Beer Can Hill

source.

These were my favorites for this week.

_{Beer Can Hill is participating in Blogathon 2009 by updating twice an hour, for 24 hours, today. Proceeds are going to RAINN.}

Source.

_{Beer Can Hill is participating in Blogathon 2009 by updating twice an hour, for 24 hours, today. Proceeds are going to RAINN.}

source.

Check out Hanzi Smatter too, especially if you’re considering an “Asian” tattoo.

_{Beer Can Hill is participating in Blogathon 2009 by updating twice an hour, for 24 hours, today. Proceeds are going to RAINN.}

I’m not sure if this photo is fake, but I would like to speak with anyone with tattoos like this. Hit me up at beercanhill at gmail dot com.

Posted late, because Memorial Day Weekend lasted longer than expected!

I will be taking pictures of this event at Reno’s Place in Kerman,California.

If you decide to go and see me there, say hi so you can get your picture did!

My friends Eleanor and her tattooist son Alex recently visited Kat Von D’s shop. They told me that Kat Von D. and her staff were friendly. I have never seen the Miami Ink or LA Ink shows myself because I don’t have cable or satellite TV. I am interested in speaking to people who have patronized this shop, so hit me up at beercanhill@gmail.com.

Bear with me, I’m not a professional photographer or website designer (yet!). See yourself or somebody you know? TELL ME! Information & corrections should be emailed to beercanhill@gmail.com .

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="320" caption="Awesome woman from The Tattoo Parlor in Madera,California."][/caption]

Check out The Madera Tattoo Parlor here.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="320" caption="Lady Vixen of Most Wanted Tattoo in Fresno,California."][/caption]

Check out Most Wanted Tattoo here.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="320" caption="Brittani Chesterfield of the U.S. Navy!"][/caption]

Brittani’s honey bee was done by Johnny Rocket at Red Wave Tattoo in Pinedale/Fresno,California. She drew the swallows herself and had them tattooed on her back by Miss Mae of 92 Proof Tattoo in Fresno,California.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="These ladies were with Skin Decor Tattoo of Fresno,California."][/caption]

Check out Skin Decor here.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="224" caption="Looking for this woman's name & info."][/caption] [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="320" caption="I didn't get her name or artist(s) because I took her picture while I was being tattooed."][/caption] [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="320" caption="Names unknown."][/caption]

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="320" caption="Name & artist unknown."][/caption] [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="239" caption="Pageant contestant."][/caption] [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="320" caption="Had to get a shot of her Social D. Man because I have him too!"][/caption]

Sugar Hill is hosting the annual Fresno Tattoo Convention on May 2nd & 3rd at the Fresno Convention Center.

_{Me & Billy Von at a 2008 convention.}

I will be there on Saturday, May 2nd, lollygagging and having tattooist Billy Von Boening (of Mad Dog Tattoo) touch up my arms and chest.

My buddy Petrina, co-owner/body piercer of Nothing Sacred Tattoo and seen hiding her face in the below photo, invited me to Tiger Rose’s Santa Maria show.

_{Petrina & Thom of Nothing Sacred}Tattoo.

I will be there on Sunday, May 3rd, lollygagging some more and having tattooist Thom Godfrey (co-owner of Nothing Sacred Tattoo) tattoo me. I have never been to Santa Maria or met very many of the artists at this show and am looking forward to this!

_{Yours Truly.}

I will have my camera at both shows. If you are attending and see me there, don’t be shy! I look kind of mean when I am not smiling but I am actually pretty friendly.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzlL3QI-pfg]

Totally Stylin’ Tattoos Barbie.

She also said if I’m supergood The Easter Bunny might hook me up with Barbie Totally Tattoos Nikki.

Please note that I am turning 29 this year.

I generally try to keep the atmosphere on Beer Can Hill fun and apolitical but this is a topic I couldn’t pass up. A New Zealand publication has reported that Barack Obama tattoos are rising in popularity as January 20th approaches. A shop in Oklahoma claimed that it did 100 of them before Election Day. Neatorama also posted about this phenomenon back in September.

