Dan S

Welcome to LST...now let's fill that gallery up!

I can deal with the idea of kitchen-table / motel-room scratchers, at least you know what they are going in. The ones that piss me off are the ones that set-up a shop, advertise the shit out of it, undercut everyone elses prices, and proceed to mutilate as many suckers as they can until the word finally gets out.

It's all good...we're secure in our masculinity-none of us has a single Koi tattoo!!!!!!!

Gotta hook you up with @Colored Guy...he's got a thing for Koi. OR is that Koi for a thing? Ah well-either way!

Just healing....eased off on the lotion, right? using just enough to moisten it, maybe 3 or 4 times a day, right after you wash it? It's a big piece, you disrupted a whole bunch of skin in a relatively tender area-gots to expect some payback from your body for that. Keep it clean, try to keep clothes off that area, or at least where loose, soft clothes...it'll be fine.

That's what I love about Chicago-say what you want, but be ready to back it up! - - - Updated - - - Hey @ CG...watchadoin tonite, big guy?!

Graphic novel cartoon...

That's true. And if people would stop trying to drag politrix into everything, we could just talk about tattoos!

Whoa...WAY too much information! Man, let the haters hate. It's the new age, PC, that REALLY gets 'em going. Sixties and seventies? I was coming up then, and it was pretty much do your thing. You will ALWAYS find some small percentage of people gotta hate on someone to feel better about themselves, but I think it's far, far worse now than it was bqack in the day. Now you have Political Correctness, which is a fancy way of saying "if you don't think and act exactly as I do, then you're pondscum". It's taught in the schools, and drilled into kids heads from the day they can walk into one...tell a Polack joke?!?!?!?!?! Oh my genderless creation legend-the sky is falling! Fuck it. At least in the sixties and seventies, if you wanted to be a (insert your particular thang here) it was all good. Now, forget it-say the wrong word and the Nanny State and it's informing minions are on you. Try to defend yourself and instead of fighting you, they'll just call 5-0 and press charges.

Wouldn't shock me...doesn't EVERYONE wanna get out of Peoria?!

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I know what 88 means. And yes, the original photo was of a Russian ghetto-rat. You miss the whole point of what I wrote. The man isn't American. He is a Russian, and has a different read on things than we do. The swastika and other symbols like it are used to shock, just as they were here in the sixties. And racist? There aren't enough Blacks in Russia to be racist against! Who is this guy supposed to be hating on? It offends me when I see portraits of Che, or symbols of anarchy, etc., but that's just me-I'm not going to try to smear someone online becasue I don't happen to agree with what he thinks, or the people he associates with. Take that all the way. If this guy IS a stone-cold NS, which he isn't, but just for the sake of argument, if he was, I'd STILL get work done by him if I had the chance. I've never asked any tattooer what their views on a conflict that ended 67 years ago are, and I've never asked any tattoer if he agrees with my politics. And I damn sure never accused anyone of being a nazi, commie, pinko, leftie, rightie, or in-between on the internet on the basis of some "I heard" or a pic. Done with it.

Not going to go through his portfolio pic by pic, but the first image is one that was printed in many European mags and is of a Russian street kid. Everyday reality there. The second image is from a Wehrmacht recruiting poster printed during WWII. How either are racist, beats me. The street kid? That's reality there-doesn't make you racist to recognize it. The recruiting poster? Again, soldiers recognize soldiers, period. Did you bother to look at the rest of his work, or did you jump on the only one's you could find that you could label "racist"? Next time someone walks by wearing a shirt with Che on it, or asks for a hammer and sickle tattoo, tell them about how they are being fascistic or communist.

Ah, you're all in luck...Nick is doing a guest spot at Freedom Ink on 7-8 September.

