Sean Dowdell’s Opportunity

Posted on January 16, 2009 by Jordan Ginsberg

What Sean Dowdell misses most about the old days — and as of April, his “old days” will go back 15 years — is having his Club Tattoo crew be a tightly knit family that would spend damn-near every waking second together. Back then, it was him and four others, working out of Dowdell’s original Club Tattoo shop in Tempe, Arizona, that he opened with his friend, business partner and then-bandmate, Chester Bennington, now of Linkin Park. Those were days when there were eight tattoo and piercing shops in Arizona, total, as opposed to the 140 or so that one can now find in Phoenix alone. Dowdell and his crew would go out every night, hang out on their days off — closer than blood in some ways, he says. That’s what he misses.

But that isn’t to say he resents his current station in life. Over the last five years, Dowdell has opened up three more Club Tattoo locations in Arizona, expanding that family to 54 employees. Not as tight as the days when one might have found the eventual lead singer of Linkin Park painting the walls and laying tile, perhaps, but Dowdell stresses the importance of cohesion in the face of expansion: A person, any person, should be able to walk into any Club Tattoo and have it feel familiar, he says, and that includes employees.

And what better place to put to the test a mandate of cohesiveness than Las Vegas? On December 1, 2008, Dowdell oversaw a crew begin construction on the newest addition to Club Tattoo: a 3,300-square-foot shop opening up March 1, 2009, on the Miracle Mile in the Planet Hollywood casino, with a staff of at least 14 tattooists and piercers, plus clothing (Club Tattoo has its own clothing brand and recently launched a menswear line called Ve’cel) and high-end body jewelry. But don’t call it a tattoo parlor, Dowdell says: “I’m opening up a lifestyle store.” It’s partially because of this that he doesn’t see himself in competition with Mario Barth at Starlight or Carey Hart at Hart and Huntington, two other prominent casino-based shops in the city.

“Carey is a really good friend of mine,” Dowdell says, dismayed that Hart gets a bad rap in the industry for not being a tattoo artist, “and I want to keep it that way. I’m not looking at it like, ‘Oh, those guys tattoo also, so I have to hate them.’ I’ve never agreed with that behavior. It’s not a positive quality to have.” There’s also the fact that each casino is like an entity unto itself, and with 60,000 to 80,000 people walking in front of your store a day, one is less concerned with a so-called “competitor” down the street. Hell, with crowds like that, it’s almost like being on stage, and for a guy who used to think he’d be a rock star first and run a piercing shop on the side, it’s perhaps fitting that Dowdell would end up on the Vegas strip — at Planet Hollywood, no less.

In 1992, a few years before Club Tattoo first opened its doors, Dowdell played drums for Grey Daze, an alternative rock band fronted by Bennington. They weren’t unsuccessful, managing to score a handful of record deals over six or seven years, putting out three albums, and touring with the likes of Seven Mary Three, Candlebox and Suicidal Tendencies. “It wasn’t a little local band,” Dowdell insists. “We were playing in front 1,500 to 2,000 people every show, at least.” And when the pair started Club Tattoo in 1994, it was Grey Daze that helped put them on the map. Every show was an opportunity to promote the fledgling shop, an advantage that few young businesses have, and by the time the band had run its course in the late ’90s, Club Tattoo was a legitimate success. Plus, with Grey Daze having some cachet, the stage was set for Linkin Park, as well. “We still had our attorneys and everything,” Dowdell says, “and they were still excited about what we were doing, so they placed Chester with a few guys from L.A. and plugged in the machine that was there.” For Dowdell, it was actually a relief to get off the road. “I hate touring,” he says plainly. “It sucks. Seventeen hours of boredom, a couple hours of soundchecks and more boredom, an hour of fun, and then you go to sleep and do it again. There’s just not enough going on on the road.”

Funny, then, that Dowdell found himself touring another circuit over the past two years — and loving it. Having gotten high-profile magazine recognition for some large-scale microdermal projects he’d been doing, he started getting calls from tattoo convention promoters to teach a microdermal seminar. He’d never considered teaching, but after consulting with his friend Trevor Thomas of Urban Art Tattoo and Piercing in Mesa, Arizona, the two decided to give it a shot. Their first crack at it went well, and before long they were being courted by dozens of conventions across the country, drawing an average of 50 attendees per appearance, and typically garnering overwhelmingly positive feedback.

“I wanted to have two different aspects of doing dermals,” Dowdell says of his reasoning for wanting to include Thomas: Dowdell uses the dermal punch method, while Thomas works with an 11-gauge needle. “It’s kinda cool, because when we’re teaching — I wouldn’t say we argue, but we debate a little bit on techniques and why we think things work. It’s a fun situation.” After a while, however, requests for classes started coming from places too remote to justify the travel time and expenses. “I had a few piercers who wanted me to go to Calgary to teach, and I thought, ‘Well, that’s gonna take four days of traveling to get there,’ and it just wasn’t financially worth it — as much as I like to teach people.”

It wasn’t finances that put an end to the seminars, however. After a class over the summer — Dowdell forgets where, but, “Probably Atlanta or Philly,” he says — Dowdell jacked up his back during a game of pickup basketball, herniating two disks and relegating himself to couch duty; between the injury and the subsequent surgery and rehab, he was out of commission for four months. His status started to improve towards the beginning of December, but a relapse sent him back to the hospital for a week. Traveling had been out of the question entirely, so it was lucky that he’d already been working with Vanessa Nornberg, the president of the jewelry wholesaler Metal Mafia, on putting out the course as a DVD and booklet. For Dowdell, given the popularity of the seminars, putting out the DVD was a no-brainer, though the catch was that Nornberg would only sell it to shops with which she had a good rapport.

It wasn’t an accident that it was Metal Mafia to put out the DVD. A year and a half earlier, Dowdell had teamed with them to design and manufacture a new piece of microdermal jewelry. He’d had experience in the field: Around the time he opened up his first Club Tattoo shop, he also began making and selling jewelry under the banner of Fetish Body Jewelry, a company he sold three years later. “I definitely have a wide background in [jewelry making],” he says. “The alloys, what’s in the compounds, the metallurgy involved and how to cut, how to anodize, all that stuff.” So when he ran into Nornberg at a trade show a couple years back and told her the microdermals she was promoting at the time were terrible, it was at least partially out of professional courtesy. “They had this other dermal anchor they were pushing from another piercer named Ben Trigg,” he says, “and I’m sure he liked the stuff, but I hated it. I thought it was awful. And when they asked if I would take on their jewelry line at the shops, I said, ‘No,’ and told them why. I was not nice about it.”

