Gradient Magazine/ Frequency 1

Where f lavors collide There’s a revelation in every glass of Glenmorangie, an explosion of tastes and aromas igniting your senses.

www.glenmorangie.com

w w w. e p i k n e w y o r k . c o m

frequency - 1 spring 08

FOU N DER S Editor in Chief ALAN VINOGRADOV Creative Director MATT FRIED Production Director BARRIS VINOGRADOV

STA FF Fashion Director ALAN ECKSTEIN Managing Editor ANDREW MAROTTA Assistant Editor in Chief CALEB CLARK Public Relations KRISTIAN LALIBERTE & TIMO WEILAND www.heirapparentny.com Design Assistant MOODY Copy Editors ANGEL GARCIA & KAREN COLEBECK www.written-proof.com

PHOTO GR A PH ER S

JEFF FRIED www.jeffreyfried.com DAVID ZAMDMER zamdmer@gradientmagazine.com BRYAN GURSKY www.814studio.com

W R I TER S

JEANINE GRIMALDI jeanine@gradientmagazine.com JOHN FAVREAU www.littlelakepar tners.com NATE HURWITZ nate@gradientmagazine.com ERIC LEGASPI www.elegaspi.com STEVE MOSES smoses@gradientmagazine.com REMY MELINA remy@gradientmagazine.com

CON TR I BUTOR S

MATT SIREN www.mattsiren.com DAN BERKOWITZ www.danberko.com ADAM BEN’ OUS benous@gradientmagazine.com

I NQUI R I ES

GENERAL INQUIRIES info@gradientmagazine.com ADVERTISING adver tising@gradientmagazine.com DISTRIBUTION REQUESTS distribution@gradientmagazine.com WWW.GRADI E NTMAGAZI N E.COM N o p a r t o f G ra d i e n t M a ga z i n e m a y b e re p ro d u c e d w i t h o u t p r i o r w r i t t e n c o n s e n t f ro m G r a d i e n t M a ga z i n e . G r a d i e n t i s p ro d u c e d q u a r t e r l y f o r s u b s c r i p t i o n s , p l e a s e m a i l $ 1 0.0 0 C h e c k o r M o n e y O rd e r t o G r a d i e n t M a ga z i n e 5 5 - 5 9 C h r y s t i e S t . N e w Yo r k , N y 1 0 0 0 2 .

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frequency - 1 spring 08

Gradient is a movement, constantly flowing, never subsiding, perpetually pushing forward. An idealist’s articulation. A visionary. Art in the form of essence, writing in the form of life. Gradient draws influence from those who are magnanimous to the creative commonwealth and is intended for the likeminded individual.

A publication that is truly an outlet for exploration. A diverse compilation of what attracts and captivates through beauty. The acquisition of knowledge. A narrative of the future illustrated in the present with particular attention given to detail.

A concept devoted to connecting those who share the same strong, amorous feeling; Passion. Embracing all forms of expression, admiring all who express freely. A particular appreciation for the power of imagination.

The world that exists at the Gradient level.

73 74 76 78 84 90 92

COVER: “The Firsts”

By Matt Fried & Patrick Winfield

www.astrosauce.com

VIVAVI When observing the various pieces of furniture Vivavi offers both in their wind-energy powered showroom in Brooklyn or on their website (www. vivavi.com) it quickly becomes clear that each individual object is a work of art. Even more astounding than the creative brilliance behind each piece is the company’s dedication to improving environmental awareness both through financial contributions and media outlets. Founder and CEO Josh Dorfman is meticulous about the way he conducts business, understanding that “live modern + tread lightly” is more than a mantra, it’s a life style. Dorfman’s passion for art, earth, and furniture has resulted in a diverse fusion that utilizes recycled and salvaged wood, highly renewable natural fibers, toasted vertical grain bamboo, and dozens of other eco-friendly components. Recognized globally for being at the forefront of the green revolution, Vivavi is a company that represents the future through both their products and ideology.

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WEE HOUSE Another Small Solution Written by Andrew Morotta

A glass of red wine to complement an exhilarating day of exploration. The night sky is once again showing off each and every one of its stars. In this beautiful setting there isn’t even a cloud to intrude upon such wonder. Surroundings glow as though the lights of each city are reflecting off the moon and back onto the earth into one tiny spot. The light sheds some clarity. Eggs and French toast for breakfast followed by a novel. The only worries are what to eat and what to do after. A much needed escape from southbound delays and the six o’clock news. Simplicity prevails and for at least one moment the most peaceful place in the entire world is a miniature haven appropriately named the weeHouse.

The easiest way to explain exactly what a weeHouse is and the concept behind its design is envisioning the following hypothetical situation. Your average fully functional suburban house shrunk by roughly 60% depending on the weeHouse model. It may sound like a nightmare but for many it’s a dream come true. These pre-fabricated mini houses designed by Alchemy Architects perform as well as any modern home while consuming far less energy. Its size, modern configuration, and entirely eco-friendly components prevent over consumption and save weeHouse owners thousands of dollars each year. In addition to being a practical permanent alternative, the weeHouse is a perfect vacation home for those looking to escape the daily grind. A large number

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of weeHouse owners purchase acreage in remote areas and plant a weeHouse on the property, a beautiful way to enjoy the surrounding elements without the inconvenience of camping and headache of building a new home.

Acquiring a weeHouse is a relatively simple process designed to save prospective home owners both time and money. The fully interactive online method of purchase allows customer to browse through several different models and sizes, choose the exact building materials and add a variety of accessories ranging from wood fireplaces to rooms furnished with IKEA products. Even simpler, one can skip the personal design process and acquire a standard model. Once a suitable design has been chosen and a deposit has been made, one of several factories across the United States will begin construction and in as little as six weeks a fully functioning home will be delivered and placed on the desired property.

The slowing economy combined with soaring energy prices is forcing many people across the United States and other parts of the world to downsize. An increasing number of people are relying on alternate means of transportation to save money and conserve energy. If current trends continue people throughout the world will also be forced to reconsider their life style. Alchemy Architects and their innovations have taken all of us one step closer to practical living in the twenty first century.

I L L U M NEUROLUCE AT E D WITH

Photography by Matt Fried

The fast pace New York City life style can leave little time to appreciate the artistry that lies within. Despite the frenzy, one may find it impossible to pass over 145 Bowery Street without pausing for at least a moment. The wondrous lights emanating from the Euroluce showroom captivate the imagination and appear to shine for miles around. Wither your interior is inspired by modern design, European art or you simply would like to create an atmosphere centered around lighting, Moshe Toledo’s collection of handcrafted light fixtures will add tremendous appeal to any environment. If you cant make it to the showroom be sure to check out the website at www.eurolucelighting. com While undoubtedly the most flamboyant of the three , The Flamingo design manages to maintain a silent elegance that radiates through each of its spindly appendages. Light expands outward from nine separate layers of handcrafted glass designed to awe the observer.

This Italian influenced chandelier is available in six different finishes.

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Seven hand-crafted layers of Morano glass infused with lustrous color collectively form a modern light fixture tailored to be the center piece of any space illuminated by its coruscating lights. A collection of flowers flowing from the center and blossoming throughout add a neoteric flare to a chandelier that is slightly reminiscent of classical European fixtures. A complex and compelling piece that light up both rooms and hearts alike. Available in two different finishes.

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As the drop falls downward the light within intensifies, a magnificent effect that is only one of the many variables that make this particular piece a wonder. Different size and shape add the perfect aesthetic touch to any home or office setting. A ground breaking piece currently recognized as the largest Morano glass design in the world. Now crafted in white, blue and amber in seven, eight and nine foot proportions.

TUNA TARTAR A Coalition of Flavor

New York-based private chef Adam Ben’Ous is known not only for his exquisite plates but also for his innovative technique in putting them together. Having drawn inspiration from time spent with premier chef Aaron Sanchez, Benous has learned how to utilize his creative abilities and fuse together traditional flavors from various cultures into one marvelous plate: The Tuna Tartar, a meal that exemplifies his abilities by blending reputable Latin spices and classical Japanese cuisine. Luscious greens rest on top of an inviting slice of tuna, surrounded by four slivers of sauce, created exclusively (but not limited too) the meal itself. Recreation of this plate is simple and all ingredientsare readily available at most fresh markets.

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Ingredients-Serves Two 1. 5-8 Ounces of sushi grade tuna. Make sure the tuna is red in color.

Often times fishmongers keep the fresh tuna out of sight so the older stuff goes first. If the color isn’t bright and beautiful don’t be afraid to ask for a fresher catch.

2. 1 tablespoon of peanut oil, olive oil is also acceptable.

3. 1/2 teaspoon of wasabi powder.

4. 1 teaspoon of sesamie seeds.

5. 1/8th teaspoon of cracked black pepper.

6. 1/2 tablespoon of green onion chopped.

7. 1/2 tablespoon of Arugula sprout.

8. 1 habanero puree (optional).

9. 4 tomatillo’s 10. 1 Serano pepper 11. 2 avocados 12. 1 1/2 garlic cloves minced 13. Cilantro to taste 14. 1 tablespoon of honey.

Directions 1. Finley dice the tuna and add to the bowl. Stir in the peanut oil, wasabi powder, sesame seeds (toasting is optional), cracked black pepper, chopped green onion, arugula sprout, and habanero puree for color and spice.

2. Once it’s evenly stirred together, get a ring mold and place it on the plate. If you don’t have the proper steal molds you can make one by simply cutting the bottom of a plastic cup. Add the Tuna mixture with the mold for a round attractive presentation. Also, garnish the top with a few extra sprouts.

3. The sauce is relatively simple, entirely delicious, and extremely versatile, working wonderfully with chicken and steak as well as tuna. Brush oil salt and pepper onto the tomatillos and seranos. Slightly grill or broil them. Add tomatillos, seranos, honey, avocados, garlic, cilantro and oil to a blender or food processor to puree. Add salt and pepper for taste.

Display the sauce around the tuna and don’t forget to remove the mold.

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Written by Andrew Marotta

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Photos by Jeff Fried & David Zamdmer

I can see the blues of the sky fade into darkness from the window of a tiny of fice on Centre Street. It’s impossible to create a boundar y between colors of a settling horizon. Regardless of the many variables to consider, the sky itself is able to transcend separation. It is truly integrated. A canvas that is constantly changing yet consistent. Night falls and the bright reds, yellows, mellow greens and the gloomy grays of the world below replace serenity. During the shor t time that I spent in this veiled setting I learned a lot quickly: Chinatown is unaf fected by the ambiance of New York City. Like the colors of a sunset blend into one another; grime, crux, and hope form a world of intrigue. Graham Greene once wrote, “You come to Vietnam and you can learn a lot in a few minutes, the rest must come to be lived” The same can be said about Chinatown.

Deceptively complex and perpetually diverse. A cultural resiliency and an inexorable capitalistic drive. Diverse in the sense that you can find a shrewd woman on Bower y selling finger puppets to charmed tourists, transpor tation to most major cities in the Nor th East for fif teen dollars, and some of the finest Orange chicken in the Western Hemisphere on Chyrstie street. Beyond the humble exterior of Chinatown lies one of the largest underground economies in the United States, generating millions of dollars each year through a network of illegal activity that ranges from counter fitting purses and per fume to bootlegging DVD’s.

A fully functioning world within a world within a city. A growing metropolis that covers over two square miles; loosely circumscribed by East Broadway, Grand, Wor th, and Lafayette streets. Chinatown is a location that over 150,000 people call home. A place comprised primarily of Chinese inhabitants but cer tainly not exclusive to those individuals, a culturally diverse neighborhood infused with people of Dominican, Puer to Rican, Burmese, Vietnamese, Filipino, and West African heritage. Although Lower Manhattan remains divergent, The Chinese continue to enjoy cultural expansion throughout the area largely due in par t to the massive influx of illegal Asian immigrants arriving into New York City.

Constant and at times breakneck economic grow th within Lower Manhattan since the elimination of immigration quotas in 1968 has played a significant role in Chinese immigration into New York City. Such high demand to relocate into the city has resulted in the formation of various transnational smuggling organizations. A vast network comprised of bribed bureaucrats and Chinese gang members more commonly referred to as “snakeheads”. With unlimited access to some of the most sophisticated technolog y in communication and replication, the snakeheads are succeeding more

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than ever and in far higher volume. Several dif ferent smuggling techniques have been masterminded throughout the years, among the most popular: false documentation permitting direct entrance into the United States and Canada.

Much of the influx has come from the Fujian province on the Southern Coast of Mainland China. Recent surges in immigration have benefited the Fujianese through emerging industr y based upon Western acclimation. Fujianese owned dating ser vices, law yers specializing in green card acquisition and other immigration legalities, driving schools, employment and naturalization ser vices all help contribute to the booming economy in Chinatown.

