I think my favorite part of my interview with Kim Saigh was the bit where she challenged the idea that every tattoo must have a deep, philosophical meaning, and the prevailing notion that important moments in one’s life must be commemorated with a tattoo. “It should have significance,” she said, “but I always tell people that you should get tattooed because you like tattoos. You do not have to memorialize someone by getting a tattoo — it doesn’t mean you love them less if you don’t.”
With that said, hats are off to Dan, the subject of the above video, and a huge fan of the NFL’s Detroit Lions, who just put on the most abjectly terrible, historically bad season, probably in sports history, going a soul-crushing 0-16. To celebrate, Dan had the following monument to mediocrity etched into his chest:
At least he seems to be in good humor about it. But the money quote comes from his wife:
“I’m super embarrassed right now, but what am I gonna do? I love him. He’s my husband. Go Lions.”
That is some seriously touching commitment. But what does the sports blogosphere think of this? Let’s check in with Matt Ufford, editor of With Leather and a co-founder of Kissing Suzy Kolber:
The report card for your life just came in. Wanna know what you got?
F – –
Thanks, Matt! Go Lions!
Lions Fan Gets 0-16 Tattoo [MyFox Detroit]
The Report Card for Your Life Just Came In. Wanna Know What You Got? [Kissing Suzy Kolber]
[The Sporting Blog] Spencer Hall over at the TSB checked in this morning with a tale of intrigue and deceit (and poor decision-making) that could only have occurred within the confines of collegiate sports. Kirby Freeman signed with the Miami Hurricanes a little while back and, in an attempt to assert his devotion to the team, got the team’s “U” logo tattooed on his back. Well, as Hall writes, sometimes these things aren’t meant to be. Things were going well …
Until now! (DUH-DUH-DAAAAAAHHH.) Freeman transferred to Baylor after losing his starting QB job, and has had the tattoo changed to either a zero or an “O” for “Ohmigod, that is one lopsized zero. Did you play for Oregon?”
[…]
This reminder that a scholarship is four years, but a tattoo is for life comes from The Sporting Blog.
Sound advice!
[Intelligencer] Ha ha, so apparently all the children in Belleville, Ontario, have taken up the time-honored tradition of good old-fashioned cigarette smoking, and some of the elders are displeased. A youth activism group, Unfiltered, has taken up the task of weaning these kids off smoking by handing out temporary tattoos, apparently? At this point, this article takes a delightful turn wherein the townspeople become very concerned that this trickery could actually lead to the young’ns wanting real tattoos, which would be at least as bad as them smoking a pack a day, probably.
“People have been smoking forever, but we just found out that it’s not healthy,” Dolan said. “People have had tattoos forever, maybe it’s going to take us a longer term to find out it’s not healthy.”
Dolan told the board he has been told permanent tattoos put a strain on the body because some of the ink enters the individual’s bloodstream and is then filtered through the body. This, he said, puts an extra strain on some organs.
Dr. Richard Schabas, medical officer of health, said he was not aware of any medical problems linked to tattoos. The only concerns, he said, would be with the needles used to inject the ink. If those needles are not properly sanitized there can be infection problems.
Schabas said the health unit does carry out routine inspections of tattoo parlours in the area. However, he told Dolan there may be some validity to his concern.
“As a matter of policy, I’m not sure we should be encouraging tattoos,” he said.
Schabas said using temporary tattoos to appeal to children is an understandable tactic but may need to be re-examined.
“You walk a fine line here, Bob. You want to relate to kids but, on the other hand, we want to ask ourselves if we want to normalize a behaviour that, maybe, we don’t want to,” he said.
First of all, yes, we “just found out” cigarettes aren’t healthy, what, yesterday? Sixty years ago? Whatever. Anyway, this whole thing makes my brain collapse in on itself. How old are these kids that are smoking? If they’re over the age of 10, I don’t think the temporary tattoo offensive is going to have much success, sadly. But at least the Belleville town council is doing its part to combat the “normalizing” of Pagan dick-choppery like tattoos and such. Can you imagine what it would be like to live in a world where people thought it was OK to get tattoos? Terrifying.
