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So can you introduce yourself, FLITE?
FLITE: I'm FLITE T.D.S. I came out in 1983, in '84 I was king of the 1's (Broadway). During all of '84 they were completely mine. If you came to the yard, you got vicked. That was the 145th street yard.
What was your affiliation with JON 1 back then?
FLITE: He was my partner. We did every car together, the three of us with ALAS. We were tight, we wouldn't piece with anybody else. If you pieced with me back then you didn't run to piece with smojoe down the block.
What can you tell me about T.D.S.?
FLITE: I was up and coming, and I knew PESO. He introduced me to KOOL 131. KOOL said, 'who the hell is this guy?' I answered Listen, 'KOOL, we just met, put me down and you won't regret it. T.D.S. was on the down low, nobody was writing. So I was like 'Put me down and I will blow it back up.' That's what I did. I put The Death Squad (T.D.S.) up everywhere. I am not like these guys who write all these crews next to your name. I'm down with a lot of crews, but T.D.S. is the one I like. It was us against everybody else. You did a whole car and the next day you were at 125th street catching photos, freaking out. We had it running, it was fun!.;quot;As he speaks with PART1, he starts to get into a raid story. FLITE: 'What happened that day is we were doing whole cars on the catwalk, and workbums started running at us from 145th street, and we just started running, man! (laughter) The worst time I got raided was at 145th street. It was like a graffiti convention. In the first car (facing 145th street) there must of been about 20 or 25 writers just hanging out. I had just finished two cars, a window down burner and a whole car, it was a Sunday. All of a sudden I see people coming from 137th st. running towards me with flashlights. Everybody starts to run towards 145th st. and the cops are just picking them up like little frogs. There had to been about 30 cops in there, coming in from all sides, even down the escape hatch. I hid underneath the wheels of a train for two hours. All I heard was walkitalkies, the train doors opening, hoping they weren't going to pull the train out 'cuz I was underneath the damn thing!. It scared the living shit out of me! But I got away and never got caught for graffiti. Everybody gets real high and drunk in the yards, if there is a raid you are going to get busted.I got electrocuted once. I was standing on the third rail holding on to a pillar and the can hit the train while I was making a line. That contact made my arm fall asleep like when you wake up in the morning after having slept alla tpels gnivah ret
So you made a comeback this summer?
FLITE: IVORY got me back out. He was like, "Yo let's go, I got a wall. From there it started with one and just went on and on. I've done twelve walls so far, and I want to do twenty.
What can you tell me about being in graffiti for so long?
FLITE: To all the newcomers, don't do it! Get a job, pay the bills (laughter). Graffiti is not like it was back in the days. It's changed. Now everybody is worried about characters, what about the style in the piece? You go and you buy a christmas tree, are you going to buy the worst christmas tree and then put the ornaments on? You buy a good christmas tree and then you put the ornaments on to enhance the christmas tree. It's the same thing in graffiti.
Your outline comes first, it's your style, your heart. Then the characters and the background. Everybody is worried about the characters and the background, but what about the piece, it looks like shit! Graff' isn't what it used to be. Back in the days there was no vandal squad, there was just transit cops. That was no such thing as this elite force to kill us.
What do you think of all these European kids coming to New York every summer?
FLITE: Ah! Forget about it. I did a production with LOOMIT and DAIM. These kids are really good. Their style is a different step, a new plateau. They want to piece with people like us. They really go out of their way to paint with us.
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How long have you been writing PART?
PART: Pretty long! Since '72 or'73 like 25 years now. You can't get enough of it. Ask any artist and they will tell you that it's in the blood and you can't get rid of it. Their is always new ideas, so it's still challenging.
What can you tell me about T.D.S?
PART: The majority of the people involved got skills. Everybody who knows the history is awhere of that. When it first came out their was not to many people involved in it. The talent varies from one member to the other. Some guys are nice at drawing and sketching, others may work on sceneries or portraits. Right after we came out, everybody knew us for the damage we were doing, and wanted to be down. You can't just run around and get every body involved.
The crews that did that were basically bombing crews that focused on throw ups, they had mass destruction. We concentrated on doing fat stuff. That caught a lot of peoples eyes. I was already doing me thing before we came up with the crew. They approached me and put me down. That was in 1976, it's been 21 years. Time flies.
How do you explain your focus on elaborated graffiti work in your community?
PART: Take BLADE and COMET their style is basically throw ups, but they can get busy with colors and make things look nice. That's the key to it, taking from one level to the next and keeping it on the graff' path. Styles don't have to be to wild, you can take simple stuff and freak 'em a little bit. Recently I haven't had the time to go to somewhere nice and comfortable to concentrate on something different, like getting back to old mechanical, and computerized styles. I haven't had a chance to work on big softy letters or what they call three dimensional letters.Once the trains got knocked of you had no choice but to take it to the streets. Even the school yards are taboo now. Back then that's how I started. You can't do that now, unless you can get permission like we did at the hall of fame. That's the kind of thing we should concentrate on more. It gives an opportunity to the kids to see what's happening. That's how every writer starts. It should be applied but the bottom line is they will always look at graff' like the ;quot;other;quot; art form. We should concentrate more on doing things like that. We were lucky it came off that way. Hopefully we can do something else like that, that is a little more of a world wide proportion. Keep your eyes opened for the 1997 Halloween wall. Everything now is based on money, all these shows and stuff are about making that loot. I have nothing against that, but still you got to keep essence of creativity.
Can I question some of the symbolic in your pieces, like what's up in Harlem now that you have done with ESO?
PART: ESO did a few pieces for Mumia. A lot of people can't comprehend that. People can't deal with that. He was painting this character on the other side. The guy was holding a couple of dices and some money. Somebody who has like a garden next to it, approached him to criticize what he was doing clamming it was negative and not letting him explain himself. It goes to show you that some people will always be ignorant. You have to focus on your immediate environment and what surrounds you. It's nice to fantasize and paint action figures, but there's a time and place for that. You should be awhere of what's around you, what's to be applied and how to attract the eye. You can use a cartoon character and give it different results. Instead of a real life character you use a cartoon character who comments on the subject. You get the same point across.
ESO : The first thing that I did on this wall was a guy rolling dice, and the reaction
that I caught from that was a complete incredible miscomprehension. The guy had a twenty dollar bill in his hand and was playing cee-lo with the ghetto coming out of his head threw the form of buildings and urban images. The mind of the character couldn't see the world past the ghetto, he could only see the twenty dollar bill and the dice. That's what that was supposed to represent but they didn't look at it past the few pieces of that I had finished. They didn't give me the time to go any further. The thing is kids up town spend their time drinking beer and shouting dice. This guy came to me saying ;quot;your an artist, your supposed to give positive images to your community!;quot;. I told him ;quot;Listen you are a politician, you want to be liked, I'm an artist and don't need to be liked. Your not mad at me because I'm painting a guy shooting dice, your mad at me because i'm reminding you of the guy doing the same thing in front of your building that you can't do anything about. I'm reminding you of your inefectivness and your weakness. So instead of criticizing my work, why don't you go and do something about it. It was a legal and the cops came by to try and stop me but I finished it and it worked out.
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