Ink and Food and Laughter OH MY!
Scribing at 12:35 p.m. on 2005-03-12
Woo hooooooo!
*doing the Cingul4r Guy Happy Dance*
We met UrsaMajorrrrrrrrrrr! You wanna be us, you know you do. Ok, you gnash your teeth and crumple the blankets in a fit of jealousy. I'll wait right here. Go 'head.
*pause*
Better? Ok.
She is such a hottie. And OOMA .. lemme tellya. The guy is a freakin' ROCK STAR. I actually think I saw 'Studmuffin' floating above his head most of the night like a little traveling neon 'You are here' sign.
I was sore from laughing the entire trip back home.
But lemme start at the beginning.
We headed out to Detroit at some ungodly hour (I say ungodly hour because I think the sun was shining. I'm not used to that yet, so I'm pretty sure it was some ungodly hour.)and followed UrsaMajor's flawless directions right up until the Detroit Department Of Fucking Up Your Roads decided to oh, close the freeway. We were routed onto somewhere we hadn't intended to be; but ended up getting off the freeway and I asked directions (yes, a man actually asked directions. When there is proper impetus, we actually will consider this; but don't tell people I told you that or I'll deny ever speaking to you.)and we ended up going in the totally back way.
As it turned out, it worked fine anyway; even despite the Detroit Department Of Putting Up Lots Of New Shit To Confuse You and their Thrush-like (the disease, not the bird) ability to make you feel as though you've never visited the city you grew up in, we found what we were looking for despite them.
We parked (yes, I know. Parking in Detroit sounds like an oxymoron, but they REALLY want your money now, so they've become a little less stringent about things.) and hopped on the People-Mover (because Detroit is too tight-ass to call it The El) even though we were within sight of the RenCen where the Tattoo Conference was. The Diva hadn't experienced the People Mover *coughing to cover 'The El'* and everybody should fear for their life at least once every time they visit the city, or it's just not the same.
The trip there took about 20 minutes, and was quite scenic; huffing around a lot of the attractions .. although I was MOST bummed you couldn’t see the Big Fist outside of Joe Louis Arena from the El. Uh, the People Mover. Right.
Hopped off when we got to the station at the RenCen and there was a highly underdressed guy jumping off of the car ahead of us with a full sleeve tattoo and a 35mm camera, so we decided to follow him in. He was moving at that sprinty kind of pace that someone gains only by feeling major organs starting to frost over inside his body, so it was a challenge to keep up with him. Until he turned around and saw this unlikely duo sprinting behind him, and then stopping to gasp for breath whenever he did. He actually started talking to us (I resisted the urge to say ‘you’re not from around here, are you?’) and led us straight up through the Wonderland to the actual convention site.
Once we were properly wrist-banded and inside, it was All About Ink.
There were artists there from all over the States, and a flash artist who came from Italy. There were probably lots more locales represented, but even though we were there for 2.5 hours I know for certain that we didn’t see everyone, or everything; not by a long shot. The steady hum of tattoo machines and the smell of green soap wafted through the air, wrestling to be heard over the crunch and bang of some serious headbanging music blasting out of speakers the size of vending machines. People of every possible description (and a few even *I* wouldn’t have thought about) were milling around, checking out each other’s ink/steel/mods, haggling with the vendors, trading skill for skill. One of the things I really love about tattooing is that it really IS the great equalizer. Where else are you going to see a small knot of black, Japanese, White, Italian, etc. people walking up to each other without knowing them first and just striking up a conversation? Seriously. I heard ‘Nice piece!’ in 14 different languages. It was Da Bomb.
There were some serious tattoo Deity’s there. Bob Tyrell. Hannah *and* Guy Aitcheson. Tom Renshaw. My head was spinning. It was all I could do to not fall on the floor and lay there with my eyes rolling around in my head. It was like wandering into Mt. Olympus during a tattoo party, I kid you not.
When we finally wandered out to the bar in the hotel to have a quick drink and a cigarette or 12, I finally got back down to earth long enough to realize that the time we were supposed to meet Ursa & OOMA was coming up fast. We finished our smokes and headed back inside for a last turn around the perimeter, and then headed for the People Mover station to meet up.
Ursa had left me a voice mail on my cell that I SO did not hear ring inside the convention hall. Just as I finished listening to it, they came walking down the hall. When these people are walking towards you, you cannot help but smile. There is something about them, both separately and together, that exudes that perfect chemistry thing. They are absolutely flawless, both as a couple and in that really cool way they have .. you know how sometimes you meet a person for the first time, and when they walk up and say hello you instinctually know they are Good People.
To borrow a phrase from the Diva .. They Do Not Suck. Plus, they will make you laugh until your wardrobe is compromised, if you get my meaning.
We took the El (oops – People Mover. *cough*) around to GreekTown, and had dinner at Nikki’s, following up with dessert at the bakery down the street.
All the way home, we snickered and snorted about one bit of conversation or another; and let me tell you .. I will NEVER look at farm animals the same way again. Or people without livers, I might add.
Ursa and OOMA, man. They are DA BOMB.