[NY Post] Continuing this election season’s trend of all candidates (and their families) engaging in ritualistic anti-American ink-jamming, as they call it, Caroline Kennedy, one of the front-runners to fill Hillary Clinton’s vacant Senate seat, apparently has a miniscule tattoo on her forearm that nobody had ever noticed until the New York Post realized they were short a column the other day. It is apparently a butterfly but it may as well be a birthmark or a bruise — it is seriously barely there. Naturally, though, because she is a Kennedy, and there is always some sort of sordid tale behind everything those freaks do, this is not just some innocuous splotch of ink:
Kennedy got the tattoo while vacationing with her family in Asia during the late 1980s.
During a night out in Hong Kong, Caroline, her brother, John F. Kennedy Jr., and her cousins Edward “Teddy” Kennedy Jr., 47, and Kara Anne Kennedy, 48, challenged one another with a mischievous dare, a source said, noting that the group had consumed a few drinks.
The boys challenged the girls to get a late-night “tat” at a nearby parlor.
Caroline and Kara went first and emerged “bruised and bloodied,” emblazoned with butterflies on their arms.
But when it came time for Teddy and John Jr. to reciprocate, the men “chickened out,” refusing to go through with the dare, the source said.
When reached for comment, Kennedy corrected the horrible newspaper, and said she actually got the tattoo on a dare from Governor David Paterson, thereby securing Clinton’s Senate seat. Ha ha, timely references.
[Twitter] Hey, did you know BME has its own Twitter feed? True story! If you like BME, but don’t feel like it’s quite pithy enough for you, add us! And while you’re at it, head on over to BME Shop! The holidays are fast approaching, and there’s no better present for grandma than one o’ them split cock T-shirts. And keep on sending in your photos of you decked out in BME gear and jewelry!
[YouTube] This one’s a little on the esoteric side, but do you know BME mainstay and perpetual image-leaderboard contender Perk900? (Of course you do.) Well, some time ago, he apparently worked at Blockbuster Video and was the subject of a short film, which you can see below. Did someone say Cable Ace Award?
Andy loves cycling and mathematics. So much so that he had this tattooed by Jase of Art ‘n’ Soul Tattoo in Devon, England, and by the looks of things he cycled home after the tattoo session. Now that’s dedication!
“It’s the bicycle power formula, it describes the various forces against which I’ve battled for pretty much every week of the last quarter century!“
Enjoy things bicycle related? Click here, here and here.
[Alana G.] The very talented Alana (nee Miss Gossip) just caught up with Rasheed Wallace of the Detroit Pistons who, in addition to requiring technical fouls for sustenance, has dedicated his entire back to tattoo tributes to his daughter. Sheed’s one of the league’s most intense, confrontational, and generally downright crazy players (in a good way), so this sort of measured and gentle discussion is an interesting counterpoint to that. Not bad tattoo work, either. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the cuteness there, because …
OK, much better. So, this is the story of a woman with a psychological disorder that led to an obsession with plastic surgery that escalated to the point that she got so much work done over a 20-year period that she was unrecognizable even to her own family. She was briefly treated for this disorder, but fairly quickly fell back into her “old ways,” finding a doctor that not only agreed to give her silicone shots into her face, but provided her with syringes and silicone so that she could continue to do the same by herself. The silicone ran out, however, and the woman began injecting herself with cooking oil. The result can be seen in a slideshow here.
There is definitely an element of the grotesque here: A traditionally attractive woman, likely addled by some sort of psychosis, becomes what many would describe as a monstrosity. Yet, with each additional round of surgery, as untamed scar tissue and various disfigurements piled up, she was continually pleased with what she perceived as an ongoing beautification process. Now, after having been made a spectacle of, she seems to agree with the people who have been trying to dissuade her, and claims she would just like her old face back.