Five months later, however, Dowdell got a call from Nornberg; what he’d said had resonated, and she wanted his help. “At the time,” says Dowdell, “I was not a fan of Metal Mafia, on account of the sub-par jewelry they were selling,” but after meeting with Nornberg, he was convinced that the company was truly dedicated to improving their product. He’d been speaking with other jewelry manufacturers beforehand, and was unimpressed with their philosophies and methodologies. “Usually, you’re dealing with jewelry companies who just don’t want to spend the money to make jewelry the right way — and that includes some of the bigger, more well known companies,” he says. “And I kept talking to these companies, saying, ‘Well, this would be better if …’ and they’d say, ‘Yeah, but it costs too much money, we’re not gonna do it.’

“Well, you’re not a piercer, and you have a piercer who knows what he’s talking about telling you that this should be better, and you don’t care because of money. That sucked.”

“Permanent” corset with microdermals by Sean Dowdell.

But Metal Mafia, he found, was different, almost repentant, and when he took that call, Nornberg essentially told him that she knew they weren’t an elite jewelry company, but she was prepared to spend the money to make sure they became one. “It was a very bold way to approach it,” Dowdell says, who hopes the trend of jewelry companies consulting with piercers when designing jewelry continues. “They can’t just produce poor quality jewelry and put it out there and expect to be respected.”

Dowdell is big on respect. At this point, he feels like he’s earned it, but being as successful as he is, he’s used to being trashed publicly. “With four large shops here in Arizona,” he says, “some of the smaller shops just think we suck because we’re popular. Well, OK. That’s just the way it goes in business, I guess — once you start doing well, you’re gonna have haters.”

But does he take it personally?

“If it’s personal, I do!” He laughs. “If it’s somebody running their mouth and they’ve never been in the stores, then no. But my shops have set the standard in Arizona, and that’s just the truth of it, whether they like it or not.”

It’s bravado, to be sure, but it’s well-earned — and probably a necessity with Club Tattoo’s upcoming Vegas expansion, a project that itself is nearly five years in the making, that began with Dowdell being approached by the Hard Rock about opening up a shop on the grounds.

“We came down to the finishing touches on the lease,” he says, “and then they jacked us pretty good. One of the guys ended up taking a bribe from another tattoo shop that got wind of the deal, and we ended up getting pushed aside so they could get those guys in there, even though we’d worked for months with them.” But of course, nothing in Vegas is ever that simple. “They have to do background checks in Vegas, and it turned out that one of the guys had a sexual assault on his record, so they couldn’t give them the lease.” The Hard Rock came back to Dowdell, who told them to go screw — he was being courted by another casino, called The Cosmopolitan.

“It was right around the time that Hart and Huntington opened up inside The Palms,” he says, “so we agreed to go with The Cosmo, which was supposed to open last year. Well, they went into bankruptcy after we’d already had our lease in place with them, and at the time, we’d already been delayed for a full year. We were tired of waiting.”

Luckily, Planet Hollywood had been keeping tabs on the situation, and once The Cosmo deal fizzled out, they made their move, and Dowdell has been thrilled with the results thus far. Planet Hollywood was one of only a few casinos with positive growth in 2008, Dowdell says, and its demographic — 18-to-35-year-olds — fit right in with Club Tattoo.

As the opening of the Planet Hollywood shop approaches, Dowdell’s days are only getting fuller. He still pierces (by appointment only), and typically visits at least two of his Arizona shops a day to check in with his artists and piercers, to make sure the jewelry cases are well organized and that all buying is up to date, and to deal with any complaints from customers. “Generally, there aren’t any,” he says, “but I like to deal with those first thing in the morning.” His afternoons usually involve a couple of meetings, plus, at the moment, speaking with the Vegas construction crew for at least an hour, and he tries to be home by about 6 p.m. to spend time with his two sons, aged 13 and eight. His staff may not be the small and symbiotic family it was 15 years ago, but having a family of his own makes those sorts of changes easier to deal with.

He prefers where he’s at now, the slow and steady shift from managing an independent shop to overseeing a burgeoning chain delivering plenty of satisfaction. He balks at the idea, however, that it was a natural progression. “I saw an opportunity,” he says. “You have to be prepared when an opportunity presents itself and make the best of it. Some people do and some people don’t.”

Club Tattoo partners, left to right: Sean Dowdell, Chester Bennington, Sean’s wife Thora Dowdell.

All photos courtesy of Sean Dowdell. Visit Club Tattoo online at ClubTattoo.com.

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New Article Posted! (Kim Saigh Profile)

Posted on December 9, 2008 by Jordan Ginsberg

We’re very excited about this one, folks. Kim Saigh has long been recognized as one of tattooing’s premier talents, and a few years ago, TLC snatched her up for a starring role on their Miami Ink sister show, L.A. Ink. She recently spoke to BME about how the show affects her relationship with her clients, what her favorite (and not so favorite) parts of the show are, and why she’ll probably never make another joke about tumors. Read It’s Not Her Job To Make You Cry by clicking here or on the photo of Kim below:

[Ed. note: Comments on this post have been disabled. Let loose in the forum attached to the article. Thanks.]

New Article Posted!

Posted on November 24, 2008 by Jordan Ginsberg

If you haven’t heard of Shawn Barber yet, well … it won’t be long, now. For years, Barber has been a highly talented and not unsuccessful commercial artist, fine artist and art teacher, and has recently taken on a tattooing apprenticeship in San Francisco with Mike Davis at Everlasting Tattoo. Not long ago, we sat down to discuss his apprenticeship, where he sees the tattoo industry going, and why he hated teaching. Click the image from his “Tattooed Portraits” series to read the article:

[Ed. note: Comments on this post have been disabled. Go crazy in the forum attached to the article. Thanks.]

The Education of Shawn Barber

Posted on November 24, 2008 by Jordan Ginsberg

As an art teacher, Shawn Barber had a reputation. Teaching damn-near every class offered at the Ringling School of Art & Design in Sarasota, Florida, his alma mater, and later at the California College of Arts in San Francisco, he was often frustrated — frustrated and disappointed — at what he saw as a lack of dedication from many of his students. Not that they were unskilled, necessarily, but he didn’t see artists: He saw people who wanted others to think they were artists. And so he told them that.

“You should probably drop out now. Save your mommy and daddy some money, and wait. Go to community college.”

He felt comfortable laying that bracing honesty on his students because he could see patterns developing — many of which, for him, began in his own life. Barber himself screwed around during his first run through college, “partying, thinking I knew more than my teachers,” and ended up dropping out and wasting years. “I know who those kids are,” he says, “and I know they’re not doing themselves any favors by putting themselves in debt for no reason other than being lazy.”

