Tattoos are basically tragic.

Mon Frere,
First off, I fully expect our little blog to sometimes be a launching pad for your public blog. You can sort of wipe off your shoes on this one. I also think the mouse hunt is ready for 'TrenchDesign' prime time as well. That is a universally hilarious moment and any prospective clients would be immediately endeared.
You are up to your ears in grapes and I am up to my balls in soot, pop tarts (the favored repast of the chimney sweep) and tattoos. I told you about the plumber who showed me the franken-bear triple cover-up tattoo, right?
Behold:

Ingredients are as follows:
1. A Pagan motorcycle club insignia
2. A spider web
3. One bear
 DUDE!!!  You thought you were joking about making it into a storm cloud w/thunderbolt when I described it over the phone.. I'm starting to think that is the only solution. When he asked me if I could fix it or cover it up ( total rookie that I am ) I was speechless. I think the words ' Well, that's quite a conundrum' passed my lips at some point. I'm pretty sure the word 'amputation' stayed in my head.

The tattoo I am working on now is also a cover up. The  infamous-in-my-own-world 'Douche-bag Derek' tattoo. Below is a  photo of the now permanently lined-in panther and foliage. It is a mock-up for the basic color scheme (which is colored pencil directly on the photo of the actual lining). I feel a little woozy about it. You can see how dumbed down my hand is with an actual tattoo machine. What do you think? Tell me something encouraging, please.

If you look, you can see  the heart in the panther's shoulder. Did I get carried away? I think I got carried away...

Finally, here is the next installment of the periodic table. It's a fairy on a calla lilly I drew yesterday.

If I can translate this kind of drawing thru a tattoo machine eventually then I should be a rich man. Click on it for a large image, I think.

 

just real quick

I am pressed for time like a grape is for hooch so I will just say this... well, these:
1-I am very excited about the Periodic Table of Tats.  You are on the right track. You might consider a Yosemite Sam, a mom heart and an anchor. Maybe a portrait and some fire with a unicorn and a primitive something or other.
2-I have committed a bloglem.  I put the vid of me and that barrel on trenchdesign.  Are we still friends?
3-I am thinking of calling my wine Oregon Earwig Soup.  There are so many earwigs crawling around it is nuts.

I need to gleek.

Periodic table Jr. and the Oral Exam

I hadn't thought about how fragile a grape can be. Like harvesting bubbles. If the crop goes to hell there is always the  jelly market (of which I have long been an enthusiastic investor). Say, would you drink a white or a red with a PB&J ?.... Probably a white, or perhaps even a brown, if I was feeling wild and there was some Hershey's syrup around.
Judging from the video, you've got the end-over barrel roll down pat. But it's more like bouncing a ball, isn't it?   Barrel bouncing...yet another utterly unique skill for your burgeoning resume of utterly unique skills. I've just learned how to remove a dead squirrel from a chimney. It starts with rolling up your sleeves and inhaling the 'status' of the offending corpse which has usually come to rest just on the other side of the damper.. The more pungent the odor the more maggots there will be. It's a bit of a roulette because you can't really know what the hell is up there ( shall we say, in terms of viscosity and adhesion) with out looking up the flu and so here in lies the gamble. What is up the flu wants to come down the flu, especially once you start poking around to see what the hell is up the flu...get it?  This is why Clean Sweep Chimney Service charges $200 for this gruesome bit of spelunking...and is yet another thing I am willing to do for $13/hr.
There is much more to report, like having taken the Oral Exam for the fire department. It went something like this. A small school class room, 3 lieutenants and me.
" Please state your name and spell it."
I was hoping it ended there because  I felt sure I could ace that part. It did not end there and I  apparently did not ace my name...because they asked me to repeat myself..
Then....
" You will answer 5 questions. Number one: You have arrived at the scene of an accident and are treating an injured woman and , unbeknownst to her, her daughter did not survive. She asks you if her daughter is o.k.. What do you say and why?"
My first thought was "Where's the morphine, anyway..?"
All in all I think I did well.
Below is an example of an abbreviated tattoo 'periodic table' as you so aptly nailed it.
What more could a fella want?...I know... wings, fire, tits and some dice....don't forget the dice.
ps Start thinking about your next tattoo, Bub....just for fun. I'll draw it up just for the practice.

wall of fruit

Things are getting crazy at the winery.  We are expecting a wall of fruit on Monday.  Due to a quick heat wave, the estimated yields have been severely reconsidered.  Average cluster went from 137 grams to 110 grams in a matter of a week!  The brix are at 128!  they should be at 124!!!  (google it, I don't have time to explain everything)  Reports of vines with single grapes literally popped out of the cluster and onto the ground have been rampant!  That means that a week ago, clusters were so fat and juicy that there was no longer enough room for all of them, so some got squirted out.  That is an indication that grape skins might have cracked within a cluster, creating a breeding ground for a variety of molds.  Then, with the heat wave, shit is really fucked up.  Raisons!  The sugars are concentrated as the juice is diminished!  That means the alcohol content is going to be higher which puts the vino in a higher tax bracket.  So we have to add water  (which is a secret )  Oh Monsieur!  le monde du vin D'Oregon c'est foux!
I apologize for the excessive exclamation points but I am not able to convey the dire reality of the situation with words alone.

Fortunately I am but a lowly cellar rat.

