A chat with DRANE, OPTIK and DEVIOUS

 

DRANE: GIANT has a cool style.

OPTIK: CYCLE...

DRANE: I think JASER has a cool style. I think NACE has a super cool style...

OPTIK: I like SEAR's style, he's got that crazy style...

DRANE: I think TSC has a cool style, all the crew members of TSC have cool

letters and shit. I think PASE has an ill style

DAN: how much do you think members of TSC have influenced each other's style?

DRANE: I think a lot of people pull shit from each other...

OPTIK: it like looking at what you're doing relative to what someone else is

doing. It's like you are challenging yourself via someone else's stuff...

DAN: what's the difference between being influenced and bitting?

OPTIK: you can either be influenced by someone or you can copy. Biting is copying without trying to

apply it to something original, I mean you can be influenced, but that means that you are applying

something that another person has done and let it affect your work in a way that makes sense, but not

necessarily copying them.

DAN: how much influence do you get from other writers?

DRANE: I always see shit that I think is dope and I'm like 'man, I wish I'd thought of that.

DAN: at that point is that idea gone, or do you still try it?

OPTIK: I usually look at it like this: I look at something and see a certain quality to it that I can try to

reflect, you know what I'm saying?

DRANE: yeah... that's fun to do.

OPTIK: but also it's got a feeling. It's not all patterns and letters. These letters has a feeling (he points at a

piece DRANE is working on on DEVIOUS' black book), you know? and that's what influences you, not

just what's on the paper or the wall, but what you think about when you see them. When it causes you to

think, then you strive to be better.

DAN: is there rivalry between Cincinnati writers?

DRANE: I don't know...

OPTIK: when I see dope stuff I feel like I need to go out and put something nicer up.

DRANE: yeah...

OPTIK: I definitely feel challenged by the Cincinnati scene.

DRANE: I do too, I think Cincinnati definitely poses a challenge.

DAN: hmmm, that's weird, I wouldn't think that is enough writers to pose any kind of challenge...

DRANE: but there is dope ones. The ones that are here are getting dope as fuck.

OPTIK: there is not many, but the cool thing about Cincinnati is that the dopest writers all know each other and hang out.

DRANE: there's not many, but the scene is so young. Well, it's old, but it's not even like, like...you

know... (he makes that face that lets you know he doesn't know where the statement was going...)

DAN: who's the best writer out right now in Cincinnati?

OPTIK: everybody is dope.

DAN: shut up! Don't gimme that shit. That's a copout, Who's the best?

OPTIK: well, I'm definitely not gonna it's myself. I see other stuff that is much better that my stuff.

DAN: like whose? C'mon say it!

OPTIK: who's better than me? Everybody.

DRANE: I think MERZ is killing shit harder than everybody. But he's been lagging.

OPTIK: girls!

DRANE: girls. Girls make you lag, MERZ! We were supposed to do shit tonight, but... it's all good... I

also think FIVE kills some shit.

DAN: FIVE is a toy. Let's go back in time... how did you choose your names?

DRANE: I was in NY when I thought of it. I was just walking down the street and I was trying to think of

a cool graffiti name, and I was looking around for things that sounded cool, but you spell wrong, you

know? That's when I was a toy, basically.

OPTIK: for me it was like I was doing something that was candy, basically. Just cool stuff for me to look

at, you know? Well, 'looking' and 'optical' so I went to 'optic'. I tried spelling it with a 'c', but I dint like

it, so I did it with a 'k'.

(DEVIOUS gets tired of the X-files re-run, leaves the living room and joins us in the kitchen. He walks in

taking a zip of his coke.)

DEVIOUS: (to DRANE): you used to write 'DEVIATE', right?

DRANE: I wrote 'DV8' like three times or something.

DEVIOUS: We used to write 'ELMAR' with that happy face...

DRANE: oh! That's you that used to write that 'ELMAR' shit?! Yeah, I heard about that...

