shaneenholm

Yes deb..and he said that through out the whole thing..how you had a deep and real relationship with Paul,how we should all live our lives like paul,and then the funeral and those great points that have been overlooked...you were on my mind and Erics alot during this...there are not many people around that had that special bond with him...I know kandi did too..but she did not have the time you did...I am beyond excited for everyone to hear Erics story..it is a good one...as you know...and the legacy of Paul living on in all of you and even beyond you guys directly in those you guys touched..(mike etc...)

been a while since i blogged...It was a helluva summer,we had l some guests,kandi everett,mike wilson,eric inksmith, and I interviewed Eric,which was an honor,Eric being one of the patriarchs of Inksmith and Rogers, a master colorer,and the guy that groomed Mike Wilson,as we all know Mike has raised the bar professionally and personally in our midst,we could all take a page out of Mikes playbook. Erics interview ,in its entirety will be in a future TAM and I think it will be fantastic,Eric has been quiet for too long and he has so much to say....we talked extensively about paul rogers,not just the machine buider but the man and they way he lived his life..Keep yer eyes peeled for it... I obtained a bunch of William fowkes stuff...his stamps,(that he use to make his advertisements and that led to an amazing study and discoveries...)It was always thought that Fowkes machines were waters no names that fowkes stamped,but in fact he cast his own,and he cast wagners too...I do not want to give away too much here but Waters bought Fowkes machine shop in 1916 which we always thought otherwise. Thanks Lyle for helping me a little,see the attached print the stamps i obtained made 100 years ago. Lyle sent to me after Fowkes moved from Detroit to Norfolk. It seems waters took fowkes idea of a hand holding a machine and reasons why it is superior...we dated the stamps as 1906-1910 about 6 years before waters..anyway, we are still hammering out the details but what I have found out so far is mind blowing..the stamps are handcarved on copper and lead....I am doing a full article on it elsewhere..but since i love last sparrow i will do a forum article here around the same time..... Bob Roberts and i are taking a trip to NYC in October to work at Smith street with bert ,steve,dan and Eli...Bob has not been there in forever and I have not been back there ina decade..it should be fun..traveling with bob always is.I will try and take some pictures but i have never been good about that kind of thing,I did not take any this summer...oh well...hope this enough for a blog..I have been neglecting this... here are some photos..of mine and erics work(that bev took)..i lined he shaded... Uploaded with ImageShack.us URL=http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/215/karenanderic2.jpg/][/url] Uploaded with ImageShack.us Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Well that is an interesting subject..I am the father of 5 kids...ages 28 ,26,24,21,16.....and they grew up around tattooing. And only 2 of them have any tattoos and they are minimal and by 19(1983) i was sleeved and a parent. I think they look at it like that is their Pops job and not some cool thing.None of them wanted to tattoo ..though it was offered as a career to all of them..I am very happy they passed.Though i beleive it helped influence their creativity but I will never know for sure because I have no non tattooing family to compare it to...if ya follow me. I think because they grew up around it ..it gave them more of an open mind into not judging people by their appearances...i think it also helped them not care what others thought of their apprearance or their friends appearances, i was recently at one of their weddings and a friend of my daughters came up to and said he was always terrified of me when he was younger...which i wondered how that perception by my childrens friends of me may have affected them...but i am pretty sure it did not do as much damage as my parenting in general may have done. They have never asked me to cover my tattoos ,though one of the step daughters(2 of the 5) used to ask her mother to cover hers ( she too tattoos for aliving)...but that was early on. I think it is as much the internet as anything that has normalized tattooing in the eyes of the youth. I wonder if the whole premise that the generations revolt and do the opposite of their parents will be like in 20 years...they revolt as teenagers but beome their parents in their 30s and 40s...so i guess we will see.... What is it..that today a 15 year old in africa who owns an I phone has access to more information than the president of the united states did on the year of the the teenagers birth( long winded way of saying 15 years ago) THAT HAS TO HAVE SOME INFLUENCE ON EVERYTHING...INCLUDING OUR CHILDRENS PERCEPTIONS OF TATTOOING AND THIER PARENTS TATTOOS....NO?

