Visual Noise: Walls Talk - Bearded Prof

Bearded Prof – The Man Connecting Toronto's Street Art Community

On Episode 12 of Visual Noise: Walls Talk, hosts TRP613 and Urban Ninja sit down with one of Toronto's biggest champions of street art—Bearded Prof, also known as Alex Sein (BeardedProf416).

While many people know him as a walking encyclopedia of Toronto's murals, graffiti, stickers, and hidden urban gems, Bearded Prof has carved out a unique place in the scene by doing something few others have thought of. Instead of putting his own art on the streets, he invites artists from around the world to create portraits of him in their own distinctive style. The result is an incredible collection that celebrates the individuality of each artist while building genuine connections throughout the global street art community.

Beyond the collection, Bearded Prof is an educator, storyteller, researcher, and one of Toronto's most passionate street art tour guides. Through his walking tours, he helps people discover the layers of the city that most pass by without ever noticing. From giant murals to tiny stickers hidden on utility boxes, he explains how public art shapes our experience of Toronto and creates connections between neighbourhoods and the people who live in them.

In this episode, we explore how his love of urban art evolved into a mission to document and share the culture. We discuss Toronto's ever-changing street art scene, why stickers deserve as much attention as large-scale murals, how social media has transformed the community, and the importance of preserving the stories behind the artwork before they disappear under the next layer of paint.

We also dive into some of his favourite hidden pieces around the city, what makes a great street art tour, and how collecting portraits from artists has become an unexpected way to celebrate creativity and build friendships across the globe.

Whether you're a lifelong graffiti fan, an urban explorer, or someone who simply wants to see Toronto through a different lens, this conversation will leave you looking at every wall, sticker, and alleyway a little differently.

Join TRP613, Urban Ninja, and Bearded Prof for an episode about community, storytelling, and discovering the hidden layers that make Toronto one of Canada's most vibrant street art cities.

Visual Noise: Walls Talk — where the walls have stories, and the artists get to tell them.

Music credit:

“Funk Groove Music” by Alex Gus via Pixabay

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:08

What's up everyone? Welcome to our podcast Visual Noise Walls Talk Ninja and Trip here. What's up, Ninja? Yo, yo, what's up, man? How you doing, man? I'm doing fine. Yeah, yeah, how's the weather there? It's actually really nice. Yeah. In case you're not, if you're listening to this and you're not Canadian, um, basically Canadians always talk about weather because it's so fucked up uh here. Like, you know, two days ago it fucking hailed. And then on, I think on Monday, which is like in a couple days, it's supposed to be 38 degrees. So, you know, Canada weather is fucked. So that's, you know, just a just a shadow of Canada weather. In our podcast, we interview street artists, we talk about art. Welcome to the show. Today we have a very special guest from Toronto, the bearded professor. Or bearded prof. What's up, bearded prof?

SPEAKER_00 0:58

What's happening, everybody?

SPEAKER_02 1:00

Good, chilling, chilling, enjoying the weather, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

That's right, that's right. Yeah, you're talking about the weather. It's uh this is the only place where I know that a weather can change a degree per hour.

SPEAKER_02 1:13

You could wake up and it's like minus two, and by lunch it's plus 20.

SPEAKER_00 1:19

Like I I've seen it drop by you know 24 degrees in 24 hours, yeah. And I've seen it go up by 24 degrees in 24 hours.

SPEAKER_02 1:27

Yeah, it's it's wild. It's you know, and and I'm it's even crazier for me. Like you guys at least have that lake effect in Toronto. Ottawa is like the coldest capital in the world.

SPEAKER_00 1:38

Oh, the the the valley, man, it's yeah, it it's it sucks the joy out of you sometimes. It sure does. I I spent two years uh in Ottawa, actually.

SPEAKER_02 1:47

That's right, you went to Algonquin. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

I was I was an Algonquin grad, I was in Pembroke, uh Pembroke, Ontario. I know how that feels in the capital.

SPEAKER_02 1:57

Yeah, the valley, what he's talking about is like Ottawa's in this like bowl, you know, and the weather comes in and it just kind of sits in this bowl and fucks you.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

Over and over and over and over again.

