.jpg)
The Trans•Parency Podcast Show
In The Trans•Parency Podcast Show podcast, the host team, Shelbe Chang, Shane Ivan Nash, Jessie McGrath, and Bloosm C. Brown take you on a journey exploring the transformation stories, community dynamics, advocacy, entertainment, trans-owned businesses, and current events surrounding the lives of trans individuals.
Join us in enlightening conversations as we sit down with guests from the trans, LGBTQ+ community, and allies. Through powerful storytelling, they delve into their journeys, highlighting the trans people's transition from who they once were to their authentic selves. Also, this podcast uncovers individuals' experiences as allies who positively impact the trans community.
Our purpose-driven mission is to empower the trans community and uplift our voices, ensuring that we can be heard and beyond far and wide.
The Trans•Parency Podcast Show
Tattoo Tales, Hollywood Graffiti Roots, and Buck Angel's Trans Journey
Have you ever wondered how tattoos have transitioned from taboo to trendy expressions of personal stories?
Join Jessie McGrath as we sit down with Baba, an iconic tattoo artist who has not only transformed her life but has also left his mark on celebrities and the tattoo industry. From the impulsive ink choices of yesteryear to today's meaningful masterpieces, Baba shares his tales from Hollywood Boulevard to encounters with LA law enforcement.
Our conversation also touches on the intriguing world of adult film industry dynamics.
CONNECT WITH BABA ▶︎ INSTAGRAM | https://www.instagram.com/babaxx11/
Did you know that podcasts are a great way to grow your personal and business brand voice?
Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched!
Start for FREE
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
Download the podcasts on all your favorite platforms: https://bit.ly/3wOecFr
----
CONNECT WITH TRANS-PARENCY PODCAST SHOW ON SOCIAL MEDIA
▶︎ YOUTUBE | https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCozHvJj0NTeKtvC8P5gyxqA
▶︎ INSTAGRAM | https://www.instagram.com/transparencypodcastshow/
▶︎ FACEBOOK | https://www.facebook.com/thetransparencypodcastshow
▶︎ TIKTOK | https://www.tiktok.com/@thetransparencypodcast
DISCLAIMER: This description may contain links from our affiliates, sponsors, and partners. If you use these products, we will get compensated - but there's no additional cost to you.
This is the Transparency Podcast Show.
Speaker 2:Hi, I'm Jesse McGrath and welcome to the Transparency Podcast Show. I am incredibly excited today to be welcoming an incredible guest who has been a big part of my life. The man, the myth, the legend, baba.
Speaker 1:Thanks for having me. Oh, yes, I tried to do a dramatic pause there.
Speaker 2:Yes, we have to get the round of applause for you because Is that what that was? Yes, we had a little round of applause because you are very well known from what I understand. Yeah, thank you, Thank you, Thank you. So I have a lot of tattoos and people are constantly asking me you know what is this? How did you get this? Who do you do, Don't you?
Speaker 1:think it's funny that they really care. Like before TV shows, nobody ever cared why you got that tattoo. That was made up by the entertainment industry. The whys, really yeah, you had to have a reason to get a tattoo Before that. In the old days people were just like I want a fucking tattoo here, give me that on my arm. That was it. There was no real reasons.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I personally like the idea that it's art and that you are an incredible artist. Oh, thanks. And when people ask me, I say, well, they go. Who's your artist? I always love to go. Oh, just some guy who's tattooed half of the porn stars, half the rock stars in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if I can get the other half, I'd be really happy. Well, let's hope we can get some, because all the porn stars got old and they don't do porn anymore, oh no, or you know. Unfortunately some of them passed, yeah, I mean. And the young ones aren't even stars, they just have sex on film.
Speaker 2:You actually dated a number of them over the years.
Speaker 1:Dated Like three, fooled around with about a hundred. Yeah, I only dated like three, so I met you.
Speaker 2:It, yeah, I only dated like three, so I met you. It was close to In an alley. No, it was on Hollywood Boulevard. No, Rest my case. The alley came later, but I met you. I think it was seven years ago now.
Speaker 1:Maybe Eight years ago. It's hard to believe that COVID was four years ago, so I'm all lost Almost five years ago. Yeah, Kind of like really that was seven years ago.
Speaker 2:I'm looking back on some of these things and it's like, wow, this has been a long time, but I think it was 2017. And at the time, I had a roommate who wanted to go to this club and she was like you've got to get on Instagram, you've got club and she was like uh, you got to get on instagram.
Speaker 2:You got to do this and I'm like, huh, what? Well, yeah, whatever, you know what's instagram I? I'm like whatever this. And so, anyway, she ended up dragging me out to this club no pun intended andal, this guy who had all of these tattoos and all of this stuff and, frankly, was very scary, uh, intimidating, and uh, and I ended up going back to the club a few times and we got to to talking with each other and somehow stood out like a sore thumb, like a sore your first year.
Speaker 1:A foot taller than everybody else. I am a little bit tall, yeah, and you didn't bother dyeing your hair black or whatever. So like, yeah, here's this big woman with blonde hair just walks in right floating for everybody else. Yes, you couldn't be missed it was um.
Speaker 2:When I first got in, I was gonna admit I was a little intimidated by the as everybody is.
Speaker 1:When you first went there, you were like what the hell is this? Why do I feel like something's different here? I was like what?
Speaker 2:what is this? And it was your first taste of freedom. It really was, and I will admit I had gotten a couple of tattoos before I got to know you. My first tattoo was when I was 50 and it was this little tribal sun on my stomach, which really made no sense. But I thought it was like really, wow, incredible, I'm getting a tattoo. I love the way you said your stomach. Well, that's where it was. It was between my stomach and just below my belly button and it wasn't that far down. And so we, so I got that. And then I had gotten a tramp stamp that I had designed from some crap I had seen online, you know that's another word that somebody not in the tattoo world made up Really Tramp stamps.
Speaker 1:Who made it up? Probably jealous wives, probably jealous-wise, because why? The majority of the people that got it, the girls that got it, were either strippers or young college girls that had, like this amazing figure and it accented the lower back and that's all it did. Yeah, and then somewhere people that were jealous and haters started calling it a tramp stamp, like trying to put it down. Oh, you have a tramp stamp. You must have been a tramp.
Speaker 2:Well, for a lot of time the tattoos were looked down upon by most of society.
Speaker 1:That's because people didn't know the history.
Speaker 2:And so we've seen a big change over the last 20 years.
Speaker 1:That's because the tattooed people took over as the old people died. See, people with tattoos went into the industry and decided, oh, I have tattoos, so I don't have to like conform to all this crap that the generation, two generations before we're doing I mean even still today, there's still some law enforcement agencies which prohibit which is any display of of tattoos yeah, there's a story about that too in la, and it's my fault, I did the tattoo that got that cop fired and banned, oh no, which made the lapd put the sleeves on.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow, yeah, it was a picture of his wife naked, with cuffs yeah, over her nipples, with his uh hat on. Oh, that was it. Nothing was showing. You couldn't even read the badge number or anything, but some touchy person in the thing got offended, said that that tattoo made people look at her different and she had a shape like me, so there was nothing that they were looking at. But still, I'm not body shaming, but I'm just telling you the story that happened. I'll body shame later. I'm not body shaming, but I'm just telling you the story that happened.
