Talk about yin yang... Up & down. First off... This is karma. The cutest little liger of all time. She came up to do a little show for dads company at I.c.s.e.
The down was that my sponsor manny died on the 19th. I'll blog about all this later. Just wanted to let eeryone know i'm still alive
I was just thinking of why my blogs address is nu-skool-nal-edge. My old best friend, jeremy cattoor, had it tagged on one of his 3 ring binders. It somehow made it into my things and I stumbled upon it years later. I thought it was a very cool edge-e statement. God that kid was creative.... And smart as all hell. Funny how little things can change who you are at your roots. Things that you never would have guessed. I wonder how he's doing now. Last I heard he was fighting some demons of the substance variety. Seems like it's a trend with people in my past. I feel for ya all and know that my thoughts and prayers do find ya many times a day. Keep trudge'n that road of happy destiny.... Until we meet again
I feel like a man in a desert.... And a computer is my water. Oh wait... I am a man in a desert...ha. It's been almost a week since our home computer has taken a shit. I feel so out of the loop. I drpped it off at sin city pc today. With any luck i'll be back to home interweb in the next day or two. As you may notice by the absence of 'o' in some of my dialogue, i'm blogging on my phone again. I thought if I blogged on my phone i'd be able to post more but as it turns out I just have a general lack of time. Tomorrow is my 2nd day off since we opened the new shop and honestly i'm not sure I deserve it. Sure I've been tattooing like a mad bastard... And sure this month has been the best of my financial life... But the shop id still in disarray. The dividers are not facing the right way... I have rope lights and tools that need to be organized. I still need to get a sign put up on the tombstone and a big one on the top of the entrance. I want to get vinal stickers for the mercedes. My bot kris did a great jb of tinting the shit out of it... Now it just needs a little flair. I need to put a top on clairs wall. There are about 7 pics I need to draw... I'm trying to get some big pics put togeather for the wall. Then I need to find a big printer. I have to put in an order for supplies... Pick up some general supplies. Clair and I are going to do some shopping for cloths.... I guess not having a pair of pants without paint or ink on them isn't cool. Oh yeah i'm going to buy a house. We went and looked at a big 5000 ft 5 bedroom 5 bath... 4 car number. Hope we get it. I need to post up pics of the ink i've done not to mention a bunch of shop pics. I have to call my grandfather... Mother... Granny. I've wanted to talk to justin for weeks nows. I miss the shit out of the vail crew. Somewhere in there I want t call paulie to see how his life is going. Oh my ex coralyn calld me out f the blue a cuple days ago so I gotta drop that dime.. Especially since she said something about being with her son.. Guess the rumors I heard abut her being pregnant were true. The guinea pig needs to goto the vet.. It has a nipple that is huge. The cat needs it's next set of shots... She has thrashed the front entry way to our apartment trying to get to this grey cat. It makes me wonder why though... She was fixed months ago. Rents due... Cams due... Credit cards are due... Gas is due... Electric is due.. Internet is due. I have to get the car in for an oil change... I need to look at clairs car. Steering fluid. I need to get my shit out of storage in pahrump and put it either in another storage or at the shop. I have a smoke shop sign I gotta sell.. Either ebay or craigs list or just to another sign shop. I wanna go get a couple dgital converters... I got a couple cupons. Oh shit... Taxes. I have t pay off the bookkeeper we were going to use origionally... She has all my 2008 paperwork.
Wow... Guess I better get on it... I have 24 hours... Then it's back to the ink. I miss and love you all. None of you are ever far from my thoughts and my heart.
Damn it... I lost my stylus... Lol.... I swear....I love life
I sometimes feel like vegas is just a big glittery blob that just keeps growing. It seems like it could just pop at any time.
My home computer went to shit last night. Damn it damn it damn it. If theres no fix for it.... It'll mean I lost the web site pages.. About 25 tattoos that I didn't get posted.... And i'm sure a bunch of shit that I won't miss til I need it. I can almost hear justin yelling at me saying I should make picasa albums. Damn it. I'm doing mobile posting now... Not sure how long til we get a new one for the house... With any luck.... More sooner then later.
