Vinny Raffa
"Sticker Nerds Art Show" Photo by Jonathan Boys
IS VINNY RAFFA THE REAL WALDO?
by J.W. Boys
I was first introduced to Vinny Raffa through my friend Skam. When Skam was first starting out, he was making friends all over the world, and Vinny Raffa was a huge supporter of him from the East Coast. Over the years I’ve had the pleasure of working with Vinny Raffa on multiple projects, including a massive collaboration on an art installation I created called, “The Emerging Art Marketplace the 21st Century”.
Any search of Vinny Raffa on the Internet will net you thousands of results. If you do a search for Vinny Raffa and skateboarding, he will pop up in Wikipedia.org and he’s referred to as, “the East Coast godfather of skateboarding”. Throughout the years whether it be his skate tech company or his clothing lines, he has made a name for his own image based off of Shepard Fairey’s, “Obey Giant”. Along with spreading his name and his image, in reality passion has been kids, making sure that kids that don’t have access to skateboards can have them. He has been a huge advocate for the creation of skate parks at the city level, knowing that if a kid is skating with his friends, they are less likely to be out getting in trouble.
I was very excited to have the chance to call him recently and chat about his life’s accomplishments and what his goals are for the future. The following article is Vinny Raffa in his own words from our interview.
ON TECHNOLOGY:
"It’s good to hear that something’s happening you know what I mean. New technology now, I mean magazines can be uploaded off of the Internet. I remember when the Internet first started, and I said to myself you got a get yourself on the Internet because they’ll search you and they’ll find you, you know. So that’s what I did. I used to go on people’s message boards just to say, I’m Vinny Raffa, I’ve got a posse, just to know later on if you Google my name there I am on that message board. Five years ago this girl that works for Sony typed my name into Google, well not Google whatever the use back in those days, and a lot of shit popped up, and she was like “wow you’re all over the Internet, that’s impressive”. And I was just like yeah I’m just fucking around. But how do you make money out of all this you know, it’s like, will it ever happen, will we become millionaires overnight, that’s what everyone expects when they’re on the Internet and stuff. I love Instagram, it’s faster than Facebook because anyone can follow you. I have so many Saudi Arabian and Arab fans that are following me…you know it’s making the world smaller, you’re looking at pictures of their leaders and there art. And so the Arab guy is now talking to an Italian guy from New York City, and it’s like hey the Italian Catholics from New York ain’t bad, it’s those Jews from New York we got a worried about but then there like I am Jewish you know, it’s just like the worlds get in smaller. And everyone’s in entertainment now, you are on Facebook and I’m on Facebook and Mr. Say, and everyone is book and I’m on Facebook and Mr. Say, and everyone is a fucking entertainer make in videos and putting videos up and that’s the new TV. And how does the mainstream capture that new TV? Things change so fast these days I mean you can be hot, and then you’re not. Kodak film, my friends father is a vice president and they filed chapter, you know they’re out of business…They could’ve recruited another business like Instagram or something you know."
ON STEETART:
"The first Vinny Raffa face was actually drawn by The Figurehead Project. You know I tell people I’m cursed because I know so many artists from skateboarding and Facebook and stuff. Yes, I do a lot of my own art I cut out the stencils and spray-painted on windows and stuff like that, but I’m not saying I did that artwork a lot of my artwork that I push is not done by me. But, I am there to push it, I’m like fucking Thomas Edison and all that shit, you know? The collabs of been really cool lately you know, whenever I do a collaborative [it’s] more like, you know, you do your thing, so it’s like whatever you come up with that’s cool with me. And I collaborate with a lot of people out there you know. And then there’s Los Rudos from LA, we did a collab together, he’s been pushing stuff out all over southcentral [LA]. Mexico is a huge scene that for stickers by the way and their stickers are really really nice you know, they are thin I’ve never seen sticker stock like that before, they must use toxic inks or something because they come out great. Even in Canada there’s a lot a guys up there doing shit, the whole scene is huge right now, in my mind.
