Celebrating body modification culture since 1994.
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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.)
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
