Age of Resilience: Brian Foster on Art, Fighting styles, and the Quest for Inner Peace

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Good morning, good morning, good morning.
This is Zach Bautista with B2ZPodcast.
I'm here with my co-hostBrandon.
Good morning everybody, goodmorning and a very special guest
the owner of Elizabeth StreetTattoo, brian Foster.

Speaker 3 (00:25):
Yeah, oh man, this is already feeling too official
Too official let's get officialreal quick.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
We'll drop off real fast.
Yeah, let's get official.
Yeah, let's get it out as faras we go.

Speaker 4 (00:37):
Damn, this is getting serious.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Enough of that, enough of that.

Speaker 1 (00:42):
You did a great introduction for Zach Peacock
downstairs and I was thinkingalong the same lines of giving
you that big introduction.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Right.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
But I almost think there's too many awards to list
off.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
Yeah Right, I thought about that too and I was like
he's not really going to like itif I just go down the laundry
list of things.
You guys are going to have todo your research.
But this man right here, hisresume is absolutely insane.
Do some LinkedIn research onthis brother.
You won't find me Right.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
Yeah, you can find him.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
Today we have Brian Foster, tattooer, shop owner,
previous MMA fighters, previousspecial forces, military mental
health guru.
For my perspective, he's one ofthe individuals I call on when
I'm having my worst moments, andhe sometimes helps me out.

(01:36):
You know what I mean and Ithank him for that.
I'm very excited to be here.
Me and Brian have had, onceagain, good days and bad days.
You feel me.
He's seen me at my lowest, he'sseen me at my highest.
I've seen him at his lowest andI've seen him at his highest,
too, or at highest points.
So I'm excited to bring youguys Brian Foster.

(01:56):
Let's get into it.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
How long have you been a shop owner now?

Speaker 3 (02:03):
Let's see, well, I'm turning 50 this year, no shit,
and I know I'm so handsome whenyou look at me, it's hard for
you to imagine that this is 49.
I was about 14 years old when Igot into tattooing.
I walked into my first tattooshop at about age 14.
I helped as a shop helper opena tattoo shop when I was about

(02:27):
16 and a half 17, uh, with noambition to be a tattooer at all
, like I was full on joiningspecial forces in the military
at that point in my life, whichI ended up doing, and that was
that was marsauk, correct, yeah,marsauk, yeah, um, and so I've
been running tattoo shops andfiguring them out and understand
the dynamics of them since Iwas a little kid, uh, and then I

(02:52):
put I I don't count that as mytattoo career, you know, even
though I messed with a tattoomachine and tattooed some of my
friends back then, but I don'tconsider that like part of my
tattoo career and so my actualtattoo career that like part of
my tattoo career.

Speaker 4 (03:06):
And so my actual tattoo career starts 27 years
ago, so when I was after themilitary, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (03:12):
My early 20s, that's when I had gotten out of the
military.
Uh, you know, didn't know whatto do with my life, that whole
thing going on there and, uh, Ihad my resumes out to different
departments to go take anotherjob there and wear another
uniform the rest of my life.
And every time, like I came alittle farther down that hiring
process, I'd back out because Iwas still kind of tattooing on

(03:34):
the side, because it was eitherthat or work at home depot, you
know, and I was like I'd ratherbe tattooing with my boys, right
, right, uh, and I'm, I'mforever grateful to a man named
Don Armstrong.
People that have been aroundlong enough will know him as
Tattoo Don, and that's the guywho taught me and, you know,
he's the one that brought me ina long time ago.
And so when I got out of themilitary he was like hey, come

(03:56):
to learn come learn to tattoolike this is the fun life.
And I was still like I'm like amilitary guy man, I don't do
that, but you see what ended uphappening.
So, like I'm like a militaryguy man, I don't do that, but
you see what ended up happening.
So answer your question moredirectly about 24 years I've
been running a tattoo shop andowning it and paying the bills
your mentor.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
Was he a heavy mentor ?
Was he a light mentor?
What kind of style of tattooerwas he?

Speaker 3 (04:18):
great question.
Uh, I'm.
I consider it luck, but I'mlucky enough to come in at the
very tail end of like real bikershop tattooing.
We're like if you were 20,you're a little bit on edge to
walk into some of these shops.
You know, like you might getfucked up in there.
Like plain and simple, a tattooshop that I first like worked

(04:40):
at as a you know I'll looselycall it an apprenticeship you
know I wasn't there to reallylearn to tattoo but I learned a
shit ton about tattooing likethat was a biker shop and if
your skin had any color in ityou didn't come into that shop.

Speaker 2 (04:54):
Like this is plain and simple, and is this the one
that was in merino valley?
Uh-huh, whoa, was it all whitebefore before?

Speaker 3 (05:02):
that it was in san bernardino.
Oh wow, like that, little click, little clique worked in San
Bernardino at a fucking prettyhood shop, right.
And then that's back when I'm14, so I don't 14, 15, I don't
know what the hell happenedthere, but I walked in there one
time with my mom and was like,oh shit, I'm not supposed to be
in this motherfucking place.
That's cool.
Yeah, so it was a split off ofan old San Bernardino shop that

(05:25):
opened here and you did atraditional apprenticeship two
years and.
No, there was none of that.
It was.
You were allowed to come in theshop.
That was the part of yourtattoo apprenticeship, like the
door was open for you, uh huh.
You know only because thefamily members, like my parents,
knew that tattooer and helpedhim out a lot, and so he helped
me out okay, and the helping outwasn't like here's how a tattoo

(05:49):
machine works, here's how to doartwork.
There was no artwork, no art.
Like like none, like justcopied shit off the wall.
Like other artists or tattooerswould draw shit and we'd copy
that.
Or you know, we had flash onthe wall.
That's all the way back to theearly 1900s, like we actually
copied that.
That's what people walked inand got um, you didn't and the

(06:11):
first part of my tattoo dayslike you didn't even ask to
change the tattoo from the sizeit was on the wall, you'd walk
in and it's on the wall and itsays 50 bucks.
You were like, yeah, I'll takethat for 50 bucks and like,
wherever that fit on your bodyat that size is how it was done.
And so I was allowed to be inthe shop and I was the guy that

(06:31):
would just have to like ifsomeone walked in, none of the
tattooers wanted to deal withthem.
I'd have to walk out there andyou know, basically get them to
leave.
You know, just tell them I weretoo busy or whatever.
Like you can't be here.
So when you, you, you became atattooer and then you went to
the military.
No, I was, I just apprenticedat that shop, like I just I just
hung out at that shop for likea year and a half, two years, um

(06:53):
, and I learned a ton abouttattooing, because back then the
apprentice stretched the skin,okay, you know so I'd sit there
for hours and just stretch thefucking skin for the tattooer
when I look back look back aboutthis shit.
I'm like those motherfuckers man, but I would just sit there and
I'm like 16, 17 and hours tosit there and stretch the skin.
Hands are sore at the end ofthe day, you know.

(07:15):
And then, like you, also didall the cleanup duties, and so
if there were some hookers thattook too much blow and fucking,
puked all over the bathroom youjust cleaned that up.
That was just part of yourquote-unquote apprenticeship.
And then, every once in a whileyou get this little dot, this
little like jewel of informationthat, when I look back, was
just crap information, you know.

(07:36):
But they would just tell yousomething about the difference
between a liner and a shadertattoo machine.
You'd be like okay, or you'dget the solder needles together
for him.
You know like yeah, that wasthe apprenticeship.

Speaker 4 (07:47):
Yeah, I didn't want to do that the rest of my life.

Speaker 3 (07:49):
So when I had 17 and a half is about when my bootcamp
day came up.
Like I said, adios, and youknow it's off to the military
for some years, and how yearsdid you do with the military?
My military career career canget a little hard to track.

(08:09):
it's five years active duty andthen I got out then I had an mma
career and then I got to thevery top of that and I'm
fighting with all the ufcfighters.
You know, and uh, I'm watchingthe ufc get really big during
this time, and when I startedfighting, there's no money
involved.

(08:29):
There was a couple of smallpurses around the world for like
two grand or something like,but no one fought for money.
That was not a thing.
You know.
We're talking like UFC two isgoing on.
That was the birth of cagefighting right there and so we
fought for fun.
Man, I'm still that guy.

Speaker 2 (08:48):
I'll throw down with any three of you guys right now
for the fun of it.

Speaker 1 (08:51):
I see you Go get those wild eyes over here.

Speaker 2 (08:56):
One of the things that I always did when I would
work here is Brian would tell mea story.
I'd be like, oh man that's notme, you would never do that to
me.
I'm a grown man.
There's no way you couldfucking do that to me, yeah, and
then you know, a week laterhe'd come and he'd wrap me up or
I'd be like, no, I want to sparwith you, and we go to the
house and we sparred and stufflike that.

Speaker 3 (09:15):
It's real, guys, it's very real.

Speaker 1 (09:26):
I'm always looking for what's your specialty of
choice, like fighting more of aground guy, or are you a muay
thai?

Speaker 2 (09:29):
because, because the uh the marines are good question
.

Speaker 3 (09:32):
Well, I'm just curious too you don't stand a
chance, I'll just.
You can't get me to fightnowadays unless we're training.
I don't have a favorite style.

(09:53):
I like the rawness of thinkingof humans as animals and, like
you know, for whatever reasonfor whatever reason, like the
world, nature, god, you know.
For whatever reason.
For whatever reason.
Like the world, nature, god,the universe, like whatever you
want to call it, is chaotic.
Like I don't like that aboutthe way nature is, but

(10:14):
everything on this planet eatssomething else.
Everything here kills somethingto stay alive.
I don't care if you're avegetarian.
Like when you walk across thegrass, you're killing hundreds
of thousands of microorganisms.
When you boil water, you'rekilling things.
You know.
Like there's so much researchout, it's basically a fact that

(10:35):
plants can communicate, treescommunicate with each other.
They have their own emotionalstructures.
Like it's really weird when youdive into that area, but so you
could be a vegetarian.
But when you pull the carrotout of the ground, like the ones
next to it know that'shappening.
Like somehow our science hasnow been able to prove that.
So you're killing that carrotwhen you pull it out of the

(10:55):
ground.
Like that's whatever.
This is that we're experiencing.
This life is chaotic and it'sit's not fair, it's mean, it's
aggressive a lot of times.
I hope that our humanconsciousness can take us past
that one day, but that's not thereal world that I live in and
so, on an animal level.

(11:17):
I like to fight, you know, andso the most rare form of
fighting to me is two dudes,bare knuckles, standing toe to
toe, like that's my favoritefight.
Yeah, there's some old pridevideos of two guys like grabbing
the back of each other's headand just standing there pounding
each other like I don't knowwhat that is in me that gets
excited about that.

(11:38):
Yeah, you know, like I kind ofalmost think it's wrong, a
little bit like I wish thisuniverse didn't have that
craziness to it, but it does.
And so, like a train wreck, Ijust want to see two dudes get
in the ring and fucking throwdown.
Now our fighting is kind ofevolved past that.
You know, like I love jujitsu.

(12:00):
I love if I'm.
When I'm bringing up a newfighter, I wanted them to be a
wrestler first.
You know we could go into allthose different parts about
fighting, but just two dudesgoing toe-to-toe like that's my
favorite thing.
Um, so stand up is my favorite.
And next would be like groundand pound and maybe third
jujitsu, if that's how we're,you know, breaking all of

(12:22):
fighting down into only threecategories.

Speaker 2 (12:24):
Yeah, I mean it sounds like you're saying like
do you appreciate the heart?
Of a fighter more than thetechnique of a fighter 100%.
Yeah, yeah, out of all thefighters that you've fought over
the years, who had the biggestheart?
Who's the guy that was like man, this motherfucker.

Speaker 1 (12:44):
Yeah, he won't quit.

Speaker 3 (12:47):
He's tough.
That's where we get into abigger problem with brian foster
, and that's that.
I don't have that in me.
I don't think someone's betterthan me in the fight world like
I'll fight anybody like so whenyou're, it doesn't matter who
they are.

Speaker 4 (13:03):
It's not a thought, that's not something that
registers for you.

Speaker 2 (13:05):
I've trained with some dudes that I can't believe
how tough they are.

Speaker 3 (13:09):
But yeah, like.

Speaker 4 (13:10):
I'm always like ah.

Speaker 1 (13:12):
I got that, I'll get you next time Look who my main
training partner is DanHenderson.
You know if anybody knowsanything in the fight world.

Speaker 3 (13:19):
if anyone listening to this knows the fight world
like that's my main trainingpartner, listening to this knows
the fight world like that's mymain training partner, I don't
think you find anybody in thisworld.

Speaker 2 (13:27):
That's tougher than him, no, and those training
sessions are intense.
I can vouch for that he wouldcome to.
He was training him for uh,vandal a silva vandal a silva
was a good fight we had a roughtraining for that one and brian
was coming in and he, you know,he was like messing with a
little bit.
He was dealing with noseproblems, so he was kind of

(13:48):
trying to stop, but Dan neededhim.
So he was getting back in thereand stuff like that.
Am I right?
Yeah, and he would come in andhis face would just be fucked up
and I'd be like damn B.
And I'd ask him, b, is thatshit worth it?
And you know it's his homeboy,so yes, it's worth it.
But you know, in the grandscheme he ended up getting a
surgery later and kind of hasslowed down.

Speaker 4 (14:09):
But the fighting world is a very intense world.

Speaker 2 (14:13):
I don't think people see that aspect of the training
and how brutal it is to get tothat level of mastery in the
fighting world.
You know the physical elementsthat you physical elements that
you receive on a daily basis.
Just training were absolutelynuts the same was with
Strickland too.
That was the last dude, youwere.

Speaker 3 (14:31):
Yeah, I've trained a lot with Sean Strickland too.
He's a champ now.
He's great.
I'm so happy to see him as thechamp.

Speaker 2 (14:38):
I remember you were back in the day when you were
talking about training with me.
You were like man, he's good,this dude is good, you know, and
for you to say something likethat he's got to be fucking good
.

Speaker 3 (14:46):
Yeah, he, along with other people, are what we're
seeing in the evolution offighting, where, you know, at
the ground, part of it it isthese two just animals going at
it.
But we're seeing so muchsophistication happen in
fighting now that you know it'sreally enjoyable to watch a

(15:08):
fight with someone like seanstrickland finding someone else.
That's like that because youhave humans now that from you
know I'm not exactly sure whatage for each one, but from
really young, you know, likefrom under 10 years old, like
they're watching a reallyhardcore chess match happen you
know where.
Well, when I was 10 and we werewatching GI Joe, you know, and

(15:30):
and and fake wrestling, you know, and we were watching karate
masters on TV and we thought youcould just come out from the
corner and sweep the knee and,you know, break the opponent's
kneecap.
You know, and so so we watchedthe.
You know and so we watched.
You know you just watch theUFC's career path and you can
watch how fighting has evolved.

(15:51):
You know, in the early UFC's weused to have David versus
Goliath.
You know we'd have 260 poundguy against 160 pound guy.
Yeah, and sometimes you know,like the 160, 180 pound guy
would not.
Sometimes a lot of times backthen the little guy would beat
the big guy up because oftechnique.
That doesn't happen anymorebecause everyone, even at this

(16:12):
chess match of fighting, and sothey have a crazy amount of

(16:32):
skills and they're doing thingsthat we haven't seen before.
You know, like I've beentraining with strickland and
have him come out of nowherewith some kick or punch that I
just am like heading this wayhey yo, john, time out, like
what was that?
Like that, I just am likeheading into this like, hey yo,
john, timeout, like what wasthat?
Like that's not possible.
What you just did to me.
So you're getting to see thatevolution in fighting right now.

Speaker 1 (16:55):
We know the, so now I know the why, the why you, you
like it so much.
What?
What was the how, how, how didyou, how'd you get into it?
Was it, was it Dan?
Did he bring you into trainingand everything?
Or was that just something youwanted to do?

