before there was Borf there was…
(Image courtesy of Art Crimes)
To continue the unofficial theme of Graffiti day here at Metroblogs DC – how many people remember Cool Disco Dan and his reign of paint-can terror over the DC area through the 80’s & 90’s? While my previous post may make me sound like a jack-boot graffiti facist, I actually like most real graffiti (as long as it stays off residencies) – it’s just the magic marker taggers that I hate.
While Cool Disco Dan’s graffiti wasn’t the most artful, it was funny to see how prolific he was and to watch his signature spray spread onto the darndest places around DC, MD, and NOVA. Here is a nice bio of this DC original who kicks the crap out of Borf any day of the week. Mainly because Borf is a spoiled brat while Cool Disco Dan is a genuine product of the city-streets who risked it all to express himself.
i do! i do! it’s sad that so many of his tags are disappearing. did you ever notice that there seem to be a lot of counterfeit cool “disco” dan tags around now?
i agree with you about the distinction between dan and borf, and i loved your personal anti-graffiti crusader story. so much more entertaining and creative than painting blotches of grey paint.
Me too! His work was rampant around CUA where I went to school in the early nineties. You used to be able to see his tags while riding the red line from Brookland into the city. City Paper did an article on him years back…
Ah….Cool Disco Dan, who could forget. DC was different then, a lot more run down, a lot more space for Disco Dan’s tag.
As for Barf….he should go to jail and stay there. He’s such a revolting, smug, entitled brat.
Anyway, stenciling the same image all over the city is so uninspired.
Just got off the Red Line and somewhere between Union Station and Silver Spring, I spotted at least 5 Cool Disco Dan tags–one even read “Cool Disco Dan is Back”! Not to mention: how rude is it when some poser paints partially over one of Dan’s tags?