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He was also the cameraman, the editor, the light guy, the sound guy. He was the guy. The guy behind the camera.
I was the guy in front of the camera.
It was just the two of us, thinking up wacky segments to shoot. We would go around our hometown of Baltimore, Maryland, and film these episodes.
Rei came up with the bright idea to go to an underground tattoo parlor, get me a tattoo, and then go to a dermatologist to get it removed.
The tattoo place was in some guy's kitchen in his small apartment in a nasty section of town. He was making some of the most bizarre tattoos I've ever seen.
Strange looking folks were waiting around to get tattoos.
I got one.
He asked me what I wanted. I asked for a simple heart on my forearm with "MOM" in the middle. The guy didn't use any ink--he probably didn't want to waste it on a tattoo that was going to get removed right away.
So I felt the pain but got no stain. It didn't hurt as much as I thought it would. Even without the ink, you could clearly see the tattoo. My skin was raised and red and it looked like I had been stamped with a branding iron.
I went to a dermatologist soon after to see what it was like to get a tattoo removed. I wasn't the first in line...
There was a woman before me who wanted to get a big eagle tattoo removed from her chest. She was complaining that the wings of the eagle looked like chest hair when she wore low cut shirts.
Rei and I watched as the doctor zapped her with a laser. We all had to wear special goggles so the laser wouldn't fry our eyeballs. We looked like mad scientists.
The doctor placed the laser pen on her tattoo and zapped. She flinched like she'd just been electrocuted. He put the pen back on the tattoo and zapped. She flinched again.
He'd zap, she'd flinch. He'd zap, she'd flinch. She looked like she was having strange conniptions every couple seconds. It went on like that for way too long.
I wanted to jump in, wave the white flag, blow the whistle, toss in the towel!
The doctor finally relented. Her tattoo was still vaguely visible. Doctor Dude told us a tattoo that big and dark would need a couple of sessions to disappear.
I sat down in the chair. The doctor revved up the laser and zapped me.
It didn't hurt as much as the time I got my genitalia caught in my zipper, but it was close. Getting lasered hurt more than getting the tattoo.
For another episode, we went to the Maryland State Fair at the Timonium Fairgrounds for a 4H Festival.
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