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Black Book

DIME.139

Started : 1972

Alias : THE KID.

AREA : Forest Hills Queens

Writing Groups :  The Rebels. SSB , MAFIA 

Main lines : EEs, E &F's, GG's, M's, N's,  RR's, 7's.

You can contact Dime at .... DIME139@gmail.com

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I started writing with three dudes I went to Junior High School with, This was 1972. A private school no less, Called Rhodes in Manhattan when it was @ 11w54st.The three guys came from Brooklyn or the Bronx. MOON-1, CLOUD-9 and JOE-2.. These guys were a trip before I started tripping, always messing around together. I was writing the Name THE KID which I would place a little man at the side like STAY-HIGH 149's famous smoker.

I started checking out the art style of it. Back then it was the bubble letters and basic lettering but with that left tilt to it. As a lefty would write. I thought that was cool. It made the letters look as though they were strutting or trucking. It was back then with Eddie Kendricks "Keep on Trucking" days...We basically wrote in our books on the tables and of course the chalk board with the chalk turned sideways for the uni look. Then the markers came into play when we learned of Pearl Paints. 

DIME.139 in action.

That's when we started to write in the subways especially in between cars. I will never forget a uni tag by LA- ZAR @ 5th av. So of course we had to do the same. Taking out a key to release the chain on the slants to tag up on the tunnel walls to see it ever proudly from the platform. I also wrote on the back window's of the Q-11 buses that ran down Woodhaven Blvd. With my brother NIJI.  I started hanging out in the city @ central parks band shell where everyone tagged FDT 56 and LSD had all the boats and I basically just tagged the benches and construction walls.

 Toy stuff but it was cool...I rode and started to live in the subways later on riding the EE and GG's to the last stop and staying on till it went into the tunnel. And waited till the engineer walked to the other side to bring it back and just destroyed the insides. Occasionally we would jump down and hit the outside. But they turned them around so fast you couldn't do much. It was not till I met up with   7- UP and LIP-75 I think it was his number at the time, at continental av. thats when I really knew what writing was all about. For at that time  KILLER, SUPER STRUT TASS and PISTOL were up on that line. I showed 7UP my name on the inside and he told me I wasn't getting all I could out of the marker and showed me how to use it properly. He told me about the lay ups @ parsons on the weekends and basically talked graffiti. He was cool. For I was just this little punk kid but he gave me the time of day..Telling me to slow down that I was rushing my tags and needed to flood the marker more. OK live and learn and I did! And met some good people along the way. OK their were some rip off artists along the way, but that's when HOT 110 came into play! The more I hung the more I learned and the more people I met the more I got up. And that basically was the beginnings to my writing days.

DIME 139 displaying the tools of the trade.

It was the years from 73 to 75 that it became DIME...time ONE THREE NINE...I went to Art & Design High School meeting many writers that were  all  artist..From the likes of BOMB-ONE / DON-ONE Mafia.../ SHADOW / AIM / ADD / TROUBLE and my man DEFIE!!! He had some hard core Bronx style. The long letters starting small to large..I will never forget taking him to Flushing Meadows Corona yards. He took over..Back then it had a small rusted out.. 4 foot fence, which was a joke, in comparison to today's double fenced razor wired fortresses with look out towers...I think we got to them!! We bombed the outsides of all Ding Dongs. That is also where I did allot of my work along the fence. That is where they had the "EE" and "GG"...I lived so close that I walked there and did allot of my pieces by myself. 

DE ~ FIE, A Bronx writer with great hand style who would rock the train lines in the 1970's.

I had no one to get me busted. I did like to piece with STOE R.I.P. for he went his way and I went mine.. He was a COOL dude! Latter on I started writing with the big boys from IZ THE WIZ / VINNY / SHORTY-13 / DUKE-9 I can go on and on. I remember one momentous night that everyone that was everyone met at Sutphtin Blvd. LAY UPS!!! There were a good 20 writers going down the tunnel. UNCLE JOHN / DUKE / DOC STAM / LIL SOUL, I mean everyone showed up this night. We sent two guys into the tunnel threw the station to open up the grate from the street and we all climbed down raring to go. I tripped and sprained my dam elbow carrying all that paint and following everyone. But it all turned out well. For that was the night I introduced the "CAN MAN" to the "F" line on the slants.. I made it!!! After that everyone had there own version of it.

"NOW TO GET OUT"...I left with about three other dudes and by dam luck just as we opened the street hatch a MTA patrol car was just coming down the road. The  three  flew back down the hole and I ran out thru the streets with the cops on my trail. I lost them in traffic with my arm hurting like heck. I found out latter the other dudes got popped at the station!!!!Full of paint and all having flash lights...How do you talk your way out of that? That was most definitely a memorable night.

FLIP and DIME.139 getting busy in the E and F yard.

I had many!!! Another great time was when I met CAINE-ONE and ROGER at the 7 yards to do the "FREEDOM TRAIN"...We did every single car.. ALL 11 of them TOP TO BOTTOMS with a flag as the background, to come out on the Bicentennial forth of July..1976. Mohammed Ali was fighting a wrestler at Shea Stadium so the cops were busy with that while we pieced our hearts out. CLASSIC stuff!!! The following day as the trains dried and the sun came up the high brass of the MTA were so embarrassed they pulled the train from service and broke up all the cars. Many of them went straight to the buffer. Mine and CAINE'S ran, for I got pictures of them, and even they were pulled apart. For the windows were scraped. The story went that everyone got busted. But let me lay that rumor to rest.. NO ONE got popped.

 They knew who we all were. And tried to get it out of us. I although got nabbed taking pictures the next day. Two D.T's wanted to know what I was taking pictures of. I told them very naively that, it was rumored that "some guys were graffiti-ing a whole train for the fourth of July, officers"!!! They came to my house to read me my rights three days later...But they had nothing!!! They told me they had CAINE locked up. That's when I knew they were bluffing. For I just got off the phone with him.. It was a nice try!!!!

Not many people knew that I did the Graffiti back ground for the movie the "THE WIZ". It was something I fell into and it is not a big story... How it went was that FLIP found out that they were filming "The Wiz" staring Michael Jackson and Diana Ross in Flushing Meadows Park, where the old Worlds Fair grounds were. So we went down there basically to take pictures.. When we got there we had our Black Books and cameras in hand and asked them if we could tag up, for we were wrote. (After seeing our books that was clear) We had  the producer and a bunch of others all around us and thought it would be COOL!!! So they basically gave us free rain on the set to do what we wanted.

DIME 139 : In the film The Wiz ... instead of calling the set  the Emerald city, they would change the name to the Graffiti city.

 Unfortunately they only wanted fictitious names... They already had the main set design put together. Hey I was 16-17 we just wanted to get in. So in our minds we made out, and they did too.. We had a blaaaast.... They took our names but never put them in the final credits as I am aware, under Scenic Decoration / Design... But I can say I was involved!!!!! and that was good enough for me at the time... I didn't have many pieces  but the ones

 I had I made them count... 29 years latter I still feel that night. Great Memories. And as life has it It all is coming back with all these Web Sites on Graffiti. I tried my best to document those years with pictures and a great Black Book collection. And to put the icing on the cake I just got back with IZ THE WIZ...for he moved 45 minutes away from me. So the story is not over.....There is more to come!!!

             PEACE,  DIME-139  

               FLIP and MOP1 out side the E and GG's along the fence at the Corona yards with a CLEAN car and NO paint....