Boldly Going

I’ve gotten my body marked permanently four times in the past, and each time has been preceded by considerable thought. The bear claw on my calf was as much a symbol of my newfound freedom (George never wanted me to get tattoos) and my discovery of Shawn at a bear meeting as much as my love of bears itself. I’d been thinking about the bear claw for a long, long time. Then came the Stephen King one, which I’d, of course, been considering for over a decade. Daredevil was more recent, decided over Spider-Man as symbolic as the type of superhero I would be if I really were a superhero. And Springsteen? Well, we all knew I was going to get a Springsteen tat at some point, it was just a matter of what.

So when I came upon the idea of the Star Trek one, it sort of surprised me. I knew what I wanted, I had a pretty good idea where I wanted it (changed from the chest to the arm because even I’m not that big a geek), and I just sort of ... did it. None of the pomp and circumstance that has come with getting all my others, none of the greater symbolic import. I didn’t really build it up in my mind, is what I’m saying. I said, “Hey, this’ll be neat,” I printed out some designs, and then early this morning, I just went ahead and did it.

Rob picked me up a little before eleven and we headed out to Chameleon in Harvard Square. Their website says they open at 11:00 on Saturdays, but their website lies like a high school girl the morning after prom. Rob and I, upon encountering the closed door, headed down for some Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts (Rob’s breakfast: an egg sandwich; mine: a cupcake. Jesus.), then back up to wait for all the inking. When the door opened, I stepped in and requested the guy I had last time, a punker-boy marvel named Kelly, who inked my Springsteen and thought it was neat.

The girl at the counter looked at my printout and smiled. “Oh! I spoke with you yesterday, didn’t I?”

I blushed a little. “Um, yeah. I’m the world’s biggest geek.”

She pointed to my shirt, the one that said geek across the front. “And you’re advertising now!”

Then Kelly came out and looked at it. “You know,” he said, “I’ve been tattooing a long, long time, and I’ve never done one of these. You are certainly unique.”

“I wasn’t sure about coloring it,” I said hesitantly. “I was thinking maybe just an outline.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Are you sure? We could maybe do some fun stuff with coloring here.”

“Well, can you make it look metallic?”

He glanced at the reception girl. “Can I make it look metallic?”

“You do whatever you want,” I told him. “I trust you completely.”

The fortunate thing about Kelly is that he’s really talented. I say this is fortunate because I have been known, on very rare occasions, to be swayed by ludicrously attractive men who haven’t a whole lot going for them other than that they’re sexy. I mean, once or twice. I’m only human.

Kelly did some sketching in the back and then brought it out to me. I’d been a little nervous up to this point, given Shawn’s sort of negative stance on the whole Trek tat idea (his exact words were, “Oh my God, don’t do it.” This is awhile before I was heading out the door, when he amended it to, “Whatever you want to do, I’m behind you a hundred percent. I was just sort of testing your mettle.” My boyfriend is ... sometimes a bit of a challenge. But so lovable.)

Then Kelly called me in, had me strip off my shirt, leaned over me, and asked, “You ready?”

No hesitation: “Let’s go.”

At first, I felt a little nervous. Searing, constant pain does that. In a way, it's the opposite of pregnancy. You remember the pain, but you forget the endorphin rush that comes midway through.

The thing is, the shoulder is like the least painful part to get tattooed (the most, at least in my experience, is the inner arm. Seriously. Though I've never done my testicles.) Rob watched from the doorway, snapping pictures, seeming to be a little amazed at how well I was taking it. Making everything even better: Kelly resting his big, meaty arm on mine. Damn, that man is sexy.

At one point, midway through, I was for some reason moved to apologize to him for the utter geekitude of the tattoo. Kelly grinned a little. "Please, man. When tourist season begins, it's going to be fuckin' Celtic butterflies and shamrocks for three months. They're gonna line up outside the doors, chanting, 'Sham-rock, sham-rock!' The fact that this is a change allows me to have a little bit of fun with it." Um, wow. Okay! Thanks, Kelly!

Forty-five minutes into it, my outline was done. Already it looked better than I'd anticipated. It helps to have a tattoist with an art degree. The best thing is that he also has a photography degree, so he knows what light makes the best natural light, which means he's going to put the best olor possible on my arm. I love getting tattoos far too much. And I'm kind of a bleeder.

