Cermele: Joey From The Dock
If you walk down 32nd Street towards NYC’s Penn Station around rush hour, you will find the curbs lined with...

If you walk down 32nd Street towards NYC’s Penn Station around rush hour, you will find the curbs lined with vendors selling a multitude of wares. These feature DVDs of films still in theaters, cologne and perfume that has either fallen off a delivery truck or been mixed in a Bronx basement, and Rolex watches that sell two for five dollars. Every day I pass this bazar without ever paying much attention to the merchandise. But while walking home last night, a table caught my eye and for the first time in four years of working in the city I stopped to check it out.
The table belonged to a graffiti artist named Spin 183 who was creating custom hats. Call it an impulse buy, but for some reason I decided then and there that a new one-of-a-kind fishing hat created by my boy Spin was a must. So he broke out the oil pens and got busy right there on the street. He created for me what he refers to as “vanity plates for your head.”
Okay, okay, I know what you’re thinking: the fish doesn’t look quite mean enough and kinda resembles a dolphin. But give my man a break. He drew it up in 10 minutes in the dark in 36-degree wind chills. Besides, once I splash it with a little fish blood, all the suckas ’round the Jersey Shore will recognize that I’m still Joey from the dock. Think about it…would you mess with a dude with a tear drop tattooed on his cheek? I wouldn’t. I think a dolphin splattered with a little bass blood will have the same effect. This hat will become legend.
Do you have any hats or T-shirts that have become your trademark on the water? You know, the ones the wife is dying to chuck but you never leave for a fishing trip without. Let’s see who can represent.