Rita, the property manager, stopped by the shop un announced today. I'm waiting for some tenant finish money coming and she came to see if my claims matched up with the work. Fuck'n bullshit. I was working on a client so my brain wasn't really thinking that I was going to have to answer questions from a cranky, junkie looking, eyebrow raising, personality black hole. I'm just sicking dad on her now. There's a little surprise that we have up our sleeve. Can't wait to hear what happens with that. I'd write more but according to my lease i 'm not allowed to reveal the details. Guess I understand that.
I have today off. 1st time all month. Clair isn't letting me come in at all. I'm supposed to lay by the pool and work on my vampire tan. Think i'll call mom and justin.
I'd love to do more blogging. I really would. I'm on my 24th day of work. It's awesome but exhaustive. I'm back to being multiple projects behind and having between 2 to 5 tattoos to do a day.
In other news. Mom and granny came in for the weekend. It was cool having em around. We tought we we going to stay with us, but they ended up staying at one of dads companies houses
Shit! Shit! Shit! My phone is about dead.... I guess i'll try to write more later
Holy shit. Life is pretty awesome. Now. It was a pain in the ass sometimes... Fun other times.... And now is pretty cool and almost done....
K... Let me back track. The first thing was the pain in ass property management lady. I thought she was alright at first... Then it just turned into one damn pain after another. We had everyone take a look at the lease. My parents, grandparents, clair folks, her cousin the lawyer, our broker. It turned into a cluster fuckage of hurry up and wait. First it was the the lease.... And the multiple copies that I had to sign. Some of the emails didn't have all the pages and adendiums we missing. When everything got turned in the board of directors took forever to get a signature. All I wanted was a key so we could start the construction we needed to do. The whole thing was so fucking frustrating. I was getting 10 to 20 calls and texts a day. 'When are you opening'.... 'can I get an appointment'.. It got to the point where I didn't even respond. I'd do one or two responses and then i'd get so pissed I just couldn't think about it anymore. It sucked... Well.... Sucked is kind of light.....is fucking sucked big hair balls to light? I finally got a key.... Two weeks after my origional desired date. We painter... We cleaned... We built walls. Randy, chris, lisa, issac, clair, me, terrance, barry, jerimiah. We all got dirty... It was so great. The shop looks awesome thanks to them. I'll finish this up in the next day or so..... I'm watching some supernatural
The new 22 foot graphitti entrance piece. Notice the signatur cloud with all the people that have made the new Evilution possiable. Also I'm rep'n the 702 (Vegas) and the 970 (Vail Valley)
Holy shit. Friday the 13th is turning out to be pretty good day. We got keys to the new shop! Woo-hoo! Pics and other stuff to follow. I'm going to home depot to get painting supplies. Now the fun starts
Wow.... What a fucking roller coaster. I should have keys to the new shop.... Almost a week ago. But oh hell no. Every god damn time I think I got one fire put out it flares up again. I got insurance.. Yippy... Then the paper work didn't have the landlords name on it. I had email conversations... I got charged $50 for a retype... Then I find out I gotta pay the rest of the premium by the 23rd. And ya know... I haven't had the ability to make dollar one.
One the plus side.... Evilution tattoos is now Incorporated. How wild. Really didn't know that was going to be on the menu.
The bitch of the bunch is I'm so frustrated that I can't talk to people anymore. I'm sick of having to tell people that I'm still waiting. The more I hear myself say it out loud the more pissed I get. I wish that shit went as smooth as I hoped it would. But shit fucking happens. This is why there aren't tattoo shops on every corner in Vegas. You really got to want to do this.
I feel like still such an asshole for not keeping up with my friends.... I just wanna talk to them when I have some good news. Hope they forgive me.
Clair is sleeping on my lap... The cat is sleeping on her.... Piggy is curled into a lil ball... Think it's making me sleepy...hope tomorrow is key day.
