Who is Bozo Texino?

Shot on freight hopping trips across the wild West and 16 years in the making, this is the mostly-factual cinematic account of the epic search and unlikely discovery of hobohemia's most legendary boxcar artist.

WHO IS BOZO TEXINO? The secret history of hobo graffitiDirected, photographed, edited by Bill Daniel2005, 56 min, B/W, 16mm and Super 8, mastered on Digibeta NTSC

Who is Bozo Texino? chronicles the search for the source of a ubiquitous and mythic rail graffiti-- a simple sketch of a character with an infinity-shaped hat and the scrawled moniker, "Bozo Texino"-- a drawing seen on railcars for over 80 years. Daniel's gritty black and white film uncovers a secret society and it's underground universe of hobo and railworker graffiti, and includes interviews with legendary boxcar artists, Coaltrain, Herby, Colossus of Roads, and The Rambler. Shooting over a 16-year period, Daniel rode freights across the West carrying a Super-8 sound camera and a 16mm Bolex. During his quest he discovered the roots of a folkloric tradition that has gone mostly unnoticed for a century. Taking inspiration from Beat artists Robert Frank and Jack Kerouac, the film functions as both a sub-cultural documentary and a stylized fable on wanderlust and outsider identity. "I was drawn to the subject by the universal graffiti impulse and the classic, corny notion of freight train blues escape." � BD