Sitting on the lap of an old man on Christmas morning

My Dad snapped this Polaroid of my sister Kelly and I when we were 1.5 and 3 years of age, respectively.
Yeah, I'm the one on the right.
That guy in the middle came into your house while you were sleeping last night and left some unattended packages. He's apparently been watching you for some time.



Maryland has been treating us well, lots of good food and loud games.
The Hebranks are some wild, competitive creatures with serious lung power.
I sometimes think of myself as having super powers, but really, my whole family has the the same volume control issues.
Poor Meryl.

I hope you all have a good day, (even if it's just a day off playing video games)
Take pictures, you'll love looking back in 24 years.

To Be Continued....

Today was my last day at Identity Tattoo for 2008.
I had an awesome year here.

But I realized around 3 pm that I wanted to close out my last day with a bang; something fun and nutty and very blog worthy.
However, my schedule called for otherwise.

I resorted to some serious mind control antics, and willed things my way.
Really?
Yup.
(sorry Ben's dude.)

Rebecca and I both got an early Christmas present from Ryan. I got to do this baby antlered owl, and she got to keep it. Even though she had only 15 minutes notice, she came with some vegan ginger snap cookies for me as well. (she's vegan too!)



Have I decided that the Great Antler/Crutch War of 2008 (which I surrendered to the fearsome JR Tubbs of OHIO some time ago) should continue?
Did I not learn my lesson when JR did the portrait of ME, with antlers, on Dustin's now much sexier leg?
Can the defeated side even begin these guerrilla attacks after 'the War' is over, and trophies have been issued?
I don't know, my friends.
But I DO know I'll be seeing JR on HIS turf for three full days of madness in barely over a month.
And I'm sure he'll have a lot to say about this.


Also, I know everyone has gotten some snow recently.
And, yes, I know some of you have gotten snow in places that haven't seen snow in ages.
But it's negative temperatures here.
Tomorrow it's going to be -25 degrees F with the windchill.
I promise you, you don't want to even imagine what that's like.
I shoveled when I got home from work tonight, and gave my right earlobe frostnip.
I'm not joking, it's so swollen, it looks like the skin will burst.
What does one even do for that, put ice on it?
Also, this week the pipes in my downstairs bathroom froze.
No water to the sink, or toilet.
I'm not bragging, I'm just putting things in perspective.
So stop your whining, Eastcoasters, or I'll resort to posting pictures of my disgusting eargrowth.

Progress Shot.

I was slow at the shop today.
Actually, so was Todd.

So we planned out how we're going to make bird houses out of books.
Amy from Northampton got that bird and book tattoo, and I've been sketching ideas for these ever since.
I will be posting pictures as soon as we make them.

Later on, I started this piece on Kyle Mack, Ben Rettke's apprentice. He's pretty rad.
He wanted a sheep getting literally brain-washed.



I look forward to finishing it. That brain is going to be so clean, it's going to shine!

One thousand words warped into perfection.

I don't know who took the pictures at the Boston Tattoo Convention that got put up on their website, but there are 168 photos of pretty mundane convention stuff.
Some tattoos, some group photos, some tattoo artists making that silly faces because cross eyed and dumb looking is better than just dumb looking, right?
But then, number 59 (and 61-it's up there twice) comes out of nowhere for the grandslam.


It has everything a good photo should.
A fish eye lens of awesome.

There's so much I want to write about it, but it'll just take away from it's glory.
Like a sunrise.
Just keep your mouth closed, you're ruining it.

Click on the picture for the fullsized version. It's even better large.

*Big Dean's temporary tattoo done by Tyrant*

Website back up.

www.shawnhebrank.com was down for a few days.
Which isn't the end of the world, but that means any mail sent to s@shawnhebrank.com did NOT get to me.
Please resend anything from the past 4 days.

Thanks!

