Seven Red

“On and on and on
How the alphabet boys carry on…”
- The Gaslight Anthem, Orphans

Just some flicks today of a recent rooftop by HERTS, OMENS, and, of course, NOTEEF. I should note that about half the local hits on this blog come from people looking up some combination of “NOTEEF” and “graffiti” and “Chicago” on Google, and finding the previous image I put up of a Brown Line rooftop. So here’s to driving traffic this way. I’m also unclear on the relationship between “HERTS, ROGER, and SNACKI/SNACK ATTACK, who all seem to be the same person to me, but maybe it’s different people. In any case, SNACKI is hilariously famous round these parts for these kinda awesome faces he does everywhere. He even got the attention of the New York Times, which of course sent a reporter to track him down. She does, only to realize it’s not the Jean Michel Basquiat (or fake ass banksy) interview she’s been dreaming about, but rather an interview with an actual, y’know, graffiti writer. The stark difference between his description of his own work and the overblown nonsense of every non-writer’s favorite “street artist” (i.e., fucking fake ass banksy) is just about perfect:

Soon, he was talking about graffiti the way some people talk about coffee. Or crystal meth. “It’s an addiction, honestly,” he said. “And like any other addiction, everyone starts for a different reason. At this point in my life I couldn’t imagine not doing it.”

But why graffiti? Why create art that is, by definition, impermanent? Not to mention illegal?

“When you put a gallery show together,” he said, “it’s only going to attract a certain crowd. If I paint a billboard that you can see from I-94, Amtrak and Damen, it’s going to hit a lot more people than just some college hipsters or some 40-year-old art collectors.” [MY NOTE: Amen, brotha.]

Much to my disappointment, snacki did not seem to be a lunatic genius. Very bright and slightly squirrelly maybe — but utterly lacking the self-importance I’d assigned to him from afar.

“At the end of the day,” snacki said, “writing graffiti is just acting like a little kid, and running around and having fun. It’s about not taking myself seriously.”

Wise words. If only he’d shared them with me back in December.

She wishes he could have said them back in December so that she wouldn’t have had to waste her time with the interview! Well, looks like she got took, too. So, the HERTS, I think, is this SNACKI, but I may be wrong. You might notice that GRAM, another guy who hangs with these cats, and “SNAX” are listed in NOTEEF’s fill-in (in the “N”), so maybe HERTS isn’t SNACKI. There is, however, a HERTS fill-in with one of those SNACKI faces on a garage near Diversey, so I’m just confused. In any case, enjoy.

HERTS, OMENS, and NOTEEF KWT 2NR. fill-ins, rooftop, Brown Line at Western

NOTEEF, since the one above cut him off. Brown Line at Western