I really like going into Showdown Tattoo and Skateboards. So much so that I have to regulate how often I stop in. If I don't, I fear becoming the old man equivalent of the shop grom. Forever pestering the staff about the next DLX shipment or when the new Lowcard mag will arrive. I guess the shop reminds me of when I started skating. Skateboarding was tiny and on the wrong side of the tracks. A little while ago I stopped in, shot this photo and talked to Dirty for a few minutes.
Why can't you skate today?Uh, tattooed feet, swollen ankles. A bit of a bruised ego maybe.
Why did you get your feet tattooed?I got my feet tattooed in Phoenix, Arizona because ... we'll I went to Phoenix Arizona and got them both done at once which is a retarded move because if you do them one at a time, you can always stand on the good foot, right. Because I flew and shit, I did them both at the same time. In hindsight it was probably a shitty idea. (laughing)
So you run a tattoo shop, but you went to Phoenix to get your feet tattooed?There's a super obscure, like off the beaten path guy down there named Mike and he's just like the guy to go to. He's really good at what he does. And my friend who I own the shop with Steve, he was already going down to see him so I just jumped on the bandwagon. Got a couple feet tattoos and then spent a week limping around Edmonton. Well, I spent the first day in a wheelchair on an airplane. So, I was all good. (laughing)
Did they seriously give you a wheelchair to get on the plane?No, we just took one. We just took one from the airport and just partied on it. And then I figured at the customs line, cause I always get searched gnarly at customs, I figured at the customs line if I was in a wheelchair with my girlfriend pushing, I'd look more helpless and shit. In reality I ended up in about a forty minute shakedown instead. (laughing) Cause I think they were like “Wow, this guys a scum bag and he's sitting in a wheelchair.” And then there was a handicapped dude trying to walk through the customs line, and I think everyone was looking a me like, “You fucking dick.” (laughing)
Do you dress up in a suit when you go through customs?No. I usually wear shorts and a wife beater just so they can get over it faster and not make me tear my clothes down. I usually wear pink underwear to, so when they make me drop my drawers and stuff, I just look at them really queer. Do a little dance. (laughing)
So how long will it take for your feet to heal?Mmm, probably like two weeks. The bottom of the leg and feet, to get tattooed, really suck because there is so much blood flow. It just rushes down when you're walking and standing. So it's nicer to have your feet up on a couch the whole time, which unfortunately isn't very functional for two weeks. So it'll probably be a couple weeks of fat, pink, swollen little feet. But, whatever.
Is there a meaning behind the dragons, or are you just a big Caballero fan?No. I don't have a lot of Asian tattoo work and it's something that a lot of my homies are into. I have like Asian dudes tattooed on me, but not like classic Asian tattooing. So for me it was just check something different out, and get a little bit of like tattoo nostalgia, rather than just all the rotting corpses and dead hookers and stuff I got on me now. (laughing)
What's written on your toes?Skateboard. In 80's Pac-Man letters. Cause at the time I was twenty or something, and I though that “Well I skated in the late eighties. I'm going to get an 80's shitty font.” I didn't realize that a year from then they'd look like chunks of cheese (laughing) and not be quite legible. Whatever, it works. It works.
