Abellve

Here's some food I did on a chef. To hear her talk about food...you know she is in love with what she does. I did a morel mushroom on her too but don't have a pic on this device. I can't contribute any of my own as surprisingly I don't have any tattoo tattoos.

I've been playing Antischism, Conflict, Subhumans and Flux of Pink Indians a lot lately. Catching up on the classics I guess.

I like a wide range of music...mellow folky stuff, prewar blues, hip hop, anarchopunk, salsa. I just have to work to something I like. I feel it out. If a person is nervous I tend to keep it mellow, if their tattoo is their big time out, I play some fun stuff. I save the overtly offensive stuff for people I know to not be easily offended... However, if they're racist I blast the soul and blues music, if they're fake hood I dig the old country. My music only plays in my room so the rest of the world doesn't count but I mostly cater to my own mood, making some changes for a customer's experience.

One time I was playing The Unseen and a kid came in, rolled his eyes up at me and said all snotty, "do you *have* to listen to this?" Of course I said yes and turned it up. Remember where you are.

I've been playing the hell out of Ruby Ibarra's Lost in Translation mixtape. Ruby rhymes fast and writes in layers, uses words w double meaning and makes it work both ways. Plus she goes back and forth from Tagalog to English (mostly English) as she is Filipina.

Grabbing and touching without consent are not cool. I'm an unattractive male and it's happened to me plenty. I've been sitting at dinner with my wife and felt my shirt sleeve being pulled up by a stranger so they could appease their curiosity

...and I don't think we should be telling girls that if a man invades their space and ownership of their own body they should find it charming or flattering. No one else should have control over what they see of you, least of all men over women given the track record and the culture we've created.

I haven't posted in a while but here's one I did a few months ago.

Dead on @cltattooing. Embrace the permanence. Color over black and grey tends toward darkness so it is best to pick one and commit. As far as mixing color pieces with black and grey pieces or b&g w colored accents, I say go for it. The surrounding work can be considered and they will all look at home together.

I finally got to use the machine and it's great. I did that ToF tattoo and put some work into a back piece. It pushes 7rds into difficult skin with ease.

@cltattooing

Well, despite the massive pic which makes it look like it weighs five pounds...I don't know actually. It feels substantial but not heavy in use and well balanced, for what it's worth. I could use it all day.

Ok, I'll join in with the turn this thread has taken. I just got a chance To do this yesterday with my Kevin Riley liner. I'll post a pinup girl in the near future too.

Nickel plated. So nice. Of course it comes when I’m out of the shop for a week, but I’ll get to put it to use first thing Tuesday on a Tom of Finland tattoo that I’ve been psyched to do.

Fiction: Wise Blood and The Violent Bear it Away by Flannery O'Connor, Geek Love by Katherine Dunne

Nonfiction: The Necessity of Madness and Unproductivity by John Breeding and Young Lords: A Reader edited by Darrel Enck-Wanzer

I don't read nearly as much as I'd like to though.

Lately,

A Band Called Death

Small Apartments and

Heavenly Creature (the second story in Doomsday Book)

These are the ones I couldn't stop telling people about.

"If it's on the internet, it's fair game," is such a bullshit cop out imho...

Absolutely. Accessibility and ease is no excuse for a lack of integrity. There's lots of literature available online too. That doesn't mean it's not plagiarized if you rewrite it in your own handwriting and change the name.

I think for me tattoos are part of a larger thing that changed my life...not caring what people think.

I was a really nerdy kid -- like cartoonishly so. To a great extent I still am it's just less evident at a glance. You have to wait til I open my mouth. I was a bullied, targeted kid with more heavy problems than I care to share. I did not fit in...anywhere...but something happened when I was young. Punk rock. Changed everything. I was never going to be a part of the group. I was never going to be accepted or acceptable and more than that, I didn't care to be. If you're going to keep me on the outside, fine. Now I have no reason not to just go about the business of being true to myself. There's something liberating about removing yourself from the struggle to be accepted...outwardly sending the message: I don't need you to be ok with who I am.

Flash forward to today and my tattoos are just one way that same mindset shows through. I know tattoos are going to keep me out of certain social circles...and they're the ones I don't want any part of. It's less about defiance and more about a disregard for convention. That's not why I get tattooed really. I get tattoos for their own reasons or none at all...but there is a reason I have "Outsider" tattooed across my chest and "Stay True" on my knuckles.

66 Triumph

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Psyched to have Kevin building a Jensen repro for me. I might be at the start of a machine buying spree.

Just ordered a liner. Scott has been great to deal with and I cannot wait to get it and put it to work.

Both will be fine. If scarring is a concern, go to an artist that is a skilled enough technician to not scar you up...as you already should and may be doing. As for nipples, speaking aesthetically, it is no better to ignore them than any other part of the body. Incorporate them into the tattoo but it is my opinion that to act like they are not there and blast over them without regard to body specific design is working against the body, not with it.

I have broken chains around my wrists. In the break on the right wrist is written "Romans 8:2".

The passage reads, "The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death."

Yep, usually tattoos for people who don't want tattoos...and as a general rule in life, if it glows, running from it usually makes more sense than pushing it into your skin.

Whisky with my wife, stack of horror movies, chasing away candy-beggars who don't know what no-porch-light means...oh, and pumpkin pie.

Has anyone else in here heard of that new upcoming series "Tattoo Rescue"? It appears that the people behind Ink Master have decided to create another bogus Tattoo reality show..this time on renovating tattoo shops.

I was afraid that was coming...could have some seriously negative repercussions.

Hey, I'm a golfer and a badass! :p

My point exactly!

agreed. maybe its best on both him AND the artist that he lives with what he has already, finished or not.

Yep, at the end of the day it's not for everybody. Being a footballer or a riding a motorcycle doesn't mean you can take any more than the golfer/banker. Social expectations don't make you tough or impervious to pain...they just make you act like it when you have an audience...and a choice.

"gun free zone" as I understand it.