I

...am not dead.

Further evidence forthcoming upon the receipt of a camera-box.

Too Freaking Kool Right Now

And you know this.

THE FUCKING STATE OF MANTUA

(Click the fliks for the full size)

And so ends the most out of order week that's ever been unleashed upon Roscommon. Shouts to Artz, Justo, Risto, Rude, Trev, Chris, all the hippy gentlemen, uncouth crusty randomers and whoever the fuck played a part in keeping me alive through 6 of the wildest nights I've yet seen.

Trackside Antics

Oh Holy Mother of God

Extreme lack of updates lately. Priorities and life and that. If anyone wants to donate a camera I would be more than willing to take it. True story.

E-Thugs and E-Love

Well, fuck. Been a while since this much shit has pissed me off this much.
Usually the general fuck-it-all-in-anyway attitude of modern day nothingness doubles as a handy anaesthetic. But this weird cocktail of recent crap is too strong for that stuff; at least now anyway.

To save a pinch of face here I'll avoid writing anything cohesive, detailed, or logical.
I'm delaying a tremendous need to piss to enhance the urgency of this piece.
No, really.

So, bullet points or madcrazysuperneuroticstreamofconsciousness, or what...?
Bullet points, ok:

• Graffiti writers need to stop talking. No, scratch that:
• Graffiti writers need to stop talking so much SHIT. Fucking egos. Fucking walking egos. Fucking walking egos with 600 burners and more cynicism than a holocaust survivor. You'd have a hard time finding more self-interested egomaniacs in a Hollywood socialite rehab clinic. Number One: Save the superior romanticism for a second (which I too can be guilty of), YOU WRITE YOUR NAME ON WALLS. Number Two: Save a select, changeable few at any given time, YOU PROBABLY HARDLY EVER WRITE YOUR NAME ON WALLS. Now, if you do, refer again to Number One.

This bullet point thing isn't working. Plus, I'm simplifying things to the point of literary finger painting. But anyway, my point is in there somewhere. People in the 'scene' are jumping down each others throats at every oppurtunity in holier-than-thou frenzies; or, simply put: shitting on each other. Ultimately, a lot of people on all sides of every fence are getting far too interested in shitting on each other; and nobody likes a shitter. But, more than that, nobody likes being shitted on, so it's just one big race to the top of the shitting ladder. Shit first and shit hardest, before they shit on you. Right?

Well, I don't know.

This image has absolutely no relevance whatsoever, don't look at it

I have a hunch that a lot of this animosity boils down to one, simple factor. Let's call it the 'e-plague'.
Now, the 'e-plague' isn't to do with the existence of graffiti forums, or anything like that. It's something much older than that. Take a quick trip to any youtube video and you'll quickly become lost in a number of ongoing textual wars buried in the comments. They will spew racial hatred, religious bigotry, conspiratorial elitism, homophobic outbursts, heterophobic outbursts, patriotic ignorance, anarchic arrogance, pseudo marxist pretentions....shit, everything any war has ever been started for.
In a fucking Happy Days clip.
No joke. Take a look. Regardless of the video, people will have 627 interconnected e-battles on behalf of ANYTHING.

Why? Well, people don't have to maintain any type of social etiquette on the internets. They can have faceless, stigma-proof, hate-friendly shitting sessions...without risking permanent disability due to marathon head-kickings. They can be Hitler for ten minutes, before going to squash practice. This is the 'e-plague', and it isn't pretty. What does it tell us about humans in general? Well:

- The only reason your next-door neighbour doesn't kill you is because he doesn't want to get arrested
- Your cousin would burn down his school, and maybe his suburb, if his parents weren't such a drag
- Everybody hates everybody
- Nobody knows how to use "your" and "you're" correctly

This image is incredibly important, pay attention and study it

Basically, the 'e-plague' removes all social repurcussions or consequences with blank e-dentities. It teaches us that, if humans existed only as faceless consciousness, they'd be fucking arseholes.

Graffiti has NOTHING to do with the interwebs. NOTHING. So lets leave it for the porn, random google image searches and inaccurate wikipedia information, aaaaight?
Aaaaaight.

