No Longer a Gang Monopoly : Upscale Youths Making Own Marks With Graffiti

The 17-year-old who calls himself “Never” is well-bred, well-educated, well-informed and well on his way to turning Los Angeles into his personal billboard.

With an arsenal that includes felt-tipped pens, spray paint and glass cutters, he sweeps through town like a brush fire, leaving his mark on endless stretches of private property.

“I’m not a bad person,” the West Los Angeles graffiti outlaw said. “Kids always do devious things. But it’s just a trend, you know. . . . We’re just people who want to get recognized in our own way.”

“Never” belongs to a burgeoning subculture of youths who have traded their surnames for surrealistic monikers such as “Drone” and “Vector” and for membership in secret clubs whose participants measure their success by the amount of private property they deface.

While graffiti inspires a special fear in Los Angeles because it is usually associated with gangs, authorities said that as much as half of the public scrawling in many parts of the city is not the handiwork of the Bloods or Crips, but of gentrified vandals such as Never, whose mother is a teacher and his father an electronics specialist.

Indeed, their elaborate insignias, known as “tags,” and bizarre and imaginative spray-painted murals, known as “pieces,” are becoming as commonplace in parts of the Westside and the San Fernando Valley as is the block-lettered graffiti of gang members in South-Central Los Angeles.

The new culprits refer to themselves as “taggers.” Los Angeles Police Lt. Gabe Ornelas, a Westside gang specialist, calls them “gang wannabees.”

“Peer pressure seems to be causing it,” Ornelas said. “We’re hoping that it’s just a fad. But it’s gaining momentum, that’s for sure.”

Just ask the Southern California Rapid Transit District, a primary target of non-gang graffiti. Officials of the transit agency said they expect to spend close to $6 million, or $400,000 a month, on graffiti eradication this fiscal year. That is contrasted with $1 million in 1985.

Lou Collier, the RTD’s director of government and community affairs, said graffiti vandalism is on the rise throughout the 2,491-bus system, including areas that are not considered gang havens. Non-gang members are responsible for more than one-third of the vandalism throughout the area, Collier estimated.

“As the arsenal increases, perpetrators can attack almost anything,” he said. “There are cases where four or five kids will hit a bus at once.”

Anyone who doubts that graffiti has gone uptown need only look at the service entrances to some of the trendiest stores in Beverly Hills, which often bear the marks of spray paint saboteurs, or at the graffiti-laden buildings that can be found along Ventura Boulevard in the San Fernando Valley, on Melrose Avenue in West Los Angeles and on Main Street in Santa Monica.

Variety of Names

Offering privacy and unobstructed wall space, a deserted parking structure at Wilshire Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue on weekends draws up to 20 graffiti artists with names such as “Ziggy,” “Whisk,” “Felony,” “Miner” and “Thrash.”

Officials of Project Heavy, a nonprofit graffiti eradication program, said the amount of graffiti in the San Fernando Valley has doubled in the last year, with non-gang members responsible for 75% of it.

The Studio City Chamber of Commerce on Thursday sent out more than 1,000 cards to businesses asking for the location of graffiti, so it can be cleaned up.

“It’s not funny,” said Jack Gold, a Los Angeles County Juvenile Court commissioner who has battled graffiti around Sherman Oaks, where he lives. “The kids are saying they have no sense of pride in their own neighborhoods.”

James Prigoff, a nationally known graffiti art specialist who co-authored a documentary book called “Spraycan Art,” also has noted a recent proliferation of graffiti throughout Los Angeles. Prigoff said the local graffiti practitioners have taken their cue from disadvantaged youths in New York City, whose outrageous-looking characters on walls and subway cars were the cause of one of the most emotional issues in that city 15 years ago.

Heated Debate

The New York graffiti explosion touched off a heated debate between those who viewed the work as an artistic statement and those who viewed it as a menacing intrusion into daily life. In a 1973 report, city officials said that 63% of all subway cars, 46% of all buses and 50% of all housing projects were defaced with graffiti, and estimated that cleanup would cost at least $24 million.

In Los Angeles, graffiti takes on a slightly different meaning because of its traditional association with the city’s violent gangs.

For authorities trying to cope with the current epidemic of gang activity, the emergence of spray can-armed gang “wannabees” could not have come at a worse time. Detective Ernest Guzman, a San Fernando Valley gang expert, said businessmen often mistake the markings for gang graffiti.

“They get scared,” he said. “They think they have a gang problem.”

But there are clear differences between tags and gang markings, Guzman said. While gangs usually write the names of their groups in block letters, taggers tend to be more colorful and stylized.

Stick to Own Turf

Gangs also tend to stick to their own turf. Taggers prefer major commercial thoroughfares such as Ventura Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue for their high visibility.

“These are juvenile delinquents, plain and simple,” Guzman said. “I don’t know what motivates them, other than the fact that they like to see their monikers up where they are noticed by associates and other taggers.”

Despite police and community concerns, Prigoff contends that most of the graffiti vandals are engaging in a benign form of rebellion.

Further, “It gives them a sense of belonging, of being somebody,” he said.

Some people also see it as an odd twist on the old competitive spirit. Instead of vying against one another in academics, athletics or the arts, the youths compete over who can become best known for making themselves known.

‘I Went on a Rampage’

Michael Stills, the son of an art designer from West Hollywood, for a long time was one of the most successful graffiti vandals, with his “Empire” tag appearing in hundreds of places. “I went on a rampage,” he said. “I hit everything in sight.”

Now 21, Stills claimed to be retired from such rampages, but he still considers himself a chronicler of non-gang graffiti and said he is aware of more than 700 participants in the local spray-paint subculture. Most are known to him by their nicknames, or tags, and by their “crews,” tightly knit social groups of 5 to 25 taggers who go out on “bombing” missions together.

