Graffiti As A First Amendment Weapon
The first thing you have to ask yourself is, “Are words weapons?” If so, you must think of graffiti as a first amendment weapon. To me, graffiti exists in a gray area the founding fathers of America may not have totally thought of including. It is somewhere between the first amendment and the second amendment. Depending on the destruction graffiti causes, it is effectively treated like violence against property. That is the point in some cases, and for pure vandals, that is perhaps the only point. But, in the case of a first amendment protest, graffiti can and should be reconstituted as something which demonstrates the unwillingness to accept being unheard or unseen.
When politicians crowd out the public space for conversation, there is no use talking with them anymore. However, that is meant to shut you up. It is meant to silence you and make you believe “they” control everything and that “we” have no real power or authority. In reality, graffiti can and does strike fear into the puny hearts of tyrannical bureaucratic government ghouls. That is why it is a necessary part of any protestors’ toolkit. Knowing how to wield it, what it can and can’t do, and how to defend yourself against any law enforcement action against you, is critical, more now than ever before in the past.
Using graffiti as a first amendment weapon is something I have become a master of, and I have even innovated plenty of legal defenses and aspects of this. There are a couple other things one can do which operate between the first and second amendment, but for now, I will use this space to treat the topic of graffiti.
Are Words Weapons? – PEACENOW
I have been practicing the art of writing graffiti (the un-permitted application of messages to public or private spaces) for about (25) years now. As a kid, it was a way for me and my friends to be artistic together, hang out and share something in common, while I tried to figure out ways we could fight our corrupt teachers and parents and administrators. In the last (5) years, though, I took this art form to heights and places I never before thought imaginable. One of my oldest monikers is “PEACENOW.” The tag is an iconic 1-liner that is the word “NOW” with a peace sign in the middle of the “o” in a style Philadelphia is known for called “wickeds” or “wickets” depending on who you ask or how you look at it.
This symbol, a peace sign in the letter “o” of the word “now” has been used since the hippies protesting the Vietnam war. I believe in a scene in Forrest Gump, there is a sign that shows this. I began writing this and honing in the style, during my high school and college years, protesting against the Bush administration and their various Middle Eastern wars.
The image/video above is located on an underpass in Philadelphia near Manayunk. It is heavily trafficked, relatively safe to get to, and incredibly public. I did this piece in the middle of the day, getting honked at repeatedly by passers by. No cops stopped me though, despite being entirely visible and easily nabbed. This was at some point between 2020 – 2020. This piece remained up without being buffed off for over 18 months. The point was meant to be provocative, but attaching my moniker PEACENOW to it, was meant to provoke the question of it peace could be made via words alone too. If words make war, that means words make peace as well.
I Took PEACENOW Everywhere
Though many people may have made signs with this symbol or something similar to it, nobody has ever done it like I did it. Nobody has ever done it in such a way that it coincided with such monumental, historic change. Creating the opening for what I have done in the last 6 – 12 months. One of the things that I devoted myself to, was embracing and learning, mastering, the art of the Philly wicked.
These tags are samples of the kinds of work I would do all over the city. What you’ll notice is that almost exclusively, I went about tagging city property and I did so for a reason. My beef was with the city government, no The People. Tagging a person’s house was not appropriate for my first amendment protest. Only a few times did I ever turn my graffiti weapons on private businesses or individuals, and only did I do so in retaliation for some financial attack or act of censorship.
The one tag “WOR” with the peace sign upside down, was a statement about the lack of options between peace and war. It combined the words “war” and “or,” to imply “war or peace.” These symbols become subliminal parts of city life. People don’t even notice them, but they have an impact.
Few, if any graffiti writers do what I do.
That is why it stands out even in the underground culture itself.
Pieces of PEACENOW
Tags are fun, cool, and make an impact.
But like the first piece I showed, of a high profile location that gets literally hundreds of thousands of human beings viewing it every month, for over a year and a half, it is something money literally cannot even buy. That pricelessness is part of the magic.
