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.

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.