Among the Swingers

VENICE, CA -- Never have I witnessed the depravity I witnessed among the swingers...

That was going to be my opener. But then I didn't really witness any depravity among the swingers and thought to reconsider. (I did. I'm sticking with my gut.)

As it turns out, the swingers I met all seemed surprisingly normal for sex maniacs. I felt right at home among them.

Although, I gotta say, trying to suck up to my ex-wife with a line like, “I've probably been with six thousand women in my life, but every time I look at (you), I fall in love again,” would probably have ended badly. Like, searching-for-my-severed- johnson-by-the-side-of-the-road badly.

Actually, the swinger who floated that one—John Lynch of the San Fernando Valley's Velvet Swing club—has maybe as little to do with normal as anyone I’ve ever met. (And I mean that in a good way.)

But he was the exception. The rest of the swingers I met, scattered across SoCal, were downright ordinary by comparison. But damn were they neurotic.

Swingers: Will you please decide what to call what it is you do and then call it swinging? Because, I mean, Marriage with benefits? The lifestyle? This hard-on everyone has for reframing has gone far enough...

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Labels: Dogtown Ink, dogtownink.com, Dr. Robert McGinley, John Lynch, Lifestyles.org, orange county, swingers, swinging, thebradmiskell, velvetswing.com

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Is This Man Flipping the Bird?

VENICE, CA -- Attention anyone who has ever seen those colorful, cartoon-cut-out doves that dangle from power lines over busy intersections from here to San Francisco, NYC and even London: Could Browne, the enigmatic, young street artist behind the berds (his werd), be using them to basically flip the bird?

"They have a pretty obvious meaning," Browne says. "But I won't tell anyone what it is."

Fine. Mystery is fun...ish. Though insisting the meaning is obvious is an obvious attempt to tempt suckers with nothing better to do into wasting time playing guessing games.

So my guess is "flipping the bird" is the meaning.

For one thing, he sort of "flips" the "berds" up onto the power lines (see video). For another, flipping the bird is what street art, on some level, is generally about: It's generally illegal, generally vandalism and generally subversive social commentary aimed at the man.

Therefore, flipping the bird is my final answer for what Browne means.

Unless it's "bird on a wire"...

READ ON @ www.dogtownink.com

Labels: berd, berd gallery, david browne, Dogtown Ink, dogtownink.com, flat art, intersection birds, robbie connell, street art, thebradmiskell, yahoo news underground

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Amerikan Traditionalist

KEVIN HINTON
Occupations: Tattoo Artist & Owner, Old Glory Tattoo, Venice, CA
Preoccupations: American Traditional tattoos and Iron Man triathlons

"I got my first tattoo when I was thirteen," says Kevin Hinton.

We sit at the bar in Hama Sushi, across the street from Venice's Old Glory Tattoo Parlor, the shop Hinton has owned and operated since 2005. I wonder who, in America, tattoos thirteen-year-olds.

"I saw African tribesmen tattooing themselves with a sharpened bone on a National Geographic show," Hinton says. "So I got a sewing needle and wrapped thread near the tip to control the depth and hold the ink." Ah-ha...

READ ON @ www.dogtownink.com

Labels: american traditional tattoos, Dogtown Ink, dogtownink.com, ed hardy, kevin hinton, nautical tattoos, old glory tattoos, poke tattoos, sailor jerry, thebradmiskell, venice tattoo parlour

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