March 11, 2008...2:07 am
This is the End…
It’s been over 4 months since this journey began and we have gone a great distance, the artists have left innumerable numbers of works across the continent, and I have been exhausted trying to keep up with them. It’s come to that point where I must part ways with them and leave them to continue their travels up to Mexico on their own. We have not been able to post as much as we would have liked these past few weeks since we have been moving fast up towards our final destination of Mexico City. Currently the artists and myself are here in Panama City. Since our last post the artists and myself have seen and been in various crazy experiences. Experiencing Machu Picchu together was a big highlight of this tour. Above got stabbed in the arm with a knife by 3 thieves in Quito, Ecuador but I will let him talk about that here…
“First of all, FUCK YOU THIEVES…AGAIN! All 4 of us (El Tono joined us in Lima, Peru up until Bogota, Columbia) arrived in Quito, Ecuador in the afternoon and met up with a local friend. Later that night we all went out for a night on the town in the center to have a good time. As Ripo, El Tono, and Rodrigo were waiting for my friend and I to walk back from the liquor store with some drinks when I suddenly got bombarded by 3 men from the street. The three thieves (pieces of shit) swarmed me, suddenly 2 of the pieces of shit grabbed and held each of my arms the other piece of shit stabbed through my jacket sleeve, then my hooded sweatshirt sleeve, and finally directly down into my left forearm all in 1 motion,.(and the knife stayed in my arm) With a large knife still in my arm the 2 other thieves ran their hands through both of my jacket pockets and pant pockets. My friend was lucky to only have 1 thief try and steal from him but because it was only 1 against 1 he was able to push him off and run away. I however was not that lucky! Unlike the FUCK YOU THIEVES pt. 1 post I was not able to even decide or have any option other than to comply with the thieves while again the knife was being applied with pressure into my left forearm. In the end the Thieves got only 13 dollars (they missed the 40 bucks in my smaller pant pocket) and I got a stab wound. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again that life is “Beautifully Ugly.”
Above: The night before I got stabbed in the left forearm (left is my dominant hand) I could not clinch a fist due to the stab wound and the damaged muscles. This meant I could not paint easy, if at all. However my friend and fellow artist El Tono was with us in Quito and since he uses tape to paint his “Tono’s” I decided to have some fun and get creative with some tape designs of my own. This is the result, Enjoy.
Ripo: Soy Tu Sueño (I’m Your Dream) painted on the Centro Cultural de España in Lima, Peru in a familiar color scheme. Some might see this as a sarcastic crack at the immigration issues between the two countries. Other people might see this piece and think of their own dreams and what they might be…
That being said and shown I must return to let you all know that this is to be the last blog post of this trip, but be assured that there is a great amount of work that has been done and didn’t make it onto the blog, and an even greater amount of work that will be done before the end of the tour that you will have to keep your eyes open for. But before we leave this travel log we have to say thank you to so many people. First and foremost Thank You to El Tono for being crazy enough to join us at least for a portion of this tour from Peru up to Colombia. Afterwards we want to thank El Codo and Cansei in Lima for helping us out with places to stay and organizing a great paint session. While in Bogota, Colombia we have to say the biggest thanks to Excusados and more specifically Aeon and Stinkfish for helping show us around their crazy city, going bombing, and inviting us into the coolest fucking clubhouse on earth, the Excusados studio. Now that we are in Panama City we are being helped out greatly by Cisco and Sumo, Thank you!
Thank you also to everybody who has written us and shown us support from down in South and Central America and from all over the world. It’s helped our spirits and is part of what has kept us going all this way. As we said there is a lot of work that has been done that won’t make it onto this blog, but we hope you enjoyed these last few words and images.
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