The Intersection of Art, Life, and Self-Love ft. Sean Foy and Michael Perry

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
And creativity, especially big moments of like aha moments.
They just do not feel like they're coming from me. Nah, it
Those are the most beautiful moments too. Like it literally just sort
of happens and the next thing you know, instead of consciously trying
to make something happen for a little while, it's just like, wait a minute,
I just made something completely... Novel.

(00:23):
Yes, that's the word. And it's almost like a few hours
They've done brain scans on that. No, I believe that. That frustration moment
we all have as creatives, they do these brain scans and they can see this
other part of the brain they don't fully understand, has a lot to do with love, area

(00:45):
of love, area where they know creativity happens. Yeah. as
that frustration increases, it starts to wind
up. And then you have a breakthrough moment. I remember that too. I
always do that when I'm in my creative space and I'm having the first, I've had 10 years
ago, I destroyed my art studio one day out of frustration, just fucking
threw the whole fucking table over, you know? And now when

(01:07):
that frustration happens, I welcome it. I'm just like, oh, I know what this is.
This is the part when the breakthrough has got to be really close because I'm fucking really
agitated. Shit's about to
I'm feeling something in my spirit.

(01:34):
Hello friends, lovers of art, seekers
of truth, I don't know where to get truth anymore. I try
my fucking best. I listen to a lot of podcasts. Mostly
I just try to interact in person with
as many people as I can and ask them what the fuck's going on. I
don't really trust pixels coming out of my television or my phone

(01:55):
too much. And i guess to you right now i'm one of those pixels but
uh come out here to san diego i'll shake your hand i'm real and
uh if you're listening to this show you probably listen to a lot of other shows that
i listen to and so that's why i said truth seekers and i think
you're beautiful and i think we need more of that so thank you for regarding
me possibly in that way and thanks for tuning in. You know,

(02:16):
I do a lot of different stuff on the show today. We're getting into the tattoo
scene here today. I've got two amazing
tattooers here with me today. One does color
realism and we're talking top notch stuff on
the best as it gets. The other one is more of a black and gray surrealism.
artist and again fucking gnarly rad tattooing

(02:39):
so i've got two masters sitting here with me today you know for me i
i like to know what makes them tick i like to know how they got here what they do what
makes them different than the thousands of tattooers i know that aren't
rocking at that level so we're going to dig into that we're going to dig into
life we're going to dig into what makes humans tick,
what's going on in the world, if any of us even know, at least ask

(03:00):
a few important questions. And with all that being said, please welcome my
guests today, Michael Perry and Sean Foy.
What's up? What's up? What's up, man? You guys aren't
local. So the fact you're even here, I thank you for that. You
know, I'm glad to be here. Well, thank you very much. And just
to just to get to get it out there, Michael, New York City. Yes,

(03:22):
sir. and Sean, Daytona Beach, Florida. That's where
you're currently residing, where you tattoo now. I know
you have more in your life of where you live and where you're from. We'll
get into that, but that's where you're at now. And on that note, let's start there.
I love the story of how people end up in this art form because it's relatively
unique. I know there's a lot of tattooers, but we're still a very small population in

(03:42):
comparison to most people. So I love the story of one
how little babies come out just full of light and
love, and then the world influences them, their parents, society, and
some because of that become lawyers and doctors. Maybe they don't even
want to be one. I don't know. Some probably did. We need lawyers. We need
doctors. That's fine. But some of them become artists, which is

(04:03):
a little more of an unusual choice in today's day and age, just because
there's not this real clear pathway to finances, you
know, and so it takes a little courage and it takes you kind of being
One of the most like certain paths of uncertainty. Yes.
Yeah, it's like I'm following this shit. Yeah, there's no logic involved. No,

(04:26):
it's just a feeling it going. I love that story. I love it
outside of tattooing. Just anyone. The guy that's a bass jumper. I'm like,
tell me about that, dude. Yeah. Willing to die for something you
love. I gotta hear your story. You know, I think it's beautiful. I would
never do it But having said that let's give you
each a moment. Whoever first I want to know a little bit about life growing

(04:46):
up You're that little baby you're growing up and at some point this
idea of like I'm I think maybe I'm an artist and
that it I mean, maybe not then but a little while later maybe
I Two artists so each take a turn. I
want to hear a little bit about that story a lot Oh, yeah, I got it. That's all

(05:07):
Michael talking right now. I discovered art at a pretty young age. It
was always something that was encouraged. Growing up,
before I was born, actually, my father used to build guitars. Oh,
you have one of them creative families. Yeah. Well, it's 50-50.
Part of it's creative on my dad's side. On my mom's side, not so creative.
But art and drawing and everything was always encouraged. That's

(05:28):
cool. So from a very young age, I remember drawing. And
that turned into as I was a little bit older teenager,
discovered graffiti, skating, stuff like that. Don't skate
anymore. I wasn't good at that. I'm too fat and uncoordinated for it. But
ultimately, I stuck with art. I was the kid in school
who wouldn't really pay attention in school. And I would just sit there

(05:50):
and draw, which turned into now I'm skipping school and
I'm just drawing. It's like what I enjoy doing. I think because it
was like a point where my mind was quiet. Like,
I was really anxious, I was really shy, I was really, like, not
in the scene with a lot of friends and stuff like that. I just
kept to myself and drew and always stuck with

(06:10):
me, like, no matter where my life went and, like, what facet
or what part of my life I was in, art and drawing was, like, the
only real consistent thing. I had no formal
training, really. I never even graduated high school. I
dropped out of school. But that was always something that
stuck with me throughout my entire life was drawing

(06:31):
and art. And I think a large part of that was because it was like accepted by
my parents. I wasn't pushed so much to like, OK, you need
to do this, that and the other. Go to school, become a
doctor or a lawyer or something like that. I think because my
dad built guitars and he gave it up after me and my brothers or
brother was born to, you know, have a more steady income.

(06:52):
He always pushed, like, find what you love to do
and then figure out a way to make that work. That's
right. So that was kind of those people don't have that. That's
cool though. No, it was a very like artistically nurturing
family that I grew up in. My grandma on my dad's side writes poetry.
My uncle on my dad's side is a successful painter. Like

(07:14):
that's how he's made a good living in a career. So that's something that
man stop fucking drawing and like get an a on this test so you can
go work for amazon or be like mid-level management and hate
your life yeah whereas it was very opposite of that for
me that's cool and then the second part is so i get that

(07:34):
that's rad and kudos to your family for for being
wise enough to give you that love and encouragement for for
that that's that's a smart dad move family move. This
episode was brought to you by sullenclothing.com. If
you like my art, I have some of it on their t-shirts. If
you like the art of other tattoo artists that

(07:56):
you look up to or respect, they probably have something on their clothing.
Great quality clothing, hoodies, hats, shirts, all of the above. And
they are huge supporters of the tattoo industry and this
Tattooing was like a lot trickier and a lot more
just blind, dumb luck. That being said, as far

(08:17):
as art being encouraged in my life, I never knew what I wanted to do with
my life. I just drug my feet and procrastinated because
I had no I had no direction, honestly, like until
I found tattooing, which was also just complete happenstance
When I was younger 17 18 19 I started getting tattooed
like poor tattoos and a guy who was doing

(08:40):
a lot of them ended up becoming a friend of mine and Notice
that I drew he saw one drawing actually it was a specific drawing
and this the tattooer who became a friend used to have Warhammer books
like that tabletop game kind of thing with the little guys who
paint and stuff and And I'm looking through one of the books one day
when I'm sitting at the studio and I asked him if I can borrow it to

(09:01):
look at the art. And I borrow it and I'm looking through the art
and it was like some alien race called
Tyranids, which are like xenomorphy kind of guys. And
I ended up drawing one of them one day and I brought the drawing in
with the book. And he's like, do you want to learn how to tattoo? Like
I guess you know, why not? I'm working at a pet store taking

(09:23):
care of saltwater fish, which is like it's on dude It's fun. But
also this is like selling fish to Dahmer. That's I didn't actually
sell fish to Dahmer But he used to come into the store. I worked in Milwaukee Young
I'm like the wrong age and race for Jeff, you

(09:47):
know? Actually probably the right age at the time, because I was like
Then I turned to gangs and drugs to console myself, because I
was so heartbroken Jeff didn't like me. What

(10:10):
I wasn't really doing anything with my life says yes, let's do
it, you know So I started an apprenticeship guy. His name was Chris Ellis
husky I have no idea where he is these days, but fucking
thank you Chris wherever you are, but I was a mess, dude I was
drinking a lot got into pills and total shit
show ensued from there. I So I made it maybe three,

(10:30):
four or five months into this apprenticeship, which was kind of
like your standard apprenticeship story that you hear from a lot of people like,
hey, you want to apprentice and like clean the toilets and like scrub some
tubes. And I'm going to tell you to like maybe use more green soap and
have at it, kid. I was doing horrible tattoos, but
I had my foot in the door somewhere. Did not last long. And it's

(10:56):
Everything, man. Yeah, everything. My head
Well, let me pause you there. Pause. Because I know where you're about to
go. I've heard a bit about that part of your life. I think Sean
might share something similar, and I want to merge the two stories
after Sean has his shot. But before you go, Sean, one thing I loved

(11:16):
about that, because I often reflect back on, I was similar in not
every way, but this need to draw all the time. And now,
reflecting back, I realize it was literally a form of meditation.
Yeah, absolutely. You know, the noise of life, the anxiety I was feeling from
a divorced family and, you know, partying and drugs and
chaos that was happening around me. That was the one place I could go where that

(11:37):
little voice in my head was talking to you all the time, and especially
back then, not saying, Pleasant things, you know, and
so it was like you would draw and then it would shut the fuck up
And I would just go hours and then so I you know, I do
meditate now on occasion and I realize it's the same thing
I'm trying to do And yeah, so I think I just think it

(11:58):
needs to be noted that I think a lot of artists musicians and
different people that do things like this They're just meditating, you
know, and it's cool because in that meditation you end up with a skill. Yeah, which
is awesome You know fired Yeah, yeah, it is.
Okay, so I'm in I was born in 84 in Staten

(12:19):
Island, New York We lived there for a bunch of years and
my dad was like still, you know, he was still doing the
drinking and and doing his thing and partying and
shit. Eventually, he got his shit together where he moved to New Jersey from
there. And my mom would still work in Manhattan, so
I'd go into the city with her and stuff. And when I was a kid, we'd go to Manhattan all the time. And

(12:40):
I remember seeing subways blasted with graffiti.
And I was like, oh, I'm harassed like my mom. How do they get paid for
this? No, they go to jail.
Fucking locked up, dude. I was like, they like it that much. It's
got to be sick. Willing to go to jail for it. Yeah. I
was always interested in that. I remember thinking it wasn't like hoity-toity

(13:03):
As a kid. Then in New Jersey, I started skateboarding
stuff. Those two cultures ran hand-in-hand, dude.
You'd skate during the day and then you'd go out, write graffiti at
night, you know, did all that. And then, you know, hanging around like that long enough,
you start fucking, you know, doing drugs and shit, dude.
You know what I mean? Remember, I got hurt skateboarding, and I was, like, sponsored and

(13:26):
stuff. So the one thing that was, like, meditative besides drawing,
that was my thing. I thought that was my ticket out. Like, I'll probably move to California
and go pro, dude. And my knee got blown to smithereens, and then
I started drinking. And then just kind of lost, man. You know, I went
to art school for a bit, and I mostly just, like, went to a
couple classes. drank and shit, you know what I mean? Like, like

(13:46):
wasted opportunity there. And then I don't know,
dude, like I was living with a tattoo artist and I was
all screwed up, messed up, like just totally lost, you know, like no
direction in life really to go. And I'm living
with a tattoo artist and we had like a house party and the owner
of the shop that he worked at came through and she

(14:07):
got who painted that there. I was like, me, but the two, you know, like total
dickhead, you know, and I kept looking at other shit. You
should come by the shop." For what? You could work the desk. My
boy was like, yo, no, do that shit. And I was like, oh, all right. And
then, yeah, I did that. And they're like, all right, you can fuck up, man. You should quit
this whack-ass job you got, and you should just do this shit. And I was like, well, how am I

(14:28):
going to feed myself? They're like, oh, you can figure it out, dude. So I worked part-time
in the morning at a restaurant, which there was no tips, dude. Lunch crowd,
like nothing. Then I would take the bus to Elizabeth in New
Jersey, an apprentice there. And that was like a
real old school kind of apprenticeship. I would have to make coffee for
her. She's like a little lesbian biker chick, like real ghetto and shit. And

(14:50):
if I didn't make the coffee right, if it was a little off, she
would throw the hot coffee on my face. Yeah, it was crazy, dude.
They covered me in syrup and feathers and dropped me off
in front of the projects in North Newark and took my phone and
my wallet. And they're like, shit doesn't go right in a tattoo. You need to learn to adapt,
overcome, and improvise. Peace. and slept in
the middle of the fucking night dude and I'm like oh fuck dude and

(15:14):
I got home I like begged this bus driver like fam look like I'm I'm
really caught up out here dude and uh he let me
get on there and I like rode to like the the county
I lived in and I like 1-800 dial ATT
to motherfucker to come and get me and I just put garbage bags on
your seat from I'm fucking hemmed up out here and Yeah, they