It's been another crazy month. Usually I check the previous posts to where I left off.... But tonight i'm skipping it. I'm sitting n my couch under clairs sleeping legs... Watching some family guy. Here's the low down on life. Evilution has closed at the verona salon. The new shop is really close to becoming a reality. I've gotten thru most of the hoops. The first step of the health board is done. I had to take the plans in and have a meeting where I showdd how the shop will be set up. It went great... The best thing I did was print out pics of the pre-existing stations. Pretty smooth sailing like that.
The lease has been signed.... Soon to be twice. Aparently the first copy didn't have a one of the signature sheets. Now we have to go back over the entire thing to make sure i'm signing the same lease I originally sign. That is pretty much how this process has been going... From the start really. I got insurance yesterday... Thank you loyds of london. I have to incorprate the business tomorrow ...plus a couple more things just to get the keys. I'm losing business every day that I can't get up and going... I'm getting between 5 and 10 calls a day from people wanting ink and wanting to help to get the shop ready. Kinda cool having those kinda people behind me.
Clair put in her two weeks notice from home depot. Honestly it was a long time coming. One of the smartest women i've ever met doesn't need to get yelled at for improper watering. Bunch of horse shit. I think it was good for what it was... But i'm going to be happier having her run the tattoo shop.
My house is currently a disaster area. One of my neighbrs had to leave town in a hurry... Lost his job... No place to stay.... Only friend was in kansas. He didn't have a moving van so basicaly all he could take was the stuff that fit in a 4 door sedan. After I helped him load what he could fit he handed my his keys and said to turn them into the office when I took what I wanted. I ended up with computer desks, a tv, clocks, chairs, tv cables, ipod, tables, trash cans, glasses, dinnerware, entertainment center... So much electronic it's crazy. I basically got enough to furnish the shop. I've been havesome fun with stencils and spray paint ver the last couple days. I'll have to post some pics when everythings done.
So this was a little crazy. My grandfather has really been helping me on the whole project. It's been awesome. So anyways... I went down to palm springs last weekend. Papa said he wanted to let me borrow his mercedes. I thought it would be great to have 4 wheels again. That and I love the car. It always reminded me of my grandparents... Especially my grandmother Gyda. I was shocked when papa handed me the title and took me to get it washed... While of course showing me evrything there is to know about it. It's so fucking cool. It's a 1983 mercedes benz. Grandma green.. Tan interior... Turbo desil. It's amazing. I'm going to limo tint the windows and put some evilution stickers.... Can't wait. Pics coming soon. Been raining all day... But soon.
I'm gonna hit the sack... I think.... Or maybe update some other web stuff. I've been holding off on blogging because everytime I think I knw what's going on in life it changes in the blink of an eye. Can't wait to get things done so we can get a regular schedual.
I'm coming to you from cail tonight. I came down for a couple days to see the family since christmas was spent with clairs mom, her boy friend scott, and her dad. Christmas was good. Nothing really to report. We hung out at the house... Opened presents.. Ate way to much food. We all went to the titanic exhibit at luxor after. That was cool. Really neat to see some of the stuff up close and personal.