well deb..I get it..since we have alot of mutual friends and that seems to be the subject amoung us as of late. I just dissappear for awhile...( I did it for the entire decade of the 90s well part of the late 80s too but some of that was beyond my control.so to speak)then I kinda step out and see whats going on...I am at the point where i feel like stepping off again,well i kinda have and i know it left some people puzzled but I (hopefully) got that straightened out. There,I guess was always politics in this just not so mainstream...but now more than ever that end is heart breakingly sad...Jack Rudy had an idea one time of starting "the tattoo tattler" a gossip column dedicated to the politics and whispers thereof...I only wish I had thought that up first. You know the thing is after many years basically all you know besides a few people have something to do with tattooing.And once upon a time it was harder to have those that were not in this relate to you..but it is so mainstream now that it does not matter as much anymore.I mean the whole world tattoos now...I miss the smell of angel dust in the shop...(not that I ever liked that shit)but just the fact that it was a possibility....etc..etc... I think you just have the blues..the regular old blues..what do you have 30 plus years in now....We need you more than ever...so dont sell your inversion table just yet...did you feel this way before you went to jax bch or after your return...? just wonderin...you got a great spot to lay low...so hang in there...just know you are not alone with those feelings.... you do not need me to tell ya this but remember that is not water some of these people think they are walkin on..after all it aint like we are transplant surgeons..we just put colored scabs on people...then it becomes kinda funny...from the sidelines anyway....hope you feel better

the number is 904 241 4005...as far as the UK you can get it from luckys too

you think they misspelled his boyfriends name on him or something....I do not think i would keep a samarai sword in the shop where anyone could reach it but myself.....

OK kids...here it is the best ink...used by Mike wilson,bert krak,Spotlight tattoo,everyone at inksmith and rogers Tim hendricks,shit the whole world give or take 30,000,000 billion...this is the real deal...you get the same ink we get...this was the secret shit once upon a time.... he is calling it TIME TELLS, with the classic red velvet,Pike green, and so on and so froth...call angelo at 904-247-4005.....but please call ready to order...he has what he has just mixed up give or take and you may happen to hit some special blend.....but thats a maybe.... Angelo has a real talent for ink mixing...get in on it.....Thanks

I will have to take some pics with my camera tommorrow..the ones i am taking with my phone do not tell the whole story...but believe me...he is a monster....and he will never forgive me for posting something he wouldnt want out there... so is Angelo Miller and Mike Bruce at inksmith and rogers....Poor Angelo...every tattoo he does is either before or after one Mike wilson does....Tattooers get his Ink products they are calling it "Time Tells"....and Mike Bruce...he works at the Atlantic Blvd shop....real low key but just amazing...Eric inksmiths forearm...i thought Rollo did it but it was Mike Bruce.... All three do not care for alot of attention...but they are all real real good.... It is funny...there are so so many good tattooers now.....

yes..I have some on my legs.......I will have karen take some photos( she broke Steve in )as much as it will upset Steve I will post some directly....

sleevin steve serazio....big steve serazio....Steve-o Serazio...SIR RAW ZEE OO.....thee most naturally gifted tattoo artist...spotlights janitor

