So, getting back to our weekend in LA, Sunday morning, we woke up and drove to Venice Beach.  I had never been there, so it seemed like something I should do before leaving Cali.  So, we walked up and back, most of the boardwalk.  It was cool.  It was like the Venice Beach in the movies, except it was like 11 am on a Sunday, so it wasn't busy yet.  

Some of the art that I saw gave me more self esteem about my art.  I mean, to be honest, there was just some shit that looked like it was thoughtlessly painted to sell to some gullible (I had to look up how to spell gullible) tourist that wants something cheap to say they bought it in Venice Beach.  I just wonder, how some of these people can afford the rent to pay for their space.  

Anyhoo, there was this great mural on the side of a building:

I vaguely remember seeing an ad for this show, but I have not seen it.  I know it's not quite as cool because it's advertising, but I love panda bears and panda bears with wings and beers is just triply awesome.  

So, after that we ate lunch/brunch, to be discussed in The Pork Porn Pages.  Then we went back to the hotel room.  We started getting ready, but we realized it was too early to go to the museum, so we just hung out in the room for a while, watching a dumb JLo romantic comedy.  I don't have any kind of love for her, but I feel some kind of kindred booty with her.  I have a big booty that sticks out.  Also, I love love love the new fiat, and I totally want one, and I love the one that she drives in the commercials.  I am not at all a fan of white cars, but the way that particular color is metallic pearlized, it is very pretty.  And I like that red soft top on it too.  

Anyway, we got to the museum and parked behind the tar pits, which was nice since I've never been there before either.  So we walked through the park and stopped at one of the fenced in pits.  I took some enthralling video of it bubbling.  Really, I recommend not even watching this.

So, then we went to the museum and looked around the permanent collections.  Lots of great art in there.  Then we sat in the plaza at the Stark Bar and had wine and cheese.  How very.  It was great just sitting there hanging out for a couple hours.  

Then we went to stand in the monster line for the Tim Burton exhibit.  But the museum lady asked if anyone was in line for the 8pm admission.  We were, so we raised our hands.  She told us to stand on the outside of the ropes until she told us we could get back in.  

So, we waited for a bit.  But then we decided to go walk around for a bit.  We started to walk around, when we noticed she was letting the 8 pm people back in line.  So we ran back to the line.  I stepped over the ropes, while BFF felt the need to go through the whole rope maze, and ask people if she could cut through to where I was.  We waited for about 30 minutes.  Then we were finally led to the entrance.  All couple hundred of us.   There was a lot of cool stuff, but I kinda had to pee and there were so many people.  There was some kinda dumb stuff like his school notes.  But it was still totally worth it, even with all the people around.  Lots of stuff from his movies, and characters that he didn't do stuff with, and cartoon shorts and stuff.  Photos were not allowed in the exhibit, but this was at the end and we were allowed to take pictures of this: 

Pretty cool eh?  So, that concluded our tour of the Tim Burton exhibit.  So then, we left and went clubbing.  At a goth club.  On Halloween Eve.  So, there were lots of costumes, and lots of people just dressed for clubbing.  The funniest costume was this guy in a generic dracula costume.  It's just funny, because that's what people usually wear to the goth club on a regular night.  And he appeared to be dancing watching himself in the mirror.  When I realized this, I got the giggles.  I was sitting by myself, and I just started uncontrollably laughing for several minutes.  Yeah.  I must have looked like I was having a seizure or something.  Oh well.  We left the club a little after 1 am.  Back in the day, about 19 years ago,  we would have closed that mother down!  But, this is 19 years later, and we had had a long day, and BFF had somehow strained her back on the drive from Vegas.  So, the dancing didn't really help at all.  Anyway, it was still a great weekend, so what if we were older?!

Happy Halloween!

I really don't know if people actually are going out tonight.  It seems like Halloween has become this two weekend event.  More time for girls to really slut out.  On Friday and Saturday, people were already dressing up and going to Halloween parties.  So it's Monday and I imagine people are partied out, and their costumes are probably all dirty and ripped up anyway.

