Seven Red

…you enter the winter. – Wu Tang Clan, Protect Ya Neck

It snowed here in Chicago last night. A lot. I went out this morning to “brush” the car down, and realized that I really had to “dig the car out,” a different sort of procedure altogether. Some slipping and sliding, but not too bad. A little tired of writing, I decided to take a stroll, only to see this recent work a few blocks away:

PR ONE and PG13, Lawrence, between Western and Rockwell

These cats hit this wall maybe two nights ago, in the deadly cold. There’s actually been quite a bit of new stuff all around, and especially on the Brown/Red, which has several new rooftop jobs from Belmont south to the Loop. I will try to take a graffiti train ride for those some time this week. Why so much? she asked me this very question on the way back from downtown the other day. “There’s bound to be more now,” I said, thinking it obvious. “Why?” I shrugged, “It’s winter.” she looked at me with that look you give everyone who’s just uttered a non sequitur, and I realized that – for her, anyway – I had. But this put me in the mind of explaining some of the more material aspects of graffiti, where I’ve been pretty high-flown thus far, when I’m not making dubious aesthetic claims. So this edition is about trudging through the slush, and the feel of wet and cold on your feet.

Pragmatically, it’s easier to bomb during the winter, or at least it was. Why? First, and most obviously, there are fewer people out and about, which means fewer pesky civilians playing neighborhood watch. Second, because you can fit a ton of spray paint undetected in a fat coat. Consider the 16-17 year old writer. What does he or she do at night? Usually, he hangs out at a park or schoolyard or corner, or maybe one of his friends has an apartment or basement where they can chill. Maybe one friend drives around and you stop at a bunch of different parks, schoolyards, or corners. You’re not really going to bars, except maybe an occasional one that has very loose carding policies, and even then, you probably don’t have a whole lot of cash for that. Generally, you’re out on the street.

In the late 80′s and early 90′s in New York, you weren’t really going around with a backpack. A kid with a backpack outside of school hours just screamed “burglary tool,” “drugs,” “gun,” or “graffiti instrument” to any cop passing by. Plus, you’d just look like a douchebag. We can thank the early 90′s raver kids (who introduced douchebaggery as a fashion philosophy) for getting us over that hump, I guess. Hello Kitty bags and platform Pumas, ugh. Point being, unless you were going for a very deliberate mission, you simply didn’t have a whole lot of places to conceal spray paint during the summer. Moreover, if you’re hanging out in the summer, it’s more comfortable to be in one place and there are more people out. Who wants to sit in a park in New York or Chicago in January? (Yes, my take is geographically specific; these are local conditions). You’re going to tend to be either inside, or outside and moving. And if you have a couple of cans with you, and you’re outside and moving, well…

I heard several arguments against this version break out among a group of writers in the early 90′s. One guy said he tended to bomb more in the summer and especially the fall, and his arguments were based on material conditions: “Do you wanna get chased in the fuckin’ winter? Do you want to try to climb rooftops in the fuckin’ winter? And shit is wet anyway.” You can’t bomb in the rain; the paint won’t stick. Snow, too. And finally, the killer argument: “And you know the motherfuckin’ cans freeze.” Everyone nodded. That’s true. You don’t generally use the factory cap that came with the spray paint, but when you introduce a new cap, and the paint is cold, it can tend to clog up, and the can is then worthless. As for the big coat argument? “Fuck all that. I throw cans in a duffel bag. Cops wanna stop me, I’ll take the summons.” Back then, you’d get a desk appearance ticket for graffiti instrument. Now I think it’s a felony.

SARS and a partner, rooftop off the Brown Line, northeast of Belmont

He did get trumped on one material factor, though. Somebody just said “Gloves, man,” and everybody had to agree. The local cops used to come around like “Let me see your hands.” When you use spray paint, you get small dots of paint all over your fingers and nails, blowback. You also get a couple of pretty solid paint stains on your index finger, especially if you’re switching out caps. Pretty obvious in the summer; a little harder to detect when you have gloves. (Many guys would wear plastic gloves if they were going on a major bomb, lifted, of course, from the local deli where somebody worked).

But it seems like it would also be much easier now to do the sort of things we did then. First, cops don’t blink at a kid walking around with a backpack at two in the morning. It’s practically standard. More importantly, these cats have something we never had: cell phones. Back then, if you wanted to hit the highway, you’d just do it. If a cop pulled up, you jetted. If you got caught, they’d give you a little beating and stick you in Central Booking. It wasn’t really that complicated. Now, they can post people a half mile down in either direction and give you a heads up if a marked car is coming. That’s fucking crazy to me. Same goes for rooftops, tunnels, hell, even street bombing. Of course, I doubt people do this, but they could.

I suppose it might take some of the fun out of it.

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