TARF 222 INTERVIEW ©1999, 2003 @149st Do not republish without permission. Where and when did you start writing (on trains)? I started in early 1972, in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. Like everybody else I started hitting the sanitation trucks they parked on Heywood Street and Marcy Avenue. The first trains I hit was the old coal burners on the GG line. What borough are you originally from? I was born and raised in Williamsburg Brooklyn. What lines did you hit? The GG, M,J,LL and the old KK line was my main trains. What crews have you written for? WAR! (Writers Are Respected) I really don't think you can call it a crew, it was just guys that knew each other from writing, other old timers may say otherwise, but I don't remember no organized crews, outside of the Ex-Vandals back then. What writers have you painted with? I started writing with SLICK 246 (he went on to become SUPER SLICK), DAMN 131, MINO 2, MILT (THE STILT), CLAY 223, COKE121,STRUT(SUPER STRUT), SHARK77 among others. Who where the major cops and DTs when you were writing? I don't remember there names off hand,I remember them doing a lot of undercover work to catch the writers, I remember SUPER SLICK and me coming out of the Grant Ave. lay up, a DT was watching us from the end of the station, We didn't see him, on the train going back home I took a quick tag, and passed my uni to SLICK,as soon as Slick touched metal, the door from the other car flew open and the DT grabbed SLICK. A few weeks after that, MINO, STILT and me skipped school to go inside tagging.We spent the day hitting the G and R line, When the same Dt grabbed MINO and me.A few years latter when my brother DEN 1 P.O.G. was writing, there was a cop named Norman Wasserman, that followed writers from school, just waiting to grab them. He would stop them even if they wasn't writing and search them, and if he found any markers, he would charge them with graffiti. A real prick, some of the writers from the mid to late '70s must remember him. In the early 1970s a punitive measure taken by the MTA made writers buff stations, many writers met and made plans while buffing. Do you have any memories of that? I sure do remember that,They made us clean a station in The Bronx, if I remember right it was the Fordham Road station on the D line. I met a lot of good writers cleaning , MINGO, KING KOOL 156, DOCTOR B among others. they made us clean on a Saturday morning from like 9 to 12. Then we would burn the train on the ride downtown, it wasn't that bad. What yards and lay ups did you hit.? The Metropolitan Avenue Yard( The M Yard), The Grant Ave lay ups, The Bowery lay-ups. back then they parked the J and K trains on the express tracks at night and on weekends, since it's a elevated line it was tricky but if there's a will there's a way. Do you have any good raid stories? WAR! Not really, I remember a lot of sweeps of stations, I was a youngster back then, I could run and climb like a wild man, but, there was times the cops was faster. Did you ever watch trains at the 149 St. grand concourse, or Brooklyn Bridge or Atlantic Avenue, or other writer's benches? We use to hang at the Flushing Avenue station, the Marcy Avenue station. and when we went to Central Park on the weekends, Columbus Circle and the West 72nd Street stations, but I was at the Brooklyn Bridge station a lot of times. That's around the time I was also writing SLEM 2. I was in no way the biggest or the best, but seeing and being a part of the underground movement from the beginning, there was a lot of great art out there, that's gone forever. Take care, PEACE. TARF 222 aka SLEM 2 What crews have you written for? WAR! (Writers Are Respected) I really don't think you can call it a crew, it was just guys that knew each other from writing, other old timers may say otherwise, but I don't remember no organized crews, outside of the Ex-Vandals back then. Do you have any advice for writers these days? To piece, always piece. Forget about tagging. Just being a big tagger is real suckerish you gotta be willing to take the risk of piecing. People will notice a piece more than a tag. Back to TARF 222 main page | Home |  Artists |  Crews |  History |  Links |  E mail | Glossary |