Too much to handle.

I had an extra day off yesterday,
and I didn't even want it.
I couldn't even get my car out of the back alleyway.
All the news headlines sounded like extreme adult film titles.
20 Inches of Madness

And that's not even the scary part.
The worst is that the fence that holds back
Powderhorn's most vicious dog is no longer there.
I mean, I'm sure it's there, somewhere,
but i haven't seen it.
Shamira is no longer fenced in,
and free to bite any passerbys she wants.
(the good news is that anyone passing by right now
has two layers of pants under their snow pants,
so they might not even feel it)






















I've never worked harder and been more tired on my weekend before.
But tomorrow we've got a personal tour of some gross science-y stuff.
Flesh eating beetles, and that kind of thing.
So tonight we'll probably just settle for a quiet evening,
maybe a movie.
(just not that kind)

The heavens are pissed.

Minnesota gets crazier storms/clouds/weather than any where I've ever lived.
Last night when I was leaving the shop,
the clouds were moving faster than I'd ever seen.
There's been tornadoes/severe thunderstorms every week this summer,
and we've had a lot of east coasters in town getting their first taste
of how violent the hot months in MN are.

All I had on me was my cell phone camera,
but it still picks up some of the intensity pretty well.
This was at 8pm.
Then came the rains,
and some sky-crossing lightning.
But it cooled things down (slightly),
and the rest of the week isn't going to get above 85º.

(and I can't believe it's almost August)

Not to be trusted....

Who's a big, fat liar?
Me, of course.
Big and fat and lying.
I didn't post here for 10 days,
and as soon as I do,
it's only to break my promise.
Here's the latest "dead birds are sexy" shirts
(that I made for my Off the Map Tattoo guest spot)
Thanks to Jessica for showing it off.
I have a couple left,
but not enough to sell online.
If you are at Identity Tattoo,
and I happen to have your size,
then it's meant to be.
Otherwise, you should have visited in MA.



And speaking of shirts,
Sunday was the 11th.
Never Quiet, Never Soft always has something for you,
every month, on the eleventh.
This time, it's an old favorite coming back
for all of you that missed out before.
Go check it out.

Art on Ice.

Minnesota, the land of 10,000 lakes.
Unless it's winter, and then there's none.

Ice fishing shanties pop up on the lakes each winter,
and I love everything about them,
except for the fishing part.

Luckily, this is Minnesota, so we have the Art Shanty Project.
There's 20 different themed ice houses on Medicine Lake,
(super close to Identity Tattoo)
and Meryl and I spent a few hours there today.



The highlights were the Shan-Tea (hosted by bearded ladies),
the ArtPost Shanty (the world's only post office on ice),
and the Art Swap Shanty (which we swapped some art with).



We're back inside now, of course,
staying warm and working on mail art.

1700 miles and 4 days later.

Damn.
I left Thursday for Ohio and arrived home Sunday night.
That's a 29 hour round trip road-trip.

Not much sleeping happened, but I did do some tattooing.
Thanks to JR, Mandi, Dustin, FX Tattoos and the entire Ashtabula posse for the warm welcome, the never ending supply of Dr Pepper, the paintings, flash, the ball busting and the fun.



Tanner said he was up for anything.
Jeremy answered the call for an animal with "Buffalo!", so that's what we did.



Dustin had wanted this 'Ode to Being 15' covered up with a big crow.
I sketched on his arm for a little while, ran through a few ideas, and we settled on this.
He said it was his longest tattoo sit ever.
It was certainly the most amount of ink caps he's ever seen used.
I even made him come in early to get it done.
Cockcrow in Ohio.





Here's Mr. JR Tubbs under his trophy from the once finished, now in limbo dreaded Antler Crutch War of 2008ish.
He's building an army out there, smoking cigarettes and armed with watercolors and dremel tools.
Right on.
(except for the smoking)



It's good to change up the scenery every so often.
Go to a different state, time zone and climate.
A different way of doing things, talking with clients, drawing, and doing art.
29 hours on the road is a lot of time to think.


It'll be a busy week.
The dudes shirts are being made.
More stickers.
Tattoos, mail art, painting, sending out the orders for the girls shirts and more.
And very little driving.

Back in the M.P.L.S

Oh man.
My very nice wife picked me up from the airport tonight, even though she was exhausted and had arrived hours earlier from the same place, with nothing but the bus (and cold) meeting her there.
She passed out before I got many stories told, even though I was talking faster than ever.
I'll be at the shop all week, with East Coastness pumping through my veins, and trying not to stumble over my words.

I got some of the tattoos from this week in decent photographic evidence.
Mostly because I didn't take most of them.

It's 1:38 am, I had a looooong day, and my bed is calling me, but I wanted to deposit some of the pictures up here.

Healing pics of the giant sperm whale on Rich's leg.
I got home to find the pictures in my email waiting for me, and looking way better than the ones I took after the 5 or 6 hour session the other day. It on an entire water sleeve, including the anchor on his foot.


Dan is another one of those long time clients that had plenty of embarrassing stories about me to tell the Off the Map crew. Jay and Tina drove up from CT to hang out, and it was a mini Wallingford reunion.

He even wore a dead bird shirt. Those two are the bestest and nicest, and I enjoyed the bunch of us going out to dinner that night, and even a bar or two. Here's a picture inside some weird tunnel bar of Northampton. Meryl and I will be staying with them in just three short weeks when we return East for more holidays.


Michelle and Aunt Tracy came up for Michelle's red-winged blackbird and poppy piece. We drew it on with Sharpie markers, and it got bigger and bigger than originally planned for, so we ran out of time and pain tolerance after a bunch of hours. But no matter, she's already visited Minnesota once for tattoos, and I have plans to return East. It won't be unfinished for long.


Amy's (mostly healed) book-carrying bird tattoo. Another one that was drawn on with markers, which seems to always come out way bigger than planned.


Yoda.
On Big Dean, on the same arm as the Stormtrooper. He was also nice enough to hang around while I packed up Sunday, and then he drove me to the bus station where I headed to Boston.

I got to stay with Randall Sunday night, which is always an absurd little adventure.

As expected, all of the girls' shirts got snatched up. Ada took lots of pictures during a late night dead bird session one night at Mike's house, and then drove me all the way back to the Maynard house at like 2:30 am. And she had to work a few hours later.
This seriously barbaric photo was in my email when I got home to MN.