My Dear Friends of Inked Later in life in college i heard a couple of springsteen songs i kind of became a little bit of a fanatic slightly it’s possible that one time 60 minutes did a story on springsteen and his die hard fans and they may have referred to a photo of me at a concert in ireland as uh springsteen stalker it’s possible.
Yeah technically i was never proven i just showed up for the concert you know my name is drew uh i’m the uh chief dude officer or founder of durmdude and we’re brand about storytelling we believe that your beards your tattoos uh are really about telling your own story your lifelong journey and we develop products that really help.
Preserve and make your tattoos look their best make your beard look feel its best and yeah it really all ties back to your journey as a guy as a dude and products that we developed to help that journey along be its best i was born in freehold new jersey where springsteen was famously from and when i was growing up.
In jersey in the 80s it was you know metallica poison i think our kickball team in the sixth grade was we were called the quiet riots so there definitely was no uh no room for springsteen his songs had way too much meaning and purpose and uh you know not enough guitar smashing you know i didn’t think much of it but when i was.
Growing up in new jersey in the area i was it was usually guys who had tattoos were kind of walking in and out of like the local watering holes and um and you’d see a lot of the guys come in and out had tattoos so that that was about the gist of it the first tattoo i got um yeah i was in.
College and it was pretty spontaneous uh and pretty stupid i still have it it was a uh it’s a an attempt at an eyeball and the inside of the eyeball is a attempt at a globe of the earth or the world and surrounded by an eye with the eyeball and then what is supposed to be.
A teardrop all those things are what it was supposed to be i think it looks more like a cyclops but uh that was my very first one so it’s very odd that i continued on after that first experience but it didn’t shake me i thought it was a rush i did it was like an adrenaline rush like.
Leading up to it you know um something you shouldn’t really do was you know throwing back six or seven beers or 20 beers but i was in college and an idiot and me and a friend we’re gonna go get our first tattoos and you know i think i thought about the design 20 minutes before uh we’re just like let’s go get a tattoo it’s a great idea.
Uh and uh went to a place i think whoever did the tattoo i’m sure he’s a great dude but it probably was one of the first or second ones he ever did and i don’t know that he’s done many more it wasn’t necessarily his calling i didn’t know how my father would react.
I knew it wouldn’t be overly favorable i didn’t know if it would be like mockery or hostility but either one was not you know desirable so uh you know didn’t really pull up my bathing suit that first summer home that much to show the leg as much and then also as time went by i was like.
It’s a [__] eyeball you know what was i thinking i think my parents started to notice tattoos obviously as they started to show up here and here and here but i kind of started picking up steam you know a little bit later in life and then just was like you know they might see me for a holiday.
And maybe six months later ten more tattoos into it or something i was more deliberate about my second tattoo i didn’t know what i was going to get but um i wanted it to be more of an experience i wanted to be more planned out i was living in los angeles and there was the sunset strip tattoo shop and i don’t think i’d ever.
Seen a music video on mtv where you didn’t see you know motley crue or poison or someone like ripping down sunset strip on the harley and passing by the sunset strip tattoo shop so i at least knew that that was kind of cool i figured that place had a story some heritage so i was more like i showed me the book of tattoos that are like.
25 to 50 bucks and uh and i picked out a tattoo and uh the guy you know did it on my arm right up here and it was cool it was uh yeah i was like man i got a tattoo at the sunset strip tattoo shop you know didn’t have the harley then but i was on my way.
Kind of two things happened where i became exposed to looking around and seeing man there’s a lot you can do like i saw just some of the people in there and some of the designs and i found myself then almost like looking at this little tattoo here.
And now i feel kind of naked up here like i have this tattoo up here right right on my shoulder but it feels like there needs to be a lot more like that was the first time i had that feeling of before the tattoo was done literally what goes next kind of caught the bug there maybe.
When i talk about the rush of getting a tattoo for me it’s not the pain i don’t like the pain and it’s funny if i it can emphasize enough i can hate the pain which is when then people look at me and they’re like what’s wrong with you if you hate you know it’s like that’s a means to an end i’ll get.
Through it because of what i want the rush of it for me is planning and doing something that is so permanent that is so deliberately permanent non-changeable you’re making this lifetime you know commitment to something even the one on my leg that you know i laugh about or make fun of i’ve not.
Removed it i just wouldn’t it’s just not my way um i’ve built around certain tattoos i talk about it like if i have an older tattoo and maybe i want something with a nicer design now that i have the access to better artists or i can spend a little more money on budget than i used to i still don’t want to cover up my history.
My past my journey that’s part of my story so even that original tattoo on my arm 25 bucks from 30 something years ago i never wanted to get rid of it so i kind of built a trophy case around it it was part of my journey it is part of my history i didn’t want to wash over that and and kind of start out all the way at.
