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.