Steve Grody

(Click image for full size.) © William Anthony

Steve Grody is a multi-tasker. And by multi-tasking I don't mean that he can talk on the phone while cooking. On any given day, Steve may be doing any one of his many passions.

For starters, he's one of (if not THE) foremost experts on Los Angeles graffiti. He wrote Graffiti L.A.: Street Styles and Art. Out of his home base in the Arts District (he's lived here for 23 years) he spends a lot of time wandering areas of L.A. most people willfully try to avoid, like dark alleys and wash basins, looking for graffiti. He's the John James Audubon of graffiti. The Indiana Jones of street art. He can tell you who wrote what where, in what style and maybe even why.

And then on other days, he's a martial arts instructor. Since 1973, he's been studying and practicing forms of martial arts like Gung-Fu, Jeet Kune Do (under Bruce Lee's protogé Dan Inosanto) and Lameco Eskrima. And did I mention he was inducted as a Master Instructor of the Year for the International Martial Arts Hall of Fame in 2000?

Oh, and he's an accomplished swing dancer. Really. If Steve told me, tomorrow, that he trained with NASA to be a Shuttle astronaut, given his past accomplishments, I'd have to believe him.

I met Steve through a mutual friend. We met in his studio just off Alameda St. and we talked and took pictures for a couple of hours. More talk than pictures. He's got the gift of gab and when you mix that with my inability to shut up you have a resulting firestorm of conversation. Great conversation. When you talk to Steve you feel like you're talking to Wikipedia. And I love these kind of people. Never a dull moment. He's never at a loss for words or experience.

Yeah, so... you call yourself a multi-tasker?


(Click image for full size.) © William Anthony