(15:34):
would do crazy shit. Like look like Joe Pesci and home alone, bro.
I look tall Yeah, like the real I did log cabin syrup and feathers from
a pillow, dude And then another time
they would be like, OK, Sean, if you don't do this right,
you're 100 percent fired. I'm like, all right, because today is the day of
the week where they pull this one on me. Right. And they're like, you got to walk to
the other side of Elizabeth and come back with one bracket. And if you

(15:57):
smell like sweat, you smell like man in here, you're fired. Because
this is a chick, you know? And I was like, all right, well, how can
I do this? So Elizabeth's a little bit hood. Well, it's a lot of bit hood. But
it was like during the big white t-shirt era,
like the Fat Joe lean back shit, like with the pink and
the white one. So I was like, I bet you I could pass one

(16:17):
of the dudes selling shit out of his car or
a shopping cart on the way back. So I go. I
walk to Home Depot. I get the bracket. And I'm
trying to walk like this so you don't sweat on yourself, dude,
It's July and it just rained. I'm getting cooked, man, you know? And

(16:37):
yeah, I wound up buying a humongous 5X
pink t-shirt off a dude from a shopping cart that was just
around the hood, pushing it. And then I bought Axe body
spray at Padmark and laced myself, and I didn't get fired, dude. You
know? But then I wound up getting arrested,
because I had an open warrant for graffiti, and

(16:59):
I got arrested in Newark, and I was resisting
and some drunk people stuff, and then got locked up
in there, and I was like, oh shit, this is real. like
people in here like this is this is like life for them dude I'm like it's like
you got like an option like well I could like get the hell out of here and
like try to change it or like that's what is

(17:20):
gonna be like I'm gonna be fighting people over canteen and
shit you know what I mean like no I'm good dude so um
yeah obviously when I got home they didn't like Didn't
hold my spot at the apprenticeship, dude. You know what I mean? So I
got tattooed at my parents' crib, and I was tattooing people from parole and
probation in their house and shit. My mom's making fucking

(17:41):
sauce, and I'm tattooing some hairy guy's chest in the kitchen there
That's cool. Yeah. Interesting. It is interesting. A lot
of, um, I don't know, commitment in there, you know, I feel
like in life, like everything good I ever did, there's always
like, I call them firewalls. Like the universe does it on purpose. Like it doesn't

(18:01):
let you have anything you want super easily. Yeah. Yeah. Because I
mean, think if it did like that would develop zero character in
anybody. So when people hit firewalls and obstacles,
I'm like, and they're like, God damn it. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no.
That's, that's like what's, Guaranteed gonna happen that question
is what you are you gonna move through it? Are you gonna turn away and

(18:23):
a lot of that story? I just heard out of you is you move through it, you know Hey,
You don't have like I'd screw up so much You don't have like a whole lot same with you
what a man gonna have a whole lot of options You know what? I mean? I kicked out
of one of the better art schools in Manhattan because I was an idiot and like Wanted
to sell drugs like watch too much Tony Montana and shit and then like,
you know, what other skills did I have? You know, I got in trouble so much. I couldn't be,

(18:44):
I wanted to be a teacher. I couldn't do that. They're not going to let you teach kids. You got
charges on you for drugs. No way, dude. No way they're going to let
that happen, dude. So it's like, you know, you get those options. You look in the mirror and like,
be honest with yourself. You're like, well, what can I do? Like I could, I could work
construction. I could be a barber or I could try to make
something with art and like tattooing. Pretty much

(19:04):
saved me from, you know, living, making that work
Pretty much, yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's another example of, now,
I'll caveat this. People experience tragedy, like
actual tragedy. Your child dies. I mean, there's a lot of stories of bad shit
that there's... It's hard to tell a person like that. Oh, you know, don't

(19:25):
worry about that. That's just, it's just a lesson. You got to see the positivity in
this. You know, that's, those are the acute caveat I'm
going to give, but let's take that out of it. Let's just take it, you know, stuff like you're talking
about. You go to prison, fucking, I'm sure you would
say today, thank you. That was perfect. Yeah.
I just went to jail a whole bunch of times. I actually extended my

(19:46):
lessons, made it longer. I turned it from a multiple choice
to an essay. You know what I mean? He picked quick, let's
fucking fully sink the ship and then sit
on the couch for a couple years and boom, you know what I mean? I
was like, let me just do some bumps of badness and
stretch it as far as I can, dude, you know? So in some ways

(20:07):
I almost like envy Mike couch time. Cause
I probably stretched all my bullshit on for like another, like fucking eight
Yeah. Like, you know what I mean? Like, and I, like, that was enough to get me like
straight, but then, you know, you know how tattooing is. I won't name
any names, but you meet some of these people who are like LeBron and Michael Jordan

(20:28):
of this shit. And they're like, Oh, take a bump, dude. And what are you going to say? I should have
You know what I mean? So I had to relive that shit again, you know, and then
consequences get real enough and you got to make a choice, you know? Yeah.
I guess my point only to that was, for people that are getting
kicked in the dick, just be patient because most
of the time, it's probably one of the best moments of

(20:51):
your life, the pain you're experiencing right now. And I
try to remember that because pain comes and goes in life. It's
a constant. I don't care how much money you make or how much you work out.
Something always comes around the corner and slaps you. So
I always immediately, the older me, the 53-year-old Aaron,
I'm always like, ow, that hurt. What's the fucking lesson? Because I've

(21:12):
also learned when you don't learn the lesson, it instead of slapping you
next time, it punches you in the teeth. And then you don't learn that one, and
it fucking takes a hand. Like, I'm ready to learn. So
I'm just like, I'm hearing, let's learn so you don't fucking kill me.
You know so I get just trying to illustrate like it's an important philosophy.
If something bad's happening I feel like it's like clearing out

(21:33):
some room for you if you're ready for it for something super dope that's gonna
happen. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, I had a horrible past, like, three
years, like, went completely bust, you know, moved to Florida. Things
were going, you know, everything went bad. Hell, all kinds of crazy shit, dude. I
completely went bankrupt, everything. And then now, like, I'm
on the other side of that and shit is, like, so good. Like, every day
I wake up, my marriage is better than it's ever been, dude. Like, my

(21:56):
kids are doing great, dude. I opened a location in
May and I already have to open a second one because we outgrew it already. And
I'm like sick dude like fucking Robert Hernandez come and do collab in
my shop with the foot Yeah, and how much better does that feel because
The rain the rain the sunshine doesn't get it Some of the lower lows

(22:16):
you feel make the highs like that much more enjoy gonna
have contrast exactly Everything just like a wave man.
It's like people surfing dudes. I'm you know I Sometimes you get to catch it,
There's another one though, bankrupt and busted, fucking best
Yeah, no definitely. At the time, it was the worst thing ever, dude. I
had tubes up my dick and couldn't work and my

(22:39):
daughter's being born and I'm on Percocet and peeing blood with
stents in there, you know what I mean? And then fast forward two years later, I'm like,
everything's changed. I started trying to take care of my health, fucking business
is going good. Me and my wife worked out all of our nonsense finally. Happy
at my home, dude. Just bought a house. Great, dude. Well,
Thank you, dude. Thank you. It's a beautiful story, because a lot of people, they're

(23:05):
Oh, it's dark when you're over there, dude. You can't see it. This
Do you remember that ad years ago? It was like a Prozac ad
and a little cartoon in this black clouds. Yeah, yeah,
yeah. There's so many people still in that place. Yeah, or
like have never left that place, but I feel like it's just

(23:25):
better like you said it's like contrast and that relates
Yeah, it's trying to force you to like, okay, this is your some
clay right now and. We're setting up these opportunities down
the road but you gotta change the form to be able to
accept that you gotta cut away some of the stuff that
is on that's only gonna hinder you can't bring with you on this part

(23:48):
of the journey you don't mean you had a guy in the show you put it this way it's
not what you need to do to create happiness in your life is what
Yeah, no, that's it. That's a hundred percent. It's like it's just there around you.
Happiness, success, all this stuff's there. The question is,
what am I doing that's not allowing it in? And

(24:08):
so it comes back to personal responsibility. It takes away the power from
the shitty boss. It's my shitty boss. It's the taxes. You
know all this finger pointing it goes back to okay. Maybe some of
that is hurdles to overcome But what am I doing? How
am I behaving where I'm not allowing opportunities to propagate into my
life? Yeah, where I they when I when they come across my table, I'm ignoring them

(24:29):
or dismissing them Yeah, because I'm not good enough or I want
to see the bull that's probably a bullshit opportunity Everything in
You know, so it's kind of like a victim mentality and sense of that's not
the right word I feel like what you're saying is a hundred percent true and
it in my mind relates to a lack of personal responsibility

(24:50):
In like humankind in American culture. It's like all
this stuff is around you. All this stuff is obtainable it's like a
how brittle or strong is your spirit to get where you
need to go and then be a What do you need to pay attention
to where do you put your energy instead of focusing on like taxes
or my shitty boss? Fuck your shitty boss, you know, it's like this

(25:11):
is all your Responsibility and in your power to make happen like
there's a way to make it happen it's just focusing on like how
And I think if you go one layer behind that, and I've tried to find a
layer behind this one, but I can't find it, you'll end up in one place, which
is your amount and level of self-love. None

(25:35):
of us love ourselves perfectly. I look in the mirror. I
love myself, but there's shadow areas of myself that I'm disappointed
in. There's fears I have that I attach to. But the
deeper that self-love can get, and how do you get self-love? Well,
you can't hide from yourself, right? So you know when you lie, you know when
you do something shitty, whatever it is. And so you have

(25:57):
to live a moral life. If you want to look in that mirror in
a few years and love the person staring back at you, you better do
right by fucking everybody all the time. And the more
you do that, the more you respect yourself. The more you respect yourself,
the more you love yourself. The more you respect and love yourself, the more you're like, when
you see the eyes staring back at you in that mirror, you

(26:17):
see a person that deserves thanks. Like, oh, that guy's a good dude.
He deserves happiness. Yeah. Look, I've done hard things that weren't
easy to help myself and to help others. That's the kind of person that
deserves more love, more finances, more all
these things. So kind of is sort of the point where it
all boils down to is, you know, working on your ability to love

(26:37):
yourself. And then, of course, the level to which you can love yourself is
the exact level you can love others. yeah that's it
that's all you got you cannot fake more you can fake
it but no it's not gonna last it's not gonna be disingenuous disingenuous
so you want to be a rad husband well
what's a what's a wife want she wants someone who loves her deeply well

(26:59):
work on loving yourself deeply then so you can be there for your own
oxygen mask on first yeah that's a good way to put it that's cool
Let like are we you know is this just a big school kind of feels like it
sometimes I feel like it's like every day is school in a sense depending
how you look at it like school for souls it feels like this

(27:19):
is like I don't know like a spiritual simulation where you come
here to like I don't know, figure something. And
I, you know, I'm sure people will not like this, but I
feel like whatever goes on in conscious, I don't know, consciously, whatever term
you want to say, God, the universe, whatever, whatever you want to say, right?
I feel like you have, you, there's a good chance you got to say and where you,

(27:40):
where you land on what, what part of the game you're about to play. Yeah. You
know what I mean? Like whatever you're, you're going to experience those things
100% and that sounds like a like you're pitching like a theoretical idea,
but you know and I know the longer you live It's not theoretical you
see it. You get to know anybody deep enough. Yeah, and they're

(28:02):
all getting exactly what they wanted Yeah, some people want chaos
and violence. They get it. Some people want peace
and love they get it Like we all get what we want. We all get to be right
and Yeah, you know, what are you saying the world is because be
careful what you say it is is what you get manifest and what happens
Yeah, and I yeah word manifest. It's like I get what you

(28:23):
mean. I don't use it as much anymore because it incites a
lot of self-help books and stuff that I don't think people
that read these books are getting deeper of what They're all right, but
they're so I'm just I go more to like Practically what
I what I'm factually seeing with my neighbors with my parents with
my people. I know deeply I know some people that have been choosing

(28:43):
who don't love themselves who choose fear and hatred
And it doesn't happen right away. It takes years, but you follow them along long
enough and you just see this that vibration around
them. They'll, of course, they're still in the finger pointing phase.
They're like, can you believe all my neighbors are assholes? I always
Yeah, but what's the common denominator there between all your neighbors? It's

(29:08):
That's it, bro. Water seeks its home level, too.
So you don't got to get into like molecules and God. Yeah.
I mean, I do think that's in there somewhere, but fuck it. Leave it over there. Let's just
get down to brass tacks. I don't know why I don't even fucking care anymore.
I just know that that's what's happening. I've seen it too many times. It's

(29:28):
proof. So knowing that's what's happening you
play the game way different you know and that's that's cool insight
to gain and. You gotta kicked around i think a lot to
get that insight or be around people who are still making those choices
to kind of observe that be like huh i'm seeing a fucking pattern here.
Well, I'm grateful that happened, because, like, for example, I won't name

(29:49):
any names, but we have a couple of homies that they thought the world was one way,
and then 2020 happened. And they're like, oops, what? These
people don't care about us? And, you know, whatever. And I was like, oh, yeah, they never
did. It's you that's gotta care about you, dude. You know what
I mean? The world is a different way, dude. You gotta,
I don't know, dude. You gotta trust not

(30:13):
Yeah, look at the way things, right. What's actually happening day
to day, not what's the words you hear coming. My dad always
said, the worst two sentences you ever wanna hear in life
is, we're the government and we're here to help you. And
you hear those words, Antenna should go up. You
should be paying you should be hyper vigilant I'm not saying they don't

(30:35):
help sometimes they do but you got to really be like, okay what
is it you want to help me with and how and you got to fucking listen
carefully because a Lot of the time that's not the case.
Yeah people and self-interests and things like this, you know Cuz
at the end of the day we want to help It's not we want

(30:57):
Oh, yeah, there were probably a lot. Probably not you. Yeah, yeah.
And it's also like you think, like, think about the kind of person who
wants those kind of positions. Like, you want to be the
CEO of BlackRock or you want to be the president. Think about you want to be the president. You
are the kind of dude that's going to look in the mirror. and go, I'm
the fucking guy, dude. I'm the only fucking guy that could do this.

