, I was only interested in the paint, not the crime).  These guys that showed me the ropes pushed me aside, once they were done with me; I was like their butler.  My whole reason for hanging out with them was to get the knowledge of how to get in and out of places.  The first assignment they had for me, was the biggest paint factory in the United States where they made the paint, labeled them, packaged them...the whole nine yards.  I don’t give a fuck what anybody says, I got to see the place and I was there; Paint going down the conveyor belt, the label being slapped on, the cap fitted and cans being packed into huge boxes. That’s when I decided to stake out this place.  I hid in the bushes, smoked a pack of cigarettes and watched how people went in and

out of this joint.  I went around talking to people in the area to get the low down and watched this place day in and day out. This Italian cuisines Angelo, that I knew was a gigolo and knew many girls.  He was dating this one girl who worked inside the joint so

 that it would make it easier for us to get in.  Meanwhile, I looked around for characters that could help me out in this  project (the most devious type of characters), just the like the project before.  I spoke to like the first five kinds of guys that already knew how to do scores like this and who were also graffiti writers.  They weren’t famous writers, but they were just neighborhood dudes.  I told them about this spot that I had where they could not only get paint, but also get a lot of money out of this score.  Leading them on wasn’t really my intention, but they went for it.  One guy was a pill popping, fat, dope  fiend, going out looking for hookers, kind of low-life.   Another dude was a die-hard cat burglar, mother-fucker who had more tools than Home Depot.  So the night we went to do the score, my man the cat burglar was all prepared, and the other guy was all messed up on Quaaludes and black beauties.  We made it down to 238^th Street, making our plans as we were walking down the tracks it started drizzling and then pouring. 

As we got to the joint and the cat-burglar dude said “We’re gonna do this, now”, I got nervous…it was still pouring rain and my pockets had water in them, making my cigarettes all wet.  When he told us we had to tie a rope down from the roof and shimmy down, the fat dude didn’t want to go.  Finally, the fat dude went down and about half way in, the rope busted, pulling out the whole ceiling and glass was everywhere.  When we eventually get down there we found the mother load, where they made all the cans.  Back then they had six packs… they didn’t have twelve packs.  In there were cans of Dutch Boy, Uni-Lack, all the Martin Paint brands.  Then we found an area that had shelves and stacks of paint everywhere. That is where all the best colors were, there had to be around 5,000 boxes all stacked up next to this little window.  We started grabbing boxes and taking them out the window, but my cat-burglar friend wanted to get into the safe.  He set up some blockbuster kind of bomb onto the safe to blow it open.  So, me and the fat dope fiend dude ran out of there, but the cat burglar dude wanted to stay inside and blow the safe to get paid.  I felt bad for leaving him there, but we started carrying the paint over to the train tracks not to far away, and through the river.  I started thinking about this cat burglar dude and thought about going back for him, but I didn’t want to be there when the bomb went off.  A little while later, I spotted him casually walking toward us and asked him what happened.  He told me the bomb was going to go off at any minute and then we turned around and casually waited.  Out of nowhere…BOOM… the bomb went off, the burglar dude wanted to go back, but I told him the cops would be there any minute not to go.  Luckily, the cops didn’t show, but my man the cat burglar was pissed.  He was angry because the whole warehouse blew up and he couldn’t get in to get any money.  I left the paint in a safe place not to far from the warehouse, and the other two dudes took off, and we were out of there!   To make sure the cops didn’t pop me, I walked through the cemetery all the way to my house, instead of going through the streets. The next morning, I thought of a plan to get the paint to my house.  I took the BX 15 (bus) to 238^th Street, along with this dude who wrote NINE.  We took the bus ten to twenty times a day, with shopping bags full of paint back to my house.  This lasted for a week until we finally got all the paint.  The whole house was filled with paint!  My mother would come out and couldn’t even see the furniture or the walls.  There was so much paint, that I had to hide some in the elevator shafts in my building. *    *   *   *   *     *   *   *   *    *    *   *  *  *   *    *    *  *  *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *    *  *   *   *    *    *   * *    *   *   *    *    *    *   *  *  * *   *    *    *    

