I have told the story in a post about a show I had in a restaurant around 2000 where the restaurant manager said my work was for yuppies and had nothing to do with graffiti. Something I just remembered though was after the show had finished I sold one of the paintings to a small-time drug dealer and the other works were destroyed at some stage because out of the pieces I showed only one was good. The dealer went to Melbourne for a while and I never saw him again but by chance, he met the mother of my first child and he gave her the painting. From what she said he was a bit of a mess and she thought the painting was depressing and painted over it.

Supposedly the paint is starting to peel and maybe my masterpiece will see the light of day again but I doubt it. So these works for yuppies had a circuitous route and even today ignorant people can’t tell the work of the insane from the monied inane. We had a few kind words from a group of students from the US on a street art tour and a few ladies taking photos who were hamming it up and enjoying a day out. Yet one ignoramus told us we should not have gone over the boring graffiti we went over. What I find strange is the piece these graffiti artists did over one of my best pieces in years their work was so substandard that they need street cred to justify their poor effort.

I by the way did twenty years of illegal graffiti and even my worst illegal work was more interesting than the pompous gotta-do it by the book to keep my mates from shunning me garbage we went over. These drop kicks shouldn’t be doing legal walls in the first place, the sad part is they will probably do more of their garbage over our work when they could be actually getting up. There are so many graffiti artists who do legal walls and dabble in illegal work just so they don’t get looked down on. Grow some balls and stand on your own feet. If you got a talent hone it and if you got an illegal style get it out there and don’t try and shit on older dudes who aren’t interested in illegal work. Stop pretending and start actually doing something on the scene if you are all that.

I feel sorry for some of these ignorant guys because they can’t reason and see their mistakes. Instead, they wear mistakes like a badge of honour and miss out on making any significant contribution. Doing graffiti isn’t about how many arses you can kiss at once. Yet I have had opportunities in my life and I have taken them, some people get no opportunities and they are stuck in their ignorance. With that note, I don’t feel any malice or anger at this guy or the guys who go over the work I do because I get my photos and archive them by year and decade. I just don’t like seeing posers acting like they are God’s gift to illegal graffiti while they paint legal walls and go over work they don’t understand. That is why Taven is killing the whole scene because he actually is a real illegal king of graffiti rather than a twenty-something legal wall painter who thinks they are all that.