by BabyAngelSalutations Reader.
Yours truly received Royalty _and Company_ this past week in the War-Room, who came to drop-off a Special-Edition of Shoes-BlackBook. Roughly one-year ago I received a copy of Bandos-BlackBook for which I wrote a short review down memory-lane of sorts… Which brings me to the unfortunate task at hand, being slightly autistic, suppose I owe my mate the same courtesy.
Not to overthink it… Lets start somewhere at the beginning, when I moved to Amsterdam in 1983, I was certainly no stranger to graffiti. Yet, there was a crew of prolific bombers active that changed the game and were trailblazers, standing above anything else. The first school I went to was Fons-Vitae _more like Deaths~Drain_ and located in United-Street-Artist territory.
Surprisingly, just remembered, as I write this and watched that movie-clip from 1984 above… “Your humble narrator used to have a ‘WALL’ piece next to the one with the ‘Lizard’ at the subway-station…” Some time later, it had a tag alongside that said; Let’s Meet, Signed: SHOE.
I met SHOE at age fifteen…
Well that meeting did not happen till the next-year or so? First I used to run amuck with LINO-ONE practically daily, who used to live a few tram-stops up from me. It must have been him that introduced me to ZAP and started going on escapades with swarms of various writers.
Meanwhile, sinking deeper into graffiti, the more I suffered from academic boredom and eventually your humble Game-Smith transferred to Graphic-School. Turns out, it was a breeding ground for writers, other derelicts or delinquents and the curriculum was far from challenging. Even so, for a brief moment in time, it was where I needed to be in the universe… For it was there, in the cafeteria of the school catacombs, where a life changing commotion was in the works! Someone had brought: Subway-Art!
Once I acclimated to my new surroundings and word spread I was a tagger, a guy named ‘Eddy Handyman‘ _name changed to thinly veil his true identity_ took me apart and urged me adamantly to skip class and follow him! You’d think that was odd, but stranger things happened in those days, after going up a few flight of stairs… He knocked on another classroom door and frantically flagged another student to come meet us and there we stood.
Whereupon Eddy says; You guys need to hang-out, ANGEL meet SHOE.
Some Forty Years Ago…
And that is just how we met, from that point onward we became as thick as thieves and into so-much-shit! Somehow I think that we must have lived 5 lifetimes worth in the eighties, which each new vandalistic venture forward? Albeit too~much to mention and in my opinion; If you weren’t there, or a bomber, none of your fucking business!
Unquestionably, I have known Shoes-BlackBook since it’s early days and I am reminded; How Much I Sucked At Drawing! As I mentioned my spartan upbringing, in the previous book-review, I am tempted to look a little deeper; How Come?
Before becoming a native of the Graffiti-Capital of the Netherlands, this Cherub-Child lived under battered and neglected spartan circumstances elsewhere. During these harsh formative years, drawing is what offered him order in the chaos and the silent solitude granted sanctuary. Not an ordinary kid, he passed by all mainstream toys and regarded military Warcraft model-kit cover-illustrations as museum-worthy treasures.
Once our Anti-Hero entered adolescence and being raised a fearless little bastard, made him an ideal candidate for juvenile delinquency. Somewhere there, where the Orphan lost his innocence and became an antagonist, creating chaos in the mazes of the established-order. Is where Paradise is lost! Taking on the role of Destroyer, our harbinger disconnects from his sanctuary through inner-turmoil and keeping his Demons at bay. Consequently, drawing had changed from a tool-of-survival to a weapon of the ego and drew on a different energy source.
Enough exposition, we jump to Amsterdam where among the X generation a special breed compete to make name for themselves. Where our Seraphic Vandal climbs the ranks, enters the upper-echelon, whereupon he teams up with the King of the City.
In retrospect; I might regret getting by with minimal effort and not putting in the work to develop my skills. But; Wotcha~Gonna~Do!? Regardless, the fact of the matters remains undoubtedly; I loved To Bomb, I Just Didn’t Give A Shit! Something that is proven by the Lack-of-Documentation in my archives, until I relentlessly started drawing The-Baby-Hype in the early nineties.
Concurrently, we always were opposites, one was drawn to center stage and the heat of the spotlight, the other observed from behind a cold curtain. If you know your way around Jungian archetypes, you could clearly see the mechanics of The Ruler and A Sage? Nevertheless, my favorite phrasing of our fellowship is: Shoe and his Wing-Man.
In conclusion, we remained close and stepped into adulthood, even though arguably; Never matured, for SHOE is another Puer Aeternus. The only reason we don’t hang-out much is because I moved outside the city walls and live like a hermit. Altogether, my life has been for the better by consorting with SHOEBIDOO, in my book: You Are Friend And Family.
Signed: “ANGEL”
