Thoughts on Christmas, publicity, and another day at the office.

Well, this past Sunday, The Dave Barry Holiday Gift Guide
was published in The Miami Herald. On the front page, this photo, taken on one of the luxurious pleather couches at Silver On the Mount Tattoo(hey, those couches don't look like much, but they're really comfortable). They didn't publish any of the photos of Vince tattooing Santa, but it was still a good experience for the shop.

This isn't going to be the only thing going on for the shop this week. Wednesday morning, we're all headed up to Vince and Laura's place to meet up with the Channel 7 news crew. They're coming to talk to us about the Boat Parade. We've made some pretty good progress on the boat - the guys reworked the angels we had on the boat last year, and we had banners made up that read, "Seasons Greetings from Silver On the Mount Tattoo". I've had lots of fun with those - the other day, I was installing grommets on one of the banners, and wound up whacking my hand with the baby sledge hammer(yes, that's what it was) in the process. It still hurts like hell, and it's a little bruised, but in the end, all of this will be worth it.

Yes, we're going to be on TV. Sure, it's local news, nothing major. But this is a pretty big deal as far as the shop is concerned.

I just had to share.

Santa Claus is coming...to get tattooed.

Once again, Silver On The Mount Tattoo is going to be in the paper. This will be the third time the shop has been featured in one of the local papers since I started working there in November of last year. Publicity is good...even though, more often than not, it tends to be a bit weird.

The most recent article was the most normal one. I had attended a safe piercing practices course in August, and I was interviewed by the Sun-Sentinel(the paper for Fort Lauderdale). I guess it was a slow news day. Basically, they asked me what I thought of the class. I told them I had thought it was informative, and that it is imperative that we do all we can to keep our customers and ourselves safe. However, I neglected to mention the fact that a good portion of the seminar was more like a sales pitch than anything else. They had this guy from an autoclave testing supply company speaking, and he kept carrying on about his $250,000 sterilizer.

Of course, what I found most amusing is that the Sun-Sentinel published the fact that I have 31 piercings.

And then, there's the Boat Parade. This is a major event every year in Fort Lauderdale, just before Christmas. Last year's theme was "Broadway On The Waterway", and the shop did "Jesus Christ Superstar". We lit up the boat like crazy - the guys made these 40 foot high angels(they wove Christmas lights into these great big fishing nets, and we hoisted them up the mast), and had rope lights spelling out the name of the shop on the sides of the boat. We dressed up Mike - who was an apprentice at the time, and has now been tattooing for a while - as Jesus(I think he may have gotten a little too into the costume - we now have a sheet of religious flash with one of his Jesus photos stuck in the middle of it). As for me...I got to be some sort of go-go dancing angel. Yes, laugh at the photo. But we won. The shop won Best Overall for a commercial vessel(meaning one that advertised a local business, etc. - there was a seperate category for showboats).

Anyway, back to our upcoming article. A photographer from the Miami Herald came by the shop, and asked about doing a photo shoot with Santa Claus. It sounded just right for us - Vince(the shop's owner - he's my mentor, and has more or less become like a father to me) loves Christmas, and he loves publicity for the shop.

This isn't going to be typical, lovey dovey Christmas fare, though.

Apparently, the photographer wants to get a shot of Santa in the tattoo chair, getting a sleeve done. Somehow, this all relates to those cheesy fake tattoo sleeves(which, for some reason, we have customers looking for from time to time). I'm not quite sure what to expect.

This is going to be an interesting shoot. I'll have more info once it comes.