I write this now in another state of confusion. My first spot i was looking at for the new shop went south. Landlord wanted to see $45000 in my account before he would agree to my request. And what happens. I get that info at 10am... Justin sent me a text offering me an opportunity to go in as a partner in his new shop back in colorado... Edwards to be spacific... At noon. Then I get a message from the vegas broker telling me there's another space open that is one block further down the road that used to be a tattoo shop. I had the proposal sent to that landlord just to see what I could do with it. Now things are crazy. I've literally gone thru every way of thinking almost every 24 hours. And it hasn't seemed to stop. What I want keeps going frm one thing to another in a swirl... I have pros and cons for both choices. Clair would be happier back in the vail valley. That's a hell of a thing since she hasn't seemed happy since we moved. I'm still feeling the sting whenever I think of the wrk that i've done to get evilution up and running. Then just to walk away.... It hurts. I miss justin thom craig kaufman and all the vail friends. The time I was working with justin was the best time i've ever had and I know it would be great to get back to that. The vegas shop has tons of potential... At least that's what I think. And I believe I can make it successful. But ... Vail... Friends... Justin.... Damnit. This is the way my head has been going for the last two weeks. I'm still trying to find a way to have my cake and eat it too. Stupid I know just don't want to feel like a failure. And I especially don't want to hurt my friend randy. This is so damn confusing. Everyone deserves t have an answer.... I just need a little time
Oh yeah.... I turned 33 two hours ago. Happy birthday to me
I'm not really one for political stuff.... but the first part of this just cracked me up. Kinda stumbled across it because one of my clients thought she was the first on to say "Wasabi" instead of "What's up"....... don't ask
For some reason this song just popped into my head. It was this old rave song. It goes "the end of the earth is upon us. Pretty soon it'll all turn to dust. So get up. Forget the past. Go outside and have a blast". Not sure why.. Weird. I was gonna blog longer but my client showed up early. Damn it. Guess I should just be happy that I have a client. Justin, terri and the kids are down for the weekend. Really happy to see em. I just feel better in general when justin is around. Maybe it reminds me of better days. Hmmm.
Strange times are upon me. Clair and her mom have gone to eli nevada for a couple days. My grandmother and father came down for the weekend. The economic crunch is starting to be felt all around. And here I sit yet again... out back... Smoking a cigarette... Waiting on a client. Kind of feels like groundhog day sometimes.
I miss clair. It's only been 24 hours... And I already feel lost. She really gives me purpose and direction.. I just never realize how much til she's gone. I hope she's having a good time. Last word I had on her was that they were going on a hike. Beautiful day for it. She needs some nature. Anyways.... I'm off to scar the world... Where the fuck is my client?!?!?!
Shiiiiiiiiiiit...... I just wrote two cigarettes worth of stuff to blog.... I hit send.... Now I have no idea where it is.... Damn it! I tried to blog... I swear
Well... Finally a free moment. I'm sitting out in back of the shop, smoking a cigarette waiting on my next client to show. Nothing big tonight... Just adding some grew clouds to my buddies arms and back. Guess I better catch up.... Or at least catch my readers up. The new shop is still progressing along. A sign company did a mock up of what the space would look like with the evilution sigh above it. Gotta say... Looked cool.... But not sure if it's $14000 cool. I just really liked the look.. And I got stoked thinking that one day it will be a reality. I still get nervous thinking about the money aspect of things.... But really... Who the hell doesn't. Especially now a days when everyone's hurting. Thank god tattoos seem to be recession proof... Or at least not as effected as other people. I have a few people on deck for workers. Might even have Megan out here as a piercer. I think it would be cool t get a tight knit group of artists. I miss that about the eagle vail ink lounge... And mountain ink. I loved the artist feeding off other artist aspect of those times. It seems like it I lost it somewhere. It's funny. I started taking some blank white canvas shoes and painted/drew on them. It's the first piece of art I can remember doing for myself in a long time. Sad I guess... But hell... That's the tattoo biz. My catharsis stuff has to come out... I just put it in other peoples artwork. Sucks when I feel like drawing a crying eye for me, but I have to sketch a pretty flower with a nautical star for some client. I keep hearing people tell me I need balance... But how the hell can you have balance when you need to clear $4500 a month. I sneak down time when I can... But fuck. Anyways.... Clair and I are doing good right now. Hmmm.... After just writing that sentence I don't know how to follow it up. I keep thinking about who's going to read this and what ramifications it will have. I remember back in the day when i'd write i'd have to deal with phone calls the next day from people wondering if I was suicidal or just depressed. Now I have a wonderful