Maverick ZINE — Tattoo Culture, Art & Artist Stories

I love that I have the experience now and then you know now I'm working for you and don't try to manage anything but because I got to see that other side of the business I see things differently now what's happening my name is Austin Spencer this is support your local tat thanks so much for hanging I'm super excited about to this this today like this this is one of my dudes this is one of them uh one of our fantastic local tattooers an amazing artist very kind kind individual overall so anyway so uh you know like a little project we got going on here support your local tattoos we just kind of want to get out there and get to know some of our people in our community some underdogs some big dogs all the dogs matter in this party all the dogs all the dogs so anyway um let's get into it man this is Joshua suck Cliffe and he has some fun interesting stories I think about getting into his apprenticeship on a TV show this is some wild so hang in there with us and uh let's hear some weird so um so what's happening dude I just kind of you know like we did we like to do is just kind of get a feel for your origin story get a feel for where and how you hell how the hell you got into this industry yeah it's uh definitely definitely interesting yeah at least for me yeah you did uh you did your apprenticeship on a TV show yeah which in a casino in Las Nevada which is a whole lot of Firsts I don't had anybody ever done their apprenticeship on a TV show uh not that I mean not that I don't

think so cuz we had the first TV show or it was at the same time as Miami's Inc yeah you know so maybe there was uh yo was it yo Yoji y yaji not Ami Ami's the uh the tattoo I can't remember the apprentice's name anyways um I was doing an apprenticeship uh in a casino and they had a TV show on A&E and I mean I was 19 at the time and there's no other TV shows so I did you know fast forward it by 20 years you look back and there was no one else doing that you know um let alone have a tattoo shop in a casino which that was also a first yeah so uh luckily I think I was 19 and was oblivious to the world and the industry and didn't have to overthink anything it was just sitting in the pocket and enjoying the moment and can kind of focus on my apprenticeship yeah a lot of distractions at the time but but uh you know over thinkinking the situation was not one of them so that's good I don't know if I can do it now a little like backstory on the shop the shop was Hart and Huntington yep har Huntington uh at the Palms Hotel uh Carrie Hart's shop yeah famous Motocross stunt dude famous for doing the backflip first ever in a competition yeah landed a backflip 2000 I think motorcycle which was a big deal at the time doing triple back flips but yeah anyway he W the did it dude yeah and set some crazy standards there for the rest of the that whole sport yep so then he was also kind of you know obviously very into tattooing I was actually around doing I was kind of like fresh out of my

apprenticeship maybe in my apprenticeship and I was watching him get tattooed a lot in Las Vegas which was super fun my mentor was tattooing him yeah Dave Dave log yeah so uh so that's kind of cool we have a whole bunch of ties there but this shop opened up and he like literally kind of he broke a whole lot of rules he was one of the first like especially like famous like known people that didn't or wasn't a tattooer and went out and opened a tattoo shop right which was a bit you know kind of little little faux paw at the time the pond at least in the industry yeah yeah but he went on to do some really cool and uh build out that business to be super successful and one of the fun successful things that he did was get the TV show popping yeah

and then somehow like found you in the in town and yeah yeah well specifically my cousin Jason roof uh was one of his best friends growing up and so he got a job as the first manager there oh yeah okay and my cousin growing up was like a brother brother to me and actually I remember getting a phone call one night asking if I I wanted to be a shop helper so I knew this was opening up for a while because of him and there was just cool to know someone that was going to be a part of that and then I got a phone call asking if I wanted to be a shop Helper and I vividly remember not I pretty much quit my job that night and and I was like 18 19 at the time like and I'd never I didn't put in my two weeks I actually still feel bad about it to this day never and you know we had land we have cell phones at the time it land lines and I remember getting phone calls like where you're not at work where you at you know ghosted them yeah yeah yeah I still still feel bad about that to this day but that's how I got a job at har and Huntington so I was actually there two or three days prior to actually open to the public they did a soft opening to the employees at at the uh the palms and yeah I was just a deer in headlights mostly because of Carrie you know I had met him before but it was just like I know I put him on a pedestal and yeah yeah he's successful still still kind young dude out of Las Vegas like he was one of the first you know guys that I saw out there like really like holy like go

big and get out of not get out but like you know yeah come out of this town you know it yeah yeah yeah yeah so yeah then the shop opened and I so you started as a helper you were just clean and doing the standard you just jumped in just to be excited and be in the honestly it was really just to work for Carrie yeah you know I had a couple tattoos I I loved I loved art you know but it wasn't for me it was still kind of underground tattooing like they had tattoo magazines and they had conventions but it wasn't mainstream like it is now you know and so you were an illustrator or or like dabbled or at the time I tell you yes oh yeah yeah what I tell you right now is no I just I just loved art and I had done it and taken classes but it wasn't to

pursue anything yeah it was just like my interest in in school were PE and art okay you know and so and then the two you know right place right time and I I uh my first Mentor Ben Korn I'll be honest I don't even remember what was said it was like it was just big brother little brother I guess I'll show you some things and one thing he worked in the shop at he wored in in the shop yeah yeah and and uh I mean right place right right time um looking back it did I don't I don't know I don't even it was weird how it came about but you know Fast Forward by 20 years it feels like it was all meant to be and it was natural and getting the opportunity to do that I knew I would stick with it the the rest of my life you know and it was again it feels like it was all kind of planned out meant to be so yeah give us a little little feedback kind of on of your because you have some really unique experiences you know like you got hazed and you you went through the whole kind of like semi old school apprenticeship pretty old kind of old like our generation old school yeah yeah so you were getting hazed and like having to do all sorts of silly but you had to do this all on TV which is wild so and with all these like really strong personalities around and these crazy tattooer dudes yeah yeah yeah you know what's funny is a lot of people felt like I was being I was getting hazed and I think from especially now if it was nowadays you'd be getting Haz but uh what I went through on on with my

apprenticeship and it was on National Television compared to some of what the actual tattooers that I was working around like some of the stories they were telling I I had it very easy yeah you know and and uh it's kind of interesting because prior to my apprenticeship my friends and I would always like film each other doing stupid stuff kind of like jackass jackass area not as extreme yeah yeah and I think because of that we were I was already like used to being filmed and doing things and so it also goes back to The Hazing I I didn't feel like I was being hazed you know dressing up in chicken chicken suits and yeah what other kind of did you have to do uh well you told me the milk story or something you had to drink a gallon or milk tried

the very the very one of the episodes where I had gotten a lot of attention from was they bet me I couldn't drink a gallon of milk in an hour for a thousand bucks oh and I couldn't but I think you could you can't I can't I saw someone do it the next day but it was like sounds terrible I pounded a a a gallon of milk I got about three4 of the way through and started throwing up and throwing up blood and and uh on top of that they said they give me $250 to drink the other the other uh quarter and I did that and so I got some money out of it so that was like one of that was on the first season of Ink and so that was um the first thing I did um I mean I remember Carrie Carrie uh bet me I can't remember if he bet me or he said I G give you some money but I wore a thong and went out to the Palms pool and passed out uh like Yeah Yeah so basically butt naked and was he present a lot during that first season I mean was he like one of the main yeah he was I think mostly because he was the owner and he had to be yeah but I I definitely feel like I was on his show more than he was on his show oh yeah yeah and I know he wasn't really end of the whole filming thing but it was it's what made made the shop blow up because without that the shop was about to close I remember it was like if this doesn't work we're going to close and then we filmed and aired and within that first like week or two of airing it was packed we it's so crazy like it literally changed the whole dynamic of like how