It was the responsible thing to do, as far as he was concerned. Most kids, Barber says, don’t even want to be in school. They’re there because they’re supposed to be, or because their parents will cut them off if they don’t go. They didn’t want to produce anything, didn’t want to be told what to do, didn’t want to make progress. Barber felt that he had information to share and wanted to help people get better, “But I don’t want to be somebody’s daddy, I don’t want to be a fuckin’ babysitter, I don’t want to be a fuckin’ psychologist,” he says. And so he quit, in December of 2007.

Nowadays, if Barber’s teaching, it’s often for a different clientele: Tattoo artists. He hits on the order of 15 conventions a year, all over the world, and typically offers a three-hour portrait painting seminar, during which he’ll make a painting before the class while explaining the process and analyzing it as he goes along. This, far more than university-level teaching, is his bag. “The thing with most every tattooer out there,” he says, “except for maybe the last few years, is that many have never had any kind of art training. Maybe a class here or there, but not really art school, or a regimented, rigid, structured environment where you’re forced to make stuff for a number of years. They tattooed either out of a desire to just want to do it, or for money, and most of them are really good artists trying to make the best art they can — on bodies.” One of the results of tattoo artists exploring their options with more formal training, he says, is a greater expansion beyond tattooing and into the world of fine art.

Barber, meanwhile, is going the other way. Coming from a fine arts background and well established as a commercial artist, with clients including Rolling Stone, Rock Star Games, Saks Fifth Ave, American Airlines and Converse — “I’m doin’ alright!” he says, laughing — he’s three years into a tattoo apprenticeship under Mike Davis at Everlasting Tattoo in San Francisco, a path he couldn’t have quite imagined when he got to San Francisco four years ago. “I had an idea of tattooing when I was 17,” he says, “but not when I got out of school at 29. It definitely was not the direction my head was.”

Which is not to say Barber was uninvolved with tattoo culture beforehand. He’s been getting work done ever since he laid down for a Spiderman tattoo on his leg when he was 16, and has since become much more heavily covered. Perhaps most notable, however, are his “Tattooed Portraits” — an ongoing series of mostly photorealistic paintings of tattoo artists and other heavily tattooed people, some of which were compiled in a 2006 book of the same name. But even with a pedigree like that, Barber had to start his apprenticeship the way anyone else would — cleaning up everybody’s shit, setting up appointments, making needles, putting together tattoo machines. Even still, it may not have worked out so well were it not for the shop itself, and specifically its owner, Mike Davis, who is also a painter. “It just made sense. A painter who wants to tattoo, and a tattooer who paints. We just kinda connected, and could help each other out.”

In January of this year, Barber finally started charging customers and taking walk-in clients, currently working out of the shop three days a week, a process that has not been without its stresses for the man who would freely tell his students that they were not meant to be artists. “You’re dealing with so many different elements,” he says. “You have the awkwardness of not knowing the craft, and you have your own personal skills that you bring to the table, but there’s still this uncertainty, and you can’t commit to something permanent without being confident, or else that’s going to show. So it’s that balance between those two fuckin’ completely different dynamics. But when it works? It’s fuckin’ super cool. It’s really exciting.”

He’s not at the point where he’s trying to establish himself as the go-to for a certain style — “I’m not sure there’s anything I’d say I’m really proud of yet,” he says, laughing, “but maybe a few things that I’m happy enough with.” Though he does lean towards the subject matter of his non-tattoo art somewhat, working with mixing realism with traditional tattooing — heavily graphic with a lot of rendering, perhaps, but also graphic in the understood sense of tattoo tradition, and playing off of those two.

Oh, and skulls. Lots and lots of skulls. “Skulls are always cool tattoos, man,” he says. “You can’t really go wrong with a skull.”

While Barber may not be the first fine artist to transition into tattooing, he may well be emblematic of a developing trend, and he giddily describes this current era of tattooing as a “renaissance.” Now, more than ever, he says, tattooing is not the rogue operation it once was, and is even becoming a desired destination for students of fine art once they leave school. “I even had a few students in the past that were already tattooers,” he says, “working for a couple years, and they were doing both full-time school and tattooing professionally. That’s some fucking commitment, you know?”

These eras of exciting advancement and evolution come in waves, he says, maybe every ten years or so. He refers to the ’90s in San Francisco, to Ed Hardy and the emergence of others over the years: “You used to have a couple pioneers, and then there were a handful of pioneers. Now? It’s like a fucking tsunami or something.” Another upshot of this, he believes, is the (hopefully) friendly competition it’ll stoke — if the newcomers are highly trained, it should inspire the established artists to get even better, right?

Well, to a point. If there is a backlash, it’s likely to come from the older generation, he says, those in their fifties and sixties and beyond, who are so entrenched that the idea of formal art training may be something of an insult. When discussing this, Barber frequently breaks to ensure that he’s not coming off as condescending or a dick — his respect and admiration for the craft and his forbears is obvious in his trepidation when broaching a subject that could in any way be construed as negative towards the pioneers of the industry. So when he speaks of the “crudeness” of style of some of the older artists, it’s not a criticism; it’s a uniqueness and charm that Barber loves, but it’s also probably true that many of those artists don’t feel like they need to get any better. And collectors like Barber could not agree more. “Tattoos don’t necessarily have to look like the best thing in the world to be some of your favorites,” he says.

Example?

“I have a shit-house on my leg,” he says, “an outhouse” — the calling card of an old-time L.A.–based tattoo artist, Tennessee Dave. Dave recently required cornea surgery, but without any health insurance, was going to be in a tough spot, so a number of artists got together to raise money for him. Barber painted a portrait of him that was sold on eBay, with all of the profits going to Dave, and as a token of gratitude, Dave tattooed one of his famous shit-houses on Barber. “It’s a fucking cool tattoo,” he says,”and it reminds me of this moment in time, and it’s something we both could share. It’s pretty rad. And at the time he was working with one eye!”

Shawn Barber: Tattooed Portrait series

As much as Barber may represent a certain skill-set–related shift, he seems to hold dear many of the culture’s customs, deriding legislation that forces new tattoo artists in some states to attend “tattoo schools,” or makes established artists earn some sort of accreditation. “It’s not necessary,” he says, “Why wouldn’t you stick with the traditions that work? The apprenticeship system works, and it’s a tradition that shouldn’t get lost. It’s a very human occupation — you’re dealing with humanity.”

Nonetheless, he acknowledges that the premium on tradition in the tattoo community can lead to some resistance with regard to any changes at all, be they positive moves or the government just trying to bilk artists for cash. The industry, he says, has just been closed for a long time.

