#bill daniel

https://texashighways.com/culture/in-search-of-bozo-texino/Who is Bozo Texino?

Who is Bozo Texino? by Bill Daniel 56 min. black and white, experimental/documentary 

 Who is Bozo Texino? chronicles the search for the source of a ubiquitous and mythic rail graffiti-- a simple sketch of a character with an infinity-shaped hat and the scrawled moniker, "Bozo Texino"-- a drawing seen on railcars for over 80 years.  Daniel's gritty black and white film uncovers a secret society and it's underground universe of hobo and railworker graffiti, and includes interviews with legendary boxcar artists, Coaltrain, Herby, Colossus of Roads, and The Rambler.  Shooting over a 16-year period, Daniel rode freights across the West carrying a Super-8 sound camera and a 16mm Bolex. During his quest he discovered the roots of a folkloric tradition that has gone mostly unnoticed for a century. Taking inspiration from Beat artists Robert Frank and Jack Kerouac, the film functions as both a sub-cultural documentary and a stylized fable on wanderlust and outsider identity. "I was drawn to the subject by the universal graffiti impulse and the classic, corny notion of freight train blues escape." -BD

12. – 26. Januar 2018,  jew. an den Wochenenden Unter dem Titel "Bügelfeuer" startet am 12. Januar auf dem Gelände des ehemaligen Güterbahnhofs Bremen eine zweiwöchige Veranstaltungsreihe. An drei Wochenenden beleuchtet sie unterschiedliche Szenen, die ihr gemeinsames Interesse für den Eisenbahnverkehr verbindet. Dieses Interesse geht über die reine Benutzung als Beförderungsmittel weit hinaus. Die dokumentarische Ausstellung mit begleitenden Vorträgen versucht diese Szenen zusammenbringen und ihre Schnittmengen und Ausdrucksformen in den Fokus stellen.

In early December I got word of a photo shoot I had the opportunity to work on in Shanghai. I had never been to Asia before, so I asked for them to fly me home out of Tokyo. I especially wanted to visit the city of Fukuoka, Japan on the invitation of my friend Honda. He runs a zine and, in his words, a "skate support center" called PFK - Pure Fun Keep. We had corresponded over email for a few years - my friend Pat had met him in Bolivia, and my other friend Mike actually visited his strange, lost-boys style jungle concrete wonderland. It had a certain mystery to it, and was something that I just had to see in person.

The entire place was built by basically a 3-man crew. Pool skating doesn't really exist in Japan, but they were determined to learn how to do it, so they had to build it themselves. I shot a bunch of super8 film and interviewed Honda for a short I’m getting ready to make about my experience there. 

Honda organized an event he named TREND KILL, where his band (Hurricane Grind) played a score to my super8 footage from Arizona. On my first night in Japan, I met with the band and we made a quick and dirty recording of their set from which I was able to edit my film. They rented a rehearsal studio for the night, where we hung a quick photo show, the band played a quick set, and we screened my film.

This was my first time screening a film in public. I had only brought my hard drive to Japan, so I borrowed a computer and set to work chopping up super8 to sync up with the rehearsal takes from the band. When the film screening / live show actually started, and I was in a dark room full of strangers being moved by the combination of the band's music and my film, it really was a profound experience for me, one that cemented my commitment as an artist. 

I was so energized by doing this kind of spontaneous event that I hit up everyone I knew about doing a show in Tokyo. They all laughed (politely) at my request, saying it was basically impossible to come up with a space on 3 days notice. 

The next morning I flew into Tokyo, took a few hours of public transportation and landed at my apartment around 5pm. When I turned on my phone I got an email from my print exchange friend Takeshi saying that he had come up with a space for a 1-night show, but they were only free tomorrow. Did I want it? I was seriously so exhausted; I could have easily relaxed and just been a tourist for a few days. But after counting out 2 full seconds of deliberation, I emailed him back and said yeah! I figured if I wanted to do a show on 24 hours notice, in a giant city that I had never been to, and didn't really know anybody in, the first order of business was to make a flyer. I sent that to every single person I could possibly think of and, thanks to THEM, i got the word out. (Thanks again everybody). 

Next I took a trip to Kinkos to actually make the prints for the exhibition. I ended up showing a preview of my book in progress, Freedom Club, which is 4 years of documentation of an unauthorized construction project in a vacant factory in New Jersey. 

The morning of, I made a last-minute flyer and spent the rest of the day promoting in person and on the internet. 6pm came and people actually started showing up! Even if 5 people had attended, I would have been psyched. We ended up having 50-75 people come through over the course of the night and I sold a ton of prints and zines. It was so much more than I could have possibly hoped for. 

@billdaniel its me liz remember at the tag conference i bought some prints and a dvd and u asked for my number and i was kinda like unhh what i think u were just doing it to do it but