While doing some deep research, I found myself on some old pages of the grandmother of graffiti websites, Art Crimes.  They did a fantastic feature on Futura 2000 back in 1996, here is a taste.

Futura speaks © copyright 1996 Futura 2000. Interview © copyright 1996 Susan Farrell and Brett Webb, Art Crimes

“Back then I don’t think anyone ever thought much about the future of the movement and where it was going. Surely I didn’t. It was a passing fancy, a fad, a sign of the times. Social unrest and war were at the forefront of our culture. There were gangs and there were causes, there was indecision and there was pressure. There was a feeling of helplessness and there were messages to be delivered. Modern day graffiti was that movement. As an inspired observer and participant in this fascinating underworld I will attempt to document some of my experiences as well as share some personal insights into the unknown art.

Some of the first impressions were religious messages scrawled all over the city. Things like, “READ THE BIBLE” “GO TO CHURCH” “BECOME CATHOLIC” and the omni-present “PRAY.”

Creating an identity and developing a “tag” is the foundation from which any graffiti writer will build. Elements of style will be a factor, and there were few visionaries back then, certainly not the religious fanatics, and certainly not the Kilroys or TAKI 183′s of the world.

There are many pioneers who have (through the very fact that they were there) established the standard by which excellence will be determined. My choice for (style guru) would be PHASE II. Of all the writers of this generation, he was truly an artist whose developments in lettering and spray painting techniques would provide many of his peers with “food for thought” for two more decades. There was also FLINT 707, RIFF 170, AMRL, TOPCAT 126 and the immortal STAY HIGH 149. Most of these all-stars were represented by the U.G.A. (United Graffiti Artists). The U.G.A. was the first group that attempted to make the transition from subway yard to gallery walls. For the most part, the U.G.A. was a cross-section of the most famous artists of that time, their exhibition at the Razor Gallery in Soho was what gave graffiti it’s first taste of commercialism. “THE FAITH OF GRAFFITI” would be the first historical reference to surface. A nightmare, sauf the photos, but thoroughly compelling. Kurlansky Naar and Mailer.

I was always at home in the subway system. Obviously so were a lot of others. It makes perfect sense that the subway system would literally become the “vehicle.” It just happened, it invited it. Suddenly graffiti wasn’t limited to tenement halls, school yard walls, and bathroom stalls. Graffiti had found the speed at which it needed to be seen. To keep in step with the fast pace of communication and information sharing. What had started out as playing in subway tunnels had progressed into midnight forays deep in the interiors of the system.

My name just came to me one day, a combination of my favorite film, (2001 A SPACE ODYSSEY) by Stanley Kubrick, and the Futura typeface. Futura represented, obviously the future, and the 2000 was a projection of that thought. Most artists/writers had numbers to match the streets they lived on, i.e., FRANK 207, JOE 136, BARBARA 62. Some opted for Roman numerals indicating the first, the second, the third and so on. Now that an alias had been established, it was time to take it to the streets and see if there was some real future in this clandestine existence. I began harmlessly “motion tagging” subways, and occasionally spraying up some buildings. I didn’t have the confidence to do pieces on the outside of subway cars just yet.

Fall 1972. When New York Magazine featured an article on graffiti, written by Richard Goldstein, (the same Richard Goldstein who eight years later would still be sympathetic to the art, with his cover story in the Village Voice) I explained to my mother, there is more to being a graffiti artist than just writing your name on a wall. She never shared my passion and saw no art in graffiti. She did however allow me the space to do what I wanted to do. I was 16, working, writing, and attending the City College of New York. It was there I first met Hugo Martinez, founder of the U.G.A.

It was Labor Day weekend in 1973 when another artist and I ventured down in the No.1 tunnel located between 137th St. and 145th St. just some 30ft. below Broadway. What hoped to be our finest moment had quickly turned to disaster. Equipped with a duffel-bag containing over 50 cans of spray paint we had planned to do pieces on all 6 trains that were in the tunnel. After a shaky start, we settled down and begun working on a very nice combination. At some point we heard sweepers moving through the trains, which meant that some of those cars were going to be pulled out of the tunnel. We had calculated on a holiday weekend, but didn’t realize the holiday was over, and these trains were getting ready to roll for the weekday rush. When the lights of the train went on we immediately froze. What would it be, a raid, a high speed foot race? Not realizing that the track had gone “live,” we were not ready for what happened next.

Suddenly there was this enormous flash and the next thing I saw was a ball of fire that had engulfed my friend instantly. Defective paint, mysterious spark, or fate dealing the cards…what is certain, is that my life would never be the same again.”

See the full feature here

This is a fantastic read over at Mental Floss.  Who knew that before George Washington, Salmon P. Chase (Chase Bank) was on the dollar bill?

Read more over at Mental Floss

I spent a significant amount of time last night trolling through the Library of Congress’ Flickr archive of covers from the New York Tribune’s Illustrated Supplements from the Early 1900′s.  Here are some highlights, wild stuff.

