Motorcycle Art

I found this pic, and many more like it (check the site out), and had to put it up on "Ride White Lines". Being a Motorcycle enthusiast and going to a ton of shows over the years I've seen all kinds of M/C art, but I have never seen anything quite like this. This picture and all of the ones of motorcycles over at All Fine Arts have been crafted from watch parts. I thought it was pretty cool from several aspects; time (no pun intended), craftsmanship, originality, interpretation - really thought it was cool. Check out more over at All Fine Arts.

Peace


Technorati Tags: art, motorcycles, Motorcycle enthusiast, Ride White Lines

Tattoo Time

After finding out that we were supposed to tip the stripper we decided it was time to move on, time for the tattoo. Across the street we went, all of us had a bit of a light head, filled with enthusiasm, we were going to permanently mark-up our bodies! Woohooo!

How fun was this going to be.

Into the shop we went, looking at all of the different pictures on the wall, watching people getting "work" done and trying to decide which tattoo was the "coolest" one for us.

Hey dude, does it hurt?

Well, it's been nearly 30 years and during that time I've trained as a Tattoo Artist under a guy named "Toomer" and began my tattoo career, ok, not career but my sideline for extra money, after all at that time the military was my "career", and to this day I wear a shirt that I get from my Art Supplier that has a skull in the background (kind of a gray print on a black shirt) and bold white letters that state: "HELL YES, IT HURTS!"

We each picked out out tattoo, each had a reason for what we chose, I went first. Into the chair, the artist shot a template of the design, placed it on my arm (bicep area) and began to work. I sat there sweating for two hours while he put my "leopard perched upon a skull" design on to my arm. I now try to remember what the reason was that I chose a leopard, the skull doesn't surprise me in the least... but the leopard that one baffles me. All that I know for sure is that each of the five of us have a leopard of some type on our left arm.

And the band of brothers is:

Maui
Woody
Wolf
Hillbilly (from someplace called Devo Mountain, TN)
and Moose

We all did our Boot Camp together and later our Advanced.  Maui went on to Military Intelligence School in Southern Arizona, Wolf ended up in Korea, Hillbilly - he had a bit of a tough time and was asked to leave Uncle Sam's party, and Moose, well, Moose was last seen jumping out of a plane someplace over the swamps of Louisiana training for Ranger School - no one really knows what happened to that crazy SOB.

Once the group had all been freshly "Inked" we all headed to the convenience store bought what we thought would be to much beer and went back to the hotel room to drink the night away.

The sun was in mid-sky before we woke from our haze, foggy headed and bandaged arms we grabbed a cab to the bus depot and headed back to the base.



Technorati Tags: tattoo, artist, skull tattoo, Inked, Boot Camp, First Tattoo, Tattoo

Tip the Stripper

1979: Time was marked by constant marching drills, morning PT routines, forced marches led by our CO (Commanding Officer) - who - at the time we swore was a former NAZI, based solely on his desire to march us 20 plus miles at least once a week, it turns out that 1. he wasn't a NAZI after all and 2. He was a Marathon runner so he used the forced marches for his training - nice guy :). One field exercise after another, live fire, night recon, navigation and finally.... our next leave.

Off duty and into our "Civi's", a cab ride down to the bus depot and we were quickly buying our tickets to Augusta, all five of us. The bus arrives at the Augusta bus depot after a couple of hours of travel it's time to catch a cab to the hotel and start seriously looking to get our first tattoo. The cab ride isn't a very long one to the hotel. We get checked in, get settled and we're off. It's time to get a tattoo, but first... you can't get your first tattoo without a drink first. It's going to hurt, right? None of us big, bad, soldiers want to feel that crap. We just came through the lines of deployment shots about a week earlier - that was enough stabbing, jabbing, poking and prodding for any of us, so it's off to find a bar.

This really can't be good - five 18 year boys traveled 200 miles to get tattoos but first are going to have some fun in a bar. Not a single one of us had ever drank in a bar before.

There's a saying, I'm not sure where it comes from but it goes something like this:

When hiring a teenage boy the rule is: 1 boy = a good days work. 2 boys = a 1/2 days work. 3 boys = no work at all.

I think the same applies here just substitute the word "work" for the word "brain" and you can pretty much get a good picture of our mental acumen as a group.

The herd meandered down main street and taking in the sights. We found the tattoo shop, stopped in and looked around. Yep, it was a tattoo shop. We all decided this was going to be FUN, now it's off to find the bar. Much to our delight there was a bar right across the street - imagine that a bar and a tattoo shop next to each other. What a great city!

