 There's a huge libertarian streak that runs through the tattooing community because we don't like being told what to do. Tattoos are a way of putting images or words on your body that no one else can control. It's a way to sort of stick a claim on yourself. Paul Smith co-owns Red Stag tattoo in Austin, Texas. He's been tattooing me since 2017. I really like working with Paul because he specializes in the type of style that I really love. I love American traditional. When I first got interested in tattooing it was very generic millennial girl hipster type stuff that I was into, lots of fine detailed line work, the sort of things that you see on Pinterest that are really trendy. And Paul, very quickly and kindly but also with a certain botanist, explained to me that shit doesn't age well. That stuff is not nearly as respected in tattooing world and he sort of showed me the ropes a little bit more about what is actually regarded highly in this industry. The tattoo industry was hit super hard by pandemic restrictions, even in Texas. So Paul, what happened to Red Stag tattoo in March 2020? COVID hit. We saw our business sort of dissipate almost immediately. People were scared. So we shut down our shop before it was mandated, thinking that that was the right thing to do, send everybody home. And then a few months after that, I guess, we had COVID restrictions, which literally shut us down. And that was tough. That cost us all of our shop savings, all of our personal savings. I own the business with a business partner. We both were kind of wiped out financially. How much money did you guys ultimately lose out on in terms of lost rent or lost sales? Well, because we depend on appointments plus people coming in off the street to do walk-in style tattoos, it's a little bit of a moving target. If you add up all of the employees here and what they generally make, we probably lost somewhere around a quarter million. And yet Smith and his business partner decided not to apply for money from the federal COVID relief program, which was rife with fraud and in which the federal government handed out about $800 billion to millions of small businesses. The bill ultimately cost taxpayers between $170,000 and $257,000 for every job saved over 14 months of the pandemic, according to a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper. I didn't get unemployment. I didn't get anything. I just used my own savings as did Caleb. And yeah, we just made it work on our own. We didn't look to our landlord to be lenient on us. We knew that they needed rent just like any landlord would need rent. So we just made it happen. In May 2020, Texas's Republican Governor Greg Abbott allowed hair salons, gyms, and other personal service providers to reopen. They took us out of that classification and put us in with businesses like titty bars and things like that. Ohio also excluded tattoo shops from the state's reopening plans, which may have been a violation of their First Amendment rights. Both state and federal courts have recognized tattooing as a constitutionally protected form of free expression, noted reasons Damon Tattooing started to shed its reputation for degeneracy in 2005, when the reality show Miami Ink premiered on TLC, running for six seasons. Kat Von D, one of the stars of the show, also became a successful model and makeup entrepreneur following her breakout role. Today, celebrity icons like Joe Rogan, Justin Bieber, Rihanna and Lena Dunham are heavily inked and tattoos have become much more accepted in other realms of the music and film industries. Do you look at this like democratization of tattooing as a generally good thing, or do you look at it as something that perhaps waters down tattoo culture? Well, as a tattoo shop owner and somebody who makes my money doing it, you know, the more people that want them, the better, right? It's not a shocking anymore. Maybe that's a good way because I, every now and then I will land in a place where there are no tattooed people at all and it's not a city like Austin where everyone has tattoos and you definitely can tell that someone is uncomfortable when they're around you. Just, you know, they don't understand it. Still a little bit of a stigma surrounding like, like I don't have my hands tattooed and that's for a reason of like my body's not totally covered up with tattoos. And in the tattooing community, it's there's like a little bit of a taboo around getting these ultra visible areas like hands and neck tattoo. Again, I think it does depend on sort of the generation that your tattoo artist comes from, right? Like the younger guys and ladies coming into the the industry are going to be way more open to allowing you to jump onto your hands and neck before you have sort of significant coverage. But you wouldn't let me get a hand tattoo. I probably wouldn't. I haven't earned it yet. I haven't earned my stripes, you know. But, you know, it's the day you allow me to be like have a little bit of sort of a methodology to the whole thing. You get your body done first. And when you're completely covered and you go to your hands or you go to your neck, you know, I personally tend to stay away from the face altogether. Although I have done some face tattoos, but it was always on people that literally had no other room left but their face. Yeah, I know a few people now who are my age who have little dainty hand tattoos, but they have very little other stuff. And I just think like, hmm, I can't get away with that. Paul would never in a million years let me do that. We call that the hipster body seat. You get your hands and neck done first. And then when you put clothes on, you look like you got a seat. I'm proud of the floating sleeve that Paul has helped me create over the years. All of my tattoos have been done in the American traditional style. They're more a reflection of my enjoyment of the art form, its purveyors and their badass adult fuck with me ethos. It's not too painful. I'm pretty used to this. I honestly get pretty relaxed when Paul's tattooing me and just generally feel at ease. I could probably fall asleep most of the time, you know, to get really in the zone and you're sitting for a while. And there's my newest sparrow. What do you know, maybe the next 20 years of tattooing look like? You're going to see people sort of start to infuse lots of technology into tattooing. I do know that they make a little bitty sort of chip that you can have put under your skin and it will radiate a color. They haven't figured out images yet, but you can, you know, you could turn your shoulders green or something like that. I think there will be a certain amount of people who will sort of, you know, try to develop that end of it. The thing I really struggle with is the whole idea of a government official designating what's essential and what's not essential because you sort of don't know what brings people value. And also, you know, it's not just from the consumer side. It's also like tattooing is an essential thing for you in your life. Because everyone's income is essential, right? Yeah, everyone's job is essential to them. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. It felt very unfair. It felt very unfair. I got my sparrow from Paul looking pretty good, not feeling too bad. Pretty fun being able to fork over a little bit of money sort of post pandemic after a lot of restrictions have been eased and get something I'm really happy with. I'm really hoping to come back and frequent Paul a little bit more. And I'm hoping that coming COVID waves don't ever shut down his business again.