SPEAKER_02 2:09

Multiple, multiple fuckings. Um all angles. Yeah. Can you tell everybody a little bit about yourself, where you're from, what you do?

SPEAKER_00 2:19

Jesus, where do I stop? How much time you got? Uh these these are short episodes, right? Um, so I uh I live in Toronto right now. Oh, I've been in here since 1996. Uh, you know, away for a couple years here and there, working in different places, um, you know, going to Algonquin. Uh I spent a couple years uh out in the valley. But right now I have uh my life's kind of split between three different major parts. Uh, part number one is I work in academia, post-secondary education, mostly in colleges. I'm on the admin slash faculty side, and at the same time, I'm also teaching part-time courses. Part number two is I am a professional tourist guide. I've been leading tourists for 18 years of my life right now. And then part three is I'm a dad who's trying to keep his head above water and uh making sure that I can raise a kid who's not an asshole.

SPEAKER_02 3:19

Yes, we hear that. Goal number one, not have shitty kids. Yeah, yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 3:25

It's a big goal. It's a big goal.

SPEAKER_02 3:27

Yeah, well, I mean, I'm a I'm a teacher and uh I see a lot of shitty kids, you know. I see a lot of great kids too, you know. Shout out those good kids, you know who you are. But those shitty kids also shout out you, you know who you are.

SPEAKER_00 3:39

Well, listen, it's I I found something, you know, over the years kind of being back and forth and you know, graduate school, I have a couple of degrees, I have a master's. Many I hear, especially with the older crowd, I hear them being upset about the new generation. Oh, they're lazy, oh, they're distracted, oh, they're this, oh, they're that. Honestly, shut up. You you haven't dealt with the crap that these kids are dealing with. And from what I see, honestly, the kids are gonna be okay. Yeah, you're always gonna get that 10-15 that is just crap. You're always gonna get that 10-15 that you don't have to worry about. They're the straight A students, they're the ones that show up in there, they're the ones who you should probably you remember their phone number uh because they're gonna do something for the next 10 to 15 years, right? And the rest, whatever, 70 to 80 percent is just trying to get them through so that they can figure out and get to whatever their life is.

SPEAKER_02 4:36

Yeah, I mean, I think for kids, like uh, you know, they've gone through their whole lives having computers, having cell phones, going through COVID. You know, I feel like us, you're in the same age category as Ninja and myself. You know, we grew up without phones and computers, and then we had those phones and computers. So we have we've seen the both worlds of like when we were kids, we had to like bike to our friend's house. And yeah, if they were there, and if they weren't there, you're like, fuck, I guess I'll go to another friend's house or I go home or go to the park, you know. Whereas kids nowadays, it's always on, on, on. They know everything.

SPEAKER_00 5:08

I knew where the payphones used to be. Like I had to figure out what my path was so that I could go draw by a payphone so I could call to see if my buddy was at home or not, right?

SPEAKER_02 5:16

Yeah, well, you had a pager, you know, it was a lot of pages, which were so dumb, but so awesome.

SPEAKER_00 5:21

Because like still around, too, right? Yeah, wild. Pagers apparently is one of the most reliable wireless services. So if you go to like high-end uh anywhere in the uh hospital sort of um medicine medicinal environment, they still use pagers still they always work because they always work, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:40

They're like a such a simple, practically analog, you know, not analog, but it's almost practical.

SPEAKER_01 5:46

Yeah, so you do these tours. Can you just elaborate on exactly what goes through with these tours?