Got Places to Be

Here's a picture Big Dean took of me while I tattooed him at Off the Map.
Maybe it's because it was the last day I was there and I was tired, but I look so sweet and peaceful.
In every picture of me, you can do a "Where's Waldo" type hunt for the Dr Pepper can.
(Even in tattooed portraits of me.)
The story of that tragedy just made it to some new website called TattooBlog.
They sent over 10 average questions, but I sent them back a little creative nonfiction instead.
You can read the short version of the Great Antler and Crutch War of '08 all over again here.

I'll be visiting the winner of said war, JR Tubbs, his beautiful family and FX Tattoos in OHIO late January for a 3 day adventure. I made up an arrival announcement card.

Get ready, Ashtabula.
Lock up your pop. (soda)
JR's gonna be vegan the whole weekend, Sophie's turning 5, and I will try and top the Philly Convention in pure absurdity and volume.
Really.
January 30th, 31rst, and Feb 1rst.

While I'm discussing travel days:

I'll be headed East for the Holidays December 23rd - January 2nd.


That means I'll be at Identity Tattoo till December 20th. (the 21rst and 22nd are a Sunday and Monday, so the shop is closed).
I'll be back in the shop January 3rd.

(then there's a Dark, Dark, Dark show January 4th. Meryl and I just bumped into them at Seward while they were home visiting, and are so excited for the show. They are on tour, so check the link to see if you're lucky enough to be near one of the tour stops.)

There's a lot going on before I take another trip East. Email me, call, or stop by the shop if you're wanting to get tattooed while it's still 2008.

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.

Thanks Giving

I am sitting in Northampton by a roaring fire after a day of friends, family, and two massive vegan Thanksgiving plates, each one eaten in a different state.

I'm thankful to my most amazing hosts ever, who not only took care of me during my stay here, but also let me borrow a car to drive into Connecticut for a big family Thanksgiving dinner. It was nice to be on the farm, eat some amazing food prepared by Meryl and Casey, take a walk and play some cards.

I then drove back to MA, and arrived just in time for a second plate of food.

Thanks to Gabe and the wonderful people of Off the Map Tattoo for hosting me this week.

Thanks to everyone who drove up from Connecticut to get tattooed by me.

I don't have photoshop on this computer I'm borrowing, so these pictures will be resized and fixed when I return to MPLS.



and

My first day.

Today was the first of my seven day stay out here at Off the Map.
It was like the first day of school, having to meet lots new people, remember names, get accustomed to the different ways of how the shop runs, figuring out where to order vegan food, etc.
It's a great shop, with some rad people working there, so things went pretty smoothly.
Todd from Pedal Power kicked off my week with this bicycle mechanic pin up girl, AND two dead rubber duckies on his tummy.



The house I'm staying at while I'm here is awesome, and I'm being really well taken care of, and I have a really exciting week ahead of me.
It's good to be on the East Coast again.

Dead Birds Are Sexy (round II)

There's a super limited number of these girls shirts that just got dropped off to me today. I think I'm just being a jerk by posting them, though, since I'm sure they'll all be snatched up when I'm in Massachusets starting tomorrow.

I will post when I can. Have a great week.

T minus 3 days

So there was a bet between Ryan and Will on whether I would use the word "posse" or not if they came in a group of 5.
They did, and I said it within 5 minutes of their arrival.
Will got paid.
Ryan got his tattoo finished.
And we ALL made fun of Tony the entire time, who last week got a tattoo, then passed out in the bathroom. But before he hit the ground, he headbutted everything within reach, and wound up with a pretty nice little gash on his forehead, and a scrape on his nose.
He was fine, but his posse won't let him ever forget it.
If it were me, I'd find new friends.
Or at least never be in the same tattoo shop with them again.



Chef's Ruin.
Like Man's Ruin, but specialized.
Hot waitress', alcohol, money, fire, and time.
I guess that's the clean version, since Ryan's a good dude.
Normally, it'd be just the waitress', cocaine, and ego.
Right?

He has the black and grey chef skull and crossed knives on the same arm, and we're planning out the rest of his themed sleeve to be worked on soon. Should be rad.

