ShawnPorter

I'll snap a picture of it when I get a chance. about a week after he tattooed it he did a painting of the design. I think I have that saved somewhere too.

I think we went to an all night Dennys and had dinner.

I posted something about this in the intro forum, but I figure it's more appropriate here. I first met Mike Wilson when I was a teenager. I think 16. He was a few years older and not yet tattooing. We became friendly, and as he moved from apprentice to tattooer and I moved from little pieces to big, he started doing the occasion piece on me. My second tattoo from him was a back piece. Outlined and shaded in one bigass session. But years later.... after I moved to Philly.. Mike did my foot. He was guesting at Kadillac tattoo and dropped his business card in my mail slot when he got into town. (Not much of a texter back then, apparently. hah) So I head up to Kadillac and we decide to do a Free Mason monkey with banana pentagram on my foot. He draws it on, Eric closes up the shop and heads home. He's about 3/4 of the way done when he realizes theres no more nitrile gloves left in his box. Or in the shop. It's after midnight, and there's no drug stores open to buy new gloves. And I'm very allergic to latex. Like hospital allergic. So we're racing the clock to finish the tattoo without having to change gloves one last time. We discuss finishing it the next time he visits. We discuss what would happen if he wore a latex glove. Finally... when changing gloves became an absolute necessity... We wrapped the fuck out of his hand with paper towels and prayed to god I hadn't made any bad lifestyle choices in the last few months. 15 years of friendship made us a little more comfortable with the bad idea that we were doing.

The bigger ones stayed on the little outcropping of rocks. The younger ones darted all around us, bumping into us. It was weird- in the US we would have signed like 500 waivers, but in Mexico- we were snorkeling by a bunch of large aggressive sea creatures, creatures that SHARKS eat, off of little tiny boats. I think the group that went out there was about 25 strong... no paperwork other than handing them the $$. No "how to use a snorkel" training. Nothing. We were in the middle of the Sea of Cortez- the only land was the rock that hundreds of large sea lions were on. So other than our boats we were in open water. The first other animal we saw was a HUGE manta ray. It was really impressive. Till we figured if there's mantas.... there may be other things. After that, it was a little tense. haha.

There's nothing like it, yeah? Just wearing flipflops all day and having all you can drink pina coladas. Plus, with us... no one stared at me cause I was with the green guy (erik). It's always good form to bring a bigger weirdo than yourself to deflect attention. We flew into/out of cabo, but didn't spend any time there. I guess we'll have to go again.

Wilson did my foot at one of the Kadillac locations 6 or so years ago but I don't think it was the Manyunk spot. I need to post about that in the war stories forum cause it was a f'in doozy... after hours foot tattoo in a closed shop and we ran out of nitrile gloves.... it ends badly. Haha. I've been in Philly since 99, btw. I'm just a hermit who rarely does anything social.

The hardest part about the duck breast prosciutto is finding the fatty moulard duck breasts. I have a few local spots to pick them up, but any grocer can order them. Other than that, it's really as easy as the recipe sounds. Pack it in salt. 24 hrs. Wash off the salt. Dry, season, cheese cloth/butchers string wrap and wait seven days. It's deceptively simple!

I went on a group trip to La Paz Mexico back in '05; bunch of tattooed and pierced weirdos (think 100+) in a little Mexican resort town. My sister in law and I rented a Casita with a pool that overlooked the Sea of Cortez. I was going through a pretty intense divorce so just laying out on the beach and spending time with that many friends was amazing. We ended up swimming with sea lions in the middle of the sea, having one of our friends (who's an opera singer) do an impromptu Ave Maria on while standing in the ocean that ended up making EVERY local (predominantly Catholic) stop dead in their tracks till she finished and having kick ass all night BBQs/swimming parties at our place. Login | Facebook I followed that up about 2 months later with a trip through London and Holland, but Mexico will always have a place in my heart.

He's the NICEST dude, too. Made the experience, which was gutwrenchingly awful, as pleasant as he could.

When I tried to go to the convention on Saturday and there was a line for the line.... I knew the aisles would be killer. I've been to enough conventions in my day to know when to cut bait. We have an unofficial afterparty at my bar every year so I still get to see a lot of out of town friends. I hope Troy sees how big his baby is getting and moves it to the convention center next year. And I love the 215. As a transplant.. I didn't know if a Philly tattoo was appropriate, as I have no Florida tattoos. Then I said f' it and got PASS and STOW tattooed on my hands. I visited the Liberty Bell on my lunch break five days a week for 6 months. It seemed appropriate.

That I've been tattooed by... Trevino and Aitchison. Chris pounded it in so hard that I was bruised below the tattoo. Looked great though.

I grew up on a cattle farm, so it's all the same to me. House made charcuterie is a blast; specially when you make it at YOUR house. I do a duck breast prosciutto that only takes a week to cure-link here: Duck Prosciutto « Modified Ingredients and a house made mozzarella- link here: Mozzarella Cheese- delicious frustration. « Modified Ingredients that are not only tasty but a hoot to make. The first time you make cheese you literally say "holy shit, I just made CHEESE!" outloud.