The bench in the top left of this gallery is along the River Drive in Philadelphia. A place that is used by both tourists and natives, for exercise and walks with friends. This bench was incredibly resistant to absorbing the paint, and again, I did this in plain view during the middle of the day.
The “new throw…who dis?” piece is in an infamous spot on the highway down the street from the Manayunk bridge. If you don’t get the triple entendre, it’s a play on the “new phone, who dis,” while replacing phone with “throw” meaning “throw up,” or the type of graffiti piece it is, and “who dis” also meaning “who will try to dis me here?” That was because at this time, I was being hunted on the street by rival crews, city officials, and residents who took issue with my other projects.
The day-time photo of the sort of off-white fill, was in a public park.
A memorial park, if memory serves, ironically enough.
PEACENOW, Peace Later, and Peace Forever
These are only a handful of images of publicly displayed work.
Over the years, I’ve written this word/phrase/symbol literally thousands or possibly millions of times. It is more than just a word. Far more than simple vandalism. This concept is more important than even being able to put it out in the world on walls or anywhere. The mentality is that peace is and must be achievable now not later. It must be the lasting and enduring operation of The People, and the state. When that balance is misaligned, I am here to correct it.
NO VAX NO CHILL and the Saga of Sicko
In the Summer of 2021, I had reached a breaking point in my protest against what I viewed as conspiratorial forces aimed at keeping COVID a forever emergency. This gave rise to an alternate identity known as “Sicko.” This character hit the streets as hard as any of my other monikers, conjoined at times with other personalities which gave the impression of a mass movement. For about (2) years I’d been running around hitting everything in sight, with virtually no blockade, or interruption. A few people would disrespect my tags on the street but that’s normal.
The harder I went, the more often I would Google search and look on social media for evidence that people were noticing. Most of the time those results came up empty which is partially why, to this day, my biggest contributions on and out of the street are not believed, and not reported.
August 25, 2021 ABC changed that: COVID-themed vandalism spotted in Philly and Montgomery County.
I do not know the author of the article, but they said, “Painted in high traffic areas – like schools, health care offices, and some utility boxes – it’s clear the person or group responsible for the vandalism has something to say.”
Ironically, they also said, “However, the meaning of the message depends on who you ask.” The article went on to quote (and cite in a video with on the street interviews from people in Philadelphia) people who claimed opposing views of what I meant.
Ironically, the locations, the things I wrote, and the specific areas I hit, should have made it unmistakable to my family, childhood friends, and others – exactly who I am.
Nobody ever asked me what I meant, nor did anybody ever ask me what I thought about COVID, the policies, or the way people I knew treated me/it.
The article said Philadelphia police were aware of the tags.
Years later, I would have an entire precinct, and SWAT team, in my house and studio where they saw all my graffiti supplies, evidence of what I wrote, as well as a gigantic Philadelphia flag I stole from Police HQ.
They were told (by me) that they only had the right to search for the dead body that a false report claimed was there.
I should mention that the article claims there are harsh penalties for institutional vandalism, which has – at most – a 4 year statute of limitations.
To demonstrate the awesome power of graffiti as a protest, compared to acts of physical violence, I am now free to share about this experience.
It also had a much more heavy impact than a single terroristic event would have. So beyond not being violent in my constitution, I recognize it has limited utility in the grand scheme of things. At least when it comes to those things which the first amendment can achieve, violence is absolutely an impediment.
Sicko (and other sub-personas) United the Hood
Though the name “sickO” to many would connote some kind of terroristic health related attack, in many cases I used it to relate to areas of the city which are plagued by corruption and ailments that the rest of the state doesn’t recognize. This spot was a favorite of mine for a while, though it eventually became more and more contested.
My efforts to unite the hood resulted in several young graffiti crews popping up, who were inspired by the way I did my thing.
It also caused some people to use graffiti to cry out for help or let their souls scream about grief, when I launched “SOB” aka “Summer of Blood,” where I used red paint more exclusively and write “SOB,” “Cry Together,” “Weep Openly,” and other things.
My work with this handle and others became quickly about life affirmation.
