BRAND recognition is important. It is one of the pillars of our capitalistic system. It makes it easier to find your favourite peanut butter on the shelves of the local 7-11.
It’s even a law heroin dealers obey, judging the dope bags Clayton Patterson collected over the years. The bags, usually made of wax paper, have names or images printed on them to identify themselves. The logos are used as a marketing message. The dope bags have names like D.O.A., Body Bag, Poison, F.B.I. and even AIDS.
Patterson, a chroniquer of the Lower East Side, found the bags in the streets of his neighbourhood. He started his collection in the mid –eighties, when a buddy showed him a book full of dope bags.
Patterson also made a movie and wrote a book about how the Low East Side changed from a cesspool of bad habits into the semi-underground hotspot it is now. He became some kind of spokesman for the people that money pushed out of the old neighbourhood. And they love him for that, because you can buy T-shirts, caps and sweaters that say ‘I love Clayton Patterson.