The legendary North Carolina based bboy crew, Swoon Unit, is celebrating their 10th anniversary. They have put together a multi-layered series of events that include an open mic MC battle, a NC graffiti Wall of Fame event and a large format Bboy battle. It will be taking place at the Boys & Girls Club in downtown Raleigh on Sept 26th from 12-5. I have created a custom painted piece of linoleum for the battles to take place on.

When we first came up with the idea I figured it would be no big deal. Grab a piece of linoleum from Home Depot, hang it up, paint it, curtains. Well, dreaming is believing. I went to Home Depot and told the guys what I wanted to do and they started laughing at me.

Home Depot Guy – “Boy, what did you drive here? I hope you brought an extended bed pick-up.”

Me – ” Um, well, I drove a Honda Accord……”

Home Depot Guy – “What the hell are you talking about boy?”

Needless to say, it didn’t matter what view this guy had on my ability to judge the scope of the projects I take on. The fact of the matter was that I had to leave that place with a 12′x12′ piece of linoleum and I had to paint it in 24 hours time.

First off, a roll like that weight a fucking ton. Second, watching me try and fold a roll like that in half is like watching me do a few sets on a thigh-master. Sure, I can do it, but I look like a total shithead in the process.

Once I got it home and quickly realized it was way way way to heavy to hang on anything. I had to unroll it on the steepest hill I had in my backyard which measured in at about a 5 degrees downward. A fucking molehill.  See, a spraypaint can doesn’t spray unless it is upright. My only hope was to get it on an angle on the ground. By the time I get it moved, unrolled and set up I am sweating balls and it is late. I start to lay down my outlines. After a few minutes I decide to test the integrity of the paint and see how well it is adhering to the linoleum. With my barefoot I skuff gently at the paint…… the paint flakes right off of the thing. At this point I lay down on the plastic carpet that is sprawled across my lawn and decide that I will make this happen after I sleep and hopefully dream of a way out of this. I’ll return at sunrise.

I wake and I paint the entire piece. It comes out pretty good and I figure out a little bit of a trick to get spurts of paint to spray even when holding the can horizontal. It isnt the prettiest piece but it is also sopposed to be Old School Graf looking anyway. Fuck it. I figure I will coat the piece with some Mod Podge and pray that it will seal up the paint, allow me to roll it without cracking, and most importantly-allow for a series of bboys to go crazy on the thing without it ending up looking like Guernica. Now the rain starts…… A gift from the heavens stopped the drizzle for about an hour. The hour I needed to coat the thing and drag it into my living room. Once I got it inside all turned out well. The coating sealed up the paint. I tried scuffing it, all good. I sent Makayla running and dancing on it – all good. For good measure I sent my dog tearing ass over it a few times – all good. Yay.

As a celebration me and Makayla had a little breakdance session on it to christen it. I dont breakdance at all but apparently Makayla does. Who knew.

The event should be dope. Lets just hope I can tranport the thing with disaster. See you there.

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