Why I Write: Huston Street Culture

Look at this big, bad RED muther.
It's in your face, but dignified.
It's thick and deliberate, yet practiced and legible.
I can understand some of the reasons Upper Deck stopped using windows and trapped paper for Graphs a while back. They are fragile, expensive and, well....nobody likes a bleeder. I am sure they have an exclusive with Sharpie or Staedler or some shit. I personally used to do a lot of drawing.
When I was a young kid, 14-15, I got into Graffiti. Mostly I actually got to the traintracks, or an overpass, or some random wall to "write" in color like once a month. The rest of the time I was getting down to it with my two best friends in my basement, or on a school wall, mailbox, street sign etc. I had my own "black book", I practiced my tag for hours at a time, entire college-ruled notebooks consumed by scrawling attempts at "getting it right", and changing and evolving your transfer of these written letters.
I think that my experiences and practices in the art of Graffiti (that has only gone underground and gotten legal. not dead) is one of the main roots of my appreciation for the autographed baseball card. I mean, pretty simple really. Combine my interests, and it sticks. Ex. Adidas+starwars, Baseball+autographs, lego+starwars,
old stereo speaker+small aquarium...see? I can't lose.
Everyone has their own "tag"...of course it is your signature.

Some have style, some have grace, some have the kind of line that's in your face.
Bring back the thickpen, for you to sign
I bring a used sharpie to the ballpark every time.