I didn't dress up this year.  But I did meet my BFF in Los Angeles to do Halloween type stuff.  I took the amtrak up there.  Except, they are doing weekend maintenance on the track, so I had to ride a charter bus up to Irvine.  The bus driver was a boisterous ample african american woman.  This man tried to get on the bus as it was pulling away.  He didn't have a ticket though.  She gave him the bizness.  But, she made it there in like 1 hour and fifteen minutes.

After that, I took the train the rest of the way to LA.  They were only operating on one track, but I had read the signs that said the train to LA was on track 1.  So I was climbing the stairs to go over there, with one other guy, when someone yelled at us that the train was on track 2.  The whole hour that I waited, people would go over to track 1, and someone would have to yell to them to come back.  If I worked there, I would have just put a sign on the stairs and the elevator, right?

So, I got to LA and my BFF didn't see me waiting, so she parked for like 3 minutes and had to pay $2.  Sounds like LA to me.  We went all the way to our hotel room which was a priceline bargain by LAX, and we were told we couldn't check in until 3.  Which meant we wouldn't be checking in until later that night.

So, we went over to Melrose near the tattoo shop.  We had lunch, went to some stores that my BFF liked, which included a necromantic store, called Necromance.  It had taxidermy and all kinds of preserved insects and animal bones and skeletons.  One thing that was a little disturbing was a box of stuffed ducklings for sale.  Poor little guys.  There was a lot of stuff.  And there was a sign in front of a myriad of mostly animal bones that said that all insects procured had died a natural death.  I don't believe it.  But whatever.  It was a very cool store.  Of course, photography wasn't allowed, so no pictures.

We went to the tattoo shop about half an hour before our appointment.  They weren't ultra helpful.  They asked who the appointment was with, but we didn't know.  So they guessed it was Jonny, wasn't in yet.  So we waited and waited.  And waited.  He called about half an hour after he was supposed to be there.  He was running late.  So, the guy who seemed to be the manager or owner talked to us about what we wanted.  So, he told me Jonny would be definitely the best for my tattoo.  He thought that Sean would be good to do BFF's tattoo because it was more up his alley.

So, we waited.  There wasn't too much in the immediate vicinity, so we mostly waited at the shop.  Sean showed up, and he was told about BFF's tattoo.  He was busy eating his subway sub, so he took his time.  Then he had to set up his station.  Then finally he was ready for her.  About 2 hours after we had first arrived.  He did a crow on her foot, and he added chains to an anchor on her thigh.  And he hit on her while he was tattooing her.  She was interested.  Which was good.  Otherwise, that would be an uncomfortable experience.  Being hit on my some guy who you don't like but is permanently embedding ink in your skin.

So, when he was halfway done with her, Jonny Ocean showed up.  But he had to do a microdermal jewel thing to this girl first, behind her ear.  So that took a while.  While he was doing that, the apprentice was supposed to prep the tattoo station for him, but the apprentice seemed new or not too smart.  It took him a long time, and then he didn't do everything.  Finally, Jonny was ready for me.  I showed him my little file printout of a  sampaguita flower from the internet.  It was to go by my mom's name.  I wanted something little, but he thought it should be big.  He asked me to write down the name, then he looked on the internet for other photos.  He picked another one, and printed it big and in color.

Then he used the photo to sketchy the outlines on my skin.  He asked me what I thought.  I looked.  It was big.  I wasn't thinking that big.  But what the hell.  He was the artist, right?  So I gave him the okay.  And I watched him pull out the neat blending needle with several fine teeth, like clippers kinda. So he drew all over my arm.  I really don't know how long it took.  Maybe around an hour.  But after all that waiting, I totally wanted him to take his time and make it worth my wait.  After all, this was permanent.  When he was done, it was very red, but I could still see the detail.  Definitely worth the wait.

So, this isn't the best picture.  But don't worry it's beautiful.  I'm so gangsta.  So here's the info for the place.

Sacred Art LA41 N. Highland Ave
Sacred Art Tattoo & Piercing
1441 N. Highland Ave
Hollywood CA 90028
323-463-0520

Facebook: sacredartla

Hours of Operations:
Sunday - Thursday 12noon to 10pm
Friday - Saturday 12noon to 12pm
Hollywood CA 90028
323-463-0520

Facebook: sacredartla

Hours of Operations: 
Sunday - Thursday 12noon to 10pm
Friday - Saturday 12noon to 12pm