When I woke up the other morning I certainly didn’t expect my day to end sitting in a tattoo shop watching a patch of my arm being shaved and prepped for a permanent Sharpie artwork installation. As one of the dudes in the shop said after I thought that out loud to them, “That means it was a good day!”
Throughout my 3.75 decades on this planet I’ve had a very small handful of essential developmental staples that have been riding along with me roughly since I was old enough to start remembering things. I can’t even begin to imagine how I would have turned out without them; probably normal or something like that (EEEK!) I’m not talking about the obvious necessities such as food and air. Those are filed away in the “No duh” folder. There’s family first and foremost, drawing, the guitar, and Ace Frehley. More so KISS as a whole when I was 4 or 5 but once I became familiar enough with them to know their first names and what instruments they played Ace was my favorite dude. Out of the 4 solo albums his was spinning on the record player the most, and this started before I could even tell which side of the record was side one and which was side two. I’d just put the record on and hope it was the side with whichever songs I wanted to hear at the time. My sister eventually helped out by drawing one star on the side one label and two stars on side two. Thanks, Eesa!
People who don’t really know me and don’t understand my connection to pre-1980’s KISS when the subject comes up sometimes chuckle or groan in repulsion. I’m fine with that because I don’t listen to music based on external preferences. Chuckle and groan all you want, chucklers and groaners – if I like it, I like it! I can’t stand 99.999% of what’s on the Billboard Top 20 at any given time but does that mean that it genuinely sucks? Only the people who either a) like it or b) think it genuinely sucks can answer that question. There is no right answer. I will never be the guy to blatantly tell somebody “You like THAT? That SUCKS!” The only thing that accomplishes is it lets the receiving end know you’re a card carrying member of the pompous knowitall asshole club and what you like probably sucks.
* * * * * * *
Space Chucks
Back to the developmental staples that have been around forever topic: Ace has been a highly influential steering wheel throughout my life. The following “Me” ingredients are just a few examples: His guitar techniques, riffs, and phrasing wormed their way into my brain at a pretty young age and although it may not be obvious in my music they’re a massive chunk of my guitar playing DNA. His tunes Fractured Mirror and Escape From The Island were my gateway drugs into the world of instrumental guitar music (see: Iced Ink, the resulting instrumental guitar music I eventually grew up to make). Wiped Out, I’m In Need Of Love, and his guitar solo on ALIVE II were the reasons behind one of the first guitar effects I begged my parents to buy me for Christmas, a delay pedal (thanks Maw and Paw!)
When I was a teenager I bought my first pair of Chuck Taylor high tops as a little tip of the hat to the big side dots on his boots on the cover of ALIVE! Although I sport the dot-less low-top Chucks nowadays they’ve been pretty much all I’ve ever encased my feet in since. When I was 16 I made my hair all teased out and crunchy like his was for a brief period of time. That one I’m not too proud of but at least I eventually snapped out of it and thank goodness I hid from the camera a lot so there’s very little photographic evidence.
Ace has a pretty warped sense of humor which needless to say I can relate to. I recall reading about how he Super Glued furniture in his hotel rooms to the ceiling back in the day which became the inspiration behind many entertaining shenanigans I pulled while bored and working 3rd shift at Target in the early 90’s.
Oh – and let’s not forget the whole New York City situation, either. For those of you not in the know, KISS are from NYC. I used to see a lot of pictures of them in the city and read stories about how they started out there. When I was a kid I stared at my poster of them on the Empire State Building for hours on end daydreaming about what all of the streets were like, what the buildings looked like on the inside, and who was in them when that photo was taken (that’s right kids, before computers people had to use this thing called an imagination!) I certainly never expected to move here to be a guitar player but as of 2009, here we are. Would we have ended up living in Brooklyn if I wasn’t so drawn to Ace as a kid? You never know but my internal Magic 8 Ball says UH, PROBABLY NOT. It still weirds me out when walking around on those Manhattan streets now when I see certain buildings and areas that I stared at so much in that poster.