DEVIOUS: yeah, me and my friend...it was just a joke...and then I was like, 'man, someone is drawing Elmar!

It was everywhere. People were accusing me of being DRANE for so long!

DRANE: for real?

DAN: I used to think you guys were each other.

DEVIOUS: see?

DAN: when I first moved here in 92-93. Here's what I first thought: I thought the DRANE tag actually

said 'Elmar' (I picked up a pen and explained how I saw the letters e-l-m-a-r instead of d-r-a-n-e.) an 'e'

and then an 'l' here and this was the 'm', here's the 'a' and the 'r' and this here (referring to the actual 'e'

on the tag) was Elmar.

DEVIOUS: Yeah! There's the 'e'and the 'r'(busts out laughing)

DRANE: (laughing as well) that's fucking weird!

DEVIOUS: people would be like: 'oh, I saw Elmar on a building with a big smiley face.' And I was

like...whatever. (he picks up a sharpie and draws "Elmar" ) That's what Elmar was right there.

OPTIK: oh, the hamburger head?

DEVIOUS: it was a drawing of this guy's dad...

DRANE: (yelling as if trying to sell the Sunday Enquirer) HAMBURGERHEAD!, HAMBURGERHEAD!

(This part gets a little out of hand, because DRANE keeps yelling, me and OPTIK are laughing and

DEVIOUS keeps talking and laughing... it was mayhem!)

OPTIK: the best hamburger head was the one on McMillan, the blue one...

DRANE: on that rooftop?

DEVIOUS: it rode forever, too. It'd be dope to do something on there.

DRANE: I wonder if we could get that for a permission spot?

OPTIK: maybe...

DRANE: like a commission or something... like 'can we paint something dope on it?'

DAN: yeah, use the word 'dope' and they let you for sure... 'oh, if it's gonna be dope, then sure!'

OPTIK: that's what I'm saying. That's what ESPO and those people do, they get those legal rooftops.

Like did you see that one that he gave me? (talking about a flick of an ESPO / AMAZE rooftop)

That was legal. (Actually later we found out it was NOT legal)

DEVIOUS: oh, no wonder.

DRANE: that shit was large!

DAN: huge.

DEVIOUS: how do you talk a building into letting you do that?

DAN: yeah, I wonder. They gotta worry about insurance and shit. If they let you get up there and you

break your legs and shit.

DRANE: OPTIK, let me see that marker there... pull up a seat, DEVIOUS. (by now, I'm sure you have

realized that all the actual names with the exception of mine have been replaced with their writer name...)

DAN: so, back to this Elmar / Hamburgerhead thing... both of these things developed separately? (In case

you haven't seen them, they are both faces that look a lot like a Pac-Man with an overbite, both look very

similar to each other.)

DRANE: yeah, I had never seen Elmar until a year ago, some dude showed it to me.

DEVIOUS: we made T-shirts, they were dope. They said 'eight-inch-elmar' and we bit off the Nine Inch Nails

logo, and had 'E-I-E'... I don't even have one anymore. This punk rock guy had a screen print shop and

he makes bad punk rock shirts, you know? All white print on black shirts...

DRANE: and the shit falls right off.

DEVIOUS: yeah...

DAN: man, that is so weird that both of these two characters had nothing to do with each other. They are

so similar, you know? weird...

DRANE: so, Dan, you got anymore questions?

DAN: shit, I'm running out of tape on this side...

(damn! I guess this is the first half! Shit, I thought this would be shorter!Onward to side B, I guess)

DAN: ok, what do you guys think about legal pieces? What do you think about people who think it has to

be illegal to be graffiti?

OPTIK: well, people are gonna think whatever they are gonna think. My personal view is that I like to it,

'cuz its really chill. I guess I'm just a wimp.

DEVIOUS: I think you get a better chance to do something nice. Maybe it's not like graffiti anymore, it's just

like you're painting.

OPTIK: yeah, I really think that I can flex my creative skills.

DRANE: yeah, I love to play with the paint. (that is the best line of the interview right there!)