(31:20):
Fuck everybody. That's me, baby. That's a little bit of
a minimum narcissist, bro. You know what I mean? Those are the kind
of people that end up in those spots, dude. It's very
rarely is it like you're Gandhi type. You
know what I mean? Or whatever archetype you
Actually, it's not that rare. A lot of them try. But

(31:43):
the system, they're not compatible. So your little political
career starts off, you want to run for mayor in your little town. Very
quickly, your political career isn't gonna go very
far because you're not willing to do some not positive things
that are in the best interest of the population. And so you
get burnt out and you leave. And

(32:08):
Who's willing to do the unbinded thing, dude? Sociopaths. People
that can look at whole populations of people as a number. That's
like a game of risk or something. That's who, you know what I mean, ends up in
Capitalism forces sociopaths to the top economically.
I mean, think, you've got two CEOs. One is Reid Nekartoli

(32:30):
meditating, eating mushrooms and realizing, fuck, I'm
connected to everything. Every stranger's face, I'm looking
at myself. Well, you don't hurt people when you come to these realizations.
And so then he goes to his board meeting and you gotta do certain things
for the company's financial, Prosperity. Yeah,
he's not the sociopaths over here going. Yeah, I'll fire

(32:51):
a thousand people the day before Christmas Show me the graph and
the chart that's gonna benefit the company fucking do it. I gotta go
And it goes years and years, and those people have children, and whether or not
they're born with the DNA or not, they live in the environment. That's all
they know. And then they have children. So you just see this system, political system,

(33:12):
economic system, that drives the most thoughtless, the
ones who care about people the least, towards the top of
humanity and families and stuff like that are no different than like selectively
breeding our food you know like you selectively you
select the genes from this banana and this banana because you're trying
to go this way families and children are no

(33:34):
different than that yeah like it's a living creature It's
the same thing. You're just selectively being bred in this
That was always what like drove my attraction to
like, even like my wife, dude, right? I like looked at her. I was like, so it's
like 2006. I saw her, she would come into this coffee house. She was like the hot
chick that worked at the fine dining next door. I had like a,

(33:56):
I was a manager of like a bistro and coffee house. Every day she
would come in. I was like, Oh damn, dude. She was like smart as fuck.
Like, Hourglass, dude, a color forearm tattoo
in 06 on an educated chick that was like, dude, remember
those days, dude, you know? And I was like, oh shit, jet black hair. And
I saw the whole thing. I was like, smart, looks good, not

(34:20):
out there in the streets, only fans in there, whatever, dude. And I was like,
that's a solid investment, dude. You know what I mean? Maybe it's
like the Irish in me just want to breed things, dude. I don't know. You know what
I mean? But I saw that. And she saw the same thing. She's like, that
over there, children and animals are comfortable with this kid. He's a little bit lost,
but man, he's talented or whatever. You know what I mean? You see

(34:41):
something in there, and you're like, yeah. these
And it's a... That's how we choose our mates and then our
children echo some of those traits, whether it be
how we raise them or what they're born with on a DNA level. But
yeah, that happens. And it happens for people that become spiritual

(35:02):
leaders and real ones, not the ones that rob people. The
ones that actually care. And it happens for people that run massive,
powerful organizations. Absolutely. I mean, these things, it's...
pretty fucking obvious. I mean, we're sitting here just like doing a duh
moment. Yeah. I just don't know. I've
said this similar talks to other people who are just looking at me with doe

(35:24):
eyes like what? You know, and you can see the light turning on, like,
I never even thought of it that way. Like, yeah, how well are you gonna do
in a capitalist system when you care about everybody? I mean, there are some
things, luckily we found one. Tattooing it, that's what's beautiful,
It's one of the few modes of anything where the
level of care and thought you put into it directly,

(35:45):
positively correlates to your success. Yeah, yeah.
There's not many things. It's fire. So we're so i work that
way but you didn't put in the tank in my favorite it's
one of my favorite parts tattoo oh my god i look at my friends so
They gotta go to work, crunch numbers, whatever it is they do. They don't get to come

(36:08):
home and be like, yeah, what did you do today? Oh, I just
took care of people, loved on people, gave them all my creativity and
all that. And they paid me money. What a fucking way
So good. Then whatever your art is putting out, I
attract a certain kind of person. For sure. You know what I

(36:30):
mean? You do as well. Mike's work is very melancholy. His
song is like a living Radiohead song. If you look at it, you
Yeah. Of course, and it's gray tones, right? So
of course, his drug of choice was heroin, dude. I used to smoke crack. Look,
it's all vibrant and crazy and shit, dude. You know what I mean? But the

(36:53):
stuff that I'll do tends to attract people that eat mushrooms, people
that, other artists, people that are on some
kind of creative, or honestly, a lot of conspiracy people, too.
I'll pull up on that, too. But you attract a certain kind of
person. And when I'll see his client walk in, say we're doing

(37:14):
I know, dude. I don't even see your tattoos. You could be wearing a north face and
I know you're here for Mike, dude. You know what I mean? Like, when my client walks in
the shop, you fucking know, dude. Like, this guy looks like a nut job. Yeah,
It's like it has like a, like a, like a, like a, like a dog whistle

(37:34):
You can't hear it, but it's like there, it's like going out. There's something
a hundred percent to that. Like what you're making A is a part of
you and your personality. And then you attract a
specific group of the population to that. There's
just so many nuances in everything you do. Personality
wise, lifestyle, upbringing, just every facet

(37:55):
of your personality. shows itself in your work, whether
it's conscious or not, whether it's like an artist realizes it
Yeah. Yeah. That's another layer to
why this work is so rad, right? You end up, maybe not in the beginning when

(38:17):
Totally. And then every day, almost every client that
sits with me, I'm like, I could be like one of your best friends. Let's
hang out, you know? And you do that for 30 years. Like me, man,
I was just telling my wife the other day, I'm like, I can't believe
my Rolodex. Like, I've got 2,000 cell phone
numbers in here of people that I know are amazing human

(38:40):
beings. And they're all, you know, at the end of large projects, like we
do, you can call them. They'd be stoked to
It's like my client I tattooed here yesterday, she's gone all over the country from
Sacramento, and like, we all went to dinner last night, and you're like, yeah, you're in
the crew now. You could be one of, yeah, you're like, maybe we'll give you
a body spot, dude. But

(39:02):
yeah, she was like one of us, dude. It was like, it was almost like, it's
like the... like the female version of
And kudos to those out there that carry the light in the midst of
the fucking darkness. Yeah. You know, I do enjoy my job
and I want to be able to have conversation. This show is probably

(39:22):
an extension of this desire, because here I can have
these types of conversations and I don't just go to my client who probably already agrees with
most everything I'm about to say, because we're already like so alike for
the reasons you mentioned. Here you can go to people who maybe Like
that's new, that's novel, you know, so that's really rad. But
there are people out there that have that fire burning inside

(39:43):
them, but they gotta go work on Wall Street. And so they're having
this even more profound effect because they're surrounded by sharks that
are just like eyes rolled back, looking for blood. And
they're and they're the one in the room Yeah, just they're the one in
the room just just introducing a possibility of
looking at it differently Yeah, you know and most of them probably are just like fuck

(40:04):
him Let's not put him on our team But you know over
the course of their career being that type of guy and that type of girl and
type of in that environment Probably gonna have even a more more profound
change than maybe I do because I'm just talking in
a, you know, echo chamber to my my friends and my tribe,
you know. But again, the show is different because now this reaches out a much wider

(40:25):
audience. Yeah. Still probably a bit tribal. I don't think anyone's listening
to the show. It doesn't kind of get me a little, you know, I don't have the
fucking, you know, sociopathic banker tuning
Next. I'm not coming up on his up next when

(40:53):
He's on some darker websites than that. Yeah, yeah. Dark
web shit. We've skipped ahead a little bit. I did catch the
story, your story, your whole thing, struggle with drugs, alcohol, the
wake-up moments, and I know that I stopped you earlier, Michael,
Yeah, my life experience, 20s,

(41:15):
late teens, pretty similar to Sean's. Where do we leave off? I
But then you ended up into drinking and drugs and all that. Part
of that was actually similar to the effect of
art in the sense of my mind shutting down. shutting
off, quieting. It's not like chasing its tail all

(41:37):
night. So there was a similar like refuge in
that, I suppose. And it just spiraled through
to the point I was slamming dope. I was doing heroin. I was like totally
unemployable, totally irresponsible. And just
every like negative connotation of a junkie
was me. Like I would if it wasn't bolted

(41:58):
down, I'm selling it. So I can get some dope ended
up in and out of jail for a couple years Not
long, you know a few days month or two at this point, you
know here month or two at this point there and then I ended up like completely
homeless because in going in and out of jail and this
is like one of Sean's favorite is the best he probably tells it better than

(42:20):
I do best but in and out of jail Can't
leave this alone. I'm just like Hopelessly addicted,
you know, I've given up everything at this point. Um, i've
given up friendships I've been up trying to tattoo because
I just a I couldn't responsibly do it But that's the furthest
thing from my mind other people realized I couldn't responsibly do it.

(42:41):
So you're like nah get lost kid, you know So I'm
in basically what amounts to a halfway house at this point,
getting drug tested. And I cannot stop
doing drugs. And I'm pissing lava into
these cups like there's there's no passing
these tests. Like it's rough. Like

(43:03):
these cups are melting. And finally they're like, you know what, sir? And
like, you got to go back. We're going to go, you know, sit you down
on like real time out for a little while. You're going back to jail. And
I'm thinking, well, cool, I can go do that. Or
I can just run to my room real fast and grab something and jump

(43:24):
out the window and run off. And that's literally what
I did. Run to my room, grab whatever
I could fit in my pockets, open the window, jump out the window,
You know

(43:46):
back to the whole skating as a kid thing I'm not that athletic but I knew how
to hit a roll from a because
that was, in my mind, the lesser of two evils at that time.
I just didn't want to get sick, like dope sick. It's like
the gnarliest feeling in the world because you also know,

(44:06):
oh, I can fix this really easily. This shit is so fucking evil,
honestly. And ended up literally sleeping under
a bridge. for a few months, just
every day in and out, hustling up some money, getting what I needed to
get high that day, eat something. I was a fat junkie for
some reason, too. I was like 260 pound six

(44:32):
Panhandle game was tight. Dude, I was amazing. I was better at panhandling
than tattooing, probably. I like to see
your cardboard signs. My convention signs
are cardboard signs for that reason. And people are
kind of like, oh, you're making fun of the houseless. Bitch, I was homeless. It's
okay. I got out of that, you

(44:54):
know, but to put that in synopsis. So
we're not here for three and a half days of all the details of that was
I just realized one day like, yo, I'm going to die. And
I was cool with that. Yeah. And that scared
the shit out of me. Like being OK with
not waking up the next day was one of the most scariest moments

(45:16):
of my life. I called my mom, who I always had kind
of a decent relationship with still at this point. She
paid for my cell phone bill so my phone could stay on so
she could check in on me once in a while. Called her, I'm
like, I cannot do this anymore. She's like, you
know what that means? I'm like, yeah, I know what that means. I have to turn myself in.