people they were walking by that store already already but then the second they see it on TV like justifies it and makes them want to spend their money there yeah yeah now you want autographs and photos and there's a line out the door and it was like it was you know also being 19 20 years old to see the power of television and I was like it was on A&E and I was like no one watches A&E you know it's TLC no one no one and they do or they did you know and it was like wow you know and people want autographs and and and photos and I'm sitting back like why would you want that why do you it doesn't matter I always did it but it was like I'm little old me and then you know I guess it kind of trickles into you know the bad part of it too and people

not liking you or I don't know was like it was just bizarre you said you had some funny like hate emails and yeah yeah I remember this was when the Myspace came out and remember going home and getting on it and looking at it and I had like 10,000 friend requests and you can accept them get the out yeah and it was like 10,000 or you the multiples of 10 and I was sitting there I was 19 20 years old and I was acting him in 10 it was like an hour click click click yeah and so I I'd gotten um people writing me hate mails like like hate like sliding in the DMS and you know yeah pretty much and those honestly those are the only ones that I would answer I wouldn't I wouldn't answer the all the good ones or people saying hi you know and that's weird

yeah I just like yeah I mean I wouldn't nowadays I wouldn't do that but as a kid especially coming from basically nothing you know you feel like you felt like you had to like exess like kind of not like defend yourself like what were you saying off just like thank you for the message and this is going to fuel my fire and you're doing nothing but helping me not hurting me and so you took time out of your day to write some negativity towards someone that you don't even know so it was you know there's one specific one I can remember still but you know there people out and about for the most part everyone's you know all love and and that I actually still have mail I don't have any hate mail but I have mail from from people from fans that would write and and uh like snail mail yeah OG snail mail you got that saved you should yeah yeah I got yeah yep so some funny stories there too you had I know you told me there was like obviously like you're like a 19-year-old young guy so you got some quite a bit of attention off like girl oh yeah yeah for sure yeah a lot of was not mad at that a lot of females around um which was great cuz I was so shy in high school and oh okay probably could have got a chick here and there but I just couldn't talk so I didn't you know so shy and had no backbone and and um so you know two or three years later I'm on national television and yeah couldn't couldn't push the girls away you know well it sounds extremely distracting too when you're supposed to be

there to learn how to tattoo and draw so like I'm so grateful for what I got with my apprenticeship but it was there was not much learning yeah it was more entertainment based like Yeah well yeah and I didn't know at the time but you know fast forward five or 10 years and I'm like man that was just kind of unhealthy and and you know yeah huge thanks to Thomas and mo mostly twig Clark North too but you know for for showing me the ropes but yeah well you had talent to tattooers around you too so but you guys were kind of thrown into this Whirlwind of like having it's kind of like where we're at today with Instagram and on social media like we not only have to be tattooers and artists we have to be entertainers and video editors and dancers whatever the you want to find your niche in but so back in the day you had all these talented guys around they already had their bearings like they were solid tattooers and so you were just kind of jumping in yeah so you did get to be around talented tatto you were super lucky to be around and also something I didn't know at the time you know I don't know they were good they're great in my eyes but I didn't know what was bad what was good but but yeah the all of those guys I don't mean to cut you off but all those guys did they they weren't Vegas local at the time right didn't they come in to work at the shop to be on the show and stuff I can't remember Ben Korn came in he came from California there might have been one or two other ones but

mostly they were all honestly from uh diversity twig Lacy twig was uh I I can't Josh Petty I know he's from Idaho Josh and this this dude Adam I think they might have came from from uh Idaho but uh Jerome Uncle Johnny um it a big crew yeah pretty much all came from diversity oh okay yeah CL Clark North definitely came from California yeah twig was fantastic I I remember watching him before I was tattooing just kind of going down to the diversity on the Strip so he was working in the window like at the Las Vegas Boulevard and I was just like wow he's a crazy good graffiti artist yeah yeah but yeah dang he put up with my yeah luckily so but yeah trying to learn you're working from 600 P p.m. to 2: a.m. you have a basically an onset Hollywood like setup of of production you have people running around with cameras and then it's not a big shop I know you've been there so then you got a bunch of people in there and I'm I'm also being paid my 515 an hour at the time to do my job and then when I can I'm trying to learn tattooing and then I have all the distractions of basically it's mostly the females and like the party scene around and it's you know and then I would tattoo when we Clos from 2:00 a.m. sometimes to like 5 or 6 a.m. and I did that for a long time yeah and uh that's what that's what it was that's how I could that's where I could do it and luckily Carrie would let me yeah you know because he could have shut that down very easily yeah you know often get asked if I ever

made any money off the show which was probably a couple thousand bucks but I always tell him I got a career out of it and could have just said no and then obviously the guys could have not have shown me anything so that's that's how I look at it yeah they could have dumped you just as like a guy who just popped in to be the The Apprentice position for the you know like the script of the show Almost and then got you out so you got to stick in and you I mean that was a lot of your just own being a good dude and taking it serious and showing up and like actually applying yourself so you know it's much of a party as it was it wasn't all party like you were yeah you were putting in work and like yeah being loyal and yeah yeah I would I want to change it for the world but you know if I could it would be like a little more mellow and let's learn about machines and and and um what uh what are some of like you know what's your like first tattoo experience like when you got to sit down I me how many mentors were standing around you and like with you or you know how was that experience well specifically uh my very first tattoo I did um I was going to do a Ben corn skull on my leg one of his signature style skulls yep yep yep and then I was in a tattoo a buddy right after that and of course was on the TV show and they had a surprise and we're in the back room and I'm setting up and then boom around comes the corner Rick Walters and I'd heard about him they call him Papa and so uh Thomas

and uh Clark and this uh other tattooer I can't remember his name at the moment but they all were by by Rick and so he pulls around the corner and of course I'm about to myself you know and it's like oh it's already hard enough and uh but he was very nice very helpful um and I remember you know everyone's using coil machines at the time and he's like hey we're going to show you how you can tell if your machine is tuned correctly this is how you do it and pulls out the machine and you have to run the machine in your hand and uh with water with with a needle I still don't know how I could I couldn't tell at all if it was tuned correctly hurt a lot and uh his hand was all so callous just from that what and uh I'm sitting there like you know and so I basically had Rick and uh well everyone Rick uh Actually I don't even know if twig was there at the time but Rick Walters uh Clark all the camera crew a bunch of people I even know were just all sitting there watching and um yeah so that was on national television and then I tattooed my buddy right after and and um what you tattoo on yourself again you said the born skull yeah yeah yeah still on your it's a skull and crossbow now yeah okay okay but yeah um did that and then I tattooed a friend right after that yeah and our and this was in 2004 of the summer 2004 so 20 years ago this this summer and our joke is that his tattoo is still healing so 20 years later still healing yeah so but uh yeah so that was the very first inside yeah

I think I was you know I don't really remember yeah I I I don't know anybody that has that level of pressure like we had pressure and like our first tattoo like I did my first tattoo Under My Mentor in the shop you know so he was standing over me and that was intimidating this all hell you know but I can't imagine like getting thrown in there with this like old dog who's like a badass cameras your regular mentors and all of the the show of like circus production around you that's fun funny cuz I just remember I don't really remember doing the tattoo I just remember everything you blacked out yeah pretty much I don't know what's going on yeah yeah just peeing yourself at while you're doing it yeah yeah and and then again I go back to being young and really just sitting in the pocket of trying to be I definitely wasn't confident but trying to be calm and I'm sure I was freaking out but if I were to do that all like at age 39 right now it it would wouldn't work yeah I don't think it would work so you did some fun stuff like so how did how did everything start rolling there like so from there they put you like how soon who were you tattooing right after that I was just tattooing friends like I said from like the the after hours like off camera yeah yeah off camera I think I tattooed three different times on the TV show okay and then you were still kind of just being The Apprentice during the show or whatever yep yep doing doing uh Stupid quirky stuff eventually Thomas did not

