CHRIS KOUTSIS: What's up, buddy?
MIKE RUBENDALL: How you doing, pal?
CHRIS KOUTSIS: It's going [INAUDIBLE].
What's going on?
MIKE RUBENDALL: How's everything, all right?
CHRIS KOUTSIS: What's up, guys?
How you doing?
Hanging in there.
MIKE RUBENDALL: We have to give them the tour.
CHRIS KOUTSIS: Cool, yeah.
MIKE RUBENDALL: They spent three and a half hours with
Frank today.
CHRIS KOUTSIS: Got some good stories?
MIKE RUBENDALL: Yeah.
I was just always intrigued and fascinated by tattoos.
And it just suddenly popped into my head, and
I had tunnel vision.
That's all I wanted to do, that's all
I could think about.
And I called different tattoo shops and tried to figure out
what approach I would take, or what avenue I would take, in
order to learn the craft.
And that's when I went into Da Vinci's and met Frank.
This was Franks' first tattoo when he was 16 years old.
He nailed it on that one.
FRANK: He always carried himself very well.
He was never a snot-nosed kid or disrespectful.
He always introduces me as the guy that
taught him how to tattoo.
This is Frank, this is the guy that taught me
everything I know.
Shit.
I'm one of the most important people on the planet.
Seriously, think about it, you know what I mean?
I taught one of the greatest tattooers of
all time how to tattoo.
Not too many people can say that.
And he just walked in with his brother one day, it's like, he
wants to get into this.
And right away in my mind I'm like, OK, I got to get rid of
this fucking brat.
And I had gotten rid of people in the past by handing them a
tattoo magazine and saying draw 20
things out of this magazine.
But this kid--
if you know anything about Mike, you
know he ain't a quitter.
And that's the thing, like he just kept coming back.
Maybe it was just easier to teach the guy than it was to
get rid of him, you know?
MIKE RUBENDALL: I went there, and he kind of blew me off.
I came back, he's like, OK, you want to learn how to
tattoo, take 10 drawings out of a tattoo magazine.
Don't trace them, draw them, copy them,
and bring them back.
I guess it took me about a month to do 10 drawings.
Brought those 10 back, and he made me do
another 25 after that.
He's like, all right--
just kind of just pushing me off.
JOE PAPPALARDO, JR.: The first time I remember him bringing
up tattooing, I think we were in 11th or
12th grade art class.
He asked the teacher, I want to apprentice at the shop,
they want me to draw 20 of these, can I spend my time in
class redrawing these?
And she was fine with it, she said yes.
And I think that's how he started.
FRANK: Nobody's very good when they first come in.
What he had that was apparent was tenacity.
That's probably more important than being a good artist.
In fact, if he was too good I might have felt threatened and
told him you don't have what it takes.
You should probably go home and stay home, or somebody
might beat the fucking shit out of you.
MIKE RUBENDALL: This was all the flash I had to trace.
MALE SPEAKER: Did you trace that sheet?
MIKE RUBENDALL: I traced that sheet a couple times.
Some Mr. Miyagi shit.
FRANK: The guy had an uphill battle from Jump Street.
I wasn't going to be convinced that he really wanted it until
I couldn't shake him.
I just kept putting more and more hurdles in front of him,
making the hurdles higher, making them closer together,
making it harder and harder for him.
Because really all of that, all of the beginning part of
the apprenticeship, is not to teach him anything--
it's to teach me something.
How far can I push this guy away and have him still come
back, because that tells me he really wants it.
MIKE RUBENDALL: I think that was Frank's '55, but it's
souped up there.
That's the one I was in the trunk.
That's the one we would take to Coney
Island High on St. Mark's.
He would make me wash his car in the back, and he had like
nine cars at one time.
And then I would finish one and then he would bring
another one by.
Because he lived locally, so he would go, grab another car,
bring it back, I would wash it and wax it.
Oh man, what does this have to do with tattooing?
MALE SPEAKER: What were some of your favorite activities to
have Mike as an apprentice do?
FRANK: Anything that would humiliate him
and break him down.
I don't remember laying a hand on him.
I really don't.
MALE SPEAKER: He said one time you guys were just going punch
for punch, I think.
FRANK: Me and him?
MALE SPEAKER: Yeah.
FRANK: I mean, I definitely remember people getting
hog-tied with lamp cords and stuff.
That I clearly remember.
I don't know who did it, but I do remember that happening.
I remember people being put in the trunk of cars--
people got broken down.
It's the same theory that the military uses, break them down
and build them up.
Strip them down, strip them down to nothing.
And then build a better machine.
MIKE RUBENDALL: I just accepted this is how you get
into it, you just keep dealing with the bullshit.
I didn't really think much about it.
I just accepted the fact that this is what I need to do to
get my foot in the door and learn how to tattoo.
His mentality was tough love, so he put me through a pretty
rigorous process.
At times I didn't think I was going to make it, and I
thought I would have a nervous breakdown.