Speaker 2:I'll body shame later.
Speaker 1:I just I'm trying to remember his name George, something, george Officer, george, whatever. I'm not sure he was a little midget dick though.
Speaker 2:Well, you've tattooed A little.
Speaker 1:Irishman cop. Yeah, I wonder why You've you've touched Irishman cop.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I wonder why you you've tattooed a lot of cops and a lot of sheriffs and federal officials. No CHP.
Speaker 1:They don't allow it Girl scouts will get that shit before, the CHP will. No, they're just pussies.
Speaker 2:So I was at this club, you saw me gradually kind of change a little bit and then I I thought I need to get a tattoo and so that was nice of you. I went down to your shop and uh, I got a picture of you in your shop there with your flash, and uh, rates and other things.
Speaker 1:There's barely any gray hair, it's um my computer worked. Yeah, it was. It was a few years ago. Computer, look at it. All this crown on conspiracy stuff.
Speaker 2:My computer just decided to fizz away and and so what do you do to it? I I visited your shop and we started working on some tattoos. Yeah, you had really good ideas so before we get to you know my tattoos and all let's hear a little bit about you.
Speaker 1:I went to Juilliard? No, you didn't. You're originally from LA, born and raised in Hollywood. I was literally born on Romaine, right by Gower, literally half a block away from the cemetery. Oh wow, that doesn't explain anything.
Speaker 2:Did you spend a lot of time there when you were growing up?
Speaker 1:No, no, because at like a year and a half we moved to the Sunset Strip right across the street from Rocker Ralphs. Oh wow, it says Rock and Roll Ralphs, but nobody called it that back then. It was just Rocker Ralphs, just Rocker Ralphs. Yeah, rocker Ralphs.
Speaker 2:And your mom was involved in the great grandmother was in the industry.
Speaker 1:She was an actress and a singer. My grandmother was in the industry as a model and she tried to be an actress. Didn't work, so she ended up being a taxi dancer. You know, a taxi dancer, oh yeah, the dance club.
Speaker 2:very low end prostitute 10 cents a dance 10 cents a dance.
Speaker 1:She didn't put out or anything, but I'm just saying that. And then she went on to more darker things in Hollywood with you know, Mickey Cohen. I remember you telling me about that Eddie Nash. If people even know who Eddie Nash is, Eddie Nash made Mickey Cohen look like a bitch.
Speaker 2:Eddie Nash was the dealer in Hollywood and the the enforcer the wonderland murders are all tied to him.
Speaker 1:There's a documentary out now better about that there's um boogie nights where they where um the eddie nash uh character is in there with the little asian dude throwing firecrackers. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, my grandma, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so my grandma worked for him.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow, because. But then my grandma also like had this other stuff going on. My mom was in music and the music industry. She like saw the Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl and then later she met my dad on the strip and she was the manager of his band. She was also a waitress at DuPars. She was a waitress at um dupar, she was a waitress at canner's and she was a waitress at the rainbow oh wow at a birthday party.
Speaker 1:I don't know how any of that keeps happening yeah, and so she was in the club scene and so later, later in the in the late 70s, she um, my parents got divorced when I was nine, or split up, so that was 76. So by 78, 79, she was finding herself. You know, I'm going to go do this and I'm going to be this, and it was kind of cool, it's kind of embarrassing because your friends are like your mom's a kook. She listens to Led Zeppelin. You know you have a mohawk, but yeah. And then she eventually got involved with the music machine which at the time was called the Cowboy. So she was heavily involved with all that and ended up being partners and running the whole punk rock thing at the music machine from like 1980 to 86.
Speaker 2:And so were you artistic at that point? Were you drawing when you were a kid?
Speaker 1:Both, my parents were artistic, my grandmother was artistic, and we were encouraged to just do what we wanted, like it was kind of like a Bohemian thing, yeah, like little hippies. But we weren't the hippies I'm talking. When I say we, I'm talking about me and my brother odie, because we're a year apart and we, at the time when my parents were getting divorced, we were, uh, living in the valley then. Okay, so we were hanging out at a tattoo shop in van nuys that was on the way to school and and we were very, very highly influenced by cartoons and Kiss.
Speaker 2:I remember you saying you were a very big, big Kiss fan. I mean.
Speaker 1:Kiss. I've always been attracted to things that make parents say, oh, what's wrong with that kid, like the shock value. I love shock value. So we loved kiss and we uh, we love the gang graffiti and van eyes. It was really there was two major gangs and the styles I mean it looked different than anything else and you knew it was wrong. Like you would see this stuff up and you're just like, knew it was wrong, so we would try to do it too. Like literally, we were like seven years old putting up BVN, which was Barrio Van Nuys, and we weren't part of it but it was just cool to do. It had a backwards in, so you're like what's wrong with this? This is so cool, mixed with everything else.
Speaker 1:And so you started graffitiing at a very young age. Yeah, later, in 82, I started doing what's recognized as graffiti, now street art. Yeah, we don't call it art, it's vandalism. We real, real writers, and that's what we call ourselves. Um, we don't want your permission. We never did. We like doing it at night, we like doing it right in front of people. We don't really care to us. If it's public, it's ours too. So just make a little mark that we were there so.
Speaker 2:So you started that very young then yes, yes, I'll say 82.
Speaker 1:I was 15, yeah, it was just. I had a. I was influenced by the gang graffiti. And then the new york graffiti showed up when a guy named zephyr showed up in la, yeah, and I was just like what the fuck is that shit? Look at those letters. Like first, who the hell picks a? Z, p, h? Y, like you know what I mean. Yeah, those letters just don't. They're not just not normal to write. So when you see those letters, huge, you're just like wow, that shit's epic. And my friend um joni shia was kind of fooling around with him, so I got a first hand meet.
Speaker 2:Oh wow, so that was kind of cool and so then, at some point, new york started calling to you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was. There was only a handful of kids that writers from New York, when they came to LA, could hang out with, and the guys in New York would be like, oh, go see this guy, you know, go see this guy, go see this guy, they're cool. And vice versa, when we went to New York, there was only a handful of kids that would like host us. Yeah, yeah, a lot of fun. I mean, we did whatever we wanted. Hollywood was different back then. We just ruled it. It was funny because you think graffiti writers were like gang members or like you know um, hoodlums or whatever.
Speaker 1:And you know we were like skaters and punk and stuff like that and people never believed it was us, like the majority of people back then literally got racist, racist about it. We're like oh, you're not mexican or black, why are you doing that graffiti? We're like what graffiti? No, but I was like, uh, what does that race shit have to do with it? Yeah, it's like I like the art, plus I'm half Mexican, so they were stupid. I didn't even see it in me. I'm Mexican and Irish Makes me a green bean.
