The Sailor Jerry Podcast
Inspired by Norman 'Sailor Jerry' Collins' Old Ironsides radio show on KTRG, we present THE SAILOR JERRY PODCAST! This is a wild homage to all our favorite things – Music, tattoos, travel, spiced rum, and more. Partnering up with our pal Matt Caughthran, the frontman of The Bronx, we're spilling these tales in our own damn style. Brace yourself for biweekly episodes, dishing out killer interviews with musicians who fuel our fire. Buckle up for The Sailor Jerry Podcast – where the coolest stories come to life.
The Sailor Jerry Podcast
67 - Tattoo Artist Josh Arment
The famed Aloha Monkey tattoo shop is hitting a quarter century, so we sat down with shop owner and tattoo artist Josh Arment to celebrate. As an Illinois native, Josh shares the enigmatic path that led to the buzzing beacon of tattoo parlors. His story is a vivid mural of punk rock, hip-hop, and skateboarding, all underpinned by profound family influences—like the lore of his grandfather's WWII tattoos. The episode is a tapestry of an artist's formative years, the meticulous graft of apprenticeships, and the sage wisdom of industry veterans. It's about embracing the culture, the music, and the ink-stained journey of turning a lifelong passion into mastery.
But what's a master without disciples? The podcast wraps with an ode to the time-honored tradition of mentorship in the world of tattooing. Josh recounts how the legacy of Sailor Jerry along with the teachings of Danise Wolf and Mike Malone didn't just shape his art—they shaped his life. Through laughter and a few of Matt's quirky trivia moments, we explore the profound connection between the artist, their craft, and the canvas of skin they transform. As always, brought to you by Sailor Jerry!
https://www.instagram.com/josharment/
https://www.instagram.com/thealohamonkey/
https://sailorjerry.com
Yeah, what's up, josh? How are you man?
Speaker 2:Good, long time no see.
Speaker 1:It's been. What Warped Tour? Is that 2008? 2009?
Speaker 2:2008. 2008. It's been a minute and I remember doing what hand poke tattoos in Cleveland.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:Underneath the bridge on the cinder blocks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right. That's right. Yeah, man, those did. That was the Warped Tour. I mean was awesome. Of course, for us though it was. I mean it was just for most bands it's just a big party, but we had so many great friends on that thing and so many great memories and I always laugh talking about it, because usually for a band, you know the best part of your day is supposed to be when you play live, right, you know and for us, for us on that tour.
Speaker 1:Uh, like the crowds, just they just hated us because we were just, we weren't like a screamo band, we weren't like you know, we just didn't quite fit into that warped thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so for that version of warped tour yeah, for that version of warped tour.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly so you know it was that version of warp tour. Yeah, exactly so you know. It was always like the plane was like the worst. It was the worst part of the day that's funny yeah, man, yeah well, it's good to see your face. Uh, thank you so much for being a guest here on the sailor jerry podcast. Uh, we are stoked to have you. First and foremost, congratulations on the upcoming 25th anniversary of the aloha monkey tattoo shop. Uh, that's a milestone, you know so yeah, we're gonna get into that.
Speaker 1:We're gonna get in to all of the history and all that stuff. Uh, but first and foremost, how's the party planning going? How's the house? How are things shaping up?
Speaker 2:it's good. We had a 20-year event so the 25th. You know we learned from our 20-year what worked, what didn't, what was successful, and so we are just doing it. Uh, with that plus some, so we're excited at our 20-year. We had roughly 20 artists, um, including, you know, that includes our staff that we have here. We have seven permanent guys and so this year we're having 25 and, yeah, it just keeps getting better. The party plan and I have a great, great group of people. My fiance, alicia, plans most of this stuff and, yeah, it's going to be good, really good.
Speaker 1:Awesome, awesome, shout out Alicia for helping, uh, helping get this set up to appreciate you. Uh, do you have a live band for the party?
Speaker 2:unfortunately we don't. That's a difficult one in our parking lot. Um, although we do own a standalone building, we don't have a band or really any live music. Last, at our 20 year, we just had a live like, uh, acoustical, kind of like some old-timers just playing acoustic jams. But no, we don't have a band, and that's the one thing we're missing that's what the 30 year is all about.
Speaker 1:Live band, I'm just saying we should have no mariachi bronx dude dude, but we're writing a new record right now, man, we're writing a new record right now. I'm uh, I'm in the office, I'm in the home studio just working on stuff, trying to record demos during the day and write lyrics at night.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we have taco trucks and we would love to see something like that happen. Let's plan that.
Speaker 1:Hell yeah, man, hell yeah. Well, we got five years, so there's no excuse why we can't get it done. No, awesome, man. Well, before we go into the history of the shop, I want to give our listeners your history, the history of you. I want to kind of go into, maybe tell the story of your life, going up until the point where you get to meeting Mike Malone, getting in touch with the shop and that kind of takes over. So where did you grow up? Where did kind of art and tattooing kind of enter the picture for you?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, I grew up in a small town in central Illinois. It's a town called Danville, Illinois. It's near Champaign-Urbana, right off I-70. In those small communities it wasn't a tiny town, I mean 35,000 people, but I mean it was in the center of Illinois, so there wasn't a lot there. There was the University of Illinois, which is in Champaign, but that was 30 minutes away.
Speaker 2:So as a kid it was a great town to grow up in because you could ride your bicycle everywhere. You know, eventually, when you got into motorized things, you could, you know, scream your four wheeler down city streets and it was just, it was a good time to grow up in. Um, and as a kid in those small towns, you know, I mean I did the sports, I did all that, but that really wasn't my thing. I was always just kind of, you know, like all of us a little bit different, Right yeah, and in those small communities that wasn't really celebrated or there wasn't a place for that. I mean it was like, basically, you know, what do you mean? You don't want to play football, you know, like they didn't get that.
Speaker 2:And so my grandfather was an old World War II aircraft carrier guy, Navy man, and he had some tattoos, of which some of them were from Honolulu and so I would see he had like the number one man spots covered. You know what I mean? Yeah and uh, he died when I was a young, young boy, um, from cancer.
Speaker 2:But I would like sit on top of him and like look at his tats and like put markers around his tats and kind of draw on him, cause he was just sitting there dying. But he was real cool as far as letting me just kind of doodle on him. But those were my first, probably, inspirations of tattoos. And then in that small community we had like a biker shop, you know, that had like a bow in the window and the kids would ride their bicycles by it and fuck with the boa constrictor and it was like a chopper shop, slash tat shop.
Speaker 1:Classic snake in the window.
Speaker 2:Exactly, shop slash tat shop classic snake in the window exactly, and some of my uh. And yet in illinois at that time and pretty much up until 2000s, you had to be 21 to get tattooed. So somehow in that small town some of my 15 year old friends were getting tattooed and I would just remember like touch, I couldn't believe that it wouldn't come off because they had youthful skin. I mean, I had seen old man skin with them, but they had youthful skin and it was just crazy to like see, I think, one of my friends. The first thing he got was like the graphics long skull, the joker oh, dude, I was just on ebay looking for an old graphic shirt unless you got me one dude.