If people are so passionate about these great issues of our time, get on the blower and round up your opponents for a FACE-TO-FACE-HATE-A-THON(tm). But, you don't care that much, do you? Right, so take a decent crap and chill the fuck out.

There was a lot more I wanted to say about a lot more things. But I can't remember 'em, so maybe they weren't that terrible after all.
I actually don't need to piss anymore. Well, fuck.

Don't Ask

Old and new...

The Shining

Insanely unfinished ^^^

Nu Rave can fuck off

Apologies about the lack of updates lately, hectic real life shit and super cool drug abuse have been occupying most of my time. Finally got a camera so expect to see more posts.

Anyway, fliks and jazz...

Official Sell-out status. HOLLA.

Notice the parts I forgot to fill-in. Tracks are fucking DARK.

Fuck this climate

For serious.
More fliks soon...

BANG...and the dirt is gone

This habit people have of getting no fliks/terrible fliks of my pieces is beginning to piss me off. There's no need to take a piss on your camera, shake uncontrollably or be parlaytic on class A drugs whilst photographing a Milk piece. Just so you know.

Cheers for the flik, by the way.

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Juggaknots - Clear Blue Skies

If this wall could talk

Antics and fucking sheNANigans. That is all.
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James Brown - Blind Man Can See it

Fresher than something that's very fresh altogether

I've thrown together an hour mix of some fresher than fresh fresh hip-hop tunes. Check the style kids...

Mister Milk -- Hip to the hop

TRACKLIST
A Tribe Called Quest - Electric Relaxation
X-Clan - Grand Verbaliser, What time is it?
Biggie - Hypnotize
A Tribe Called Quest - Can I Kick it?
Viktor Vaughn - Vaudeville Villain
KMD - Smokin' That Ass
Eric B and Rakim - Paid in Full
Public Enemy - Rebel Without a Pause
Nas - Memory Lane
EPMD - Da Joint
Camp Lo - Coolie High
The Pharcyde - Passin' Me By
Mobb Deep - Shook Ones, Pt 2
Big Daddy Kane- Mortal Combat
Ghostface Killah - Iron Maiden
Wu-Tang - Protect Ya Neck
Lords of the Underground - Chief Rocka
Big Daddy Kane - Warm it up Kane
De La Soul - A Roller Jam Named Saturday
Camp Lo - This is it
Biz Markie - You Got What I Need
Biggie - Big Papa
Digable Planets - 9th Wonder
Slum Village - I Don't Know
De La Soul - Pease Porridge
A Tribe Called Quest - Excursions
Jurassic Five - The Game
Mf Doom - Rhymes Like Dimes
GZA - Liquid Swords
Digable Planets - For Corners

Culture rapists, Adidas shell toes and 600 Chromes

Is there any way to stop the MTV'isation of modern graff culture? Has this already happened? Can writers make a euro off their talents without being paraded as examples of soulless sell-outs? Or is this illegal sub/counter/fuck-you culture uncorruptable by its very nature? Does anyone really give a prancing shit anyway?

Well yes, many people give a prancing shit, even two prancing shits in fact, about graffiti itself. But there's a new aspect to the scene that a lot of us would like to scrap completely (if not on the payroll). Spray paint canning/graff tag bombing has become Super Kool for the kidz. Hense, it has become Super Lucrative for the profiteers of current, 'edgy' youth culture. Marketers of every brand from Playstation to Red Bull are latching on to something kids seem to respect, and will rape it until its a useless, has-been corpse.

As writers trying to portray a pure and uncorrupted reverance for the original spirit of this scene, many of us shoot pitiful glances and spiteful mutterings in the direction of those other writers being used to help sell products to these kids. But little or none of us would refuse these same commissions, or give anything less than a 'fair play' to friends who make a buck from the man. Do we even know what the fuck we really think about anything anymore?

Commercialisation of any youth culture is, of course, inevitable. Products are no longer products, they are brands and images. You don't buy a pair of Adidas anymore, you buy a fucking lifestyle declaration. Our beloved graffiti is only the current victim/benefactor in their infinite search for the current school of cool. So, inevitable as it is, who can really give the money making writer shit with a straight face anymore?