Today's Thursday.
I leave Sunday for MA.
I have a ton of stuff to do before then.
I look forward to seeing everyone, and doing some serious tattooing out there.

Mini Seattle Reunion

So Johnny came out to MPLS yesterday from Pittsburgh, and Caitlin comes today from Canada/Wisconsin/Taiwan.
It's going to be an awesome and full house.
Johnny, who I haven't seen since I left Seattle in 2002, was brought out to Identity Tattoo by Camden yesterday, and we had a late tattoo night.
Camden got a moth tattoo in the collarbone ditch area, and didn't even blink.


I was also able to snap a few healed pictures of some of his other tattoos. The library half sleeve has been almost impossible for me to take not-sucky pictures of, but these came out ok.






Ben Rettke started working at Identity Tattoo yesterday as well. He's moved into the middle station, and we're excited to have him on board.

"Because the Universe is chaos, but chaos picks favorites."

It started snowing this morning, after hitting mid 70's earlier in the week.
Things have been so turbulent lately,
it seems only fitting.
But with Obama getting elected, it finally seems like we're headed towards a saner world.
(But honestly, wasn't Sarah just a riot?)



This kitten was hiding from Shamira (and the wet) in our not so boarded up basement window. Meryl was sure it was a skunk, but when I coaxed it out, and it was a cute, hungry and cold kitten instead, she brought it into our downstairs bathroom.
Which is awesome, since I'm allergic to cats, and Shamira will sit at the bathroom door drooling until Meryl decides what to do with it.





The Wingnut Dishwashers Union recently uploaded new music onto their website.
"Never Trust A Man Who Plays Guitar"
It's so good.
Pat used my drawing for the cover of it, which is flattering.
Meryl and I have been listening to him since he was 17, and had him play at that warehouse we ran years ago in Wallingford, CT.
Yesterday, while playing it too loud at Identity Tattoo, I sketched this.



I did some tattoos as well this week, but my computer had a meltdown, and I'm not sure what the fate of everything is yet.
Pictures, files, and major programs are missing, hiding, or digitally evaporated.
Good thing I keep making more.

Halloween! (part 2)

In the real spirit of Halloween, I am apparently cursed this whole week.

Maybe it's because Todd usually gets hit with the majority of hilariously bad luck, but since he's not here this week, it falls into my lap instead.
It's way funnier when it's happening to someone else, so please hurry back Todd.

I did do this Halloween themed tattoo today:



Tomorrow, Ann is hosting a scary movie night, and hopefully I can hand off my hex to one of the other attendees, and be done with it.

She responded earlier this week to the "Aircraft Safety Card" blog post by sending me a picture of one that caught her attention.
What is up with that purple tuxed out charachter?



I do hope that you all did better than I did for Halloween.
Meryl said we even ran out of candy for the trick-or-treaters early.
Man...

Halloween!

Oh my goodness.
Yesterday, Mischief Night, (which should be a National Holiday, but is pretty much just a East Coast thing, I guess) kicked my ass.

I had two customers cancel their appointments fifteen minutes before they were supposed to show up. A lot of sitting around was done after that.
Then, I went home and got served legal papers, saying that someone else held the rights to the title of our house, and that I had to go to court, or else.
What?
I know.

Pumpkin carving?
Not last night.
Getting together a costume for Halloween?
Nope.

However, when I woke up today and started trying to get answers and figure stuff out, things started getting better.
Turns out, there was a big mistake at some law firm, and a misplaced number made a big mess out of everything, and we're actually free of all legal action now, since it wasn't even our property that was ever in question.
Mischief indeed.

I was so distracted, though.
My Halloween kind of fell apart.
I'm not wearing a costume, or even the tie for "Not Casual Friday".

The good news today, though, is that the little dead squirrel's ghost is haunting our yard, and still chewing up the pumpkin.

Happy Halloween!

For Your Safety

Adam flies a lot.
Russia, Iceland, Hawaii, Japan.
141 nights this year (so far) all in the same kind of hotel.