Street art is the type of art that shouldn’t have to be in museum where you get the paid a go in and see it. Art should be outside the museum where anybody can drive by and see it. I once typed in on my Facebook page, that I saw a road signs sell for $10,000 on eBay, and people started saying [they should] start stealing roadsigns, you know. They just get that out there when people are like ‘oh shit, his shit’s worth money now’. People are always like ‘I got some Shepard things in the drawer’, and I am always like tag them up you asshole. I always think sometimes I’m giving out stickers and T-shirts to the wrong people you know. You know it’s like, ‘I’m not agonna ware a picture of your face on my shirt’ and am like you should do this thousands the kids would die for this T-shirt right now, it’s just like, wear it, because when people do where it they get stopped and people were like, ‘who’s Vinny Raffa?’. And people are like, who is that guy, he’s everywhere and I’m like, don’t you have Google at home, what are you a fucking idiot? You know I meet graffiti heads that tell me, hey you inspired me to do graffiti, it gets the kids to do art. Express yourself. Everywhere I go I like to see myself, like on a pole, I’m everywhere, I’m overkill here, I’m at a point where I try to put up at least 100 a day you know. I do police events with skateboarders and stuff and the detectives are like ‘that’s the guy on every sign in Rockland County’, you know they all know me. And then you know I’m also in LA, and Orlando, in Texas and San Francisco. I feel sorry for the other taggers you know because they have to find postal things because, you know, they [don’t] all have money to make the stickers because it’s expensive, but then when they see vinyl. they’re like, he is huge. It just makes yourself so much more than having to spray-paint it onto something 3M. Even though I like that much better. I need to do a 3M commercial like me being at a 3M warehouse just like, drool coming out of my mouth and they are like, ‘Hey Vinny help yourself, for your art project. [And then it flashes to me] in there with drool coming out of my mouth. It’s like ever kid’s fantasy, here’s tractor trailer fill it up with free 3M products. And at the end of the commercial
it can say ‘hit up Vinny Raffa on Facebook and he’ll send you free 3M products’. I would be stormed on Facebook."
ON SHEPARD FAIREY:
"You know Shepard’s been great, I love Shepard I mean nothing for nothing he got me addicted to all the shit. I mean I always made stickers but when I went to visit him he gave me like 30,000 little stickers of all different Andre the Giants, posters, he got me autographs, you know he got me into it. You know I have been talking to him, and I don’t know if he’s thrilled about it or if he’s pissed. I know he is a real artist and I think he’s mad at me, to tell you the truth. It just enhances his stuff. I know this woman and she said, ‘I went to Shepard’s and they had this whole section of your stuff and I bought a shirt, it looked just like you.’ And I was like oh, that’s Andre the Giant."
ON AGE:
"I’m addicted to television, grown up when I was a kid we had like six channels to watch and you memorize everything I could sing the theme song from “Petticoat Junction”. We were tube heads, we were a product of the tube. I am 49 years old, I went on a date last night and the girl was like “how old are you”, she was 50, and I said I’m 49 and she’s like “oh my god you look 35”, and I go if you want I can be 25, I go you know if you want me to be 13 I will be 13, you know I’d shave my balls…you want me to be a chick, I’ll tuck my dick under so it looks like I have a vagina."
ON NEW PROJECTS:
"Next year is the 500th anniversary of Ponce de León coming to America to discover the fountain of youth, and the king and queen of Spain are going to come to Florida. There can have a big party and entertainment and they want me to bring the entertainment, so they want me to throw a skateboard contest down there, so I’ll definitely throw blast out there for the artists to submit art and stickers.Yeah things get thrown at me all the time, I’ve been sugarcoated so much I’m a diabetic now. People. I get people and they want to do a TV show, this and that and nothing ever happens. I’m the type a guy if I talk about it I do it, and they’re the type of people that talk about it and don’t do it. I meet people and they make fun of me, and then they try to do it and they’re like ‘oh my god, I tried to do this, how do you do this’, and I’m like I just do it."
