'Clancy' has a Pabst Blue Ribbon tattoo as can be seen in the Hunter Barnes exhibition 'Scenes from the Outside' at the Milk Studios gallery.

I met Mike last night at the Hunter Barnes exhibition 'Scenes from the Outside.' Mike is the brother of Joe, who's photo was on display at the Milk Studios gallery. Joe's photo didn't make the exhibit.

The kanji symbol is for 'warrior.'

During SXSW, my friend Candice got a tattoo (a bit of surprise).

From Candice:

'When i was a kid i started writing in the journal just the little things i did during the day. As I got older i would add more emotions. And now, I pretty much live through journaling. I write at least once a day and on the rough days its more. It gets me through the day and helps me face myself. My tattoo was how i remembered in my head what the small pictures on the page of each journal looked...'

There is a collection of pieces from the Whitney Museum going on right now called 'Skin is a Language.'

From the pamphlet:

'The largest organ of the human body, skin is also the one with which we are most intimate, even as it presents the exterior to our self to the world. This exhibition, selected from the Whitney's permanent collection, explores how artists invoke skin, literally, metaphorically, to examine a diverse array of social and cultural phenomena. Among the themes the works address: skin as an index of indentity; skin as a location of a disguise, a permeable boundary, and a tactile surface; skin as a site for cultural inscription and libidinal pleasure; and skin as an exchange point between the interior and exterior. This presentation of sculpture, drawing, photography, and prints features works by Bruce Conner, Nancy Grossman, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Eva Hesse, Roni Horn, Jasper Johns, Annette Lemieux, Glenn Ligon, Catherine Opie, David Wojnarowicz, and Lebbeus Woods.'

Catherine Opie has a whole series of self portrait cutting photographs, the Whitney only displays one in the exhibit.

'In a short film by the artist Jordan Wolfson, making its debut at this year's Whitney Biennial, a man in a tuxedo stands before a white background, speaking rapidly in sign language. The edges of the frame cut off his head and legs, focusing our full attention on the extraordinary eloquence of his hands, which seem to move at superhuman speed. (In fact, the black-and-white film, which was shot in 16 mm, is slightly sped up.)'

more info @ slate.com

artist info @ jordanwolfson.org

Taking photos at the Whitney is near impossible as I had another short security guard (they seem to like to hire short people with Napoleon complexes) yell at me for taking photos.

I met Nicole last night at Olive's in Nyack. Nicole was bartending.

Nicole burned her hand on Thursday morning by spilling coffee on it. She has a tattoo of a heart with an owl inside of it. She likes owls.

I met Liz a year and half ago. She likes vinyl and drawing bears. Great person. Great artist. You should checkout her (portfolio) website lizzhickey.com once it gets rolling.

Liz has scarifications down her chest.

from Liz:

got my hearts done upstate at scarab body arts, by john joyce. he specializes in really nice scarification and when i saw his portfolio, i was really intrigued by the whole process of cutting, and also the healing process where the scars would raise after aggravating them.

i sat through two and a half hours of pain that eased down eventually. the worst part of my scarification, though, was the cutting out of the fourth heart! he cut out the whole entire heart and it surprisingly healed very well and evenly, which hardly ever happens.

overall, the reason why i chose scarification over any other body modification like tattooing or beading is because it seems more natural to me, as opposed to inserting a foreign ink into your body. the overall raised-scar effect i got was more than i wanted. the hearts i chose were designed by john joyce and i - i wanted something very geometric but also classy for myself?

i don't want super crazy scarification that i'll regret, and i definately don't regret the simplicity of mine.

Last night I saw Red Bastard perform.

I don't know what exactly what he's supposed to be, but I think personally he looks like a giant red Hershey Kiss- sort of. He kept touching himself in a extremely creepy sexual way, most likely to give people that kind of uneasy laughter they experience when they fart in public or laugh for the sake of laughing at an inside joke they might not get.

He was a great performer, but the sad thing is that there are plenty of overweight people out there that look exactly like him in real life (minus the red spandex).

Rant: To the "illustrated" lady at my gym

craigslist > best of craigslist

I met Dage Monday night with Presley at Hanger Bar. Dage was headed off to California early Tuesday morning and Presley wanted to see her before she left (best friends).