(45:37):
She's like, all right, you wanna do that? I'll buy you breakfast first
and then we'll go do that. Like, yes, but on one condition, you
gotta give me 50 bucks. Yeah, we
need one last trip to Mars
so this woman picks me up takes
me to go grab I'm grabbing dope with my

(45:59):
mother in the car who's 60 ish
55 at the fucking wild hit a bathroom in
a gas station. She takes me to breakfast and Then
we go turn me in and I remember giving her a hug saying I'll
see you in a few years and that's lit Wild like
and that's literally what it is like I knew I was not seeing

(46:20):
freedom for a few years because I was charged
with robbery and They were trying to
take it a little easy on me at first like all right
you don't have this long history of violent crime or anything like that,
but I kept fucking up and So they sat me
down, you know, like I went and sat down for years

(46:40):
at that point. And the second day there, I'm
dude, I'm like shivering, lucid dreaming, full
on withdrawal. They don't they'll give you some
aspirin maybe. And that's like, but like opiate withdrawal won't.
It's rare. It can kill you. It's not like alcohol or benzo, but you're
going to like want to die. And I remember specifically vivid

(47:03):
as shit the second day waking up, like, if
I keep doing this, I will never live a productive
life. I will never do anything I wanted to do when I
was younger. I will never I will just be like, a
piece of shit getting high, shitting on everybody I ever
cared about or come across in my entire life. Like there will

(47:24):
never be another positive human interaction in my
life if I keep doing this and I'm probably not
going to live much longer. And that was it. Like
I've never even thought about doing it since then.
Like the thoughts never even crossed my mind. Like it
was, Is the craving still there? No, that's what I mean. Like it's you

(47:45):
could pull that shit out in front of me right now and do
it in front of me and I will judge you 0% and have
zero will to do it also at the very same time. Interesting there
was. Yeah, what makes me think mental line was
crossed, right? Yeah, I'm done. Like we're not doing

(48:08):
Like you have your mind, your ego. You're not born with that one. I mean, show
me a fucking two year old that knows he's looking at a tree. Yeah.
Yeah. And it's pretty. Yeah. And they're like, yeah. And it's amazing when
you're that age, when you're that age, you don't have the ego and the
You have none of that. You have no ego. And then the ego is the thing that

(48:30):
talks. It's a good thing. You know, the Buddhists... Yeah,
there's like a healthy amount of it. Yeah, that's the thing. It's kill
the ego is some of the mantras in the Eastern spiritual communities. And
I quickly realized, no, no, you can't kill the ego. It's the thing that goes
to work. It's the thing that operates in the human space, physical

(48:50):
You have to like, watch that fucker. Or else the nutsos are
Daily work keeping that in check, though, to a certain extent,
because I agree with you in the sense that like some of that is
is healthy and a part of the human experience. But
like, it's the same way you go to the gym and you do burpees to

(49:13):
But let me ask you something because I we never asked I've been friends him for years on
we never talked about that part It's the one difference I'll
say between me and Mike is I had the feeling that I was I
was probably gonna die and like I wanted it though like
in a weird way like I felt like I did for a lot of my
career I felt even as tattooing when I had relapsed and stuff I was like

(49:33):
I thought the only way that I could get
things out is like I would look at a Van Gogh or a
Kurt Cobain or Picasso would use women like muses
like I thought the only way to like the only
way to be a real artist was to just be
this tragic Figure and like I tried to kill myself and

(49:53):
shit dude. I thank God. I was a junkie this didn't work I ate
I think like what was it um like 20 sticks
of Xanax and like 30 Roxie's and drink a bottle of vodka And
I warrants That's why I know I know I was like dude crazy, but
like I don't know I wanted that I think I never I made it to like

(50:14):
35 and I was like this is I I never thought it would go,
I never would be here. And then I spent like the past five
No, I tried to do it. I never actively tried, but that was the point
where one like I kind of hoped it would happen. Yeah. Was
the scary point where like. No, because all the pain stops. Yeah,
right. But also at the same time, like even in like

(50:36):
the lowest depths of that where it was like every
day, it was just super fucking painful, like on a soul level,
like you're saying, like, I still love life
so much. I didn't want that to stop. And that's
what was scary was that that thought was starting to enter my
head like that was so on me Like yeah, I

(50:58):
don't know like how many people you know That
I don't how do I want to say this like like how many people do you know
that even when things suck? They love living so much as much as
I do. Yeah, you know what I mean? Like even when I'm going through a rough time
now, it's like yeah, this is rough and But is
it comparably, you know, I went from like being a

(51:19):
man when you're a junkie, you're not even a human being anymore. You are,
but you've lost so much of your humanity. Yeah. You're just
like on autopilot to going to prison, getting
out, going back. And that's when it was second
day. Like I can't do this, you know, like that's
if I could like find some sort of way to enjoy living

(51:43):
in prison. Yeah. You'll find it out here. I'll
find it out here no matter what. And you were saying earlier
something to Sean about like, are you thankful for that or are you
glad that happened? Something about that. And I look at that like that
was one of the most pivotal, pivotal, important moments
of my life. And I'm, I wouldn't change any of that

(52:04):
if I had a time machine and I can go back and like dial
a life, you know, like build the life. I would, I would change
none of that. Like I would do all of that. I feel like I'm a better person
for that. I feel like I learned a lot about myself through
that. I feel like there was a lot of positive character development through
that. I feel like I learned things I wouldn't have

(52:24):
learned otherwise between both experiences. And
I got out and I clung to the idea that
I want a tattoo. And all I did, man, was draw
and work out. I kept to myself. I wasn't running around doing all this dumb
shit. Like I sat there and I drew and I worked
out every day. That was my life and kept to myself. We'll

(52:46):
make a phone call once in a while. I got out a week late. This
was 20 November 11th of 2014 because that was
my mother's birthday and she came to pick me up. That's cool.
From there. That's super cool. Maybe a week or two later, sometime
in November is I started tattooing. I
was walking around with this at this

(53:07):
point, you know, 10 ish year old portfolio, bad
apprenticeship tattoos, like maybe 10 of them. And,
uh, big bristol pad of charcoal
drawings that i had done looking for a job and everyone's like
nah get the fuck out of here kid and finally i walk in this place
no sign on the window anything but go in

(53:28):
here, woman's looking through this. She's like, what are you looking for?
I'm like, I'm looking for a job, you know? And she gets to
the charcoal drawings, guy working there behind her. She's
like, ah, can you come here? He comes up, same
thing. He's like, what are you looking for? And I'm like so
frustrated at this point, because like everybody said, nah, beat
it. And I literally word for word told this guy, I'm just looking

(53:51):
for a fucking job. Yeah, like just like that. And
he's looking through the charcoal drawings and he's like, you know what? We
got no sign. This isn't kind of like that scenario. You're
never going to get business here, but get in the car and I'm going to
take you to my homie shop and get you a job right now. And that's what
happened. I started the next day. That's right. I literally started the

(54:12):
next day and I would hit the bus because like I didn't have a
car. I didn't have anything at this point. Or the crew is like six, seven days
a week. First one there, last one to leave. And
just ran, dude. Like I didn't I I
didn't love tattooing when I started. I looked at that as this
is something I had started doing before that could provide me with maybe

(54:35):
a meager existence, but I could do something I enjoyed
doing. I didn't love it at that point, but enjoy. But by the second
or third day, dude, I had never loved anything as much as I
love tattooing. Not even close to as much as that.
Seriously. And like, dude, never look back. It's not even 10 years
later. And I'm like working in my favorite environments and

(54:56):
meeting people and have like the greatest group of friends. Everyone, anyone
could ever. It's wild to think about, dude. Like, yeah, he's in
San Diego. I'm in Long Beach. I'm coming right now. Yeah, literally. Like,
That's rad. Great. I mean, yeah, back to my
point, though, I think when you had that aha moment,

(55:20):
so the baby's born, doesn't have a personality, doesn't have an ego, but
you're alive and aware. So what is that
aliveness and awareness without something talking
in your head? Yeah. We can give it a name if you want for just
the sake of a conversation. I'll call it your soul Yeah, there's some kind
of consciousness prior to you even knowing your own name.

(55:40):
Yeah Um, then we go into the ego phase and do
whatever we do that aha moment I think is that thing
you were born with we call it we're calling it a soul right now. Yeah, finally
stepping in and just being like stop this isn't you
this is a fabricated ego that you develop which
created insecurities and fears and all these different things which led you

(56:02):
to try to numb it out, numbing out these drugs. And not
everyone, I mean, I think every soul gives that yells at the
body that's occupying. But do you listen? Right. Because a lot of
them don't. But you did. You know that your time in prison was
And I chose not to feed into any of that when I was in there. Like
it's easier to get dope in prison than it is on the street. I've

(56:25):
heard that. more.
But yeah, as 100% it was almost like an
out of body, not out of body experience, but it was almost like
a voice outside of me, yet was inside of
me. I don't know how better to explain it. It was like now we're
I get it. We've all had that. Everyone listening has had a

(56:47):
moment like that. It doesn't have to be kicking heroin. It could just be
It shows up like how you need it. Yeah. It shows up whether you recognize
it or not. Totally. For me, it was like a hundred percent of my kids, dude. Yeah.
And like each new kid has me like re-engaged with
like, um, the freeness of making art without

(57:07):
any of the construct that you encounter like growing up. You have kids,
you know what I mean? Yeah. So I remember a lot of tattoos like, oh
man, you're having all these kids, it's going to fuck up your career. It actually made
it better for me. I play more with
ideas and get more interested. You're sitting there and you're watching this
Pixar movie, it's sick. I wouldn't have watched this like as

(57:28):
mama, you know, and I would never looked at this like these are killing it, dude.
Color. There's like a playful side to your art, too. Yeah. So
that makes sense. Not playful in like a childish way, but there's like some sort.
Well, kids awaken that party spirit because it's always there.
Yeah. It's easy to forget about it if you're hanging out with a bunch of fucking adults,

(57:48):
lose them. Right, so if you're around them a lot, some people can hold on
to it no matter where they're at, but yeah, kids, I have many moments
like that when I'm in my adult mind and
they want to play hide and seek and my off-the-cuff reaction is,
no. And then I was like, one, I feel
like a dick to my kid, but then two, I'm like, why do I not? I love

(58:13):
And denying the kid. So suddenly I'm in the backyard playing hide and
seek, and I'm like, you know, it can help to reawaken that
part of us, and it's beautiful. For kids, beautiful in so many ways. That's
just one layer to it. But I do like the distinction between ego
and the soul, and I think what we're talking about for both of you is this
decisive moment where the soul Screamed out like

(58:34):
this is not it like you're identifying with your ego
and the ego is always gonna tell us to do Good shit, bad shit.
And that's why being the steward of the ego is the real trick, right? So I
like to picture in my own head that I'm the soul. And
then I hear the thoughts and I examine them just like a

(58:54):
Oh, that's that's that could be a good idea. And I just take in what's useful and
I get rid of what isn't. You know, so you're the steward of your own thoughts.
You know, all the books are totally you mentioned that they describe
These are some of the books that changed my life. That

(59:15):
was actually a book that I read while camping for several
years that helped kind of change my life. And it's easy to forget
about some of the things that are in there, at least for me. That's why the
That's why they call it a spiritual practice. Yeah, you know,
you can't I got the message. I'm enlightened No, you
got maybe that moment you're feeling in the vibration But

(59:37):
then you go to work and then shit happens in life and then you've cut yourself a month
later Completely not living what you read that you were claiming to
yourself a month ago. This is me now. Yeah, what the fuck happened? You
just flipped a guy off in traffic Yeah, what happened? So that's
a practice, right? How do you practice? Everyone has their own methods. I listen to
But even being aware that you, you're

(59:58):
conscious that you flip dude off and wanting to pull back is
progress. Oh, a hundred percent. Right? Like, cause before that you were just flipping off
Yeah. You're in that uncomfortable change. Once you get to the point where you're like,
There, you got it right there. Where you're like aware of it,
but you haven't actively done anything to change it. It's like the

(01:00:20):
worst fucking place to be, too. Because it's like, you're
not ignorant anymore to where you're going wrong,
And it's that moment of awareness. If you can
become aware of it, identify the problem, and then even make
maybe some change, that's the moment of forgiveness to yourself. That's

(01:00:42):
where you're like, dude, it happened. I struck out
or I used words of anger. Yeah. I'm now recognize
it very clearly. I'm identifying it. I'm committing to doing that
less, maybe not at all. And I, in the same
moment, completely forgive myself. I'm completely proud of myself for
even having this moment because most people live unconsciously and they don't even have that

(01:01:02):
awareness moment. And therefore I can have
more, a little more respect and more love for myself. back to the original point.
So this is a cycle that continues and you gain more
self-love and more self-respect and then that oozes over into your
family and into your co-workers, people around you. And in that way,
you are the change you want to see in the world, right? Everyone's wondering

(01:01:28):
That's the only thing you can do. I can't fix fucking fan.
I mean, hold back. I can do anything. But my
current path, I'm putting my energy into some other projects.
Yeah, I can't do everything. Yeah. But I can work
on myself. And in that way, I can be an example to others. And

(01:01:49):
Ultimately, you can't change anything about like other people are
outside of yourself. You just have to like be the best you and you
can be and surround yourself with people on the same wavelength and hopefully
You can see it though. Do you ever like walk in Manhattan and someone's,
or even here, you know, a busy street, and you can see someone that's

(01:02:10):
got whatever you want to call that on them, like some anger, a
monkey on their back, whatever, right? And you can watch it and
bump into someone. And then you see, ah, he just passed that shit off to
that guy. He's going to spread it like a mycelium network, a
mushroom. Or you can be the guy that like, dude bumps
you and you're like, Nope, not today, dude. And like,

(01:02:31):
I guess like that moment awareness is when you realize what's going on.
And you most like you're never gonna get it right off
the rip, right? You're always gonna make mistakes. But as it goes forward, you,
you react to that less and less. You contribute to
And you spread the opposite my mycelium network out.
You know what I mean? Like, I remember one of the times, like after eight mushrooms, I

(01:02:53):
like, you know, like a dude was like gnarly like that, like
bugging out. I'm in a parking spot in fucking Delaware. I got out the car and
I'm like, oh, dude, I'm sorry. Whatever is going on with you, dude. I hope it
gets better. I'll move, dude. You're hurting, dude. You're hurting right
now. Just. Yeah. We're good. And at any extent,
In that moment, you just moved the entire human

(01:03:15):
species one millimeter closer
to world peace and all the things we all say that the world should be like.
And then sometimes you're going to fuck up and add to it the other way, dude. As
long as most of your life is the other stuff. Or even
Now there's a weird thing in here though, and this is something I like to talk about. There's

(01:03:36):
that, and there's boundaries. So that's
a funny one, because the altruistic idea of love everyone and
forgive everyone is true. But in that moment,
you have to create boundaries, right? So I have some people that have wronged
me. And I have meditated and deeply
and I truly forgive them. I see that it

(01:03:57):
was just ignorance. They didn't want to do that. They
were a little baby that had no intention of hurting anything ever,
not even a butterfly. But I don't know their childhood. I
don't know what the fuck happened. It led them to a place where they did this to me. So
boom, forgiveness. Now, boundaries, they're
not allowed in my businesses. Don't call me. I

(01:04:17):
love you and I wish only the best. That's this right
here. A lot of people, when you tell them to forgive, they will
go into a mindfuck of what they
think you're saying is allowed. You know, my uncle
raped me, and you want me to forgive him? So,
they hear in that, so I'm okay with people doing that

(01:04:40):
to me? I'm not. So, because I'm not, I'm gonna maintain
this resentment. I'm gonna hate him till he dies. I'm
gonna fucking make a voodoo doll and put pins in its head. I'm gonna, you
I had a neighbor that did all that shit. She's like, just get a picture of him and

(01:05:01):
put him in your shoe. I was like,
that's kind of cool, actually. But yeah, I get what you're doing. It's resentment that
Because you're carrying that thought around, right? And we just talked earlier about you
end up with a bunch of friends and neighbors and people around you that are like
you. So if you're really resentful holding on to that, you'll end up with

(01:05:21):
a bunch of buddies that are like, yeah, I hate a couple of dudes too. In fact, I
think we should do something about UN. Next thing you know, you're fucking driving somewhere
to beat somebody up. You're like, whoa, how did I end
up, you know, but it's a cycle and it gains momentum, right? So forgiveness, love
with boundaries is sort of a mantra I try to remember, you know? But
on this note also of soul, I'm gonna switch it up a

(01:05:43):
little bit now, but this notion of like, we have this ego that
goes out, goes to work, it starts cars, it does a lot of functional things.
And then we have this soul that we were born with before the ego. And when
I'm being creative, I often, you know, I
come to, for me personally, the conclusion that I don't think I'm actually creating.