SPEAKER_00 5:54

So I started doing tours by complete accident. I I was a volunteer with TF Toronto International Film Festival. They had an option, it's called a docent program. Whenever you see like a tour guide in a museum environment, they're usually fancier, they're called docents. Same shit, different pile. Uh, but they had a docent program where they needed somebody to talk to people about just like the festival history, the film history kind of in Toronto, you know, take people around, show them some spots. Uh and I jumped on top of that and just kind of never stopped since then. Throughout the years, it's it's a pretty small group of like tour guides, and especially the way that we operate and and different you know, applications, the different ways that our jobs are operated. Like I sit in the executive for tourist guide association of Toronto, for example, and I am the youngest one. Like our association is more than 100 people in Toronto right now, it's probably about 120 or so, and like the average age is about 68 or 69. And I bring that age down because a lot of them are retirees who don't need like a full-time sort of a job, right? We're in a seasonal environment here in Toronto and Canada, right? Like, if you want to be a tour guide, you need to be willing to get out of the city, which I did for years. Uh, but over the last maybe 10 to 12 years or so, I started focusing a lot more local, uh, you know, walkability, pedestrian level, right? Like touching things. I make a lot of my clients to come out, and whenever we talk, like we're gonna talk about this building and we're gonna come up and touch it, right? I tell people not to go to the CN Tower, but go to the bottom of the CN Tower and touch it. Because it's not very often you can touch a landmark if you think about it. Because like you can maybe go inside, you can maybe do things, but like, can you come up to it? And like Tron is very original in that sense. And then about uh, I guess what is it? What would we got 2026? So, yeah, about 14 years ago, 13 years ago, this whole Rick Mercer came up with uh you know, doing his Rick Mercer rants walking through the graffiti alley. Yeah, and there is and there's listen, there's there's a couple of tour guides, uh Jason Kucharavi, he's got a group here, tour guys, uh, and his idea was why don't we approach talking about graffiti tours? And he's been like, we've all been on a graffiti tours before. Like, you know, we've been to the Museum of Graffiti in Miami, I I've been through London, I've been through Bristol. The approach in Toronto we took it was a little bit different. We wanted to look at it from more of that anthropological sort of cultural perspective, right? Where we're not just showing, okay, though, this dude this did this, right? But also, like, why did they do it this way? Why is it here? Right? What's the you know, what's the point, right? Like, well, why do people continue to spending their time risking something or whatever dangerous environments and also spending their money, right? Like spending their money doing this and leaving something up. So, yeah, I started doing you know tours around graffiti uh alley about 10, 12 years ago, give or take. And then since then it just kind of developed because I'm in the alley all the time. I I ended up becoming part of the alley in a lot of ways. It's become, you know, it's become a third place in a sense, right? Yeah, whenever even even if I'm going home or I'm passing by, like I'm always like, I'm the dude who or I'm gonna ride my motorcycle through the alley, right? Like I'm gonna ride my bike through the alley, or I'm gonna walk through the alley and see, you know, what's going on, if I'm saying hi to anybody or not, not right. Um, so yeah, it's and you know, this is kind of how I ended up in here to the point where I recently did a master's of digital media, and my master's was very much deeply connected in this pedestrian walkability social environment and connection for the community and through social media too. Because like I wouldn't know any of you if it wasn't for Instagram, right? Like I wouldn't, I want to know what the process was, what the tagging environment is, and that's like a big portion of what I've been looking at for the last two years now. Okay, it's just been kind of developing and growing even further.

SPEAKER_02 9:56

So um, let's say you come across a ninja piece it or one of my sailor dues, what do you tell the people? It's it's all about just a couple dirt bags, uh just like these fucking dirt bags, these these freaking vandals, I swear to God.

SPEAKER_00 10:15

No, listen, I I I often what I tell people is it's about sharing a moment in space and time. It's about that community board that's saying hi. Uh my thesis was called slapped, tagged, and shared. Right? You see a sticker, you you know, you slap another one beside it to say hi, right? You take a picture of it, you host it, and you share it on social media and you tag the people that are in that picture, right? Uh and that yes, that gives you sort of a way to reach out and get to different crowds and maybe grow your social media presence. But also it's saying hi. And it's I I think the first time I ever felt that I was any sort of part of a community is when uh I think it was Ninja who who you know took a picture or he he saw a sticker of me and he posted his and he tagged. And I was like, I even remember the message I was like, oh, I didn't draw this, like this is not like my art. Do you know what I mean? Like it's me, like it's my representation of me, but it's not really my art. And I remember a response from Ninja's like, yeah, but you're hanging around all the time.

