Best Ink

So, I just did something that I swore I would never do- I watched a tattoo (un)reality show.  I'm sure I've made it clear enough in the past how I feel about ANY tattooing on TV.  Why did I watch Best Ink tonight?  The only real reason is that a very good friend of mine, Joe Capobianco, is one of the judges.  One episode in and I counted 3 times where Joe made someone cry- Way to go Joey!- makin' all the ladies cry.  Let's start at the beginning- the opening credits.  I know it's TV, but why do you have to make all the contestants (that's what they are- it's basically a game show) look like douchebags?  I'm pretty sure that one guy didn't say ,"Hey, how about I play air guitar for the opening".  I woulda told 'em to go get fucked when they suggested that move.  The hostess- I don't remember her name- basically described herself in the same terms as a mullet- she said, "I'm all business in front, and a party in the back".  At which time she turned around to show the shitty, too small, paragraph of lettering on her back.  Maybe you coulda got someone to host the show that, I don't know...Fucking Knows Something About Tattoos? She stated that they were all there because they were some of the best tattooers in the country.  Really?  I know a whole lot of tattooers that are way better than these folks.  

Now on to the actual competition...

They started out with the 'Flash Challenge', where each contestant had to re-imagine the butterfly tattoo.  I couldn't believe that some of them were freaking out about it.  C'mon, it's a butterfly.  The one guy actually said something along the lines of "butterflies are not my forte".  If you've been tattooing more than 3 weeks, you should have already done your fair share of butterflies.  But, that's the problem, and it's not just a problem with this particular group of tattooers, it's a problem with a lot of 'newer' tattooers.  They've never worked in a street shop.  They've never tattooed flash all day in a good old street shop.  They've never wanted to do it, and in fact, most of them look down on street shop type work.  I have a lot of shops around me, with a lot of mediocre to downright shitty tattooers working in them.  Lemme tell ya something- if you can't do a custom design that looks as good or better than flash (and I got some damn nice flash in my shop), then you should do the damn flash.  Stop telling people that you only do custom work or that "we're a custom only shop", and learn to tattoo.  Half of these idiots that tell people that they only do custom work just go into the back of their shops and trace something out of the dozens of sketchbooks they have.  I see shit all the time that customers tell me "The guy drew it up custom, just for me"- the crushed look on their faces when I tell them I have that design in the shop is classic.  Don't get me wrong, there's certainly nothing wrong with being a 'custom only' tattooer, but ya gotta work your way there, and the best way to do that is in a street shop.  These kids today wanna start with doing full sleeves when they can't even do a kanji properly.

OK, I got sidetracked there....back to the show...  The butterfly flash that they drew was not really flash.  A couple of them drew designs that could have been considered flash, but not the others.  As far as I'm concerned flash should look like flash- linework, shading, color- a one shot tattoo design, that above all, has to be tattooable.

Next, they moved on to actual tattooing.  They each had to do a coverup, so the whining started again..."a coverup? In one sitting?  I usually do coverups in multiple sittings".  Blah blah fuckin' blah.  Another example of people that never worked in a street shop.  Someone comes in wanting a coverup, you figure something out that will work, cover the damn tattoo, and send 'em out the door.  I agreed with the judges on which 2 were the most successful coverups, but the one guy just did a traditional style swallow and only had to cover a small faded rose- that's an easy cover.  Some of the contestants had much larger, darker tattoos to cover.  The people putting on the show should have made all the coverups be at least somewhere close in the level of difficulty.  The guy that did the swallow did a solid tattoo, but he had 4 hours to do a fucking swallow- it was an hours worth of tattooing at best.
I loved the terrified looks on some of their faces when Joe walked over to see what they were doing- Go Get 'Em Joey!  I hate this shit and wish it wasn't on TV at all, but I will continue to watch it, just for the pleasure of watching Joe rip into these kids, and rip into them he did at a few points.  I wish I could have been backstage with some kind of secret service microphone set-up just to get Joe worked up a little more.  A worked up, ranting Joe Capobianco is a really fun Joe Capobianco, and I know how to get him all riled up.  I'm gonna have to give him a call later...

On to some other things...

April 22nd of this year will mark 15 years of business for Good Clean Fun, so we will be doing something stupid (hopefully a lot of stupid things).  Since the 22nd is a Sunday and we'll be closed that day, we will be celebrating the shop's anniversary on Saturday the 21st.  On that Saturday we will ONLY be doing tattoos from 2 sheets of flash (that Nick and I are working on now), and they will all be stupid tattoos- some will be stupid and offensive (which is like stupid with sugar on top).  The prices for these tattoos will be considerably lower than usual.  If you want a nice tattoo, don't come in on the 21st.  If ya want something dumb, it'll be first come first served.  As the day approaches, I will be posting some previews of the available stupid tattoos.

