Mike Burford Renaissance Michael Mike Burford would be a Merchant Prince in the romantic days of old, head of an elite guild of apprentices. You've all seen his beard and hair, now think of him in ornate velvet robes, a silk and jeweled cap, a sword at his side, his hand always hovering unconsciously near the gem-encrusted hilt. Can you see him? He would never think it, but that's who he really is. Like Leonardo De Medici was to Michelangelo, he's my patron and my prince, Prince Michael. Now-a-days, in the ordinary world, he is just 'a prince of a guy.' I alone see the Renaissance man behind the rough, biker disguise. Mikey owns Capitol City Tattoos, Exotic Piercing and Singapore Johns, all in Austin. While he is running these shops twenty-four seven like a dynamo, he is also slapping irons in the fire every time you turn around. His web site is awesome and only will surely get better over the years. He commutes to Henry's Hideout in Magnolia, Texas, to run "The Horniest Place in Texas," an infamous bar near Houston. He was looking for property on a trip with my old man and found this place closed and abandoned, but for lease! This place was history in the Piney Woods outside Magnolia. It goes as far back as being a bootleg shack hidden down a sandy, dirt, East Texas road in the woods. The guy who had owned it forever got banned from his own bar by court order. He couldn't find anybody to take it over who had the personality and talent to pull off the performance he had always given in the past. He met Mikey Burford and I assume they connected as kindred spirits. They struck an immediate bargain. Henry's Hideout is open and flourishing once more. The people of the area and travelers on the road are thrilled that it is back. Mikey is awesome. He is a veteran Carney who worked all his childhood with his dad on the midway, traversing the country countless times. He soaked the vivid experiences up with his soul and it molded him into the wise and shrewd man that he is. He is a veteran of service to his country in one of the most ill-fated times for soldiering there was, the seventies. God bless him. He has done lots of things for a living, but the two that stand out to me from the past are, being a lineman for nine years and being a dope house robbing gangster and speed dealer. His life would be so many movies, and he talks like a bad-ass script. I could listen to him tell his stories for hours. I can empathise with any woman lucky enough to get to lie alone with him in the dark, whispering soul to soul, entwined in his long arms and legs. He was selling speed one night at home and his brother was there doing tattoos. He saw his brother do a thousand dollars worth of tats before he could sell two hundred dollars worth of speed. It was like a diamond splinter through his brain. That was the beginning of a new life and eventually a new commitment to life and other human beings for Mikey. Mikey doesn't just hire tattoo artists. He saw the flaws in the ancient system, how it had degenerated and become a grift in some respects. He decided to go back to the renaissance idea of a guild of apprentices. He takes these dark and tortured kids, gives them direction, a living, a chance for self respect, self esteem and attention. If they have the right stuff, they stick to it and make it through the program, becoming celebrity artists in their world. He does that for them, but he doesn't hand it to them on a platter. He is a hard task master and does not suffer fools gladly. He expects these kids to work for nothing for a few weeks while they begin to learn what they will face, and if indeed, they want to. The kids get tips from working artists and usually get fed somehow. Then, sooner than you'd think they begin to make money doing simple tattoos under the expert tutelage of Nototious Ed and others. Mikey makes these young artists pay for their education in this timeless profession. He takes fifty bucks a week from their checks until the entire tuition is satisfied. Just being round Mike Burford is an education in itself. He gives a concert of cussing and scares the hell out of people. Some people can't take it. They don't see the love and human caring that is behind Mikey's methods. He'll come in to fire somebody and the ballet begins. He sticks his finger in the air and his chest out and declares, "I'm here for a class. It's gonna be a History lesson; You, come here, You ready for your history lesson? Okay, here it is… you fucked up, you're history! Get the fuck out!" He is larger than life as he strides around the shops or bar. He is talking on his cell phone, answering questions, organizing, glad-handing strangers, greeting friends, and selling circles around his salesmen. He even takes the time to be a sweet and attentive to me when I show up groping for an injection of inspiration from my muse. Mikey is my muse, the loving brother that I lost. He opened the door to where my real talent and my searching soul had been hiding and afraid. Simply and gently he asked me to step through that door and take his hand, to walk with him, also, along his road to the future. I realize I make him sound perfect, but I know he's not. I understand that ultimately he is just a man and that he has enemys galore. What Prince doesn't make enemys, but even they cannot deny that he is a man of parts, a man to be reckoned with. You may not share my perception of Mikey Burford. You may see him as a Biker ex-criminal who runs tattoo shops and a bar, a peddler of bombast, but if I let myself see only that, how should I then know him as the sword wielding Merchant Prince of the Romantic Age of Enlightenment, a gentleman, a nobleman, a true Renaisance man. -Laurel Cynthia
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