Posts Tagged ‘News’
IAM Member Missing
By BMEzine • Sep 29th, 2009 • Category: ModBlog
Good news! Lavina is accounted for and safe and sound.
We really hate having to relay messages like this, but we’ve received word that Lavina is missing. The details we have are as follows:
- She came up to Los Angeles to get some work done with her boyfriend on Sept. 17.
- She went with her boyfriend to San Diego (where he lives) and stayed with him for a few days.
- After a few days, she left for Albuquerque, New Mexico to meet up with a friend there who none of her friends or family knew. She apparently got there Tuesday, Sept. 22 and made a short phone call to her boyfriend. That was the last anybody has heard from her. The number from which she made the phone call was disconnected the next day.
- She was expected back in West Covina, California, on Thursday, Sept. 24, but nobody there has seen or heard from her.
- She’s 19 years old, about 4′9″ tall and about 115 lbs. She has long, dark brown hair and brown eyes.
- She has several tattoos on both arms, including a large octopus on her stomach, as well as one two-and-a-half-inch inch stretched lobe and a split tongue.
The Albuquerque sheriff’s department phone number is (505) 468-7100.
Any help whatsoever is welcome, of course. We’ll keep you all updated.
BME News and Notes
By Jordan Ginsberg • Sep 25th, 2009 • Category: ModBlog
A few points of interest, folks! First up, a journalist from scenic London, Ontario’s Gazette student newspaper is looking for people to interview:
The Gazette—student newspaper at the university of Western Ontario, Canada—is searching for individuals to profile on body modification. If you have a piercing, tattoo, microdermal, scarification or other form of body modification you’d like to share please contact gazette.managing.editor@uwo.ca. Specifically, we’re compiling photos and stories of your favourite pieces and investigating the wide-ranging community and mindsets behind the art of body modification.
Next up, David Vidra (of Health Educators) passes along, by way of Lexci Million, the following information regarding the FDA’s recent decision to disallow the sale of various Care-Tech products, including Techni-Care, often used by body modification professionals and in the health care industry:
Please be advised that this matter is in lawyer’s hands and some information cannot be made public as of yet. Rest assured we will have access to our preferred Care-Tech products very soon and shouldn’t worry about the quality of Care-Tech’s products.
Care-Tech® Laboratories, Inc. Suspends Manufacturing and Distribution of OTC Drug Products ST. LOUIS, MO, September 14, 2009/ - - Care-Tech® Laboratories, Inc. announces that it has suspended manufacturing and distribution of its drug products to address concerns raised by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Specifically, the FDA has informed Care-Tech® that it believes the company’s over-the-counter (OTC) drug products have not been manufactured, processed, packed, and held consistent with current good manufacturing practice for drugs, which makes them presumptively adulterated under the law, even where, as here, no finished product has been found to be defective. FDA also has informed Care-Tech® that it believes these products do not conform to an OTC drug monograph, and so are considered unapproved drugs. Accordingly, Care-Tech® has agreed to suspend manufacturing and distribution of our drug products until we have fully resolved these concerns. Care-Tech® has already taken significant steps to address the issues FDA has brought to our attention, and we are working closely with agency officials to ensure any remaining issues are resolved as expeditiously as possible.
Neither FDA nor Care-Tech® is aware of any reports of injury or illness related to the use of these products, and FDA has not requested that previously distributed product be recalled. “The company is committed to ensuring that each of its products reflects the highest standards of safety and purity,” says John C. Brereton, President. “For over 100 years, patient safety has been Care-Tech® Laboratories’ first and foremost commitment. And I can assure you, it remains so today.”
The company intends to update its customers as further information becomes available.
And lastly, the BME Scholarship is now open for donations for the coming year! Visit BMEscholarship.com for all the details. And hey, while you’re at it, why not take a peek at Sidra’s winning essay from this year, or re-read this interview with previous winner Diego.