Fujianese success in the United States has a direct ef fect on Chinese economies. A percentage of currency earned abroad is of ten sent back home to family members currently living in China. When former residents visit China they tend to spend an abundance of money on luxurious hotels, fancy restaurants and lavish gif ts for loved ones. Many businesses have opened within China designed primarily to cater this growing demographic.

Recent statistics concerning immigration from Fujian into the United States challenge the general consensus. While some Chinese are escaping the oppressive nature of an industrializing super power, an entirely dif ferent type of social discomfor t exists in China. According to Sociodemographic studies conducted by Liang and Zhang (1999), “Nearly 70 percent of the immigrants versus 27 percent of the non immigrants are in the working age of twenty to thir ty-four. Another major dif ference is education. Almost 16 percent of non immigrants, but fewer than 1 percent of the immigrants, have no formal education. Nearly half of the immigrants have junior high school education, whereas close to 50 percent of the non immigrants have only an elementar y school education. Thus, if education is used as a proxy for socioeconomic status, it is clear that immigrants from Fujian are not at the bottom of socioeconomic hierarchy.” Evidence suggests that dynamic economic and social pressures are working hand in hand, driving members of the work force out of China and into other par ts of the world.

Philosopher Karl Marx once wrote, “A house may be large or small; as long as the neighboring houses are likewise small, it satisfies all social requirement for a residence. But let there arise next to the little house a palace, and the little house shrinks to a hut. The little house now makes it clear that its inmate has no social position at all to maintain, or but a ver y insignificant one; and however high it may shoot up in the course of civilization, if the neighboring palace rises in equal of even in greater measure, the occupant of the relatively little house will always find himself more uncomfor table, more dissatisfied, more cramped within his four walls.” Ironically, Marx is referring to a crucial factor in what drives immigration from Fujian, a theor y known as relative deprivation. Defined in the Dictionar y of Psycholog y as, “The discrepancy that one perceives between what one has and what one could or should have, in contradistinction to absolute deprivation of the bare necessities for living. Egoistic relative deprivation arises from unfavorable comparisons between one’s individual circumstances and those of a comparative reference group, and it tends to generate personal dissatisfaction and unhappiness.”

China’s transition into a market-oriented economy has had tremendous ramifications on the Chinese people as a whole. Unprecedented grow th has fueled a dramatic increase in per capita income and significant declines in extreme pover ty. While China’s economy enjoys continued prosperity, the population of China continues to feel the ef fects of a growing income disparity. Upon obser vation of what one may have obtained given the correct circumstance combined with urban working class conditions and the perception of working overseas, a type of social pressure is developed throughout much of the countr y. Western media outlets of ten paint a picture of gold lining the newly paved roads of Asia but fail to mention the fundamental struggles of those paving. Despite monumental grow th throughout the world and a decline in American prestige, people from all over continue to journey into the United States with only a few ar ticles of clothing and their dreams packed tightly.

Fur ther examination of the sociological factors that bring Chinese immigrants into the United States may help explain the inventive ways and rapid success of these extremely disciplined, innovative, and ambitious people. Those who make it into Lower Manhattan are decisive in their ways of utilizing western markets and in many cases have found ways to exploit the mundane. The small crowd gathered around the finger puppet table. The sheer brilliance of such an idea. An idea like many in this par t of town, born of the ashes of depravation, desperation and ingenuity. Without this combination the chromatics of Chinatown would cease to exist.

Twilight falls over Chinatown. Visitors from all over the world escape into the temptation of fered by the night into one of several dif ferent worlds that emerge out of darkness. Desolation and emptiness prevail. A few taxis maintain a slow, steady pulse. If you stand any where in Chinatown in the middle of the evening and listen ver y closely you may be able to hear that ver y pulse. It’s faint but once your ears catch too it will eternally ring whenever you return. It’s the pulse of a people who are now on the cusp of escaping centuries of internal and external struggle. A pulse that will radiate throughout the entire continent in the years to come.

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DRIED MUSSEL

BLACK FUNGUS

MARINE PUNGENT Soup Additive

CRUNCHY Lowers High Blood Pressure, Reduces Cholesterol and Clears Arteries

GORDON EURYALE SEED

SUE-WU

SWEET & PUNGENT Relieves Diarrhea and Strengthens Kidney

LOTUS SEED

BLAND Used As a Cooling System When Congested

MARINE Soup Additive

CHINEASE JUJUBE

CHINESE FIG

SWEET Helps Fight Cold & Acts As Cooling System

GINSENG

BITTER Improves Blood Circulation

SWEET Mollifies Insomnia & Fatigue, Vitalizes Appetite and Alleviates Stress

SWEET & SLIGHTLY BITTER Anti-Aging, Invigorates Spleen & Lung Energy and Balances Hormones

CHESTNUT

DRIED CLAM

DRIED SCALLOP

TART Energy Invigorator and Stimulates Brain

MILKVETCH ROOT

SWEET & MARGINALLY SOUR Strengthens Body When Weak, Lowers Blood Pressure and Relieves Skin Infections 24

JAPANESE DRIED OYSTER

MARINE Soup additive

LING-CHI

STRICTLY BITTER Strengthens Immune System, Calms Stress and Relieves Cold

MARINE PUNGENT Seasoning Used In Cantonese Cuisine

RED MELON SEED

SEED Symbolizes Joy & Happiness Used Common During Chinese New Year

DRIED SQUID

MARINE PUNGENT Soup Additive

DRIED FISH MAW MARINE PUNGENT Soup Additive

LING-CHI

STRICTLY BITTER Soup Additive

Photography by Matt Fried

PHOTOGRAPHY Studio 814 specializes in quality catalogs, lookbooks and advertisements. Photography for your clothes, products or jewelry.

STUDIO RENTAL Full studio rental available with over 2000 square feet of space. 12 foot ceilings and exposed brick and white walls to work with.

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PRODUCTION With a full time In-house production office, leave all the scheduling, bookings, crew arrangements and afternoon luncheons to us!

GALLAREI FREQUENCY

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BRAD DOWNEY • TOD SEELIE • PATRICK WINFIELD • D.M. WEIL

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THE “B” IN THE BRAD Brad Downy (2007) LOCATION: Ashford, England

LAST NIGHT I DREAMT THAT SOMEBODY LOVED ME Brad Downy (2007) Location: ABERDEEN, SCOTLAND Duration: 4 DAYS

THE BURDEN OF CHILDREN Brad Downy (2006) Location: BROOKLYN, NEW YORK Duration: 2 WEEKS and 4 DAYS

DEAD Brad Downy (2004) Location: LONDON, UK Duration: 3 DAYS

CHANDELIER

SECRET DINNER

Tod Seelie (2007)

PREPARATIONS SECRET DINNER

Tod Seelie (2007)

TUNNEL

SECRET DINNER

Tod Seelie (2007)

PERFORMANCE SECRET DINNER

Tod Seelie (2007)

LIGHT PAINTING 1 Patrick Winfield (2008) Polaroid 600 Instant Film 20”x 21”

PIECEMEAL Patrick Winfield (2008) Polaroid 600 Instant Film 20”x 21”

FREESTYLE COMPOSITE 1 Patrick Winfield (2008) Polaroid 600 Instant Film 20”x 21”

STATE Patrick Winfield (2008) Polaroid 600 Instant Film 20”x 21”

BLACK ICE D.M. Weil (2007) Acrylic on Canvas 36”x 60”

PINK CARBON D.M. Weil (2007) Acrylic on Canvas 36”x 60”

CORAL REEF (2007) Acrylic on Canvas 48”x 60”

PANDEMONIUM (2007) Acrylic on Canvas 36”x 60”

in the name of

SIMPLICITY Photography by Matt Fried Styling by Alan Eckstein

shirts & jeans by BLUE BLOOD sweaters by TROVATA leather jacket by SPURR 45

she Photographs by Bryan Gursky Styling by Alan Eckstein Lighting Director Jonathan Folds

spring they call

whom

light blue sheer by OHM lace shrug VINTAGE ring by SUBVERSIVE JEWELRY

blue silk water print dress by ADAM LIPPES

shirt by BLUE BLOOD shorts by ADAM LIPPES shoes by PRADA red coral bracelet by SUBVERSIVE JEWELRY

white dress by PINKYOTTO purple knit sweater by DANSKIN scarf by SUBVERSIVE JEWELRY vintage boots by FRYE

scarf by SUBVERSIVE JEWELRY dress by TROVATA shoes by SEYCHELLES

dress by TROVATA pearl and silk necklace by SUBVERSIVE JEWELRY vintage SAMSONITE LUGGAGE shoes by SEYCHELLES

Written by Eric Legaspi Photography by Matt Fried

56

R

“Can you put some of that condensed milk in there?”

He leaned over to me and remarked, “I loved that stuff when I was a kid.”

The way that he found a cup of coffee, let alone with the option to include an estranged ingredient from his own childhood, with such swiftness was fairly impressive. A staggeringly tall man with lanky limbs, he had a disarmingly cordial sentiment that I’ve found in most native New Yorkers – one that seems to be as inviting as it is dominating. His short black hair swirled chaotically on his head and welcomed the sparkle in his brown eyes that belie his 40 years of age. RD dispels many of the preconceptions established by typical graffiti artists; his voice was gruff and forceful (free from the ubiquitous “hip-hop-isms” society has been acclimated to), his dress was plain and practical.

These days he pays both rent and taxes. It all seems outlandish if RD is a stranger to you, and that is exactly the point.

Though he was born on the west coast, an array of incidents landed him in New York, living with his mother and going to school in the South Bronx. At a young age, he showed the glint of a rascal, “You know kids, when they watch cartoons, they root for Batman? Forget that, I liked the Joker.” The Bronx was the cradle for graffiti in New York, giving birth and legitimacy to a movement of new artists since the late 70s. Seeing a fully painted 6 train one morning made his eyes catch fire and, given his demeanor, giving in was difficult to avoid. “I started writing on the streets from the time I was 11-years-old to 13-years-old.

Back then, my brother, he used to write with this guy Lace and a crew called ESA (East Side Artists) –then they switched it to ESP (East Side Party, East Side Playboy, Extra Sick Party) and they were just all over the 6 Train; all they wrote on was the 6 train. I grew up with them so I just started writing with them, probably until ‘85, ’86.”

Trains are the iconic conveyance of graffiti, stretching back to the bad old days of New York’s darker times, before the civilizing light of Giuliani and Bloomberg washed off all the muck. They were large, blank canvases allowing an artists’ work to travel vast routes of public boroughs, being seen by countless citizens and establishment types. Graffiti was a way to prove yourself as a youth in the city and it required a dedication

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that RD withheld, “On Friday night I’d go into the yard on 205th street and I’d stay there until Sunday morning. I’d just eat Fig Newtons, sneak out every now and again for milk or something, but that’s it. I’d start at one end of the yard – with the A’s and C’s – and just work my way over; sometimes five, six hundred cars… I used to bump into little Hazzy Haz, he’d be at it for a while, but he’d always go home. I slept there.” Even to exercise the unpredictable extent of his art, RD covered the inner walls and benches of MTA chariots (“the ugly shit on the inside”) despite the pains it cause to get there. Unconcerned with the murals on the surface he was faced with that inspired him to write in the first place, he stared right back, and filled every inch of the walls with oceans of black ink churning from his Flo-Master markers.

As with most stories in this city, half of RD’s exists underground. Wandering through an endless maze of subterranean track work, writers became rats, filling up the abandoned corners of tunnels with empty spray cans. Entering through a grating near the zoo in Central Park, RD and his compatriots would travel down a seemingly endless succession of stairs into the very bowels of the island. There, halfway to China, were cavernous tunnels set apart from the rest of the transit system, an entire rail yard underground. It served as a home to the now defunct JFK express train, eventually housing a virtual rainbow of other trains winding their way through the city’s veins; and all without a cop in sight. “We used to do whole cars down there for a while. Then before you know it, people started getting wind of it, and all of a sudden everybody and their mother was down there! We didn’t really care though, that’s where we lived and it ended up bringing more paint our way. We’d scare people out of there and take their cans.” Little does Bloomberg know that these were the beginnings of his Second Avenue subway.

Though his heart will always travel with the trains, he is just as accomplished as a street writer. Most of the shine has been given to the outer boroughs over the years, but the man is a fervent advocate for Manhattan Island. Considering the amount of time he’s spent on these streets, one would expect that he would have found an oasis for himself, some small pocket of privacy in which to commune with his art. Instead, he finds his space in the margins of a screaming microscope. “Favorite place is dead smack midtown. Most people don’t like that. It never sleeps. It’s busy. Anyone can go write out in the middle of west bumble-fuck Brooklyn, fuckin’ South Bronx or some shit.