Speaker 2:That logo is timeless. Funny story. I wore it to my mechanic buddy's shop because he was putting a exhaust on my truck and on his lift he had that sticker and the kid that was helping me was like, and I had the shirt on, and the old man was like, oh my God, and the kid's like he didn't get it. He didn't know what we were looking at. So rewind to the chopper shop. So apparently some of my friends were getting these and some of my friends were a little bit older than me and they were a little bit more outlaw, you know, ditching school and going to get tattooed, and so I don't know how they got it, because it wasn't like their parents were down with it. But one of them had this skull, this joker, this graphic skull. And then another one had this Native American Indian, Anthony Kiedis had that.
Speaker 2:That was like his first and so my friend got one, anyway. So being an oddball in a small town, not being interested in football, led me to more creative outlets. I mean, once I got out of motorized things of that age of my life I started to draw on. The music became a big part of it, and it wasn't the music that the people that were playing football were listening to. It was like a little bit tougher music and, you know, a little bit on the edge music, and what that led to was tattoos and these guys had tattoos. You know the early bands that you know, I mean Henry Rollins was doused in tattoos. Of course, more mainstream, the Red Hot Chili Peppers were doused, and they were doused in good tattoos.
Speaker 2:And even earlier like the crew got tattooed by Greg James and shit. I mean they had nice stuff. And so back then bands had like great tattoos. You know they weren't all post Malone out with just stickers on their face or handbook shit, they had artists that were doing them. So that was inspiring.
Speaker 2:Then I got up to the Chicagoland area, about 30 minutes outside the city. My parents got divorced and then my mom remarried and moved up there, and then my mom remarried and moved up there and so that entered high school and then we were closer to a city. So that means closer to bigger bands, closer to more music, and then then I could see these people and then in the city you got to see, you know, real tattoo shops and more people that had tattoos and more of that cutting edge culture that was creeping in. I think I was drawn more to punk rock. I liked the Lookout bands and Epitaph and all that. Oh yeah, and of course I always dabbled. I mean 92 was the best year of hip-hop, so I always had that on my side.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's the early 90s. I mean you're talking punk, you're talking hip-hop. That is a golden era.
Speaker 2:Yes, and that is a golden era.
Speaker 2:Yes, and so that was my grooming. And you know, then when I got up there I was a little bit more into skateboarding. I mean, there was, you know, pavement everywhere in the town I grew up in. There was gravels that led more to motorized sports, four-wheelers and dirt bikes. But then you get up to the city and it's like, oh, you can skate on this. You can't skate on these driveways in a small town with gravel all over the place, you know, yeah, so then I was going out and skateboarding and a lot of those people had tattoos.
Speaker 2:And then you see these skaters that start having tattoos. And, yeah, then I just started to like pick up the tat rag magazines and look around at them. And you know, there's no chance I was going to get tattooed. You had to be 21 in my town and, yeah, I would just pick up the tattoo magazines and to me that was like another at that time. Tattoo magazines would expose an artist in the middle of them, and so you would learn about these people and you were like, damn, this can be done with tattoos. I mean these were like rock stars, these were like it was like band stuff to me. I mean, they were as elevated as that to me. Then I just started to like find out who these people were and like then I would get all the issues and see that their pictures were then in the back, smaller pictures of them, and so I was starting to like collect little miniature portfolios of these dudes stuff and seeing who the hitters were. You know, yeah, you know, when two, two, two and you know when 222 came out, I was just blown away that such an epic shop was there. I mean, I didn't even know about Ed Hardy or anything. I knew about the guys that were trying to be the Ed Hardys and so, yeah, then I went to school for art.
Speaker 2:I couldn't make it to an art school because I didn't have any foreign language, but I got to a college and just took art classes and that kind of disrupted me a bit because I was like being taught two-dimensional drawing by a jewelry major. I was like, what are you teaching? Like that's when I you know. And then I'm getting art history from like somebody that is like a ceramics major and I'm like, wait a second, like we're learning about art history and the way that they're telling you in art history is this dude learned from this dude. He copied this guy's style and then he became his own, after duplicating this master style.
Speaker 2:I mean, everybody was doing it. Pollock could do real painting, like real articulate, realistic painting. He chose to do that, but he could paint like that. So I mean, everybody had a master that they studied under. And yet in school they weren't pushing that. They were like oh, you know your own creativity. It was like so weird and I don't know. I don't know what it was. It was just definitely not the way that they were showing you others had learned.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's kind of strange, right, because it's like, yeah, I noticed that you know no-transcript like you're saying. It's like, and that's a big part that's kind of overlooked. And you know, I know in, you know, in music world, tattooing world, you know, having a mentor having, even if it's not someone physically looking over you and teaching you an instrument or how to tattoo, just the idea of looking at the people who have come before you and for inspiration and how that, what their process was and how you can apply it to yourself, is a big thing. And it's not always kind of, you know, it's not always taught that way.
Speaker 2:And the schools definitely weren't teaching that. Like you said, it's about what came before you and the schools were basically like later years later, when I talked to Ed Hardy, he was like those places just teach you how to use the medium, they don't teach you anything else. So you can. You know cause? I learned more about drawing and art in tattooing? Because of the mentorship, because of studying a style, because of the discipline and the rigidity of it, and the schools just didn't have that. So they wanted you to go into, like graphic design and computer arts.
Speaker 2:I didn't want that. I wanted to learn, like leonardo learned, you know, or michelangelo from a master, and so I just bailed on that and I picked up getting tattooed. I spent the second year of my college time. I only got two years of college in me, but I spent the second year down in Florida, in West Palm Beach, florida North Palm, a little north of that, and there was this tattoo shop in Lake Worth called Louie Lambie's Tattoo Paradise and so I'd go in there because you could be 18 to get tattooed in florida, oh yeah yeah and I was just hitting them up and, uh, I got tattooed there by this guy, kevin buckstrip, and he was really great.
Speaker 2:He took walk-ins but was also experimenting with custom stuff and I started to see how a tattoo shop worked and, um, um, how these guys were learning. They happened to have an apprentice at the time and I got tattooed. And then, uh, I was living with my friend, matt, who was in bands and, like the monster trucks and some other bands, vacation Bible school, but he was in these bands in Chicago and he went down to Florida, wasn't really playing music, and so we were drawing a lot more together. And, um, I was like, dude, i'm'm just gonna pick up one of these tattoo magazine, uh, spalding rigs and we'll save money on tats so I picked up a spalding rig.
Speaker 2:After we just got professional work done right, I pick up.