I knew in order to leave my mark in the Bronx; I had to let every writer there know that FUZZ ONE was here.  How I did that was by hanging out at the “writers corner” everyday, politicking with the top writers.  I would confront them saying, “Yo, I got your back. Let’s go to the yards! Don’t worry about racking up, I don’t care, I got it!” Every Graffiti dude  had a whole car at that time, that’s how I made my mark.  Now the first guy I pieced with when I got all this paint was with the best writer on the Broadway line, who wrote PESO 131.  He started off many writers like KOOL 131, PADRE 2, PART, MR.JINX 174; all those guys got their style from

 PESO 131. He was a real cool black dude who liked the way I carried my self, and that’s when we both started bombing (that’s when I was writing IVORY 2). I remember having JESTER (who was also writing  DY 167) over my house. I opened my closet and the dude saw stacks and boxes of paint and started bugging out, I even had cans hid under my mattress from mom's. We both started killing shit on the Broadway line together and did one of the best cars to ever run on that line, I took over that line with so many names, which has to be something that was never done before.  A lot of guys started hearing about this white dude from Moshula Parkway who had a lot of paint, and they spread the word saying, “Hang

with this guy, and just watch his back and he’ll hook you up with paint”. I was not not only writing FUZZ ONE and IVORY 2, but also LORD 138, which I got up with very strong and kinged the Broadway line

with, as well as the 3's, 2's and 4's. Everyone speaks about  how BILLY 167 was such a great stylist... well the dude was rocking those style's with me " LORD FUZZOLA! " Most of those piece's were done with my paint like : the IVORY& BILLY's, BILLY& FUZZ's or LORDs & BILLY's. If you were a top writer in the 70's you were bombing with and with my paint. I have bombed with guys like STIM and TEE, COMET, AJAX, MOSES 147 and his partner B-ONE, TURK 62, SHADE 1, BOOTS 119, COOL 222, THE MAN 550, TUZO 1, JIVE 3, MAD MARK 1 and 2, HONDO 1, KING 2, WISK 5, P-NUT 2, KIT 17, MARK 198, IN ,  SIVER TIPS, ALL JIVE 161, DR SOUL,  ALE 1, TON 5, LIL FLAME 1, JOHN 150, DOO 2, M 80, SWINE, TC 3, MG 1, PEL, FDT 56, CLYDE, CHECKER 170. CHECKER was a real cool Spanish dude with very good style but a dude you didn't fuck around with. Him and I did some damage for a while and can remember doing a few SOR pieces with him in the 4 yard that came out pretty nice. Now that was a sweet spot. " The 4 yard!" I had my man Curtis, the blacks security guard, looking out for me. I use to bring him wine, vodka, cigarettes, playboy magazines, everything.. then walk in and  kill the whole spot. By the end of 1977, I bombed the trains with a fury; you couldn’t walk through a subway car without seeing a FUZZ ONE staring you in the face.  I would walk into a lay-up and kill the whole train with FUZZ ONE written at least twenty times in one spot.  Sometimes I’d write THINK FUZZ like ten or twenty times on the panel, walk into a conductor’s booth with a beer and take a piss, while doing a little piece inside of it.  I was the ultimate king of the inside of the trains.  There was this one time I would roll up to a lay up with a shopping cart with 150 cans of paint (chestnut browns, silver aluminums, charcoal blacks, fire hydrant reds, and so on).  I just went in there and killed the trains.  The next morning when you took the train to go to work, the cans were rolling around on the floor, when you got up you would have a FUZZ ONE imprint on your back.  I just rocked it!!  Things were getting hot for me and it got so bad, that I had to move.  My mom packed everything up and we moved to Queens.

  Next ~ TAKING IT TO QUEENS ~