Tattoo Expo nurtures love within tattoo community

Bleed Black and Gold Tattoo Expo welcomes community, aims to expand reach for next year

Point Park News Service

At the peak of any given day at the annual Bleed Black and Gold Pittsburgh Tattoo Expo, it’s difficult to walk through the aisles of artists and vendors without bumping body parts with the person walking across the walkway.

One can only hope they don’t bump a fresh tattoo.

The Pittsburgh Tattoo Expo returned to the Sheraton Pittsburgh Hotel for its fourth consecutive year last weekend, March 6-8. The event featured 125 booths filled with the industry’s best artists and vendors.

Just a 10-15 minute walk across the Smithfield Street Bridge, Point Park students were able to take advantage of an opportunity to become immersed in the tattoo community.

Megan Clista, a senior public relations and advertising major, went to the expo on Saturday and received a forearm piece.

“I got my first tattoo in high school where it was somewhat taboo and definitely not the norm,” Clista said. “This was my first time at the expo, but I don’t think I’ve ever felt more accepted for loving tattoo culture than I did while I was there. The expo made me feel like I was part of a community.”

Attendees Maggie Woods and Hannah Guidosh mirrored Clista’s sentiments with their love for the tattoo community present at the expo.

“I only ever planned on getting one or two tattoos, and getting them hurt [badly], but while you’re getting tattooed, you’re thinking, ‘I cannot wait for the next tattoo.’ It’s a way to express By Dara Collins Editor-in-Chief yourself,” Woods said. “I actually feel so much better in my body. I have a lot of body issues and getting tattooed makes me love myself more.” “I never really felt comfortable in my body, but the more I tattoo it, the better I feel,” Guidosh said. “I used to have an ex who would say ‘your body is a temple, so you should treat it well,’ and ‘no temple that you go to is stark white.’ It’s covered in art, and it’s beautiful, and people go there anyway. My body is my temple, and I’m going to cover it in art.”

Greg Piper, owner of Baller Inc. and Exposed Temptations Tattoo, realized the tattoo community made its appearance at the convention, and he now wants to target those outside of that community.

“People that are heavily into the tattoo scene, they come anyway,” Piper said. “We’re trying to include other people because I don’t think other people know what a tattoo convention is. They hear the commercial

Dara Collins | The Globe Tony Urbanek tattoos a client, a Point Park alum, at the Pittsburgh Tattoo Expo on Sunday, March 8. Urbanek owns Inkadinkadoo Tattoo Studio in Pittsburgh’s Lawrenceville neighborhood.

and think, ‘Oh, we’re going to go watch other people get tattooed,’ because we get so many calls from people who don’t even realize they can come here and get tattooed.” Piper said the back-toback Penguins games impact

ed attendance this year, but they maintained roughly the same numbers as last year. Despite the lack of increase in attendance, Piper and his team are excited for significant changes to next year’s convention to boost turnout.

The Miss Pittsburgh Pin Up Contest will be moved to Friday night, and Saturday night will feature the first annual Pittsburgh Drag Competition.

“It’s going to be pretty badass,” Piper said. “We’re trying to do some different things to be more inclusive of different people.”

Piper also mentioned the increase of family friendly activities at the convention. “All my meetings I’ve had with my staff, we’ve all concluded that we need more family-friendly things here,” Piper said. “We’re going to have face painting for kids and an airbrush artist that airbrushes kids up as well. Christian Buckingham from InkMaster is going to be here having a kids art camp next year.”

Next year, the expo will return on Valentine’s Day.

Dara Collins | The Globe Laura Marie, a tattoo artist from Rochester, N.Y. and previous contestant on Ink Master, tattoos a client at the Pittsburgh Tattoo Expo on Sunday, March 8. The thigh tattoo pictured above won the Best of Show contest. Dara Collins dmcolli2@pointpark.edu

PIONEER PUBLIC

Nicole Lakovic

By Amanda Andrews Co-Features/A&E Editor

Nicole Lakovic joined the Campus Activities Board (CAB) the second semester of her freshman year wanting to get more involved on campus. At that time, she did not know she would make some of her closest friends and rise to the top of the organization’s leadership.

Lakovic is the new CAB executive director.