Speaker 2:I was like I'll sleeve your leg out, dude, it'll be fine I got you yeah so I have the huck spalding how to tattoo a to Z on his lap as I'm in my living room with like garbage bags over the lazy boy and tattooing his leg. And when, when I got this thing, it had like a six flat to color with and a tiny three needle liner that came with it. And you know, seven hours into this outline, I was like this is not how we're getting tattooed, dude, this is not how they're doing us Like there's a missing link. And so he's like got the book upside down in his lap. He's like I don't think that. He's like flipping the page. He's like I think you have to do this.
Speaker 2:I didn't even read the book, I just like dove in and I knew something was wrong. And, and I knew something was wrong. And so, anyway, I ended up going back to Louie's and they wouldn't give me an apprenticeship. They already had an apprentice. And so I found that apprentice at a bridge, like those lift bridges in Florida over the intercoastal. I saw a car at the lift bridge, like seven cars ahead of me.
Speaker 2:So I just jumped out of my car and ran up to his car and I'm like hey, man, I got thisalding set up. Can you come to the, to my house, and just show me how it works, like, show me what I'm missing. And he's like no, absolutely not. I was like hey, man, like I'll buy you a bottle of booze or something. And he's like, oh, okay, I'll do it. So it didn't take much to get him to come back. And he's like listen, man, these aren't even the needles. This is like technically, like a Fisher price kit. You know, you can't really do much with this. Um, I just wouldn't do it until you find somebody to teach you. So I agreed to that. I was like you know, you got it, man.
Speaker 2:It's like I'm learning myself. I can't tell you shit, I'm an apprentice, but you got to do what I'm doing, you got to get an apprenticeship. So, um, matt and I decided there was a bird productions convention, uh, in 97, up in uh, atlanta. And we found that in the back of one of these tattoo magazines. And so I said, matt, why don't we go up there and check out this convention? And we were broke. I was working at a restaurant like bussing tables or waiting tables or something, and he was working as a valet and he's like all right, I'll drive up with you. I was like I'll get the hotel room, we'll just make it happen. He's hitting to be there man. Guy Atchison, joe Capobianco, jack Rudy's going to be there. We've got to check these dudes out. Chris O'Donnell's going to be there, cause Chris O, I was stoked, all these hitters. So we drive up there the new Strung Out album that just came out. So we were just jamming that the whole way up.
Speaker 1:What one Teenage Wasteland.
Speaker 2:Suburban Blues.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a great album.
Speaker 2:It is so good. And he had a lower form Sleeve, the lead singer of that band. So we drove up there just cranking that the whole time and we get there and we have a hotel room overlooking the floor of the convention hall and I'm just like peering out people. I'm like, oh, look who it is, oh, that dude. I was a total fanboy out, but I had these flyers that I'd made with a drawing on it and I took an eight and a half by 11 in different colors and I had my drawing printed on it in four sections no-transcript, like day one of the convention and one of the only people I mean there's three people that were super kind. Sean Anderson was cool. He's like yo, this isn't really it, um, but in.
Speaker 2:Joe Capobalco was cool. He gave me the time of day, but Jack Rudy grabs my arm and he's like hey, kid, did you drop this right here? And he's a big intimidating dude, you know, I mean he's pretty thug. So I was like uh, uh, yeah. And he's like all right, man, this isn't how, this isn't how this is done. And he like gave me some time. He's like you got to get an apprenticeship. You got to find you're going to get so many no's. You're going to get so many no's, but when you get that, yes, check to see that they're worth that yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's good advice. He's like it could be anybody that says yes, but he goes. You you already know, you knew me, you knew who all these people are. If you're knowing that already, don't settle for just somebody teaching you. And I was like all right. So, um, yeah, that that was really cool advice. And then we found out Matt and I were used to eating steaks on Friday night back in our dirty old apartment and we found out these guys are all. I asked the bellhop. I was like where are these guys going tonight? And he's like they're going to get steaks. I was like, oh, I love steaks. We're going to go.
Speaker 2:And he's like they're going to a place called Ruth Chris. I'm like, oh yeah, that sounds good. I have no idea what this place is, but we get in this thing and we're in just white t-shirt and jeans. We sit down at a table near the tattooers because I just wanted to absorb whatever I could. What are they talking about? What do they do? And Matt looks at the menu and he's like there's absolutely. I'm not buying anything. I'm like you have to buy something. We're not, we're gonna get kicked out of here. You can't. You have to buy something.
Speaker 1:And he's like I can't afford this shit, josh I'm like dude, you're gonna put whatever you need to on a credit card and go total broke so that we get to stay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and he's like nope. So this fool gets a salad and I get, like mashed potatoes, a freaking filet, a la carte bowl thing, just so that we can remain there. Anyway, we, we ended up eating dinner, didn't learn any secrets, but I did get. Um. I did get an idea from Jack that I had to look for the right thing. So I eventually spent Christmas with my parents, went down to see uh at some shops in Chicago, but I was still too young to even get tattooed in Chicago. So I ended up at Jade dragon with fat Joe and he wanted to just charge me whatever. He was going to ignore the law and just charge me whatever. I was like I don't have that kind of ends. And he was sitting there counting money in front of me and shit, and I don't have that kind of money, dude. So then my mom says that there's the shop that opened outside the navy base, like 15 minutes down the road from us. Why don't you go check them out? So I went down there and the first person I met with Keith Underwood. He was working, he was the apprentice, and I walked in there and met Keith and Denise. Wolf owned the shop and she had been married to Wes Grimm before and she had been married to Bob Oslin. Bob Oslin taught Scott Harrison and Guy Atchison at the same time and had a real successful shop down in Chicago. And so Denise had clout. She had an Ed Hardy tat. Yeah, keith was cool but he didn't want me around.
Speaker 2:So I ended up getting tattooed by Denise and I had originally back at that chopper shop when I was 17, my dad took me to get a little four skull combo at that Mike's tattoo and chopper shop in that small town, danville, and that guy was cool but I wanted to add on to it and so I couldn't afford to do it. At that convention in atlanta, denise ended up adding some skulls to it and instantly I'm like yo, where do I buy an autoclave? And then I was like, never mind, never mind, hey, do you do apprenticeships? And she's like, oh boy, apprenticeships. And she was like, oh boy, slow down. No, you can't buy an autoclave, and that's crazy. And secondly, no, I'm not teaching you how to tattoo, let's just do this. Which is so funny because I echo that all the time. Now you know like these kids come in, just like that, can I get an apprenticeship? So uh ends up I go back to florida and uh, she ends up.
Speaker 2:I go back to Florida and uh, she ends up getting pregnant and calls me and says you know, hey, keith's going to go out on the floor. I need an apprentice to start covering my bases for when I'm going to be out. Um, she had a very small shop. She had a heavy Navy load that came through twice a month and on the weekends and she's like I'll teach you. I was like, oh shit, all right, so finished that little bit of schooling and went back up, got my associate's degree, went back up there to chicagoland.
