5th Annual Ink-N-Iron-Festival
We knew we were in for quite an experience when we heard that the 5th Annual Ink-N-Iron Festival was set to take place on the Queen Mary.
For those of you who don’t know what the hell the Queen Mary is, it's a spit image of the mighty Titanic.
The event was loaded with activities, way too much to cover it all. There were live bands performing everywhere, a stage here, and a stage there, freaks and sexy women everywhere.
There were people with tattoos on their heads and faces. We even met a girl who claimed she had a tattoo on her lips….the ones down stairs!
The bands were cool, and so were the several hundred show cars parked on the dock. The angry sound of tattoo pistols and the scent of blood filled the air of the Queen Mary. The sight of sexy pain freaks getting tats was interesting as well.
We met a guy named Ernie Belmonte of Santa Ana California. He had some of the nicest tattoos we’ve seen in a while.
He informed us that they were done by Jose Lopez, the owner of Lowrider Tattoo. Lowrider Tattoo really knows their shit.
Then we came across a familiar face in a tattoo booth along the way. It finally dawned on us that it was Paul Stottler, guitarist of the awesome band, The Invisible Humans. Those cats were at Musink Tattoo Festival a couple months back, and they impressed us enough we just had to feature their band. It turns out not only does Stottler know how to handle a guitar but he also knows how to sling ink. In fact he rolls with the artists of True Tattoo.
Well the buzzing sound of all of those tattoo pistols in action started making our ears ring so we decided to head outside for a breath of fresh air.
That’s when we came across this really attractive baby doll dressed as a sailor. Well she ended up reeling us in with her catchy eyes and jazzy smile. She told us her name was Lady Vampira, a pin-up girl for Pinup Angels.com. You can catch a better look at this chick by Clicking Here.
Enjoy.
Tattoo Quotes
Tattoos are like stories - they're symbolic of the important moments in your life. Sitting down, talking about where you got each tattoo and what it symbolizes, is really beautiful. Pamela Anderson
My body is a journal in a way. It's like what sailors used to do, where every tattoo meant something, a specific time in your life when you make a mark on yourself, whether you do it yourself with a knife or with a professional tattoo artist. Johnny Depp
"Every time I get a tattoo, it’s a little fuck-you to anyone who tells me not to. It’s weird to be part of Hollywood, which tries to control every aspect of people, from what they say to the color of their hair. And I like the way getting a tattoo feels. If I’m depressed, it’s nice to get one and deal with the pain. I have one all the way down to my ribs. It hurt, but it felt good–like twisting a loose tooth. I’m not kidding when I say that if I ever lose a role because of my tattoos, I’ll quit Hollywood and go to work at Costco." ~ Megan Fox
I think I have enough tattoos for now. If I get any others, I'll probably do my kids initials. Niki Taylor
I did what I could to move the muscles in my back so the tattoo could sort of stretch out. I always wished I had more muscles that could crinkle up.
Ralph Fiennes For the film, Red Dragon (2002) as Francis Dolarhyde
I have this huge lion tattoo embossed on my arm. I was a little worried as to how we would cover it up. But my makeup man covered the tattoo with makeup. It took close to two hours.
Sanjay Dutt
I got my first tattoo, a Playboy Bunny, because I was young, dumb and drunk... Anna Nicole Smith
I always look for a woman who has a tattoo. I see a woman with a tattoo, and I’m thinking, okay, here’s a gal who’s capable of making a decision she’ll regret in the future. -- Comedian Richard Jeni
Vince Vaughn in the hit film The Wedding Crashers - "Tattoo on the lower back. Might as well be a bulls-eye."
I wouldn't care if they tattoo Festus all over. He's been good to me.
Ken Curtis - American singer and actor best known for his role as "Festus Haggen" on CBS' long-running western drama, Gunsmoke, which he portrayed from 1964 to 1975.
"You put a tattoo on yourself with the knowledge that this body is yours to have and enjoy while you're here. You have fun with it, and nobody else can control (supposedly) what you do with it. That's why tattooing is such a big thing in prison: it's an expression of freedom—one of the only expressions of freedom there. They can lock you down, control everything, but 'I've got my mind, and I can tattoo my body—alter it my way as an act of personal will.' " DON ED HARDY
The only difference between a tattooed person and a person who isn't tattooed is that a tattooed person doesn't care if you're tattooed or not.
(Sign often seen in tattoo shops)
Beauty is skin deep. A tattoo goes all the way to the bone.