Not to try to analyze the thought process of a person with such obvious and complex problems, nor to suggest that we should engage in any kind of insipid armchair-psychiatry, but this is a truly fascinating and sad story that, while not directly related to this community, certainly holds some cross-over appeal. How often do those outside of the body modification culture criticize those within it for lying to themselves about the inherent beauty in so many of these procedures? I’m not saying that this is by any means a valid comparison or that body modification as much of this community practices it is in any way analogous to the sort of psychological disorder that would lead a person to the lengths of the subject of the linked article, but it’s interesting to consider the parallels that an outsider may perceive, wrongheaded as they may be. That is all.
[Fade Fast] And as a nice pick-me-up, here’s a cute Flash ad from noted sell-out Allen Falkner (kidding!) for his tattoo removal company, Fade Fast. I don’t mean to give free advertising, this is just quite well done:
Gilbert Arenas’s new Obama tattoo (Photo credit: Dan Hellie / NBC Washington)
[DC Sports Bog]Update! We mentioned the other day that the NBA’s Gilbert Arenas (who once actually gave himself the nickname, “the Black President”) had cast off his indecision and jumped in head-first into his support for Obama with a hand tattoo, the photographic evidence of which can now be seen above. Arenas told the photographer he got the tattoo so that, among other reasons, he can look at his hand during games and see the words “We Believe.” This is the same reason I got “Delicious Nachos” tattooed on my hands — everyone needs a pick-me-up sometimes, right? Oh, delicious nachos. I’m feeling better already.
Photo credit: Retna
[TMZ] I can’t describe how dirty I feel linking to TMZ and Fox News. Nonetheless, it’s worth it to get the details on a story this goddamn insane. Basically, Stephen Baldwin just got the initials “HM” tattooed on him for “Hannah Montana.” Strange enough? Well hot holy damn, try this next graf on for size:
The idea reportedly stems back to a dare that Cyrus made last year. The two became friends after meeting at the White House, when Cyrus told Baldwin that he could appear on her Disney show “Hannah Montana” – of which his daughters are huge fans – if he would get a tattoo, TMZ said.
Stephen Baldwin and Miley Cyrus, who are friends (!), met at the White House, and while there, took the time to hash out a tattoo-related dare. This actually happened. In real life. Head asplode.
[Somatechnics] Calling all academics who didn’t leave the site in disgust after the previous two vacuous celebrity stories! The good folks at the Somatechnics Research Centre at Macquarie University in New South Wales, Australia, have put out a call for papers to be presented at next year’s fifth Somatechnics conference. Rather than absolutely mangling the description with my layman’s terms, here’s the deal for those unfamiliar:
“Somatechnics” is a recently coined term used to highlight the inextricability of soma and techné, of the body (as a culturally intelligible construct) and the techniques (dispositifs and ‘hard technologies’) in and through which bodies are formed and transformed. This term, then, supplants the logic of the ‘and’, indicating that technés are not something we add to or apply to the body, but rather, are the means in and through which bodies are constituted, positioned, and lived. As such, the term reflects contemporary understandings of the body as the incarnation or materialization of historically and culturally specific discourses and practices.
Possible topics:
• Somatechnologies of the self (‘non-mainstream’ body modification, body sculpting, performance, fashion, drug use, ‘self-mutilation’, religious practice, etc)
• medical somatechnologies (cosmetic, reproductive, imaging, corrective, sex (re)assignment, implantation, enhancement, bio-techs, public health initiatives, etc)
• somatechnics of law
• somatechnologies of gender, sexuality, race, class, etc
• somatechnologies of normalcy and pathology
• somatechnics of war
• somatechnologies of the post-human (cyborgs, nanotechnology, virtuality, etc)
• soma-ethics
A number of IAM members have spoken at this conference in the past and, by all accounts, it’s a fascinating and exciting project to be a part of. For those interested, abstracts are due in by November 30, 2008.
