Some Thoughts On Spike TV's Ink Master...

I normally don't take the time to comment or "review" TV shows or movies.  There are a couple of reasons for that, the first being that most of the time anything I could say has already been said (and probably said better) by others.  The second is that often by the time I see something it's been out for a good while.  As an example I recently watched Leverage from beginning to end on Netflix, and it's been off the air for a while.  By the time I got into some other shows such as White Collar or Burn Notice they were at or near the end of their runs as well.

There are a couple of shows that are exceptions to this.  One is Marvel's Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. which still has a few weeks before season 3 starts; and Ink Master.  I, along with M and J, have watched every episode of every season of Ink Master, up and including the episode this week.  As such I have some observations (which others have probably made) and some suggestions (which nobody in a position to do something with them will ever read) to make.

First off let me start by saying, while I have watched every episode, this season (season 6) is the first season where I didn't do so either live or within a day or two of airing.  In fact, J and I just binge watched the first 9 episodes on her last couple of days off and then caught the 10th (and current) episode a couple of hours after it aired.  Now why do I make this point?  Well, mainly because the show isn't holding the same interest for me (or J, or even M) that it once did - and that's the main reason for this post.

For those that know me, they may well be surprised that I watch this show at all since I'm not a "tattoo person".  M has 4 or 5, P has 2, J and I each have one, and M2 has none.  For me it's not so much about the tattoo's, but rather the amazing art work that these people can come up with and bring to life.  I've never been artistic, but I've always been amazed by those that are and Ink Master did a great job early on illustrating this.  The "early on" part of that last sentence brings me to my main issue with the show as it exists today.

The first season, the show was truly about the tattoo's and that seemed to be the focus.  As the seasons have progressed, the priority seems to have shifted to just how much drama can be shown.  This has manifested itself in many ways;

• The primary one being interactions "in the loft" where the artists stay.  Early on, especially in season one, those were simply to "flesh things out" a bit and were not really the focal point of the show.  You'd see the artists discussing their lives, the challenges, or even the tattoo's they had done.  Now don't get me wrong, there was always "some drama", but it didn't seem to be the focus.  As the seasons have progressed, the video of the loft interactions has become less about the artists and the tattooing, but more about infighting and drama among the artists.  I know this may sound funny since it's always been a "reality show", but early on it didn't feel like the stereotypical reality show, and now it does and that's disappointing.

• The introduction of the "human canvas jury" in season three has been nearly as bad.  Obviously a huge part of the show has always been the judges critiques of the artists work.  But in the first couple of seasons this was almost always done without any of the human canvas's present.  That's still the case for the most part; but starting with season three, all of the human canvas's now meet to discuss the "worst tattoo of the day".  Now, this is heavily edited as is the rest of the show, but the vast majority of the video that they do show focuses on the "group" tearing into each tattoo.  To me, this is nothing more than another way to "increase the drama" as almost without fail when the artists are done with their tattoos, the human canvas is shown as being very happy with the work.  Having this "jury", to me is about on the same level as tossing a single steak to a pack of hyenas.  Having a bunch of people sit there and pick at something that you've just spent 4-6 hours having permanently placed on your body - well at it's core isn't much more than a group bully session.  Now, I realize that these people should know what they signed up for, but do they really need to do this?  From what I can tell, for the most part it doesn't have much (if any) impact on the actual judging anyway.  I think if somebody is really and truly not happy with their artists work, they could simply bring them down and let them say their piece to the judges in lieu of this "jury" idea; for that matter they could let every canvas do that - after all the judges go out of their way to tell the artists how important it is to work with their clients and make them happy, so why not get the actual opinions of the canvas's, without it being clouded by the tear downs that come from the jury session?