(01:06:04):
I think you get like airdrop from that's the word source dog.
Do you know what I mean? That's the word. And you can either and you and you and
that little baby that you were was an antenna for that.
And I think everybody is like an antenna for something. It's
like whether you recognize it, act on it
and go for it because it's scary to go for Like

(01:06:24):
we said, there's no guarantee of stability chasing
art. It's on your heart. Some people might be like, you know
what? That's a little crazy, dude. I'm going to make sure I paint on weekends, and
I'll get my creative out. That'll be cool. And that's totally cool. Some people are
like, nah, dude. This is so, I have to
get this out. When I look at Bensinski's paintings, I

(01:06:45):
think if that dude didn't paint that shit, it would have killed him. Like,
when you watch it come out, you're like, whoa, dude. Like, Grayler would go crazy if
he didn't paint that shit. It has to come out, dude. You know what
I mean? And some people, you know, it's not like that, but
they still have, you know, like, there's some people there, like, even
I, look at my wife's art. It's so much more, like,
mathematically inclined and stuff. A

(01:07:08):
lot of our homies are like that, you know? Can you look at that money like
that's your antenna for like a different thing or like
You're supposed to be doing that dude like you're here for
this dude sick you know what i mean but i like the analogy just created i like
to use one like a like a like the old i don't know if anyone knows
is but they used to be like radios in your card you would try to dial to a different station.

(01:07:31):
So everything's out there, right? Hate is out there, violence is out there,
love is out there, art's out there. And you got this dial, and where
you tune that dial is what comes through to you. That's
what you're gonna receive most of. So where's your dial, what is it tuned
to? That's not just like in general, like moment to moment. You
can be tuned into anger sometimes in a day, and tuned back

(01:07:52):
to love. So I'm always checking that dial, like what am I tuning into?
I'm a receiver, I'm a fucking antenna, and creativity, especially
big moments of like, aha moments, they just do
not feel like they're coming from me. Nah, it just happens. Yeah.
Those are the most beautiful moments too. Like it literally just sort
of happens, and the next thing you know, instead of consciously trying

(01:08:14):
to make something happen for a little while, it's just like, wait a minute,
I just made something completely... Novel.
Yes, that's the word. And it's almost like a few hours
And it was probably really difficult before you had that moment too. Oh,
They've done brain scans on that. Oh, I believe that. That frustration moment

(01:08:37):
we all have as creatives, they do these brain scans and they can see this
other part of the brain they don't fully understand. It has a lot to do with love, area
of love, area where they know creativity happens. As
that frustration increases, it starts to wind
up. And then you have the breakthrough moment. I remember that too. I
always do that when I'm in my creative space and I'm having the first... I've had... 10 years

(01:08:59):
ago, I destroyed my art studio one day out of frustration. Just fucking
threw the whole fucking table over. And now when
that frustration happens, I welcome it. I'm just like, oh, I know what this
is. This is the part when the breakthrough has got to be really close because
I'm getting stripped down, you know what I mean? Yeah, I'm like, yeah
I came to a point him a couple years ago like so much bad shit was happening

(01:09:22):
and at first like why me? You know, this is fucked I'm not that
bad of a guy, you know what I mean? And then you come into like an acceptance point
of it and like you said if you can find like happiness or peace Yeah, I
might watch my dick get kicked in for a couple years there, dude like
And then like you get to this point where you're like, you know what, dude, I'm still
alive, dude. I could be in Ukraine right now. I could be in fucking

(01:09:43):
Yemen or someplace. This shit's all right, dude. I'll
be OK, dude. And then it's like when you get to that point is usually when it starts to
Well, that word, that right there we're talking about there is gratitude. Yeah.
What is gratitude? Gratitude's really quite simply an
awareness of what's actually happening in the moment. Yeah. If you think
about your most painful moments are usually ideas. I mean, we do

(01:10:03):
have acute pain. If you add up your entire life and you listed out
the moment you had acute pain, emotional or physical, it probably won't
amount to more than 0.5% of your entire physical existence. So
that means 99.5% of the time, everything's fine. Yeah. So
what's gratitude? Gratitude is just saying, yeah, everything's fine.

(01:10:24):
And then boom, it pours through. And you're grateful for the
fact you can walk. Simple as shit ever, your toes work.
I was looking at it, I'm like, man, so what if things
are not going good, I can't tattoo as much, who cares if the sponsors
drop me during this rough time or whatever? My kids aren't dropping me.
Things are getting better with my wife, dude. We were in hard

(01:10:46):
spots. You're like, I'll trade all that stuff for this and work
on this. Dude, I'm going to get fucked up. Then when I got to that point is
when things started to turn around. I'm like, okay. I think I
almost had put it out of my mind. Because it was ego
stuff. That was holding me back. I wanted you to know who I was.
I was like Jack Rackham in Treasure Island shit, dude. You

(01:11:07):
know what I mean? I wanted to be in history books. I
wanted to do something that, even if you don't know my name,
I know I was a part of something that meant something down here. Even
if I died trying to think, that's why I was cool with the whole dying thing too. It
would almost make a better story or something sick thing in my head. You know what I
mean? And then, uh, you know, you get on the other side

(01:11:28):
of things. You're like, nah, dude, I'm, I'm cool over here. This is a, you know,
it's way better stuff than that. And like one of my sacrifice
A hundred percent, dude. If you think of any day of your life, at least let's just give it
a number. A thousand things are happening around you. Your, your
house is it's, it's, it's sitting still,
but it's happening. You're in it. your kids playing in the yard,

(01:11:51):
your car starts. You brush your teeth and your hand goes
right where you tell it to go. So there's like, this is called a thousand things
in a day go right. And then let's just say five
things go wrong and people will spend their entire day thinking about
You're explaining this like this and all I'm thinking is like the

(01:12:11):
most ridiculous analogy to like your credit score. Right,
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Everything

(01:12:33):
went beautifully and then the smallest thing can happen. That's
like pretty inconsequential And just ruin
Yeah, and why because it goes back to what
you we said this earlier We all get to be right and
we all get what we want Yeah, so if your life mantra
is this world's pretty fucked up place man a lot of people get fucked over

(01:12:59):
You're ignoring your loving wife you're ignoring you because none of this fits into your narrative.
Yeah, the loving wife doesn't fit into your life narrative But then
you're you're almost angry that things are going right? Yeah, and then you're like that
one bad thing happened You're like there it is told you right there. You're
right. Well, we all get to be right man What do you want to be right
about? Yeah, choose carefully. Yeah, that's that's that's

(01:13:22):
fucking cool. Oh Let's take this around to tattooing. You
know, there's all these art forms, all these beautiful things to do with our lives, creatives out
there doing with their lives. For you guys, what makes tattoo, I'm
assuming you would call it special. I call it very special. I do think
it's actually unique. It sounds egotistical, like everybody wants to tell the
world that their particular choice of art is

(01:13:42):
more special maybe than somebody else's. And they're all unique and special in their
own way. But I do believe in the visual art category, tattooing
is, Incredibly special and different than any other one
for various reasons. Let's let you guys fire off on that. What's so special
I'll go. I'll hit this one. I like the
idea that and I like the

(01:14:04):
challenge of like Every person that's
gonna email me or say now they can pop in for an actual physical
consultation or something, they have an idea in their head and they can't
get it out. They don't have the ability to materialize that.
I do. And it's gonna come through me. So I get excited to
see, like when someone emails me, I'll be like, okay, dude, I don't, don't send

(01:14:25):
me pictures of tattoos. Don't send me anything. Tell me what is your
story? What is, why do you want to get, you want to get a wolf? Why? What's the
secondary part of that? Like, are you a loner? Are you, you
know, what is the deal with it? Let me know. And I'll take that information, put it
with this information. And then I get to through multiple
different things, whether I'm drawing it, free handing it, mixing media, whatever

(01:14:45):
to get it, I get to bring that to life. And 99% of the
time, when My client, very,
I mean, they make changes sometimes, but most of the time my clients don't. Seeing
like the look on their face, like, oh man, you fucking understand,
dude. And like, I'm basically giving them a
painting that they can wear all the time. I'm giving them a piece of fashion

(01:15:06):
that makes them feel good as hell to walk around
with, dude. You know what I mean? Like it's a self-confidence booster, really
nice work on you, right? And then I got to create
something that isn't something I necessarily would have thought of
on my own. So it's like having a collaborator that just
doesn't tap. You know what I mean? Oh, 100%. And it's like a beautiful fucking

(01:15:27):
thing, dude. And then I like to see what influences from my life.
When my oldest son was like Quin's age now, he
loved Tony Siavara and Timmy B. And I did a, because
of him, my work went in this direction. where it was
surreal, graffiti, new school-y realism for
a bit. There was a whole body of work, a period that came out

(01:15:50):
with that, and certain clients felt that and showed
up during that time. Then my son, who's six
now, we draw together almost every day. Dude, he's
like a little cartoony HP Lovecraft kid. Everything's got tentacles and
teeth. I did a whole thing two years ago where I would say, my
son would be, this was sick. Oh, he was so sick,

(01:16:12):
dude. He would say these things. He'd be like,
yo, dad, what if you drew a lava bat? What if you drew some
of the other ones he'd say, like, quetzalcoatl mixed with something? I'm
like, oh, dude, that's fire, bro. That's so fire, dude.
And I did them for a deal, and mad people got them. That's sick. Terminator wolf.
fire, dude, you know what I mean? Like, you know, you don't think of that stuff. And

(01:16:32):
it's cool to see, you know, I've been doing this almost 20 years, you've
been like 30, he's 10, you've been doing it long enough to see that
there is periods in it. And now, instead of chasing
all those, um, accolades, whatever, I've hit this
point where it's like, what else am I gonna get sponsored by? I
don't pay for wrap, I don't pay for ink, I don't pay for needles, machines, anything like that.

(01:16:53):
Hit this point where I actually wanted to own a shop now and
I wanna pour into some other people and give
something back. Any of these experiences that I've had and Ls
that I've took and teach some younger cats who got promised not to take them and
help them grow without me feeling like I'm leeching on
them. I went on a tangent there, my bad, dude. It

(01:17:14):
all fits. Yeah. And then like, so that's what I'm kind of doing right now. You
know, we're got, um, we're hiring a bunch of people that are coming and, um,
we're going to open like another occasion and we're going to try to like every mistake that
I made, like I didn't, I didn't invest. I blew out savings. I didn't
get proper insurance for so many, I mean, pirate type shit. Right. You know?
And, uh, now I'm at this point where, I want to

(01:17:35):
open another spot, not rock people over the head for
percentages or anything like this, not that that's a bad thing, and only
hire people that I really care about and believe in. My
wife sells real estate. Look, man, if you want
to, we'll help you get that set up so that you could have some properties and
investment things. own something or whatever, like

(01:17:56):
we fucked up everything, dude. And we've had to figure
out how to not fuck up. If you want, I'm not gonna push you to do
anything, but if you want, we got you. And then like even thinking,
changing that mind state has brought different clients now. And
I find like the kind of clients that come through now, like, yeah, I
guess whatever the brainwave met there. And, but in
the time that that changes over, it's weird. Like I almost had a

(01:18:19):
client dry up for a little bit. Because I didn't know
Do you know what I'm saying? Oh, yeah, because you're sitting out this energy
frequency of confusion. I'm in between stations. Yeah, yeah,
Yeah, and then that's what I think having that rough period got
me to this point. I'm so happy when people

(01:18:41):
even want to get work from me now. Look how many people there are. I'm 40 years
old. You still want to fly to me? For real mm-hmm
good fucking looks dude. You know what I mean my wife, and I were talking
about them whenever we finish starting in 2025 Whenever
you finish a project sleeve half sleeve back Whatever we want to
make like a personalized like gift bag to give to you you had a

(01:19:01):
lot of options you picked us Mm-hmm, and I'm grateful for
Yeah, that's and the question was what's special about tattooing
and you didn't get on a tangent that all that matter that you went through your
own personal connection to tattooing the collaboration i agree we're
gonna let you go next michael but. what other art form do two people
get to collaborate at that level? I mean, yeah, you can go to a guy and tell him

