Help: Joe Crimo wants his face back

Surfing legend tires of the tattoos.

I once married an aspiring Broadway actress. It was not very fun. I had to go and watch many performances of Grease, Into the Woods, Funny Girl, The Marvelous Wonderettes and Twang!! It ended, mercifully, in divorce.

Joe Crimo once tattooed his entire face. It might have been fun at the moment because he was addicted to meth but, now it is not and he wants them gone.

In case you have never heard of Joe Crimo, shame. He is a pioneer who did all sorts of airs in the mid 1990s, long before airs were the norm. His were often tweaked and not because he was on speed, because he wasn’t at that time, but tweaked because they were inverted and wild. He also did pop shuv-its and other skatey things.

On land he lived fast and his fast living started very much earlier than yours or mine. He grew up in East Los Angeles and his brothers were in gangs and going to jail. “I started smoking lots of rock cocaine at age nine. It’s just what we did,” he says.

He got shot, at some point, and moved to the San Clemente, starting surfing and cleaned up. But the wheels fell off, eventually, and he traded rock cocaine in for meth and went to jail many times. He learned to tattoo, during the dark years, and tattooed his own face while looking in a mirror or sometimes not. “Sometimes I just did guess shots,” he says.

A tattooed face is a difficult cross to bear, more difficult than a Broadway wife maybe, but then again maybe not. In any case, Joe is trying to get them removed via a Gofundme campaign. “Tattoos on the face are not the best way to get a job, Joe has ben shut down to society, work, living and the way people judge him, any advice are help to get the tattoos removed from Joes face and hands will be highly appreciated, thank you,” the website says.

Have you ever made a bad decision? Have you ever had to sit through a Saturday matinee of Sunday in the Park with George while the surf is pumping? Help Joe here.