Speaker 2:And, you see, this is why I love hanging out and talking with you, because you always come up with the greatest stories and comments. It was just my little, my growing up and you are still friends with a lot of the folks that you grew up with.
Speaker 1:Actually, one of my friends died recently, shifty from Crazy Town, the song Butterfly. And I don't like going to funerals or whatever because I don't want to replace my last memory with you with you in a box, yeah, or you like this or whatever, but his sisters and his mom put on a memorial and it was like the biggest party of the year. It was so fucking cool. Celebration of life. Yeah, it was just a celebration, not even of life, it was just a party. Like you expected Seth to walk through the door, oh wow, that's how good of a party and that's how good they made everybody feel.
Speaker 1:And there were so many writers there, so many writers. There were so many celebrities there and a lot of people that are celebrities used to be writers and they don't know that. You know, most people don't know that. It was cool. It was way cool. It was cool seeing William do a stupid little face. You know what I mean. It was cool like seeing people I haven't seen in a long time. And there was, like I said, there were so many writers and a lot of us relinked. Yeah, like some of those writers are making like a million dollars a painting now. Oh wow, and I'm like fuck dude, your shit's looking dope. And he goes dude, I always wanted to paint with you, so that was like really cool. So, yes, I'm still keeping in touch with a lot of those guys.
Speaker 2:That is fantastic.
Speaker 1:Unfortunately, somebody had to die for that to happen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, drugs.
Speaker 1:Was that a drug overdose? They just released it. Yeah, it was the top three with fentanyl. Yeah, how stupid do people have to be If the word fentanyl is there? Just don't do it.
Speaker 2:It's like Russian roulette, and the thing is is that the fentanyl is getting into a lot of other things too, because we've had mutual friends. I'm telling you, I'm addicted to Diet Coke.
Speaker 1:I know that's a brand and everybody knows I'm addicted to Diet Coke. But if there was a rumor that fentanyl was in Diet Coke and it was killing people, I'd never drink it again. It's not a hard decision.
Speaker 2:It's not worth playing that game of Russian roulette. I know I've had people very close to me who accidentally-.
Speaker 1:There was members of the club.
Speaker 2:Members of the club and my daughter's boyfriend, who was a honors law student. So it comes. It affects people across all different lines.
Speaker 1:Drugs don't see they don't see your pocketbook, they don't see race, they don't see whether or not you're a student, or you're a good person or a bad person, or your financial situation. They don't see any of that, they just kill.
Speaker 2:It really does. And that's one of the things I've really admired about you, because I've hung out with you for so long. You're, I've never been high, you've. You have never taken a drug. You don't drink it's except for the diet coke.
Speaker 1:Yeah I mean, if you were to get married or this young man was to get married I'm pointing at a picture of him in the screen just so you know he's probably over there. He's hiding over behind the wall over there. And you invited me and there was a toast with champagne. Like I would not be a dick, I would do the toast, but I probably wouldn't even finish the shot.
Speaker 2:Take a sip and that's it.
Speaker 1:Whatever the thing's called Flute, yes, I would just do my little sip that, hey, congrats. Yeah, but no drugs, no point. And so for a while you were tattooing in New York City I went to New York for graffiti, yeah, and I made a bunch of money and I didn't realize that you met a lot of folks. That's in Hollywood, yes.
Speaker 2:I figured this one was from.
Speaker 1:Hollywood. That was after New York and that was in. We opened up a shop on Hollywood in Las Palmas, and you can't see it, but I'm holding the jacket that I airbrushed for him for body count, his metal band, wow yeah. And so he signed it. Look how skinny and young both of us were Ice-T's looking like Morgan Freeman and shit. Now he's old, but he's still tough.
Speaker 2:I was going to say you actually when you were in New York hung out with iced tea or not?
Speaker 1:iced tea with vanilla ice. Yeah, that was a process Like I created something and it eventually got his attention and then the rest is history. He actually just sent me a video of our video. We have a home video. Oh wow, that it's stupid, but you know he sent it. He goes.
Speaker 2:Look what I found and you he's a great guy have you, have, you, have you tattooed ice.
Speaker 1:actually, I've only designed his tattoos. Oh wow, yeah, he uh. He gets tattooed a lot at the time by mario barth, who's a friend of mine, oh wow, but when we're in our, when we were on tour, I just barely was learning how to tattoo, so I drew up one of his tattoos and I drew up another one of his tattoos, so he's got him tattooed, but he got like tattooed in Guam one of mine. He just keeps the stuff and does what he wants with it when we see each other it's probably a dozen times that we've seen each other since 91, 92, has been either at a tattoo convention or he's performing and I'm backstage and side stage, whatever, and there's like that's it, he's on a flight, like that's that.
Speaker 2:that and then you've worked with a lot of celebrities, and one of the other ones was tommy lee and actually I never tattooed tommy.
Speaker 1:You did. Um, no, his wife at the time, pamela, filmed at our house vip and my wife at the time, kimberly, was like oh my god, like we're doing this, and they invited Kimberly into the little parts and they, like, filmed on my daughter's thing. But Tommy, I've bumped into a hundred thousand times and that picture right there was taken at JFK. We were on the same flight and I think my brother took it or Kim took. I think my brother took it or Kim took it. I think my brother took it because there's one of Kim, but Tommy was an old friend back then. I think that's his third time of not being insane because he goes crazy, but Tommy has always been a nice guy. There's others that are big names that I actually like dave navarro, I've tattooed I remember that him and uh carmen did, she didn't get one they filmed.
Speaker 1:They filmed a show at my shop for vh1 called set and skin and um. After it was all done, he goes. Now I'm gonna get something, but and I did addict on him.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and he still has it. He's covered up a lot of stuff and he still has it, which makes me feel good. I text him every once in a while, but he's been going through so much the past couple of years.
Speaker 2:Oh, and they just had the big blow up in New York, boston or Boston.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because Isabella was there. She, she was backstage.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah. And Isabella is another mutual friend that we have who you've done a lot of tattoos on her. Yeah, her whole thigh and she's, and her ribs, yeah.
Speaker 1:We actually we did a book that you did with some of the folks that you've tattooed. I like how you're segwaying into this really quickly. You're like let me shut this fucker up and go to another part. No, I just like I had an idea of doing a book associated with the dark, romantic style of tattooing that I like doing in the style of Madonna's sex book, and that's how I wanted to do it. And then it morphed into other things and we had three locations and you were at the house, three locations and you were at the house part and you were at the dungeon. I remember you were at the dungeon but we didn't shoot you at the dungeon. No, we only shot you at the house. We shot crystal. Crystal was at the crystal. We shot at the dungeon. Yeah, we had a. We had a Disney girl there at the dungeon and I remember her seeing you guys and being like what am I getting myself into?
