TATTOOooooooooo!

Above, you see the shorn chest of one Shaun. Upon that freshly shaven chest is the pretty purple stencil for my new tattoo. Awesome. I know.



In the picture above, you are witness to the tattoo's outline at 70 percent complete. This picture was taken during the artist's Sprite break. Mmmm, cool refreshing Sprite. Ahhhhh.....
Anyway, at this point I had discovered where the most uncomfortable tattooing spots were. On the sternum felt like burning, and the lower pectoral region was the most painful. Like getting the flesh pinched and twisted over and over. FUN!!!!

I'll post another picture as soon as I pull the gauze off of my sting-y chest so's you all can see the completed outline. Until then...........!

Warped Tour, or The Music of the Apocalypse

Sweet fuck almighty.


This past Monday I attended Warped Tour with my good pals Jeff Elden and Mike Jones.
And we all agreed that despite the fact that we saw Less Than Jake, Bouncing Souls and Bad Religion in that order, no more than 10 minutes apart from each other, AND Streetlight Manifesto to end the day, that this once mighty bastion of punk music and culture has become just another cog in the machine that is popular music.


I remember seeing The Vandals, Dropkick Murphys, The Aquabats, Buck-o-Nine and others
I can't remember, but were ACTUAL punk/ska bands, at the two previous Warped Tours I had attended. These tours consisted of 90 percent punk/ska bands and the occasional Deftones or Black Eyed Peas (this was pre-Fergie, thank god). But now, now......they had bands that belonged to a bastard genre known as........emo-crunk? How can this even be possible? We saw band with a member playing a keytar (a horrible guitar/keyboard monstrosity) A FUCKING KEYTAR! With pants so tight I thought the guy would start bleeding from the ears.


I saw so many guys wearing make up I wasn't sure if we had stumbled into a drag queen pagaent of some sort.........or perhaps a Boy George look-a-like contest. It was fucking ridiculous.
It was just whiny emo band after crap hip-hop group, after nu-metal tard-gang, after whiny emo band. There were 69 bands playing, with approximately 10 of them worth seeing. I feel like my parents but, what the fuck is wrong with these kids? Are they mentally retarded? This was quite possibly some of the shittiest music I have ever heard that wasn't being played by your local Top 40 station! Some real asshat standouts were: Breathe Carolina (the aforementioned Keytar players band), Brokencyde (the aforementioned, sign of the apocalypse, emo-crunk purveyors), and a very classy set of 14 year old girls called Millionaire. Sample lyric, "let's get fucked up!". Fantastic.


I used to look forward to, and regret not making it to Warped Tour in the past. Now, I think I'll just dread its return.

Body Modification!

So. I have decided that I will be finally be getting my second tattoo.

Why, all of a sudden, did I decide to get another tattoo you ask? Well, here's
how it happened. I was flipping channels the other night and happened upon the
show L.A. Ink. I'd never seen the show before, but was familiar with Kat Von D and
the what the show entails. As I was watching the various people coming into the shop
and being tattooed I felt the urge to get another myself. So I started drawing.


I've been wanting to get a Chinese or Japanese style dragon for a long time
so I started sketching out a dragon design.....and then hit a wall. I could not think of
any other detail other than the basic layout of the body. So, I abandoned that (for now)
and got to thinking about other tattoo ideas. Which brought me to the design I've chosen.


As I sat thinking about images I wouldn't mind having stabbed repeatedly into
my body I looked around the room, and my eyeballs stopped at a book about the history
of one of my favorite bands, the Japanese horrorpunk band, BALZAC. I first heard them
about 7 or 8 years ago and have been a fan ever since. So, I began flipping through this
book and it had a few designs within that I thought would be good. Then I stumbled across
one that really stood out for some reason. I don't know why, but it just felt right.


Anyway, this post has gone on far too long. I'm going into Cheap Trix up on South
Grand to get the outline done this coming Saturday, August 8th. I might see if I can get the
whole thing done, but I just had them block out the time for the outline. I'm going to have Kim take pictures during the process so I can post them here.


I guess I'll see you next Saturday night. Adios!