JAES JICK

Like a giant wound, the doors to the train open and a flood of passengers gushes out and onto the platform. I quickly give James a good-bye kiss as we separate and go to our respective JOBs; he, like a salmon swimming upstream and me, caught in the flow quickly draining from the extremities of Grand Central Station.

I am now a commuter.

Although I try to look on the bright side of this new adventure insomuch that I’ll have an opportunity to get caught up on the tomes of books and other literature I’ve put aside for exactly this – commuter time – the Express train that I’ll likely be taking is a fairly short (little over 30 minutes) ride. And besides, since I’m not used to this kind of ‘frequent flier’ action, I tend to get a bit puke-y unless I look-up and around from whatever I’m reading to adjust my whacked-out equilibrium. When I do, I’m typically viewing the backyards and back lots of the Northeast Corridor, most of which are a mixture of barbed wire and remnants of half-baked construction.

But there is something that I’ve always been curious about and which I see hundreds of examples of on my daily travels: Graffiti

In particular and nearing the Bronx, there’s one tagger’s work (or maybe it’s a gang tag thingy?) I’m curious about. Clickety-clacking down the tracks, I see a huge string of ‘JAES JICK’ in big fat (or is that phat?) throw-up style. So, I’ve been doing some research on graffiti to determine where this moniker came from as looks like the work of an old skool writer. Unfortunately, I’ve googled the hell outta this tag and searched several graffiti Web sites from coast to coast but, no go.

While I know there’s extremism on both sides – the Tags and the Tag-Nots – as a sorta-kinda (mostly retired) musician, I respect any artist’s attempt at expression and view this as a positive art form, rather than vandalism.

And somewhere in the back of my mind, I remember hearing (or did I just imagine it?) about JAES JICK. So, if anyone’s reading this li’l bit of crap here and happens to know where this originates, drop me an E, yo! Otherwise, as I pass this space in the world several times a week, I’ll be one frustrated beotch!