work there yeah so the second season he wasn't in it and so he was kind of the go-to character if you will and so when he left it was I think it was more or less me and so the second season I was doing a lot more I guess just the the character the personality that they needed uh which I I loved yeah you know I kind of happy I wasn't tattooing on the on the on the TV show I'm sure the tattoos weren't looking good nobody wants to see their their first tattoos ever again yeah so um funny yeah so the second season um eventually I I started tattooing but I went down into Mexico there was a season uh an episode on the second season where Clark was going to take me to an actual tattoo shop because that wasn't a real tattoo shop it wasn't like a street shop okay which I didn't know I didn't know I didn't know I was born into har and Huntington luxury studio if you will and I was like all right we're going to go to a a real shop and so he took me to Shamrock Social Club on Sunset and we're and we're going to go see a real shop okay so okay well I know all the Heavy Hitters are there small Paul um uh Freddy nrti like pioneer black and gry Mark Mahoney they're all fine line um Rick was there uh Mike roach the Bas is from tsol which if it wasn't for him I probably would have had a heart attack that day cuz he calm me down a little bit but really uh yeah got you know it was good it was good at the time I was like actually just watched the episode the other day it was just very like out

of my element which is it's a good thing you should be uncomfortable put yourself in un uncomfortable situation see if you can overcome it um that's why I've been running half marathons here and there you know but so we get there and I'm just doing what we're I thought we're going to go do was go see a real tattoo shop and then out of nowhere Rick drops on me Rick Walters drops it on me like hey you're going to tattoo me and if you it up I'm going to you up and they all start laughing which the this so this was an episode though this was an episode this was a full episode and we there was a bunch of episodes but that one this one really sticks out in my mind yeah yeah I mean 20 years later what what do you remember for minut it's like yeah that episode so I had a trace at Hart honeyton in the Palms we had big old flash books on the counter open it you can see everything uh at Shamar Social Club all the flashes on the wall and so he ped picked out a cobra where it was like the counter went like this and there was a wall and it was like in this crevice and I had to like get in there there there's no iPads at the time you know and I take a pencil and Trace It Off the Wall yeah this was going to be my 26th tattoo at the time so I had just had no experience and oh it was it was rough everybody's standing around you just SL you again yeah and so I I you know tattoo and Rick Walters now and small Paul and Clark North are standing over me and just giving it to me just nothing's going

good you're not doing it right and and it was just I remember Clark North at one point was like what the are you doing that for straight faed like complet and and again I just watched the episode it was like 15 seconds went by before he was like oh I'm just playing with you but like Clark you know he's got the the iPatch and I looked up to him very intimidating he's a talented dude yeah and just like you know it was it was rough but uh Mark we're in Mark Mahoney's his own personal station and he's coming in and you know and he has that like Charisma of of The Godfather basically and it's like I think he levitates I don't even slides for sure yeah they let me in their house and and again tattooed Rick Walters and I remember Rick Walters I don't know if he had a few daughters but there was one daughter there that said that Rick hasn't even let her tattoo to him tattoo him at the time and so you know there's no TV shows yet and then we're on you know Sunset Boulevard and there was just I didn't know how much it meant at least to me at the time until I it passed and it looked back and I was like wow you they just did something very special for me you know yeah this is all coming from you know tattooers that were anti um TV show where everything was underground you don't share secrets with anyone yeah the guy up the street you know him we all help each other it was the opposite of that and it was go it was getting into you know what maybe we all can help each other and try to

build this industry into a better industry versus we're just going to whip everyone's ass and yeah just be a part of the change instead of just sitting around hating on it or whatever but yeah yeah so that and then eventually yeah they opened a shop down in in Mexico in CBA St Lucas then I went down there and and and started tattooing which and they were filming still or no no we went down there to film the third season of in Carrie had opened the shop um he drove a truck down there uh he rented a house where we were going to have like a real world type of deal oh yeah okay iot and it all fell through oh I wonder happened but I from what Blanco has told me is what he heard was they wanted pink to be um Alicia to be oh in it part of it and he was like no I don't really know but I do know that I lived in Mexico for 17 months and they lived in that house for 9 months and I drove around car's truck the whole time no and uh everyone went down there and everyone kind of went back because it wasn't happening yeah and uh you know but you you had some partying down there and some yeah I was like a 17-month party putting in work though like yeah you were busy yeah we we were busy but down in Cabo at least in 2006 and seven and 8 it's very seasonal with with uh tour tourism so it's like 17 months uh 17 months uh seven months we were busy but like five we were not and I think they didn't maybe they didn't really do homework on the analytics of all that they just opened it and yeah where

was the shop at it was right in the heart of CA St Lucas so if you ever been there I haven't yeah there's um for those that been to Cabo uh was right next to squid row it's like they're uh they're it's been there forever actually just have um the girl I've been dating we she was asking about this picture on the wall and it's um of squid row in 1991 and there's an eclipse going on behind it that I got from my grandpa so squid row 1991 and then squid row 2006 is still there and so again if anyone's been to Cabo they know squid row you can't miss it's a three-story Club okay they don't have it's it's grown a lot since then but at the time there was like three places to hang out all within you know 100 feet yeah it's like a very small it's it's

grown a lot since but free Yelp yeah yeah yeah PR Google re review no one was yeling at the time went down there didn't know anyone yeah did you get into surfing and stuff down there or no no I'd already been into surfing but that was one of the reasons I went down there Carrie asked me if I wanted to go down there and I literally did not even hesitate to say yes yeah I also didn't hesitate to do any research on it so when I got down there I got built up what I thought coo was going to be and the complete opposite or just something different and that was a little Dental to the 17mon it was gritty or what I mean I don't it was just like I don't I I I don't know I don't honestly don't really remember what I thought it was going to be but it was not what I thought it was going to be and so I got down there and I could it was hard to appreciate the time were you pushing yourself to grow as an artist at the time or you still kind of yeah just kind of like hanging out tattooing it was more like this is now my job well I was also like out of my element and I didn't there wasn't a whole lot of places to go get art supplies and you had no friends no friends and there was you know you know what's funny is everyone that I got along with were the local like Hispanics the ones that were hating that I that I didn't get along with that I thought I would have were the ones that I were just like me like the Surfers and the skaters they're very territorial oh yeah it was like something out of

uh you know do Lords of dog yeah yeah Point Break yeah and I was like you and I look alike but I'm the guy that came from Vegas that was on the TV show and you you know you you're not welcome here yeah it was like and it was so small that saw them everywhere you know but I had like we had like a little crew and um I mean we weren't starting nothing but yeah these guys there was a couple of them that were cool and open to it but there's some that were and yeah we came into their house and you you're not welcome here you know even though we look identical but again the ones that I didn't look identical with were the ones that were really open I still have friends down down there to this day that are that are you know super cool and uh you know speak Spanish and all that and so um yeah I was not I was growing my my tattoo skills down there but not my art skills which is kind of it was kind of hand inand but yeah it was still like flash driven shop so like or kind yeah kind of you know it's funny as I telling some the other day we uh didn't have a thermofax for the first nine months it was stuck in guadalahara and then it finally showed up one day we're doing hand stencils the whole time and then it got there and then it was was broke so we did hand stencils the whole 17 months oh I remember which is fine if you're doing something real small but like yeah yeah I remember Blanco doing this badass like full realism uh Superman that it took him two hours to hand stencil and you

