BEAUTYTAINMENT PODCAST

The Dandy In DandyLand

• Piercer Miro • Season 1 • Episode 6

Share episode

Welcome to BEAUTYTAINMENT, where we blend beauty with a dash of entertainment! In this episode, titled "The Dandy In DandyLand," we're diving headfirst into the wild world of body piercing with the one and only Piercer Miro, the Dandy behind Dandyland Tattoo & Piercing.

Get ready for a rollercoaster ride of laughs, insights, and a few surprises as we chat about all things piercing, from the latest trends that have everyone talking to the secret sauce behind connecting with clients on a deeper level. Piercer Miro isn't just your average piercer – he's a trailblazer, a trendsetter, and an all-around aficionado in the art of transforming bodies into canvases.

But wait, there's more! Ever wondered how psychedelics fit into the picture? Strap in as we explore the psychedelic side of business and how Piercer Miro infuses a little bit of magic into the mix at Dandyland.

Whether you're a piercing fanatic, an aspiring entrepreneur, or just along for the ride, this episode guarantees tossed you on a trip and leave you itching for your next piercing adventure. So grab your headphones and join us as we journey into the quirky, colorful realm of Dandyland with Piercer Miro as our fearless guide.

Follow and subscribe to our podcast
you can also follow us at
https://www.instagram.com/vanidosabeauty/
https://www.instagram.com/leeboy_savage/

Hi Everybody And Welcome Back To BeautyTainment Podcast I Am Your Host Claudia You Can Find Me At VaniDosa Beauty Or My New Account Beautypreneur Ceo There You Go Remember And My Host Right Here Catch Me At Leeboy Savage Leeboy Savage On Instagram And Today We Got A Guest Is The First Time We Have A Guest We Have A Guest It'S Like Really Legit I'Ve Been Excited Yeah He'S Our Boy Miro Right Here From Dandyland Where Can They Find You At Yeah My Name Is Miro Nandez I Can Be Found On Instagram At Piercer Miro That'S Pretty Much My Handle For All My Social Media It'S Easy Piercings You Don'T Say I Would Never Guess Who Has Piercings Yeah Exactly So What I Find Like I Was Telling You Earlier What I Find About Your Business That'S Really Cool Is That You'Ve Been Around And You'Re Like A Staple In San Antonio So You You Mentioned That Studio Itself Has Been There For 24 Years The Studio Has Been There For 20 We'Ve Been Open For 27 Years And We Moved Locations About Six Years Ago Six And A Half Years Ago To Our New Location Yeah Okay Yeah And Even When You'Re Driving Down Fredericksburg Remember When We First Moved So We'Ve Only Been Here For Three Years And We Were Driving Down Fredericksburg And We Saw Them I Was Like Oh My God That'S So Cute And It Stands Out Yeah The Color Everything About That Building Everything That You'Ve Made It Is Is Fucking Cool The Murals In The Front Are Badass The Mural Yeah That'S For Sure Attention Right Away Everything Was Done Very Intentional With That Spot You Know We Wanted To For The Exterior We Realized The Potential It Had And We Wanted To Provide A Public Art Space Yeah And Being Able To Do That With Murals You Know It'S Just Been Really Cool I Have A Lot Of Friends That Are In The Graffiti Community I Have A Lot Of Friends That Are Artists So I Was Able To Reach Out To Homies And Just Be Like Hey You Know Let'S Let'S Make This Happen You Know And It'S Worked Out Oh Yeah Right On And Then We Actually Met You At The First Time At The At Your Fuck Up Nights Yeah We'Re Just Talking About That Man That Fucking Event Is The Fucking Best We Loved It Right There It'S It'S Really Really Cool You Know It'S Definitely One Of Those Where You Don'T Know What To Expect Because The Name So Awful We Did Not Yeah Yeah We Totally Did Not Yeah Yeah Yeah But It'S Definitely It'S One Of Those Events Once You Go To Like You Definitely Wanna Go Back Because I Don'T Know There'S Something About And A Big Part Of My Life Has Been Understanding The Human Condition Yeah And Being Able To Hear These Stories Of People Just Being Vulnerable And Saying Man This Is Where I Fucked Up Like And To Be Honest With The First Event I Went To I Did Not Know People Were Gonna Expose Themselves Like That So I Felt Really Comfortable Like Oh My God These People Are Now More Successful Or Successful Like In Within Their Own Community But They Were Really Fucking Vulnerable And I Was Like Oh My God I Feel Like I'M Their Friend Because They'Re Saying All These Things You Know Why Everybody Likes To Talk About The Wins But Nobody Really Likes Talking About Their Their Losses Where They Fucked Up At So That Thing Was Fucking Cool Man Everybody Like Okay We'Re Not Alone We Fucked Up Here Here Here And These People Are Talking About Their Fuck Ups Yeah That'S Fucking Cool Yeah Yeah No It'S Definitely Uh I Don'T Know It'S It'S Been It'S Been A Really Big Part Of My Part Of My Over Who I Am Over The Past Couple Years Is Just Understanding The Human Condition Yeah This This Event Has Allowed Me To Do That And Is Also What It'S Allowed Me To Do Just Work With Community And Working With Community Is A Really Really Big Part Of Who I Am As Well You Know So It It'S Really Really Cool Being Able To Work With A Different Aspect Of The Community So It'S You And Your Sister Right Uh I Call Her My Ermana Uh Yeah Irene Uh We Just Have This Really Really Amazing Bond And Connection Uh She Uh She Actually She Has A Full Time Job She'S She'S A Lady Of Many Positions And Her Her Current Position She Actually Runs Another Regional Office For A Congressman Greg Casada Oh Cool Yeah Cause I Remember She Was Uh Somehow In Politics Or Something Right Like Yeah She'S Dug Into The Community Oh Yeah So The Fact That She Was There You Guys Were There And Like You'Re You'Re Like Different Aspects Of The Same Thing That Show Is Really Cool She Was Good Too She Commanded The Stage Pretty Good Yeah Told Some Good Jokes And Stuff It Was Fun Yeah How How Did You Fall Into That How Did You Get Involved In That That Whole Thing Irene That Was Actually Hosting A Pre Pandemic And She Invited Me Out To Speak One Night And I Was Kind Of Going Into It Just Not Knowing What To Expect And I Was Like Yeah And I Was Like Okay Cool And Turns Out I Was Actually The First Speaker So Here I Am The Very First Speaker This Event I'Ve Never Been To In My Life And I'M Just Like Pressure Guy Yeah No Yeah No Pressure And Like I Just I I Lay It Out There And You Know And It Begin Was Really Really Cool Then Hearing Everybody Else'S Stories And It Was Just Something That Stuck With Me And When The Pandemic Happened You Know You Know We Weren'T Allowed To Do Anything Like That So Coming Out Of The Pandemic You Know Irene And I Kind Of We Reunited Again And We Just You Know That Connection Was Still There You Know We Were Able To Acknowledge You Know There Was A Lot That We That We Had In Common With Each Other Ah And I Was You Know I Asked Her About Fuck Up Nights And We Just Decided Look Let'S Go Ahead And Bring It Back It Just Seemed Like The Time Was Right For It And I Think I Think The Time Was Right For It Yeah Because I Think Coming Out Of Pandemic That Shit Coming Out Of The Rona For Sure Yeah Yeah You Know There There Was That Quest You Know That That Wanting To Be With Community Was Important But I Think A Lot For Those That Really Really Took It For What It Was You Know It Gave You A Lot Of Time To Reflect On Yourself And What You Wanted Out Of Sure Yeah You Know And That And That'S Kind Of What This Has Been Allowing Me Allowing Me And Us To Do Is Kind Of Look At This Whole Situation And Be Like What Can We Do Like How Can We Help Our Community In Different Ways And That'S So Cool Yeah Yeah I Would I Had Fun It Was A Blast It Was Cool And You The Last I Think You'Ve Had Three Right Since Or How Many Have You Had Yeah I Think I Think Three Yeah We Had Three Yeah We Have Another One Coming Up On March 7Th at Dulce Suenos Dulce Suenos When You Cause Is Are You Guys Is That Your Station Where You'Re Gonna Be Having Them All The Time At Duelce Suenos When Yours Or Yeah As As Long As You Know As Long As It'Ll Allow Us It'S Uh It'S It'S At The It'S At The Heart Of What This Holy Van Is About It'S About You Know The Small The Small Business The Community You Know And Santos And Janelle Yeah They'Re Great People You Know So Great Space Yeah And Then Our Business Your Business And Dulce Suenos Yours Were All In The Same District The Article Our Deco District Yeah The District Yeah Deco District That'S Right One Of The Things That We Were Talking About Earlier Was How You Had Like Kind Of This Unconventional Step Into Entrepreneur Entrepreneurism And Entrepreneurship There We Go So How Was Like Your Journey Into Um Beginning As A Piercer Cause I Know You You Mentioned You'Ve Been Doing It For Over 20 Years 24 Years 24 Years So Back 20 Well Like In 2000's It Was Kind Of I Think It Was Kind Of Hard To Really Make Money As A Piercer Oh Back Then Absolutely Yeah I Think Everybody Was Just Kind Of Like Oh This Is Something I Do But Nobody Really Made It Like A Career Career Choice Back Then Yeah Yeah No That That Was A Constant Question From People For Sure They Were Asking Me Like What Are You Gonna Do For A Career That'S Just A They'Re Like But What'S Your Job Job Yeah Yeah What Did Your Parents Say When You Went Into Piercing At At The Time My My Father And I Had In A Strange Relationship You Know Uh My Mother At That Point Was Just Kind Of Like She She Knew I Was A Different Kind Of Person And She Just Kind Of Accepted It Oh Right On Whatever I Was Gonna Do Was What I Was Gonna Do I Was On My Own Path Right On Yeah Yeah But I Uh When I Fell Into Piercing It Was One Of Those Things Like It Was An Instant Love And I Didn'T Know What It Was You Know And Yeah I Knew It Was Something That I Wanted To Do And I Was Go To Any Means Necessary To Make It Happen Yeah You Know And Whether At At One Point I Can Recall I Probably Had Like Four Well Three Legal Jobs You Know But I Was What Was The Illegal One Though I Was Selling Weed Doesn'T Everybody I Think Every Does At Some Point Another In Their Life You Know But Yeah I Was I Was You Know Between I Will Go Work At The Studio Full Time And Then I Would Leave To Go Work At The Bar Whether I Was Working Security Or Bartending And I You Know I Did This For Like 10 Years Where There Was Just Non Stop Grind And So You Were Still Doing The Piercing And I Was Still Piercing That Was Like That Was Your Love Yeah Yeah Yeah I Was Making Whatever Could Happen You Know Those 10 Years Like I Look Back On That Part Of My Life And I Am So Surprised I Am Still Alive At This Point Because Not Only Did I Grind Myself To Death Because I Would Literally I Would Go To The Studio I Would Leave I Would Go Straight To The Bar To Go To Work And At The Bar You Know You'Re Closing At 2 And You'Re Not Getting Out Till 3 4 In The Morning Yeah And If I Was On A Sick One That Night Like I Was Up Till The Sun Was Out I'D Go Home Get A Couple Hours Of Sleeping Back To The Studio And I Did This For Years On End And I Was Still Managing Somewhere In There To Sell Weed You Know Too So Like Yeah Yeah And Yeah And It Was It Was Wild That And I Said It It Was One Of Those Things Where I Just I Kept At It Because I Knew This Is What I Wanted To Do Uh And Then With The Studio Itself It Was One Of Those Things When I Got Hired On There Uh The Suit Already Had A Really Great Reputation Uh And It Was Just One Of Those Things Where I Just Kind Of Fell Into Place And Over The Years I Earned The Trust Of The Owner And I Just Showed My Dedication And Is