Ten Years Later

Today is my high school's (official) 10 year class reunion.
Too bad I'm 1300 miles away,
I could've been partying like it was 1999.


Who woke up early to go buy stuff this morning?
Gross.

In the spirit of the 18 year old me,
I loosely planned an Adbusters' style "Buy Nothing Day".
I packed a lunch of Thanksgiving leftovers, and headed to work.
When I got there,
I realized that even though I wasn't celebrating Black Friday,
Not Casual Friday was still happening at Identity Tattoo,
and I wasn't wearing a tie.
So I hit the thrift store super fast,
and got a shirt, vest, and tie all for 11 bucks.
I don't feel too bad,
it was second hand,
and Adbusters sold out years ago.

Fashion superstar:

Thanksgiving Eve

Among other things,
I'm super thankful that I didn't get punched in the face today.

Hannah got her first ever tattoo,
and it took 5 f'n hours.
Around hour 4, I sensed that I might be in danger.

Luckily,
we made it to the finish line with only one of us bleeding.
She has big plans for it to continue some day, with background,
and wrapping around the arm, etc.
But for now, that's a serious first tattoo.

(the picture doesn't really show how high up it goes)




Who's ready for Thanksgiving tomorrow?
Not me.
I'll take the day off, you don't need to ask me twice.
And Meryl and I will certainly take first and second place (respectively, even)
in Total Food Intake,
whether or not anyone else is keeping score.

Speaking of food,
Megan and Joan weren't kidding when they said they'd
overnight us some Brooklyn bagels once they got back.
There was a big box on the porch this morning,
with a dozen doughy delights inside.
I ate up a marbled one immediately,
and we're bringing the rest to dinner tomorrow.
Those two are awesome.

dribbling poison and blood...

Jordan wanted to have a full sleeve, and keep it Nordic themed.
So we're completing his arm with the story of Thor's fishing trip.
Sea serpents, giants, ox heads as bait.
Here's Jörmungandr, Thor's enemy.
It wraps around his forearm,
and yes, there's a severed ox head on the end of a fish hook in there, too.
That's officially badass.
One more session, and we'll have it finished,
and I'll post fully healed photos soon.

A little bit of Brooklyn.

Louderhorn Inn was full of food and laughing these last couple days.
Megan and Joan came out to Minneapolis to hang out, get tattooed, and overeat.
They were only here for 50ish hours,
so we just crammed it all in.
No kidding.
We hit Hard Times, Seward Cafe, Evergreen, Triple Rock, and Mayday.
And Meryl cooked an awesome meal somewhere in there as well.

No tour of Minneapolis is complete without a trip to Ryan and Rebecca's Garages of Oddities in NE,
where there's lots of taxidermy, bicycles, and craigslist scores.
Here's their latest find, a 1950's Exercycle.
It plugs in, and you have little control after that.
East coasters getting their laugh on:





Joan loves birds, but just didn't know she loved dead birds as well.
(now she's converted)
Here's her new (not dead) goldfinch.



Thanksgiving is right around the corner.
I'm certainly thankful that I know lots of awesome folks,
and that so many of them take the efforts to come visit us out here.
We're flattered that everyone has made Minnesota a destination
(especially in late November!)

Almost back to *normal*

It was a rough week,
but I'm doing much better now.
Dr Pepper free for eight days.
My blood sugar has (mostly) adjusted,
and my violent mood swings are much less frequent.
I haven't been blogging much,
because unlike some people who only get funnier the worse things look,
I only get uglier.
Today's appointment actually called a few days ago to make sure I'd be in good enough spirits to successfully tattoo him after seeing my previous post about quitting.
So good.

We have some rad guests coming tomorrow.
Megan and Joan of Brooklyn NY are headed this way to get some bird tattoos,
eat a bunch of vegan food, sit around a fire, and see the sights of Minneapolis.
Megan has been friends with us for ages,
and I'm very much looking forward to it.
There may even be some art making other than tattooing going on,
but this weather in the mid 50's might keep us outside and riding bicycles instead.

