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....