Fuzz One [Hardcover]

Vincent Fedorchak (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 15, 2005

Description: FUZZ ONE is the staggering, outrageous, true story of a raucous and wholly unsupervised childhood in the Bronx of the 1970s. Through Vincent Fedorchak's hilarious deadpan narration of a wild existence wrought with adolescent braggadocio, we are taken on a rough journey through a deteriorating Bronx jungle-wonderland where property value was plummeting and kids ruled the streets. Whether executing a bizarre graffiti mission in another borough with all the insanity of a special ops soldier, fearlessly tracking down Satan-worshippers camped out in the old castles in Van Cortlandt Park, or being the first white boy inducted into the infamous Ebony Dukes street gang, Fedorchak never flinches. Filled with hundreds of never-before-published photos of graffiti art and Bronx cityscapes, as well as first-hand accounts of the exploits of legendary graffiti artists such as DONDI, BLADE, COMET, NOC 167, BOOTS 119, and others, FUZZ ONE is a guided tour of a heretofore uncharted Bronx underworld. This epic tale of youth gone awry fully captures an important era of cultural upheaval in New York City's history. It is set apart from other memoirs via the inclusion of more than 300 images, nearly all in color, that give the volume strong historical, anthropological, and cultural appeal.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Testify Books (May 15, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0972592016
• ISBN-13: 978-0972592017
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 7 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,057,555 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars the other side of the tracks, November 23, 2005

By 

Maria Reidelbach (Accord, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fuzz One (Hardcover)

Fabulous subway graffiti was one of the things that attracted me to New York City when I moved here in 1981. Even though early on I became acquainted with a few of the legends when I worked at a museum that exhibited their work, and lived next door to a writer for years, I never guessed at the danger, complexity and darkness of the world that they inhabit.

Vincent Fedorchak's stories are outrageous, yet his voice, a mixture of bravado and humility, has a candor that suggests that his words (most of them, anyway) must be true. Fuzz One's world is populated with a multy-culty cast of losers, crazies, kindly neighborhood people, sadistic gangs, and beloved fellow writers. His descriptions of them are by turns hilarious, moving, and deeply scary. How he remembered the hundreds of names that appear in the book while on a steady diet of pot and beer is a mystery. The profuse color photographs are invariably, well, fuzzy, an effect of the cheap small format snapshot cameras the writers used, and add to the pervasive 1970s ambience.

Fedorchak's adventures would make an amazing film, backdropped from beginning to end with the "fruity colors" that Fuzz One loved.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fuzz One and the Bronx Memory Lane, December 22, 2005

By 

Carolina Boy (Columbia, SC USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fuzz One (Hardcover)

Reading this book is quite an experience. For someone like myself who came of age in the South, this was an eye openening experience. Fuzz One gives us outsiders a chance to live in the Bronx during the wildness of the seventies, to tag along on his many dangerous graf adventures, and meet the strange characters who float in and out of his life without the danger of getting jumped or thrown in jail. This isn't just a book for graffiti writers, it is a book for anyone wanting to really learn what urban living is all about.

Some of the tales may seem unbelievable, but I wouldn't pass up a chance to drink a beer with the author while he spins his legendary street stories. And after you read this book, neither will you. Thank God the South is way behind the North.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars what happenzz next fuzz?, October 27, 2007

By 

James A. Pantano "jackthewhack" (beacon, new york United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Fuzz One (Hardcover)

fuzz one's a bronx childhood was an interesting book to read. there were moments when i found myself totally absorbed. the book at times can be humorous although not necessarily funny. if i did find myself laughing it was because i could not believe how similar my life was to his. i too came of age in the 70's and shared the same propensity for "mischief" as fuzz. reading this book really brought back memories of all the weirdos and misfits that i, and no doubt anyone that has spent more than five minutes involved in graffiti were likely to meet. the stoners, getovers, crazed war vets, all night park zombies, mobsters, bimbos, and of couse the "writers" themselves, the toys and the legends. life for me in bensonhurst brooklyn like fuzz's beloved bronx was similar to a three ring circus. like fuzz i lived with my mom, a single parent who absolutely hated the graff scene. i was frisked and patted down whenever i tried to leave the house. parental beat-downs were a regular occurence and a hated ritual. the hallway in my buiding was so "bombed" you would never guess there was a mailbox there, and of course i denied having anything to do with it. i found myself relating to a lot of what fuzz was writing about but in a weird disconnected way, as if i were relating thirty years ago. some reviewers doubted the validity of fuzz's adventures but i dont doubt it at all. i wasnt nearly as prolific as this guy was and i have countless stories similar to what youll find in this book. if the guy rememebers exactly what he had for breakfast that morning and dinner that night, its probably because he kept a diary. besides what writer doesnt create and then believe his own hype? the thing i did not like about the book was the way it abruptly ended. you get the life story till 1979 and thats pretty much it. when i reached the end of the story i wanted to know what happened to this guy after that because it seemed that fuzz was headed toward a very uncertain future. i have read other graff books where the "writer" at some point seems to have a degree of life success. fuzz's whole career seems to be of mis-steps and calamity. he constantly gets hurt, gets beatings, gets taken advantage of and he repeats it all again! the only thing you know for sure is he wrote the book. other things i did not care for was the constant reference to bodily functions. once was more than enough and after a while i started thinking oh god not this again. although i never met fuzz i do remember seeing his handy work. i thought at the time any name with a z sounded cool and he had two z's. some of the photos in the book as other reviewers have pointed out are a little on the "fuzzy" side. the book itself is hardcover with good paper quality. three stars for leaving me hanging fuzz.