Following the South west {oakland city, Mlk, west end, Sylvan hills, lakewood, etc} Atlanta Graffiti scene since late 1983 after the emergence of Sir Smith { who spured off alot of unknown writters who started useing the "SIR" name like "Sir Sex" in Atlanta around 86} then a few months later in 84 the emergence of Sir smith's friend Destro. Later writters like Save, Wizz, Raz69, Smash, Fly, Jaz, Sparky Z, Budah, Bust, etc appeared on the scene. When I became old enough to actually sneak off on my on in the summer of 89 I started hitting up walls myself which ultimately led to my first arrest where I served 2 years probation, a few g's in fines, a newspaper article, and community service hrs...during my probation period I met up with chris smith of kris kross while attending sylvan middle school { we was from the same block}...learned alil bit of the other elements of the culture thru him....during this time I also got into pirate/hacker/etc bbs computer sites where you had to dial each web site's number individually {which gave way to me getting into the alt.graffiti newsgroups after the fall of the bbs's}. Around 92 I met up with andre from outkast while at tri-cities which taught me alil bit more about the other elements and hung out with me sometimes at the civic yard...I also met up with peon, skesa, blast, fuse, g-love, dash, disco {the guy who introduced me to the civic yard}, etc during this time which taught me more about the graffiti elements....around late 93 I started chatting with susan ferral {of art crimes} on the alt. graffiti news groups and she introduced me to the north side and east side graff spots past the civic yard {which up till this time I had only been a south side and west side cat}....started traveling to other states around late 94 and other cities to get up. In 95 i wanted to break out of the tags and throw ups phase and start doing full pieces so I began doing that while still learning about the graffiti elements Mainly the do's and don'ts {always best to learn before getting up at yards} thru people like Skam, Seven, Totem, Noah, and Saba. Another memoriable person I met around 95 was Mega { different than a person who had been useing Omega}. Well I painted until around I guess it was 2002 when I took another arrest and did alil over 6 months in various county jails {40 days str8 which was in a isolation 7 x 15 foot cell with no windows no clocks and sometimes I got out to play basket ball on the court by myself for maybe 20-30 minutes every 2-3 days} and another 2 years probation along with fines.....now I do the 9-5 work thing and the married life thing {a art chick}...every now and then I will try to pass things I've seen in the past thru the graffiti culture along to others artists in order to help them not hit the bumps i have....whether they take my advice or whatever is on them but hey.....one thing I do say though is fighting over walls should be avoided at all costs, going to jail over graffiti is really not worth it, and if you can get paid for graffiti art then go for it without letting that chance slip you by. Because of my arrest record it is nearly impossible to get a job even though I have business management degress and hvac degrees...with my arrest record them degrees are nearly worthless now...graffiti is not worth your life so if you can do it legally instead of illegally then by all means go for doing it legally and don't worry about the hateing you may get from other writters for being legal...if a writter hates you for doing graffiti art legally then ask them how much time in jail have they done for graffiti...if they have done time for it then they know whats on the line, look at it like this...the system does not want graffiti art up, if it's legal the they can not stop you and your kinda beating the system, legal graffiti is the loop hole in the system. Above all else respect those who came before you and respect all the locals if your visiting a city other than your own.