Tag Archives: news

Church of England Vicar is a Master of “Satire”

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Things aren’t perfect for gay people in the west, but at least the chances of being carted off from a gay wedding, lashed and forced to undergo hormone treatment are relatively low. It’s unfortunate that people still have to take a “lesser of two evils” approach when judging where the safest or most pleasant place to live is according to their sexual orientation, but as “gay” culture continues to merge with the mainstream, ideas of “acceptance” and “tolerance” seem to be yielding to some sort of happy apathy — little by little, it feels like people are starting to just not care about the hated gay menace so long as they’re willing to buy their defaulted homes from them and such.

Of course, for every step in the right direction, there are still morons. (So many morons.) Take Rev. Peter Mullens, a Church of England minister located in London who thought he was being very clever when he wrote the following on his blog:

Mullen, 66, wrote it was time for religious believers to recommend the discouragement of homosexual practices in the style of cigarette packet warnings.

“Let us make it obligatory for homosexuals to have their backsides tattooed with the slogan sodomy can seriously damage your health and their chins with fellatio kills.” [Ed. Note: Emphasis mine.]

[…] Mullen played down the posts, which he described as “light-hearted jokes”.

“I wrote some satirical things on my blog and anybody with an ounce of sense of humour or any understanding of the tradition of English satire would immediately assume that they’re light-hearted jokes.”

Ha ha, now that’s a hilarious joke! What a card that guy is! Because forcibly tattooing people so as to single them out among the population has no historical connotations whatsoever! [Ed. Note: Godwin‘d.]

Mullens went on to read from the Transparent Bigot’s handbook and mentioned that he has many gay friends whom he loves dearly — it’s just that he doesn’t like the “militant preaching of homosexuality” that doesn’t actually exist at all, anywhere, ever. Well, that and the buttsex. Ha ha, gross!

Vicar could be disciplined for blog slurs against gays and Muslims [Guardian.co.uk]

New Rule: Firefighters Can Look However the Hell They Want

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While I think it’s silly for most employers to take a hard and fast oppositional approach to modified employees, I’m on record as saying that it’s their choice and that, in arenas such as the military where decorum and obedience are of the utmost importance, even arbitrary enforcement of anti-modification rules seems in line with their power structures. (Even if tattoos and tattoo culture seem indelibly linked to many branches of the military, but alas.)

With all that said, leave the damn firefighters alone. In June, L.A. Times columnist Sandy Banks wrote about the Los Angeles Fire Department’s new policy that firefighters must not have any visible tattoos, either while on call or while in the firehouse:

It’s a “grooming issue,” said Capt. Armando Hogan, spokesman for Chief Douglas Barry. “We need to make sure we’re professional-looking. We’ve got an image to uphold.”

Image?

This is a department that recently cost the city $16 million in payoffs to firefighters who’ve been insulted, harassed and discriminated against on the job. [Ed. Note: Emphasis mine.] And they’re worried that people will think they’re unprofessional because a guy has his kids’ names inked on his arm or flames crawling up his neck?

You know what? If you’re working in a customer service job, fine — a grooming standard should absolutely be adhered to. But firefighters? If you’re coming into contact with a firefighter, it’s probably because they’re saving your life, saving your house, or saving someone you know or love. If the barista’s forehead tattoo is a turn-off, understandable, but is anyone seriously going to file a complaint that the guy showing up at 4 a.m. to put out a fire had some visible kanji?

Well, it seems like things are getting worse in L.A. Dan Stark, a heavily tattooed eight-year veteran of the department, has been the butt of some idiotic harassment as of late. Banks gives an update:

The day the policy took effect in April, he said someone left a copy of the edict on his station’s kitchen table, next to a photo of a group of shrouded Muslim women, labeled with the names of five firefighters — including him — who are heavily tattooed.

Then he found his station locker covered with copies of the policy, he said. That meant someone had broken into it, or used the spare key kept in the captain’s dorm. Later that day, he said, someone drew a picture of a mummy and captioned it “Stark’s new uniform.”

When he complained about the ribbing, one captain told him to quit griping and be a team player, he said. Another suggested he get some tattoos removed, as a sort of goodwill gesture. Another official said he risked ruining his career if he kept complaining. None apparently forwarded his complaints up the chain of command.