more or less get one shot at that and uh and so yeah it was you know we again before iPads and so we had a computer where you can go back and like look up reference and and print it out yeah go from there but even then it wasn't the internet yeah wasn't as I need a quarter a three4 angle of this face or just like it was like the internet was still kind of new on on uh reference I remember those times it's like man I looked the whole internet and I can't find the reference and I'm just going to trace really you know I can't dry it yeah yeah I searched through all of the internet for Superman CU or female faces I was always struggling with fale fa me too me too and there's only three of them on the Internet yeah you had to get better at to keep drawing them yeah and that's why till this I still like to draw because I put in so much time to learn how to draw that I can't just use a stamp on procreate yeah on everyone's design and it's nothing against anyone that does that I just for me I need to know how to draw this versus this you know I just wanted the angles you know and it's still challenge yourself yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and that's like I also was given a lot of by my mentors that you you didn't know how to draw you shouldn't be tattooing and and yeah whatever it is for everyone to this day it's whatever but for me I feel like I I it's that challenge you know I want to be able to draw I want to know what you know again straight on versus the the side view of anything

and it's more it's for me it's more fun anytime I get a chance to draw for someone I am yeah that's great so some people just like to get you to trace something that's already been tattooed and I will but if I get a chance to redraw your your design I'm going to because I put in all this time to figure out how to do it you know it's makes it more fun for me so you ended up coming back after 17 months and then you came did they move hard and Huntington from the or they did from the palms of the Hard Rock so you moved into the Hard Rock but it was still eight months prior to me coming back to us moving over there yeah oh okay so yeah eventually and then we were closed for about a month and then yeah we opened up at the Hard Rock which was a whole a whole another chapter and I feel like it was just as big as the TV show which there was no TV show once we got there but the Hard Rock at the time was no it was the old school party spot dude like the circle bar in the middle so you get off work or all the shows would get out and everybody would rush the part the Circle bar they had re rehab there on Sundays and then Circle bar was just the place to be even like the largest day pool party I don't know Vegas had ever heard of it was C wild yeah and I fed into that big time oh really oh yeah I loved it I loved it I was out there oh condoms floating in the pool the most rogish oh oh that was so nasty everybody's rolling from the night before and they're just yep tripping balls at the

pool and getting drunk and people are dropping out like yeah yeah Carrie opened up waste of space and so had a nightclub and a tattoo shop all these funand coming through remember seeing voodo Glow Skulls there handful of other shows saw mxpx yeah there was there was a lot and so that all being tied in was were you getting some of the musici that were coming through and getting tattooed in the shop I mean were you getting exposed to all different kinds of celebrities and too at that time uh well we we were as a whole we were yeah to back it up from there at the Palms I had tattooed I grew up listening to 36 mafia yeah like juicyj and and uh DJ Paul when actually when I was in Mexico I came in for my grandma's funeral and the last night I was like I'm going out and we went to the Hard Rock and from across the way I'll never forget it from across the way it was DJ Paul and 36 mafia and DJ Paul went like this and I was like and I looked looking around I was like maybe he knew someone behind me and he did it and I I I knew that they were playing at the at UNLV right there that night too and they came over and we started you know chopping it up and DJ Paul used to they used to watch the TV show get the out yeah yeah so literally an hour later it was just me I had friends but we were going to meet over at the Hard Rock or at the Palms and it was me in a Suburban with DJ Paul and Juicy J and these other huge like Bodyguards of theirs and it's just little me white guy sitting in

and we're going about to go tattoo him so I went over there and I I tattooed DJ Paul I did a uh it was a memph an Mt for Memphis Tennessee they went into a an LA for Los Angeles and so I was up till 4:00 or 5 in the morning tattooing them to be at the airport like 9: but it it was damn that's DJ Paul's never heard that story that's cool yeah I ended up tattooing him again um once I moved back so yeah I I tattooed him and that was like wow this is really surreal cuz I grew up listening to them little little white dudes smoking smoking blunts listening to you know their music yeah and so uh but yeah we had we had celebrities coming through the first night we opened I we had uh remember uh you know Sabrina the Teenage Witch which is like Melissa joen Hart okay um Dennis Rodman Jeremy shock was a tight end for the the Giants I'm a huge football fan so there was all the and then yeah forever it was you know car's car's all his friends yeah yeah and so yeah so going going back to the Hard Rock there was people coming through but it was like just Carrie as a as the shop as a whole everyone was kind of tattooing celebrities yeah or there celebrities coming through you know and so I I tattooed uh Sugar Ray they had the AVN Awards there which I always thought was weird yeah I was in there one day and I was looking around and I was like what is going on in here like who are all these people everyone's like pretty much naked yeah yeah yeah the best is if he didn't know what was

going on and he showed up and it's like I had no yeah that's how I roll in like this is the weirdest crap but the Hard Rock was always like that it was like yeah that's that's why I loved it there and that's why I say that was the next chapter and that might have been bigger than the TV show where it was just as fun or as good without a show you know and then you I think I was like 26 at the time so it was it was it was a it was a a lot to be a part of it was great to be a part of um yeah right place right time and again it feels like it was all premeditated it was all set up yeah prior to even even happening it felt like it you know yeah for a long time and even getting a job with with you and and you guys it was it's still like it was it's been part of the the story you know for sure I mean and so but um you went from there then they they closed that shop or yeah they closed that shop because it turned into the Virgin the Virgin okay so they sold the Hard Rock and turned it yeah yeah and so they uh now they're the heart and Huntington's at the Caesars yeah um yeah which is which is cool and it's Carrie sold the shop and there's a guy named Chris Turk that pretty much owns all of them besides the one in Niagara Falls which that one's pretty dope been there couple times I've been to the Nashville one and yeah that one's cool both here I went there last year yeah yeah yeah so there there's one in Niagara Falls literally like a FIV minute walk from The Falls that I've gone

to a couple times and you see that in person it's just yeah I like to I never have actually yeah yeah it's super cool so yeah so then you jumped out of there and then you moved over to Starlight which is another casino shop Mario B shop Y and you kind of like the these are like still high volume shops you're you're charging you kind of maybe I've always chared big prices because you were always in that situation where we were off the strip and we weren we were charging like half of what you guys were charging then you got into like a management position so you're yeah yeah I got a job there and tattooed and and uh I guess me and Mario bar kind of hit it off and saw what I well he saw something I didn't see but what I could bring to the table and it's you know some leadership and and yeah level head which is hard to find um you were kind of humbled more a little more chill at this point in time you're like 5 years into your career or more uh further this was 200 yeah but maybe eight okay something like that and Mario bar owns in tens he and everything yep yep then a couple other things and then yeah the shops obviously yeah he's got shops on the east coast and this was like was this his first shop like on the west coast I believe so so well they opened up well they opened up the two 2008 at the manday Bay which is still there connected to the House of Blues connected to the House of Blues there was a door you can literally go in and out between the two and then he had King

Inc that was at the Mirage oh yeah okay and you never worked over there I didn't work there but I had gone over there when I was working at heart in Huntington and and which was a nightclub yeah that had a tattoo shop in which is really wild yeah another first yeah and uh you know Alex was working there who works with us right now and the stories he would tell and and really just kind of wrapped around it being super busy all the time and what they were charging and um there was politics between that and then they open the shop in the back of the marage just a Starlight and so yeah so went they were still in the Mirage but it wasn't called King yink anymore it was called just a regular Starlight and so you never worked at that one though right you you bounced I worked at the Starlight one oh okay is that what you're asking yeah yeah well didn't they have two locations you said well one was yeah one at the Mandalay Bay and then one at the Mirage and so when I I took the management position yeah honestly I was just trying to make some more money yeah so he paid you on top of your tattoos and manage and stuff how was that experience managing the lovely world of tattooing and taters man um multiple shifts that shop like open in the morning closed late or early in the morning yeah well the one in the Mirage was open at 9:00 a.m. and closed at midnight and I believe it closed at 10 p.m. in the week so Friday and Saturday maybe Thursday Friday Saturday it was midnight and then the

