Here's the Damn Blog...Now Stop Bothering Me.

So, I've been getting messages from people asking where the new blog is and what I'm gonna do now that Best Ink is over.  Well, I was writing this blog before Best Ink, and I'll continue to write it.  In fact, there are 136 blog entries that have absolutely nothing to do with Best Ink.  I've just been doing other stuff lately.  Don't worry, I'll have plenty to bitch about- I always do.  It's something I do well, and often.  There are lots of things that I rant about that I don't care to publish on the internet.  I know that TLC has started airing their 'Tattoo School' show.  I've been told that it is an embarrassing abortion of a show, but haven't watched it and probably won't- remember, the only reason that I even watched Best Ink was that Joe was on it.  I'm pretty sure that I couldn't watch Tattoo School without having my head explode or at least firing off a few rounds into my TV (and I like my TV, so I don't wanna do that).  Basically Tattoo School is a 10 episode advertisement for shitbag Bill Pogue and his shitbag tattoo school- personally I hope his tattoo school burns to the ground with him in it- I hope he dies slowly and painfully.  If by some chance that does happen, I am stating right now that it wasn't me- hoping and doing are 2 entirely different things.

Last time I blogged, I was working on beer labels for my buddy Joey.  Well, I finished the second one and Joey's beer thing went really well.  It looks like the place that held the event is going to make his home brews their house brews- way to go Joey!  Here's a pic of the finished Hoppy McBitterton label:

And here's a few pics from the event:

My awesome kid graduated from elementary school last week- there was a big ceremony.  Back when I finished elementary school there was no hooplah.  I'm pretty sure they just thought "Thank god we never have to see that group of rotten little bastards again".  Here's a pic of her getting her pass to middle school.

Until drama camp starts next week, she has been spending the days at the shop with me.  She's been working- making stencils, copying ID's, filing forms and answering the phone.  She's an awesome front person.  She is also becoming quite an artist, and does a lot of digital stuff- she's been teaching herself to work with photoshop- pretty impressive for an 11 year old.  Last week, she drew a sweet Octo-Bear, which we then stencilled on her arm.

Got tattooed by Nick the other day.  Got a tattoo for the Templars- the band, not the 'Order of...'  Always been a fan.  They're just a great punk rock band.  But I've become a real big fan over the last year or so.  I was first introduced to the Templars by Jamie, and since Jamie died (just a little over a year ago), listening to the Templars always makes me think of him.  So, the tattoo is for a great band and for my lost brother.

Got some pictures of some recent tattooing.  Here's healed pics of some stuff I posted before- the owl and cameos tattoos.

A Thor's Hammer tattoo...

A big reaper- wish I'd have got a better picture.  He said he would email me a healed pic.

Kim's space coverup.  Ya cant see the tribal anymore...

Did this bamboo on a kid.  He wanted it to look like sumi- simple but fun.

One day at the shop, we were kinda slow and Nick made the mistake of saying "I really want a traditional moth coming out of a skin rip behind my ear".  Within an hour, he had this:

And the winner is...

OK, so last night was the final episode of Best Ink...

I can't believe I made it all the way through to the end.  It's the first Tattoo (un)reality show I have ever watched, and again, I would not have watched a single episode if it weren't for the fact that Joe is on it.  Ever since the first stupid tattoo show aired, I have had customers constantly asking, "Do you watch (insert dumb tattoo show name)".  My answer (up till now), has always been NO.  Then, they always ask why not.  I start my answer to their question with a question- "What do you do for a living?"  If they reply "I'm an electrician", I say something like, "Well, after doing electrical work all day, do you want to go home and watch it on TV?"  Most of the time they get it.  I do though finally understand the reason people are attracted to garbage like this.  The last couple of episodes have been a let down for me.  Why? Because there were no tears, no meltdowns, and no Joey yellin' at people.  I guess I enjoyed the dumb ass drama- CRAP, I really thought I was better than that.

At the beginning of the show there was a little clip of Alexis saying that whoever wins tonight, wins Best Ink and what a big deal that is.  Lemme clue ya in on something Alexis- it's not that big of a deal.  A week from now, nobody's gonna give a fuck, and a month from now, most of 'em won't even remember.  Plus if you go to a tattoo convention and start telling people "I won Best Ink", no one is gonna fuckin' care- at least not anyone with 2 bits of brain to rub together.