girlfriend who doesn't understand why I don't write more about her. Simple answer .... I don't want her to think i'm not being honest and open with her when we're face to face. Things could be misinterpreted. I'm such a pussy. Screw it... Clair and I are cool. We stress about money.. About family... And about our apartment. She cleans like crazy and i'm a slob. Not a gross slob... I just tend have piles of paperwork floating around... And cloths.... Damn it. I don't mean to be. I just lose focus when i'm doing things... And then I lose time.... Then shit piles up. Sucks. Our beef with family's is a constant strain. Everyone is cool... Her folks love me... My folks love her... We just haven't figured out the rolls that everyone plays. It's a strain but we're working on it. Money is pretty self explanatory.... Just another strain. Las Vegas is far from my last destination in life... And clair hates it. I just want to get the shop up and self sustaining.. Then.... Open up the next one.... Not sure where yet. I'm trying to stay focused one this shop. Why I wanna work hard and make this happen big. You know...95% of things are perfect... And the other 5% is just standard relationship shit. If it was perfect it would be boring. I think we're as perfect as we can be. I love her and she loves me.. What the hell else can I ask for. Life is interesting. I mentioned that I lose focus lately. It's weird. I'll have 6 different thing's i'll want to do. See the girlfriend... Do other things with the girlfriend ... Blog... Clean... Draw... Update web stuff.... Run the numbers from the shop.... Reply to the phone calls I got during the day... Watch some downloaded show or movie... Feed the cat and piggy.... Cuddle the girlfriend.... Pay bills... Check bank account.... Fret.... Worry... Sleep.... Do it all again. Ever notice when things get busy and crazy.... People tend to suck more. I had a couple social situations lately that just made me cringe. Sometimes you have expectations of people. You think they're cool... Then they just fade. This I the problem with having hope in people. I hate looking at people and knowing how things are going to turn out.... Or worse... Knowing what must have happened to them to get them to the point they're at. People in denial or just turning a blind eye. It's ruff to watch. It's a reason I didn't like counseling. So much potential wasted. So much energy wasted on meaningless shit. It crawls up the soul like poisons root and just destroys the host. I've found that when I'm riding my motorcycle home and I think about those people people.. I just shake my head and sigh. It's sad. Goodnight princess... Goodnight prince. I hope the light finds you before you hit the walls I had to. You will be missed if you do fall.... But by not by as many if you just pulled up out of the nose dive. Anyways..... Bet you're wondering if I was talking about you now, huh? Does it seem like it? Maybe I am. Looks like my client just pulled up.... Woo-hoo!
I was hoping to write a big blog tonight but I dicked around too long trying to update evilutiontattoos.com. Now i'm just too tired. Maybe I'll do it tomorrow sometime since I think i'm gonna take the day off. I got tons to write about.... But for now... Smoke then sleep
I was poking around some of my friends sites and just realized that I never posted a link up to my friends Thoms site. He has all our episodes of our radio show up and ready for DL. BIG tip of the hat to Thom-E Boy for this..... go check it out. Just click on the "EVIL Radio" logo on the menu bar... or the Vail Life Logo. Here's the direct address...
These are a couple screen shots from a Fox 5 report on the Verona Spa. I didn't know I was on it til a month after it aired. Nothing big. Didn't mention my name... but at least I got a quick shot of "EVILution" on the door
Wow. It's been a bit on my blog post. So much is happening right now. The tattoo shop move is going forward. It's stressful and a little intimidating , but I know it's going to be great when everything is said and done. My dad is at our house now and were trying to get the last of the paper work done so we can submit it to the landlord tomorrow. Mom is moving back to cali to go to school. I think she'll be happier there. I know she loves being close to me and clair but Vegas just isn't for everyone. To be honest it's not really for clair and I either, but we're going to stick it out til the shop is successful then we'll move on to the next expansion. Business is going good. A lot better then I would have thought given today's financial situation. I'm still booked out almost two weeks in advance. I continue to struggle with keeping my prices where they should be. Often opting to take projects ad charging whatever people have instead of what they are worth. Fuck! I really got to work on that. A few other things have happened that are pretty wild. I now have tattooed 4 of the riders in the 'tournament of kings'. Awesome bunch of guys. I also tattooed one of the reporters for fox 5 news. Really nice guy. He said I should come down to the studio when we get the new shop up and he'll hook us up with so promotion and p.r. How cool is that. Had an interesting evening a little over a week ago. I can't really go into details due to it might hurt someone else. Just not a good idea. Guess the best I can say is that clair and I had a good night.... A very fun.. Interesting... Crazy.. Good night. Gotta run.... Business stuff to do.