SPEAKER_01 11:25

It's like you get it. Yeah, you're like in the thick of it, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Okay, so I guess the audience should know that basically you do go around putting stickers up.

SPEAKER_00 11:36

Hundreds. Yeah, sometimes, sometimes it's hold on, hold on. Do I have I have a back pocket that's specifically meant for like all the leftovers, right? And I don't empty that back pocket very often. And of course, if you go into it, like like look, I I probably have one, two, how many? So these are all the stickers that I've stuck probably in the last just three, four days. It's just just walking around, handful of blanks, handful of blanks.

SPEAKER_01 12:03

I I do want the audience to know that what you do put up is basically a drawing of you. It's a portrait of you pointing, usually, or just walking.

SPEAKER_00 12:15

Usually pointing, right? Because that's kind of what I do, right? Like as a tool guide, you point a whole bunch of things, right? Like you point here, point there. So yeah, it's it's a drawing of me. Uh, you know, it's it's usually done with a different style of whoever the artists are. You know, uh Tribb's done one of me. Uh Ninja, you still yet to draw me like one of your girls. That's okay. Uh it's I I I like pointing that out because it's nice. Uh it makes you squirm a little. But you know, these are also like I I want to be able to work with the person, like they're commissioned pieces. Some people drew me without necessarily asking for money. And you know, like I'm I'm either gonna give you some money or I'm at minimum gonna take you out for lunch or dinner or a couple of drinks, right? Uh, or maybe you know, we'll smoke a doober cigar somewhere, right? Like, I want that to be a reciprocal sort of an environment. I had an artist come on my tour and she saw the stickers and she's like, okay, this is awesome. I I want to draw you, but like I don't draw. And I'm like, well, what do you do? And she's like, I do felting. So I'm like, oh, cool. Can you like felt a patch of me? And she did. So she felt it a patch of me. I made him to a sticker. It's usually the circular ones that I love putting in construction signs. Uh, you know, that that head for the construction just works beautifully. Um, but uh, but yeah, she felted a patch of me, right? And it all kind of worked out and fit right in. Most of my stickers are pointing at something or pointing at someone, and then depending, you know, what the artist's interpretation is, like I had a gentleman come on my tour. Uh, he's a he's usually a sketch artist. He spent years in architecture design, uh, all that type of deal, very deeply involved in a like sketch artist community, hangs out with a Toronto sketch artist, like travels the world and does this. And he came on my tour maybe three times. So the dude's probably heard me talk for like six or seven hours. So I have no idea how he kept coming back. But the last time he comes back and he gives me this drawing, and I didn't even know that he was a sketcher, too. Uh it took me like a second, and he gives me this drawing, and and it's a drawing of me in a very dramatic way. It's when I talk, I talk with my hands a lot, right? Uh, and and he called me puppeteer of human emotion, uh, where I tend to like grab people's emotion and like hold on to it and like grab what it. So, yeah, that one, you know, that sticker of me is a little bit more dramatic rather than pointing somewhere, right?

SPEAKER_02 14:29

I I remember when we did our collab, you're like, oh, like make them pointing, and my guy's arms are so long and weird, and I was like, I can't do it.

SPEAKER_00 14:38

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:39

And it's fine, and it's he's like a fucking gorilla, you know?

SPEAKER_00 14:42

Yeah, it's fine, exactly. And it works out perfectly fine. He's got that gorilla vibe to it, right? Yeah, it's fantastic.

SPEAKER_02 14:48

If your art had a soundtrack, what song would be blasting?

SPEAKER_00 14:55

So I I'm a big rage against the machine fan. Okay, it's it's the hard generally heavy metal, like anything that's sort of like hard and scowing, right? If you're if you're looking at that, it'll be some some some heavy metal in the background, some rage. It's just me running through and just slapping it everywhere, right? That's that's simple. We're we're we're sticking to that.

SPEAKER_01 15:20

So I I guess like you know, you are surrounded by people all the time, and I guess you don't really care. When you're putting stickers up, you you don't seem to be phased by anyone around you. You you seem comfortable doing that, correct?

