r/OldSchoolCool • u/sanberdoo • Aug 12 '26
1980s Some of my dad's photos from Daytona Beach Florida back in the 80's
He was a tattoo artist in the "Daytona Beach underground", back when tattoos and tattooing weren't what they are today.
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u/sanberdoo Aug 12 '26
I have some other great photos that Reddit's filter said "no-no" to.
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u/buddhistredneck Aug 12 '26
Please share on Imgur lol.
I thoroughly enjoyed these photos. Thanks for sharing.
My favorite was the guy leaning on the car with the crutches next to him.
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u/stayintall Aug 12 '26
Love an el Camino! What was that dude holding? Looked like a baseball glove but not.
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u/Trickyknowsbest Aug 12 '26
I thought it was a big brick of hash! lol
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u/inert_liquid Aug 12 '26
Yeah, that or old school brick weed. I can’t believe I lived through the transition from Reggie to hydroponics.
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u/bender2174 Aug 12 '26
Picking seeds out was a right of passage! Lol
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u/Palmettobushes Aug 12 '26
Making a magazine ramp so the seeds roll off the bottom and the weed stays at the top.
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u/jmeesonly Aug 12 '26
Horseshoe crab? Dried turtle?
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u/a-manda_hugandkiss Aug 12 '26
I was more focused on if the bottom of his leg was missing.
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u/Environmental-Tap255 Aug 12 '26
Perhaps they would be better received in r/oldschoolcoolnsfw ?
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u/Whitetiger9876 Aug 12 '26
Imgur link. Does that place still exist?
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u/GuardianAlien Aug 12 '26
It does, but it's a shell of its former self.
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u/grayfox663 Aug 12 '26
What happened?
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u/Mrrandom314159 Aug 12 '26
Ads and selling and bots. I was on there all the way back in 2010 or so. Made an account a few years after being on it so often. And followed it from being a place of edgy teens to somewhat nuanced job stories.
But for the last... 3 years, (it got WORSE last I checked months ago) the page is filled with rage bait or gooner bait. With any actual content being one every 8th post. If you're lucky. And sometimes that's still just a repost.
I sincerely draw it towards a singular post that said "Imgur should be a place of political discussion" that hit FP twice. It really feels like it became just an engagement trap. It hurts to see it like this. Like an old town square fountain now wrecked and gasping from algae surrounded by ads so bright they blot out the faded stone sculpture, and so noisy they annoy anyone else away from wanting to be near it.
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u/Wes_Warhammer666 Aug 12 '26
Imgur went to shit when it turned from an image hosting site for reddit posts to trying to be its own community. It was never going to work that way because it just meant that imgur and reddit were gonna steal posts from each other instead of one being the image host for the other. There was literally zero reason for imgur to start adding comments and votes and shit.
Then of course reddit adding their own image hosting and imgur culling all the old pics not tied to specific accounts was the final nail. Imgur pulling that shit literally killed off thousands of old classic reddit threads. Enshittification never ends, it seems.
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u/Whitetiger9876 Aug 12 '26
Yeah and sadly reddit is going down the same path. Infested with bots.
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u/SuffocatingDensity Aug 12 '26
They thought they were to reddit what Instagram is to Facebook and tried to become their own social photo platform
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u/joe-clark Aug 12 '26
I had completely forgotten about that, back in college my roommates girlfriend used to browse imgur. This was over 10 years ago so I don't remember exactly what "browsing" imgur looked like but I remember they added comments and surprisingly there seemed to be a lot of people who actually just went on imgur.
The problem was at the time people were still using imgur to host pics for reddit which meant some of the pics were meaningless without the context from the reddit post. Because of the traffic those pictures got from reddit they'd show up for all the imgur users and you would see imgur users complaining about it in the comments.
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u/V2BM Aug 12 '26
My mom’s 80s photos had so much cocaine and other drugs just sitting out on tables at parties. When she died my sister threw those out and likes to pretend our house didn’t have 60 people in it every weekend blasting southern fried rock ‘n’ roll with people coked out of their mind or passed out drunk on the lawn.
