Author: Joe

Dissed Kwiz

Here are a couple scans of what remained of a Kwiz piece from the 1990s underneath an overpass. The photos are from the early 2000s. I adjusted the contrast on the middle one to help it pop out a little.

Civilian Graffiti

Give someone a marker, and they will write their name on something…or draw a penis with it. Marking on stuff is a human characteristic. Even the average person has something they want to say or wants to make their mark. Here are some of those average person markings. Included to counter-balance the pseudo-satantic graffiti is the classic “Trust Jesus” marker tag, the “Televandalist”. That one is still running today.

Before & After: Midnight Marauders

At this spot there were some pieces by Kwiz and friends. Under the overpass in the raw concrete, there were outlines of crew members on the wall with the words, “47347- in. – Bong Squad – ’94”, “Midnight Marauders”. The outlines are still visible today, even after their other pieces nearby were demolished several years ago. (I will post more about those pieces later.) Several years ago someone did a fill-in on the bottom corner of the wall, and Choke did an outline over the whole panel, probably in the dark, with no diss intended. Below is a photo from 2001, and a current day photo of the wall. If you look closely enough you can still see it.

The Bong Squad, 1994. Photo, 2001.
Current Day, 2020

The Kokomo Kid

“The Kokomo Kid” painted his hobo moniker with red & white brush paint w/ a RXR symbol and the date “6-’93” on the porous concrete of an old railroad building near the tracks in a wooded area that was once a large train yard. The name sounds exotic, but I imagine it may be a reference to the city of Kokomo, Indiana, which is about 100 miles northwest of here. This moniker is still visible today, 27 years later, on the concrete shell of the building. The first pic is a scan of a photo I took in probably 2002 or 2003, with my camera cord or something obscuring the top view, of course. I have also adjusted the contrast to help the name show up better. The last couple pics are from 2018 and 2019.

Benching Freights, Part 5, Derailment

In 2000 or 2001, I was out skateboarding with a friend. We drove near the railroad tracks, and saw a train was going by really slowly. So, we stopped and got out and I ran up closer and started taking pictures of it. A throw-up on a hopper by an online and real-life pen-pal of mine came up. It was exciting to see a freight by someone I knew from a different state. The train stopped. I looked down the tracks, and said, “Holy sh*t!”, One of the train cars was dangling off the tracks like a toy train. I told my friend what had happened and we drove further down, and parked the car. We walked the line and took photos, although he forgot his camera and was bummed. Up ahead we could see someone walking towards us. It was a railroad worker, he has an older black guy wearing an old school conductor hat. He told us that if we needed to cross over the line, we should do it here, because the auto-carrier cars didn’t have platforms on them, and that the train was going to be there for a long time. We did what he said and walked back. Later on, a crane removed the derailed hopper and set it on its side next to the tracks, where it sat for a long time. These are some of the pictures I took that day. This is one of the few Braze pieces I’ve ever caught.