There is no (non)flash challenge.  Instead, there is a portfolio review with some lady from Tattoo Magazine.  This segment of the show was totally unexciting.  She didn't look at their portfolios- she looked at a couple of shitty drawing from each of them and then the segment was over.  I'll tell ya what I would have liked to have seen- Joe reviewing their tattoo portfolios.  I've seen it happen, and it's always fun.  I have been at conventions with Joe when someone walked up to his booth and said something like "I'm a really big fan of your work, and I'd like for you to look at my portfolio".  At which point, I've heard Joe answer with something like "If I look at your work, I'm gonna be brutally honest, so do you still want me to look at it?"  Fuckin' classic!  I would have loved to see Joe rip into their work.

They each have to do 3 tattoos for the final Ink Challenge- all based on love, and they're going to be tattooing people that they have already tattooed during the course of the show.  Not too much to report on the actual tattooing, but at the end of the 3rd tattoo, there is a shot of London, with his gloves still on, picking up his drink and taking a sip- FUCKIN' NASTY!

London wins the competition, which is cool.  Of the 3 final contestants, he is the one that I wanted to see win.

OK, on to real life...

Still working on my buddy Joey's beer labels, and I've been having a lot of fun doing them.  There was about a half a second where I thought to myself "why did I stop doing illustration work", and then I remembered- Art Directors are as bad, if not worse than tattoo customers.  To all my awesome customers- don't get me wrong here- you're great, but there are some customers that are not so great.  Both Art Directors and Tattoo Clients can ugly-up a design real quickly.  You do something that you really like, and then they make changes to it that you absolutely hate.  But, the bottom line is that they're the ones paying for it, so ya do what they want.  Well, in this case, Joey isn't paying for these (I wouldn't take money from a friend that I've known for 13+ years anyway), and he is pretty much just letting me do what I want, which is why they've been so much fun to work on.

Here's a finished pic of the Mud Cat label that I posted an in progress pic of last week:

I also did a small design- a Devil's Fiddle Brewing logo for the necks of the bottles.  I don't know why this thing looks so bright here- it's actually all pretty dull colors- I guess it has something to do with the fact that I had to convert it from CMYK to RGB to upload it...

And, here's a progress pic of the label for Hoppy McBitterton.  I'm hoping to finish this one up tonight, then I need to start thinking about what I want to do for the last one- El Heffe.

Whole Lotta Bloggin' Goin' On

Last week, after talking about Best Ink, I thanked my buddy Joey for clearing the helmets for me.  Going back and reading it, I see that it may have been a little confusing to some folks- I have more than 1 friend named Joe.  I was talking about my friend Joey Holmes, not Joe Capobianco.  Both great friends, both Joe's.  I'm actually working on some stuff for Joey Holmes.  Besides being an awesome painter- he's the one that painted Carla for me, he is also an excellent brewer of delicious beer.  Joey recently took 2nd place in a beer competition against about 200 other brewers- pretty fuckin' awesome. Anyway, Joey has a big event coming up, for those of you that are local, it will be held at the American Tavern in Loganville, and for a measly 10 bucks, you can have all the home brew you want.  Here's a link to the event page on FB for anyone that's interested in attending: Home Brew Party.   Joey will have 3 beers there- Mudcat IPA, Hoppy McBitterton (another IPA) and El Heffe- a wheat.  So, I'm working on labels for the beer.  Here's a work in progress shot of the label for Mudcat.  I'm hoping to get some more work done on this (maybe even finish it up) when I get home tonight.

Now, on to the latest episode of 'Best Ink'...

The show opened with lots of tears from Alexis over the fact that Nicky is gone.  Too fuckin' bad- Nicky sucked, and he was not a tattooer.  Sure, he works somewhere doing tattoos, but that does not make a tattooer, at least not in my opinion (which doesn't count for much, except for here- remember, this is MY DAMN BLOG).

Before the flash challenge, they introduce the guest judge- Porcelain Black.  What the fuck is a Porcelain Black?  So, I went to youtube to find out just what Porcelain Black does- more shitty disposable music for the dumb mASSes.  The flash challenge is actually an illustration challenge, where they have to create an album cover for this dopey twat.  This creature should not be allowed to claim Detroit- that's the home of The Stooges, The MC5, Negative Approach, Laughing Hyenas....bands that rocked and still sound as good today as they did when they came out.  A year from now, nobody will remember this lady and her shitty music.  They'll say "who was that girl with the black and white hair?  Remember, she had that 1 shitty song?"