Though I will probably never have the technical proficiency to do photorealistic spray paint art, I will always innovate the use of tools, technology, and cunning. This spot was one that I hit religiously. It was on a monthly route I would do at least. Eventually I did get stopped by a police officer here. Not for this piece, but for another one. That was one of the scariest moments of my life.
I was working like I always did, having taken for granted that what I do is illegal.
Then I saw the red & blue lights flashing on the wall. I knew then I was probably cooked. But I threw cans in my bag, grabbed my bag, ran across several lanes of traffic going both ways – across medians – and temporarily evaded the cop.
My thinking was that I got to a place he would not be able to safely ascend.
I was out of breath and walking it off.
Then the car came up and stopped me.
He pulled a taser out and said, “Do you wanna run and get shot or do you want to stop and talk?” I stopped myself. Put my hands in the air. Said, “Talk.” He got out of the car, pulled off on the side of the road in sight of cars passing by. The cop said, “you think that shit you do looks good?! Why the fuck are you out here?” I said, “I am protesting the tyrannical city government and the overreach they are imposing with COVID as an excuse. It is driving me mad…”
That’s when the cop put his taser down.
He said, “The city is run by radicals…”
I said, “That’s what I’m talking about.”
From there, he let me take my bag – with my paint – and I went back to finish my spot.
“The O,” and Creating Timeless Symbolism With Graffiti
You may have noticed a special “o” letter in my SICKO tags or pieces.
This was done very intentionally, in order to deprogram people from what I viewed as brainwashing that was being done using COVID as the pendulum.
My goal was to implant this symbol in highly visible pieces all over they city and outstanding counties near Philadelphia, as well as New York, New Jersey, and even Delaware. Then, periodically remove the rest of the message, leaving only the “o.” In some sense this was also a branding and artistic challenge. To create a single letter that has cultural impact, unmistakable style, and uniqueness. I achieved that.
Subliminal messaging works, whether you like it or not.
When a message is so widely distributed, saturated as COVID was, there is no escaping it. Even for me, being the one and only person to remain sensical about it this whole time, I was unable to convince anybody else of my point of view.
As you can see, nobody ever really asked, and nobody wanted to hear it anyway, since there was a near-universal investment in it.
That (the financial investment angle) was something I addressed using other monikers.
However, since Sicko was focused mostly on the healthcare industry, I did use it to take a couple big shots at companies like Merck.
Merck is on my hit list because of their outsized and dangerous influence on where I grew up, but their 10-day SARS course of pills would have saved a lot of lives and tumult. The reason they did not push these, is because vaccines and the program associated with it proved to be more effective at ultimate control and brainwashing.
That made me very mad, because it could have cost far less, created much less inflation, and helped more people if they had pushed these pills more than shots.
This was another one of my favorite spots when I lived in Philadelphia. What you are looking at here is a large wall on the highway that virtually belongs to nobody. It is a big version of my sticker-style throwup for Sicko that is very bubbly and has the “i” inverted to look like an exclamation point.
It says, “blood on their hands,” and “Merck has jagged little pills.”
Flanked by several of “the O” shapes for emphasis.
The 18-wheeler is real, and shows you the scale.
This kind of spot might take 15 – 30 minutes.
I was never really seen, nor bothered here.
Once a woman pulled her car right there kind of where the truck is, but off the side of the road. I could not tell if she was lost, calling somebody, or if she had been sent there to spy on me in case I was there at the same time. Either way, I got spooked and fled momentarily. Came back, finished whatever piece that was. Another time I pulled up to the spot I would park at up the road, and a decapitated unicorn pillow toy was laying there. Kind of ominous. Probably not sent as a message. Just a weird kind of irony, I suppose.
Philly Media Knows I’m Sicko
During the same period I was hitting the streets like this, I was also blogging similarly to what you see on Write In Freedom today. I was doing it from my old agency website though, so I know it may have confused people even more back then. That grew out of the fact that other advertising agencies in 2020 were full-on propaganda outlets for the government and the COVID plans. They were shifting the business around this temporary campaign, and I viewed that as a very bad thing.
To compete, I thought I would use my platform, to say what I had to say.
