I was on the fence about a short post on this reality show on TLC called L.A. Ink where a hot gal runs her own tattoo parlor. She’s got a (nonfunctional) skateboard ramp in her shop and a boyfriend that skates, or something like that. Now that Mike Vallely has shown up on an episode the skateboarding link is less tenuous. There’s a split second of skate footage and band footage. Mike looks like a crazy old biker. Highlights include Mive V’s quote:

There’s all these people who talk about ‘keeping it real.’ Keeping it real is joke! Keeping it real is keeping it real mediocre.

Also interesting to nobody but me is the the fact that I went to high school with one of the tattoo artists on the show, Hannah Aitchison, who, if she remembers me at all, will likely think of me as the annoying kid who thought he was punk rock. She dropped out a year early to go be an adult, something I’ve only just gotten around to doing.

There are other tattoo parlors with skateboard ramps. Portland’s own Urban Soul had a ramp and a skateshop, but soon found that all the annoying groms that just wanted to hang out and ask to see boards and not buy anything put a serious damper on their real livelihood, tattoos. – Thanks to Eric Cherry for the video.

Mike Vallely on L.A. Ink.