ShawnPorter

Speaking of Wilson and black panthers.... http://occultvibrations.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/img132.jpg

It's been a hoot going through all of these videos. I remember buying Frisco Skin when I was 16 and just being so goddanged geeked about getting tattooed. That's when I met Mike Wilson, Guy Aitchison, tons of people who shaped how I grew up. It's fun to go back now and say "holy crap- that's Jeff Rassier with blue hair" and seeing younger versions of your friends, before they were your friends.

My parents lied about my age to the tattooist in order to get me my first tattoo. It was a present for graduating early and the artist (biker shop, yeeehaw) wouldn't tattoo anyone under 16. I had just turned 15 and my Mom, a feisty Southern Baptist, did NOT like being told no. She she lied and said I was 16 but without a driver's license. They were very supportive, my folks. Instead of family trips, they'd send my brother and I to tattoo conventions. We even managed to get my Dad to get a little tiny tattoo with us years back. When I first started moving past the safety zones- onto the hands, throat... my Mom asked me if I "knew what I was doing". I said yes (I was working at a Fortune 100 at the time) and she never questioned it again.

More Frisco Skin and Tattoo Ink- Daniel Higgs « Occult Vibrations

1. Septic Death- Change 2. The Smiths- This Charming Man 3. The Kinks- The Village Green Preservation Society 4. Harley Poe- Time of the Month 5. Lungfish- No False Suns 6. Feist & Ben GIbbard- The Train Son 7. The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo- Queen's Revenge 8. John Doe & the Sadies- Stop the World and Let me off 9. The Matadors- If you're going to bitch (I'm going to drink) 10. Daniel Higgs- b1 11. The Smiths- Ask 12. The Misfits- Astrozombies 13. Broken Social Scene- Cause = Time 14. John Doe & the Sadies- A Fool Such as I 15. Avett Bros- For Today 16. The Pupils- Track 06 (live) 17. The Devil Makes Three- Gracefully Facedown (Live on KEXP) 18. Van Halen- Everybody Wants Some 19. Tom Waits- I'll Shoot the Moon 20. The Magnetic Fields- The Nun's Litany 21. Crash and the Boys- We hate you please die 22. Daniel Johnston- Masks (Live on the Henry Rollins Show) 23. Burning Brides- Arctic Snow 24. Reptile House- Keelhaul Love 25. Hank Williams- Your Cheatin' Heart Whew.

Guy Aitchison K.C. Angel David Bruehl Chad Chesko Kim Durham Bill Hannong John Himmelstein Josh Hoffman Thomas Hooper Bill Liberty Rick Lohm Jason Minauro Bud Pierson Skip Sampson Chris Trevino Deborah Valentine Dave Waugh Mike Wilson I know I'm forgetting people.

"Before he was a fashion maven, DE Hardy was a cholo Don Knotts.... story at Occult Vibrations.com!" I found the rest of the Higgs footage, Scott- no need to dropbox it!

When I was your age we had to walk a mile in the snow, barefoot, to get tattooed. With a rusty set of needles. Then again, a backpiece was only $5.00.

I have the stamina, but not the enthusiasm. Remember when getting them was fun?

I still can't look at the tattoo city one and not think Don Knotts.

Tattoo City « Occult Vibrations

I promise that I'm going to post about more than foie gras... but yesterday I picked up a "French Kiss"- a cognac soaked prune stuffed with foie gras. I had picked up some guanciale, so the kiss was just a little extra. I swear I occasionally eat vegetables.

My latest tattoo was done a few weeks ago, during the Philly Tattoo Convention. My buddy Rick Lohm drew it up at 2am and came to my place at 9:30am to tattoo it. I had sent him a thumbnail that looked like a seven year old blind kid drew it and he somehow turned that into a kickass piece. I keep a massage table at my place since most of the people who tattoo me are traveling through Philadelphia and with the spots I have left, it's just more comfortable to get worked on in my own space. I had worked till 4am and I don't think Rick had been to sleep yet, but we managed to get through the tattoo just fine. Back of my leg from the bend up to the buttcheek. I'll try to get my girlfriend to grab a picture.

I got tattooed by Bill Liberty back in.... christ... 90 maybe? I wouldn't really call him old or crusty back then. He was doing a lot of Robt Williams work when I was out there, and showed my his DE Hardy backpiece... which when you're 15 is f'in COOL. hah.

Wow! Haha. That's great. What's on Waldo's face?

-Go to Japan. I was all set to do it in 2007 but I bought a house instead. -Purchase Pushead. Not art BY Pushead. But Brian Shroeder himself. I have a guest room he could live in. Go, wake him up and say "hey Pushead, draw me a skull, sport". And he'd have to. Because I purchased him fair and square. -Follow Anthony Bourdain AND Dcostello for at least a year. We'd be like Deadheads, but we'd be eating amazing food all over the world and we wouldn't smell like patchouli and joblessness. -Marry my girlfriend. She's sweet and good to me. But more than that, she's good FOR me. Which is something I can't say that the women in my life have traditionally been. She's 14 years younger than me, but she's the adult in our relationship. Sadly, she's against the whole "Purchasing Pushead" plan, saying something about slavery and free will. But she's getting her Masters in Social Work, so she's trained to care about people. (I've promised to feed and walk him, but she doesn't listen) -Move back to the boonies. I grew up on an 80acre working cattle farm/orange grove, but I ran from it to the big city. Now I fetishize slower living. My pop moved to New Jersey to be closer to us, and he has two acres with no neighbors. I go out there, sit on the porch sipping chai tea and goofing around on the internet and it feels like I've found something I thought I had lost. -Hunt more. I know it's not PC, but I grew up deer hunting and I miss it. I want to try bear hunting. Then again, boar hunting almost made me mess my pants when one charged me. So maybe I'll just play big buck hunter at the bar. -Be happy.

It was difficult to compress that video into 15mins; there's so much classic material in it so I tried to distill it into the "essence of Lum". Between downloading it, converting it, editing it, rendering it, uploading it and waiting for youtub to process it.... the 15 mins video will represent about five hours of on task time. This process isn't always fun but it's great to hear Dave talking about black panther dick.

Different Mike Malone.

Thanks to scottyb, I'll be throwing up highlights from Dave Lum's Heavy Duty tattooing tomorrow or Sunday! I lost the master files to that and the Corbin/Higgs footage, and instead of making me recapture everything, Scotty has been a champ to get the files I gave him back to me. Woo hoo. The Lum one is GREAT. "I wouldn't mind tattooin' a big ol black panther with a big ol pink dick on some gal". Classic.

Olde City at the time was very testosterone-y. If it was just Josh and I it tended to be Smiths, Van Halen, whatever. If the rest of the guys were in; god forbid on a weekend.... it became a "no, check THIS shit out!" You're competing with Dave Fox and J Goldberg for music rotation. It's going to end up metal or gangsta rap.

I never had anyone ape Dan's work; I'd never say "can you make this look like Dan Higgs" ya know... At the time I was getting a lot of work by Mike Wilson (Full Mahakala/Peter Pan backpiece) and John Himmelstein (who Wilson worked with). John was a comic book illustrator so his stuff had a nice graphic comic vibe to it and Mike and I just sort of clicked. Neither of them thought the stuff I was requesting was too weird and both really helped me start getting big tattoos, versus the little things I had been picking up.