Speaker 2:Keith was pissed that she was bringing on another person. He thought there wasn't enough business to go around. And then, uh, classic keith. And then, yeah, and then you know he liked him pretty quickly. He liked having another young person around. You know somebody that looked up to him cause he was a little older than me, somebody that was into the kind of the same music, spend nights talking about these tattoo icons that we were learning about and tattooing, cause he knew more than I did and I came in with an idea that I was going to be the next Guy Atchison. I was going to break all the walls of tattooing down and I was going to be the new thing.
Speaker 2:And the first day of work, denise hands me the American Tattoo Master by Sailor Jerry and I read that thing front to back and then read it again. And then I came in and I was like, oh, this he's, he's the real deal, like the letters that he was writing back and forth to Ed. You got to peer into his soul and his mind and I was like this is the real stuff. And she's like, yeah, kid, that's what I'm saying. So I ditched my idea of Guy Atchison and then Keith and I just nerded out on Ed Hardy, mike Malone, sailor Jerry and just learning as much as we could. And yeah, that was. That was how I landed in there.
Speaker 1:One that's. That's an incredible story, an incredible road. Thank you for sharing that with us. That's just old school and it's awesome, man, and I know to a certain extent it still happens today, but it really doesn't uh and shout out to you know, behind every great tattoo artist who's starting out, there's always, you know at least three or four, sometimes five or six buddies that are the practice pads. Yeah, for for you, for trying to figure out what you're doing. And that story cracked me up about you and your buddy, because I've got a tattoo on my neck right here from Luis Perez when he was first starting out, a couple other ones on my body. So sometimes it pays to be the practice pad and it's always a cool experience when you're around people who are learning, and I mean like learning the bare essentials of tattooing. It's a really cool, unique time and I know it must have been special for you, man. So that's awesome. And then you get to the point where you know you got the apprenticeship, you're in Chicago, you and Keith to you referenced sailor jerry.
Speaker 1:We can go kind of back with the story of aloha monkey and I want to go back to. You know, I want to go back to honolulu. Okay, because I want to go. You know, you had, you had jerry's shop and you had. It was mike and ed that went there to visit him right, 72, yeah, 72. So they go, they go back and I'll let you tell this story because you obviously know it better than I do. But they go back, they learn from him. And when, when Norman Collins dies in 73, it was Mike who takes over his shop, right.
Speaker 2:So Jerry obviously was light years ahead of everyone that was doing it and I'd say everyone and people could argue yeah, well, I mean, there was this guy and there was this guy and he bit, you know, brooklyn Jolie, okay, okay, okay Got it. But we just talked about everybody has a reference, everybody has a mentor. This dude had the ability to take designs that were almost 100 years old and make little distilled pieces of perfection. I'm talking his ability to paint, his ability for hand, to tool it not only on paper, and make these designs actually have symmetry. Life, use a circle guide. Have you know true balance, be clean. Have you know true balance, be clean. The skulls look like skulls, not like a melted ice cream cone.
Speaker 2:He did so much unpacking of these 100-year-old designs it was almost like there's no missing link. It's just like there was this stuff and then all of a sudden, there's Sailor Jerry. It's crazy, even his early stuff. And then all of a sudden there's Sailor Jerry. It's crazy, even his early stuff. He had such an eye for it. That's just in one part of his life, but his ability to distill all these crap images that were 100 years old and make them perfect is unbelievable. So Ed already had a career at Hardy, albeit a very early career. He was already tattooing when he met Mike Malone. And he met Mike Malone through this art show that Mike was curating in a museum in New York on tattooing, and so Mike was the curator. Now Mike wasn't tattooing, he was a photographer, and so mike was the curator.
Speaker 2:Now mike wasn't tattooing, he was a photographer, he was doing some psychedelic like music, venue stuff, like that oil and water, like psychedelic stuff that would go big screen, like with an overhead projector, and he was like, uh, living in new york and he ends up getting in with this curator and he starts curating this tap show. He was, uh, he had ran across tom devito on the street and saw this dude that had actual beautiful tattoos, because Tom's were from Huck Spaulding and Huck could tattoo his ass off and he had real good tattoos and that wasn't seen in New York at the time. So then Mike starts just photographing him and spending time around Tom. And then he finds out about Ed Hardy and so he's curating this show on tattooing and so he reaches out to Ed Hardy. Well then it already says you gotta, we gotta reach out to Jerry, he's the head of the whole gang man. And so Mike and Ed needed this tattoo thing, this uh art show um, first one ever about tattooing. And Ed falls in love with the fact that Mike can take photographs.
Speaker 2:And the key thing here is Mike could take photographs of three dimensional art and make it two dimensional. So these guys and Mike could develop his own film, so they could then flatten these images out. And now they have reference these dudes didn't have Japanese references, so when they roll up in a museum and Mike can take a picture of a big Japanese Ukiyo-e print and flatten that thing out and Ed can trace it and make a back piece. It's like oh, now we're in business, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's awesome, making their own reference. So then Ed's like you got to come meet Jerry. So then they go and meet Jerry, and then that's when it started to crack off. So then they go and keep Jerry and then that's when it started to crack off they would go and they would just milk on him and learn from him and he wanted to create basically the you know, for this anniversary party that we're having, we call it tat university. My friend, miguel Uzi um, he coined this place, tat university.
Speaker 2:Well, jerry and Ed were trying to actually make a tat university like where artists could come to get better in Hawaii yeah so technically, the first one was like him, ed and uh, jerry, ed and mike, and then they had oguri come out, so now they have a connection to the japanese, the first japanese person to ever meet with the white guys to do tattoos.
Speaker 2:So Mike got his arm outlined, ed had to one up him and get his back outlined and Jerry got like a little peony or something on him, but that was like a merger right there. That was, that was the beginning of East meets West, you know, and yeah, they were all just right there, pivotal. And so then when Jerry dies, he had told his wife you either sell the shop because jerry was secretive, you know, he wanted to keep this thing close to the people that deserved it and forget the rest of turd hill. He didn't want any of them to get it. So he said to his wife either sell the shop to ed hardy, zeke owens, mike malone, or you burn it to the ground. And his wife was down to burn it to the ground.
Speaker 1:Well.
Speaker 2:Ed was studying with the Japanese as the first white man in Japan to be doing tattoos on the regs like on big scale, and so he didn't want to leave that. Zeke was off floating around Malaysia or something and just being Zeke. He didn't want to do nothing with it, they couldn't even reach him, and so Mike took it and Mike didn't have but I mean a couple years tattooing under.
Speaker 1:I was going to say was he the least experienced of the three at that time?
Speaker 2:Sure, for sure. Yeah, I mean, like he tells the story, he always told me he's only got three years of tattooing before he took over Jerry's and I think it could have been even less, but yeah, he had no, real nothing behind him. So he sits in Jerry's and I's got to take care of Superman's freaking ice castle. You know it's like wow, what pressure, but he did it and we wouldn't know about it.