SPEAKER_00 15:34

Well, here's the thing. I I am I am optimistically cautious. Uh first of all, done some research. Stickers are not vandalism, stickers are littering because it's not considered to be permanent. Okay. Because they're not permanent, all of a sudden it's littering, it's getting into a different bylaw, and it's uh I think it's a $60 ticket if it does get enforced, right? Which is once again, like there's a difference between okay, well, there's a sticker of me, right? Did you see me stick it on? Like, if if you didn't catch me red-handed, good luck proving it. Uh, I spent uh about 10 years of my life in security. Uh I worked with a lot of former police officers, a lot of former cops, and I watched a lot of footage before. I've watched a lot of people who have been caught on video, and it doesn't go anywhere unless somebody wants it to go somewhere. Really? So, oh yeah. It's like sometimes you can have a face right there. Or if you don't, like what if you have a hoodie? What if you have some like people think that there is that facial description software that is just scanning happening over there? Even with AI, it doesn't work like that. Like, okay, we're not we're not sophisticated enough. And also, let's think about it, to be honest, who really wants to care about some slappers, right? At the end of the day, if if anything, there is a lot more menacing coming out from the commercial postering, right? You know, somebody uh covering up signs, somebody covering up polls, right? And not necessarily from somebody who's looking for other people to join, who's in behind of a road sign, right? So yeah, I don't I don't have that sort of a fear of being discovered. And also one of the reasons too is you know, my stickers is my business card, like it's it's my brand, right? Where at the end of the day, if anybody comes in, it's like, what are you doing? I'm just promoting myself and marketing. I advertise, like this is it's literally advertising, right?

SPEAKER_02 17:36

Or it's art, you know, that's what I tell people.

SPEAKER_00 17:38

It's just it's art, right?

SPEAKER_02 17:40

I'm not even advertising anything, don't fucking buy anything, just look at it, or don't fucking look at it.

SPEAKER_00 17:44

Exactly, right? And and this is and this is kind of what brings me to the point, too, is is I I got through the environment where where like I don't have a problem sticking somewhere in front of somebody, right? I have certain rules that I follow, and and they a lot of them you know have that ethical implication, but also it gives me confidence to be able to stand out for myself and you know talk it out if anybody comes and does challenge me in one way or another, right?

SPEAKER_02 18:09

Yeah, yeah, I I like that. What is your favorite type of surface to work on? Um metal, glass, wood, butt cheeks, you know, that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_00 18:22

So uh Ninja knows this, but it's we all know it's all about finding that spot that you can call your own, right? It's all about just having this place where like you you know you're always gonna be there. And and like I've done some research on autographers and taggers, right? You know, tacky 183 with his subway uh Raul, uh what was it, uh 214? Um, I forgot what the what the numbers are, but he he used to do the bottom of the lampposts, right? So the bottom of the lamppost was always like his. It was his thing, right? So one of the things I've been looking at is like, where is the like what's the place that I can take over? It's the antennas on top of the electrical boxes. They're about two and a half, three inches tall. Uh-huh. And it's that perfect plastic surface to which it's takes so good. Where like it it doesn't like they don't paint the antennas. Is it round? Is it round? So it's like it's got a weird shape. It's got weird shapes, it's slightly rounded, but it does have like sort of like a stand on it, which fits perfectly in this like two by two inch sort of an environment. So it's perfect for like a nice small sticker, right? Like something, something that's kind of like this size, right? Yeah, yeah. And because my stickers are all like it's literally a dude that's pointing somewhere, it's nicely visible from the back. Like you don't need to really know to see, like, oh, it's a dude on top of that antenna, right? So I started slapping it on top of the antennas, and I gotta say, it's the only place in like downtown in a financial district Toronto where they don't get removed, right? Like I have some stickers on like Bay and King that have been there for years. And I don't know it's because like, you know, nobody's taken ownership of that antenna specifically, or they're not seen or whatever that is, but like that's I I specifically have small stickers that I carry with me all the time. And every time I see an antenna somewhere in a corner, I slap it on that antenna. So yeah, that surface has really become, and it's not like once again, it's not really you know, it's not wood, or it's plastic, right? Uh, but it's you know, it's the space of it, right?

