The 3 Amigos, Stupid Tattoos & Gratuity Included.

So, I've lost my Good Clean Fun Family, and I'm really not happy about it.  To me, Good Clean Fun has always been Dave, Jamie and Guillermo.   I have been open since 1997.  Jamie worked for me from 1997 to 2008, then moved back to Syracuse.  Guillermo has been with me since 2000, and is moving back to Uruguay at the end of this month.  We all worked together for a long time- much longer than is typically common in the tattoo business.  They are my best friends and I truly do consider them 'family'.  Jamie may come back some day- he's really not happy in NY, but there are other factors involved too, so I'm really can't count on it.  I guess I'll have to hire another tattooer, but finding someone that can fill either Jamie or Guillermo's shoes is probably out of the question.  Over the years we had about a million laughs- lots of good times.  Just like family, we would occasionally disagree, but we'd get over it.  Since Guillermo is leaving and this may be the last time that we're all together at once, Jamie came down to visit for one last weekend of good times (and stupid tattoos).  If you've been in this business for a long time, you probably remember a guy by the name of Ted Nayden that drew flash for Spalding and Rogers during the 80's.  His work was horrible- poorly drawn, ugly-ass designs.  Just the kind of stupid thing we could all get to commemorate out friendship and years together.  So, we tattooed each other today.  Just to make things even more stupid, both Guillermo and I tattooed shirtless- kinda like the pics you see of old tattooers.  Added some filters to those pics to give them a vintage look.  So, here's some stupid pics of us doing each other's tattoos.

Jamie tattooing Me.  Where the hell are my pants?

Guillermo tattooing Jamie

Me tattooing Guillermo

Now, here's a picture of the stupid tattoo that all three of us got.  Each of us is missing a tooth due to some dental nightmare.  No, we're not a bunch of toothless hillbillies- Mine and Guillermo's are both a bottom molar and Jamie's is a top molar.  So just to make it even more stupid, we each got an appropriate tooth on the tattoo blacked out.  As if that wasn't stupid enough, we also added a gold tooth to each tattoo (maybe now, we'll all have to get a gold tooth).

Here's a few picture of the 3 Amigos- some taken at the shop and a couple taken outside Fogo De Chao, where we went to dinner last night.  Of course, we're acting stupid in most of them.

'Gangsta'

What is Jamie doing to Guillermo in this picture?

I love you guys and I'll miss you (yeah, I know, kinda gay).  Good Clean Fun will truly never be the same without you.  Best of luck to Guillermo with his new life in the wilds of South America.

Since that was kinda sappy, here's a bonus rant- Gratuity Included.  I hate those words.  We all went out to dinner last night at our favorite restaurant- Fogo De Chao.  It's a churrascaria- a Brazilian Barbecue, where you can overstuff yourself with lots of delicious meat (some of it wrapped in bacon).  When the bills came (we were paying separately), there was that line on the bill- Gratuity Included.  Man, I hate that!  I tip well, as do the people I know.  We work in an industry where people tip us, so we know how to tip.  I generally tip somewhere between 20 and 25 percent.  Tipping is not mandatory, it's a tip- it's meant to show your appreciation for good service, it should not be included on the bill.  I understand that there are many places that include a gratuity on bills for larger parties.  That almost makes sense to me because you will invariably end up with the one douche bag that pulls a Mr. Pink and says, "I don't tip"- cheap ass motherfucker.  But even though it was a decent size party, we were all paying separately, so in my opinion, the bills should not be treated as a party.  I don't need to be told what tip to leave- I can figure it out on my own, and there's a 99% chance that I'm gonna leave more if you don't tell me what to leave.  I wonder what would happen if they included it on the bill and you refused to pay it?  I wonder how people would react if I charged them an 18% gratuity on their tattoos?

Here's a picture of the beautiful, beautiful, house special picanha at Fogo.  It's actually worth being told how much to tip.