So … that’s pretty great. To recap: Fire department is exposed for abuse, hazing, etc., and revamps its policies to ensure proper treatment of its firefighters. Another new policy is put into place to prohibit visible tattoos on firefighters in the same department. Tattooed firefighters start getting shit from non-tattooed ones. Nobody does anything.

As Banks points out, the real issue here isn’t tattoos, though that serves as a microcosm of the glaring hypocrisy of an organization that has apparently done nothing to combat its internal problems. But again, of all professions, as far as interaction with the public goes, firefighters rank pretty high on the virtuousness list. The ways in which corruption can manifest out are few, and they’re pretty much just there to save our asses and occasionally pose shirtless for hunky calendars. If any profession deserves to be cut some slack on this front, it’s probably them.

Los Angeles Fire Department tattoo coverup muddles real mission, Discomfort over L.A. Fire Department’s tattoo policy is more than skin deep [Los Angeles Times]
Firefighter Tattoos [Strike The Box]

Temporary Tattoos Are Trying to Kill Your Children

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Photo credit: Mirror.co.uk

The conventional wisdom is well established at this point: Outside of certain cultural traditions, henna tattoos are something you get done as a vacation time-killer in between having your hair put into cornrows and getting hit on by swarthy European millionaires who want nothing more than an afternoon with someone else’s wife. Harmless, right? WRONG. Dead wrong. Henna’s bloodlust knows no bounds and, make no mistake, it’s coming for you. You and your children. This red-inked menace is even taking the shape of beloved American cartoon characters in its quest to disfigure and mutilate the youth of today:

A boy of three was scarred for life after suffering horrific burns from a dodgy holiday henna tattoo of Bart Simpson.

Vinnie England got the temporary image of his TV hero from a Spanish street stall.

But the trader may not have been using the safe, natural henna he claimed because Vinnie suffered an appalling reaction. His skin became inflamed, sore and blistered.

Now he has a three-inch bright red outline of Bart drying his backside on his forearm.

The ink has since faded from this young hero’s arm, but the scar may be permanent (probably not). Some suspect that the ink may have been mixed with a low-cost hair dye called PPD, which is known for instigating poor skin reactions and is commonly combined with henna, but who are you going to believe? Those fat-cats shilling for the multi-billion dollar henna industry? I think not.

Three-year-old scarred for life by henna tattoo of Bart Simpson done in Benidorm [Mirror.co.uk]

Regional Columnist Fascinated With/Disgusted By Body Modification, is a Talented Philosopher

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So, both of the people who regularly read my posts here are probably aware of my proclivity to occasionally find a particularly silly article by some poor jamoke (who probably doesn’t give half a shit about body modification but just needs to file 800 words thrice weekly to his local newspaper so he doesn’t lose his health benefits) and then eviscerate them because ha ha they don’t understand body modification, jerks! I’m not apologizing for this, but I would like to clarify my position: I don’t actually care at all if somebody is perplexed or even grossed out by certain types of body modification. The pursuit of body modification is not an absolute, and it’s silly and arrogant to think that just because somebody doesn’t particularly enjoy tattoos or scarification or implants that there is something fundamentally wrong with them.

The issue I take with these sorts articles is not that the authors don’t appreciate body modification, but rather that they so often allow their lack of understanding to take the form of a hatred and mistrust of those for whom body modification is fundamentally important. Because of this, the level of discourse just tends to devolve into “… and 60 years from now, old people who are bitter because they tattooed their faces when they were still in the womb and never got a job will be furious because of their inky, flabby, unemployed skin and their inevitable uprising will give way to the extremist Muslim rapture!” and other such statements that are supposed to explain why body modification isn’t just an unattractive fad (or whatever), but is actually indicative of the hell-bound path on which our society has found itself, and it’s all because Scarlett Johansson got her septum pierced or the tollbooth guy had a tattoo on his neck.

With all that said, I’m admittedly confused by this column by Brian Goodings of The Blue Mountains Courier-Herald, which seems to take the opinion that … well, I can’t quite tell.

“When I was young I used to wear ill-fitting clothes (remember elephant pants?) and listen to strange music but when I got older, I just stopped doing so. The time for that kind of thing in my life had passed.”

