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There was a time that I could be pretty sure - that at any given time , I was the only tattooist on a plane flight or at a baseball game or at parent- teacher school open house. That if I met another tattooist at such an event it would be like meeting a former schoolmate while vacationing in a foreign land. What are the odds of that? I remember a time that I could tell , just by looking , that someone did what I did and we shared a common bond and if you spotted one another at an amusement park or a mall- you knew one or the other of you had travelled out of your own territory. There was a time when introduced into the life of a child that they would remember you, for the rest of their lives as the tattooed man or lady. There was a time that when responding that I was a tattooer, when asked what I did for a living - was met with the same awe, disbelief or astonishment as if I had answered that I was an alligator wrestler, an astronaut or in the French Foreign Legion. That was a great time!

I made cilantro lime butter the other night with locally sourced whipping cream, fresh lime zest and cilantro. I've used it on tilapia and hot rolls. Nom. Going to Vegas this weekend, have my buffets planned out!

yep thats me. us thugs, and nate was hilarious. i slimmed down a bit, learned to tattoo and i've owned a shop in washington DC for almost 15 years now.

I'm sorry for the misunderstanding; I bet that was an awesome time. You could always start documenting some of that as a memoir or even in a blog-people love hearing about that stuff. A cafe racer forum I'm on has something similar where this guy shares his experience about being a 'true' cafe racer in England-very cool stuff.

deb, i get it! and you are right. i'm only 14 years in, but even in that short time, things have changed.

Man, I'm sure glad he didn't fuck up that old tattoo by "freshening" it up.

Sorry, no that wasn't my point really

That's a positive way to think about it-- but I'm not talking about the technical or artistic aspect of my work I think that you missed the point of my post

solid! i was there when he got it!

Bolohead if you are happy with this tattoo ,then that is all that matters. As journeymen, skilled craftsmen in the trade of tattooing we look at tattoos from a technical standpoint. You must have looked through the portfolio of the person that did your design, prior to getting the tattoo, and chose to get it. My only recommendation is to leave it as it is.

That last guy in the first set of pics looks like an asian Shan McGowan

To wait a long time for a notable artist like Grime or Filip is understandable,but I have seen artists that aren't even very good that are "booked solid" for several months. Like Deb said some artists only book 1 appointment a day.That equals out most times to be a little over 20 tattoos a month,while other artists do that many in a couple of days.Being the "hardest artist to book" may mean that they are very good but it could also mean that the artist has no work ethic.I think a lot of times artists do this to stroke their own egos and seem more in demand than they actually are. I get a lot of customers saying that they went to other shops for something small like a name or something and they are told that they can't get it done because everyone at that shop is fully booked,but the customer says that there were like 5 artists there and none of them were tattooing or drawing custom pieces,but instead just hanging out and playing video games or watching TV. It is a lot like people in the 1970s waiting on line with a few hundred people to get into an exclusive club like studio 54 or something,only to finally be let inside to find out that there are only a handful of people inside the club.What I am trying to say is that while for a great artist it is worth the wait,in most cases it is just a manufactured waiting period and a marketing gimmick to charge more and act exclusive........just putting on airs.

I think that a lot of the tattooers with the longest waits are the ones that do mostly large scale work. If someone is getting tattooed by Mike Rubendall (Chris Trevino, Mike Roper, etc..) then it is probably going to be a large piece that takes multiple sessions, and that person books multiple appointments. This means that one person's tattoo takes up a lot of that tattooers time so they end up tattooing less people. On the other side of things the dudes at Smith Street do mostly one shot tattoos, and are not booked out for years in advanced. Personally I would never book an appointment more than six months in advance, unless it was based on travel.

I remember trying to count how many dots were going into my ass (just to get my mind off of how horrible that session was). I think I stopped around 300.