Did this tattoo the other day.  Lately a lot of girls have been coming in wanting silhouettes of birds- I guess it's on the first page of google images if you search for '18 year old girl tattoo'.  Well, this customer wasn't an 18 years old, and actually wanted to do something nice that included bird silhouettes.  She wanted an owl going into silhouettes of trees and birds coming up around her shoulder....

Got some wheels and tires on Abby- a little more slow progress....

Super Cool Paint

Haven't given ya anything new lately, but I got some stuff coming soon, so for now...

I don't ever re-blog stuff, but this paint job is pretty fuckin' awesome.  I follow this guy's blog and all of his paint is really nice, but when I saw this today, I decided to post it over here.  Here's a link to his blog:  Chemical Candy Customs: Brad Jans CFL....

Helmet, Tank, and Bitchin'

So, Saturday I'm minding my own business, sitting in my room tattooing, and I hear what sounds like someone bouncing a ball in my shop.  I was tattooing a girl whose mother was in Nick's room getting tattooed, so the Dad was walking back and forth between the two rooms watching what was being done.  The bouncing ball noise starts and stops a few times.  The next time the girl's father comes into my room, I ask him if someone is in the shop bouncing a ball, and he says 'Yes'.  The next time I hear the bounce-bounce-bounce sound, I set my machine down, take off my gloves, come out of my room and get in this kid's face, and yell, "Enough with the fucking ball!  You wanna play ball, got to your fuckin' house or the damn schoolyard, but this is my damn shop, show some fuckin' respect!"  I go back to tattooing, and Mr. Bouncey Ball and his 2 buddies leave the shop- I think I mighta' scared 'em a little bit.  Good!  Fuck 'em!  What makes some idiot think that it would be OK to walk through someones place of business bouncing a fuckin' ball?  Just another example of some spoiled ass kid whose parents never told him 'NO' or taught him how to properly conduct himself when out in public.

Anyway, here's a helmet I did since the last time I blogged.  It's a Large Daytona DOT helmet, and it is for sale- $175 plus shipping.  The helmet is gloss black and I did some sweet gold leaf on it along with some pinstriping.  I kept this one kinda simple as I was going for a very classic look.

This morning I finished painting a tank for a guy for the 2nd time.  I painted it a few months back, then he realized that the tank needed to be sealed, poured in the sealer and it ate through his paint.  So, he had to have the tank repainted, then I had to redo the striping and lettering.  He wanted me to change the lettering this time (I like the original lettering better, but it's not going on my bike...).  Here's a new pic, and the original one again.  I actually like the striping better this time (I hope he does too).

Here's a pic of a tattoo I did about 3 years ago.  The guy was in the shop the other night, so I snapped a healed pic.  This was done from a SMALL picture of his grandfather.  That reddish glow is from the neon in the shop- if he had been here during the day, I would have snapped a couple of pics out in the natural light, but since I haven't seen him since I did the tattoo I figured it might be my only chance to get a healed photo.

Been worked up over the PC Army of Doom lately.  Not really gonna go into a big rant, I just feel that all this PC bullshit has sucked all the funny out of the world.  I personally, would rather laugh than be offended, but it seems that a lot of people would rather be offended (and actively look for things to be offended by).

***UPDATE***

Three hours or so later, I remember something else that I wanted to blog about today.  The new Corrosion of Conformity record.  Quite a while ago, I wrote about them and said that they hadn't done anything good since Technocracy, well...

I really like the new record.  They recorded it as a 3 piece- the Animosity line up, and it's pretty cool.  I was never a fan of the Southern Metal direction they took after Technocracy.  This record, while definitely very metal, has more of a punk feel.  The lyrics seem angrier and more punk rock to me- I heard in an interview that while Pepper was in the band he handled most of the lyric writing.  Standout songs for me are Your Tomorrow, The Moneychangers, What You Become, and Leeches (a track that sounds like it could have come out around 1985).  These 4 songs are probably the most Punk in both sound and lyrical content.  I hope they do more records like this even if Pepper rejoins them on future efforts.  I pre-ordered the vinyl having high expectations for the record- it was my favorite version of COC recording together again.  It came with a bonus 7" and a T-shirt with the COC skull on it and a poster of the record cover.  Now for my biggest complaint- the record cover.  It's fucking atrocious!  What a way to ruin one of the coolest punk rock logos ever.  Here's a pic of the new cover, and a pic of the original sweet ass design (drawn by Erroll Engelbrecht), you make your own decision...