“Strange music,” you say? Strange like John Zorn or strange like Crazy Town? I have to say that lines like, “I used to … listen to strange music but when I got older, I just stopped doing so” sound like pure propaganda and make it hard to believe the person who wrote them is under 50 years old. (Which is fine, of course, but the article’s tone seems to suggest the author is going for an, “I’m a Generation-Y’er who has seen the light!” sort of thing.) That said, I do remember elephant pants! We used to call them “phat pants” though, I think. Maybe we went to the same “raver drug warehouse parties”!

Goodings goes on to “wonder about the fate of our younger people because tattoos and many kinds of piercing leave a more permanent reminder of younger days that isn’t just going to go away when the wearer gets older.” It’s not that he dislikes tattoos — he even admits that he’s seen many he enjoys on people his age, whatever that is. (Presumably between 25-60.) But his concern is with some more extreme procedures he’s seen.

“Case in point: when I was in Denmark this summer with my family we visited the amusement park Tivoli. While there, we ran into a whole group of youngish men and women whom I believe would be called ‘Goths’. As a friend of my said, a couple of them looked like they’d fallen face-first into a fishing tackle box and come up worse for wear.”

Great joke. Nailed it.

“I’ve never seen such an array of piercing and black makeup and… well, you get the picture. But – and here’s the strangest thing- one of the young men was sporting a nifty pair of horns on his forehead. I’m not kidding; he had a pair of two-inch nubbins created by implants buried under his skin.

“His face was also heavily tattooed, as was every bare inch of skin that I could see. He and his buddy also had those earlobe discs-thingies and when they took them out to go on the rides, their stretched earlobes hung down the sides of their heads and moved like turkey wattles.”

Let’s revisit my initial point: I completely understand being put off by very heavily modified people when it’s something you are not used to. What Goodings is doing here is actually surprisingly subtly insidious: Later on in the piece, he admits to having done some research about body modification while writing this article. (Although he warns “this isn’t the kind of research I would recommend to anybody. The horn implants are tame compared to some of the stuff that people are doing to their bodies.” Ha ha body modification is gross!) Even a cursory look at BME or a similar site provides a handy enough resource for a writer to at least learn the correct terminology. But Goodings makes reference to “earlobe discs-thingies,” which sounds ridiculous to anyone who knows a plug or tunnel when they see one, but to those who are unfamiliar or just generally don’t care? It makes the people being described sound ridiculous and discredits them just because of their modifications. Goodings doesn’t seem like he’s really against this stuff for the most part (the fact that he trots out the hoary old “disfigurements/mutilations” descriptor notwithstanding), so consciously using this sort of language is a curious decision and makes a bewilderingly off-kilter article all the more unfocused.

And good lord is it ever bewildering — the real problem with this article is that it’s just poorly reasoned. After a piecemeal beginning, the bottom half of the piece jackknifes and flies off the overpass as Goodings starts throwing out half-baked ideas about what hardcore modifications really mean.

“I wonder if this kind of stuff is based on the deepest of narcissisms or perhaps they are trying to say, ‘I’m so alienated from human society that I don’t even want to look like a person…’

“[… M]aybe, just maybe, these are very sensitive people who feel, like many others in our time, utterly powerless to significantly change the world in any other way so instead they ‘alter’ their own bodies.

“[…] Maybe they are tuned into and even reflect the deep angst felt by creation itself as the extinction rates of our neighbours speed up and the unsustainable economies crash and often the whole world looks like it’s heading you-know-where in a handbasket.”

All of which seems to be saying, body modification to Goodings is a means of displaying one’s feelings of weakness and acquiescence to the demands of a cruel world, rather than being a method of expression, beautification or even just a fad. Those who engage in heavy body modification, Goodings seems to be suggesting, are trying to ugly themselves up so that they fit in with their crumbling surroundings. Either that or he’s trying to be zeitgeisty enough to write his way into a bigger paper. It’s a toss-up.

And then there’s the finale:

“Perhaps it’s always been thus with the upcoming generation but I sense there’s something deeper going on nowadays on many levels and I believe it does signify a global paradigm shift in almost everything we do. Desperation is running high – but so is hope.”