That’s simple crap. But writing with cars at every light, cops everywhere, it’s like BAM!” His thirst for high-value targets is quite insatiable. During the mid 80’s, he and his brother used to love hitting Mercedes’ and other luxury vehicles parked on the streets. Using all kinds of loud colors, they’d apply hot rod flame jobs onto the latest European import – orange into yellow, into red. “We hit about 20 of these things. We were hoping it would make the papers but it didn’t. You would think there would be something on the news – Someone has ruined these fine luxury cars– but there wasn’t.” Perhaps the owners became fond of their work.

In graffiti, the location of a piece can easily be more important than the actual look it reflects. Writers climb to the highest outcrops of concrete and dig to the deepest recesses of the tunnels to prove their daring attitudes attached to their skill. RD is a talented artist, capable of amazing feats with the simplest spray cans and markers, but as satisfying as a complex piece with interconnected letters, three-dimensional effects and the other bells and whistles might be, the real thrill comes from the mere act of getting away with breaking the law.

“You got all these guys, they squash beef with everyone. It’s like Gandhi or something. Why you gonna write? If everything’s all

gravy and you’re doing legal stuff, that’s not writing anymore. At that point you’re a muralist; you’re an artist, not a graffiti writer.”

Graffiti might’ve gotten relegated to legal walls in Queens, found it’s way into high-priced galleries, or become championed by new stylists like Marc Ecko, but guys like RD couldn’t care less.

“Crime, it just gives me goose bumps, man, even if I’m stealing an apple from a Korean deli or something. I don’t know why, it’s strange.” Even just mentioning law breaking, RD’s long fingers start to tap against each other and a crooked grin winds its way across his face.

Writing was always a great way for him to express his illegal creativity. RD and an associate had been breaking into a truck yard, hitting close to 70 fruit trucks while their drivers slept, leaving gaping holes and plenty of carwashes for their owners to pay for come morning. Eventually, the workers got tired of patching the fences and got guard dogs. When faced with Rottweilers, who can easily bite off your arm, a frontal attack is never advisable, so RD came up with a different approach. “I was going to poison the dogs, originally. Could wrap up some pills in a piece of some salami or something.” Thankfully, he decided against the drugs and fed the dogs the old fashioned way.

“I kinda made friends with one of the dogs. You know, I’d go by and he’d be sitting there. I could probably gain their friendship, give them some chicken wings or something every now and again. Maybe start ridin’ him around the yard or something.” Not only did he save himself from being ravaged, but also his partner enlightened him to the money people pay for such fine animals. So began the great dog-napping. “I’d start stealing the dogs, writing on the trucks.

They’d get new dogs, I’d steal them.” Why just bomb trucks when you can also walk away with a few hundred bucks?

Realizing to what extent the kidnapping frenzy could reach, RD started looking for other lucrative breeds, most notably a pricey Sharpe at an auto body shop one night. After cutting a dinner plate-sized whole in the fence, he set about baiting the hole with his trusty salami. When the dog wandered over, he reached in to put a leash onto the dog. It squirmed away, forcing RD’s hand further behind the fence, where he came into contact with a new challenge. “I pull my hand out and there’s a fuckin’ PIT BULL gnawing on my hand!” Ten minutes of kicking, punching, biting and other forms of struggle and all he had to show for was is a mess of broken bones and copious amounts of blood. “I pulled a lighter out of my back pocket and burned the thing on its nose and it finally let me go.” Not only did he lose the Sharpe, but his hungry friend got out too, giving the thief a run for his money. “You see how messed up my hand is? I’m not gonna

pull down my pants and whip out my ass, but trust me, it’s like SWISS CHEESE down there!”

Like other writers, RD’s life was filled with these kinds of schemes and hustles, things that those who grow up outside of the city would never know. “In the 80’s, man, the streets were PAVED with fuckin’ gold. Everything was money.” There were various shoplifting schemes, RD would go to Bloomingdale’s, grab a few items, walk his way into the employee lounge and toss the goods out the window, down to eager hands waiting 4 storeys below. “Yeah, they had security tags, but you wouldn’t go through any security.” Cars, sometimes more than ten at a time, were run out of garages in convoys, racing across the city in the dead of night. They would mine the train tunnels, breaking into gang boxes and stealing power tools. When nothing else could be found, they sold the streets themselves. Eager to capitalize on the fall of the iron curtain, the boys got creative.

“My brother and I broke up the concrete into pieces, we’d paint cycles and shit on them and sell them as pieces of the Berlin Wall. We had a guy sitting there behind us with a shopping cart and my brother was out there making all kinds of certificates. People were buying it like it was Starbucks coffee or something!”

While Wall Street and other capitalist lifers fought for reservations at Nell’s or played golf to unwind, RD and the booming graffiti writers took to having some fun with buses. First, they would head down to Chinatown for some fireworks. The weapon of choice was a “pineapple,” a toilet paper-size tube of black powder. From there, the miscreants would sprint up behind a bus as it would pull away from a stop, opening the rear doors just enough to slip the small explosive inside. “We’d wait a couple seconds then BOOM! The bus would stop, smoke all pourin’ outside. Looks pretty cool when you’re smokin’ angel dust.” When it finally got to be too much, it was off to the wooded area behind a heliport off the FDR, whisked away on the wheels of stolen bikes. “I always liked the water, it’s just…tranquil.” There, by the gently lapping, bucolic shores of the East River, many a weary writer would indulge in alcohol, any number of narcotics and God knows what else.

Although he matured, his criminal mind never took a break, even when faced with marriage. Towards the end of high school, he fell in love, eventually getting married. “She didn’t want me fuckin’ around, doing drugs. She hated graffiti too, thought it was stupid, and didn’t see any money in it, so I stopped.” He did, though, manage to get her itching for shoplifting, specifically for superhero-themed retail. “We’d go to comic book conventions and steal ‘em.” They had a good operation and she was able to signal him when someone was watching.

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“I’d grab a book and she’d say ‘You already have that one,’ so I’d put it back. Other times, she’d find one and walk away with it…

I’d work one week a month.” Otherwise, he smoked cigarettes and stayed out of trouble year after year. Despite the relative good fortune, theirs wouldn’t last. “You know, you can fall in love with someone when you’re young, but you may not love the person they turn into when you get older.” The relationship slowly decayed and eventually RD left their home and came back to re-assume his street escapades in Manhattan.

One might think that Ed Koch and his police force were completely outmatched, but RD has had his close calls.

Few organizations had the reputation of the Pelham Bay Graffiti Squad. The largest park in the city and situated in the Bronx, Pelham Bay Park was the perfect battleground between vandals and the city, and police cultivated a reputation for roughing up whoever they got their hands on around there. They once chased RD for almost an hour, forcing him to hide in a tree in a nearby cemetery until the boys in blue finally turned in. During another chase, RD jumped off a subway platform, broke his leg and got hauled into the precinct. A claim of police brutality got the case dismissed. Plenty of his compatriots – including his brother – have been locked up for a myriad of offenses. For one friend in particular, it’s become something of a way of life.

“He’s got no place to live; he’s still like a teenager, mentally. It gets cold, he’s like ‘Fuckit,’ goes to Rykers for a few months has his teeth checked out, sees a doctor. In summer time, he’s back out.” Sure enough, his visibility in the streets coincides with his next trip upstate. “When you start seeing him start getting up, he’s trying to get locked up.” For a homeless man with no other job skills, it’s an easy way to keep a roof over your head when times get lean. Plus, it beats the hell out of Kaiser Permanente.

In any contest, there will be moments, however short, when the underdogs have their day. RD’s came one sunny day at Graffiti’s Hall of Fame, a corridor of walls and handball courts on 106th street that once a year are allowed to be transformed into the gleaming billboards of spray-can ingenuity. While appreciating the afternoon with his peers, a friend approached with an unknown associate wearing a green army jacket and a necklace displaying the dreaded badge. “He was a cop and wanted me to sign his piece book.” Piece books are usually an artist’s diary, chronicling the styles and concepts they experiment with when not in the streets, but they can also serve as a shrine, housing work done by a writer’s idols. But if a cop is holding it, that entire book means its evidence. “I didn’t want any part of it, so I walked out.” RD found a pay phone down the block and decided to have some fun. After dialing the local police station, he gave his account of the scene. “’You gotta get down here, there’s these guys in green army jackets showing their penis to little boys and they won’t let them go.’” Sure enough, a couple minutes later, squad cars pull up, uniforms jump out and the punch line ensues. “They’re flashin’ their badges, he’s flashin’ his badge, everyone’s yellin’, it was fuckin’ GREAT!”

However adversarial his relationship was with the authorities, RD also respected his enemies. During the salad days of his youth, he and his friends used to frequent a local park to pass the summer nights away, making use of their pool for the kind of parties you’ve seen in countless movies about urban youths. “There was this one cop, he was always pretty nice; didn’t bust our balls or anything, just wanted us to keep the noise down, stuff like that. When he retired, I did a mural of him on the wall by the pool. Ehhhh, he didn’t like it so much.” It is fairly unsurprising that a cop wouldn’t find the reverence in a piece of vandalism, but as close as they might have come over those hazy nights, the cop still didn’t know who painted it. And there might be the greatest of all compliments to law enforce-

ment: the lengths to which the bad guys go to not get caught.

“I’m not naïve, I never forget for a second that what I’m doing is illegal.” RD is a known name in the graffiti community, but he can always encounter writers and fans that don’t believe it’s him. He is also one of the few, if not the only, active writer who has never seen the inside of Rykers. Luck has definitely had a hand in this, but plenty of work is involved in evading New York’s finest.

Alarm systems don’t just work to protect houses, so one has to keep in mind the many ways to be alarmed, themselves, of oncoming police. Lining the ground with some broken bottles or light bulbs can save a writer from being caught off guard while bombing a subway tunnel. In shadier times, the pimps, pushers and prostitutes of rugged neighborhoods had networks of first responders. “Someone saw a cop coming, the call would go out and the streets would be dead.” There are also techniques and tricks one can use to become invisible, especially in a city of 8 million people. “Wherever I’m writing, I always try to dress appropriately. If I’m writing in the South Bronx, I’ll dress like a crack head bum. If I’m in midtown, I might wear a suit or something.” He is also very conscious of technique, forgoing a style for economy. There are plenty of artists who use big, exaggerated movements when doing complex pieces, but RD’s muscle memory allows him to execute a quick tag without breaking stride. He is just another guy walking down the street.

If the first rule in self-defense is to never look like a victim, then the first rule in crime is to not look like a criminal.

His approach also houses more discipline than one might think. “I never drink or do drugs when I go out to write. I stay focused.” The name of the game for him is focus, and when he says that word he bangs his hands together and his visage turns decidedly serious. Having bucked the comforts of authority most of his life, he is a man governed greatly by his own will and sense of purpose and the fact that he has never been caught goes a long way to justify both. Still, when he gets the spirit in him and opens up about his craft and craftiness, he becomes disarmingly cheerful and you can see it in his eyes. They are not the weary saucers of an overworked professional, but rather the gleaming spectacles of a child – constantly prying, searching, yearning for something to get into. One could surmise that his current motivation has more to do with instinct rather than reason. His movements and thoughts have adapted themselves to this concrete jungle over nearly 26 years of writing graffiti and getting over on the system. He has developed a sixth sense about the rhythms of urban life and his encyclopedic knowledge of streets and habits of the police are a testament to his training. Those painted initials reflect not just the man, but the choices he has made and cannot turn away from.

This dedication is inexplicable, even to him. “To be true to you, at this point, I lost it. When you’re young it’s the cool thing to do, so you do it. Right now, I’d probably be older than the police officer that would be arresting me.” In many ways, he seems to be a man that has been passed over by evolution and time. He’s admittedly terrible with computers, comparing his typing to the movements of a “retarded pigeon.” Most of his friends from the old days are in jail or burdened with addiction and the smash-and-grab schemes of his past have been replaced with more eloquent and technical subterfuges.

As successful as he might’ve been snatching purses and guard dogs, the good money these days lies in identity theft or insider trading, mastering hustles that can’t be honed on darkened sidewalks. The city has changed around him – drastically so – and he speaks of the good old days as anyone reaching middle age would. His day job and its steady paycheck seem to have softened some of his habits. But even to this day, RD refuses to

pay for toilet paper, preferring to grab it from a restaurant, the Staten Island ferry, anywhere there is a bathroom stall - “It’s everywhere, why would I pay for it?”

His beliefs in paper products are not the only things from his past that have relevance today. As with any man facing a new generation, RD puts a great deal of importance on masculinity, a subject he feels has fallen by the wayside in recent years. “Today, you have these guys who aren’t walkin’ like they should…You used to have Ralph Cramdon, he was the king of the house, his wife wasn’t having it, and it was cute. Then you had Archie Bunker, he was just kickin’ ass… Now you have [Everybody Loves] Raymond, who can’t even zip up his own pants.

