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D.C. Graffiti Artist Cool 'Disco' Dan Has Died
D.C. Graffiti Artist Cool 'Disco' Dan Has Died
by Rachel Kurzius in News on Jul 28, 2017 2:34 pm
The man who tagged D.C. with the signature "Cool 'Disco' Dan" died this week. ... His name was Danny Hogg, but he was known by his go-go-lettered tag—Cool "Disco" Dan—which was visible on just about any surface throughout the District in the late 80s and early 90s. ... Hogg died on July 26 of complications from diabetes, according to Roger Gastman, Joseph Pattisall, and Caleb Neelon, who all collaborated over the course of a decade to make the documentary film The Legend of “Cool” Disco Dan. He was 47 years old.
"Like most people in the Washington D.C. area, we knew Cool 'Disco' Dan’s mythic graffiti signature before coming to know him as a person. We were teenagers in the early 1990s and this name was everywhere. His signature really was mythic, because in our circles, tall tales abounded about the Dan behind the name," Gastman, Pattisall, and Neelon write in a statement.
"Dan fascinated us more and more, year by year, we realized that this was one of the rarest of people: a person who embodied Washington, the real Washington, not the federal Washington, but the one where people live, love, grow, and die. He was Washington, D.C.—ask anyone who knows," they write.
According to a Washington Post profile that revealed the identity of the "urban phantom" in 1991, Hogg grew up in Southeast D.C. and began his foray as a graffiti artist when he was 16.
....
by Rachel Kurzius in News on Jul 28, 2017 2:34 pm
The man who tagged D.C. with the signature "Cool 'Disco' Dan" died this week. ... His name was Danny Hogg, but he was known by his go-go-lettered tag—Cool "Disco" Dan—which was visible on just about any surface throughout the District in the late 80s and early 90s. ... Hogg died on July 26 of complications from diabetes, according to Roger Gastman, Joseph Pattisall, and Caleb Neelon, who all collaborated over the course of a decade to make the documentary film The Legend of “Cool” Disco Dan. He was 47 years old.
"Like most people in the Washington D.C. area, we knew Cool 'Disco' Dan’s mythic graffiti signature before coming to know him as a person. We were teenagers in the early 1990s and this name was everywhere. His signature really was mythic, because in our circles, tall tales abounded about the Dan behind the name," Gastman, Pattisall, and Neelon write in a statement.
"Dan fascinated us more and more, year by year, we realized that this was one of the rarest of people: a person who embodied Washington, the real Washington, not the federal Washington, but the one where people live, love, grow, and die. He was Washington, D.C.—ask anyone who knows," they write.
According to a Washington Post profile that revealed the identity of the "urban phantom" in 1991, Hogg grew up in Southeast D.C. and began his foray as a graffiti artist when he was 16.
....
I think there was something on TV about the guy the other night, but I didn't see it. The Legend of “Cool” Disco Dan, I guess.
If you've been around DC for a while, you know who this is. You probably also remember when the bicycle messenger (young'uns, ask your parents) got stopped at the DOJ while wearing a t-shirt that said "Experts agree: Meese is a pig."
Ah, good times.
