If it looks like a duck...

Kyle Mack is a character.
He came up with the basic idea of a duck with weird legs,
illustrating that on the surface everything would look normal,
but underneath would be a different story.
I think it's another version of his wolf in penguin clothes idea.
(he can't help it)
But this time we didn't tattoo it on Kyle,
Mike Shoemaker took it.
(and he's a character, too)

Thanks Kyle,
your absurdist mutterings inspire me greatly.

And thanks to Mike,
for always being up for something fun on you forever.

Don't knock my smock....

You know I like Dark Dark Dark.
That's been mentioned before.
But last night I had such good company:
Ryan, Rebecca, Camden, and Meryl all joined me for the show.
The stage was packed,
since everyone was in town to record the new album this week.
They even had a 6 person choir singing along.
So f'n good.





That's not a brutal tooth cleaning I'm giving that bear.
I'm helping Ryan tan the hide of some unfortunate roadkill.
We don't exactly know what we're doing.
(I've only taxidermied birds and boobs before)
But he ordered a box full of supplies from Van Dykes,
and bought us matching aprons.
We spent the first half of the day dulling up some scalpels,
and being fully grossed out.
Not a bad way to spend a cold Monday in Minneapolis.
Even for a vegan.

Back and at 'em.

This blog was neglected for over a week now.
I had a serious case of desynchronosis
(I even missed a Dark Dark Dark show Tuesday night,
so you know I'm out of it)

Yesterday Mr Matt Norman planned an extended layover in Minneapolis
(on his way from California back to Connecticut),
so I picked him up at the airport,
and tattooed him for about 4.5 hours.
That kid is so funny,
and we got a lot done on a vintage map lower leg sleeve.
Afterwards, he took Meryl and I out for some Ethiopian food (so good!),
I dropped him off at his hotel, and then I went straight to bed.


Anyway, there never really was a end post to the Japan trip.
It was amazing, and beautiful, and weird,
and so unlike anywhere I've ever been before.
Meryl and I took 300 photos in the 15 days there,
and if you have a few hours and a horrible curiosity,
you can find them all here.

But before I finally move on,
and start posting tattoo photos again,
here's one last picture from our trip.
Minnesota loves some food on sticks,
but I think Tokyo wins.

Crows are big in Japan.

The crows in Japan are Jungle Crows.
They are bigger, meaner, and louder than the crows you have.
After feeding them and taking pictures for the last two weeks,
I see this story on NPR.org.
ooops.
Sorry, Tokyo.
But they are just so dope.
And they really are boss in Tokyo.
But not in Kyoto....



A kettle of hawks?
I saw a swirling bunch of birds from 2 blocks away,
and I knew something was up.
I knew they were bigger than the crows, even.
I've never seen anything like it,
there must have been 20 or so,
and there was even some dive bombing going on.
By the time we got there,
the big deal was mostly over,
and they just circled around for the next 10 minutes.
The crows, however, pretty much stayed put.
They hung out with the ducks and pigeons until the hawks left the scene.
(I don't blame them)

Parts of Kyoto were pretty sexy.
We only had two partial days in the city,
and I'm tiring of being so on the move,
but I really enjoyed that area of Japan.



The Kiyomizu Temple at night.
Click on the link to see it during the day,
built all on stilts (and without nails).



Two more nights in Japan,
and then back to Minneapolis.
I hope you missed me,
and saved me some fried potatoes.

I have a lighthouse fetish, it's true.
Old, busted stone lighthouses that keepers used to keep,
living on little rock islands far from the mainland?
So sexy.

Big shiny metal ones don't really speak to me the same way,
but the "Tallest Lighthouse in the World"?
That's quiet the superlative when talking lighthouses.
Meryl and I took and elevator to the top of the Yokohama Marine Tower today,
and looked East at the Pacific Ocean.
(i know, so weird)




After hanging around the top floor of the lighthouse for a bit,
we ventured over to a different part of the city,
and then came back to see the waterfront at night.



And here's the lighthouse all lit up.



I like compound words that only get better when compounded.
Light-house.
Houses with big ass lights on top,
telling people at sea what's up.
I'm not sentimental about all things antiquated,
but the etymology of the word lighthouse leaves out anything tower related.

Observation decks?
Elevators?
You only get away with that if you're an "-est".

Horiyoshi III Tattoo Museum

Meryl and I decided to leave Tokyo,
and traveled to Yokohama for the Horiyoshi III Tattoo Museum.
We expected a weird little basement filled with tattoo memorabilia,
human oddities, old photos, and stuff for sale,
and that was almost it exactly.
(there wasn't anything for sale)

I know I got some tattoo friends back home who are super jealous and thinking I am undeserving to have visited such a tattoo mecca since I have so little enthusiasm for tattoo history.
But there's a "I (heart) dead birds" sticker on the front of the museum anyway,
and Horiyoshi III's wife told me I was able to sign the tattoo artist guest book,
which happened to be a plastic skull.



I am glad I went to the museum on this trip to Japan, for sure,
because all this stuff might not be around much longer.
None of it is exactly being displayed in any kind of archival manner.



(this antler display is pretty hot)




Ok, so I'm probably an a-hole,
but I wasn't converted.

Luckily, Yokohama also boasts the tallest lighthouse in the world.

My poor leg.