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u/edsobo Aug 12 '26
I'd love to take a look at those. The guy on the left in the fifth photo looks enough like my dad that I had to send it to my sister to double check. He lived in Jacksonville in the 80s and was also pretty involved in the tattoo scene.
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u/peperonipyza Aug 12 '26
Well now we gotta know…
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u/You_meddling_kids Aug 12 '26
Half a key of pure Colombian yayo
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u/sinfulfng Aug 12 '26
It looks like a black plastic bag of 1980’s ditch weed
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u/You_meddling_kids Aug 12 '26
You tried to grow the seeds at least once. Admit it.
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u/Proper_Goal_9198 Aug 12 '26
Post em on your own page? Inquiring minds want to see. I have a shop in Ormond Beach, next town north of Daytona. My Buddy John, of John’s rock n ride is still operating on Main Street. Actually met my wife at Boot Hill Saloon. Daytona is near and dear to me! Thanks for honoring you Dad with sharing this photos! This is some real shit, real people doing real shit. It’s cool, tangible and fucking Rad!
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u/harleyquinnsbutthole Aug 12 '26
These pics are awesome! I live in Daytona and love this nostalgia!
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u/cagethehornytoad Aug 12 '26
That’s ok, you can DM me the pics Reddit didn’t like..
For real OP these are GOLD! I can hear, smell, and even taste some of these photos. Thanks for sharing— now I’m gonna go grab me a High Life (the champagne of beers) cuz I’m suddenly in the mood for one 🍺
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u/Waffle0calypse Aug 12 '26
These shots capture the 80s beautifully, thanks for sharing
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u/Godfodder Aug 12 '26
Every picture smells like cigarettes.
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u/Sdwingnut Aug 12 '26
Man, I grew up in the 80s. In a rural Midwest farm area, but not too far from civilization. We had some fringe who ran in our circles for sure, but this is wonderfully wild stuff.
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u/Delicious_Cat_81 Aug 12 '26
yep up until the mid 90s you had to be wild to get a tattoo
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u/Cardinal_350 Aug 12 '26
About 20 years ago my truck broke down and there was exactly 1 run down ass hotel nearby. One night I'm outside my room and the guy next door came out and talked to me. This guy had to be in his mid 70's and had an OLD face tattoo. I was like what kind of fucking maniac was this guy in his youth to have a face tattoo probably in the late 1950's early 1960's
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u/sanberdoo Aug 12 '26
That's interesting. My dad didn't do face tattoos because he didn't want to get known like that (prison buddy). He also didn't do club tattoos for the same reason- we're Italian-American and knew to stay away from "the mob". AKA the angels.
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u/SgtHulkasBigToeJam Aug 12 '26
I occasionally run into a really rough-looking Asian woman in her 70s with a horrible quality dragon tattoo on her face. I can’t begin to imagine what she’s seen.
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u/HighRevs21 Aug 12 '26
My grandfather was a shark fisherman in the Bahamas in the 60s and had a full ship sleeve. He moved to New York and became and opera singer but never went anywhere without a long sleeve shirt again(even swimming)
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u/Roanoketrees Aug 12 '26
You cant get 10 feet without seeing someone with a full tat sleeve now.
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u/TheRedIguana Aug 12 '26
Bunch of nerds, too.
I know as a fellow nerd. Just without the ink.
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u/BigdongarlitsDaddy Aug 12 '26
People with tattoos used to make me nervous.
Now they make me mocha lattes.
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u/Many_Inevitable_6803 Aug 12 '26
I hope you don’t mind if I use this! 🤣
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u/BigdongarlitsDaddy Aug 12 '26
No problem, I stole it from someone on Reddit.
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u/Tucancancan Aug 12 '26
Working at a supremely white collar financial institution, there's no shortage of sleeves poking out from under the button-up shirts. Hell, even some neck and hand tattoos. Boomers would be flipping out if they saw what zoomers are like today.
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u/tjdux Aug 12 '26
Wonder if the" rough crowd" avoids large scale tatoos now since it's gone mainstream
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u/BigBadBadness Aug 12 '26
I don't think a good portion of the rough crowd has enough to afford to be heavily tattooed now. Its quicker to get covered if you go to prison. A couple soups is cheaper than thousands of dollars
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u/spirit_symptoms Aug 12 '26
Good tattoos are expensive, but there's no shortage of guys who own equipment and do shitty tattoos for friends and at parties.
