RIP Poly Styrene

Joe Strummer, Malcolm McLaren, and now Poly Styrene.  I always hate to see any of the people from the '77 era Punk movement die.  I never liked Malcolm Mclaren, and believe that between him and Sid Vicious, they ruined the best Punk band there ever was or ever will be- The Sex Pistols.  But, I do have to give him credit for being very influential in the early Punk scene.  Yesterday, Poly Styrene succumbed to breast cancer at the age of 53.  Like many early Punk bands, X-Ray Spex weren't around for very long, but they are one of those bands that always comes to mind when talking about the early Punk scene.  Songs like 'The Day The World Turned Dayglo', 'Identity', 'Obsessed With You', 'Genetic Engineering', and of course 'Oh Bondage Up Yours' are classic Punk Rock.  You will be missed, Poly Styrene.

Cylons and Smoking Sharks

Here's some stuff I did recently.  

I'm a big Battlestar Galactica geek, so this one was a lot of fun.  Frakkin' Cylons

I also love goofy, stupid tattoos, so I had a good time doing this as well.  How can ya go wrong with a shark smoking a pipe?

Did this image from 'The Orphanage'.  It's a dark image to begin with and the pics are kinda dark.  Wish I could get a healed pic, but that is unlikely as the customer drove up from Florida to get the tattoo.   Who knows, maybe he'll be back, but for now, this is all I got.

Finally, here's a healed pic of the plane I did on Mike.

And now for the stupid customer comment of the week:

Had a woman looking through my portfolio comment on my portraits.  She said "These portraits are unrealistic." And she said it more than once!  Now, I know that what she meant was "These portraits are unreal" or "It's unreal how realistic these portraits are", but that's not what she said.  It was pretty hard keeping a straight face when she said it.

Yesterday was Easter- I'm not religious, so I really don't care.  My wife and child went to her Mother's for the holiday.  I did not go- let's just say that I don't quite get along with my in-laws.  This left me home alone, so I watched 7 episodes of BSG and had Sushi for dinner.  If ya ask me, that's a pretty fuckin' excellent way to spend easter.  About 11 years ago, I was home alone on Christmas (again didn't really care) and TBS was showing all of the Planet of the Apes movies, calling it Christmas with the Apes- that was a pretty fuckin' cool Christmas.

Gin Eagle Flash

This may be my first drunk blog - so for fun, I'm not gonna edit or spell check it.  Got home tonight and made myself a double gin sour.  I'm a gin drinker, and heve recently switched from dirty martiniss to gin sours.  Real gin sours- not the shitty gin sours that they make at bars with thet sour fuckin mix- 2 parts gin, 1 part lemon juice, and a teaspoon of powdered sugar with a marachino cherry for garnish (I'm out of marachino chrrries, so no garnish for me).  I'm 44 yers old, and at ths point i my lif, I drink like an adult.  That's right, I dont OVER DO  it.  Generally I'll hve 1 drink maybe 2, but I ususally don't go pased the 'nice buzz'.  Tonight though, I gt home and decide to start painting anither skat deck, so I started by making myself a doble gin sour.  i started painting, worked ny way through my first drink and made another one ( a visit in between from my old friend Mary Jane didn't help mattrs).  Worked on painting a 'Fink -Eagle' skate deck.  Got some progress on the deck- looks kinda fucked up right now, but I knewI was etting fucked up and was only really concerned with getting some colors laid down in the background, here's some pics:

I'll pull this thing together over the next week or so.  Also, finished up that sheet of flash I started recenty.  Here's a shitty phone pic of it:

So, I'm pretty fucked up at this poit, and I should probably just go to bed, but I recently scored the entire series of Battlestar Galactica on Blu-ray for half price so I'm gonna geek out to some BSG muthafuckas.

I'M NOT INTERESTED!

Haven't had any good rants lately (at least not on the my blog), so here ya go:

As a business owner, I deal with people trying to sell me shit that I don't need or want on a daily basis.  On the phone, through the mail, over the internet, and in my damn shop.  The internet and the mail are the easy ones- throw it away or hit delete.  On the phone, you can always just hang up on 'em.  I usually say "I'm not interested" and hang up.  Once in a while, I'll lose it and start yelling at them.  On rare occasions, I'll play with 'em a little before hanging up.  Recently I blew an airhorn into the phone at a guy named Fred who just happened to be in India.  I'm pretty sure that Fred the Indian got the message.  Once, I told a guy (who also happened to be from India) that I wasn't interested and hung up, then the dopey bastard called back.  Now that kinda got me a little mad, so I proceeded to tell him that I hoped his entire family got run over by a bus and that he should, in no uncertain terms, never call me again.  The ones that actually come to the shop are the difficult ones.  For some reason they don't quite understand what "I'm not interested" means.  What it really means is "Turn around and walk the fuck out of my shop 'cause I ain't buying whatever the fuck you're selling."  I just had 2 guys from Comcast in here trying to sell me phone and internet service that I don't need- I also had a woman from Comcast in here 2 days ago trying to sell me the same shit.  I told them 3 times that I was not interested- they didn't listen.  I finally said "I've told you three times that I'm not interested, so how about you stop trying to sell me and just leave."  Now why does it have to get to the point where I get pissed off and turn into a dick?  Do these idiots think that when I say I'm not interested that I'm joking?  I couldn't possibly not be interested in their crap, could I?  Maybe they think "Well he hasn't heard the best part yet, and he'll change his mind when he hears this sweet deal".  NO NO NO!  I'm not interested means I'M NOT FUCKING INTERESTED- GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY SHOP AND DO IT BEFORE I HAVE TO BE A DICK TO YOU.

Flash and Tattoos

Really gotta get back to doing this more regularly.  Shit piles up and then I have to post a bunch of photos and don't get the time to rant and rave properly.

Started a new skate deck this morning- should be pretty cool, but I can't post pics of it because it's for someone that might read my shitty blog, and it's supposed to be a surprise.  So, you'll have to wait till next month to see it (like ya even fuckin' care).

Been about 2 years since I did a sheet of flash- pretty damn slack.  Got started on a sheet a few days ago.  This is my first attempt at using the Dr. Martins Concentrated Watercolors- still think I prefer my good old tubed watercolors, but we'll see how it turns out.

Here's some recent tattooing:

Started this last week- I actually drew it for the guy about a year ago- he finally came in to get it started (now let's see if he actually finishes it).

Worked on the giant koi some more last week.  Been 6 months since she was in the last time, hopefully she'll be back soon and we can get this thing finished up some day.

Finished up the big eagle...and started it again?  The guy that got this is room mates with another good customer of ours.  He (the roommate), wanted the same eagle with some changes.  He wanted his zombified.  So his is kinda ripped up and has big splashes of blood in the background.  So, here's pics of Jason's finished eagle and Ryan's started eagle.

Here's something I did on another Atlanta area tattooer.  I would have liked to do the snake in color, but he wanted it all black and gray.

Here's a couple of pics of some tattoos that came back so I could get healed pics.  The first is the plane I posted a couple of weeks ago, the second is the parrot from a 5 or 6 weeks ago.