• As much as I dislike the whole human canvas jury, what bugs me even more is how the eliminations go.  Early on, it was pretty cut and dried - the judges gave their critiques and the artists responded to those, and then a decision was made.  In fact in season one, part of the reason for Bili being eliminated was not taking responsibility for his shortcomings.  Somewhere along the line, at least for most of the artists, it's turned into "throw everyone else under the bus" when it comes to critiques.  Instead of defending their own work on it's merits, they are more concerned about trying to pick apart the work of the others up for elimination.  I'm sure the "powers that be" find this to be "compelling television", but I don't.  In a lot of ways, I shouldn't be surprised as society as a whole has morphed from an era where personal responsibility was a way of life, to an era where there is little or no personal responsibility.  Maybe I'm just getting old, or maybe I'm just naive, but this has always bothered me and to see a show I like taking this route bugs me.  Perhaps this is simply the personality of the particular artists that have been chosen for later seasons, but I *strongly* suspect that it's more of the "powers that be" encouraging this, or at least editing things so that it comes across this way.

• To further expound on the eliminations, the "woe is me" factor has really gotten out of hand as well.  On the most recent season for example, one of the artists (Duffy) all but had a melt down both in the loft and in the elimination because she was missing her daughters birthday.  To the judges credit - and I believe it was Chris Nunez that said it - they pointed out that she *knew* that her child's birthday would fall during the competition and if she wasn't prepared to deal with that then perhaps she should have rethought coming.  I don't want to pick on Duffy, or even necessarily focus on her when it comes to this, as she's far from the only artist who's played the "woe is me" card.

• One last gripe about the eliminations.  For the first season, the contestants probably had little or no idea of what kinds of tattoos they'd need to do; they were basically going in blind.  But for subsequent seasons, especially these last couple - how on earth do these contestants act surprised that they might need to be able to do (in no order):  black and grey, color, portraits, American traditional, Japanese, pinup girls, and so on?  The judges have made it clear over the years that to be "Ink Master" you have to be able to do everything; but yet constantly I see artists that say "I don't do <insert tattoo style here>".  Shouldn't these artists have made an effort to learned these styles before singing up to compete?  Especially the styles that are near and dear to the judges (American Traditional for Oliver Peck and Japanese for Chris Nunez)?  Season six has been even worse as I've watched multiple artists whine that they are having issues dealing with being told what style to do.  Umm, have they never seen the show before?  What did they think they were signing up for?

I have some other issues with the show that fall outside of the "drama" that I've focused on, so let me touch on a few of those.

• The first season finale has stuck with me throughout the show.  The judges said that Tommy's pinup girl was the "best tattoo of the season", yet they awarded the title of Ink Master to Shane based upon his "body of work".  That bugged me at the time and still does.  But what really bugs me is that in seasons since then it seems like they've awarded overall victory more than once to artists that had the best final tattoo, but a lesser "body of work" over the entire season.  Pick a set of rules and go with it.

• Product placement.  Look, I get it, it helps pay for the show and Ink Master is far from the first show or movie to do it.  But some of it is out of hand - I'm looking at the Taco Bell "Live Mas" stuff from season six as an example.  If they are going to do this placement, at least try and do a better job of integrating it into the show.  Some of the placements have included a special prize for an artist(s) - which at least to me makes it a little better; but others such as this seasons Taco Bell placement added nothing to the show in my opinion and as such turned me off more than a bit.  As an example of what I think was good placement was the Star Wars challenge from season two.

• Lose the "team" challenges - at least for eliminations.  This became a real issue here in season six when two of the best (possibly *the two best*) artists ended up facing off in an elimination in episode seven (less than halfway through the season).  Not only did the season lose a good artists, but it also lost arguably the biggest "sh*t disturber"; so I suspect that the powers that be may rethink some things.  I did admire Katie speaking up when the judges seemed to consider not eliminating either of the two artists in that episode as it wasn't everyone else's fault that the rules of the game came back to bite the show in the backside.

• The judging bugs me as well.  Dave Navarro seems to focus on the specific challenge which I think is the way it should be; but the two tattoo "experts" (Oliver Peck/Chris Nunez) often "go off the reservation" and base their decisions on body of work, etc., which I don't think is right.  Why have specific challenges if the artists aren't actually going to be judged on those challenges?  Its like giving the other artists and the viewers a huge middle finger in my opinion.