No Superfluous Flummery: An Interview With Bob Roberts
By Jordan Ginsberg • Sep 15th, 2009 • Category: Features, Lead Story, ModBlog |
Last month, while in Los Angeles for BME’s Tattoo Hollywood convention, I was given, above all else, one specific task: to interview Bob Roberts, the owner of L.A.’s Spotlight Tattoo, whose art gallery opening that week I wrote about here. There was, of course, an element of danger. “He can be very intimidating,” people cautioned me. “Be careful what you say around him.” Though ostensibly well-meaning, these warnings were unnecessary. When we sat down to talk on Sunday afternoon as the convention was winding down, Bob struck me as a cross between Jeff Bridges’s The Dude from The Big Lebowski and John Goodman’s Walter Sobchak from The Big Lebowski: an old hippie, content with his status and the life he’s lived…who occasionally gets very, very fired up about things. (Voice-wise, though? He’s The Dude.) Drawing from his nearly 40 years of experience, we talked about his humble beginnings, shitty artists he’s known, blow job etiquette in 1970s New York, various people who deserve to have their thumbs cut off and much more. Here’s our entire conversation, edited in parts only for clarity.
BME: OK, let’s start with some procedural questions and then once we’re warmed up I’ll try to make you cry.
Bob Roberts: Alright. Can you hear me? Test, test. Is the needle going on there?
BME: We’re ready to go. So where are you from originally?
BR: Los Angeles, California.
BME: And what brought you to tattooing in the first place?
BR: Well, it’s a long story. My dad had a store at Eighth and Broadway, and he used to take me with him to work on the weekends. When I got old enough to run around, first I would go by this pawn shop that had switchblade knives that would start at one inch and would go until they were maybe over six feet. Then, they had a lot of tattoo shops, so I used to go into all of them until I’d get thrown out, and I just always loved it, man. I saw all these people getting tattooed and from a young age it just nailed me to the wall.
Later on, I was in rock and roll bands for a long time—I played the saxophone—and I was painting a lot of flash and I wanted to find a job, and I thought I could be good at [tattooing]; I loved drawing the designs. So I went to a few shops and went, “Hey! Where can I get some ink and some guns?” And they just told me to get the fuck outta there.
So, I was living in Laurel Canyon, and I was driving down the hill one day and I saw a friend of mine hitchhiking, and he had this girl with him named Truly, and she had a fringed leather jacket on with a really nice Japanese dragon done in Indian beads on there. So I inquired! I said, “Man, that’s a nice dragon, it looks like a tattoo design.” She said it was, so I asked if she did it herself. She said, “Yeah, and I’m a tattoo artist too.” This is 1973, by the way. I told her I was looking into getting some equipment and machine, and she told me she had a whole outfit she could sell me. So, I bought some machines and some flash (that I still have) and a power-pack, and that’s really how I got started.
Shortly after that, I started going down to The Pike and got my first three tattoos—my first shop tattoos—by Bob Shaw, and I told him I was interested in working there. I’d bring him stuff that I’d drawn and I’d get tattooed by him, so he gave me the ultimate challenge: bring some people in that’ll let you put a tattoo on them. Well, I was in a rock and roll band at the time and these guys knew I could draw, so I told them to come to The Pike with me to get some free tattoos—I was bringing two carloads of guys a week down there. And I did alright, you know? I guess they figured, “Well, I guess this means we have to give this asshole a job.” And they did!
Andrew Niland Found Dead
By BMEzine • Aug 28th, 2009 • Category: ModBlog
We are incredibly sad to report that Andrew Niland, the body modification who was reported missing earlier this month, was found dead in North Bay, Ontario on Friday, August 28. This had been a very trying year for Andrew, starting with his arrest several months ago for performing certain body modification procedures and the legal case that followed. Details are light at this point, but we will do our best to keep the community updated as any pertinent information is released. Until then, this is as good a place as any for people to share their memories of Andy, if anyone so wishes. Our sincerest condolences go out to all of his friends and family members—this is a terrible loss.
Body Modification Artist Missing
By BMEzine • Aug 11th, 2009 • Category: ModBlog
It’s come to our attention that Andrew Niland of North Bay, Ontario, pictured above, has gone missing. In the North Bay Nugget, Maria Calabrese reports:
Friends are using a Facebook group to find a man who has been missing since Aug. 4, and North Bay police are circulating his picture in hopes of asking the public’s help.
