jean pool

ive been busy! ok, mad busy. and loving it. im immersing myself in a encyclopedic pool of tat knowledge, treading water among some of the most tremendous swimmers and hardest workers on this coast. i feel so so lucky to be where i am, no dole. the crew here works hard. jamers evening naps enable him to literally be in the shop until 3 or even 4AM some nights. this is real. chris comes in and slays, absolutely anoints a dudes rib piece, big beautiful colors, no choppiness, gorgeous. no worries. d-boy rocking a top knot, killing it, studious, skilled and helpful. all of them super helpful. enjoying bro times among some evening drawing "class"es. to say class in unfair to the teacher, as the jame dog smashes through japanese dragon anatomy while i, my brain picking up as much as it can manages to, miss probably 80% of it. for now that is to say...being in this environment is highly conducive to a healthy lifestyle for me, inasmuch as helping me really devote the time necessary to draw,study and learn more within tattooing.
pretty stoked, i even managed to miss the harshed out diarrhetic shitstorm thats been circulating. the past week has mostly been me waking, walking around the corner, tattooing, coming home late. fucking rice and bbq pork son.
as usual, im dramatizing.
but! still purely catching quality time with my girl. most important.
ive been mad remiss on the blog tip too, im guilty. i was politicking an awesome one the other day but lost the whole thing due to paranoia. serves me right, it was about graff missions, and a bag of crack i found. funny shit.
im mass tired. ive got a coupla pics here, more en route. im off to bed


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_aNG6Uz9u8

SETTLIN

been watching 2-3 hard-wired junkies loiter(clocking) the corner a block and a half down off my window. as i sit here typing i can watch em even. not as i type right now i should say, as its mad windy, kinda shitty, whatever. but it is "Welfare Wednesday" after all and i was expecting a little more. im going to be honest and rude and confess my objectification of these birds. animalization as it were. tracking their movements, giving them quippy broadway musical names like "jimmy walker" and "2-shakes". i pray for a dance fight battle, but with more of a Rosencrantz and Guildenstern type thing.
in reality though, i watched the young looking red faced one get shaken down by a couple of beat cops.
its great being here, our place is mad nice, rigged up well, custom wood stuff and all that, courtesy of a Mr.Justin Bones esq. a talented, prideful creator of woody goodies.
this isnt a braggy fluff piece though, as we are both feeling a little at a loss, missing courtenay. im actually surprised at it. nothing serious i should add, for myself of course. savannah can speak for herself, but from my angle is doing pretty fucking well considering.
standouts of the past week include; an epically fun,sexy dance-off of the first order with my darling, and some of our besties at a very cheesy, probable gay bar. saturday night.
running into super rad buddies! who are for the most part, killing it!
hanging out at my new place of employ, and getting all stoked up on total bro downs.
eating. staining the pine of the shelf.
lovely, sunset drive with Savvy. who for the most part is full-on killing it!
cycling my ass off around town everyday having so much fun.

other than that, lots of other neat shit that makes me happy and lucky to be hanging again. to say the very least.
keeping a mass low profile. just now had phone and internet installed.
miss yall
miss tattooing as well, time to get back to



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCfRcgoPxTw

(g)lock busting

in the midst of a waist deep shitstorm that is our moving/packing/sally-ann strewn house, weve been having a roller-coasting hootenanny. we are feeling a little cagey, savvy and i. that is to say with the horizon of our moving deadline looming larger and larger in our view, and it being so fucking nice out, its taking all we have not to box each others ears in. other than that! shits been so so good. visits from super new homies, lots of sun, bicycles, and lock pickings.
ive recently had the pleasure of a diabolical,one on one, lock picking tutorial. turns out, tactile as i am, im excelling in the field. was kindly given me own set of picks, and even today came into a bogota style rake. as you can see, im even comfortably using crucial pickin' slang...
i jumped in the puntledge river yesterday. fully dipping on smash. too early turns out.
i traded a skookum pair of jeans for a vintage(ish) bike for my darlin, looks damn good on her too.
im going to miss courtenay so much. so so so much for real. its rad here, and im trying my goddamnest to pack in colloquial memories, suspecting when i arrive in vic, its gonna obviously be a whole other jam. i really dont want to take living in a place like this for granted, and as ive mentioned before ive got my full summer-head-crazy-guy on full bore.
love is in the air! my friends, many of em, with the springiest fevers. warms me to see it. and when it comes to my own spring fever focus, it warms me even warmer. especially one part of me.
sun, savannah, smashing success
alas, my good friend, and former front end girl mellissa packed up all my shit for me at black rose! hahahah i was grateful among other things. so, no tattoos for a few days. i miss it! awesome
here are locks ive picked, with a variety of difficulty

rubber band man

so overwhelmed. this is what i get for fucking around i imagine. our shits all over the house in piles on the floor, throwing away the majority to fit for the new place.
went to vic coupla days ago to take possession of our apartment. super stoked, but it is smaller than i remembered. my handsome, talented, and consummately professional friend J bones will be helping us customize the studio flat, with built in cubicle style shelving and cool sunken in gable-pot kinda lights in the bathroom. he and i had a little walk through while my lovely lady was nesting in a bundle of blankets looking on, and had a wonderful bullshit session. hes like super man to alleviate our worries and stress at the layout and size issues. im forever in his debt with this thing. saw the crew at gov st, and as usual me and savvy left feeling very happy, relaxed, and accepted. what a great group of guys, i am now shitting with excitement at starting both @ the tattoo shop, and of course our new life in victoria. it feels so good to be back there already, and returning to courtenay is weirder and weirder. im driving back down for a night next week to help bones assemble his masterpieces, then driving back up to fill the cube truck we're borrowing from savvy's grand's and driving back down. then back up to drop off the truck, back down. that should be it with around a dozen drives back and forth this month. some record setting bullshit right there, all to the good. amongst all this stuff, still trying to tattoo when i can, and finished a really fun black and grey ribe rose filligree thing today. ill post healed pics with this one. also, as usual ive had the pleasure of running into rad people, whom ill miss greatly, and trying to get pictures of them.

