When I was a kid and in high school I did a few tattoos on myself and a couple friends by hand and with a home-made, nothing skillful or or with any quality thats for sure, but cool shit none the less, hell nobody had tattoos back then, so I thought I was cool and most people thought I was stupid for liking tattoos.   I did try to hang out and learn stuff from Cliff Raven at “Sunset Tattoo” for a couple months but was quickly given the boot as I never had money to buy a tattoo (Duh), and, like a dumb kid, I said something Cliff didn’t like.  I got tattoos from Mark Mahoney and was helped out with this & that by him and sometimes Mike Brown if I had a question about something and I was lucky I would get an answer, mainly only if  I would do them a favor, run an errand or bring them some money:) “those are some great memories”…but, of course, I wasn’t allowed to tattoo at any shop.  I tattooed at home on friends and their friends when I was lucky, but I wasn’t very good.  Then I lost my eye and my mother died, all inside of 4 weeks, and I lost it.  I went to live with my aunt Verna and relatives in Nacotee Florida and tried to get my head back on right, I almost opened a little tattoo shop there with encouragement from my cousins Carl and Linda, but I didn’t know enough to tattoo full time any ways …took about a year to get out of that depression though.

Then I moved back to California and lived in my car for about 8 or 9 months till I saved up enough money to get a first and last for an apartment…soon talked to one of my experienced tattooist friends about an actual apprenticeship and was told that he had never seen a good one eyed tattooer and was not really into apprenticing me…I still tattooed at home once in a while but was very discouraged and it was hard to learn and teach myself to draw again without depth perception, very hard…about a year later I went to Mark Mahoney and talked seriously again about an apprenticeship…he said that Rick Walters might do him a favor and help me out and  he  sent down to Rick at Bert Grimms , the first time I went down there he asked how much money I had in my pocket and I said about $4oo (for my rent) he took it, and told me to come back the next day…the next day he had a couple machines for me to use at home instead of the crap I was using, and he said I could hang out to watch and listen while he worked, as long as I was “out of the shop” by the time the night shift came in, cause they would get pissed that he was helping any one out that wasn’t a real apprentice.   Rick was in his late 40’s then… for the next 3 or 4 years that is how it went with Rick…  I would tattoo at home at night and he would help me out during the day ,  and all along keeping my morning job at a commercial print house, 4:00 or 5:00AM at my morning job 2:00 or 3:00PM at ricks shop then 7:00PM to midnight with drawing and or tattooing at home… a few years like this was very hard on me and I lost about 40 pounds and weighed like 145 pounds, and at 6 foot 2 a lot of people joked about me having aides or something lol..any way then after getting a bit better at it Kari Barba gave me a job at her shop, outer limits in Anaheim California.

I still don’t feel that I really had the true hang of proper tattooing for another 5000 or so hours, and feel that it took 5000 to 10000 hours in the skin before I really had a following that could support  my family, but still with no retirement, and I can’t put my boys through college like I wanted to…

to put things into some sort of time frame, my last year in high school was 1980 and I was not hired by Kari Barba until 1994.or 95   ..if i did not love tattoos themselves from child hood, no way would I have stuck it out, and it has been hard,  nothing has come easy or quick…

IN GRATITUDE

Thank You Rick Walters, Mark Mahoney, Mike Brown, Kari Barba & Cliff Raven

Now I do this every day, not as a hobby, not on the side… and i love every minute!!

Always stick with what you love and stay true to yourself and family…no real skill comes before 10,000 to 20,000 hours, and don’t do it for the money only, the money will come with an earned and honored time, all the tattooers I have known that were in it just for the money because they were good artists lasted 5 to 10 years then bailed…ride through the hard times and be patient with yourself and life… and only sit in the same room with who and what inspires you as a good tattooer!