[CrackBerry] So, those vicious enablers over at CrackBerry recently held a contest to see who would commit the greatest personal atrocity or something in order to win a much-vaunted BlackBerry Storm. Well, a man named T.J. from Toledo, Ohio, was the victor, opting to not only get a life-size tattoo of the device, but to augment the design with a saucy “iPhones suck” underneath it (video above). The rogue, in his own words:
I will get a lifesize tattoo of a Blackberry Storm with the CB logo. And below the Storm, I will get iPhones Suck tattooed (which could put me in harms way because my tattoo artist is a DIE HARD iPhone/Apple user. He has 3 Macs at the shop!!) Remember, A tattoo IS FOREVER, fighting a bear is only momentary…lol.
The winner got his work done by the iPhone-shirt–wearing Brian Krabach at Revelation Tattoos, and that was good enough for CrackBerry. Enjoy your spoils, hero.
[Washington Post] It was only a few weeks ago that NBA star and uncanny peacock Gilbert Arenas was claiming that, as a man of considerable wealth, he had no shame in endorsing John McCain for the presidency, because of taxes and what have you. But you know what’s more important than taxes? History. And so Arenas, to celebrate Obama’s win, got a commemorative tattoo.
Arenas has decided to show his permanent support of President-elect Barack Obama with a tattoo. Arenas had the words “Change We Believe In” tattooed onto the fingers of his left hand in cursive writing. Then, Gilbert showed the outside of his pinky finger, which had “44″ inked on it.
Arenas shortened Obama’s campaign slogan, “Change We Can Believe In,” choosing not to add ink to his thumb. Arenas has “change” written on the outside of his index finger; “we” on the inside of his middle finger; “believe” on the inside of his ring finger; and “in” on the inside of his pinky and “44″ on the outside of his pinky.
Some may see this as evidence of a fickle, opportunistic, ill-informed athlete making an ass of himself, but really, Arenas is one of the NBA’s most gleefully eccentric personalities. As the D.C. Sports Bog’s Dan Steinberg adds, “I can only assume he would have gotten a ‘You Betcha!’ tat on his rump had McCain-Palin won.” Indeed. (Maybe not.)
[Hey Mister] Honestly? I don’t want to ruin too much of this post, but if the title — “Eagle Tattoos Are So Fuckin’ Sweet” — doesn’t rope you in, then I’m afraid you are just cold lacking a soul. Fine, a brief sample:
Submitted for your approval is my evidence. Also, it’s like 600% likely that the Eagle is an evolved T-Rex. So just shut up, because everything you can say that sucks about an Eagle is wrong. Are you gonna tell a T-rex or a T-rex’s great uncle that he’s a piece of shit? Hell no. Watch and learn, bitches.
[…] Fuck yeah, I’ll take another Eagle tat to go with my Eagle tat, and make it extra large, man and make his face cool. I want it to be like my lil’ Eagle bro is channeling the spirits of all his ancestral Eagle bros and T-rex’s. Fuckin’ A, dude. Saddam is going down. Do you see this, Saddam? There is a storm coming for you. A wicked ass storm of feathery hate, raining down Liberty and such. Keyword: Never Back Down.
Please, just go delight in this article’s existence. (This treasure comes via the giants at Adam Riff.)
Richard Roeper (Photo credit: Jim Newberry / NBC Chicago)
[NBC Chicago] So even though we know by now that if you get a tattoo — any tattoo, even a small and loving portrait of a family member or a saint or something — you will never get a job doing anything except maybe digging graves for Satanists or lobbying for the tobacco industry, some people have been able to make it work. Like Richard Roeper, he of the now defunct Siskel and Ebert and Roeper!
I thought, If I ever do it, it’s not going to be a woman’s name or a White Sox logo or a stupid friggin’ leprechaun. It’ll be a Celtic cross. It’ll be something that has meaning the next day, and 20 years after the fact. But I waited a few more years before finally getting one. It just seemed so ridiculously trendy for a while there.
