Before,...

This is one of the few friends who has stuck with me since the old school days of Florida, & who knew me from back when we still published Thieves & Prostitutes fanzine & covered Ybor City with flyers for hardcore shows in Tampa Bay. Lydia now lives in Alaska, & I hadn't seen her since '96, so a lot of her first visit to the big city was spent catching up on four years worth of killing off various breeds of stout, chased by some fine cigars, & followed up by many hours sweating & bleeding for me.

The piece on the right, taken from the west coast hardcore band 'Unashamed', was originally put on by ex-con crutsy punks who stalked the St. Petersburg scene, using a jailhouse machine constructed from a Walkman motor, a Bic pen, & guitar string for needles. *sigh* Ah to be young, reckless, & have a lot of free skin on your hands,... The original piece took over three days, the newly resurrected piece, under three hours.

Now Lydia is proud of her ink, where as before the broken blown out scratchers just made her feel like tattooed white trash. Now if she can just put down the Newports & the malt liquor for longer than five minutes, she'll be on her way to becoming one of the beautiful people! ;)

(Awwwhh, come on!!)

...after!