That led my to clash with the local press in Philadelphia along with plenty of politicians, and members of the public.
Years after I was made a pariah by local news, I noticed an independent journalist named Dan McQuade had posted a picture of my work on his Twitter account asking what people thought of it. This was a specific piece that I did when I got mad at how Jon Stewart (as per usual) was attacking the city of Philadelphia. I took it personally and took it to the biggest most public wall I knew of. I called this spot “The Big Wall.”
“Graffiti Or Viral Marketing?” – It’s Both
The tag says “The Problem With Jon Stewart Is He’s A Chazzer,” and as you can see the iconic “O” tag is next to it in the same can/hand.
The question Dan was asking, is whether or not Jon Stewart or his distribution company had something to do with this.
They did not.
I did it myself. Because I loved my city, and he was corrupting the public opinion of it.
A “chazzer” in Yiddish, means “pig.”
It is something we say about a greedy Jew. That is how I view Jon Stewart. A greedy self-serving liar who pretends to fight for “working people,” as a man worth millions of dollars – but who doesn’t know anything about Philadelphia’s problems. The problems I was fighting with my bare hands and with paint every day, as well as online. In court, eventually. Putting my real life on the line, while podcasters like him talked shit on YouTube and got easy sponsorships at a time when companies like BetterHelp were propping up the podcast industry to push mental illness on people.
I accused Dan of stealing my photograph of it – which I sent to FOX News and others at the time – but he may have just taken a very similar angle. He eventually answered me, and we texted for a bit on Signal. He claimed he was going to help me get publicity for what I had been doing and what I was going through. That never happened. I eventually did a sticker campaign to disrespect him in his neighborhood.
This tweet Dan did got thousands of views, dozens of comments, with people admitting they too had seen it and laughed or been confused.
It did not help promote Jon Stewart’s show.
I did damage to his reputation here.
That’s because I think it is sick (and not in a good way) how people like Jon Stewart or Bil Burr have made their careers as people who are viewed like they bravely fought against the Philly attitude. Bill Burr’s classic rant about Philly, was of course, over the bridge in Jersey. So sometimes the first amendment weapon is turned against other citizens, but in such a way that is ultimately no physical threat.
Nobody thought I meant I was going to assault Jon Stewart.
It was clear, I think he’s a pig. His show has suffered since.
Doing It For the Love of the Game, Too
Though the preponderance of my work is devoted to fighting against what I view as criminal behavior from government officials, or disrespectful moves from public figures, graffiti is an art form. The art is both partly how you actually technically produce the work, as well as what it takes to get away with it – or get caught – and get away with it.
There is, I believe, a spiritual destiny in Philadelphia for certain graffiti writers, to write the word LOVE in one form or facet.
I took this honor on valiantly.
Love, “It Can Be Wicked”
Part of the thing about a wicked/wicket style, is that it relies on a combination of refined muscle memory as well as emotional and fight energy. That is where some of the most significant stylistic and creative results come from – using the spray of the paint like a weapon to attack the wall. It requires a kind of flick of the wrist that requires a lot of practice. You must be a master of letter structure as well.
To do it properly you must know when/where and how to slow down, speed up, and utilize fades.
Love, as an emotion, can be hurtful especially when it is not reciprocated.
That is wicked.
There is the pun/irony of this whole campaign.
The image in the top right of this gallery demonstrates the foundation of a wicked which is a tall-hand. At the fundamental, it is meant to be a rectangular shape or stamp-like shape, that you can do with a shitty can with no special cap, as tall as you can reach and all the way down to the floor.
This is one of the most unique styles of tagging on the planet, if you can believe it.
People think you cannot learn it without being in Philadelphia, and most people are literally mentored in it.
My mission was to ascend to the top of the known Philadelphia writers internationally with so many names people would know me by many and not even know they were fans of the same person.
My Love Was Felt Everywhere
These throwups and straight letter pieces were mostly in Philadelphia, but some were in surrounding counties and other places.
The styles vary, their size and scope does too.