I’m not trying to be a dick, but this doesn’t even mean anything. Platitudes and poor attempts to insert buzzwords do not a coherent editorial make; this reads like a letter a high school sophomore would write to Obama while recovering from wisdom tooth surgery. And the shame is that it’s not like there aren’t parallels and associations to be drawn between body modification and certain other cultural and societal movements and trends, but the author misses those completely, and instead resorts to some Dadaist nonsense that seems to say that, as the western world becomes more fucked up, so too do those for whom body modification is an integral part of their lives regress into some sort of dystopic mess of Mad Max-esque cretins. But … maybe there’s more to it than that? So stay hopeful? With your ear-disc-thingies? Now that’s analysis you can take to the bank. After you get it from the dime-store.

On the Horns of a Dilemma [Blue Mountains Courier-Herald]

What Say the Internets? New York Times Edition

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Photo source: Getty Images

So, in its bi-monthly attempt to take the onion off its belt and prove how hip it is, the New York Times has published a piece on the ever-increasing acceptability of tattoos in the mainstream and it’s actually not so bad. There are a few predictably hilarious quotes, such as this reaction to Project Runway season three victor Jeffrey Sebelia’s large throat tattoo:

“I was, like, ‘Whoa.’ It wasn’t a prison tattoo. It wasn’t sailors or criminals. It was this real-life person that you saw being creative and successful, and it really affected your perception about who gets tattooed.”

So that’s a nice, positive sentiment. And, since it’s the New York Times, this has gotten some pretty heavy coverage all over the series of tubes. What say the Internets?

Jessica Grose, Jezebel: “We were already aware that tattoos have lost their taboo status because the Times keeps telling us. Over and over and over and over again. They want to make sure we know that moms and dads and heartbroken doctors and heartbroken writers and even the Jews are getting inked. After the jump, some passages from these taboo busting articles that show, once and for all, that getting a tattoo is about as transgressive as eating a donut (think of the transfats!).”

Michael M. O’Hear, Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog: “While the article has led me to reconsider that flaming skull I’ve always thought would look great on my forehead, I do note that ‘lawyer’ is not in the list of professions in which visible tattoos are becoming more common. I wonder, though, whether there are some outposts of the legal profession in which tattoos have become the norm, or are at least more accepted than in others. And is there a resource guide somewhere for inked-up law students letting them know which employers are tattoo-friendly and which are not? Maybe this should be part of the NALP form . . . .”

Ann Althouse: “Who knew you had to earn your neck tattoo? I’d have thought getting a neck tattoo as opposed to, say, one of those peeping-over-the-pantyline tattoos was a real demonstration of commitment. Ten (or more) years ago I stood in line at the University Bookstore behind a pretty young woman who had a tattoo on her neck of an old-fashioned, claw-footed bathtub — complete with the extended pipe and shower-head. ‘Poseur’ is not the word that crossed my mind.”

Half Sigma: “I think they have prole drift backwards. The higher classes are taking on the habits of the lower classes.

It still seems incredibly stupid to get a tattoo. What happens when they go out of style? It’s still not considered upper class. Why permanently prevent yourself from ever being upper class?

Nevertheless, I see many white people in Manhattan with white collar jobs and probably college degrees who have tattoos. I suspect that they are all voting for Obama. College gradautes with tattoos just has a left-wing feel to it, but I can’t pinpoint why. Normally, left-wing people have no qualms about hating low-class white culture like hunting and NASCAR. It’s a real shame that the General Social Survey has never asked any questions about tattoos.”

Incredibly Interesting, Vital and Important Celebrity Tattoo Round-Up

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Photo credit: Hector Vallenilla / Pacific Coast News

[People.com] In as much as you can deduce anything about celebrities from seeing them on television and through media coverage, Heidi Klum seems legitimately goofy enough to be genuinely likable. (I have no doubt that immediately after this gets posted, it’ll be revealed that she operates a concentration camp in her garage or poisoned the drinking water of a small town or eats veal or something.) Anyway, she’s just showed up in public recently sporting a new forearm tattoo (AHH SCANDAL) to commemorate her anniversary with her husband, Seal (AWW), which she explains as such:

“My husband and I always get married every year,” said Klum. “It was our fourth wedding, and we wanted to have our names tattooed together. So it’s my husband’s name and our three children, their initials, in the [three] stars.”

Tim Gunn was not available for comment, who claimed it was getting a little dusty in the back of his Towncar.

