Last Sunday Night...

A little bombing mission last sunday night on a freshly built wall on the train line here in Buenos Aires, there wasn't enough room and Soer and me shared the spot to be good hosts of Stoner NSF and Remix BA NSF D30, cool people indeed...

37 years old and still at it...

Where My Dawgs At???

So here it is, the infamous Dead Dog Story...



I was living on 15th and P at the time with Lee and Sean VD and we had a bunch of people over, it was a hot summer day, we decided to all go get falafels at this spot in Dupont Circle and when we walked past the park next to Cafe Luna we saw a cloud of flies flying around something that smelled putrid. As young inquisitive men and women we were, we looked and found a headless, skinned dog; we all dry heaved a couple times from the smell and decided to go get food while we figured out what to do with such finding. Later we found out there was a serial dog killer in DC and we had found one of his victims. So while over falafels somebody, I can't remember who, said "lets throw it at the Earthwell House". We had a running feud with the Earthwell people for a long time since as I said in one of my earlier posts, they were more interested in climbing the hardcore ladder than the actual scene and doing "shady" promoter practices of offering special treatment to bands that we wouldn't do since we were straight males, but oh well, we didn't get along and that's that, we were young, liked pranks and this was a perfect opportunity to score one for the good guys, haha. We finished eating, went home, got a plastic recycling bin and went to get our prey, we found a stick and after several attempts we were able to get the dog in the basket, a couple people were actually puking from the smell and the swarm of flies was attacking us. We could barely hold it since the smell was so strong, we put the bin in the back of Lee's truck and here the 2nd part of this great idea, which finally we couldn't carry out, was hatched, we decided to douse the dog in lighter fluid, the idea being the famous poo bag, go to the Earthwell House, set it on fire and when somebody came out to stomp it out, they would get "bitten" by the dog. So Lee and me in his truck, a car full of people behind us with their windows rolled up, we inside the truck could barely keep it together from the smell, and we drive to George Washington University, home of... The plan was set, once there Sean Vd and me would grab the bin, dump it on their front door and Sean would set it on fire, when we get a block away, Lee takes the wrong turn and drives the wrong way down a street, and of course we get pulled over, DC Police goes thru the motions, what are you doing? where are you coming from? we played little lost white kids from Virginia lost in big, bad DC, he gave us directions and sent us on our way, whats amazing about that is that when we got pulled over, the cop was standing less than a foot away form the dog, we were all half puking and he was standing there like nothing, we never figured out how the hell he didn't smell it. So, we drive once around the block, stop in front of the house, grab the bin and as we are getting to the door a light comes on, and also there was a frat house next to theirs with a bunch of people in the front, so we get spooked and drive away, a couple blocks away we gather, talk and decide not to set it on fire since it was going to raise too much attention, and that the light was one of those motion sensor ones, so we go in for round 2, again we stop, get out and light comes on, a frat boy hey!s us, we could barely stand half from laughing at the situation, half from the odor, and instead of dumping the bin we swing it, with Fido hitting the storm door and getting stuck there, keep in mind the dog was all gelatinous and the sort from being in whatever state of decay it was, and starts sliding down the door in its best horror movie impersonation, leaving a streak of goo behind. We ran to the truck and car and drove away as we saw the front door opening, probably from hearing the noise. As we got home we started calling the house asking about our missing dog, this went on for about a week, we also posted "Have You Seen Him?" posters around their house with a picture of a headless dog and their number, we didn't know this but the day before, a different group of kids had brained their house, yeah they had thrown cow brains at them for probably similar reasons as ours, so they weren't on their best week ever. There was also an issue of XOffXCenterX zine with the same picture and a few weeks later Brother's Keeper was playing their basement, we all went, WOOFed WOOFed our way thru their set, and I promised Mikeski a show if they covered "Shallow Grave" by his former band Sumethin To Prove, they played it and sent the song out to the Dead Dog Crew, haha...