Five blocks from me. Give or take :D

Yeah; tattooed hands (and neck/throat and temples, in my case) change your day to day reality. It used to be negative; now it's everyone wanting to talk about a tattoo they have/want or one a friend has. Fall and winter allow me the temporary reprieve that hoodies/gloves/scarves offer, but the rest of the year I sort of have to deal with it 24/7. You're never incognito. On the job front, I've been in General Management as well as IT at a Fortune 100 with all of the visible LFL tattoos and it's never slowed me down. A case of resume vs. tattooed hands. Show them why you're invaluable to them and you may find yourself invaluable. Sorry for rambling off topic; runner up for most painful tattoo were my ribs; and David still wants to outline up into my armpits. Oh joy.

I started getting tattooed at Olde City in 2000, though I haven't really done in since Hoffman moved on. I'm fairly sure I met Topper through Wilson when he was in town years back. Seemed like a nice dude.

I just started brining a cow's tongue on Wednesday. It'll take about five days in the brine before I can cook it. Same prep as a corned beef, then cooled and sliced on my deli slicer (seriously... every home should have one) and served as a sandwich. Little spicy mustard and you're set. Once people get past the initial "ick" factor of organ meat... it's usually quite good.

I photographed Mikey in Dallas; I believe the work was by his brother and this was after two or three sessions.

My girlfriend is working on her MSW at Widner here in PA.... good luck with your project!

I sort of jumped the gun and went directly to posting without an intro. So... that said. Hiya. I'm Shawn, from Philadelphia by way of Florida. I'm a collector (pretty much of everything, but forum relevant in that I also collect tattoos) who's spent the majority of my life fascinated by tattoos. I got my first tattoo when I was 15 and my most recent tattoo last week. Thats 21 years of my 36 getting worked on. Big ones, small ones, good ones and bad ones. These days I tend to lean towards more eccentric design choices (I have a portrait of myself as a turkey. Just saying) by people I love over getting random tattoos. If I wouldn't call you a friend I wouldn't be tattooed by you; that's how it should be. Otherwise, I'm kinda boring. I hang out with my girlfriend. I watch an unacceptable amount of cinema per week and I maintain a ass-ton of blogs, ranging from my Pushead collection to a cooking blog. I'm dang glad to be here.

(I typed this all up and the browser crashed- apologies if it posts twice) This is an oversimplification, but if palm tattoos are done correctly, they'll heal correctly. There's a different technique to getting the pigment in there than normal tattooing. All of the artists I know who have long lasting results use the same method. There are anomalies of course, but there's a guaranteed technique of getting that pigment in there that will work when regular tattooing won't. I was at a convention in Wisconsin once and a buddy was about to get his palm tattooed. I asked the artist if she had ever done palms before. She hadn't. I politely told her that there's a "better way" and, me not being a tattooer myself, she blew me off. I told my buddy that if she went through with how she was going... it wouldn't heal. He got tattooed anyway. Three months later almost 100% of the pigment was gone. I got some sweet I-told-you-so mileage out of that, I'll tell ya. Mine are holding fast at two years and a handful of months; here's a four year old piece by Hooper: Palm Tattoos « Hoopers Electric – Meditations in Atrament

I forget who did this one; I photographed it at the APP conference and didn't write down the artist. Little bit of pigment loss, but impressive for blue.

I shrugged it off after a day or so of being butthurt. If this guy is that big of a choad, I still win at life.

Mike Wilson outlined and shaded a backpiece on me when we were both whippersnappers. He did just over 12 hours for the first sitting. By the end of it his wrist/hands were as swollen as my skin. That was 16+ years ago... the most I can sit for now is five or six hours, and that's begrudgingly.

I saw one I really hated the other day- Some d-bag who visited one of my blogs (that featured a picture of my palms) had an almost exact copy of my left palm design put on his palm. I realize that there's nothing new under the sun, and that I'm not the only person who's ever gotten a stylized Alpha-Omega. But to have seen this guy on my blog several times, and to see the SAME stylized alpha/omega... it got my blood angry! I'm halfway through an article on palm tattoos, btw- I'll post some of the submitted images when I get back to my laptop!

I asked Mike Wilson to tattoo my palms twenty years ago. He said "you know how bad that shit's going to hurt, right?" and we never got around to doing them. I finally saw some of Hooper's work a few years back and made my way up to NYC. He's such a calming guy; thankfully. He did both palms, and I headed back to Philly to see a concert... I had to stand at the back of the club because the bass coming out of the speakers was making my effin' hands throb. Two years later and I figure I have 99.5% pigment retention. One little spot that didn't get put in solidly but still looks fine. Thomas said we can touch it up. We'll see. Haha. I doubt I'd want to feel that again.