Sep 20 2007
Graffiti Fridays: MIRAGE Tribute
There was a little boy who was misled by another little boy and this is what he said… -Slick Rick, A Children’s Story
Tell your story walkin’… – Jonathan Lethem, Motherless Brooklyn
So I know I promised the second part of the longish analysis for this Friday, but too much is going on, so it will have to wait. First off, I’m busy as hell, and really don’t have the time I need to set it out. Second, the Brooklyn Famiglia – Loungerati and The Wiki Assassin — will be in town this weekend, so we’re feverishly preparing for their arrival. We’re also just excited as all git-out, since we have a babysitter for two nights, which means dinner, money-spendin’, and boozin’ like proper 20-somethings.
Yes, it’s nostalgia weekend. Shortly after 9/11, we took a trip with the Brooklyn Familia to Montreal – we are all, of course, New Yawkahs, and we were all Brooklynites at the time, but after The Great Event and Anthrax Island, it was time to take a break. Needless to say, we got drunk as hell in Canada’s sin city. That’s back when CADs were play money, and not in the least in parity with the USD. So now the Brooklyn Famiglia will be out in Chicago, and we have reservations and all manner of events planned, including Loungerati and I heading to Wrigley’s for a Cubs v. Pirates Saturday in the midst of the hottest NL Central pennant race in years. Can’t do much better than that. The real question is, will the ladies have to bail us out of Cook County for dinner Saturday?
Since we’re on the nostalgia tip, I want to take this Graffiti Friday to pay tribute to one of the great Queens bombers of yesteryear, a guy by the tag of MIRAGE. When I was coming up in the late 80′s, MIRAGE was like a hero. I was a true jocker, but I think that anyone would tell you, that if you were gonna jock somebody’s style, it may as well be MIRAGE. This is really a graffiti fable. A children’s story.
MIRAGE was famous for his footprints. We hear a lot about our “footprint” today – carbon and otherwise (Vanity Fair had a hilarious feature on reducing your “Asshole Footprint” this month that you absolutely must read). But when I was thirteen, it was all MIRAGE footprints everywhere. Yes, there were MIRAGE tags, and yes, there were MIRAGE fill-ins, straight letters, and burners, but it was still this rush to see just those MIRAGE footprints. He’d do little (and not so little) footprint fill-ins everywhere. Maybe this fable goes to the larger point. MIRAGE even moved past language, or maybe down into language. He totally got it. You don’t even need the word. Just throw up some footprints. Splat. Everywhere. MIRAGE footprints. (Isn’t this getting down to language anyway? Was it Derrida who said that language is the furrow in the earth, the footprint?).
But the best part of the MIRAGE footprints was the stories it would generate. Or rather, the footprints would hook into some already existing chemical modification, and then the stories would commence. Standing in a cold schoolyard with your boys, after midnight, passing a joint around. Yes. And somebody would say, “Those fucking footprints lead back to MIRAGE’S place, man. They lead to his house.” And then someone else would say, “That dude lives in Long Island, cuz I saw some stenciled MIRAGE footprints on the middle divider of the LIE, like by Exit 32.” And then someone else would say, “Stop fuckin’ jockin. That guy’s TMR. He lives in fucking Bayside. I saw him on Bell two days ago, you fucking jockers. But the footprints DO lead to his house. Everyone knows that.” Yes. Everyone knows that. The logic of it was crystal clear, in a smoky, EZ Wider sorta way. You turn away and see the non-writers are bored, and talking about going up to the Optimo for more whip-its. Yes. Because they’re footprints. So they must lead somewhere. Never mind the logic of graffiti itself, street rhizome breaking through in any given spot. Every signature, every footprint connected to every other. But still every signature, every footprint calling out “Track this!” And then someone said, and it wasn’t me, or at least not a me I recognize anymore, “Get off his dick. That shit don’t lead anywhere. Fucking mirage, get it? Jockers.”