“But,” he says, “it’s also self-sufficient, it’s self ruling. There are standards that just about everybody applies to themselves. And they’re very careful. They know all the bloodborne pathogens stuff, and they do things the right way … though there are a lot of fools who don’t, and things will come back to bite them in the ass. A lot of shops don’t even have people fuckin’ sign a waiver. Crazy.”

As much of a part of the tattoo community as Barber is feeling, though, he still just considers himself an artist above all else. He paints every single day, at least six-to-eight hours a day — sometimes more. Even being on the road at conventions and gallery showings upwards of 15 days a month, he’s still sure to bring his equipment with him no matter what. Sometimes it’s an 8-inch-by-10-inch piece that he can burn through in a few hours, while others may be 80-inch-by-60-inch monsters. All told, he typically produces about 80 pieces a year, and claims to have painted over a thousand over the last ten years, all of which are made to show in galleries, and most of which are sold. (Or traded, either to tattooers, other artists, or galleries themselves.)

The medium for Barber seems almost inconsequential. Although he can see himself moving up to working four or five days a week as a tattoo artist, he refuses to say that becoming a full-time tattoo artist is the goal. “The goal,” he says, “is to become a better artist, both as a tattooer and a painter. Those are my two passions.” The satisfaction that comes from completing a tattoo is near identical to the feeling of finishing a painting, he says — art is art. And almost without exception, his reception from the tattoo community has been positive. “Unless I don’t know about it,” he says, laughing. “The haters don’t come out. You don’t always necessarily know who hates you. I don’t have time or energy for those people. If they hate me, they don’t know me. Most people hate because their lives are so shitty they don’t have anything better to do than talk shit. It’s just a waste, man.”

Shawn Barber: Tattooed Portrait series

Upcoming Art Showings:

– 3 person show at Last Rites Gallery in New York City, December 2008
– Solo show at The Shooting Gallery in San Francisco, 2009
– 2 person show at Yves Laroche Gallery in Montreal, September 2009
– Solo Show at the Joshua Liner Gallery in New York City, 2010
– Solo Show at Billy Shire Fine Arts in Culver City, 2011

Upcoming Convention Appearances:

2009
– Feb-March: Musink, 25 City US Tour, Tattoo Convention with Social Distortion and others
– May: Rome, Italy Tattoo Convention

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West Side!

Posted on November 17, 2008 by Rachel

Ary from Vimby sends us three new videos from shops around the Los Angeles area. Broken Art Tattoo, 264 Customs and House of Freaks are included in this batch. Don’t forget to check out their websites as well. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I like what Vimby is doing. Having met some of their producers/directors/editors over the past weekend, they definitely have a love for what they’re doing and it shows.

VIMBY – Broken Art Tattoo

VIMBY – 264 Customs

VIMBY – House of Freaks

The Most Heavily Tattooed Mayor in America. (Probably.)

Posted on October 13, 2008 by Jordan Ginsberg

Ray Johnson and “Pixie” at a convention.

The people of Campo begged. They went to the home of their mayor, 46-year-old Ray Johnson, and pleaded with him — told him point blank, “You can’t quit. You’ve gotta keep going.” They distributed petitions and collected signatures, but Johnson was apprehensive. He’d beaten the incumbent mayor, Syd Kraier, a few years earlier, on the familiar political promise of bringing positive change to the community in the form of concerts and other activities. And, according to Johnson, progress was being made, but he still felt like he’d been doing his town a disservice, that he hadn’t been around enough.

Why? Because he’d been getting tattooed too much.

Campo, Colorado, is a town of about 400 people, divided down its center by U.S. Route 287. There are fewer than five businesses (including a small gas station, a bed-and-breakfast and a cafe), the nearest Walmart is 72 miles away and the closest major city is Amarillo, Texas, 140 miles south. But during his first tenure as mayor, Johnson was making the five-hour northbound trek to Colorado Springs to visit Maria at Glory Badges Tattoo, often missing up to three days of work a week in the process. “I wasn’t doing it justice here,” he admits.

Campo, CO. [Image source: Google Maps.]

Johnson had already had a number of tattoos at the time, but when his best friend was killed in a car accident, he started making his regular pilgrimages to Glory Badges to map out a body suit to be done, at least in part, in tribute. He opted for traditional Chinese and Japanese imagery, dragons and geisha girls, koi and cherry blossoms — dueling “good and evil” samurais crawling up each thigh. But it’s the phoenix rising up from the flames on the right side of his ribcage and the swan carrying a flower petal on the left that were done specifically with his friend in mind, chosen for the long-standing acknowledged and cherished meaning of the symbols. “And,” Johnson says, laughing, “I just think it looks awesome.”

In addition to a covered torso and fully inked thighs, Johnson’s also got a pair of hard-to-miss sleeves that may seem out of place on the mayor of a small and admittedly conservative town. He says, though, that he’s never been hassled by the townspeople — either they don’t know he’s heavily tattooed, or they do know and they don’t care enough to bother him about it. “I pretty much hide it,” he says. “Sometimes maybe not, if I’m with my buddies. Probably everybody knows, ‘cause I’ve heard some talk, but nobody really asks. I try to keep it hidden — I guess I’m a little conservative too.” But even when he is approached, the problems have been few. The principal of the town’s school caught a glimpse of his ink not long ago, and after a brief “Oh my gosh! I had no idea!” moment, laughed it off and went about his day. Things may move slowly in Campo, but apparently not slow enough for people to get worked up over a few tattoos.

It could also be, of course, that Johnson has been extremely effective as the town’s mayor. Campo, for the most part, is a farming and ranching town, surrounded by fields on all sides, and Johnson, through some connections he’s made at a music school in Lubbock, Texas, is in the process of organizing Campo’s first music festival, slated for next summer. It may seem like a small gesture for a mayor to make, but Johnson’s role is less formal than one may expect, and instead functions more as the community leader. The hierarchy still exists, but it’s less relevant than it may be other places.

In a town of 400, though, municipal jobs have some overlap: Johnson, as mayor, is also the Chief of Police — a department comprising only two full time officers. Crime tends not to be too much of a problem in such a small community, so when Johnson’s cops are forced into action, it’s usually to deal with motorists passing through Route 287 — and even then, they’re often limited to writing speeding tickets for cars shooting down the highway. Trivial? Maybe. But those speeding tickets, as Johnson explains in his sweet, slow drawl, are how Campo generates most of its income.