SPEAKER_02 20:24

Well, I like how specific it is, you know. I would just be like metal, I like hitting metal, you know. I don't really have a super specific, you know, antenna on top of a box, and yeah, that's great. I love it. I love it.

unknown 20:38

Thanks, man.

SPEAKER_01 20:39

How do you define success as a street artist?

SPEAKER_00 20:43

Uh well, first of all, I'm not an artist, right? Uh one of the biggest things and one of the things that I'm gonna tell everybody, and I always it's one of the introductions that I do in a in a community. Like, I'm a non-artist. This is the way that I position myself, this is the way that I want to be. I honestly have the biggest respect for the artist because how you guys handle uncertainty. I can't do that. Like, I cannot do that, and also like I don't see myself as a creative, I see myself and I still struggle with that because you know, there's this truly understanding that everybody's creative, and I talked to a lot of creatives, but I feel like often I just steal other creative things or or like borrow them and I use them. But don't all great artists do that? Well, I guess, right? At least start that way. Uh, but listen, I never had plans, like I don't plan to draw, I don't plan to like learn illustrator, I don't doodle usually, you know, instead of doodling, like I I sit around and I watch people and I and I talk to people. Like uh, you know, my my boredom is I'm gonna go and I'm gonna talk to a stranger. So my my approach has always been a little bit different. So uh I never wanted to be an artist, right? Uh, but I always respected the environment, right? I always loved the community. I Understand it. Like I I get the point. And I always had the ability to look at things from different perspectives, right? For me, success in what I do is honestly, and it's gonna happen. But I want an artist to just draw me and then send me that drawing in an Instagram post and say, Oh, here, by the way, I wanna join a club, right? There's there's 14, 15 different versions of me right now uh from 14 different artists. Some of them are professionals, some of them are just doodlers, right?

SPEAKER_02 22:38

Exactly, right?

SPEAKER_00 22:39

Ninja, get get get it done. Um I'll get it. You know, you know, what one uh one of them is my kid who like drew like a little weird skinny version of me, which looks horrible, but I still made a sticker out of it, you know. It still exists in the zeitgeist of that environment, right? Uh, because my approach to this is very different. Uh and and I think what success would look like for me is A to be recognized, so you know that whole environment of getting up, right? And people understanding where you're coming from. Um, but also from other people noticing, right? Uh one of the coolest experiences I've ever had is there's a shtick that I do, right? Because I'm a tour guide, I walk around. And usually what I do is when I stop, is there would be a sticker of me somewhere. And sometimes I stop in such a spot that it'll be like a sticker of me literally right here. So I would walk around with people and like for the first, you know, three, four, five stops, I'll stop beside stickers, but I won't talk about it until we get to like the stop number six. And I'll be like, by the way, there's a sticker of me. And by the way, it has been at every single stop. You just didn't pay attention, right? Um, so and I do this all the time, like it's all fine, it's all great. Once, only once have I been on a tour where we walk out and it's the first stop, and I'm stopping right there, and there's like six seven or eight people, like a solid amount of people. And one of the dudes is just looking there, looking at like, is that a sticker of you? And he just like clocked it right in seconds. He's like, That's a sticker of you, isn't it? And I'm like, How did you? He's like, he's like, I know that it's you, I can see the everything, the whole deal. So like I had to give him up, you know, six stops before we had that conversation. And I remember that feeling where it's like that is that's that's a vibe, okay? You know, that that recognition is is kind of cool, which for me, you know, it adds to a lot of what my brand is, right? You know, I'm a person.

SPEAKER_01 24:31

Well, it's true. But like I remember we were just hanging out, and then someone just goes, Oh my god, you know, like they recognized you, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 24:38

You also have a very unique look, you know, you got a big old beard. Um how much money would I have to pay you to shave your beard off right now?

SPEAKER_00 24:46

Oh fuck. That's a good question. So there is there's always a very small, deep, dark space in my heart which yearns money. Okay. Uh I I am a bachelor of commerce.

SPEAKER_02 24:57

Fucking capitalist pig. Oh, 100%.

