Yeah I've had paranoia. But then I just think to myself; Am I gonna be a graffiti writer? I tell myself yeah. Am I gonna be a pussy paranoid bitch writer? No. Then I ante up and do what I do just to stay true to myself.

 

You kids need to calm down, it is graffiti, you aren't raping people in the streets...

I have been busted once and the security guard broke my shoulder and stomped me pretty good before the cops showed up. $500 restitution, my name on the radio and in the new paper. I continue to write the same thing in the same town. Since then I went out at 5am because I couldn't sleep and stumbled upon a writer I have been looking for for at least 3-4 years. respectful kid, knows his shit... would always see that he would show up at spots I painted, leave a tag somewhere near by and respect my shit. I stopped him and shook my bag of paint cans to give him the signal that 'its all good, i write too' we went off all morning, probably 20 throwups and a few straight letters, we dumped 20 cans easily in 4 hours. We were finishing up and dude who writes SOEL said 'Im fucking starving, im gunna go home and make a big ass sandwich" As we walked off the bridge we had just painted we were cornered by 2 cop cars. we were fucked. hands covered in paint, open bags with paint cans, markers, stickers with our shit already on them. SOEL was drunk and I was dead sober, we did not know each others names and he was breaching probation to just have the cans on him (he had been popped several times) I explained to the police as calmly as I could that I can't go to jail, I can't loose my job and I can't pay for a lawyer, I told them I would take off my socks and wipe up all the tags we put on the bridge with a bottle of rubbing alcohol i had brought (thankfully they only thought we had used markers on the top of the bridge and didn't take a look at out 2 letter throwups under the bridge... I am amazed they didn't notice) I cleaned off all of our tags and said "OK man, let us go home, i'll get him out of here, you don't want paper work and we don't wanna go to jail" They grabbed SOEL by both of his arms, cuffed him and pulled markers/stickers out of his pocket that said SOEL. They then opened his wallet and I smelled the overwhelming smell of kush that he had shared with me earlier... the cops said "mmmm, smells good" then looked sternly into my eyes and said "GO.HOME!" I didn't sleep the night before and had been around paint fumes for hours, I had to ask "did you say what I think you did!?!" he said "YES! GO HOME!" I turned and left and didn't look back, green and blue ink running down both my arms, wearing one sock, doused in paint, hiding behind a convenience store whispering through my phone to the cab dispatcher to be quick! I got home and my room mate took one look at me while laughing and asked "how was bombing" I just laughed, smoked a bong and passed the fuck out.

Point of this story is coming... I promise! I didn't have SOEL's real name, I did hear the cops say it, but I was foggy and forgot, I have not yet run into SOEL again, but it will happen, point is, this happened at the beginning of a long weekend, SOEL spent that whole time in jail waiting for the holiday monday to be over so he could get to court on tuesday. He was starving when he got arrested, I think he probably did not get the sandwich he was hoping for. Tuesday afternoon, considering I had told SOEL what block I live on in our respective town, I started seeing stickers... just stickers at first, but even heavy bombers get thrown for a loop when they spend a few days in jail and are looking at fines/time/community service. Kid had stickers up tuesday evening! He got released from court and got back at it. If you don't show the initiative, someone else will take the spot, then they will take 10 more, then they have your fame and you are fucked. If you are willing to put tedious work into cutting stencils, if you are willing to spend lots of money on useless high grade paint (which toys shouldnt use, when you learn guitar, you learn acoustic first because it is harder and you have to press harder and it is just generally harder on your fingers. When you start driving you should learn to drive stick first, it is harder, but it will make driving auto so much easier. An automatic car is the same as an electric guitar which is the same as a can of montana. Go grab a few cans of rusty and learn to move quick, learn to deal with drips, learn to deal with cap selection, learn what aspects of your project need to be ready and at easy access the SECOND you get to your chosen wall. Depending how big you go with standards graffiti (not stencils) your left pocket should be full of skinnies or NY fats and your right pocket should be filled with super fat caps like the gold caps or silver fats. I could fill a 6 foot tall throwup with montana and a gold fat in 30 seconds flat. There is a youtube writer who is getting some good recognition from russia I believe. He writes RASKO. Check out his vids and see how fast he is moving. RASKO is almost definitely not the first thing the guy wrote. He had tons of toy shit out there, once he got some skill I doubt he was willing to have his old name attached to him anymore... sometimes you just cant wait to get buffed!!!