• There have been occasional Ink Master specials and while most have been good, I did take exception to the Master versus Master show prior to season six.  Four of the first Five masters came back, the exception being Shane from season one.  Look, I don't have an issue with him not coming back, especially if that was *HIS* decision.  But why not explain why he wasn't there and the other four masters were?  Doesn't the audience deserve that?  And the format agitated me as frankly while I'll admit I don't like Scott very much, to get into the finals he lucked out as I believe he had the 3rd best tattoo of the 4; but because the two best had gone up against each other one of them was eliminated.  Now Scott did a nice job in the final; but in reality he really didn't deserve to get there.  Now I know this is often how it goes in sports, etc. (see the NL Central race in Major League Baseball this year); but it still agitated me.

There are other things, but I think I've rambled on long enough.  Now don't get me wrong, I do still like the show overall and have really enjoyed the early seasons.  I just feel that the things above, if changed, could greatly improve the show; although I'm also realistic enough to understand that many of the things I've railed against are done in the name of ratings, so if my options are to have to deal with these things or lose the show - well I'll deal with them.  But I won't be as hooked on the show as I have been in the past either.

- M

St. Louis Area TG Experiences - Part 12

Well it's been several weeks since I've written a post on this subject, and for that matter I haven't written much at all the last month or two, in fact it appears that I went the entire month of August without a post.  So I felt I should knock out a few posts, so this makes two in two days (well really about 10 minutes, but....).

Since the "prior" posts links were getting a bit long, there is now a page with links to all of the posts:  My Transgender Experiences.  

Restaurants:

• Ethyl's Smokehouse (O'Fallon, Missouri) - I have spend nearly all of my life living in and around the O'Fallon area and am old enough to remember when the building that is Ethyl's Smokehouse was "Bubba and Coy's Catfish" (which I ate at several times as a child), but while we have driven by Ethyl's more times that I can count over the years, I had never been there.  I suppose primarily because it comes across as a "bar" and we're not really drinkers; but M and I were out running around the other day and I really wanted to try something new for lunch and we settled on Ethyl's and I'm glad we did.  Since it's not really the focus of this blog, I won't go into the details of the meal, those can be found in the Yelp review I left HERE, instead I'll focus on how I was treated.  From the moment we walked in, until the moment we left, I was treated as any other woman.  Even though my voice probably slipped here and there, our server never wavered on pronoun usage or politeness.  While I generally have good experiences, this one was exceptionally good and I wish every experience went this well.
• Pi Pizzeria (Kirkwood, Missouri) - Pi isn't some large national chain, they have a few locations in St. Louis, one in Washington D.C., and one in Cincinnati, Ohio.  However, thanks to some love from President Obama, they are a little more well known than most chains their size.  J and I visited here after our most recent laser appointment; and since I was having my face done yet again I wasn't in any makeup or even dressed overly nice.  That being said, I was treated wonderfully.  As far as the food, well it's a touch "fru fru" for me, but it was good and we would go back.  As a side note, we visited around 4:30pm or so on a Monday - before their dinner rush, so they were *very* slow, I'd be curious to see how our experience is when they are in their dinner rush.  As a side note - especially timely considering another recent blog post - their bathrooms are single person uni-sex bathrooms which was nice.
• Fox & Hound (Chesterfield, Missouri) - I always hate to put too much weight on a single experience, be it good or bad, especially at a restaurant - but we were very pleased with our experience here.  We elected to sit in the "dining area" (which is fairly small) versus the bar area, so our experience is based upon that.  Now let me first say that I was not wearing makeup or a wig, we had a laser appointment a few days prior and my face was still in pretty bad shape.  However, despite that fact, I still got ma'am and together we got "ladies" from the hostess, our server, the manager when he "touched our table", and the other server who dropped off some of our food.  That alone, scored them points with me/us as often times when I'm out sans hair/makeup, I either get no pronouns or on occasion male ones.  I don't let that bother me when it happens, but I do prefer to hear feminine pronouns, so as I said I was very happy with that.  The food was great, and our service was also quite good.  All in all, I'm sorry we hadn't eaten there before and I really hope our future visits go as well as this one did.

