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Mr.Fangs Interview
March 31, 2004

We caught up with geist boy recently to chat about his work. At his request we met at McDonald's.
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So, why the mr.fangs character and what does it mean?

For a while I was hitting the streets hard doing different names and then I got so fucking tired of doing letters.
I like fonts, I love letters, I do it all the time, I've been doing it for 14 years but I'm tired of it now, I want to
do some fun shit. Because I don't give a fuck when it comes to doing what I like to do. I like to just get out and
crush the city. One thing I like, as far as what I do is, I love touching hoods. I love touching rugged neighberhoods
that motherfuckers don't like to go in. Because to me, I consider that like a place that the government has forgotten.
Like, society has forgotten. You hear lots of people screaming on some old nine eleven shit, thousands of people got
killed, but motherfuckers die in the fucking streets every day. Why? Because of smaller things. You get kids that just
get forgotten and just become those statistics. So that's the whole reason why I like that, because really and truly
those ghosts belong in the hood. They belong there. Like you ain't never gonna find a geist in the bathroom of a
Wal-mart because there's nothing there, that's not a history. But if you go into a deep-ass hood you're like, whoa.
You can feel it. Immediately if you go into the hood and you're not from the hood, you get hit with a feeling.
You get like a feeling of you might get hurt or of desperation or whatever. Those feelings are what the geist is
trying to convey.

How long have you been doing the geist?

I actually created the ghost in 90 and started hitting the streets with that nonsense in 92. And I've done them shits all over the world. Chicago, Cabana Tu An (Phillipines), Tokyo, Dublin, Belfast, Seattle, Perugia (Italy), Dusseldorf, Amsterdam, Basil (switzerland). I actually had to get it copywrited in 2003 because so many motherfuckers were trying to bite.
It's insane kid.

Talk about the different colors of the geists and what they are up to.

WHITE: White is memory color. It's the main color of the ghosts in general because of the fact that it's
supposed to retain a memory. I consider white almost like, the purest of pure. When it comes down to a white
ghost I do it in an abandoned place or I'll do it in places that people long forgot. The whole idea is that
at one time this place might have been something to someone or might have actually been someone. But when it
gets left alone like that no one remembers it and it's just left there. And if no one remembers the memory then
how can it be a memory? With that being lost all you got left is a shell. The reason why I put a ghost there
is to let people know that there was a memory and to let them know that there was something deeper than just
a shell of a building. Which is sad to me. I like doing my ghosts because they are happy and fun but at the
same time when you do them and you specifically do that color for that thing, you're like, that's fucked up and
you actually start feeling the memory even if you don't know the memory, you feel it. It just gets really
crazy in your own mind. I tend to overthink things sometimes, though.

YELLOW: Yellow ones is a playful nature. Yellow is to me like activeness, hyperness, or like the love
of the moment. Yellow can mean gold or sunshine and have a happy feeling to it.

RED: Red is I don't like you, on some old, like, I got beef with you type shit. It's not that often that
I use red ones. The reason i use red for beef is not necessarily because red is synonymous with the one color
that means anger, it's because me as a person, I'm a very red person. My whole attitude and the way I am is
the color red.

BLUE: Blue is like I feel kind of guilty when I bomb with the blue, because sometimes I don't know what
I'm going over or who I'm going over. The way I was raised I believe in respect. I always give respect and
I get my respect type shit. I really do not want to disrespect someone who did not deserve to be disrespected.
But it you did (deserve it) then I'll spit in your face, but other than that I believe in keeping the
respect factor. When I do blue sometimes it means I don't know whose spot that is or like it could be a
mom & pop store. I never dis mom & pop stores.

PINK: A hot-pink ghost is my favorite. It stands for my wife. Hot-pink to me is like her color. When people
meet me and get to know me they know that I'm a very red person, but my wife is a very pink person.
We're so similar, the way she and I are, so she's just a shade down from how crazy my ass is, so I usually do those
for her. She can do them too though. Sometimes she'll roll the fill on the ghosts and I'll outline them.
We smack that shit in the daytime too.

BLACK: The Black geist is the opposite or negative of the white geist but still for memory. So the white ghost is for a good memory, the black ghost is on some grimy bad memory, it's negative. Some nightmare type shit.

Chicken Leg: The chicken leg is representing life in the south. Because fried chicken is the food of
the south. It stands for the southern comfort of a place, like I feel real comfortable in that spot.

Poo: If I think a spot is shitty.

Birthday Cake: I usually do the birthday cake when a spot is brand new. when it hasn't been touched
by anyone. Sometimes I'll find a raw wall that's just begging for a birthday party and my ghost comes
in and blows out the candles.

Tic Tac Toe: Tic tac toe is like challenge me, take me on or test me. I'll do it and only leave an X or an O.

Wow, that's some pretty art fag shit. Do you get ever get disrespect from other writers?

Nah, when people see my work they usually think I'm like, a geeky little art kid or some shit but when they meet me they find out I'm nuthin nice.

What do you enjoy the most about your work?

Urban spelunking is one of the best things I've gotten out of this. Like underground, abandoned buildings, just wild
wild places. To me that's the most exciting thing about being a writer, it's natural training for infiltration.

What's next?

I want to start now doing clouds of ghosts. Like full on clusters of them and shit. I also want to start doing sign ghosts again.
Like the ghost will be holding a sign that will say really intriguing things. So people will see it and say,
"now, why would that motherfucker say that?"

Dude, how can you eat McDonald's?

Because I'm nasty like that.

MR.FANGS | IN THE STREETS LIKE MANHOLE COVERS | ATLANTA

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