other day days were 10 p.m. yeah which I love because I was you know I was up early and I was off early and I mean as a man as a manager you're never off yeah so got to see that part yeah I yeah you're put on that other side of the fence where now you're peers that you're just been kind of getting along with and watching them up or not up and then now you're the one that's got to be like hey man yeah I know last week we were just friends but now I'm your boss and I need you to do what I say just need you to show up at no yeah yeah um you got any fun stories about that like or how that may have humbled you and one particular story and I won't say his name you already know who you are could not show up on time and uh and it was 9:00 a.m. not on time well so we had to be there at 9:00 a.m. and Mario wanted you there 5 minutes ahead of time and if they weren't it was my ass oh God and it's like okay so 9:00 a.m. you you know most tattooers are not up at 9:00 a.m. so uh we had a a a a 3:30 4:30 spot where you could work and this person also couldn't show up on time for that and I remember literally going to Walmart and buying an alarm clock for this guy and who am I who am I love he's a great tattooer you know and and and just like hey you plug this on the wall before you go to bed you set it it wakes you up you get to work that's what's going to happen you know and and are we talking half an hour late or uh yeah half an hour an hour sometimes and and cruising on in yeah yeah I'll

get there when I get there you know God it's like all right and so yeah I just got to see the the other side of the business and um I'm not going to lie I hated it you know because I love that I have the experience now and then you know now I'm working for you and I don't I don't try to manage anything but because I got to see that other side of the business I I have to I see things differently now yeah something as as little as um you know Mario always Wanted classic rock to be played and I never understood it until I realized that music sets the tone and the mood of the shop so if someone's really scared and they're coming into the shop and they're nervous and they're just getting a little butterfly at the first tattoo you probably shouldn't be playing death metal over over the intercon Cannibal Corpse where it sounds like someone's being murdered cuz it's not going to help them relax you know f for years yeah it's a little the little thing that if you don't you're not on the other side of the business you don't think about yeah yeah I just really got to see and and I I'm very grateful for Mario let me manage his shop because again now I see the other side of the business and what works what doesn't what affects what was kind of like a a routine with you guys like as far as communication go did you meet up like once a week or were you talking every day and he wasn't there right he's bouncing he wasn't there yeah he was he was never there but I had to do daily reports

each day on what I was doing as as a manager oh okay yeah daily reports had to send those over and just like a little bloger you know like what you do today so and so sh up lat basically why am I paying you you know and show me that you're doing something and then we'll talk about those things and at first I thought as a manager he wanted me to try to generate more business and it was like no I I need you to manage the Personalities in the shop because that's what's generated business you don't need I don't you don't need to worry about the business coming in from the outside it's coming in here because versus where our location is what are you curating the personalities and yeah because his thing so you know a lot of shops have like a rotation well there's no rotation at at Starlight because Mario's thing and I and I support it it's like whoever wants to be tattooing is going to be tattooing so I I need all the tattooers out on the cell floor celles floor so when people come in everyone's talking to them the guy that's sitting in the back shouldn't be tattooing because they're just sitting there waiting for someone to come in the one that's out on the floor talking to people is going to be tattooing I'm not going to say names but we had tattooers that were doing that and some that weren't and there was tattooers that weren't doing it were upset at the taters that were doing it and it was like this weird thing complaining that it's slow but they don't want to talk to the

clients yeah you know Mario's one of Mario's biggest sayings in the in the winter time is there are no slow times there's just slow tattooers and it's like I I again and I support him you know but it's like also a mentality you know yeah had the I'm mean old school kind of mentality to I mean I don't know there certain aspects that kind of still just makes sense yeah well it's it's also just like what's your mentality are you are you slow or are you are you slow and you're not going to do anything about it type of thing you know and and so and so but yeah uh yeah the we we did daily reports when Mario was in town we'd have meetings there was another tattoo or another manager TJ That was cuz there was also another manager ailano who got me the job there and him and I butted heads a lot and and so there was a manager that was an actual manager that went to school for management and all that and that was more professional that did have experience okay and he was at the top and then there was us two and he kind of he was more Hands-On with Mario and I was just the new manager so I was kind of being you know I had that the okay like more like a shift manager or whatever and he was the GM of the store yeah yeah yeah pretty much so he ran the finances too and stuff like that yeah yeah and just had the ideas kind of like how you are with your your company's had all the ideas and the good directions to go I did not cuz I'm just new to it you know and so it was good to have someone

kind of helping me you had your thumb on the pulse of the culture though and kind of like knew how to communicate or you know it's obviously always a challenge but like had more of an understanding of how to communicate with a tattooer you know yeah yeah yeah yeah cuz well for me it was also hard because I did friend everyone and then overnight it was like yeah we could be friends but I also have to be your manager but but but yeah it's usually an easier for a tat to talk to a tater but like a corporate manager to talk to a tater is f off type of thing you know so and so yeah yeah yeah and then and then yeah learning learning the ropes of how to communicate and um delegate and also not really rule with an iron fist not everyone wants that you know it's like I don't know there's a the management and how to manage humans is there's just so many different aspects to it that there's yeah it's not just tattooers obviously you know it's like you look at any other industry too and like you just got kind of a few key types of personalities and you just got to learn how to like juggle them all and like approach everybody different and treat them with respect and yeah that's the biggest thing people do want to be treated with respect and that's for me it's easy but also I have a certain way a work ethic you know so when that and it's not perfect but it's the The Common Sense Show up do your best and when people don't do that it's hard for me to not get upset and mad yeah fire you you

know or give you a you know a leeway of anyways so yeah that was very grateful for that so yeah I did all the management stuff uh and I did get out of the management stuff but I have this you know a couple couple years of under my belt of managing yeah where again now I just see I just see things differently you know and and um kind of helped you I don't know level out or like yeah help helps me it's not even like I look at people and I judge them it's like what could I do better for myself for the business Mutual mutual respect in you know for everybody in their positions in the shop yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah you know being a team player I read a book about being a team player and and uh the logistics that go into that and and uh yeah it's a whole College course on just just that you know and and um did all the management stuff and um we kind of spoke about mental health and stuff you're very very healthy dude you know you spend a lot of time and energy on you go you know you're trying to fix your back doing yoga running all these things like how do you think that all of these things and putting your time and energy into them kind of you think they circulate back around to making you like you said a better person in the shop a better tattooer yeah Focus yeah yeah well I mean there's a lot of different uh directions that question can go and will go but you know obviously mental health nowadays is Forefront of public you know Society you know everyone's you know this

homeless everywhere there people you know harming other people and just people like you know killing themselves suicide and and and um I guess I can only really speak for myself but um it's definitely been a a journey of I went through a phase where I I started learning about anxiety and it's a real thing you know and I I started getting it really bad in 200 12 and I basically quit tattooing for a year I was tattooing a little bit but moved back in with my mom and and I I would go to tattoo people and I would freak out and I would have to leave and I couldn't tattoo you anymore I remember pulling a line on this dude's chest once and freaking out and I was had to get up and I had to have uh Tony uh you know Humpty one of the tattooers at hent age finish the tattoo for me cuz I couldn't do it and so a lot of it I started learning it's also a lot about how you think you know we're programmed and uh but yeah the mental health thing is um you know I a lot of people exercise because they want to look better but what I get out of exercising is I feel better mentally I notice when I don't exercise I start to not feel good clear head yeah it clears the head and um all the I guess negative emotions that are there that you might not even know are there yeah tend to tend to like simmer down yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah I got to not my goal the last year just been doing like a little also people really think that you you have to do this full-blown workout every day it's like right now I'm

