Here it is part 2 of the story of Vincent Fedorchak aka...
When SOLID died, it was the end of TFP, The Fantastic Partners . SOLIDs funeral was devastating. It was there, in 1976,that KINDO 1 told me he was quitting for good and gave me TFP crew. No one else had anything to do with TFP, except for me, KINDO 1 and SOLID. BOT 707 had quit writing two years prior, when PHASE 2 quit writing. I know there are a lot of stories about TFP, but I dont give a fuck what anyone says, I was the GOD of TFP! I dont care how many styles they had, but I got up more with the TFP crew than any other writer. I locked that shit down! When SOLID died, I was really upsetit was hard to get over it; I wanted to stop writing graffiti and find another outlet. I loved that dude! At times I had nightmares, with trains going by and SOLIDs face in the window. For six months, I was lost, walking the streets, just thinking of my best friend and how we used to fly birds together! I continued to write, bombing trains in the Bronx, politicking with all kinds of writers. As the years went by, I started reinventing myself, and took SOLIDs name. FUZZ ONE became SOLID ONE, and he lived through me! I remember doing a SOLID ONE in the tunnel, all fucked up and drunk. The piece had tombstones on it with a whole bunch of characters hanging around. When I was done, a whole bunch of black dudes, with bats in their hands, came in and surrounded me. I had a shopping cart behind me filled with about 60 cans of great colors, federal safety paint, and the best paint available in those days. Little did I know, right in the 1 tunnel at 145th Street, I wont say any names (cause these guys know who they are), these guys beat me with golf clubs. They beat the fuckin shit out of me!! It was the worst beating of my life! There was this one dude that sort of had my back, and was yelling, Yo, this guy is cool. I dont think you should fuck him up anymore. On the train ride home, I was all fucked up. I thought to myself that this was sure to happen again and again, especially if Im by myself in the wrong place, at the wrong time.
I knew in order to leave my mark in the Bronx; I had to let every writer there know that FUZZ ONE was here. How I did that was by hanging out at the writers corner everyday, politicking with the top writers. I would confront them saying, Yo, I got your back. Lets go to the yards! Dont worry about racking up, I dont care, I got it! Every Graffiti dude had a whole car at that time, thats how I made my mark. Now the first guy I pieced with when I got all this paint was with the best writer on the Broadway line, who wrote PESO 131. He started off many writers like KOOL 131, PADRE 2, PART, MR.JINX 174; all those guys got their style from PESO 131. He was a real cool black dude who liked the way I carried my self, and thats when we both started bombing (thats when I was writing IVORY 2).
I remember having JESTER (who was also writing DY 167) over my house. I opened my closet and the dude saw stacks and boxes of paint and started bugging out, I even had cans hid under my mattress from mom's. We both started killing shit on the Broadway line together and did one of the best cars to ever run on that line, I took over that line with so many names, which has to be something that was never done before. A lot of guys started hearing about this white dude from Moshula Parkway who had a lot of paint, and they spread the word saying, Hang with this guy, and just watch his back and hell hook you up with paint. I was not not only writing FUZZ ONE and IVORY 2, but also LORD 138, which I got up with very strong and kinged the Broadway line .
If you were a top writer in the 70's you were bombing with and with my paint. I have bombed with guys like STIM and TEE, COMET, AJAX, MOSES 147 and his partner B-ONE, TURK 62, SHADE 1, BOOTS 119, COOL 222, THE MAN 550, TUZO 1, JIVE 3, MAD MARK 1 and 2, HONDO 1, KING 2, WISK 5, P-NUT 2, KIT 17, MARK 198, IN , SIVER TIPS, ALL JIVE 161, DR SOUL, ALE 1, TON 5, LIL FLAME 1, JOHN 150, DOO 2, M 80, SWINE, TC 3, MG 1, PEL, FDT 56, CLYDE, CHECKER 170.
CHECKER was a real cool Spanish dude with very good style but a dude you didn't fuck around with. Him and I did some damage for a while and can remember doing a few SOR pieces with him in the 4 yard that came out pretty nice. Now that was a sweet spot. " The 4 yard!" I had my man Curtis, the blacks security guard, looking out for me. I use to bring him wine, vodka, cigarettes, playboy magazines, everything.. then walk in and kill the whole spot. By the end of 1977, I bombed the trains with a fury; you couldnt walk through a subway car without seeing a FUZZ ONE staring you in the face. I would walk into a lay-up and kill the whole train with FUZZ ONE written at least twenty times in one spot. Sometimes Id write THINK FUZZ like ten or twenty times on the panel, walk into a conductors booth with a beer and take a piss, while doing a little piece inside of it. I was the ultimate king of the inside of the trains.Things were getting hot for me and it got so bad, that I had to move. My mom packed everything up and we moved to Queens.