Speaker 1:So he made the move from New York to Hawaii.
Speaker 2:Yep straight away, damn dude. Yeah, and then got plugged with all of it. You know, everything was there. We wouldn't have, you know, the aloha monkey sheet. That's the original aloha monkey sheet. Um, no way we wouldn't have this an original pinup girl that he did it's front and back side. We wouldn't have any of that if it wasn't for Mike. It would have just all been lost to a fire.
Speaker 1:And there it goes. Yeah, that's incredible, man, I mean to be able to go, and obviously that's where Mike's journey really picks up too. But the idea of you think about what yourself would be going through at that time in your life, thinking about your own journey as a human being, but then you also have the artistic, you know, knowledge and and, uh, respect to preserve what he walked into too and realize how important it is, you know. So it's like that's, I mean kudos.
Speaker 1:Yeah, kudos man, for sure, for sure. And so how long did he run that shot before he bounced? Because at one point he's like Hawaii's beautiful, but I gotta, I gotta, get out of here yeah, no, he got the rock fever for sure starts to get small there.
Speaker 2:Um, I mean, he bounced a couple times. He went to Seattle for a little bit for a season and it was too depressing, maybe it was a year. Uh, he went to austin for a while. Um had a relationship there, worked for the austin chronicle. He was an editor of the art of the cover of the austin chronicle, so a lot of the covers of the austin chronicle have his illustrations in them. That's rad, I didn't know that. Oh, yeah, um, there's some great ones that he did. He did every uh, zodiac, um for year front covers for the Austin Chronicle. So like the tiger, the ox, yeah, snake, yeah, it was cool.
Speaker 1:Incredible man. So let's talk about the merge of you, aloha, Monkey and Mike. And real quick. Can I ask just a dumb question? I know he went by Rollo Banks. What's the? What's the origin of that? What's the connection of that?
Speaker 2:That's just something his peers called him based in Ed, basically based off an Archie comic. There was a character in it called Rollo Banks and it was kind of like a Richie Rich kid. You know you'd have to know that reference from comics to understand or cartoons to understand that but like a blend of a Richie Rich and a Scrooge McDuck. You know, like Rollo was into making some money and having nice shit, so he got Rollo Banks out of it.
Speaker 1:Nice, cool. Yeah, I've always wondered that and I've always, you know, it's been one of those things. I was like, you know, I figure this is a safe space, I can ask that question. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, so, yeah. So let's talk about you and Mike and the Aloha. How does it all come together? You're apprenticing in Chicago. How do you end up in Minnesota?
Speaker 2:Well, let me tell you that that's how. Keith is a huge part of that, and Denise all props to Denise Wolf man, because that woman took two kids that weren't going to do nothing and helped them do something, and the very first thing she did was introduce us to who the people we needed to focus on were, and that's Sailor Jerry, mike Malone and Ed Hardy. She had Mike Malone flash in her shop and I had never seen it or knew about it. She introduced me to the Tattoo Time publications, which were essentially the first tattoo magazines that already did. Um, she forced me to see that stuff and to read it and to tell her about what I read and to she was so good about so many things about tattooing. She was excellent about the line work. She was excellent about the technical aspects, how to approach different skin types. She was a technician's technician man and, uh, I still use so much of what she taught me to this day. But, um, yeah, I wouldn't know who Mike Malone was if it wasn't for her.
Speaker 2:So, basically, keith and I are kicking it together all the time. We wanted to buy these tattoo machines the sailor Jerry bulldog that had came out, and um, couldn't buy one, and so Keith's like let's just look at the back of tattoo time, let's call Mike. So he calls Mike out of the back of the tattoo time, calls him at the shop and that starts basically a penman, like a pen pal relationship between us. He was stoked that these two young kids. He told us we were terrible. He said we should probably quit, but he had these two kids that worked near a Navy base and he was blown away that the Navy base, because there was only two and they distilled it down to one.
Speaker 2:They got rid of Jacksonville and so it was only the Great Lakes Navy base and so if you were a Navy you had to cycle through there as bootcamp. And he was blown away because Honolulu wasn't doing any Navy. I mean really, there's no wartime, it's empty. And he was blown away that that went, that actually went away in his business, but also that we had that and he was asking like, well, what are they getting? He was a real interested and so we would hit him up for designs like, oh, this kid wants a Popeye. And there wasn't a ton of reference. All right, guys, there wasn't Google, you had to buy books. And so we had hit him up and he would send us through a fax machine a design and then we would have to send him 20 bucks in the mail and it'd take forever to get there, but it was the principle and we'd sit there at the fax machine, keith and I, waiting for the design slowly to come through and then be able to trace it and put it on the kid. And he helped us with several designs Actually, huge story about that. One of them was a sun and some water that this Navy kid wanted. And flash forward 20 some years and I get to see this kid because a guy that's working for me grew up with this kid as best friends. He went off to the navy he said hey, I think this guy got tattooed by you at lucky seven and it's the design that rollo helped me draw. No way, yeah, it was crazy. But yeah, so we become pen pals.
Speaker 2:And then Keith was always super interested in A making money and B the mechanics of tattoo machine building. He had put up a little machine building part in Denise's shop and so he was assembling just parts that he bought from Spalding and National and he was assembling his own things and him and Nick Colella got in on a circle frame together and they did that. And so when he got with Mike he was interested in how's the Rallomatic work? How does that do? How do we build those Blah, blah, blah? And Ro liked the fact that this kid was interested and he had youthful hands, rollo had old, couldn't put them all together, and so they basically jammed out on machines and so Keith and I would visit him and then he was basically like, look, if I'm opening a shop in Minnesota. If you guys know anybody that's good not you send them my way. Well then, keith and I just showed up and he's like not you guys, and we're like please anyone, but you do yeah.
Speaker 2:And then it basically stuck. You know, once Keith was off the apprentice deal and he was working the floor, he gave Denise a year. We were doing that pen pal thing for a year and then he came up here and so he opened the shop with Mike. Mike was like all right, I'll take you. And I had obligations back in Chicago. I wasn't going to ditch out on Denise who let me in the door, and so it really wasn't even offered. They didn't have enough business. It was a brand new shop. So he took Keith and then started building the Roll-O-Matic. Keith was essential in building that out for him.
Speaker 2:And then I would just bounce up here every weekend that I had. I would get off work at 10 o'clock, I would drive until what? Seven hour drive, get here early in the morning, I would stay with my, I would stay with Keith and I'd work with Mike and Keith for two days and then I'd drive back for my next day at the shop. We didn't open till two so I could leave in the morning, and I did that for a year. And then, well, keith had set it up. Keith was like yo man, we could get like a duplex. Put him in the bottom and we'll take care of him. And then you and I live in the top. And so, yeah, I remember getting a call. I was living in my parents' basement and uh, raul's like, hey, how would you like to live with uncle Rallo? And I was like, oh my God, and you don't understand. Guys Like you might look at that as kind of corny, but this is like I was taught to respect my elders and shit.