Rob dashed off to put money in the meter, which didn't take all that long, especially considering that we both thought that the coloring process was going to take a lot longer. "I get guys in here who want Cadillacs tattooed on their backs," Kelly explained to me, as he layered blue and white on. "So I've worked with stuff that looks like chrome. It's really not all that hard." I'd never seen white ink before - or, for that matter, blue or yellow. I was afraid that the yellow was going to make me look jaundiced.

Instead, it actually looked amazing. When I conceived of this idea, I was kind of accepting the fact that it was not only going to be super geeky, but also kind of silly-looking. Somehow, in spite of the sheer nerditude, Kelly made it look actually pretty dang cool. And I will forever be grateful to him for that.

So, that's five now. One each representing love, books, comics, music, and TV. Iconography is my body's geography. I wonder what's going to be next.

Kev

We Can Make It If We Run

“Okay, lie back,” the big man said. I marveled at his belly, his massive arms, his rockabilly sideburns. My knuckles brushed against his nipples through the fabric of his shirt. His name was Kelly and he smiled a bit as he pulled on rubber gloves and pinned my arm down. “This is gonna hurt. If it doesn’t hurt, I’m not doing it right.”

I lay back, trying to relax. From the doorway, Shawn grinned and readied the camera.

“You ready?” Kelly asked. I nodded.

This is how I got tattoo number four.

For a very long time, I’d been trying to figure out how to represent Bruce Springsteen in iconic form. I couldn’t do a “celebrity face” tattoo, because those are invariably creepy. None of the albums really has a simple sketch-design, with the possible exception of The Ghost of Tom Joad, and that image didn’t really lend itself to the tattoo process. Eventually, though, I started paying attention to that little symbol that the Springsteen fanzine Backstreets puts at the end of all its articles, the little pictogram of the sneakers. That seemed iconic, a little bit, plus it would tie in (ha) with my whole love of Chuck Taylors. I began to do research.

The image was originally taken from a promotional one-sheet advertising the upcoming album Born to Run. I found it on the Internet here:

And here’s a close-up of the sneakers dangling from his guitar:

At work, I printed out both the photograph and the pictogram, and early this morning, Shawn and I headed down the street to Mongo’s Tattoo Madness, where I’d made an appointment for noon.

I got there at 11:58. One of the artists was sitting out on the bench outside, a pale, gaunt-looking man with faded tats running up and down his arms. “I’m just waiting for someone to come by with the keys,” he said. I shrugged. Five minutes passed by. He asked to look at my papers and I showed him. He kept insisting that I make the tat bigger, then he was quiet again. Another artist – also without keys – showed up and they began to smoke. Five more minutes passed by. I don’t think I’ve heard the word “fuckin’” more times in my life than in the five minutes these two gents shared a conversation. Shawn arrived with the camera and his sketchbook. Five more minutes passed by, and now it was 12:20, and I was already supposed to have my tattoo by now. I muttered to Shawn, “You wanna just go?” He nodded vigorously. The skeeve factor had reached its peak.

“What do you want to do?” he asked as we climbed back into our borrowed car. “Do you still want your tattoo?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I really do. Maybe at the house we could call Chameleon. They might have an opening.”

I called the instant I got in the door, and the jovial girl on the other end cheered me up immensely. “Sure, Saturdays are walk-ins. Come on down!” Thrilled, Shawn and I packed ourselves into the car and hurried over to Harvard Square. On our way to Chameleon from the parking space we finagled, a woman was giving out free cans of Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper. I saw this as the best possible omen.

Inside, I spoke to the jovial girl again, and she indicated that, while there may be a bit of a wait, I could totally go in with Kelly today. I looked around. Kelly’s door was open, and he was hunched over a beefy guy with a goatee. Kelly himself was hefty, with thick black hair standing up in a point. Tattoos covered his bare arms. Yes. Kelly would do.

Kelly took one look at the printout and explained that there was no way it was going to work. “The lines are too thin,” he said. “The detail work might look great today, but in a year or two, it’ll be all eaten up by the flesh. Let me see what I can work with.”

He took both the photo and my printout into the studio-room and did some work. Fifteen minutes later, he called for me.