ON SKATEBOARDS:
"This is how it all started, I opened up a booth in a flea market and I said customize jackets, I used to do satin jackets and I used to put “homeboy” and dollar signs, made out of really tight material to make it look like a Starter jacket. I would design my own jackets and I made jackets for rappers and people that wanted jackets made, I made T-shirts for bars. I went to Europe for six months after high school, and I ran into my cousin from Italy who lived in London, and he was like‘when you come back to London you can stay at our house’. So when I went to London and I stayed at their house and he was into all these T-shirts and I told him you know I can get you those for nine dollars a shirt, and he was like ‘you know they sell for $200 a shirt’, he said, ‘and you can get it for nine dollars’ and I was like yeah. So he gave me $5000 and I shipped all this Harley-Davidson T-shirts and shot jackets all to London and I decided that I was also printing up T-shirts for bands and clubs and was getting screwed for money. So I came up with the company “Skateboarders from Hell”, I got involved with several skate shops and Istarted put them up at Yankee Stadium to make money. And I went into the sports store that sold skateboards and I was looking at them, like there’s a really cool graphic and the guy said, “yeah and there’s T-shirts that go with them” and that’s when I totally got into skateboarding. I started organizing bus trips, designing skateboard clothing, in fact I was the first person to design shorts below the knee. No one did shorts below the knee I was the first one, I was getting tired of seeing kids bloodied knees and I was like let me design some pants where I
don’t have to see your fucking torn up knees. And so we only sponsored one sport, I didn’t want to be like other companies that sponsor surfers and basketball players, you got to pick one thing and be real. And by doing skateboard stickers and snowboard stickers, I got involved in the sticker world. A friend of mine, Newman, came up with the“Vinny Raffa has a posse”, he did all the artwork and made them up and everything, and I ran with it. You know I had all these companies where my business partners screwed me, and I was like you know what, I want to do something that’s just Vinny Raffa. Fuck, no one is going to steal my name and say “I do Vinny Raffa”. The “Vinny Raffa has a posse” sticker is 10 years old. My boy Newman who did them, was printing up 1,000 of them, and I went out on the Internet and found the design and had like 500 T-shirts printed up...Newman would come over and I would give him T-shirts and skateboards, because he knew a lot about skateboarding, and I told him, hey you want a T-shirt and he was like ‘how the fuck did you find out about this’, and I was like no one pulls one over on me, and I just ran with it. And I started making stickers upon stickers upon stickers, I must’ve made 1 million, with all my companies that I’ve run, including my snowboard company and my skateboard company, god I’ve made so many stickers. You gotta exaggerate things, times five to make it appear bigger than you are.
ON THE BROKEN WINDOW THEORY:
"I use the old phone booths to put my stickers on, I would cover them all up and stickers and stuff, and eventually they just get rid of the phone booth. They say that gangster rap on the West Coast was actually created by the police, because they wanted people to listen and get more violent,which led to more work and more jobs."
ON WHAT KIDS NEED:
"All these kids today are doing heroin, they need to build use centers, every town should have a 13-year-old on their town Council, every town in America gets a 13 year old on their [city Council], when he turns 14, kick him off to get a new 13-year-old, just so the city knows what these kids need. Not some 89-year-old lady saying “oh there gonna a make noise in the park”. I wanted to open up a skate park in the town and the cop was like, “no no no the lady across the street is always complaining about the noise” and I go well she lives next to a fucking park... Parks are made for kids to scream, it’s an area to let their anger out, and for them to play sports and yell. I said what you just fucking give up and give her the whole park. People don’t want to see anyone have any fun, no more fun in this country, you have to pay to have fun. Go to Yankee Stadium pay $300 to get in, and have fun with those $10 beers and those $10 hot dogs. I’m not kidding that you see some kid with the skateboard try and jump up on a bench it’s like cops come out of nowhere, fucking wanting to arrest the kid. I mean what’s the kid doing? He’s fucking having fun."