[...]
Police said friends reported Niland missing and confirm he is not wanted by police.
Niland has been free on bail since February after he and his girlfriend Adrianne Carbone, 21, were charged with aggravated assault for performing a labia reduction on a woman earlier that month at his residence.
A friend describes Niland as:
A 30-year-old piercer at Sacred Art in North Bay. He has been missing since 6:30pm on Tuesday August 4th, 2009. He is 5’10”, 150 lbs, shaved brown hair, blue eyes and is easily identified by his 1 ¼ inch stretched ear lobes, and various tattoos including stars on his forehead and “Vegan 4-Life” on his forearms.
Anyone with information leading to Andy’s whereabouts should contact his friends at Sacred Art (1111 Cassells St. North Bay 705-495-1962) or Detective Constable Jim Kilroy (North Bay City Police 705-497-5555).
Full Coverage: Links From All Over (Aug. 6, 2009)
By Jordan Ginsberg • Aug 6th, 2009 • Category: ModBlog
[YouTube] Ha ha, so, you guys are all familiar with vampiric fashionista Christian Audigier and his fancy line of premium Ed Hardy T-shirts/underpants/bed sheets/catheters/crack pipes/etc., yes? These tattoo-culture-appropriating items haven’t been particularly popular among some of the, shall we say, more thoughtful fans of body modification, but finally, there is a trio of men brave enough to stand up to this corporate nightmare, via an old-fashioned rap diss track. Hooray! Andy Milonakis, Dirt Nasty and Rich Hill have joined forces to craft this masterpiece of the modern age, succinctly titled, “Fuck Ed Hardy.” We were kind of hoping this would have been the straw to break the camel’s back and sent Audigier on trip inside his psyche, questioning his motives and finally renouncing the dumb clothes he’s been making a mint off of, but apparently he just chuckled and then went about his day, unfortunately. Oh well. Even still, this is worth it just for the line, “It looks like a dragon threw up on your dick.” Oh yeah, NSFW, etc.
[WSMV] Look, we don’t know how many times we have to tell you that, above all else, BME is for the children—we are saying it constantly, in auditoriums and bodegas around the country, basically to anybody who will listen, and still our advice goes ignored, time and time again. So let us just say this one more time: temporary tattoos are trying to kill your children. Remember? Remember? This has happened at least three times now: Some innocent kid gets some low-grade henna at the mall or something and it ends up burning the shit out of them, permanently, and only once did the kid’s parents have the foresight to give him the bad-ass name “Cannon Cribb.” These other youngsters? Shit outta luck. Here’s the latest tale, straight out of Nashville:
An 11-year-old girl who recently received a temporary tattoo at an Opry Mills mall kiosk was left with painful and permanent scars.
The child’s mother said it was meant to be a simple symbol of softball team spirit, but her daughter was left scarred and burned.
[...]
“Each time a blister would bust, another one would form,” said the child’s mother, Tammy.
[...]
[The family's attorney] believes the girl’s injuries point to a type of henna known as black henna. It’s a chemical the FDA won’t allow for the temporary tattoos because it can cause this type of reaction.
[...]
“She has a lot of kids that’ll ask her, ‘Oh, you got a tattoo.’ And she has to go and explain, ‘No, I don’t. This is what happened to me,’” said Tammy. “I don’t want any more kids to get hurt.”
How many more children will automatically become the coolest kids in their school before this menace is stopped? Seriously though, whoever the mutants are who are just painting kids with this poison willy-nilly, you are worse than Mecha-Hitler.
[Twitter] And finally, the Meghan McCain Reality Tour keeps on truckin’! The almost-first-daughter of yesteryear has been known to display something of an “independence streak,” often talking about how much she loves the ol’ counter-culture, which is probably very troubling to her poor family. Below is a recent “tweet” missive of hers, in which she does nothing to dissuade us of the theory that her Twitter account is ghost-written by Marisa from Needles and Sins. (Kidding! Kidding! Love you, Marisa!)