We go into the Ink Challenge, and Joe gives them a little speech basically telling them to step it up a notch.  The challenge is to do a Michael Jackson tribute tattoo.  OK, I've never liked Michael Jackson.  His music never did anything for me, although I would gladly listen to every MJ song before listening to a single song by Porcelain Black.  He spent his life turning himself into a complete and total freak.  He was a pedophile who named his child Blanket, and I can't say that I gave a crap when he died.

During the tattooing, Jon seems more interested in getting into his client's pants than in doing the tattoo.  At the end his customer gives him a hug with her ointment covered, freshly tattooed arm- fuckin' nasty.

London wins the ink challenge and Charlie gets sent home. 

Now, here's something I found interesting.  It's the first time I was really paying attention to the end credits, and I wrote this down, so that I could remember it.  Here's what popped up on the screen:

The Judges considered input from the producers and Oxygen in reaching their decisions.

Really?  What the fuck is up with that?  So, apparently the judging is not based solely on the abilities of the tattooers and the quality of their work- it's also based on who some stupid TV executives think looks best in front of the camera?  Who they think is a good 'face' for the Oxygen network?  Maybe it's who they think can bring in the most advertising dollars.  TOTAL FUCKING BULLSHIT!  I don't know why I didn't expect this- it's typical Hollywood fuckery- that's how we ended up with Kat Von Douchebag.  Here's a big FUCK YOU to all the Hollywood types and TV execs that continue to rape the tattoo industry and destroy what I love.  You have ruined the tattoo industry, and turned it into a charade- parading around your mediocre, pet tattooers, and turning them into faux rock stars.  You have convinced the world that tattooing is something that it is not and that it should never have been.  In the words of Waylon Jennings, 'I hope your plane crashes'.

Rode down to Community BBQ on Sunday with some friends for some awesome food.  Community BBQ is owned by my friend Stuart and 2 of his friends.  They're trained chefs (Stuart used to be a Pastry Chef at a number of fancy hotels), who decided to open a BBQ joint, and they do that shit right! I had the Brisket, which was awesome.  It was so good that I didn't even think about taking a picture of it till it was all gone, so I'm recycling this pic from the last time I was there.

And, here's a picture of Stuart looking very sexy.

Here's a link to the Community BBQ page- Community BBQ

Did some tattooing recently that I didn't completely hate, so here's a couple of pics.  First is a St George piece that I hope the guy will come back and let me get healed pics of.

Next we've got a coverup of an old Unicorn.  It's pretty much a sin to cover a Unicorn considering how rare they are anymore.  Covering a Unicorn is like killing a Condor.  She said she wanted a Traditional style Day of the Dead girl head- that's a super easy coverup- just do lots of hair.

Last, but certainly not least is Kevin's 'Sweet Ass Tribal'.  Kevin may win the prize for the best stupid tattoo with this one...

Now, I'm no trained chef, but I do have a few specialties, and Italian Sausage and Peppers is one of them.  I made some last night (and I took a picture).  Here's my gripe- here in the south, it is very hard to find real Italian Fennel Sausage- you can get sausage that tastes decent, but it's missing the fennel.  I have found a place, in Dunwoody, called the East 48th St. Market that sells amazing sausage (I believe they make it themselves), but it's hard to find the time to drive 45 minutes each way just to buy sausage.   Of course, when I do get over there, I buy more than sausage because it's the only real Italian Deli I have found in the south.  In fact, I can't walk out of there without spending at least $100.  Heres a pic of my Sausage and Peppers for ya....

Turtle Soup

Another Wednesday, another 'Best Ink' blog....

Thank god I record these things.  I do it so that I can fast forward through the commercials, but fast forwarding through the stupid opening of this show is a bonus. The show opens and we see Nicky putting a rosary around his neck.  Now, I'm not religious, but this recent fad (I've seen it in the last few years- mostly on very ghetto/gangsta type people) of wearing rosary beads is retarded.  A rosary is used for prayer- specifically the prayers you have to say as penance for your sins- it's a Catholic thing.  You use the beads to keep count of all the prayers you're supposed to say after confessing.  It's not meant to be worn as a necklace.