I barely made it.
No kidding.
There was a few times I thought about tapping out.

A 5.5 hour hand poked (tebori) tattoo kicked my ass yesterday,
and didn't feel too much better today.

Bunshin Horitoshi was awesome, though.
He met us at the train station,
and we walked to his studio together.
He let Alex and Meryl take a gazillion photos while I tried not to cry.
Here's a fish eye lens shot that Alex took,
and a link to a few other ones he took here.



Here's the torture sticks.
He pushes them into the skin really quickly,
and they make a popping sound as they exit the skin each time.
So gross.
But Horitoshi was really fast,
and otherwise super gentle.



Here's the finished tattoo.
(I stole the photo from his website)
It's a kirin, a mythical (vegetarian) giraffe creature who spits fire.
I had told Horitoshi ahead of time to tattoo whatever he wanted in that spot,
and that's what he chose.
It fits in there perfectly, and looks awesome.
I'm excited to drop my pants every day to show everyone when I return.

After the tattoo, Meryl and I took him out to Indian food,
and he gave us lots of pointers for the rest of our stay.
I'll be seeing Horitoshi again at the Philly Tattoo Convention,
which is exciting,
and I'm considering future visits to Japan.
(maybe even to work)




During the tattoo, Alex had to head back to Nagoya.
We really enjoyed having him come visit us,
and he couldn't possibly have been more helpful or awesome.
He even scored us last minute tickets to the Ghibli Museum,
which was a pretty incredible place.
Alex posted some other photos from our few days together here.

A few photos from Japan.

I'm not going to be able to catch up on this blog,
so it's pretty much just a few photos from the last couple days.

This is the ways vegans eat in Japan.
That stuff that looks like baked beans is natto (fermented soybeans).



There's not much graffiti in Japan.
I've only seen one spray can piece,
a little tagging, and only stickering in a few parts of the city.
This artist has a bunch of variations, and every one of them is hot.



Here's Meryl trying to win at pachinko.
(she didn't).

Open up the gates of hell and roll me through.

Alex is an old internet friend who lives in Japan,
and he came to Tokyo to hang out, take photos,
and steer us very clear of all things fishy.
He's vegetarian himself,
which is not an easy thing in Japan.
He's also a super dope photographer with a sexy blog,
when it's not being hacked by Turkish militants

There's so many shrines tucked into little pockets of Tokyo.
Inari shrines have red bibbed foxes.



Me in front of Rodin's Gates of Hell.
Possessive and plural because there's three of them,
one in Paris, one in Philly, and one here in Japan.
Who's coming to the Philly Tattoo Convention?
We should add The Rodin Museum to the list of places to visit.
It'd be rad to have a photo in front of each.

The Imperial family only shows themselves off twice a year,
so when they do,
everyone wants to be there.
And since we happened to be here during one of those two special days,
we thought we'd get patted down to join in on the fun.
We went to the Imperial Palace,
got handed paper flags,
waited for the family to come out and say hello.
I'm not sure what they did say,
but everyone was very excited and pushy.



Did we find the lighthouse?
Kinda.
We must have looked lost and sad, apparently,
because some very nice old man took pity on us and walked us right to it.
Why is it hard to find?
Because it's right in the middle of Tokyo.
It's kinda near the Imperial moat, but not really a place for a lighthouse.
From what I can tell,
some over-induldged higher up just had a fetish for lighthouses (who doesn't?),
and just put it close by without any actual need.
Awesome.



Meryl and I walked our tushes off all over again.
We did some Kabuki theatre, which really mixed things up by adding some standing
to go along with our walking.
And traditional Kabuki?
It was an absurdist comedy interpretive dancing drag show with audience participation.
I don't speak Japanese, so I didn't really get it (at all),
but it was still pretty rad.

We're packing every single day full as possible.
We even are able to stay up into the night now.
Jetlag is a nightmare.
I feel like an old man.

Tokyo at night.

The First Sun.

New Year's Day.

It was such a beautiful morning.
We woke up on our own at 3 am,
wide awake and completely disoriented.
Serious time changes happened on the way here.

It was about 5:20 and 35º when we went looking for the Gokoku-ji Temple.

The Japanese make a big deal about the New Year, and all its firsts.
Like the first time you see a sunrise (Hatsuhinode),
and the first time you visit a temple or shrine (Hatsumōde).
Being at a temple while seeing the very first sunrise of the year, then,
is pretty much the hotness.









One of the traditions is getting a fortune for the New Year
at one of these shrines.
If you get a fortune that isn't positive,
you can tie it to a tree, or sometimes a fence,
in order to make sure it doesn't come true.

Meryl picked us a not so great one, which was cool,
because I wanted to tie it to the branches more than I wanted a good blessing.




I walked around Tokyo from before the sun rose till after it set.
And I think my legs are going to fall off.
What am I doing today?
Walking around Tokyo.
All of those photos were taken before 9 am,
and I'm trying not to over do it.
Meryl will be updating our flickr account later, and I'll post a link then.

There's a secret lighthouse we're trying to find today.
There's so very little information about it (in English) online,
so I wrote down the kanji translation, and we're going to find it.
No matter what.
Our friend Alex is meeting up with us tomorrow.
He lives here now, and is fluent in Japanese,
so we'll be in really good shape then.