Lakovic, a junior sports, arts and entertainment management (SAEM) major, is currently the Spirits and Traditions Coordinator and is undergoing training from the current executive director of CAB, Miche Rexroad. She will officially begin her role as executive director at the end of the spring semester.

“I applied for executive director because I wanted to continue to grow personally and professionally, while also helping the organization and its members grow,” Lakovic said. “I’ve been a part of the organization since freshman year and knew I wanted to be a part of it my final year at Point Park because of the impact it has had on my college experience. When I found out that I got the position, I was so excited. I immediately started thinking about next year and what I want to do in my new position.”

Although she does not have any exact details that she can give at this time, she said that she wants to “try some new things.” As the Spirits and Traditions Coordinator this academic year, she has planned the Halloween Dance, Condom Carnival, Drag Show and the upcoming Drake Bell concert along with students in a CAB sub-committee and the SAEM Club. In past years, she had a hand in planning a magic show, bubble soccer and an ugly sweater party.

As much as she has loved putting on those events, she also values the connections she has made through the organization.

“My favorite part about being a part of CAB is that I’ve met some of my closest friends and made some of the best memories, while also getting real world experience,” Lakovic said. “My favorite memories come from executive board training at the beginning of the school year. We had a sleepover in the student center, spent the day exploring Camp Guyasuta, and participated in so many ice breakers that, by the end of the week, we knew more about each other than we ever would have thought.”

In the next months, as a part of CAB’s executive board, Lakovic will be busy with her training as well as organizing the St. Patrick’s Day Breakfast, Point Park After Dark - Ultimate Game Zone, Paint ‘n Sip, the Drake Bell concert and Campus Cats. She highly encourages people to attend

Nicole Lakovic | Submitted

these events and get involved in any way on campus.

“Being involved makes your college experience so much better through memories and meeting new people,” she said. “Looking back, deciding to get involved on campus my freshman year was the best decision I could have made!”

WHAT MAKES YOU A PIONEER: “I feel like being involved and a part of the Point Park community, participating in all the opportunities given and being proud of the fact that I go to school at Point Park is what makes me a pioneer.”

Amanda Andrews aaandre@pointpark.edu

Lost high school basketball coach finds ‘The Way Back’

Hannah Walden Co-Copy Desk Chief

Where to watch: Local theaters Price: around $10

In “The Way Back,” we follow the struggles of Jack Cunningham (Ben Affleck) as he balances his turbulent troubles with grief, depression and alcoholism with coaching high school basketball.

Throughout his daily life, you never see Jack without a drink. He drinks at his construction job, while driving, in the shower and he can be found at his local bar every night getting so drunk he’s walked home by a friend only referred to as “Doc.”

We learn that Jack has a bittersweet relationship with basketball. On the way home from a game, Jack tells the star player, Brandon (Brandon Wilson) that his relationship with his father was terrible because his father only showed him affection after he did well at basketball. It wasn’t long until Jack felt that his father only loved what he could do on the court and not him as a person, which prompted him to quit and never play again, even when he had tons of scholarships handed to him for college basketball.

Jack met and married a woman named Angie (Janina Gavankar), who gave him love and helped him with the pain as a result of the relationship he had with his father. Together they had a nine-year old son named Michael.

Michael was diagnosed with an aggressive and painful cancer and eventually passed away. Unable to manage the pain and grief, Jack took to drinking, closing himself off and stopped speaking about his son completely. With these issues dividing them, Jack and Angie split up, causing his negative coping mechanisms to worsen.

The film starts with Jack’s alma mater hiring him as the boys’ basketball coach. The team has such a significant losing streak that they haven’t made it to the regional level since 1995 when Jack played. His rough and direct way of coaching really speaks to the small team of boys, directing them to not just play harder, but to not roll over and take a loss. This causes the season to shift in their favor as they start winning multiple games in a row by a small margin.

We see a montage of Jack’s coaching and the team’s progression through each game and each week of practice, adapting to each challenge. We see Jack’s day drinking start to slow during this part of the film, a nice peak in his journey. When stressful issues that remind Jack of the past resurface, his drinking does too. Issues with his ex-wife and a birthday party for one of Michael’s friends, who has the same diagnosis that Michael had, resurface the pain Jack is desperately trying to drown out.