Speaker 3 (17:11):
For me personally, I have been fighting since I was a
little kid.
You know we can go into thepsychology behind that.
Like it's probably.
I don't want that to sound likea good thing, because one of my
observations with the worldright now is like everyone wants
to be super alpha and supertough and talk shit to everybody

(17:32):
and like that's the easy wayout of things like showing love
and compassion and being nice tothe other humans that are all
here experiencing the totalityof life that we're experiencing.
Like fucking be nice to eachother.
Yeah, you know, like holy shit,like think about it or we're all
growing old, you know, and likeit's hard to understand that

(17:53):
when you're 20 but you start towatch your body not work, or you
look at your parents and yourgrandparents and the people
around you and you we're all oldand like that kind of sucks,
you know, like we're here towatch.
You know that happened.
You're going to get sick,everyone's going to get sick.
That'll probably kill you inthe end.
Like no matter what happens,that's going down, like you're

(18:15):
going to get sick and die.
That's a hard pill to swallow,so we tend to ignore that.
And then you know there's a topof that, we're all going to die
.
You don't ignore that though.
No, I don't.
It brings my reality and mypresence on this earth to be
more real.
Like I feel like I'm, in a way,more real space in my life
right now than I was when I was20 and 30 and running around

(18:37):
with guns, shooting at peopleand doing MMA all the time, like
I was just running forward allthe time and not aware of my
actual existence in my life.

Speaker 1 (18:48):
What was that?
What was that?
Not to break you, cut you off,cause I've had a similar like
come to Jesus, type moment, likerealization what, what, when
was that moment?
When, when did that happen?
Where you were like okay, letme, let me Peter off the gas
pedal a little bit and slowthings down a little bit.

Speaker 3 (19:04):
Where you were like okay, let me, let me.

Speaker 1 (19:08):
Peter off the gas pedal a little bit and slow
things down a little bit.

Speaker 4 (19:09):
Wow, uh, I still have a hard time slowing down Like
my slowing down is way fasterthan uh, my goal.

Speaker 3 (19:15):
Yeah, You're still going a hundred.
Yeah, yeah it was.
You know I've been reallyfortunate in my life to be able
to have goals and meet them orexceed them, and then see
through the fallacy of thosebringing me happiness.
And so you know we've talkedabout little points in my career
already, but uh, you know, likeI wanted to go into special

(19:37):
forces in the marine corps,which that's not something
that's you can just say I'mgonna go do that and you're like
especially in the marine corpsI pulled that off.
You know I got to.
I got to go to sniper school inthe Marine Corps.
You know I'm a Marine, highlytrained in field skills and
markmanship, who delivers longrange precision fire from a
concealed position.
You know like I still rememberthat shit from being punished in

(19:57):
the Marine Corps, you know,while learning how to murder
people.
Like I did that.
Uh, you know, that wasn'tenough, you know.
And so I went through myspecial forces career.
Uh, I didn't get enough likereal wartime action.
When I was in, I got bored.
I was like, oh, okay, like I'mbored of the Marine Corps, like
I thought I'd spent 20 years inthe Marine Corps but within five

(20:18):
years I was bored of it.
I'd already done twodeployments and you can just
look forward the next 20 yearsof your life.
And that was just too boring.
So I got out.
Kind of going back to theoriginal question here why did I
start fighting or what got meinto it?
So I had always been, you know,through the Marine Corps you
get to fight a bunch there ifyou want.

Speaker 1 (20:39):
It's nice, it blows off steam.

Speaker 3 (20:43):
Yeah, there's plenty of other dudes around that want
to put boxing gloves on orwrestle.
Some of my closest friends Istill in contact with are from
that time in my life.
But so I got out of that andyou know, like one of my friends
literally got a flyer for likean underground illegal fight
Because prior to whatever theyear is like, fighting was
illegal in America, especiallyin California.
Like the Boxing Commission hasshut that shit down.

(21:05):
And uh, so I had one of mybuddies came over and was like
yo, brian, you like to fight.
Like here's this flyer for thisunderground fight that's
happening.
And I was like shut up.

Speaker 4 (21:15):
Oh, I mean, I was like I'm into that.
Pomona One was in Pomona, onewas in San Bernardino Wild Wild
West, wild Wild West.

Speaker 1 (21:22):
Yeah wild, wild west yeah everything, so you did it
so I did it and you won one ofthem.

Speaker 3 (21:34):
The fucking cops showed up like SWAT teams and
all that and just shut the wholething down.
I was like literally about towalk out from my fight.

Speaker 2 (21:42):
First fight ever and the cops come and raid the thing
and it gets shut down.
That's a moment.
Yeah, that's a moment.

Speaker 3 (21:47):
And then, uh yeah, the second one I went to, I won.
Uh, I had no idea what jujitsuwas and this dude had me in an
arm bar.
He just wasn't good enough tobreak my fucking strong arm.
I could just hold it there, butI could beat him in the face
while he was holding my arm andhis face gave out before my
elbow did.

Speaker 4 (22:08):
But I'll tell you what like I might have won that
night but I didn't really winbecause my arm was jacked up for
like 10 years.

Speaker 3 (22:14):
after that, I finally had to get surgery on my elbow
from that fight because hecracked my elbow and so for 10
years I had a little floatingpiece of bone in my elbow.
But I drove home, you know,like ice packs on my elbow,
happy that I won, but did I yeah?

Speaker 2 (22:31):
It's interesting hearing you talk about these
things.
Yes, there is a violent side toyou, but there's also the super
peaceful serene, floating onclouds side as well, floating on
cloud side as well?
Has it been hard through yourlife to slow down the aggressive
side to match with thispeaceful, peaceful side, and if

(22:52):
so, how and what struggles haveyou faced?

Speaker 3 (22:58):
Great questions.
So I'm reaching these goalsright.
I get through sniper school, Iget through the Marine Corps, I
get out.
I see these fights happening.
I go down that road and so Ijust want to get better.
And then I'm like, oh and again, there's not a lot of money in
it.
Back then I just want to be thebest fighter I can be, I want to

(23:19):
be really good at fighting andwhen I really get to the root of
that, it's because I like toprotect people you know, like
like to be of service, like Iwant to know that in around my
clan, my clan, is safe, likethere's no one that's going to
protect my clan more than me.
Um, so my, even my aggressionand my fighting through my life

(23:40):
comes from a loving placecreating security and a a
safeness for the the ones aroundyou.

Speaker 1 (23:47):
That's some real awful shit for everyone
listening that's.
That's.
That's what a real alpha issupposed to be.

Speaker 3 (23:52):
Yeah yeah, you're not doing it to fucking hurt people
if you're doing your job right,like if you're being a real
alpha.
No one's scared of you.
Yeah, you're not, you neverfight with anybody, because
you're smart enough to getyourself out of that harm's way
before it becomes that Likethat's really what it's about so
.
So you know, I get to the top ofthe fight world.

(24:12):
You know, like I'm fighting inJapan, I'm fighting for the
International Fight League.
They're paying me a year'ssalary.
Like I made 70 grand.
When you're fighting Likethings are going great Like.
And then I started I startedrealizing you fighting like
things are going great Like.
And then I started I startedrealizing like there is fighting
money in the fighting world.
but you see this, heavy thing ofpolitics in the fight world,
you know, and like I've seenthese organizations uh really

(24:36):
screw over.
Like fighters are athletes,like livelihoods and stuff just
out of personal beefs andbecause they can and uh the AFL
that I fought for got bought byanother big company.
Um, and then that was when Iwas making this decision, like,
oh you know, I'm in my early 30s, like I'm just as good as most
of these guys, like some peopleare better than me, like, hands

(24:58):
down, you know.

Speaker 4 (24:58):
Like I got room to work on but I'm right there with
these dudes, you know, like,like, like I fought a guy that
vandal a silva has fought before.

Speaker 3 (25:08):
You know like we both beat that guy so like I should
get to fight vandal a silvathat's, yeah, you know like uh
who, by the way, that's one ofmy favorite fighters next to dan
henderson I hated seeing thosetwo fights and uh, yeah, v, he's
a really nice guy.
So I get to the top of thatworld and I'm like, oh, I'm not

(25:33):
going to invest the rest of mylife in these big giant fight
companies that really just careabout themselves, like I've
already watched them flushcareers down.
It's politics.
And so I bowed out of thefighting world and one of my
special forces friends had been,you know, handling me to come
over to Iraq and work and so Iwent as a and this is a real
loose word right here the wordcontractor, yeah.
It means the same as athlete orexercise.

(25:54):
You know it means a lot ofdifferent things.
We can work into that if wewant, but I went over as a
contractor for a couple yearsand then that job helped me.
It was the gateway to getting ajob.
As a man I don't even know whatto call myself like I worked
straight for the government,like that's like.
I had a you know a departmentof defense, id and I would fly

(26:17):
over to afghanistan and I wouldwork for them.
You know me and a bunch of otherspecial forces buddies, you
know, like that wasn't, youcould kind of put that in
contract world, but not reallymore security type stuff at that
time.

Speaker 1 (26:29):
Uh, fuck man, doing dirty work for the government,
that's what I was, oh yeah yeah,and, and and I I know I know
some questions to pry, but yousaid you gave us a challenge.

Speaker 3 (26:41):
You said yeah this won't answer your questions.

Speaker 4 (26:43):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm still waiting for that I'll
still wait for that.

Speaker 1 (26:46):
No, can't.
No comment.

Speaker 3 (26:48):
So I get to the very top of the special forces world
right.
Like I'm living in Afghanistanin a safe house with no boss and
like just fucking littlemissions to go do with my two or
three buddies every couple ofdays.
You know I Every couple of days.
You know I'm like we got tofuck.
I loved living in a safe housein Afghanistan.

Speaker 2 (27:04):
Like don't get me wrong, it's got to feel cool
right, it's got its upsides.

Speaker 3 (27:09):
Like there's nights when you're laying in bed and
you know that your house issupposed to get hit that week,
Like you're going to get raidedby another special forces team,
Like it makes fucking sleepingkind of hard some nights and
that house did get hit.
I wasn't there, luckily, youknow, or unluckily.
Like fuck, I want that too.
The alpha side of me wants that.

Speaker 1 (27:26):
That gas pedal.
Yeah, yeah, that adrenaline Igot you.

Speaker 3 (27:31):
I get to the top of these different worlds and am I
happier?
No, no.
And so to answer your questionbefore, like what opened this
door to me?
It's sitting there andrealizing like, oh, I can just
keep accomplishing goals andkeep getting for me getting
tougher and more violent andtesting myself.
But I'm at this point, you know, in afghanistan, where there's

(27:53):
no more testing like you, just,you just die.
You know, like I've alreadybeen in some confrontations over
there where it's, you know,you're gonna die or I'm gonna
die, and I just haven't happenedto die yet or just be in the
wrong spot.
Most of my buddies that diedover there just get blown up on
accident.
So I was sitting over there andyou know I'm just actually one
of the realization moments wasone of those nights when I'm

(28:15):
like laying there with my pistoland grenades and fucking, I'm
like listening to every littlepin drop because we're supposed
to be getting attacked and I waslike, well, fuck, brian, like
you get yourself in some fuckingweird positions, man.
Like what the fuck are youdoing right here?
You know like I own a tattooshop back in you know,
california.
I got a beautiful wife that Ilove.

(28:35):
I'm laying here like hmm, aboutto go down tonight, you know,
like fuck, you know.
And so it's getting to thoseachievements and realizing that
there's no happiness because ofthat and maybe this is open for
debate.
but what's life about?
I think it's about being happyif you can, but most of us don't

(29:00):
even know what the definitionof that is Do you guys have a
definition for what happiness is?

Speaker 2 (29:03):
My own form.

Speaker 3 (29:02):
Do you guys have a definition for what happiness is
?

Speaker 2 (29:04):
My own form.
But you know, happiness is whatI feel when I'm around my kids,
when I'm in that that third eyemoment where I just I'm not
even involved, I'm justvisualizing it from from a
distance.
That is when I witness my truehappiness.
I'm like damn, my life is crazy, like I can't believe I get to

(29:26):
exist and do this thing.
One of the things I've been onlately is existing, and that is
happiness for me too, because Ibelieve that the fact that we
exist is a blessing in itself.
You know, however, we got here.
It doesn't matter whatever Godyou believe in, whatever blah
blah, he got you here.
But the fact that we're hereand we're able to be sound and

(29:48):
we don't have you know, none ofus are special, none of us have
ill like that makes me happy,and it took me a long time to
get to that point.
So just being able to exist ishappiness for me too.

Speaker 1 (29:59):
I'm still trying to find my happiness doing this.
I didn't realize how happy thiswas going to make me.
Uh, working on this podcastwith brian brandon and uh
brandon can be fun to hang outwith.

Speaker 3 (30:13):
Sometimes I've had some fun times hanging out with
people's stories.

Speaker 1 (30:18):
Has really that, yeah , so this, this has brought me
more happiness in the past fewyears than a lot of things.

Speaker 2 (30:24):
Yeah, it's.
This whole thing is interesting.
Yes, we've had amazing timestogether, me and.
Brian, we've had like ourrelationship is so cool.
You know what I mean.
It's filled with drama, it'sall those things.
It's not some fucking easyfucking road.
I'm an asshole, he's an assholeand we have moments and shit
like that.
One thing I'm good at ishumility.

(30:46):
Brian is a good straightshooter, so we've always found a
common ground and you know Idon't hold grudges, he doesn't
hold grudges as well.
So we've been able to salvage arelationship.
I used to work.
Let's get into some heavy shit.
Yeah, this episode for me ishuge.
Um, this is a full circleepisode.
I used to work at elizabethstreet for years.
I worked here for six years.

(31:06):
Brian ended up having to let mego.
That is a big deal for a bigdeal for me.
There's a lot of anxiety goinginto this episode Since we last
worked together.
I absolutely love Brian outsideof the shop, but me and him do

(31:28):
not do well inside of the shopworking together at that time.
You know when we broke.
I've had opportunities to seethe other side the grass what
grass is green or what grass isnot.
The grass what grass is greenor what grass is not.
I have had opportunities to seehis perspective upon my um uh,

(31:48):
contribution into his shop andI've got to see where I was
wrong and I was right and Ithink it's pivotal from uh
tattoo artists to tattoo ownerto clear the air and to speak
about this stuff because there'sso many things that you know
seem like they were.
I'll die on this hill at thetime, but I are absolutely
nothing now.
You know what I mean andunderstanding who.

Speaker 4 (32:10):
I was within his shop right now or at that time, and
having to have a year to get meto understand it, having to lose
my position to have, and he hadto take it from me like you
know brian being an asshole goodguy, all that stuff like that
he still feels and he doesn't.

Speaker 2 (32:29):
I'm his boy.
He didn't want to let me golike.
That wasn't what he wanted todo.
It sucks as a shop owner, butwhen I opened up my own doors
and I started dealing with someof the things that he was
experiencing as far as peoplenot being transparent, um not
communicating on a common level,so you can get an understanding
of what not caring about yourbusiness as much as you do was

(32:53):
huge, you know, and that's why,for me, this is full circle.
Not only we.
We went up.
We hated each other.
I hated Brian for a moment.
I don't know how he felt.
I hated him for a moment.
I still called him and kept therelationship between him, and I
do this often with people whoteach me things or I feel like I

(33:13):
receive beneficial informationfrom when I have these aha
moments.
I will call you at the ahamoment.
I don't wait.
So I call brian.
He's in his garden.
I'm like b just had a fuckingmoment, bro.
Like I understand why you hadto.
Let me go, bro.
Like I get it, you know.
Yeah, yeah yeah.
And he was like oh yeah, likewhat are we talking about?

Speaker 3 (33:37):
You know what I mean, because we always have deep
conversation.

