The cradle of teen culture in america, the WFIL Building, 45th and Market.  Where Dick Clark launched American Bandstand and successive generations expressed themselves without Dick’s permission ( I see you BLINT). We were under orders to make a work that “sold” the current mission of the building, to encourage entrpreneurship among the youth of the neighborhood . The word entrepreneurship almost sunk the deal, 15 letters is a problem to work with. So I proposed  I BEEN A RANCONTEUR TALKING MY DREAM – I BEEN A SABOTEUR KILLING MY DREAM –  I BEEN AN AMATEUR JUST DREAMING – NOW I AM A ENTREPRENEUR LIVING THE DREAM.  Our wordplay is better than Coldplay on their best day

REPAINTED AND RELOADED FOR 2010. MY PECKERWOOD PASS REVOKED, MY GHETTO PASS LAMINATED

ELEBRATION PART 2. LET’S DIVIDE UP THE LEFTOVER MONTANA 94′S AND DRINK BEER. SQUARES CAN SHARE A SQUARE OUT IN THE COLD WEST PHILLY AIR

There’s a thunder storm ‘a brewin’
And the day is turning gray
There ain’t much to say about the weather
The shower stall is leakin’
And the ceiling’s fallin’ in
And I’m getting twenty bills to every letter

I’ve got to move myself out to the country
I’m lookin’ out for any place at all
I’m gonna spend another Fall In Philadelphia

A roving band of youths beat up on Johnny
Everybody’s gettin’ richer sellin’ that dope
Say, the stolen bikes are gathering by the thousands
Along with seven million people without a hope

I guess I have to face the fact as real
I think I feel my back up against the wall
I’m gonna spend another Fall In Philadelphia

-D. Hall  J.Oates

LOVE LETTER is (considered) Finished. Walls 48, 49, and 50 were completed today in the blizzard_of_09. Thanks to SKREW who said (at 4pm) “If youre still painting you replace Rodney Dangerfield as my idol” – NO I WASN’T, we had stopped hours earlier, but I lied and said we were. We did  paint the word “friend” on one wall and  ”the choice is yours” on another wall in rollerpaint that had frozen to the consistency of gelato. The third wall is the beloved “P” wall (5314 Market-facing north), which after being painted by several other people  over the course of 30-50 years, we decided was finished today and we claim it as a line in our Love Letter. We, the reprobates of the INNER CITY YOUTH club, DECLARE any walls with a power-sprayer buff, some evidence of spraypaint OVER the power-sprayer buff, and fading hand-lettered-letters above the reach of vandals and the buffers, is ONE OF OUR WALLS©  belonging to the PHILDELPHIA PRO-GRAFFITI NETWORK. Please, recognize.

THANKS SKREW, TIM, DARRIN, EL JOSH,  ADAM, BRIAN., DANIEL, PAULY AND DANIEL F

For Mr. Blint and RAZZ.  You’ll need 3 pieces of ID to cash that check.

WELCOME HOME ALLEN IVERSON

ON. This roof is taking a looong time to finish. I’ve been chipping away at it 3-4 hours at a time 2 days a week over the last 8-10 weeks, and at this point its maybe 8 hours from completion. Getting permission from the non-profit business incubator that owns the building took 6 months and 7 sketches ( I  never did more sketches for a client- paid or otherwise), but for myself and others in ICY with a long enough memory of the totemic power of the roof when RAZZ held it down with BLINT, it had to happen. After the multiple  hoops and hurdles that we cleared , the last snag was that we couldnt paint on the building directly, as it was a historic site (American Bandstand was filmed here in the 50’s), so we covered the walls we wanted to paint with 1400 sq. feet of aluminum. Its really great to use one-shot paint on this scale, it looks real cool. And we’re using, for the first time on this project, the best materials for lettering available- paint and brush. I (obviously) love spray, but since its a propellant, its always going to look a little fuzzy when you letter with it, compared to one-shot. And spray paint is harder to work with than one-shot. I had several people helping me who only used spray paint their whole life pulling beautiful lines with a brush after only a few minutes. And finally, this huge expanse of  surface will only require 1.5 gallons of paint to finish. RADICAL. Theres a lot more to tell, but we gotta finish first. RESPECT to KENNY MEEZ, CEM-I, EL JOSH, JB JONES, D. ROW, MAN D, LEW BLUM, and JT who knows the drill.

Congrats to Sulliman, the 84 year-old proprietor of Alkebulan Imports, on his grand opening last saturday, and Disco Des for his Excellent sign design. Thanks to Hassan and James for getting it done. I have it on good authority that Cream Of The Sea has the best fried fish in West Philly. We anxiously await the grand-reopening with an empty stomach and a spork with a lemon wedge on it. Both signs were done with love by The ICY Sign Shop. Call James if you want that work.