ON WORKING FOR A LIVING:
"I’m an electrician by trade, me and my brother have a electric company Raffa Electric. I also work in film as an electrician. I worked on the movie Noah which is gonna be the biggest production ever, they built “Noah’s Ark”, Russell Crowe is sharp he is Noah. And it bums me out because they can’t wear my T-shirts on “Noah”, because I wasn’t around back then. I’m always giving my shirts out to the wardrobe department. There’s a new movie coming out next year, about cyber bullying, and supposedly there wearing my T-shirts and they put one of my stickers on the kids laptop. So this girl called me and asked me to send some T-shirts and some stickers and so I sent some of the DENY stickers. And she called me and told me, “Vinny thank you so much, the director loves them, he came up to me like five times and said thank you, thank you, thank you”. When the kid gets arrested there gonna pan and on his laptop and there is my DENY sticker. My art was also in ‘Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist’ , in the beginning there is a ‘Vinny Roffa has a posse’ sticker. So we’re on location in a school in the Bronx and they had cordoned [off] all these lockers to make it look like a girls school. And so the set design girl is put up all of these stupid CVS stickers of suns and moons on the lockers and I go up to her and say all is a great stickers and she says, ‘oh these suck, they’re so corny I wish I had time to get real stickers’. I go, I’ve got ‘Vinny Raffa has a posse’ stickers, and I gave her like 40 of them and she put two of him on the bottom of lockers. And then everyone went to lunch, so my boy was like, ‘you got the green light’. And I was like what you talking about, and he was like ‘she put the stickers on the locker so put some more up’ and I said I don’t have anymore I give them to her. He said, ‘let me go look at my car’, so an hour later he finds one sticker, so she put the sticker down low so I put this one at eye level on the locker. 16 hours they filmed right in front of that locker, so when the movie came out the very first scene she opens her locker
and there it is, a ‘Vinny Raffa has a posse’ sticker!"
ON COLLECTING HIS WORK:
"I was at a bar one night and this woman is there, you know really attractive woman, and I go to the car and I get her a Vinny shirt, and I go here’s a Vinny shirt. And she is like‘oh my god, my daughter wants to be an artist and I keep peeling off your posters and giving it to my daughter saying you should do with this guys doing, and now you’re right in front of me and it’s just a trip’. And I was like all cool… And then she wanted a one night stand, but I wanted more than that, I go, I can’t just do a one night stand I need at least a five-week relationship or forget about it."
by J.W. Boys
I was first introduced to Vinny Raffa through my friend Skam. When Skam was first starting out, he was making friends all over the world, and Vinny Raffa was a huge supporter of him from the East Coast. Over the years I’ve had the pleasure of working with Vinny Raffa on multiple projects, including a massive collaboration on an art installation I created called, “The Emerging Art Marketplace the 21st Century”.
Any search of Vinny Raffa on the Internet will net you thousands of results. If you do a search for Vinny Raffa and skateboarding, he will pop up in Wikipedia.org and he’s referred to as, “the East Coast godfather of skateboarding”. Throughout the years whether it be his skate tech company or his clothing lines, he has made a name for his own image based off of Shepard Fairey’s, “Obey Giant”. Along with spreading his name and his image, in reality passion has been kids, making sure that kids that don’t have access to skateboards can have them. He has been a huge advocate for the creation of skate parks at the city level, knowing that if a kid is skating with his friends, they are less likely to be out getting in trouble.
I was very excited to have the chance to call him recently and chat about his life’s accomplishments and what his goals are for the future. The following article is Vinny Raffa in his own words from our interview.