Speaker 2 (33:39):
This is just one of them, another one that it took a
moment to get to.
When we had our conversationand I mean the air was clear
immediately.
It was clear before I even goton the phone.
Like I said, he doesn't hold agrudge, and you know, and, um,
it was interesting being hereand learning so much and then
having it taken away from me youknow what I mean and then

(34:00):
having to appreciate it from adistance.
Um, if you are a tattoo artistand you guys are having problems
within your business, man, thebest thing to do is be
transparent and go to the owner.
It's not fun being an owner,it's not fun managing fucking
people.
I found that out within theyears that I absolutely fucking
hate it.
And when they tell you oh man,this shit, you know this not.

(34:25):
Grass is not greener, that'swhat the fuck they're talking
about Like it's having a wholebunch of man babies and, you
know, little girls up under you.

Speaker 3 (34:33):
Man babies.

Speaker 4 (34:33):
I like that, you know for the life of you just won't
fucking work together.

Speaker 2 (34:39):
You know what I mean, and that's what the hardest
part about this tattoo industryis is oh yeah, we're free, we're
artists for this that whatever.
But you also get a whole bunchof different individuals that
you have to corral to try andget to work together to make
your dream, you know, this isBrian's dream in some way, shape
or form, and when people don'tsubscribe to your dream, it's

(35:00):
offensive.
It's offensive, you know what Imean, and at the end of the day,
he's going to take the brunt ofit.
So, understanding these thingscoming from a private studio
owner side of things made meunderstand them there was no way
I could have understood them asan artist working within
elizabeth street, because Ididn't have that disconnect.
I was just under it, you know,trying to start rebellions and

(35:23):
like why isn't it'm?
Like why isn't it like this andwhy isn't it like that?

Speaker 1 (35:27):
I remember some of those rebellions.

Speaker 4 (35:28):
Yeah man.

Speaker 2 (35:29):
And like for what?
Like there was really nothingto gain.
Like when I could have just satthere and shut the fuck up.
You know that was my job was toshut the fuck up and tattoo.
You know what I mean, but I wasMr Political Revolutionary.

Speaker 1 (35:42):
The hardest side of you was coming out Right, and
I'm a heavily emotional person.

Speaker 2 (35:46):
And part of the problem is I see B as my homie.
I don't see B as my boss at all, like that's my homie, right
there, like.
So I'm going to say what I gotto say.
You know what I mean and like.
But I also have a level ofrespect for him too, where I'm
like all right, you know.
So there's this.
What can I say to him?
Cause?

Speaker 1 (36:03):
you know, he is special forces.

Speaker 2 (36:04):
Mr.

Speaker 1 (36:05):
You know and I consider myself an alpha as well
you know what.

Speaker 2 (36:08):
I mean, and like you know, so um so I just wanted to
say that this is full circle.
For me, it's a big moment.
Um, Brian is one of my homies.
Uh, you know, even though we'vehad ups and downs, I mean this
is the second one of my bestfriends that has fired me on a
job.
One of my other homies, nate,fired me too because I was
mounting off and shit.

Speaker 1 (36:29):
So you know we'll go for three and then we'll stop
there.
But yeah, so from your point ofview, Brian, now that you've
heard all of that, Explain to mewhat it was.

Speaker 2 (36:39):
At that time we were different, then Life was
different.
Then life was different.
Then there was we were comingoff of COVID, we were coming off
of Trump, we were coming off ofhis brother passed.
You feel me, tobias Crabtree,we'll talk about that as well,
but what was it?

Speaker 4 (36:55):
that caused that?
What was it from your side asan owner that and I'm kind of
you know, be nice be fuckingnice right now you feel me, I,
it's funny and I'm kind of youknow, be nice, be fucking nice.

Speaker 1 (37:05):
Right now you feel me All right.

Speaker 3 (37:10):
It's funny Like I've heard you say that like you and
I have like had our struggles orour battles and I don't feel
like it like that.
I feel like more like I juststood there while you battled me
.
Like more like I just stoodthere while you battled me.
Like I feel more like I've beena mirror for you in you know,
like and in all those situationsnot that I haven't like had

(37:32):
something to do with it you know, like I am a straight shooter
and I to a fault, I don't beataround the bush and you know, as
I've learned, things like Idon't connect on the emotional
side, that often, like I thingslike I don't connect on the
emotional side, that often likeI'm more of a analytical thinker
which has a lot of faults to it, even though we tend to, as a
society, hold that in reallyhigh regards like oh, he's got a

(37:54):
lot of critical thinking, he'ssuper smart.
You know like he's reallyanalytical, he can figure these
things out.
Like you're missing on anotherentire side of existence by not
being in touch with, like theemotional side of things.
Like you know, when you walkinto a room, if everybody in
there is in a good mood or not.
In a good mood, you know likethat's from your emotional side

(38:14):
of thinking, like being reallyintuitive with what's around you
.
So I lack that a lot of times.
I'll be in environments with mywife and we'll leave and she'll
be like that guy I think was onheroin or some crazy shit and
I'll be like uh, that guy jeffseemed pretty cool, he was
having a good time.

Speaker 1 (38:32):
You know my wife be like you're an idiot.

Speaker 3 (38:35):
You know like that dude was on whatever.
You know like I'm not always intune with that, so it's to a
fault sometimes.
But uh, yeah, I've neverthought of you as like someone
I'm struggling with in my life.
You know, I've always just beenlike, oh man, like Brandon Mays
having a hard fucking timeright now, and man, we go back
over the last like three or fouryears and you know like, if we

(38:58):
dig into your life withrelationships and having
children and all that, like man,I've seen you go through really
hard things and so, yeah, itbubbles up at work and I will
let, I've, I'd let and watchedyou let it bubble up at work a
bunch of times.
You know like, and how can wenot do that?
Like we act like we canseparate ourselves into

(39:19):
different humans that can go towork and be one way and be at
home and be another.
Like that's fake, like just bea real person and you're just
the same person all the time.
Like I used to get nervous if Iwas going to go on TV or be
recorded or something like that,but now I'm just kind of always
myself, so I don't really careif the cameras and mics are on

(39:39):
or they're not on.
I'm just going to tell you howI feel about things.
Like, not much I'm hiding here,you know Right.
So I haven't really had illwill with you ever, other than
just being like damn brands arepaying the fucking ass.

Speaker 4 (39:54):
He's having a really hard time.
You know, I'm like.

Speaker 3 (39:56):
I look, I like to look at the full picture and you
know, like I know, you have hadsome fucking real difficult
things.
And fuck man, like in the realtattoo world, like look at the
elephant in the corner, likeyou're fucking black, it's
fucking hard, like this is likeyou know, as PC as the world
wants to try to be right now andall that or is becoming, I

(40:19):
don't know, Like, like it's noteasy being black in the fucking
tattoo world.
Thank you for saying that I'venever once said that on the show
.

Speaker 2 (40:29):
We haven't talked about it yet.
I try not to bring that upbecause it always looks like you
know, here he goes again.
You know, I like to let ithappen organically.
Somebody was saying the otherday like, oh, we don't play off
of the black and white thing.

Speaker 4 (40:42):
Somebody told us that I was thinking.
We don't play off of the blackand white thing.

Speaker 3 (40:44):
Somebody told us we don't water those trees you know
, yeah, well, you know I'm nottrying to water right now.
I'm just saying when I look atyou as a whole person, not just
the guy that shows up to work,like I don't know what that
feels like.
You know, like I've lived inother environments where I
fucking stood out and everyone Ididn't like.

(41:04):
When I went to the grocerystore in Afghanistan looking
just like I do, white andballheaded, like I got some
dirty looks.

Speaker 4 (41:12):
You're a media target too, yeah.

Speaker 3 (41:13):
You know, like maybe that's some ways to relate to it
, but like I've been in thetattoo world since I was young
and like that's always been aracist world, just the fucking
way it is, you know, and I'vebeen pretty lucky you know, I
haven't faced too much dramalike as far as the extreme sides
of what could happen.

Speaker 2 (41:34):
I consider myself lucky and this normal for what
it is that I'm doing within myworld.
Um I that's why I have a dog onmy profile picture and not my
face.
Cause everybody loves dogs.
Um specifically white peopleand shit.

Speaker 3 (41:50):
So this white guy loves dogs.

Speaker 2 (41:55):
But yeah, so you know , we we went through our things.
Um, it's been amazing.
I feel like sometimes it is anecessary evil.
I believe what happened betweenus is a necessary evil.
I believe what happened betweenus was a necessary evil.
Um, for me to get betterunderstanding of who it is that
I am, who it is that you are,perspective on this thing they
call life.

Speaker 4 (42:15):
Um, and I'm I'm happy about it.

Speaker 2 (42:17):
now, you know look at us now.
We're in the, you know, notlike it ever stopped us before,
but you know, hopefully you cansee the gains on me.
I could see the gains on you.
You know we're evolving in apositive direction and you've
helped me with that.
You know a lot of writing,reads a lot and he does his
research, one of the reasons Ibrought his ass on here is
because does research beforey'all even thinking about it.

(42:40):
You know, everybody was in theWim Hof and all that stuff.
He was already certified andthen it got hot.
Where does this come?
From when does this knowledgebank stem from, and how do you
go about attacking somethingthat you're interested?

Speaker 3 (42:56):
in.

Speaker 2 (42:59):
That's an interesting question um I've always been
influenced by how it's not thatyou're just researching, like
you do it with great intent.

Speaker 1 (43:09):
That's driven, yeah, and it's the right shit it's
just like okay, there's nobullshit involved.

Speaker 2 (43:14):
I'm like, but that's really hard to do within a world
full of information.
Now, right, it's hard to get tothe bottom line, the, the creek
the right, the natural creekwhich you used to go to and get
water yeah like is whatinfluence does that be?
Like it from the the, your pastand your extremes like?
Why?

Speaker 3 (43:35):
is that like?
How do you, how is that?

Speaker 2 (43:36):
the outcome of of your results.

Speaker 3 (43:40):
Like well it it goes uh, goes back to what we were
talking about earlier.
Like I, I want to.
I'm like trying to figure outwhat happiness is what is that?
and so I am not content withsitting around like a lot of the
other animals around me andjust accepting what is as the

(44:02):
way it is, and then, you know,sucking it up if you will.
Like I want to.
I want to look like we only gotthis short time here on this
earth and like I'm not contentwith just, you know, going to
home Depot and Stater brothersand watching Netflix and fucking
staring at my phone all day tosee what other people are doing.
Like I actually don'tunderstand it.

(44:23):
Like it trips me out a littlebit that people are just in that
coma state.
You know, like nine to five job, stare at your phone.
What are you doing on x holiday?
Like repeat next year, repeatnext year.
Now I go to the hospital allthe time because I'm old, I had
some kids and you're dead.
Like is that fucking it?

(44:43):
Like no, that's not it.
Like I want to know what.
I want to know some deeperthings about what life is.
Um, you know, and and in thatpursuit you know, like from a
kid, because I wasn't happy athome, you know I've been
pursuing other things that Ithought might be better, and
from being so fortunate totravel around the world several

(45:06):
times, like a lot of your Asiancountries and a lot of the
Middle East, and then on my ownand for work, like going through
parts of Europe and reallygetting to look at all of these
different animal groups runningaround and how they have their
own.
Like you know, I I call it a box.
Like people love to putthemselves inside of boxes.

(45:28):
Like I'm an american.
You just put yourself in afucking box, you know, and then
go down from there.
I'm white.
You just put yourself inanother box.
I'm a christian.
You're now an even smaller box.
I'm a whatever your sport fanof skateboarder, motorcycle guy.
I fucking knit all the time.

(45:51):
I'm a podcaster, like I'm atattooer, you know, like
whatever label.
You just decided to putyourself into smaller box and so
we keep putting ourselves inthese smaller and smaller boxes
and then when you're in thatlittle tiny box, you run around
with the other people inside ofyour box.
Dodge trucks are the best youknow like, or whatever.

(46:11):
Your thing is that you putyourself like like if you're a
dirt bike motorcycle guy, youwon't like all the motorcycles,
then you'll only like the dirtbike motorcycles, but that's not
going to be a small enough boxfor you.
So once you like all the dirtbike, motorcycles, then you got
to pick a brand.
And then you pick your brand.
I love Suzuki or HarleyDavidson or whatever the brand

(46:32):
of thing you like is.
I don't care if we're talkingabout headphones or motorcycles.
You just keep putting yourselfinto a smaller box and then
that's where you live and youcan be on the top of your little
tiny small box.
And I want to see somethingbigger in life and through
traveling around the world.
You know, like I've beenlooking at these groups and the

(46:53):
buddhist groups are the onesthat I find that tend to be the
happiness, like I saw a lot ofhappiness in Malaysia, singapore
, indonesia, bali, you know,like all those different
countries, and then every oncein a while I'd find some of
those peoples in a Europeancountry or here in America and
they'd always seem like theywere fucking happy, almost kind

(47:16):
of irritating.
I was in Bali this is back whenI was working in Afghanistan
and you know I took vacationwith the Bali and my wife flew
out there.
Uh, that was a great trip.

Speaker 1 (47:28):
That that's a couple of that's an hour talk Uh and,
uh, everyone there's crazy nice.

Speaker 3 (47:34):
You know, like all the merchants, all the
restaurant workers and I'm justlike God damn, dude, is
everybody here have to be thispolite, like I'm not going to
buy your shit.
Like you know, like everyperson I felt like was trying to
sell me something becausethey're so nice, and I'm
standing at a corner gettingready to walk across and there's
a cop there doesn't even have agun, doesn't need one.
You know, like we're so violenthere in America which I'm not

(47:58):
even painting that as a badpicture, like this universe that
we're in is is violent and justknow that if you're living in
America, you live in a veryviolent culture, like, like I
call America a military countryor a military with a society
attached to it to feed themilitary.
You know, I'm not even callingthat a bad thing, I'm a big part
of it, like a big part of themilitary, like I you know, I

(48:25):
part of it, like a big part ofthe military, like I.
You know I could go into that,but you know, so I.
So this cop's standing therenow this cop's asking me
questions, you know, but justbeing super nice and I'm like
all right, this cop's not tryingto sell me anything like, oh
shit, like everyone in thiscountry is just really actually
nice people and they're happythat's it um, you know, and so
exploring what that is like,looking deep, deeper into

(48:47):
psychology and and you knowdifferent isms uh is what ran me
into wim hof.
You know, and I could talk aboutthat literally for six hours.

Speaker 2 (48:56):
I am a trained instructor in the wim hof stuff
uh I remember you saying youwere, I would always say hey.
Brian, you going on vacation,You'd be like no, Brandon, this
is my life.
Has your schedule changed?
Explain to the people what yourschedule looks like.

Speaker 3 (49:15):
Well, I've always been trying to live a life that
I don't need a vacation fromLike.
I want my daily life to beenjoyable and I just want to
like, enjoy my life.
I don't want my life to be onsome schedule to that I need a
vacation from my own life.
Don't get me wrong.
I've had plenty of times in mylife where I wanted a vacation

(49:36):
from my life, just likeeverybody else.

Speaker 2 (49:39):
But you designed it though, yeah.
I'm not just saying like, ohyeah, he wants this.
No, he stopped what he wasdoing.
He set a strategic schedule forhis lifestyle and now lives
this schedule out as his norm.
You know, this is his new norm.
So what we would call vacationis called Wednesday and stuff

(50:00):
like that.
And I think that's a huge thingis like shifting one's
perspective on how we can goabout the time, how we can slice
the pie is huge.
People are looking how to getout of these ruts and out of
these situations that they're in, and everybody's always looking
for some big fucking fix.
When it could just be, hey,wake up a little bit earlier.