One Of Those Rare Stories Where You Hear People Really Where They Pay Their Dues And They'Re Given These Opportunities I Think You Paid It For Years Yeah That Was A Long Time Shit Yeah Yeah But I'Ve Been There For 20 Years You Know So I Mean You Know A Lot Of People At 10 Years Like They'Re Probably Not Even At The Same Job Anymore No No Most People No No Especially Not As Piercers I Feel Like Most Piercers Do Move Around Quite A Bit Yeah Um And I Don'T Know If This Is Like Back In The Day But It Seemed Like Piercers Were One Of Those Things That Unless You And It Was A Lot Of Like The Girlfriends Of The Shop Owners Or Like The Wives You Know Like 20 Years Ago And Maybe It Was Different Here Cause You Know We'Re From California But I Felt Like The Piercings Were Always Somehow Attached To The Owner Or All The Other Tattoo Shop Yeah Yeah Yeah And So The Pierces Were Constantly Changing So For You To Be At That Shop Like That Long It'S Dude It'S A Big Fucking Deal Yeah It'S A Big Deal It'S Been A Blessing You Know I Acknowledge You Know That It'S It'S Shaped Who I Am As A Human It'S Because Once Again You Know I'M Going Back To The Human Condition Yeah I'M Able To Work With People Hands On And Sometimes We'Re In These Very Vulnerable Places You Know Oh Yeah And It'S Allowed Me To Become The Human I Am So As Much As The Shop Has Given Me Like I'Ve Given A Lot To That Shop You Know Like It'S Been Really Really Awesome For Sure Yeah So You Feel Like Um Back So I Imagine And This Is Like Me Just Kind Of Having Friends That Were Piercers Or You Know Like Getting Tattooed And Knowing People And Kind Of Being In That Circle But Do You Feel Like The Education Now Is So Much Easier Or Is There Like An Abundance Of A Bullshit For Piercers Out There I I Think It'S Probably The Same As You See In The Hair Industry Yeah You Know Yeah Like We Uh There There Is A Lot More This The Information Is A Lot More Accessible These Days Without A Doubt Like For Sure There'S Forums Online You Can Go To Forums And You Can Ask Piercers You Know For For Advice On Different Things You Know Yeah Uh It'S Made It To Where You Know These People That You Considered You Know They Were Your Your Heroes Or Your Icons Like They Become Your Friends Over The Years And You'Re Able To Turn To Them You Know For For Advice On How To Be A Business Or Technique The Association Of Professional Piercers They'Ve Been A Really Really Big Part In The Push For Education For Years On Other Organizations Been Around For He'S Almost Close To 30 Years Already Yeah And They'Ve Managed To Monetize It Too Like It'S A Big Fucking Deal Now It'S A Nonprofit Yeah You Know And Yeah The Big The Big The Big Thing Is Just You Know Getting The Education Out To The Public On What To What To Look For When Getting Pierced You Know Because There Is A Difference Between Going To Somewhere And Paying 20 Dollars For A Piercing And Going Somewhere Else And Paying 80 Hundred Dollars For A Piercing Yeah It'S One Of Those Where You Get What You Pay For So So What'S The What'S The Difference Between Those Two Things Cause You'Re Obviously Not Going To Claire'S When You Go To DandyLand Right I Get A Piercing I Think When You The Easiest Way To Put Is If You If You Look At That Number And You Break It Down Into Two Different Parts You Mean The Pricing Yeah Look At That Pricing And Break It Down Into Two Different Parts A Is Gonna Be The Quality Of Your Jewelry Yeah B Is Gonna Be The Quality Of Your Piercer Which One Do You Get The Better Value Out Of Uh I Think Probably I Clears Neither Haha Why Why Remember When We First Met You Said You Had All Your Jewelry Custom Made Right We'Ve Got A We Work With A Gold Company And We'Re Able To Work With This Line That We'Re Able To Customize To Our Liking And Our Needs That'S Fucking Cool Man Yeah You Know And It'S Really Really Cool Because You Know When I First Started Piercing If You Told Somebody A Piece Of Jewelry Cost $50 I Tell You Go Fuck Yourself Oh Yeah Yeah Yeah Nowadays You Know Like We'Re Working With High End Clients They Wanna Spend Money Like They Understand The Importance Of Body Jewelry Because It'S You Know You Spend Thousands Of Dollars On Stuff We Wear On Our Fingers And Around Our Necks Like Why Not Do The Same With What We'Re Putting In Our Body Yeah Well Something'S Embeded in Your Body Why Not Spend The Money On It Right Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah It Has How Do You Feel Like Um The Industry Has Has Developed For You And How How Have You Changed With It That'S Been The Biggest Part Is Trying But It'S Hard Yeah Yeah You Know Because We'Ve Been Around For So Long We'Re So Well Established That We Weren'T On Top Of Some Of These Trends Early On You Know Yeah Yeah We We We Know Exactly What I'M Talking About You Get Comfortable And You'Re Making Money You Get Comfortable So You Don'T You Don'T You Don'T Uh Was That Innovate With The Time Sometimes Yeah Well And You Know I Think For Us The Innovation That We Took Was Was In A Different Route Where We When We Had The Opportunity To Get Into The New Studio Uh Huh It It'S One Of The Things That I'M Really Really Proud Of In My Life It'S A Gorgeous Studio And I Don'T Say That Because It'S Mine You Know I Say Yeah Because People That Walk In There Usually Just Left In Awe With How Beautiful The Space Is Really Yeah Yeah We'Re Gonna Have To Take A Trip Over There And See It Cause We Pass By Daily And We Always The Outside Of It Just Like It'S Amazing Yeah No The The Innovation For For Me Over The Couple Of Years Hasn'T Really You Know I Think With My Part My Business Partner On Ourselves Like It'S It Hasn'T Ever Really Been About The Money Yeah It'S Been About Providing This Space Where We Can Provide This Art In A Very Clean Safe Environment Yeah And The Vibe You Guys Created A Whole Vibe I Think Around You Guys Business Yeah And That'S Part Of What Makes Our Business You Know At Least To Me What Makes It Really Special Is The Place Does Have A Vibe Yeah You Know And And That That'S Been Where The Innovations Come Over The Years Like Developing The Brand Of The Studio You Know That Way You Know People Know What They Associate When They Hear That Name Well I Think That'S What You Guys Created Instead Of It Just Being A Piercing And Tattoo Shop You Guys Created An Experience For The Clientele When They Go In There It'S A Whole Experience Which People Don'T Really Do Anymore Yeah And That'S Exactly What It Is You Know Like That That'S Exactly What It Is That'S That'S What I That'S What I Learned For That'S What I Fucking Love I Love Having A Piercing Yeah Yeah Yeah People Will Ask Me Like What'S Your Favorite Piercing To Do I Was Like Man I'Ve Been Doing This For So Long Like I I I I Like I Like All The Piercings I Do But The Ones That I Love The Most Are The Ones Where We Have These Experiences Like Yeah Right On Yeah You Know Like There'S Moments Where I'Ve Had People Like The Only Thing I Can Do Is Just Sit There And Hold Space With Them And Cry With Them And Give Them A Hug And Let Them Know Like Hey Like Is That Before Or After You Pierce Them This Is After You Know Yeah And Sometimes It'S Been Before You Know Like I Mean You Get People You Know Who'Ve Lived Their Whole Life Living In A Shell And They'Re Finally Doing Something For Themselves For The First Time In Oh Yeah Yeah Yeah You Can Be Very Cool You Know And Then You Get All The Opposite In The Spectrum Like You Get People Coming Into Complete Bucketless Items Because You Know They'Re On Their Way Out You Know Oh Man Like Oh Man Yeah You'Ve Done Well I'M Not I'M Not A Technician When It Comes To Like The Beauty And All That I'M Just Behind The Scenes But From Her Experiences And It Sounds Like Yours You Guys Are Almost Like A Therapist At The Same Time You Know What I Mean I I I Don'T I Don'T Like To Really Yeah I Mean I Guess That'S What A Lot Of People Kind Of See It As You Know For Me I Think It'S Just Holding Space For People Yeah I Think That A Lot Of People These Days Were Not We'Re So Busy That We'Re Not Able To Be Present To Be Able To Do That Yeah And When You'Re Able To Work With People In That Kind Of Environment Like You'Re Able To Hold Space For Them You Know Yeah They'Re Already Kind Of Being Vulnerable With You They'Re In A Vulnerable Position Cause You'Re You'Re Putting A Hole In Them You Know What I Mean Yeah So I Imagine They Get Even More Vulnerable With You When It'S One On One And The Way They Talk And Everything Yeah Yeah You Know And Once Again Being In That Studio For 20 Years Like Some Of These People Like They Become Friends Like I'Ve Watched Them Grow As Much As They Watched Me Grow I'Ve Watched Them Have Families You Know And Go Through Divorces And Now I'M Crazy And Now I'M Piercing Their Kids You Know Like Yeah Well It'S A Funny Story Coming In We Were Talking About DandyLand And One Of The Girls Outside Heritage Oh My God I Got Pierced There They Came In And Told Us Right Yeah That'S Crazy Seven Degrees Of DandyLand Yeah Yeah Yeah No But In A Lot Of You Know And It'S Funny Because I In The Past Like I When I Was When I Was Dating You Know There Were People Would Be Like Then I Was Dating Like Man How Do You Know Everybody It'S Like Man It'S Like You Gotta Remember I'Ve Been Piercing For So Long I Bartended For So Long I Sold Weed For So Long Like You Know Like I There There'S A Lot There'S A Lot Of People That I Come And Count On In My Life Yeah So It'S Kind Of Like A Big City Small Town Vibe Too Yeah Yeah But I Think Like How Um When My Clients Come In Cause You Know I Do The Permanent Makeup So When They Come In And I See Them A Year Year And A Half Later For A Touch Up They'Re Like Oh My God You Remember I Told You That Cause I'Ll Ask You Know Well How'S Your Daughter Or How'S This Going Or Whatever And So There Was Like How Do You Remember But It'S Like You'Re Saying It'S Your Present Yeah And Your Present In Their Experience And This Is Their Experience This Is Not About Me Like This Is Your Experience And You You You Lead Them Through It In A Sense Yeah Yeah Yeah You Know I Got I'Ll Share This With Y'All Cause This Is Probably Like One Of The Most Heartbreaking Ones That I'Ve Had Over The Past Couple Of Weeks I'Ve Had A Lot Of Them I Had This Mom And Daughter That Came In And You Could Tell Mom Was Kind Of She She Looked Kind Of Ill And You Know We Get Back To The Room And They Were Both Getting Their Nose Pierced And We Get To Talk And It Turns Out Like Mom'S Terminally Ill And Part Of Her Bucket List Is She Wants To Get Her Nose Pierced And She Wants To Have His Experience With Her Daughter As Well Oh Man It Was So Gut Wrenching At The End I Just Seeing That You Know Her Crying Because She Did This Finally You Know But Yeah You Know And Her Daughter The Tears In Their Eyes You Know I Have A Picture Of This Day Too Cause It Was Just One Of Those Days I'Ll Never Forget All Always Caring Right Now Yeah But A Couple Months Later The Daughter Comes In You Know So I Could Check On Her Piercing And Of Course I Have To Ask Like You Know How'S Mom And She Just Looks At Me She'S Like You Know Thank You For That Day She'S Like Mom Since Gone But That Was One Of The Greatest Experiences I'Ve Had In My Life Was Like Holy Shit Like Just Gut Yeah Yeah I Wanna Cry Right Now It'S Kind Of Like Man It'S An Honor Not To Be To Be Able To Be Somebody'S To Be Able To Create That Experience For Somebody Right Yeah No It Took Me A Long Time To Realize That You Know It'S It'S It'S Being Able To Share These Experiences It'S A It'S A Blessing You Know And I Think We We Grow As A