Speaker 1:So this is like your mentor a guy you look up to and fucking like eric clapton, ozzy osbourne I mean it's like the biggest act.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's one of the goats man. You know it's like and it's like and it's, it's. It's also, you know, like the. The thing I love about, uh, you know, trade work, tattooing, culture, anything like that is, you know there's like you. You see how important persistence is, how important it is to just work your ass off. And you know, not only is this guy, like you're saying, a mentor, one of the greats, but it's also taken into perspective all the work you've put up until this point. So when you get that call, you know it's like hell. Yeah, you know it's like that's. That's a, that's a life changing moment, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was big. And I remember just like, yeah, man, I'll, I'll be there as soon as I can. And I told Denise and she was a hundred percent supportive. And so it was me and Keith living with the old man and working with him, and I worked part-time at his wife's shop. It was a couple of suburbs away. And then Mike had point blank put this Aloha monkey in a specific area and he chose Burnsville because back then the phone books mattered and the way that it works is 35 goes from fricking, mexico to Canada. Yeah, at Minnesota it breaks into two and it goes St Paul, minneapolis and then it goes back to 135 up to Canada. Well, mike puts Burnsville's right down here at the V, he puts the shop there so you can equally advertise to both surrounding suburbs of the cities. And it was perfect. And so, yeah, that's why he chose Burnsville, that's why we're here, that's why the place works. And, um, we got to live with him and that was a riot in itself, just living with your mentor and working with them was incredible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can imagine, man, I know, uh, I know there's gotta be uh in, uh be just a lifetime of lessons. But in talking about Mike, I always just feel like it's such a cool thing to be able to talk to someone who was so close to him and anytime you have that sort of firsthand knowledge, if you could pick a thing or two. What were some of the things that you learned from him, whether it be life or tattooing or anything, oh man, Uh, there's a lot.
Speaker 2:Um, I mean, first and foremost, you keep the hours that you have advertised. You know what I mean. You just you keep the hours. If it says 12 to eight, you were there 12 to eight, not 12 to seven, 50, not, you know, 12, 10 to seven, 40. You're there 12 to 8, not 12 to 750, not 1210 to 740. You're there 12 to 8.
Speaker 2:And you treat the shop and working in a tattoo shop like it's an eight-hour job. You got this from Jerry. So the reason these guys painted a bunch is they didn't have a lot of tattoos to do, so they were painting because they treated the shop time, whatever the shop hours were, as a job. So if you didn't have skin coming in, you're working on getting better and I don't see a lot of tattooers doing that anymore. I don't see them drawing. I'm not a huge fan of painting all the time. I think that's a great exercise for what it's worth. I think drawing is more important and honing that skill. But you don't see that. You don't see tattooers treated like an eight hour job. You see them on their phones, you see them dicking around, but you don't see them treatment like that. So Rala was insistent. That is an eight hour job and you do something for your trade. I mean, back then we were making our own needles and a lot of our own inks and so we had to do all that maintenance. But yeah, treat your shop like it's a job and give it the respect that it deserves and think about how fortunate we are to do what we do.
Speaker 2:You know a lot of tattooers now bitch because they're not asking for their style. Well, rallo and a lot of these old guys weren't into the one trick pony. You know you don't point yourself into a corner and just stay there. That's of no value to them. Rallo was like think how fortunate we are. We get to sit here and do our drawing and hone our skill. We get to paint whatever we want.
Speaker 2:And then somebody comes in and they ask us to build them a bridge. And then we build them a bridge and then they walk out and we go back to doing the kind of art and fun things that we want that are going to make us expressed. And then somebody comes in and says, hey, I want you to build me a fence. And then you build them a fence and you know where in the world do you get to do that, where you get to be expressive and do your thing and make some money. You know what I mean. Like he's like, if you give it the respect, if you give tattooing the respect that it deserves, it will give you respect back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a hundred percent, man. I mean you, you, you get what you give. You know, with stuff like that, the more you put into it, the more respect you give. You know the craft, your art, your work you know the more it gives back to you. I mean, I know that that's the same with music too. I mean there's so many people who just get into music who you know they don't really respect all the hard work and all the nuances that go into, you know, writing a song or the dedication it takes to be a band on the road and all these things. And you know it's like there's certain levels of fame or achievement of success that someone like that might reach, but they're always going to be robbed of, like the real purpose of, of what it is that they're doing. You know what I mean. And it's like it's gotta be disappointing on your end Sometimes when you see people who don't appreciate the full spectrum of what it's all about.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean, yeah it is, but I love tattooing so much Like I tell a lot of my guys quite often I'm like I care way more about tattooing than your feelings.
Speaker 2:So I'm just going to be honest. You know what I mean. It's just like this is so much more important, like I tell people to be prepared. I think preparation is something that Mike was good at as well. You've done these things. You've honed it so much that when it's game time, you can shoot the ball. So preparation is huge. You know, like when I'm going into an outline, it's kind of it's like a cage match for me. It's like there's this thing that I'm doing or there's death. I don't think it's a nonchalant thing. I think it's important, and part of that is, yes, it's, it's not even ego-based. It's like, yes, it's their arm, but this is like important to tattooing. It's like it has to be right. It could be any arm, it's not just that person's arm or back or whatever, but it it has to be right, it has to look right, it has to be applied right. It does matter where that leaf sets. It does matter how that fits on the hips, it does matter, and so it's this thing I'm doing or death.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then you know. You know what's interesting about that is it's cool you say that because there are people always apply that kind of idea to like the big picture. You know like I'm going to do. You know I'm either going to be a musician or I'm going to die. I'm going to be a tattoo artist or I'm going to die. I'm going to be the best I can be or this or that. There's no other. There's no plan B. You always hear about artists saying that you know, but it's funny how many people forget to look. It goes deeper than that In order for that to happen in order for the big picture to be do or die.
Speaker 1:All the details have to be do or die too, Like you're saying it's like every tattoo has to be do or die, every line has to be important, every drawing, everything you're doing has to matter, you know, and it's, it's. It's funny how there's that sometimes there's a disconnect with that between the day to you know, the day to day ins and outs of a trade or a craft or a career versus, you know, just the kind of big picture, overall achievement, success. All the stuff in between has to be do or die too, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love what you said. There's a disconnect between the big picture and the daily discipline, and that goes back to the eight hours in the shop. It's the daily discipline, you know, and, like you said, it could be music, it could be whatever, but if your big picture is dreamy and do or die, it's like do your actions show that? Yeah, daily actions, do your minute-by-minute actions be showing that? I don't know, man.