While the optimist in me would like to think that Obama will be a good President, the tattoo veteran in me says that this is a bad idea.

I’m not particularly impressed with the Obama-themed tattoos I’ve seen so far.

Temporary Obama tattoos are available over here and certainly cheaper and possibly less regrettable.

Tattoos and piercings have been scarce in the White House. It makes me wonder if we’ll ever have a tattooed President in my lifetime.

U.S. Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Theodore Roosevelt reportedly had the Roosevelt family crest tattooed on them. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had an anchor tattoo on his arm.

Obama himself has stated “…I cannot imagine any circumstances in which I would get a tattoo.”

On a lighter note, the above tattoo flash of President George W. Bush has been circulating through tattoo forums and magazines. I’m gonna have to pass on getting that one too.

I have not abandoned Beer Can Hill! December’s been a busy month for me so far.

The sun didn’t come out here for something like two weeks. It was very gray and foggy. I don’t know how people who live in the northernmost parts of the planet deal with that.

The dog, fish, and birds are all doing well. I gave Jennie the Caguama box. She likes wearing it on her head while she sings her version of the 2 1/2 Men theme song (i.e. “mens mens mens, mensy mens”). Merlin has figured out that the heat lamp works best for him when he faces it instead of backing his ass up to it like he had been.

I had dinner with my parents last night and saw the original version of The Day the Earth Stood Still. We are probably going to see the new version on Christmas Day.

I am going to see Lamb Of God and Metallica in Fresno this Saturday. I procrastinated about getting tickets and will be on the upper level but I know some of the guys that work security and may be able to get pit passes.

I may also be stopping by Circle Of Saints Tattoo Studio to see my old friend Danny for his $13 special he has on the 13th of each month.

2008 was rough from the stop and I hope that it ends on a high note and that 2009 treats us all well.

I am frequently approached by other tattooed people while I am out in public. Last month I was at the gas station filling up in Fresno when a southeast Asian immigrant stopped to speak with me. He told me that he was from a region in Laos where young men are tattooed with symbols of protection as a rite of passage. He told me the tattoos he received in Laos were handpicked on to his back. He was particularly proud of this piece on his arm that he acquired here in the USA. It was his first tattoo done with a professional machine. If I see him around the neighborhood again I will post his name and more pictures.

The press announced this weekend that the United Kingdom’s “Leopard Man” Tom Leppard has moved off of the Isle of Skye and in to a house in Broadford.  Mr. Leppard lived on the secluded Scottish island for 20 years without electricity or running water. He would canoe 3 miles in to town every couple of weeks for supplies. When asked about his decision to revert back to first world living Mr. Leppard stated that he is getting too old to live in the wilderness. He is 73 years old.

While he always presents himself as a well mannered individual in social settings, Tom Leppard seems to differ from other heavily tattooed celebrities in that he prefers to be left out of the limelight. He has not been present at many conventions or been featured in many tattoo publications.

Mr. Leppard reportedly spent the equivalent of $7000 USD on having 99% of his body tattooed with leopard spots.  He also had his teeth modified. He is one of the most tattooed people living today.

See also:

BBC article

Wikipedia entry

Metacafe video clip

The article can be found at this link after today.

I visited with my friend Rob last night. He is moving away. I am sad to see him go but I am hoping he will be happier in his new town.

He gave me this tattoo as a gift.

And here’s Chewy!

Son gets Dad’s Auschwitz tattoo on own arm
By Yair Ettinger, Haaretz Correspondent

One day about eight years ago, Dr. Ron Folman walked into a tattoo studio on Tel Aviv’s Dizengoff Street accompanied by his parents, Professor Yeshayahu and Dr. Ahuva Folman. He asked his father to bare his left forearm, and told the tattooist: “I want an exact copy of that tattoo.”

The original inscription, B1367, was seared by a German soldier into the arm of the 10-year-old child Yeshayahu Folman in June 1944, on the day he was brought to Auschwitz. The boy had been sent alone from Piotrkow in Poland, and did not know what happened to his parents, whom he would find only after the war.