just doing little 20-minute workouts at home every day yeah 100 push-ups 100 situps for you know ins sets obviously uh squat things you can do you don't need to you don't need a me gym membership squats um you run up and down the street little jump ropes um I've really been getting into just sitting outside in the morning and not necessarily meditating but just laying down you know and um breath work's a big thing now and and that's it it work it works and it's like the little things I take a cold shower every morning and yeah I tried that the other day yeah it's it's I start what I do is I start off warm and end it cold so it kind of helps easing into it I it's hard for me just to jump into the cold shower yeah but um you know and then breath work comes with being in cold water and breathing and breathing and that's and it's all you know pretty much at the fingertips it's all things that are you wake up next to every day or hopefully you do and so yeah yeah the the exercising the mental health um and a lot of I noticed my my body is a lot different it'll be my 20th year of tattooing this summer and so my body feels different after I do a 4-Hour tattoo a 5H hour tattoo uh I started getting this thing in my the top right part of my back lower part of my neck when I would go do bigger pieces and I found out what it was recently but I prior to that I was doing I started doing yoga to like you know maintain my body um started doing uh uh the chiropractor I was about to start

doing physical therapy stretching I think stretching is a huge thing for tattooers yeah I have tattoo physical therapist and she kind of got me on some like just three four basic stretches you just do like in the back room get up you know it's so driven into us that we need to like get the tattoo done and stop causing pain to the client work right it you look up and you're hours in the same position and you're dude I'm right now and everything by doing those stretches in the back room and like getting up same with my optometrist told me to get up walk around yeah he says walk around every 20 minutes and I'm like well I can't do that like you know rest my eyes yeah yeah so you know it's kind of all the mental health and the all you know trying to make yourself stronger in every way which way how it kind of all comes back to tattooing and relieving that anxiety when those times get extremely tough and you're nervous as about something because tattooing always throws that at you no matter how long you've been tattooing those things come back and help you kind of get through those moments that breathing and you have to keep it in you can't let your client know you're kissing your pants right now yeah you spelled this wrong or you blew out the line in the in the most noticeable point of the female's face or something you know I feel like all those things help me through that and staying up drinking all night long doesn't no no I know that yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and uh

it's funny how M mental health and the you know tattooing can mess up your mental health you know it's like it could be stressful and you'd have a thousand great tattoos and the one one where you blew out the face on the female the line on the female's face and the most crucial part it's like now you're going to go home and you're going to you know that's going to eat you up and go home and try to relax and breathe and even breathing in the middle of the tattoos I've been doing been it's you know I've been realizing I'll hold my breath at certain points like you have to remember to breathe and and um relax your shoulders too you know yeah you know what's funny is like go like this yeah I was just going to say my to focus instead of focusing

like like this my focusing is like this yeah and I you know you hunched up and it's yeah it's it's uh you know then it goes back I think to stretching or just doing yoga helps maintain my body and also my mental Clarity and that but um it's yeah I think you have to do it and it was only 20 years ago maybe even 10 where tattooers were and I know they still do but you smoke cigarettes and you drink Coca-Cola and eat fast food and and and then you go tattoo and you give it 15 20 years and your body's yeah it's it's changed and it's changing and I think it's changing for the good we got tattooers that are like you know are being healthier and and uh taking care of themselves and and um yeah I think it's all good things for the most part but but

yeah yeah the the mental health thing and and to the longevity of your body very simply I think is Just Eat Right drink water and stretch you know lay on the ground and stretch so my back is so tight yeah 24 hours a day ab like stretch if I don't do it a couple times a day I'll so tense yeah yeah and and it's free you lay on the ground and just do some simple stretches and it'll go a long way and I've always been pretty Physically Active but I know there's tattooers that aren't and they don't do that and you can see them paying for it and um that would be my recommendation or that's what I do with my body is try to maintain it just CU I also just like it you know but it's again a 4H hour 5 Hour Tattoo nowadays I I have to get up and like lean over and touch my toes and like just hang there for a sec and I got one of the in inversion tables at home where you strap in and hang upside down and decompress your body I got one of on yeah yeah yeah it's it's the little things that you might not think about I still Trip like you think Mark Mahoney stretches every day no absolutely not I see the dude tattooing still and I'm like this dude is such a g yeah yeah maybe he does maybe he does you know I don't you know I I don't I just think like Stan MOS it's he tattooed until he passed away right but so so did Rick Walters yeah you know and I hope I'm still us complaining at 20 like these are tattooing for 50 plus like yeah and that's I would love to tattoo till the day I die I just

don't know if it's I don't want to get up to that point and be like man I wish at year 20 I was stretching you know CU I could have been tattooing right now but I I can't because I didn't take care of myself and my grandpa ate uh 10 raisins every day soaked in Jin okay he said that that was the key his health and wealth I was like I wouldn't knock it yeah I've never tried a raisins me me neither but it sounds something like a Corky old tattoo would do yeah yeah yeah Jin raisins yeah yeah yeah so um so these days you're working at at our shop Studio 21 tattoo here in Las Vegas and we absolutely love having you yeah and I love being there it's fun man we're working on a lot of fun projects together yeah a lot of fun projects and I mean it's just a shop being there just so artsy and remember knowing about the shop prior to getting a job there and I'll be honest I didn't ever think I was good enough to get a job there or I just was like the artists there on this level I'm down here I'm trying to get up there yeah but um I remember Travis who used to work there he worked at Starlight yeah and he bounced on me when I was a manager oh and really he just I think he just bounced cuz it was time for him to go the way I looked at it was I took over management and he was like I'm out we got a job with you guys and then Fast Forward by like a year and he was hitting me up like hey there's an opening over here and you should come check it out and I was already had this plan set where this

is what I'm doing I'm about to get out of here I'm looking but I I kind of have a thing to get through the the winner and I was like I kind of like told him indirectly no yeah not not at the moment or yeah or I told him yeah yeah yeah yeah okay yeah yeah yeah you know and and then like a week a week went by and he was like hey get your ass over yeah like we have the spot you should come check it out and I knew Studio 21 but I was already like all caught up in this other stuff going on at Starlight and I was like okay well maybe you know and and I was like I don't know and and and then you hit me up and I was like all right I'm G call at Le say hi introduce myself and uh I got a job there my joke to Travis was I was surprised that you would you know refer me over there because I was just your manager over here and I thought you hated me or no I just don't want you to be managing me enjoy you as a person yeah and so once you reached out I was like all right this is serious let me just go let me just go say what's up within five minutes of being at the shop I was like I'm going to go back here and put in my two weeks I put in my three weeks because I thought it was being nice which I didn't end very well over there I I tried to but Mario didn't like that there's a lot going on but I think we had on like it's usually how it works you know like one person leaves and then like oh hey it's good over here come over you know so unfortunately he might have lost like two or three guys

in a row there that was probably irritating but yeah I've had the same thing happen to me so it is what it is yeah yeah I mean you build a great spot and people will come and that's all that's all it is take care it's also 2.2 miles away from Starlight because if it was in two you couldn't go there CU he signed a contract yeah the non-competes that that was interesting I've never done that before point two right outside of there I almost got a job um with Joey Hamilton um at Revolt but I couldn't because it was in the two mile radius and so oh yeah um I knew about the shop I knew about you guys loved the family-owned and operated thing and I don't still don't know of any other shop in the world I'm I'm sure there are some but that have the family-owned and operated Vibe and and feel and even though I don't have much family anymore I'm a family man so I feel like it's the first time I've ever gone to work where I feel like I'm at home yeah I hug you when I see you cuz I genuinely care I'm like excited to see you you know and has that homey feel and I mean me and your family have gone camping before you guys love camping and I you know it's it's uh like that's what I saying it feels like from H&H to Starlight you know the TV show to you know where at now it just feels like it's the next chapter and it just was already set up ready to go yeah you know and it just feels very natural and we've been there five and a half years which is wild we went through covid and all that but