In to the bar we went, dark and smokey with the music blaring we stood just beyond the closed door waiting for our eyes to adjust while we scanned the room for a place to sit. Before we could find a table, the bar erupted with applause, a light came on above the stage in the center of the room and "Bambi" appeared from behind the curtain. This was all the motivation we needed to sit front and center at the empty chairs around the stage. I and to this day would bet the group as a whole had never been to a strip club. The music started and "Bambi" began the grind, cat-calls and whistles went around the bar and my eyes became twice the size they normally are, although I tried to play it cool like I was born in a strip club. You know, arm back across the chair, making small talk, hey - this wasn't my first pair of real live breasts or anything, I've seen girls dance before - where do you think I'm from anyway?!

Drinks were ordered, clothing kept coming off - hers not ours - "Bambi" danced her dance in front of us for what seemed like a life time. She played the group, obviously knowing that we were young servicemen and that we were putty in her hands. She took hold of my buddies ears and pulled his face into what he later described as heaven, my hat was taken from my head and "Bambi" promptly put it on hers and wore it around the stage using it as a ... prop... while she danced - I kept that hat for years after it had lost any of it's usefulness - we were beside ourselves with all of this attention from a beautiful young lady who was willing to take her clothes off. What a great bar! All of this attention - just because we were servicemen. What a great country. What a great city. What a... ohhhhhh - I see, as we were enjoying the show a rather large gentlemen came up to the group and told us we were supposed to TIP when we received that much attention from "the lady". Damn-it. Time to go.


Boys plan - God laughs - the Stripper gets stiffed.

Technorati Tags: first tattoo, tattoo shop first tattoo tattoo shop, First Tattoo, Tattoo, stripper, Strip Club, Strip Bar

The First Tattoo

I started playing with art when I was a very young child. One Christmas my Grandmother gave me a book on how-to-draw horses and I was hooked. I'm not even sure if I was five or six at the time. I started drawing and I drew day and night. I worked on comics and characters and I kept drawing. I drew anything in site, my grandfathers pipe, my fathers pack of Marlboro's, mean pictures of my step-sisters, it didn't matter I just drew. Over the years, like most things in life, my taste matured from stick-men to super-hero's to cartoon art to realism, landscape, fantasy and on and on. Somewhere along the road of growing up I found motorcycles and then the biker culture. I did this at a relatively young age - around 13 or 14. This led me and my art down a completely different path and along this path I found Tattoo's.

In the town I lived in there used to be an old artist that went by the name of Swede. I found his shop at 15 and hung out there trying to convince him that I needed a tattoo up until the time I was 18 and joined the service. When I got that first leave and was able to come back home for a week one of the first things I did was go to his shop. I stood in front, staring through the windows, not believing my eyes. The man I had hung out with for so long, the guy who and turned me on to my first ride on a chopper (old triumph 650) and the one artist that I wanted to do my first tattoo - had sold his shop and moved away. I searched the entire time I was on leave. I knew if I kept looking I would find him, unfortunately time ran out and I had to head back to the other side of the country and back to training. No Swede, no tattoo, no luck. Damn Swede you couldn't have waited a few months before you sold your place to that dress shop!

Arriving back at base and still wanting to get my first tattoo I looked forward to my next leave. I'd find a place - there had to be one around, my God I was in a military town after all, don't all service guy's get tattoos? I talked with everyone who I thought might know and then one day sitting around at the park on base, drinking a beer and playing guitar, the son of one of the ranking officers on our Base came and sat down, started showing me some things on the guitar and just generally passing the day away. As we continued to hang out just BS'ing I started talking about wanting to get a tattoo and how my attempts to get one from "The Best Artist in the World", who just happened to have a shop in my little home town (exaggeration is an art form at 18), were all for naught. The artist had moved and now I was stuck. As luck would have it the kid had just gotten a tattoo a couple of months ago and knew of a good place with artist who had been tat'ing people for years........... a place about 200 miles away!

I was a kid, 18 at the time, thought I knew everything like most 18 year boy's I've ever met, I was going, didn't care what the military thought, didn't care about anything, I wanted a tattoo and that was that. I got a group of my buddies together and we planned it all out. We'd ride the bus down to Augusta, spend the weekend, get a tattoo or two and just have a good ole time and be back for duty on Monday morning.

Boy plans - God laughs - the Military frowns.


Technorati Tags: first tattoo military, triumph 650, motorcycles, biker culture first tattoo, motorcycles, biker culture

Motorcycle Christmas

Time for a bit of sales - no high pressure, I personally hate that crap. With Christmas right around the corner here are a couple of ideas. All of the designs that are associated with the "Whitelinesroadwear" e-store are my photo's or designs. The "bobber" mouse pad is one of my favorites. The photo was taken on Main street in Deadwood in front of Deadwood Harley Davidson - which by the way didn't have a single Harley on their showroom floor. Basically at the time we were there Deadwood Harley was just a glorified T-shirt booth. But there were some custom builders that had some really sharp bikes out in front of the store.

