Jump to content

Tie


Guest HALOHZ

Recommended Posts

This forum is supported by the 12ozProphet Shop, so go buy a shirt and help support!
This forum is brought to you by the 12ozProphet Shop.
This forum is brought to you by the 12oz Shop.
  • Replies 613
  • Created
  • Last Reply

http://www.hifiart.com/hifiart9801/murals/sfmurals/tiequick.jpg'>

http://www.hifiart.com/hifiart9801/murals/sfmurals/tie.jpg'>

http://www.hifiart.com/hifiart9801/murals/sfmurals/tiewall.jpg'>

http://www.hifiart.com/hifiart9801/murals/sfmurals/tiekcw.jpg'>

http://www.hifiart.com/hifiart9801/murals/other/tiesaf.JPG'>http://www.asianweek.com/050798/images/contents_photo.jpg'>

 

 

 

Graffiti artist who was shot 'told the world to live'

By Spie One

 

Editor's note: Graffiti artist Tie One (Jon Lim) was shot to death March 18 in San Francisco. The following article, a tribute to Tie One, was submitted by a friend of his, Spie One.

 

Tie loved graffiti. He lived graffiti. Writers will say they live graffiti or graffiti is their life, but they are lying to themselves. When hit with the question, "Would you die over graffiti?," they have to take a step back and think about it. Tie found what he lived for -- and someone killed him for doing it.

 

Graffiti permeated this 18-year-old's body like soy sauce soaks into rice. Tie's blood veins flowed with permanent ink, like Rustoleum paint, with pure, unrestricting self-expression. Graffiti's loud and angry reaction to the backward system in which we live sprang from every step he took.

 

Tie's response is seen -- on the bus, on the walls, on doors and in doorways, over "stop" signs, on billboards, on freeway overpasses and even on police paddy wagons. He cared not to be confined by authority, by categorization limitations, by the risk of another beating him in defense of his pride, by the walls of separation that the ruling class constructs in grids that attack our psyches.

 

Tie bounced off these walls. Hit-ups looking like horizons just altered, invading our spectrum of sight -- big with a fat cap and whipped out in seconds -- like rampaging elephants, round and bold, over windows, entrance ways, poles, what have you -- he bombed. Making a mockery of this bureaucratic world of ridiculous and humiliating laws, of this power structure and its home, Tie was that big rash the beast despised the most.

 

This beast battled Tie hard with paint buff squads and Good Samaritan "keepers of the state" that took it on their own initiative to shut up this one youth from ever speaking his mind. But he won. Even after the system took him out, he is up everywhere, on the streets and in our hearts.

 

His last piece had a message on it. It said, "The joy of life," which is something much more sane than systematized school textbooks that teach the youth to honor killers and slave masters as heroes; or a flood of policing in our communities to instill fear into us of even going out of our homes in the name of "stopping drugs and crime"; or Hollywood producers making a special race competition to exhibit the hundreds of ways to practice humiliation of another human, particularly sisters and brothers of our own family. People have been taught how to kill, but Tie told the world to live.

 

What was Tie doing that was so wrong? Perhaps feeling his own heart?! Responding to his gut-felt soul voice? Is this what was so dangerous? Is this what called upon a bullet to be lodged in the back of his head, triggered by 51-year-old freelance photographer William Porter, who said he felt "threatened" by a young, unarmed boy, 5 feet 5 inches tall and about 90-something pounds?

 

Tie chose to be a rebel. His rebelliousness made him an enemy of the state. The state made, or rather labeled him, a "graffitiist," a vandal, a criminal, a gangster...one of those "good-for-nothing youth that causes trouble." And in the eyes of the powers that be, they would rather jail or kill individuals like Tie.

 

A part of me died with Tie. A part of you died with Tie. So when Tie was killed, the powers celebrated with a toast; a toast to the 51-year-old "good ole' American," symbolized by setting him free without the thought to do a police investigation, without the slightest thought of ever charging the man with murder. The freelance photographer has not only shot a picture, but has now shot and killed the next generation. And with the justice system backing him and other opponents of the youth, he, along with all the other vigilantes of the state, lance on their merry way, freely ... .

 

Tie was not an intruder. He did not break in any person's place, nor did he have the intent to. He carried no threat and he most definitely did not deserve a .38 slug to the back of his head. He was climbing the ladder to fame -- a principle highly regarded as the "American thing to do." He was climbing to scream his presence of "I am here" and stake a claim as a free-spirited person in this jail called America.

 

What writer do you know that took the bus with the most stops across America to get to the graffiti Mecca, New York, just so he could bomb along the whole way? Who do you know that ever survived getting shocked by the third rail? What writer ran from cops after getting up, jumping off a building, breaking both of his legs and then covering himself in the snow to escape getting busted? What writer got the utmost respects from Queens and Kings internationally and paid his dues to writin' graff? What writer did you ever know that said "I ain't got shit to lose" and would scream at you to go out and do the same!

 

"BOMB, SPIE, BOMB!" he said to me with a passion of expectation as he left to carry on his journey. I thank you Jon, TIE ONE -- you taught me a lesson on living up to my full potential and I love you for that. You are forever young, and in your memory we will not ever give up the fight.

 

TIE ONE (Jon Lim) June 19, 1979 - March 18, 1998

 

This article originated in the People's Tribune (Online Edition), Vol. 25 No. 9 / September, 1998; P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654, http://www.mcs.com/~league. For free electronic subscription, email pt-dist@noc.org with "Subscribe" in the subject line. Feel free to reproduce unless marked as copyrighted; please include this message with reproductions of the article.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...
Originally posted by Fame Whore

no disrespect, but in that action shot he looks like urkel. rip, true kings never die....

 

 

I would like to throw my 2cents in. Man I just cant believe you can be so ignorant in a couple of sentences. You are probably one of those fucking internet pigs. You might as well just like stay off the fucking sight. You piece of shit. Drowned yourself :mad:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...
Originally posted by bronx

rip tie...nice stickers..that kid was the real bomber

 

fuck yea... dude was ill, very inspiring.

 

does anyone got any more piks? some new shit to look at? some dope spots? he had tons... lets see some... any more action shots? loved those damn things....

 

RIP TIE

 

TIE FOREVER!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...
  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

rip tie

 

dude, this is funny shit... i was walking down the street in san bruno one day years ago with my friend mike... and this little chinese kid walks up and says, all hyper, "yo, you guys write? i write tie, like this," and bang, whips out a pilot and goes to town on a payphone, right there in front of us, on el camino in broad daylight. it kind of left me speechless. still does. i guess he had a habit of doing that. he was one of the only writers i ever truly mourned, because he was a nice kid, and nobody, but nobody, rocked sf like he did. and probably ever will again. and, from what i hear, he put a pretty good dent in nyc to boot. so, whenever i go past that corner, i think of that day in 96 when he was daylight bombing way before i ever thought of it, and i miss him. rest in peace.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Tie has influenced my bombing more than any other writer ever. I remember when i first heard of his death, that whole summer i would go out with a can of black and silver just because he was such an influence. Very few have ever bombed as hard as tie, and had such amazing style. You dont look at his throwees the way you normally look at somebodys throwups, you truly experience them. You can feel his emotion, and whats amazing is that he busted out so much emotion with two colors and did it in seconds. Bump, for a true king. TIE, RIP

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.


×
×
  • Create New...