DAN: but do you see the point of keeping it illegal?

DRANE: I think it should be kept illegal. There has to be illegal graffiti. Or there won't be any graffiti,

it'll just be people painting pictures.

DEVIOUS: It's the real graffiti.

DRANE: if you don't have that feeling of ... (he makes a scared face that looks like a monkey with

scuba gear), you know? It's not graffiti.

DAN: all you guys do illegal stuff? Say your real names and telephone numbers...

OPTIK: I haven't in a while... I have been lazy. (I heard OPTIK, SUCIO and TOUCH went out and did

some trains a few days after the interview)

DRANE: I have been painting a lot at the legal wall, lately.

DAN: talk about going to jail, DRANE...

DRANE: dude, I went to jail...

DAN: how did you get caught?

DEVIOUS: yeah, I wanna know how you got caught!

DRANE: well, I spent the night at JASER's house...

DRANE: we stayed up all night...

DAN: oh! We don't wanna hear that part! Skip all the porn...

DRANE: nah, man. We stayed up and drew mad stickers all night. So I

had a pocket with like 300 stickers or something, and then I walked

back to Cliffton from the North Side, putting up stickers all

morning. I left at 9 o'clock in the morning and put up stickers all

fucking morning. All the way up Lodlow and shit, and then walked the

big block putting up stickers everywhere. JASER and DRANE's.

OPTIK: is that where the two sided JASER stickers came from? Those

are awsome. They are the coolest thing I've seen in a long time.

DRANE: yeah... but I walked around putting them all up and I was,

you know walkmaning it, and I had a black book in my bag, we were

like black book session... I had caps, gloves with paint on them, the

whole nine. When I had 3 stickers left in my pocket, probably one or

two of them were JASER stckers. I had one in my hand that was peeled

and I was right in front of Taco Bell and I see this white van

bustin' around the corner and dudes jump out of it and grabbed me. I

was like 'what's up?' and they turned out to be like UC (University

of Cincinnati) campus police. So I was like 'what's up, dudes' and

they were like (DRANE busts out his cop voice) 'what are you putting

these stickers up for?' an I was like 'oh... my friend gave them to

me, you know? it's some crazy school shit or something.' And the

dude's like 'you's bullshitn' us, we've been seeing your name

everywhere.' I was like 'that's not me dude, my friend gave me these

stickers.' And he busted some crazy shit when were driving down. You

know that post box across the street from that club on McMillan? It

had like an old DRANE tag that had been there for like 6 months, and

the dude was like 'you just did that today, didn't you? It wasn't

here when we drove earlier.' And he was like 'what do these stickers

mean?' and there was like crazy shit on them, like "Fat Dick Drane"

and all this shit like that! (laughing) we stayed up all night, you

know? we were writing crazy shit. Like "A message to the Oreo cookie"

and shit like that (laughing harder) we were writing the crazy quotes

and shit... (calming down while we all kept laughing) the dude was

like 'what does this mean?'. They were getting so pissed of.

Basically they took me to the campus police station and searched my

bag, and shit...

DAN: were they dressed as cops?

DRANE: nah, they were detectives. But this lady came in, 'cuz I had

done some stuff on campus, too, and she was the head of the

department. They were asking me mad questions, they xeroxed out of my

black book, and out of my phone book...

DEVIOUS: oh, my god! I need to make a new phone book!

DRANE: they took my caps, my mop, my gloves... but they didn't take

my black book or my phone book. I was so bummed, but they let me go

and they were like 'we're gonna have to press charges, but we're not

gonna arrest you right now, we'll be in touch with you about your

court date' So they took down all my information and what not...

DAN: and the whole time were you still saying it was your friend's

stickers?

DRANE: yeah, I just kept saying it was not me, but they said they

still had to do it. so I finally said, 'Fine just get in touch with

me.' But they never got in touch with me after that. But then Maureen

Mellow starts going around... you know, she's the head of "Cincinnati

Beautiful"...


PART 3