Moral of the story is that you need to just do it. I had a writer who actually wrote for longer than me (and subsequently fell off) ask me how I can scale a fence alone, paint a building and leave with a worry... I explained to him that while hopping said fence and stalking across an empty lot towards the wall is always the closest I feel to shitting my pants. The fear is sometimes overwhelming to the point of hiding in darkened corners and doing breathing excersizes. The act of painting itself is scary, you have your face turned to a wall with all the issues of the world to your back, cops, hero citizens, other writers, robbers etc. There is a lot of possibilities when standing against a wall in the middle of the night breaking the law. Accept that, understand that this is what graffiti entails. Going to jail is a fact for most graffiti writers. It isn't a huge crime so don't expect a huge snap back. But expect to spend a lot of money on repairing walls that you planned to improve to begin with. Tell NOBODY of what you do, that makes it more fun. The fear that you feel before getting into the piece can be heavy, but just know that for every action there is a reaction. If you are shaking and starting to hyperventilate, sure, calm yourself, take a walk around the block and let that chrome dry... but know that that fear will result in a rush similar to an IV shot of cocaine once you walk away from the wall a free man. It is true, I have been popped, I did take a break when it happened, but it is nothing that I can stop. My mother and father know about what I do just incase I were to end up in shit with the law or something there would be no surprises, they tell me to be careful, they tell me to be smart. At the end of the day they know there is nothing I can do about this and that there are no graffiti rehab centres that they are aware of. I make sure to have ID with me whenever I go so that I know I can be released without having someone come get me released. THAT is commitment, putting my passport in my pocket every night helps me to remember that I am fully willing to get arrested over this shit. I am willing to be arrested for my anonymous, though fame driven obsession. fame and anonymity normally don't go hand in hand. I am fully aware of how seemingly immature and illogical it is to be so heavily involve in graffiti... but that makes me feel even better about it.

end graffiti love rant/

 

if you don't like the rush... don't do it. but I was doing a stall up and it was with a magnum haha it stank like a mufu.

 

Hey It was raining like shit and it was dark , about 9 pm. Thought why not go paint? Because nobody like walking around in rain, so it was perfect. Went to my planned spot, walked arond, and right before I did I saw a guy. Damn luck. I know he would do nothing but I was scared cuz I was sure. So I went to another spot about to do a throw and I saw a store I usually went to, and it was open at 9 pm, but it used to close at 5. Interesting. It was a long road, cars passing by, but if I do shit fast, no one would care. Then right before I did it my parents came with a car LOL .Told them I went to buy chochlate, it fucking saved my life because if my parents would have seen me painting they wud beat the shit outta me!

 

sounds like an old 80's movie. paranoia grows hair on your little boy balls and makes you a better person.

 

LOL yeeah but next time i will bomb like the al queda

 

yeah sometimes it feels good to just say fuck it and go with the feeling.

 

it will get less and less exciting ( or nerve racking ) each time.. personally i thrive off that feeling but if you dont like it get a little buz going before you bomb.. dont get drunk or stupid high obviusly, just a little buz to calm your nerves and i litterally mean the slightest buz possible

 

Dreg One . His paragraph was an unhealthy amount of inspiration and i wanna run through a fucking wall now. i wanna bomb a pigs squad car right now. i wanna just tear up the fucking world, and that right there is one of the crucial reasons i write. I dont only write to feel the rush of vandalism, i write cuz fuck the system and fuck the suits, and fuck the snobby rich bitches who just live in a bubble who have never touched the edge of the real world and who just sit on a shit ton of they're rich daddies bank account. I write to get up, ya fame is a highly desirable goal and i dont even know what i would do if i got even a fingernail of fame, but writers like Dreg One pump me up and make me glad i write. Make me glad i am involved in the exclusive underground world the is Graffiti. Make me glad that i have my own little thing, my own talent and no can take it from me. No one form the town in bubble-ville. Finishing up, i am just glad there are motivated people out there who write for the love of Graffiti

 

The pigs will catch, and beat the shit outta you

 

lol its a metaphor, i just meant to portray that it was a super inspirational paragraph

 

