bad ink – REALLY bad ink

apparently watching my friend alli on best ink was a gateway drug…

…’cause now i have three different tattoo shows on my dvr.

i try not to watch ’em – they tend to be hokey and stupid, make our industry look more dramatic than it actually is (and it’s pretty fucking dramatic all on its own) and occasionally flat-out deceive the public.

such appears to be the case with bad ink on a&e. set in las vegas (the “bad decision capital of the world” as they call it in the intro, which has to thrill their board of tourism to no end) with two guys i actually enjoy watching the show (supposedly) has them going out and finding bad tattoos and covering ’em up. the last episode i watched i think it was legit – but the three previous (and lord knows how many others) it was pretty obvious the “tattoos” that were being covered were sharpie jobs – as in literally MARKER on skin.

just look at ’em.

they don’t appear real, and on top of that when they do the transition photo from “old” to “new” you not only see tattoo cover tattoo, but some of the impossibles happen – butter yellow over black? no problem. fresh, virgin skin between the humming bird and butterfly where supposedly a black skull eye was moments before? no problem. and the REAL problem is the public will watch this and think it can happen…

…and it can’t.

what surprises me about this is that dirk virmin is an ACTUAL tattoo artist in vegas and his shop in the show (pussykat tattoos) is a REAL shop in vegas, with yelp reviews (pretty good ones) and everything. will this deception really help business? ask milli vanilli how that goes…the public tends to be pretty unforgiving about being bullshitted.

then there’s the good one – tattoo nightmares on spike. set in a semi-fictitious shop in l.a. (it’s an actual place, but i believe was just opened for the show) with three gifted artists (including inkmasters season one finalist, tommy) and they do actual, truly amazing-level cover up work.

hell, maybe i should see if they could do my back?

so enjoy the nightmares, but ditch the bad – the latter is only two of three; it’s “bad” and “ugly” (and “bullshit”) but it ain’t “good”.