Men have lost their masculinity. Even if you’re dragging your guts behind you, you walk with your chest out and your chin up.” It was very important to him that this statement go to print, something he felt a particular need to pass on to myself and the rest of us in our formative years. Since writing this piece I am noticing his initials on more and more fire hydrants near my own day job in “dead smack midtown.” I used to pass them without thought or acknowledgement as I traveled to make a living in an attempt to become a positive addition to society. Eventually, the letters will be washed away like any other blight in our fair city, but if I happen to pass them before the brushes have had their say, the first thing I’m reminded to do is straighten up.

Fame is an asset in most pursuits, but it gets you made if you’re a criminal, which is why I find it curious that RD has shown his face and told his story to a complete stranger.

Some might find his admissions arrogant in the face of 26 years of luck, a dare to the Vandal Squad and the rest of Ray Kelly’s men to try and catch him. But his story should have ended tragically long ago and RD is nowhere near the wild, drugged-up hooligan he once was. That said,

To be sure, these attitudes were formed out of necessity as much as philosophy. The worlds of crime and graffiti are dominated by alpha males whose positions are maintained by projections of strength. Sensitivity, self-doubt, compromise, these are things that can have real and dangerous consequences in some circles. The precautions he has taken during his career have sometimes caught the ire of his fellow writers. RD, though, has persisted because he has brooked compromise – becoming a good enough vandal to have notoriety, but never risking too much for fame. It has been said that a man can’t change who he is; but then again, why should he?

All this said, why, after nearly 30 years on the streets, is RD still writing? It’s been said before that graffiti is an art by kids, for kids. But what happens when you’re not a kid anymore and you still like it? In some ways, he is still that child.

“I try to stay on top of it all, you know. I’m never out of the loop. I’m either like the top dog or I’ll trickle down to maybe the fourth, but never fifth. Fifth, I gotta get out there.”

As brazen a character as he may be, there is a certain discipline in his approach to his craft. Even if they can outsmart cops, addiction usually overtakes hardcore writers at some point, especially in the 80’s when one of the world’s most addictive drugs was making its smashing debut. RD has had his experience with crack cocaine, angel dust, and god knows what else, and came back.

He is one of the few active writers who have never been caught by the police or seen the inside of a prison. The city is clean these days and having passed by his “RD” in new places night after night, it amazes me that he refers to Mayor Bloomberg’s highly funded Vandalism Squad as Sasquach. “I’ve heard all these stories, but I have no actual proof that they exist,” but refers to it, as he would a low fence or any other obstacle he has surpassed.

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RELAX

Written by Jeanine A. Grimaldi

Odds are if you live or have been to New York City in the last two years you subconsciously know about Relax. “We put them where they’re pretty unavoidable”, says Frankie of Relax whose bright pink stickers don the streets of Manhattan. The company, which was started about two years ago by Staten Island natives Frankie and Donny, has transformed from a clothing company to a lifestyle brand.

The idea for Relax started on the way home from a road trip to Miami. They decided to create some t-shirts but couldn’t think of a name. After throwing around a few ideas, they decided to go with Frankie’s nickname Relax, because of his hot-headed temper and the band Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s single “Relax Don’t Do It”.

Starting out was no easy task for Frankie and Donny and after printing forty t-shirts on their own they were starting to get overwhelmed. After recollecting themselves they started a sticker campaign. Donny says the decision to use a neon pink recliner with the word RELAX stretched across it was because, “We didn’t want to use something typical. We wanted to do something that nobody would really expect, and catches people’s eyes.” Frankie and Donny also promoted Relax through wheat pastes, an art form originally used to put up carnival flyers, became popular with street artists through Obey. In the first three days of “bombing” they put up nine hundred stickers and twenty wheat pastes a night. One night out found them in jail for their sticker campaign for a day and a half. “It was definitely an experience and I appreciate the fact that I got to see it because it teaches me ‘don’t get busted’”, says Donny.

Their perseverance landed them at the MAGIC Tradeshow in Las Vegas where a man from Germany stopped by the Relax booth to tell them that he had recognized their sticker in New York and wanted to show his appreciation. When asked the meaning of the pink recliner Frankie and Donny say they like to keep it open to interpretation. “We don’t tell people what they should expect the name to be. We like people to decipher it in their own way, and a lot of people have. We went out to Vegas and people out there had a completely different perception of Relax than they did in New York and in California.

That’s always what we wanted to go for this sense of ambiguity in the work that we did.”

Relax has come a long way in the past year. Besides sticker campaigns and wheat pastes Relax has been able to promote their products with the help of Takeover Theory promotions. They have been involved in events sponsored by Red Bull, Monster, and Methods NYC. They work with New York City deejay’s Iron Lion and Complex who give away Relax party bags at their events. Their New Year’s Eve party was so packed that they had to turn people away at the door.

Relax went from selling their own t-shirts to creating an artist network that helps other artists sell their work. Their website, SayRelax.com, currently features clothing from Matt Siren, who is most known from his ghost girl image and Phallic Mammary who uses the human anatomy to make bright, colorful art. A few pieces from Mike Die are also sold. They’re in the process of renewing their website and adding more artists that they are currently working with. Most of the artists are street artists, but they do work with graphic designers, illustrators and anyone who has an” artistic sense and a unique style”.

Frankie and Donny consider Relax to be more than a clothing company but a lifestyle brand for a ‘subculture with no representation’. “We want to create an umbrella for the people that we work with, because people see what goes on here but they don’t really get the notion about how involved it is,” says Donny about the their artist network. Relax is trying to spread positivism and the notion of diversity through art. A project they are currently working on called “Around The world” embodies these ideals. “It’s called “Around The World” because a third of the canvas will be from New York artists and then a third of the canvas will be with Barcelona artists and other artists from countries around the world. We want to get a whole network of different artists that may or may not be working with each other necessarily to create a world diverse collaboration effort,” says Frankie.

When asked about their future Frankie and Donny expect big things. “We want people to wait and see what’s next.”

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We are almost a decade into the new millennium in which the industry giants first turned to the product prophets, futurists, and gurus for a new experimental therapy that could replace the saturated BandAids that had failed to staunch the hemorrhaging of the record industry. They looked into their crystal balls, read our brain scans, and deciphered our focus groups to try and come up with ideas that would ease our desperation. Technological advancement playing the role of the leathery-faced, Kangol-sporting domino king tapped the blocks, and in one sweeping wave the traditional means of mainstream product distribution began to fall. The death of radio, which was killed by the video star, which was vanquished by Napster, which was toppled by Lars, who was crushed by Myspace, has left a vacuum that has been filled only by media theorists and passing fads. Countless expensed lunches went by that left the suits scratching their heads over what they could do to make people buy their records. With radio’s source of commercial vanquished by dead listeners, where else would they find an outlet to beat what they had to offer into the consumer’s head? and who to ask? Could the mighty Rick Rubin save the day? Well, he retired to a monastery-mansion on a hill, and after much meditation and polling, came up with a golden nugget: word-of-mouth. We were floored. But could you really manipulate word-of-mouth to boost sales? If Columbia records are any indication, they make the answer to be that paying a group of hipsters to hype a track up to their friends doesn’t quite cut it (and thankfully!). Those who revel in the organized chaos of the mixtape have found their own channels of dissemination (and yes, it is by word of mouth!), however unfiltered they may be.

The Mixtape: to anyone whose hormones raged as they tiptoed around their first pangs of love, or channeled their teenage rebellion through music after the advent of the tape-deck, the mixtape will always hold a special place in their heart. Call the obsession what you will, but whatever it is, it is certainly something more than the pure nostalgia that would lead one of a past generation to, let’s say, purchase an 8-track. Although the pleasure that came from the sweat gone into making a tape, the meticulous timing, the toll on the pointer finger from the endless jamming of record and stop, is gone. The power of the mix has successfully (at least for some) survived the transfer to the CD. Although that mating phrase, “I’ll make you a tape,” that we all thought was timeless has faded into oblivion, the songs stay the same and the band plays on.

The tape was the period piece, the stuff of nostalgia, but the mix, the desire to recreate the perfect album, a collage of personal expression and communication, that is eternal.

Fo r give the sap that has oozed out onto these pages, but after spending a recent Sunday night in the cozy backroom bar of the Soundfix record store amongst fellow mixtape enthusiasts, I can’t help but be poetic. The record store, an article worthy in its own right, hosts an eclectic mix of CDs, with a focus on WRITTEN BY independent labels, an interesting smatNATE HURIWITZ tering of vinyl, and has recently opened the back bar for events.

The must-do among them is the fixtape exchange, hosted by Steven Reker, also the father of the pickletini, but that’s for later.

The exchange meets on the first Sunday of every month with a theme selected by the attendees of the previous month’s event. Last month’s theme was songs with names.

Now, this being an indie record store in the heart of Williamsburg, I must admit my anxiety at receiving a CD filled with obscure bands I had never heard of. However, I was surprisingly please by it. There were the required darlings of the indie world: Sufjan Stevens, The Mountain Goats, which were tempered by Barry Manilow, and Toots and Maytals. The crowning jewel though had to be My Name is Darryl by Darryl Strawberry, off his album Chocolate Strawberry. I have never had the pleasure of hearing this album (and I assume many others can say the same), but I would highly recommend it to anyone who is a fan of Darryl, baseball, the early 90’s, or just kitsch in general.

So what is special about the Fixtape Exchange? After all, anyone can go online and download just about any song they want. Anyone searching for the quick fix, the instant gratification, need not change out of the sweatpants and leave the comforting glow of their computer. There are even online mixtape exchanges for the agoraphobics or those otherwise isolated people who still crave the unexpected construction of a mix.

Still, there is something unexplainably more exciting about the personal exchange. Almost everyone at the exchange reminisced about their early mixtape making days: the first mix they made for their girlfriend, the mix they made for their brother when he left for the army, or when their heart was broken; all of these mixtape memories centered on extraordinarily personal events. And although they are strangers there is a connection made in the exchange that cannot be replicated on the internet. There’s something almost old-time like about it, a harkening back to the good old days, that would seem just as good even if the hipsters were to remove their rose colored shades and nose rings. Reker says the crowds are growing each month, thanks to the concept behind it, making music a shared experience again.

Rob Sheffield once wrote “Love is a mixtape.” Well a square is always a rectangle, but a rectangle is not always a square. I’m not sure if love is a mixtape, I’d hate to disagree with the esteemed Mr. Sheffield, but we can certainly say that a mixtape is love.

NOT

YOUR

CORNER MIXTAPE SPOT

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No Flash In The Pan Written by REMY MELINA Photo by BRYAN GURSKY

When Max Oshman first picked up a pamphlet from Macromedia’s San Francisco office in 2000, he had no idea that his vague interest in their new technology would lead him to launch his own Web site design company. No, on that fateful day, Max was just a 15-year-old kid hanging out at somebody’s office during a family trip and happened to notice that Macromedia’s office was across the hall. He took a few of their brochures and the rest, as they say, is history.

“When I came home (to Montclair, New Jersey), I started using Macromedia software - Flash, basically,”” says Max. “I got good at it really quick and started specializing in Flash and database interaction. This was just when Flash 4 was released, which is when Flash started supporting this type of functionality, so that became my specialty.”

Throughout middle and high school, Max suffered from insomnia, making it possible for him to spend long hours in front of his computer experimenting with programming and posting on message boards about coding. There he caught the eye of a publishing company looking for experts to contribute to a new book called Macromedia Flash: Super Samurai . Max was selected to write a chapter on database interaction and was soon penning a section for a second book, Macromedia Flash MX: Creating Dynamic Applications. Two years after accidentally stopping by their office, Max was writing books for Macromedia about their technology. His publishers and fellow writers had no idea that he was a high school junior.

Another businessman, a 30-year-old programmer living in Miami named Yves Darbouze, was so impressed by Max’s knowledge and skills that he proposed they form a company. That’s how Plotdev Multimedia Developers LLC was born, and soon they had a global team of about a dozen Web designers doing projects for Universal Records and Microsoft. Forbes got wind of Max’s work and labeled him the “Flash Kid”.

Currently finishing his marketing degree at Stern Business School at NYU, Max juggles class assignments with projects for his own site design company, FK Interactive. His star-studded list of clients includes Puff Daddy, Tommy Hilfiger, Missy Elliot, Fat Joe, Gnarls Barkley, Dollhouse Jeans, and Atlantic Records. Max also recently helped design the site for Qtrax, the first free peer-to-peer digital music site that allows users to legally download music while compensating both the artists and the record labels through advertising.

“Qtrax in is one of the biggest sites, publicity wise. When they launched they had 400,000 hits within their first hour.”

G: Tell us a little more about what you’re doing right now.

