eleven.

eleven years.

in a row.
eleven times the hardness,
eleven times the freshness,
eleven times the loudness,
and most of all,
eleven times the hottness.
today is the day.
especially.
eleven mutha-F*ing years.
YEARS, i'm sayin'.
y'heard?
eleven years of tattooing.
ever since those first nervous zaps
all the way up until to today's tempered t-blasts,
i've spanned the whole gamut,
from gettin' over on that fresh art-pirate bread & butter,
to bumpin' and grindin' out that mortgage payment.
eleven mama-lickin' solar cycles,
smoke-ring ghost circles of character-defining
spirit, memory, savage stormswept creation
and berserker barbarian self-destruction.
it's been something beyond better-than-good,
and sometimes much worse than awful,
but it's still all really happening,
day after week after month after year.
from metal mitch to mountain mayhem-
from synonymous with fabulous,
to anonymous and nebulous-
really real reality,
worthy warrior poetry,
and most of all my movie checks,
are all tied directly to the lucky ducky
doo-doo buttery dopeness of tattyzapping.
tattooing made me the ninja i am, y'all.
that's no joke.
and real ninjas do real sh!t.
without meat-marring meet-ups,
there'd be no albie rock.
there'd be no Folk Lifey woodsly
goodsly new hampsire newhamden-ness,
no fortress of liberty,
no zipzappin' super-hot wife,
and probably no ex-wife and kids, either...
(real talk)
no shawn hebrank,
no dan dealy,
hell, none o' my main duders would even know me now.
what i mean is:
i am grateful for this time i have been given.
all the days,
soul-crushingly slow,
or brutally busy.
hard times,
harder styles,
and hardest poundings.
long nights,
cold winters,
cold shoulders,
cold squirts of green soap,
and about a million disposable razors.
i'm still here,
still sincere,
after ALL these F*ing years.
it's still happening.
and today,
it goes to eleven;
never quiet, never soft.....