The goal of every tagger and crew is visibility, Stills said. A member is “up” when his tag is widely seen on the streets.

On one occasion he wrote his Empire tag in huge letters across all six windows of a bus. At a McDonald’s, he changed it to “McEmpire.” The fact that many outsiders cannot decipher the graffiti is irrelevant, Stills said, because the participants are only interested in communicating with each other.

“Graffiti is like a newspaper,” said Stills. “It’s something to read. But it’s also a prank. You get a real rush when you do it, and it eventually becomes addictive. Some people say it’s our way of getting back at society.”

Most Are Unrepentant

Stills said most taggers are unrepentant, seeing themselves as being in the same league as the pranksters who once stole hubcaps or “rolled” houses with toilet paper.

They are also emboldened by the knowledge that police rarely catch them, because they usually strike quickly or late at night. And there is a shared belief among taggers that, as juveniles, they are immune from serious legal consequences. (Any tagger caught could face misdemeanor charges and a several hundred dollar fine, police said.) Most taggers retire when they reach adulthood to avoid a permanent police record, Stills said, although some continue well into their 20s.

One of the best known Westside taggers was a teen-ager called “Fantasy.” Her peers recite as if it is a legend how, by the age of 14, she had already developed a taste for scribbling her moniker on parked police cars, even if the police were inside.

To the astonishment of her well-to-do parents, who apparently knew nothing of her daily forays, Fantasy was eventually apprehended and put on probation. But others, no less bold, carry on in her place every day.

The Fatburger restaurant at the corner of La Cienega and Santa Monica boulevards in West Hollywood is one of the places where they can frequently be found. At any given time, there is likely to be a table full of innocent-looking teen-agers, their jackets bulging with spray paint and felt-tip pens, discussing graffiti in a private lingo.

Defining the Terms

A “toy” is someone who lacks an individual style. A “biter” is a person who copies someone else’s style. A “kill” is a multiple-graffiti attack on a particular location. A “throw-up” is a more elaborate version of a tag. And “racking” is synonymous with stealing, which is not uncommon among taggers, even though most can easily afford to buy their own spray paint and markers.

“I steal everything,” one tagger said.

The taggers also engage in some odd rituals. Many paint their tags on every can of discarded spray paint. Others crush the cans in order to retrieve the marbles inside, which they then wear as jewelry on a bracelet or a chain.

The groups with which they align themselves are competitive but generally nonviolent, unless someone consistently crosses out another person’s tag or piece. The major Westside and Valley crews include “Key to Success,” “Criminal Minded Artists,” “Back Together Again,” “Create to Devastate,” “Loyal to None” and “Kids Gone Bad,” or KGB for short.

The youth known as Never, who is affiliated with Criminal Minded Artists, was among the group at the West Hollywood restaurant, sitting at a window table. Inhaling a milkshake and puffing on a cigarette, he explained that he started leaving his moniker on buses two years ago, at first because it was exciting and later because he enjoyed the recognition among his peers.

Reasons for His Tag

RTD buses are popular targets, he said, because many teen-agers travel that way, and because bus drivers are often rude to kids. He figures that his name has appeared on at least 100 buses. He chose his tag for some very specific reasons.

“The name describes everything,” Never explained. “See, I never plan to stop doing this. I’ll never get caught. And don’t never mess with me.”

“Frameone,” who lives with his mother in a Palms district apartment, is another of the well-known graffiti artists. At 21, he is mostly interested in murals these days, but still tags occasionally. Frameone’s favorite tagging tool is a scriber, a dangerous-looking metal gadget that can be used to engrave a name into glass.

Like most taggers, Frameone has his own moral code. He said that he would never tag someone’s house or apartment building because it is personal property. On the other hand, he argued that it is perfectly all right to vandalize a white truck because that is more like a “moving billboard.”

Fondness for Buses

Frameone also has a fondness for buses, and said he has never ridden one without leaving his mark somewhere. But his ultimate goal in life, he said--without a trace of irony--is to become an RTD driver.

Others have loftier goals. Raymond Roker and Rick Wyrgatsch, who started as taggers, now work solely on murals, or “pieces.” Both attend art school and are hoping to make a living from the skills they mastered on the streets.

Roker, who goes by the nickname “Teck,” used to create his multilayered spray pieces, resembling the 1960s style of Peter Max, on walls that lined empty lots and deserted parking garages. Today, however, he occasionally gets paid to create murals on the side of buildings. Roker cited his jobs as evidence that people are realizing that “pieces” are far more than vandalism.

“This stuff is moving straight to the art galleries,” Roker said. “People will pay for it if you get your name out in public often enough.”

Wyrgatsch said street art is a good way to develop a style.

“People who put it down are just ignorant,” said the 20-year-old West Covina resident. “My art teacher said my graffiti gives my work its edge.”

Known as “Slick”

A Hawaii native who is better known as “Slick” in graffiti circles, Wyrgatsch is legendary among local taggers for his riveting, multicolored characters. He also has a reputation for flamboyance--he wears three watches on one arm, favors jackets without shirts and shaves the back of his head, leaving only the long bangs across his forehead.

People who follow the graffiti scene said that Wyrgatsch and Roker may have promising careers in art. But for most, tagging is the end of the line.

Frameone estimated that there are only 20 or 30 real artists among the hundreds of taggers around Los Angeles. To Prigoff, going from tagging to piecing is like going from sixth-grade art class to Van Gogh.

Stills said he is working on a book on the Los Angeles graffiti scene, called the “Underground Society,” to persuade the public that all of it is art.

“People know we’re here,” he said. “But they don’t want to accept us. . . . I’d like to see all of us get the recognition that we deserve.”