It’s not like I ever set out to be an Ace clone or worship every move and song he makes and buy anything and everything just because his face is on it. That would be a little creepy and Ace is already Ace. I just took things that I liked about him and mutated them into my own thang. So yeah, it goes a little beyond a silly fan-boy obsession of a makeup wearing guitar player for the band that played Rock & Roll All Nite (for the record, Gawd do I loathe that song). Or maybe it is a silly fan-boy obsession? I don’t care. I still think it’s fun as Hell. I yam what I yam.
When I was 25 I received a gift certificate for a tattoo joint in Minneapolis for my birthday. The only thing I could possibly think of permanently committing to my person’s upholstery was something either Zappa or Ace related. Ace came along first and started it all so Ace won (but there’s still a lot of room left for Frank). Ace’s portrait is on my upper right arm and still a little unfinished. I planned on going back when time and money allowed but poof – 13 years have somehow gone by. Time has been pretty good to him but he’s faded and has been through a sunburn or several over the years. When I get mosquito bites on his face it looks like he has a zit. He will hopefully get a much needed overhaul at the tattoo shop someday soon. Maybe ABC could have a show called Extreme Tattoo Makeover and I could be the first subject. “TATTOO ARTIST, REMOVE THAT BANDAGE!”
I’ve always mentioned that if I ever met Ace I’d have him sign me and get it tattooed in. I’ve also always mentioned that if I ever won the Powerball I’d buy the Carbone’s on Randolph in St. Paul and invest as much money as I needed to in order to preserve it. Catch my drift? Both incredibly unlikely but fun thoughts. Much to my surprise, Mr. Space Ace sobered up a few years ago and is still alive and kickin’. He just wrote an autobiography entitled No Regrets and is on a mini book signing tour which stopped off at Barnes and Noble in Manhattan this past Thursday. There was no choice in the matter but to attend.
* * * * * * *
The big day came. Wifey and I met there and planted ourselves into the mile-long line outside where we spent the next 1.5 hours waiting with several hundred other people there to tell Ace that no, THEY’RE his biggest fan. It’s always hard to tell how these kinds of things will go. What mood will the star of the event be in? How big of dicks are the store employees going to be while trying to keep things moving? Am I gonna get tongue tied when my big moment comes and spend the rest of the day kicking myself? I rarely get nervous but I sure did when I met KISS (sans Ace) several years ago at the Mall of America. This was the big one though – I never thought I’d get to shake Ace’s hand and there we were in line to do it.
At events like that everybody is there for the same reason so it’s pretty easy to strike up a conversation with neighboring line-standers while waiting. I was bummed to find that although it had been recently charged, our camera’s battery was dead as a doornail. A really nice young bloke in front of us by the name of Eric (who we learned was brought up good and proper on a steady diet of KISS and Aerosmith) was kind enough to save the day by offering a “I’ll take your picture if you take mine” trade with his camera and he’d email us the photos. Thank goodness for Eric!
At last we were led into the store and up the escalator by a Barnes and Noble army general and escorted to the line to Ace’s table. They were piping his music through the whole store which was pretty sweet. It was almost our turn and Anton Fig’s drum intro to one of Ace’s newer tunes “Sister” kicked in which will forever be embedded in my noggin as the soundtrack to what was about to unfold. I could see him signing books about 10 feet away. Again, I’m never one to get nervous and flustered but there’s really no choice in the matter when you’re about to try and funnel 30+ years of admiration into 10 seconds worth of some hopefully semi-unique and non-cliché sentences.
Bryn, Eric and I were walked to the table in front of Ace and I entered a trance similar to that of Ralphie in A Christmas Story just before he sat on Santa’s lap. I was hyperfocusing on trying to get my words together as I heard Bryn and Eric working out the camera situation (I seriously owe you two!) Eric went, Bryn went, and then my big moment arrived. As I hovered toward the table it felt like there were a million glittery arrows shooting through my gut. I kept it together enough to get my point across. Remember Ralphie holding onto the slide for dear life and blurting out to Santa what he wanted for Christmas like his mouth was a tommy gun spraying out a cascade of word bullets? That was me. It went something like this:
“AceYouChangedMyLifeandMadeMePickUpTheGuitarI’veListenedToYouSince
IwasFiveThankyouSOmuch”
He said “Oh, thank you very much” in his peculiar high register soft spoken thick Bronx accent. My brain mercifully went into auto pilot mode to help me out and made my mouth say this:
“Check out this birthmark!”
