The Mouse That Remembered Me. Part IV: Crowned. (2021)
There’s a photo from Glacier National Park that looks like nothing. Seven guys posed in front of a log cabin. You wouldn’t know we’d just finished a 26-mile hike. You wouldn’t know I was breaking.
I mean actually breaking.
This was 2021. I hadn’t picked up a pencil in years. I wasn’t on testosterone yet. I was still chalking up brain fog and exhaustion to “getting older.” I was tattooing full-time, going to the gym, staying social when I had the bandwidth. But deep down, I was unraveling.
On paper, everything looked fine.
I went on trips. Laughed with friends. Trained. Tattooed. Posted. But the crash was already in motion. And Mickey was right there with me, skipping alongside while I spiraled.
There’s a piece I drew that year. A sheet of 25 hand-drawn Mickeys—each with their own emotion, attitude, posture. Some confident. Some confused. Some mid-strut. Some collapsing inward. I didn’t realize at the time, but it was me. Every version of me, breaking apart across the page. I couldn’t explain what I was feeling, but my hand could.
I started drawing again that year. A return to gesture and gestalt. I picked Rockwell back up. I started experimenting with Mickey in weirder ways. Freehand. Stretched. Dismantled. Smirking and melted, sometimes curled up like he was dying.
Because honestly, some part of me was.
That’s when I knew: my ache was leaking out through my art.
He started to mutate. And so did I.
There’s another photo. This one’s in front of Good Times, the shop I spent years in. A group of Marines. Laughing. Celebrating. That day, we all got matching Mickey Mouse tattoos. All wearing a Marine Corps cover.
It was the first time I realized something was happening here. I wasn’t just tattooing Mickey. I was becoming him. Or maybe, making him become me.
And it wasn’t just a gimmick. It was a language.
People started flying in just for Mickey tattoos. I made full flash sheets. Blankets. Shirts. Sunday pancake rituals. My own dog even showed up on that first Mickey Flash Day. People joked that I was Mickey. A client called me The Mickey King.
But they didn’t see the shadow he was holding. They didn’t know how much of this started as a way to survive.
The one that got me crowned.
This part’s important:
None of this was calculated.
I wasn’t building a brand.
I was building a raft.
I was bleeding out. Losing memory. Losing dexterity. Running on caffeine and NSAIDs. I’d wake up some days and not recognize my own thoughts. And yet I kept drawing. Kept tattooing. Kept making this little mouse dance with me.
Because the thing about Mickey?
He keeps going.
And maybe that’s the most haunting part.
The resilience in a face like his.
Sometimes joy is the mask that gets us through.
Sometimes it’s the last thing holding the ache together.
And so, if you ever wondered why I kept drawing Mickey. Why I kept tattooing him, warping him, setting him loose—it’s because that little fucker knew something.
He knew what it meant to fall apart and still smile.
To dance while dying.
To wave through the burn.
To collapse with style.
And if you look closely—really look—you’ll see it.
Mickey isn’t always happy.
He’s just always moving.