Dage has a custom Hello Kitty in a geisha motif on her left arm. Her inner arm has custom Hello Kitty skulls as well. Her ex-boyfriend- a tattoo artist, whom she met while stripping in San Francisco (?), designed it and did it for. Surprisingly he doesn't have an affinity for women with tattoos (ditto).

The star on her finger had these neat little dashes which sort of looked like it was stiched on her finger.

Her most recent work are the guns on her stomach. They had an inscription on the handles which I unfortunately failed to inquire more about.

I've been going to NY Adorned to get tattoo work for about 4 years now by Tom Yak. It's my home away from home. It's my own form of therapy that gives me peace of mind. I'm at the point right now where I am 'filling in the blanks' for my upper body. I start my back piece in 2 weeks.

I am aware that my stomach looks funny.

I met Alexis a few years ago when I attended SVA. Alexis is an artist and she does these amazing custom oil paintings of pets. You can see her work at her site, Welcome to the Doghouse. Some of her work is currently on exhibit at Doma Cafe & Gallery.

Alexis had recently gotten an octopus / leaves tattoo, she drew the design herself. I have something similar myself of a octopus with peacock feathers. She has also has a little water buffalo, you can she also is wearing a buffalo necklace in the photos.

Pictured is Una or Thea, I'm not sure. I'm pretty sure it's Thea. If it Thea, then she has Una tattooed on her. Her boyfriend, Andy- also has the same tattoo on his arm.

Again, amazing paintings, check them out!

I met Ada Saturday night. Ada is a graduate student and currently resides and attends school right out of Washington D.C. in VA.

Ada and her sister have matching tattoos. The text's language is in Lithuanian but it's from an Italian church bell which reads:

i call on the living
i cry for the dead

But her reads (she switched it):

i cry for the living
i call on the dead

Morbid yes, but a great idea. She was a bit apprehensive on the quality of it, but it looked great to me. She said some of the ink was letting out, but I felt it gave it character and gave it that 'old church bell' feeling.

I met Ashley Saturday night. Ashley is from Long Island and is a direct care counselor for the mentally disabled.

Ashely has been getting tattooed for 3-4 and in that time she has gone to 3 different artists. Ashley is 'feeling out' artists until she finds someone she is comfortable with to do her whole body (in time).

The window is self drawn, the work on her left arm is Henry Darger piece & what I liked the most were the EKG lines on her cuffs.

I met Nathan outside Beauty Bar around 1 AM on Thursday night / Friday morning at the Stache party. Nathan was with his friend Fuji, he had a lot of tattoos too, but I only managed to catch Nathan right before her put on his jacket.

Most of Nathan's work is all for aethetic reasons. Again, another person with very amazing, unique tattoos. The clown / skull xylophone is a Day of the Dead themed tattoo. Again I REALLY like all his work, especially the baby fetus skull.

I met Michael at some point over the past year or so. Michael also runs the Cut / Dirty Down parties w/Patrick.

Michael has a lot of work done. I like the human teeth and shark / anchor the most out of all his tattoos.

I'm sorry I don't remember your name, I am a huge asshole.

Most of her tattoos are names of her siblings / friends. I was afraid of accidently slipping into the pool (which is behind me) while I was taking her photo.

I met Presley's friend (sorry forgot your name) at Hotel QT in Times Square Tuesday night for Princess Superstar's birthday party.

She recently got her right foot tattooed. It looks like (to me) a camel / helicopter hybird type of thing. Also recently, a girl's stiletto pierced the middle of the tattoo. It is still infected.

Update thanks to Presley!

her name is emily
& the camelheli-copter is a band logo - of the band Grace Gale.
good meeting you dude!!

I met Presley at Hotel QT in Times Square Tuesday night for Princess Superstar's birthday party. Presley just recently came back from Thailand and mentioned that the over processed food here (in the US) made her stomach churn.

Presley has one of the guns from the 1996 film adaptation of Romeo + Juliet tattooed on her left forearm. She said her favorite party of it was that from the front it looks like a typical white trash tattoo.

I went to Atlantic City over the weekend. It felt like I was in an eerie Twilight Zone episode. The carpets of the Trump Taj Mahal were a bright purple and were run down like the fake grass of a mini golf course.