ON TECHNOLOGY:
"It’s good to hear that something’s happening you know what I mean. New technology now, I mean magazines can be uploaded off of the Internet. I remember when the Internet first started, and I said to myself you got a get yourself on the Internet because they’ll search you and they’ll find you, you know. So that’s what I did. I used to go on people’s message boards just to say, I’m Vinny Raffa, I’ve got a posse, just to know later on if you Google my name there I am on that message board. Five years ago this girl that works for Sony typed my name into Google, well not Google whatever the use back in those days, and a lot of shit popped up, and she was like “wow you’re all over the Internet, that’s impressive”. And I was just like yeah I’m just fucking around. But how do you make money out of all this you know, it’s like, will it ever happen, will we become millionaires overnight, that’s what everyone expects when they’re on the Internet and stuff. I love Instagram, it’s faster than Facebook because anyone can follow you. I have so many Saudi Arabian and Arab fans that are following me…you know it’s making the world smaller, you’re looking at pictures of their leaders and there art. And so the Arab guy is now talking to an Italian guy from New York City, and it’s like hey the Italian Catholics from New York ain’t bad, it’s those Jews from New York we got a worried about but then there like I am Jewish you know, it’s just like the worlds get in smaller. And everyone’s in entertainment now, you are on Facebook and I’m on Facebook and Mr. Say, and everyone is book and I’m on Facebook and Mr. Say, and everyone is a fucking entertainer make in videos and putting videos up and that’s the new TV. And how does the mainstream capture that new TV? Things change so fast these days I mean you can be hot, and then you’re not. Kodak film, my friends father is a vice president and they filed chapter, you know they’re out of business…They could’ve recruited another business like Instagram or something you know."
ON STEETART:
"The first Vinny Raffa face was actually drawn by The Figurehead Project. You know I tell people I’m cursed because I know so many artists from skateboarding and Facebook and stuff. Yes, I do a lot of my own art I cut out the stencils and spray-painted on windows and stuff like that, but I’m not saying I did that artwork a lot of my artwork that I push is not done by me. But, I am there to push it, I’m like fucking Thomas Edison and all that shit, you know? The collabs of been really cool lately you know, whenever I do a collaborative [it’s] more like, you know, you do your thing, so it’s like whatever you come up with that’s cool with me. And I collaborate with a lot of people out there you know. And then there’s Los Rudos from LA, we did a collab together, he’s been pushing stuff out all over southcentral [LA]. Mexico is a huge scene that for stickers by the way and their stickers are really really nice you know, they are thin I’ve never seen sticker stock like that before, they must use toxic inks or something because they come out great. Even in Canada there’s a lot a guys up there doing shit, the whole scene is huge right now, in my mind.
Street art is the type of art that shouldn’t have to be in museum where you get the paid a go in and see it. Art should be outside the museum where anybody can drive by and see it. I once typed in on my Facebook page, that I saw a road signs sell for $10,000 on eBay, and people started saying [they should] start stealing roadsigns, you know. They just get that out there when people are like ‘oh shit, his shit’s worth money now’. People are always like ‘I got some Shepard things in the drawer’, and I am always like tag them up you asshole. I always think sometimes I’m giving out stickers and T-shirts to the wrong people you know. You know it’s like, ‘I’m not agonna ware a picture of your face on my shirt’ and am like you should do this thousands the kids would die for this T-shirt right now, it’s just like, wear it, because when people do where it they get stopped and people were like, ‘who’s Vinny Raffa?’. And people are like, who is that guy, he’s everywhere and I’m like, don’t you have Google at home, what are you a fucking idiot? You know I meet graffiti heads that tell me, hey you inspired me to do graffiti, it gets the kids to do art. Express yourself. Everywhere I go I like to see myself, like on a pole, I’m everywhere, I’m overkill here, I’m at a point where I try to put up at least 100 a day you know. I do police events with skateboarders and stuff and the detectives are like ‘that’s the guy on every sign in Rockland County’, you know they all know me. And then you know I’m also in LA, and Orlando, in Texas and San Francisco. I feel sorry for the other taggers you know because they have to find postal things because, you know, they [don’t] all have money to make the stickers because it’s expensive, but then when they see vinyl. they’re like, he is huge. It just makes yourself so much more than having to spray-paint it onto something 3M. Even though I like that much better. I need to do a 3M commercial like me being at a 3M warehouse just like, drool coming out of my mouth and they are like, ‘Hey Vinny help yourself, for your art project. [And then it flashes to me] in there with drool coming out of my mouth. It’s like ever kid’s fantasy, here’s tractor trailer fill it up with free 3M products. And at the end of the commercial
it can say ‘hit up Vinny Raffa on Facebook and he’ll send you free 3M products’. I would be stormed on Facebook."