Full Coverage: Links From All Over (Aug. 4, 2009)
By Jordan Ginsberg • Aug 4th, 2009 • Category: ModBlog
[HeraldNet] Oh boy, here come the waterworks. We realize there can be a tendency to be overly jaded at times when it comes to body modification and the ways in which it’s covered in the media, and that cynicism can bleed over into the ways in which we think about body modification in general—a quickness to criticize someone for being too impulsive or any number of other middling concerns aren’t uncommon. But sometimes, and probably pretty often, body modification is still an intensely meaningful act for many people, and something as simple as a tattoo can provide a person with motivation they might otherwise be lacking. Well, Debra Smith has written a truly touching piece here about a young man, Patrick Conley, who, knowing he was dying of cancer in his mid-twenties, made a concerted effort to, for lack of a much better term, start crossing things off his bucket list. Skydiving, off-road trucking, attending every sporting event and recital of his kids’ that he possibly could—he made all that happen. But because of his weakened immune system, the one wish he wasn’t able to fulfill was getting a tattoo.
By the start of this summer, Conley’s health had deteriorated so much, it didn’t matter. He made an appointment with a Seattle tattoo artist.
He kept the design a secret. A few days before his appointment, he climbed in his truck and made the drive to downtown Seattle to pick up a rendering of the design.
A few hours later, Conley arrived home gasping for breath. He staggered up the stairs of their townhome and planted the design facedown on his bedroom dresser, and headed straight for bed. Charity called the hospice nurse.
Patrick Conley died the next morning on July 16. His wife sat by his side through the night, heard his last words, held his head as he drew his last breath.
In the emotional tumult, no one gave much thought to Conley’s only unfulfilled wish.
Except the hospice nurse. And she knew just who to call.
I’d rather not spoil the end, but you may be able to see where this is going. Either way, this is something we actually like and well worth the read.
[Metro] Ha ha, this is more like it! Who needs “feelings” and junk when you can have headlines like, “Tattooed Gangster Forced to Look Like Tom Selleck”? Classic, right? So, the story goes, some alleged hoodlum had a gang tattoo on his upper lip and, after being chased by police, just got booted right in the kisser by a cop, apparently because this tattoo identified him as some sort of undesirable. He is now suing for $5 million, and his lawyer has made some excellent suggestions:
Pachecho has filed a $5 million legal claim against the city on behalf of the 24-year-old for alleged assault.
He claims that his client now suffers from headaches and blurred vision among other symptoms. Pacheco feared jurors would judge Rodriguez on his ‘Flores’ gang tattoo, inked on his lip.
So he has issued a digitally altered picture of his client “looking like [actor] Tom Selleck”, complete with bushy moustache - which he has positioned next to Rodriguez’s original police mugshot.
He will also grow hair to cover the tattoos on his shaved head. And he’ll wear a smart suit.
“People get past looks when you put on a suit and your hair is grown,” Pacheco said.
Honestly, they could have just said, “Grow a mustache,” but for some reason—to make the jobs of people me easier, I suppose—they went full-tilt with the Tom Selleck comparisons, and you know what? I thank them for that.
[Post Chronicle] And finally, the Chris Brown Public Image Rehabilitation Campaign continues with him, huh, trying to one-up the ex-girlfriend he beat the holy shit out of? Sounds like a solid plan. As I’m sure you all remember, last month, Rihanna made headlines everywhere with her daring attempts at becoming a tattoo artist, or something, and then caused some controversy because she was not licensed and therefore got tattooing banned in the state of New York. Well, her erstwhile shit-bag romantic consort is trying his hand at the ol’ needle and ink, too! Very exciting.
The ‘Run It’ singer has decided to mimic his ex-girlfriend – who he pleaded guilty
to assaulting earlier this year – by inking a design on celebrity tattoo artist Bang Bang.‘Umbrella’ hitmaker Rihanna recently left a lasting impression on the artist – real name Keith McCurdy - by drawing an umbrella with an ‘R’ underneath it on his leg.
However, Chris, 20, has outdone his former girlfriend by creating his own design – a cartoon face with the word ‘Bang’ above it.
[...]