Community By Being Able To Share Experiences You Know And We Grow As Human Beings By Being Able To Share These Kinds And You Know I I I Think Unfortunately To The New People Coming Into I Don'T Know If It'S Any Industry But I Know For My Industry And Probably For Yours They Just Don'T They Will It'S About The Money But They They'Re Not There To Make True Connections And It Seems Like The Service Is About Them As Opposed To You Know Like You You Don'T Become A Service Provider Anymore Seems Like They Just About The Money I Can Make This Much When I Can Make This Much But It'S Not About Their Clientele You Know That'S What That'S The Impression I Get From A Lot Of People These Days It I I Guess It Depends Like I Said I Got A Really Big Expansive Network Of Pierces I Know All Across The Country And I Know Some People That Are Doing It Right And Their Intentions Are Right You Know They Wanna Be Able To Create This Kind Of Space For People In There But That'S Also You Know That'S The Number Of That Compared To The People Like Yeah This Is A Money Makers Far And Few Between You Know But Yeah Yeah I Know Some People Out Of It Are Doing It For The Right Reasons You Know Oh Yeah We Me And My Friend Back In California A Few Of Us Actually We Were Gonna Get Pierced And We Did This Whole Thing So It Was Exciting For Us You Know As Friends And So We We Call Her And She'S Like Oh Yeah You Know Whatever You Guys Want I'M Gonna Set Up An Hour And A Half And We'Ll Just Do A Whole Thing And I Was Like Oh My God She'S So Cute To Set This Time Apart Just For Us She Didn'T Even Know How Much She Was Gonna Make Really Cause You Know Like We Didn'T Really Tell Her We Talked About A Few Things Um But She Also Set Up Like This Whole Trade To Show Us A Bunch Of Different Jewelry And I Thought That Was Really Cool Yeah Cause I Had Never Seen That Before Back In The Day You Know Like Again 20 Years Ago When I Started Getting Piercings Or Whatever That Wasn'T Really There It Was Kind Of Like Okay I Have It For The 15 Minute Block Yep And This Is What You Get And This Is What You Get Yeah And This Is Jewelry This Is $10 Is $20 This Over Here Is 35 You Know Yeah Yeah Yeah No Nowadays You Know We Probably Set You Know For Our Piercing Customers Depending You Know On What They'Re Getting Or Setting Anywhere From Like 30 Minutes To An Hour Blocks Of Time That Way We Can Sit With You And Kind Of That'S Crazy Show You Your Different Options That Way You'Re Not Stuck With Like This Is What I Got You Know Like Yeah I There'S You Know It'S An Expression You Know Being Able To Find What Fits What You Want To Be Able To Express With Something You Know It It Has To You Have To Be Able To Find That Right Piece For It Yeah So With You Guys Like Do You Have To Do I Know With Obviously With Tattoos And With What I Do In Permanent Makeup Like We Have To Do What We Call Corrections Do You Guys Do That As Well Like You Have To Take Out A Piercing Because It Was Inserted Incorrectly Oh Yeah And Stuff Like That Like A Repierce It Or What Uh A Lot Of It Depends You Know Sometimes We Get A Lot Of People That Come In And This Is Where There There'S A The Lack Of Education Where Yeah You Know Although There Are More And More Pseudos Are Kind Of Stuff You Know We'Re Not The Only People In Town Doing What We'Re Doing Anymore There'S Other People In Town That Are Doing Right As Well Yeah Which Is Cool I'M Really Really Glad That It'S Catching On But The People That Are Doing That Like They'Re Still Outnumbered By These By This Other Aspect You Know Uh And A Lot Of It Just Comes From Non Education You Know And People Not Wanting To This Is What I Taught You Know Instead Of Wanting And Wanting To You Know Instead Of Wanting To Go Out And Learn More So We We Do Get A Lot Of People That Come In With Piercings That Probably Shouldn'T Have Been Done In The First Place To Begin With See And I I Still Don'T Understand I I Guess I Still Don'T Understand Cause I'Ve Heard Of Certain Piercings That You Shouldn'T Get Yeah There'S Definitely But They'Re Getting Done There'S Certain Ones That You Shouldn'T Get For Sure That Are Just Terrible Ideas Like One Of The Really Popular Ones Right Now Is That The Snake Eyes Like A Horizontal Tongue Piercing Yeah Yeah I'Ve Seen That Yeah I'Ve Seen That A Few Times Yeah You Know And When You Really Really Think About That Like Your Tongue Is Two Muscles So You Like You'Re Binding Two Muscles Together Now That Sounds Crazy And Not Only That But Like You'Re Putting These Balls Like These Metal Balls On The Inside Of Your Teeth Like Where You'Re Going To Bite Down On Those Things Yeah Potentially Chip Your Teeth You Know It'S Like So You Got This You Know Cause Honestly Like No Reputable Piercer Out There Is Gonna Do This Piercing Like But I'Ve Seen It So Yeah So People Are People That Are Doing It Yeah So There'S People That Are Doing It But They'Re Not Anybody That I Would I Would Feel Comfortable Sending Right To You Know Do You Do The Body Modifications And All That Also No I Strictly I'M Just A Good Person I'M Strictly A Piercer And That'S It You Know What'S That Alien The What'S That Guy You Follow On Instagram The Alien That Has The Balls In His Head And Like The Black Alien Cutting Off His Fingers Oh Man That Is Fucking Weird Though Yeah He Said Three Weeks Ago He Stopped That Shit Was Crazy Yeah To Each Their Own Yeah But It'S Like Fuck Man I Would I I I I Can Do Piercing Like That Fucking Or Well The Body Mods That Yeah That'S Like I Feel Like That It Used To Be Kind Of Together With Tattoo And Stuff But Not Like It'S It'S Whole No It'S A Separate World Okay Yeah It'S Intense Man Like The Stuff That They That They Talk About And Everything'S Like Medical Grade Yeah It'S Cool Seeing That Industry Like Your Industry Kind Of Moving Ahead So Much It'S Definitely It'S Progressing It'S Progressing Rapidly Yeah You Know We'Re Talking Earlier You Know It'S Like You Know You Can Go Anywhere Now Like Tattoo Shop For Like Everywhere You Go You Know They'Re On Every Corner Yeah They'Re Everywhere But I'Ve Been In This Business Long Enough To Know The Way These Cycles Yeah Yeah You Know We We'Ve Survived Through Two Recessions Already As Yeah As A Business You Know Having Been In Business For 27 That'S A Testimony Of Being A Good Business Like This This Isn'T Our First Rodeo You Know Yeah As As You Guys Have Probably Seen In Your Industry As Well Like Right It'S A Little Slower Than It Has Been In The Past I Said She Was Gonna Ask You Is Are You Guys Feeling A Little Bit Of A Crunch Right Now With The Way Everything'S Kind Of The Economy And Inflation And Everything It Def It'S Definitely I Numbers Are Down For Sure You Know Our Our Tattoo Side Seems To Be The Side That'S Suffering More Than Anything It Hurts That Quite A Bit Yeah Well You Know In A Lot Of That Just I I Don'T Know I I Might Say Too Much At Times Uh But A There'S A Uh Well There'S You Know Tattooing For A Lot Of People Has Been Like A Very Time Honored Tradition You Know And There'S A Lot Of People That Wanna Gate Keep It You Know Yeah For Certain Reasons And There'S There'S Two Sides To Every Story You Know Like It'S One Of Those Things Where It'S Like It'S A Free Country Like People Do Whatever The Fuck They Want You Know Uh So Then You Get These People That Are Opening Up Studios And They Call Them Apprentice Mills Like You Know They They Don'T Have They Don'T Have Tattoo Artist Owners They'Re Not Piercers They'Re Not Involved In Industry At All But They Have This Business And There'S A Thing Amongst A Lot Of Tattoo Artists Like They Won'T Respect People That Aren'T Part Of The Industry Yeah So They End Up Pumping Out Apprentices Left And Right Left And Right Left And Right So You'Re Flooded With His Whole Industry Full Of People Who At One Point Or Another Probably Wouldn'T Have Been Given Access To The Industry Because It Was Kept Really Sacred To A Lot Of These Tattoo Artists Yeah Well I Feel Like That That Sorry I Feel Like That Change Has Been In The Last Four Years Would You Say Or Longer Before That It Definitely I Would Probably Say We Saw Saw That Shift Right Around That Four To Five Year Mark Yeah Yeah Like Something Shifted And I Don'T Know What It Was But All Of A Sudden It'S Like Classes Online Or You Don'T Need To Be An Apprentice Anymore And I Know That'S Bugging The Shit Out Of A Lot Of The Old School Tattoo Yeah Apprentice Used To Have To Go Through Some Bullshit To Become Tattoo Artist A Lot Of Them They Still Do A Lot Yeah Well You Know That That'S Been A Really Big Debate You Know I'M In A Bunch Of Like Forums You Know So I Get To See These Going On You Know And There'S The Old Schoolers That Are Still Like Yeah I Know You Have To Earn Your Right To Do This You Gotta Sweep The Floors You Gotta Do This Get That And You Gotta I Remember Back In The Day The Tattoo Apprentice They Were Apprentice For A Couple Years It Wasn'T Just Like A Few Months Or Nothing They Were Yeah It Was A While Yeah You Know And It'S The Same Way With Piercers You Know It'S The Same Way Like I Haven'T Forever Formally I'Ve Taken All People That I'Ve Tried To Apprentice But I'Ve Never Completed One Oh Really Yeah Yeah No Because I I I'M Not Gonna Be That Guy That'S Gonna Train You To Knock Out Be A Piercer In Three Four Months Like I I'M Yeah I Wanna Spend Some Time With You That Way You Can Understand You Know Are You The Right Fit For Me As A Person To Be Able To Bring Into This Industry Because My The Way The Way That I Treat The Industry Is A Lot Different You Know I Love Piercing It'S A Love For You Yeah I Absolutely Love It You Know It'S Been A Big Part Of My Life It'S A Passion And It'S Something That I Wanna Be Sure If I'M Gonna Bring Somebody On I Wanna Make Sure That Their Heart Is In It The Same Way I Am And They'Re Able To Appreciate The The Ritual In The Culture Behind Yeah Yeah Yeah And You Wanna Make Sure They Have The Integrity For The Business Yeah Yeah That Makes A Lot Of Senses So How Does Apprenticeship For For A Piercer Work The Same Way As It Would With A Tattoo Artist You Know You Kind Of We Were Kind Of You'Re Seeing Things Kind Of Change Wolf And Some Piercing Studios Like I Said Like I Said I Know This Network Right Now A Lot Of Students Are Doing Things Of What I Would Consider The Right Way But They'Re Actually Paying Their Apprentices Ah But On Top Of That The Apprentices Are Doing Like You Know The Shop Duties But They'Re Getting Paid For It Instead Of Like Having To Spend 8 10 Hours At A Shop Cleaning You Know Then I'M Going To Have To Maintain A Full Time Job Yeah That'S Controversial Right Yeah Whether They Get Paid Or Not Too Yeah Yeah It'S Very Controversial Speaking Of That At Your Shop How Many People Are Under You Guys At Your Shop We Currently Have Six Tattoo Artists And Including Myself We Have Three Piercers And Then We'Ve Got Three People That Help On The Front End So Are Do You Guys Are You Guys On Commission Base Or Do They Rent From You Guys Or How Do You Guys Work In Your Studio We Like That We Do We Do A Percentage Still But We Do A Rather High Percentage And We Also Do A Lot Of Things That A Lot Of People So One Of The That'S Also A Big Debate Is Like Percentage Of Booth Rent Percentage Of Booth Rent Yeah Yeah Um You Know We We Are We'Ve Opted To Keep With A Percentage But Basically We'Ve Given A Really High Percentage And With That We'Re Making Sure That They'Re Getting Their Money'S Worth Out Of It Like That'S Awesome We'Re Providing Everything For These Tattoo Orders To Do Their Job Except For Like You Know Their Machines And Their Powers And Literally You Just Come In And Boom Yeah You Come You Come In And Work You Know Our Piercers Are A Little Different They'Re On Salary And Commission It'S A Combination Of The Two Oh That'S Cool Yeah That'S Different You Don'T See That Yeah Yeah No That'S Been Part Of Why You Know I Our Studio One Of The Things I'M Really Blessed With Is We'Ve Had A Really Great Reputation For Years On And Yeah We'Ve Been Able To Attract Piercers That Wanna Come Work For Us Already Yeah You Know In Part Over The Developing That Over The Years Is Being Able To Develop A Package Where They Know They'Re Taking Care Of Yeah And Part Of That Includes Like You Know You'Re Gonna Make At Least This Amount Of Money But On Top Of That You Can Make Much More Depending On You Know What These Other Variables That Are Thrown In There Yeah So So My Piercers You Know On Top Of Having You Know This Salary They Also Get Paid Vacation They Get Paid