Being mayor of Campo, as it turns out, isn’t necessarily a full-time gig, but Johnson keeps busy. He’s still a cattle farmer — as his parents were before he was — and sells off his calves each year. More than just cattle, however, Johnson’s also got his car dealer’s license, and runs a car lot selling used vehicles at cost to others in the town. “There’s nothing I hate worse than going to buy a car,” he says. “You always leave and feel like, ‘Man, I got screwed.’” So Johnson hits the local auctions in surrounding areas, buys up cars as cheaply as possible, and then sells them at no profit, for no other reason than to help out his constituents and neighbors. “You get taken advantage of so much” in situations like that, he says, so why not cut out the middle man if he’s able? Johnson’s voice lights up when asked what he personally drives: “A 2000-model Chevy pick-up that I got for 1,500 bucks. And it’s nice. Really nice,” he says, impressed and chuckling. And aside than the car lot, and the farm, and the mayoral office, and the police force? He’s also building a cafe with a street patio — by hand. Building the wrought iron, installing the flagstone — and hopefully bringing a few new jobs to the town. What he’s not doing, however, is acting as the head of the Democratic Party for Baca County, the surrounding area of Campo, although he has held that position in the past as well. Johnson calls Campo “conservative,” but says that shouldn’t imply that it’s full of Republicans. “People are just old-fashioned here,” he says. “Politics doesn’t have much to do with it.” As far as the current presidential election is concerned, Johnson’s non-committal: “Oh my goodness, I don’t know. I don’t care for either one of them,” he says, laughing, referring to John McCain and Barack Obama.

And in many ways, traditional politics don’t matter quite as much in a place like Campo. As the mayor — traditionally, an inescapably politically charged job — Johnson sees himself as the person to listen to and act on the concerns of the townspeople, rather than dictating certain rules and a way of life. That is to say, in many ways, Johnson is the mayor that many others claim (and fail) to be. And now, having gone about as far with his tattoo work as he feels necessary, he feels comfortable in his position again; apparently, so do the people of Campo, who have made him their mayor for the last eight years and, in doing so, have elected quite possibly the country’s most heavily tattooed civic leader. At a recent tattoo convention in Denver, Johnson actually placed second in the “Overall Male” category for his body suit. “Should’ve gotten first!” he says in mock anger and with a rare raising of his voice. He’s silent for a second afterward, and seems to feel like even that joke, that split-second of false bravado, is in need of correction.

“But,” he adds — humbly, gracefully, earnestly — “there were a lot of people there.”

* * *Please consider buying a membership to BME so we can continue bringing you articles like this one.

Fingered by Skullboy

Posted on August 7, 2008 by RooRaaah Crumbs

Veronika was kind (and drunk) enough to send in these recent photos of Skullboy (more on ModBlog.. 1, 2).

Rick reads and then gives his verdict on a recent magazine article about himself.

Oh and yes, he does smile in case you were wondering..

Skullboy and Veronika.

You can read Veronika’s BMEzine.com interview with Rick here.

See more in “BME/Culture/People“ (Culture)

Companionship.

Posted on June 21, 2008 by RooRaaah Crumbs

A friend of mine sent me a link to this beautiful (and informal) interview between Clayton Cubitt and Vic Taurewa Biddle discussing his homosexuality, Tā moko, Maori heritage, the Twelfth Realm and everything inbetween.

Apparently Veoh (the provider of the video above) is blocked in quite a few countries so if you can’t view it above, here is the YouTube video.

BME AT NIX 2008 – ART FUSION EXPERIMENT AT M.O.C.C.A.

Posted on June 12, 2008 by Rachel

Click the image to read more.

As a precursor to the Northen Ink Xposure tattoo convention (NIX), Toronto’s Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art played host to the Art Fusion Experiment (AFE), which ran June 11-12. On Saturday night at M.O.C.C.A., canvases from the AFE will be auctioned off to benefit Art City in St. James Town, a Toronto-based not-for-profit organization “committed to providing free and accessible art programs to the children of St. James Town.”

Hi Ho, Hi Ho! It’s Interviewing We Go..

Posted on May 16, 2008 by RooRaaah Crumbs

Wanderlust

Bicycle bicycle bicycle, she wants to ride her bicycle, bicycle, bicycle.
She wants to ride her bicycle, she wants to ride her bike.
She wants to ride her bicycle, she wants to ride it where she likes.

“Freddy Mercury”

And she does by jove!

Tinkle your bell merrily and saddle up for this interview with Gwen, BME’s very own Biker Chick — the self-assured and full of wanderlust bicycle sort of biker chick, not the bobbing-for-hotdogs off the back of a Harley type. She’s cycled, floated, bused, choo-choo’d, hitchhiked, stumbled and otherwise meandered her way thousands of miles! Starting from Hamilton, Ontario she peddled mercilessly onwards to Alabama via Winnipeg, Vancouver, San Francisco, down the coast of Mexico then turned left to cross Texas. Along the way she’s collected some wonderful tales, the odd case of food poisoning, and a gorgeous scarification piece.

