We're All Dying To Hear The Story Behind Your Tattoo!
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We're All Dying To Hear The Story Behind Your Tattoo!
It's National Tattoo Story Day!
Happy Weekend!
Today is a lot of things. It’s national Batman Day, and if Stephen were here today, which he is not, he would probably be very excited. I am neutral on the subject so long as no one asks me where Batman is. Because let me tell you, it does get old. It’s also National Eat An Apple Day and National Cinnamon Raisin Bread Day, which I didn’t know before I started eating these grapes. Oh well!
Oh, and it is National Tattoo Story Day. Figured we’d go with that one to celebrate, because people seem to like telling the stories behind their tattoos! There is, surprisingly, actually a story behind the zero tattoos that I have.
Back when I was a terribly pretentious 17-year-old, I thought about it a lot. And I did kind of want a tattoo back then. So one day, I walk into my mom’s room and I say “Mom, I know you said I shouldn’t get any tattoos, but I thought of something that would be like, really cool and meaningful.”
To be fair, she did actually say I could get a tattoo, but only if that tattoo was a large battleship across my chest.
I then explained to her that I just loved Edna St. Vincent Millay so much that I thought it would be neat to get a tattoo of two figs and some thistles. So my mom looks at me, takes a drag off of her Winston 100, and says “Robyn, do you know what figs look like?”
“Not especially!”
“Balls, Robyn. They look like balls.”
And that is the story of why I really just do not trust myself when it comes to putting anything on my body in a permanent fashion. I just … my judgement is not great. I’m also glad that I didn’t because I would hate to be reminded of what a terribly embarrassing person I was at various stages of my life.
Your present this week is pretty exciting! Now, we are all aware that Van Morrison is a douchebag now, but is he enough of a douchebag that we have to stop liking his music? Eh, I’m gonna say no on that one. So this week I am bringing you the great Van Morrison song “Ring Worm,” in which our anti-vax friend informs you that you have ringworm, while strumming an out-of-tune guitar.
This is not from an experimental phase he went through, so much as he had to write a fuckton of songs in order to fulfill his obligations to his first label so he could ditch them and go to Warner Brothers, and this was one of them. Again, he is pretty terrible now, but I’m glad I know this song exists so that I can send it to anyone I know who turns out to have Ring Worm.
As a bonus, another thing found on the Obscure Media subreddit this week — Laura Branigan’s semi-cover of Falco’s Der Kommissar, which is a straight up jam.
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We're All Dying To Hear The Story Behind Your Tattoo!
Huh not sure how I missed this post when it hit! I mustve been busy at work that day. Anyway.
I technically have five tattoos - we'll get to that. I did the first one myself, with a needle, a cork, and some india ink; because I was a punk rocker who really needed a tattoo but a *broke* punk. That one's a simple triangle with lines radiating from it on my ankle. It's pretty faded by now. A couple years later I scrounged up a few bucks and got one done in a camper at a festival - LIKE YOU DO. That was an eye in the triangle with the words Non Serviam beneath it, which means I Will Not Serve. I called it my anti-waitress charm so I could never be a waitress again and so far, it's working. Can I get a Hail Eris from anyone who knows the meaning on that one?
Tattoo #3 came along maybe a decade later - no, I guess it couldn't have been that long. Five years. I dunno. I traded a Gwar video tape for that and had it done in a pal's bedroom because, did I mention punk rock? It's a blackwork piece of the Serpent Mound and you will never see it. I got better care instructions with that one than I did from the 'pro' in the camper. The fourth one is the only one I regret: it's my ex's name, entwined in flowers around my other ankle. Some day I'll spend a little money, have that one obscured and do some matching work around my first one; but I haven't decided I have cash to drop on that as yet.
Finally, tattoo #5 and why I only *technically* have five. My eye in the triangle was done near my heart, which is to say, upon my bosom. Which sadly has not shrunk over time, but instead has been affected by gravity. Causing that original equilateral triangle to turn into an isoceles (also it was fading like a mofo). Around this same time, a dear friend passed away, and I decided to get some ink in his memory. He'd had a crow in flight on his chest; I got a standing crow - whose body now obscures 99% of my charm. You can just see a fuzzy corner of the original peeking out if you know where to look, but that piece of ink will never see the light of day again. Hence only technically there.
And that, boys and girls, is probably more than you ever wanted to know about my skin art.
I was down thread and realized that some folks were insulted or upset by talk about how tattoos might look in one's old age. Please take no offense to my comment below. I think it's probably something everyone thinks about after a certain age. They can be meaningful or not at any age. Now I'm thinking about getting one again, so thanks for that.