After surviving selektions and three years in the Blizhin and Treblinka camps, Folman – who describes himself “a survivor, like a field mouse” – survived Auschwitz as well.

Since his arrival at the age of 13 at the Ben Shemen youth village – where he learned how to read and write- through his army service, academic studies, lecturing at the Hebrew University’s agriculture department, serving as the Agriculture Ministry’s chief scientist and volunteering for UN work in Africa, he has done all he could “not to convey personal trauma.”

He did the same while he and his wife raised three children. He did not hide a thing from his family, but believes the Holocaust should be remembered “in a public and national, rather than personal, way.”

Forty-six years after that day in Auschwitz, Yeshayahu Folman found himself in the tattoo studio with a strange man copying digit by digit from his arm to his son’s, carefully duplicating the exact shade, size and spot. The act followed months of family debates.

Yeshayahu Folman was appalled by the idea and tried to prevent his son from doing it, but eventually cooperated.

“It was an act of solidarity with me,” he says. “Of course I was moved, but I was not in favor of it. I still believe that he is burdening himself with a weight he will carry for life. That is unnecessary as far as he and his children are concerned. It pains me to feel that I’m transferring it to him.”

He refuses to bare his arm for a joint photograph with his son. “I was a victim against my will. I don’t have to display my coercion, especially since I was so young. You,” he addresses his son, “since you chose it, don’t convey wretchedness. Good or bad, it’s your choice.”

Two events in 2000 brought Ron Folman to decide to engrave the number on his flesh – his father was hospitalized with a disease, and Ron was preparing for a long trip to Germany for completing his post-doctorate studies. He had served as a fighter pilot in the air force, volunteered for Amnesty, and had a successful academic career. Everything was woven somehow in the Holocaust story, and the Zionist and humanist values he was raised on.

But the trip to Germany, he says, was about to close a circle. He was headed for the University of Heidelberg, the first university to kick out all its Jewish students and lecturers when Hitler rose to power.

“I was the first Jew to hold a position in the University of Heidelberg’s physics department since 1933,” he says. “But the tattoo wasn’t because of Germany, at least not consciously. Nor was it done as a demonstration or public statement. It was about my relationship with my father, and the family members who survived and those who didn’t. My father was sick at the time, and for the first time I felt in real danger of losing him. It was purely emotional. I didn’t think of the meanings. It was the act of a man who sees his father in the hospital and suddenly all the years he absorbed, between the lines, the great pain, the tears – everything burst out. Until then I suppressed feelings associated with the Holocaust, but when I saw him lying there I felt I had to, wanted to, make a private statement about my feelings toward him and the Holocaust. It was a desire to tell him that his son understands what he had been through and shares his pain.

“As for the Holocaust, perhaps it was to tell myself I’d never forget.”

Ron Folman, a quantum physics expert and lecturer at Ben-Gurion University, says “I’ve always had a strong need for hard facts. Beyond all the feelings around the Holocaust and the talks with my father, I had a need for something factual. The number on the arm was the only factual thing we had left from the Holocaust. I asked for an exact copy, but he blew it. He used different fonts. The Germans made the digit 3 with a round font, but this tattooist made a 3 with a flat top. The 3 irritated me.”

The tattoo evoked numerous responses on a daily basis both in Israel and overseas.

“When I’m asked about it I avoid the question,” he says. “The number is only important to me as far as my daughters are concerned. I don’t know how many stories they’ll get to hear from their grandparents, so it’s important to me that they see the number and maybe ask questions about it,” he says.

Yeshayahu Folman says he has never thought of having the number removed.

“I’ve heard of people who do that; I don’t believe in escaping, especially not from history. It happened, the people who lived through it have no choice, they must bear it as best they can, but why pass the personal emotional burden on to the next generation?”

Joaquin Phoenix, in the process of receiving the tribal markings of the Yawanawa people of the Brazilian Amazon. With a Sharpie.

Get your own Sharpie tattoo kit!

_{source: Defamer}