Skate shops are known for people coming in with dumb-ass questions, but you run a tattoo and skate shop. What's the stupidest tattoo question you've gotten?Well like I was saying yesterday when we were talking. It has to be hands-down “Does it hurt?” That's the most idiotic thing. And I bet you that comes out of like a good forty per cent of people's mouths when they haven't been tattooed before. For me it's straight up like “Have you ever been scrapped until you bleed and then scabbed?” It's kind of an inconvenience, you know. But all in all it's strange requests more than stupid questions a lot of the time. Guy's come in with fuck'n skin-tight Wranglers and cowboy boots and ask for a tattoo of the Pilsner bunny getting sucked off by the Playboy bunny. It's just like “This is the life I get to live. It's ridiculous.” (laughing)
What hurts more skateboarding or tattoos?Skateboarding. No fucking questions asked! I get a tattoo, max. two weeks later I forgot it ever happened and the skins normal again. I stand up every morning - everything hurts - I remember I skateboarded for twenty years. (laughing) I think that's definitely how I see it. Somethings are temporary, somethings are permanent. And it ironic because to me the pain of a tattoo is so temporary, but in everyone else's eyes it, “Oh my God. It's such a huge commitment.” You forget they're even there. You wash you hands a thousand time. You forget they're even there, you know. But with skating, you can't forget your a skateboarder - EVER. You're just sore. (laughing)
What's you're gnarliest tattoo?Uhm, maybe the dudes killing themselves on my hands? Because it's more exposed to people. You see it every day. You pay at the gas station, you pay at Wall-Mart, you go to the bank everyone's looking at these dudes like shooting themselves and stuff on your hands. I'm kinda past it. It's like I said in the last question you just forget they're even there. But then I got this new one that's, yeah, a crack-head prostitute chugging some jizz out of a bloody condom (laughing) and some other stuff. I'm not even going to digress into the other offensive shit, but yeah it's pretty gnarly. She's got a handful of five dollar bills, crack pipe, condoms, all the pills falling out of her purse. She has one black-eye and really bad roots because, you know, you don't get you're hair dyed when you're a crack-head prostitute. That's the least of your worries.
Why did you guys decide to set up you shop in Edmonton's ghetto?For us it was there are no other (tattoo) shops around here. There are no other skate shops around here, so we're doing are own thing in our own area. We weren't treading on anyone's toes. And the other big thing about it was, the ghetto is pure entertainment, man. Tattoo shops use to only be in ghettos. If you want to (put) a tattoo shop in a mall fifteen years ago, they would have laughed in your fucking face. Now for me, it's like half the fun and nostalgia.
What's your best shop ghetto story? Uhm.
That'll be publishable?(laughing) Nice touch. Uhm I'd have to say one day we were smoking out front ... (and these two women) in their mid forties, came by. They were just hammered. Like out of their mind. They must have been huffing gas or something. There were about five of us out front, and I'm a pretty big dude. I think I can hold my own in the ghetto. Not a lot of people go out of their way to mess with me. But, these two women came up to me and one of them just wound up and smoked me in the face. So I maturely, rationally, and calmly take one step back against the front door. I was like, “Yo, if you hit me one more time, like I'm going to retaliate. But I'll let you walk. I'll let it go.” My glasses are all bent, my smoke is broken in my mouth. So she came at me again. So I choked her out. And as I'm grabbing her by the neck, I ran her backwards and my buddy is driving down the alley in his truck, because he was leaving the shop, so I choked her out on the side of his truck. And then the other lady proceeded to jump on my back. So, not even kidding, like Chuck Norms randomness, like sometimes fate just takes care of you, I shrugged her off my shoulder and elbowed her right in the face and KO'd her. So I got these two purple crashed out old ladies. I mean I don't like to beat a woman, but I was attacked and I warned her, and it was just the way it was going down. So they went down the alley and said, “We're going to get the brothers.” So about ten minutes later I look out of the front of my shop and there's about fifty dudes and these two women leading the pack, and not one of them has had a job in twenty years or had a bath in a year, or anything. They're limping like, straight out Night of the Living Dead. You're looking down the road and it's just like “Holly Fuck! What is going on here?” So I lock the door to the shop. They start kicking the door and kicking the glass and shit. And I've got bullet proof glass, coated glass, whatever in it. So they can't break it. They're booting the door in and we're still tattooing people and shit in here and trying to run a business on a Sunday in July. So we just call the cops after about twenty minutes of theses vultures, parasite zombies. It looked like the Thriller fucking video outside my shop. Like it's ridiculous. (laughing) Straight up I think that has to be the most classic one.
Ok, Antwaun Dixon walks into your shop. Asks for a tattoo. Leaves it up to you guys. What do you give him?That's a fucking funny question. You know, all I can say in response to that, is a good tattoo. You know they had a big expose, two page spread on him in that Thrasher thing, where you could zoom in on (the tattoos), and I was just blown away. I've never seen work like that. In Canada you wouldn't get work like that unless you went to jail. Like straight up prison.