CUSTOMER RESPECT...OF COURSE IT EXISTS...WHERE WOULD WE BE WITHOUT CUSTOMERS.... It is very varied...like someone said there are all kinds of people..so there are all kinds of tattooers....Most people when they first come in the shop think i am scowling at them...but i cannot see past 15 feet so I am trying to discern who it is.... I work in a street shop..I always have worked in a street shop...I like it.....I always liked Mikey perfettos(pronounciation..not spelling) way of running a shop...the dry erase board you put your name on...whether you want a back piece or a litlle kanji...you get your name on the board..you will get tattooed that day... he takes the board away at a certain point and you gotta come back tommorrow...Also his customers are fiercely loyal...people go there with sleeves or work from really great and well known artists and his customers will look at it and say.."those are nice...but look at the ones Mikey put on me" Tattooing has turned into a real whirlwind...more people today getting tattooed than ever...more tattooers tattooing than ever...more personalities....I promise i will not go into a "back in the day" rant.. I am not sure if it was better back then anymore but with the tattooer and tattooed population exploding that adds alot into what is happening...With all these people comes all these personalities and egos and behavior.... It is a imperative for a tattooer to remember that his customer may have worked 40 hours for the 200 bucks you are gonna get in an hour or two...and it is also hard to have 6 or 7 18 year old girls ask you'what place hurts the least on the body and i can hide it from my parents" naturally I think...if you want a tattoo you will get it where you want it regardless of the pain...it is a tightrope or have people coming at you all day asking"how much would you have charged for this?" rolling up their sleeve... but it is important for customers to remember that a tattoo machine is not a magic wand...(well Id swear it is in some peoples hands)Like all the young tattoo-ologists that come with their friend to get their first and you put the pattern on and they ask their friend rather than look in the mirror...or the facebook thing...tattooing with people trying to film it to put it on line with their phones...or when you go to dip your machine in ink they slip a camera in and take a shot of a pattern with one line....I mean it is alot.... then the memorial tattoo.... they are going thru the biggest changes in their life and you are poking holes in them...there is so much going on that people do not realize....and while all that is going on you may have had a fight with your significant other, or your kid or grandkid is sick....but you have to leave all that outside of what you are doing.. Then we have that all too ga-narly EGO...on both sides of the fence...Like in sobriety at the end of a 12 step meeting they say the lords prayer and I heard a guy say "deliver us from ego" rather than "deliver us from evil"...ego is a huge thing...more now than ever...Opinions(like mine i am typing out now) are a big factor too....what was it rollo said"alot of tattooers are building monuments to themselves rather than doing what the customer wants" people get tattooed for all kinds of reasons..and sometimes people think a tattoo is gonna change their life...its not...it is just them with a tattoo... Then the cool factor... right??? I had a guy tattooing for a couple of days at the shop who used to have a serious attitude...not anymore..and i asked him about it.and he said he learned it..like watching more 'experienced" tattooers act bothered by the customers...Its actually pretty funny when you think about it...but he realized that is what he thought he was suppose to act like...and you tattooers would laugh if you knew they guy he learned from...this guy was notorius like sitting behind a counter with his hands hidden smiling and talking to the customer while flipping them off with both hands Most Tattooers start hanging around shops very young...they are very impressionable...it is the old nature versus nurture arguement..and one day the nature wins over if they were nurtured liked the guy i just mentioned...unless they are naturally nitwits to begin with...but they may have learned that arrogant behavior....but usually they will lose it if it is in their nature.... Or how about they act like they think they are suppose to act because they heard some story about a big noise tattooer acted towards a customer...the story is completley blown out of proportion and when you get the real skinny on what happened it all made sense.... Tattooing is hard work...most people that spend an hour in a shop that you spend your whole life in probably get the perception it is easy....IT IS VERY DRAINING.....I mean ass kicking as hard as running a jack hammer or ditch digging(I guess i still am kinda)ass kicking... but the customers are the real reward...that is why it gets good...and