OPTIK: as close to a villain as the Cincinnati scene's had... I saw
a commercial with her with the major on it. Some commercial for the
graffiti thing, did you that?
DEVIOUS: oh yeah! It's like (now DEVI puts on his cop voice) 'taking
down graffiti, stopping drug dealers'...
DRANE: anyway...she was going around painting over graffiti on
buildings and I guess when the UC police grabbed me, they went around
looking for people to press charges against me, for any graffiti
that I did on their property. So they went to Mr. Tuxedo, 'cuz I had
a sticker on their air conditioner. And shortly after that Maureen
Mellow went there and talked to them and she found out that the UC PD
had arrested me and had all my information, so bang! She knows who
DRANE is and bang! She gets in touch with the police and gets a
warrant out for my arrest...
DAN: she did that? Damn! I've seen her buffing shit her self!
DEVIOUS: she does it on her own?
DAN: yeah, by herself, buffing shit.
DEVIOUS: her husband owns Daniel's pub.
DRANE: yeah that is true... man, I got in an argument with her once
down at Beat Box...
OPTIK: yeah, I was there.
DRANE: it was so stupid.
DAN: what was she doing at Beat Box?
OPTIK: trying to get our tags. And she was like 'blah, blah, blah,
what about kids who tag, what about private property?' and going on
on that trip... and then she's like 'what are your tags?' and
everybody's like 'bua!!!' pointing and laughing, so she had to leave.
Everyone is clowning her and stuff.
DRANE: she's stupid, man...
DAN: so what happened after that then? She got the shit and the
cops called you?
DRANE: yeah, I got my court date and a lawyer and what not. That
shit was crazy, my lawyer basically talked to the judge. I didn't
really get to say much of anything. They had a crazy old lady there
that was crying, dude!
OPTIK: what?!
DAN: crying for real?
DEVIOUS: no way!
DRANE: yeah, dude! I'm sitting in the courtroom and the old lady
started fully busting out crying, and I was like 'I'm going down,
man.'
DAN: why did she start crying?
DRANE: she was talking about how seeing graffiti looking down at her
from rooftops is scary
DAN whatta fuck?!?!
DEVIOUS: WHAT?!
DAN: whatta fuck kind of shit is that?
(we all busted laughing for like a minute imitating this old lady,
who's scared of graffiti)
DEVIOUS: oh, man you were fucked! That's like the worst
testimonial ever!
DRANE: I didn't know what to think about it, but basically what I
got sentenced to was 200 hours of community service and I had to pay
all these fines and everything. Plus, they put me on probation for
three years. But I didn't do my community service, 'cuz I figured it
was all bullshit, so I had to go to jail.
DEVIOUS: that's when they caught you skating right?
DRANE: yeah they caught me skateboarding and they had a warrant out
for my arrest, so they bagged me.
DAN: how was the big house?
DRANE: it was... it was... it was pretty chill.
DAN: really? A lot of big guys wanted to hug you?
DRANE: Yeah...there was a lot of crazy motherfuckers in there.
OPTIK: lots of anal sex?
DRA; no, there was no anal sex.
DAN: so what's tour message to other writers?
DRANE: my message is keep doing it...
DAN keep doing it, jail is chill.
DRANE: yeah, jail is chill.
DEVIOUS: that's so bad!
DRANE: yeah, jail is cool.
DEVIOUS: Go to jail, all you kids!
DAN: ok, OPTIK, tell us about your earliest graffiti recollection. You know, the Metallica thing.
OPTIK: me and this dude that was a friend of mine were way out in
Westchester and rode our bikes out to this covert and spray painted
'Metallica' in it.
DEVIOUS: that's awesome!
DRANE: dude, I fully used to freak the heavy metal letters when I
was a little kid, you know what I'm talking about? Like the Iron
Maiden letters...
OPTIK: I used to be able to rock the 'Headbanger's Ball' letters...
I had 'Headbanger's Ball' across my notebook...
DAN: what about you DEVIOUS?
DEVIOUS: my earliest graffiti thing was going to skate ditches and
painting stupid shit. Oh! My first name was 'Spell-none', 'cuz I
could not spell shit in high school.
OPTIK: my first tag name was 'Slag'
DEVIOUS: I went from spell-none to DV8...
DRANE: you used to do some dope character's. you did that dope
character on the back of 'Stop 'n' Go'. That shit was ill.
DEVIOUS: yeah! Four colors on the back of stop and go, that's pretty
dope.
DRANE: remember when SEAR used to do those flying records?
DEVIOUS: is that was those were?
OPTIK: is like a record with a shadow...
DEVIOUS: I didn't know what that was.