ON SHEPARD FAIREY:
"You know Shepard’s been great, I love Shepard I mean nothing for nothing he got me addicted to all the shit. I mean I always made stickers but when I went to visit him he gave me like 30,000 little stickers of all different Andre the Giants, posters, he got me autographs, you know he got me into it. You know I have been talking to him, and I don’t know if he’s thrilled about it or if he’s pissed. I know he is a real artist and I think he’s mad at me, to tell you the truth. It just enhances his stuff. I know this woman and she said, ‘I went to Shepard’s and they had this whole section of your stuff and I bought a shirt, it looked just like you.’ And I was like oh, that’s Andre the Giant."
ON AGE:
"I’m addicted to television, grown up when I was a kid we had like six channels to watch and you memorize everything I could sing the theme song from “Petticoat Junction”. We were tube heads, we were a product of the tube. I am 49 years old, I went on a date last night and the girl was like “how old are you”, she was 50, and I said I’m 49 and she’s like “oh my god you look 35”, and I go if you want I can be 25, I go you know if you want me to be 13 I will be 13, you know I’d shave my balls…you want me to be a chick, I’ll tuck my dick under so it looks like I have a vagina."
ON NEW PROJECTS:
"Next year is the 500th anniversary of Ponce de León coming to America to discover the fountain of youth, and the king and queen of Spain are going to come to Florida. There can have a big party and entertainment and they want me to bring the entertainment, so they want me to throw a skateboard contest down there, so I’ll definitely throw blast out there for the artists to submit art and stickers.Yeah things get thrown at me all the time, I’ve been sugarcoated so much I’m a diabetic now. People. I get people and they want to do a TV show, this and that and nothing ever happens. I’m the type a guy if I talk about it I do it, and they’re the type of people that talk about it and don’t do it. I meet people and they make fun of me, and then they try to do it and they’re like ‘oh my god, I tried to do this, how do you do this’, and I’m like I just do it."
ON SKATEBOARDS:
"This is how it all started, I opened up a booth in a flea market and I said customize jackets, I used to do satin jackets and I used to put “homeboy” and dollar signs, made out of really tight material to make it look like a Starter jacket. I would design my own jackets and I made jackets for rappers and people that wanted jackets made, I made T-shirts for bars. I went to Europe for six months after high school, and I ran into my cousin from Italy who lived in London, and he was like‘when you come back to London you can stay at our house’. So when I went to London and I stayed at their house and he was into all these T-shirts and I told him you know I can get you those for nine dollars a shirt, and he was like ‘you know they sell for $200 a shirt’, he said, ‘and you can get it for nine dollars’ and I was like yeah. So he gave me $5000 and I shipped all this Harley-Davidson T-shirts and shot jackets all to London and I decided that I was also printing up T-shirts for bands and clubs and was getting screwed for money. So I came up with the company “Skateboarders from Hell”, I got involved with several skate shops and Istarted put them up at Yankee Stadium to make money. And I went into the sports store that sold skateboards and I was looking at them, like there’s a really cool graphic and the guy said, “yeah and there’s T-shirts that go with them” and that’s when I totally got into skateboarding. I started organizing bus trips, designing skateboard clothing, in fact I was the first person to design shorts below the knee. No one did shorts below the knee I was the first one, I was getting tired of seeing kids bloodied knees and I was like let me design some pants where I
don’t have to see your fucking torn up knees. And so we only sponsored one sport, I didn’t want to be like other companies that sponsor surfers and basketball players, you got to pick one thing and be real. And by doing skateboard stickers and snowboard stickers, I got involved in the sticker world. A friend of mine, Newman, came up with the“Vinny Raffa has a posse”, he did all the artwork and made them up and everything, and I ran with it. You know I had all these companies where my business partners screwed me, and I was like you know what, I want to do something that’s just Vinny Raffa. Fuck, no one is going to steal my name and say “I do Vinny Raffa”. The “Vinny Raffa has a posse” sticker is 10 years old. My boy Newman who did them, was printing up 1,000 of them, and I went out on the Internet and found the design and had like 500 T-shirts printed up...Newman would come over and I would give him T-shirts and skateboards, because he knew a lot about skateboarding, and I told him, hey you want a T-shirt and he was like ‘how the fuck did you find out about this’, and I was like no one pulls one over on me, and I just ran with it. And I started making stickers upon stickers upon stickers, I must’ve made 1 million, with all my companies that I’ve run, including my snowboard company and my skateboard company, god I’ve made so many stickers. You gotta exaggerate things, times five to make it appear bigger than you are.