4:

00 O 1 K The Whole Package We Don'T Do 4 O K 4 O 1 K Insurance Yeah We'Re That'S Something We'Ve Been Working On For Years Wow You Don'T Hear About This No You Don'T Yeah Yeah Awesome Part Of It You Know We'Ve That That Studio Was Opened By By My My My My Business Partner By His Family You Know Yeah Family'S Been At The Really Really Big Heartbeat Of The Way That Studio Is Ran You Know We Try To Make Sure That Everybody That Works There Like Not Only Are They Good At Their Art But They'Re Good People Too Yeah That'S That'S All Right On So How How Do You Feel Like Do You Feel Like It'S Been Not Hard To Create That Culture But I Bet You'Ve Definitely Had People That Came In With Um That Maybe Didn'T Fit The Culture Didn'T Have The Right Energy For Your Studio Oh Absolutely Do You Kind Of Just Go Like Okay We'Re Gonna Try This Forward Three Months And Then If It Doesn'T Work Out For You And Me Like We'Re Gonna Release Yeah Well We'Ll Generally Start Off That Way You Know It'S Just Kind Of Like A Probationary Period Kind Of Thing And Sometimes Like Some People Manage To Skip You Know They Make It Through That Probationary Period You Know And Then You Can Your Face You Guys Have Business On Your Face With This This Decision It'S Like Yeah I Had This Person Who'S A Really You Know Who'S Bringing In Some Numbers For The Studio But Their Attitude Or Their Egos Bringing Down The Morale Oh Yeah Like A Cancer Yeah So In The End You Know You We We'Ve Been Around Long Enough To Know What We Wanna Maintain In Our Studio And It'S Easier Just To Cut It Off And Take That Loss And Save Them Around The Studio Then Make More Money Yeah The Money We Always Talk About The Time Is Not The Money Is Not Always The Most Important Thing No Not At All You Gotta Create The Culture And Have A Vibe In The Wrong Person There Completely Including Your Sanity Man Like Your Energy You Gotta Protect Your Energy Yeah The Wrong Person That'S It Yeah Well You Know That'S Always What That'S What The Studio Has Been For Me Over The Years It'S Been It'S Been My It'S A Sanctuary For Me You Know It'S Where I Go When Everything Else Is Chaotic In My Life Like That'S That'S Your Safe Space That'S Where I Go Yeah I'M Gonna Go To The Studio Yeah Yeah That That'S My Respect That'S Where I Go Guys Place Is Gonna Be So Much Love Over The Years You Know Yeah So Being Able To Maintain That Vibe And Energy Is Very Very Important Because Yeah I'M Not The Only Person That Feels That Way That Space Yeah That'S Awesome That You Created A A A Place Like That Cause I Feel Like It'S It'S Now What'S Coming Out And I Feel Like Again Because Certain Things Have Shifted In My Industry And Your Energy Industry Where Um There'S A Lot Of People Who Don'T Respect The Art That Are Kind Of Just Getting Pushed Out And At The Same Time Like I Feel Like We'Re Doing Them The Industry Is Doing Them A Disservice And The People That Are Doing This Are Doing Them A Disservice Cause They Should Be A Culture Thing And It Should Be A Vibe Thing And Everybody Who Comes Through Your Space Or Into Your Space Should Should Have That Vibe And It'S Like It'S Kind Of Sad That It'S Getting To That Point Maybe Because Of The Youtubes And The Tik Toks And All This Stuff You Know Social Media Yeah Yeah So Like How Do You Feel That You'Ve Maintained That Energy Over Time Is It By Not Allowing Certain People In Or By Giving Everybody Everybody A Chance And Then But Getting Rid Of Them Really Quickly Like How Do You Maintain That Culture That'S Hard We We Definitely You Know We Go Through A Screening Process Usually A Lot Of The Times You Know If An Artist Is Coming In Like It'S Somebody That We Either Know Personally Or Somebody In Our Studio Has Vouched For Oh Right On Uh You Know And With Piercers It'S You Know The Way The Studio Is I'M Pretty Much I Run The Piercing Site Like That'S That'S My Baby That'S Your Baby That'S My Baby Uh And I'Ve Been Able To You Know I'Ve Been Able To Keep My Eye On Piercers Over The Years You Know And When You Know If They'Re Announcing Like You Know I'M Moving To This Area And I'M Looking For Work I'M Able To Kind Of Reach Out To Him You Know Or I'Ve Had In The Past Where I Was The Only Piercer And I Had Guest Piercers Just Coming In Left And Right You Know We'Re Doing Kind Of Like An Audition To See Like Do You Like The Studio Do You Like The City Is It Somewhere You Wanna Be Kind Of Thing Yeah Yeah So Over The Years We Were Able To Bring Other Piercers In From Out Of State To Come Work With Us You Know Just Because It Was That Important For Us To Be Able To Maintain Not Only The Quality But Also Like The Quality Of People That Were Working With One Of The Things That I Think Like That I Personally I Guess It'S Struggle With Is Like You Have Um Somebody Comes In With Their Art But If You See That Things Are Being Done A Way That You Wouldn'T Necessarily Do Do You Go Right Into Reeducating Them Yourself As Like The Master Artist Or Do You Kind Of Say Um Like Hey You Need To You You Can'T Be Here Because You'Re Not At The Quality Of Work That I Wanna Be I Want You To Be At So I I Rarely I Rarely Ran Into That Uh Huh You Know I I I'Ve Had I Have Had Certainances Where I'Ve Had Piercing Like That It Was Just Kind Of A Simple Like Things Aren'T Working Yeah Yeah You Know Okay Um And It'S Kind Of You Know I I I Take On My My My Piercers You Know Right Now I Have These Two Young Girls And I Mean They'Re Really Fabulous Like They'Re Really Really Great At What They Do They They Have A Love For It You Know Yeah And I'Ve Accepted My Role As Being Like You Know I'M Mentoring Mentoring Them In A Different Way Now Where I'M Actually You Know There'S Some Piercings They Didn'T Know How To Do And We'Re Learning How To Do Those Ah One Of My Piercers You Know At One Point She Had A Confidence Kick You Know And She Wanted To Go Ahead And Like She'S Like Can You Take Me Off The Schedule For These I Don'T Wanna Do These Kinds Of Piercings But I Wanna Bring Some In For Practice Like Will You Will You Wash Me Will You Help Correct Me So We I Do Definitely We Do Go Into That Sometimes We Do A Lot Of Education And That'S A Big Part Of You Know What'S Kept Us Going For Years On As We'Ve Always Kept Up With The Education When It Comes To The Education Party With Your Tattoo Artist And Your Purchase Do You Also Teach Them Like The Business Aspect Of It Or Is It Just Strictly The The Art Form So Most Most Of The Tattoo Artists Well The Tattoo Artists That We Have You Know They'Ve Been Around The Industry For A Bit Already Some Of Them Either Gone Off And Ran Their Own Business And They'Ve Come Back Or They'Ve Left And Come Back At Some Point Or Another Yeah And They Just Have No Desire To Run Up Business There'S A Lot Of People Like That They'Re Awesome Technicians But The Business Part Doesn'T Like It'S Not For Them It'S Not For Them Yeah You Know I'M At A Point Right Now Where I'M I It'S Weird Because I'Ve Held On To The Reins Of Running My Piercing Side For So Long I'M Finally At A Point Where I'M I'M Teaching My Girls How To Like Do These Things That I'Ve Always Held On Yeah And A Lot Of That Is Come With Kids Come With Me Accepting My Role Knowing That You Know I Need To I Need To Pass This Information Along Like I Can'T Hold On To It It Sounds Like You'Re At The Point Where You'Re Stepping Away From The Being The Technician So Much And Going More Into The Business Side A Little Bit Yeah Kind Of I Don'T Know If I Could Ever Step Away From Being On The Technician Side Yeah Yeah Just Like That Yeah Yeah It'S Just There'S Something You Know It Was Weird When The Pandemic And We Were Forced To Close We Were Closed For Three Months They Had Us Closing California For 11 Months Yeah We Were Closed For Three Months And It Was Weird I Went Through And It Took Me A While To Recognize What It Was But For The First Time In My Life I Had Experienced And Really Knew What Depression And Anxiety Was Yeah And For Me It Was The Fact That This Thing That I Had Done Up To That Point Of Almost Daily Was Taken From Me And I Didn'T Have That Human Interaction You Know Yeah I Wasn'T Able To Do This Thing That I Love And It Was Really Really Wild Being Like This Is How Much Of An Impact This Thing Has On My Life Like It Put Me Through A Depression And Anxiety When It'S Usually Like My Depression Anxiety Is Cured Through What I Do You Know Like That That'S That'S What I I I Go There Cause That'S My Happy Place Why Yeah I Think A Lot Of People That Do Have Depression Is Not Like But I Think It'S A Lack Of Purpose When You Have Purpose Is Kind Of You Don'T Have The Time Or The Or The Other The Time To Sit There And Like Be Depressed You Know I Mean So Yeah Kind Of Took Your Purpose Away During Covid A Little Bit You Know Yeah No Without A Doubt You Know And Then That'S Funny You Know I I'M I'M I'M One Of Those Kind Of People You Know I I I'M Far Out There A Lot Of My Ideas I Obviously Do A Lot Of Fucking Psychedelics Yeah I Obviously Do A Lot Of Psychedelics Yeah Did You Microdose This Morning Oh No No No I Don'T Do The Micros Like Give Me The Full On Yeah Let Me Let Me Kill My Ego Over And Over Again Those Kinds Of Experiences You Know That'S Funny Actually We Did It Was A Couple Years Ago Was Like A Year Ago I Actually Took A Little Bit Of Shrooms And I Hadn'T Done It For Years Man And I Had A Bad Fucking Trip Oh Man Yeah And I Should Have Just Like Went With It But I Was Fighting It And Made It Even Worse Yeah But You Know You Know I I Can'T Remember Where I Heard It Or Read It But Like There'S Really No Such Thing As A Bad Trip Like A The Bad Trip Is Just Like The Truth That Need To Be Told To You You Know That'S How I Was Like The Truth Was Right There I Just Didn'T Want To Accept It So I Just I Was Fighting It Yeah Just Made A Bad Experience Yeah No Yeah No I Like I Said Give Me The Full On Dose Let Me Fucking Talk To My Ancestors Like Let Me Let Me Leave This Realm For A Bit Have You Ever Done Have You Ever Done The Are You Waska I Haven'T Done Iowa Oscar I Have I Definitely Have I'Ve Had Some Dmt Actually Had Really Some Really Crazy Experiences On Dmt Do You Really Yeah No But You Know In A Lot And A Lot Of My These The More Profound Experiences I'Ve Had It'S Been One Of Those Things Were Like It'S Reinforced Like My Position On This Planet Like For A Longest Time Like I'Ve Known What My Purpose Is Like I Know Why I'M Here And Over The Years It'S Just Been More Of The Understanding Of The Why You Know Yeah Yeah And Then A Lot Of This Has Allowed Me To Continue To Just Understand Like Yeah Like You You You Have A Purpose On This Planet Like You Know This Is What You'Re Supposed To