That’s just the first page of a 100-question test given to an eighth-grade class in 1954 USA. Be sure to check out the rest and see if you can answer them with present-day figures. While the question remains whether or not this was an open book test, and I wonder about the ultimate utility of the information the kids had to memorize, from the comments on the source it is apparent that our present-day eighth graders are not receiving this level of civic/government education. Via BlackInformant.

Internet Archaeology is a website that you’ll be able waste a majority of your day on.  Welcome back to mid-90′s internet!

One day, you’ll wish they were all as simple minded as these…

Peruse this massive robot collection

via Hey Look What I Can Do

Complex did a great job with this story.  I had totally forgotten about The Bomb, plus there are great looks inside of all these old mags.

See it all here

On July 21st, 1971 the headline ‘Taki 183′ Spawns Pen Pals appeared in the NY Times.  On May 13th, 2009, Taki 183 got a website.  The first two lines of the Times article read as such “Taki is a Manhattan teenager who writes his name and his street number everywhere he goes. He says it is something he just has to do.”  I didn’t want to pay for the rest of the article but, you can (or if you’re smart, download it from his site or peep it after the jump.)  I am more concerned with spending my money on one of the spraypainted prints that are for sale on his website.  Yes, that tag above is original, and spraypainted by Taki himself.  True graffiti history.

“Graffiti writers around the world know the name that started it all: TAKI 183. A kid from 183^rd Street in northern Manhattan, TAKI 183’s simple signature captured the attention of a reporter and, on July 21, 1971, the article “TAKI 183 Spawns Pen Pals” appeared in The New York Times. Just like that, TAKI 183 became a graffiti legend, with rumors spreading that he even tagged a Secret Service car and the Statue of Liberty. Amid all the rumors, TAKI 183 remained silent. Now, almost four decades later, TAKI 183 has emerged to tell his story.

This site includes photos of TAKI 183’s work, images of his friends and contemporaries, his true story and, for the first time, official TAKI 183 limited-edition screenprints.

There are currently three screenprints available in the store: “Collage” features a design made up of the The New York Times article and various high school newspaper articles and drawings about TAKI 183; “Red Subway Tile” features an ornate tile pattern of the New York City subway walls and an original TAKI 183 paint tag; and “Blue Subway Tile” includes the tile pattern and TAKI 183 tag, plus marker tags by his mentors PHIL T GREEK the 1st, PHIL T GREEK the 2^nd and GREG 69.”

]]> http://www.theworldsbestever.com/2009/05/13/taki-183-returns/feed/ 2 http://www.theworldsbestever.com/2009/02/06/shepard-fairey-interviewed-by-roger-gastman-for-while-you-were-sleeping-circa-1998/ http://www.theworldsbestever.com/2009/02/06/shepard-fairey-interviewed-by-roger-gastman-for-while-you-were-sleeping-circa-1998/#comments Fri, 06 Feb 2009 21:00:08 +0000 Dave http://theworldsbestever.com/?p=12041

I can credit Roger Gastman for first introducing me to Shepard Fairey.  His magazine While You Were Sleeping was ahead of its time in all aspects of culture and taste (or lack thereof).  I dug through my old stacks recently and decided to reproduce this great interview with Shepard Fairey from the 4th issue of WYWS.  Long before Museum Retrospectives and Obama posters, Fairey was paying his dues just like every other artist.

Enjoy.

From: While You Were Sleeping, Issue 4, 1998

Why Andre The Giant?

I saw his picture in the newspaper and saw it as something that I could show my friend how to cut a stencil. I was just amused by it and we decided to make it our inside joke, that it was going to be the new cool skate posse. It makes fun of the popular culture, but it is a popular  culture phenomenon. It makes fun of consumerism but then I encourage people to buy a t-shirt because it funds me making more stickers. It was just a really funny memorable picture. He is an oddity. This was around 1989. We put the stickers around town. I thought it would just be a joke that lasted a few weeks. I made the original sticker with a ball point pen and a photo copy machine. For some reason people kept asking where that sticker came from. They wanted to know if it was a band, a cult or what? I was even in the line at the super market and heard people talking about. That’s when the plan started to unfold. The more you put out there, the more people are going to think it means something important. It was just something funny to do. The local indie paper had a contest that anyone who writes in and says what the Andre the Giant sticker campaign was really about would win tickets to a show. This was going on in Providence, Rhode Island. I had a few friends who were doing it for me in their cities.

You don’t have a sick fascination with giants?

Not at all. It’s just the power of propaganda.

Did Andre know about this when he was alive?

I don’t know if he did. He lived in Seattle and North Carolina. It wasn’t at the level it’s at now when he died.

Have you ever talked to anyone in the wrestling community about the stickers?