After trying to help Jack from spiraling out, the assistant coach and the principal fire Jack from coaching at the end of the season before regionals, because of his drinking on school grounds and arriving to practice hours late.

After already being in a low place, he is hit with misfortune again when the child whose party he just attended is back in the hospital with terrible news that Jack knows too well.

Jack falls off the already rickety wagon hard and drinks a lot at the bar. Without Doc there to protect him, he gets into a sticky situation after accidentally breaking into the wrong house, getting into a fight with the homeowner and falling down a set of porch steps to the street.

After a terrible night, he wakes up in the hospital with his sister, who puts him in a mental facility that provides him counseling. We finally see Jack taking the right steps to work on his issues and learn about them, as the issues are either alluded to or are slowly told to us as the film progresses.

There is a good balance between Jack’s struggles and game-time footage in the film. Each game has a couple seconds each with the final score cut in between practices and Jack’s struggle to balance these responsibilities with his drinking problem. There is more shown of the team’s practices and prep for each game than actual game-time, making the point that learning happens during practice and crazy unbelievable game moments aren’t realistic.

The film ends with the students going to regionals, vowing to win the game “for coach,” giving each other plays and tips just like Jack would, showing his impact on the players and their desire to win.

While the game is about to begin, Jack isn’t there. Instead, he takes a basketball and goes to a court by the ocean and takes shots at the basket for the first time since his traumatic high school days, making three-pointers while the sound of sports commentators talking about the ways they have noticed the team has grown under Jack’s leadership.

Regardless of how some trailers present this film, it is more of a story of Jack’s struggle and redemption than a story about a high school basketball team’s redemption; although both happen on and off screen and are very well executed story lines that work hand-in-hand. The boys grew as athletes and as a team with the desire to win, and Jack grew into better understanding his emotions and pain as well as healthy ways to deal with his issues that don’t cause more suffering for him and the people around him.

I’ve seen two different trailers for this film, and only one of them accurately depicts the film’s premise while the other portrays a basketball team’s redemption under the leadership of a new coach.

We don’t know if the team wins the regional game, and we don’t see the next steps of Jack’s recovery, but we see that both of these storylines move in a positive direction. We know based on the film that the boys will continue to emulate coach Jack in their playing, so we don’t have to worry about their success.

We see that Jack is taking the steps he needs to get better and fix the relationships in his life. He speaks to his ex-wife more and even apologizes for what he did and failed to do. He spends more time with his sister’s family, especially his nephew, strengthening his family ties and building better relationships with them.

This is a realistic ending. We know his redemption will be slow and steady—it has to be if he really wants to put this pain behind him and move forward. There is no perfect, happy ending. There is no complete resolution where we see Jack recovered; we see his first steps, which are the most important ones.

I left the theater hopeful and content, not knowing how his recovery journey will end, without seeing the next peaks and valleys because the film would have lost its realism trying to smoosh a happy ending in. A journey like this one is hard. It takes time and is internal. We wouldn’t be able to be there and see his growth past a certain point, but to know the foundation is there is enough to be hopeful that Jack’s way back is going to be a good one.

Hannah Walden hwalde@pointpark.edu

Fans are kind of okay with ‘I Am Not Okay With This’

Kylie Thomas Staff Writer/Photographer

Rating:

Where to watch: Netflix

“I Am Not Okay with This” is yet another coming-of-age series that Netflix decided will appeal to young adults everywhere with its quirky teenage plot. Is the twist enough to keep watchers coming back for more, or does the show fall in line with every other teen stereotyped show?

The Netflix original series was released on Feb. 26 and has seven, 20-minute episodes. It’s based on the graphic novel written by Charles Forsman, who also wrote “The End of the F***ing World,” a graphic novel which was also turned into a Netflix series. The series “I Am Not Okay with This” follows Sydney, who refers to herself as “a boring, 17-year-old, white girl.” She has anger issues, a dead dad, a hot best friend and encompasses the girl that every quirky teenager sees themself as. There are many plot-based crossovers between “I Am Not Okay with This” and “The End of the F***ing World,” such as, the scrawny white girl who somehow is tougher than her boy counterpart, the scrawny boy love interest/best friend who supports said girl in all her terrible decisions and the main theme of anarchy within these teen’s lives.