but yeah it's um you know I think what you guys do with Studio 21 you just really set yourself apart from other tattoo shops um with events and and the art and the vibe um I knew that before and then obviously I work there now and now I get to I I feel it and I can see it and I mean I might be biased but I think it's the best best shop in town if not the world you know and it's just so unique good people that's where we got great people so yeah yeah and it's it's hard to find I mean I was like I said been managing it's hard to find people to come work for you that you want them to be there you know dude curating a team of people is an art form in itself it's extremely difficult and and people change too we all shift and you go through in our own lives and we can kind of become different people in or out of the workplace you know so right that's something you always have to practice patience with and yeah you know and they practice patience with me too yeah watch me come in and out of things and stuff right well we talked a lot about you partying and but I I think you're a fantastic artist and illustrator so I I kind of want to talk about more like I just you do and have spent a lot of time like I watch you just put in work man you you try your hardest and that's like something that I feel is hard to find sometimes you know people that just genuinely wake up and they're like this is what I want to work on today and I want to be better and I want to try to work on my female

bases or I want to try to like curate my own style and um become my own person and stand out in this industry and I feel like you're doing a fantastic job of that like coming along building your own style you you're watercoloring a lot and like a traditional like tell me more about like what you're into right now as far as always always painting yeah that's um you know it's a you could you know painting is you could especially watercolor kind of like tattooing you draw it you usually line it and then you color it kind of like a tattoo so the painting aspect outside of tattooing is you have a flat piece of paper it's white all the colors show up great it's flat yeah doesn't move I don't mind if it talks because I like talking with my clients

it's actually one of the perks but it's you know I get you know it's the medium to tattooing you know tattooing can be stressful and difficult and doesn't always come out the way you plan it I guess painting doesn't either but yeah so you know I'm always when I got into tattooing it was always I'm going to be the best I can be and if I ever you know it goes up and down at times if I ever lose that I'm not going to tattoo anymore and I haven't lost it and I'm still I just started my 18th year full-time of tattooing and at the beginning of this year I was like I I think I reached my potential on just being the best tattoo I can be now just I want to be the best artist I can be yeah how can I take my career to the next level and it's still a work in progress and um I guess it's trying to find a style which is you know I I feel like you have your style you're definitely you've got it you're now it's just fine-tuning it and being productive you know you're doing large scale watercolors which I personally have never accomplished in my life and I think they're I think they're awesome yeah yeah I did I did I have yeah portrait mixed with you know you do a lot of like you know your your take on traditional Japanese like yeah well that's so that's that's a thing it's like I don't know if I could just do one style because I have all these other interests so maybe I create three or four Styles and so at the beginning of the year it's like all right I'm going to I want to do large scale

work and what is it going to be and that's I'm still drawing and figuring that out and um yeah so it's it's it's I'm just I've just been drawing three or four different styles and like you said they're all a mixture of like realism and and watercolor and nature and yeah um I love Japanese passionate about yeah yeah yeah and so I realized is trying to set this all up it's actually a brain exercise to figure out what it is that you like and want to draw and tattoo cuz I was the way I was taught was you get good at everything and then you can figure out what you don't want to do what you do want to do um the part that's hard with that is I just pretty much take on everything and that's kind of I think that's kind of my style is I'm good at at everything specializing a little bit of everything yeah I just at one point at when I first started tattooing I would have to say no to things I wasn't good at it and then it's like all right well I'm just going to get good at everything and then when the time comes and it's not that busy I'm not the one sitting around cuz I don't know how to do something or I don't want to do something yeah there's things I don't really care to do more than others but I definitely don't want to be sitting around I love tattooing enough to where I'll pretty much take on everything if I'm not if I'm not good at I'll tell you you know I've been doing it long enough to say that you know but but yeah um PT painting you know I just painted this surfboard

recently um about to paint a table at home ni um where I'm you I'm I'm also trying to figure out not just with tattooing but what are my interests outside of tattooing that is Art that's not watercolor painting and so I'm just you know I'm going to wood stain and this table at home and paint some designs on it I don't even know what I'm going to paint yet I painted I told you I was painting a wall yesterday in my house so I want to like do like a mural with some paints and I I know you do M murals and I see other people doing murals and and so I just want to I want to really expand myself yeah just see what dude throw it out there and see what sticks man it's fun that's I'm kind of that type of artist too where I I see it all and I I just said yesterday one of the saddest things I think about in life is like that you just can't do it all I want to learn how to make jewelry I want to make learn how to weld I want to you know but you just got to focus on some yeah yeah well that's I guess the hard part is focusing on one and trying to master one thing that's what I've always admired about like Japanese culture they'll gravitate towards one thing and they'll literally dedicate their whole entire life to that one thing to be the best and that's why they crush it at the vast majority of things out there yeah and that's very admirable and so cool um that's just not me though yeah black out and I'll like I put 10 years into something I'm like dang that's awesome have so many 10

years to put into well it's like I think you you did do it it was tattooing you know and so but yeah anything else it's it's it's yeah and then you you start throwing in kids and you know relationships and businesses and you want to learn on your own one thing and it's and yeah not enough time not enough time in the day trying to stick stick in our realm of tattooing yeah whatever if it relates to tattooing then I can put my all into it and be happy with it and I'm in love so right right right right yeah yeah so my you know my my passions are really just trying to expand myself as an artist right now good yeah and just learning like I said it's a brain exercise and then you learn about something and like you we're just saying you stick to one thing and that and that's hard because my idea is I have a new idea every day and I try not to bounce around too I'm great at starting things I'm terrible at finishing them and I have all sorts of things laying around that I'm I'm a 10center sometimes but I'm getting better at that later on yeah yeah like another thing I think I've seen that you do really well is the um you're adapting currently still adapting to social media more and more like you're learning how to express yourself um you know through the video platform which a lot of us older guys like complain about and we don't want to have anything to do with right but you've learned to kind of find you know your voice and try to mix your you're traveling and you know your art all

in there so you're not just a tattooer posting pictures of a tattoo you're you know sharing your personality I think that's super important like I don't know you do a great job at that yeah well it's I've been telling everyone I'm tattooing nowadays unfortun it's not it's like unfortunately fortunately it's not just about a good tattoo anymore yeah it's you have to have that it's not a good then it was about a good photo for a while now it's just not about that now you have to have a good video yeah now they want to see your face now you got to you know and um yeah and um I think if you have a large following it's not mandatory but I I think if you don't and there's so many great tattooers nowaday especially in Las Vegas that anyone can go to anyone now and you know and so social media now is like this is your portfolio people are looking for people to get tattooed by and what do they see when they come to yours this is what they see and if you're slacking then they're not going to pick you you know cuz they can pick the guy across the street or in the same shop you know and so and this also goes back to the TV show thing where I I I like filming and editing I like it's fun to me I don't like looking at my screen all day and that's you know what it requires but um yeah and so um I'm not just a tattooer i i i a foodie I love to travel you know I have a personality I'm not a rock without in the rocks in the garden of rocks you know it's um I think some rocks have personalities

too but um you know I I try to curate my page to to you know those things you know traveling and this is who I am so when you do go to my page it's it's not about for me it's not about likes and all that it's about what do you see when you go there who is this person interaction yeah you're always open to talk to everybody yeah we're working on too like just develop more of your brand your personal branding your website and stuff excited to help you with you know I've been seeing branding pop up a lot and i' been thinking more about how to you know that you know who am I what's my voice and like what makes me even Maverick and you got the little penguin and it's like you know Maverick's a strong name you know and so I love that yeah yeah it's great like that's why I'm always like telling you like I'm open like I will talk about this all day long I will help you do everything I possibly can it's fun yeah yeah so it's you know you just I think it's important to never stop learning you know and yeah have no control over other people but I do have control over me and yeah it's like you know about to be 40 this year and it's honestly I feel like I'm I'm behind on things but it doesn't matter it's just like that's you when you're always wanting to learn you always feel like you don't know cuz there's always some more to learn so you're like I always have that feeling of I try not to let it get a hold of me that feeling of anxxiety a little bit like I need to do this I need to