SPEAKER_00 24:59

It's I'm not gonna say that there is no money, but there's definitely money. Uh, but it'll uh you know it'll it'll probably be in uh it'll have to be five figures.

SPEAKER_02 25:08

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_00 25:10

All right, so like if you're you know what, if you if you hit in 10k, I I probably say yes.

SPEAKER_02 25:16

Okay, okay, yeah, that's that's good, that's acceptable. Okay, I like it. Um if you could collaborate with any artist alive or dead that would draw you as however they would draw it, who would you want?

SPEAKER_00 25:33

Beef Herring. Nice, oh yeah, yeah. It's the dudes, it's the simplicity, it's his idea and his approach to how prolific he was. Yeah, and the reasoning behind what he did, what he did, right? There was there's a little bit of an obsession there, right? And like I think all of us kind of have a little bit of that, right?

SPEAKER_02 25:52

Yeah, uh it's a problem, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:55

Exactly, right? Like, and even me, like I'm not an artist, and I still have a little bit of that uh obsession that happens within the environment. Uh so yeah, I everything that I've seen with Keith Herring, uh, I I love once again that simplicity and the fact that you know that it's Keith Herring too. Like you know that it is just because of the lineage, just because of this uh almost um what's the word I'm looking for?

SPEAKER_02 26:18

Simplistic. Are there any herring in Toronto?

SPEAKER_00 26:22

I don't think so. No, no, not no, not that I've heard of. Uh listen, but Bosquiad's another one with with like the maximalism and all that's kind of in there in that environment. But Keith Heron's the first one that I would I would love Keith Heron to draw me pointing at some shit, probably with a big penis or something. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 26:40

A date going through your head, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:43

Share, I'm down, let's do this.

SPEAKER_01 26:44

Yeah, how has the street art scene changed over the years?

SPEAKER_00 26:50

Ooh, so first of all, it became a lot more mainstream, right? Even right now, when we started doing graffiti tours 10, 12 years ago, it was still very much off the beaten path, right? Right now, I get into the alley, it's one of the top five most visited tourist destinations, maybe even the top three most visited tourist destinations. Graffiti alley is graffiti alley.

SPEAKER_02 27:14

That's amazing. Wow, it is amazing.

SPEAKER_00 27:17

It is it's a constant walk through of people happening and walking into this free graffiti environment. It's not just like tours, but it's like people knowing about the alley and just walking through, right? And many of the ones who are coming down who have done anything in a public arts scene who knows anything about graphers, they'll always come to the alley, right? And most of the time they're leaving something of themselves, right? If they have time, they can, you know, maybe even a wild style, right? Or somebody passing by and just slapping a sticker somewhere, right? Or somebody who, uh oh my god, with a beaver, uh, take the topo.

SPEAKER_01 27:52

Uh oh, topo, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 27:54

Yeah, topo.

SPEAKER_01 27:55

Yeah, he yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:57

What what did you bring? Like a thousand stickers in here? Oh yeah. And like went over a week, spread them all over. Oh, yeah. And like there are still some stickers that are hanging around. Yeah, man.

SPEAKER_01 28:07

He's so happy to see that. Every time I show him, he loves it.

SPEAKER_00 28:10

It's fantastic, it's fantastic. Like, it's remember, it's all about that time longevity, right? How many more eyes are gonna see, right? Where we're all it's funny because many people don't understand that graphers have been part of the attention economy for a lot longer than the words attention economy existed, right?

SPEAKER_02 28:26

If somebody made an action figure of you, right? And you know these action figures that they have the action figure, and then there's these like packs of things that come with it. What would come with your action figure? The accessories.

SPEAKER_00 28:40

Oh, it's gotta be a tumbler coffee mug, okay? Because I don't think I go anywhere without it. It's it doesn't always have coffee, by the way, but don't tell anybody. Uh sometimes it's water. Uh sometimes vodka flavored water, yeah, yeah. Sometimes it's sometimes it's Japanese whiskey. But yeah, it's uh so a coffee mug, a tumbler of some sort. Uh, I have a couple of these. Sometimes I lose them, sometimes I redo them. And it's been kind of fun too, because like whenever I lose it, or like you know, the lid gets broken, I get a new one. I'm like, oh, cool. So now I gotta figure out what kind of other stickers I'm gonna put around it, right? So yeah, it's that will come for sure. I mean, my glasses, because they don't freaking go anywhere. Uh, I think the beard needs to go separately. So it's like an accessory that comes with everything, right?

