Heeeey Joe,
I chose you today because I happened to be looking in your tattoo photos on FB and being pretty goddamned impressed. Then it got me to thinking about what you and I were doing like a decade ago. We were both working for Dave and Chris doing grunt work and drinking on the weekends. Weird how we go from manual labor to the field of arts. It’s almost like we saw one of those “A Career in the Arts” commercials late at night and send in our test pamphlet to get on the fast track to a fascinating career in the Arts Medium, as I think the slogan went. Well apparently I did well on the smiling turtle and you did better on the pirate cause here we are.
One of the main things I remember about the grunt days is when you sliced open Chris’ hand with a utility blade. If I remember right he had been messing with you all day (as he did just about every grunt he had working for him) and at somepoint you had the blade and he got his paws too close to you and you gave him a little swipe that turned out to be a pretty good sized gash. To me this seemed completely justified, but I seem to recall there being some back blast from the whole event. One of the things I remember about working with Chris was that when you weren’t around he would try to horse around with me like you two guys did, but this failed miserably. The main factor being that I was a stick figure in comparison to you guys and getting slugged in the shoulder usually resulted in me going ass-over-teakettle of the tailgate of the truck…good times.
While I am sure Kalamazoo is worse place not having you here, you are one of the ones who have left and flourished in another location. I am sure it hasn’t been easy, but I am also sure you worked hard enough at it that you didn’t really pay too much attention to how hard it was. In either case, I think we have probably shared a few of the same missteps and moments of “wtf was I thinking” and for that reason you will always have a place in my head.
As far as facebook, aside from looking at your tats and the occasion bit about your travels it has been more or less useless. I would suggest a website, or at least a deviantart page to display your work, its really good and I would like to see more of it in the future. (also on a side note if you are interested in getting a website going for yourself let me know, I kinda do that stuff for a living now). All that being said, my email is the best way to get ahold of me if ever you wish to do so.
Today was a great day, but tomorrow our FBfriendship will end,
Curt
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