“He did a great job too. He’s a natural, which is funny because I said the same thing about Rihanna. She was really good the first time, but he was better.”
Without a hint of hyperbole or sarcasm, this is probably the most important news story of the last ten years.
Full Coverage: Links From All Over (July 27, 2009)
By Jordan Ginsberg • Jul 27th, 2009 • Category: ModBlog |
[HTMLGIANT] Well, after last week’s sober discussion of policy and legalities and whatnot, we’ve got some comparatively light fare to kick off our illustrious news week this time around. First things first, looks like a few of those bookish types over at HTMLGIANT are putting together a book project of literary tattoos, which is the sort of thing we may have clowned in the past (seeing as there’s no shortage of one-joke cash-grabs centered around stolen tattoo photos), but these folks seem to have the right idea:
Submissions are open to all kinds of literary tattoo work: quotations from your favorite writer, opening lines of novels, lines of verse, literary portraits or illustrations. From Shakespeare to Bukowski to The Little Prince in a Baobab tree, if it’s a literary tattoo and its on your body, we want to see it.
All images must include the name (or pseudonym) of the tattoo bearer, city and state or country, and a transcription of the text itself, along with its source. For portraits or illustrations, please include the name of the author or book on which it’s based. We’d also like to read a few words about the tattoo’s meaning to you — why you chose it, when you first read that poem or book, or how its meaning has evolved over time. How much (or how little) you choose to say about your tattoo is up to you, but a paragraph or two should do the trick.
Hey, that doesn’t sound so bad! On the other hand…
/flexes muscles, drinks bottle of Jager, punches nerd, vomits, falls down, shits pants
[Jacksonville.com] Ha, hey guys, did you know tattoos aren’t even hardcore anymore? It’s true! Really though, here’s a person with no tattoo experience aside from scoping out “tramp stamps” in annoying nightclubs, and even she can notice the diluting effect that those vampiric Audigier fellas and their ilk are having on tattooing.
From the minute I stepped into the Miami airport on our return trip and was faced with the first inked skin and $110 Ed Hardy tattoo-inspired T-shirts I’d seen in a week, I was shocked back into my own culture and its swarm to the tattoo aesthetic. What was once an edgy, fringe-culture practice has gone quite cutesy-commercial compared with its roots. The trick, then, becomes navigating between the art form and the marketing trend, and it’s not too tough to spot the items that just don’t belong in tattoo culture.
The Ed Hardy brand, launched in 2004 by designer Christian Audigier, after he gained the rights to the “Godfather of Tattoo” Don Ed Hardy’s designs, was clothing once revered by L.A. rocker and starlet types.
Now the brand is dabbling in the domestic department, bedding and such, and sir, is there anything possibly tough or rogue about you when you’re snuggled up in your $300 duvet set? I don’t care if it’s a roaring tiger or an eagle tearing apart a snake you’re showing off in the bedroom- it does not belong on a frilly neck roll pillow.
This is a funny tipping point we’ve reached, is it not? After years of tattoo culture being something to be looked upon as vaguely dangerous and limited to the “outlaw” set, it has now been co-opted and commodified to the point that even the bystanders who had no real interest beyond the fact that tattoos were part of an obscured subculture are now mourning the death of those salad days and bemoaning the commercialization of something of which they were never even a part. Just sayin’.
[Pasadena Star News] And now, huh, here is a strange artifact indeed, courtesy of veteran funnyman (?!) George Waters. It is about tattoos, apparently? We should probably do a close reading of this.
In the 21st Century, getting a tattoo seems to have become de rigueur
Speak English, commie!
(”the rigueur”).
Much better.
Statistics show that 36 percent of males age 18-35 have a tattoo, and the other 84 percent have dreamt about Jessica Alba giving them a tattoo.
Wait, what? Maybe I’m out of the loop, but I’ve heard precious little about Jessica Alba’s skills as a tattoo artist. What does George Waters think happens during a tattoo? Is “tattoo” now slang for “hand-job in the swimming pool”?
In contrast, only 31 percent of women age 18-35 have a tattoo, yet fully 67 percent dream of forcing their husbands to watch as George Clooney gives them a tattoo.