The other end i want to remember everywhere i’ve been for me that’s part of the tattoo experience so the rush has always been i’m doing something right now it’s not going to be changeable um you know do it man and and not knowing until you really look at it at the very end.
Um you know where you’re at yeah the first one i did on my hand was right here and that was that was like a big thought process you know when you talk about the rush that might have been one of the biggest rushes for me um first was going down past here because when you make the decision of.
All right you know my my sleeves aren’t going to cover anymore i’m i’m going to be outed to the world um and then when i first was going to do my hand and right as he started i was like you know hey man you know i’m not going to wear gloves for the rest of my life um so it was it was again it was i guess.
Empowering it is that rush but it’s empowering it’s like making a commitment to yourself to a degree of of saying you know i don’t give what the world does think for me it definitely had that that side of it of there is no turning back you know uh you’re never gonna work in a bank nine to five.
Not that i could have been hired for a normal job anyway but regardless it was kind of like burning your ships and making sure that you know there is no way backward tattoo on my arm from sunset strip was a japanese kanji it says live for today live for the moment and.
It’s something i struggle with so in many ways a lot of my tattoos i refer to as post-it notes to myself reminders or my own therapy that just i can look at and remind me my tattoos at least for me definitely influenced all of my life’s decisions because it’s part of who who you are at least for me.
Um you know i don’t i don’t obsess about them but i also you know do put a lot of thought into them i’m very aware and cognizant of the decisions i’ve made to get them and you know some tattoos i come up with in you know a couple of weeks sometimes.
Randomly and sometimes it’s been percolating for a few years from a business-wise career perspective my tattoos have influenced my life significantly you know i’ve started out uh directing writing producing in california.
Owned an agency for a lot of years and worked with a lot of big brands and was in the hollywood world directing celebrities athletes so on and so forth and people are very aware of of your appearance um and it’s not until someone actually says that and i remember.
Um losing a large account you know to a large pharmaceutical company that we thought we were going to get and someone’s saying well you probably weren’t really buttoned up for what they’re looking for and i’m like well what do you mean you know what did we do wrong and they’re like well.
And they’re like pointing at me and i’m like did i say something and they’re like no i mean you’re covered in tattoos you’re a pharmaceutical company and then you know probably like a month or two later i was speaking to uh the owner of a large brand and they were deciding between three.
Different companies and a guy like looks at me on zoom and he goes he’s creative look at him then he turns to the president of his company you know fly him out here do people judge a book by its cover of course of course i think some are more overt and deliberate and intentional um and you know in a bad way.
And it leads to a lot of really bad dumb things uh but uh do people do it uh subconsciously um and yeah i mean we’re not blind we see what we see and it triggers whatever emotion it triggers so some people would see me as you know the guy who looks really creative and is willing to step outside.
The box and break some rules and reinvigorate a campaign and other people would look at it as he’s going to burn down our campaign and probably not follow any rules and probably burn our brand book i’ve never had any regrets about any of my tattoos and and i’ve never had any regrets of uh oh did this cost me any.
Business or did this work against me professionally i really you know i really didn’t give up because my take on that was i was confident in what we were doing the truth of the matter is i’m not doing it for anyone else that they are for me my tattoos are very hard to understand.
If a stranger walked up i don’t think i have a tattoo on my body that anyone would really look at maybe one or two and know exactly what it is or what it means you know this one on my thumb has morse code behind it and it has a real message but it’s a message for me um if i if i wanted it to be very clear i would have just written it in english.
Most of the text on my body is written in a variety of different languages it doesn’t mean that someone couldn’t come up and translate you know greek or spanish or what have you but it’s my way of not really being a billboard for other people to read with these it’s for me to be aware of.
The things that are important to me like that are me and that have been part of me my whole life my past my present where i’m going um their permanent impression of me for me uh so i to have any regrets about that you know would be really kind of.
Self-loathing and i don’t have that so if someone doesn’t you know someone has an issue with it or doesn’t want to hire me or work with me or play with me or or date me or whatever that’s okay i’m gonna go with it you
Drew Plotkin’s first tattoo was gotten spur of the moment and it offers a master’s class in what not to do when you get a tattoo, but despite the poor quality of the finished tattoo, Drew was not deterred. Over the years he has built a collection packed with meaning, so much so it’s become a major part of his identity. Inspired by his ink and voluminous beard, Drew went on to found Derm Dude, a brand focused on helping men pamper their tattoos, beards and unmentionables. Drew shares his story in this episode of Heavily Inked.
Welcome to Heavily Inked. In our newest series, we’re going to speak one-on-one with tattoo collectors and artists about what it means to be a heavily inked person. We’ll get deep as we go through the motivations behind their tattoo choices, the way they’ve been treated in society and much more.
Drew: https://www.instagram.com/chiefdudeofficer/
https://dermdude.com/
https://www.instagram.com/dermdudeofficial/
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