	A Mexican newspaper covers Gwen’s trip
ROO:	Let’s get the wheels turning by asking you about your passion for cycling, can you remember the first time you hopped on a bicycle?
GWEN:	I remember this cherry red tricycle I had when I was a kid. I must’ve left it out while my folks were having a garage sale and it got sold — I cried a river that day.
ROO:	I’m terribly sorry for your loss, it’s a nice thought that a succession of children and probably adults after you have derived some pleasure from it though, or are you still plain bitter?
GWEN:	Well, I’m bitter at my dad depriving me of such a pleasure, but maybe in another twenty years I won’t resent it so much.
ROO:	I hope so, you’ve got quite enough to carry around without slipping a grudge into your backpack! Now, without getting all ‘Fight Club on your arse’ — it’s on the tip of everyone’s tongue, I just gave it a name — your IAM page doesn’t hint at any genital piercings, is this because you spend most of your life in the saddle, so to speak?
GWEN:	You guessed it! I’ve heard some piercings don’t get agitated too badly but being on the road for so long means my hygiene level is a little below par, so I wouldn’t be able to take care of ’em so well.
ROO:	So are you saying all cyclists should be given a wide berth because they pose a significant risk to public health?
GWEN:	A warning couldn’t hurt; saddle sores are a bother in themselves — I wouldn’t want my whole genital area to be inflamed and pissed at me ’cause I couldn’t keep it clean (ROO: And neither would we Gwen).
	The day before leaving
ROO:	For those who haven’t read about your adventures (which will hopefully have dwindled to zero by the time we’re through) could you recount some memories of people you’ve met and general kindness that keep you warm at night? (See her IAM page for the story in more detail). And anything that makes your toes curl?
GWEN:	Oh my, there’s been so much hospitality… okay, some that stick out: Being introduced to the bike culture in Portland, Oregon (and seeing a the guy who owns the sleeve with all different front chain rings that I saw on Modblog, no less!). What was immediately obvious was that most of the other bikers weren’t modified very much. The Germans and Swedish that I came across were usually older and didn’t seem to be into bodly modifications at all. Meeting ChopperMark, amongst many others while having the chance to joust on tall bikes and mingle with the ZooBombers. Meeting a couple who lived off the land just north of San Francisco and getting to sleep in a gypsy wagon and bathe outdoors.
	A DIY homestead visited during the adventure
	Randomly receiving home-made cookies that some guy was sent in the mail (he was sad to see we were eating store-bought cookies). Having dinner in this million-dollar mansion near Los Angeles even though we were smelly and dirt-poor. Hanging out with the Zoobombers is just something intrinsic to being in Portland. The crew of people who bomb down on those little bikes every week is so varied, young and old, drunk or sober, etcetera, that you’re guaranteed to meet some interesting characters. The tall-bike jousting was a thrill; I didn’t expect to be able to hold my balance on such a contraption but it’s not as hard as it looks! Everyone takes it lightly and getting hurt is half the fun! Finally, staying at the million-dollar place was a crazy coincidence; a married biking couple that Morgan and I had frequently run into had arranged to meet with another couple who had travelled the world for 2 years on bikes, and we ended up seeing all 4 of them in town (Ventura, California). We were invited to stay over as well. The wife of the latter duo house-sat for these rich people, and since they wouldn’t be home, all of us biking nomads were invited to eat and drink at this mansion-villa (who needs to own 4 dishwashers, seriously!?); it was quite a treat. Getting on the road the next day was a bit of a humorous shock, to know that the bike-touring lifestyle throws every extreme of culture at you. I love being poor and dirty, though, so I’d much prefer sleeping by the side of the road to such opulent quarters any day. I could go on, but those are some fun times. We were pretty lucky about not having too many bad experiences. Being in fog and mist around the Washington coast and then sleeping on a beach in Oregon with blowing sand and freezing cold nights without a tent sucked. I almost got mugged while visiting Ally in Winnepeg, Manitoba. A little more about the Oregano beach: The picture where I’m flying a kite (further down the interview) was the night before we realized that the ocean procures some damn cold winds and the sand comes along with ‘em. We tried using rocks to hold our tarp down as a shield but it just whips up from all directions. That was one of the most miserable mornings, but it makes you that much more anxious to get on the road and wait for the sun to dry you up. Beaches look so innocent and inviting but don’t trust them to stay that way when the sun goes down!
ROO:	Life’s a beach, eh. Mugged? Not by a muggle I hope..
GWEN:	Haha, actually, the mugging happened whilst I was being tattooed!? My friend got together her stick-and-poke materials (sewing needle taped to a pen, dipped in India ink) and we decided to do it on a bridge over this train yard, but some homeless native guy came around mumbling something about nice bikes and I didn’t pay him any attention. Next thing I knew he was trying to mount my bike?! Luckily my friend jumped to block his way and “negotiated” with him (I think he was heavily drugged or drunk), and instead of taking my expensive bike he took hers — in the meantime, though, he attempted to hit us with his fists, and then managed to grab my friend’s U-Lock (we were using it as protection), although he didn’t try to hurt us with that, thankfully. It disturbed me that cars and pedestrians were passing by — the situation being blatantly hostile — and no one even looked when we were screaming for help. I found it so distasteful that someone would steal a somewhat worthless bike just because they didn’t feel like walking; I guarantee he rode it for 3 or 4 blocks then ditched it. (We ended up finishing the tattoo when we got home).
ROO:	Crumbs Meg, that was a close shave.. Apart from a large tub of courage what else do you pack on an ‘average’ trek? Nothing that’s got you into trouble I hope..
GWEN:	I have four panniers (saddle bags), two on the front and two on the back, and I usually pack light — sleeping bag, sleeping mat, a few bike shorts and shirts (gotta have that spandex), a few kicking-around clothes, running shoes, bike maintenance stuff, a few books, toiletries, and a bit of food to last me ’til the next grocery store. I depend on everything I have so it forces me to keep an eye on everything pretty closely. We always make sure not to have any drug-related stuff when we cross borders, and the only thing that had me stuck for an explanation was the cuts on my arm in Mexico — I didn’t know enough Spanish to convey that I didn’t get stabbed and that they had been willingly inflicted.
	Cyclist meet-up in Vancouver
ROO:	Another close shave? Can you remember how the conversation went?
GWEN:	It started with a lot of broken English, quite a lot of pointing at their arms referring to mine, me smiling sweetly and looking to Morgan hoping he’d be able to explain the situation, and then ending up saying “lo mismo los tattoos” (ROO: Rough translation – “the same the tattoos”), adding plenty of hand gestures and then yours truly walking away quickly.
	Gwen and Morgan in mainland Mexico with his parents
ROO:	Care to talk about the ‘cuts’ that almost got you into trouble and how you came to receive them? It was a scarification pierce by Rafael, correct?
GWEN:	Yes, that was a good time. I remember at my suspension Philip Barbosa mentioning he lived in Mexico so I sent him a message to see if he knew any cool places to check out and he forwarded me to Rafael, who lives in La Paz where I was headed. We met him and ended up hanging out for the time we were in the city then spending time at his piercing studio. I learned that he did scarification, and as I was itching to get more work done (hadn’t had any in a year — too long!) I mentioned I could be a guinea pig if he needed more pictures for his portfolio — and the next day I was getting prepped for the scalpel! Rafael did a great job and now I have a keepsake of my travels in Mexico.