This is the least helpful sex advice column I have ever read.
I do not have a tattoo myself. I have major freckles. A snarling tiger on me would look diseased. A yin/yang symbol would look like a scoop of Cookies-N-Cream.
Since when does Cookies-N-Cream have red dots in it? Where the fuck are you buying your ice cream, man?
Not to mention that my pain threshold is so low, pygmy ants have to look down to see it.
That’s pretty low.
What I will never understand is, while choosing a tattoo design is entirely dependent on personal taste, often my friends will ask me for “advice,” when really they are just looking for validation. A typical conversation goes like this:
Friend: OK, give me your opinion. Tell me straight: cobra, leopard or eagle?
“Also, which arm is the ‘gay arm’ for tattoos?”
Question: I want to get the name of my boyfriend, Scuz, tattooed over my heart. My friends say I am crazy, that if we break up I will be stuck with it forever, but I love him. What do you think?
Answer: I, too, think your love for Scuz is timeless, and your friends are just jealous. Besides, if the worst happens and you break up, you can always have the words “is a cheating jerk” added to the design. This genre of tattoo is known as “post-romantic.”
Mr. Waters mentioned that he forgot to ask for reader submissions for questions about tattoos, so instead he went back and stole questions from old Ann Landers columns and hilariously modernized the names to reflect the subject matter, like “Scuz,” which, ha. Dave Barry, take note: If you start swallowing your mouthwash in the morning, this could happen to you.
Question: What does a facial tattoo say about a person?
Answer: It says that as bad as this economy is, it clearly hasn’t hurt liquor sales.
Hoo boy, if this guy only knew how many humorless straight-edgers have their faces tattooed, he’d be in some real trouble. (Kidding! Kidding!)
My experience has been that the general public cannot be trusted with an aesthetic statement so permanent. After all, the general public made Adam Sandler a millionaire.
He is clearly just jealous because SHAMPOO IS BETTA.
Full Coverage: Links From All Over (July 23, 2009)
By Jordan Ginsberg • Jul 23rd, 2009 • Category: ModBlog[Boston Herald] Hey, what’s in the news, hmm? Turns out that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is well upon its way to instituting formal regulations on body piercing—rules that, apparently, do not currently exist. They actually seem pretty reasonable, though! Rep. Bruce Ayers (seen in the video on the right) sponsored the bill, which prohibits people under the age of 18 from getting pierced without being accompanied by a parent (ear piercings excluded) and seeks to establish rules regarding cleanliness within shops, which, hey, that’s a good thing. Ayers is a decent chap, by the sounds of things; he makes it very clear that there are body piercing shops that are setting a fine example, and that the goal of these new regulations will not be to marginalize or restrict body art and its practitioners and clients in any way, but rather to ensure that these things are done safely and responsibly. The anchor even plays devil’s advocate and poses the question of how he would respond to people who would reject the age restriction on the basis that the government shouldn’t play a role in telling citizens what to do with their bodies, and even then, he’s convincing enough about not wanting to impose any sort of “nanny state.” The interview is certainly worth a look.
What we’ve linked above, however, is one of your common hilarious editorials about people just freakin’ the hell out when their little demon children coming strolling in the door covered in satanic metals and such. Take it away, columnist Margery Eagan!
When Adam Femino, 23, came home with his latest body art - ear “plugs” that can stretch earlobes to the size of dinner plates - his mother “started to cry.”
The fashion forward might say his plugs, a modest half inch or so, nicely complement his Mohawk and his huge, black FEMINO tattoo dominating his upper arm. Femino says, removing the plugs to reveal an empty cylindrical hole in his lobe, like a mini Ted Williams Tunnel, proved too much for mom.
It’s for the sake of Adam’s mom, and moms everywhere, that I hope state Rep. Bruce Ayers finally gets somewhere today with legislation to outlaw body piercing on anyone under 18 unless accompanied by a parent.
Ha ha, this “Adam” guy sounds like a real weirdo, huh? The circus is that way, crazy! But really, here is a 23-year-old man who has some stretched lobes, and this happens to be the case to which the author chooses to refer when discussing a bill that will restrict body piercing to those under 18 years of age (without a parent present), excluding ear piercings, which are the only piercings the above mentioned scoundrel seems to have. So far, so good! So, so good.