I need everyone's addresses again.
My computer blew up while I was in Northampton,
and I lost everything.
So if you've ever gotten mail from me,
(or wanted to)
email me your address to shawnhebrank(at)gmail.com
While you're at it,
you can send me lots of good music as well.
But don't feel too bad for me,
I got the new 27" iMac to replace the blown up one.
And it's sexy like a dead bird.

An ugly road ahead.

Friday the 13th.
I make my own bad luck.
I quit drinking Dr Pepper,
and immediately regretted it.
Imagine my standard shop antics,
but with less joking when I'm poking fun.
Irritability has been turned to eleven, for sure.




I celebrated my first day of Dr Pepper Independence by going to a Dark Dark Dark show.
Meryl and I met up with Camden at the Bedlam,
and we got a weird spot behind the drum set.
Drum set?!?!
Yup.
If you didn't go,
or got turned away at the door for being Kyle Mack,
then you missed out on some serious lineup changes.
And guess what?
It was so dope.
I felt a lot better during the show,
but once it was over, I still couldn't have a soda.

It's officially my weekend.
I've been working or traveling every day since Mr Albie Rock got married.
(and I'm beat)
Tonight I'll be dreaming of high fructose corn syrup and carbonation.
Withdrawal is a bitch.

Lighthouses are sexy.

Steve has been getting tattooed by me for a while,
and has caught me at a few of my locations over the years.
Even that exclusive Rocky Hill one a little while back.
(wink, wink)

This was his first Off the Map trip,
and his first piece that wasn't black and grey.
So I eased him into color with some muted up business.






Steve was my last tattoo of the guest spot this time around.
After that it was packing up time.
I can't believe another seven days of work have gone by,
seems like I was hanging with the Cucch at Albie's wedding just yesterday.

Amy and Jaime made me a seriously amazing last supper tonight,
and homemade vegan chocolate mint ice cream sandwiches for dessert.
Amy has some serious baking skills.
I hope to be designing some logos/flyers/stickers/labels
for her baking business sometime in the near future.

I'm off to get a few hours of sleep,
and then we're headed to the airport in the morning.
Goodbye, Northampton.
And Maynard House.
I miss you already.

Dressed up cats, squared.

I really like Amber.
She wore her dress with cats wearing bow ties
to get a tattoo of her cat wearing a dress.
Personified portraits of pets,
very Alfred Mainzer-ish.
So we gossiped it up, and had a good time.
And I got both kinds of dressed up cats in the photo above.


Triple Daddy Dean and friends came up to bar hop around Northampton with me.
No kidding.
I had four club sodas and a water,
and I thought I was going to burst.
That tunnel bar place is pretty dope,
looks like there is an old train station above it.
We should have gotten kicked out,
with all the rail sliding and shoving and falling on the floor going on,
but all the bouncers were small dudes reading books.
But we stayed till close, and the Wallingford kids headed home.
So good to see them.

Today's my last day at Off the Map Tattoo.
Tomorrow is a full day of driving and flying,
then unpacking and refocusing,
because Tuesday I'm back-and-at-em at Identity Tattoo.
Who plans these trips?
What an a-hole.
Thanks to everyone out here that helps make me feel at home.
And thanks to Meryl at home (with help from Casey) holding down the fort.
She's had more than her share of old house horrors while I've been gone,
but hasn't complained once that I'm east coasting it up instead of being much help.
I have the biggest "to do" list ever waiting for me in Minneapolis,
but I'll be happy to be home.
See all you Midwesterners soon.

Todd for President

Todd sat really well for 8 ish hours.
We stenciled, sharpied, outlined, and shaded an entire multi-seasonal sleeve for him.
He certainly ranks pretty high with how long he sat and how tough he was,
but the award he gets is for Mr Popularity.
No kidding,
5 different groups came in to see him,
with a grand total of 10 visitors.
Off the Map has never seen such absurdity,
and neither have I.
Here's a close up on the area we actually got to coloring before time ran out.




Tyrant and Tina came up, and so did Jay and Tina, and we met up with Amy and Beth for some tasty dinner action.
On the way from dinner to see Jaime,
we came across this super amazing sticker.
I thought you all should be able to enjoy it as much as I do.

Firefoxing it up.