(01:19:24):
It makes you go down different rabbit holes too. Like I wouldn't look up some of this shit, but I have
to for work. Like even if someone wants a video game tattoo,
I don't play video games. I watch every mythos of the game, gameplay
and everything, and then I sit down and make thumbnails for it. I would have never looked
that up. There's some cool shit in there too. There's a really cool storyline. Fuck,
I'm entertained, you know? It helped me look at even shit that my sons are

(01:19:45):
into differently because of clients, you know? I'm like, oh, you're not lame. This
Yeah, and your story, it went on to include what's beautiful about
tattoo is this career that
you can now expand and allow others to thrive in
a platform that you're creating that's healthy and even

(01:20:05):
goes beyond tattoo. Like, look, I know you guys, you know the struggle of
a young tattooer. They love their job, they're making decent money, but
they don't know about investing. What am I gonna do if my
hands break or whatever? Well, I can help you with that too. Put a
little disc. Maybe you guys, three of you could put some money together and buy this
duplex together. You know, shit like that. And being able to be the person
that, and that's a lot of your, kind of my story is the same,

(01:20:28):
you know? So that's fucking rad. And in this whole frequency shift, I mean, hell,
it's led you to the point now where you're going to be tattooing again. Sean Ryan, dude,
I know a lot of people listening will know who that is. I know I do, guy's amazing. But
yeah, I mean, why is Sean, I mean, you definitely announced it
to your audience, interested in his content and his mind, and

(01:20:49):
then he reached out to you and you're gonna tattoo him, but I think it's that, but it's also like your
Well, it's real, it's like he just got baptized recently, I
just got back. I mean, I checked out all the different religions and I found like what
I needed. The Eastern stuff would get me to be really work
on myself, but I didn't, there was no, for me, not

(01:21:10):
saying anyone else, I'm never just anyone's religion, but for me,
I felt like I needed like that sense of community and my middle
son, we kept driving past the surf church. I want to go in
there. So we go in there and I was like, well, this is what I needed, dude. Like
my whole neighborhood knows me, dude. Like, meet people that
are good and like-minded and want to be good dudes. I'm like,

(01:21:30):
oh, cool. So the mix of meditation and community
Community, right? I mean, that's a great thing. I love all religions. I
love all of them. I think there's some corrupt people in them. There's corrupt
people in tattooing. There's corrupt people in government. There's a corrupt person at
If you take anything good, there's gonna be someone that's gonna want to run with it to bend

(01:21:54):
That's the way it is. But if you take that away, they're all fucking beautiful.
You got a bunch of people getting together to do positive shit for their community
and for each other. What's bad about that? Nothing. So
I don't care because if you don't stray from what the core is you're you're
gonna be a good person I don't care how you got there to me the

(01:22:14):
issue with any religion isn't the Or belief system or
whatever you want to call it is not the belief system or the religion. It's
the fucking humans running it. Yeah involved we
ruin everything we touch on like a not individual level,
Because it always turns out as soon as money starts moving around. That's where

(01:22:34):
that's when it gets sketchy, dude. You know, you don't find barely any corruption with
in organizations where there's zero money moving around. Right.
Yeah. No, it's all from our groups or people to get together for draw night.
That's an organization. You don't see corruption there. Now,
that draw group had money flowing into it. And the best drawing
of the night won a five hundred thousand dollars. Artists and

(01:22:57):
a couple of them would get real nefarious Well, could you introduce greed
And every single religion talks not about
not that dude You know to me like like I said, I found
and but back to the point that was Sean Ryan went through the same kind
of story dude, and I'm like I'm listening to a show like

(01:23:17):
me and my clients let's do all the time and Because like what topic doesn't he hit, right?
And I listened to the show and I'm like, I'm operating on something similar. Some
kind of path is similar to this dude. Let me shoot my shot and see if he'll,
and obviously he was like, yeah, for sure. Dude. Cool. That's cool. Yeah.
Right on. Well, what about you, Michael? What's special about tattooing to you?
Almost all of it, honestly. I'm listening to

(01:23:40):
him talk and I'm kind of trying to, I'm like, not paying attention
to you and I'm trying to figure out what's important to me, especially the
tattooing. There's a few things that stick out. One
is among arts and visual arts. It's like
a direct energy exchange, which it's like directly an
energy exchange between two people. And there's something amazing

(01:24:02):
about that. Like I'm Drawing on you for a
ridiculous amount of money, but we're spending the
day two days three days ten days, whatever it is Together
there's like physical touch involved. There's making
this project so there's like the mental and the emotional
part of it and you're physically doing this to this other

(01:24:23):
person and And painting, it's a canvas and it's an
inanimate object. Sculpting, it's clay or whatever. It's an inanimate object.
You're performing art and changing the appearance forever
until they die of another living creature. And
there's like, to me, a responsibility that I feel like
a lot of some tattooers have where

(01:24:45):
they, I almost feel like they don't understand how special
They will, if they stay with it long enough. Not all of them. Some people stay
asleep their whole life. It's fucking incredible. I don't know why I understood it my first
I just began to realize that in the last two, three years, like

(01:25:05):
how powerful it is and how much I fucking love
tattooing. I remember earlier saying, like, when I started, I didn't, but like
literally a few days into it, it was like, cool, this is what I'm
supposed to be doing without a shadow of a doubt. And
being able to pour the energy into
doing this, into another living creature, is

(01:25:25):
what makes it so special to me. And that they wanted you to do
it, too. That's the coolest part, in a sense. Especially
once you get to a point where I've gotten to a point where a
lot of the people reaching out to me want something that I want to do
on them. I have a similar process to what he was describing, where
I ask you, What do you want? But I also go also

(01:25:46):
ask you why do you want what you want to me? Like why has
been a big big thing? It's like what makes you want
that I want to know Why because that's gonna help
me kind of steer things in a direction that correlates more
with what you're asking for But also in a way that I'm just
gonna naturally do it. Anyway, hmm, you know, so it

(01:26:07):
gives the opportunity to interact with another human and on
that level. And like interacting and connecting with humans is maybe
my favorite thing in the world. So that's, to me, what
makes it special. There may be other visual arts,
if I dig enough, but like painting, drawing, sculpting,
you know, the standards. It's an inanimate object. You have all the

(01:26:28):
time in the world with it. You have all the ability to continue
to shape and mold and build and layer and tweak. And
tattooing, you get like a crack at it. Yes, you
can layer. Yes, you can change things, but it's in skin, which
has a threshold. Yes, it can heal. Yes, you can change it a
little after that. But like in the grand scheme of things, you

(01:26:49):
get one crack at this to do this. you can't keep
evolving it you know and there's something about
the finality of that and the irony of
that is it's also temporary because every single
tattoo you do is going to die with the person that's
out so you're not creating something that's going to live forever Painting

(01:27:11):
could be restored, you know Rembrandt's my favorite painter. I
go to the Met all the time and stare at his self-portrait That's in the
Met and there's another painting right next to her. I fucking love it. But
with restoration these things could live indefinitely, you
know a sculpture whatever but a tattoo is
going to a grave and So you're pouring this

(01:27:33):
time, which is the most valuable resource in
the world, into doing this, yes, for money,
but I'd also do it for free if that's what it came down to, or like,
buy me lunch, you know, or something. If I was wealthy, I'd do
this shit because I love it, dude. For a very temporary thing. So
it's like to me, there's more pure love, I

(01:27:55):
guess, for what you're doing. And it is cool. It's
fucking phenomenal that like tattooers can make a lot of money
now. But that's new. Like that's the last few years
with with some exceptions. But like, what did the average tattooer
make 10 years ago? 30K, 50K? Unless you made
some movies. No, I'm saying the average. Yeah, average. Average.

(01:28:16):
I have no idea. But like, They weren't buying
a house more likely than not. You know, they weren't going to
go buy an Audi. They weren't going to go do this and that. Like
now it's really cool in the sense that it can be very financially lucrative.
But I think anyone who's been doing it for more than five, six years, pre

(01:28:40):
I feel like a lot of people got into it for financial reasons now, and I think that's the
greed that's been brought in. I've
seen the most boring couple of years in
tattooing, the highest level execution with the most
boring formulaic ideas. How many have
you seen this week? Short chick, thigh, hip

(01:29:02):
to almost ankle. Lady Face, Paper Tear,
Inverted GMX Pindolla, Paper Tear, Animal. Seen
You know, I haven't seen... I almost feel like I'm at this weird crossroads in
my career, too, because the things I enjoy doing were
things like that. And now I'm seeing more and more and more. You see

(01:29:23):
yourself getting better, dude. No, but you see me doing like so much less of
the things that I did when I was starting to develop a thing that was
like... more my thing instead of a bunch of different things
and like I'm just trying to find like
what's next and one of the beautiful things about tattooing to
me also is like seeing the evolution of what you're doing

(01:29:45):
like any other art form but add into it the trust of the human
allowing you to experiment on their body. not
experiment in the sense like, hey, I've never done this before. I have no idea how this is
going to go. Let's run it. But in the sense that like, hey,
this isn't so much what I've seen you do before, but yeah,
let's do it. You know, there's the trust involved is really

(01:30:05):
cool. I do pretty much everything about tattooing. I
love even the parts of the industry people like don't like to me. I
still enjoy because it's like it's part of the beast. It's part of
the animal. It's part of what it is. And that's just it's so cool,
man. And it's also like, i like the piratey subculture
kind of part of it not that part specifically but just as

(01:30:27):
a whole tattooing has only recently been accepted more
so in society you know you've been 30 years of
tattooing when you were Beginning tattooing or
even in like 1995 like what you were doing was
probably frowned upon pretty heavily, you know

(01:30:47):
No, I still enjoy that like I I'm not like
a total pirate I pay taxes and I do things the correct way
but at the same time like I I enjoy that like
kind of like underground countercultury part of it at
I like when people would see your neck and hand joints and like cross the street. Yeah.
I like taking the neck and hand joints and going into a Michelin star

(01:31:10):
restaurant and they look at like, you shouldn't be there, but then you leave the biggest
tip anybody left all week. That's one of
my favorite things about being a tattooer and being tattooed where it's
visible is like, Especially given my background and
like how different of a human I am now compared to 15 years
ago like I love going into establishments

(01:31:31):
and environments where I have no fucking business being on
paper and Being there, you know like going
to a omakase spot or like the couple next year kind
of looking at like you we had to sit next to these dirt bags and
I Yeah, you belong there as much as
them and then you're gonna leave a bigger tip because tattooing ultimately is

(01:31:51):
an art but it's also the service industry also so you understand how
that goes and you're gonna treat the people there way better
than most other people will or like walking into a car dealership
and they look at you like there's no way and then you tell them
like I already specced this vehicle order it for me and I got the loan

(01:32:16):
Well, you love that. I love that too. But there's a deeper layer to that.
Everybody that's tattooed and everybody that does tattoos somewhere in
their young adult life saw the hypocrisy of
people, meaning people were judging people without getting to know
them. And I remember as a small child, seeing that happen around me
and thinking, that's fucked up. Like, I'm not going to

(01:32:36):
do that. Like, I don't care what you look like. Talk to me. I'll
decide if you're what I think of you after I get to know you Yeah, and so
part of becoming a tattooer or getting heavily tattooed is
the walking that it's yeah You're promoting the idea and there's and
it's such a beautiful thing if you can go into a nice Michelin
star restaurant Sit down politely. Maybe the

(01:32:57):
table next to you accidentally starts talking to you Well that that person
and maybe that person when you sat down was like, oh fuck dirt
bags at the table now they walk out with a new mindset like huh,
I I should probably give everyone more of a chance. So
you're like a living, walking mind changer

(01:33:18):
You're standing in the gap, dude. You know what I mean? Like you're standing in
We're helping the world by doing that. Absolutely. I think I enjoy that
part of it so much from living two totally separate lives,
like trying to bridge that gap a little bit. And when you were
starting to talk about that, the first thing I actually thought wasn't other

(01:33:40):
society, but I feel like is tattooing's gotten more popular and
there's more people tattooing. Tattooing's gotten very judgy of
the tattoo community also. Yeah. Which is odd to
me because the whole point of this was like individual freedom and
expression. Meanwhile, we're like criticizing and judging

(01:34:01):
Yeah, I'm doing that I'm like dude you like
there's some things worthy of criticism or judging it, but
like it's very few fringy Elements
not not I'm doing an anesthesia tattoo on
October 4th I haven't made it public yet.
This will probably come out after I've done it. We're making a bunch of media Well,

(01:34:23):
we're gonna do a bunch with it. So the world will know did you get some flack for
Well, I what i'm saying is not yet because I haven't yeah Yeah,
and I just I mean I got it on a one-on-one level with a few tattooers where
I was like Yeah, I'll think about doing this and you know to my face.
Nobody was too aggressive about it But it was sort of the idea of like that's
fucked up that guy shouldn't be doing that. He's kind

(01:34:45):
of stupid for doing it you're kind of stupid for being the tattooer
in that room and my thing was always like what you said,
which is Whoa, whoa, we're tapped. I thought we came into
this subculture to get away from people that
try to judge others for living a life when it doesn't affect you. Like
I ain't got a problem with almost anything unless you're hurting someone

(01:35:07):
or hurting me Then we need to talk but if I
don't care how you want to dress how you what what believes you
know And then and that's our community right and then suddenly you got tattooers judging
other tattooers Telling another man how he should live his life
the way that they live their life I mean you're really getting down to
the source of the problem the planet Earth and This is the reason we have wars in

(01:35:28):
the Middle East. Yeah, you know that guy's saying I think it's bullshit that
he's doing it and you're and you're the tattooer in the room. I'm like, you're
no different than some dude from Hamas. Yeah. I mean, of course,
The irony there is like I'm not a fan of anesthesia tattooing
at all. Which is fine. Anybody can do whatever they

(01:35:49):
That's the answer. That's what I tell. I personally do it. That's
Like you can have opposing beliefs on something and not fucking
look at this person differently for that reason. It's so weird to
Well, no, because you're just offering a different experience. Like, I

(01:36:09):
don't know that I would do the anesthesia. Maybe there'd be a point in time where
I meet the right kind of person and that seems like a path for me. But
for me and my clients, I like the, and
I think they do, the kind of people that come to me, I think they want the,
they want to earn it. They want to go through it and they get to have the
victory at the end. Some other people, for whatever reason or whatever, I

(01:36:30):
mean, because I'm at this point as a tattooer, if I could not feel it at four
years old, it'd be kind of sick. You know what I mean? So, like, that'd
be kind of tight to not be fucking dying getting tattooed. So, I
don't think anything is... Like, it's not my place to tell anybody shit,
you know? Like, I see a true, like, ah, fucking trans. I'm like, I got fucking tattoos
on my face, dude. Like, whatever, dude. Do whatever the fuck you want,

(01:36:50):
man. Are you raping anybody? You hurting anybody? No? Cool.
Whatever. Do your shit, dude. Yeah. I don't fucking care, dude.
You know what I mean? And that's one of the reasons I did it. I mean, I'm
not wildly... I was never wildly interested in it. And the guy
that's getting this particular person, I've already done his entire back. He's got
two sleeves. He earned it. He ain't afraid. This dude's a tough motherfucker.