[Consider] this. Almost nobody over 40 has pierced anything save ears, discreetly. Aged 26 to 40? Twenty-two percent have pierced nipples, tongues, whatever. Aged 18 to 25? The numbers rise to 30 percent. And those numbers are three years old, but the latest available from the Pew Research people.
Look around your local high school. It’s an epidemic. Look at your own teenagers. Who knows what dastardly plot they’re hatching?
First of all, nobody over 40 ever gets pierced because, gross, right? Keep your clothes on, grandpa! (We kid, we kid.) Anyway, the last part is very true. If your kids have or want or have ever even thought about body piercings, the least you can do is check their rooms for trenchcoats and bombs and Barack Obama’s hidden birth certificate. It’s for the good of the land!
Ayers said yesterday he does not propose regulating ear “plugs.” So no matter what happens today, we’ll continue enduring those 45 rpm-sized holes in the lobes of skinny, young artists dressed in black, cashiers at Whole Foods and anyone “expressing their individuality,” as Eric Leger, 32, of Hopedale said yesterday. He’s the father of five. He insists his “plugs” and skull tattoos have cramped neither his fathering nor his work as a property manager.
Clearly, he is a liar and thoroughly unfit to father his five (!) children. Someone please tell him to surrender these youngsters to the state, at which point they will be handed over to our fair lady Margery here who will raise them with the proper respect for authority, so as to ensure they do not let their damn earlobes dangle like some filthy stripper’s nipple tassels, which is just not the sort of thing anyone needs to see when they’re grocery shopping.
[Dallas News] Looks like Massachusetts isn’t the only place trying its hand at instituting fancy new regulations! Turns out that the Dallas Police Department is tired of its esteemed police officers looking like common thugs, and is telling its employees that visible tattoos aren’t part of the damn uniform.
The next time you see a Dallas police officer wearing a long-sleeved shirt when it’s hotter than a furnace outside, it may be because he or she is hiding something.
A tattoo.
The department is planning to require police officers to cover up their tattoos, even if it means wearing makeup or a skin-colored patch over a hard-to-obscure place such as the neck or wrist.
“A lot of officers are coming in with tattoos,” said Lt. Andrew Harvey, a police spokesman.
“It’s more normal now than it ever has been,” he said but added that the department wants officers “to display a more professional image.”
Luckily, up here in the wintry north, our officers are free to get tattooed to their hearts’ content, seeing as it is a vast icy tundra where people are discouraged from leaving their homes without several thermal layers, a Gortex-brand jacket and the carcass of a freshly slaughtered Tan-Tan. Dallas, however, is a sweltering sweat-bucket where “Naked Days” are held several times a summer, just to make sure everybody doesn’t die. Now, tattooed police will be the first to go.
Officer Nick Novello has four tattoos on his arms, including an American Indian on his right forearm that was there when he was hired by the city in 1982. He said he believes the department should consider grandfathering in current officers and thinks it’s a mistake to have an across-the-board policy.
“If I got hired in 1982 and had that tattoo on my forearm, how can you expect me to cover my tattoo up in 2009?” Novello asked. “If you have to cover up your arms, they’re going to have a lot of problems staying hydrated. You put a guy in long sleeves and he’s not going out of the car unless it’s an absolute emergency” during the hot summer months.
Novello, who also has an eagle bursting out of an American flag on his left arm, said he can understand requiring officers to cover up tattoos if they are offensive in some way.
“In culture at large, tattoos are extremely prevalent,” he said. “We’re not divorced from society at large.”
This seems like a reasonable solution—some sort of grandfather policy would surely need to be put into place, unless the DPD really wants to be a bunch of pricks. It makes perfect sense to want your police officers to abide by a certain sense of decorum, and “inappropriate” tattoos should surely be discouraged or left covered, but are you really going to tell a 20-plus-year veteran of the force with an American flag tattoo to shut it down and wear a goddamn snowsuit in the middle of a Texas summer? Come on now.