(50:21):
When it could just be, hey,wake up a little bit earlier.
Maybe spend more time with yourkid.
I know you spend a lot of timeat the beach with uh canon,
right yeah canon's my 11 yearold 11 and canon is so dope um.
He's a little artist in themaking.

Speaker 3 (50:36):
He's had no choice.

Speaker 2 (50:37):
He's been surrounded by artists, um, uh, and one of
his best buddies was brian'ssniper partner.
His name was tobias crabtree.
Tobias crabtree was thisprolific individual and um me,
brian and tobias used to, afterwork, sometimes just kick the
can around, have deepconversations and stuff like

(50:59):
that.
Um, tobias used to live in thewilderness and whenever he would
come back into society he wouldcome and tattoo with Brian.
He would tap into his, he wouldset some appointments up, brian
would provide all of his stuff.
I remember one time Brian wasordering him supplies.

Speaker 4 (51:18):
He was somewhere.

Speaker 2 (51:18):
He might have.
I think it was like Baja orsomething like that, and Brian
sent him all pink supplies,right, he sent him all pink clip
cord, pink rubber bands andthey're like I'm like what are
you doing?
Right, let's go on, tobias andtobias would come by, not every
six months, or there was noschedule to no schedule yeah, um
they're.
They were like one person youknow um, tobias.

(51:41):
Uh passed away at brian's housemaybe two, three years ago
longer than that five yeah, like2018, okay, 2018.
Um tobias was one of thosepeople.
He was a backbone individuallike he.
100 controlled a corner of theroom in any room.
He went in, but he didn't tryto.

(52:02):
He, you know, he wasn't in asuit, he was in some shoes that
he wore, he was in a vest thathe made.
You know, he was just thisindividual, self-proclaimed
Tarzan, an amazing writer,amazing artists.
One of the things that reallytouched me working at Elizabeth
street was watching you do theblack book, which was Tobias's
diary, his lifelong diary of allof the stories and interactions

(52:30):
he's had that he felt he neededto write about Tobias.
Every time we saw him asartists, you know, working in
the shop, we would see Tobiasworking in Brian's move.
Every time, just, he would setup his little setup you draw on
these little miniature thingsand we'd be like, well, amazing
artists, you guys check it outtoo.
You could purchase the uh, theblack book through brian.
He'll give you all thatinformation.
Um, one of the.
This was a pivotal moment for mebecause I knew how much you

(52:52):
love him.
I have two brothers who I'mvery close with.
Um tobias.
That was your brother.
You know what I mean and Iwatched you go through that um,
you had many opportunities tokind of just call it a quits
because the shop it was, it wasrunning, but you know it wasn't
like perfect and I know you werelike, man, fuck these guys.
Right now you know, um, why didyou do that and how was that

(53:17):
going through that process, wasit thing?
Um, how is that project goingnow?

Speaker 3 (53:24):
You got.
You hit me with a couple ofquestions there.

Speaker 2 (53:26):
So let me and you don't got to answer them all
Answer it with whatever you feellike.
So we'll just get back to mydaily schedule.

Speaker 3 (53:33):
Um, and then the passing of my closest friend,
tobias Crabtree.
Uh is one of these pivotalmoments in my life, just like
seeing all the Buddhists aroundthe world and trying to figure
out, like, what do these guyshave that's making them happy?
You know that.

Speaker 4 (53:50):
I'm missing.

Speaker 3 (53:52):
I was already on that journey when Tobe died.
So Tobias and I met in theMarine Corps as sniper school
partners.

Speaker 4 (54:03):
We did not like each other.

Speaker 3 (54:04):
You know, like for the first like month and a half
of sniper school and then, ifyou suffer enough with somebody,
there's just this, there's this, this unity that you two get
that.
For us it was inseparable, youknow, like.
So after sniper school, him andI were, you know, almost like a
team through life.

(54:24):
You know, sometimes we livedtogether.
There was times when he movedto Patagonia in Argentina for a
year.
So we'd keep in contact, youknow, but real loosely through
email.
So there's times when our lifecourses diverged but they'd come
back together.
You know it's probably atwo-hour talk just talking about
him but you know the the realmeat or heart of that story is.

(54:49):
You know how much I love thatguy.
My my wife even jokes that whenshe married me she married him.
So he had a real tight bond withmy son too, which is where a
lot of his art seeds kind of gotplanted you know the and, so
yeah one morning I woke up andyou know I went and turned the

(55:11):
coffee on in the kitchen and Iwalked by and I looked into my
backyard and I have a swimmingpool and I saw my best friend
floating in the pool.
It's backside up, and that's ahard, that's a hard pill to
swallow, you know run out andbreak your friend's ribs doing
CPR Cause I'm trained in allthese crazy life saving.

(55:33):
You know things, so you know Iran out there, jumped in the
water, pulled them out, did CPR,you know, and then had to make
the nasty phone calls you got tomake after that, and it's just
a real eye opening time on thereality of what this existence
is like.
We're all going to die.

Speaker 1 (55:55):
We're all going to Excuse me.

Speaker 3 (55:58):
We're all going to watch everything around us
change.
You're going to watch thethings that you enjoy, the
things you don't enjoy in life.
They're all going to watcheverything around us change.
You're going to watch thethings that you enjoy, the
things you don't enjoy in life.
They're all going to change.
It's like a total guarantee.
You're going to, like think ofwho you love the most in your
life, like you're not going toalways be with them.
It's just that's what thisuniverse that I'm talking about.
It's chaotic.

(56:19):
Like there's a real nasty sideof this life that we like to
candy coat over and just kind ofnot talk about, especially here
in American culture.
And you know, when someone dies, we like don't talk about it
too much, go to the funeral andthen don't ever bring that
person up again.
You know, like I'm not aboutthat.
You know like I I like thereality of that.

(56:39):
This existence here is shortand we should be appreciating
literally every second.
You know, like that's what I'mworking towards is like
realizing I'm sitting in thischair right now and I really
just had a good glass of coffeeand I'm talking with an old
friend and a new friend and like, hopefully, in 10 years, we'll
be bullshitting about this.
You know, like this momentright now is really cool in time

(57:02):
, like it's really cool rightnow, yeah, and so I want to
understand that, instead ofbeing bulldozing through life
every day, you know, and so whenwe go, if we ever get to
talking about my daily schedule,it's really chill, it's really
chill.

Speaker 4 (57:16):
I try to keep it super chill.

Speaker 3 (57:20):
I'll go do some fun things like ride dirt bikes
every once in a while, but Ijust like to try to keep myself
chill.
We'll get into our routineslater, I'm sure.
But you specifically asked meabout the black book, and so the
black book is just an inch anda half thick book.

(57:44):
It's a little bit bigger than aregular sheet of paper.
Uh, and me and my friend, mysniper school partner, tobias,
we he's a mentor to me in art.
Like he's always been better.
If you're into visual arts, youknow.
Like he's always been better atdrawing hands and perspective.
Or you know, like he needs an.

(58:08):
What you need is you name thekind of human face, that an
emotion you want.
Like he could draw that or likeI'll struggle with that.
You know, if someone's like Iwant like a latin american
looking dude that's sad that hisgrandma just died, you know,
like toe would be able to sitdown and like draw that out for
you, where I'd be like, ah,you're going to need to show me
a picture of that, you know.
So that guy's my mentor in theart world, you know.
Since we're just segwaying allover the place, here's a fun

(58:32):
story for you, brandon, when meand Tobe were in sniper school.
Like you're training in there,you know, to murder people,
worst case scenario.
So you have to train.
Where there's no electronics,you have to be prepared for
electronics don't work, and sothey still make you go out with
a piece of paper and a penciland sneak back to whatever your

(58:54):
objective is and draw thatobjective, like, like, make a
drawing or a sketch of what youactually see.
So you could take that drawingback and show it to some
commander or whatever and helpthem identify the target.
Like, a lot of sniping is morespying.
Like you're way more oftengoing to be used as a really
sneaky pair of eyes than you areto take people out.
You know, depends on your warand your situation, but you need

(59:17):
to be really good at beingsneaky.
And so we both get on our firstobjective together and I tell,
I tell Tobias, hey, I'll drawthis, I'm pretty good at drawing
and I'm fast.
And he says, no man, it's cool,I'm pretty fast at drawing and
I'm pretty good, I'll do thedrawing.
And you know, we're both 20year old alpha males trying to

(59:39):
prove ourselves in sniper schoolLike no one's fucking better
than us.
I was like I don't remember theexact conversation.
We both were like we'll justboth draw it, you know and see
who's fucking better.

Speaker 4 (59:49):
Tough guys, yeah, tough guys.

Speaker 3 (59:51):
And we get we get done and hand each other.
No, we're not.
We're not mad at each other.

Speaker 1 (01:00:06):
You know, tired, fucking hungry so we show it to
those drawings and we're like oh, dude, you can draw.

Speaker 3 (01:00:08):
Like okay, it was a rarity in the marine corps.
You don't run into people thatcan do art.
Yeah, so that was like a littletie we had from really like the
very beginning.
Yeah and uh, I've always beenlearning from him, you know for
fucking 20 years, and so we dida couple big art shows together.
They were super fun, but tobewas way more of a wandering,
like a nomad, you know, like hedidn't want to be stuck in one
place.

(01:00:28):
Um, and so when you're, whenyou're traveling a lot, you know
making your money throughtraveling and doing art.
Like you can't carry big piecesof paper and canvases around,
you just can't.
And so he made the decision tocarry this one book around until
it was full from cover to cover, and it was like over 200 pages
.

Speaker 1 (01:00:48):
Thinking that when it's done.

Speaker 3 (01:00:49):
He'd do an art show with that book and then just be
able to sell that book to peopleor give it to people, because
it's less about making money andmore about spreading this
really cool message that's inthat book.
And so he carried that bookaround for almost a decade,
drawing in it all the time.
And so you know, eight, 10years into this, you know that
book's got a lot of informationin it.

(01:01:11):
You know, like a lot of timeit's traveled around the world.
A couple of times it's beeneverywhere.
And so before he passed away,you know, being the good friend
you like, I was like yo, dude,we gotta start copying that
thing.
It's gonna get stolen or you'regonna fucking dump it in water
or something's gonna happen toit.
So so we had started the copyingprocess of that um, and

(01:01:33):
actually darla that now worksthere, she was the apprentice at
the time and one of her jobswas just to come in every day
and scan like 10, 20 pictures inthat book.
You know, like.

Speaker 2 (01:01:44):
So I always got to give her a little credit for
helping me get that book done.

Speaker 3 (01:01:49):
And so half that book you know the actual books a 90
percent of it was done.
So we had like another 10percent to finish, you know
another couple of years, andthen that art project would have
been done like a 15 yearproject and I already had like
half the book book copied.
And so when he passed away itjust felt like such a shame to

(01:02:10):
know that that book was justgoing to get thrown in a
cardboard box and end up in anattic somewhere.
And so, you know, I talked towith his brother I'm really
close with his family and I'mgrateful to them for letting me,
like, continue on and spreadthat book.
So with Darla's help, we copiedthe rest of that thing and I
figured out.
You know, everything isfigureoutable nowadays with the

(01:02:32):
internet.
Like you couldn't do this shit40 years ago if you wanted to
publish a book you kind ofneeded to meet a book publisher
and, like talk to somebody.
But we're so lucky nowadays tojust have like all this
information in our damn pockets,you know.
So I just emailed a friend andthey emailed me back.
Like I know a guy knows aboutbooks, you know, and they email
me this thing.
And next thing I know like I'mfiguring out like the library of

(01:02:55):
congress isbn numbers that arein books.

Speaker 4 (01:02:58):
You know like and how to buy those, and it's not that
big of a deal.

Speaker 3 (01:03:00):
Anybody can publish a book, and so I self published
that book, you know, justfinished getting to put together
and found a printer and, youknow, save some money up and
printed a hundred of them andnow they're on on, they're still
being sold today, like we sellone or two every couple of weeks
, you know, every once in awhile, tobias's Instagram is

(01:03:26):
still weeks, you know, everyonce in a while, uh, tobias's
Instagram is still working, youknow, and so once in a while
that'll get a little flurry upand we'll sell 10 books in a
month or something.
Um, but I, I, I did that artproject because that man was so
full of love and, you know, it'dbe really fun to break down
that, that, that man, you know,and, and his time here, uh, and
what he did for people, but hewas spreading love to man, you
know, and and his time here, uh,and what he did for people, but
he was spreading love to, youknow, people.
He was like people loved to bearound him and you know, when

(01:03:48):
you really break down how heexisted there was nothing
special about it he's just beingfucking real, um, you know, and
for selfish reasons, like Idon't want to buy his crab treat
to ever die, you know likethat's his painting right there.
You know like those skullshanging on the wall there are
his.
You know like he shared thisspace.
We tattooed together in thisspace, for you know a long time

(01:04:11):
like more than a decade weworked together.
So I don't, for selfish reasons,even want that man to die in my
life, like it means a lot andso, hell yeah, I keep that black
book going, like it's fuckingcool.
I've never met a human that'sgone through that book and not
been touched by it, been likeeven tough guys are like damn,
you know, let's fuck brute tough.
It's cool, you know, like it'sa great book and and it's, if

(01:04:33):
you read the first passage in it, like it's designed for
children, you know like that'swhat that book's about.
So yeah, get a.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:04:42):
I used to watch some of the videos that him and Canon
like on Instagram and stuff andhim, you know, joking with
Canon like, oh I shit in the spayou know, I shit in this bar.
He'd be like you did you know?
Like just the originality ofthis man, uh, was really fucking
nice.
Um, I couldn't come on herewithout bringing up tobias just

(01:05:05):
because I feel like that was oneof the lows that I saw you go
through.
You know, um, being anindividual who struggles with
emotion and stuff like that, howdoes somebody comfort you?

Speaker 3 (01:05:22):
yeah, that's a good question yeah, it takes a hard
person, I guess.
Uh, what does that?

Speaker 2 (01:05:27):
look like kind of way to just kind of give you a hug,
and that's not gonna work I'lltake a hug, man, no problem it's
not gonna have its effectthough yeah, yeah or who felt
like that and then like I don'tknow, like sometimes your, your

(01:05:49):
reputation subsides you, somaybe when he needed a hug, you
just assume that ryan don't wantthat you know what I mean.
So you you stop, or you knowlike he's tough guy, he'll be
all right like.
I'm gonna ask it again, though,because now I feel like it's an

(01:06:09):
even better question forindividuals who have a harsher
edge.
You know, um, what does yourwife do to comfort you in
situations when you're just?
You've dealt with a lot ofextremes, and emotion just isn't
the same for you anymore.

Speaker 3 (01:06:29):
Yeah, my wife Summer Foster Is a fucking pit bull man
.
She's a tough girl.
I'm like when I look back atour 20 years of marriage and
some of the shit I have put herthrough it's it's unbelievable
that she's still with me.
I'm like full-time cagefighting and I come home and

(01:06:49):
tell her like hey, I'm going totake another job in Iraq.

Speaker 2 (01:06:54):
And she's like what you know, huh.

Speaker 3 (01:06:58):
I didn't even give her like, I didn't talk to her
about it.
I was just like, hey, you know,like I got about six months of
training to do, I got hired.
You know, I'll be living inIraq for three months and then
coming home to visit you, youknow, and she's like, all right,
she's fucking tough man.
She kept through it with that.
But it also means that likethat's a tough girl Like so

(01:07:23):
means that like that's a toughgirl like so, maybe his strength
, maybe being strong for you,yeah, she gives me space.
That's what she does.
Like she'll give me space whenI need it, and some people need
space and some people don't needspace.
Uh, the biggest person whohelped me out when tobe died is
my, is my son, who was fiveyears old, and so I couldn't
believe that he died.
You know, I'm sitting in mybackyard, I'm holding this guy

(01:07:45):
like just like how the fuck canthis be true?
Like he's one of the healthiestindividuals I've ever met, you
know, and I figured he'd out way, outlive me like no problem,
and then there he is dead.
you know I'm like fuck myheart's broken but I'm good at
turning that off and doing myjob.

