Shannon Shirley

The truth for anyone listening that gives a shit about me is that ,my home is in foreclosure, i should go bankrupt, and im not sure why i ever left the business. damn , i make really bad life decisions. Im thinking a lot about coming back to it. I feel like as hard as tattooing is to do for a living, I care about it. and Damn working for large companies sucks so much. I now remember why I started tattooing in the first place. So im kinda hoping for suggestions. I really like the Jax beach area.

Not a problem. I enjoy it. I miss my people, its been kinda lonely for me. Im not sure what Im doing out here in negativeland.

I do remember you. your a big kid. nate was there and we were telling the most distgusting stories. awsome. U.S Thugs. right?

I quit tattooing because I thought I would settle down with a girl that was 12yrs younger than me. you know,get married settle down.hah. she left 7yrs later and i dont seem to know how to settle down.I dont think Ill try anymore.

there was a man on , i think,Xst & broadway in downtown Sacramento . I seem to remember him as Broadway Bob. My 1st wife, as some know is and was an Anthropologist and has writin books on our subject.Well ,she found "Bob" interesting.He had never known another Tattooer.His mom was a marine, so,she bought him ,i think a Zeis kit. which of course was a pile of parts.He ,as he told us, put this junk together,and started to tattoo his mom. Thats how he learned. I seem to remember him saying, it was the only thing he had ever done for a living. this was around 89'. It was amazing. he had a curtain,as i remember,so you couldnt see him scribble up your design. he used coat hanger as a top contact,which he would remove about every 90 seconds. Then he would stuff the coat hanger in the clamp and hack it off with a pair of sidecutters. it really was amazing. He had no tattoos and said he didnt even like them,damn it was impressive. He would take a butterknife, stick it to a magnet he had in a small bench vice. squirt a little pigment on the knife, and stick his tip to it to pick up the color. You could hear the dirty needles ring off of the knife, beautiful! I know this story and witnessed it first hand because my 1st had him put my name with a sparrow on her upper arm.she, i guess wanted to see what the worst was. Now you need to understand she already had a full sleeve by Billy Salmon. which was quite nice. So. thats the worst Ive ever seen.very memorable. And if you never had a customer" let" you spell a name wrong, keep tattooing. It will happen. P.S. i dont know of any other tattooers that ever saw this guy work. i think most people in those days were just too disgusted. Im sure he died pretty lonely. kinda sad. This business has blown up so much since then , I dont think you younger tattooers realize how fortunate it is now. people will talk about it. Hell ,Blogs on the subject, it really is amazing. Some of the best tattooers nowdays took a lot of crap to learn this craft. I think Scott used to tell me Miller would randomly taze him for fun. ya'll got it pretty sweet. internet supplies? It still amazes me.

GTC used to tell me that someday,every family will have its own tattooer. We are on our way.this was when Modesto CA only had his "End of the Trail " .Im told there are around a dozen shops in that area. that happened in 20 yrs.

all i can say is ,Damn!

thats right 40 hours,with benefits,it just doesnt normally satisfy a creative soul. I tried. work, sure, soon.

some here might know who i am. whats up Scotty. like the idea.god i miss creative people. for them that dont know me, i worked fer GTC Cartwright fer bout 8yrs. n werked fer Henry G fer bout a minute it seems. left the biz bout 12 yrs ago. but cant help it,still put em on. been thinkin bout goin back to it .this straight life crap never feels like it fits me.