Queens was quite a change, compared to the Bronx. The Bronx had the toughest gangs and people got shot in broad daylight ( in front of my building ). When Queens comes to mind, most dudes would think of it, as living in the country. The day after I moved to Queens, I took the train back to the Bronx to see where I laid my soul down. On the way back to Queens, I got off the train at Queens Plaza, to learn as much as I could about my new territory. There were many warehouses, prostitutes walking the streets, and dudes hanging out drinking. As a joke, I walked up to one of the prostitutes and asked her, Where can I go to write Graffiti? She told me, There are trains all over the place, you can go right down there, as she pointed towards the Queens Bridge projects, they park the trains over there at night. I cased out some spots around 33rd and Rossens, by 46th Street . Eventually, I walked the whole strip of Jackson Heights getting familiar with the area, and the styles. I brought my own style around Queens, not only in my writing, but also in my attitude and wardrobe. People started noticing me.
KINGS OVER NIGHT
One day I went over to the 69th Street schoolyard, which was the first place I took a can and started painting. I used the handball court in the schoolyard for my own little chalkboard, bringing my own Bronx Graffiti, which brought a lot of attention. I was real cool with the TMT CREW that had TEAN, FED, KELSON, and CHAIN 3; the best artist from the whole group, however was this guy who wrote NIKE. He was my first writing partner on the 7-line.
NIKE was like a playboy, always hung out, drank Colt 45 beer, and was always down to do anything. Together, NIKE and I, made several attempts to get into the 7-yard. We got chased, lost a lot of paint, and went through some real nightmare kind of shit. If someone were seen scooping out the yard or just looking suspicious, they would call the cops. The way NIKE thought about it, and bare in mind he was a black guy from the projects in the Bronx, was to go through the highway over the bridge with a rope. This became a regular routine for us, eventually taking over the place. At the time, I was not writing FUZZ ONE on the trains, but doing LORD 138 pieces since FUZZ was already hot in the Bronx. Every time we got in that place we did LORD and NIKE pieces on every subway car that was parked in there. While we were in there, we met a lot of Queens writers that hit the yard hard.I started seeing less of NIKE when he got hooked on drugs, and ultimately lost touch with him. Thats when I realized I needed a new partner.
I hooked up with this guy from East New York, who I met some time ago at SOLIDs funeral. He wrote DONDI. We both started doing a lot of cars together. I welcomed him into my hood, in Jackson Heights, where we did a lot of PRE 2's and PRINCEs ( on the number 7 line ). Thats when people really started bugging out! Later, I brought people out from the Bronx, like NIC 707, BOOTS 119 and a few others, out to the seven line. It seemed like every writer that was hitting other lines followed me to the sevens (even if they dont want to admit it). There were guys in Queens that didnt write Graffiti, but wanted to start, so I sold them names (to write).
They used to come with me to the yards to get their names up. I wanted to take over the sevens at that time, and knew that I needed at least five hardcore names to do it. The names I picked were PRINCE or MR PRINCE, ROMEO, DJ 2, LOVE MACHINE, LUCKY LORD 138, IVORY 2 (which I was already rolling with from the days living in the Bronx), as well as putting up my old homeboy SOLID, and last but not least FUZZ ONE. I started bombing with those eight hardcore names and went there on the regular. There was a time I hit the sevens hard for five days straight with forty or fifty cans!
Next thing I knew, there were all these ugly BIONIC pieces running on the sevens. After I killed the line for six months, every top writer from the sevens wanted to meet me. This dude CAINE 1 who was a hippy white boy, did the famous Alice Cooper piece and rocked the lines a few years before. Then there were guys like CHINO 174, SON 1 & PRO, and a few others, but you have to remember most of the stuff on the sevens was nothing like what you saw up in the Bronx. Im talking about wild style burners, where on the sevens if a guy had a bubble with a brick background, it was something amazing for that line. So... when I started turning up and doing my shit people started noticing the uniqueness of my pieces. It was something they never saw before.
I had so many names when I was bombing the sevens, that the cops thought it was the work of thirty guys from the Bronx. When I moved to Queens, I started a trend. When I went out painting, I always dressed up, as a result dudes started dressing like me, wearing the bucket hat I had always worn. Guys even checked me out to see what kind of shoe laces I wore.
Every chick that I ever went out with always wanted something to do with Graffiti. I enjoyed them being with me, but I always tried to discourage them from getting involved with it. I have to say about 65% of the girls that I had wrote Graffiti and were intrigued with it. It seemed like every dude in Queens hated me, cause they would say to themselves Goddamn, I know where my female is at, shes at the 7-yard! There were times when I used to hit the streets I would always stalk a new female, it seemed like every week there would be FUZZ ONE LOVES BABY DOLL, which there were a lot of baby dolls (like 1, 2 and 3). I had girls nicknamed BABY DOLL throughout Jackson Heights.