M: “This week I did a project with Citro studios where I developed two flash games for the new Dr. Suess movie web site. I’’m making a site for Oval Vodka, it’s a popular vodka in Europe that’s coming to the U.S. I do a lot of work in the music industry. Right now I have 13 or 14 artist sites that I’m working on for major labels like Atlantic. I wish I could talk about the biggest project that I’m working on, but I can’t.

G: Do you work on projects based on your own interests, not just because they’re making you money?

M: “It’s always important that when you’re doing something creatively, you have to do things for yourself too. It helps you clear your mind, I guess. Honestly though, it’’s just as enjoyable for me (to be) doing something for myself or doing something I’m getting paid to do.”

G: What trends are you seeing in web site design and what do you predict for the future?

M: “I think Flash will be more intelligently used. For example, most of my biggest clients are in the music industry,

and they don’t do full Flash sites anymore. Barely ever. With all the work I do for Atlantic, there’s no more real full Flash sites anymore. It’s mostly hybrid sites and the reason they do those is because they help get the branding elements from Flash and are able to have the content in a standard HTML file that gets indexed by search engines and can be rendered on a mobile device. Whereas flash can’t be indexed and doesn’t render at all on an iPhone. There’’s a program called Flash Lite that renders Flash on a PDA but it doesn’t support all the functionality of the regular Flash player.

People are moving away from Flash in the sense that if you’re selling a good, like an eCommerce site definitely isn’’t going to have any real use of Flash except maybe a 3-D picture or a photo gallery. If it’s important for your site to be indexed, if it’s important to be displayed on an iPhone, you’’re not going to use Flash. But if you’re talking about a site for Coke, nobody’s going to search for Coca Cola because they know to go to CocaCola.com, then why wouldn’t they just do it in Flash? It totally depends on how important it is for the site to be indexed and accessible.

A big issue which there’s been some whispers about is to allow flash documents to be indexed and searched properly by a search engine. That’s actually something I’ve been reading up a lot on, different ways to get flash files to index within search engines.

Of course everything gets faster, smaller, more compact and technologies get thrown together. The most recent Flash plug-in, Flash 9, renders video a lot faster than any previous version and it’s just going to keep getting faster.

With broadband saturation going up, it becomes a lot more accessible to people. Flash will be on the forefront of Internet video. I mean think about it: YouTube is a flash application. I mean not the whole site, just the video player itself.

That’s part of the reason you’re seeing a whole lot of video implementation of flash.

I think really the biggest issue working against Flash right now is that a lot of the designers tend to make things thinking that other people (that visit the site) are designers.

Every time you go to a site you have to learn how to use it, and as a designer, I think that technology just needs to be used more appropriately. You could do little tweaks to make it more usable and to make it more understandable to the average user.”

G: What’s your process for choosing how to design a site?

M: “I think that in general, designers follow design trends way too much. People tend to get absorbed into design trends and you kind of lose your originality when you just fall into that. Like when you go to every web 2.0 site and there’s this Apple reflector, you know? You look at all the flash sites and they have these little reflections that they took from apple. It used to be the drop shadow and now it’s the reflection and what will be next? People just get so caught up in those trends that they lose their own originality and their own styles.

It’s hard to not be influenced by the culture around you, especially if that’s what you’re looking at all the time, that’s what’s in your head when you’re designing. I look at a lot of sites during the day but I do limit myself a little bit, because otherwise if you’re in the middle of designing something and you think about a site you just looked at, you often try to kind of imitate it with your own twist as opposed to doing something totally original.

It’s important to know what’s going on, it’s important to know trends and to understand culture and everything around you, but it’s also important to separate yourself from it in order to maintain your own style.”

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Suit by B.OYAMA Chair by SAFAVIEH

PROPHESYING PROFIT

Written by Nate Huriwitz • Photo by Matt Fried • Styling by Kristian Laliberte

So here we are again, guesstimating, a step up from stabbing in the dark, at the future of the music industry. Though it might seem redundant by now, to those of us still straddling the fence between alternative downloads and legitimate album sales, as well as many who have definitively chosen a side, these fruitless thought experiments remain irresistible. One of the most perplexing trends continues, amongst critics, media theorists, and listeners alike, to be the stubborn insistence that the music industry is going somewhere as a whole. In this state of limbo, of marketing purgatory all signs points to an increasingly decentralized system, The radio and the record store are no longer the sole conduits of musical dissemination. To argue over the positive or negative effects of this development is a never-ending endeavor, it is enough to acknowledge that it is a fact. Try as the major labels might to somehow corner the Internet market it remains elusive; as much the domain of the indies and pirates as anything else. What the future holds for the business of music is ripe for prediction and debate and remains a question mark for those who shy from the title of prophet.

To gauge the winds we sat down with several players in the industry. Though it might not be a mind-blowing revelation perhaps Ace McLeod, a producer based in Philly, put it best when he said the Internet has been both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand it has provided an outlet for up and coming artists to reach millions of listeners, on the other it has created a conundrum in terms of how to make profits. More established artists, removed from the hustle of trying to get put on, seem to take a more critical view. Accomplished rapper Styles P points to the quick fix nature of streaming and downloadable music as a cause for hurried production on the part of many artists leading to watered down product. Though he recognizes the advantage of the Internet, and has benefited by high online sales, he sees as decline in lyrical content and originality. Styles predicts we will soon see the end of the record store and a totally digital music world. What’s really going to happen is anyone’s guess, what seems apparent though is that more and more artists have wrested the power to produce and distribute their music on their own and they seem unlikely to readily relinquish their claim.

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Written by Eric Legaspi & Photography by Matt Fried

From the looks of it, I could’ve been in D.C. That quasi bar-be-que smell coming from the smoke machines, seizure-inducing lights and lasers bouncing off of white spandex panels, the incessant thump of bass punching you in the chest, it brought back memories of a club called Nation in Southeast where I was first introduced to the scene and the people long ago. It was, though, a combination that really could’ve been in almost any club in the country at this point. But this was the Liquid Mega Club in Queens, and the guy on the decks punching you with the low-end wasn’t some no-name DJ or sell-out movie star, it was Frankie Bones. The man who started putting together raves almost a quarter century ago and who has played to mobs numbering in the tens of thousands since, had just started his night to a crowd of maybe 100 kids. There wasn’t any smoking, no real drinking going on either, and from what I could tell, not really any drugs. Not everything had been sucked out of the scene, though.

“I just love dancing and glow sticking.” A tall white kid covered in sweat, he was 18 and had driven up from D.C. He called himself Echo, and he ditched a family gathering to be up here to see Frankie Bones, one of his favorite DJs. A shorter Asian girl was with him, 21 and from Boston. She’d been a dancer most of her life – classical, ballet, even cheerleading – her name, Eglantine, was as graceful as she was. The short while I took talking to them was one of the only times they left the floor all night. Like my friends in high school used to, they spent their nights and evenings in a garage or basement, stereo pumping mixes, practicing their moves. It had been years since I’d seen anyone seriously dancing with glowsticks, but I was pleasantly surprised by how they flipped and tossed as the dancers spun underneath and around, displaying something of an evolution I had missed over time. Still, the moves had a familiarity – the rhythms more or less unchanged through the years. It was just a shame there were so few of them.

Raves were the exclusive privy of Europe until Frankie Bones and even when he finally brought them to our shores, they were relegated to the shadows. Though he had a top ten hit in Europe in the early 90’s, Frankie was relegated to the local radio station at Kingsboro Community College, rolling his “Wheels of Steel” through Sheepshead Bay every Thursday night, yelling wildly between sets to hype upcoming parties. This was where those in the know got their information. There were dozens of parties thrown by different promoters, each with it’s own hotline for time, location and confirmation night of. Fliers handed out around town and at parties had these numbers as well, acting as the scene’s directory. If you couldn’t find any of those, or get the word from someone who did, Frankie stationed operatives at a car lot on Coney Island Avenue every weekend to disseminate the information.

Despite the scene’s futuristic aesthetic, it is important to remember that it grew on the back of dial tones and boots on the ground. The internet was still a pet project at MIT, so word of mouth carried the message. These primitive tools extended to the parties themselves.

They were called Storm Raves and blew in and out of locations with the same indiscriminate destruction as their namesake. Bigger, more established venues were latching onto the cheesier styles of techno at the time and not with any kind of serious commitment, forcing those who preferred the harder, more authentic beats to fend for themselves. Frankie and his team of promoters scoured the outskirts of the city and with flashlights and bolt cutters they started their movement one warehouse at a time. Once the doors were forced open, their only remaining tasks were to set-up the sound system, get the generator running and keep an eye out for the cops and the kids. Between the doors in the front and the turntables in back, dirt covered not just the room but the crowd itself. There was no cover and no security - let alone staff - so it would not be uncommon to see the homeless, the destitute, the addicted or any other part of the great unwashed wander in to see what the noise was about. Thugs were peppered throughout, mak-

ing fights as entertaining and commonplace as the dancing.

The smoke came not from machines but rather from weed, angel dust, crack and whatever else was floating around in this wilderness. Plenty of usually normal white kids made it out, too, dressed ridiculously in bright clothes and floppy hats, like some terribly filthy Dr. Seuss book came to life.

By around 1993, it started to become more recognizable. More kids would show up to their school dressed in self-made raver clothes, cereal boxes strapped to their backs as carry-alls. With more and more venturing out to these nocturnal escapades, parents had to start confronting these unknown situations. Growing numbers also meant increased heat on the parties themselves. Huge lines of young white kids in the middle of the ghetto raised plenty of flags for the police, and a lack of fire exists and proper documentation gave fire marshals ample recourse to shut parties down. There were, of course, ways around all of this. When the Roxy canceled on his DJ’s for lack of attendance, a young DJ/Promoter named Scotto moved the party into his loft. “My landlord was really cool and we put up our neighbors at a hotel and we just did that party. We had 500 people in my apartment at Second street and the Bowery, just across the street from the Satellite Records shop.” His “cool” landlord was actually Richard Vasquez, a DJ who spun vinyl for David Mancuso’s legendary loft parties that stretched back to the 70s. Inspiration, it seemed, was everywhere.

The break-ins couldn’t last forever and despite the fact that DJ’s were willing to go to jail for their events, it didn’t mean they necessarily needed to. It was only a matter of time before the parties moved out of warehouses on the fringe of the city and into the numerous nightlife establishments in Manhattan proper. Interestingly, Studio 54, now renamed The Ritz, was to be venue of the coming out party. “We did the first rave in Manhattan called ‘Rave the Ritz.’ Then did more during the New Music Seminar when it was still in New York in June of ‘96. By the end of that week, I’d realized that we brought nearly 3,000 people into the Ritz.” Historically speaking, Raves made perfect sense. Electronica rose in the wake of the Disco’s demise but many characteristics of the old sustained themselves in the new. Bellbottoms were replaced with cavernously baggy pants like JNCOs, cocaine with ecstasy, “The Hustle” with glow sticks – this was decadence for the next generation.

Most importantly, though, they were the new standard bearers for the nightclub lifestyle. “The other neat thing about NASA, it was a whole new style of music, I kind of felt this energy, there was all this change happening – in the air, in the nightlife scene – and it seemed to work out very well to promote new music to a new crowd and teach them the right way to party and be out.” PLUR was a holdover from Frankie Bones. The story goes that the DJ, seeing yet another fight at one of his parties, became incensed and went on an inspiring manifesto about the need for Peace Love Unity and Respect to dominate this new scene. Scotto explained it a bit more pragmatically, “How to enter the club, how to treat each other in the club and how to behave.”

Teaching is the appropriate word considering the age of those in attendance. Bouncing from club to club trying to find the right fit, NASA ended up at Shelter, where Scotto faced a new set of issues. “The unique thing about the Shelter was that they didn’t serve alcohol, which presented a challenge since I was going after club kids and they liked to drink, along with everything else. I hand picked about 50 kids between 16 and 19 years old and just told them to hit up high schools and everywhere that kids went and hung out, and that’s how it started and grew.” Usually, a promoter might welcome a night catering strictly to teens with the same enthusiasm as an enema. But if you’re trying to start a movement, not just throw a party, it is much more valuable to influence your audience while they are young and impressionable. As anyone in marketing can tell you, developing habits and brand loyalty at an early age pays dividends as your target audience matures.

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Raves themselves were just parties, but for them to last beyond breakfast the next morning, they had to become a full fledged brand allowing their followers to identify themselves more fully in the context of their pastime. This was something Scotto had a large part in developing. “I was running Moby’s lights and tour promotion while I was running NASA at the same time. Coincidentally, Liquid Sky was there with us and they were really creating a lot of the new fashions that identified the rave culture – the baggy jeans and the logos – and Carlos Soul Singer would give me free clothes and obviously I would wear them out on the road with Moby introducing shows and it helped spread Liquid Sky’s market as well.” The ubiquitous flyer was also treated not only as a directory, but an ambassador of the scene itself.