Be Doing To Stay With It Seems Like Everybody On Dmt And I Was Gonna Have Those Like Mind Altering And Like Just Life Shifting Experiences You Know What I Mean I'M Sounds Scary As Shit Though But It Sounds Like It'S Fucking It Changes Your Life It Is You Know I Think The First Time One Of The First Times I Ever Had One Of Those Experiences Was On Salvia Like In My Early 20S Or Like My Mid Twenties And I Legit Like Saw Complete Dissolution Of Self Like It Was The First Time I Had An Ego Down Oh Man That'S Crazy I I I Existed But I Did Not Exist In This Physical Realm I Was Just An Observer From The Outside Like It Was So Wild Oh Man I'M I'M Such Like A I Guess I Control Freak I I Cannot Do It So What I'Ve Been Doing And Right Around Like In The Past 6 Months Is Reading Other People'S Experiences Because I'M So Like I Get Scared Of Not Being In Control I Refuse Yeah I Think One Time I Got Her Stone And She Freaked Out I Don'T I Don'T I Don'T Get Stoned To Do Any Of That Stuff Either But Every Once In A While I Get Brave You Know What I Mean Offered I'M Like Fuck It Let'S Do It Yeah I Can'T Do That I I And I Wish I Had Those Experiences But I Think I'M Leaving By Curiously Through People So Are You Read About Them Yeah You Know But See Yeah But See One Of The Big Things That That One Of The Things That Taught Me Over The Years Is Just To Let Go Oh That'S So Weird No And You But It'S It'S Important You Know Like I And I I'Ve Done A Lot Of Different Things Over The Years To Experiences You Know I Used To Participate In Body Suspension You Know Oh No Way Yeah You Know In A Big Part Of That Is Like You Know The First Time You Ever Do It Like It'S Letting Go And Get Off Get On Your Body First Step Bro So Did You Did You Have The The Rings And Stuff No We Just Pierce Them And Put Some Hooks In Them You Know That Kind Of Thing Uh Yeah But It Like It Was One Of Those Things Just Like Letting Go Yeah It'S Being Vulnerable And Like Being Able To Let Go But Yeah And And Then It Turned Into This Another Just Another One Of Those Profound Experiences That I'Ve Had In My Life You Know Like I'Ve Been Blessed To Have A Lot Of Really Really Amazing Things Happen In My Life You Know But I Think A Lot Of That I'Ve Also Had This Ability To Be Present See I Think That'S Really Hard For People Yeah Especially This Day And Age Oh Yeah Yeah Yeah So Do You Do Practice Like Meditation Or How Do You How Do You Stay Present I Think For Where Him And I Kind Of Opposites Where Like I'M So Much In The Future That I Can'T Be In The Present And A Lot Of The Times Like We Talk About The Past Stuff Yeah And It'S Hard For You To Be In The Present How Do You How Do You Stay Present I Know That There'S Nothing That I Can Do At This Point In My Life That'Ll Change The Past The Past Yeah That'S Happened The Only Thing That I Can Do From That Is I Can Grow From Those Experiences Yeah The Future I Don'T Like To Plan For That Because It'S Not Guaranteed Yeah You Know Yeah I I I Had A Really Really Dear Friend Who Was Murdered In A Mass Shooting A Few Years Ago Oh Wow And That Just Really Drove Home That Fact Like You Know Like Our Life Is Very Very Fragile And Our Time Here Is Not Guaranteed Yeah Oh That'S So Sorry To Hear That Man Oh No It'S All Good It'S It'S One Of Those Things Where It'S That'S That Was A Blessing In Itself Yeah Yeah You Know Uh She She Taught Me A Lot About Who I Was As A Human Uh Huh Uh And Being Able To Grow From That Experience Not Only From Having Her In My Life But Also Not Having Her Here In This Realm It'S It'S A Blessing As Well You Know So I Look At Everything I Try To Look At Everything Under With An Understanding That I Need To Be Here And Now Yeah You Know That'S Gonna Be The Most Important Part Of Being Able To Be Present And Experience The Moments Like I Wanna See The Clouds I Wanna See The Sunsets You Know I Wanna Be Paying More Attention To That I Think There'S This Old This Thing I Heard A Long Time Ago And It'S Always Stuck With Me You Know It'S Like I'M Pointing At The Moon And You'Re Looking At My Finger You Know Yeah I Think It'S I Think That'S Probably One Of The Hardest Things Just To Be Present And Just You Know Have Gratitude For What'S In Front Of You At The Moment You Know Yeah I Think For Everybody That'S Really Hard For Me It'S Hard I Know It'S Hard For You I Think It Takes Practice And You Have To Be Um Conscious Of It At The Moment You Know Yeah Well I Mean You Think About It You Know Like The The Fact That We'Re That We'Re Here On This Earth In This Moment Itself Is A Fucking Miracle On A Screen Yeah Yeah Fucking Yeah That'S Going Yeah And The Fact That We'Re Able To Wake Up Every Day And Share These Moments Together Yeah You Know Like This Is All Part Of Like This Miracle Of Life And These Experiences That We Share And This Is How We Grow And This Is How We We Become One Is You Know I Think We'Re A Lot More Connected Than People Like To Take For Granted You Know Yeah For Sure Yeah For Me It'S Like That I'Ve Been Getting Into The The Egg Theory I Don'T Know If You'Ve Read About It Where We'Re All We'Re All One Right So We'Re All Like The Same Soul Essentially But We'Re The Same Soul Is Having Different Experiences Experiences In The Human Body But Ultimately We Are God Within Ourselves It'S Like This Whole Thing You Have You Have To Read It I Mean I'Ve Been I Started Kind Of Reading About It About A Year Ago And Just In The Past Month Like It'S It'S A Trip Yeah Well That'S One Of The Things That I That Stuck With Me A While Back To When I Heard It Was Something Where It Was Said That You Know We'Re We'Re Not Human Beings Having Spiritual Experiences We'Re Spiritual Beings Having A Human Experience Yeah You Know So That That Was One Of Those Things That Stuck With Me You Know And I I Just Wanna Experience Everything That I Can In Life You Know That Way If If I Wanna Have An Opinion On Something Like If I Wanna Tell You All This Fucking Thing Sucks Like Well Who Are You To Say That Well Let Me Tell You Like This Is What I Experienced Personally Through That So So Yeah You Know I Wanna Be Able To Have That Experience And Being Able To Carry All These Different Experiences In Life Is Also Allowed Me To Expand On My Growth Is A Human But Also The Growth Is A Business Yeah My My Business Has Grown Because My Partner Myself We'Ve Grown As Humans I I Think Your Attitude And Everything Probably Helps Too With The Ebs And Flows Of Business Cause You'Re So Relaxed And You'Re So Like Present That You'Re Not Worried So Much About Like What'S Gonna Happen A Week From Now A Year From Now So You Just Kind Of Present And It Allows You To To Write Those Ebs And Flows Is Pretty Good You Know Yeah You Know What I Mean You You Have To Worry About That Stuff As Well You Have To Worry About So How Do You Um Juggle Those You Know Like How Do You Be As A Person You'Re So Present But Also To Like Maybe We Need To Talk About Marketing For The Next Six Months Or You Know Like Are We Staying Here For The Next Year Or Those Kinds Of Conversations You Need To Have About Business Those Conversations Happen You Know They'Re Gonna Happen Yeah They Have To Happen They Have To Happen You Know So I Those Those Are Things Are Out Of My Control Yeah You Know And That'S Basically How I Approach Everything You Know If It'S Out Of My Control Like It'S It'S The University But Gonna Happen If It Does If It Doesn'T Well But When You Do Have Those Conversations Do Your Mushrooms Sometimes Those Gotta Be The Best Fucking Conversations Has Down Dude No I Usually Like I Said When I When When I Do Those I I'M Usually Taking Just Really Large Doses Because I I Wanna I Wanna Fuck Around And Find Out Like Literally That'S That'S Like Your Life You Wanna Fuck Around And Find Out That'S The Best Way To Live Though That'S Fucking Cool Honestly That'S One Of My Like I'M I'M One Of My Fears Is When I Die I Don'T Wanna Have Regrets That I Didn'T Do Something Because I Was Scared Or Like I Just Didn'T Want To Put Myself Out There To Do It So Like The Way Your Philosophy That You'Re Going By Is Fucking Awesome Yeah Admire Yeah I Know And Like I Said And Just A Big Part Of That Has Been Like What The Studio Has Been Able To Give Me Yeah It'S Allowed Me This Personal Growth You Know I I'M Blessed Unfortunate I Get To Wake Up I Get To Go To This Job And I Love To Be At You Know A Lot Of People Don'T Get That I'M Fucking The Majority People Don'T Yeah They They Fucking Hate Their Jobs You Know Or They'Re Working Like These Mundane Jobs Or They'Re Just Not So Crushing Yeah And You Know It'S Funny Because That Was A Decision I Was Faced With You Know Out Of College Like I Moved From A Small Town Went To College Had Like The Corporate Job And I Was Just Faced With That Decision It'S Like Do I Do I Want The Stability Do I Want The 4 O 1 K No I Want The Insurance But Do I Wanna Be Unhappy Yeah Or There'S Is There More Out There For Me And That'S Kind Of Where Piercing Came In And I Realized Like That Decision Was Do I Sacrifice My Happiness For Money Or Do I Keep My Happiness And Live The Live The Life That I Wanna Live Right Yeah Yeah So What What In Piercing Is What Kind Of Fills Your Cup Like What It I It'S The Human Interaction I'M Sure Has Some Of It Um Is That What Kind Of Draws You To The Art That You You Like So Much The It'S I Think There'S This Power Of Connection That We Have You Know And A Lot Of People Really Really Underestimate That You Know Uh And I Think That'S Gonna Be The Most Important Part For Me Is Being Able To Share Space With Somebody Being Able To Share Energy Uh Huh You Know And Whether I Choose To How I Choose To Share That With Somebody Is On Me Yeah You Know I I I Can Block Myself Off And I Can Not Give Somebody This Experience But Part Of This Experience That I Create Comes Because From What I Do It Comes From My Heart You Know Yeah Yeah That'S Fucking Cool I Know I Wish I Was That Cool Yeah I Worry About Like I Fucking 10 Years From Now Yeah Like I Stay Awake Thinking About Five 10 Years No It'S So Hard For Me To Let Go That'S So Cool That You Are Able To Do That And Like Live In The Moment But At The Same Time Live In The Future Like What It Takes As Much As You Being Vulnerable As Much As Your Client Being Vulnerable In That Situation I Think And I Think That'S Like Fucking Hard To Do But It'S Admirable To Be Able To Do That You Know Yeah I Know And Then That'S Part Of What That What That Studio Is Like I Said It'S A Sanctuary It'S A Safe Space You Know Tattoo Shops And Piercing Shops Has Always Been The Safe Havens For The Fucking Weirdos You Know That'S True Yeah You Know Like You Know About We'Re Talking Earlier When It Was Like A Certain Element You Know That'S Who It Was It Was A Fucking Weirdo It Was Yeah It Was It Was It Used To Be The Bikers Right Yeah And Then It Turned Into The Weirdos And Now It'S Mainstream It'S For Everybody You Know But I And Then This Is Where Like My Off The Chart Thing Goes You Know But I Think A Lot Of You Know For Me And Part Of The Reason That I Do A Lot Of What I Do Is Because I Understand Like It'S Been A Huge Part Of Human Tradition Throughout Time Yeah It Really Has You Know It'S Not It'S Not Something New It'S Something That'S Been Around Forever Yeah You Know And There'S You Know For Some People You Know Think About Like The Ancient Like The Bloodlettings Like There Was Something About Releasing Blood And You Know Releasing Energy You Know And That Kind Of Thing Uh And That'S Always Kind Of Like Kind Of Where My Role Has Been Like This Like You Know We'Re Helping Whether You Wanna Release