(01:08:06):
You know, and like a lot ofthat that comes from probably
trauma as a child and then also,you know, being in war
situations like you don't get to, you don't get to think about
it when you're aiming on a kidin their family, like that's not
.
Like you see a family there,like that needs to die for your
objective to get finished.
Like you just turn that off,compartmentalize, yeah not

(01:08:28):
everybody can do that like likea lot of people have really bad
pst, ptsd.
Uh, I'm, I have it, but thenit's not from like holding my
dead friend or something likethat, you know like.

Speaker 1 (01:08:44):
I'm able to come.

Speaker 3 (01:08:45):
You know, like set that stuff to the side and take
care of it.
So the day that it happened,you know where I couldn't do.
That is when I had to walk inand tell my five-year-old son
like, hey, your best friend isdead.
Now, like, how do you tell afive-year-old that?
You know like it was incrediblysad to do so, you know, and

(01:09:05):
like there's cops all over myhouse.
It looks like a fucking.
You know, a murder happened atmy house.
So like all that shit's goingon too.
And uh, you know the cop thecops were being really cool and
they let me go in and talk to mykid and I just, you know, I
take a knee and I look at thislittle five-year-old and I'm
like, fuck, I gotta you know I'mtrying not to cry and I'm like,

(01:09:27):
ooh, I gotta tell this littleboy right now that his best
friend, tobias Crabtree, is dead, cause those two hung out a ton
.
You know like that's who helpedme and my wife out with raising
my kid the first five years.
And so, you know, I tell himhis point blank as I can.
You know brandon's alreadybrought up that I'm just a
straight shooter, and so I'mlike yo dude, tobias crabtree,

(01:09:49):
died in the pool this morning,like we don't know how, like
he's, he's dead, you know.
And he just looks at me.
He's like all right, dad, youknow, and I give him a hug and I
couldn't take it.
You know, like I just brokedown right there I was bawling
and he goes, he goes.
This is in the five, he goesjust a second, dad.
He walks into the living room,he gets a piece of red

(01:10:10):
construction paper and a markerout.
He's a little artist, like hedraws everything.
So he draws this picture andthe cop's sitting there, my wife
and I are sitting there there,and he comes back over and he
hands me this picture paper andhe goes it's gonna be all right,
dad.
And he gives me this picture.
It's a kid's drawing.
Uh, it's a heart, a black line,just a, just a big heart about

(01:10:32):
the size of a softball on a orbaseball on a piece of paper.
And then a line from that heart, you know, another black line
out to a little circle.
You know the circle is like alittle bigger than a quarter.
And then in that, from thatheart, you know, another black
line out to a little circle.
You know the circle is like alittle bigger than a quarter,
and then in that little quarteris a little stick man and then
he goes.
Hey dad, you don't have toworry.
It's like Tobias Crabstree willalways be in your heart.

(01:10:55):
And then he like followed theline with his finger and he goes
and you can always think abouthim whenever you need to.
So he points to the littlelittle circles of brain.
You know, he's like him at fiveyears old.
Five years old, yeah, and andthat, thinking that there's real
no difference in that man'senergy being in my life now or

(01:11:17):
where his physical presence ishere, like he's still here with
me.
You know, like, don't get mewrong, I'd love for that guy to
be drinking a beer with metonight, like that'd be, great,
but yeah, that's what.
That's what comforts me,brandon.

Speaker 2 (01:11:31):
Good, that's dope.
Obviously, not too many peopleare going to be in this position
and ask somebody special forwhat comforts you, but that's
why this is B to z and that'swhy I'm brandon.
I'm always going to askquestions that uh need to be
asked, not what you guys thinkis fucking cool about the
military.
I like the military and allthat shit too, but like I like

(01:11:53):
the individual, the specialforces.
That's cool, you know likebadasses and all that stuff, but
I consider myself a badass too,so you know um, let's keep it
pushing.
Let's keep it pushing um one ofthe things, well.

Speaker 4 (01:12:05):
I don't want to segue .
Did you want to get back to?

Speaker 2 (01:12:06):
your schedule real quick, no, okay, um, one of the
things I wanted to bring up was,uh, shop ownership and things
that artists can do to help outa shop owner, and, and then I
wanted to dive into your artafter that.
As far as repetition overtalent, right, you get what I'm

(01:12:30):
saying you know what I'm talkingabout Maybe.

Speaker 1 (01:12:33):
Or what you consider you specialize in too.
We were kind of going back andforth.
It seems like you specialize ina lot of different things.

Speaker 3 (01:12:43):
Well, now we're breaking the tattoo world down.
Now you know, like the tattooworld in my, you know, roughly
30 years of experiencing it.

Speaker 1 (01:12:51):
Actually a little more than 30 years of experience
.

Speaker 4 (01:12:54):
You know, just like everything, like it's one of our
guarantees in life.

Speaker 3 (01:12:57):
Everything's going to change, and so I've watched
this incredible amount of changehappen with the tattoo world,
some of it for better and someof it for worse, and so when I
first got into tattooing, theperson that was you know, quote,

(01:13:19):
unquote the best was the personthat could do any kind of style
tattoo.

Speaker 4 (01:13:23):
Like you know, we're talking early 90s here, like so
if you're working at a shop.

Speaker 3 (01:13:28):
There wasn't really appointment, only shops.
That wasn't a thing.
So if you're working at atattoo shop, you're just hanging
out in there when the personcomes in to get tattooed.
If they want a portrait, youcan't do portraits, so then you
just didn't make any money.
If they come in and they wantedsome tribal thing and you can't
do tribal because you're toocool for it, then you don't make
any money.

(01:13:49):
If someone comes in and wantsdebbie on their fucking boob
tattoo, like, and you can't drawup debbie, there's no google
images.
You know, like you need to knowhow to do script, uh, so you
need to kind of know how to doeverything.
That's what you want.
That was the goal is to bereally good at everything and

(01:14:10):
you know I've been able to watchthat be the successful tattoo
careers.
Be good at everything but thatchanged you know, like that,
with with technology and theinternet and influence of
instagram on the tattoo world,you started to watch people
specialize.
So here I'm an owner.
You know, like tattooing myselfwhich I don't consider myself a

(01:14:31):
tattoo shop owner you know,like I'm not owning a tattoo
shop to make money, like I'm nota business owner.
If anything, I really suck atowning a business to make money.
I want to tattoo with myfriends and so early on I didn't
want to have some shitty bossthat was making the tattoo world
suck for me, and so I justdecided, hey, I have to be in

(01:14:53):
charge of the shop, so I'll paythe bills and be in charge of
the shop and we'll all work hereas mutual as we can.
And so I've had that philosophythe whole time.
But the undertow of thatphilosophy has been I want
clients to have good experiences, because, man, tattoo shops
sucked in the early 90s and the2000s and I don't know what the

(01:15:15):
percentage is now I don't evenknow if it's half or more, but a
lot of tattoo shops suck forthe client to walk into, like it
just sucks.
It's not a good experience.
Um, and I don't.
I don't want that in the onebuilding that I can be semi in
control of.
You know like I want my mom orsister or anybody that I know to
be able to just walk into mytattoo shop, get a quality piece

(01:15:37):
of artwork, have a funexperience and leave without my
influence on it, know, and soI've always geared my shop more
towards that and a place formyself to work as an artist than
I have a tattoo business owner.
So that's the way I think aboutthe tattoo shop world and
watching that, what, what do youspecialize in?
Um, at the end of the day,it's's still a job and you know

(01:16:02):
tattooers like to act likethere's some specialty, rare
thing.
But you're just a productionartist.
You're no different than theperson at Disney sitting there
coloring, you know, mickeyMouse's head in black.
You know, because that's whatthey needed Like.
You're just a worker Like Idon't know how everybody got so
cool in their different trades,but there's nothing cooler about

(01:16:22):
a tattooer than a fuckingplumber.
Like the ego is a crazy ego.
And it's fun, it's you know, ifwe get into natural selection,
there's a real reason for it,right Like that's why, all of a
sudden, if you're a male barber,you're cool somehow Now?
you just cut hair dude.
That's how you do, and ifyou're a tattooer, you're cool

(01:16:43):
somehow.
Now you just cut hair dude,that's all you do.
And if you're a tattooer,you're just coloring on people
and most of the time you'rebeing told what to do.
You know, I'm pretty lucky thatI get a lot of leniency with my
clients.
I get to do a lot of what Iwant, but I'm still doing what
they want.
Like I might do the viking shipsleeve tattoo, how I want to do
it, but they told me to do aviking sleeve ship.
Like.
I'm still some art bitch, likeall the tattooers out there.

(01:17:03):
Just realize you're justanother art bitch, that's all
you are.
We're not fucking special thereyou go, there's fucking creative
plumbers that have to likefigure out how to put Right
there.
Just pick the trade that youlike.
Everybody wants to act likethey're not cool or something

(01:17:26):
and like that trade has peoplein it.

Speaker 4 (01:17:27):
that are craftsmen are really good at their form of
art or the thing that they dothey own it.

Speaker 3 (01:17:30):
Yeah, and they own it , you know, and like we need
whatever those like jobs that wedon't like way more than my job
, like my job is really notimportant at all um, but it's
funny how tattooers like to actlike there's some royalty or
some fucking special thing.
I'm not going to say that.
That's not that there is sometattooers out there that are a
little special than other ones,that are like really good at

(01:17:50):
what they do, but they're stillnot on some high horse.
They're still not moreimportant than the dude taking
your trash out.
Like I can go years without atattooer, I can't go two weeks
without the garbage man.
Garbage man is more importantthan the best tattooer.
It's just the fucking truth ofit is.
We get so caught up in thinkingthat these certain people are

(01:18:11):
this certain job traits or thiscertain freedom that a tattoo
artist's life does give me thatI'm very grateful for that the
garbage worker can't have.
That doesn't mean that I'm anybetter than the garbage worker
can't have that doesn't meanthat I'm any better than the
other, than the garbage worker.
You know, freedom comes at acost too though yeah, there's
some tough sides to this too.
You know why.
Why do you think you have, youknow, a countless amounts of

(01:18:35):
famous rich people that commitsuicide?
You can have all the money andall the fame you want like oh,
that doesn't equate.

Speaker 1 (01:18:41):
You're still a fucking human being with all the
money and all the fame you want.
Like, oh, that doesn't equate.
You're still a fucking humanbeing with all the problems up
here between these, you knowears and that's why I don't
understand why

Speaker 2 (01:18:48):
tattooers attach an ego onto something that is so
free tattooing.
If you approach it right, it'ssuch a freedom thing.
You get to draw it in thefashion you want.
Sometimes you you get to kindof pick your schedule.
Once you learn the trade, youcan take it around the world.
People go to a shop and thenthey get in this mentality and

(01:19:09):
it's a box mentality.
They're one thing.
I am a tattooer, this is what Ido.
That's one of the things that Ifeel like I struggle with.
When I worked here, Brian wouldbe like you got to specialize
struggle with when I worked here.

Speaker 3 (01:19:22):
Brian, be like gotta specialize, you gotta specialize
.

Speaker 2 (01:19:23):
I didn't feel like I could specialize because there
were so many good artists aheadof me that when it came, time to
getting things like eating.
You know everybody's eating offthe same plate.
It's like my crumbs don't lookthe same as their crumbs and it
was rightfully so, because it'slike a sports team.
You know the best players getin first.
You know know what I mean,because it's promoting the
business.
So I kind of kept my realm alittle bit open just so I could

(01:19:45):
catch more in my net and stufflike that.
And now that I'm in my own, I'mtrying to push more towards a
style.
But style is a hard thingwithin tattooing too.
Either you got it or you don'tyour hand.

Speaker 3 (01:19:59):
Yeah, it's repetition so in the 30 years I've seen
going back to style, I'vewatched the the best style be
the person that was well-rounded.
And then we have a big changein the tattoo industry.
Clients are able to steer thetattoo world a little bit more,
and and and rightfully so uh, ifyou're a client and you want a

(01:20:20):
portrait and you're a goodclient, like you want to do a
little research and pick out thebest portrait artist you can
find, now you can do that, andso then what you have is people
that specialize in something.
Their market will gravitatetowards them, and so, you know,
I had an apprentice that Itrained here, and I had an
apprentice that I trained hereand she really liked one style,

(01:20:43):
and so I said you know, go forthat style and that's all that
you can do now, like that's allthat that person does now.
Is that one style and I startedto watch that style of tattoo
career be more successful is theone that does have a very
specific genre or style thatyou're sticking into.
And so as a job, just as a jobit seems to be better to

(01:21:09):
specialize in one area.
I'm fortunate enough to workhere with 10 other tattooers,
and so I can watch what they do.
And one of the guys here in theshop loves doing portraits and
he does a lot of portraits andso I'm watching this guy do
sometimes five portraits a week.

(01:21:29):
I might do five portraits ayear, and so then you can just
look at the learning curve, youknow like I'm gonna do five
portraits a year, in one monthhe's gonna get four years of my
training.
It's a lot of practice.
Of course he's going to be waybetter at portraits, and so I
started learning.
You know this is over a decadeago.
I was like, wow, specializingis the way to go, because now

(01:21:50):
the clients are looking for thatspecialized tattooer and the
really good clients know thatthat specialized tattooer put a
lot of time and dedication andthat they're kind of a specialer
thing and they'll pay a littlebit more money for that.
It's it's harder to do that kindof career, but that career
exists, um I agree it takes alittle minute to build that if
you want to be really good atportraits, you have to portrait

(01:22:13):
train, you have to reallyportrait train, and that or if
you want to be really good atlettering, you got a letter
train if you want to be reallygood at whatever the thing is
you want to be really good at.
You got to train in that youknow, and, and that's what
becomes the best money producerin the tattoo world.
Um, I don't want to knock atall that I can do everything,

(01:22:34):
because my roots still tell melike you want to be good at
everything.
But we live in a world right nowwhere you can do anything.
You can be a really good pianoplayer or a really good artist,
or learn how to have a podcast,or learn how to build a fucking
lawnmower from scratch.
It doesn't matter what you wantto be good at, we have the

(01:22:54):
avenue to do that.
So now I almost feel like wehave to like slow it down a
little bit and pick the thingthat you want to be good at and
realize you don't get to doeverything in life and I want to
excel at that one thing.
So when I go all the way back tosniper school, black and gray
almost pin art you know, likewhat you can do with a ballpoint

(01:23:16):
pen on a white piece of paper.
That's my original art style.
And you know, if you lookaround this room like that, that
bird right there was drawn in1997 and that's my original art
style.
And you know, if you lookaround this room like that, that
bird right there was drawn in1997 and that's the same style
that I do now.
So I just went back to my roots, which is this kind of more pen
and ink, or in the tattoo worldthey'll call it black worker
style.

Speaker 2 (01:23:35):
Um, but you're big on healing too.
Um, he's from the lineage of ifyou don't put a tattoo and if
it's not going to heal properly.
When I first started workinghere, I did a lot of fine line
tattoos.
That was where the industry washitting.
He used to tell me open upthose gaps, man.
You're going to have 10 yearsof tattoos following behind you,

(01:23:56):
all blurred out and stuff likethat 100%.
Some of that shit happened.
I'm seeing them now.
But Ryan tattoos for longevity.
He does not.
Hence the reason.
I think that shapes a lot ofthe reason why he does what he
does.
Portraits don't last as long.
If they did, you would probablydo more of them, wouldn't you?

Speaker 3 (01:24:13):
yeah, I have you know .
So, 27 years of tattooing,thousands of tattoos, tens of
thousands of tattoos under mybelt.
Like I've seen a lot of tattoowork I've done that, I don't I'm
not proud of it.

