Denim Blunders, Reflections and General Nonsense.

[Double 0 Soul]

6 hours ago, JohnM said:

I've had a gin & tonic, but have to admit that this thread is entertaining.  Penis balcony -- a phrase to hang onto.

It is all very tongue in cheek but then.. it is the general nonsense thread

I'm glad nobody gets annoyed ..

I was going to say i'm glad we're all adult enough to not get annoyed but that's probably not the right choice of words.

Have a good weekend everyone!

Edited Saturday at 08:08 AM by Double 0 Soul

[FurnitureMaker]

Has anyone ever had this message in their tracking history before? Beginning to think something isn’t right…

[OutSider]

On 11/16/2024 at 6:28 AM, FurnitureMaker said:

Has anyone ever had this message in their tracking history before? Beginning to think something isn’t right…

Yeah I've had that before due to a storm or something. Not sure what that would entail at LAX but I've seen it happen for other locations. 

Days of no movement is when you should start to be concerned

[mlwdp]

End of an Era: Greensboro’s Hudson’s Hill physical store is closing. 😪

I’ve spent some time in the store. From getting my first foray into denim there to getting my denim hemmed before I left for the Navy, I was treated great there. 
 

Thanks Evan for the memories if you’re reading this!

 

[AlientoyWorkmachine]

That's a real bummer to hear. So few markets are well served with a brick and mortar that stocks this stuff. Even tougher because they're in the hometown of White Oak, so it feels like a bigger deal. But the website just says the physical store is temporarily closed - that's changing?

We have something close-ish in Ann Arbor with Today Clothing - which is a much better store than a town this small deserves to have, but it's a small overlap in the venn diagram of what I really prefer and what they carry - still would be quite bummed if they turned over. At the same time, I'm not the type to keep them afloat, though I try when they do fill a gap. 

[Broark]

Man that's a shame, Evan helped me get a pair of OAs earlier this year when they were in the US and stopped by Greensboro.
Tough time for physical retail stores, most people just default to shopping online these days. And with high rent costs, labor, etc. it's even more difficult.
I almost went to university in the Greensboro area, would've been a nice shop to have locally I'm sure.

[mlwdp]

[Double 0 Soul]

Nice looking premises too

[AlientoyWorkmachine]

This could be a reach and unrelated but seeing the storefront just brings it up - the collapse of main streets/small retailers in so many towns and smaller cities is one of the biggest bummers of whatever you want to call the highway system/tech boom/post-covid long era we’re in. It’s not happening everywhere but it’s happened in so many places that really would be wonderful little communities if they hadn’t gotten sold out by any number of forces. I hope Hudson’s Hills vagueries keep open the possibility for another spot - but it’s just in the abstract, I’m not sure when I’d pass through Gboro again. 

I would think the main issue with this stuff is I would bet in a town like Greensboro, the store probably has a tough time making the argument for the cost of the goods to enough of average residents, and that is the support that is so crucial to brick and mortar. I still don’t know how my local shop stays open unless they do brisk online business - every time I’m in there it’s more staff than customers. 

Edited Monday at 06:52 PM by AlientoyWorkmachine

[Broark]

Whenever we drive from Austin to Houston to visit my wife's family we pass through so many smaller towns that are borderline abandoned.
I'll never understand how the people that are still there manage to hold out keep things going. Never lived in an town like that so it seems really foreign to me.
Although there are some towns that do have nice little downtown areas with a seemingly growing populations (relatively of course, lots of people are actively leaving Austin / Houston to settle in lower COL areas where they can actually afford homes). Having made that drive for 10+ years now I can easily point out the ones that have made improvements.
Definitely a larger topic of discussion but it'll continue to negatively impact smaller mom and pop shops for the most part.

[yung_flynn]

I live in a tri-city area where each of the 3 small cities within a 30 min radius peaked in a different era of 20th century America (and really in successive eras in a way), and it is interesting to see the differences in urban design among them along with a gradual shift towards cultural homogenization over time

One peaked in the 1920s-1930s and significantly declined post-WW2. This city had (and still has to an extent) a quaint walkable downtown with many local shops even if it is now in decline overall. There are lots of cool homes and mansions from the 20's-30's and more deco architecture as well in various states of repair. It's actually a pleasant and enjoyable place to walk around. Another city peaked in the post-WW2 auto manufacturing boom and began a rapid decline in the 60's/70's. Houses tend to be more of the smaller postwar variety and many are in significant disrepair. Walkability is much lower here as well due to the auto-friendly nature necessitated by its primary employers. We've spent much less time here, partly because it's not very pedestrian friendly. The 3rd city (which is where we live) began to peak from the 60s-90s. Houses tend to be much more mid-century at the early end of things to homogeneous McMansions at the later end of things. There are minimal walkable areas of commerce and relatively few small businesses. Most everything is car reliant and big box stores. Everything is cleaner and "better kept", but much more boring. 

[Double 0 Soul]

We have a neighbourhoods thread in need of a bump.. take a few photos, do a li'll write up..