My standard line is that I got a religious symbol on my arm because I spend so much time in the company of the devil. I need to counter that by keeping God literally close at hand. It’s a joke. Kind of.
[…] I walked into Howard Stern’s studio, and the first thing he told me was he loved the tattoo. George Clooney nudged me just before we were doing a TV thing. My sleeves were rolled up; he could see the beginning of the tattoo and wanted to see the rest of it. “Very cool,” he said. Nearly everybody is complimentary. Then again, I’m sure there are some folks who have said, “Midlife crisis idiot.” Just not to my face.
After I got the tattoo, I called my mother before coming down for Thanksgiving dinner and warned her that I’d added something permanent. When I told her it was a tattoo, she replied, “Oh, that’s fine. I thought you were going to tell me you’d gone out and adopted a little Maddox.”
If George Clooney complimented one of my tattoos, I would probably hire someone to walk beside me and point to it at all times. Two thumbs way up, Roeper! Ha ha, references.
[Mercury News] According to this sordid tale of intrigue, this Angel Ayala character was getting tattooed by Jose Gutierrez and, rather than paying the $40 he was charged for the tattoo, traded the artist a handgun for the work. That … seems … fair? Except, whoops, that gun was used in a murder two years ago! Ayala was later arrested, though, so, happy ending? Eh?
[STLtoday] If there’s one thing sports fans and athletes alike love, it’s deferring blame that would usually get chalked up to “poor performance” or “stopped taking steroids” to ridiculous superstitions. If a team goes years and years without winning a championship, it’s not due to errors in management — it’s a goddamn curse. Well, when the long-suffering Chicago Cubs mightily defecated their sleeping apparatus a few weeks ago, in a year when it seemed like they were primed for a World Series appearance, it had to have been someone’s fault, right?
Burroughs’s cursed tattoo. (Photo source: STLtoday / Jimmy Burroughs)
Absolutely right, and that person is Jimmy Burroughs, a 26-year-old Indiana resident who, while on vacation in Tennessee, visited a tattoo parlor to get a Cubs tattoo (gotta support the team). But the tattoo artist, some joker named Deke Rivers at American Rebel in Gatlinburg, scribbled “Go Cards,” a reference to the Cubs’ divisional rival St. Louis Cardinals. Except when he covered it up, the ink over top faded, and the “Go Cards” became totally visible. And then this tattoo singlehandedly beat the Cubs in their series against the L.A. Dodgers.
“I lightly scratched it in there,” said Rivers, who has been tattooing for six years. “I wouldn’t have messed with him. I take my job seriously.”
Rivers refunded Burroughs’ $190, but Burroughs decided not to fix his flesh-and-blood endorsement of the Cards.
“This was the weird thing — after I got the tattoo, the Cardinals actually started losing and the Cubs took off,” Burroughs said.
Like the rest of Cubbie nation, Burroughs and his family believe secret forces in the universe control the club’s fate. Could the goat of 1945, the black cat of 1969 and Steve Bartman of 2003 be shape-shifters sent here to test fan loyalty?
“We are very superstitious,” said Burroughs’ sister, Amanda Burroughs, a Cubs fan living in O’Fallon, Ill. “We’re the kind of family where you have to sit in the exact same spot you did last time the Cubs won. So when I heard about the tattoo, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh.’ But then the Cardinals weren’t doing so well, so my family was fine with it. Well, we all know how that turned out.”
In their ongoing campaign to thoroughly dominate the literate gamer community, the good folks at Kotaku have been compiling readers’ game-related tattoos, with some pretty fabulous results, like the above. I’m just saying, if you can’t get on board with a Mega Man/Looney Tunes mash-up, you have no soul. OK, maybe a little one.
In other video game tattoo news, you may have seen the following NHL 2K9 commercial in which a local idiot gets the moves for the game tattooed on his forearm, only to have the artist … oh, just watch it yourself. It is exactly as entertaining as you would expect a tattoo-related hockey video game commercial to be.