	Having scarification done by Rafael (Symbiosis) in La Paz, Mexico
ROO:	Could you ramble a little more about your experience with Rafael please honey?
GWEN:	Asking me to ramble? (ROO: No, I’m demanding it!) With pleasure! The scarification was done at his shop (Symbiosis, La Paz, Mexico) under very sterile conditions. He changed his gloves often, and wiped my skin down with an anti-bacterial swab. He changed scalpel blades a few times — he explained they lose their sharpness — and wrapped my arm in saran wrap after he was done. It was a new challenge to see someone repeatedly cutting into the same spot while I could watch it all go down (with my calf cutting I was blind to what was going on), but I prefer ‘seeing the pain’, letting it flow through me, and still remaining calm.
ROO:	Did you manage to get any rest after he’d unwielded his scalpel and before you rode off into the night?
GWEN:	Oh, I slept wonderfully that night — all the rush of emotions and endorphins makes me tired after being cut. We stayed at a hostel so we had time to do laundry and give my arm a day off to get a head start on healing before I’d be riding again.
ROO:	Staying on the topic of your skin for a moment, have you got any special tattoos you’d like share with us?
GWEN:	There is my tree lady, she signifies everything I encompass. She reminds me of how I’m half of the earth, and half human, as every cell in my body is comprised of materials that were formally individual molecules that belonged to rocks and plants and water and so on. The roots remind me to stay grounded and remember that I am part of the greater circle of life and not ontop of it.
	Feral, Womantree
ROO:	You’re a diamond, would you say suspending makes you feel the same way?
GWEN:	My suspension is hard to put into a few words. It brought me to a level of consciousness where I could feel the energy of the world and of those around me and embrace them fully. For the first time in my life I felt connected and loved everthing with a childlike innocence.
	Gwen’s suspension
ROO:	That’s beautiful Gwen, like the pink skin of a baby’s bottom. Anyway, you’re obviously planning on doing a lot more travelling in the future, do you see yourself getting more piercings, (hopefully intentional) scars or tattoos along the way?
GWEN:	Absolutely; I like to think of body modifications I collect on the road symbolizing the time and place of where they were done. I adore having different people work on me and forming those types of bonds with as many people as possible.
ROO:	Do you generally find that the people you meet on your travels are hospitable?
GWEN:	Surprisingly so. I never knew how welcoming people can be to those they’ve never met before and know nothing about. I could tell you a hundred instances of when someone did something so generous and nice — in all the three countries I’ve been riding through, too. If I ever have an address I’m staying at I know I’ll be welcoming any traveller coming through; a warm shower is the best gift when you’re riding all day and don’t want to pay for a room just to get some hot water.
ROO:	Have you ever considered starting a cyclists-rest type service to help your fellow iron jockeys?
GWEN:	Absolutely! There’s a women with the moniker ‘the cookie lady’ who welcomes all bike tourers to enjoy a warm shower, a place to stay and, of course, some cookies. There’s another site, www.warmshowers.org, that connects those looking for a place to crash. So the framework is in place, I merely want to be another cookie-lady — only I’d make ’em vegan.
ROO:	I’d take up cycling if there were vegan cookies at the end of the trail! Hopefully not, but has anything disastrous happened to you whilst you’ve been roaming the planet that made you regret your path in life? Even for a moment?
GWEN:	Not a thing. Becoming a homeless wanderer was the best decision I ever made. The first week in Mexico made me want to be back in the States, but that’s the only time I felt like changing my route slightly. (A car slowed down and — with great precision — pushed me off the side of the road! I fell pretty hard on my hip and banged my head on the cement, luckily I had a helmet.)
ROO:	Jeepers, that was a bit mean, onwards to some merrier questions! Out of all the places you’ve been to can you pick one that struck you as the most beautiful? Is it the people you’ve met or the places you’ve visited that stand out most for you?
GWEN:	Haha people always ask this (ROO: Gosh, I’m predictable) and I never know what to say. Every place has its own qualities that make it special, y’know? If I *had to* pick my favourite place, it’d probably be Northern California. There was this hiking trail that decided we should bike, and to cut a long story short, after pushing our bikes on this slippery wet trail up a good two hundred metres (or so it seemed) I saw the Redwoods for the first time in all their beauty and wanted to die I was so happy. Despite that I’d have to say the people I’ve met stand out the most, as there were so many breathtaking vistas and cool places but only a dozen or so people I really connected with, and they made the areas seem alive. I was in awe of every different landscape change, there were just too many; I remember them as one giant conglomerate of amazing scenery, whereas individual people are easier to recall.
	Travelling the California coast.
ROO:	And we all know how you feel about conglomerates! Could you run through the route you took on your epic voyage so people get an impression of just how amazing you are?
	The course, starting in Mexico.
GWEN:	Well, I began in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, went northwest, around Lake Superior, connected to Hwy 1 and stuck to that straight through all the provinces to British Columbia. I stopped in Winnepeg, Manitoba and Calgary, Alberta but didn’t take a full rest day other than those times. I went through Banff then connected to Hwy 3 south through B.C. (where I hooked up with Morgan) then followed the U.S. border on that highway ’til I hit Vancouver, then I ferried to Victoria on Vancouver Island, went up to Cumberland then back down to Hornby Island, then took a boat to Ucluelet on the western shore (and saw my first real sunrise over the ocean), went by Tofino then rode back to go to Salt Spring Island, then back to Victoria, which ended my Canadian stretch.
	Hornby Island
	From Victoria Morgan and I took a ferry to Port Angeles in Washington, rode out to the coast stopping in Olympic Nat’l Park, then went inwards to hit Olympia, rode down to Portland (great bike route connecting the two), then back out to the coast to Tillamook and continued on the 101 all the way through Oregon an California, going through the Lost Coast Highway then down to San Fran, Big Sur and on to San Diego, which ended the U.S. part. We crossed the border to Mexico in Tecate, a few kilometres east of Tijuana, then took the main highway all the way down Baja to La Paz, where we ferried over to Mazatlan and from there we pretty much packed our bikes on buses and the train through Copper Canyon. From there I headed east through Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi to rest in Alabama where I am now (done through hitchhiking and buses also).
	Morgan and Gwen in Mexico
ROO:	For the budding cyclists amongst us (not me unfortunately) could you wow us with the specifications of the bike you use and any other tips for the would-be leg powered vagrant.
GWEN:	My bike isn’t too boast-worthy. I don’t know the specifics, aside from the components are all Shimano, about the second to top of the line, twenty-seven speeds, drop-down handle bars, 27″ rims and everything has held up ’cept for the occasional flat tire. As far as tips go, to anyone who’s thinking about being a vagrant, I say DO IT. Take a few hundred bucks and just take off. If you’re open to going with the flow and taking opportunities as they come, there’s no telling where you’ll end up. And definitely make connections over BME — this here site introduced me to Morgan who I was with everyday for seven months, plus a wonderful lady in Portland (no longer has her page up), Rafael in Mexico, and soon to be another man in Alabama whom I’ve already fallen in love with. If I had stayed at home I can guarantee that wouldn’t have happened. Oh, and Food Not Bombs is in almost every big city and good for a free meal…and raid every dumpster you can find — you can find tonnes of good food from grocery stores!
