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f.a.q. U
are you a vampire?
nope. i do come off at times as a bit of a dark and mysterious
entity (funny, cause i'm almost TOO happy a guy), but I don't consider
myself to be a vampire.
do
you want to be a vampire?
um, hard to answer. if I knew what the exact definition of
a vampire was, maybe i would have a basis to compare my humanity to,
but until then i can only theorize what it may be like. i'm sure
that there would be some pretty heavy trade offs.
OK, actually, for the first time in my decade of working on my craft
i'm going to tell you my real thoughts on this.
I HATE VAMPIRES. actually, i hate
VAMPYRES more, but that's semantics. i don't like vampires.
they're leaches. that's all they are. kinda like a lot of
women i've dated. i've never seen much sport in simply
hypnotizing or seducing your prey. JUST TAKE IT.
i like puppies. wolves to be more
specific. i was voting for the lycans from the first frame
of underworld. i thought the creators rendered PERFECTLY both the
essence of the vampire, AND the VAMPYRE
community. i rely on instinct, not social
"pecking" order. diplomacy is for the weak. that's why it
works with most people.
GO WEREWOLVES. fuck
vamps. next.........
do
you believe in vampires?
yes I do. answer me this?...... how can every known
religion and culture have vampire myths without having SOME basis in
fact. even with all superstition set aside, myths die
unless they are propagated once in a while.
did i mention, i like puppies???????
how
did you get into this business?
probably the most common question apart from, "do they come off".
so sit back and get some popcorn. it's a bit of a tale.
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as it is, fangs are not my primary focus. i am n artist, most
notably, a musician. i've been playing drums since i was two, and
have been picking up instruments along the way ever since.
in the fall of 94', i happened to be playing a
gig in abbotsford, a suburb of vancouver, BC, canada. i was on
break between sets and i felt the urge to go outside for a breathe of
fresh air. while outside, i noticed a rather odd gentleman
engaged in a conversation with my guitar player. i was watching
the two of them speak, enraptured by their movements for some unknown
reason, when I realized that the stranger had VERY long top and bottom
canine teeth. i was about to interrupt and remark on this fact
when he turned his eyes to me. he was wearing a pair of washed
out gray contact lenses, quite striking on a man who stood easily three
inches taller than me, dressed in a rather sharp business suit, had a
"Lurch" style haircut, AND had these TEETH.
i'll take a moment to back up and explain one reason for my
fascination...... until I was twelve, i had had quite long canine
teeth myself, both top and bottom. they were cut down in
preparation for braces that i never ended up needing. that was a
fiasco in itself that I'd rather not go into now, but suffice it to say
that my dentist got through the first one before i realized what was
going on. after that not-so-comfortable buzzing, i had gone over
the tooth with my tongue to find it.... well, gone for all intensive
purposes. no more halloween 364 days a year i guess. It
took substantially more effort on his part, and the rest of his staff
i'll add, to relive me of the other one. my bottoms still remain
to this day, although a little worn for wear.
now, back to the story........
seeing as how this fine chap had bigger teeth than me, i HAD to inquire
as to where he "got" them. after all, i wasn't the type of person
to simply accept the fact that he would be better endowed than me (in
that department people, please) through natural means. i was
jealous. and feeling rather hopeless until one of his fangs fell
out just as he was explaining how they were REALLY his and that he was
a vampire. i just started to laugh, not for the comedic value of his
faux par, but because maybe there was SOME way to get my teeth back.
after an hour of relentless questions, he finally broke down and told
me of a man who lived in Seattle, but came up to Vancouver every six
weeks to make fangs. as luck would have it, when I called the
store the gentleman told me of, a salesperson told me that the
following weekend was when the "dentist" was expected. i made my
appointment and waited..... and waited...... and............., waited.
finally, saturday dawned bright and sunny, and i set off to downtown
granville island (vancouver proper to those of you unfamiliar with the
area) and "cabbages and kings", the shop where is was to meet with
destiny. i should have known it was the one with all the
rubber clothing in it, but hey, I was a denim guy; unpierced,
untattooed, and totally unaware of the change of life waiting at the
little table in the back of the store. actually, it was
right behind me, because just as I asked where I could find the "fang
guy", a voice rose up in the exclamation..... "ANOTHER
VICTIM....". although I didn't like the idea of being a victim,
it was hard to not feel like a chicken leg when I met tsarvek.