DRANE: it looked like a halo thing or a space ship...
DEVIOUS: did you do those onions?
OPTIK: no...
DRANE: nah...
OPTIK: that was like some punk rock thing, I think.
DEVIOUS: I never knew what that was...
OPTIK: I thought it was like a band called 'Onion' or something...
DRANE: there is a lot of punk rock bands that run around
and throw tags...
DAN: like 'Oxboard Drain' with their stickers... there is that
'Mr. T' tag on the thrash container at Bogart's (a local venue were
bands play)
DRANE: 'Mr. T' gets up.
OPTIK: what about the 'Trust Jesus' tags?
DEVIOUS: those are everywhere. That'd be a dope crew name to have.
You'd not go to jail... I saw them across the country!
OPTIK: from NY all the way down to Nashville.
DEVIOUS: there is 'Trust Jesus' from here to California.
OPTIK: I think is one dude.
DEVIOUS: well, it is the same hand style...
DRANE: yeah, they are all the same size!
DEVIOUS: yeah!
OPTIK: I think it's just one dude who is a hobo...
DAN: I don't trust Jesus, I'm going to hell!
DRANE: you are.
(the interview hits a hiatus here because OPTIK and DRANE are
having trouble finding markers that work for their piece on DEVI's
book)
DAN: ok, you say some shit, DEVI, you haven't said that much...
DRANE: how are Chicago kids? I met a couple of them and they seemed
cool. You paint with those kids a lot, huh?
DEVIOUS: yeah, that was my education, I guess. I painted by myself up
until that summer, I always painted by myself
DRANE: until you start painting with people, that's when you start
learning.
DEVIOUS: except that Scribble Jam, when I just showed up. That was the
first time I ever painted with anyone. Then I painted with them in
Chicago. We painted every weekend. We'd do freights, productions, and
I painted so much, I got a lot better. I used to never paint every
week. I used to paint like once a month.
DAN: do you consider yourself to be good?
DEVIOUS: I think I'm good, I don't think I'm the best.
OPTIK: I like my stuff.
DRANE: I like to have fun.
DAN who do you think is the best Cincinnati writer?
DEVIOUS: it depends on what you are talking about.
OPTIK: style or balls?
DAN: in general... balls? FLO has more balls that anybody else.
DRANE: I wouldn't really say who is the best Cincinnati writer, but
who is my favorite Cincinnati writer.
DAN: ok, then, who is your favorite Cincinnati writer?
DEVIOUS: I like WELT, 'cuz he gets up so much.
DRANE: you gotta give it up for WELT.
DEVIOUS: and he's not trying to be the best...
OPTIK: he's ill.
DRANE: he fucking kills shit. If you look at the pieces, who's
killing shit, who's putting stuff in spots...
OPTIK: WELT... and PASE. He deserves some props.
DEVIOUS: let's say everybody is good at certain things.
OPTIK: my favorite writer is TOUCH, hands down.
DEVIOUS: you don't wanna jock anybody and you don't wanna dis anybody,
you know? And you don't wanna jock yourself.
OPTIK: I like things about everyone.
DRANE: everybody is doing dope shit. (DRANE gets on the phone)
DEVIOUS: I have favorites in other cities. If someone asked me who my
favorite writers are, I probably wouldn't say anybody from here,
because I put up other people, who I don't know on a pedestal, you
know? people who you deal with everyday are kinda like 'whatever'...
I think somebody who really changed the way people do characters and
everything, that would be TWIST. Everybody jocks him, but he deserves
to be jocked. DAIM, for popularizing 3D... I don't know, there is a
lot of people I like, but they are not the end all, I just think they
are good.
(MERZ is on the phone with DRANE and that boy talks loud, so I
could barely hear what DEVI and OPTIK were talking about here...
Something to do with wild style)
OPTIK: I'm always looking for the perfect letter and style.
DAN: yeah, it seems that you're very concerned with the shapes of the letters.
DEVIOUS: in my letters I like balance. Like an old school flavor is
what I'm going for. Watching DENZ and SLICE and all those paint in
Chicago and their letters are always balanced and you can read them
and they are clean. I think that's what it's about... that and
characters.
DAN: not enough people around here do characters.
DEVIOUS: I used to do one with every piece, but I just started getting
into letters a lot.
OPTIK: letters are so much fun, but there is something to be said
for characters. They are like the little side accent, but they are
secondary to the letters.
DAN: oh, shit I'm running out of tape here...
DRANE: (to MERZ on the phone) ok, then when do you wanna get up this
week? ... Ok, then, all right... ok, see you then... ok... yeah...
see ya, then... ok, dude. Later.