The Blair Mouse Hunt

Priceless....I could listen to that scream a 100 times. I groaned my way through a 2 hour horror flick the other night that wished it had half the payoff that 8 seconds did.
"Mouse" has it all.
The backlit goon, mumbling in the kitchen and about to touch something gross..
 The soft and trusting voice asking "What are you doing,..Charley..?
The sudden lunge and blood curdling scream as the camera crashes in the unspeakable onslaught.
Pure gold...
I can totally understand why you kept your battle of wits with the mouse a secret. After all, woman gather and men hunt, right? This was between you..and him.  Or is that , woman gather AND hunt and men stay up all night trying not to have nightmares, chasing mice and sending the rtesults to thier buddies....ahem.. colleagues.
By the way, did you catch the mouse?  It looks like you took it to the ground where things get even 'scarier'  because you can 't tell if it's actually in the grip or just tucked away in a peripheral fold of cloth ready to spring for the jugular with it's now enraged mouse fury. Funny too how your murderous intentions weakened from using a butcher's block to 'squish' it to the catch and release. Just didn't seem sporting, did it? Bragging rights most certainly go to the man who catches a mouse with his impromptu prophylactic mittens. Remember I euthanized that rat at the set shop in the bronx? I though that guy who looked like Tony Soprano was going to faint.
 Thanks too, for the 'soundtrack' description.  I figured if it wasn't you then, of course, it was some girl from Belgium. The 'Ker-plopp' of the box is pretty sweet. Like a single foot fall of a clydesdale might sound like. However, your thumbs poking through the sleeves are a little troubling considering those are now sewn in and marketed  to 12 year old skaters. For the record ( and this can be confirmed by several witnesses) I discovered that little Gothy fashion thumb hole in a my worn out cuffs way back in '85. You owe me a royalty.
Now on to the the real subject...my deltoids. I am still trying, with all my considerable might, to spin the word 'Bulbous' into a compliment...
...hold on..almost..there....
And temporary tattoos? What, are you trying to get me killed?
That photoshopped 'swollen finger' was your toe from the previous image of your jack-the-ripper little piggys and the Pino Grosso bottle was a morning well wasted..like this e-mail. I have the morning off bcause I'm taking the now infamous 'oral exam' for the fire depart. late this afternoon. Don't bother with anymore jokes, I think I've heard them all at this point. My favorite is " Tell your boyfriend to give me call if he needs to practice.."
We'll just have to let that house burn, shan't we?
Also, 'opening a jar' is the perfect equivalent to the effort it takes to control the tattoo machine.. and that's if I was using my tongue (which I was )... to do either.
One last thing. Below, is a doodle my mother had saved all these years. It bubbled up to the surface of her year round spring cleaning last Sunday. Remember that guy? I believe it is actually supposed to be your portrait (note the astonishing likeness). Either that or a candidate for Koview Kevy Butt Ding Ding
(note to our future army of readers: The Koview Kevy Butt Ding Ding is a monster that poos in your shoe. Only Charley's very brave and light footed children have actually seen it)

A Few Good Things

That singing is a clip I found on a free audio clip site.  Some girl in Belgium made it and put it out there.  I recorded the sound of the box closing separately and stuck that in there, and the cheering crowd just appeared on its own.  I have no idea how it got there.

I am glad you have become comfortable enough with Photoshop so that you can spend hours making things like swollen fingers and bottled body parts.  I am thinking of trying to make a barrel of wine with a couple of buddies.  I don't know if I will ever have these resources and expertise so available to me ever again.  Better jump on the chance to make a years worth of hootch for cheap.  So far it is looking like a fun harvest.

Do you really have to use all of your bulbous muscles to do a tattoo?  I can see why you like that picture of your shoulder, sans tattoo.  You look like you are trying to open a jar.  How about making a line of those temporary tattoos?  I wonder how much it would cost to get them printed.  That could be a nice $20 grab off your web site.  Make some big ones.  I bet people are doing it already, but that would be pretty fun.  Would the tattoo superstars frown?

Remember how I told you I saw a mouse and that my wife was going to kill me?  Well, things have escalated.   I finally fessed up when she saw me glance at him next to the stove.  She busted me looking at a mouse.  Then she got it out of me that I saw it before and I chose to pretend I didn't actually see it.  Not to tell her but to keep it a secret for some reason. That is a pretty effective way to deal with it.  My only excuse is that I was distracted enough from my work already and the last thing I needed was to take on a mouse infestation.

Anyway, the other night at about 1:00 am, as I fended off nightmares with Seinfeld reruns (thanks for that solution by the way) I heard the little fucker on the counter in the kitchen.  I crept up and flipped on the brightest light to shock and awe his fuzzy little ass.  It worked, he scrambled into the corner behind our mixer.  At this point I was holding this large, thick, heavy cutting board that I was going to squash him with.  I quickly reviewed the future and put the board down in exchange for a stainless mixing bowl.  I was going to trap it and chuck it off the nearest cliff.
My wife has a sixth sense.  Somehow in her sleep she felt that I was up to something so she came downstairs to find me crouched and ready to pounce with a cloth shopping bag over my hands.  I was going to just grab him.
Jessie, when she realized what was going on asked if she could help.
"Get the butterfly net!"
"It is in the garage" she answered.
"Then get the camera and hurry!"
So she ran and got the camera and this is what we got.

So my dear flend,
I thought I'd post a photo of yours truly in action (please note the guns).
I am in the process of rerunning the lines on Jackie's panther tattoo. I'm starting to get the hang of it, having  had a chance to revisit my initial effort.  What one might think is a nicely laid, velvety line might look very different a month later. It's a small complicated world down there at the tip of the needle and in spite of all the empirical and technical factors at play to guide one's sense of a hit or missed mark, I'm starting to get that the feeling that I'll really know when I've put down a good line (that will hold) according to a sort of harmonic sensation.  Jackie's a stud and practically falls asleep while I'm working.
I hope you've settled into your seasonal boot camp at the vineyard. Take pictures.