“It was another great thing of that time where Macintosh’s were able to be rented at Kinko’s. We would spend 40 hours a week designing these flyers and creating that special look.” That some of these flyers have made their way into art museums is a good indication they weren’t wasting their time.

Scotto was, in many ways, representative of a convergence of elements driving the identity of Rave culture. His expertise in lighting, honed over years of work in venues and road tours, was essential in contributing to the awe inspiring visual aesthetic that distinguished raves from just another party, while also giving him crucial connections to the insular community of club owners. This in turn brought Frankie Bones, Keoki and a great many of his longtime collaborators into these established venues to unleash their unparalleled skill to the mainstream of club culture.

The young and the hip were obviously attracted to this as well, many of whom would grow into their own notoriety. A young Chloe Sevigny “was my coat check girl and door girl sometimes,” and another group of regulars at NASA were a bunch of skaters from Zoo York. Their moment came when another party kid, Harmony Korine, penned the script for a movie called “Kids”. “They were all just friends and when she wrote 78

the script they came to us and wanted to get permission to use the club name.” Despite the apprehension of his associate, DB, Scotto got everyone on board and was able to feature NASA in the movie. The unexpected success of the NC-17 film in 1995 was undoubtedly a watershed moment for the scene at large.

As the scene began to coalesce and gain prominence in the club world, there were plenty of venues that were losing out on the transition, none more notorious than Limelight, a converted church just off 6th Avenue. “There was some animosity between NASA and the Limelight because we were stealing the thunder out from underneath of them,” Scotto remembers, “Limelight had kind of gotten to a peak and it stayed at a peak for a long time, even after NASA. But the really cool people, you know, were looking to go someplace else.”

One of the club’s promoters, Lord Michael, was also an ecstasy dealer and his ties to the Italian mafia and other unscrupulous characters are well known in the nightlife community here in New York. During the Storm Rave era, Michael sent his thugs to Frankie Bones’ house and beat him relentlessly for daring to take away their business.

In 1993, Scotto attempted to throw a huge bash for New Years, bringing in big name DJ’s and renting out a Guggenheim space in Soho in an attempt to unify the underground and build some bridges.

SCOTTO Limelight intervened again. “We were going to try to make peace with Limelight. Since our rave was going to end at six, we were going to send everyone over to there for the after party. But they decided to call the fire marshals anyway and they shut us down.” Scotto was convicted on unlawful public assembly and array of other charges.

By the end, he was doing community service and it cost him thousands in fines and legal fees.

I myself was part of the third wave of rave fans, first coming into contact with the club scene at the tail end of high school around 2000. Club Nation used to be called Capitol Ballroom back when my brother and his punk rock friends

came to kick ass and watch D.C. Hardcore at it’s best. Though the Dropkick Murphy’s and other punk bands still made the rounds, the renovations had forced upon the venue a new variety of content. The front room was drum and bass, my personal favorite. The most challenging, aggressive and exhausting to dance to, it was more impressive that most of the breakers were wrapped in hoodies, sweating buckets and still landing back flips on the downbeats. Upstairs in the lounge, it was usually down tempo or trance, sometimes with guys playing Soul Caliber or Tekken on a projector glaring onto the small dance floor. On nicer nights, the massive outdoor deck would open for the sounds of break beat and funk, bringing in healthier doses of syncopation. One of my fondest memories was when a DCPD chopper circled the deck for a few minutes, spotlight on fullblast as the massive crowd raised their hands and tried to pound the structure deeper in the dirt with every step.

But it was under the disco ball in the substantial main room where I spent a lot of time, watching my friend Dalton Guevara dance with his tight crew of ardent party kids. Mr. Guevara had been a promoter for Buzzlife since we first met on the soccer team and he hardly ever missed a Friday night at the club or a parked car that could’ve used a flier. Buzz began with one of Scotto’s childhood friends, Scott Henry, and they used a model similar to NASA to create ECHO one of the strongest scene’s on the east coast, twice being named Party of the Year by URB magazine. Lonnie Fisher extended the model out to larger events - appropriately titled “Massives” - at bigger venues like the D.C. Armory and other 10,000 capacity spaces. The most notable is Starscape, a 20 hour outdoor festival thrown on the shores of the Chesapeake that will be celebrating its tenth anniversary this year. Massives were so successful that Mr. Fisher was able to create Sonar, a premier venue in Baltimore. Moving from a 100 seat lounge to a large converted warehouse, he’s been working on the new generations of concert kids since 2001. All the hype aside, Buzz represented one

of the few organizations that provided those of a certain age an ego-free place to hang out. Growing up in the suburbs of northern Virginia, it was a welcomed break from monotony to venture into the city with friends and escape the hassles of McMansions and bored police officers.

There was no lack of meat-market establishments imposing dress codes and velvet ropes downtown, but Buzz was decidedly more egalitarian and focused on the right things.

Though security could always be annoying, I rarely ever saw a fight or an argument go terribly out of hand, which is much more than I can say for most bars and more common establishments that somehow evaded the evening news. Of course there were drugs, but no more than at rock concerts or other clubs of this or any other generation, I’m sure. The crowd might not have been everyone’s cup of tea, but I found party kids to be genuinely friendly and accepting on first blush.

I never got to know Dalton’s club crew as well as our other friends, but they’ve never given me a hard time and always encouraged me to let my feet out when I was terribly selfconscious. More than anything, they were concerned with the excellent music being doled out by Charles Feelgood, John Tab, Tom B. and other giants of the decks. The beat was the only unifying theme necessary to creating a diverse, entertaining demonstration of the youth in and around the area.

“You could see some incredible dancers there. From all styles, B Boys and Free Stylers, Poppers and Lockers and Voguers, I loved watching it all and little by little dancing more and more, until what kept me interested was what new dance move I could pull off next. Even now I am jealous of the dancers as I’m not dancing nearly as much as I used to.” Like it’s earlier incarnation, the club was, at its core, just a place where the kids could go.

Nation has since been torn down to make way for a parking lot or some other waste of space, forcing Buzzlife into a uncomfortable sublet at Fur, a swankier, more expensive super club in chic Northeast. Nation, though, had been the 79

source of many drug-related scandals, and it wasn’t the only club to face these kinds of issues, either. As raves were taking place throughout the country, they became magnets for young and naïve first-timers that were exploited by more seasoned party kids. Behavior from the outlaw days persisted into the big time, most notably from a lose gang calling themselves BTS (Brooklyn Terror Squad/Bomb The System). In addition to selling contraband and counterfeit drugs, they stole plenty from unaware club goers and merchandisers. Drug dealers were beaten and robbed, not over turf or power necessarily, but simply because they had cash and drugs. Featured in a Maxim Magazine article, their notoriety spawned countless imitators.

Thugery has no borders, though, evidenced by a fatal shooting incident at a Carl Cox concert in Caracas just last summer.

In a statement issued afterward, the DJ put the tragedy into context “I find it such a sad moment in electronic music as this was probably one of the best set up shows I had played in South America – a sign of real progress yet utterly hijacked by this mindless act. Again, my heart goes out to those that have died or been injured. This is NOT what the dance scene is about and is a million miles away from what I want to do or promote.”

R a ve r s have also been victims of their own success in other ways. With increased fame came increased financial responsibility, complicating matters between the DJ’s themselves. The verbal contracts that underpinned bookings in the early days couldn’t satisfy the needs when there were more bills to pay and more mouths to feed. Large talent agencies have cornered the market on big name DJ’s, charging top dollar for every appearance. Though the talent should be getting some extra zeros, exclusive contracts force these DJ’s into only the clubs that can afford them, usually the biggest and gaudiest the block has to offer. Even if promoters win the ensuing bidding wars, a significant portion of their take goes to the DJ, leaving less for next weekend’s event. Nights became more about the DJ than the crowd, dis80

turbing the crucial balance that gave these parties their vibe and attraction. This trickles down even to the flyers as Dalton’s new duties at Buzzlife soon demonstrated. “If you book so and so DJ, then you have to check the contract, which often stipulates you must use a current photographic headshot, etc. and other rules, like the font of the DJ’s name must be larger than any other DJ’s playing that night. It’s ridiculous, you take away from the artistic design process and pretty soon you have these flyers that all look the same, which they do.”

Homogenous or not, the organizational potential of the internet has gone a long way to making fliers obsolete with countless email lists and message boards.

Talking about NASA Rewind, a reunion of sorts held in New York in 2004, Scotto was able to learn “how different things really were. We didn’t have the internet in 92, everything spread by word of mouth and fliers, in 04 no one was even getting fliers out, everyone had already heard about it. It was really neat to see the way the scene works now.” Echo is a regular on the Glowsticking. com message board, and keeps tabs on his favorite DJ’s through their MySpace pages. Some DJ’s and promoters are frustrated at how the internet has fragmented listening groups and given no talent amateurs and hack DJ’s a new platform from which to spew their mediocrity.

For their part, Frankie Bones and Scotto are using the 1’s and PUNK 0’s to enshrine the history they helped create.

Mr. Bones is giving in to increased demand and working to make his entire catalog available online, though no word yet on what affiliation it will have to a record label or exactly what this will end up looking like to the consumer. Regardless, it will no doubt have an effect on aspiring DJ’s, many of whom dig for tracks online instead of in crates and basements. By using the Scratch Live program on their computer and simulated vinyl records – a combination from the company Serato - they can interface their hard drives directly to their turntables, using MP3s to rock the party. From his country house in

Pennsylvania, Scotto has been uploading hour after hour of footage from the hay days of NASA and beyond onto Scotto.tv, hoping to make the site an ongoing documentary of the movement’s first steps. Scotto’s MySpace page also lists Barack Obama as one of his top friends. Interestingly, he volunteered for Kathleen Kennedey Townsend’s congressional campaign in Baltimore when he was in junior high, Mark Green’s candidacy for Mayor of New York against one Rudolf Giuliani and now works with his local community board outside Philadelphia.

The constant revelation of a celebrity’s personal traits over and ever increasing media platform has dulled the mystique of their position, replete with scandal and innuendo. In this case, though, Scotto is able to bring his passion for civic responsibility to an audience that might never have guessed he’s something of a policy wonk.

This audience, though, has changed drastically in style and size. JNCO’s and UFO’s have been ditched in favor of tight jeans and ironic T-Shirt, and the term “rave” and moniker “raver” have been phased out of the party kids’ lexicon.

Burnt out on bacchanalian indulgence, the scene has retreated into the background and the followers are nowhere near the numbers they once were; but the new audience is no less potent.

The Winter Music Conference (WMC) is an annual industrywide blowout held in Miami.

Now in it’s tenth year, WMC has become as much DJ FRANKIE BONES about professionals working the scene as the patrons who revel in it, featuring not just huge parties with both legendary and up and coming DJ’s, but also panel discussions and networking sessions.

Ultra Music Festival, also celebrating its tenth anniversary in the Miami scene, has joined forces with WMC, closing out the week’s events with performances on 11 stages over 2 days. Attendance for Ultra topped 50,000 last year and looks to continue its status with WMC as the marquee event on the electronica calendar. Sasha & Digweed, Danny Tenaglia and Dmitri from Paris are just a few DJ’s booked for this year’s Coachella Music Festival in Indio, California, showing that the return of

festivals bodes well for a resurgence in the rave experience, if not the scene itself. Huge outdoor venues with teeming, heaving masses of hungry audiophiles works just as well for techno as it does for rock, and with the popularity of acts like Justice and MIA, these new fans are showing their eclectic palette and acceptance of the DJ as performer. Music is no longer a zero sum game as diversifying tastes act as the rising tide, lifting all ships.

Back in Queens with Frankie, it’s still a great set.

Artful mixes, incessant beats driving the action, however sparse, with purpose. Like any good DJ, Frankie built on themes over long periods of time and placed crescendos perfectly for maximum effect, deconstructing the beat afterward to strip away the frills and bring the night home. Neither the checkered past of the movement nor it’s amoebic future have significance while Echo, Eglantine and the rest of the true believers are at church, celebrating the gospel. It was 4am by the time he got off the decks and I got a chance to talk with this founding father.

I didn’t know what to expect after the surprisingly low turnout for a man of his stature, but he was glowing with post-gig euphoria, especially since he was able to work with his longtime friend, Hardcore founder and fellow New Yorker, Lenny Dee. “Last year, Lenny Dee and I had like 10,500 people we played to but it’s not really how many people you have, it’s the vibe you create.” After 23 years behind the turntables, one learns to focus on the important things, put simply, “the kids had a good time, I’m good.” Regardless of the ancillary drama and unfavorable connotations spawned through the years, this is, and always will be, about the music created and the reaction it engenders. Fans as new as Echo and weathered as Dalton, promoters like Scotto, and the myriad DJ’s that all dedicate themselves to it, they do so for the same reason Frankie came to Queens, “you have to love what you do more than you love yourself.”