When you spend that much time on a plane, you actually read (and get into) the "aircraft safety card".
Some people collect them.
After spending days looking for the perfect one, I can definitely appreciate whatever illustration subgenre they might fit into, and had a lot of fun on this tattoo.

Just burn away the cold.

I know, I know.
It's been a while.
Things have been kind of hectic lately.


But currently we have Adam in town from NYC, and we've been having a great time.
He's been here a few times or more, knows his way around town, and even showed me a couple dope spots.
We decided tonight that since it was a Monday night and only 35 degrees outside, we should probably invite a few of our mutual MPLS friends over for a fire, vegan cookies, apple cider, and dog bites.



It was only Friday night Steve told me he didn't believe me Shamira was a monster.
Monday night, he was convinced.



Dear dead little Squirrel,
Oh You,
Who until recently lightly nibbled on just one of my pumpkins daily,
Left nuts in my mailbox,
and taunted both my wife and my dog by hanging onto the window screens.
Was it was the upcoming winter,
or the fact that I removed the screens in Meryl's room and replaced them with storm windows?
I gave you a proper garbage can burial and know that Thursday,
which is pick up day,
you will go to a Squirrel Heaven of sorts.
There will be others, of course, but none quite like you.

And you can send me dead flowers every morning

October 7th I posted a sketch of dying flowers and mentioned how I wasn't exactly overwhelmed with dope projects lately.

Today, I did that very sketch on Camden as a tattoo, and I was almost overwhelmed by all the dope projects thrown at me.




We had some of Identity Tattoo's favorites walking through the door today, starting before we opened, and ending only well after we closed.
I did consultations and drawing-on sessions, tattoos and even a touch-up.

The timing was key.
I needed an influx of awesomeness today.
I was not in the mood for any awesome-sucking shit leeches.

Pumpkin. Pumpkin. Pumpkin

My sister snuck a picture of me walking off with a pumpkin from our outting on Sunday... I did a pumpkin sketch on Monday.... and I did a rotting pumpkin tattoo today.
Now, I don't know about tomorrow, but I have another pumpkin tattoo to do on Friday.

Wikipedia tells us that the "traditional American pumpkin is the Connecticut Field variety".
So good.

Two Hebranks, One State

My sister Kelly came out to Minnesota for a 3 day visit, and we packed it full of autumn-time fun.
On Sunday, we drove to Taylors falls, about an hour Northeast of the city. The colorfully dying leaves and amazingly warm temperature made for a perfect day trip.


There's not really any falls anymore, apparently.
There was a giant spinning root beer mug and a town library of roughly the same size.
We took a paddle steamer, Mark Twain style, down the St Croix a little ways, and then back.






We stopped at an apple orchard that had tasty apples, and very friendly goats.



We found this 15 acre lot that was full of pumpkins and a trailer parked out front that was letting you pick them. I'm still not convinced it was their pumpkins to sell. But we pulled a metal wagon into the lot and picked up some pumpkins for our house and Identity Tattoo.
At home we cooked up dinner and Meryl made two apple crisps from the days' spoils.

Some things never change at all...

Today as I left for work, I noticed the vines that cover my old fence really changed color in the past day or two.
And their leaves are falling off fast.
Two of them dropped just while I was standing there taking pictures.


Speaking of old, I went to go see "Overkill" tonight.
Not because I like eighties metal, but because my old boss from Turnpike Tattoo is on tour with them.
1980
That's when they formed as a band (and I formed as a fetus).


Here's me and Party Paul


In my head, there's a big pile of pretend things that I have almost no appreciation for, and metal is lumped up in there. Next to WWF wrestling, JRR Tolkien, and anything to do with Star Wars from the last 15 years.

At least with metal and wrestling, there's the understanding (for the most part) that the emperor is, in fact, naked. You can throw devil horns, play air guitar, and there's a sense of being ironical.
Everyone likes pretending they believe in Santa.