I have a alot of friends that agree...However the customer also makes it the biggest struggle... what is that saying..'people only ask how your doing so they don't let on how little they care"...Ok a customer books an appointment(thats why i like walk ins..I tell them i will get em tattooed if they can wait...for the people in front of them or the hours it takes to draw the picture they showed you on their phone...)is every single customers printer always out of ink... But lets go with an appointment..Ok the guy works all week and he has an appointment at 5 on friday...he is running a little late but figures it is his time anyway so what is 15 minutes...at the same time at the shop the artist has a guy there with the cash that wants a small one...well is the appointment coming?...if i tell the guy at the shop no and the customer does not show up i am out both tattoos and cannot pay my starbucks debit card(yeah right...somethin important like that)...whatever...so you take the guy there and then the appt. shows up... he flies right up to your station and you tell him.."i got this one infront of you and then i will get to you..."he is pissed...pacing...but he will get over it....He shoulda been on time..I am a nut about being on time....it is all about the individuals personality... Ok or you are working on a tattoo that some guy worked all week for the $ and another customer comes up and wants to ask you how you can add on to a tattoo..and you try politely to tell them.."hey i gotta do this right now when i get to you you will have my undivided attention" in which the customer replies.."do you think cherry blossoms will work?" like you did not say anything....usually we are guarded until we see where they are coming from... there is a whole lot going on before you walk in the shop.... The customers are usually intimidated to begin with...they think their questions will be dumb...but i always ask them what they do...lets say they cut hair..i do not know anything about that..like they do not know anything about tattooing...of course they have questions....fire away....but when you get the customer that wants you to give them the answer THEY WANT..not the truth...tattooing is so overrun now they will find someone who will give them the answer they want...maybe not the tattoo but the answer.... People love their tattoos....I was told that very young by a great tattooer....remember people love thier tattoos...I have seen a perfectly good reaper done on a customer by someone and had a tattooer look at it and say 'who did that reaper?...they shaded it backwards..." (actually it is that cliff raven reaper..it is not shaded backwards it is like that on the flash) so a week later i get a call from the customer"shane can you fix my reaper?"...Why? whats wrong with it? it is because that guy told you it was shaded wrong? it was fine and you loved it for 2 years until some nitiwt says something about it...you loved it when you picked it....that is so sad... Anyway....It is a fine line......but there are all kinds of tattooers..like there are all kinds of customers... Another older tattooer told me when i was young that it is the experience...the whole of it...someone who bumps into a world famous guy tattooing them may do a beautiful eagle but they like the one that we, as tattooers, may not think is the best technically because they dug the experience people get tattooed for all knids of reasons and art is relative...... My longest friendships are with tattooers...in spite of us being tattooers..some i may not see everyday or every year but when i do it is like not a day has passed....and in every tattooer there is a customer...WE ARE CUSTOMERS...all of us....and regardless of what they may portray they all put there pants on one leg at a time...noone truly shits beige.... I do not take breaks....not rest breaks anyway..i may have to pour some color..but I usually do not stop to smoke or coffee or eat...I barely do that between tattoos...and i know i am not as good as my peers...but i have been around it and done it since i was a little kid and i know part of the reason i am so swamped every single day is customer relations...THANK GOD I AM SO SWAMPED.... gratitude...being grateful that we have the best job in the world...in spite of the bad backs,neck extra 20 pounds the lack of privacy,the hurt hands and wrists,bad eyes,the judgements,bad diet,the intra industry personality wars, who knows who, thousands of people chasing the same nickel....the cant get to sleep because i crossed that line on the eagle feather...,is my dick too small( where did that one come from) the IRS,state laws,the internet etc...etc.etc...it is still the best job in the world.... The customer is the most important part of all of this....no question....it is a two way street and keeping your side clean is the best thing you can do.... PS i did an article/ interview with Big bad Jack Rudy that is coming out in TAM #25...check it out....