Yeah looking back, it was probably not the coolest thing to do, but it was perfect for the period when it happened. George Washington University shows were always kind of fun nnonetheless, there's a great story about pulling down the ceiling and dancing with the tiles during Floorpunch to be told at a later time. All kinds of stories were invented from the above original story, like that we killed the dog, skinned it and kept the hide, and a bunch more. At some point there were rumors of the FBI being involved, never knew up to what point this was true, there was even talk of cameras being installed at the house. And of course we felt sorry for the dog, we were all vegetarian or vegan at that point, but it was already dead. Till the next one...

XOffXCenterX Sxe Fanzine...

I had a project of a zine called Axcept the Faxts that I started but never quite finished, instead I hooked up with Moonie and added myself to his zine Off Center, this is the summer 1996 issue, there are some pretty funny things in there, some are inside jokes, some are DC scene cheap shots, but all of it is completely truthful and whats even weirder is that some things still apply 14 years later like my internet article...

Take note of Moonie wanting to make sure that the In and Outs that could get him in trouble with his girl he made sure everybody knew I wrote it.

Ha, I just reread the part I wrote about door price and got nostagic, great quote there "We are doing this for the kids, you and me." haha... Btw thanks Dave Brown DC for getting me this...

Enjoy...

Click on the pics to see them larger if you cant read it...

Working...

Got my scanner working and I'm in the process of scanning a whole bunch of new material. Update tomorrow...

Dan The Man...

Aka Cool "Disco" Dan...

No DC blog would be complete without a Cool "Disco" Dan post. Before I started doing graffiti or at least looking at it in 1988 or 89 I would already see Dan up everywhere, he was a DC institution as much as The White House, Capitol Hill or the Smithsonian. Meeting Dan for the 1st time was like meeting a comic book hero, one of those characters that you don't think really exist but it turns out he does. I remember seeing him often on 9th Street in front of the old 9:30 Club selling Go-Go tapes when I was still in high school and I went to pay my beeper bill and just kicked it with him, a couple of years later Dan ended up crashing at the same spot I was, Ben Exacto's house and if there was one peculiar thing about Dan it was his voice, and that he never took off that wave cap, one night we wake up to Ben's mother's screams, we all rush down and find her at about 3am in her nightgown yelling at top of her lungs scared as hell, she had gone down for something to drink and encountered a lightly dressed black man raiding her fridge, haha, and Dan saying "ma'am it's me Dan". A few years after that Ultra, Halo and me were kind of squatting in the basement of a building on the old 10th and O and we let Dan stay with us, Dan was the eternal homeless, and to this day we have no idea what he did with the soap and the toilet paper, but it was a given that even if you put a new bar and a new roll, when Dan emerged from the bathroom an hour later both things would be spent, we were too shy to ask... Dan was and still is a good friend, he could tell old DC stories and tell you about all these people that made up FFC, his crew, the one thing about that was in all out time we were never able to meet a single one, not Ten Speed, or Boxing Bingo or any others, who knows, maybe they did exist. One time we drove down to Richmond to beat up this kid that had fucked up with one of our friends there, it was Dan, Halo and me and we met with some Richmond kids and went to a couple of houses looking for this kid, when we found him and we are "talking" to him, Dan pull out a pair of camo gloves, puts them on, and starts hitting the kid making those boxing snorting noises, PSSSS PSSSSS, haha, my anger towards the kid turned to laughter as I saw this but the mood quickly changed as a gun fell out while kicking the kid and he tried to grab it causing him to almost get shot in the process, ooops... There are a hundred Dan stories, if I had to describe him, to me Dan was DC...

There is a leech trying to milk his name, I don't support this but you can check out http://www.cooldiscodan.com/ and this same leech is making a movie, it might be worth seeing just for the stories.
 Ps. The leech is not the actual moviemaker but somebody that exploits his name.

Snapcase And The SxE Graffiti Gangsters...

Due to a personal request, the dead dog story will not be told until halloween...


The DC scene always seemed to be a competition, who did the most shows and which bands they could get; neither Jon, Gabe nor me would get too caught up in the politics of being scenesters, we did what we did and that was that yet it seemed that there always people trying to "climb" by talking shit about us, I could, up to a point, accept criticism towards me since I was no angel, but Jon and Gabe didn't deserve any, and what ended up happening was that in the rush to try to get bands to play we ended up with half-assed shows and this particular one was one of them...