Auto pilot continued to do the driving and made my left hand pull my right shirt sleeve up to show Ace my 90% finished tattoo of his mug circa 1975. He spoke again.
“Wow. Mike, chegg it out, gedda pickcha ah this.”
What? Who’s Mike? Me? Apparently the dude standing behind Ace was named Mike too. Mike promptly produced an iPhone from his pocket and snapped a shot of my tat. My brain was like a pinball machine on TILT blinking the words HOLY SHIT on all of the score panels. I heard Bryn’s voice (which I later learned was her thankfully suggesting that he should sign it, YAY FOR MY WIFE) and before I knew it he was holding onto my arm meat with a nice firm grip and autographing me. Rather than scribbling his name like I was one of his books he gave it some love and took time to make sure that it looked good. I’m sure he’s autographed enough humans to know that he’s making a blueprint for a tattoo. I watched every angle and swirl happen as he carefully drew his name and trademark card onto my arm. For that 30 seconds or however long it was there were no words – just Ace focusing on nothing but drawing his name on my arm and me standing there recording it all in my head. That was so cool.
His right hand still had the Sharpie in it but I didn’t care. I shook it, thanked him and fizzled away to allow the next person could have their experience. I looked down at my arm and saw a nice big fat-ass Ace Frehley signature on it. Woah. Toadilly rad. I kept on walking and eventually realized that I’d wandered off and left Bryn and Eric behind as they traded information for him to send us the pictures. Oops.
* * * * * * *
I don’t think I came down from that until we were on the train headed back to Brooklyn. Thank goodness his Sharpie rendering made it through the rest of the day and Matt Ahn at Hand of Glory Tattoo on 7th Avenue was able to squeeze me in at almost exactly 7PM (there’s the number 7 again – twice no less!) to permanently sew that sucker into my arm. 30 minutes later it was done and my arm became an official Ace Frehley collectible. Matt tattooed right over the Sharpie and did a great job of keeping it looking like the real deal.
Uh, like, thith tattoo ruleth.
My upper body wardrobe mostly consists of short sleeved shirts which used to cover up the art I’ve got on both of my upper arms. I’m the kind of person who doesn’t need to show the world my tattoos and up until this point no one could really see them unless there was chat of tattoos leading to show-and-tell. That certainly isn’t going to be the case anymore. Ace’s signature takes up a pretty good chunk of my arm and it’s pretty hard to miss. Some will understand it and some won’t. Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn. Every time I look down at my arm now I giggle like Butthead because I’ve got a perfect view of the Ace card and a lifetime reminder of how I won the Meet Your Idol lottery. That fucking rules. I wish everybody could have a chance to meet their hero and experience that kind of rush.
Eric, you totally rock for snapping us with your camera and emailing us the photos so quickly. And Mrs. Bryn Krenner, thank you for having your head screwed on tight enough to jostle the hamster wheel in Ace’s head to sign me.. and better yet being 200% supportive of it being permanent.
I’ve said it a billion times the past few days and I’ll say it again: HOLY SHIT.
And now for the photos. Please try and control yourselves while admiring my masculine bicep.
Exhibit A: During (that’s aforementioned “Mike” catching it with his iPhone on the right)
Exhibit B: Original Sharpie version taken on F train back to Brooklyn
Exhibit C: The freshly unbandaged finished product (my skin was still a little pissed off)
11/13/2011 Update: I wrote a song which tips my musical cap to this experience and 30+ years of Ace! Checkidy check it: https://mikekrenner.com/new-iced-ink-tune-look-its-rock-and-roll/
