Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Where to from Here?

Changes they are a comin', and they ain't Easy...

In 2009 I started GarageBoyz Magazine while I worked full time at a motorcycle dealership. I put a ton of hours, money and sacrifice into getting it off the ground. I had hoped to turn it into a local Kulture hub for Montgomery County, Maryland but I learned that I needed to broaden my scope. I build a few different versions of the online magazine, a flash version, a non-flash version, a flip book style, a full page style. Yet I could never really find a way to make it work. The web analytics showed that 1500 people were checking out each issue, which made me feel good, but certainly not the ground swell needed to be successful and not enough of a readership to support turning the magazine into a full time gig.
There are a bunch of online magazine and print magazines in the picture now, and it seems that others have not made it as well and stopped putting out new issues, while others are putting out local print magazines that are getting thinner each month. Heck even some of the national magazines are having a hard time staying afloat.
 Now after 11 years I am no longer at the dealership, and I am either unemployed or "chasing the dream", I guess it depends on which day it is.  Dispite having all the time to chase the magazine dream, I am facing the fact that turning into a job that makes money and earns me a living is probably not going to happen and it's okay. I have always had bigger ideas for GarageBoyz, and the magazine was and is just a piece of the bigger picture, so know I am going to chase the next part of the dream and try to put a brick and mortar store together just as I stated in Bingo's View in Issue #1.
 I still have a burning desire to share the local Kulture community with the world and I still love taking pictures and writing about it so...this Blog will become GarageBoyz Magazine.com . I should have a full transition complete in the next month or so, and I can finally move onto the next chapter and still have a voice in the local Kulture scene.
 I appreciate all of the support and friendships that I have made while putting GBM together and I look forward to working with the car, bike and tattoo shops and people even more, with co-hosted events and sponsorships and such. So while GarageBoyz Magazine may no longer have the look or feel it once did, it will have no less Passion,Kulture or Tradition.
                                                                           Bingo
                                                                 The GarageBoyz Group

Monday, August 1, 2011

Vintage MoCo Tattoo History

A piece of MoCo Tattoo History circa the early 1990's at Capitol Tattoo in Silver Spring, MD
from left to right...James Hughes ( owner of Bethesda Tattoo Company), Brian Toos ( Tattoo Artist),
Alan Call (piercer & then shop manager) , Joe One (Tattoo Artist), Seth Ciferri ( Tattoo Artist & world renown Tattoo Machine builder)