Speaker 2:And I'm not showing the pictures that we have from the book on that, because actually there was a picture.
Speaker 1:There were a couple of pictures of me. No, when you showed me this, the pictures that you grabbed yeah, the black and white ones from the book, oh, the, the, the introduction picture. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, introduction picture yeah, yeah, no, no, no, the black and white one of your side is from the book. Oh, I didn't have the black and white one on there, but yeah, no, that's okay, we go back um. Oh, that's not, that's not the shop.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, we're gonna have one similar to that in the book I don't have it.
Speaker 2:No, we're not gonna show that one, but you took when we were doing the setup and I was with the photographer and Zach. Yeah, Zach, you took a picture of me from the outside window. I have that too, it's kind of, and I do too, and I just not going to share that with everybody here. It's on my Instagram, if somebody wants to track it down and find it.
Speaker 1:But it was like in a really normal, normal looking house on from the outside. But the is really really dark and I never cleaned my windows on the outside. So looking through this dusty house window and it was nighttime by then and the room was lit up there's jess.
Speaker 2:So I'm like and I I just I've blown away by that picture. It is so amazing. I lost it at one point when I really it, at one point, when my iPhone went into the bottom of San Pedro Harbor.
Speaker 1:I remember you getting wet. I didn't know it was the bottom of San Pedro Harbor.
Speaker 2:It was in the dock area and I went down and dove down and I got it, that's how tall she is.
Speaker 1:She can just reach down and go to the bottom of the harbor.
Speaker 2:Oh, yes, I mean, your nickname for me was Big Bird.
Speaker 1:I wasn't going to go there on this podcast, but yes.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:We're like Big Birds here.
Speaker 2:But everybody loves Big Bird.
Speaker 1:Yes, I don't think it's a bad thing, big Bird is a very popular and only a dick wouldn't tell you about it. That's right, I did tell you about it.
Speaker 2:You did, and I love that. So you also have met Ed Hardy.
Speaker 1:Well, ed Hardy is not a clothing designer. Yes, everybody knows about him, but they don't know it's him Really. Yeah, there's Ed. That's Ed, and on his stomach there is the sketch for my thigh. So that was right after he tattooed me. But Ed was known as his first name is Don, but he was known as the Don because he was the best of the best and he did these incredible pieces. Ed was, if you read his biographies or see his documentaries or whatever, he was just hungry for tattoo knowledge and he just kept studying and then somehow morphing it into his style or juxtaposing it into his whatever word you want to use, and he became like the Don, like you couldn't touch him and there was only three and he was number one.
Speaker 2:And who are the other?
Speaker 1:two Don Lucas. Yes, no wait, I got that wrong, not don lucas, don. Why am I going stupid, right? Well, jerry's the one that stole a bunch of japanese or chinese designs and made it america. He also stole it from brooklyn, joe lieber, but he stole these designs and then made them his own and then used those styles that the japanese were doing with the five layers. Is that Sailor Jerry? Yeah, if you read his book, I mean he's kind of cold towards people. He says, oh, we'll do what these Japs do that's the words he uses but we'll do it better. That was Jerry's thinking, and Don Nolan, that was it.
Speaker 2:Not Don Lucas, don Nolan.
Speaker 1:Okay, have you been tattooed by all these guys um?
Speaker 2:well, jerry died in 72. Well, I'm yeah, I mean except, but you have some of his original art, don't?
Speaker 1:yes, yes, I, I do, and I've been lucky enough to have friends that live out there now, like um andrew that made a rubbing of his grave. Oh wow, it's in my shop now. I have his machine. Yeah, um, he also invented. He didn't invent, he brought the color purple to tattooing oh, wow say the jerry, nobody could get purple to stick.
Speaker 1:And when you mixed red and blue, you got brown when it came to tattooing tattoo pigmentsments. So he figured out a purple, and if you were in his little circle you got some of the purple. So when that happened, your stuff just stood out, and Ed was one of them. Ed was a good friend of Jerry's and then he met Kazaguri and started studying with him too. That's basically what you should do when you're tattooing. It's a hands-on apprenticeship. You learn from a master to a student, but you never stop learning.
Speaker 2:You're always learning, because everyone has a little bit difference in their techniques. Somebody learns something and then they try to pass it on.
Speaker 1:But now it's like oh yeah, here, let me go buy some sullen shirts and let me go on the internet and buy some makeup machines that they're using for tattoos now, and all this other stuff here. Son, you graduated from high school. You're now a tattooer. That's literally what's going on right now. Those are like stencil folks, it's all iPad people, and we don't. We call this the machine's dildos and we're like you're not a tattooer, you're a sex toy worker and that was.
Speaker 2:the tattoos that I had gotten were just basically somebody filling in a stencil.
Speaker 1:Well, stencils aren't bad, it's just when somebody takes a picture of that rose on their iPad and then presses you know whatever button they press to make it Cause I've never used the program and then they have an outline and then they just steal it and put it wherever they want because they like. When I did yours, I hand drew them so they fit your body right, like so the shapes that you had. The tattoos move with you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's what I was going to try we. You had the tattoos move with you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what I was going to try, what we're going to go into a little bit on on how you do what you do and and the the amount of work that went into some of the stuff that you put on. Jonathan shaw, my mentor, was all about placement. He was all about he would free hand most of the stuff. He invented a style and he would take the shape and you would move and he would draw in the shape and to to this day he still does that and that's where I learned all that. I learned placement was so much, so important. And then freehanding with the muscle tone was just as important and that was all from Jonathan and his stuff. I mean he put a stencil on me like nine times to get it right. The first tattoo he did on me because it just didn't fit my muscle tone Right, and then he did it and it's to this day it's perfect.
Speaker 2:And. I think, we got what? Um? The next one is what the photo of this is. When I, when I said I wanted a tattoo, I said I wanted five roses for my five kids and you came up with this incredible side piece which is 25 times bigger than I thought I was going to get.
Speaker 1:We already acknowledged she was Big Bird, right.
Speaker 2:So when I went in and you hand drew this on me to show me where it was going to go in placement, and all of that, I was suddenly like, oh wow, I want to do this.
Speaker 1:And it moves with you and it's the different styles of doing black. I completely had fun with this one.
Speaker 2:What I found out was that you used all different kinds of techniques in the design of this tattoo and if we can look at that again, you can kind of point out what the different things are, because I thought it was just amazing.
Speaker 1:Well, the solid black is black work and some people call it tribal, and it's a mixture of that tribal mixed with Edwardian flourishing, which I love doing as flourishing. I use it with my letters, I use it with all sorts of stuff to dictate the shape of what it's on. So when that moves, you move. The roses were all put on using the crosshatch style, which is old printmaking yes, you know from the wood prints. So I drew those in places that wouldn't move as much as what the black was, and then I did the East LA powder shading style on it too behind it. So I was just mixing up all these styles and right by your watch, that's the cover up of your, of your, my tribal son yes, your tribal son which you can see is definitely a good six inches below her belly button, even though she was trying to pretend it wasn't that low earlier it was on my stomach, lower stomach, yeah sure, and, and so we spent a lot of time and there's there's still two more roses.