Speaker 4 (01:24:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:24:26):
You know, when I look back at it cause I for the
longest time, the more of mycareer I was the you can do
everything guy, and so whensomeone just walked in and they
wanted whatever they wanted, Ijust tattooed it on them Like
exactly how they want.
But then I see those tattoosfive years later, ten years
later usually by five years, youalready know like it's going to
be crap or it's not.

(01:24:47):
and as an artist uh, like I seemy art on people and I don't
like the way it looks like Ididn't do that just for money.
I also did it because I like tocreate things and I don't like
the way some of those creationslook.
But then I'll look at likeclose friend of mine that I
tattooed 27 years ago, year oneof tattooing.

(01:25:08):
He's got a big tribal piecedown his whole leg.
You know it looks phenomenalstill.
Yeah, over 20 years old.
It was nearing 30 or 30 yearsold.
I still show it to people.
I'll be like, look at thistattoo I did when I'm hanging
out with them.
Like, look at this tattoo yeah,and so I'm not at all here to
say that you know a full, fullycolored, realistic tattoo that's

(01:25:33):
rendered.
I don't think anyone's gonnaargue with me that that's the
tattoo that won't look the bestin 20 or 30 years.
That doesn't mean that itshouldn't be getting done right
now.
There's lots of people thatwant that artwork.
It's phenomenal.
Like it's amazing to look at.
Like I enjoy looking at thosestyle of tattoos.
I just don't like looking atthem five years down the road.

(01:25:54):
I don't like being heldaccountable.
No one's holding any tattooersaccountable.
That's the other problem.
Like everyone's judgingtattooers off of their Instagram
feed.
Like, and I can do a realcrappy tattoo and get my $3,000
Sony camera out and take areally good photo of that it's
going to look nice, I guaranteeit.

(01:26:14):
But that's not what it's gonnalook like five years from now or
three years from now or maybeeven when it heals, and so that
accountability is what I holdmyself to and so that has a
brand is totally correct, likethat's been one of the biggest
things pushing me in thatdirection.
I still love color, you know,like I've even started putting

(01:26:34):
pops of color in my tattoos,because if you have a tattoo
that's built off of black andblack has carbon in it and for
some reason the body keeps thatin there, you know, we can go
into all those reasons, but thebody keeps carbon in the black
ink, it keeps that longer and itkeeps it in a finer line, and
so it looks nicer in 10 years.

(01:26:56):
But that doesn't mean you canReally good portrait guys.
I even see now that you look atthe tattoo and it just looks
like a photograph.
But you'll see that they'vesnuck black in the right edges
and corners and profiles andstuff, so that that tattoo looks
pretty good in 10 years.
Like, maybe the skin tones are alittle bit subdued or the blue

(01:27:16):
in the eyes isn't as blue as itused to do, but you still can
tell that's fucking uncle Frank.
You know like, if it's donewell, so there's ways to do that
, but I'm pushing my mind to theextreme of longevity.
You know like I think the blackwork style is.
What does that?

Speaker 2 (01:27:32):
I would say too like as far as style and your style,
I think it's in the middle of atransition right now.
Um, you definitely doillustrative work.
Right, you say it'sillustrative work, but I think
you know, with the new paintingthat you've added into the bag
of tricks, that that's gonnapush your art one more time.

(01:27:53):
Wouldn't you say once you feellike you've got it there?

Speaker 3 (01:27:57):
or yeah, yeah, hopefully.
My art is always changing.
Like it sounds terrible to me,like I think of musicians.
Sometimes you know and pickyour favorite band and their
favorite songs and they'll haveto sing that favorite song for
20, their whole entire career,like 20, 30 years.
You know, like you still seethese old singers going out and

(01:28:21):
they're just still singing thathit tune, which I'm grateful for
because I love that hit tune,but as an artist, like damn that
would suck to be doing theexact same thing for decades.

Speaker 2 (01:28:30):
That's artistry anymore.
I believe artistry is the actof creating something new and
pushing it into an unchartedrealm.
You know, it should be on the.
Yes, there's technical art, butartistry the act of creation.
You know, the embodiment of artis something that comes from

(01:28:52):
nothing, in a direction that isnew for me, you know.
And then, if it's not that,then you're just going through
the techniques, you know.
And if you're practicing yourdrawings, when you approach a
drawing, that is out of yourrealm and you're you're shooting
at something that you could.
There's a failure attached to it.
There could be a failure.

(01:29:12):
I believe that is art Without aportion of failure.
I feel like there is no art but, uh, your japanese brush
paintings.
What is this style of paintingcalled?

Speaker 3 (01:29:24):
well, first we got to figure out what art is.

Speaker 2 (01:29:26):
So you like that?

Speaker 3 (01:29:28):
okay, I'll agree with you, yeah uh zach, you got a
definition of art.

Speaker 1 (01:29:36):
Well, I'm realizing there's so many different
mediums for art.

Speaker 3 (01:29:40):
Yeah, it's a hard word to describe.

Speaker 1 (01:29:42):
Yeah, even I guess going into diving in the audio
world I've never done it before.
There's an art to it, yeah.
So so many different things canfall into that category?

Speaker 3 (01:29:55):
Exactly, yeah.
So for me, art is somethingthat category?
Exactly, yeah.
So for me, art is somethingthat invokes emotion in somebody
.
That's why you can just seesome old tree and be like, damn,
that thing's beautiful, Don'tput any work into that, it's
just an old tree, but it invokesan emotion in you.
I used to think it wassomething, something that you
saw beauty in, but not everybodydoesn't see beauty in that same

(01:30:18):
old tree, you know.
So that can't be the definitionI think.
You know, like my workingdefinition is art is something
that invokes emotion in somebodyyeah, that can happen through
sound.
Hell yeah, like art literallycan be everywhere, like we're
one of these creaturesexperiencing consciousness, you
know, and like art is one ofthose things that we do, very

(01:30:41):
different than uh lower like I'mlike using the word lower, but
like lower life forms, you know,like you don't see, uh,
bacteria making art, but you dosee birds, like there's some,
like we all got Netflix, like Ican say here a name off some
documentaries maybe to go watch.
Like you can watch animalscreate art and they're doing it
for the same reason we're doingit.

(01:31:02):
They want to like make theother sex like them, you know,
like or survival sometimes.
I can't think of time I had artfor survival, but I'm sure
that's out there.
But you watch birds, you know.
Make these really pretty nestsso that the other one, you know,
like, like there's.
There's art all over the place.
You know, it's not just humansdon't get to own art.

(01:31:23):
I guess that's what I'm saying,you know are you competitive
within your art?
Um competitiveness for me is isa road, okay, so.
I'm trying not to have that,like I have a obviously a
competitive nature to a fault.
Like I literally think I canfight any other grown man in the

(01:31:44):
world and I will beat them.
You know like and I've triedthat out and I've lost a few
times, you know, but it doesn'tmean that that's not still in my
head Like it's still in my headthat you give me a rifle and
you a rifle and you put us bothat the end of the street.
I'm going to win.
I'm pretty confident.
I'm going to kill you all theway to my like I'll get myself

(01:32:04):
killed trying to prove that,like that's a roadblock in my
life is is that competitiveness?
And so whenever I seecompetitiveness in my drawing,
which is, or my art, whenever Isee competitiveness in my
drawing or my art, which is allinternal and with myself, no one

(01:32:26):
around me is trying to do myart better than me or something.
Yeah, I try to just recognizethat and then I'm not trying to
get rid of competitiveness orget rid of ego, because they
also have a space in your lifethat they're really powerful.
Like I don't want to be somelittle wimpy kid that sits in
the corner and just accepts lifefor how it is, but it's my ego
that gets me out of that cornerand makes me want to do these
things.
You know, I just gotta be ableto observe that ego and not let

(01:32:48):
that or him get out of control,take over you yeah, so if I'm
competitive with my artwork,then, then I'm doing something a
little bit wrong.

Speaker 2 (01:32:57):
Is it hard to look?
I know the style of art you'relooking at.
You told me that people beforeyou would copy the master's work
and then, when they got to aposition where they could do
better than they would do theirown.
Am I bastardizing this?

Speaker 3 (01:33:14):
No, we're, we're, you know.
We're talking about the likespecifically in the art world
tattooing and so what I watch,you know, is us tattooers just
copy other tattooers.
We copy flash, and then maybewe want to like, broaden our
horizons so that we'll draw likeour own versions of the copied

(01:33:37):
flash, but you're still justcopying the old stuff.
And then we'll broaden ourhorizons a little bit more and
like, ok, well, what were, whatwere the tattooers or artists
doing before, and whatever, youryear is 1980.
And we'll go back to like theearly 1900s with tattoo flash,
you know, and then that's kindof where people stop with tattoo
flash, you know, and thenthat's kind of where people stop

(01:33:58):
, you know.
Then they'll diverge from thereand look at more modern artists
and, you know, copy a lot ofGreek and Roman, you know, like
European art.
We'll copy a lot of that.
And then we'll copy a lot ofold tattoo flash and designs.
And then a section of thetattoo world likes to jump over
to the Japanese tattooingbecause they have a longer
lineage and they've, quitefrankly, figured out a lot of
things that we haven't figuredout yet, and so we'll copy a lot

(01:34:20):
of the old Japanese tattooers,which is what the early 1900s
tattooers were doing.
You know, umbrella statementhere, but in general that's kind
of what's happening.
And so to include me, you know,so like I, I copied other
tattooers and then I want toknow what they were copying.
And you know, like now I goback and look at old flash and

(01:34:41):
I'll find this like famoustattooer that everybody knows
their name.
And then I'll be lookingthrough their designs and I'll
be like, oh, that son of a bitchcopied that from this old, like
1800s illustration book.
And then I'll pull the old1800s illustration or 17 or
1600s and I'll be like, look,there it is.
Yeah he traced it.
Like we have some designs we'reusing in the tattoo world right

(01:35:01):
now that I'm like, oh, that's atracing from this etching from
this time period.
And then guess what happenswhen you go back to those
etchings they were copyingsomeone before you know.
And then you start to get backinto, like your beginning
artists that were figuring youknow, like renaissance, and
actually renaissance werecopying so before renaissance.
You start getting like maz atall, saying there's not original

(01:35:24):
art.
Right now I'm just saying we'redoing in the tattoo world just
copying, copying, copying.
And when I go all the way backso I follow the japanese art
back because that goes back thefarthest that actually the
japanese art is incrediblyinfluenced by Chinese art.
So what do I do?
You know, like maybe this isgetting answered some of your
questions earlier, like how do Iget to the top of these things?

(01:35:46):
You know, like how do I get tothe top of the fight world?
I was in a gym and Dan Hendersoncame in there and he was the
only dude that can kind of kickmy ass.
Like was doing pretty good witheverybody else in there.
Like there were some other guysin that gym that I had a hard
time with, not dan henderson,would just manhandle me.
Oh, and so that happened onetime and I was like hi, I'm

(01:36:06):
brian foster, like I want totrain with you.
I don't know what you're doing.
You know, go to find out.
You know the guy's in a, youknow an olympian, you know like,
like he's an Olympic wrestlerand he already holds like a
bunch of titles and so he's kindof intense too.

Speaker 2 (01:36:19):
He's like.
I saw him at Tobias.
It's not for you, huh.

Speaker 3 (01:36:24):
It's just Dan to me.

Speaker 4 (01:36:25):
But, his temperature was a little bit.

Speaker 2 (01:36:27):
I was like OK, cuz got a little edge to him.
I didn't expect that you knowsome people are like, oh, I
knock him them out and they'relike mr approachable, because
you don't necessarily want to go.

Speaker 3 (01:36:35):
Yeah, I did it so, so , just following things to their
end, you know, like follow up,like finding out, where does
this come from?
And so if I go way down the artworld, like you got caveman
paintings and pictographs, andso I'm not quite wanting to do
that, but the step that I canfigure out after that is brush

(01:36:59):
painting.
So, to answer your question,what I call my artwork is brush
painting.
Um, and it has a lot of youknow, it's all asian influence.
Uh, china has the most brushpainting there.
Um, and then and then that artform.
So let's say, in the tattooworld, we'll see what a lot of

(01:37:20):
koi, fish, lotus flowers, cherryblossoms, dragons.
You know like there's all theselittle, all these motifs.
You know peony flower,chrysanthemum, yeah, all the
flowers.
And when you go all the wayback you'll find that what were
the chinese brush paintingscholars painting?

(01:37:40):
Though that's what they werepainting.
You know like they're paintingthese, you know these things
that we now use in the tattooworld.
And so I wasn't, I hadn'tfigured out what brush painting
was, but I was like, oh so if Iwant to draw a peony flower, I
can, I can trace or observe reallife and recreate that, like I

(01:38:01):
can stare at something and, forthe most part, just remake it
happen on paper.

Speaker 4 (01:38:05):
Uh, and so I can draw a peony flower that way so
that's just realism.

Speaker 3 (01:38:10):
That's one way of doing that art.
The other way that you see mostpeony flowers.
I'm just picking a peony flower.
So we have a starting point.
Most peony flowers you see inthe tattoo world are just copies
of other tattoos or thetattooer will draw a peony
flower like he saw anothertattoo tattooer draw it.
But if you really want to createa peony flower in the most

(01:38:34):
original form and the originalway to do it, you do it on rice
paper with a brush and ink andit's fucking hard it's fucking
hard, it's not like there's noroom for mistakes, but once you
train enough, you cansubconsciously sit down and just
just like when you're driving acar and you're going to make a

(01:38:55):
left hand in an intersection,your, your brain's not saying I
have a 2 000 pound vehicle, Igot the left blinker on the left
and the right sides of thepedestrian crosswalk are empty.
I need to keep an eye on thecross traffic to make sure they
don't start coming.
You're not doing any of that.
You're like man, what drink amI getting at starbucks today?
That's what you're doing withyour actual cognitive thinking

(01:39:18):
mind.
You're like you're thinkingabout your starbucks order, but
you're driving this 2 000 poundvehicle through space that can
murder and kill people musclememory now, yeah I think like
what I found out.
You know like as I've dove indeeper and deeper into this art
form is I can create the peonyflower like I'm driving the car.
Now I can just subconsciouslylay those petals down on paper,

(01:39:42):
and when you can do that,there's just some spontaneity
that happens.
That is more natural that I.
It's hard to copy it, you can'tmake it happen.
You can't force that to happen.
It's hard to copy it, you can'tmake it happen.
You can't force that to happen.
And so you know I'm going to godeeper into brush painting.
You know, like Korean, japaneseand Chinese brush painting,

(01:40:02):
that I study a lot of and I workwith two masters right now,
just learning more from them,like my, my Dan Henderson's of
the brush painting world.
That's how I got into that artform.
And you know like I got intothat art form from following
tattooing back, from wanting to.
Just you know, I want to be the.
I want to be the best peonyflower maker.

(01:40:24):
If I'm going to do that, and Ithink the best way, the coolest
looking tattoo that I see is onethat's created from that
spontaneity, and you can only dothat by being a master of the
brush.
And that's what old Japanesewoodblock printers were copying,
and so the Japanese woodblockprinters were copying those

(01:40:47):
brush painted peony flowers.
And then your early tattooerswere copying those woodblock
prints, like the Great Wave thatwe all know.
That's a woodblock print.
And so they're copying thosewoodblock prints, like the great
wave that we all know that's awoodblock print.
And so they're copying thosewoodblock prints.
And then we've just kept doingthat and kind of forgot where it
all came from, which is totallyfine.
Let's change an evolution andit's great.
And you know like I'll evenmess around with AI now and see

(01:41:10):
what AI can make for a peonyflower, Like no problem, Like
the whole world is my oyster.
I'm not in a box for me.