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High Hitting Written by Remy Melina Photography by Jeff Fried

It is drawing close to midnight on this bitterly cold night in Harlem. A cop car turns the corner as a dark figure carefully pastes an ad onto the navy boards that have been put up to block off a construction area. Smoothing out the edges of the poster, which displays Mary J. Blige’s proud profile on the cover of her new album, the wheatpaster watches out of the corner of his eye as the cops pass slowly by and disappear into the shadows up the street. Relieved, he goes back to work and hopes that he will not be seeing any more police tonight. He has nothing against the authorities, he just doesn’t like to be bothered when he has a lot to get done in a short amount of time and, since what he is doing is, after all, illegal.

THROWING PAPER

Meet Billy. He’s been driving out alone in his white truck to put up posters all over the city for almost two years, following a short burst of on-the-job training when he first started working for the company.

After posting in the East and West Village, the upper West Side and SoHo, he’s now solely responsible for all the posting jobs in Harlem, which at times can be an overwhelming amount of work for just one person. As Billy fondly recalls the high-grossing ad campaigns he’s done in the past, he mentions that he misses his old locations, the ‘big markets’, but Harlem has grown on him.

From his truck, he takes out one of his large brushes, a bucket of wheatpaste and several pages of poster paper. Billy then gets to work, cleaning down the boards by ripping off shreds of old posters, using the brush to evenly spread the wheatpaste; a thick, gel-like mixture of potato starch and water, and putting up long white poster sheets. He calls this ‘blanking’, a way to lay down a clean background over the torn up, fading posters of past promotions so that the new batch can go on neat and even. Tonight’s promotional posters announce Juanes’ upcoming tour, Jay Z’s ‘American Gangster’ tie in, the new Rambo movie, Aretha Franklin’s latest, ‘So Damn Happy’, Tyra Banks’ talk show, the release of Nelly Furtado’s ‘Music From the Tour’ DVD and Chris Rock playing Madison Square Garden on New Year’s Eve. The ‘Rambo’ poster is a city-wide job, meaning that the posters will be put up in about twenty locations throughout Manhattan, up to 110th Street.

“Rambo’s been going on for a month now, they’re really trying to push that movie,” Billy says as he carefully pushes one of the posters over the plywood’s rheumy surface. “I’m having a problem with this graffiti guy on 125th Street, a political activist that’s angry because he thinks the posters are promoting war, so he’s hammering my boards. I had to replace all of them last week.

He keeps writing stuff like ‘Don’t preach your war to our children’.”

Billy shrugs. “Sorry buddy, that’s not my issue. All I do is throw the paper.”

ALWAYS PLEAD NOT GUILTY

What Billy does for a living can also qualify as ‘graffiti’ and, when arrested, he is charged with unlawful bill posting under the same category. The fine is fifty dollars, which the company pays, but there are sometimes much more unpleasant consequences. Billy has been arrested and has had to ‘spend the night in the tombs’ three times. When this happens, the company gives him a five hundred dollars jail bonus for his trouble. To Billy, this

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is a pretty good arrangement except that, recently, he was doled out community service as punishment and had to pick up trash in Washington Square Park.

As another police car slowly drives by, Billy tenses up then turns his attention back to the boards as soon as it has passed. The cops patrolling the area can’t tell if a board is legal or not, and that’s where Billy’s big book of over eight hundred lease contacts comes in. A record of all the leased boards the company has had over the past two years, it can get Billy off the hook if the police give him any trouble over a posting. The company is constantly losing and gaining new boards, as construction wraps up and begins on a different street. He keeps his new jobs on a clipboard, neatly organized and ready to be updated into the company’s computer at the end of his shift. It’s when the board isn’t legal, or leased by the company, that his run-in with the police end on a sour note.

“I get away with a lot with the police because I’m very polite,” Billy says, chuckling. “I’ve had a cop say to me once, ‘You know, you seem like a very nice guy, you’re very polite. It would be a shame to have to arrest you.’ But he keeps giving me summonses. I’ve been stopped by that same cop about seven times!”

“ONE TIME, I WAS POSTING IN FRONT OF THE APOLLO THEATER, THINKING, ‘WHY AM I EVEN POSTING HERE? I KNOW I’M GONNA GET IN TROUBLE’. BUT THE COPS DIDN’T STOP ME. THEN I CAME BACK THE FOLLOWING WEEK AND THEY NAILED ME. I ALWAYS PLEAD NOT GUILTY. A WHILE BACK I LEARNED FROM A LAWYER TO NEVER ADMIT TO DOING ANYTHING WRONG, BECAUSE THAT WOULD MAKE ME LIABLE. ” BEGGARS AND STEALERS

Although Billy works long hours by himself on these often deserted streets, his is not a lonely job. So far tonight he’s been approached by a steady stream of people begging for money, and he’s put his brush down to hand over dollars to several of them. A homeless artist offered to draw Billy anything he wanted for some spare change. Another man offered to cut himself for a few dollars. He flung off his jacket, which promptly landed in a nearby puddle of wheatpaste, and raised up his shirt to proudly display the mosaic of jagged scars across his chest. Billy declined his offer.

One man asked for ‘The Great Debaters’ movie poster, pointing at a freshly pasted sheet and loudly proclaiming that Denzel Washington “is the man.” Seeing Billy hesitate, he tells him that he’s had a tough year and has lost his job, house and wife. Billy hands him the poster. He acknowledges everyone that passes by, warning them to watch their step and not slip on the wheatpaste that has splattered onto the sidewalk as he works. A drug dealer stalks the corner, not letting Billy’s presence interfere with his business. A couple of months ago, a group of teenage boys attempted to mug Billy as he worked, but he’d laughed off their demands to hand over his wallet and they’d given up and left, dejected.

“I get all kinds of guys approaching me out here,” Billy says as three women stagger by in high heels, clutching on to each other’s coats for balance and laughing hysterically. “PEOPLE CONSTANTLY TRY TO BUM MONEY OFF OF ME BECAUSE THEY SEE THAT I’M WORKING. LAST NIGHT WAS HORRENDOUS. THIS GIRL ASKED ME FOR TWENTY DOLLARS, SO

I GAVE HER THREE. THEN SHE GOES, ‘IT’S MY BIRTHDAY, I’M GOING TO GIVE YOU A BLOW JOB!’ SHE JUST POPS HERSELF INTO MY TRUCK AND I’M LIKE, ‘LOOK LADY, GET OUT OF HERE BEFORE I CALL THE POLICE’.”

He could have called the police last night, since he’d been working on a location that his company has leased and he legally had a right to post there. Tonight’s spot, however, is a different stor y. This street in Harlem isn’t included on the list of leased out locations filed meticulously away in a Billy’s fat white binder of contacts and clients. But legal or not, the company tells him what to put up and where so Billy does it, hoping for the best.

If he comes across any trouble tonight on this street, calling the cops is not an option.

A CHANGE IN CLIMATE

Dressed from head to toe in dark colors, he is ready for a long night of being hit by the freezing gusts of wind. He dons a ski bib, heavy down jacket, mountaineering boots and thick gloves. Throughout the night he will shed the jacket for a lighter coat as he warms up from the strenuous work.

“The job is ver y physical and you tend to overheat,” Billy says. “These buckets are heavy and the brushes get heavier and heavier the longer you work. It’s hard on your back too, and mine has always been bad since I’ve worked as a carpenter in Florida. I still do some carpentr y work on the side.”

Born in the Bronx, he grew up in Florida and moved back to New York. Although he’s been living in or near the city since 2002, Billy admits that it still takes him a while to get used to the frigidness of a New York City winter night.

“It gets so cold out that we actually have to put clear anti-freeze in the wheatpaste and I have to be careful that it doesn’t splash into my eyes while I’m working. I get used to the cold af ter a while though. By the middle of Januar y, it doesn’t bother me anymore. It’s at the beginning of the season, when the cold first star ts setting in. The cold actually slows me down because my hands get numb. I’ll get frostbite on my hands to the point that I’m in tears when I get back in my truck to star t writing up my job sheet. I star t getting the sensation back in my fingers and it hur ts really bad, I mean really bad. That’s when winter really star ts to bother me.”

KEEPING THE CUSTOMERS HAPPY

Billy always has a steady flow of jobs coming in and is confident that demand will only continue to grow. He explains that the wheatpasting form of adver tising is extremely ef fective and clients keep coming back because they see that the posters get results. A normal contract usually lasts two weeks, during which Billy makes sure that the poster stays up and is not damaged or kinked, Billy’s slang for graf fiti. If it is, he’s in charge of replacing it. This has not been much of a problem lately, other than the anti-Rambo activist, because the company has recently bought out the competition. Billy has heard tales of ‘poster wars’; rival posting companies covering or tearing up each other’s posters in hopes of making them lose clients. The company Billy works for now has no competition. What star ted out as a small familyrun business in the 1960s has now cornered the market for the wheatpasting form of adver tising in four of the five boroughs:

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they don’t post in Staten Island because there isn’t enough of a market for them there.

“The clients target cer tain areas, depending on what they’re selling and who they want to sell it to,” Billy explains.

“Since I star ted working in Harlem, I get a lot of rap jobs. But I don’t keep up with any of these. People ask me about these guys like Jay Z, and I’m like, ‘Hey, I grew up on Led Zeppelin and the Stones’.”

One recent poster that brought back memories for Billy promoted the release of ‘The Warriors’ DVD set. Billy recalls first seeing the movie in 1979 at a Florida drive-in theater and becoming interested in New York City gang wars. Although he used to collect a few extra copies of the posters he liked, the company has become strict about keeping track of all posters af ter finding out that a wheatpaster was selling them on Ebay. They now drill small holes through ever y stack of poster sheets before sending them out to be put up. The marks are barely noticeable to the people that glance at the ads as they walk by, but for wheatpasters tr ying to sell posters on the side, it drastically brings down a poster’s value.

“I’m not keeping any of the extra posters for myself anymore,” Billy says seriously. “I used to collect a lot of posters from the jobs, but I moved out of the place I was living at, which had a lot of room. I had a garage filled with posters. I had some really nice black and white Bruce Springsteen posters from his anthology album, and I had some Bob Dylan. I wound up giving away and throwing away a bunch of them. When I moved I didn’t have any room for it. That’s what killed me.” ”JUST A REGULAR JOB”

Glancing across the color ful sheets that he has pasted up so far, Billy rolls of f a list of the various poster sizes of f the top of his head: oversize, jumbo, movie size, record sheets, rock jobs.

He notes that the smallest ones last the shor test amount of time, usually a week. Unless the client asks for their posters to be put up in a specific order, he usually arranges them on the boards in size order, largest to smallest. To Billy, doing the job right and fast is all that matters. Clients of ten do drive-by check ups to make sure that the posters are up and looking the way they should. If a poster has graf fiti on it, wasn’t put up evenly enough, or wasn’t put up in the order that they’d requested, the clients might refuse to pay for the job. More of ten, they ask for an extra unpaid week, which wastes the company’s time and board space. So Billy is constantly checking on all his locations in Harlem, fixing them up, replacing damaged posters or even redoing entire boards.

“It’s a regular job,” he says, sliding the bucket of wheatpaste into the back of his truck. “I make a good chunk of change.

It’s a nine-to-five job, but it’s from nine at night to five in the morning. I work at night because I have to cover a lot of ground and during the day the streets can get too busy.”

Af ter quickly but thoroughly packing up the rest of his supplies and painstakingly clearing the sidewalk of old poster scraps– “I like to keep a clean site. I’m basically a PR man as well and I have to give people in the area a good feeling about keeping me out here,” – Billy’s back in his truck and eager to ‘star t throwing some paper’ at his next spot. He’s got nine more locations to wheatpaste tonight and, if all goes right, he should be done just before daybreak.

SAVING FOR THE FUTURE Written by STEVEN MOSES & Illustration by MATT SIREN

Any desire to be rich? Do you want to be in the top 1% of the U.S. wealth class? Well, even if you don’t care about being insanely wealthy, maybe you would like to see yourself retire by the age of… I don’t know… maybe 65? So, unless you have some burning desire to work till the day you die, I would recommend reading the rest of this article.

You are probably not thinking about retirement now, but you should. Do you realize how difficult it is to retire and maintain the superstar lifestyle that you are accustomed to? Well, try not to learn this fact from experience. Again, keep reading and follow these simple instructions. Ready? Here is the big secret that I bet you never heard before: INVEST YOUR MONEY. Okay, so maybe you have heard this before, but I’m going to SHOW you how investing is going to ensure that you are not looking like the Duke Brothers by the time you turn 70 (for those of you who don’t know the Duke Brothers, please watch the movie Trading Places, you won’t regret it).

