Graphic Artist vs Graffiti

Interviewer: That graffiti. Interviewee: Oh, that was -- I live on the apiary side of Manhattan and there was an area where there was a group of kids who they call The Passi, that is what they call the graffiti groups that travel around? Interviewer: Okay, what is this now? Interviewee: This is back in like ’89 and there was a group of kids that would always deface one grocery store on like in the ‘80’s or 79th Street actually and the neighborhood association for that block wanted to do something to keep the wall from being defaced anymore. So they hired me, someone had found out that I do murals, I do illustration. They hired me to do a mural for that wall and I had a group of kids who were the Passi, basically not wanting me to paint the wall and they would deface when I started to paint, they would deface it. So I took a bed sheet and wrote to them on the bed sheet that if they would help me paint the wall, that I would pay them, and they could be a part of the project. So they were agree about what I has wrote back on the bed sheet that they would do that. Interviewer: On a bed sheet? Interviewee: Yes, because I do not want them to face the wall anymore. Interviewer: Right, right, right. Interviewee: So I taped this huge bed sheet and they wrote when they would meet me Interviewer: That is incredible. Interviewee: And then they were supposed to meet me to start and unfortunately the night they were suppose to meet me, they had of this group was in a car accident and got beheaded and so the last place he signed was the wall that I was trying to draw on. Interviewer: Wow. Interviewee: So what happened from that was I had a whole group of kids come up to me and threat me that if I was to do any more on that wall, that they would going to come after me and hurt me. So basically, I got went back to the bed sheet’s stuff and worked it out that paste an another bed sheet on the wall and said, if you help me finish this, the scene was in the park, I would let you do a tomb stone in the park that memorializes him. And they agree to that, Interviewer: Wow. Interviewee: And I finished the mural and they did a tomb stone, and it was on 79th and 1st Avenue for a long time. It is not there anymore but it got written up in the post, the whole story, because it was a really cool. I also had a place called Sambo Productions wanting the rights to the whole story to do it as a movie. Interviewer: Yes, that is great. Interviewee: It was really, it was a really cool thing. Interviewer: Never got made them? Interviewee: No, never got made them. Interviewer: Maybe someday.