I was 17 years old, so I was a kid.
I didn't know anything about life, I
hadn't traveled anywhere.
And then I meet this maniac, and he's leading the way.
He grew up tattooing, fighting, drinking.
He was like the epitome of an old-school tattooer.
He was around when it counted.
He's one of those guys that when you meet him, you're like
wow, they don't make guys like this anymore.
And you're just happy to have the experience with him.
FRANK: And he's like young, and he's full of energy, and
buying tattoo magazines.
He's a sponge, and I'm from a whole different thing.
It's like if you're an old school Italian and somebody's
trying to teach you French cooking, it's a hard thing,
I'm sure, to do.
At the time, he's looking at all this stuff, and he's
asking me a million questions.
And it's probably very difficult for me to be into
talking about that shit.
Because I'm like fuck him, and fuck him, and this guy sucks,
look at that thing.
And then bingo, he sees Filip Leu's work, and it's like he's
stepping over my clipboard, can't get out
the door fast enough.
Like, I need to see more of this.
And then he's telling me, he's like I want to go to
Switzerland.
That was mind blowing.
I think I was like, I don't know if you can go to
Switzerland, you know?
JOE PAPPALARDO, JR.: Give us the guided tour, why not?
This is the best part right here, this window.
Here on the third floor.
So Mike always knew I was interested in traveling, and
when he made his appointment with Filip he just asked me if
I wanted to go.
And I think we went there for four days or five days.
I just went for a good time, and that's what we had.
MIKE RUBENDALL: Filip is a tattooer from Switzerland.
And at the time I had to contact him, but he didn't
have a telephone, and there was no email back than.
So I would write him letters, trying to get an appointment.
And I would receive these beautiful handwritten letters
back from his wife Titine.
And she explained what I would have to do as far as deposits,
and how far he was booked out in advance.
And it just opened my eyes up to a whole new world of how
tattooing could be.
Da Vinci's was like war, and fucking motorcycles, hot rods,
ass-kickings, drinking, fighting.
And this was like peace, love, happiness.
Between staying at his house and being at the studio, he
just breathed and lived tattooing and art, and the
whole family was involved.
He took a very smart approach.
Like everything was very well prepared.
His color study, his composition, just everything
had a really particular look that I was always drawn to.
He had this ability to work with the human body.
And every tattoo he did it seemed to look like people
were born with the tattoos, like they
were meant to be there.
JOE PAPPALARDO, JR.: It was like the weirdest thing ever,
but it was awesome, it was so much fun.
Felix's dad was there, walking around, smoking joints,
talking to Filip's wife, Titine.
She was doing all these portraits and paintings that
she was showing us.
Mike got tattooed, I think, and then we'd go out.
Tonight is Saturday night, and viva la Switzerland.
And we're going to what they like to call here as a
discotheque.
And it was like Filip wouldn't come out, he's very low-key,
and Titine would come out with us.
We would just go out, it was like a club or a disco.
And we were just drinking and having a good time.
MIKE RUBENDALL: You think you have that suit downstairs?
You could throw it on and still roll around Long Island?
Oh, man.
CHRIS O'DONNELL: Mike was very young, and he hadn't been in
the tattoo industry for any really length of time before
he went to Filip Leu to get tattooed.
But that was pretty unique.
Most people don't fly to Switzerland to get tattooed
when they're, whatever, 18.
And that was a good indicator that he had a understanding of
what was going on, what was good, by
going to Filip so young.
FRANK: The exposure to Filip took him to another level,
both desire-wise and knowledge-wise.
I'm sure he was watching Filip like a hawk.
I'm sure he didn't feel 90% of that tattoo until spots were
really bad, because he was just watching every move.
MIKE RUBENDALL: The short time you stay there, it's almost
like a Harvard education.
You learn so much about tattooing in a
short period of time.
Filip has such an influence on and rubs off on you so easily.
And constructs the ideas of tattooing in a very simplistic
way that it makes an amateur tattooer understand it easily.
CHRIS O'DONNELL: He was just hell-bent on getting good.
I don't know how much of that was Frank, or the guys he
worked with, or getting tattooed by people like Filip.
But he was just really able to nail the whole technical side
of it pretty quickly.
MIKE RUBENDALL: That was a pinnacle moment for me.
That changed my whole outlook.
Even like technical aspects of it, I came back and tattooed
completely different.
Used different needles that I didn't know existed.
It was a lot of shit that changed my life.
FRANK: Filip brought Mike's ability to another level, his
desire to do better.
At that point, he's exhausted my capabilities.
He's taking everything that I could have taught him, and
he's maximized it.
And now he needs to take another block and stack it on.
MIKE RUBENDALL: It took the best of Frank, and took the
best of me traveling the world, and kind of
integrated each one.
Both worlds collided, they contradicted each other.
And some aspects of this style tattooing
Frank would frown upon.
He's like oh, that's pussy shit.
But then--
I don't know, we'll go back to that.
MALE SPEAKER: That was awesome.