WHO KNOWS THAT GONNA HAPPEN??

Blue Collar John — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 01:48:52 +0000

Tattooing has definitely changed in the past 6 years. Im actually looking into other avenues to make money. Thinking about opening a restaurant. Unless your on TV its tough to make money tattooing these days with assholes doing buy 1 get 1 tattoos and 100 bucks for all you can sit. This is a ghetto mentality. This is being done by people who have no respect what so ever for tattooing. Just in it to make as much money as they can until its ruined. I believe the term is “nigger rich”. When I first stated getting tattooed 26 years ago, tattooers made as much as doctors. Not any more. What the fuck happened??

Anyone want to see what I’m talking about just google OG Poppy.

GOOD SCORE!!

Blue Collar John — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 04:35:49 +0000

Scored an authentic Owen Jensen acetate today. From Lee Roy Minuhg’s collection.

Nice to have this in my hands. You can almost feel the vibes.

MY PLACE IN TATTOOING

Blue Collar John — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 02:29:37 +0000

Whats up kids. The years wrapping up and I wanted to share some thoughts with you guys. I am about to launch my new website in a few days. This is my new blog page to go along with the site. This will just be a collection of thoughts, opinions, rants and raves etc. The end of the year is almost here and I made A LOT of accomplishments this year with the help of some people. I wanted to thank and acknowledge those people for helping me on this journey. The first person I need to thank is my best friend and mentor Thomas Wilkinson. Tom is the whole reason I became a tattooer. Tom has ALWAYS been there for me. Even though some people said Tom was “wasting his time” Tom took me under his wing. He taught me about tattooing and more importantly taught me how to be a better man and have some fucking integrity. I love you Tom. Thank you for sticking your neck out for me and making it possible for me to have EVERYTHING I have today. When I first started really messing around with tattoo machines years ago the “influx” of builders and hacks alike had not started yet, well not really. That happened about 2 years later. However, new guys like me were still not met with open arms and acceptance. Just like any thing you have to prove your self before ANYONE gave you any kind of respect. I had already been tattooing for a couple years. Though my tattoo work was atrocious (and still is from time to time, haha) I kinda had a head start in the machine building thing. Prior to tattooing I painted cars and did auto body repair for almost 12 years. I had a pretty good understanding of metallurgy, welding, metal finishing, mechanics etc. Plus I’m a little smarter than the average bear. so that helped too. But I had some help from some really great friends in the beginning and I wanted to say thank you to some of the guys who stuck their necks out, even put their reputations on the line to support me and help me. First off I would like to say thank you to Donnie Irish. Donnie Irish and I have been very very close friends for close to 8 years now. I bought my very first tattoo machine from Donnie when i started tattooing. The machines he was building even back in the day ran great. Actually it was Donnie’s machines that made me want to start building myself. So the ONE maybe TWO people that hate on me, can thank him for getting me started hahahaha. Donnie was always helpful without telling me too much at one time so I could still learn some of the stuff in the beginning for myself. So I want to say thank you to my brother Donnie for all the support over the years, and for being one of my best friends. I want to say, NOTHING was just “handed” to me. Even when people told me stuff I still had to work very hard at making relationships with these people and gaining their trust and respect before they told me ANYTHING. I get these knuckleheads today that I don’t even know me asking if they can come to my shop and “watch me build”. Or they ask me where I get stuff or how I do stuff stuff etc. And I’m gonna say the same thing that every other self respecting, accomplished builder would say. Either work hard like we did and figure it out or at least make an attempt to build some sort of relationship with me first. Me nor any of my peers are gonna freely give away what we have worked so hard to figure out our selves. And speaking of peers. There are a few other people I really need to thank for helping me so much. Earlier I mentioned people who stuck their necks out and put their reputations on the line to support me and one of those people was Mike Pike. For some reason Mike extended his hand to Donnie and I. ?Mike was the one who pushed me to design my own stuff and gave me the means to do it. Mike was always and has always has been very supportive of me and has always been there to help me and I wanted to say thank you brother. Your a huge inspiration and I appreciate everything you did and I hope your proud of me. Another guy and close friend I wanted to mention is Seth Cifferi. It took me a long time to gain the respect of this man. As a matter of fact Seth and I didn’t get along in the beginning. But even through the times we were not friends I could not help but to be inspired by him. Eventually I reached out to Seth and him and I are good friends now. Seth too has stuck his neck out for me and allowed me to work with him in a collaborative capacity over the past year and I am very thankful for that. Seth Doesn’t just let “anyone” build on his stuff. he’s very picky as to who he associates with in this business and he has been nice enough to let me into life in this capacity. He has been very helpful and always extends his hand to me for help and I wanted to say thank you brother. Your a huge inspiration and a good friend. Im glad you consider me a peer of yours. It means a lot man. I hope I make you proud as well my friend. Another huge inspiration has been Marv Lerning. Marv and I break each others balls and butt heads sometimes but just like Seth he’s one of the innovators in this biz and always builds dope shit. Marv likes to break my balls sometimes. But I think maybe a few of those times I may have needed it. I make mistakes sometimes and some of these guys gave a fuck enough to say something. And Marv has ALWAYS been at the front of the line to do it,,hahahahahahaha. Thanks homie,, Your a fucking ball buster but you build dope shit and I have a lot of respect for your creativity. Thanks homie. A bunch of other guys helped me out in the beginning too. Tony Urbanek and Ernie D. Thanks for your help and friendship over the years. I also REALLY need to thank all the tattooers over the years who have believed in me and bought machines from me. I want to thank Clae Welch for opening his shop to me and offering to be a friend. Your an amazing tattooer, a great friend and a sick ass machine builder. I want to thank the Smivee, Rich Fie and the sledge hammer crew for buying like 100 machines from me. I really appreciate the support.? I want to thank my crew, the SBTC. You guys are the best friends a guy could ask for and Im glad we are taking this journey together. We will all get to be crotchety old pissed off tattooers together. Also thanks to my good friend Jade Damion for giving me a shot and being patient with me. Hopefully we all live to see 2013. So next year Im going hard. LOOK THE FUCK OUT!!

sorry for the poor grammer

BCJ

Blue Collar Irons

WHO KNOWS THAT GONNA HAPPEN??

GOOD SCORE!!

MY PLACE IN TATTOOING