Well, there are levels in this game of selling out. Gallery exhibitions are usually seen as fair game, as are commissioned walls, whereas helping a corporation in their current shallow advertising blitz is seen as dirtier territory, and large profit making marketing of any kind, even more so. And even these levels have their exceptions: a certain elite class of writer (Twist, Rime, Revok, etc) can sell tagged feces to starving african children for 2 limbs a pop and not provoke a single eyelid bat, whereas the lowest class of 'writer' can do fundraising commisions for the same children and get pelted with universal abuse and empty plasticote cans.

It's all about DUES, and how much DUES a writer is seen to have paid. The MSK's and XTC's of this world have put in enough decades of blood sweat and chrome, and helped the global scene enough to put them in a class of unquestionable dedication and 'realness'. But nobody (NOBODY) appreciates some coffee addicted, dread locked, eyebrow plucking cunt selling himself as a true 'Graffer' to make a few quid while this 'tagging shit' is still hot. If money is out there for writers, those deserving should get it. Like it or not, graffiti is a game of realness, and credentials for this realness are paid for with years of ACTUAL graffiti. The 'I'm realer than you' nature that graffiti has adopted is due to the crowds of hijacking trend hoppers that glue themselves to the image of the writer without a single street throw up or any understanding or respect for what graffiti is actually about (the giant secret/mystery).

The mainstream also gives birth to hundreds upon thousands of these people. Some too young to know what they're really getting into, some simply doing what all their mates are doing, and others latching on to graff's 'urban edgyness' while urban edgyness is still what people dig. This dilutes and undermines the actual writer and the true spirit of the thing. Can you still truly call something exciting and counter-cultural when every second twelve year old is a member of a bebo 'tagging club' and has completed a graffiti computer game a dozen times over? Plus, the constant pounding that graffiti and graffiti writers get by politians and 'decent' society seems all the more bitter when every second company is using graff to sell and promote products to that very same society. The true, hardened, criminally recorded graffiti writer's cynicism is not unjust. But, of course, these writer's cannot complain about the scene going mainstream one day, and take part in an advertising campaign the next.

Every writer who has been doing this for more than a few years can recall a time when graffiti seemed mysterious. Its heroes were invisible and its activities underground and almost clandestine. But is this just the effect of innocence, or something more concrete? Certainly, graff ain't what it was. But I doubt any writer ever born hasn't thought that five or so years after starting. Things change. But rest assured graff will not end up on the shelf of dead trends. Reason: (real) graffiti is illegal, and something illegal can never be robbed of its edge or its potency. The fakes will drop off after an encounter or six with a cop. The politicians preaching about 'mindless vandals' and 'scourges on society' will insure that it will never become universally accepted or dull. The enemies of graffiti will continue to empower it. You can't sell a throwup on a train or an etch tag on a shop window. The true bomber is not usually interested in portraying images, he is interested in ups, and he is most probably a chronically depressed sociopath too fucked up to appeal to any demographic. And thank fuck for that. Graff will go out of fashion and something will replace it, and bombers will bomb, regardless.

I've asked lots of questions here and given few answers. But maybe some of you know what the fuck I'm on about, even if I don't.

I need a smoke.

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El-P - EMG

Another One Down

Just a few years after HST kills himself, another original and brilliant writer dies. Kurt Vonnegut, 1922-April 2007. RIP.

"I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different. "
"Be careful what you pretend to be because you are what you pretend to be. "
"If you can do a half-assed job of anything, you're a one-eyed man in a kingdom of the blind."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Vonnegut
http://www.vonnegutweb.com/
http://www.vonnegut.com/
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Roberta Flack, Donny Hathaway - Be Real Black For Me

Sea Side Antics

A week or two old. Pretty wack but sure fuck it in anyways.

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Funkadelic - Get Off Your Ass and Jam

Easter Bunnies are scary as fuck

Drogheda Easter Jam 2007. Not the best flik, lookin for a better one. Not having a camera sucks your Mother's balls.