[BestCelebGossip.com] You would think that when you make the decision to marry one of the dinks from Good Charlotte, you accept that ill-advised tattoos will be as unavoidable as soul-destroyingly-bad mall punk being blasted around the homestead. Well, Nicole Richie is taking a stand against the tattoo plans of whichever guy it is from Good Charlotte to whom she’s married!

From the sounds of it, Joel has been considering getting another tattoo, but this is something she has put her foot down. Oddly enough, Joel wanted to have a tattoo of their six month old Harlow etched onto his tooth of all places, and Nicole reportedly lost her temper over the whole situation. He had said some time ago, promised even, that he wasn’t going to get any more tattoos, but when a friend suggested doing something out of the box, such as the tooth tattoo, he wanted to go for it.

Umm … unless our friend Joel has some positively Barbaro-sized chompers, I’m not entirely sure how well this would have worked out even if he had been allowed.

[ContactMusic.com] Megan Fox has a lot going for her. She’s easy to look at. She’s brash and doesn’t seem to possess a self-editing mechanism. She’s incapable of taking a picture in which she doesn’t look like she’s about three-and-a-half seconds away from blowing you. I mean really, what’s not to like? But the 22-year-old is also somewhat tattooed — especially for an up-and-coming actress — and doesn’t take kindly to people who find her ink trashy.

“Everyone hates them because they’re closed-minded about tattoos. People who don’t like me, as far as fans go, always talk about how I’m trashy because I have tattoos. I find that insane! This is 2008, not 1950. Tattoos aren’t limited to sailors. I find them beautiful, so I’m going to keep doing it.”

This isn’t anything new, though. In an interview when she was 19, she mentioned having a tattoo of her ex-boyfriend’s name “next to my pie,” which … well, it’s just plain awesome. You stay classy, Megan Fox.

Full Coverage: Links From All Over (Sept. 22, 2008)

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Photo credit: Peter Parsons / The Chronicle Herald staff

[The Chronicle Herald] As a rule, it’s probably best not to advocate tattoos as a means of winning a bet or a contest. Unless it’s a happy moment of serendipity in which a situation arises in which you were planning on getting a tattoo anyway — or, at least, that the situation inspires you to get a piece that you enjoy but may not have considered otherwise — the results will likely be dire. (I swear, that photo-realistic sleeve of Oprah horse-whipping the Pope in drag was for charity!) Luckily, JoAnn Harpell isn’t in the regretful camp: the Nova Scotia woman got a portrait of Elton John on her leg (right) in order to win a radio contest to see John in concert.

“The only thing I wouldn’t have done (to get a ticket) would be to go to a scalper,” Ms. Harpell said.

And she did try to get tickets when they first went on sale for the Halifax and Moncton concerts.

“I cried like a baby when I didn’t get them,” she said. “I was very upset.”

The serendipitous part is that Harpell was already moderately tattooed, and there are a few songs in Sir Elton’s catalogue that are incredibly meaningful for her — the lyrics of which were incorporated into the new piece. Sweet story, right? Surely the commenters visiting The Chronicle Herald’s Web site agree, right?

“I can’t believe that anyone would go to those extremes to see an entertainer plus with 14 tattoos she is lucky she has a husband. I think she needs to take some of her money and see a psychiatrist.”

“There are two things wrong with this story. First, that this woman will disfigure herself for a couple of tickets to see an aging pop star, and second, that C100 would sponsor such a thing. Unbelievable. Shows very bad judgement on both their parts. And the tattoo is very poorly done and looks nothing like Sir Elton. I felt really embarrassed for her, and really ticked off at C100 for their juvenile behaviour.”

“C100 is a crazy radio station and this woman’s behavior fits right in. Me thinks you need to get a life…… “

God damn it.

[NOLA.com] In the latest edition of Tattoos v. School Board, the St. John the Baptist Parish School Board in New Orleans is seeking to ban “visible lewd and gang-related tattoos,” which doesn’t actually sound the like worst idea ever. Sure, it’s problematic because terms like “lewd” and “gang-related” are certainly open to interpretation: Is a traditional pin-up girl “lewd”? Should a tattoo referencing one’s neighborhood qualify as “gang-related”? And as well, some may suggest that prohibiting tattoos of any kind is some sort of violation, constitutional or otherwise. But at the same time … it’s high school. Banning tattoos and piercings is silly, but, as with any venue that relies on a sense of decorum to maintain some semblance of order, I can’t quite disagree with measures that might cut down on idiotic gang violence. As long as it’s not a single figurehead making the decisions — a committee of peers, perhaps?

