Toe Essay @149st

TOE ESAAY

©2000, 2003 @149st Do not republish without permission.

I first got into graffiti back in the late '70s. I can still remember my first tag, it was on a foot path down the park. I tagged my first name SLICE 181. I really didn't tag that one too much, I was looking for a smaller name to write. Then one day my friend AZ one stepped on my big toe, and the rest is history. I started to write toe everywhere and anywhere, when I met these writers: COMET ONE, COKE ONE, DOT ONE, MAT ONE, JOE ONE, BERT ONE, and TOR ONE.

I owe a lot to AZ and COMET for showing me the ropes as far as tagging the insides of the 2 and 5 trains. There was a brief period when I started to piece. First with throw-ups, then I went to the whole cars and top-to-bottoms. The whole cars that I've done were being noticed by Henry Chalfant and IZ THE WIZ.

In my early years of bombing I met a whole bunch of writers that I would like to give shout out to they are: EC3, RECK ONE, SEEN ONE, BLADE ONE, TEAM, CHAIN 3, SEIN 5, CAV, SK, QUIK, IZ THE WIZ, MAD, REVOLT, ZEPHYR, FUZZ, BOOTS and COMET etc. Sorry if I forgot anyone it's been over 20 years. There is one writer I guess you can say I was at war with, his name was CHAIN 3, and his crew was TMT boys. I would go over them and they would go over me, so I decided to start a secret name "TRY" just to confuse them. So I began an all out attack on him and his crew. At that time I didn't give a fuck, but now 20 something years later I still don't give a fuck! (only kidding). I would like to make peace with him and his crew just for the hell of it.

So here we are in the year 2000 and graffiti has come a long way from the early years of: CLIFF, TAKI 183, VINNY, STAYHIGH, SUPER KOOL, SLAVE, MONO, LEE, SEEN, ZEPHYR, REVOLT, IN, IZ THE WIZ, AZ ONE, PJAY, PHASE 2, BLADE, COMET, and most of all may he rest in peace "DONDI" etc. So graffiti might not be on trains anymore, but you have writers like AZ ONE, CAV, BLADE, and others keeping this graffiti thing very much alive worldwide with pictures, new and old. So keep up the great work! So peace out!

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