he was a little round, but at his height I guess you could call it
mass; very hairy, yet kept in his own way; and clothed in silks
and leathers. I really couldn't tell from one moment to the next
if he was the lion, the trainer, or the whole bloody circus in one, so
I just kept my mouth shut. until he said open up.
what happened next is what i suppose every one of my clients
experiences when they get their first set of fangs. that sense of
excitement mixed with a little fear (is this gonna hurt?), and of
course the inquisitiveness. i would ask a question, he would
answer, then go off into a dialog that i wouldn't quite understand
(until later) about his experiences. maybe he was telling me
something my mind knew to remember later and i just didn't pick up on
it in the excitement. who knows. in any event, my mouth
wasn't the only thing under scrutiny for the 30 minutes; i was
watching every move in awe. i subconsciously memorized everything
i saw (later, this would become the basis for the system i now use).
after a few brief instructions, shaking of hands, and the passing over
of money well spent, i was back out on the streets of vancouver ready
to take on the world. i can relate with EVERY ONE of my patrons
when i see them smile their new smile........ i'll never forget MY
first time.
two months later, i was back in connecticut, and miserable because I
had just broken one of my teeth. actually, i have no idea how it
broke; i just went to go put them in, and one of them was
broken. most likely what had happened was that somebody had
inadvertently placed something heavy on top of them without realizing
that they were there. however it happened is less important than
what went through my mind next. i was remembering in vivid detail
the entire process and before I could think twice, i was on the phone
with my dentist inquiring as to how to obtain the necessary materials.
after a week, i had everything together and began to make a new pair of
teeth. they looked pretty bad. but there was hope; the
worst thing about them wasn't the shape, but the color. it
was really quite surprising because although I considered myself an
artist in the music sense, I had NO talent when it came to
drawing. it seemed that perhaps i had found a new medium.
my next try looked really good, but the surface was rough and again the
color was off. over the next several months i experimented with
ideas and became quite adept with the drill. but the color and
texture was always off. i put a call into the store in vancouver
and they gave me tsarvek's telephone number.
what surprised me the most about the initial few seconds of that
conversation was that he remembered me in detail; the things we had
discussed, what i look like, everything. here was a guy who was
doing 10 to 20 pairs of teeth a day and after six months could still
remember me. when i started to ask about the teeth, he began to
ask if there were enough of a demand in my area for them. i said
i was quit sure there was (i'm not the ONLY freak in CT after all), but
there wasn't anybody doing them. he asked if i though it would be
worth his while to come out for a workshop, but for some reason i found
that my only answer was that i wanted to do them myself. his
answer? "i had a feeling you would...... i'm glad you had the
respect to ask me. ok, here's what you do...." and over the
course of a few phone calls, i was gifted the secrets that helped me
make the quality of fangs i make now.
in my opinion, tsarvek is the BEST. no one will ever sway my
opinion of that. i can only thank whatever powers were at work
that it was HIS example i had to study from, and not that of so many
others. his interests in anatomy and biology, as well as the
chemistry of the materials we work with afforded me a deeper knowledge
of what we do than i believe many of us (fang makers) posses.
rarely do i meet anybody who loves what they do as much as he and i
do. if what i'm saying here sounds like ego, well maybe it is....
but it's more pride than anything else. i love this
business; i love making people happy; and i love
fangs........ i may not be doing them forever, but this company
is here to stay as long as i'm alive and kicking. EVEN IF
my wildest music dreams come true.
coming soon.....
HOW I GOT INTO THIS, part deux. the sabretooth
experience.
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Next
question,
are
you a dentist?
no, I am not, but I AM a dental technician. i have studied
under one of the best crown and bridge people around, worked in his
lab, and at chair side during crown, root canal, even oral surgery
procedures. i have made it a point to learn what the nature of
the acrylic is, and how to use it safely and efficiently. the
same applies to my methods. i'm not in the business of hurting
people.
can I have a naked picture of you? (yes, this has
been asked... more than once)
only if you IM me.
if you did not find the answers you're looking for,
bite
me!
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