In 1977, he and his friend Al Diaz began spray painting subway walls
with cryptic sayings, always signing them "SAMO" ("Same Old Shit"). He
always said SAMO was an end to mindwash religion, nowhere politics and
bogus philosophy. His idea was to write anti-materialism in plain view
of some of the worst materialists around. Painted on unconventional
objects retrieved from the junkyard, he seemed to be attacking
bourgeois society.