Some Energy Or Whether You Need To Take Some On Like I'M Gonna Help You Out With That You Know Yeah And I Definitely Think Like You There'S There'S Different Different Clients Right With Different For You I Imagine Cause I Know The People That Tell Me Like Oh Man I'Ve Had So Much Anxiety I'M Gonna Go Get A Piercing Or A Tattoo And Then There'S Other People Like Like Me I You Know I'M Sure You Enjoy It But I Don'T Enjoy The Process Of Getting Pierced Yeah But I Like The Way It Looks It'S So Cute Yeah You Know So Like Is That The Two Elements That You Mostly See Yeah Well I Mean It'S Every Client Wants Their Own Experience Out Of It Yeah You Know Whether Somebody Just Wants To Come In And Get Something Because It'S Cute Cool Whether Somebody'S Coming In Because They'Re Recently Divorced And Their Husband Didn'T Want Them To Do It They Finally Did It Okay Let'S Go Ahead And Do It You Know But The The Level Of It Just Depends On The Customer And Where They'Re At In Their Life You Know Like I I I'M A Very Very Firm Believer That We'Re All Put In Our Paths For A Reason For One Reason Or Another You Know Yeah And Also Part Of Part Of Being Present Is Being Able To Understand Like Why Are These People Put In Our Lives Yeah You Know To Be Able To Reflect On And Take The Time Right Yeah Yeah You Know I Think We Can We Can Take A Little Bit And Learn A Lot Of Experiences From Everybody As Long As We'Re Being Able To Be Present Yeah And That'S A Really Really Big Important Part Of You Know What I Do Is Be Able To Be Present Because I Like To Take A Little Bit That I Can Learn From People You Know And Carry That Forth Like With Different Interactions Said Some People Just Wanna Come In And Get A Piercing Some People Wanna Come In And Like They They Want This To Be Part Of Who They Are You Know Yeah People Are Coming In Because You Know They Had A Bad Fucking Day And They Just Wanna Feel Something Different For Once In Their Life You Know Yeah I Think Some People Like Pain Too So They Do They Do Yeah I I Don'T Like I'M Not I'M Not A Pain Person Or Blood Person So That Shit Scares The Shit Out Of Me Do You Get Like I Had A Um My Friend Well He'S He'S Passed Now But He Was Like The Piercer In Our Area Back In California And He Would Tell Me He Would Get Like These People Um I Remember He Told Me Like A Case Where There Was This Gentleman Who Got The Prince Is That The Prince Albert Prince Albert The Dick Yeah That'S The Dick Um And So I Remember He Was Saying Like Man Sometimes You Get These Weirdos And So This Gentleman He Would Come In You Know He Pierced Them And Then It Fell Off So He Pierced Them Again And Then He A Week Two Weeks Later Or Whatever It Was He Needed Change Of Jewelry And Then A Week Later He Wanted To Get A Check To Make Sure And Then He Wanted It You Know It Was Like This Until He Was Like Dude Like He Just Wanted To Show Off His Goods Yeah Yeah And You Know He Knew My Friend Was Gay So I Think That Kind Of Added To The Aspect Of Why He Came In But My Friend Was Totally Professional Like Yeah You Know He Was He Was Super Professional About It But I Was Like Dude He Finally Had The Town Like Yeah Hey You You Gotta Stop Coming In Here Yeah Well And That'S You Know Like When I When I First Started You Know One Of The One Of The Big Communities I Worked With It Was Like The Bdsm King Community You Know Like Because That Was Part Of Like That Culture At The Time You Know Yeah And I Learned A Lot About Boundaries During That Time Yeah Yeah I Got A Really Really Really Rough Education You Know I Was How Rough I Came From Yeah You Know I Came Here You Know I Was I Came Here From A Small Town You Know Went To College Uh There Was A Whole This Whole World That I Hadn'T Really Known About Or Experience You Know And Here I Am You Know Year Or Two Out Of College You Know Nine Piercing And All This Is New To Me Like I Have No Idea What The Fuck Is Going Like Including The People Like The Type Of People Yeah The Type Of People You Know But Not Only That But Like Understanding Boundaries You Know Yeah You Know You Get The Bdsm King Community People Coming In You Know And Having To Explain To Them Like No I'M Not Part Of Your Role Playing No Don'T Touch Me Yeah No Like We'Re Here For A Piercing Like I'M Not Here To Be Part Of Any Of This Like Having To Set Those Boundaries Clear On Did You Have People That Wear Kind Of Not Wanted To Do Include You But It Was Part Of Their Their Thing What Would You Call It Part Of Their Act Like Role Playing Yeah Yeah No I Mean I Definitely Like I Said I'Ve Had Dude I'Ve Had To Set Those Boundaries You Know Like Where You Have Them Come In And It'S Like The The Husband You Know He'S Like She Wants To Get This Piercing Cool I Need To Hear It From Her Yeah But Early On I Didn'T Understand That I Didn'T Understand What That Dynamic Was You Know Until I Finally Caught On And Now I'Ve Got No Point You Know Where I I'M Pretty I Can Read A Lot Of People I Know What'S Going On You Know But Back Then I Had No Idea You Know The Husband'S Over There In The Corner Being A Weirdo And Was Yeah You Know Just Yeah Just Stuff Like That You Know So Yeah Just Having To Be Able To Set Those Boundaries And Learning That Early On Was It Was A Really Really It Was A Really The Rough Thing To Go Through Yeah What'S The Craziest Piercing You'Ve Ever Done I Don'T Do Anything Crazy Anymore No Like Yeah No Like You Said I If It'S Not Gonna Work I'M Not Gonna Do It Uh Huh I I Used To Always Joke The Only Thing That Got Crazier With The Customers Yeah And I Think You Know You Probably Also Realize That You Know Coming Out Of Covid Like There Was The The Customer Mentality Changed After Oh Yeah Everything Changed The Market Everything You See Like Everything Flipped Upside Down Is Weird Yeah And I Don'T Know What It Was Like People Just Got Way More Demanding About Things Like Yeah I Want It I Want It Now I Need It I Need It This Way Yeah You Know Uh Were In The Past That You Didn'T Really Experience That You Know Like The Last Place You Didn'T You Know You Know 10 Years Ago The Last Place You'D Expect A Karen To Be Was A Tattoo Shop Because A Tattoo Shops Gonna Tell You To Fuck Right Now Right I Can Imagine A Carrying In A Tattoo Shop Yeah Yeah You Know And I And It'S Funny Because I Still Carry Some Of That Old Mentality With Me Like I Just Don'T Like If Someone Rubs Me Like If Someone Says Something Is Out A Step Or Out Of Line Yeah I Am The First To Walk Around The Counter And Open The Door And Say Can You Please Leave Yeah Yeah You Have To Yeah You Have To Yeah Yeah Yeah I Can Imagine A Karen Though Could You Imagine Let Me Talk To Your Manager And Just Like Being A Karen In There Haha I Would I Would Pay To See That Shit Oh Yeah Yeah Yeah Well Imagine The Looks When They When They Look At You And You'Re This Heavily Tattooed Pierce Brown Person You Know Like Yeah They Wanna Talk To The Manager Like No Your Manager Haha You Know There'S This Um Thing That I'Ve Kind Of Seen That'S Kind Of A Controversy Like In Your Industry Where I Guess It'S A Controversy Maybe I'M Just Kind Of New To Seeing This I Never Really Knew Any Tattoo Artist That Were Also Piercers And It Seems Like Here Or Maybe Not Here Maybe I Just You Know I'M Fucking Old And I'M Just Starting To See It But Is Is That A Thing Now Where Tattoos And Piercers And There'S Piercers That Are Tattoos And It'S Kind Of The Same Thing It It You Don'T See It Quite As Much It Used To Be Really Prevalent Yeah And Sometimes You Still See It In Studios Where They Don'T Have A Piercer And Like There'S People Coming And Ask For A Piercing So Like The Apprentice Duel You Know Kind Of Thing Yeah Uh But You Don'T I Don'T Know You Don'T See A Lot Of It Quite As Much These Days As We Used To Uh And I Don'T Know I'M Trying To Think I Feel Like I I So I Went To A Couple Of Shops Um You Know Cause I'M Still Kind Of Trying To Get It Acclimated With Who Does What Yeah Here And I Remember I Was Uh The First Tattoo Shop That We Went To Um They'Re Kind Of Like Oh Yeah So And So Is Is Um Is Here To To Pierce Today But He'S Doing A Tattoo And I Personally Had Never Seen That Before Yeah Um But I Think It'S Also I Got Stuck To This You Know You Know How It Is When You Get Tattooed I Got Stuck With The Same Person They Were My Friends So They Tattooed Me Yeah So We Used To See A Lot Of It You Know When I First Started Uh You Don'T See Quite As Much Anymore And A Lot Of It Is Because Like If You'Re Going To Focus On Being The Best At Your Craft Yeah Yeah Do You Want To Focus On Multiple Things Exactly Or Do You Just Want To Focus On One You Know And Generally What I Found Is That And This Is Just An Overgenerization Because It'S Not The Case For Everyone But For Those That Do Do Both What I Find Is There'S A Lot More Emphasis Placed On Tattooing And Piercing Is Just An Afterthought Whereas When You'Re Focusing On Just Tattooing You'Re Just Focusing On Tattooing Yeah Having To Do Anything You'Re Not Having To Stop Your Tattoo Because There'S Somebody Wanting A Belly A Belly Button Yeah You Know You Know Advice First So You Know When You'Re Piercing Like Piercing It'S One Of Those Things A Lot Of People Kind Of Look At And They'Re Like That'S Easy Anybody Can Kind Of Do It You Know And Sure You Know And I I'Ve Always Said There'S Like A Rule Of Thirds When It Comes To Piercers Like The First Third Is Like Anybody Can Do It Like Yeah Anybody Can Grab A Needle And Put It Through Somebody That'S Just One Of Those Things That Happens Right The Second Third Is The Education The Knowledge Uh That Kind Of Stuff So That'S Gonna Make A Difference Between Another Piercer And Then The Last Third Is Just Something That Comes With Time Like It'S Your Customer Service It'S Your Bedside Manners How Your Interactions Happen Yeah For Sure You Know And I Can Guarantee You Like The Way That I Pierce The Way That I Handle My Interactions To Be Completely Different Than Anybody Else'S But That'S Also Very Very Intentional Because I'Ve Learned Over Time That It'S Not About Putting This Hole In Somebody Getting Him Out The Door It'S About Having The Space For Them To Be Able To Say Here Let'S Go Ahead And Share Space Together Is That Experience You Know Yeah And I'M Sure Your Experience Is A Lot Different Cause If You Guys Don'T Know Needle Is Like The Best Dressed Guy In San Antonio So I Could Imagine Going In He Really Is I Could Imagine Going Into Getting Pierced By This Guy All Spiffy Out Like In A Suit And Everything I'D Be Like Fuck Man This Is High Yeah Yeah That'S That'S A Whole Experience In The South Right There It'S It'S You Know It'S It'S Communicating You Know It Goes Back To Communication You Know Communication Is One Of The Most Important Aspects In Our Lives You Know We Do It Whether Verbally Non Verbally We'Re Communicating All The Fucking Time Yeah You Know Uh And How I Choose To Dress As Just An Expression Of Who I Am As An Individual You Know Yeah I I Wanna Be The I Wanna Be The Loudest Person In The Room Without Having To Say A Word Oh No Yeah Yeah Yeah You Make An Impression I Don'T Think You Could Walk In A Room And Not Be Noticed Or Like Have An Impression Set On Somebody Even If They Don'T Talk To You Anything That Impression Is Still There Just In Your Overall Persona And The Way You Dress It'S It'S I Remember The Energy Yeah The Energy Everything Yeah It Was Funny Cause Years Ago I When I Was Drinking I Don'T Drink Anymore But I Went To A Bar And There'S I Was Just Sitting There I Was Having A Drink And This Guy Comes Up To Me He'S Like Man He'S Like I Don'T Wanna Sound