One Day Later . . .

The good thing, if you’re a graffiti writer looking for attention, is to get a newspaper article written about your craft. The bad thing is that you attract too much attention:

The graffiti artist with the notable tag “Backfat” was nabbed Tuesday evening — the same day the Daily News highlighted his prolific scrawlings.

Charles Abarno, 21, was arrested in front of the 72nd Precinct stationhouse and accused of spraying his tag all over buildings, storefronts and awnings in Windsor Terrace and Kensington, just blocks from his home.

He was charged with two counts each of criminal mischief and scrawling graffiti on a public library and a commercial establishment, police said. If convicted, he faces up to four years in jail.

Local residents were delighted, as was City Councilman Bill de Blasio, who represents the area.

“I am extremely pleased he has been caught,” de Blasio said. “Now we need to make sure the appropriate punishment is given.”

Fallen Angel

Arthur Wood plans to raise the money to preserve the code violation/sculptural element atop his Clinton Hill building by working with developers to turn the property into condos:

Broken angel will soar again, even higher than before, provided Brooklyn’s real estate prices stay in the stratosphere.

Artist Arthur Wood has cut a deal to save his eccentric Clinton Hill creation — one that envisions condos under a rebuilt rooftop sculpture.

“It will be taller, more majestic. We may even light it up at night, and it will be nicer,” Wood, 75, said yesterday.

He rejected offers of as much as $1.8 million that would have destroyed the 108-foot building in favor of one that will preserve it, he said.

He may even lose money, depending on how the condos sell, he added.

“It was tempting to take the money and leave, but I couldn’t do that,” Wood said. “The building is a living entity, and I wasn’t about to abandon it.”

Local developer Shahn Andersen agreed Saturday to buy a 50% stake in the structure, financing the rebuilding of Wood’s creation with potential profits from condos.

“I told Arthur that even if he wasn’t going to partner with me, he needed to do whatever it was going to take to save Broken Angel,” Andersen said.

Chris Wood, Arthur’s son, said his family’s first preference had not been condos — which he called “the nasty C-word” — but rather to create a museum. However, no benefactor had stepped forward.

The deal will allow Wood to meet the city’s deadlines to demolish the parts of Broken Angel that pose a fire hazard, Andersen said, estimating that resurrecting Broken Angel will cost a few million dollars.

(Don’t believe their lies!)

Coming Soon: “Muffin Top”

Fortunately we have this important story to establish an agreed-upon definition for “backfat”:

The graffiti tag “Backfat” — ranging in size from a few inches to a few feet wide — has been popping up on buildings, storefronts, awnings, even between subway tracks, all over Windsor Terrace and Kensington.

. . .

“Backfat” is a colloquial term for the rolls of extra weight that bulge along the edges of a too-tight or ill-fitting bra.

A city official who is familiar with the situation said the law is hot on the tagger’s heels.

“The police are on Backfat’s trail. It is being thoroughly investigated and we are coming close to finding him,” the source said.

My Name Is Ronell And I’m Here To Say “Write What You Know” Can Potentially Put You Away

Overly autobiographical art is not only lazy but often stupidly self-incriminating as well:

The Staten Island gang-banger who allegedly executed two undercover cops during a botched gun deal gloated about the brutal shootings in rap lyrics he later wrote, prosecutors said yesterday.

“You better have that vast and dat Golock / Leave 45 slogs in da back of ya head cause I’m getting dat bread / ain’t goin stop to Im dead,” wrote Ronell Wilson, 24, (in his own spelling) after he allegedly shot undercover detectives James Nemorin and Rodney Andrews with a .44-caliber handgun during an attempted robbery.

Arresting officer Joseph Butta testified yesterday that Wilson had the sick, barely intelligible lyrics in his pants pocket when cops arrested him.

Meanwhile, the Times takes a closer look at the artist on trial:

Prosecutors are making similar arguments across the country this year, in courtrooms in Albany, Oroville, Calif., College Station, Tex., and Gretna, La. Set to drumbeats or scrawled in notebooks, the rhymes of minor stars, aspiring producers and rank amateurs are being accepted as evidence of criminal acts, intent and mind-set.

Defense lawyers usually argue that the lyrics are boastful fantasies, common to the point of irrelevance. Mr. Wilson’s lawyers have indicated that they plan to call a scholar named Yasser Arafat Payne, described in court documents as a rap expert, to make a similar argument.

Cooptation: Complete; Form Of: Harlem Theme Bar

Funny, because it sure sounds like a theme restaurant:

Coming this week to Chelsea: Harlem! Or at least a blaxploitation-flavored, seventies-fantasy version by Lesly Bernard, who, with Keith McNally, opened the Cold War–themed bar Pravda soon after the end of the Cold War and followed that with the celebrity-studded Clementine. Tillman’s, Bernard’s super-fly new lounge on West 26th Street, comes complete with beaded curtains, tufted leather booths lined with speakers, and sepia-toned photos of old men blowing smoke from their nostrils or playing brass instruments on Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard. . . . “Nothing is more American than 1970s Harlem,” explains Bernard, who quickly adds, “It’s not a theme restaurant.”