ON THE BROKEN WINDOW THEORY:
"I use the old phone booths to put my stickers on, I would cover them all up and stickers and stuff, and eventually they just get rid of the phone booth. They say that gangster rap on the West Coast was actually created by the police, because they wanted people to listen and get more violent,which led to more work and more jobs."
ON WHAT KIDS NEED:
"All these kids today are doing heroin, they need to build use centers, every town should have a 13-year-old on their town Council, every town in America gets a 13 year old on their [city Council], when he turns 14, kick him off to get a new 13-year-old, just so the city knows what these kids need. Not some 89-year-old lady saying “oh there gonna a make noise in the park”. I wanted to open up a skate park in the town and the cop was like, “no no no the lady across the street is always complaining about the noise” and I go well she lives next to a fucking park... Parks are made for kids to scream, it’s an area to let their anger out, and for them to play sports and yell. I said what you just fucking give up and give her the whole park. People don’t want to see anyone have any fun, no more fun in this country, you have to pay to have fun. Go to Yankee Stadium pay $300 to get in, and have fun with those $10 beers and those $10 hot dogs. I’m not kidding that you see some kid with the skateboard try and jump up on a bench it’s like cops come out of nowhere, fucking wanting to arrest the kid. I mean what’s the kid doing? He’s fucking having fun."
ON WORKING FOR A LIVING:
"I’m an electrician by trade, me and my brother have a electric company Raffa Electric. I also work in film as an electrician. I worked on the movie Noah which is gonna be the biggest production ever, they built “Noah’s Ark”, Russell Crowe is sharp he is Noah. And it bums me out because they can’t wear my T-shirts on “Noah”, because I wasn’t around back then. I’m always giving my shirts out to the wardrobe department. There’s a new movie coming out next year, about cyber bullying, and supposedly there wearing my T-shirts and they put one of my stickers on the kids laptop. So this girl called me and asked me to send some T-shirts and some stickers and so I sent some of the DENY stickers. And she called me and told me, “Vinny thank you so much, the director loves them, he came up to me like five times and said thank you, thank you, thank you”. When the kid gets arrested there gonna pan and on his laptop and there is my DENY sticker. My art was also in ‘Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist’ , in the beginning there is a ‘Vinny Roffa has a posse’ sticker. So we’re on location in a school in the Bronx and they had cordoned [off] all these lockers to make it look like a girls school. And so the set design girl is put up all of these stupid CVS stickers of suns and moons on the lockers and I go up to her and say all is a great stickers and she says, ‘oh these suck, they’re so corny I wish I had time to get real stickers’. I go, I’ve got ‘Vinny Raffa has a posse’ stickers, and I gave her like 40 of them and she put two of him on the bottom of lockers. And then everyone went to lunch, so my boy was like, ‘you got the green light’. And I was like what you talking about, and he was like ‘she put the stickers on the locker so put some more up’ and I said I don’t have anymore I give them to her. He said, ‘let me go look at my car’, so an hour later he finds one sticker, so she put the sticker down low so I put this one at eye level on the locker. 16 hours they filmed right in front of that locker, so when the movie came out the very first scene she opens her locker
and there it is, a ‘Vinny Raffa has a posse’ sticker!"
ON COLLECTING HIS WORK:
"I was at a bar one night and this woman is there, you know really attractive woman, and I go to the car and I get her a Vinny shirt, and I go here’s a Vinny shirt. And she is like‘oh my god, my daughter wants to be an artist and I keep peeling off your posters and giving it to my daughter saying you should do with this guys doing, and now you’re right in front of me and it’s just a trip’. And I was like all cool… And then she wanted a one night stand, but I wanted more than that, I go, I can’t just do a one night stand I need at least a five-week relationship or forget about it."
