tattoo you

wow, it's already wednesday, and i haven't even blogged the weekend yet. it was the long-awaited epic adventure of going to santa barbara with coiledsoul and the visiting maniac known as kassie. their goal: to get tattoos by pat fish. my goal: to watch them bleed.

sadly, i didn't get to see ANY blood. pat fish is too good to allow that sort of thing.

we drove up saturday morning in the beast, which performed quite well. it was damn hot too -- perhaps the hottest weekend of the year so far, even in SB.

first stop was la super rica, a little before noon.



that was an excellent time to arrive, as the line was remarkably short. but the people in front of us were longtime customers who decided it would be good to chat up the order guy and tell him they were celebrating a birthday AND an anniversary, and yakkety yak yak yak. more people kept arriving behind us, and these yuppies just kept jawing away. CS was giving 'em the hairy eyeball, but they took their sweet time.

at last we got to order, and soon enough had our tacos, etc. it was a magnificent feast of pork, beef, chorizo and delicious cheesiness. and guacamole! CS the texan pronounced it all good. and it was.

then we went to check into the motel 6 -- the ORIGINAL motel 6, mind you: nothing but the best for our chick road trip -- but the room wasn't ready yet. so we trundled off to find the tattoo place. after circling the block once or twice, we located it and parked about a mile away. the tattoo people were delayed, so we nipped into the cafe next door for beers (CS & K) and a mimosa (moi). it was hot but quite pleasant in the shade of the cafe patio, watching the cars go by on state street.

the tattoo joint opened, and thus began the rather long and slightly chaotic process of selecting designs, signing forms, planning schedules, etc. it was a laidback kinda place, which i suppose is good for a tattoo parlor. one wouldn't want to be rushed. but i had quite a lot of time to study the interior while my friends made their arrangements. the high ceilings were decorated with taxidermied birds and chinese fish kites, framed posters of tattooed people and a row of women with their backs airbrushed with stuff like the pink floyd dark side of the moon album cover. and way up top on one wall was a poster of some standing stones in moonlight that sorta looked like the ones on the isle of lewis, but i think they were probably irish ones.

on the walls to left and right were black metal racks, like the kind used to display posters, showing myriad design possibilities and also some of PF's work. chinese symbols in black ink on white background decorated the fronts of the counter, and a very neat, detailed chart of them was tacked on the wall to the left. it included such surprising entries as "diarrhea" -- not sure why you'd want that tattooed on yourself, but whatev. i was sorta taken with the one for "beast," but not so much that i'd actually get it put on me.

CS and i checked into the motel while K sorted out her tatt plans. we got a nice l'il room on the second floor, just big enough to swing a cat in. the a/c felt good to our heat-baked skin. after cooling off, we returned to pick up K and hang back at the motel for a while. the beach called to K, so off she went, and CS joined her, while i pounded out some work for the endless website job.

then ... crisis! K came back from the beach and quickly realized she'd lost her bracelets -- with all these charms on them that are very meaningful and irreplaceable. she went back and searched the sand, but nada. then CS got this gleam in her eye and said she was gonna go look. i had a good feeling about it, or maybe it was just hope, but i said nothing b/c i was still slamming away on website copy.

i was fixing myself up for the return trip to town when CS returned -- triumphant! she'd found the bracelets, right where our girl had left them. (see, all that army training DID come in handy.) there was much rejoicing, and CS was pronounced the hero of the day.

K's tattoo appointment was at 6, but there was a long delay for her to get her lotus (picture at the top of this post). we had planned to go to a bar afterward to celebrate, but saturday night in a college town was in full swing, so instead we opted to have CS and me make a run to trader joe's for some wine and snacks (to supplement the ones CS brought in her cooler). then we picked up our freshly inked girl and -- after watching the how-to-care-for-your-tatt video and CS making plans for hers the next day -- headed back to the motel.

then it was just drinking, eating, talking, and watching TV till we all passed out ... by 2 a.m. K and i listened to the new breeders album on my laptop and also an assortment of tracks by an artist named cory branan, which K had sent me a while ago but i'd managed not to check out.

sunday was another hot one. but we got it together, checked out, and went down to stearns wharf for brunch on the deck of some rustic touristy joint. we watched the sailboats and kayakers and cabin cruisers and pelicans pass by in the bay. my mimosa was xlnt, and i had seafood crepes with crab and shrimp -- mmm. the ladies shared an enormous pile of fried seafood that looked delicious. after that we strolled around and checked out the long line of tents along the main drag, selling art, jewelry, bags, pottery, clothing, windchimes, plant holders, garden decorations that looked vaguely gallifreyan, and just about anything else you could imagine.

we stopped to look at arlington west on the sand by the entrance to the pier -- the local war memorial for all the u.s. military dead in iraq/afghanistan. 4,000+ crosses -- mostly crosses. also jewish stars and muslim crescents. it was a sobering sight.



it was frickin' hot -- did i mention? presently we hopped into the beast and trundled back down the wooden planks of the pier to state street and the waiting tattoo parlor. after ms. CS got situated, K and i wandered off to do some shopping. at the territory ahead outlet store, i found a shirt for 00soul -- a nice kinda greenish-brownish silk number -- and one for me -- a very time-lordy item in a lightweight blueish-purple cotton with ruffles and strips of velvet on the front. very jon pertwee. then we went across the street to a trendy t-shirt/tchotchke joint, where K got a cowgirl-decorated tote bag for CS and i snagged a couple of tiny new york dolls buttons.

then it was nearly 4, and still frakkin' hot. so i made the executive decision to go to the james joyce and start drinking, figuring CS could catch us up after her tatt. the place was much mellower than it had been when we'd passed by the night before. tiger woods was golfing up on the silent big-screen TV. i had a lovely tanq&tonic. presently CS showed up, and we passed a couple of hours yakking, laughing, and drinking. then the celtic band showed up. we heard a couple of numbers, but it was time to head back to l.a. -- the sun was going down. we nipped into the hot dog shop down the street for chili dogs, then climbed into the beast. got gas -- and curel (unscented!) for the tatt ladies -- and we were on our way home.