Speaker 2 (01:41:19):
Sometimes, when I have a question for me,
sometimes when I do my own work,I don't appreciate it as if, as
if I did somebody else's workand looked at the same painting.
So if I paint something thatsomebody else did that I really
like and then paint somethingthat's original for me, it has a
hundred percent of differentfeeling.

(01:41:39):
How do you respect youroriginal stuff, like your
reduplicated stuff, or do you?

Speaker 3 (01:41:47):
tease that question out a little bit for me what are
you, what are you actuallyasking right there?

Speaker 2 (01:41:51):
when you, when you put your brush on a paper and
you're coming from a place ofunknown, you're just creating,
do you get the same appreciationout of that piece?
When you create and you say youget what you want out of that
piece, or you reduplicate apiece from somebody else, do you
have the same appreciation foryour work as you do for the, the

(01:42:14):
, the artist, the master artistwork.
And that's comes from me,because when I draw my original
tattoo designs, they'd neverseem to hit Like I'm drawing
somebody else's design orreduplicating somebody else's
design.

Speaker 3 (01:42:28):
So you're asking.

Speaker 2 (01:42:30):
Does your original pieces do the same as when
you're duplicating a master'spieces?

Speaker 1 (01:42:38):
Or do they all have their own separate?

Speaker 3 (01:42:39):
feel to it well, I'm not duplicating master's pieces
that that is a technique forbecoming a better artist and I
do do that and I think that's atechnique.
But I think what you're askingis like, if I see a master's
work in a museum and thenwhatever I think is my
masterpiece, do I hold them atthe same weight?
Is that what you're asking?
Like, do I think they're bothas good as each other?

Speaker 2 (01:42:59):
Yeah, so, like you're doing a tiger and you're
practicing tigers, you pick theartists of the tigers you like,
you attack one specific tiger totry and make it look exactly.
You come very, very close.
You're like, ooh, that shitfelt good.

Speaker 4 (01:43:14):
Now, on the other hand, you know what today I'm
going to?

Speaker 2 (01:43:16):
I'm going to draw a frog, but I'm going to do my own
style on it.
Do you get that same level ofappreciation out of your own
work?
Cause I don't.
I don't get it.
I find it very like I get moreof a high when I'm doing
somebody else's like, looking atsomebody else's stuff, and I'm
mirrored or I've gotten close tothat and I struggle with my

(01:43:39):
original concepts a little bitmore as an artist.

Speaker 3 (01:43:47):
I'm, I'm uh, my brain's looking at it from two
different lenses, like my tattoowork and then my brush painting
.

Speaker 4 (01:43:55):
You know, like those are my two.
Those are my two differentlenses, like my tattoo work and
then my brush painting.
You know, like those are my two.

Speaker 3 (01:43:59):
Those are my two different visual things.
Uh, I'm hard on myself, justlike I think most artists are.
They want to keep gettingbetter.
So, uh, I've gotten to a pointwith my tattoo work where I do
have pieces that I'm reallyhappy with and like I don't
think, like maybe there's alwaysroom for improvement, but I
think that's a really goodtattoo and it's right on par

(01:44:20):
with X tattoo or his name.
That, I think, is really good,um, but I see shortcomings
always there and I want toimprove my tattoo work always.
So my tattoo work, I'm alwaystrying to improve that.
And you, if I do an eagle oneday, like I'll look at it and be
like, all right, I can figure Ican do these things different
next time and make that evenbetter, um, and when I'm copying

(01:44:43):
another, like tattooers work,you know, like trying to make
something similar to whatthey're doing, which I'm trying
not to do that so much anymore.
Now.
It's more, I want to do a rosetattoo, you know, and like I see
ex-artist tattoo or non-tattoo,or like how they do a leaf, and
like I'll be like, oh, I'mgonna try that style out.

(01:45:04):
You know, like that happens herein my own shop, which I feel
really grateful for.
You know, like I'll be like, oh, like you know, we'll talk
about it here.
We're like, how'd you do thatleaf?
And then maybe I'll add thatleaf into my rose next time and
see, see how that, how thatfeels, um, and that never feels
as good as like when you look atsomeone else's art, you know,

(01:45:24):
and like you don't know thewhole story and how it's created
, you just fucking really likeit.

Speaker 2 (01:45:29):
Yeah, that's always hard to have I guess it's easier
to appreciate somebody else'spiece um, and like I don't think
you're doing that either, LikeI'm not.

Speaker 3 (01:45:37):
If I'm going to look at someone else's art, I'm
looking at people that arebetter than me, or or they excel
in this one area more than me.
Like all right there's.
Maybe I really love the way myskulls look and I've gotten a
little bored with it, Like thathappens.
So I'll look at other artiststattooers and non-tattooers and
want to do my skull kind of likethem, and maybe when I do that,

(01:46:00):
maybe I achieve it and maybe Idon't.

Speaker 2 (01:46:01):
When you approach a painting, is it from an
analytical, artistic point ofview, or is it from an emotional
point of view, because you haveboth sides of the mind?
I know you research, so there'san analytical part to
everything you do.

Speaker 1 (01:46:26):
But how do you make sure that that emotion trumps
the analytical aspect of it.

Speaker 3 (01:46:33):
And is it hard to switch between the two sides,
the emotional side and theanalytical side.
Zach's very analytical.
Well it's uh neuroscience hasproved that if you can train
both sides of those, that ofyour mind, then you have access
to more of that.
So they, you know you're not inyour head.
Yes, you probably already seenthe same netflix shows I've seen
.
But you know like they'll showthe imagery of a mind and ask a

(01:46:55):
person a question.
That's a real critical thinkerand they'll watch.
You know, on our we haveamazing modern equipment now so
we can watch how the front ofsomeone's brain lights up when
they're asking that, answeringthat question, and you'll get
another person that's maybe anemotional thinker.

Speaker 2 (01:47:10):
I'm talking about you specifically though B.

Speaker 1 (01:47:13):
Yeah, because I've been messing with EMDR too and
that kind of lockslocks, thatpotential.
But yeah, like what is your?

Speaker 2 (01:47:18):
yeah, I'm trying to get in your mind.
Yeah, you never let anybody inyour mind, you never give out
shit for free people just don'tlisten.

Speaker 1 (01:47:26):
I'm always here to give yeah, so we're trying to
get everybody else.
We're not strangers, thoughstrangers don't get shit you
feel me, we're like we're allset.

Speaker 2 (01:47:35):
Anyways, go ahead.

Speaker 3 (01:47:37):
I think I know more pointedly how you want this
question answered or what you'relooking for.
And so we've done a funny thinghere in our society and we've
decided like if you know, if Zaxdecides to like clean something
, someone gets a cut, he cleanstheir wound out and puts a
bandage on it.

(01:47:57):
Do you call him a doctor?

Speaker 4 (01:47:58):
Fuck no, not damn doctor.

Speaker 3 (01:48:01):
Right, you did clean a wound out, you did a little
bit of medical thing, like, butyou're not a doctor, right, like
you need a certain amount oftraining to be a doctor.
You need to understand and like, and I'm like I don't even
understand fully what a doctorhas to meet in college criteria
to become a doctor.
I think they're failing in someparts there, but we won't get

(01:48:22):
into that.
You know and so, but you stilldon't get the name.
You don't get the label doctoruntil you have proved yourself
in certain areas.
You don't even have to be an Ain all the areas because C's get
degrees.
So sorry, a lot of the doctorsthat are doing surgery on you
have c's yeah, so I interviewall my doctors.
I don't realize that's happening, but you can pass on all of

(01:48:44):
them, uh, and so in the artworld, we've decided if, uh, I
just draw a little squiggle on apiece of paper or I make
something that looks like a tree, you're an artist.
Right, you're a doctor, and soyou know like those are the
extremes there.
But if someone does art throughhigh school, you know like

(01:49:07):
everyone around them mom, dad,aunts, uncles, friends, everyone
is like you're an artist,you're an artist, artist, you're
an artist, you're an artist,you're a doctor, you're a doctor
, you're a doctor.
And that goes right to people'sheads and they stop training,
they just start doing whateverthat thing that got.
And we can go all the way backto natural selection and how
your mind works and how we wantto make the people around us

(01:49:27):
happy.
And so, young you know,quote-unquote artists get that
title and then they run withthat and they don't actually
know what the fuck they're doing.
I'm one of those guys.
Like, I am that artist.
You know like I thought my shitdidn't stink until I was like
40 or something.
You know like doing art.

Speaker 1 (01:49:48):
I was like, yeah, I'm good.

Speaker 3 (01:49:49):
Like, watch this, I can do these things.
But as my perspective shift, Istarted realizing like, oh, wow,
like there's a lot of art thatI don't understand, I don't know
about it.
And so, with that kind ofthinking, I like to be, I want
to be an artist.
That's like the doctor, like Iunderstand the facets of things

(01:50:13):
and so if I'm going to recreateit, I'm a visual artist.
So if I'm going to recreatethat for you, I want to do it
correctly.
I want to do a little bit ofresearch.
So, as a tattoo artist, if you,if, if we, me and I want to
take on your drawing and it fitsmy wheelhouse, because I'm
really lucky now to be able totell a lot of people, no, thank
you, because I'm trying tospecialize in things.

(01:50:33):
Like I'm not going to be thebest guy for a portrait, so I'm
going to tell you hey, theseother guys I know are really
good for portraits and you'regoing to get a better tattoo out
of that.
Like I'm fine with not beingthe best at everything, you
can't be.
And so my artwork I wanted tobe researched and anatomically
correct.
Like the anatomical correctnessof visual art is getting lost.

(01:50:55):
Like the anatomical correctnessof visual art is getting lost.
You have all of these artiststhat you know use that term and
you know I'm not.
I'm not trying to like justkind of blanket state me here
Like I love abstract artwork.
That's my favorite actually.
Because when I go into a museumI can't judge it.
I can't judge it analytically,I can't be't be like, oh, the

(01:51:18):
perspective on that elbow isincorrect.
Or look at that tattoo pinup.
Oh, you want to know why thehands are in the hair.
Or you want to know why thehands are behind the butt in
your pinup tattoo.
Yeah, look down at your armright now.
Uh, it's because your tattooerdoesn't know how to draw hands
right.
And you want to know why theface looks like two little dots
or it looks like a bunch ofgarbage now, because it's been
five years.
It's because your tattoo artistdoesn't know how to make faces.

(01:51:41):
You know, like there's ways todo that.
Like, like there's ways to doit if you're a good artist and
so before you start drawing allthese things especially in the
tattoo world for clients, justknow what the fuck you're doing.
Like, if you're going to takeon drawing a human hand, you
know like everyone, get on yourphone right now.
Look at all the human hands.

(01:52:02):
I look like little penises andand and hot dog fingers and shit
.
Like it's terrible.
I don't want that happening inmy studio.
I don't want that happeningaround me.

Speaker 4 (01:52:10):
Yeah, you know.
So first, first.

Speaker 3 (01:52:11):
So my tattooers and myself like do some damn
training.
Like be anatomically correct,know how to draw a tiger's face,
like, stop all this fuckingcartoon bullshit that we put
these labels on, like oh, it'sneo-traditional this and that,
and I was like that's becauseyou don't know how to draw
correctly.
Like look down at your tigertattoo right now.
Does it have black tips on theends of its ears?

(01:52:33):
Because all tigers in the realworld do Right, you know like
there's a very specific markingson animals and birds Like and
we do a ridiculous job in thetattoo world and the clientele
accepts it.
And so art to me, especiallywhen we're talking about
tattooing, should beanatomically correct.
And if you're going to varyfrom that, it should be because
you wanted to, because you'resuch a highly trained artist
that you're going to vary fromthat, it should be because you

(01:52:54):
wanted to, because you're such ahighly trained artist that
you're deciding to go into theabstract, you're deciding to
make things blurry orexaggerated or not proportions
correctly, like.
You're doing that because youwant to, not because you have to
, because you lack the artisticability to actually create it.
So, for me, if I want to wearthis name as an artist, I want

(01:53:19):
to be a really good doctor.

Speaker 4 (01:53:21):
I want to be really well-trained.

Speaker 2 (01:53:23):
I think it's pivotal too, within the position that
you hold, because you set thestandard of what comes out of
the shop.
You know, if you have a looseeye, right Like when someone
comes in and I want this tattooand the tattoo is absolutely
shit, you're like, oh fuck, thisis going to be easy because
they have a horrible idea ofwhat a good tattoo is, you know.

(01:53:44):
So I think that's huge andpivotal for shop owners to have
a keen eye, not only in withintattooing as a whole.
You know, have a modern touch,a sharp thought on how things
should be executed.
Research, because it determineswhat kind of work is coming out
of the shop.
If Brian has a loose eye, thenfive people behind him that

(01:54:07):
tattoo under him are going tostart cutting corners you know
what.
I mean, and you know, when Iworked at Elizabeth Street, that
was the the hustle, the pacethat you had to keep up with.
Obviously there's an amazingartist in here, but you know,
that's why a lot of people don'twon't get the opportunity to

(01:54:28):
come here is because, as atattooer, they just want to sit
up and just draw when it's timeto draw.
When you come to Elizabethabethstreet, you're asked to approve
upon your artistic uh abilities.
you know what I mean, becausesomebody is paying attention in
his own world for research anddetailed and all that stuff
which it's.
It's really, really good it'ssometimes it's hard you know

(01:54:50):
what I mean to be in a shop witha shit ton of good artists and
like everybody's just doing allthese cool things around you and
it's like fuck, it could be alittle bit overwhelming.
But if you really just focus onyou and then take one thing at
a time and you know drips fillin the bucket, then it's very
beneficial to an artist's careerwhen I came to Elizabeth Street
.

Speaker 3 (01:55:09):
I actually had to apprentice again.

Speaker 2 (01:55:12):
He allowed me to continue to tattoo, but there
was just certain things that Ididn't have within my tattooing
that were pivotal.
And when I got there, you know,the first thing he had me do it
was kind of like a test wasanatomy.
And then he had me do a beeexercise and that wasn't about
anatomy, and he had me drawingwith shapes and that was about

(01:55:32):
anatomy.
And then we attack textures andthen line work and then hand
positioning and stuff like that.
And then that, you know,without that second
apprenticeship I would benowhere near where it is I am
now and to this day.
You know, a lot of the time wehold on to what people say, you
know, when you're learning andstuff like that, a lot of the
things I have the same rules ashe has, because that's what an

(01:55:54):
apprenticeship is.
You know, like I was not hisapprentice, um, because he was
like nah, you know, he wasn'tputting my name on me at that
shit, I was a little wild, youknow.
And you were far enough along,like you you know what I mean,
like, and that's fine you knowsome people you like.

(01:56:15):
All right, you know what I mean, and something like now I'll
help you.
You know what I mean, like so hehelped me out and you know, I
got to a position of where Ididn't have to be watched as
closely anymore and he continuedto watch me over the years
anyway, just because I was newerin my and I wasn't necessarily
supposed to be in a shop of thisprestige at an early career.

(01:56:37):
I remember coming from theother shop that I was at.
Everybody told me I was like, oh, you're not going to make it,
You're not going to make it.
What the fuck are you doing?
You're going over there.
There goes your career, youknow.
And that actually lit a fireunder my ass to fucking get
after it.
And then just being one, thingI am is an information whore, so
I will just sit in a room andjust fucking take everything

(01:56:59):
from everybody.

Speaker 3 (01:57:00):
I'm just like that's free, that's free.

Speaker 2 (01:57:02):
Let me go ahead and fill these pockets up.

Speaker 3 (01:57:04):
And he's a wealth of knowledge and the people that he
surrounded himself with.

Speaker 2 (01:57:07):
He's very picky.
Our wealth of knowledge as well.
Um, michael McCaskill, jim ordie Darla guys, look these
people up, they're all fire,they tattoo me and they're my
mentors and people that I call.
Thank you, you know.
Thank you for that, for lettingme come work at Elizabeth
Street, for, you know, puttingme through that second
apprenticeship.