Shortly afterwards, the nightclubs started popping into the scene and I started wondering how much longer I would bomb trains. There were times I walked into the seven yard, and go over my own pieces. It was just insane! My name was around so much in Queens, that people even claimed to be me. When I stopped writing, I ran into guys that were top dog writers ( like KEL 1st ) who complimented me and told me how much he enjoyed my work (years after I quit). I was honored when KEL 1st told me that he followed most of my career. He enjoyed how the four train rolled into the station with some of my LORD pieces, and some of my top-to-bottoms that he felt were incredible. KEL 1st said he saw pieces he never saw, prior or even after that. I think that I was a writer mainly in the dark, so I was never given the recognition that many other writers received (later on). I never started writing for that anyway, I did it solely for myself. If they saw it or didnt see it...so what! I knew I did it, and thats all that mattered to me!
PARTNERS IN CRIME
How I met FLAME is still in my memory. One day, I was hanging out at the Donut Shoppe on 74th Street with my girl CE-CE ( an old school rapper at the time ), who sung a record in Jamaica, Queens. A short Dominican dude ( FLAME, I later found out ) and two other dudes saw my pilot and a can of spray paint on the table. While me and CE-CE were talking, he said to me, Do you write?" I said, "Yeah, Im FUZZ ONE". At the time FLAME was writing FLAME 3, and mostly hitting the streets and would be up here/there on the subways. We talked some more and and then he said We should get together, hang out and hit the trains. That is when FLAME became a part of FUZZ ONE; two dudes that conquered the whole Queens area, Manhattan, and the Bronx. Nobody went to anyplace or did the shit, that we did. Even when we went to clubs together, everybody knew we were the faces. FLAME had the coke and I had the cheeba, we had a different female everyday. We sometimes had women fighting over us. They knew us as gigolos! We we were even thinking of putting signs in the subway that said We wont get you pregnant! Guys hated us 'cause we were like the Miami Vice in Jackson Heights. There were guys who had their female for ten years (the love of their lives), and once the girl would politick with us, it was all over. Everything that FLAME and I did, is only what people dreamed about. It was graffiti, and politicking with the baddest Bitches around New York City.
I remember a time, that was really funny. I was hanging with FLAME, DONDI, this big dude FORCE 5, CHINO 174, and this kid that wrote ARCEE. One day we were out in Manhattan and sent this dude for a beer run. He would go in the store, run to the back, grab a few quarts of Colt 45, run out of the store, and jump in the car for a quick get away. This kid ARCEE was kind of a new jack, so FLAME and CHINO sent him into this Bodega to grab some beers. When the dude went in, he must have gotten spotted walking out the door with the beer. That is when a whole bunch of Spanish dudes started chasing him toward the exit. It was FLAME who said, Fuck this dude, lets get out of here. So, we took off! From the back window, we saw this kid ARCEE running down the street after the car with quarts of beer falling out of his shirt (and six Spanish dudes chasing him). I kept telling FLAME, Lets go back! Lets go back! But FLAME said, "Fuck that toy, leave him there. The rest of the guys just started laughing on him, but I felt bad.After an hour of trying to convince these dudes to go back for ARCEE, they finally agreed. When we went back, we didnt have to go very far to find ARCEE walking on the highway. He had a beer bottle clenched in his hand, his shirt all drenched in beer and no sneakers on. I finally convinced these cold-hearted fucks to pull over and pick him up. These dudes were like some of the craziest dudes in the history of Graffiti. FORCE 5 was this big Spanish dude from Jamaica Queens who spent a lot of time in the military, and CHINO 174 was another crazy fuck that would flip on someone at any moment. My whole idea behind us all hanging was to hit the seven yard that night, but all these guys wanted to do wasnonsense. The night ended up taking a turn for the worse, cause the next thing these crazy fucks wanted to do was pick up a hooker. So we took a trip to Courthouse Square in Queens to get a hooker.
The car was filled with so much smoke from all the cheeba and taking swags of that last beer ARCEE had, that it was like a Cheech and Chong movie. DONDI was so zooted that the dude ended up going into a coma, while CHINO 174 and FORCE 5 continued like two predators out for their prey. We picked up this one girl and for some crazy chance of luck, she jumped into the car with all five of us. These dudes got really shady and basically kidnapped this chick. They drove her into Flushing Park around the seven yards, and tried to make an attempt of taking her clothes off. DONDI was in the backseat completely out of it. I'll never forget when I heard FORCE 5 scream This Bitch is a dude! All the guys started to flip out, CHINO 174 began beating on the dude and FORCE 5, chased the hooker out of the car. It was some crazy shit you only saw in movies. After all that, I convinced them to bomb the seven yards, which was a short distance away.