SPEAKER_02 29:27

I don't think so. I don't think I think it's a mystery what's under there, you know? It's like shy guy. No, we don't know what's under there, man.

SPEAKER_00 29:33

You never know. It's like he's like, come look closer. So, so yeah, definitely a coffee mug, a jean jacket or like a motorcycle jacket of some sort. Uh, I I do spend a lot of like I put a lot of miles in a motorcycle. And one of the reasons too is lots of motorcyclists, especially in Canada, you know, in this four-season environment, they're like trips, you know, let's go across Canada into BC or something. Nah, man, I'm doing little 10-click trips because I can park for free in downtown Toronto, okay? That's that's what I'm doing, right? And I still end up putting, you know, 15,000 kilometers on my motorcycle every single year. Uh, so yeah, it'll probably be me, me, you know, in a motorcycle patch jacket, uh, all raggedy, but you know, used in that sense. Uh a coffee mug.

SPEAKER_01 30:19

Uh what about your slapstick?

SPEAKER_00 30:21

Uh so I don't carry the stick around very often. No, no, no. There's definitely a zip plug with stickers, yeah. Right? So but yeah, believe it or not, I don't actually carry the uh like the stick because I don't have like the little foldable one. It doesn't fit well. I still haven't figured out what's yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:41

That's the interesting thing about winter is that I have a jacket and I can you know carry it. I don't, you know, in the summer it's a lot harder to have that and you know a million different stickers. I always do because I'm a psycho, but it's exactly listen, and it's it's nothing.

SPEAKER_00 30:56

I I gotta tell you a start. I told Ninja a story. Uh there's uh we we have a sculptor in Toronto, Rocky, Dobie. He does those little metal sculptures, right? Yeah, that are all in the public area, all over the place, you know, been doing it since the freaking 80s, the dude's a legend. And uh I accidentally just ran into him. We were on another tour around Parkdale art, and me and him were like the followers weren't leading the tour, we're just kind of walking around, and we were in a back, we're just kind of hanging around, and I can see him going into his pocket. You know how we all have like a zip log with stickers? He goes into his pocket and takes out like a like a stack of metal plates, and then all like he can go and like put him somewhere where he's walking around. This is hilarious. Yeah, we're all crazy in that way.

SPEAKER_02 31:39

That's awesome. Any last words to leave the listeners with? Any advice, any wisdom from a professor with a beard?

SPEAKER_00 31:49

Listen, I'm not just a prof, right? You know, I'm also a professional, I'm also very proficient, and sometimes I can be very profound. Um what I want people to do, and what my goal is in my classes, on my tours, whether you spend 45 hours with me or 90 minutes, I want people to pay attention. I want people to just look for a couple of extra seconds, especially in transitional spaces, especially when you're moving between your home, you know, your first place, and you're going to work or school, your second place, that third space, that transitional environment in between, take out your headphones, burst that digital bubble, right? Uh you know, look at that wall for an extra second, try to figure out what people are doing, look behind a road sign, and just pay attention because that's how you really feel that sense of belonging where you're at. That's how you build community.

SPEAKER_02 32:42

Pay attention. I agree, I agree. Oh, look around. I always tell people open your eyes, look around. You know, sometimes I'll meet people and they'll go, Oh, I think I've seen that sailor dude around, you know. And I said, Next time you go out, just look around, you know, and you'll see it. And then they're like, Oh shit, yeah, you're you're fucking weird. You got to do it. Secure. What's wrong with you? Like, yeah. Any uh thank you for that. Any last words, Ninja?

SPEAKER_01 33:08

Just uh slap high. Slap high or be high while slapping. Slap high, be high.

SPEAKER_02 33:19

Well, thanks so much for joining us today on the Visual Noise Walls Talk uh podcast. See you next time. Peace.