[Esquire] I like Clint Eastwood. He’s starred in some of truly excellent movies, and has directed some legitimate classics. With that said, he is a crotchety old man who pines for a culture that no longer exists and as such he sometimes says things that make him sound totally out of touch. Take, for example, this recent Esquire interview:

Kids piercing themselves, piercing their tongues — what kind of masochism is that? Is it to show you can just take it?

[…]

We live in more of a pussy generation now, where everybody’s become used to saying, “Well, how do we handle it psychologically?” In those days, you just punched the bully back and duked it out. Even if the guy was older and could push you around, at least you were respected for fighting back, and you’d be left alone from then on.

And back in my day, you could give a kid a stick and a tire and an old car battery, and he’d have a grand old time! I prefer FilmDrunk‘s take on the situation, imagining this same interview occurring 50 years from now:

“Lemme tell you something, you kids, you’re all a bunch a goddamned sissies. Back in my day, a bully pushed you around, ya dint go to no psychologist. Ya just dyed your hair black, started wearin’ a trenchcoat, maybe got a couple a piercings. Then one day, you showed up with a couple a pipe bombs, and daddy’s Tec-9, and you shot the bully, plus a bunch a other kids, maybe a couple teachers, just for shits and giggles. Then you put the gun in your mouth, make sure the cops couldn’t take you alive, and leave ‘em a note written entirely in Marilyn Manson lyrics. Those were the days.”

[Australian News] Get ready, Australian body piercers, because there are some serious new regulations to follow.

Under new Victorian laws, minors will be barred from getting their nipples and genitals pierced and kids under 16 will need parental consent for any other body piercing.

The laws will come in effect from January 1, which will see piercers fined with 6600 dollars if they give a person aged under 18 an intimate body piercing.

Those who give minors a tattoo or perform scarification, tongue splitting, branding or beading on someone aged under 18 will be slapped with the same penalty.

And piercers will have to pay 2200-dollar fine if they give kids under 16 a non-intimate body piercing without parental consent.

Piercers and modification artists can, however, escape these charges if they can compellingly prove that the teens in question were using fake IDs, such as driver’s licenses, or were wearing clothing that made it seem like they were “asking for it.”

[IBN Live] So, a film named Ghajini was recently released in India, in which the lead character is trying to avenge the death of his wife, but is suffering from a sort of amnesia, and as such, tattoos his body with reminders and clues so he knows who to kill. (It is by all accounts a Bollywood remake of Memento.) Anyway, one of these tattoos was a phone number that unluckily belongs to a Bangalore resident, Sarah Varghese, who is none too pleased!

It was Sarah’s number that was tattooed on Aamir’s body which splashed on all posters across the city. Needless to say Sarah is as irritated with Ghajini as Aamir is in the movie.

“I thought somebody was playing a prank but when I saw the poster I was really shocked. I was wondering how could my number feature in that and I was really shocked,” said Sarah.

So as Ghajini hit the screens on the December 25 and as Aamir bashed up all the baddies he could get in the movie, life for Sarah became even more difficult.

Her phone kept ringing continuously sometimes to even 50 times a day. Sarah — who usually doesn’t watch movies on the big screen — decided that enough is enough and went and watched the movie on New Year’s eve.

When asked if she is planning to lodge a complaint against the producers of the movie, Sarah said,”We’ll see as things come and how far it goes. The calls are now reducing, so if it stops completely now, I will not file a complaint”.

Jesus Christ. Who did these people imagine was going to answer when they called that number? Did they think they were going to help solve the mystery? Yet another example of how tattoos, every day, are ruining the lives of innocents.

[News Journal Online] And not just innocents, but convicts, too! Lempira Norman, who was incarcerated at the Volusia Country Branch Jail near Daytona, Florida, was jumped by two other inmates after refusing to join what the article calls a “club” (which is prison lingo for “rape gang”), who held him down and tattooed a penis on him, on Christmas.

Harris and Collina showed up with a blanket and ordered Norman to get on the floor, the report shows. They threw the blanket on his head and began pummeling him.

The men threatened Norman, saying he would get a worse beating unless he allowed them to apply a tattoo, the report shows. Harris told Norman the tattoo would be of a capital and lowercase B, the report said.

But instead, as Collina held Norman down, Harris — equipped with a makeshift tattoo kit — applied a drawing of a penis on the back of the victim’s right shoulder, the report shows.

I spent the holidays alone in my apartment drinking barley wine that tasted like alcoholic soy sauce, but I have to say, this guy probably had the worst Christmas I’ve heard of this season.

[YouTube] At lastly, let’s come full circle with another old man talking about piercings. Except George Carlin is funnier than Clint Eastwood, and this was 20 years ago (so George wasn’t so old), and this video is full of hilarious cursing. Tally ho, ModBlog.