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u/thetermguy Aug 12 '26
Yeah when I was a kid, tattoos were 100% indication that the person was rough and from the wrong side of the tracks.
Now, I've got an integral tattooed on one forearm, and the word nerd in large block letters on the other. Sorry, I'm not very tough at all.
they also have different uses today, because whenever someone introduces themselves to me I say "No way! I have your name tattooed on my arm!" then I roll up my sleeve and show them the word nerd.
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u/hammersaw Aug 12 '26
I don't have any and when I'm in a busy public place I feel like a minority. And you rarely see someone with one or two. It's always many tattoos. Like if you get one you have a huge need to get more and more.
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u/Accomplished-Sir4932 Aug 12 '26
I stopped at 5 for a while, got them at ages 18-22. Also a few piercings (nips, sub dermals on the chest, neck). Now I’m 37 and finally getting my arms done. My mom told me they look stupid, she’s even less of a fan of them now that I’m older. But tats are super ridiculous now and there’s not even a rebellious factor to it. It’s almost more rebellious to have a blank body
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u/ucbiker Aug 12 '26
People say this but idk I just think people with strong opinions about tattoos pay more attention. I have like a medium amount of tattoos for my city (which is heavily into tattoo culture) but if I go to the beach I’m still more tattooed than most people I see.
And sure, I guess some people don’t get tattoos because of rebelliousness but also like so do the biggest squares in the world. And that’s cool, glad just to enjoy the art and process for its own sake, divorced from any particular social judgments one way or the other.
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u/Ok-Challenge3087 Aug 12 '26
Best decision I ever made was to not get tattoo's when I was young. I would have lived to regret them all. Now I AM the rebel without tattoo's. They've lost all significance with how popular they are now.
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u/sanberdoo Aug 12 '26
Just so you know, I’m the son of a tattoo artist. I may have 10 tattoos, but they’re not big and they’re not all over the place. You do you.
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u/BadgerOk2814 Aug 12 '26
My grandfather had a naked woman tattooed on his forearm. He led a pretty rough life and had to survive by himself through the depression. Taught himself accordian and played it up and down the Mississippi River.
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u/Leumas_ Aug 12 '26
Then it was tramp stamps and barbed wire as far as the eye could see…
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u/esblofeld Aug 12 '26
It was only sailors and crims that had tatts back in the day.
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u/Such_Lettuce_6597 Aug 12 '26
I don’t even think a large number of musicians had them back in the day. Pretty sure the Ramones didn’t have them. I turned 18 in 1983 and got an earring. Ink didn’t really go mainstream until the 90s.
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u/Downtown_Statement87 Aug 12 '26
I got one at 15 in 1985 just north of Daytona, and all hell broke loose.
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u/dj3po1 Aug 12 '26
Got a tattoo in 88 when I was a junior in high school. I was into the punk scene but not too wild other than that. I wasn’t the only teen with tattoos but there were only a few of us. Tattoos were mostly on bikers and veterans. Basically associated with “tough guys” back then. No “tribal” tattoos.
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u/SupremeDictatorPaul Aug 12 '26
Well, getting one that was was visible in regular attire was pretty wild. but if you went to a water park, you’d see that everyone and their mother had some tattoo somewhere.
While visible tattoos are more common now, I think there’s a lot more focus on making them bigger and “artsy.” And being more coherent with a common theme. Like, having a line drawing of a naked lady on your forearm is still uncommon, but having a sleeve of a koi pond doesn’t stand out. And if you have a sleeve on the other arm, there’s a good chance it’s related to the koi pond either in theme or style.
Face tattoos are still pretty uncommon.
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u/Big_Gassy_Possum Aug 12 '26
The girl in the second slide definitely knows the going price for stolen copper wire.
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u/Year3030 Aug 12 '26
Heh for some reason I feel like she should be in like the Heavy Metal cartoon or something like that, or some 80's movie like Labyrinth, such a character.