Gay Or Anything I Was Like I Was Like First Off Bro I Was Like This Is A Horrible Way To Start This Interaction All Over Yeah Yeah I Was Like You Don'T Need To Preface Anything You'Re About To Say By That But Let'S Go Ahead And Let'S Go Ahead And Talk To Me Angels I Want To Tell You Man Is Like Your Dress Your Dress Sharp As Fuck Man Yeah I Don'T See That Anymore And I Was Like Cool I Was Like Let'S Go Ahead Let'S Go Ahead And Sit Down And Share A Drink And We Just Started Chit Chatting He Finally Understood Like Why It Was Terrible Start Off A Conversation With Us You Know Like I Don'T Mean To Sound Gay Or Anything Like That And You Know Like You Mentioned You Came From Like The Corporate World And Stuff How Did You Even Fall Into Piercing And Then Fall Into Dressing How You Dress And Then Getting Into The Industry When You Came From Like Probably Not Knowing A Lot Of The People That You Know Now That'S A Big Transition Right That'S A Big Transition Yeah Yeah The The Court Like I Said The Corporate Rule Was Very Short Lived Okay It Was One Of Those Things Where It Was Probably Not Even Close To A Year Before I Realized Like There Was No That World Was Not For Me That Life Was Not For Me Uh And At The Time I Already Had Some Tattoos And Piercings And I Had Some Friends That Had A Studio And They You Know I Quit My Job There And They They Taught Me At The Time You Know They I Guess I Went Through A Very Terrible Apprenticeship You Were Apprentice Yeah I Was Basically Like We'Ll Show You This Is What You Do And That'S Basically What It Was So I Spent The Next Couple Years After That Like Retraining Learning A Lot Of Different Things Yeah And The Dressing Can You Kind Of Thing Just Came Out Of Nowhere Like I Just One Day And I Think Part Of It I Had A Had A Partner That I Was With At The Time And I Just Did It To Spider Like I Just Want Yeah Yeah I There Was I Remember One Day I Told Her I Was Like I Just Want To Start Dressing Up For Work And I Just Want To Wear A Bow Tie Like I Don'T Know Why Yeah Yeah You Know There Was Something About A Bow Tie That Was Just Something To Me Like I Don'T Know You Don'T See A Lot Of People Rocking You Do Not Especially Not At A Piercing Shop Yeah Yeah Exactly You Know That Was Part Of It You Know I Wanted To Bring Some Professionalism To What I Was Doing Right Now I Wanted The People Know That I Really Really Cared About What I Did Yeah You Know Uh And Then Then That'S How I Chose To Do It Was By Dressing Up You Know I Make It A Point Like I Rarely Wear T Shirts To Work I Will Always Wear A Button Up You Know And If I'M Not Wearing A Button Up Or If I'M Not Dressed Up Like I Will Never It'S Rare That I Ever Show Put A T-Shirt To Work Um Yeah And Like I Said It'S A Big Form Of Communication But I Think For Me It'S Also I'Ve Always Elevated To Like It'S Just My Personal Expression You Know Yeah Like I I Think A Lot Of People Are Afraid To Be True To Themselves And Who They Really Are No That Takes Some Confidence For Sure Just To Stand Out In The Crowd Like That There'S Confidence Right There Man Yeah That Is Yeah And I Don'T And I Don'T Know Where The Confidence Came From You Know Like I It Just It Was Just Something That Came Naturally Over The Years It Was Just One Of Those Things Where You Know I I Was Definitely That Shy Kid You Know Back Wow You Know And It Just It Came Out Of Nowhere I Think A Lot Of It Came You Know I Remember When I Was In College I Went I Was Doing Pre Med And Biology What Yeah And My Advisor At The Time She Pulled Me Aside One Day And She'S Like Wanna Talk To You About Something I Was Like Like Kick Me From This Class Cause I'M Sucking She'S Like I Want You To Talk To My Friend Over Here In This Department She'S Like I Noticed There'S Something Really Special About The Way You'Re Able To Connect And Talk With People Wow So She Sent Me To The Speech Communications Department I Heard Speech Communications Like Public Speaking Like What The Hell Like I'D Never Done This In My Life But I Learned That Speech Communications Was More Than Just That It Was Understanding How We Communicated Yeah And You Know Uh And It Was Just One Of Those Things Like I Said It'S One Of I'Ve Always Enjoyed The Human Condition And Wanting To Learn More About What Drives Us And What Makes Us Who We Are Uh And I I I Understand That A Lot Of Our Experiences In Our Shared Experience Yeah For Sure I See That Guy Um You Know Going Back To The The Apprenticeship Um There'S There'S A Lot Of The Old School Tattooers And Piercers And People In The Community That Kind Of Say That The Way You Talk To Your Client And Develop That That Customer Service And You Know Like The Whole Being Present Um That That That Has Not Been Learned With The People With A Lot Of The New Apprentices Now Because They Just Wanna Like Get In And Start Doing Stuff You Know Yeah Yeah Well A Lot Of Was That I You Know Going Back I Think There Were The The Tattoo The Tattoo Issue Was Based On Culture And Tradition Yeah It Was You Know And Losing That It You Start You Start Losing A Little Sense Of You Know What Made This So Special Back In The 12 Yeah Well It Became More Of A Business Than A Tradition Yeah And It Waters Down The Tradition That'S In Anything Though I Think Right Yeah Yeah You Know But I Think You Know With With Tattoo Artist It Was One Of These A Lot Of Those People Did Have To Go Through Some Shit To Get Their Apprenticeships You Know Like And You Still Hear Horror Stories Of People Going Through These Like Apprenticeships That You Know Are Just Wild It'S Like A Hazing Process Sometimes It Can Be You Know Or Those Are The Stories I'Ve Heard In The Past You Know Uh But You Know Nowadays Like The Big Debate Is Like Paid Or Unpaid Apprenticeship You Know And There'S Two Sides To It Like Should Somebody Be Paid For The Work That They'Re Putting In Absolutely Because Your Time Is Valuable Like You Should Be Paid For That But Then The Other Part 2 It Is Like I'M Teaching You A Career Yeah You Know Like I'M Teaching You A Hands On Career It'S Something That You'Re Gonna Be Able To Take With You As A Trade And You'Re Going To Make A Living Off Of And If You'Re Really Good At It You Can Make A Really Really Good Living Often And Have A Great Life And If Somebody Really Wants To Do It They'Ll Be Willing To Pay The Dues That It Takes That Get Into That Industry You Know That That'S Kind Well And And That'S That'S Where The Sad Part Is You Know Because Part Of That Hazing Part Of That Process Over The Years You Know And You Guys Have Probably Heard That Story Were Like There Were There Were Women You Know And We'Re Starting To See A Lot More Representation For Women I'M Very Very Happy For But You Know Back In The Days Like The Way That Women Got An Issue Was Like They Had To Give Sexual Favors To Something In Order To Get Their Foot In The Door You Know Ah And You Don'T Hear That A Lot Anymore You Know But That'S That Was Definitely The Way It Started Years Ago You Know Yeah From What I'Ve Seen I'M Not Big In The Piercing Industry But I See A Lot Of Women Piercers But Back In The Day There Wasn'T Like It'S Changed A Lot Yeah So I Wasn'T Really Like In That World You Know What I Mean Yeah No It'S Been A Very Male Dominated Industry For Years On And You Know And That That Ships Finally Changed And It'S Awesome I I Enjoy It You Know We Were At A Point It'S Actually Really Really Weird For Us Because We'Re At A Point Where We Have As Many Female Identities Females As We Do Males Work In Our Studio It'S The First Time We'Ve Ever Had That Already In Our Studio But I I Also Understand Like There'S An Importance To Having This Feminine Energy In Our Studio And It Makes It A Really Really Great Place You Know Compared To What It Was In The Past When It Was Just Another Bunch Of Dudes Like Making Dick Fart Jokes All Day Long And You Would Kind Of Walk In As A Woman And Everybody'S Kind Of Yeah Like What Are You Doing Here Type Of Thing Yeah Yeah You Know Being Able To Change That Kind Of You Know Have That Person That Perception Change Know Where These Women Can Walk In And See Like This Feels Comfortable It'S Comfortable It'S Safe You Know So That That'S Been Really Really Cool Though I'Ve Changed The Dynamic Over The Years Do You Feel Like Women I Feel Like Men And Women Tattooed Differently Do You Feel Like Women And Men Pierce Differently In Terms Of Like The Quickness Or The Pressure Or Anything Like That No I Think The Only Thing That'S Gonna Be Different Really And Anything Is Gonna Be The Overall Experience In The Yeah Energy That'S You Know That'S Gonna Be The Biggest Part For Sure Seems Like There'S A Lot Of Women That Are Stepping Up In The Tattoo Industry Man There'S Some Badass Oh Yeah Oh Yeah Yeah No There'S A Lot Of Them Out There That Are Killing It There'S A Lot Of There'S A Lot Of Here Locally That Are Killing Yeah We'Ve Seen Some There Yeah We We'Ve Seen Quite A Few Man They'Re Stepping Up In The Tattoo Industry For Sure But Now Like Women Only Tattoo Shops And Stuff Like That Yeah That'S Cool To See Yeah Well I Mean You Know In A Lot Of It Just Goes Back To You Know The Cultures And The Traditions Changing Like They'Re Definitely Parts Of The Tattoo And Piercing Industry That Just Need To Fucking Die Yeah You Know Like A Lot Of You Know You Think About Like The Early Tattoo Industry It Was Very Very Deep Rooted And Like Racism Misogyny You Know And You Know It'S Change A Lot Are No Longer You Know A Lot Of Well A Lot Of The Places Are No Longer Like That Anymore Yeah Yeah Yeah You Know So You'Re Seeing That Change And That'S Always Really Really Cool Seeing That Those Aspects Die And Change But You Know Like The Sacredness Of What We Do Like That'S One Of Those Aspects That Are Walking That That'S One Of The Aspects Of A Lot Of People Are Losing You Know Have You Ever Done Like A Like A I Don'T Say Like Ritualistic Piercing But Like Something Like Real Traditional Like Somebody'S Culture And You Like Just Implement Like A Whole Like Ritual Around It I'Ve Never Done That But Then Again I I Approach Every Piercing As Ritual Okay Okay You Know When I I I I Do What I Do It'S A Love It'S A Passion I Said I Have Intend I I Understand My Purpose I For Me A Lot Of His Honor And It'S Honoring My Ancestors You Know My Ancestors They This Is What They Practice This Is What They Did You Know And This Is The Way They Keep In Touch With With Who I Am And My Cultural Identity That'S Cool So Where Do You See Like Yourself In The Shop Um Five 10 Years Down The Road Do You Have A Rope Up Over That You Just Kind Of Like I'M Gonna Do What I Love To Do Until Something Changes Yeah That'S Kind Of You Know That'S Kind Of The Way We'Ve Always Kind Of Guided It You Know It'S It'S It'S It'S Ever Changing You Know We We Understand That Like There Are So Many Factors That Can Go Into Changing You Know Our Building For One Day Could Just Be Gone Completely Yeah And There Goes A Five To 10 Year Kind Of Plan You Know That'S True You Know And You Guys Don'T Have Any Plans For Expansion Or Anything Or No Not At All Just You Guys Like I Said There'S We Don'T We Don'T Need Anymore Yeah Yeah You Know We That On Top Of You Know We We'Ve Gotten So Much Out Of That Place We Could Be Able To Grow And Experience And Share This Together With Everybody And Ourselves Ah Money Can'T Buy That Yeah Yeah For Sure Yeah That'S That'S Definitely A Big Thing Money Yeah Not Everything Like We Always Preach But Yeah I Mean You Need It You Know And That'S Part Of What We'Ve Been Able To Try To Create A Space Where Everybody Can Live Comfortably Yeah