I get a lot of funny e-mails to my site because it’s www.andrethegiant.com. They think that it is going to be some kind of memorial to Andre placing him on some pedestal. Then they see it’s my thing and they think it’s making fun of him. They say, “This site is disgraceful. You should be honoring the man. He was an incredible athlete.” Andre was actually a very feeble athlete and his physical condition was so bad that he had a heart attack when he was 46 years old. He had a disease that gives you a disproportionate amount of growth hormones to certain parts of your body and not to others. So his heart was not strong enough for his body. He also drank way too much. I hear stories from people that say he was in bars putting five pitchers away like you would put away five mugs of beer.

Did you ever get in trouble for putting stickers up?

I’ve been arrested five times, mostly for stenciling or pasting. All art-related crimes other than shooting bottle rockets at my neighbors when I was 12.

So what you do is based on Graffiti?

To me it’s all about getting as much exposure as possible. With the stickers I want high visibility. As far as pasting, I kind of use the same technique that Revs and Cost were using. I’m trying to go higher with everything using extension poles. I want the scale of it to be so impressive that no one thinks that it is just one person doing it. There are always going to be things that only run for a few days, but if its a really prime spot it doesn’t matter. When I go to New York I’ll try to get higher up windows that will run for a long time. There are so many people that you are competing for space with. Because I mass produce my stuff, I can afford to send out a greater volume of stuff, where as in traditional graffiti it’s very discouraging to go out and spend all this time hitting a spot and get cleaned in a few days. I consider the art work preparing the printed piece. Can skills graffiti amazes me, but it’s just not my approach. All I do with spray paint is stencil.

Do you have any proof that Andre actually got some from a women?

He has an illegitimate daughter who lives in Seattle. The mother and the daughter came to a screening of the Andre documentary called “Andre The Giant Has a Posse” demanding money.

What did this lady and her daughter look like?

I didn’t see her. I heard that they were not too attractive.

How many midgets would it take to kick Andre’s ass?

If it was Tattoo with a gun, just one.

If you had four bottles of urine what would you do with them?

Probably pour them on the bums that keep pissing next to my car.

How big do you think Andre’s penis was?

I would assume that he was a little bigger than average, maybe eight inches or so. I doubt his dick got the benefit of the growth hormones.

What’s up with Snoop Doggy Dog? Do you think he is a pussy?

I don’t like him, but I think “The Dogfather” was a clever name for a record. I’m more into Ice Cube.

Do you miss Eazy E?

Pulling that move of eating dinner with president Bush was kind of stupid. I lost respect for him after that.

Have you ever been in a circle jerk?

No, but now I do feel open enough about my sexuality to discuss masturbation. It took years. I can admit it. I think daily is healthy, it relieves stress.

Use any special tools?

I’m a switch hitter. I think that is a skill.

The strangest place you have done it?

The airplane bathroom.

Would you rather kiss a guy with or without a mustache?

If your going to kiss a guy you might as well go all the way. I want a leather vest, I want it all.

Where did you grow up?

Charleston, South Carolina and I lived in Providence for eight years.

I heard there are a lot of sluts in Charleston.

There are a few.

Go out on the beach and have sex and get some sand in your ass crack?

I haven’t actually had sex on the beach.

What do you think of amputees?

I feel bad for them. I have never seen a female amputee. I have only seen dudes with hooks and stuff instead of hands. The first thing I thought was damn they probably don’t get laid and they can’t masturbate.

Would you consider yourself a pimp?

Not at all.

Would you ever punch an alien?

If they treated me like the aliens in “Mars Attacks.”

How do you feel about my favorite subject, pornography?

I’m not into anal sex. I like pornos. It’s visual stimulation, I’m into that.

What’s the strangest place that you have done it?

Probably on one of the screen printing tables at the RISD studio. A security guard walked in and the only thing keeping him from seeing my girlfriend and I was a thin drying rack. One time I was having sex with my girlfriend in the car right outside of an art opening, they were showing the video and my friends came out to tell me and walked up to the car and there was my girlfriend on my lap. I hadn’t seen her in a few days. It was obvious what was going on and the windows were all fogged up.

How about some more stories like that.

This should be about art. That is art (sex). Being creative about that sort of thing is definitely artistic. I’ve done it in the mall garage, in the car during the middle of the day with people walking to their cars left and right.

Want to talk shit about anyone?

People that dis you just because they are jealous of your fame, that’s wack. There is plenty of room on the streets. Get into it for the right reasons. If your a gang banger with a spray can, why don’t you just go out and kill other gang bangers with a gun instead? Do what you should be doing. Don’t become a graffiti artist.

Where can kids get a hold of your stuff?

They can write to me at Black Market. 705 12th avenue. San Diego, California 92101. I’ll send anybody out stickers and a poster catalog. On the web at www.andrethegiant.com

Bringing you a little web history, Bert is Evil. The site has been around as long as I can remember. Enjoy.