here are a few looks into the book..kandi put a good one together....real money maker

I may be totally wrong about this...but my theory is the exact opposite from ergonomically correct tube grips...The people i started tattooing with all use thinner grips....(mahoney for one)30 years.... then the kids that work at the shop use those big grips and start icing their hand at 4 years or so...I have never had that problem..but i feel for those who do... stretching hand Dari..i do not know what to tell ya..thats why scotts tattoos(one of the many reasons)are so fucking clean....its that stretch. I think Col. todd was really on to something with that whole "every tattoo i do only takes me fortee fiii-ve minutes" but i guess thats a moot point when you you have to do a 58 word quotation on a rib cage every 3rd tattoo and mouths to feed...I do not remember hearing about these issues until this last decade...

thanks deb...you know we know the guy was a scoundrel....we had heard he had murdered a couple people....the trip just took on that theme....like Scott getting pulled over and rolling down the window and saying to the tropper "fine me or fight me" but it was very clear that that guy had some bad kharma... However you and i know and most people know that is the beautiful thing about tattooing(and one i fear will be destoyed by the mainstream of it all now) the characters that were into this hustle. THANKS DEB.....

THANKS DEB!!!!!!!...WE HAD QUITE A TRIP......

My pal kandi is having me sell these... They are all from her stash of Pinups...it is legendary and these are new we want 67.00 paypal...60.00 fro the book 5.00 for shipping and 2 bucks for the paypal fees....send the dough to me at [email protected] I know you guys know what these are so get em while we got em

yeah Ackers ( I always tripped on him as he got older he looked my like a woman and his old lady more like a man maybe he did not have alot of testosterone but a nice guy...) and the one on the right is the Bristol tattoo club....

no hawk thank you...I always wondered why the bill moore machine frames at some point were identified as waters....the same as all the first swinggates(the actual Bob Shaw model not modified jonesys etc)were all waters #2 with dual binders grinded off and rechromed....we were never sure if they used old frames or bought surpluses either from waters family or maybe Zies.... thanks I have alot stuff on jensen but he did not mention his first wife in any of it...but didnt i see apic of them together maybe on here. But I do know that Owen jr. was the center of his dads life and he had bought hima brand new camaro and owen jr. wrapped it a round a telephone pole and died. Jensen was never the same. That is all word of mouth but jensen had only been gone less than 10 years when i turned up.My father collects civil war guns and I was kinda innately drawn to history...any not just tattoo.... When Bob was working down on the pike he would see jensen in the shop and one time he went in there and the old man yelled at him '"I dont Know why those guys are sending a young guy like you in here to spy on me..." I always got a kick ot of that story....Maybe it is because thoughts of bob as a young man, areal young man makes me laugh...it is so easy to see as he still has that childlike spark .................. again thanks for the posts hawk

To throw in my two cents which is worth about half that these days... i do not think they called them guest spots.....guys just worked at various spots...If they got as letter saying it was good in norfolk..off they would go..the truth is during the circuses many tattooers opened shops on the off season....Closed them again when the circus started...Erik inksmith was telling me that paul rogers had regular customers that would wait for him every year....when he worked the circus... However later trying to track the pike is insane...there were so many shops..there were shops on stair landings and then there were guys with the same name. Brooklyn blackie...the newyork one or the frisco one.... Another tidbit i picked up visiting with him last week was that paul said he never felt the depression...at all!!!!! But he was working at colemans and they had the sailors...Now what i know about wagner is the depression devastated him....so it is a pretty wide spectrum....even then....I have had many conversations with many tattooers about how it (history) turns into a big game of" telephone" you know sit in a circle whisper something to the person next to you and around the circle it goes coming back totally different than when it began.They call ti chinese whispers in england...if that helps... I have a great letter owen jensen wrote paul rogers right before he died that he kinda runs down how he ended up where he ended up. That guy tattooed everywhere with everyone. It is a 18 page letter written about 3 months before he died and There are alot of references to the fleet being in or the fleet being out eastern and western....How he would open in san pedro while the fleet was in and then take off and leave the shop to Charlie barrs...only to come back after a stint with grimshaw and coleman and on and on..hopw he was Barbers machinist before becoming his own machinist....etc....That letter was the real eye opener to me about how a tattooer ended up everywhere...we see jensen flash from all over the U S I never knew percy waters traversed from Detroit to anniston. wow...I thought he got in trouble for tattooing the mayors kid in anniston so he took off to NYC and the center of non-gypsy tattooing(for want of a better description) i do know that when he and wagner were at odds bill jones hipped percy to the machine shop that was for sale in Detroit and that is how he ended up there...only when he got real sick did he get back to alabama and then die..But it would not surprise me if he did travel back and forth.....Thanks for sharing that with us.... .But the beautiful thing about tattoo history there are pockets of info here and there and reading hawks post fills some of the gaps again Thanks for sharing Hawk.. Why history is so lost and i have probably stated this many times in the mags or forums or in many late night conversations with others that it was kinda the shame of the family if you were a tattooer...i have heard that from many people..why they changed names...etc....so why would it get documented....and also noone was really thinking how significant these events would be to us later.Tattooers in general( if you could generalize them) are kinda obsessive so that trait helps us in tracking a history that is so word of mouth. another thing i see that happens is like when karen started tattooing it was colonel todds nephew that broke her in...(you can trace alot of us to Shaw and todd i talk about that with bob roberts in the tam i did with him) but at the time she was broke in they handed her a couple machines that were around the shop....well one of them was bob shaws shader9she still uses it today everytattoo)so at the time it was just another machine around the shop....now it is more...how many times i think about the buckets of waters and jonesy and jensens etc that were sitting around when huck started selling lite weights with quick change vices....well now...also the acetates...file cabinets full that noone wanted because the smelled like vomit....when i got some of owens stuff thru the death of Bill mokry(some of you may remember him..he slept on the national convention floor had a body suit from leeroy and jensen got a bunch of blue added and i guess later [people were calling him papa smurf)well that guys brother brought me his stuff...at bills request....later i found out they had thrown four trashbags of acetates and flash out!!!!! you know families and landlords think the stuff is worthless so out the door it goes...and it was worthless then....in ways..i know that sounds like blasphemy but not really to someone who aint into it.... It can become overwhelming....merry christmas