learn this do that you know you also need to sit outside in the morning and just soak it in yeah yeah I don't think I have ADHD but something the way my brain hops around from idea to idea to like being at home and I'm like I'm doing this and I'm doing this and this and this and I'm like oh and then I'll leave the house I'll forget things it's like if I wasn't just relaxing and breathing and and I wouldn't have forgotten that my brain doesn't need to race that fast but I do can't be can't be that hard on yourself too yeah well yeah it's you know it goes back into the mental health way the way we think you know a lot of the way we are is just by the way we think and we don't realize that we can sit back and control the way we think and it's a practice but but anyways um yeah you know been so you want to focus on that kind of in the future bring personal brand and strengthening yourself as an artist traveling more yeah yeah this year I was like I'm still traveling I was going to take time off this year from going on any big trips yeah I mean I still have a couple small trips and going camping next week and it's all within my schedule too you I try I I haven't taken a day off from the shop since October and then before October I went to Thailand in Indonesia which I think I kind of like the idea of not taking time off and just doing a big trip I've talked about that you got tattooed out there yeah I got tto love lady um what is it called it's like love uh love love love love

something but it was a beautiful shop super super cool brain fting you you ever done like the guest spot thing I've I I haven't really I've done a lot of conventions but never really done a whole lot of guas spots and I do want to get back into that right now my kids are pretty young so yeah home but I guess I would I I would love it I just don't I I guess I I don't know my thing was I'm just going to go travel and I'm going to get tattooed at these places and I'm going to friend them and maybe I can guess spot they can come here and guess spot versus like hit you up on the DM hey I want to come work at your shop you going to have me no you can build your relationships and build your Community First yeah kind of like I don't want to ask for

something without knowing who they are no it did it does always still to this day like when I'll just get a DM hey I'm going to be in town this can I work in your shop and you're like I don't even know who you are bro why would I letay you in my house I don't want to be that that guy but I will come and get tattooed by you guys maybe I won't like you or maybe you don't like me so let's not going to ask for anything let's I'm going to come get a little tattoo and check you guys out and and I did that in Indonesia um and that was pretty pretty cool and uh and then I didn't take a day off before that since uh since May so I think this year I was like I'm still doing little traveling here and there I was in Arizona last weekend and yeah and um but yeah I mean I mean I I really have my eyes set on Japan the next year so I supposed to go for my 40th birthday really Co hit Co yeah I'll try again that was the whole also had another baby too so yeah well that's makes things a little more challenging I would imagine I don't know personally but I see I see it with people that have it's tough yeah so overall you you love you love living in Las Vegas you love tattooing here I mean what are some of the highlights of like Tattooing in this town that you think yeah I mean I was originally born here so this is home I also have the right to Nays say some things about it but I think everywhere has pros and cons yeah um uh I think Tattooing in this town we get a lot of Tourism and working at

your guys' shop it's rated number one for reviews in Nevada through different platforms and people that come in town even people that live here especially all the 1 million people that moved here in the last two years that don't know where to go gravitate towards uh those reviews you know and so um we just there's a lot of people in a small area um so that I think provides a lot of business there's also a lot of tattoo shop here but yeah I think I I do I do love living here but there's no beach and I love to Surf a lot of times when I'm going traveling it's go surf somewhere yeah so uh luckily you know 45 minute flight to Burbank yeah yeah yeah I was say a 4 Hour 4 hour drive to to uh Huntington Beach you know so I do love it here I I think

I'll eventually move who knows what the future's going to bring but um I have family here that keeps me here I I just uh met this girl that I've been dating and that's and we both love the outdoors and Vegas is great for the outdoors we're like Central to Zion get in and out of within three hours you got like you know yeah state parks rock climbing yeah yeah you can get to the snow yeah you know and the beach one day if you wanted to and so that that keeps me here unfortunately the cost of living has gone up but forever the cost of living was so low and and that's that was keep riding you riding you on buying a house yeah yeah yeah yeah or Boulder City or something like that yeah yeah I goes back to like the could have what have should I still am open to it but I'm just thinking man 10 years ago instead of partying you couldn't bought a house I can't look at it like that but it's still this thing that kind of circulates in my head like D I wasn't brought up around people thinking that way you know so I never thought that way I think that way and it's you still can do it but would have L to get one of those houses you got downtown for 100 grand it was a little more at the time oh yeah I got yeah my house I live in now I got for stupid cheap yeah yeah like was drunk the girl I was dating at the time her brother-in-law was like mortgage guy so I was like I can buy a house I didn't know I could do that yeah Fu signed some papers by myself yeah maybe I should get drunk and do it

right now yeah so yeah yeah um yeah man well I just dude I just want to thank you for coming I think I think we pretty much got like a good roundabout you know cple you had a real fun story dude doing yourip on National Television is pretty wild I don't honestly know too many people no no one else did it at least for heart Huntington you know the one the one and only you know that did it did it so now you just did like a project with har and Huntington for the 20- year anniversary of that right yeah yeah it's the 20th year anniversary you guys did like some collaborative shirts or something uh BJ uh reached out to me he's like the manager whatever um asked me if if I wanted to come and like you know we do an interview you could tattoo me we

got uh this little clothing line that's a 20e anniversary of some of the styles that we had in 2004 that they don't they hadn't had in a long time and then they just kind of like redid some coloring the colors to them so I went over there and tried a couple on and and uh tattooed them did the interview kind of told this same story over there oh okay um and if it wasn't for them I wouldn't be tattooing you know it's weird if it wasn't for cousin I wouldn't be tattooing if it wasn't for Carrie I wouldn't be tattooing if it wasn't for my mentors I wouldn't be tattooing obviously it wasn't for me I wouldn't be tattooing but you know there's so many Helping Hands that help me get to where I'm at today and it all starts with heart at Huntington so that was nice to go over there and still feel at home and I still you know still uh love them and and support them and and uh you know I'll always be heart Huntington you know that's great they they still like reach out to you and you kept those that's you know a good thing a very important thing is keep those relationships alive like be kind to people man don't be a dick yeah yeah I think you should have the awareness of being kind to people anyways but when you're talking about people you could work for in the future that you don't know that you might have to call them and be like hey can I know we didn't settle sowhere can I get a job no this is why okay well shame on you you know and uh don't burn those bridges yeah yeah so yeah 20

years later you could still go over there that's cool use I thought we were going to go over there and have a phone and and film and all they like this whole production oh cool good you know where do where do we see that at or like how do uh well they just they just came out with the interview I think you can get it on YouTube I put it on my my Instagram fitore Tattoo that has like a link that kind of tells a little bit about the the story of how all started it's fitzcore tattoo fitzcore tat that's where we find you right now until you get your website built yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah so uh yeah we just did the 20 year that was really cool um wild to it's been 20 years yeah great I don't feel old but I look at the numbers and it's like you're getting there I feel I feel like I just started in a weird way yeah that's important versus the other way around you know yeah time is a a valuable thing it's very interesting to especially when you get into the higher years and you yeah have a Rolodex of memories and yeah you have a resume you know and well I appreciate you taking the time to do this man this is super fun thank you for having me truly enjoy your company and thank you for likewise doing this it's really fun so um support your local tattooer yeah man if you guys want to check out anything that Josh is working on you see Fitz unor tattoo um catch him on his Instagram and we'll have this content out as soon as we can so thank you guys so much thank you Josh

appreciate it bu appreciate it man yeah thank you yeah things are good life is good so all right guys well thank you so much for tuning in um yeah we got more content coming at you soon and hang in there while we uh while I fumble through this and try to figure out how to host dang TV show or whatever we're doing here yeah yeah yeah have a great day every day yeah have a good one thanks guys have a good one a