Eternal was playing with Snapcase at a VFW Hall in SE so obviously we all went, Eternal at the time was more than a band to most of us, they were our friends and also some of the kids we did graffiti with, I say that because its going to be relevant later on, and some graffiti kids that weren't all out hardcore kids would go see the local bands like Separation, Gauge or Eternal just because their friends played in the bands. So, onto the show, everything was running as ok as you could expect in a small place with a shitty stage, Snapcase got on to play and after a couple of songs of dancing I made my way towards the stage to catch a couple of dives and enjoy the band, as I step onstage a Depeche Mode looking kid who was roading for Snapcase puts his arm out like "Hey, dont come onstage", I point at the ground and then to my eyes like saying "I see the pedals, dont worry" and again tried to step, he again blocked my way and I slapped his arm away and got onstage, he kinda came at me and I grabbed him and we both flew off the and into the middle of "the pit" where I landed and underneath him while trying to swing punches, he was on top covering up and at this point Bob the bass player, who later I was told happened to be the roadie's boyfriend(althought I never confimed this), started kicking me, and Big Larry came out of nowhere with the knockout punch and left Bob with a huge shiner on his eye. Lots of back and forth, yelling, pushing, shoving and invitations to fight, all of us rolled outside and waited for the band to come out to settle this like men, we could hear Darryl talking shit on the mike about "Straight Edge graffiti gangsters" and a bunch of other shit. Really this had nothing to do with graffiti or being a gangster, up to that point I had a cordial relationship with them guys, booked a couple of their shows and even let them stay at my house, and to get called out for no reason other than trying to enjoy the band and do like anybody should be allowed to do at a hardcore show, dance and dive, was bullshit. I can't remember why they were "allowed" to leave, i think the cops might have rolled up. Anyway over the next weeks things got smoothed out and this ended up being this, another story...

Migrane...

One of them days, off to bed, dead dog story tomorrow, dont miss it...

Life After Death...

We all make choices that determine our fate, sometimes we get it right, sometimes we don't. Who's to judge others actions except themselves, like who's to judge my own actions except me. I made some right choices, made some wrong ones, I'm well aware of that. I mean this post to be about all the friends that I miss that are no longer here and not about myself. It weird trying to cope with people's passing, to tell you the truth I've been lucky enough, if you can call it that, to not have a large number of friends leaving but one of the one that I always carry is Santi or Kelt to most, I guess the uncertainty of the situation is what really gets me and puts that lump in my throat, not really knowing and always having that small tiny bit of hope that... Yeah, I'm the eternal optimist, I guess this is my way of saying Santi I Miss You...

Safari Club RIP...

A while ago a good friend of mine, Tru, showed me these pictures, can't front and say I didn't get teary-eyed, The Safari Club aka Chamber Of Sound, home for many years before me to some of the best hardcore shows ever and with the help of Jon Hennessy and Gabe Banner home of the rebirth of DC Hardcore. I remember in the early 90s looking for places to book bands, normally we had St. Stephens Chuch, or BBQ Iguana, or Wilson Center, or Asylum, but none of them was really what we were looking for and had to settle for them. At that time I was living about 2 blocks away from Safari and would normally attend its saturday night Latin House parties with DJ OsoFresh spinning hip-hop and dancehall in the back room or would stop by during the day for some of the African food they sold during lunch, and I thought why not? why not try? I can say at first they were skeptical, Palash and Dario were the owners and really had no idea what  it involved and how much history that place had, they trusted me and gave me a chance to start and from the very first show were there was a line that went around the corner to the very last show I can honestly say that I enjoyed every minute of it. DC Hardcore had found its place again and yeah it gave me some headaches but mostly it was so good being involved in something as pure as giving the scene a chance to see bands and enjoy them with no barriers, no shitty bouncers and a low door price. yeah it was hot as hell in the summer, and sometimes parking was sketchy or crackheads would fight in the front, or whatever, but Safari Club was all that and then more.  The bands that played there can probably say this better than me and the kids that went to the shows can probably give a more partial review but as far as I'm concerned this was the best place ever to enjoy hardcore...

The Very First Show Back...

My Name Is Martin...

