For graffiti-covered cities.
Chaka, a.k.a. Daniel Ramos, was an infamous graffiti tagger in the early nineties. He got his name from a furry little character found on the TV show Land of the Lost. Every night, from 11 PM to 5 AM, Ramos would arm himself with about eight stolen cans of black and silver spray paint. He tagged signs and buildings throughout the West Coast with CHAKA. It was estimated by authorities that the tagger painted his name on ten thousand surfaces, resulting in more than $500,000 in property damage (although he later claimed the number to be closer to forty thousand tags).
After the conviction, he was sentenced to three years probation and fifteen hundred hours of community service (graffiti cleanup). Later, he was busted for trespassing on an L.A. city golf course and for possession of marijuana. He had another brush with the law in 1998, when he got caught stealing shoes at a department store. He was sentenced to jail for fifteen months. The tagger even had the audacity to scratch his name inside the elevator of the courthouse he was tried in.
Brilliant, Ramos. Because of you and taggers like you, spray paint is now under lock and key. You cluttered cities with senseless graffiti and you stole thousands of cans of spray paint. Now, to this day, we have to track down a sales clerk just to buy some damn paint.
Unfortunately, Ramos gave a great art form a bad name.
Luckily, Chaka has been out of the limelight for a while. However, he resurfaced to do an art show in Los Angeles in April 2009. I just hope he keeps his paint on the canvas this time. And by the way, I hope Chaka doesn’t leave his art unattended in the wee hours of the night…