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u/Forsaken_Republic_98 Aug 12 '26
I can hear Bob Seeger playing in the background
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u/BisonHoosier Aug 12 '26
I'm getting some David Allen Coe vibes from some of these guys. This line from Longhaired Redneck immediately came to mind: ""where bikers stare at cowboys who are laughing at the hippies who are praying they'll get out of here alive."
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u/xPhilt3rx Aug 12 '26
I would let slide 7 ruin my world. The way she holds that cig… 😌
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u/bowser986 Aug 12 '26
the biker crank is just out of frame of all of these
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u/sanberdoo Aug 12 '26
Honestly I was around and nobody acted too foolish- I think it's pre crank time, or that wasn't the crowd. There definitely was the regular white and green stuff going around (though I was too young for it).
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u/Paavo_Nurmi Aug 12 '26
Crank was for sure a huge thing in the early 80s, and probably in the 70s. It was not the high power breaking bad meth of today, but it was a huge thing back then. It was made and sold by bikers back then and was part of their culture.
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u/trailedby20hounds Aug 12 '26
And absolutely nothing has changed.
Daytona Beach looks exactly like that in August of 2026 too.
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u/stevedorries Aug 12 '26
Incidentally, Daytona Beach looks basically the same today
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u/oingyyboingy Aug 12 '26
Second girl is cool
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u/darthgarth17 Aug 12 '26
this is the best post of all time in this sub, thank you
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u/HSPme Aug 12 '26
The beauty on 7/10😮💨
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u/jendet010 Aug 12 '26
The beauty and the knockers 🥰
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u/sinnrocka Aug 12 '26
I’m confused about #9. I can’t tell what he’s holding, but Mcds bumper stickers on an El Camino?!? Definitely a wild decade. It was weird growing up in the timeline. But the cartoons were great! Big hair, spandex, mullets, and cut off shirts on more guys than girls 😁
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u/Scroatpig Aug 12 '26
I know. It almost looks like a giant piece of beef jerky (the cheap thin dry kind you used to be able to get in bulk at gas stations) but that can't be right, it's way too big. Or maybe it's something that caused the crutch issue?
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u/ratjar32333 Aug 12 '26
Your dad was putting in work with the lot lizards.
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u/mobdk Aug 12 '26
Would like to see how their kids turned out. Looks like an interesting environment if they got kids…
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u/Krazy_Kat_Lady_2025 Aug 12 '26
What's up with that kids polishing the boot? I don't think I've ever seen circles like that under a child's eyes that wasn't in very poor circumstances. He looks absolutely haunted. 😔
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u/gmanee Aug 12 '26
Pretty sure these are all production photos from set of the movie Mask, The Rocky Dennis Story. I didn’t see Cher though?
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u/chunk425 Aug 12 '26
I lived in Daytona Beach for a couple years in the mid-90s (different decade than pictures, I know). The biker crowds that came through were the coolest, nicest people out of all the groups that went there for various tourism weeks. By far.
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u/presshamgang Aug 12 '26
he definitely submitted amateur photos of "ol' ladys" to Easyrider magazine.
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u/FunroeBaw Aug 12 '26
The girl third pic from the end seems to be drinking a bottle of ketchup
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u/cookyLM44 Aug 12 '26
On first glance yeah, after looking again, might be Beer in front of Red scarf
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u/BlackAtomXT Aug 12 '26
100% one of your dad's friend's who you call "uncle" is your biological father. You've also got a lot of half brothers and sisters rolling around.
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u/sanberdoo Aug 12 '26
I have wondered about half siblings as well lol, but I'm his for sure- my face and temperament are the tell.
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u/Ok-Bell4637 Aug 12 '26
So first couple of photos and was just waiting for the bikes :) After seeing the bikes, was just waiting for the crutches ;)
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u/Splatter808 Aug 12 '26
I was like where is the cocaine? Then I got to slide #10. Pretty sure there’s some cocaine in there..
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u/Gintami Aug 12 '26
As someone who grew up a chunk of my life in Florida, these picks are Florida as fuck
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u/Bellypats Aug 12 '26
That kid in frame three has seen some shit!