incompetent

i've bought a fair amount of new clothes lately. even ones that actually cost money, and fit me well. turns out that i've pretty much never worn clothes that actually made me look good. what an interesting world, the world of fashion and pants with flattering cuts. i grossly underestimated it.

here's a picture of me in said clothes. since the shop is where i keep my camera, that's where i always am when i'm taking pictures of myself. the arrogant man i am.
if i look grumpy, it's because i probably am.

so in case any of you didn't know, when you're a tattoo artist and you move 3000 miles away, your clients don't go with you. especially if you're a nobody like myself. so you have to start all over again, convincing people into cool stuff, instead of them just giving you piles of money to do whatever you want. so, that means that although i've been pseudo-busy the past few weeks at my new job, i don't really ever get to actually do anything cool... because all the "fun tattoo" clients here all want the other dude to tattoo them, since he's been here a billion years.
and since i only take pictures of tattoos that i think are cool, i really have taken very few pictures since i've worked here. but here are those very few.

squirtle. this was my first repeat customer here. she was nice. animals are my favorite tattoo subject matter. ever.


this kid actually flew out here all the way from new hampshire to get tattooed by me, which is weird because i had never tattooed him before. we're gonna try and finish it when i go back to NH this month. and i know, the picture quality is horrendous. deal with it, you wussy.

i'm having a website built as we speak. but i need to come up with a better domain name than ryanmason.com. i have a feeling that it'll end up being that anyway, but i need to at least TRY to come up with something less pretentious. since i'm not actually creative, that's where you artsy hippie weirdo people come in. help me out. i'll give you a bag of weed or something. you kids like that stuff right?

my friend ryan is having an art show tonight in the pearl district, along with a few other gallery openings in the area. he does some neat screenprinting and other stuff. here's an invitation:

i love that it's called "keep trying." i think the show is based on how the phrase can be used in positive and negative connotations. for me, it's definitely a positive though... i feel like it can become a universal mantra through the ups and downs of my life experience. when you're so fucked up and you can't do anything else, just keep trying. i like it alot.

speaking of ups and downs... well actually, i won't get into it. i'll just say that lately my mood has been directly proportionate to portland's weather patterns, because it actually has. the past few weeks have been beautiful. it's been cloudy since yesterday. fucking holidays, man. new year's. father's day. independence day. these were all good days, before 2006 rolled around.