ROO:	You’ve almost answered this question, but what exactly do you eat when you’re on the road?
GWEN:	Anything and everything. I started out vegan but relax that to vegetarian most of the time. Peanut butter and bananas has been a staple, but I’ll take anything I can get. As I said, dumpstering brings much of my bounty. Why pay for it when they’re just throwing it out?
ROO:	I agree completely, but have you ever been so delirious with excitement upon finding a tasty treat that you gobbled it down without poking at it, then found it to be something poisonous or otherwise unpleasant?
GWEN:	I threw up once…I was eating donuts that came out of a dumpster and I probably wasn’t careful enough in selecting the ones that didn’t get contaminated with other stuff in the garbage bag. Aside from that I don’t think I’ve ever been sick this whole trip.
ROO:	I wouldn’t be surprised if your constitution’s comparable to that of oxen by now! Even though that might be true were you at all worried about the risk of developing an infection after the work by Rafael? There is quite a lot of media-coverage at the moment surrounding the spread of hepatitis in Mexico (that you can contract it from simply drinking a glass of water etcetera).
GWEN:	I’ve heard a few things about the risk of catching diseases in Mexico but I wasn’t worried; I had eaten their food for two months with no ill effects so I felt fairly confident I’d be okay.
ROO:	Let’s hear Rafael’s view on the situation.. apologies for making you orange but colours are being rationed in Canada at the moment..
RAFAEL:	The Mexican authorities don’t seem to care about body piercing, scarification etcetera.. The senators have recently approved a new law to protect these activities and the customers but really it’s just a meaningless piece of paper! A lot of people work in the streets, markets and carnivals performing body piercings and scarification, it’s very sad because they attract more custom than an established studio, they also don’t pay rent or taxes and so forth which is obviously bad for the economy. Customers still supporting these psuedo-artists can very easily pay less than 8 USD for a street piercing, and they don’t seem to care much about the quality of the jewellery, sterility of the equipment or the modification they walk away with. Piercings in a professional studio usually cost from between 20 USD and 40 USD. You get what you pay for!
ROO:	Thanks for the insight Rafael. From what you’ve just said it appears not, but do you think the chance of someone contracting Hepatitis deters people from having scarification/piercing work done in Mexico?
RAFAEL:	Obviously I ensure that everything in my studio is clean and sterile! Only a very small percentage of customers express concerns about Hepatitis, to be honest most of them don’t seem to care. I’ve been piercing for five years now, I attend seminars to increase my knowledge, I’ve got health department certificates and one of my accquaintances is a doctor who I can call upon if I need support, so in that respect my credentials are amazing!
ROO:	Do you find you have to work extra hard to bring people in to your shop because of this risk?
RAFAEL:	Not really, piercings are very popular at the moment. Most of my customers seem more worried about how much the piercing will cost more than anything. The vaste majority of scarifications I do are on close friends, and basically I do them for free because scars aren’t really that popular where I live. In peoples minds the risk of contracting hepatitis doesn’t seem to register so I don’t really have to work any harder to dispel fears or anxieties regarding it. What I do have to work hard for though is people coming in with crappy jewellery and terrible piercings from the pseudo-piercers I mentioned before. All in all the situation looks awful but there’s a lot of information out there right now, websites such as BMEzine.com, magazines and so forth, but people just look at the pictures and don’t read the articles. I don’t know, it’s crazy! The situation in Mexico at the moment is affecting the industry I love and the career that ensures I earn money. Now I charge 20 USD for a piercing (including jewellery) just to ensure I can pay the rent. That’s the situation here in La Paz, but I suppose it’s the same everywhere in Mexico City. You can find blocks and blocks of streets filled with jewellery stands and ‘piercers’. Here’s an example of a crappy tattoo done in a local ‘tattoo studio’ for 30 USD!
	30 USD tattoo
ROO:	So there it is from the horse’s mouth, make your own minds up guys! Gwen, how many spokes does your bike have?
GWEN:	A lot. Thirty-six or something maybe? Don’t know for sure.
ROO:	And you call yourself a cyclist!
GWEN:	I’m still starting out! I may have biked a hell of a lot but I’ve never looked into the technicalities! (ROO: That’s me told!)
	Oregon and Washington
ROO:	Where do you see yourself in five/ten/fifteen years or so? This is probably a rather silly question but do you have any plans to settle down inside a white picket fence and make marmalade with your husband?
GWEN:	That’s a tricky one. I don’t look too far in the future as long as the present doesn’t pose too many problems. I’d like to be building my own little place out of reclaimed/dumpstered things and have enough land to grow all my own food and can it during the winter. There´ll be no white picket fence, but maybe some branches to keep the wild animals from eating my garden. Funny you mention that, though, ’cause I’m about to move into a place that appears to be that perfect little house.. I’m not one for marriage but I wouldn’t mind having having someone to sow seeds with (literally, not sexually, I refuse to give birth to a child) with. That said, I’ll be a wanderer for the rest of my days at least part of the year. The wanderlust is implanted deep.
	Morgan in Todos Santos
ROO:	I hope it was implanted under suitably sterile conditions. Ok how about this question instead.. Where will you be travelling next? I’m sure if folks had a vague idea of your plans they’d be willing to offer you some free (or at least discounted) scarification/tattoo work. That is if you have a vague idea, of course.
GWEN:	Unfortunately I don’t know which route I’ll be taking from here (ROO: I saw that coming). I’d like to see North Carolina and Tennessee, but I really want to see everything so it’s impossible to pinpoint where I’ll be going next, I usually decide where to go on a whim or a suggestion.. or if someone’s willing to let me sleep on their couch for a night!
ROO:	If there are people reading this willing to help you out on your travels by offering a bed, simple home cooked meal, a warm shower or a night at a strip club how should they contact you?
GWEN:	Assuming they’re on IAM, that’d be the best way to contact me (Hi-Ho), but gmail works too ([email protected]) — I’ll be staying in Alabama for a while, but come nice weather I’ll be hittin’ the dusty trail again so if anyone is down for biking with me a few kilometers or just hanging out, shoot me a line!
ROO:	Any final words you think might be of interest to our lovely (and by now probably as exhausted as you felt upon reaching Victoria) readers?
GWEN:	As far as final words go, I want to be an example of a free-spirited vagrant who decided to live life and choose my own path rather than being led around by someone else’s ideas. The best way to travel is cheap — you meet every type of person and go through every situation, from the lowest to the highest. I feel if you’re open to the world, she’ll embrace you. As a fellow hitchhiker once said to me: “You meet the angels and the freaks, the sinners and the saints, but that’s what makes the world go round.” I hope I inspire other kids my age (or anyone) to give up the constant rush of consumer society and breathe in the fresh air and just not care.
ROO:	Thank you so much Gwendolen, you’re a trooper. Stay safe and may the wanderlust be with you always.
GWEN:	<3

	Just imagine how unstoppable (and unlikely) the love child of Pauly and Gwen would be!

Roo Crumbs (iam:RooBot) is 28 29 (ugh), male, a thousand feet tall, and grazes on the treetops for breakfast. He’s covered from nape of neck to tip of wang in heart tattoos. He likes to read and write. He won’t fix your computer (unless you ask nicely) and he doesn’t like Charles Dickens, football or The Beatles.