[NYPost.com] It seriously seems like there’s a tattoo-related story coming out of the Republican presidential campaign every other day, does it not? This is one is even more boring than usual, though. Meghan McCain was overheard talking to her editor about getting a new tattoo! She’s already got a blue star tattooed on her foot, and her editor has 11 tattoos of his own! McCain said she would wait, however, until after the election to get new work done, out of respect to her father, who, for five-and-a-half years in Vietnam, couldn’t get a tattoo.

[Darragh Doyle] Cute story here about a guy admiring a Don Quixote tattoo from across a crowded pub. He approaches to the woman wearing the piece, who either doesn’t know the right story about where the design came from, or is purposely screwing with the narrator. Nice tattoo, as well.

As Long as You Both Shall Live the Ink Holds …

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We poked some fun at Levi Johnston and his “Bristol” tattoo, but, unsurprisingly, the “bad luck” meme associated with getting a lover’s name tattooed on you is hardly known across the board. Donald G. McNeil, Jr., a New York Times reporter, just learned about his doomed, damned fate upon getting a ring-finger tattoo in lieu of wearing a wedding band:

Three years ago, I had a long argument with my intended. Having seen in Africa the effects of the world diamond cartel, I said I would buy her a ring with any stone she liked, as long as it was not a diamond. That was fine by her.

I also said I wouldn’t wear a wedding band. That was not fine. […]

“It’s an important physical symbol of commitment,” she said.

I retorted, “If you want that, why don’t you just tattoo your name on.” I suggested a gluteal autograph.

She responded, “Because by the time any other woman saw it, you would already have betrayed me. But if you want to tattoo it on your finger, fine.”

Isn’t it always the case? Calling her bluff, though, McNeil ended up going to a tattoo shop in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan and, after having been talked out of getting his wife’s full name (in eight-point font, no less), he was convinced that getting her initials in a stylized script would do the trick. During the sitting, he was filled in on the mistake he’d just made:

The artist in the next booth came over to kibbitz and burst out laughing. “A wedding ring? Tattoos are permanent, you know.”

Cynic, I thought. I was 52, I said, and didn’t plan a third marriage. And if it happened, and laser removal failed, I could cover it with a gang tat. The Pathetic Old Gits or something.

As luck would have it though, his wife, though shocked, loved it. (Some of his children, not so much.) What he didn’t realize until later on, however, was that this gesture was by no means unique, and that, in fact, he now shared a trait with some of the most vapid and irritating celebrities Hollywood has to offer.

Pamela Anderson had Tommy Lee’s name tattooed on her ring finger after their 1995 wedding. Until he betrayed her, after which she altered it to “Mommy.” He’d had hers tattooed on his penis. Classy.

Since then I’ve been painfully alert to this microtrend. An article on about.com described it as “an option for doctors and mechanics.”

And squinting at a cover of People magazine, I was pretty sure I read “Linda” on Hulk Hogan’s finger. The article, which didn’t mention it, was about his divorce.

Last year, Téa Leoni and David Duchovny had theirs done for their 10th anniversary. I admire their acting. He just entered rehab for sex addiction.

And recently, I blundered onto a Web site, AmIAnnoying.com. It lists permanently wedding-banded celebrities: Kathy Griffin, Ashlee Simpson, Jenna Jameson, Howard Stern.

Yikes. But hey, look on the bright side, Don: The Pathetic Old Gits will always love you.

With This Tattoo, I Thee Wed [New York Times]

Tattoos Are a Business, There’s No Going Back, and That’s Probably OK

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Photo credit: Robert Bykowski / THE CHRONICLE

Maybe it’s elitism or maybe it’s a certain sort of understandable (and indeed forgivable) obstinacy that comes along with having been part of a particular culture for a long time (or having been immersed in a long-standing culture to the extent that one feels as if they had been there all along), but the fairly recent and widespread commodification of body modification (though mostly tattoos) sits incredibly poorly with most members of the community who were present before Miami Ink ever aired, or who joined afterward but felt retroactively slighted by that sort of supposedly crass and exploitative commercialism. And that’s fine, to an extent. Tattooing has always been a markedly different phenomenon than, say, fitness or cooking shows, but it’s a phenomenon nonetheless, and with acceptance comes a geometric level of growth. Not even a few years ago, what are the chances that the opening of a tattoo shop would have warranted a rather large newspaper feature?