No flames, Trixie, I doubt I'll be in Russia next week either-I just can't stand to see someone's character assassinated by gossip. My sister's husband lost most of his family in the camps in WWII. I lost most of my family in the Gulag after WWII. Enough suffering to go around without spreading it to people who don't need it! Over the years of working withe Eastern-Euros, and even to a degree with Western-Euros, I have come to find that their views on things are much different than ours. Not better, not worse, just different. My colleague in Germany, married to a Brazilian, mot a racist bone in his body, didn't see a thing wrong with calling a Black person a n----r, or with taking pictures of them shining shoes, etc. I had to talk to him at great length to make him understand that just wasn't gonna make it here. He meant no offense, he just sees through different eyes. It would be a personal choice of mine to get my work done by whomever I was most impressed by, no matter their politics. Matter of fact, I've never asked Nick about his, hell, he might be a Rotarian for all I know!

Ah, I was waiting for someone to come up with the "Nazi" thing. Den is NOT a Nazi, self-proclaimed or otherwise. He IS the victim of an unrelenting smear attack by leftist fools who see any acknowledgment of history as being in some way "racist". The images he has tattoed of German soldiers and officers have been just that...German SOLDIERS. Anyone who has humped a pack in any army in the world will tell you they have a degree of respect for another SOLDIER, no matter that they are on opposing sides. He has done no tattoos, that I am aware of, that are of so-called "war-criminals", or NS leaders or heros. The tattoos that have drawn the most fire are two copies of recruiting posters for the Wehrmacht, and a protrait of Joachin Peiper, a famous tank-commander, who was apolitical. He has also done a good bit of work of Russian SOLDIERS, cosmonauts, and the like. As for the racist crap, take a look at his FB page, and look at the work he posted yesterday, then go back and look for yourself at the work in his photos. "Nazi-inspired images"... A "Nazi" was a member of the Nationalist-Socialist German Workers Party. Very few SOLDIERS were Nazis. They fought and died by the millions because that was their profession, and that's what they were ordered to do. The despicable actions of a small minority of one quarter of one branch of the armed forces of a State does not automatically make all others serving in those armed forces some type of fiends. Let's see, if I follow that resoning, his portrait of a cosmonaut must mean he's a Commie, and his MANY portraits of African children must mean that he's Black, right? I don't know the guy, never met him, but I've seen enough of the character-assassination by computer to know it when I see it. He does a tattoo of a German soldier in combat, he does a tattoo of a Russian kid in one of the ghettos with right-wing imagery, so he must be a Nazi. He tattoos life. Are there right-wing youngsters in the old eastern-bloc? Oh yeah. Are there reminders of "The Greast Patriotic War" everywhere in Russia, especially in Moscow, where he lives? Hell yeah. Again, tattooing those does not make him a racist or a Nazi. Why do people insist on parsing everything in terms of their own ethos? Here's a nice example. I'm half-Irish. Still have plenty of family there. My Grandda left after Easter Week in '16 with a bounty on his head. I have spent many an hour here and in Ireland going round with lads from the Provos, and from the Real. I strongly agree with their desire for a unified Ireland. I strongly disagree with their, as I see it, socialist, of not outright communist, philosophy. So I shoudl call any of them, or anyonhe that tosses a dollar in the bucket on the bar a Commie, right?

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I was dumb enough to do mine in one sitting...I'll know better next side! @Slayer, man, that is gonna be a hella piece!

I do believe I've said it before, but rib panels are just SO much fun!!!

Way to bust it out, Liz! "Pain is our friend, it helps us to learn and grow."

Forget all that bullsit about names. That's why they make black ink-if you want the name there, go for it. As for step-whatevers, lose that too. Just my humble little opinion. MY fiance came with a daughter that I love as one of my own.

Damn str8!

The guys at CTC put out some killer daggers. All have lsightly different styles, Nick Colella, Mario Desa, Erik Gillespie, check 'em out at The Chicago Tattooing and Piercing Co., Inc. 773-528-6969 1017 W. Belmont Ave.

Welcome to LST. Don't know about anyone else, but I judge a person by their actions. Hell, I've even got a coupla Democratic friends!!!

Dogs...more Den Yakovlev...

Happy Birthday, Samuel Laurent...hope ya have a good one.