Speaker 1:Oh yes, this is. This is not the. This is cropped for entertainment this.
Speaker 2:this is not the complete tattoo, because it goes up in my back and then down, so it moves around. So this was a really, really big piece.
Speaker 1:This was a whole beginning of a journey piece, and so we spent. Do we have the other side?
Speaker 2:Two or three weeks. This was the very first thing you did for me, but I'm just the other side.
Speaker 1:Yes, you have a picture.
Speaker 2:Yes, we do have the other side, and so after I there you go. Let's go back to Lyle for a second though, because I met him right after you did this one and and got a chance to show it to him. You got to show. Uh, yeah, lyle, lyle um, hardy hated Lyle.
Speaker 1:No, hardy didn't hate Lyle. Sailor Jerry hated Lyle. No, hardy didn't hate Lyle. Sailor Jerry hated Lyle. And therefore at the time, hardy hated Lyle. Hardy apologized later.
Speaker 2:And Lyle is like one of the OGs right.
Speaker 1:Lyle was definitely an OG. He tattooed everywhere. One of his best friends was Ron Ackers, who was in England. There was nothing like that, so you had to write people, so all their correspondence would be through the mail and they would send stencils and at the time they were acetate stencils, so you would do a rubbing or whatever and make a pattern and they would do all this. They would send machiness and at the time they were acetate stencils, so you would do a rubbing or whatever and make a pattern and they would do all this. They would send machines back and forth. Lyle probably had the biggest he's dead now. That's why I said had, yes, um, biggest collection of tattoo machines ever.
Speaker 1:He was the go-to if you had something and you want to know anything about it. Lyle knew, and he always had these like little one-liner jokes too, like oh, this is a boat anchor, throw it away, shit like this. If you look behind him, it says Rolling Stone. Yeah, he is the first and only tattooer to be on the cover of Rolling Stone. Oh, wow, back when it was a paper and he falsely got credit for tattooing janice joplin's wrist. Janice joplin's wrist was done by um pat martinick, who was a canadian, yeah, who couldn't really take credit because he was illegal, ah. So he didn't want any any um spotlight on him. I didn't do so. Lyle took credit for it, but then it wasn't really a lie because later he put a little heart on her chest, on her breasts. So he didn't lie. But people assume because they see the wrist more than they see the heart. Yeah, lyle was the king of San Francisco.
Speaker 2:And I think this was at the Tattoo Expo out at the Fairplex. Yeah, this is kimono, and I was just I'm honored that you asked me to come out and get a chance to meet him. Well, you know the you.
Speaker 1:You showed interest, so you know. You obviously proved that you were cool, so you know. Plus, people don't. Yeah, everybody. I sponsored that show for the past 22 years. Yeah, we tour all over the country with it.
Speaker 2:And you do, tucson and Not Tucson.
Speaker 1:I do Phoenix this year because we changed the locations all the time was downtown LA, pomona, san Francisco, phoenix, and then in November of this year, on the 8th, 9th and 10th, we'll be at Westworld in Scottsdale, arizona. But we did do Tucson once and it was horrible. It was horrible. I think like 100 people showed up and I tattooed about 10 of them.
Speaker 2:And getting an appointment with you sometimes is kind of difficult because you are traveling all over the country.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I just made an appointment today for Norfolk Virginia. Yeah, I travel everywhere, but people don't. I post it all on Instagram and then they're like are you in town? Like no.
Speaker 2:No, didn't you see my? I'm in Houston.
Speaker 1:Oh, we do Houston too.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's right, I forgot that.
Speaker 1:I'm like I'm in Houston, they go. I thought you did that already.
Speaker 2:So now, going back to the side tattoo that you did for me, I originally went in and said I want five roses for my kids on this side and I want a single color rose over here for me is for my kids on this side, and I want a single color rose over here for me. And we spent a lot of hours on that right-hand side and when I said, okay, well, let's make an appointment, I want to get my rose, you were like, yeah, I can do that, but and then you came up with the most incredible idea. Do you remember what?
Speaker 1:it was, of course, original sin. I just want to hear the way you say it. You said, okay, you're. You're the receiver. You know what?
Speaker 2:I mean, it was, I was sitting there and and he goes okay, yes, I can do, you know, a rose here, but you know we've been working together. I've listened to your story.
Speaker 2:You have an amazing story we've talked with each other and I've kind of gotten to know you and I said but and you have that little tribal son there, and what the fuck do you have that for? It doesn't make sense, you go. So what I was thinking we could do is I would come up with a lotus flower cover-up of that tattoo, because the lotus flower is something that is beautiful, that springs out from from mud, from mud and darkness, yes, um. And that it would then transform over to a flower, but not a rose, but an exotic flower, a flower that is unlike any other and and who are we talking about?
Speaker 2:And we incorporate the original sin and the apple and the snake, and I was like this was right after it was done, so there's a lot of swelling on there.
Speaker 1:So you know the gray shading behind it got really light so you can make it out better now. But the red that you see are the belly scales of the snake. I'm describing it so your followers can see it.
Speaker 2:Yes, I can see it here also. Oh yeah, and the snake, I'm describing it, so you're.
Speaker 1:yes, I can see it here also. Oh, yeah, and it's, it's going to be on the screen here. So, yes, on the screen right there. So there's the apple down at the bottom with the thing, but then you have this like flourishing thing of beauty, but we left your butterfly and your little stars in there.
Speaker 2:Yes, because I that was the five stars for my five kids and I do a lot of five things this is another one where it also moves with your body.
Speaker 1:When I was drawing it on you, I uh had you stand and move and I drew all the cross lines and stuff like this. So if you go from the black through the Lotus into this, it was like my way of seeing your story of transition. So the the tattoo is transitioning too.
Speaker 2:So I and so and because of that, I've then kind of decided that all of my right hand body side legs, arms and and such are are black ink tattoo and then it transitions into color on my left hand side and it's kind of, it's kind of become a metaphor for my transition that I had this darkness and this colorful.
Speaker 1:But the darkness wasn't bad darkness. It could have been any darkness, see, it could have been dark and romantic. I mean, your kids aren't bad. So those four roses. You know, some people don't understand darkness when you say it, they don't understand. There's a beauty to darkness. You know, when you're in a complete darkness, the smallest bit of light you appreciate, and if you're in the light, you never appreciate it and and I was in some dark places at different times in my life, and that alley in hollywood that we first talked about.
Speaker 1:She was tagging.
Speaker 2:Oh, yes, okay. So just so everybody knows, every time I see Bob and I walk in and I'm with a friend or something, he goes hey, hookers.