Vince Hemingson
There's something really the matter with most people who wear tattoos, he says. I know from experience there's something terribly flawed about people who are tattooed above the little something Johnny had done in the Navy, even though that's also a bad sign. (Truman Capote, author of In Cold Blood, interviewed more than one hundred killers over a period of ten years and says eighty percent of them have one thing in common: Tattoos)
The Greek philosopher Bion of Borysthenes (circa 300 B.C.) described the brutally tattooed face of his father, a former slave, as "a narrative of his master's harshness."
Love lasts forever, but a tattoo lasts six months longer. (Anon)
Think before you Ink! (Sign often seen in tattoo shops)
"The human body is always treated as an image of society." ANTHROPOLOGIST MARY DOUGLAS
"A man without tattoos is invisible to the Gods." - Iban Proverb - Mingatt Anak Casa (Akai Basai), Iban Headman on the Sekerang River, Sarawak, Borneo - from The Vanishing Tattoo Documentary
"The woman must bear children and the man must be tattooed."
Polynesian Proverb
You may lose your most valuable property through misfortune in various ways. You may lose your house, your wife and other treasures. But of your moko, you cannot be deprived except by death. It will be your ornament and companion until your last day. -- Netana Whakaari of Te Waimana-Kākū, Tuhoe, 1921
"An everlasting gem that you will take into your grave."
Line from a traditional Polynesian song about tattooing
Richard Leakey - A quote from "Origins Reconsidered - In Search of What Makes Us Human".
"Each society weaves its own culture, a complex fabric of many elements, each element giving special meaning to the others. It is often difficult for someone from outside a particular culture to understand the fabric as an entity. Differences in language, in values, and in mythology create barriers to understanding. Pluck a single thread from the fabric, and the foreigner is even less likely to comprehend its significance. The painted, engraved, and carved images of prehistory are threads from past cultures, and we are the foreigners trying to interpret their meaning. Perhaps more than anything else, art can be fully understood only in the context of the culture that produced it."
In Galatians 6:17, Saint Paul says, "From this time onward let no one trouble me; for, as for me, I bear, branded on my body, the scars of Jesus as my Master."
"Tattoos aren't meant for everybody and they're too goddamn good for some people." Lyle Tuttle, tattoo artist, author, and lecturer.
"I'm the man who ruined everything." (Lyle Tuttle on the popularity of modern tattooing)
Sonny and another Hells Angel who was at the meeting thought they were beyond a little patch so they headed down to a local tattoo shop in Oakland and were the first to get the famous One Percent tattoos.
Chuck Zito - a member of the New York chapter of the Hells Angels, amateur boxer, martial artist, celebrity bodyguard, stuntman and actor.
Sometimes I bust out and do things so permanent. Like tattoos and marriage. Drew Barrymore
People have asked me, what about your tattoos when you're ninety? Why would it bother me then? I would still want to get tattooed even when I'm a grandmother. Nicole Miller, noted fashion designer
Everybody gets the tattoo they deserve. (actor David Duchovny, who has a tattoo of a compass on his ankle, [with N, S, E, West, his daughter's name] as Fox Mulder on the X-Files, a show Thomas Lockhart worked on in the famous Tattoo episode)
In the 19th century, Field Marshal Earl Roberts said that "every officer in the British army should be tattooed with his regimental crest. Not only does this encourage esprit de corps but also assists in the identification of casualties."
In 19th Century England, tattooing flourished as nowhere else in Europe, largely thanks to traveling seamen who would come back with permanent souvenirs of their travels on their arms. In 1862, it gained Royal sanction and members of the Royal family, from the Prince of Wales to King Edward VII, acquired tattoos. By 1890 the fad had spread to the US and tattoos were seen on members of the exclusive New York Racquet Club. - It is certainly the most vulgar and barbarous habit the eccentric mind of fashion ever invented. It may do for an illiterate seaman, but hardly for an aristocrat. Society men in England were the victims of circumstance when the Prince of Wales had his body tattooed. Like a flock of sheep driven by their master they had to follow suit. (Socialite of the day Ward McAllister who complained to the press about the fad) - Strange how this attitude has endured to the 21st century...
Rehab
Last Tattoo Lyrics
This will be my last tattoo
To cover the memory of someone I thought I'd always need
Cover her name with a smoking gun
Make it hurt as much as possible and make it bleed
Just can't take it no more feelin' numb
Woke up face on the floor I was dumb
Cut me all the way to the core morning comes
Time to get busy forgetting again
Tired of going out my mind
Looking for something I won't find
How could I have been so blind
This is a load of crap
It figures she would win
But I'll learn to feel again
Bear down hard when you fill it in
Give me the pain I'll grit my teeth in
[Hook:]
This will be my last tattoo
To cover the memory of someone I thought I'd always need
Cover her name with a smoking gun
Make it hurt as much as possible and make it bleed