ps- i posted two pictures of that goon dan by accidentals. and shit, someone please message me if you have the "link posting" html info! ya bastards!

pps-included is a pic of a really fun heart i was working on, it was in two stages, with the lines being healed. picture sucks and looks washed out!

henry link letter

yesh yesh yall, enough of the self serving type ish bull, been tatt zapping up a veritable whirl-wind of mean little tats and letter tatts. outlined a neat horsey kinda triple crown winner on my girl, but unfortunately didnt have the opportunity to fill it. this is my last week or full time tattoing here and im feeling awesome, ending it with some of my best clients and fun tattoos.
the carnival is in town, and i managed about 4 and one half minutes before i almost freaked right out. the girls on the other hand love the stuff. riding the zipper literally 4 times in one night. shits ridiculous.
lots of blogs popping up on friends walls, makes me stoked. thanks for the input and support on all the stuff as well friends!
ps, someone please message me if they know how i can post links and stuff!

full clip

looking at old pictures all evening with my girl, crazy ones, uploaded by my boy, and bff: scotty. its wildy entertaining, these images and memories. i feel so positively nostalgic, with a dark undertone of guilt and shame. i was a wild dude, violent, funny, expressive, cavalier. i didnt think id have the life i do now, or i wouldnt have done alot of that shit. my girl laughs and calls me handsome in these pictures, and i remember feeling so full of confidence, vigor, carelessness when they were taken. and so happy to be photographed by my friend, which was often. i love love love my old friends so hard, and miss them. but the pictures dont show my downward spiral, or my inability to make healthy choices, but they do just kinda stop. in a grey area. when even i think my closest friends had a hard time being near me. volatile and unpredictable. when i went to jail the first real time i just wanted to be free, drinking, fighting and being the guy i thought i was born to be. more things happened, i hurt more people, jail again. then more things etc etc. this goes on until i disappear for a time. then, these last few years somewhat reinventing myself and giving all of my energy into doing shit that wasnt retarded, i have successfully built a foundation upon which to assemble a real ass, healthy living ass life. some of my closest friends have chosen different paths. many of them have gone on to become talented and awesome artists, hard workers, mothers and fathers, and im so proud to know them and to see them succeed. others though, my heart fucking breaks when i see them, not of judgment but real sorrow when i know and can relate too honestly to their struggle and their inability to escape from it. i cant dwell on that bleeding heart shit for long, its not right. my girl now, my life. im so lucky, i survived karma. im so in love it aint even fair, im sorry. i love her so much i could never explain it. shes so smart, strong, mysterious, healthy! and shoot,i couldnt ever manipulate her, shes smarter than me and i adore it. and the funniest shit, the best shit is that, she doesnt know the old me! hahahahaha i mean i wasnt a different person or anything, and i love telling her stories, but that is what make life so funny. you can actually do whatever you want and be whoever you want, you just got to invent it and fucking do it. i often these days reminisce on that old shit and lament, thinking ive gone soft, i dont fight anymore, all this shit like that. but no no no its horseshit. im harder than i ever have been mentally, i still have my edge, and i always will. thats just me misunderstanding my memories. AND the best part of my life, the MOST potent, is all ahead of me. if i hadnt sharpened my teeth on that i would have the tools i need to kill it.

i forgot my cam atr work! ive been working on a real neat treat, stay tuned

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bn5tiuZU4JI

the Lurkernaught

such a nice day, so beautiful i was feeling a little bummed to be trapped inside honestly. not that i dont love tattooing, but i feel something like a caged animal as soon as the suns beaming. i literally feel imprisoned if im not enjoying it completely. thanks alot prison!
no worries, had a good week tattooing cool people. i feel like im always going on about my clients, but for real these guys, these fucking young guys are killing it. getting rad tattoos. tyler and jordan. some of my raddest tattoos i feel like they have. i get so stoked when they come in and just want like a fucking anchor and an anatomical heart or whatever. these dudes are like 17-18 and their parents have to sign for them for christsakes, its nuts. when i was like 20 i was a mad retard displaying major antisocial tendencies. i still am. milk hormones have people being cooler, younger. its like manstruation.
anyway tattooed them again, lined a fun one im dying to finish on jordan, and did a cool jerry anchor on tyler.
also this week, tattooed some tough broads on the ribs, which as before mentioned are they new ankles. lots of fun.
for a week or two now, my good bud dussy and i have been steady perched in this new grocery store in town, in this lofty glassed in eating area. with savvy working nights im fending for m'self, eating at the food bar for mass, nightly even. this has become more than a passtime, its a habit by now. we sit up here, look at people and laugh and laugh. killing it with the monologues and snarky descriptions. were a couple of mean queens up there and i cant get enough. mouth-breathing troglodytes, good ole fashioned root-down-tramps, tapout board-short tough-dongs, its just so good.
im needing this right now especially i think, these funny steam blowing interludes. im feeling in this shitty, weird lurchy half life before we move and its super stagnant. i just want to shit or get off the pot here. couple of weeks to go.
get this new life going.

if your in QF, look up sucka