You Know But No Drama No Cattiness Or Any Of That Shit Going On Yeah You Know But Also Have A Life Outside Issue Cause The Back You Know Like Days Are Grinding Or Fucking Done Like I'M Tired Of Yeah Well You'Ve Been Doing This So Long Yeah Yeah I'M Tired Of Being Tired You Know Like I Just Kind Of I'M At A Point Where I'Ve Accepted My Role It'S Time For Me To Kind Of Slow Down Just A Little Bit Yeah You Know And Push Out Some More Of This Knowledge And Information But I Need To Focus A Lot On My Energy And Other Aspects You Know They'Re Gonna Fulfill Me Like Because You Know I Need To Start Thinking A Life Outside Of What Outside Of Piercings I Can'T Do This Forever Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Sure You Know So I Like To You Know That'S Where Like Fuck Up Nights You Know That'S Where Part Of That Came Is Like You Know I Know A Big Part Of Me Wants To Work With Community And I Would Be Able To Cultivate A Lot Of These Relationships You Know That Way Once I Finally Get To The Point Where It'S Time To Slow Down Like I Have This Other Thing That'S Gonna Help Me Fulfill Purpose Well Seems Like You'Re Pretty Intricated In The Whole Community So You Have A Launching Pad Already Set For You You Know It'S It'S Been Part Of Like I Said I It'S Just A Part Of That Organic Process You Know Like It'S That'S Cool This Is This Is Where I'M Supposed To Be It'S What I'M Supposed To Be Doing All These People That Are Coming Into My Life I Accept It For What It Is Like If You If You'Re Not Here That'S For Whatever Reason Or Another You Know But If You'Re Here We'Re Gonna Share Space We'Re Gonna Talk We'Re Gonna Share Energy We'Re Gonna Have A Great Fucking Time Doing It You Know Yeah Learn Other Things Oh Yeah And Then As A As A Piercer Do You Um I Think For For Us That Have Been In The Industry Whatever Industry You'Re In For Longer Than Five Or 10 Years 15 Years I Think It'S Almost Like Um Like We Should Be Sharing Our Education Um Or We Should Be Educating I Should Say For The Next For The People That Come After Us Do You Have Any I Don'T Know I Don'T I Don'T Wanna Say Courses Cause It Seems Like You You Teach As As It Comes To The Right Person Do You Feel Like Your Next Level Of You Is To Teach The Next Generation I'Ve Already Had That Role I'Ve I'Ve I'Ve Worked As An Educator In Our Industry Oh Okay Yeah I Had A Job At One Point I Said When I Had Four Jobs Like Three Of Them Were Legal You Know Yeah The Other Job I Was Working As An As A I Was Working For A Company Called Health Educators And I Was I Was Teaching Blood Borne Pastors And Infection Control And Like Going In And Like Teaching A Lot Of Different Things Like You Know So I I'Ve Already Had That Role I'Ve I'Ve Carried On That And You Know After That I Was Very Very Available To Any Peers That Wanted Questions Like My My Phone Was Open 24 7 Like You Shoot Me A Message Like Let'S Talk About What'S Going On That'S Cool Not Being A Gay People Gatekeeper That'S Cool I Wanna I Wanna See People Succeed Yeah Like You Know And I Wanna See This Industry Grow In The Only Way This Industry Grows Is By Sharing Knowledge And Getting Everybody Up To The Same Speed Yeah For Sure So I I'Ve Worked At Role Where I'Ve Also Been An Educator In My Industry But I I I Like To Look Outside Of That You Know I I Think You Like I Said A Lot Of Is Just My My Community Community Is Important You Know Like But Without Them We Don'T Really Have Much You Know And I Wanna Cultivate The Right Community For Myself When It'S Time For Me To Finally Hang Up Hang Up And Be Like Yeah We'Re Done Yeah I Had A Friend Who Um She And I Guess I Had Never Thought About This But Of Course Like There'S A Bunch Of Specialists I'M Sure In Your Industry And I Had A Friend Who Flew To God Knows Where It Was Like The Midwest Somewhere Because She Started Doing Genital Piercings And She Said That This Particular Person Was The Best So She Flew Out There So I'M Sure There'S There'S A Lot Of People That You Know By Name That Are That Would Probably Would Have Been Elaine Angel See I Don'T Even I Remember You Showing Me That Though I Remember You Talking About I Was Like I'M Gonna Go After She Gets There She Gets High I Remember That That'S Like So Amazing To Me But Again I'M Not In The Industry So I Had No Idea But A Course Of Experts Like That Right In Your Industry Yeah That A Niche Down To A Certain Niche Of A What Type Of Piercing She Would She Flew To Her Yeah That That Probably Would Have Been And I You Know If I If I'M Wrong Forgive Me But You Know It There'S A Great Possibility That I'Ve Been Elaine Angel Uh Elaine'S A Pioneer In The Industry She Was Yeah She Was One Of The First Female Piercers Who Actually Did A Lot In The Industry You Know There Were Some Before Her Like Ray And Galina And Michaela People Like That But Elaine Was One Of Those People That Really Push And Advocated And She'S Created This Specialty Where She Lives In Mexico And She Comes To The Us A Couple Times A Year And Schedule These Guest Spots And Like Yeah By The Time She Announces It By Time She Gets Here She Has A Week Full Of Nothing But Like Nipple And Like Genital Piercings That'S All She Does I Remember Telling Me About That Cause She Does It A Certain Way Where It Doesn'T Like Mess Up And I Like The Feeling And Exactly That'S What She Was Telling Me But I Remember Her Telling Me Like Oh She Only Comes Down And I Had To Book This Appointment Forever Ago So Maybe It Probably Was Her Yeah I Was Like I Was I Was Like Wow And I Was Like You Don'T Do Those But Again I Assume Because She Was A Great Piercer That She Just Pierced Everything But I Didn'T Know Like Okay You Have To Take This Class Or Or You Know Go Learn From This Pioneer She Told Me She Had Been Doing It For Like 20 30 Years Something Yeah Same Like That I Was Like Wow Yeah We Actually Been Crazy We Elaine'S Actually A Very Dear Friend She'S Like Oh My Friend Of Mine Yeah She Uh She Did A Guest Spot At Our Studio Years Ago So I Gotta Witness How This Happened Like Oh I'M Gonna Go Next Time She Comes In Yeah Yeah It Was Super Cool Though You Know I It Was Really Awesome Having Like This Person Who'S Rather Highly Revered In The Industry Like Yeah Like She Stayed In My House And Like Kind Of My Oh Right On Yeah You Know Yeah Being Able To Share Like I Said That'S One Of The Cool Parts About The Piercing Industries That As Big As It Is Like It'S Still Really Small Like When It Comes To The People That Are Doing Things In Terms Of Like What Many Will Consider The Right Way Yeah And You Get To This Point Sometimes Where Like These People With You Looked Up To They Were Icons You'Re Like The Big Bitch Like They Become Your Friends And Like That'S So Cool Yeah Fucking Cool Shit Yeah I Can Definitely Tell You Like One Of The One There Was This Moment That Finally I Was Like Man Like Things Are Really Awesome Like Elaine You Know She'S Known For That People Want To Get Pierced By Her But Because She'S Not That Accessible She There There Aren'T She Has This List Of Piercers Throughout The Country That She Suggests You Know Like This Is Where You Go These Are People I Can Tell You Can Get These Procedures Done Safely Oh No Way Yeah And We'Re One Of Like Two Studios At All Of Texas That She Like Oh That'S Big Yeah And For Me Like That Was One Of Those Moments Where I Was Like I Made It That Was That Was An Accomplishment In Self I Imagine Right Yeah Well You Know Like I Said I Don'T Know I'Ve Achieved More Than I Ever Thought I Would In My Life At This Point You Know But I I Years Before That I Actually Got To Work With Elaine I Served On The Board Of Directors For The Association Of Professional Piercers Oh Shoot So I Got To Work With Her On That Aspect As A Board Member So We Kind Of Had A Little Bit Of A Relationship But You Know Over The Years Like We'Ve Always Kept In Touch And It Was Yeah It'S Cool I Said Being Able To Have These People Who It'S So Crazy Yeah It'S So Crazy Cause This Is You Know In Ventura And In California And Like We'Re In Texas And It'S The Same It'S The Person Yeah You Know It'S A Small World At The End Of The Day It'S What Special Social Media Yeah Yeah With The Experts I Feel Like The Experts At First Look Like There'S Very Few Yeah We'Re Gonna Start Wrapping Up Right Now Oh Yeah This Conversation One More Question Hold Up Hold Up I Got One More Thing Okay You Go Then I Go I Don'T Mean To Sound Gay Bro But But I Gotta Go Shopping With You Bro I Need Some Tips I Need I Need To Step Up My Game Oh Man Yeah Yeah You Know And I'Ll Shout Out My Homie Have You Javier Divide And Conquer Denim And Leather He'S A Local Place He Makes Custom Guayaberas Denim Jackets Oh Yeah We Saw Him Out He Was A Fucking Yeah Yeah He'S Got A Better Shop You Could Watch Him Make It Up From Outside Right Yeah I Get A Lot Of My Guayaberas Through Him And Like He'S Just Good You Know That It'S Cool Being Able To Support Like Your Homies You Know Yeah And He Just Got Featured In Texas Monthly Like That Dude'S Just Killing It Yeah That Dude Yeah He Does Some Crazy Guayaberas Like Shit That You Never Seen Before Yeah That'S Cool Oh Yeah Yeah And Then Okay I Know It'S Well It'S Stupid Now That You Like You Made An Awesome Joke But I Just Literally Had A Question Uh The Dimples Is That Good Or Bad That People Get Them Pierced I'Ve Heard Both It Depends On You Know Who You'Re Talking To Yeah I I Don'T Do Them Because They'Re They'Re A Bitch To Deal With Yeah They'Re Constantly Swelling Not Swelling Constant So You'Re Constantly Having A Switch Jewelry Out Sometimes You Know Because Of The Placement Where They'Re At Like You Can'T See Like Glance Through There Sometimes Like You Have This Piercing Is Just Constantly Leaking And Shit I Heard About That I Had I Never Knew That I Never Knew But I Guess If You You Put I'M Sure I'M Not Saying This Right But If You Don'T Put Them In The Same Place The Right Place They'Re Constantly Leaking Your Salivatory Oh Yeah That'S Crazy You See So Many People With Them I Never Knew For A While I Don'T See Them As Much Anymore Yeah Yeah Cause There Aren'T A Lot Of People That Do Love You Know Like I Said I I You Won'T Do Them No No They'Re Like They'Re Not Worth The Yeah Like I Said A Lot Of People It'S A Commitment You Know And A People Only To Take That Commitment On Like Oh Right On I Didn'T Even Know That Shit That'S News To Me I Know I Had Read About It Somewhere Cause I Thought About It Yeah But You Know And Then I Was Like It'S Not Common But You Know They'Re Definitely Know They Can Be Problematic They Can Be Finicky You Know Yeah Yeah Conversation Been Fucking Awesome Though It Went Deeper Than What I Expected It'S Been Fucking Cool Yeah You Ask A Question Yeah But You Know A Lot Of A Lot Of That That That'S Helped Guide Me Through My Business Yeah Like It'S It'S It'S Part Of Who I Am You Know And It'S Help Me Develop My Business Into What It Is You Know I Fucking Loved It Your Energy Everything Is Fucking Cool I I Fucking Enjoyed It It Was Cool Thank You For Having Me Honestly It'S Been Awesome If You Want To Tell Everybody Where They Can Find You At Again At Pierce At miro On Instagram Okay Okay From DandyLand And And DandyLand Is A Perfect Fucking Name For This Guy Right Here You'Re Like Oh He Made That Name Fits Like Fucking He'S Super Fancy Yeah Yeah Yeah Alright Everybody So Uh This Is It For Today We'Ll See We'Ll Talk To You Guys Next Again Thanks Again For Coming By Thank You Yeah We Appreciate It No Thank You For Having Me This Has Been Fun Alright We'Ll See You Guys At The Next One Alright Peace Out Guys Thank You