(Bigger Flik)

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Brother Ali - Forest Whitaker

Skitzo's Views on Graffiti

The following piece of uninformed, badly written, inexperienced crap was recently brought to my attention:

"My views on graff The taggers I admire the most are real writers, writers like Rude/Rasto, Grift, Ab, Rise, Cist and Goner. These are real writers, they don't do it for fame or for money. Fair fucks to them! They have the heart and they know what they're doin, unlike most writers. Graff in ireland has gone to shite. Graffiti is illegal. Legals are art, and may look good, but don't confuse graff with art!!! Milk is an artist not a writer... Grift is a writer! He knows what he's doin. Anyone who's interested in graffiti shouldn't look up to people like Milk, there's a huge difference in art and graff. Gone is a hardcore bomber, but yet some people find that Milk is a better writer.... FUCK THAT. How many walls in Dublin have Milk on them?? eh... three? five? 300? haha, 300???? so what??? 300 is sweet fuck all! Goner has covered the whole lot of Dublin but gets less respect for graffiti than Milk. Goner is a writer, Milk is an artist! More of my views.... Compare Milk and Skitzo.... In my opinion, Skitzo up as much as Milk, but yet Milk gets more respect than me as a tagger. Haha fuck that shit, I ony respect real writers. Fuck sellin DVD's or t-shirts, or hangin around allcity cos it's cool. Real writers are out there bombin. When was the last time you actually SAW a Milk piece? Yet I see Grift and Goner every fuckin day, on every fuckin wall! If you go into allcity you will see Smack t-shirts hangin up for sale, but go outside and you'll spot Gone, Grift or any other hardcore bomber. In my opinion most of RFA is falsified. Fuck all these fake ass legals! I agree that some of them are really good, really good ART! What makes RFA such a big crew? Eh... Legals!!! Where's the RFA graff? I don't really see any... Do you? And I refered to Milk alot here, sorry, but you're the biggest example of the difference between art and graffiti in Ireland, and it's defo not just you! And I do admire alot of your work, but as art, not as graff. And more..... I have nothing against Milk, or RFA, it's just their image, and i'm only using them as an example. Well except for Mak he has totally sold out, t-shirts and shit. Mak used to be proper bomber. But fair enough they can do what they like. My only problem is that people seem to confuse graff with art. Whatever half of RFA are doin isn't graff, it's just art. I am more into graffiti, the art of bombing. And on that note I am gonna go out there and bomb the place to bits! Give me a year or 2 lads!!! I'll be out there fuckin everywhere!!! Oh and Noer is a total fuckin biter! He sucks big floppy donkey dick! Noer is a good bomber, and I'd honestly have respect for him if he didn't rip everything he put up! Stop rippin!!! Ya queer!! And for anyone who doesn't like my opinions or my styles... Fuck you!..........Skitzo"

Wowsers. It was a lot to take in without breaking the monitor or laughing when I first read it. It was written on this guy's Bebo account, and I wouldn't have a clue who the chap was either if it weren't for Bebo. This 'real writer' seems to prefer bombing whiteboards than 'the streets' (yo).

I'll try not to let my own disgusting personal shitstorm get into this while dissecting every part of this randomer's argument. Though I can guarantee that it will be in some way involved.

Ok. Firstly, this educated article amused the shit out of me for a number of reasons initially: The argument 'Skitzo' is trying to make, is an argument I've been spouting since I started writing 3 or 4 odd years ago. That is, legal walls are NOT graffiti. This is something I've been saying well before this dude picked up a paint marker (and I haven't even been writing any ammount of time) and began forming a 'view on graffiti'. I've had this argument with a number of writers, and created some grudges among the Irish graffiti elite as an ignorant toy with a big mouth. Graffiti, in a legal context, loses its essential potency and thus becomes something less powerful, a type of folk art: nice, but in a tilting head kind of way. Thus (I said 'thus'), I try to use legal walls as little as possible, and keep everything I have for illegal space.