The shop, Windy City Ink, 166 W. Division St., opened on Aug. 13. Owner Gary Parisi said he could not comment on which network would be airing the show but expects to start filming in the next few months. Windy City also has flat-screen digital catalogs and plans to open up a laser tattoo removal shop next door-expensive endeavors most tattoo shops won’t invest in. […]

The shop is open until 2 a.m., and Parisi said customers can bring in iPods or MP3 players to play. Though many shops have a private room or two, it’s rare to have curtains hanging around every station, like Windy City does.

But what may be unique to this Chicago shop are the flat-screen catalogues which should be installed by Sept. 20. While other Chicago shops have “flashracks” to look through designs, Parisi said, the flat-screens are clean, efficient, fast and categorized.

Jerrett Querubin, 24, who was flown in by Parisi from Albuquerque, N.M. to finish his apprenticeship, said Windy City’s goal is to be a high-class tattoo shop, almost like a salon. But Parisi decided to open early because he could still do business while doing construction, he said. The staff is still working toward their goal of making the shop immaculate and professional.

That tattoo shop owners are embracing the role of tattoo removal as a means of enhancing work rather than running counter to their profession is impressive enough, but to acknowledge the practice as good business as well speaks to a sort of sea change, and the argument could be made this kind of forward momentum is due partially to the aforementioned commodification. Though Venus and others have been ahead of the curve when it comes to envisioning body modification as a service worthy of the “spa treatment,” this Windy City Ink shop seems like it could be indicative of the next great step toward mainstream acceptance, and really, what does the average tattooed person have to lose by visiting a shop that is also a tightly run organization with top of the line equipment and a grown-up business model? The shop will, after all, offer its employees health benefits and all the dressings that come along with a real career.

But then maybe this isn’t indicative of anything at all, it is an anomaly and all it proves is that a shop like Windy City Ink is a good place to film a television show.

In one advertisement for the shop they have been doing every weekend since opening, girls wearing body paint promote the shop with fliers at bars.

“The girls are completely naked,” Parisi said. “It’s the first thing you’re going to remember when you wake up in the morning. Even if you were drunk, you’ll pull out the card and think, ‘Where did I get this from? Oh yeah, there was this girl naked as hell with big t—–s flappin’ around.’”

The truth is probably somewhere in between — that tattooing and body modification being thought of as fields in which a person could realistically work without fear for the future, and stamping out the idea of becoming a piercer as a fall-back plan when society at large isn’t ready for your full facial tattoo, these are undeniably good things. And maybe for these to become proper mandates, maybe that does require a small amount of soul-selling, but it’s worth it, isn’t it?

What do you think?

Chicago Gets Inked by New Tattoo Shop [Columbia Chronicle]

Real Recognize Real

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Photo source: RashadMcCants1.com

This video is from January, but it’s new to us! NBA players with tattoos are nothing new, but Rashad McCants is a bit different. For one, he’s an unabashed poet who publishes his pieces on his Web site, but beyond that, he takes his tattoos — and indeed, tattoos in general — very seriously. He writes about his at length:

My greatest analogy for tattoos is that life is pain. The new challenges you encounter in life present a type of pain that could make a person give up. The moment you feel the discomfort, you divert to what’s comfortable and less painful. But a tattoo makes it all mental. Separating the mind from body and focusing on the outcome of the challenge. The pain never lasts forever — it’s just temporary. In life, going through bad times also means good times are soon to follow. The moment you decide not to fight the bad times, everything turns around for you. And the outcome is more satisfying then ever.

That’s the same with a tattoo. It hurts like hell the moment that needle touches your skin. And it continues to hurt until its done. And even a couple days after. But, just as with life’s trials and tribulations, the pain subsides and the outcome is everlasting. There is nothing like a fresh tattoo. The look of it. The feel of it. Knowing that it hurt so bad, and you wanted to quit.

In the video, McCants is followed around during a photo shoot for Inked Magazine, and offers even more about what tattooing means to him:

Rashad McCants Shows Off His Tattoos [YouTube]
Tinted Tattoos [RashadMcCants1.com]