(01:37:11):
I know that. He's also a busy motherfucker. with
lots of kids, and a wife, and a business, and that's his
thing. He's like, dude, I just want my whole front done, and I ain't got
the time right now. And I got the money, though. And I was like,
that adds up pretty rad. Let's try it. Plus, I'm kind of excited for
all the shit-talking, you know? Oh yeah, let's do it. It'll cause a ruckus, dude.

(01:37:33):
I wanna watch that with some popcorn and see how
Follow the show, follow me. You'll see it launch in mid-October. I
don't think it'll be as bad as i mean there's been plenty of it happened already and
the voices of the center getting quieter i think my.
issue with anesthesia isn't earning it. It's not any of that,

(01:37:53):
but it's the vast majority of the tattoos I've seen done
under anesthesia are fucking bad. Yeah, it's true.
It wasn't a lot of really rushing. If the tattoos were amazing tattoos,
like kill this tattoo and I'll love that you did it. You know what I
That's our goal. We got four dudes working on it at once. It's just
never turned out that good. And the three other dudes are like my level,

(01:38:15):
you know, yeah illustration tattooers. So yeah, it's gonna be
a crush. It's gonna be good Yeah, and you know, we're not gonna rush it.
I mean we're gonna put we're gonna work as fast as we fucking can Yeah,
and we may not get it done. We got eight hours to try to finish right
an entire front over the shoulders connected to back and ribs
connected to back who's just a front no problem so

(01:38:36):
i don't the guy knows that i'm like you know you're gonna wake up with a fuckload of
work but i'm not saying this is your last session you know because you think
like a quadrant like four guys you got one oh
break it down, like, all right, I'm gonna handle this, do that,
you know, it works. Isn't that what those fucking dudes in Indonesia are doing? It's

(01:38:59):
like a crew of dudes that do whole back pieces in like a day, and there's like
four or five hundred. I've seen some of this stuff, dude, yeah. It looks kinda, it's,
Man, there's, it's totally unrelated, but
I wish I knew this guy's name, because it's almost disrespectful I
don't, because I'm about to like suck his dick metaphorically a little bit.

(01:39:20):
But this guy's from Thailand, And he was at Golden
State last year and won something. Who
cares? It's a award. It doesn't matter. But the moral of
the story is it was on the same client that he had tattooed somewhere
in America at a convention before. And this guy crushes like
he crushed out this back over a weekend him one

(01:39:41):
guy crushed out a leg we're talking color and
then you get to see it healed a year or two later and it's like yo sick you
have moved incredibly fast on this thing and
this thing healed and at a year plus is
sitting fucking wonderfully crush
yeah you know whereas generally speaking there's like there's

(01:40:03):
like a speed to quality ratio somewhere. Like I'm
not the slowest guy in the world, not the fastest, but this guy is smoking
Well, it's like, I wonder what is that? Like I know that the
speed, a lot of it is like obviously good, good application and
like lack of hesitation. Yeah. Yeah. Super high confidence. Like,

(01:40:24):
You make a choice and you don't second-guess it at all, you
know what I mean? So yeah, I don't know like when it reaches that zenith
though, where you're talking about someone's booking, you know? Or I'll see like some of
that dude, 2Dan dude, that dude in Vietnamese dude. Yeah,
It is confidence. Yeah, it has to be. You mentioned technique, it's obviously
technique. What kind of machines are running? How good of

(01:40:46):
a technician are you? And then the confidence thing. And then the
third thing would be the type of art, you know, like we
got Hernan Correta here, master of Japanese traditional and
that art tattoos fast by nature. Just the type
of art it is, you know. My tuck my stuff tattoos slower.
No way around it. Yeah, your tech your stuff color realism even

(01:41:07):
probably slower. No way around. Yeah You got
You might need a last round to get it all right a lot of thinking I
have to do to I've only been doing color for a couple years. Oh,
That's an interesting fact. You were like a B&G clock and praying

(01:41:30):
So what happened is, dude, so I basically wanted to be like a
miniature Robert Hernandez. Then my wife got pregnant and young me
is like, I cannot feed my family and provide stability,
like masturbating Robert Hernandez shit. So I said, okay, what can
I do that? I know I'll be satisfied enough and
that people always going to want. So I started like skulls, roses,

(01:41:51):
portraits, like, People are always dying, people are always being born. Skulls
and roses are always popular. So I did those and I got like good at
them. I said to my wife, I said, like, just give me six months, dude. There's
stuff in my head. And then if I can just get it out, I'm going to
do some free pieces and some real low charging ones because people book
what they see. And in three months it already, the whole landscape

(01:42:12):
had changed. Like it was going to start going in this direction. And
I was still doing lots of gray wash with like pops of color. And then I
went to like some opaques. And at that point you're basically doing color. But
I tattooed like a black and gray guy. So I'd have these weird heels or
I'd have to do another two sessions on it. And then you start to
learn how to applicate color. And then the first couple ones, you knock them

(01:42:32):
out. But then you're like, whoa, there's way layers to this. There's
like all different subtleties that I wasn't aware of and how
things are gonna hold up. Like what color does what after two years?
What does it do in New York versus in Florida? How does
that work, you know? And that was like a little messy then. It's
only like fairly recently that I felt like faster, more confident, like

(01:42:53):
much more deliberate. And like, I feel like you're never going to understand it
all the way, color, right? But I know like what subtleties are
worth it to put in there for a tattoo and what ones are just
wasted time. But yeah, it's like remember when people were doing all this tiny
ass, like extra light gray wash texture all over shit. One
trip to Daytona, that shit's fucking on dude you know what I mean like you

(01:43:15):
just you just gave five hours to that and it made it a year you
know what I mean like and that's a valuable lesson to learn and uh with colors
a lot of lessons like that and like looking at like skin types too and
I've seen you do on some guy that's been hanging out at the beach for 20 years Yeah,
fortunately everyone thought in Florida that I was gonna get all bad skin But

(01:43:38):
there is enough like people that take care of their shit,
Yeah, that's that's what you're check him out Maybe he's a surfer who wears
Yeah, they're all cooked. Yeah, you can't do that. They're like the color of the darker parts
of your shirt. Not like me right now. They're cooked, dude. But
they can still get a sick tattoo, and I want, you're cool, dude, I fucking want

(01:44:00):
a tattoo, but we need to do, for what you're doing, we need to
do a black and gray, like Robbie Latos effect, where you
got massive areas of open skin, large areas of black, and
contrast, and like a mid-tone. Tattooing in
Florida, I lean on, if I'm going to do black and gray, it's the
setup that Robert uses where it's the black. Maybe

(01:44:23):
like two, three values and pressure, you know what I mean? That seems
to be real good against the skin, and it keeps
you from like mid-tone fucking it to death, which like doesn't work
in Florida, dude. Like you use a ton of mid, you just
handed someone a fucking spooge on a napkin and told them to wear it,
dude. You know what I mean? Like, you know what I mean? You just handed them dog

(01:44:44):
shit and was like, yeah, eat that bitch, you know? It's gonna look cool until
it heals, and then it'll look like shit forever, you know? High contrast. Yeah,
you know? But if you move to the fucking Ukraine, you could outline shit in
You know what I'm saying? That's why those color realism guys are all coming from
Yeah, they go from fucking Sweden. I love that when some dude from PR hits
me up, and he's like, yeah, I want this shit like Samoan did.

(01:45:07):
Are you drunk, dude? You're not even
close to even, you're so much darker than even the light,
the high end of his melanin spectrum that he's tattooing, dude.
We can do shit like this, but we're gonna have to make some changes. That
pink is not gonna show up on you, dog. Even
if you're an Italian dude from Staten Island, yellow's risky, bro.

(01:45:29):
You are gonna turn into Joey Bag of Donuts come three o'clock on a
The bonus is 98% of every Italian guy on Staten
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you ask, yeah, how much about
like Zeus's mythology, do you know? Yeah. And like,
it turns out they don't know anything now. They don't know. It's like it's hard

(01:46:04):
Like, oh, Jesus, the serial rapist. Well,
that was like when people were tearing down... It's like P. Diddy pre-P. Diddy. Yeah,
Mythological F.C., dude. So he based his life around... Yeah. That's
Well, I thought that was so funny, like in 2020, people were tearing down statues
and, and, this fucking guy's a Nazi, you know? It's like, but you left the

(01:46:24):
Wernher von Braun statue up. Yeah. And that guy was a
Like, you know what I mean? Like, whoa, all right, dude, you know? Maybe you should have
Well look we're gonna we're gonna move wrap this up here in a minute but before
we do a little talk a little bit of each of your opinions obviously
tattooing has I mean goddamn the landscape everything

(01:46:46):
about tattooing has changed so much in the last 10 years it's it's
hard to even I don't fully understand it I just know there's a lot of change
yeah and we can go into it we don't need to go into it but you know you've
got AI people replicating what things are making an AI you've
got all these new tattoos, got these new genres
opening up, minimalist genres, all these new... Most of it's

(01:47:07):
totally cool. In fact, it's probably all cool in some way. But
when you wad all that up, I'd like to hear each of your opinions on
just a prediction. Like, what do you see tattooing in
10 years? What's it look like out there for all of us in 10 years?
I feel like things just in general in
society are kind of like splitting and becoming more polar

(01:47:30):
opposite. like just in general you know the way
humanity's been going and i feel like that's kind of happening in
tattooing right now also where you're getting people who
are just like pushing so many boundaries and creating these
things that 10 years ago also probably never seemed
like feasible or realistic And then due

(01:47:50):
to, you know, the economic state, whatever you
want to blame things for the average tattoo or slowing down on,
you have people working a lot less. So I feel like the
people who are doing who are killing it are
just going to continue along that path. And
the things we're seeing now are going to be like like,

(01:48:11):
man, there is a point in time where there were tattooers in the early 2000s,
mid 2000s who were fucking crushing. And now if
that was your apprentice, you might not even let him tattoo a human after
they did that tattoo. I think it's going to be the same thing. Like
the pinnacle right now, due to just technological advances
and the people who are crushing it, being able to continue to crush it,

(01:48:32):
but with more technological advances. Dude, I don't even,
I don't even know if I can wrap my mind around some of the
stuff we'll see in 10 years. And I see it just continuing the
pinnacle to keep rising. But I feel like it's going
to be balanced by this counterculture kind
of thing. You see like tribal coming back. You're seeing like

(01:48:53):
these things. Yeah, I do, too. But you see the opposite
of that happening, where things are like like you've got you've got
the Renaissance and then you've got the counterculture. And I just feel like
that's going to continue to separate a little bit more just because society is
No, exactly. So I'm so curious to see what it's going to
look like. But I just think like the pinnacle as far

(01:49:15):
as like the oh shit, you did this is going to continue to
get better. And then also, I feel like the counterpoint of
that is going to continue to look grimier and grimier, which
I'm kind of into also, you know. So I'm super curious
to see where that goes. I think we're going to see more people is,
you know, there is a financial crunch lean into like private

(01:49:38):
studio or tattooing out of their houses and stuff like that, which
I think will sound good for a little while until you realize, like,
ultimately, like there's no community, you're not getting better. You're shooting yourself
in the foot long term unless you've been tattooing for a long time
and you can get away with that. But if you're a third year tattooer and you're tattooing
out of your house, like you just fucking put a ceiling on your career that's

(01:49:59):
so low compared to otherwise. And then I think within
10 years, you're going to see that swing back to like, I'm
Yeah. Yeah, I had my thoughts. I mean, I think there's real practical
reasons why that's happening. I mean, it's with
everybody opening their phone and having the option of 200 tattooers