 For the dopey ass flash challenge, they are told to paint an animal print on a white boot.  It would have been way cooler if they had just let them do whatever they wanted on the boots.  At the end of the flash challenge, they bring in the people that will be getting tattooed, and their pets!  They all want tattoos to remember their pets by.  One of the people is a crazy lady all dressed in pink with her dyed-pink poodle.  There's also a guy with his pet turtle.  He says something about the turtle getting too big and having to be returned to the wild in a year.  Too big? The damn turtle fits in his hand.  Lets get something straight- A dog is a pet, a cat is a pet, even the snake that the 1 person brought is a pet, but a turtle- that's soup.  Snakes, lizards, even fish, will recognize you when you approach their tank- they have personalities.  A turtle just doesn't give a fuck.  I've had a tank with a turtle in it, and I've had turtle soup, and I can tell ya that the soup was way more satisfying.

I always love the way people get all nervous when Joe walks over to see what they're doing.  He walks over to Jon and the first thing he says is "Man, you're slow as hell"- fuckin' great.  At this point, Nicky has by far the worst tattoo.  I don't like this kid- he's definitely not a tattooer in my mind.  He's obviously rattled by Joe's presence over his shoulder- awesome.

Since they're down to the final 5 contestants, there is no more voting for the 'bottom 3'.  The judging starts and, wow, the tattoo Nicky did sucks.  Fuckin' scratchy garbage!  Alexis and Jon are chosen as the top 2, with Jon winning for the week.  Nicky goes home, which is great, because that kid sucks.  Some tears from Alexis because her little buddy got sent home- boo-fuckin'-hoo.

I was a little disappointed that there was no sweet rant from Joe- last week was so good- I want more of that.

Here's some pics of the helmets I put up not too long ago.  Got 'em cleared (thanks Joey), and I gotta say they look pretty sweet.  I decided not to do anything else with the blue one- it looked real nice just the way it was.  The gold/root beer helmet I did a good bit of striping on, and it really brought it all together.  I haven't decided if I'm gonna stripe the green one yet.  All 3 are for sale- they are all Large, HCI, DOT approved helmets, and they are $200 each.  You know your coconut would look sweet in one of these fancy lids.

Went for a nice ride with friends on Sunday- Jeff, Jason (Earl), Jason (Big Sexy- he doesn't know that that's his new name..yet), and Paul.  We rode up to Dahlonega and up the mountain.  We left after meeting for lunch at Hot & Cold Chinese Buffet- it's about 80 miles to where we stopped, so by the time we got to the top of the mountain, I was more than ready for a smoke and a cold drink.  When I opened my saddle bag, I found that my bottle of Vitamin Water had opened up and soaked everything, including my whole damn pack of smokes- crap.  There was also a puddle of 'Energy' flavored drink in my damn bag.  So, while I used the cap to the bottle to bail the sticky liquid out of my saddle bag, everyone got a good laugh, except for me.  I just kept repeating "This is Bullshit, This is BULL SHIT!"  So, here's some pics from the ride, including one of the bailing incident.

Really, portraits? That's a bad idea.

Well folks, it's another Wednesday, which means another review(?) of the new episode of Best Ink.  I got up this morning planning to put my kid on the bus and then sit down with a cup (or 3) of coffee and watch the new episode.  Well, I got my coffee and turned on the TV only to find that it hadn't recorded- crap.  It also wasn't on 'on demand' yet.  A few hours later I broke down and spent the $2.99 and watched it on iTunes- not because I couldn't wait, but because I didn't want you, my loyal readers, to have to wait. And, lemme tell ya, it was well worth the 3 bucks.

The show started with a short segment of everyone talking about how much Jessica sucked and how they're glad she's gone- pretty funny.  This week, what they refer to as the flash challenge was really more of a life drawing challenge.  Nicky, my new person to bash, said some shit about having broken his glasses this morning and not being able to see the model.  What the fuck?  You travelled away from home for however many weeks it took to shoot this dopey show, and you didn't think to bring an extra pair of glasses just in case?  Alexis wins the competition and is rewarded by being the only contestant to get to vote on the bottom 3.  I would love to be in that position- I'd vote for the bottom 6, have everyone go home, and have the damn show be over.  Then there's a scene where they're all sitting around talking and Kyle pops up and says something like "Joe always says things like it needs more black.  Fuck his opinion".  WOW!  Now, I'm not defending Joe here just because he's my friend, and I certainly don't think that he needs me to defend him, but he's an excellent tattooer, and Kyle, well, not so much.  Maybe Kyle should try to learn anything he can from Joe during the course of the show- just sayin'.  OK, Kyle, from what I've seen on the show, your tattoos need more fuckin' black!  They need help in other ways too, but they could definitely use more black.  My personal opinion is that when you think you've got enough black in a tattoo, put some more in.  