Retailers:

• Dollar Tree (Bridgeton, Missouri) - Typical Dollar Tree experience, store personnel were all polite and customers tend to be focused on themselves so it was a typical un-eventful experience for me which is always nice.

• Payless Shoe Source (St. Charles, Missouri) - We popped in here (as well as the one in O'Fallon) looking for a replacement pair of flats for me.  The pair I currently wear most of the time actually has a small heel on them.  When M bought those for me, I didn't like them, but after wearing them over time they've become my favorites and I wanted a similar pair.  Unfortunately I guess they aren't in season at the moment so I couldn't find something I liked in my size.  However, the store personnel were very nice and helpful and treated me wonderfully.  
• Ruler Foods (St. Ann, Missouri) - For those not familiar with Ruler Foods, it's an "Aldi's" equivalent owned by Kroger.  The one in St. Ann opened a few months ago and M wanted to check it out.  The store is really similar to Aldi's.  We did find enough things cheaper to justify the trip since we stocked up on some things such as block cheese, but normally unless we were in the area it wouldn't be worth the drive for us.  The store personnel were all nice and polite and treated me as any other woman.
• Trader Joe's (Chesterfield, Missouri) - I had never been to a Trader Joe's, though J had.  Well last weekend we were bored and decided to go running around and somehow we ended up here.  To be honest much of the food is a touch "fru fru" for me; but we did pick up a few things and everyone there was so incredibly nice.  We will definitely go back.

Services:

• South Providence Medical Clinic (Columbia, Missouri) - This "clinic" has replaced the Green Meadows clinic in Columbia.  It's a nice, new, modern building perhaps a mile or two down the road from the aforementioned Green Meadows building.  I believe the majority of the providers (perhaps all?) from the old clinic have moved down here, but regardless of that Dr. Swenson, who has handled my HRT since I started it and has recently became my GP moved down here so I have as well.  There is a lot to like about the new clinic, and a couple of things I don't like as much.  It has a much more open floor plan which is nice in some ways, but annoying in others since it's not as "intimate" as the old clinic since the different teams have a common waiting area now.  Additionally I miss the nice fish tank from the older building as well.  On the plus side, there are multiple reception areas to get checked in which makes the process faster in general; and the rooms are obviously newer and have a nicer setup.  One of the nicest things for me is that they can check you out in the exam room - they don't always do it, but when they do it's nice since I don't have to make an extra stop at the reception desk.  This can include scheduling appointments.  They have a lab onsite as well, which I did make use of at a prior visit, they were very quick and efficient which was appreciated.  My results were up on their MU Healthe site the next morning which is quicker than I was accustomed to when using the lab here at the Tri-County location.  Dr. Swenson and her nurse are still just as wonderful as always and all of the reception personnel have been great - even considering a "check-in snafu" at a prior appointment.  I still strongly recommend Dr. Swenson and South Providence has been just as good, if not better, than Green Meadows so I'd give it a strong recommendation as well.

Since I like to have a thumbnail, here's a picture of J and I the day we went to Columbia for my checkup and shopping with her and M.  I'm not overly happy with the picture - I'm not sure if it's us getting used to the new camera or if I just didn't look as good as I'd have liked, but "it is what it is", so...

There are a few other places I should note, but I'll save those for the next entry.  So with that I'll wrap this post up.  As always have a great day.

- M

Transitioning 101 - Bathrooms

It's been a while since I've written a Transitioning 101 piece.  That coupled with the fact that I recently headed to Columbia for a quarterly checkup on my HRT medicine got me to thinking about "bathrooms".  For those that don't regularly read this blog, the reason the trip to Columbia is relevant is that it's about 90 minutes from home each direction and as such even if I'm just going for the Doctor and coming right home it's at least a 4+ hour trip and on those occasions when either J or M (or both) come with me - as they both did this trip - it often turns into a good 6-8+ hour day out and I simply cannot avoid using a public restroom during an outing of that length.