Speaker 1:Okay. So you know, unfortunately we lose Mike. I want to talk about you becoming shop owner here of the Aloha. I want to talk about that transition.
Speaker 2:Well, that was. It went down. I'd only been tattooing three years when Mike approached me. Keith had already left to go. He got married and went back to Chicagoland area. So it was me and Mike and we had this apartment. And then I left that apartment to live with another person and Mike was just finishing up before he was going to go take care of his sick mother. She was back in Rona Park, where he was from, and he's like look, I got to bail, I got to go take care of my mom. Basically, I'm either selling you the shop or it's closing.
Speaker 2:And I'm like, pardon me, I mean Grime's book. It just came out about this dude that goes around the world and sees all these amazing things and comes back a better artist. And I read this book from Grime and I'm just like, oh Mike, no, I want to go around the world and I want to get good at this thing and I'm not even good enough. And how am I going to take care of this? And he goes kid, I know I've been hard on you, but you need about 10 000 miles of outline and about 5 000 miles of square color and you're gonna be great. And I was like, oh shit, all right he goes so how about this?
Speaker 2:I sweeten the pot. I'll just sell it to you for what I bought Jerry's for in 1973. How's that? And I went oh my God, uh, uh. How long do you plan on being around?
Speaker 1:I mean.
Speaker 2:I don't, I can't get a loan. You know, I hit up my dad, he's like stupid idea. Hit up my grandfather before my step grandfather before he died, he's like absolutely not. I have no registered account that I've made any dollars ever, so how am I getting a loan for anything? And he says let's just work it out. And so I said I mean when are you thinking leaving? He's like six, nine months, I don't know. I'm like all right, so I work seven days a week, um, at two different shops, and then by that time I was just at the Aloha monkey, but for a while there I was working at his wife's shop and that shop and um, just seven days a week, man, and I was eating ramen noodles.
Speaker 2:And my mom was a frugal woman. She grew up in Illinois and, you know, had an outhouse when she was a kid, and so she taught me about how to save and not live above your means, and so I knew about the disciplinary act of doing that and thank God for her. I call her my backwoods Buddha, because there's just things that she shouldn't know. You know she's not highly educated, but she's got some kind of enlightenment that's unheard of. I like that. So, yeah, my backwoods Buddha. She taught me how to discipline myself and go for something.
Speaker 2:So we me and Mike were watching the Sopranos. It was out for season releases at that time and we were watching the Sopranos on Sunday. So after work I would go grab some food and then I'd bring it over to his place and we'd sit down, have some Italian food and watch Sopranos. Well, this one time I grabbed this old briefcase from a thrift store and I knew I had gotten enough money to buy it from him, and so I filled it with the cash, put it in the studio briefcase and after dinner I put it up on the coffee table and slid it to him and I was like there you go, mike.
Speaker 1:And he's like what's this?
Speaker 2:He there, you go, mike, and he's like what's this? He like opens it up, oh my god. And I was like I'd like to buy that shop. And he's like it's yours, and so I got to keep everything in it. You know, he gave me um, I don't know if you can see him, but jerry's original reference books are up here. He didn't want to move him again.
Speaker 2:Um, that's a crazy story in those reference books, cause I believe everything's connected in some way or another. I'm not necessarily hip to how, but everything's connected. So in the books I was, they're brittle, they're sun bleached, they're dry. So I'm like digging through them, just looking at them. They're pretty busted. So I'm flipping through them and inside the book there is this monkey acetate. You probably can't see it, but oh shit, no way. The only thing in there as a bookmark was an acetate of a freaking monkey, of an aloha monkey scratching his ass oh my god dude so I was like no way, that's wild.
Speaker 2:but yeah, bought the shop from mike and then I was a 20 year old or 21 year old shop owner and that was crazy. We had three guys, a piercer and me and one other tattoo artist and um, then it was on. I just tried to do what I saw him do well and not do what I saw him not do well. I mean, there were times he would break the credit card machine, be like it's not enough pads credit card machines broke.
Speaker 2:I was like it's not broke. These people go broke on credit card. You have to have a credit card here. And he's like, nope, it's broken, can't use it. I was like, all right. So there was just things that I refused to go back to, you know and all of those trial and error.
Speaker 2:I mean, we just there were things that didn't work and then we got rid of those and things that worked, we kept them and then I started to travel quite a bit. I was real secretive in the beginning, you know, because I was young and didn't know a lot of people. In 2002, I started to go out. Well, in 2001, I got my chest done by Ed Hardy, um, cause I wasn't going to get tattooed by my scrub friends, I was going to get tattooed by the greats. Yeah, I got my chest done by ed hardy. A year later, got my ribs done by him, um, and he's always been gracious to me. Uh, with the connection with mike, he's always been really cool, answering any questions I had. He's been really um, you know, everybody on his birthday and shit takes all these pictures and posts. Look at me with ed hardy. I mean, I have tons of stories about me and ed hardy. I just never busted his balls to take a picture Um, so he was just a good friend in tattooing and a great mentor and, uh, still is. I just saw him a year ago, um.
Speaker 2:So, and then 2002, I started to go down and see Bob in LA. I was dating a girl. She had a sister in LA Um, and so, yeah, every couple of months she'd want to go see her sister. I was dating a girl. She had a sister in LA Um, and so, yeah, every couple of months she'd want to go see her sister. I'd want to go see Bob, so then started getting tattooed by Bob, and then I brought all that stuff back and I would see what works in these other shops and be like that definitely doesn't work, we can't do that. And then the monkey just started to evolve in what it is.
Speaker 1:Awesome, man, that's incredible. Uh, you know I'm I'm sorry for taking up so much of your time here, but it's, it's so cool.
Speaker 2:It's so cool, so I get it.
Speaker 1:I know, I know it's crazy, Um, but one of the things I was reading about, which I you know, I just wanted to ask real quick, is the story of the Aloha monkey. As far as you know, it is the story. Do you think that story is true?
Speaker 2:I do. I think it's true because of who Jerry was and how little of his life was alive. You know what I mean. He was just so true and the sources that have told me these stories, like Ed Mike candy, I just I got to go with it.
Speaker 1:Trusted sources. Trusted sources? Yeah, so the story is that you know he had a monkey in the shop, right, and did they actually so? Did they tattoo the monkey? They actually tattooed the monkey. Okay, so they put the AL and the HA, because the monkey had Monkey's name is Romeo. Romeo, that's right. Romeo had a habit of bending over and greeting people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and uh but the rest of the story goes like this. So Romeo had this, uh, he had been trained to bend over. You know, mike got him when he was in the China sea area. That's why, rollo, that was his tour. He wanted to go back after, uh, after world war two and he wanted to serve. When they did what they did to Pearl Harbor, he wanted to serve. He was too old so he became a merchant marine. Then he goes to the South China Seas that's where he does his tour, comes back with this monkey Trains.
