Inked Up: Jodie Marsh

Now that I got Sky finally installed, I can catch up on all kinds of tattoo reality shows such as

Miami Ink - the original tattoo show, which  led to several spin-offs, including the shows LA Ink and London Ink and soon to be aired Rio Ink.

Skin pimping never looked so good!

The formula is the same: Each episode features  a number of customers along with their back stories (most of which are sob stories) and motivations for choosing their tattoos.

The show made Kat Von D a popular star and landed her the LA Ink spin off, which she now headlines, after a falling out with Ami James from Miami Ink (pictured above).

Her recently released book High Voltage Tattoo, compiling her artworks and tattoos,  reached #6 on The New York Times Best Seller list. The book traces Von D's career as an artist, from early childhood influences to recent work, along with examples of inspirations, information about the show and her shop, sketches, and personal tattoos

"Kat is an Argentinian love goddess with a lion heart as big as California who rocks the tallest platforms, the best leather outfits, big red lips like a Latin movie star from the 50's, and a laugh that gives you smiles inside.  everyone asks me--is Kat really that fun to be around?   the answer is yes...from Oklahoma to Montreal, Kat is my favorite person to hang out with.  Kat is the best friend a girl could have.  Kat es mi familia."                                         

The girl rocks... which now brings me to the subject I was trying to get to: Jodie Marsh.
Has anyone watched her new reality show last night, titled "Jodie Marsh: Tattoo Apprentice"

Yes, the belt for bras wearing glamour model and professional enemy of equally self-deluded Jordan, has given up the glamour work for a shot at becoming a tattoo artist. For all you US readers, Jodie is like our version of Daisy de la Hoya crossed with some Tila Tequilla.

The show starts off with shots of her in her house blabbing on about where she wants to be in life and how much she loves the tattoo world and tattooed people.

 Marsh has over 70 tattoos – from her first, the word 'cheekie' tattooed on her bum, to an exact copy of the stilettos she wore as a lap dancer at Stringfellows. Classy. Even worse,  she once lost a bet and had Bizarre magazine readers chose a tattoo for her - a devil tail winding out of her butt crack. Very classy.

Anyway, the lady is of course free to do as she pleases with her life, but it really annoyed me that she thought she could bypass the proper path to becoming a tattoo apprentice by refusing to do any cleaning - a cornerstone of any apprentice's experience.

You see, the tattoo world has rules, really strict ones.. rules that cannot be bent because you know so and so or you have done this or that. For starters, to become an apprentice, you need to impress an artist with a shit hot portfolio of drawings. Once you have been taken on board, you will basically need to get your head down and do whatever your tattoo teacher tells you .. its tough, it will break you, but those are the rules.

Those rules did not suit the pampered miss marsh who walked out of her first apprenticeship. She then bagged herself some training time at a local tattoo parlour run by some blokes who have a cast of her breasts hanging on the wall. Looking like a tattooed version of Jordan, she pranced around the place with her nipples  permanently pocking out of her top, whilst obsessing about becoming a  tattoo artist and tattooing her dad.

When she finally got to hit needle to skin, namely on her dad, the effect was just awful. It took her four hours to complete what effectively looked like a picture frame. In the real world, there would have been no way she would have been allowed to touch ink to skin.

Seriously, don't give up the day job, love