for a few years now Scott Sterling and i have been taking these roadtrips to visit older tattooers,and friends...we both have a thing about tattoo history especially the word of mouth stories so we go see people and ask for the real skinny....Erik Inksmith said we kept him up until 4am wondering about some of the questions we had asked him the day before. Anyway Scott Sterling and I decided after a few failed attempts previous years to go down and visit Mike Wilson, Angelo ,and Erik and Bev Inksmith and everyone at the inksmith and rogers .Christmas party ......Which was such a great week...the highlight was getting a tigerhead tattoo from Mike and Erik...Mike lined Erik shaded.....anyway...... On the drive down there we went thru georgia and Scott and I began talking about people that had shops there,nefarious and otherwise...Erik had a shop there screwy louie,fast freddie and Sailor bill killingsworth etc...Now there was a character SAILOR Bill killingsworth...carney....scoundrel....in some peoples eyes I do not know alot about bill but i know a little. Sailor Bill worked alot of places... A few i know of are Norfolk Virginia,Columbus Georgia and on the pike. His address on the Pike is 26 chestnut pl. which was leeroy minughs address...(I think they were calling it tattoo headquarters when bill was there)so at some point bill worked there but someone like bill he probably worked anywhere there was a naval or army base or carnival. Now throughout the years i have heard lots of great sailor bill stories...most of them involved bad tattoos and guns....or both.... One story was Zeke Owens was at bills shop and they were having a spat about something and Zeke went in the bathroom closed the door and went #2(for lack of a better description)anywho..a few moments after Zeke sat down a bullet came through the door above Zekes head...the kicker is bill did not know he was going #2...and if Zeke had been standing draining the main vein...well...you get the idea..... Now Sailor Bill and Fast Freddie had a tattoo shop war going as they both not only had shops in the same town...(Which Scott and i had heard that they would driveby each others shops and shoot out windows etc..).well we found out not only were they in the same town but they shared a parking lot!!!!!!!! two guys that hate each other chasing the same nickel.... That was almost as good as hearing about Sailor eddie looking thru binoculars trying to get the designs off his rivals shop walls across the street..... Deb Yarian who I see on here maybe able to enlighten us on more stories about Freddie and Bills war...Erik told me deb knew freddie well and i seem to remember Deb asking me if i knew freddie at some point. Mike Wilson told me he saw some photos of Bills tattoos...one was a shark...but Mike said it looked more like a sardine/cigarette combo...are ya sure one of my tattoo photos did not slip into bills??? My favorite Sailor Bill story was a sailor or a customer came in and asked Bill to do a snake and an eagle on him. Bill says no problem,does the tattoo and after he had finished the sailor looks in the mirror and sees that Bill had forgot to put the eagles head on!!!!!! I mean I can see forgetting a talon or two...or the tongue or a spot on the snake but to forget the eagles whole head!!!!!???? So the sailor says "hey bill you forgot the eagles head.....to which Sailor bill replied...."THE SNAKE BIT IT OFF....NOW PAY ME OR FIGHT ME"...............

