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Just finished up about 30 minutes ago. Now enoying a nice cold pint of Perroni.

Kev reminded me I have not posted a picture of my ribs on my recent trip to texas.. Here is my amatuerish attempt at self photography

I think we're all (tattooers, that is) standing on the shoulders of giants. I've often thought about putting that on my business card. I sort of agree with your point but any 'fame' that's bought or achieved through brown-nosing will be short lived. The guys who stick to concentrating on doing the best work they can, regardless of any fame or notion of celebrity are the ones who have the respect of their peers. Fame is pretty easy to achieve, like you said, you just show up in the right places, shake everyones hand and make sure you get your photo taken. Gaining the respect of your peers is another matter entirely. That takes hard work, effort, some intelligence and stamina over years or decades. I know which one I'd rather have, although I did just spend a hell of a lot of time speaking with some heavy-hitting tattooers this weekend but maybe that's different at a convention. At least I hope so. I think there's still plenty of blood sweat and tears in tattooing, it's just outweighed by the fame hungry party-tatters, starfuckers and endless bloggers. I guess the only thing I disagree with and I may be opening a huge can of worms I'd rather not be involved with but, I wouldn't lump Picasso with 20th century shitty conceptual art. Though I have no desire to discuss "what is Art". Pollack made the mental leap that your brush didn't have to touch the canvas. Much like Zulueta and Hardy made the leap that a tattoo design didn't have to be a recognisable object. What happened after that is the problem, not what those guys did. At the age of 14 Picasso could draw and paint like the old masters, Rubens included. The advent of photography meant that artists were no longer commissioned to create realistic likenesses, so they worked on creating more expressive or abstract art. Personal taste or preference aside, Picasso (and other modern artists, particularly cubists and impressionists) changed the way the rest of us perceive the world, wether we like it or not. A Sailor Jerry (or Coleman) style pinup works much the same as a Picasso line drawing: there is perfectly the right amount of lines and detail. If you add more, you spoil it but if you take even a single line away, it doesn't make sense. One of the goals of cubism is to reduce the real world into the simplest geometric shapes and sometimes to show more than one dimension or time at once. Traditional tattooing is good at that too, I think. I'm not a fan of the look of Picasso's more abstract stuff, but I love that he existed and changed the way we could view the world. I think that most contemporary Modern Art, certainly since the 1960's is total shit. Luckily, Art (with a capital A) becoming conceptual pushed painting back into to fulfilling it's role as a craft, which allowed 'low-brow' or counter-cultural, craft based art (like Crumb, Williams and Greg Irons) to exist. And for that, I'm surely grateful. But I certainly agree, 100% with the statement that there is no substitute for hard work.

Daniel Albrigo at 12 noon today.

it's rough waiting for that next session but once I"m finished with a multi session piece I wish it weren't done already!

Looks like this might happen today.

I took percocet before an appointment once. It just made everything worse. The ribs hurt...but its not the end of the world. I recommend a good nights sleep and eating well...you should be fine.

I really enjoyed the last 2 sessions on my arm, so I'm definitely feeling that "must continue!" urge. The pain, I always dread. But the conversation (the "zen" thing is not my style) and the overall... experience? That, I really look forward to. So much that now I don't want it to ever be finished. The idea of getting a small piece in the weeks between sittings has crossed my mind a few times... thank goodness for money, limiter of all impulse decisions.

they were the first hip hop group to get any respect in the south and when atliens came out they actually played it on the local r&b station in atlanta. before that you'd only hear rap on that station on sunday nights. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJr2H6MFBj8&feature=related and that was this song

Fuck it! Talked to Tom today, Saturday it is! just call me "Häns Tåtted" Or "John Kerry" since I'm such a flip/flopper.

Had this done by Morten at Electric East Tattoo yesterday. Fun little zap that was over in a jiffy. Check out his blog: CUSTOM TATTOOING BY TRANE

This guy makes me both wanting to do my palms and scared shitless about it at the same time...... must earn my palms first by running out of room everywhere else so it must wait.

Since Chicago Tattoo has been on the same 2 blocks for almost 40 years we get alot of people who come in with old work from Cliff Raven and Dale Grande so i try to take photos of these tattoos to document them. I often see old timers walking around the neighborhood or in the grocery store and see their tattoos and try to ask about them and photo them, there is just something about talking to old dudes about their tattoos that gets their attention and for the most part gets them into talking about where they got in and when and sometimes they can remember who it was. Im sure we all do this so i wanted to start a little thread and put up pics of old tattoos that we have all documented. The first three tattoos where done at Cliff Raven Studios (Chicago Tattoo) by Cliff Raven in approximately 1970.. since i cant figure out how to make these images larger you can click on them to get a better look. i look forward to the pics Nick