(01:57:28):
A lot of people don't get tothank their mentors and the
people that they've gone throughLike that is the difference
with me and that emotional shitI was talking about.
I always say thank you, I'malways going to tap in on it,
you know?
Yeah, it was huge.
I remember he put me throughlettering seminars at
conventions to help me heatbrand and you need to specialize
, and I was hardheaded as fuck.

Speaker 3 (01:57:50):
I was hardheaded as fuck Like nah, I'm trying to do
it all, Like nah B, that's notthe way this shit is going, and
he allowed me to be an artistwhich was cool, which was cool
At the end of the day, he hadhis sense, his two senses, a lot
of the time.
It made sense At the time I wasnot trying to hear that shit.

Speaker 2 (01:58:04):
Like that's how it goes rightWith good information.
Like yeah right, but it waspivotal to where I am today.
Proper tools in the beginningand a proper foundation opens
you up to another world ofprogression, and I feel like

(01:58:24):
that's what I got.
I got that second iteration ofan apprenticeship from somebody
who actually cared a little bitmore.
The other guys didn't reallygive a fuck about me, you know
what I mean.
So he actually took a littlebit of interest in me, which was
dope, and it, you know it, madeall the difference in my career
I had to be vulnerable.
Though, too, I had to express awhole lot of humility.

(01:58:45):
What people don't understand isit's like you're drawing
something and then it comes inand then we critique the shit
out of it.
And this is brian, you knowit's not.
The first sentence might be oh,that looks like shit, and that
is the world of tattooing.

Speaker 4 (01:59:00):
It's better coming from Brian than my client, I got
to tattoo it.

Speaker 1 (01:59:05):
You know that's any career you choose, I feel like
you when you get into it, youbetter be willing to humble
yourself, because you're not.
You're not the expert in thatfield.

Speaker 2 (01:59:13):
Talk about something that's dying right.
Exactly, you know people thatget into it and you tell them
something about their designsand you know you got a chip on
the shoulder.

Speaker 1 (01:59:22):
He was talking earlier.
You got a chip on your shoulderfor something good, right, yeah
.

Speaker 2 (01:59:25):
He was talking earlier about his apprentice and
saying, oh you know, she takesinstruction well and doesn't
fire back with an auto response.
That's another episode I havecoming up called auto responses.

Speaker 4 (01:59:35):
I was an auto response guy.

Speaker 2 (01:59:37):
I had to explain everything and why I did it,
because logically I'm like, ohyeah, this makes sense.
I attach my emotions to thisline Like, yeah, this is where
it needs to go.
He doesn't give a fuck aboutthat shit.
It's about the overall designand if it's aesthetically
pleasing, based off of theformulas that you know, and it

(01:59:59):
took me a minute to kind ofseparate my emotions and what an
artist is.
Stop trying to be an artist andand learn and just be.
Be ready for their journey.
You know, everybody gets into atattoo artist or tattoo shop
becomes a tattoo.
I'm an artist.
Now the fuck you are.
I remember I used to hatepeople.
I don't know.
There's only a few artistsaround here.
And I would never ask if thisis me or not, because I don't

(02:00:19):
want my feelings hurt.

Speaker 1 (02:00:20):
You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (02:00:22):
But he would also give me the information of what
it is that he felt was trueartistry, and that was
Repetition Beats Tower all daylong.
And that was one of the thingsthat I got to watch as I left
Elizabeth street.
He had kind of just startedfucking painting and then I saw
the evolution from a distanceand I was like, and then he put

(02:00:43):
up a post with Cortese and Ithought it was to me.
It was so pinpoint I know,that's just what you go.
I'm like oh, that shit is forme.
And it was just like oh yeah,fucking talent, or uh, hard work
and repetition beats talent allday long.
And it was something I wouldfight him about but now I've had
a visual representation of what10 years of painting now, yeah,

(02:01:06):
talent, the name given to hardwork and dedication, exactly and
sometimes for you to understandthings, it takes people to blow
it up.
You know, blow that shit up infront of your face real quick,
and I feel like Brian does thatfor me a little bit.
I'm one of those people that Ienjoy a straight shooter Cause I
don't want to hear a fuckinglong story and just fucking get
to the point.

(02:01:27):
You know what I mean, so that'swhy we've always done so well.
Your artistry is really good B.
I've always been in your work.
My favorite tattoo by you is achess piece with the
illustrative piece on thatMexican dude.

Speaker 3 (02:01:42):
I got another one you're talking about yeah, he's
solid ass river sticks the bowfrom the cross.
That shit is tight as fuck.

Speaker 2 (02:01:49):
I will find that on Instagram and I will repost that
for you guys, so you guys seewhat I'm talking about.
He's working on a back pieceright now.
That's absolutely dope theMedusa one that shit looks good
and I'm just excited about yourartistry B.
You're definitely somebody Iwanted to have on.
There's so many avenues that wecould talk about, so it was
kind of hard.

Speaker 3 (02:02:09):
Yeah, I had no idea what we were going to talk about
today.
Right, I feel like we did agood job.

Speaker 1 (02:02:13):
We had a lot of different questions and a lot of
different things, but we didn'twant to put you in a box.
Yeah, yeah, right, right.

Speaker 2 (02:02:20):
And you know, I know you're well-read, I know you
read in all different types ofdirections and stuff like that
Within our show.
We have a portion on the showthat's called a roundup.
You want to tell them aboutthat, actually.
So so.
I do want to wrap it up but, Ido want to hear.

Speaker 1 (02:02:40):
I feel like there's some nuggets in his day to day.

Speaker 3 (02:02:43):
We don't got to wrap this up.
I can take a bathroom break.

Speaker 4 (02:02:47):
I want to get that day to day.

Speaker 1 (02:02:49):
What is?
What is?
What does that look like?

Speaker 3 (02:02:52):
First I got to tell Brandon does that look like to
you?
First I gotta tell brandon,thank you for saying everything
that you just said, like Iappreciate man to man.
I appreciate that it's reallynice to hear.
And then there's no way that Ican take credit like not even
half of all the credit for whatelizabeth street is.
Uh, especially in the art world, because I'm held accountable
here just as much as I hold theother guys accountable here.
And if you know, just go lookat this.

(02:03:12):
If you're interested in the artworld, because I'm held
accountable here just as much asI hold the other guys
accountable here, and if youknow, just go look at this.
If you're interested in thetattoo stuff, like the people
that I work with here, keep mein check, cause they're, you
know I'm out, I'm out dabblingwith, you know, brush painting
and all other kinds of stuff,and these guys are here just

(02:03:34):
hitting it hard with tattooing,like tattooing, tattooing,
tattooing and and they're theones studying the other
tattooers and studying what'sgoing on.
And so I'm grateful and learn alot from the crew here.
And they hold me accountableLike they're the one, like I,
when I'm doing artwork, I'm like, ooh, I gotta make sure I
wonder what this person willthink.
You know, like I gotta do agood job and you know I'm

(02:03:57):
fortunate enough, like here,like I have someone to bounce my
stuff off of.
So when I'm creating the sleeve, like I just open that door and
walk in the other room.
It doesn't matter which one ofthem are in there, they're all
awesome.
And you know, like they'refields and like I value their
opinions, like I value Brandon'sopinion, like I've gone to of
Brandon, and like hey, does thislook right to you?
Because just cause like I'lltout myself as being a pretty

(02:04:19):
good artist, I'm not the bestlike at all.
I am crazy, always learning,like in in the brush painting
world.
You know, like not going to bea surprise for you, brandon, but
I'm writing an article now forthe Sumi society of America as a
quarterly journal, about brushpainting and I'm writing an
article on the 10 elements ofcomposition for them.

(02:04:40):
Like I'm always learning, andin the art world it never ends.
That's dope.
The learning should never end.
It's the beauty of the field oftattooing.
It's the beauty of what life islike how's your writing going?
I know that was a topic ofinterest for writing's fun, but
it's uh, it's not my forte likeI enjoy doing it, but uh, if I

(02:05:03):
put too much energy into that,it takes away the energy I want
in other parts of my life umyeah and then to answer zach's
question uhI don't pull this off every day
but I have a morning routine soI like to wake up with no alarm,
which means I need to just getenough sleep and be eating

(02:05:25):
healthy.
And then when I wake up, I liketo go have a meditation, which
can mean a lot of differentthings to a lot of people.
I say meditations like the wordexercise.
If you ask a ballerina that's10 and an NFL football player
what exercises, they're going togive you two very true stories

(02:05:45):
of what exercises and they'revery different.

Speaker 1 (02:05:48):
So achieving their own goals.

Speaker 3 (02:05:49):
Yeah, so you know, like I do my form of meditation,
which don't mind breaking downand talking about that, and then
from there it's straight into aworkout.
I try to work out seven days aweek.
20 minutes, only 20 minutesStill hitting it.
Yeah, I'm relaxing bro Well,when you start learning more
about our brains and our bodies,you start to learn that the

(02:06:11):
body is a little bit more incharge than the mind is, and so
if you can keep the body happy,it helps produce all the things
that make your mind happy.

Speaker 4 (02:06:21):
It's a part of it.

Speaker 3 (02:06:26):
It's a big part of it , but it's only a part of it.
So you've got to be exercisingevery day, and that doesn't need
to be any special forces, crazyMMA workout stuff.
It could be 20 minutes ofstretching, 20 minutes of of wim
hof breathing exercises, 20minute walk, 20 minutes of
whatever you do to get your bodyworking.
You know, and sometimes duringthat week you should probably

(02:06:47):
sweat or whatever your workoutlike, break a sweat, and so I
try to knock that out early inthe day.
Even though that's not myfavorite time to work out, I
like to work out later in theday.
Even though that's not myfavorite time to work out, I
like to work out later in theday.
But if you want to be successfulin life, you have to take the
things that you hold the mostimportant, and you got to do
those first.
And so you know my personalhappiness is what radiates out

(02:07:11):
to the people that are theclosest to me, and so the better
care I take of Brian Foster,the better care I'm taking of
the people around me, and so Igot to take selfishly, I got to
take really good care of myself.
So before I can go to work anddo good tattoos or do any of
that.
I have to have taken care ofmyself first, and so for me it's
mental health, then my physicalhealth, and then I move on with

(02:07:32):
the day from there.
And I've set myself up reallygood, like I have an acre of
property and like I've turnedthat whole thing into a giant
garden.
I got some chickens runningaround and so after my workout I
stroll outside and I hopefullyhave I usually have an hour
before I have to head to workthere and my non-tattoo days.

(02:07:52):
That's the rest of my day.
You know like I'll hang outwith my kid, hang out with the
wife, do some gardening, housechores, paint draw, answer some
emails.
Like you know, I got my list,just like everybody else, of all
the things that needs to getdone, and that list is never
ending.
You know like you'll never geteverything done that you'd want

(02:08:13):
to achieve, so it's being ableto hold that weight of all the
things you want to do or thatneed to get done and be able to
turn the volume down and justenjoy right now Like enjoy today
.
So that's kind of how my dailyroutines go.

Speaker 1 (02:08:28):
I know.
Thank you for that.
I appreciate it.
I knew I knew it was going tobe a nugget.
I knew I knew it was going tobe uh, you know words, smart,
smart way to spend the day.
Yeah, uh, getting into thisroundup you do leave quite an
impression on people around you.
Uh, when we interviewed theother, zach Zach Peacock, he

(02:08:49):
said, uh, you helped him adaptto change because you kept
moving him around in differentstudios.
Yeah, he said you kept sayingnot that this is going to be
your quote, but he said yourquote that he likes to remember
is death, taxes and change.
What is that?

(02:09:10):
So what does that mean?
From him?

Speaker 3 (02:09:13):
I mean Zach's an awesome character character I'll
just leave it at that you knowone of my close friends.
Uh and yeah you know, likethat's just something I rattled
off that day, yeah, and it stuckwith him, you know, and and he
does have a hard time withchange and like, like, if you're
in the same business for 10years, like, things change,

(02:09:35):
change.
You got to move people aroundand you know, zach's the person
I try to move the least becausehe has the hardest time with it.
But, yeah, we've had to makechanges and, uh, I think Zach's
love for me and the tattoo worldhave allowed him to be like all
right, I got to go with theflow on this and he's gone with
the flow with it.
Oh, yeah, that's exactly whatwe got from him.
Yeah, and he's, you know, likeI've known him for a decade or

(02:09:58):
more Like we're all changing.
Yeah, like, yeah, that's like abrother.

Speaker 2 (02:10:03):
They're like brothers , y'all are like, or son,
however the fuck you want that'show we used to oh, my God this
motherfucker is the Fucking Zach.

Speaker 3 (02:10:18):
But do you have a quote that resonates with you?
You know what?
I don't have a quote per se,but I think we all stand on the
shoulders of greater men, and soit kind of goes in line with
what we've been talking aboutfor the last hour or whatever.
And that is what is happiness.
And one of my favorite teachers, the Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh
he has a really good definitionfor me of what happiness is.

(02:10:43):
And so let's think about lifeas a two-sided coin.
Like everything in our life, inthis cosmos, anything we've
been able to figure out, has twosides to it, like you can't
look at something and not knowthat it has another side.
And so his example or way toillustrate what happiness is is

(02:11:04):
think of life as a two-sidedcoin, and on one side of that
coin is joy, like straight upjoy, like whatever that is for
you, that's that brings you joy,and whatever that joy is.
The flip side of that joy issuffering, like there's an even
amount of suffering with theamount of joy.

(02:11:24):
Maybe they're not always even,but like without joy, you can't
like without suffering, youdon't get joy.
Without joy, there's nosuffering and so like go back to
what we were talking about withmy friend Tobias Crabtree that
died.
Like that was so life-changingfor me and I still hold on to it
because I had so much joy therewith that individual in my life

(02:11:46):
but it also brought me so muchsuffering, like I had an even
amount of joy and suffering.
And so life is that coin of joyand suffering.
It's how you can balance it.
That's happiness.
So you hold that coin in yourhand and you get to decide if
it's going to be joy side up orsuffering side up, and it's your

(02:12:07):
juggling of that joy andsuffering in your life.
That is happiness.
Like that's happiness.

Speaker 1 (02:12:16):
That's perfect.

Speaker 3 (02:12:17):
Yeah man, yeah Thanks , tick not on.
Hey thanks man.

Speaker 1 (02:12:22):
All right, something we wanted to start doing.
We're going to start doing itwith you.
Uh, we usually give a littlesomething, um, to our guests.
Uh, so we wanted to do it onthe air.
Um, yes, we toss in just asketchbook, throw in some
stickers and, again, amazon giftcards.
Amazon's got everything.
Can't really go wrong with it.

(02:12:43):
Awesome man, Appreciate it.
We really appreciate you comingon.

Speaker 2 (02:12:47):
Definitely B.
We're bringing a lot of ourguests on for round two.
That'll probably be season two.
There's more I want from youfor sure.
Um, uh, we spoke about bringingKeneally on with you guys,
Cause I like that interactionthat you guys have, I think,
between us we can definitely getsome fun.

Speaker 3 (02:13:06):
more people that I'd like to hear some interviews of.

Speaker 2 (02:13:08):
Thank you again.
Um success to you and yourbusiness in the near future.
You guys are killing it overhere.
I'm watching with a tight eye.
You know you guys are mycompetitors at this point, but
you know so I'm out here givingthe hell, thank you.
Tell the the missus, I saidhello.
Tell Canon I said hello andjust thanks be.
You know you're a good dude.

(02:13:28):
I feel like people, you know,because they don't get to see
the inside.
You know, I've had anopportunity to see that this is
a lion.
You know what I mean, but he'schill.
You just got to catch him onthe right fucking day.
You feel me, thank you.

Speaker 3 (02:13:44):
Thanks for having me on.
Thank you.

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