I live in a bit of a S10/S11 bubble, the shops and bars around here are doing really well, folks have cash to spend, whereas our city center is some kind of boarded up dystopian nightmare.. littered with homeless peeps, beggers, crackheads, god-grifters and Deliveroo riders .. there was a fked up sex worker having a shit on the doorstep opposite my work this morning.. she wiped her arse on a towel and left it on the floor along with her knee length puffa jacket.. she'll regret that tonight, it's currently 1C and snowing heavily.

[AlientoyWorkmachine]

@Double 0 Soul I may get to that at some point, I’m still relatively new to my current town and learning the nooks and crannies. Everyone just knows it for the university, understandably - which does brisk business and is a big reason it has not hit the same sort of hard times so many other towns have. Most of my life was in the Chicago area but I’m so tired of moving I’m pretty sure I could die happy in the current place I’m in. 

[Double 0 Soul]

My city used to be really vibrant with an eclectic mix of people, there were places in the city catering for the not so well off (Castle Market) and there were retailers catering for the very well healed (and everyone in between) ... all of which were very busy with folks spending what disposable income they had.

 

Then we had a perfect storm.. an out of town shopping center opened in 1990 (Meadowhall) which offered free parking and a roof over one's head.. this coincided with massive unemployment as companies outsourced almost all industry to China.. 1000s of people were put out of work while the company owners / shareholders got rich by cutting labour costs, everything that used to say Made in Sheffield now says Made in China.. but hey! at least net zero is within reach

 

The city had to re-invent itself as a university / service city, with the big bucks coming from International students, the dependents of those students are the only ones driving investment in the city, they're creating businesses but businesses which mainly service the population of wealthy Chinese students.. a tragic irony that the descendents of your typical unemployed working class Sheffielder are often the previously mentioned homeless peeps..

[yung_flynn]

1 hour ago, Double 0 Soul said:

We have a neighbourhoods thread in need of a bump.. take a few photos, do a li'll write up..

I have a bunch of rolls of film that I still need to develop (as long as they turn out). I have some digital ones as well actually from my other camera, but time is currently at a premium once I'm home due to our little one

[Double 0 Soul]

There is no better excuse.. the thread'll have to wait

[aho]

8 hours ago, AlientoyWorkmachine said:

I still don’t know how my local shop stays open unless they do brisk online business - every time I’m in there it’s more staff than customers. 

Grew up in the A2 area and living here again temporarily; 'Today' does well in online sales from what I hear and it's really the only place to go for most of the brands they carry in the Midwest outside of Chicago for example. That, and lots of New Yorkers and what's left of international students bringing in some money helps during the school season. They've built a strong/loyal customer base, nice guys 👍

[Double 0 Soul]

Neighbours lad forgot to put his bike in the shed

..I’ve rode to work

..on road tyres

Edited Tuesday at 06:48 AM by Double 0 Soul

[smoothsailor]

Recently I listened to a political economic podcast. They where going on about “winner takes all” big companies take everything. They don’t leave any crumbs for the small businesses. Never thought about it, but it seems the case in a lot of fields.

even in my relatively small businesses of tattooing.

seems like a business model is to take on a lot of employees and get cash from all of them. While all of them struggle 

[Double 0 Soul]

1 hour ago, smoothsailor said:

Recently I listened to a political economic podcast. They where going on about “winner takes all” big companies take everything. They don’t leave any crumbs for the small businesses. Never thought about it, but it seems the case in a lot of fields.

even in my relatively small businesses of tattooing.

seems like a business model is to take on a lot of employees and get cash from all of them. While all of them struggle 

Morning Paul,

Can you see a future where customers visit a tattoo parlour.. Select a digital image, put their arm in a machine, image is scanned onto their arm.. click ‘yes’ and it’s tattoo’d.. a’la 3D printing method.. with no need for tattoo artists?

Edited Tuesday at 08:12 AM by Double 0 Soul

[smoothsailor]

^morning Neal, all but the machine.

im sure there are already “artist” using ai to make designs.

lets get a tattoo to be different, but not to different. Its allready like that.

i understand you want to belong to a tribe. But the tribe is getting big

[chicote]

8 hours ago, smoothsailor said:

seems like a business model is to take on a lot of employees and get cash from all of them. While all of them struggle 

Not to go too heavy handed into this, but you’re absolutely right — that idea is foundational to our whole economic system. The whole principle of an “employee” is somebody who produces something (shoes, coffees, tattoos) for their employer, and who in return receives something (a wage). But the workings of the system require that the employee’s wage be overall less valuable than the labor they provide for their employer — the difference between the value an employee produces and the money they actually earn is, to the employer, the basis of “profit”.

Foundational economists working in early capitalism understood that the easiest way to maximize profit was to maximize the number of employees an individual employer has, because each new employee is a new source of profit. And as employers obviously prefer employees willing to do the same amount of work for the lowest wage, this formed the basis for the formation of multinational corporations, leading to the modern trend of “offshoring” jobs from Europe and the US to parts of the world where standard wages are far lower.

