Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Sitting 7 - Background COMPLETE



Date: March 8, 2012
Tattooing Time: 4.5 hours
Breaks: 2 (25 minutes)
Total Tattooing Time: 26.5 hours

Right after we finished up the lower-spine (right above the crack in all of its unforgiving, spinal-column brutality), Rube gave me a smoke break while the crew dragged out a table to replace the chair I had been A.C. Slatering.  When I came back in, I dropped trou and laid on the table awaiting what I knew was the final work on the wind-bars and waves around my ass and all of it's next-door neighbors.

Just as soon as he starts shaving my ass-crack (after all, my lineage is Scots/Lebanese/Hungarian/Russian), a Sade record rolls over on the in-house stereo.

"OH, SHIT," Rube yells as he uses his elbow to hit the volume knob in his workstation.  "Did I ever tell you about the time I saw Sade on tour?"

Which he proceeded to do, at length, as I listened patiently.

After the following three minutes of silence, he looked at me in the mirror on the wall and said, "Fuck... this is gonna go on the blog, isn't it?"

Yeah, dude... this is my lede.


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I've already said time and time again in this blog that my actual (butt) cheeks don't hurt very much when hit with the machine.  This day, however, Rube really got in there right in the crack to fill in all of the waves and background.

I don't quite care if you have a butterfly or a pair of lipstick-prints or your baby-daddy's name on your cheek, but when an artist is actually getting into your CRACK to make you look cohesive when you're standing upright...?  Well, that's a different sensation all together.  While the hand-mirror proves to me that he was quite far away from my trash-chute, I could have sworn at the time that his machine was on a direct mission to eradicate the hemorrhoids that I've been suffering in my advancing age.

Not fun in the least, but I jokingly thanked him that he had decided to do all the waves splashing out of my ass-crack so we wouldn't have to go back in there for color.

"Old trick of the trade," Rube joked.

It also occurred to me that - many years ago - Rube used a footswitch for his machine.  Now, no longer.  Obviously, I had to ask why.

He explained that the slight elevation of his foot was taking a major toll on his lower back and - if he could stop the machine expertly with his hand - why wouldn't he eliminate the pedal?

Unorthodox, perhaps... Or maybe just a man who knows his tools.  After all, I've seen my father do shit with a table-saw that yields beautiful results, despite risking life, limb and an OSHA lawsuit.

###

I can't possibly begin to explain how excited I am that the "background" is done.  No more black.  No more grey.  Well, that's the theory, anyway...

But the important part is that we now start with color.  Colors that neither of us have really discussed in much detail since I proposed this project, much less when we literally began it.

I worked as a graphic designer for many years (and this economy finds me back in that line of work).  I always hated the term "pop."  Clients or art-directors would always say, "Can you make it pop more?"

Well... my backpiece is about to do just that.  And I'm fucking amped.

Talk to you kids soon...

7 comments:

  1. I would agree in the notion that making things appear to come out of your ass would be more pleasant than the reverse.

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  2. It's looking fantastic. You now have a backpiece. All that lies ahead are a huge number of colouring hours, usually less painful than outline.

    I don't know how you have the strength to cope with such long sessions.

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  3. Not a fan honestly. Seen better from the rube.

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  4. Good thing its not tattooed on you, 4 deuces...

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  5. Thats EXACTLY what i said to myself after seeing it. Don't get your panties in a twist, no one cares!

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  6. Another nice write-up Brian and the piece is starting to coming together very nicely. I was up at Kings Ave on the Bowery this past Tuesday getting some color on my thigh piece from Henning. For the most part it went well with slight jolts of jarring pain here and there.

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