Part Four: Flesh & Blood

Every weekend, as I lock up Heart in Hand Tattoo, I glance at the back of the building that once housed The Purple Dragon, and my mind spirals with curiosity.

I still remember the day I heard it had closed its doors for good.

I was working a few miles from where I tattoo now, back when there were no other shops open in Waxahachie.

A client mentioned The Purple Dragon had shut down for good… and for some reason, all the tattooers cheered and made jokes.

I laughed along while tracing Cherry Creek flash, but a strange sadness hit me.

Like when you hear that someone you knew from high school passed away.

I’d never made time to walk in there.

I just assumed it would always be around.

And I thought surely one day I would have a reason to go in.

._.

I was only a piercing apprentice at the time.

If I’m being 💯, tattoo apprenticeships weren’t exactly handed out for anyone interested, regardless of skill or passion.

My plan was to pierce, get my foot in the door, and maybe get paid to hang around long enough to learn something.

It’s not the cleanest path, but piercing carried me through some massive droughts in tattooing.

For a long time I took pride in the craft. Providing clean execution, good trajectory, solid client education, same as any service .

But when the passion faded, I knew it was time to step back.

There’s no point dragging someone through an experience you’re resisting socially, mentally, or internally.

Hell, that’s why I got into this industry. In hopes I would be able to avoid being slowly eroded by the monotony of an endless Sisyphean task.

:-:

Life is about flow and balance, and the piercings that once kept my ship afloat began to slow me down, distracting me from tattooing.

Sometimes four or five piercings would walk in during a single-hour tattoo appointment.

What used to be passion was turning into resentment.

It slowly took more and more bandwidth away from my main operating system.

So as my tattoo career grew legs and started swimming for itself, I quit splitting my efforts and dove into tattooing without a safety net.

‘_’

A lot of tattooers burn out.

This is a service industry & you’re constantly at the service of others.

It wears you down slowly, carving little pieces off you like a river shaping a stone.

And the thing about rivers is: they move.

They shift.

They change course.

Nature finds balance.

Or in the words of Jeff Goldblum, “Nature, uhhhh… finds a way.”

Human nature, however, is to try to tip the scales of balance.

We want control.

We want our rivers to stay exactly as they were yesterday.

..-..

Tattooing, to me, has always been about pushing against the flow and, to some extent, fighting the modern currents of public opinion.

The eternal truth of Mother Nature, however, is: if you try to force balance, you either flood… or you dry up.

Old-timers understood this much better than the clean and pristine yuppies of today.

The titans of their day all had multiple plates spinning — whether they were veterans, sign painters, mechanics, travelers, merchants, or captains.

When the common blue-collar man was a nomad, people would pack up and go wherever the work was.

That mobility kept them alive.

The ones who refused to keep moving eventually quit tattooing or became the cranky tattooers we all hear stories about.

We all know those people who haven’t asked themselves in years whether they’re flowing or drowning.

-_-

It always bums me out when someone leaves tattooing.

No matter the person, or the reason.

It’s like being stuck in the backseat on a long road trip with your dad.

As he’s pointing out the scenery, trying to keep the magic alive, you’ve quietly realized that you’re ready for a different adventure.

I’ve always been the dad in the story.

The one who wants the vacation to last forever.

But that isn’t how nature works.

You don’t get to freeze the flow.

You don’t get to hold people in one place because you love the moment.

Sometimes balance means letting someone drift without assuming they’re abandoning the journey.

They might just be following their own current — carving their very own bifurcation.

,’_’

I love tattooing with everything in me, but you can’t expect everyone to love what you love with the same fire.

There is no amount of money or success that could pull me away from being at the tattoo shop, doing tattoos.

I can’t even imagine what it would take for me to walk away, but it does make me wonder if rumors and bullshit are enough to push someone out forever.

Some of you might say █RΞDΛCTΞD█ got out just in time (right before the explosion of commercialization and corporatization).

Others would say he missed the peak.

But if you give your life to something and get little recognition back (and instead only receive negativity) what keeps you going?

When people who’ve never met you celebrate your downfall, how do you find your bootstraps?

•=•

In recent years I’ve gotten to know a few people who’ve been publicly canceled.

People who I have come to know and respect in spite of some public opinions.

The internet has the power to give anyone with a chip on their shoulder a megaphone.

Regrettably, the loudest voice is usually the least educated.

When thousands of strangers assign intent to your actions, demand apologies, or define your identity for you, it has the power to warp how you see yourself.

I’ve watched people question their entire character because of an Instagram comment section.

Now, hear me out … if you’re actually doing something wrong, accountability matters.

But stepping away from your trajectory because strangers decided you should disappear?

That’s not growth.

That’s exile.

Even the strongest captains will feel the instinct to turn around when the waves start pounding the hull.

:_:

And once the shipwreck happens… after the captain is thrown from the helm… why do the rumors survive like a castaway clinging to life in an ocean of information?

With the internet, a story doesn’t die.

It claws its way back into the light long after you thought it was a goner, like a horror-movie victim.

•_•

But maybe if there is a lesson under all of this… a message behind the burnout, the rumors, or my fading memories of that shop…

It would be that flow only works when you can balance it.

A river carves mountains because pressure and direction are in harmony.

Too much force and it floods; too little and it dries up.

Tattooing isn’t any different.

And for that matter, neither is life.

._.

If you’re going to hold fast through the flow — fighting the current against gossip, public opinion, or whatever the internet warriors and armchair advocates decide you are — well, you’d better make sure the scales on the other side are balanced with something worth remembering.

Something heavier than the bullshit.

Something good enough that when people speak your name years later, they think of what you built… not what tried to sink you.

When Anubis weighs your heart against a feather, it’s not going to be one slight misstep tipping the scales.

..-..

Balance matters just as much as flow.

Maybe more.

Is that an oxymoron?

Anyway.

.°•°.

That’s what sticks with me when I look at the back of the old Purple Dragon building every weekend.

Shops will inevitably close.

People are ephemeral.

Stories twist, erode, and drift downstream.

But the way you anchor yourself — the sum of your good, the permanent marks of your integrity — is what settles in the riverbed long after everything else washes away.

.-.

And maybe █RΞDΛCTΞD█ didn’t lose to the current.

Maybe he just found a new balance.

Or maybe — and bear with me here — it’s the same question every person eventually has to face:

Are you the one driving the car, choosing the direction and calling it a vacation?

Or are you stuck in the backseat, being dragged along, trying to make the best of a world where someone else is at the wheel of your life?

.

Whatever the truth was for that shop and its owner, the river kept moving.

My car keeps moving.

The storyline keeps on moving.

And as usual, the myths refuse to die.

I will keep you guys abreast if I receive a response from █RΞDΛCTΞD█.

Maybe I’ll post my interview questions in the meantime if there is any interest and you guys can help me come up with any follow-up questions I may have missed.

Thank you for reading if you made it this far.

I appreciate and love every one of you.