(01:50:20):
in their local area. They don't need to drive around and find them anymore. So
they just simply, you know, and who's showing up in their phone? It's
probably not you by yourself in your house, or you
and a buddy in some hole away apartment. And
I'm not saying this because I'm a shop owner. I'm just saying it straight up. Those
guys are, for the first time ever, they're calling me up and

(01:50:41):
they're telling me that. I'm like, why do you want to work here? You've
been at this solo studio, it seems like a dream deal, for three years.
And they're like, I'm fucking dead, dude. Like I don't have
a marketing budget like Guru does. So there
is going to be a swing towards getting into a good
place with good marketing and good infrastructure so

(01:51:03):
you can get clients, so you can get a tattoo and have a career. And then
of course you're right, if you get good enough, All that goes away. Now you're an
But so many people are doing it way before that. The irony, you mentioned
the marketing budget. So many tattooers, tattoo shops,
whatever, don't have a marketing budget. It's so weird
to me. Yes, you're an artist, but you're also, you're a

(01:51:23):
businessman, you know, comma, man. Even dope
dealers have a marketing budget. Why do you,
as your own businessman, because we didn't need
I was in that, I was in that era. No one needed them. I mean, Guru,
my shop's thrived for 21 years now.
I'd say the first 15, maybe first 12. Zero,

(01:51:46):
not even a thing. Everybody in the shop, six-month wait minimum, you
know? And we just saw that slowly going away.
Yeah, now it's the landscape has shifted. We're a fully matured industry.
And that's what it is. We're an industry now. We're a fully mature industry.
And like any mature industry, Mean if you want to become a dentist, it's
not because there's not enough dentists. Yeah, there's plenty of dentists We

(01:52:08):
don't need another one. So go ahead be a dentist. But why how
are people gonna find you? How are people? Why would people cut visibility visibility
and marketability and now we have to do those things and a lot of people are panicking
they're Frustrated but I am too frankly. I kind of like the old way.
It was much more easy. Yeah It's just more fun.
I didn't have to go to these fucking meetings with marketing people

(01:52:29):
and I have to I Make sure I check my DMs. I don't do any of this extra
What's the solution? Yeah, yeah. That's good, though.
What about you, Sean? Well, I think we're just
at a point now where tattooing is going to look like

(01:52:52):
the normal art world, where you're going to have everything in
it. Dog shit to Rembrandt. Everything. There's
not I don't and I think it's there's not gonna be a best tattooer.
It's already that's already disappearing There's no like you can't name a list of
the fucking ten sickest guys in the world. It's impossible And
I think it's just gonna it's gonna it's not even I'm even what you were saying I don't

(01:53:13):
think it's even necessary gonna be about the quality Like like
I remember back in the day you could do smooth gray wash. That
was like a big deal, right? Yeah cares people don't even do smooth shit
anymore that they do they want to you know Like it's gonna be a choice like
it is in painting or something And you're going to see every kind of
genre come up and you're going to see things that come up and they go. And

(01:53:34):
it's going to get harder. It already is harder to get visible, just
like it is to be a painter. Super hard, dude. You've got to have a combination
of like charismatic personality, right place, right time,
reach, you know, like we're in the right place, right because people know us
from before. You know, we got in when the market was ready to jump
You know what I mean? Yeah, just made it, dude. I feel so bad for like fourth

(01:53:57):
It's difficult, it's possible to do it, you know? But that also might trim
the fat off people that maybe don't got the heart to keep following through.
You know what I mean? When times get hard. Yeah, that's the bonus of
it. Yeah, but you know, and I think some awesome shit
is gonna come from that. There's gonna be amazing people that come through and you're
gonna see things and Points of view that come out through artwork that

(01:54:18):
maybe we'd never seen before and you're gonna see Stuff
like I just I just saw a dude Got
Oh my god, dude Yeah, that guy's he's yeah, like rides
Yeah, dude, like it's crazy, dude I'm not even gonna
I'm not gonna shout him on here even give him props but the Like, you

(01:54:38):
know, it's like, you know, like say that person your distance name on a beef track
sometime or you do them shine or you do Yeah, yeah, I think we're gonna see
like everything like that I think things are gonna get a little bit harder and
I think you're gonna have this mix of like more
important again, not as big as it was way back in the day. I
put physical cards in people's hands and

(01:55:01):
put the QR code with them to see and they're like, oh shit. And
now they're never going to forget me. But now I also have the
internet is like where I can take the digital realm. You got
to be kinder to people, dude. You got to like take care of
some people, dude. You got to make the experience really good. You got
to give a shit about it. You got to be willing to put 10 toes

(01:55:22):
on the pavement again and like go put the card in people's hand, and you're
not gonna be able to sit there and just rely on Instagram to
get it going for you again, which is, that also is gonna make it tough
for some people. All these really anti-social type, it's gonna be
hard for you, dude. You're gonna have to go talk to people. You know, you're gonna have
to like, you might have to spend a little bit of your time not wearing headphones when

(01:55:43):
you're tattin' somebody, like, so that they know that you love them and shit, dude. Like,
you're grateful, dude. You're gonna wanna do shit to let them know, like,
no, me and my family ate because of you, dude. I appreciate you, dude, you
know? They're like, whereas, you know, rewind six, eight
years ago, you'd come in with your fucking dick hanging out if you were good, didn't matter.
Treat the customer like shit. They don't give a fuck, dude. Where

(01:56:11):
I'd say like at least a third of my customers, at
least, are people I've tattooed multiple times. I could probably delete
with them and not the same but like get by just it's
customer service on top of art you know it's not just
not i agree the future is um it's beautiful in

(01:56:32):
that way the the purification the culling of the herd so
to speak yeah yeah for for guys like us that have really really
cared a lot you know it was a bummer to see the ones that didn't care
and not not Only because they're touching humans. Like I
don't care if a bricklayer is a shithead bricklayer too much
I mean just don't build a five ten story building and peep that people die. Yeah

(01:56:54):
But roughly speaking, there's just a lot of jobs, right? It's okay. You don't have
Oh, that's part of my career 30 years ago, dude I mean 90% of
the industry didn't give a fuck, and we're thriving.
We're killing it. And I was in the middle of it, giving a

(01:57:15):
fuck, kinda angry about it. But I
also had to accept it's just the way it is. So I got my wish, right?
We're moving into it now. That not giving a fuck thing, good
luck. Good luck with that. And I'm already seeing it.
I got friends of mine that are closing shops. I've got tattooers that
are calling me to work my front. Do you want a job as a tattooer? No,

(01:57:37):
I just miss tattoo shops. I'm a line cook now. I'm
never going back. Why?
You see some of his work. It's like this guy tattooed for 15 years. That was the
pinnacle of where you stopped. Yeah, you should have stopped probably 8 years
ago. Yeah, long time sooner, man. You stuck with it because you

(01:57:59):
Yeah, it's definitely in my mind The silver lining
or the bonus not this person whose dream didn't work out like
to me seeing somebody's dream workouts amazing But like you said earlier like
the culling of the herd I feel like the numbers are gonna
But tons of people got into it because it was an easy game to jump into.

(01:58:25):
That's one thing, especially you being shop owner
of a couple shops that are fairly large and being in this industry for
so long. Do you feel like in the next 10 years it's
Once they see the money in it, dude, then that's when the companies come in.
They're already fucking with the ink. Thank God

(01:58:46):
you can do black and gray. Those colors might not be on your shelf soon. I
Yeah, but I agree with all you know, I would say more on what I think is going to happen But
I think you guys covered exactly how I feel about it too and ultimately both
of us all of us agree here in the room that we don't really know because of the Changes
that are occurring in the human species with technology make

(01:59:09):
the future impossible Practically to predict right, you know,
which is a very difficult thing, especially the father Yeah, you know it
one of the raddest things I'll be in a father 50 years and back The
dad, the mom could pretty accurately tell
the child. How the world will look. Yes. And then you could
better get them ready for it. You know, I got a kid

(01:59:30):
up at Berkeley who I think will do well. She's going to go
to Haas Business School. She's on the pathway to the top echelon
business school in the country. Yeah. But I'm not a hundred percent certain that
the jobs at that come out from that degree or even I mean a lot
of them are going to be AI replaced. Yeah. So and again, I
think I do think she'll be fine. So but whatever the point is,

(01:59:50):
it's just so hard to know. Yeah. And that's that's the
world. Then you say, well, what about tattooing? What's going to happen there? It kind
of a lot of year of the world. Yeah. I don't fucking know. But
I think a lot of the stuff you said is happening will continue to happen. And
I don't see it really as a big, big negative to

(02:00:10):
I mean, it's chalk that up to the like, not I
want to say like it is what it is, but like, you know, like the people going
to people like tattooing is just going to tattoo. Like, I'm just going to do
what I do day in and day out because I love doing it no matter which
direction it's going. You know, like all you can do is adapt and
just live and continue to do what you enjoy doing

(02:00:33):
Isn't it like that one story, like the one Eckhart book, where the
dude, he wins lottery or something. They're like, that's amazing.
He's like, we'll see. Then his house falls off the cliff and he gets fucked
up. Like, that's horrible. He's like, we'll see. Because he was fucked up, he
didn't get killed in some other thing. They're like, that's incredible. We'll
see. It's just like that, right? You know what I mean? Like, well, maybe it's, you

(02:00:55):
That's an enlightened viewpoint where you just, you realize
that it's all perfect. The house burning down somehow
is exactly how it should be. The winning lottery was exactly
how it should be. I mean, I'm not there, but that
Closer to it than I was. Dude, I'm trying you know I

(02:01:16):
can see it on you all day, bro. Yeah, yeah It's
gonna be those moments where you're tired and burnt out that you're not an acceptance of
taking an L Do you know what I mean like yeah? Yeah, but overall you
I'm in New York primarily, often out here. In LA?

(02:01:37):
In LA, Long Beach area. I work at Love Machine in
New York and Raven and the Wolves in Long Beach and
Two amazing, highly respected shops with a bunch of
bad motherfuckers tattooing in them. Write on in your Instagram, it'll
all be on the show notes. What is it? It is at Michael Perry Art. Of

(02:01:58):
Yeah, exactly. And I'm easy. You can just shoot
I don't have rules about how to contact me. Path of least resistance, man.
I've always been that way. Yeah. Never never said books closed. No,
don't DM me. Yeah, no, do you know these guys guys do
Yeah, fill out my like credit card application booking

(02:02:22):
form like Get over yourself, you know, I mean if you've
seen some of these people's booking forms like I've seen some crazy The
only reason I'll say I can't have people DM me is cuz I get too
Like, I'll lose, like, if you send me the reference here, and
then the email's over here, and I'm trying to find your project, I
can't get it. We can start the convo there, but then at a certain point

(02:02:43):
I'm like, we gotta take it here so I can have this as a permanent record,
You can DM me, and all that is is, I want to blah blah blah, yeah,
Yeah. And then everything, all reference, all photos, all discussions, all
pricing. It's a great spot. Yeah, totally. Well,

(02:03:05):
You can find me in Daytona Beach, Florida, and it's
my studio's Dark Moon Gallery, and I
will probably be having a second location next couple years as well, in
that same rough area. Okay. South Daytona, Ormond, something like that.
And then you can find me on Instagram at Sean
underscore Foy. S-E-A-N underscore F-O-Y.

(02:03:28):
Well, and I'll see you at Golden State Tattoo Expo in Pasadena in
two days. I'll be up there doing this up
there. My shop will be there as well, but I'm not going to tattoo. I'm going to try to
do a bunch of these while I'm there. It'll be fun. But I'll definitely come by and
say hello. You going up there to hang out at all? I think I got hella work here.
Oh, you're gonna be tattooing now? I'm gonna be tattooing. That's good too. And

(02:03:50):
by the way, I know you tattooed here yesterday and it was rad to
It was funny when I came in, dude. So I had like
smoked a little bit. Not crack
though. No, no, weed. And I
couldn't like talk to introduce myself for like an hour, dude.
And everyone's looking at me and I was like, oh shit, I fucked this up, dude. You

(02:04:12):
I just tell people straight up when I'm high. Especially weed. Yeah,
I just look him straight up. I go. I am super stoned right now. So
whatever you're seeing this Yeah,
if I can't make eye contact properly, I don't hate you dog. You know what
I mean? Oh people love you when you say it too cuz they're like they've all been there. Yeah
And yeah getting your water and you're like, yeah, nobody was sweating me

(02:04:35):
It was tight, you know, but I felt like bad like this is the intro I'm
making dog, you know, like cool. This is a tattoo shop, brother Yeah, yeah,
We're fine Awesome. Well, gentlemen, thank you so much.
The conversation today was fucking awesome. I'm glad
we got into some deep water, you know, not just the resume shit.
That was really fun. I'm glad you guys are both of the mindset. You

(02:04:57):
were ready to go there anyway, so it made for a fun time for me. Got
to meet and know and become friends with two more amazing people in our
rag community. So appreciate you for all of it. Thank you
for coming. All you guys watching and girls watching, thank you for tuning
in. Please keep subscribing. I'm a little guy. And,
uh, I like doing this, but honestly, if I don't keep growing and

(02:05:18):
I am growing, but I need to grow faster and I need to grow bigger and
it's got to happen next year. So please keep that love coming so
I can keep doing it. If you want me here, then keep that coming. That, you know,
just watching the show is not enough. I need subscriptions. I need a little
DM love notes. Keep my fucking, keep my energy up. So, and
you guys have been doing a lot of that, but keep that stuff coming and thank you. And,