“This is war, and my tags and my throw-ups are my troops and artillery.” Veefer was one of thousands of writers active in NYC in 1985–89, and one of dozens that came from Smith projects in the LES. Although the Smith roll call of greats is long—Lee, Erni, Sev, and the HOT Crew for starters—Veefer just opted to get his five minutes of fame and be done with it in 1989. Then graffiti revolved again to a point that got Veefer interested in coming back, and after hooking up with Soe TNS, he learned that there was a depth past typical graffiti that extended to vandalism to be learned.
In June of ′92 he decided to employ a strategy of vandalism that had never been fully explored. He would document his progress in the course of vandalizing the city by placing the year next to every tag he did. Later on there would exist a record of his tactics for all to see, a book of hand-to-wall combat written on concrete pages a thousand blocks long. Take out your book and turn to page 1.
First thing for Veefer was to decide who he wanted to be. He would be a wild kid from the LES who wasn’t scared to grab an adversary and hit him with a “DDT aerosol bomb drop.” He would also be striving, looking for a way of advancing past the nonsense and becoming a man in spite of the treacherous path he walked. Step by step he became that kid and then, having performed that trick, did it again and became that man, presto chang-o. Invention and reinvention are the greatest skills you can learn in this schizo subculture, so study hard. The man sits across the table from me and speaks of the kid and what made him stand out; “I am my own creation, something I made up from nowhere. It’s real. I just added an extra twist to my life. I’m not John Doe, I’m SUPER John Doe! The kids in sixth grade knew it about me; ‘There was always something different about you, I could never name it.’ The difference is they are the same simple saps, and I see life on such a different, colorful level.”
Super John Doe needed a vehicle to floss in. Veefer was his first name, and although it would always be, he wanted to be a little more specific as to what he projected; VFR—virtual fucking reality. “There are things that are in the flesh that are rarely seen, yet the presence is there. I wanted to completely manipulate the whole vandalism theme, single-handedly.” Attitude, check. Name, check. Now it’s time to get into the real measure of the vandal. It’s not what crews he’s down with, what people he’s met. Its the process of the work that determines your status, be it the baddest or the saddest. VFR possesses one of the freshest methods of marking surfaces ever seen.
He has three handstyles that he employs most frequently in his arsenal; Veefer, VFR, and VFRFresh They are used for specific times and places. VFR is the basic form employed in most situations; Veefer is restricted to excellent spots; and VFRFresh is for when he wants to get creative with his prints. With those tools he combined several approaches to secure certain spots he needed on his mission. I was only able to declassify one file, but it provides a fascinating insight to his method. He has a knack, you see as you roll around the militarized zone, for writing in doorways; “The corner downward spots? I write those from the bottom up. It’s hard for me to get caught. You can’t see what I’m doing, it looks like I’m taking a piss, so I can cop the tag and look down the street at the same time.” When he made that little discovery, he smiled and decided that vandalism gives back in equal amounts what it receives.
What VFR gave vandalism was a standard of excellence that persists to insist that if you are not prepared to go the distance, you don’t exist. With that attitude came a deep focus for bombing; “It’s not about fame or being flamboyant, it’s to get up and get up only.” He settled into a military mind-state and proceeded to advance his troops and artillery across the fields of battle, sometimes in a car (“Cars are good as long as there are no complications, and the bomb is successful.”), but usually on foot where “you get to be more thorough.” The uniform said a lot about the man: He would come out so bummy and dirty that people would go out of their way not to pay attention to him. In the DMZ of the averted eye, VFR would annex territory one tag at a time.
The battle plan was to hit a ten to twelve block stretch repeatedly, consistently, until it was sufficiently sated with the VFR seal of approval. His persistence created a presence that was at once commanding and comforting. It was like the visual hum of a computer—it seems quiet until you turn it off, and then the stark silence reminds you how loud it was. The VFR presence is still felt throughout the city in spite of aggressive buffing and gentrification. VFR doesn’t really worry about the losses, since they just make what remains more special. The reason his presence still persists is twofold; the first is he consistently hits spots out of the direct line of sight, usually low to the ground, or down alleys, or in the forgotten corners of the city. The second is that his tags settle into their surroundings so well that they become subliminal in their stature. They don’t scream and seize attention like some scripts. The subtle power of his mark sits stoically like a man on the stoop. The VFR winks, and the buffing crew just brushes by, unaware of his stare.
No mark on the street lasts forever and what paint doesn’t cover or sandblast, light will eventually erase, but VFR has permeated the fabric of the city, and in doing so, has become a permanent identity. He’s not an everlast, but he’ll stay fast, forever. VFR never accepted the “king” designation; he prefers to address his status as being Imperial (Razz wasn’t into being another king either, so he calls himself “Lord”). VFR verbalizes, “I’m not king, but there’s a royal bloodline running through my tags.” So the Imperial VFR, having accomplished the primary objective in the battle, now seeks new wars to wage. “The same approach that goes into vandalism goes into life, always going for the better, always shooting for excellence.” With that, the four-star general of the vandalism war salutes with a wave and leaves the theater in his new tank, a beautiful Y-frame TREK bicycle, paid for with the WE KILL SHIT credit card—don’t try to kill shit without it.
Zare, West Philly diamond dealer.
Johnski, North Philly gemologist.