So I've been having conversations with friends and have noticed a new trend. Smoozing ( or as we like to call it ) sucking dick! I'm referring to all newbies that blow up because they bought their fame by being tattooed by the heros and traveling everywhere to soak it up and be in the scene. Where's the horror stories of sticking out a 12 hour shift tattooing dumb shit on dumb people when your buddies are out getting drunk on a friday night? There's no more blood sweat and tears in tattooing. Its all about who you know and where you are... Not about the hard work and I guarantee you, the badasses nuts your swinging from did ten fold the work you did by the same point in their career... Which brings me to my second point. Art used to have true "masters" that could paint their fucking asses off but they went extinct because the art fags of the world decided picasos crazy shit and pollacks paint splaters were more significant than Rubens? WTF? I remember reading about Robert Williams saying the same thing how folk art overthrew talent. It was a way for the "common man" to relate and opened the door for every Popsicle stick glueing soccer mom to call them selves artist. Now innovation is worthy of recognition, being the first is being the first and thats to be commended but rehashing is dribble. The same is true in tattooing. And you know exactly what I'm talking about... Clunky old school poorly drawn designs revered as the badess of the bad. good artist having to dumb down their shit to get the gold star? WTF? Wheres the pushing of the envelope, breaking the rules, falling and reinventing...I will say one thing, some are true masters of the hardcore oldschool look and the power can't be challenged. Its amazing, but 3/4 of the other shite isnt making the cut. And were all guilty of praising these fucks!!! Copy cats sitting in the same booth of masters invited into the brotherhood with open arms. Fuck that! I might never achieve the recognition of others to my degree of happiness but I can hold my head high because I'm not a smoozer sucking dick to look cool. Death to false tattooing!

Javier Rodriguez, LTW Tattoo, ES- powerful stuff; guest spot at NYAdorned 11/13-17:

I just got hella hungry reading this.

@Jaycel Adkins - Oh Shit! How have I/anyone else not dropped any Talib, Mos or Black Star until now??!! SACRILEGE! ;) And The Roots for that matter. Sometimes I wish we could hit 'Like' more lol. ^^ I realise its the same track but sheeeeeeeeeeit, Mos kills it.

The rules: 1) Don't talk about Mike Roper. 2) Do not talk about Mike Roper. But seriously, you should probably speak to someone who has work by him. He's deliberately a non-internet, non-magazine, non-publicity tattooer. It's probably best to keep it that way.

Did you ask him if it was ok to put it on the Internet? Haha

If you're that mad, call some out by name.

you know i a=love my fried chicken...best recipe i tried was thomas keller's recipe. he brines his in lemon, seasoning, garlic, then does a double dredge. it is kind of labor intensive but really great. in a pinch this is a super flavorful and easy oven fried chicken recipe (only 4 ingredients and that even includes salt and if you don't have time to marinate it still comes out great). Crispy 5 Spice chicken Drumsticks

Calle from King Carlos does some of the most amazing Japanese style work I've ever seen. He was one of the people I considered for my backpiece but in the end it didn't look like it was going to work out. A combination of the waiting list at the time, mechanics of going back and forth to Stockholm (he doesn't travel because of his back, AFAIK)...

Can't stop posting songs there's too many good ones.. This is one of those songs I've played two three times in a row while driving..

If I can get it together, will be going as a member of SAMCRO. With my old lady, of course.

use seral paper or any other light coloured carbon paper and just trace it

Looks fine to me, now its time to fill up the rest of your arms.

Don't obsess about it. It's on your hand. Looks fine.

Chris Smith, Deluxe Tattoo in Chicago. The ship itself was done last year, just finished the background and flowers this time around ... Last Thursday.

While I was at Frith Street my beautiful squeeze had her second session. A really stunning Day of the Dead Girl, tattooed by Stewart Robson.

Deb this could be right up your alley then (or irezumi, jack might know...hell it could have been him). this guy came in the shop last week and said he got this at a flea market in columbus about 25 or so years ago. he couldn't remember the guy's name but he said it was definitely at a flea market...any ideas?

This was done on my good friend/mentor Tom before he went to Vietnam in the late 60's. It was done in Kenosha WI by a guy named Greg May. Greg was murdered by an ex employee in 2000 but from my understanding was know as a very fast solid tattooer in the chicago area. I saw the flash sheet Tom picked this image off and it was very well done. Tried to get him a copy of it as a gift but no dice.Tom has a few more tattoos from Greg. I will try and get some quality pictures next time I see them.

Here's some cool ass pieces, some of you may know him. His name is John Chance. He's got a 30 year old back piece with work from Jack Rudy but mainly Ed Hardy just thought I'd share!

Heres a couple of mine. These were done 1970/71 when I was 15/16. The skull, my first ever tattoo is over 40 years old. The reds have gone from both of them but they are in pretty good nick considering. The artist was a guy called Steve who had a shop in the city of Bath, England. I think it was in Broad Street. Don't know what became of him. No appointments or bringing in artwork in those days. All walk ins. You just sat and waited your turn. The clients were bikers, skinheads and low lifes like me. I remember him tattooing and smoking rollups.

This is a Doc Webb tattoo done sometime in the 1950's in San Diego. I took the the picture in 2010 it was on an older ex army gentleman.

I took these photos a while back. The guy got them done at the Pike, he couldn't remember who did them, but it was at Bert Grimms. The frog is an old gang tattoo, from La Rana, I've actually done a few of them here, but haven't taken any pictures...

this tattoo isnt super "old" but badass.... a guy who came into my shop got this from mike wilson in 93' or so done at philadelphia eddies...

First try with photos. Hope this works... The parrot and skull with top hat are Bert Grimm. The man who had them said the parrot was done in 1980, when Mr. Grimm was 80 years old in Oregon. He also had the rose from Sailor Jerry. The snake was on a guy that came in to the shop here in Juneau that said he'd gotten it at China Sea and that it was lined by Jerry, but that it was shaded and colored by a female with him watching over her. Artist unknown on the devil head.

heres a few more..these where all done by Dale Grande at Chicago Tattoo. The dragon is from the mid 70s , the butterfly and the lion are from the late 70s early 80s and the skull is from the mid 80s..