The hollow throwup at the very bottom was from the day I got arrested in Newtown up the road from this. Whoever owns this location chose not to press charges. When the cops released me after booking, they had left me my paint, so I finished this with a thank you message for them. That may also have contributed to why nobody pressed charges against me on that.
My lawyer helped plead my case down to restitution using my defense of “unpermitted advertising,” and the thing I told the cops, “I’m just trying to spread love.” I was questioned about other graffiti I had done but cleverly evaded those inquisitions including being pressed by a detective who tried to get incriminating evidence about me from my wife.
My love of people, art, and free expression were put to the test over the last few years.
But my love, which can be wicked, prevailed.
DIEVEST – My Most Infamous Moniker
These (3) images are very small sample of the work I did with this name.
It turns out that prior to me taking it up, “dievest” represented a number of different things. The first record I could find of it, was ESG-related (something I do not support in general) that served as a campaign against fossil fuels. These days the BDS movement co-opted the word “divest,” to refer to combatting the state of Israel. This is also not affiliated with me or what I did with this.
The purpose of my DIEVEST character was to encourage people to relieve themselves of financial arrangements that are suicidal or inherently corrupt, unfair in terms of competition, or otherwise damaging to the public.
I used this name, along with others, to attack Vanguard – causing the silent crash of 2022 – as well as BlackRock (and the AMPTP), Twitter/Elon Musk, DOGE, and more recently the entire Trump administration.
It has struck fear into the hearts of many.
I caused FTX to blow up, and then ensured SBF and his cronies paid the price for what they had done. To this day, nobody knows how that went down, because the few who know what I did still won’t admit or believe their own eyes.
This character sparked many to use graffiti against Elon Musk and Tesla, without me so much as having to tell them to do it. I personally would have gone about it another way, but hey, that’s the power of free expression.
What I opened the door with back in 2022 was how to use graffiti to accompany or instigate real legislative, legal, and stock market pain.
Without that, people like Elon Musk will just Roman salute their way through life undeterred.
DIEVEST Forced Government Accountability
Across the board, I never rely on only (1) method to achieve my goals.
The graffiti worked incredibly well in a number of ways.
But the way I make mountains (metaphorically of course) move, is by combining my crude language and street protest with incredibly sophisticated solutions and identifying problems in ways nobody else could ever dream of doing.
My messages created interdepartmental action across the FBI, DoJ, SEC, FTC, and other agencies.
I yelled “DIEVEST” into the White House switch board when Biden was threatening to essentially nuke the North Koreans – until they blocked my phone number – which to my knowledge is illegal; but I couldn’t afford to fight them on that.
From the perspective of this identity as a character, I also created many other sub campaigns or additional marks which were used to reach people in finance literally where they live. All over the East coast. DIEVEST moved markets.
Learn How To Use Graffiti As A First Amendment Weapon
Americans are conditioned to think that their first amendment is already gone, and that real revolution is either armed resistence or some kind of mass movement of people in the streets like the “No Kings” exhibitions.
Unless you are prepared to use the public square to place your message without government approval, you have not tried everything.
Until you have something worth saying – it won’t matter where or how you say it.
That is what most people actually lack.
They follow politicians, or “influencers” or celebrities who appear online to have a large “following.” As if that number of followers is legitimate (it is not) or that all of those people just simply do whatever tehy are told by a social media account – is not actually as accurate as you may think – because most of those people are fed lines from somewhere else.
The number of opinion-shapers compared to echo chambers, is staggeringly small.
That is why whenever I interrupt the powers that be, they temporarily can turn on one another. They do not believe that my graffiti is that powerful, and they cannot admit that a person detached from their political parties and corporate control could possibly become this powerful all on their own without any kind of organization. I create order out of disorder, in a way nobody has ever seen before. I am unlike anybody else on the planet in this realm.
Innovating the Language of Peace has been a lifelong pursuit.
And while I will always remain peaceful, that does not mean I am afraid of doing serious damage to economic systems, companies, or public property, in the right context. This debate is new, emergant, and necessary.
And, like it or not, I am the leader of this movement.
You do not have to follow me. You cannot copy me.
In fact, you need me like you don’t even know.