Looks like we're one step closer to getting the new spot for evilution. Dad sent a letter of intent to the owner yesterday which laid out or stipulations. Mom called me today and said that the property management didn't reject a thing. Now I have to get all my bank statements from the last year printed up... Get a credit report printed.... And then figure out just how the hell to put it all togeather. I really didn't think things were going to move this fast. I'm excited and scared all at the same time. Looks like i'm going to need some new artist soon. God help us all
Granny and dad are in town for a few days. I haven't sen gran in over a year. That sucked.... But i'm so happy to see her now. This is her roll.... She hates pictures
I'm taking the day off. Or at least that was the idea. Days off really aren't days off right now. My to do list is pretty big. I'm sitting here At Alamo Carwash waiting for clairs rav 4 to be cleaned. I dropped her off at work and hijacked 4 wheels for the day. It was just a little easier then taking angel (my motorcycle). From here I need to go to the shop...blockbuster... Then call soph to try and arrange a coffee.... Head home... Work on a floor plan for the new shop... Finish the custom art for clairs tire cover... Get a web page designed for vegasink.tv.... Water the plants... Feed the cat... And more and more and more... Everything else is cool. Clair is so great.... I'll elaborate on that later. I think dad and granny are coming into town today. Can't wait to see granny. It's been forever.. Car's ready... Gotta go. How much do I tip? Shit.
Just another day in pair-a-dice. I'm waiting for a call from the bank. I'm shooting for a loan so we can move to shop to a bigger space. I dig the salon, but I've hit a ceiling on space. It's too small to have as many people as we've been having. I start getting claustrophobic... And as a result... Grouchy. God.... I really hope I get this loan. I'm taking tomorrow off and drawing up some blueprints. Fun.... Scary... Seems like just a year ago I was going thru the same thing. =)
Today was our two year anniversary. Very cool. We got messages and facials. It was awesome... Now we're sore as hell. We're curled up on the couch watching terminator the sarah conner cronicles. So great. We grabbed a bite at 3 tomatoes and a mozerella. We were a little too sore for going to the belliago to check out the fountains. Another day. Today was amazing. God I love my girl friend.
Sad day. Clair and I were going to go to the Young Dubliners concert tonight... One problem... It turned out to be a 21 and over show. I'm bummed. Clairs bummed. We're sitting at the house... Clairs playing world of warcraft... And I'm blogging. Woo-hoo for a day off. I need to draw a couple things... But I really need to get some of the business things. Here's the catch up on life... The shop is going good. I'm making enough to pay the bills... Problem is I have a pretty big principal to pay down. Solution.... Bigger shop. Less rent. More workers. More incomes. I'll fill in the rest of the happenings soon... I got to get some nicotine. I know I can smoke and blog now... I'm just not 100% with this yet. By the way.. I added the 'mail mother' ringtone from Eurotrip to my phone... Now every time I get an email or text message.... Ding ding 'MAIL MOTHERFUCKER'!
I'm sitting out back of the salon.... Sweating my ass off. My phone says it 99 degrees but it feels like 120. I bought a pack of camel crushes last night. Kind of crazy. They have a little ball down in the filter that you pop with your finger. It makes a regular cigarette into a menthol. Kind of like a mint after a meal. Still not sure how I feel about em. I guess I'm just bullshitting cause I want to see if this blog from my phone thing will work. Hmmm...fingers crossed.
So i'm trying something new. Mobile phone blogging. I got a new phone... At&t tilt. This thing kicks ass. As a result I thought it would be a good idea to try out updating my blog from it. These are my test runs. Btw.... The dark knight was awesome... Hence my pics.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