For me, and frankly from the amount of discussion I've seen on this topic in various places I'm far from the only one who has concerns about using the bathroom during their transition.  This whole series has had a fair amount of personal thoughts and experiences; but as this topic was such a concern of mine the focus will be on my thoughts and experiences even more than normal.  As always, nobody has to agree with my thoughts or how I did things, it's simply what worked *for me*.

Maybe I'm naive, but I really think that something that sounds so natural - being able to use the bathroom that corresponds to your gender identity - shouldn't end up being not that simple and at times far worse than that.  Despite my concerns and worries about bathroom usage during my transition, I've been lucky and had no issues; but I've read far too many accounts from those that have.  That doesn't even touch on the seemingly non-stop legislative attempts to control bathroom usage.  I can't speak for everyone, but I believe the majority of us can sum things up with this - #IJustWantToPee...

When I initially wrote this I got a lot more personal than I've normally gotten in these "Transitioning 101" posts and upon thinking about it for a while I've decided to remove most of that as it's better meant for it's own post.  That being said, I do still have plenty of thoughts about the bathroom and I am going to share those here.

Now with that being said, here are some thoughts on bathroom usage from me.  I know I always say this and I've already said it here; but once again these are simply *MY OPINIONS* and nothing more.  If you agree great, if you disagree that's fine too.  They aren't rules or guidelines, but simply one Trans-woman's thoughts on things based upon HER experience(s).  And again, since I have a MtF perspective on things, these are slanted towards that perspective.  I'm not trying to ignore/minimize FtM or anyone else, but I haven't lived/experienced life from those other perspectives so I'm choosing not to comment on them.

• If you aren't comfortable using the ladies room, it's not a crime to seek out a family restroom to use; or if you are comfortable with doing so - the mens room.  You need to do what's best for you at the time and not feel pressured into doing something you aren't comfortable with or don't feel safe doing.

• Thankfully (in my opinion) the ladies room has stalls and no urinals, so there is a modicum of privacy.  That being said, do yourself a favor and don't "stand up" facing the toilet.  Your feet will be facing "the wrong way" and somebody very well might notice.  If that happens you may well be facing some unwanted attention.  And even if someone doesn't notice your feet, unless you are careful with your "stream", it'll make far more noise coming from a standing position than a seated position and again may well draw unwanted attention.

• This one is more of a personal thing for me, but as I mentioned above I'm not at a point where I'm happy with nor overly confident in my voice.  As such, I don't "linger" in the ladies room.  I get in and I get out.  That doesn't mean I won't stop to check (and fix if need be) my makeup, or wash my hands, but I don't dawdle while doing so as I want to minimize the chance that I'll get dragged into a conversation.

• The above statement being made, don't hesitate to take the time *you need* to use the restroom, to check your makeup, and so on.  That being said, it's impolite to spend 5-10 minutes tying up a sink doing your makeup if people are waiting to wash their hands.

• For me, I no longer hesitate to hit the ladies room by myself when I need to.  That being said, it was very helpful early on to have someone to go with me; and frankly while I suppose it is a stereotype of sorts, women do seem to make a restroom visit a "group outing". :)

• I read something on Reddit a few weeks ago, and questioning a few cis-women, it seems to be more or less true.  It seems that most men tend to drop their clothing around their ankles when in a stall and most women tend to keep theirs up at their knees.  Yes this is a generalization, and yes most people won't notice, but in a crowded restroom it is one more thing that might stand out so take it for what it is worth.

• These go for any restroom in my opinion, but make sure you wipe the seat off if necessary and make sure you flush if it's not an automatic toilet.  Nobody wants to walk into a mess.  And if you like/use those seat covers (and I personally do), don't leave them on the seat for the next person, flush it.

• If you are wearing a skirt/dress, make sure the back of it isn't caught in your panties or hosiery.  And I believe a "girl rule" is to warn another woman if her's is as well.  :)

There are probably plenty more that others could add, but I think this is a good start, and I really should wrap this up.  There will be a follow-up post in the next couple of days that's a touch more personal; I just didn't feel like it really belonged here.

- M