Masters....felix and his kids ..at one time bought alot of Los angeles Tattoo Supply company machines from lou and ernie in the 50s....That place had Al miller....who was a monster tattooer..i had heard a story that Al would spread cig butts around the front of the shop right before military paydays so whn the sailors would see them they would figure people were waitin in long lines for the best tattoos....I have not been down there since 83 or 84 well mid 80s... as far as the gates...90 miles too far south....

yeah speaking of working at Cliffs and everything being drawn on...that was Bobs (roberts) biggest problem while he worked there...(not that bob could not draw shit on ..every tattoo he has done on me he drew on...he is big on hectograph paper)but I gather from our conversations on the subject that he could not fathom why he had to draw shop panthers on when there were perfectly good acetates that could do the job quicker and perhaps more adequately depending... But i guess Cliff was pushing towards that higher art form that we find so often today in our midst...So perhaps his rule of drawing it all on was not in vain...I do hope he does not get lost in the shuffle....I tink the time period when he was one of the big 3 is a strange and sometimes overlooked period...people run to the 50s and earlier..but mid sixties thru very early 80s...well not so much..at least from what i see

thanks for the hat tip to Dannys interview...we actually did it two years ago...but his points are timeless....It was actually 56 pages but the mag cut it down. I wish they had published it completely...I have been contemplating doing a symposium on people that have done conventions with Danny....As i have done a few and everyone I know that does them with him it takes on a mythical quality. I just interviewed Jack Rudy for my next submission...we did it real late at the state of grace convention which was perfect i was delirious and Jack was brilliant and articulate...I am real anxious to see how everyone likes that one....

Thanks for sharing some of cliffs work. I know the world spins faster than ever but a topic of conversation amoung me and some friends is how little people talk about cliffs work anymore. he was one of the big three when i first started...him nolan and hardy. I have had alot of close friends work at Cliffs here in LA...many years ago now...like the last one was 83? ish...anyway Cliff had a thing about drawing everything on not using acetates(at least here) which at the time was unique to a degree.He was one of the first guys using the human body shapes to dictate tattoo work. not so much big Jap stuff but american. (also tribal which went hand in hand with body shape..tattooing to enhance figure etc...) i see alot of people talking about tribal in the late 80s early 90s but really it was late 70s early 80s. maybe it stretched out by the late 80s and 90s...like became national...but the at coincides with how quick the world has gotten.now when a new thing in our industry pops up...it is everywhere within weeks... Anyway i digress I dig the refferals to cliffs work i have been seeing as of late...thanks for sharing it

that is funny that you guys mention tribal tattoos... I have been seeing more and more reference to them and people saying they began in the late 80s early 90s...which is not the case... and everyone is right about Cliff Raven. My personal experience with tribal tattoos began in the early 80s...maybe 82??? 83....But at some point then they became big with punk rock here in LA..in fact there is a picture of one of my old girlfriends Kim in the Tattootime 'sea and music" (the blue one) dated 1983 so using that as a reference...I always liked the medusa head Bob tattooed on her myself more but the tribal decorating was really unique at that time Punk rock was huge on tattooing....and in alot ways tattooing would not be what it is today if the two had not crossed paths...one of the major things with that was open mindedness....especially when it came to tribal.... Maybe tribal would not have flown had not punk rock been there at the same time...at least to the the degree that it is now..... I remember people talking about leo and he was working at Spotlight with bob....I had been tattooed by bob but not Leo...so i went in there one night and leo was working alone. I had 35.00 dollars and i really did not want a tribal. I am pretty sure he was tattooing with a PR prefab and after talking about it for awhile we settled on a spider web.... lower forearm and tribal.... I remember Leo talking about using the lines of the body and muscles when designing tribal and that was a really new and fresh way at looking at tattooing...(at least in the U.S.) But one must remember punk rock when one talks about modern tribal....I do not think there would have been tribal without punk rock....