By now, you are probably thinking this is just another boring article telling you how to save your money. I’m no fool, I know that we all work hard for our money and spending it is half the fun.

So let me put it as my friend Bruce put it to me:

2 2 PEOPLE

x

7 7$

PER MEAL

3

x 3

MEALS A DAY

7

x 7

DAYS A WEEK

52

x 52

WEEKS A YEAR

x

25

=

$382,200

25 YEARS AVERAGE RETIREMENT

I know it’s crazy, but it is true. If you and your husband/wife, girlfriend, partner, pet, or whoever, follows the daily routine shown above, you will have spent $382,200 eating fast food throughout your retirement. (That is if the 3x a day eating fast food doesn’t kill you before you get through all that money…what a waste!)

Most of us dream about seeing that kind of money. However this kind of money is not “dream” money, it is necessary. To continue buying all those martinis, sneakers, video games and fantastic dinners when you are not working, requires that kind of money.

Don’t worry though, you’ll get there. Here’s how.

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Step 1: Take out the $1,000 you stuffed under your mattress

Yes, it is great that you are saving it, but just like your lazy, couch potato friend, it is not going to make anything out of itself if it just sits around all day. I don’t know why your friend should get a job, because he’ll probably get fired anyway. However, I do know why you need to put your money to work: Inflation. It is something you hear about all the time and it is just a way to measure how much the prices of things increase over time. Remember when your parents would say that a slice of pizza cost them a nickel when they were kids and you were convinced that this was just as true as the story where they rode horses to school? Well, they really weren’t lying. Pizza was a nickel and with inflation running about 2%-4%, on average, that makes your parents really old! Anyway, the point is that if inflation is at 3% over the next 35 years, your $1000 is not going to buy you much. That is because your purchasing power will have decreased to the point where $1000 today will only be worth $401 in 30 years.

Step 2: Think about how much you are going to need and WANT to spend

If I haven’t scared you yet, maybe it’s time to start thinking about the other things you’ll spend your money on once you retire. For example, it is going to cost $1 million to send two kids to college. Also, you know all that money that is taken out of your paycheck for social security? That is paying for your parents’ retirement, and there are so many of them (damn, baby boomers) that when it’s our turn to collect, it probably won’t be there. And didn’t you want to do some exciting things when you retire like travel around the world, buy an Oompa-Loompa or have the world’s largest roller coaster in your backyard?

Maybe, you just want to eat lobster and steak for every meal, instead of fast food. Can you afford any of this??

Ok, now grab a paper bag, start breathing again and stop hyperventilating.

Step 3: Invest your money

Take the $1000 that you already took out of your mattress and walk to the bank. There are many ways to invest your money, but for simplicity let’s start with a Certificate of Deposit, also known as a CD. A CD is a savings account where you promise to keep your money in the bank for specified period of time and in return you earn a higher interest rate than a traditional savings account. So, once you’re at the bank, tell the bank dude that you want to put $1000 into a CD for 30 years. This will give you an average interest rate of about 5%. So, in 30 years your $1,000 will be worth $4,322 smackaroos.

Step 4: Keep investing your money

So let’s say this article actually had an impact on you and you committed to saving $1,000 every year. In 30 years, your measly $1000 will be $70,000 dollars. Pretty sweet, right?

Step 5: Keep it interesting

Invest $3,000 in three different investments ($1000 in each investment). In the spirit of saving, invest an additional $1,000 a year into each one of those investments for a total of an additional $3,000 saved per year. Continue to do this until your 60.

Let’s make a few assumptions to see what happens: * Your stocks earn 10% annually throughout the time your invested (this is similar to that of historical market returns) * Your bonds earn you 7% annually over the time period your invested * Your CD earns you 5% annually throughout your investment period So what does our moolah look like when we start saving and investing at 25, 35 and 50 till we’re 60 years old?

START SAVING AT AGE

25

35

50

CD

$299,126 $148,913 $95,836

$109,181 $68,676 $51,113

$18,531 $15,783 $14,206

TOTAL

$543,875

$228,970

$48,520

STOCKS BONDS

This should tell you three things: 1) $3,000 a year turned into a lot more money than you probably expected 2) The earlier you start saving, the more money you will earn (the magic in this is called “compounded interest”, which basi cally means your money grows exponentially, because you are not only earning on your original investment, but you also earn on the interest that is accruing, get it? If not, ask your dorky finance friends, because this article is supposed to be a quick guide) 3) You need to save more than $3,000 a year to live like Scrooge McDuck

Step 6: Be smart with your money

While we all agree its fun to spend as much as we want, whenever we want, I don’t think any of us are looking forward to struggling (or working!) when we’re 70. Like you, I tend to spend more than I should. We are the entitlement generation. We deserve it! However, it is important to be mindful of what you spend, invest as much as you can and realize that the only difference between the poor and the rich is that the poor work for their money, while the rich have their money work for them.

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MASS MARKET APPEAL,

AS A CONSUMER PRODUCT Written by John Favreau

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When talking about all consumer products and services, I always define the conversation in terms of needs and the satisfaction of those needs.

Grocery stores and Cheerios exist because of our basic human need to eat.

Millions of companies exist to satisfy all of our basic needs, whether it be nutrition, clothing, or shelter, as well as for all of our most un-basic of human needs: the desires to have our desires fulfilled, whatever form they may take. From the down and out basics, think underwear and potato chips, to the irrational good feelings of luxury footwear, some individual and some company are out there selling their products and services to an eagerly consuming American public. How does this all fit into the current political landscape? A good question, and one to which I offer the following discourse.

In our everyday life of work and play, we all feel the need to belong.

To be free from fear and to have hope for the future. Politicians know this and they tailor their messaging to address our complex lives and complex emotions. And they do it very well. Just think about how two of the most political hot buttons to emerge in the last few years have come about, and how they are addressed on both sides of the aisle.

Emotional Warfare: Why George Bush and Al Gore have the same goal in Common.

I think we can all agree that our lives are enriched through the use of energy to power our daily needs. Getting to work, living in light, listening to our I Pods, all have a component of energy to them and this has an enormous impact on the global market. And it doesn’t stop there. In terms of energy, this political issue is really two sides of the same coin. It takes the forms of the war in Iraq and the focus on Global Warming. One approaches America’s reliance on oil from the supply side, the other from the demand side, simple economics. In this way, George Bush and Al Gore have the same goal in mind, but very different marketing approaches, with significantly different consumer outcomes.

First, some background information. It is a fact that the US has become increasingly an oil and petrochemical based consumer society. Everything we touch and we buy has a component of oil in it. From the transportation costs that are necessary to get every product to the market and every worker to their job, to the food that we eat (grown with petroleum based fertilizers), the medicines that we ingest, (produced from chemicals derived from or processed by oil), to our clothes, houses, and comforts (yes, even entertainment has an oil cost, just look at all those beer trucks and Broadway lights!), all have a petro-cost component. As such, increasing oil costs put a strain on the American economy and cost it more and more with every penny increase in the cost of a barrel of oil. Recognizing this and with an eye for the future, it is easily determinable that as oil costs rise, the US economy gets squeezed, and that is not good for America or politicians. So, what to do, what to do?

George Bush takes the pessimistic, aggressive, old world country-club point of view to addressing the problem. He knows full well that the other countries of the world will be better positioned to outbid us in paying cash on the barrel for oil; China and India to the point, with their coffers of cash chock full from selling products to the world. So he uses fear, that most basic of emotions, to justify his actions in Iraq. Invade the country, take control, secure the supply. Easy as that, current conditions and state of the war aside. (One can’t ignore the bankrupting of this country with the costs of this war, furthering our inability to compete for supply, but it is too soon to tell if this smash and grab strategy will ever pay off.)

But why must this American Imperialism be couched in such grave and dire terms as “the war on terror” and fighting the enemy? Because, I suppose, that telling the American public the truth, is not necessarily palatable, nor would it sink in to a “I want it right now” and an “I want more” totally entitled American consumer mentality. Americans don’t think through the logical next steps if oil prices do come to pass at $5, $10, $20 a gallon for gas. They will wait until it happens, too focused on the here and now (and what’s on sale). But for the country, that would be a disaster. Economic decline would soon follow such escalation in costs and every individual and family would feel the pain, and some far worse than others.

This would, in turn, lead to further economic downturn, and a further delineation of the haves and have-nots. And don’t forget, a lot of those have-nots, have guns. Not to be an alarmist, but this country is completely prepared for class warfare, and

when people can’t eat, get their medications, or drive to work (if they still have a job) they will not tolerate those who can afford the creature comforts they once enjoyed. Not a pretty picture, and one of the reasons I’ve moved to the country. (Maybe Bush needs a feature length movie too? Although I think it is too late for that, and he would have to admit to hoodwinking the American public and showing his true motives to the international world at large.)

Al Gore, on the other hand, is brilliant in his couching the problem in the guise of Global Warming.

His emotional warfare appeals to the feel good, altruistically concerned nature of the American public. On one side fear, on the other side hope. Who can resist doing something good for the environment, taking care of those polar bears, and adjusting our lifestyles to account for being better global citizens? In this way, in his “Inconvenient Truth,” he sidesteps the addiction to oil with his proposal to decrease consumer demand through doing the right thing. Equally alarmist, but with a softer side. And in my opinion, more sustainable if the programs can get put in place and the right policies voted into law.

So there we have it. Two sides to the same story. On one hand, we have short-term solutions to secure supply, and on the other, long term solutions to curb demand. In the world of economics, this will work, if the strategies are executable. Time will tell, and for all of our sakes, let’s get resolve on both, sooner rather than later.

Clinton, Obama, McCain: Where the rubber meets the road, bus tours to experience, hope and nationalism

Sooner though, and most top of mind, is the current Presidential election activity. More marketing, different approaches, same consumer. Our consumer society is based on change, new socks, new shoes, new car, new President. Getting the message out on the new and improved is a favorite American media and marketing pastime and a big business to boot. “New and improved”, how the words resonate, and how they do create that glimmer of doubt that old and the same may not be good enough.

In some cases, rightly so. Sometimes by choice, sometimes by need. And this one choice, by law (thank you founding fathers!).

The marketing/political campaigns have begun, and they are proving out that America’s consumers have different needs, even when they didn’t know it at the time. Some need the fulfillment of hope, Obama, some the need for comfort, McCain, and some the desire for competence, Clinton. I will not begin to pontificate on the merits of each, nor do I wish to judge or play favorites. But needs are needs and how those will be satisfied come through loud and clear in the stump speeches and sound bites of each of the front runner candidates.

Hillary Clinton focuses her campaign and product positioning on her ability to get the job done.

As such, she plays into the emotional consumer needs of being taken care of and not living in fear of incompetence. Who wouldn’t want a boss who knows what he/she is doing. This is the satisfaction of a life less anxiety filled, and more comfortable, knowing that someone is taking control of all of those issues and programs that we often forget about or take for granted. This is a complex message, takes a lot of thought, and may be too broad and smart for the average consumer to absorb all at once. Just like those commercials with all the legal jargon at the end. The first part informs you of a symptom, desire, product that you weren’t aware you needed, and then the second leaves you with all that language that creates some doubt, and is easily overlooked. You won’t know until you try, trust me, I know what you need.

Barack Obama sells his wares with hope and change. The promise of better, new and improved.

Inspirational, aspirational, and one size fits all. America loves the pitch for a better life, a better future, the new you. Weight loss, shinier hair, whiter teeth, all for the new and improved you, making your life and your future better. And why not? Hope springs eternal and optimism fuels the imagination. Here is an ad pitch that we all love and as products go, this is always a wait and see. Works for some, doesn’t work for others, but all are promised the opportunity. How better to fulfill a need for immediate satisfaction than to put it off until tomorrow.

With John McCain, Mr. America, patriotism is the message here. Stay the course, built in America, red, white and blue in your face. Solid, mature, experienced. See the USA in your Chevrolet.

Here is a message tried and true. Buy American, live the dream, honor the past. Satisfy your need to be part of the crowd, our big melting pot, secure and safe and 100% made in the US of A. Nationalism is a good pitch, appeals to the broad masses, hard to argue with, fulfils our human need to be a social being, part of a larger group, family focused with a little independence on the side. Pride and ego, always good emotional needs to address.

The candidates, the politicians and their marketing strategists all utilize the tools of trade to further their own agendas. Polls are consumer research, and product pitches are adjusted to reflect changing tastes and new consumer requirements. Give the people what they need, or what they think they need, and they will line up around the block. It is true, however, that buyer beware is a concept ingrained in the American commercial code, so think through your real needs and how you fulfill them with the products and services at hand. Or better yet, make it buyer be AWARE, and make your choices most carefully.

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