Speaker 1:and I keep saying Hooker is my favorite thing to call women, especially if they're fun, because they're fun and I'm always like it's kind of a compliment, I'm not a hooker, I don't charge, I'm a slut, exactly but um, so you came up with this idea.
Speaker 1:that was just so friggin incredible about my story that it's done now I would love to keep working. I'm looking at this now and I'm like, yeah, yeah, I know what I was doing there and there Fuck yeah, it's all gone. Right there, it wasn't done yet. That was second setting.
Speaker 2:That was like the third setting at that point. But yeah, there was still some more shading and other stuff that needed to get in.
Speaker 1:There was more that needed to happen.
Speaker 2:And because the flowers are not done on a lot of that, there's some more that are down, down, lower, that are. There was a lot more color in it.
Speaker 1:Still, yeah, it's bright as fuck now and it's it is just so, so good, and jesse had no problem getting naked in the shop it was a closed shop. It's a tattoo shop. It was not closed. Fucking door was open. Door's always open.
Speaker 2:Yes, and you also pierced my nipples, so that was sitting out there in the open and my ta-tas were hanging out.
Speaker 1:The girls from Oxy get their nipples pierced right there.
Speaker 2:And so you really like tattooing on me, I guess because you've seen pretty much every side of me, I would never, ever.
Speaker 1:I can't fucking stand Bruce Springsteen. I would never, ever have suggested anything, bruce Springsteen, and you came to me with one of them and I was like, okay, all right, see.
Speaker 2:So I made exceptions in my personal preferences because of the shit you've come up with and and what we're talking about on my thigh here is I have a verse of uh, bruce springsteen's brilliant disguise and I never even heard of that and and baba had no idea what the song was, and it was something that I really I listened to a lot when I was going through my side note me and Jesse talk a lot about music because we both loved it and all the stuff that she's done and the stuff that I've done.
Speaker 1:So that's, we are always talking about music.
Speaker 2:Go ahead and, and and. We've talked about a lot of things because we spent a lot of hours together, yeah. But the one thing we seem to agree upon always is music, you know and your first show was leonard skinner right my very first rock concert was leonard skinner, just shortly before the, the crash that killed ronnie van zandt and steve gaines, and your first public event was a crucifixion of christ.
Speaker 1:Right, I don't go quite back that far. I heard you waved at him, got mad because he didn't wave back. Uh, he had a tattoo. Lyle tuttle did it lyle told you born to lose.
Speaker 2:Yeah, uh, so I, I actually the. The verse that I took was the uh, we stood at the altar. The gypsy swore our future was right, become the wee, wee hours. Well, maybe, baby. The gypsy lied and we did. Gypsy lied bigger and then. So when you look at you better look hard and look twice.
Speaker 1:Is that a?
Speaker 2:bunch of certain words, or is that a brilliant disguise?
Speaker 1:And that was it was a lot bigger too, right.
Speaker 2:Yes, bigger too, right, yes, and the brilliant disguise is larger size. And then you added in the rose, which is nuts, and it was like this is a perfect example of of how we kind of work together and come up with these things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I appreciate you I like how you you're, you're not, you don't settle for what you should get. You, you get what you want, like isis, yes, yeah, you're just like I want this and I'm like fuck, yes. And oh, look, there's me drawing on you. That is, I'm drawing the, uh, the justice this is.
Speaker 2:This is perhaps.
Speaker 1:My favorite tattoo and but my left hand, if you look close, those are the words and my two fingers are covering the rose. Yeah, that's the Bruce Springsteen one.
Speaker 2:This is the one you're working on, my combination of goth and the Lady Justice version of that, and for me that's my favorite one, that special tool right there.
Speaker 1:See that that nobody has but me. It's called a ballpoint pen. Ballpoint pen. All these other motherfuckers are all like. I need my iPad and I need this and I'm like ballpoint pen.
Speaker 2:And so I had talked with you and we'd been thinking about this for for a while and I said I wanted a goth version of lady justice. And so I had gone online and had seen a couple of things and we had kind of talked back and forth and you hand drew this on my body right so it fit.
Speaker 1:and then I think we have a picture, the actual finished version and she got so much softer too, like right then is right after I did it. So, yes, a lot of people don't know that when you're doing grays gray tones you have to do it twice as dark as you want to be, because the water will wash out and it'll be really light. So that came out a lot lighter, see.
Speaker 2:And so this is I don't know if we can see on the camera that see. It's very much, it's just an incredibly beautiful.
Speaker 1:I love that piece. And we weren't. I love that piece. Wait, what were we supposed to do? Oh, on the jacket.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I have a 1960s Wrangler jacket that I kind of tie-dyed. She got in her 40s, it was my great-uncle's and I kind of made it into like a Reverend Jim from Taxi with the chlorine stains and all of that, and so I oh, you did that, I did that.
Speaker 1:I thought that was part of it.
Speaker 2:Oh no, no, I did that in, but I did that in like 1982 or something like that, so I was in college, for I think it was for a Halloween party.
Speaker 1:And I was going as Reverend Jim from Taxi taxi. So do people know why you got lady?
Speaker 2:justice. Um, do they know your background on on the podcast folks? Oh yeah, they know I'm a lawyer and they know that I'm uh, they don't, I think, get the goth version of that and that's from the club that I had gone to and had kind of immersed in that.
Speaker 1:See, goth is just such a generic word, like most of us didn't really use goth. Or Adam would play dark music Dark yeah. People were like wait, this ain't a goth song.
Speaker 2:Like no.
Speaker 1:Britney Spears is toxic, toxic, but if you listen to the lyrics and forget that it's her, it's a dark song that could be played by anybody.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it was a dark, it was all about darkness, and and so I started not bad and I started, you know, getting that and it was just I. I loved those two things and how they came together and how it was a part of my life and I wanted to represent that in a tattoo.
Speaker 1:Yep, yeah, people are like I didn't know you were a goth, I go. I'm not goth. We used to call it death rock back in the days. That just scared people, invented goth. Goth is what you see at Hot Topic. Oh yes, goth, goth is what you see at hot topic.
Speaker 2:Oh yes, I, I have my own little kind of semi version.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you have no idea this chick's style, so, um, so we've worked together on a lot of these different things and every now and then you do something and you post it and I'm like, yeah, I know this fucking hooker, this hooker, I'll draw something and post it, being like I'm working on this and she'll be there within 24 hours, or call me being like I'm getting that, take it down, and then I she gets it and I never get to tattoo it again. I started drawing flash, and flash are designs that are for everybody. They're not customs, they're a page. They're custom because I drew them, yes, but anybody, I'll do them more than once.
Speaker 2:And you have a page that has multiple different versions. Yeah, a bunch of designs.
Speaker 1:So you steal those before I get to put them on a big sheet and get them for yourself. So now I can't do them, but I mean I love the fact that I did them. And I love the fact that I did them and I I love the fact that I I got about four of them. I have like four of those.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I'm like this is cool, too bad, I can't do it again and it's like I I love the fact that I have some really original one-of-a-kind designs that um love the fact somebody who's throw all sorts of weird left field shit at me and then it comes out like looking cool, it's like your fairy, like oh yes, nobody would ever think I did the fairy I have on my um down, low down here and if you can kind of see it a little bit there, you see it and that is my….
