Issue Icons
Buz Blurr
By Darin RowlandPhoto By Martha Cooper
Icons, in essence, are symbols: people who singlehandedly represent a culture or idea larger than themselves. “Monikers” are not so different—icons all the same, but symbols that represent people, primarily those living and working on and along American railroads. A moniker, simply put, is a signature and simplistic line drawing designed for quick, repetitive application on boxcars—a representation of the artist’s presence. Often thought of as hobo drawings, monikers are primarily the work of railroad employees who express themselves on the sides of freight cars while they work. With the growing popularity of traditional graffiti and street art, this “boxcar art” has experienced a rebirth within America’s youth.
Arguably the most distinguished moniker belongs to a man named Buz Blurr, known on the rails as Colossus of Roads. Widely renowned for his accomplishments within the mail art network, Blurr’s iconic self-portrait has become the quintessential example of the moniker art form, as well as one of the most recognizable and wellrespected monikers. Though his drawings are widely known among many art circles, few actually know who he is.
“I come from a railroad family,” Buz explains. “My grandfather and father each had a 41-year career on the railroad. My dad took an officer’s position, so we moved all over the system. I got a job on the railroad. My dad got me hired on. It’s kind of like once you get hired out on the railroad you’re set for life. At that time it was a closed shop, unions and everything. So there I was in a dead-end job at a relatively young age.”
When first hired on, Blurr worked part-time during the summer and holidays, filling the gaps while full-time employees were on vacation. At the same time, he was attending a “local” university, 60 miles north of where he lived. So back and forth he went, cruising through Arkansas between school and his job on the railroad.
“When they were cranking up the Vietnam War in a big way, business picked up on the railroad, and of course they needed all of the guys that they hired. I was going to school, and they gave me the ultimatum to mark up and work full-time or they were going to fire me. They gave me the ultimatum, so I dropped out of school and marked up to make some money and figure what I wanted to do. Then I lost my student deferment and was classified 1A, and I had already been called up for my induction. So my girlfriend and I, we had been dating for over a year, so we kind of upped our wedding plans and got married. At that time, they weren’t taking married guys, and then they decided to take married guys in the draft. We had a child on the way, and they weren’t taking fathers. Then they were taking fathers with one child, and we had another one on the way. So as a draft dodger, I guess I fucked my way out of Vietnam.
“Since I didn’t go [to Vietnam], I settled into a dead-end position at a dead-end job at a young age. That was part of the isolation of the job, and the quandary of what to do was then part of the impotence for my starting to dispatch my alienation on the cars.”
When Buz started working on the railroad, he witnessed the moniker art form in its purest manifestation: sketches that had been drawn by hobos and rail workers over the course of decades. Although the practice is considered vandalism and is thus forbidden, during those years it had become commonplace, enough so that it became generally accepted by the railroad and the penalties were rarely enforced.
“The idea of a particular moniker being so prevalent in a network that you see it everyday, when you see a Herby everyday or you see The Rambler everyday, that was pretty impressive in the vast network of the railroad. So when I finally got on a job where I worked down amongst the cars, that’s when I started, and why I started doing it.”
Blurr started out with a crude drawing that, over time, morphed from a cartoon-like character into the rider motif he uses today. He began expanding on the traditional format and style, personalizing each drawing with thoughts and ideas that transformed every moniker into not only an iconic symbol but also a chronicle of his days on the job. Before long, the sketch was given a most fitting title: Colossus of Roads.
“Of course I was attracted to monikers by that constant icon and the signing and dating, but I got kind of bored with that. The date didn’t seem to aid me in recall of what was going on at the time, so I started doing brief anecdotes and titles, stuff like that. It was more of a memory nudge than a date.”
Along with the aesthetic appeal of his perfected sketch, Blurr’s personal reminders, perceived as cryptic messages and expressions, only heightened the relevance and impact of his moniker when they were read and interpreted by both workers and admirers of the railroad.
“It’s like putting out private thoughts into a public forum. There were some references to what was going on in our immediate area here, but it was still kind of a concrete poem, because no one outside of the immediate area would know the meaning. So I kept it in the form of a concrete poem or just a nonsense phrase. You know, it’s really a tyranny practice when people who attempt to figure out a meaning to some vague word combination try to describe being in my life or thought or whatever.”
Yet it’s these cryptic messages that, through subjective interpretation, give comfort to many of the disenfranchised youth seeking refuge in the secluded comfort of the American railroad, and to other wandering souls that find themselves along the railroad. Blurr might tell you that he’s the one who needs therapy, but for many of his devotees, his art is therapy.