MIRAGE, Straight letter with footprints, Clearview Expressway, Bayside (late 80′s)
MIRAGE Detail, Footprints (highlighted on right)
And this is the way I have to end this story: MIRAGE died in the late 1980′s, and the piece above stood unmarred on the Clearview for years afterwards, no mean feat, since that was precious graffiti real estate, and the picture here does no justice to the sheer size of that thing. It’s likely larger in my memory. Jocker. In any case, it became a marker in northern Queens. You’d say “We hit the Clearview across from The Mirage.” A couple of highway jams reached this status. There was an OCEAN HUSH just over the Whitestone Bridge in the Bronx that was similarly iconic, and the SUPERSTAR SAINT taking up an entire underpass on the BQE (Just Plain Fuckin’ Nuts). But the MIRAGE is still the one that everyone remembers. Fucking jockers. Only The City would buff something as great as that Clearview straight letter. I was primed long before I read Pierre Clastres for that simple concept: Society against the fucking State…
ah,, one of the best, i didn’t remember knowing how he died, but I remmeber that was a death in the highway graffiti scene the day they buffed that piece and of course, the in memory of mirage piece a bit further out into the Island went too..The attack on Highway graffiti got aggressive, the Cross Bronx, wiped out, Mirage, gone. I love that tretal piece. Those guys were great, Mirage, Tretal, Duran, Stane, Saint..The Master Race, fresh!
but Loot and Vor and Dead just keep on killing them Highways, Grown men,, love it,, Highway Robbery with Drugs Beer and Incest!! keeping the vibe alive!
I forgot, Motherless Brooklyn, one the most creative detective story main characters I’ve ever encountered, love the Lethem, Fortress of Solitude one of my fav all-time!!
You should read Colson Whitehead’s “The Intuitionist.” I think you’d get a kick out of it.
I grew up in auburndale which is a part of Flushing. TMR were my Don Matingly’s and Lenny Dykstra’s. Most came from my nieghborhood.
No coincedence I was at scrapyard yesderday and they were selling t-shirts with Mirage’s foot prints on them. They have that piece on the clearview on sixcents .com. He was one of my bigest influences next to Kite and Saint. I used to go to Kite’s house and beg him to sign my blackbook at the age of 9 or ten. Then I asked him if he had sex with his girlfried snd he smiled and then I asked if I could, hey I took a shot. His mother would laugh and say who is this one of your fans. I had Voyer, Dash and Kite in my book and I still have my rugged blue trapper keeper
with imitation Kite and Saint tags on it from 89-90. I’t a disgrace that TMR
has no book or dvd made about them. The mirage piece in Long Island
was under the train over pass at exit 37 heading east on the right side.
I would got to the beach with my mother, brother, cousins and friends and
I would point out all the tags on the clearview to my mom, relatives and friends and show them that the people on the wall were in my book. For whatever reason I was intrigued by graffiti. I loved it and still do. I just don’t want to see anybody suffer the penalty’s. Their talents should be used to decorate or marketing purpose on highways. Aunion should be formed. I wrote mayor Bloomberg after seeing a destitute couple in manhatan. I inquired and they said they could not make a living as artists
so I wrote the letter and also proposed to start a 12 step program for those afflicted with addiction to illegal bombing. I wrote to the man who did the article on Cope 2 also hoping that somehow they can be afforded
the same opportunities as other addicts. In closing thier wa a TMR straight letter above the gas station across the blue bay diner on Francis Lewis blvd and the LIE, the movie Coming to America( Train scene, ingagement ) and the daily news(The Mob Rules with everyone dangling thier legs over the higway. Another great one I have yet to see in any books or on any websites. In closing I want to send my regard and respects to all the members not mentioned yet, ARF(RIP),BR(RIP),RED,NIM,CANE,FIB,DUEL,IMAGE,CHILLIE,DERK, D-BOY,SENT,SOE,CURE,BL,TIME, MAR,TZ,SMOG,(RIP),CRO,PEST,GHOST,SCAN,TU,TINY,MANE,KERT,CHINO,FAKE,FOE and to one of the most unknown illest piecers CUDA TMR,NSU. Peace to MAD MAX DK, SEMER HTE(RIP) LASH,RUDE, VENT,YAZ,PACE, DEAD,VOR,LOOT,RF,ARE,BIRD, NATE, PR,JEDA,DRIL,TEM,RAMES,.FLET,STORM,DEPOT,MEST,MEM,TS,SAK,SAK II,
EVEN,SHADY,MOE BILLMAR, ART, BOO 2, DERA, SOID, JA,MQ,BRUZ, SEY,REPS AND TO ALL WHO I MAY FORGOT, GOD BLESSS AND SPARE YOU,DECOLORES, THANK YOU.
ahh gotta forgive, rip clearview, thanks for the memory fellas
If I knew the mirage was going to dissapear I would of gotten off
the expressway to appreciate some more.