While the basics of the show follow your average coming-of-age story, there is a twist to “I Am Not Okay with This.” When Sydney gets mad or very emotional, she creates a burst of energy which destroys the things around her. This obviously freaks her out and gets her into trouble, which she won’t even tell her best friend about. Since she can’t tell her best friend Dina about it all, she relies on her neighbor Stan to help her keep her powers a secret and figure out how to control them.

The show itself is pretty good if you can get past the cliché teenage stereotypes and quirky plot moments. The superpower plotline is better to follow. It’s intriguing and it’s what keeps audiences watching the show. Without spoiling too much, there are connections with her superpowers and events that occur because of them that keep you on the edge of your seat. While the superpowers are sort of similar to Eleven’s in “Stranger Things,” “I Am Not Okay with This” uses the powers in a very different way and in a way that works for more mature audiences.

One of the best parts of “I Am Not Okay with This” is that it features a queer story along with the main plot. Sydney has feelings for Dina which progress throughout the show as she struggles with feeling this way. It gives a pretty accurate portrayal of what queer teens go through when they’re figuring themselves out. The show doesn’t try to cover this up either. It makes sure to make this the main point of the story instead of just adding it in for views like most shows do.

The show does look like it takes place in a different decade, which seems to be a trend with most new shows. The clothing and environment of the show doesn’t look like it’s in the 21st century. It’s said this is done so that the environment doesn’t distract from the plot and the audience is able to just focus on the characters themselves and the plot instead. Though, it just seems like it separates the show from being a modern coming-of-age story and makes it harder to relate to. The show was filmed in Brownsville and other locations around Pittsburgh to make the story more realistic and relatable, though it didn’t seem to benefit the show as they meant it to.

Overall, if you like coming-of-age and teenage shows, “I Am Not Okay with This” is definitely one to add to the watchlist. If you’re looking for a more mature plot and a different story than what’s already out there, this may be a show to skip. The show does have good modern representation and an interesting twist, but, overall, it does correlate with many other shows on Netflix that are better than this one. There is already a season two in the works for “I Am Not Okay with This” but who knows how long this series will last, like many other abandoned Netflix original projects.

Kylie Thomas kjthoma@pointpark.edu

Netflix’s ‘All The Bright Places’ only half-lives up to hype

By Shannon Hartnett Co-Opinions Editor

Where to watch: Netflix

Netflix is back at it again with another teenage love story that rivals “The Fault in Our Stars” sob levels. Beware of sensitive issues if you find yourself wanting to watch this movie.

“All the Bright Places” is a new movie on Netflix that is based off of the book written by Jennifer Niven. Both the book and movie follow main characters Violet Markey and Theodore Finch as they navigate through mental health issues and high school at large.

For what it’s worth, the movie does a great job of staying true to the novel. However, it leaves fans of the book a little empty. The characters in the movie feel very flat when it comes to characterization. The book builds these complex characters that have an endless depth to them. While the plot does stay relatively the same, this development of the characters is the biggest let down when watching the movie.

Despite the lack of emotional connection to the characters, the movie is still a fair adaptation of a book that abolishes the stigmas against depression and suicide in teens. Clearly sensitive issues in today’s culture, “All the Bright Places” successfully dives into the feelings and situations of people with mental health issues. Each scene is an exploration of ways to conquer depression and transition into a happier and healthier state of mind. As Violet mourns her sister, who died in a car accident, Theodore attempts to bring her back to reality. Theodore becomes invested in helping Violet, meanwhile everyone else around him struggles to understand what is going on with Theodore himself.

There are some fairly beautiful scenes in the movie that show the relationship developing between two people who are hurting and searching for peace in their complicated lives. As the movie develops there are more and more heartbreaking scenes that viewers watch with the hope that they could reach out and help the characters. The movie doesn’t have a happy ending. That is to be expected in tragic teenage love stories, but this one is so much more real compared to the average sappy movie. This movie hits close to home for lots of students and young kids trying to find where they fit in the world.

Even though the tear-jerking ending prompts immediate dislike for the movie, “All the Bright Places” finds a way to make sense of what to do as the characters go forward.