The first thing I noticed about the Trump Taj Mahal was the people there were mostly Indian. Now, at first I thought that the Taj Mahal idea was sort of kitchy idea, kind of like the Pirates of Caribbean ride or Space Mountain or even Taco Bell. I don't expect to see pirates, astronauts, or Mexican people at all these places because it's just an idea to make money.

Age wise, the crowd was predominantly extremely OLD. The young (over 21+) were scant and few to be found. Those who were in the 'young' crowd were waiting in ridiculously long lines at the expensive buffet dinners (even at 1 AM?). The old were definitely slaving away plopping away their social security checks in the money sucking machines. I was shooed away from the casino by a security guard who was 1/2 my size yelling 'NO PICTURES!'

I forgot your name too.

Update thanks to Janelle!

haha. okay so my name is janelle. and it is okay that you forgot my name cause i didn't recognize you with short hair. Britney had to remind me of who you were, so i'd remember.
you better come to our party on friday at 6s and 8s...
:)

oh and you asked what the kanjis meant.
the one in the ankh is beauty, and the other two are intelligence and prosperity

Nico's friend (forgot name).

He has severed impaled geisha heads, along with 'BADA BING' tattooed on his hands. The geisha heads were recent, he got them within the past 2 months.

Random guy, has a neat looking caterpillar / centipede thing.

Update thanks to Janelle & Joshua!

that's joshua katcher.. he is a film producer.

I met Nico Friday night at house party in Bushwick, Brooklyn.

Nico's black work on her arm took 5 hours (so far). She also has three rats, two on her shoulders (w/wings), one on her left forearm. The rats are NYC thing (there are a lot of rats in NYC).

I met Sebastian Friday night at house party in Bushwick, Brooklyn.

Sebastian has his cat's portrait, Thurston, tattooed on his right neck. Sebastian buys show cats. He buys show cats, but doesn't 'show' them. Show cats are pure-bred.

Thurston is his first show cat, also his oldest and favorite. Thurston will often catch small birds, like pigeons and bluebirds, bring them into Sebastian's house and drown them in his toilet (killing them).

This is the face of Joey Arak.

Joey Arak runs a popular weekly article on gawker.com called Blue States Lose (a guilty pleasure of mine). Blue States Lose is essentialy one insecure man's opinion where he rips on NYC yocals from perusing (stalking) various online photo galleries. Granted he writes funny captions, but keep looking at this face, and ask yourself...why should I even care?

In his latest edition, he highlights (in his opinion) 'bad tattoos'

You can find more info. on Joey Arak at his myspace.com page.

I had business cards made up a month ago. The graphic is from an acupuncture book I found in the library (my favorite place). I found that having a business card makes it a lot easier for me to approach people.

Pictured is Sheal and friend demonstrating the 'suck-and-blow' technique. Sheal definitely doesn't remember this (she was beyond drunk this night).

Computers are funny things. I just spent 2 hours of my life trying to fix this site after 'accidently' clicking on something I shouldn't have. Don't let the simple design fool you, there is way more to this site than just black-white text and photos. The strain on my eyes, the stiffness in my neck, and the expletives that come out of my mouth (why!?) can't compare to anything in this world.

I've been growing my hair since 2001. Since then, I 'trimmed' it twice. The idea of going to get my hair cut by a barber / hairdresser seemed like a ridiculous concept to me. Paying to get your hair cut seems like paying someone to have sex with you, or paying someone to give child birth, you can do it for free, so why not do it yourself or have someone help you for free?

I cut all of my hair using my Swiss Army knife because I didn't have a pair of normal scissors lying around. I was thinking of just buzzing it all off like in G.I. Jane or Fight Club but I felt I needed some sort of fuzz on my head. It took me about 5 minutes to cut through the main chunk of my ponytail off. My hair measured to be a little under 2 feet long from the root to the end.

I'm going donate the remains of my hair to 'Locks of Love' because everyone has encouraged me to do so. I know I said I wouldn't do any entries about me, but I lied. All gone!

Story coming soon..!

Lion & Rooster at work, more info at myspace.com/lionandrooster

Site coming soon.

I met Candice last week. Candice currently attends Parsons School of Design where she is studying fashion design. I'm pretty sure she is originally from Colorado (land of the snow).

Candice broke her left forearm snowboarding during Christmas time. She has had the cast on since then (about 2.5 months). She had it taken off last Monday, I saw her this weekend. I was too drunk in order to take a picture of her castless arm, but she did comment on how hairy (gross, I agree) her arm when it was taken off.

