My photos of Street Art 1/6/2020 #1

 I'm pretty sure this is a real Banksy, it's on the side of the legendary Amoeba Records shop in Hollywood, and when the wall was last painted, they actually painted around this piece. 

 To the best of my knowledge, this is the first photo ever of BMXers doing an over/under double wall ride.  That's Randy Lawrence going opposite up high, and me down below.  The wall was long known as the Blues Brothers Wall.  It's one of the beach retaining walls below the bike path, across from 14th Street, in Huntington Beach, California.  Still from my 1990 self-produced BMX freestyle video, The Ultimate Weekend. 

 One of my shortest poems, which I scrawled with kids' sidewalk chalk on the sidewalk at the garden party in a Winston-Salem, NC park, celebrating the 90th birthday of Dr. Maya Angelou.  "It's one great play, go find your part, someday you'll realize, the world is art." 

 Another shot of the Blues Brothers wall, with a bit of the Three Stooges painting, also a still from my BMX video.  Wall ride over my sister Cheri's head.  Huntington Beach 1990.

Wildman graffiti in the Shockhoe Bottom district of Richmond, Virginia.  2019.

Not street art, but art on the streets, drawn by me, a homeless guy living in a tent at the time.  Me posing with the Sharpie drawing of Dr. Maya Angelou at the 90th birthday party for her, four years after her death.  Winston-Salem, NC, 2018.  

Weird painting, Shockhoe Bottom district, Richmond, Virginia, 2019.

Moby interviews Shepard Fairey (the Obey Giant guy for those who don't know)

As I've been doing my Dave Voelker drawing, selling a few, and shipping them out this week, I've been on a Shepard Fairey interview kick.  I've watched 4 or 5 interviews, and found this one that I'd never seen before. 

I saw my first "Andre' the Giant has a posse" sticker in about 1994 (95?) in Huntington Beach, I remember the exact spot.  When I first saw the "Obey Giant" stickers, it really fucked with my head, which was his whole point.  It made me wonder if he had sold out, if the CIA had kidnapped him or something to force him to work for them, or what the hell was going on.  I became a fan of his work.  I became a huge fan of street art while homeless in 2007-2008, though I'd been slapping stickers on my own as a BMX/skate company guy, since 1986 or so.  I also developed a wide range of "non-destructive" street art applications of my own during that year.

Anyhow, I was never a Moby fan, I've never seen him actually speak before this, and the music just wasn't my thing.  But this interview is great.  I dig Moby now.  They talk about Shephard's first punk song he remembers, which was in the skate video Skatevisions, which my one time boss, Don Hoffman produced.  Hearing that really stoked me out.  Agent Orange is the whole soundtrack, and I used to play that video when I worked at Unreel (Vision Skateboards' video company) just to listen to the band.  They talk about Shepard's ideas about art itself, art in public places, street art going mainstream, street artists in galleries, and Moby tells his story of how the Republicans stopped the Pope from appearing at a climate change rally in D.C., and a bunch more.

This is a great look into the minds of two really prolific and talented creative guys, and there's a lot of talk about punk rock, as well.  If any of that piques your interest, check this interview out.