They're told that they're gonna be doing portraits and Charlie has a little tear-fest because she knows she shouldn't be doing a portrait.  As someone who does a good number of portraits, I know that it is not something for everyone- it takes a special kind of crazy to do portraits properly.  I almost feel bad for the people getting the portraits.  If ya want a good portrait, you go to someone that DOES portraits, you don't get tattooed by someone that you are stuck with on a TV show.  Charlie gets upset when she finds out that she will be working from a passport photo- but the photo has been blown up, so it's not tiny.  She apparently doesn't realize that for someone that has never done a portrait, she kinda lucked out.  It's an old photo, and there's not a whole lotta detail, making it a little easier to duplicate the photo. They're given 5 hours to complete a portrait- that's reasonable.  I generally tell people that most portraits take me anywhere between 3 and 5 hours to complete.  Midway through, Joe does a walk around and looks at everyone's tattoos.  At this point, Jon's tattoo looks the best.  We get a cutaway to Kyle saying "I'm not all that concerned with what Joe has to say".  You're diggin' your own grave buddy.  

Again with the mad face from Joey at the beginning of the judging- hell yeah!  Joe lays into Kyle and tells him that he has a bad attitude, then blows up at the whole bunch of 'em.  I love that he uses the term 'new fangled tattoo guys'.  I can't even tell ya how awesome the explosion from Joe was- you gotta see it to fully enjoy it- I rewound it a few times.  At the end of this I'm gonna post a link to a video on the Oxygen website that has a great segment from last nights show, that shows Joe losing his shit on Kyle- you gotta go watch it because it's fuckin' awesome. A river of tears from Charlie who actually did a really nice tattoo considering that it was her first portrait.  Jon and Alexis were the top 2, with Jon coming out on top.  Alexis voted Kyle, Charlie, and London in the bottom 3.  Nicky should have been in the bottom 3 but he's buddies with Alexis, so that didn't happen.  Kyle goes home, but Nicky did the weakest tattoo by far, and should have been the one to go home.

Now, this is awesome and you should all go watch it:  VIDEO
This is the kinda stuff that should have been kept in the show.  I wanna see all of this stuff, and I'm guessing that other people would enjoy it as well.

Now, since the episode was about portraits, here's some shameless self promotion- some of my favorite portraits that I've done over the years:

Helmet and Stupid Tattoo Day

Here's another helmet I just did.  

This one and the others were dropped of with my friend Joey this morning.  Joey is gonna clear 'em for me and then, hopefully, I'll get to start working on the striping on them Wednesday.  Here's a shot of all 3 headed to Joey's.

Saturday, for the shop's 15th anniversary, we did nothing but stupid (read awesome) tattoos.  We had a great time and put a lot of stupidly awesome tattoos on people.  We got kinda backed up because we had not foreseen people wanting multiple stupid tattoos.  Very few people got just 1.  We heard things like, "I want the broccoli, the fart cloud, the pizza and the party shark".  There were a bunch of designs that nobody got, and some of them were super cool, like the Manson-Butterfly, the Quadruple Amputee Gymnast, the Nick Cage Skin Rip, Mark David Chapman, the Tiger Prawn- the list goes on and on....These designs will remain available throughout the year (at the regular prices).  Here's some pictures from Saturday.  There were also free donuts in the morning and free pizza in the evening.  We stayed till 1am to get everyone tattooed.

         

                              

 

The Pizza tattoo was done as both 'Takin' Care of Pizza' and 'Pizza Care of Business'.  I'm pretty sure that 'I Love To Stab' was the most done tattoo of the day.  My buddy Joey topped everyone by getting Nick to do 6 small tattoos all clustered above his knee- it pretty much looks like a small sheet of flash on Joey's leg- Hilarious.