Because this all began in a time when the world’s economic systems were not yet interconnected, it gave rise to the myth that businesses have the capacity for endless growth, and therefore that their profits could increase endlessly, year after year, as their markets expanded around the world. This is the basis for the principle that profit-driven businesses will always tend towards becoming monopolies. It’s also the driving myth behind the stock market, which forces companies to find ways to earn higher and higher profits every year in order to attract investors — an investor, themselves, being a mini-employer of a sort.

The alternatives to this business model are more commonly found in small businesses, but not always. The tattoo industry, at least in my experience, has trended more towards “collectives”, where each artist pays a flat rate for rent and supplies each month, and keeps all the rest of the money they earn in the shop. (This is compared to a more traditional model, where 30-50% of each artist’s earnings go to the shop owner, who ends up making far more than any of their employees before doing a single tattoo of their own.) And on a larger scale, we can look at cooperative corporations like Mondragón of Spain, which employs almost 80,000 people, yet pays the highest-earning worker no more than 6 times the salary of the lowest-earning ones. There is a lot to learn from these examples, and though they’re difficult to implement when in direct competition with huge multinational corporations, like your post mentions, I think the ethical position that cooperatives advance and the standard of living they provide are really worth supporting and adopting in larger sectors of the global economy.

[Geeman]

9 hours ago, smoothsailor said:

^morning Neal, all but the machine.

im sure there are already “artist” using ai to make designs.

lets get a tattoo to be different, but not to different. Its allready like that.

i understand you want to belong to a tribe. But the tribe is getting big

From my 34+ years getting inked (started before I was l old enough to get one legally) tatts have always been on a revolving pattern. All black is in vouge, Japanese is out of favour, couple years on all black is out everyone is getting Japanese, same with Americana or flash and so on.... same flash sheets in every parlour....

The amount of times I've been in the chair when some young lad walks in and asks for a sleeve.. what do you want asks the artist, I dunno just a sleeve.... 

The guy who did a majority of my work (not the best /detailed work but a genuine old school biker (( patched)) bloke ) used to have a rule , if someone came in and asked for a tattoo on what he called public skin : face/hands/neck he'd tell em to f**k off and come back when they'd earned it as in getting enough ink in less visible parts. 

It was his way of stopping youngsters making bad life decisions, nowadays people seem to start on their hands and necks to appear more inked than they actually are! 

Bloody kids (old man shakes fist at sky.....)

Edited Tuesday at 08:32 PM by Geeman

[Double 0 Soul]

I remember a time when folks were having amputations at the tattoo parlour..

"grandad, did you lose that fingr in the war"

no i just had it amputated because i thought it would make me look cool

 

Or branding, tongue splitting, bead insertions or thick ball closure ring inserting under the skin..

Has all this shit been made illegal or have we just come to our senses..?

 

[Mtvare]

Tongue splitting is illegal in England and Wales.

[Maynard Friedman]

I’ve just had my tail docked and my ears cropped. The funny thing is, I only went in to have my teeth filed to a point! 😆

[smoothsailor]

Nothing from above impressed my 15 yr old boy.

 

[Double 0 Soul]

8 hours ago, Mtvare said:

Tongue splitting is illegal in England and Wales.

I know what i'll be getting.. next time i'm stocking up on McKewan's Export and Gabapentin

[Double 0 Soul]

5 hours ago, smoothsailor said:

Nothing from above impressed my 15 yr old boy.

 

 

It's because there is nothing as lame as old people.. i was in End** last month with my 15yr old looking for jeans, i pulled a pair of Edwin's from the sale rail and he said "hell,no.. they look like something you would wear"

 

When i was his age, i never saw any young folks with tattoos, just the occasional darts player in the pub with a patriotic forearm tatt.. polyester shirt, Farah sta-press and slip on shoes.. not exactly the steeze i wanted to emulate.. if you check out any old (c1988-1992) rave footage, not one single person has a visible tattoo.. from my memory, it was when Blood Sugar Sex Magic came out that the Chilli Peppers culturally questionable tatts became de rigueur that i started to see young'uns getting tattooed again with anything other than a regrettable Yosemite Sam.

 

This kind of biz usually goes in cycles.. we don't want to do what our parents did but that doesn't seem to be the case with tatts.. my 20yr old cat sitter has hearts on one earlobe and stars on the other.. there is an attractive young woman working as bar staff in The Broadfield pub and her tattoos are so sketchy it's like i've drawn them with my left hand.. 4 or 5 small (5cm) outline tattoos but terribly drawn.. she's dressed well and wears clothing to accentuate them so she's obviously proud of the way she/they look and as a young woman she pulls it off.. but what i don't understand is she obviously wanted them to look badly drawn because it looks like the same person did them all... are young folk reacting against artists now?

 

In other news

**I pre-booked a parking space in Manchester's Northern Quarter to take my kid clothes shopping.. got back to the car and i had a parking ticket.. due to my dyslexia, i got a couple of the letters jumbled up.. i appealed the ticket explaining that the VRN looked exactly the same to me so i had paid for the parking space (I attached proof of purchase) .. they accepted my appeal then said "but don't do it again because next time you might not be so lucky" .. wtf! i can't help it?  wankers!

[Maynard Friedman]

Did he come away with any clobber in the end Neal?