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.

Somebody give Santa some boobs to look at.

The guy from the Miami Herald came to the shop today for the photo shoot. That was...interesting, to say the least. They showed up right after I got into work(actually, while I was cleaning the bathroom - one of the glamorous parts of the job. I bet you won't see that on Miami Ink).

Anyway, this isn't a typical "sweetness and light" Christmas shoot. This is going to be the cover for this year's Dave Barry Christmas Gift Guide. For those of you who aren't familiar with him, Dave Barry is the satirical writer for the Herald, and every year, has his gift guide - with all the really horrible gifts. Last year's was fantastic - who wouldn't want the Marie Antoinette action figure? How this involves us - this year's featured crappy gift is those fake tattoo sleeves. I'm sure you've seen them. They're those mesh sleeves with cheesy tattoo designs printed on them. We had a pair on Mary, our shop's manequin(yes, the shop has a manequin, and her name is Mary. Vince and Laura, his wife and the shop's front end manager, got her at a yard sale, and her name was carved into the side of her head). We eventually decided that they were too cheesy, even for a manequin. That, and we actually had customers coming in to the shop asking if we sold them.

Anyway, they got a whole bunch of shots with Vince and Santa Claus. Santa(a.k.a., the photographer's brother's best friend) was seated in Vince's tattoo chair, and the pair of them made lots of horrified faces. We then got Santa over to the couch, and situated him with a tattoo book. She randomly opened it to a page, and, of course, when she hands it to him, the first thing he sees - tattooed penis. Laura seems to be quite good at opening to the page with the naked dude. Of course, we all get a good laugh out of this, followed by me with, "Okay, guys. Somebody give Santa some boobs to look at".

I will have more details on this coming up very soon. I'll have the link once they publish the article. That, and I'm almost positive that there will be photos of the shoot(yes, I was running around with the camera, taking pictures of the photographer taking pictures) on the shop's website.