Here's the obligatory link for the mouse pad: Custom Bobber

And

One for the main site: White Line

If you take a look; thanks. I appreciate the visit.
If you buy something; thanks, I hope you enjoy it and please give me some feedback on quality and so forth.
If you ignore this post altogether - hey, I don't blame you but a guy's gotta try.

Ride safe.

Biker Kiss

Morning came, the rain had stopped, we had a plan and while I wasn't certain it was a good plan it was a plan none-the-less. 83 miles away in Orem, UT, give or take, we would find out the fate of our trip.

Our plan was simple, simple enough that we were able to come up with it in the motel room over a couple of beers that we bought at the state run liquor store. I would ride "bitch" on my buddies bike; we'd leave ahead of the rest of the group and head to the Harley Dealer in Orem, where I would try to deal for a used ride to get us to Sturgis and home again. While we had left early - the others would ride out after breakfast and join up with us mid-morning. Two of the wives had met a lady the night before(who sold lingerie out of a van) that had to go to Provo in the morning and had offered to give them a ride so that the entire group could all be at the dealers early enough that we could get on our way without having to shuttle the 83 miles back to Price to pick-up passengers and then head out. The plan was cast - everyone had a ride to Orem, we'd make the purchase and be gone by noon. Once again back on the road to Sturgis.

I'm a good rider as long as my hands are the ones attached to the handlebars. I'm, unfortunately, not a good passenger - I've never had to be a passenger. I don't know how and honestly - I don't want to learn. Those were the longest 83 miles of my life. I almost would have rather walked them. Once the dread of my new position (back seat) had set in I wasn't sure what to do with myself so my mind started to work in it's utmost twisted ways. As the miles through town passed I had noticed that we were getting very curious looks from people going the opposite way. I can't imagine why, two guy's, clad in leather, tattoo'd from hither to dale (ok that's just me - my buddy ... mmmm, not so much, in fact only one) bandana's on, wrap-arounds in place and me, holding on tightly to my buddy. I think I'm beginning to understand why we were getting the looks we were getting.

Okay, let's have some fun. I wave, they wave back. I change the wave to the princess style - just a bit more "fem", they're not so willing to wave back. I blow kisses, they turn away. Cars beside us, well, they get special treatment. They stare in bewilderment; I notice; they keep staring; I start rubbing my buddies chest and lay my head on his back - shazamm! the stares stop, sadly, they won't even look at me again. I feel rejected. Now the entire time I was doing this my buddy started to play along which really freaked people out. When we hit the mountains my ability to focus on "playing" with our passing neighbors was greatly diminished by my instinct to hold on for dear life so all the antics stopped and I no longer noticed passing cars. I simply prayed for time to go by quickly.

I truly hate being the passenger.

Technorati Tags: Harley Dealer, motorcycle, lingerie Motorcycle traveling

Bikers Ultimate Porta-Potty

When I came across this "Ultimate Porta-Potty" I just had to post it! The only problem that I had was do I post it under "Tips-n-Tricks", "Maintenance" or should it be filed under "Lifestyle"?

I went with "Tips-n-Tricks"

Enjoy a bit of humor for the day!





Ultimate Porta-Potty

My Friend the Marine

Fourteen years ago I had the honor and privilege of becoming part of the life of a 5 year old boy, Mike - back then it was Mikey - and his family. Both families moved in to our neighborhood within a month of each other and were the first families on the block. His family was made up of Dad, Mom and his Sister. Ours was made up nearly the same with one additional sibling. My kids, Mikey and his Sister were all in the same age range. Over time my three boys, Mike and his sister became very close friends and did all of the things that a group of five or six kids would do. They ran the neighborhood, the got into mischief, the made us cry and smile with pride.

My family has spent many summer nights watching little league baseball games, pop warner football games and just hanging out with Mike and his family.

Mikey has grown in to Mike now and this weekend he graduates from Marine Boot camp. It is with a great deal of honor and pride that my family will go to So.Cal. to show our pride and celebrate Mikes achievement.

I have been honored to be part of this young man's life and am honored and deeply touched that he would extend an invitation to celebrate his achievement with my family.

I privately pray that Mike has learned all that he needs and that he remains safe throughout his service to our country. I pray that the times for him were peaceful like they were when I served, but they are not. So I pray that he was given the wisdom he needs and the skills that will be required to keep him out of harms way.

Recruit M.J.A. I could not be more honored.