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....