Hey, it’s Vern! It’s always nice to get pictures of this fella. Charming, handsome, photogenic, tests very well in the 18-35 range, clean and good quality work (though he seems displeased with the amount of tongue-split regrowth), lovely singing voice, never changes lanes without signaling and, of course, posting photos of him gives us the rare excuse to use obscure Ernest film references in the title of the post. You’re all very impressed.
(Photo by taylorjonesphotography.com.)
And we’re back! Apologies for the sporadic nature of our fair ModBlog over the past week, but it was worth it, we promise. We’re still trying to get settled and kick the terrible disease we contracted on the flight back to the wintry north, but in the mean time, here we have Timothy‘s new bonsai tree cutting by The Thunder From Down Under (And Sometimes From Above), Wayde Dunn in Calgary, Alberta. Tim’s other side is similarly adorned with a bonsai tree cutting by Brian Decker, so it goes without saying that that is one formidable torso he’s got there. And the scarification pieces are pretty nice too! Zing.
With a lineup like the one here at at Tattoo Hollywood, there has been no shortage of tremendous tattoo work walking through the doors. One of the most impressive projects we’ve seen, however, belongs to David up there, who’s been steadily covering his entire body in portraiture over the last few years. Having been worked on exclusively by brothers Mikey (at Rubes Tattoo in Arcadia) and Tommy Montoya (at Inkslingers in Alhambra), the suit is as cohesive as one could hope for, even though the subject matter varies wildly from musicians to horror movie characters to comedians to inventors. When we were photographing him, some of his friends were making light fun of him for being a bit on the heavier side (“Make sure you get his nipples in there!”), but to hear David tell it, if he were smaller, he wouldn’t have room for all this excellent work. Hard to argue with that. Lots more, after the jump.
Photos by Phil Barbosa.
Well, the first day of Tattoo Hollywood (yesterday, that is) went off with nary a hitch! A solid Friday turn-out, plenty of great work and very few indications that there will be any sort of East coast/West coast dance-off at any point. After the jump, lots and lots of pictures.
It’s the BME booth! It’s always nice to have friends stop by and work for free.
Here we have Aaron Is out of Bunny Brigade, who was apparently hit in the groin with a football immediately before this picture was taken, going to work on Melanie’s leg.
Bob Roberts and Norm, hanging out in the front of the Spotlight Tattoo booth.
“Oh my God, are you taking my picture? I am so surprised! I was not expecting this at all!”
Meg, making sweet love to the Hollywood skyline.
The entertainment for the weekend consists largely of our old pal The Lizardman and Joel Keith, pictured above. Earlier in the day, we’d overheard a member of the hotel staff say they hoped any comedy or performances would be kept PG-13. Joel, of course, took the stage and immediately launched into an Air Sex exhibition, which is like air guitar, but with slightly more imaginary semen. He was promptly arrested and thrown into the Sunset Boulevard gulag, forever.
The Lizardman worked a little blue (and a lot green! Hi-oooo!) as well, but who can stay mad at a punim like this? We hadn’t seen his act in quite some time, but his transition from straight sideshow into a more comedy-heavy act seems to be working out well. I wish I had a rebuttal to his argument that, when it comes to George W. Bush and Nickelback, Canada currently has more to answer for on account of the latter still being active while the former has been put out to pasture, but I just don’t. Goddamn you, Nickelback.
And then, of course, there is your editor, who typically ends up being the entertainment for the entertainers. Whether it’s our utilitarian Gap button-down shirt or Young Republican hair cut, The Lizardman seems fairly convinced that we’re a narc, and so Dr. Ho attempted to rattle us by vigorously humping our leg. We just stood there stoically, dying a little on the inside with every passing second.
The refractory period.
And what would a convention be without a little friendly competition? Here, of course, is the judges’ table. It’s good to be a judge.
Among the contestants for Tattoo Of The Day was the aforementioned Melanie, sporting a piece by the also aforementioned Aaron Is from Bunny Brigade.
Here we have Jameson wearing a piece by Grant Cobb out of Spotlight Tattoo.
That’d be Nick with fresh work by Brian at Tattoo Gallery in Huntington.
And finally, Dareo’s brand new piece by Klown at Lifestyle.
We’ve got much more coming, so keep checking back!
All photography by Phil Barbosa, Thaddeus Brown and Jen Savage.
Oh, hello! Sincere apologies for yesterday’s radio silence, folks—your editor was cruelly ripped from the safe confines of his desk and, among other things, was tasked with various duties related to setting things up for Tattoo Hollywood, which is about to get underway! We, along with esteemed colleague Phil Barbosa, spent Thursday morning working with the East German rigging team, hanging various gigantic vinyl banners and bearing witness to the delightful casual racism that is synonymous with unionized physical labor.
The convention space, as forthcoming pictures will illustrate, is lovely. The festivities are being held in the Hollywood Renaissance hotel’s Grand Ballroom, which is complete with great and looming chandeliers made from rare space diamonds (probably), curtain flourishes that would not be out of place on a Broadway stage (or at least some eccentric billionaire’s pansexual orgy gazebo), an outdoor smoking deck overlooking the Hollywood hills and, the component about which your editor is arguably most excited, catering courtesy of Wolfgang Puck. (It’s true that the only touristy activities about which we typically get excited are food-related. Don’t judge us.)