I have done some pieces in some legal spots, mostly Windmill Lane, back when painting Windmill Lane was something every writer did when they were too tired to run from the feds (yo). Thing is, most of everything I did in Windmill Lane ended up on the social black plague we call Bebo, in every toy's 'Deadly Rapid Graffiti' folder. So somehow, this Skitzo thinks this bebo collection is my entire life's work. I am 'falsified'. Who knew? Frankly, I think the praise I get from kids for this collection (of quite old shit, by the way) is very out of proportion. Agreed. But these kids don't know anything other than their PC monitors and All City Records, and they are NOT writers. But then again, either is 'Skitzo'.

The main thing that was so ridiculous about this guy's outburst was he using me as an example of a writer who does purely legal graffiti. Jesus jelly fishing Christ. I have not done a legal piece in as long as I can remember...actually, if I do try and remember, I think it's been about a year since I've done a permission wall, maybe more. Skitzo, you obviously don't live on the Dart line, I have full colour pieces between almost every station on the northside, and plenty on the south. Pieces I have done in the late, barbed wire night, dodging STT, Garda, and everything that comes with REAL GRAFFITI BOMBING. Everything got buffed recently, I had a lot of shit wiped out...but I've been out since and taken back most of the spots again. I have plenty of pieces and dubs on motorways across the county too. And street bombing? I have (and have had for the last couple of years) more throw ups, dubs, rooftops, and tags on the streets than you and your crew combined. Don't take me as some ego maniacal exxageration fiend though, cos Skitzo and his crew do not have that much up...no offense or anything. I fucking love street bombing, and do it steadily and frequently, for more than a month. Skitzo, you obviously don't get around past the 3 squares of 'street' that surrounds Central Bank, since this is where your tags seem to congregate.

Oh, and as far as I know, RFA have not done a legal in a long fucking time, and are more up anywhere you choose to look than 90% of bombers out there. Pull down your fucking hoody and take a look around. I agree with the anti commercial sentiment though, and I had nothing to do with any of it, if I did I'd have some money to go out tonight.

I am sorry, Skitzo, that kids like my shit. I see it must have touched a nerve, but don't take it out on me. Yes, Grift is more up than me, as is Goner, I never said otherwise. But I am more up than you. I never claimed to be a king, never asked kids to have 'Milk' folders, or run stupid ass polls on their stupid ass bebos. I write, pretty much purely illegally, and whenever I can. I love it, and I won't stop (I say this after years of stress I'd say you have yet to even tip the iceberg of). So let me do my thing, and I'll let you do yours, less talking and more writing Skitzo, whoever you are.

I could be writing a lot more of what I want to say a lot more coherently, but this internet cafe is non-smoking.

It's the 'Not a writer' thing that really got to me. So please, do not fucking insult me and tell me I am not a real graffiti writer. I have been paying my dues steadily for four years, I have had countless trackside pieces, motorway pieces, street dubs, rooftops, city throwups (on the quays, and all around D1) and tags tags tags. Sorry, but I don't post everything I do on the interweb. I don't even have a camera. I have seen next to NONE of your sloppy, still-practising-my-tag handstyles in my travels. In fact, I only recognize your hand from the whiteboards I've seen on every second bebo account. Not to mention throwups, dubs, straight letters, rollers, and pieces, of which I have seen a total of ZERO. I am (much) more respected than you, because I do all of the above ILLEGALLY, and have been doing so for years.The two or three tags (I think) I've seen of yours have only been in the last 2 months or so. So basically, you've yet to crawl out of the stinking pithole of trend hopping kids that infest the city to being merely a toy. Nevermind being a name. I actually still think of myself as a toy, in relative terms, 10 years plus and then I'll have some more authority on the subject. So I don't even know what to call you. I recommend you fire your researcher, develop your handstyle for another few years, start doing something other than those handstyles, travel more than 5 streets from Temple Bar (take public transport), stop talking as if you know anything about graffiti other than what you've read online, give up the whiteboard addiction, and pay some fucking dues. In the meantime, see Espo's 'Rules of Graffiti', and refer to rule one: "You suck until further notice."

(Oh and P.S: EVERY writer on Earth writes for fame, tell me otherwise...and you're a liar.)

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Eric B and Rakim - The Microphone Fiend

Sprite Lite

Biscuits

More Buffing, More Painting...

More to come...