Speaker 1:That has more actual colors in it than your side did. I remember we… it's just… I think I used like 20-something colors in that damn fairy.
Speaker 2:It was 24. Oh see, she knows, I remember the count and this is kind of a fairy butterfly and it's kind of a combination of a couple different things and we sat and talked about it and you drew it and it's just so incredibly beautiful, yeah it was fun.
Speaker 1:Another transition piece Butterflies.
Speaker 2:Butterflies are definitely. I have a lot of butterflies on me. Yes, the tramp stamp that I had gotten, that you then redid, uh and made it bigger, colorful and uh and and filled everything in. Um, I had one that I, that I wanted to to have done. That was kind of a combination of of rosie the riveter and and goth witchy uh.
Speaker 1:That one had the club logo. Don't you have like four club logos?
Speaker 2:I have a few of them. Yes, we can say the club. Oh yeah, the cloak and dagger. I have the cloak and dagger on my wrist, which was the first one that I had gotten.
Speaker 1:And you have it on your thumb. I did it to myself.
Speaker 2:And then on the one which is the version of Rosie the Riveter, which is actually a goth girl. Yeah, I don't think we can really see it there, but it's on her arm. It has a tattoo of the cloak on the arm and then you put my grandmother's name as the tattoo on the body of the gal. And because I had a very, very powerful great-great-grandmother who moved to Nebraska and homesteaded- yeah, my great-great-grandmother was just this like did you ever see Sunset Boulevard?
Speaker 1:I did. That was her. She didn't leave the house unless you look at it and she was just known as mama Mary. It's an old Mexican woman who used to be an actress and a model and she was just amazing. But I, that's all I can remember. I can just remember her being this big, glamorous person. But my grandma, on the other hand, she was a thug, all this stuff but glamorous person. But my grandma, on the other hand, she was a thug, but she was also crazy glamorous. She died earlier this year, 94.
Speaker 2:Everybody in my family lives long, at least to 80-something. Well, you're only halfway there, yeah, no more than halfway, yeah. But yeah, one of the things I love is that you are very okay with the trans community and I think part of that is because and this is a picture you have with a couple of folks at the Transgender Erotica Awards yeah, eva and Buck Eva.
Speaker 1:Paratus Like Paradise, paradise. I met her that night. Yeah, I met her that night. But what I find interesting is Buck is a whole different story.
Speaker 2:Is you go way, way back with Buck Angel?
Speaker 1:Buck is. Buck was very much part of the early punk rock scene and the early BDSM scene and the early. A lot of people don't know but a lot of the punk in LA was gay, a lot of it, and nobody cared because it was punk rock. You, you didn't think about, nobody cared who was fucking who. All we cared about was beating the shit out of each other in a pit Cause it wasn't like one of these circle mosh pits, it was like war zone. It's all we cared about. That was it.
Speaker 1:And buck was very buck and ron athi and all them they were, they were very much all together and it was a scene and buck was a, buck was a gorgeous model, buck had blonde hair, gorgeous model and then later, um, buck started transitioning and had to live through hell and to this day, if somebody like runs up on buck and I'm around, I will fuck you up, I have that motherfucker's back like it's nobody's business. But buck, um, because you were there at the start, yeah, buck, buck was uh, um, I'm saying was buck's still alive and very outspoken and very much a powerhouse in the trans community. But buck, um, buck would get assaulted, buck would get beat up, buck. Nobody understood what buck was doing and all of us, as friends, didn't care what Buck was doing. We were just like it's Buck, it's Buck, yeah, yeah, I don't care.
Speaker 1:Like, well, buck says this and you know, you know gay people that were looking for gay boys. Buck was dressed like a LA gang member, like a punk rock gang member and stuff, and found out the buck had a snatch and would kick his ass. You know, it was just like why? Why the violent? Why, if you want to be passionate and fuck this person, you're just going to beat their ass. You know you should have just brought that shit up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that that's a question I frequently have been like oh like cool, concerns me that somebody?
Speaker 1:buck buck put up with a lot and got a lot of of negativity and even even in, even in his uh, there he is, right there, um and that's the one that the transphobes want to have go into the women's restroom because, uh, because, buck, buck is just.
Speaker 1:Buck lived and still does live the the trans life as it's real in la, before all these kids living out of their basement decided that they were going to be trans and you know, the now version of trans is all like well, if you want to do something, you have the right. We should all support you. Buck is all like well, if you want to do something, you have the right, we should all support you. Buck is all like you should figure out what you really want to do in life and not have anybody influence you and just do it and do it. He did it and, but like with this, oh, I mean, I didn't know how. I didn't have a label for what's going on now until I heard Buck call somebody a sissy cross-dresser. Then everything made sense. Because you're like, I know you and, and, and Nikki, and and that pain in the ass, jenna, yeah, thank. And you ladies decided to let loose of what was inside and become women, beautiful women, and this.
Speaker 1:These motherfuckers are hiding in their basement, putting lipstick on, crying about shit, when they're not even out there experiencing anything. They hear about something, but they never left their basement and then they're like well, this makes me feel bad and all this other shit Like what about you? What about what about you? Who fucking all your kids, your colleagues, your ex and I'm not going to go into personal shit, but I've heard all of this yes, that you still still stood the fuck up and went outside and had to deal with people in your face yelling or dealt with with some type of uh of of negativity going towards you, like whether it's bad looks or people's attitudes or or being denied at places or whatever you lived at they lived at. These motherfuckers are in the fucking basement crying about shit that never happened to them. Buck called them sissy cross-dressers, because there's no proof that they're even sexual. They're hiding.
Speaker 2:This is a whole big other issue.
Speaker 1:I understand your views because we've talked about them and I respect your views and I understand Buck's views. But I've known Buck so much longer and I've known the shit that he has put up with and the fact that anybody even questions him Like you can question him. You went through the whole transition. I don't know if people know, but you went through the whole transition. As far as I'm going to get into that Cause that's your own personal business.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I've discussed having surgery and all the other things.
Speaker 1:You got the rearrangement. I went all in. You jumped in the goddamn deep in, grabbed your phone out of the bottom of the lake, the Harbor, you jump straight in and dealt with it. There was no turning back for you. There's no turning back for anybody. I understand that nikki and them, like you, know what they do for a living. Yeah, if they did do what you do, they'll lose money and lose interest. Yeah, you know because. But you jumped in. So to me, you and buck are like true trans and you stand up, you're on this side and he's on this side and I'm in the middle. But I don't give a fuck because I'll kick somebody's ass for you too. But buck is, buck is. Uh, bucks had my respect before any of this shit even became popular before anybody knew what trans, where it came.