I started out, just scouting out spots, getting a route, finding other spots other writers have hit, just the general. I'm not generally a nervous person. i wen't bombing for the first time with a friend as a spotter, i wasn't worried too much because i knew if we'd gotten caught we would both receive equal punishment, (We were both on bail conditions). we left at 2.30 am, and having him with me calmed me right down to the point where i didn't feel anything.
six months later, i went bombing by myself, in broad daylight. i was absolutely shitting myself. up to the point that i thought i was being followed and had cameras and cops watching me, i was just gonna go home but then i thought "Fuck it". I went to a planned spot where a dumpster was the back of a store down a alley way, there had already been two people that hit there, TURPS and SYRE. i threw a little tag with a silver piolt marker, and that was me, i bolted and got home. i was fucking buzzing.
Iv'e been bombing nemurous times after that, at 6.00pm when it was dark, at 12.am, all different times, broad daylight and night time.
I went bombing with the bro CEO-aka SANO, we decided to go broad daylight bombing at 2.pm, we went around hitting spots then decided to hit a spot in the cbd, down a busy as fuck alley way, we had ironlak, australian export paints, and pink dot fatcaps, we both did throwies, we had two spotters with us, TRON and some stoner guy, we heard "OI" then from tron, RUN!, by the time i had got to my bag that i had stupidly left on the ground near the guy coming towards us, they were already down the street, i got my bag and bolted, TRON split off and the stoner guy was left behind, CEO couldn't run because he's a smoker, (So am i) But i only smoke like one 4 or 5 a week. we got stopped down my street, 6 houses away from mine, by some fat cunt security guard. he said "Have you guys been spray painting on the civic theater"? then he said "Get your cans out and we wont call the police" - Don't fucking fall for that. he did call the cops, they took my cans, that had been tagged up and coverd in my fingerprints, and my piolt marker. I broke the rule of bring my blackbook, and the cops searched my bag, they looked at my blackbook thats coverred and fulled with my tg and throwie. he said "What's this?" i said "it's jost my book", he said ok and put it back in my bag . the other cop asked where "tron is" CEO said "He was just tagging along with us" And the cop made a little joke and said "Yea tagging along.., get it? ahaha" anyway, they called my parents and they took ceo away in a patrol car.
i got in big shit with my parents , when we got caught doing our throwies i didn't put my hand tag above it because we didn't have time, if i did there'd be over 30 vandalisim charges. the cops haven't gotten back to us and its been one month and two weeks since then.


to keep yourself calm, never tag on your shit at home, unless you're like banksy and have a private studio where no one knows you own it. practice on paper and hide your blackbook and supplies well, always clean your cans of prints before you go bombing, where gloves when you go bombing, and dump your empty cans in a safe place after bombing., never bring your BlackBook - i should've known that from the start., Go late at night (uness you're an adrenaline junkie and don't give a fuck), at like 2.30 am, don't bring anything you're not going to use. scope out your spots over time, weather it's running or driving past everyday, look for cameras and if there is camera's cover your face. Keep your shit on the down low, don't let people know you write - UNLESS, you trust them. when you first start bombing, hit spots that have already been hit up. Have a siggie before and while you go bombing (IF you smoke). For me, if i don't have a rush it's pointless. yea getting your name up is great but it's also all about the rush. getting caught is always going to be part of the game at some point, unless you're really good at keeping this shit on a down low. you've gotta be prepared to go to jail, or get fines for this shit, it's a risk you should be prepared to take. look i know there's not much advice in this paragraph, but i thought the story would be good you you guys to hear.

 

If you get up in public places more that shook feeling will go away, it always does, especially when you get that "mission accomplished/ relieved" feeling after you get up

 

If your under 18 the worst that is going to happen is some community service and your parents get pissed. If this happens and you still have the "itch" to write, well, welcome to the club. Started writing in early 90's and got bagged a couple of times. Paid my dues, got smarter, and started bombing in areas farther away from my place. Bad thing is I had to switch up my name a bit so moms wouldn't see anything new. But make your mistakes while your young, that's the time to mess up, that's why the charges don't hold til your an adult. After college, I'm ashamed to say that scam-roc became just a fucking gamertag, took myself out of the game for over 10 years because I got crazy paranoid. But if paranoia takes over then its probably more of an anxiety issue. Even though Im an older dude who can do whatever, I have a lot to lose. I work in a public school, Im married and have kids. Now, I rarely do throwups or tags. I find a pretty chill spot, wait until 3am Moday mornings and throw up a nice involved piece once a month. I bring my work clothes with me and go straight to work. We are all addicted to the thrill!!!

 

There can be a fun element in being bagged too.

Me and my boy was out a few months ago, we hooked up with a crew and walked down a populated street, bombing on everything. We bombed on some yellow building, and some bitch started moaning so I pulled the nib off my squeezer and poured that shit over her jacket. I regret that so much cus I bet that's enough for her to want to testify. But yeah after emptying it I just started throwing up my name on a building while saying "Man shut up and walk on bitch blabla" drunk as fuck, that bullshit.

We stood there moaning back and forth for ages instead of walking off, and boom, unmarked cops. They hadn't seen me do shit yet so when they all looked away, I thought they did atleast, I dropped my can and they bagged me with my best friend. So yeah we there, in cuffs, hoods up against this unarked cruiser just lookin' at eachother, bustin' Mobb Deep lyrics "Yeaaah, make your moves at night, pack your heat in this warzone, *****s is trife runnin' from one time, ain't no time to slip, make one false move and it's a up north trip!"

Cops was just buggin' out "Y'all can't be serious this is gonna cost you guys a lot" we was all like yeaah fuck y'all and we got in and got DNA and prints taken.

I'm dumb as fuck when I drink. DUMB as fuck. I hated myself the next morning, but it's still so funny.

Got a call a few weeks ago if I wanted to admit, hell no I never tell them blue bitches shit. See y'all in court!

 

I usually never got parannoid while bombing unless I was like hanging from a bridge or something without a decent escape route