Mr Rich decided to get a red panda on his upper thigh,
and it increased his cuteness factor immediately.
I took this washed out photo for now,
and hope to have a better one sent to me soon.

Rich is such a good guy to tattoo.
He's been around forever,
even dating back to the pre-Turnpike days.
And he reads Albie's blog,
so he knows what's up with pretty much everything.
Trying to fill in new clients with 5 years of backstory gets tiring.
(not that it stops me from doing it)
He was helping me cause trouble today,
without even being asked.
'Active Participator', for sure.

Mary from Off the Map joined Amy, Jaime and I
for some vegan chinese food afterwards.
Butterfly
It's MA's version of China Pan.
So good.
Northampton is a pretty great little town.
I'm so happy to be here,
and with such good company.

Early to Rise (for me)

Forget time zones and Daylight Savings.
I'm on Maynard House Time.
(which is kind of like old person time)
So today I was up and at em before 7 am.
And I don't have to be at the shop until 12.
If I had any idea what I was going to tattoo on Mr Jurman,
I'd have been so prepared.

It's not even noon yet, and I've already killed 3 Dr Peppers.
So gross.
I actually feel like I'm going to fall over from the sugar.
Or throw up.
I just hope I don't throw up and fall into it.
Especially while I'm tattooing.

This morning I snapped some photos of Amy's absurdist nature world arm addition.
So much fun,
I wish I could come out here and do a week guest spot of tattooing just her.



I jumped onto the shop computer and put these together for easier viewing.

East Coasting it up.

Day one at Off the Map was super full.

I tattooed Mr Matt Norman, formerly of the Connecticut band Disaster Party.
Ever come to The Warehouse in Wallingford that Meryl and I used to have music and art shows at?
One time they played there, and Matt was so late coming from work that he played still in his chef outfit.
Jeez, that seems like a million years ago.

He got this Man of War jellyfish for the first half of the day,
and sat like a champ.



After that, I tattooed my now very good friend and Maynard House-Keeper Amy.
She got more work done to the antlered book topped birdhouse.
We've got plans to add to that every 6 months till I die.
But her skin hates getting tattooed, so I'm going to wait till tomorrow to grab a photo of that.

Anyone notice what time it got dark last yesterday?
4:45 pm.
It was such a beautiful start to the day, but then it was night.
I'm glad that I didn't have to worry about the hour time difference since
Daylight Savings Time met me the first night I was here,
but dark before dinner is not right.

My email's not working, of course.
I have some time open on Thursday out here,
so if you want it, give me a call here at Off the Map Tattoo.
413.527.6574

I'll be here,
enjoying the few hours of daylight,
and eating a few months share of bagels and pizza.

A little tired, but still really good.

I have some good friends, for sure.
But I also have the extra special kind that make things happen,
and go way out of ways for me.

I've been on the East Coast for 30ish hours.
Albie and Jess had a very limited edition wedding of folk life sexiness in their epic fortress of a house.
It was so worth the 9 hour round trip to see them marry it up.
I helped a little, slept even less, and stayed for for a grand total of 15 hours.
I haven't seen his two kids since they were 2 and .5 years old,
and now they're 9 and 7.
So crazy.
And now the Cucch and I are hommies for real,
not just friends through Albie and Blogger.
He got my second ever tattoo many years ago,
and I haven't really seen him since.
(I don't blame him, I bet it doesn't look too hot)
In another hour he'll be in a taxi headed to the airport,
and I have to say,
he f*in wins.
Best Man, indeed.


Tyrant is the most dependable dude around.
He did a sketchy package pick up for me today,
and then he and T picked me up at the rental car place and brought me up to Northampton.
For a super busy duo, they really hook me up every time.

And they dropped me off at the Maynard House.
There may be brand new roommate people here, but it doesn't make it any less a 2nd home for me.
Amy and Jaime know how to make a dude feel welcome.
It's a good place to be.

I'm very thankful to everyone so far.


Tomorrow I'm starting at Off the Map already.
Thanks to FOIL for hooking me up with the heat pressed hotness
on these shirts I got just for the week.
I love dead birds.
You, too?
Come and get some,
I'll be here all week.