Story Photos
 At top, an alien-face graffiti caught Bill Bakamus' attention near Rochester. Photo courtesy of Bill Bakamus
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Train graffiti inspires MM's Bakamus
Sunday, December 14, 2008 1:22 AM PST
By Rick S. Alvord
Printable version
E-mail this articleThe fine arts, in the whirling-dervish mind of Bill Bakamus, is an expansive subject with no clear boundaries. For starters, it’s his album collection.
Real vinyl. Back in the day, pre-iPod, people referred to them as “33s.”
Among the hundreds of his heyday classics are Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band Live, The Rolling Stones’ early Hot Rocks compilation, even a little Rick James funktastic.
“There’s some disco in there, too,” admitted the Mark Morris High School boys basketball coach, a man with 408 career victories at the ripe age of 48. “I listen to them in my basement. I like hearing that needle hit the vinyl.”
Bakamus still has an old, classic bicycle that his father bought for him as a child. He was once offered $1,500 to sell it, but refused.
There is a baseball card collection that includes such greats as Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays and Sandy Koufax.
More fine art.
But much of it takes a seat on the bench behind his primary hobby, one that he says creates “a nice mental getaway” from teaching, from coaching, from everything that pushes his brain into constant overdrive.
For the past three years, Bakamus has taken photographs of train graffiti. It’s the noncommissioned artwork created in the minds of the anonymous and brought to life on the steel canvas of a freight car.
Vandalism, for sure. But oh, what original vandalism.
“I’m not an eccentric guy. I don’t know why I picked such an obscure hobby, but I sure enjoy it,” Bakamus said. “I know a lot of it is gang affiliated, but I am captivated by how talented some of these people are. If they would just put all of that talent to good use, things might be different out there.”
When the sun is shining, Bakamus can be found riding his mountain bike through long rows of stationary freight cars while listening to music on his earphones. He is armed only with a digital camera.
When he turns off the music, he notices the eerie calm that exists amongst the steel.
“It’s very quiet between the trains. The wind and the noise don’t get between there,” he said. “I am not a great photographer, but in this digital world it’s easy to just take a picture. The excitement for me is finding something so amazing, that it stops me in my tracks.
“I’m sure Burlington Northern isn’t very happy with having graffiti on their equipment, but some of the stuff I’ve seen is quite spectacular,” he said. “I try to pick the obscure. You see a lot of it that you know is gang affiliated, but you can’t always tell what any of it means. I just look for stuff that stands out to me, personally.”
Art is everywhere inside Bakamus’ classroom. There are cardboard cutouts of Bill Goldberg, a former professional wrestler, and Xena the Warrior Princess. There are sports figures and mementos from his basketball teams, and a lot of impressive artwork created by former students.
“There’s a lot to look at, for sure,” Bakamus said. “A little bit of everything.”
Also on the wall is a large poster board, with dozens of the coach’s favorite train graffiti snapshots attached. Some were taken locally, some in the Seattle area, some in Greece and Italy, where he and his wife, Cathy, have vacationed.
Seemingly everyone in the class has an opinion on what the graffiti means.
“The kids want to know where they were taken, because they can have different meanings if they are from California or other places,” Bakamus explained. “I just try to get them to appreciate the talent that is required to produce something like that.”
A fan of talent
Bakamus coaches junior high football at Cascade Middle School in the fall and the Mark Morris varsity basketball team in the winter. Since his Monarchs typically compete in the state basketball tournament, his coaching carousel starts in September and ends in late March.
He also teaches math and physical education at Mark Morris — his “real job,” as he likes to put it — and is genuinely ecstatic about being around young people.
In his afternoon P.E. class last week, Bakamus was the “pitcher” (designated roller) for both teams in a rousing game of indoor kickball. When he fielded kicks that came near him, Bakamus scooped up the deflated volleyball and threw out the runner by firing it at their legs.
“You’re outta there!” he yelled, getting himself and his fielders pumped up.
If the students talked back or didn’t cheer for their teammates, he made them run laps.
“We love this game,” one female student exclaimed from the back row of fielders. “Bakamus is the best. Nothing is boring in his class.”
Less than an hour later, Bakamus was running his basketball practice with Patton-like precision. It’s a high-energy, quick-paced workout that mimics the intensity his teams play with during games.
“I’m not an easy guy to play for,” he said.
That’s the Bakamus most basketball aficionados know. But his appreciation of young talent runs deeper than fast-break layups and pressure defense.
Max Steinbock, a former state-caliber high jumper at Mark Morris, created several urban-lifestyle works of art that hang in Bakamus’ classroom.
“Great stuff,” he said. “That’s really great stuff.”
Bakamus also is an art admirer of Andrew Gragg, a 2004 R.A. Long graduate, whose charcoal and pencil drawings of personalities such as Mick Jagger and Bono led the coach to make a request.
“I was so enamored with Andrew’s amazing work that I asked him to do a portrait of my dad when he was a young man in high school,” Bakamus said.
The portrait of Vlase Bakamus “turned out better than I’d hoped for,” he said.
“There’s something about young people and seeing what they can accomplish when they put their best effort into it, whether it’s basketball or something else,” Bakamus said. “That still amazes me.”
He just wanted a yard
Bakamus grew up in tiny downtown Morton. Literally.
Until he was 10 years old, the family lived in an apartment above a business on the busiest street in the logging town of nearly 1,000.
“Sometimes I’d wake up at 2:30 in the morning and look down at the street, and there’d be two guys having a fist fight,” he said. “Not like today, where you have to worry about somebody pulling out a gun or knife. Just an old-fashioned fist fight between a couple of loggers.
“After it was over, one of the guys would walk back into one tavern, and the other would head down the street into another tavern,” he said. “Back then, all I can remember is thinking how nice it would be to have a yard.”
Not long after he turned 10, the family moved to a house with a big yard. His father, Vlase, worked in the woods for many years until starting up his own road building business.
“I remember going with my dad on a trip, where we hauled a piece of equipment in his truck,” Bakamus said. “We stopped at a store and saw this bike for sale, and I couldn’t take my eyes off it. It was 95 bucks and I wanted it. So I started working on my dad. He ended up giving in. He went up to the guy at the store and told him he had 35 bucks in his pocket, and he’d send him a check for the rest as soon as we got home. The man shook my dad’s hand and we got to take the bike home.”
It’s the same bicycle that somebody recently offered him $1,500 for.
Fine art, indeed.
It’s all in the eye of the owner.
“Growing up in Morton, you were used to enjoying the outdoors. That’s what you did — you went outside and did things,” said Bakamus, a former Morton High basketball star, who once scored 54 points in one game, before there was a 3-point line.
“I don’t get to do outdoor things that much anymore. I guess that’s why shooting pictures of train graffiti has become a hobby,” he said. “It’s my peace and serenity. I guess it just quenches my thirst.”
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