Later in the evening, the BME crew (including the aforementioned Mr. Barbosa, Senior Shouting Officer Jen and ol’ whatshername, Rachel something) headed over to Canvas LA for the grand opening of Alive: The Chosen Views of Bob Roberts, a solo exhibition of the artist’s paintings spanning over 20 years of work. Roberts, the owner of the seminal L.A. tattoo shop Spotlight Tattoo, has been in this line of work for nearly 40 years, and his contributions to tattooing as a craft and an industry have been as numerous as they’ve been vital. Many of the paintings in the exhibition draw heavily on themes common to old-school tattooing—dragons, eagles, skulls, naked ladies—and because of this, it may be easy to overlook the skill actually involved in producing work of his caliber. At first blush, it can almost feel like you’re looking at a wall of flash—a wall of top-tier flash, sure, but flash nonetheless. A closer look, however, reveals that this is anything but stencil-based tracing work. One painting in particular, a massive piece from 1988 featuring a phoenix-like creature surrounded by a glorious wall of flames, serves as a perfect indication of this: every flame, every flourish, every layer of the wing spanning the perimeter of the canvas was its own project, when Roberts could have just as easily copied sections along the way. “It’s the hardest way to go about a piece like this,” noted one attendee, “but in the end, it means it’s all him. Every fragment is like a fingerprint.” And then there are pieces for which the flash comparison is ludicrous—pieces that almost look like they’ve been digitally rendered, that are such inexplicable examples of color and shape and design that their very existence is somewhat puzzling, kind of like they’ve just been here all along.
It was, indeed, a fitting way to kick off the weekend to come, and now, the activities of said weekend beckon your editor. As you have likely already noticed, we’ve been working on a bit of a modified schedule this week due to travel and other atypical responsibilities, so in keeping with these temporary changes, we’re going to forgo the usual This Week in BME wrap-up/whatever, and instead, we implore you to keep checking back frequently throughout the weekend for columns, interviews, photos and whatever other goodies we can wrangle up from the convention. Until then? We leave you in the very capable hands of Party Shark up there, courtesy of Jordan Lutz at Lagniappe Tattoo in Slidell, Louisiana. Oh, Party Shark.
Greetings! Welcome back to this summer’s second-highest-grossing blockbuster, Guess What?, currently sporting a hearty 84 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes. The rules here are quite simple: You honest people take a look at our clue up there, try to guess what sinful part of the human anatomy it is, and then the first person to get it right (without cheating—we know if you’re cheating. We have our ways) wins a prize! This week’s reward? A helicopter ride to the moon!* Here’s another hint: Thematically, what we have above is not entirely dissimilar to this twin Wolf Jesus erotica from earlier today. And hey, after the jump? A bonus photo, just for being so sweet.
*Helicopter ride leaves from Mars. Winner is responsible for transporting him- or herself to the launch pad.
Hey, pretty cute, right? I’m pretty sure they’re spooning in the top picture, and the second one here? That’s just some gentle necking. (Heading?) Really though, this is one of the (relatively) many wonderfully healed bisections we’ve seen over the last little while—very moderate scarring, healthy size to both halves and, quite honestly, a winsome demeanor fairly uncharacteristic of anonymous genitals.
See more in “Full Subincision“ (Subincision & Genital Splitting) (members only)
As per usual when it comes to awesome and interesting things, there is a very good chance your editor is missing an important reference point for the above tattoo. (If it were an Anchorman quote, we would have picked it out in .0001 seconds.) Anyway! This beautiful piece comes to us from the good folks at Tattoo Alien in Wałbrzych, Poland. Are we looking at a futuristic cityscape? A war-torn reminder of the past? Vile pornography for far-away space monsters? Short answer: Yes.
Oh, hello! Let’s begin our day with some work by the fabulously goat-throated Adam Burdine, currently spending some quality time at Simon’s Tattoo and Piercing in Baden, Germany. Here we have two lupine-humans, locked in the love that dare not howl its name. However, with the pre-existing skull/barbed wire band at the top, does it not sort of look like twin Wolf Jesuses just going at it? We, of course, approve of and wholeheartedly endorse such sacrilicious iconography, be it intended or not.
We’re shutting it down a bit early today, you handsome devils, because your editor has a flight to catch. On the bright side, we’re going to be live on the scene at Tattoo Hollywood for the rest of the week! Expect frequent updates, exclusive interviews, and all the mystery and intrigue one can expect from sunny Los Angeles. Will Phil ever find the perfect fish taco? Will I ever escape from the La Brea tar pits? Only time will tell, folks. Only time will tell. Until then, enjoy this beautiful head tattoo, coming to us from freakgarcia. More shots, after the jump.
See more in “Facial and Neck Tattoos“ (Tattoos)
Absolutely terrible news to report here. This is reprinted from Allen Falkner:
I’m sad to report that a fire, this last weekend, destroyed Håvve Fjell’s Fakir School. At this point I do not have much information, but I have received this link and the following message from Havve and was asked to pass it along:
*********************** http://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/artikkel.php?artid=557199 We’re all fine, nobody got hurt. Our school is destroyed and I don’t know how much of our stuff we’ll be able to save. I just got back from Essen tonight, the fire happened Saturday night at the beginning of a party. We don’t know the cause, the police report will hopefully be released to us tomorrow.
I’m completely perplex about the situation and don’t know how I’m supposed to handle the consequences. I have no insurance and I fearing liability claims from the owner of the building. We have 3 shows coming up this weekend and a fully booked season ahead and most of our costumes and props are ashes…
I’ll know more tomorrow.
*********************** For those of you that do not know Havve, or his group Pain Solution, he has been a member of our community for many years and has been instrumental in bringing body modification to the general public through performance, teaching, lectures and by helping organize numerous events, most notably the Oslo Suscon.
Håvve and his team have been some of the most generous, welcoming and, of course, talented people we’ve come across in this community, and this is just devastating. We’ll keep you all up to date on how this proceeds and what people can do to help, when the time comes.