I met Roman Dirge at the New York Comic-Con. I semi-interviewed him throughout the 3 days of the convention. Roman has illustrated and wrote various comics through the years, his most popular being Lenore. You can find more info. on him at his site.

When I met Roman, I could only see that he had his hands and his neck tattooed. He had no intentions of wearing a t-shirt at the convention, seeing that the NYC area at this time of the year is extremely cold (I agree).

Roman (& his girlfriend Kiana) described the tattoo on his right neck being a 'celtic knot' jokingly kidding that it would eventually become a 'celtic blue blob' in a couple years.

You can see that he has a bat below his chin line, I'm guessing this goes along the lines of all things spooky, relating to his comics. The pumpkin is for Halloween, his favorite holiday of the year.

A sacred heart also peers out of the area in front of his voice box. The kanji symbol is for 'energy.'

He also has another sacred heart on his right hand which he drew on himself before his friend tattooed it on him. It was done in pieces, the heart first, then all the little accents. You can also see bones on his knuckles, also I am assuming, relating to all things spooky.

On his left hand he has a dragon which was designed and done by his friend Randy, who used to work out of a shop called Avalon in San Diego.

I met Jeremy Friday night. Jeremy works for marketing for Dark Horse Comics.

Most of Jeremy's work speaks for itself. Jeremy's most interesting tattoo is that he has a donkey with a horn strapped to it's head (ie: a wishful unicorn).

I met Tim on Saturday afternoon.

Tim did all of his of his tattoos himself (except one on his back). Tim was telling me a story how he was helping his friend tattoo his left forearm HIMSELF (not Tim). Tim was stretching his skin out and the needle had gotten stuck in his skin and Tim had to yank it out. Tim is also part of the Queens based 976 graffiti crew. I thought 976 might be area code related, but 976 is actually the area code that people used to dial for sex phone lines in the 1980's. The last photo is the symbol for the 976 crew. Nice guy.

These highly detailed 'tools' were created by Freedom of Teach. Unlike most figures/models these are made of a polyurethane resin cast. The models are based on African American Olympian (to show more obvious muscle definition). A complete understanding of the human anatomy is necessary for any artist who is drawing / painting the human figure.

You can find more info. at their site.

Scout Trooper from Star Wars.

I met Oscar Saturday afternoon.

Oscar has the second Arashikage tattoo I had seen at the convention.

He has 'South Paw Grammar' tattooed on his arm, which is actually the title of the eight solo album by Morrisey.

He also sanscrit for 'member of the warrior clan.'

This guy was walking around in a giant banana suit. He goes by the name 'CC Banana.' He kept saying I looked I was from Poison and my name was Tommy Lee. You can find more info. about him at this site.

This giant robot thing was huge. It had these blue LED lights for the eyes and it even made sound effects. You can find more info. on this guy at Hangar 18 Studios. He even gave out these cool plastic black light business cards too.

This guy was dressed up as Cloud Strife from the Final Fantasy series (I think).

Update thanks to anonymous! 'obviously that's vash the stampede from trigun. come on, you should know your cartoons.'

Damiana dressed up as Catwoman.

Note the fruit smoothee in Catwoman's left hand.

Scantily clad women at the convention. There were a lot of women dressed like this, but I felt like a pervert taking their photo so I abstained from doing that during the weekend.

The woman on the bottom, Jennifer, was promoting the old film, Monarch of the Moon. She was dressed up as one of the moon women.

Giant purple furry animal thing.

This costume was designed by Juda Tverski. The costume was made of this red rubbery material that was very porous.

I met Sergio Friday night.

Sergio had just gotten (it was freshly done) an Arashikage clan tattoo. Snake-Eyes from the G.I. Joe cartoon series had the same tattoo. This was the first Arashikage tattoo I saw at the convention.

Chris & Tim were at the convention all 3 days. I only caught them wearing their (ecto) backpacks on Sunday, they had all the lights & moving parts, but they unfortunately didn't make any of those classic Ghostbuster movie sound effects.

They are working on their fan film, Ghostbusters 3- you can find more info. at their site.

A giant cat and a puppy dog. I don't know what their deal was.

Update thanks to Amanda! 'from the cartoon MUTTS duhhhh'