And one day i became a narcotics user...

I recently told this story in the Argentina Hardcore board, http://www.argentinahardcore.org/, and its only fitting that I tell it here also...

In 1997 i was locked up in the Lorton Complex, now closed but at one time of the U.S. worst jails, for having been caught doing graffiti 3 years earlier, getting a suspended sentence and probation which I apparently failed when I would make fun of my weekly drugs tests and the probation officer said I wasn't taking it seriously which resulted in a 6 months halfway house sentece of which I served 3 weeks and got jumped by some youngins and I never went back to once they let me out to eat, which led to a 2 year fugitive run and post arrest for the time owed, ok, back to the story, I was in Lorton for 6 months and I i had a release date for a tuesday but talking to the "locals" I found out that if you went to 10 Narcotics Anonymous meetings you would get 3 days off good time; hell, it meant a friday release, so off to the meetings I went...

First meeting I had to introduce myself in the all too familiar "my name is...", shit, what do I say? do I tell the truth and risk being "asked to leave" for disrespecting their meetings with even themselves as recovering addicts or do I play along and just say I have a problem... I came clean, explained that I was Straight Edge and had never done drugs in my life, hadn't had a drink in years, and I didn't even smoke cigarettes, although always had some on me to "buy" people's lunches at the mess hall, you could get somebody's whole tray for 3 cigarettes but that's a different story. I'm not sure if they truely understood, I think they thought of SxE more of a NA type of thing, and I kept going to meetings, all good so far until...

In one of my collect calls home, somebody tells me "yoo, watch Fox(or whatever it was) tonight, they are doing a special on SxE." cool i thought, let me figure out a way to get the TV, which is easier said than done, I kinda spoked to the head "dude" in charge and got his approval, normally all that would be on would be sporting events, as longs as it was a sport it was OK, this wasn't and a few complained but they let it ride. About halfway thru the show, they interview some Salt Lake City SxE kids who anybody who is familiar with them knows they are not the most sane people on earth and one of them said "Straight Edge means you have to kill drug dealers"... knot on the throat, automatically I had 30 sets of eyes looking at me "yooooo you wanna kill drug dealers?", you all can obviously guess the profession of most everybody there, I said "me? nah, thats the white boys chapter, latino SxErs don't do that", haha, it was the first thing that came to mind and it was one of the closest times I came to a serious beatdown...

Couple mental notes, it's funny how the progression of events lead to different outcomes, if I hadn't wanted to get out 3 days early I wouldn't have told them about SxE and maybe my health wouldn't have been threatened, and I wouldn't have laughed at my PO because he didn't believe I didn't do drugs and made me pee once a week then I would have so many later events would have been different, and who knows maybe, just maybe I would still be in the US, oh well, I wouldn't change a thing...

Heres the show that was my welcome home "party" on that sunday, coincidently the Safari Club/Chamber Of Sound had a fire that friday night I got out and the show was moved next door to a travesty hooker nudie bar... 

Hardcore Record Collector Tidbit: at this show Rain On The Parade sold their limited 44 DC cover, 44 is my favorite number and they did it to welcome me home...

Why Do I Call Myself a Bomber You Ask Me???

Cause the police are always trying to harrass me...

Am I an artist? I never considered myself one, usually I describe myself as a vandal, a bomber and while in these last couple of years I haven't hit the streets as much as I would have liked to, it's always in the plans to takeover Buenos Aires, I guess my main problem is that I don't have a steady partner like I had back in the day, Budda FTP, Cert ID, Halo, Ultra, or Cram KGB. I've bombed with a couple cool kids here, Melon and Soer but I'm missing that call at 2am that says "Yooo you bored? lets go out.."

Tools Of The Trade...

The Very First Post...

It's only fitting that my 1st post will be a sort of introduction, here are the aspects of my life that i want to share, enjoy...

Yeah I still do Graffiti at 37, its whats keeps my blood flowing, and I'm still Straight Edge like when that picture was taken in 1991 and I had no tattoos, and I still ride track but now its called fixie or some bullshit and people do stupid bmx tricks and its cool, but it wasn't cool when we froze our asses off in the middle of winter trying to get runs...