We went to my secret hiding spot, grabbed some paint and when we got into the seven yard, CHINO went off to do his own thing. FORCE 5 did these giant F5 throw-ups, while me and Dondi started on a car together. FLAME got busy on a car right next to us where he started doing some really wild shit ( that looked interesting in its own way ). ARCEE, well he just held on to the paint as we wrote. As DONDI and I were finishing the last few touches of what we did, all the lights on the train turned on and some of the doors opened from the last cars. We all ran towards the back of the yard, jumped off the back of the train on to a lamp post which swung us into the swamp water just outside the yard. ARCEE grabbed CHINO, I guess because he didnt know how to swim. CHINO in return began to punch him. Eventually, we all got away! Damn, it was a real crazy night!
FLAME and I continued doing our thing in Jackson Heights, but like all things, they soon come to an end. We both got into selling drugs, but it wasn't until FLAME started using that I began to worry. I tried to help him out, but like they say... when people fall they fall really hard. The dude got really bad and there was nothing I could do to help him. It just didn't work out, so we eventually parted company. That was the worst part of FUZZ ONE in Queens. As a result, I felt Graffiti got real tired and I just stopped. I feel I took Graffiti to the most ultimate extreme and dont think anybody on this planet did more names than I did, more pieces than I did, or just wrote Graffiti with such a flare, as I did.
There was this one night I made a comeback. I hooked up with CEY CITY, BD - CITY, T-BOP, and started bombing 75th Street lay-up on the Es and Fs. I just killed it! Another night, I went down there with the same dudes with about 300 cans of my paint and killed it again. Afterwards when we were deciding which way we should leave the lay-up T-BOP AND BD wanted to go one way and CEY CITY and I wanted to go in the other direction. When CEY CITY and I came up through the Union Turnpike station, the police were right on us. The cops beat the shit out of us with their clubs and locked me in a phone booth for four hours. The whole experience put my life through a living hell because I had to go to court, scrub trains, and go to jail. After I got out of jail, I went to live in DONDIs house in Brooklyn. It was a short, eight month stay of sleeping in his basement and racking up my own food and clothes. As time passed, DONDI went on to the art gallery scene, which I didnt agree with 'cause I felt it was not real Graffiti. However, he had to do what he needed to do and we still remained boys. I moved back to queens and just left the Graffiti scene alone.
THE ULTIMATE COMEBACK
When I got back to Queens, during the mid 80's, it was all bombed. Writers even did top-to-bottoms on peoples homes.
Nevertheless, my legacy was still there. I saw some of my styles in many of the pieces that was out there. Once in a while I did a piece here and there on the down-low with some of my females. A lot of my females started dying off from writing, or just died period. I give them so much props cause they were like the freaks at large. They took risks that not even dudes took. By the time 1990 came, that was a real big era for me. I figured I was either going to sink or swim. I moved to Elmhurs in 1990, where I started politicking with these two little dudes, BRUZ and RONT and a few of these little Chinese dudes that followed me around. These kids expanded, met other dudes out there and bombed. That is when I met VEN, GHOST, REMOTE, JA and KET. GHOST was a die-hard writer from the 1980s. He hung from the bottom of the train tracks, just to bomb his name on a pole underneath it. KET would even bomb a cop car. He was straight up wild, while JA was just out of his mind. REMOTE was this really nice white kid, who I really got a long with, but soon disappeared from all of it.
Ever week, I had a new partner. It became FUZZ and JA, or FUZZ and GHOST, or FUZZ and REMOTE. Those guys took me to the last stage of die-hard Graffiti bombing. We did a top-to-bottom on someones gate right in front of the store, while the guy inside was selling his burgers. Other dudes came back into the scene and went out with us; Dudes like IZ THE WIZ, SACH, QUIK, SAR, and a few others.
SAR was a guy that I met through IZ THE WIZ, who I knew since 1974, and we started politicking. SAR was not only a good dude that had my back, but a good dude overall. We even brought back some old school cats like my man BOOTS 119, and even little CAV started hanging with us. Of course,we all started bombing real hard.
Life became good for us...we all lived in residential neighborhoods, had cars, jobs, girlfriends, and other responsibilities, which made what we were doing really crazy. I thought, Im never going to get out of this shit! However, by the year 2000, SAR went his separate way and I started to get tight with one of my females and gave Graffiti a rest. From 1970 until the year 2000, thats thirty years, that I devoted to Graffiti. I don't think anybody, devoted that much time into this one thing, than FUZZ ONE. After a year or so, I thought about writing a book on how it all began. A BRONX CHILD HOOD , is the name of the book that I finished. I starting on my next book TAKING IT TO QUEENS, and looking to get in touch with the Females I rolled with back in the day.
SUBWAY OUTLAWS
Next Week:
Domeshots & Fat Laces Vol 21: DJ CASH MONEY
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