Speaker 2:The monkey Monkey bends over in a cage near the front door. Anytime he sees a white sailor outfit, jerry ends up tattooing the monkey, like you said. Then one day jerry comes in the shop. The monkey has gotten out of the cage. There's diarrhea and black ink everywhere. It had gotten into his ink and had been drinking his black ink.
Speaker 2:He doesn't know what to do about romeo. So he puts romeo back in the cage, calls his chinese herbalist because he loved the chinese people and he could actually speak mandarin a little bit. He could write it too. Um, and trying to figure out how to save romeo's life, what's going to happen to romeo? And in walk, two sailors? Because he didn't shut the door. They think he's open. Romeo doesn't bat an eye, bends over to salute the sailors and diarrhea black ink shit all over the sailors. And then rollo, or uh, jerry, just thought that was the funniest thing he'd ever seen. So he drew this design of a monkey with a shit-eating grin bent over. And Rollo used that name here because, again, the importance of the yellow pages at that time, acme.
Speaker 2:AAA, all that you know what I mean. The A yeah, so the AL, he's right there Also. He wanted to piss off these conservative, cold-hearted Lutherans with something a little bit more funny.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's great man. That's such a classic story. All right, so just a couple questions here from the internet. Do you have to have tattoos to be a great tattoo artist?
Speaker 2:It definitely helps and I would say, yes, you do, because you have to have some skin in the game. Like I said, I think all this stuff's connected and so if there's not a flesh offering, you're not going to get much out of this. Who's going to buy shoes off a barefoot shoe salesman?
Speaker 1:See, I tend to agree with you. I know that there might be exceptions to the rule where you know you have a great artist who hasn't necessarily received a bunch of tattoos, but I just don't see. I don't really, I don't see how yeah, kuranuma Horiyoshi too.
Speaker 2:That's about it.
Speaker 1:That was in history.
Speaker 2:That's about it. Do you go under anesthesia? Let's go back to the reality of the world. Skin offering. You have to have a skin offering to get something out of this business. And what business do you have being in something that you're not willing to test the waters of yourself? You know what I mean? Yeah, I'm buying whiskey off a sober guy, you know. So it's not happening. So, anyway, you got to have something in the game. And if you're going to go under anesthesia, like you're going to lose all the valor of getting a tattoo. It's just fake.
Speaker 1:All right, a couple last. We're going to wrap this up here. I swear, ok, we're going to, we're going to bring it back to the party. Ok, we got, we got 25 years, the Aloha Monkey coming up 26 through the 28th of April, and I'm guessing throughout your years you've been to a lot of parties. I want to hit you with a little fill in the blank. You can fill in the blank. Okay, this is a Tupac Shakur song. Okay, it's ain't nothing but a what party?
Speaker 2:I don don't know.
Speaker 1:I don't listen to tupac ain't nothing but a gangster party. Ain't nothing but a gangster party okay, what type of party does the band black flag like to have?
Speaker 2:what kind of a party do they like to have? Yeah, I don't know. A hardcore party, a tv, a TV party. Oh Jesus, you're trying to Come on. This is the trivia game. Spend my years in a tattoo shop, bro.
Speaker 1:I was up late last night. I was in bed and all of a sudden it hit me these questions and I was like, oh, these are so great. I got to get up, I got to write these.
Speaker 2:Do another one, then I'm excited, all right, so what? What? What type of party does oingo boingo throw? Oh fuck, give it to me music man, a dead man's party.
Speaker 1:It's a dead man's party. Oingo boingo. You've never heard that song.
Speaker 2:I have heard oingo boingo and that is probably one of the bands that most people have heard and wouldn't even know that the name of the band that's true, it's true.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'll be. I'll be fully honest. Danny Elfman truly scares me. He's a pretty freaky dude, have you seen now? He's like super jacked. He's got, he's got weird tats and stuff. He's a, he's a wild card. Okay, where does Miley Cyrus like to party? The USA, nice. And I heard that whisper. I heard I heard that whisper in the back. I heard that whisper. All right, the Leslie Gore song. You complete the sentence here. It's my party and I'll blank if I want to.
Speaker 2:Cry if I want to.
Speaker 1:There you go, my man. All right. Last two questions here. Yeah, we're going to go back in time. Bill and Ted show up at the party. Okay, all of a sudden phone booth in time. Bill and Ted show up at the party. Okay, all of a sudden phone booth comes down. Bill and Ted get out. They go, josh, anywhere in history, anytime, any era, any place. Let's go. Where are you going to go first, and why? Wow, that's a tough one.
Speaker 2:I got two. Yeah, all right, the first one. I would go back to the time of Christ. I would go back to like 33, ad, 38.
Speaker 1:All the way back, yeah.
Speaker 2:I want to see that. I want to see what was up. I want to be firsthand account.
Speaker 1:I like that. I like that.
Speaker 2:I'm a history, know I love Jesus and I've also done enough psychedelics to see that everything's connected. And I want to know. I want to be there. I'm not saying I would even have the balls to be there, but I want to be there.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, you can always just jump back into the phone booth and take off when it gets hairy.
Speaker 2:And then the second place I'd want to be is 1970s tattooing, like all this that we've been talking about, popped off. I think it would have been an epic time to be there. I would have liked to have been around mike and the guys when they were learning this stuff, because I got to know him as old men and I would have loved to have seen him when they were, you know, shitting their pants like I was at a young man's age.
Speaker 1:Hell yeah, man, hell yeah, awesome, josh, all right, last question here it's a little bit of a doozy, but what to you is the meaning of life?
Speaker 2:To me, the meaning of life is you only get one ride in this flesh sack, so find the way to kill the ego and live more in the rhythm of your spirit, body. Now, that's applicable to so many things, from martial arts to just walking down the street, to being in a relationship, but I think it's the death of the ego and the focus of what keeps us all, what we all have in common in spirit.
Speaker 1:Hell yeah, man, that's awesome, brother, that's awesome. All right, Josh Arment, thank you so much for your time here in the Sailor Jerry podcast. My man, oh, you're so welcome Everybody. We're going to celebrate 25 years of the Aloha Monkey in Burnsville, minnesota, on April 26th to 28th. If you got a wild hair up your ass, fly out, go to the party, get tattooed. I was trying to get out there. I get tattooed.
Speaker 2:I was trying to get out there.
Speaker 1:I knew you were. I was trying to get out there, but you know.
Speaker 2:At 30, you'll be playing.
Speaker 1:At 30, we'll be playing, so it's all good. You know, josh, it's been really cool catching up with you and, honestly, man, I got so much respect, you know, for you as an artist, as a, as a human being and just for continuing the tradition. I mean, you know, from sailor Jerry to Mike, you know to you through the shop. It's just, uh, it's really cool to see how it all goes back. Um, you know from where it started and and to where you're at now. So, uh, thank you for doing what you do. Man, appreciate you no-transcript.