Speaker 1:Popular like you like what happened to furries?
Speaker 2:I don't like to say popular, I just like to say more.
Speaker 1:I say it because these people aren't doing anything, they're just crying More open and they have these crazy-ass fucking opinions and they're getting like crying and yelling and shit like this. It's like really.
Speaker 2:It's a difficult subject, and it's a difficult subject for me, as a trans person, to navigate to a certain extent, because no matter what—. But it's your own journey, it's their own journey, and what I say is that, look, I can't speak for anybody else's journey, I can only speak for my journey and what I've gone through and what I view and what I needed to do, and it's an intensely and deeply personal thing. I mean you having watched Buck go through it's a personal journey.
Speaker 1:Everybody's original. Your journey is your journey. I personally, if I was having the desire to change and I was going to go in that direction, if I had questions or something, then here's somebody who's been this way forever. Yep, I mean, I think Buck started transition like maybe the late 80s, maybe 90, 91, something like that. And what do you have? Seven, eight years under your belt. I've got 10 now 10?
Speaker 2:10 years? Fuck yeah, yes, I am 10. So here's people that live. Yes, I am 10.
Speaker 1:So here's people that live this, did this. I would ask them. I would be like I don't know what I'm feeling here. I wouldn't go to some fucking therapist that's getting paid by the hour to listen to you and not give you any answers that are concrete, just so you can keep coming back. And I wouldn't listen to anybody who's either hardcore pro or hardcore phobic on the issue, because they're only going to say their own personal opinions. Yeah and throat. And you know, try to change, try to change. But here's two people that that have changed on both ends of the spectrum. And, um, you know, I would trust both of your opinions. But you know, did you do any of buck's tattoos? Now we keep talking about it. He called me. I mean, we texted today and yeah, he's uh very busy.
Speaker 2:Well, baba, I think we could talk for hours easily.
Speaker 1:I'm. What is that timer starting? Shut the fuck up. That's like we're getting around, because I saw that shit go to zero. Now it's at 210.
Speaker 2:I'm like uh-oh, we're like getting to the hour point and we try to keep these.
Speaker 1:This is that therapist getting paid right now, because now you're in overtime.
Speaker 2:Well, I hope no, I hope you've really enjoyed doing this, because I've maybe loved it and talk about some other things I definitely have.
Speaker 1:I didn't know what to expect. You know, some people are like, oh, she wants to talk to you about this and I'm like, well, I can't talk about that. Or she wants to talk to you about this, I'm like I can't talk about that and nope, I just Like club stuff we can't talk about. That's why I was. We swore an oath, that's why I was keeping it pretty general. By the way, the club no longer exists, but the oath still does.
Speaker 2:And I'm marked and that's an honor. I mean, I was so honored to be a part of that because that club played a tremendous part in my growth as an individual and my growth as a, as a woman, and in gaining confidence and and and other things.
Speaker 1:You know, um, when you started coming and some other that's a good word Some other refined people, older, adam started changing his his, started changing his groove with the music. Adam is an amazing DJ, but when I started hearing him mix like Fleetwood Mac, yeah, or Zeppelin, yep, and Sabbath mixed with like Suzy Yep, I was like Whoa, fucking Adam, like he, he was doing that shit for the older clientele that was coming in. So they, you know cause not a lot of people knew about the bands that were playing, or they weren't listening to that, and we're mixing new stuff or we. He was mixing new stuff and when he was mixing old stuff I was, so I, and when he was mixing old stuff, I was, so I already knew he was like the shit, like his best.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my brother's a dj and adam and my brother my two favorite djs of all time and, and he was able to create moods and other things by just how he mixed and cut and read reordered songs.
Speaker 1:Where's the picture of me so I can see my hands? Yeah, this motherfucker was like and he was going through songs.
Speaker 2:It's like so cool to see his his brain work when he's picking what he's going to play next yeah and and so for me that, and it allowed me to meet you, and it allowed me to to get this art on my body I love the way people think I actually worked there. I it was.
Speaker 1:I never got a check. No, I never got a check. I I went strictly for Adam. Strictly, I just wanted to hear what Adam was doing. And we were downstairs at first and I loved what Adam was doing and because my brother's a DJ, I love watching DJs play or mix or do whatever. But it was. Does that screen right there mean fuck off?
Speaker 2:No, not yet Almost there, but I just want to say I learned so much new music from there and from going to your shop and you would always sometimes go hey, you know this, don't you? And I'm like no, I've never heard that before.
Speaker 1:You know, my mom would tease me about that. She would test me about bands and their connections. You know, like the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon Yep, same thing, but with bands and a lot of people don't know the bands Like you would know them. Like, if you say the firm, nobody knows who the firm is nowadays. But then you and I both know about Jimmy Page and Paul Rogers from being in the firm and you're just like whoa, okay, and then that mixes. What was Paul Rogers? It was not free. What was his band Before All Night Long, before Pink Floyd? No, paul Rogers was on Pink Floyd. He was oh God, I fucking forgot. Yeah, I think it was free. All Right Now. Oh, yeah, that's free, all Right, forgot. Yeah, I think it was free. All right now.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, that's free. All right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that was Paul Rogers' band before the firm, which was a side project with him and Jimmy Page, and then later there was Tin Machine and there was all these other things. So I love that. I try teaching that to my kids. And when you're coming over and something comes on, I'm like Jesse, guess what? To my kids. And when you're coming over and something comes on, my get chessie, guess what, guess what? Because I know you like this, this style guess who's?
Speaker 2:in this band, and that's what I love about you, and that was all beaten into me by my mother I hope we can get back and we can do just a music show one time, talking about old music, and are we?
Speaker 1:allowed to? Yeah, free, I think so. If it's free, yeah bad company, free the firm, see Yep.
Speaker 2:So thank you.
Speaker 1:Paul Rogers is an old traditional tattooer Is he really Not him Same name, same name, and I'm going to go see his grave when I'm in Norfolk next week oh wow.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you, Baba. I have to say this has been such an honor for me to get a chance to talk with you and to get you, to introduce you to Everything in the world, stopped this for the past two months. We've tried multiple times and we finally managed to do it today. So thank you so much, and thank you. This is a dope studio, though.
Speaker 1:It is a dope studio. Looking around, it's pretty dope, it's comfy.
Speaker 2:I really enjoy coming here and getting a chance you do porn here. Look at the black.
Speaker 1:No there is no porn.
Speaker 2:No, we do not do porn here Splatless stain. But thank you, Baba, for coming and I do want to say to everybody if you enjoyed our little podcast today and my discussion with Baba and discussions I've had with some of the other folks, or if you have questions, call me names.
Speaker 2:Baba's information will be included in the download, so if you want to get an appointment with Baba, you will be able to hopefully get that done. But click on the like and subscribe button so you can hear this and other information that that we put out on the transparency podcast show. And thank you all so much and thank you Baba.
Speaker 1:My finger was in there, thank you. Thanks for having me.