It looked fantastic. He’d made the laces wider and more visible, and the circle around them thinner. It wasn’t an exact replica of the pictogram ... but I daresay it was far superior for the use it was being put to. This was going to be my tattoo. Wow.

I lay my arm down on the slab and looked at it. It was the last time ever my arm was going to be bare:

He started by applying the sketch to my forearm:

Shawn, who has apparently never used a camera before, decided that cinema verite was the way to go today. Ah well.

Kelly asked me if I was ready, and I said yeah. Then, all at once, the excruciating agony of ink being needled into my skin set my arm afire. Why do I enjoy this again?

Midway through, Shawn went to go fill the parking meter, and when he came back, the pain had either subsided or I had just gotten used to it being my whole world.

We listened to the Stray Cats as the filling-in began, which is strangely not as painful as the outline. Kelly explained that it’s because the needles are spread out over a wider area. Even so, lesser pain is relative. The closer it got to the soft, fleshy bend of my arm, the glassier and more electric the agony was.

Seriously, why do I like this?

He gave us the care instructions, and bade us well. Shawn indicated that he’d be back the next weekend with his new tattoo idea, and that he’d ask for Kelly. Kelly’s our new best friend.

When we got home, I took a painfully hot shower and used castile soap on my new tat (The Castiles were one of Springsteen’s first bands. Oh yeah. It’s symbolism day in tattoo land.) When I stepped out, I let it air dry and took one more picture. The finished product looked far better than anyone had anticipated:

And that is how I got my fourth tattoo. Yey fun happy times!

Now, where can I fit Spider-Man...?

Kev

Man Without Fear

Two birthdays ago, when we all gathered around a table heaped with plates of steaming Indian food, my friend Dave handed me a graphic novel entitled Born Again, a highlight, he said, in the Daredevil story. I was going through a Spider-Man Renaissance at the time; the movie had come out and I was just starting to get into comics again. Dave, a comic book fan from way back, had given me some Spidey stuff ... but he thought that Born Again would particularly intrigue me. And, I thought, it might. I'd heard the movie was coming out, and if I was gonna start getting into comics, why not? I shrugged and said I'd give it a try.

Later that summer, Shawn, Tracey and I went on a road trip to Ohio to go to Cedar Point (conning Tracey to go only because we were going to hit Canada on the way back ... making this the first time we got Tracey to go to an amusement park due to a Canadian connection.) On the way back from Cedar Point, I crouched in the back seat with a tiny flashlight, wanting to read something but not knowing what. The first thing my hands came in contact with in my backpack was Born Again. I shrugged. Better than nothing.

At once, I was entranced. Frank Miller's writing, David Mazuchelli's art: it was all so dark. So enthralling. So ... so perfect.

When I got back home, I plumbed the comic book store for everything Daredevil. Kevin Smith, director of Dogma and hottie extraordinaire, had written what was considered a reboot. Bought it. Read it. Loved it. And as it turned out, the guy who wrote my favorite comic book (Ultimate Spider-Man), Brian Michael Bendis, actually was the current writer on Daredevil, as well. Carefully, I went back through his whole backstock, picking up graphic novels one a week and falling under the thrall of this entirely new brand of storytelling: the superhero noir. (And no, it's not so new. Batman's been doing it for years, and lots of Golden Age heroes were big on gangsters and heroics, as well.) What entranced me the most, though, was Matt Murdock, aka Daredevil, the Man Without Fear.

That subtitle: The Man Without Fear; it might have started off as descriptive, but it's become ironic, in a way. Since Born Again, since Kingpin stated that a man without hope is a man without fear ... Matt's been on this personal journey of discovery, of hope. I might enjoy Spider-Man more, but it's Matt Murdock I identify with. Conflicted, religious, obsessed with his past, bordering on multiple personality disorder and suffering a breakdown everyone else but him is aware of. All through this, he searches for the best in himself as well as the world. He is damaged purity, the best kind of hero to root for. The only kind of hero to be.

When it came down to deciding on my third tattoo, the obvious choice would be something Spider-Man related. Look around my house. Spidey posters. Spidey figures. Spidey everything. But it would never do to be obvious. The obvious Stephen King tattoo would be something from It, my favorite novel. The Stand is in the top ten, but somewhere closer to the bottom. However, that icon from the front cover: good vs. evil. I mean, that's me. That's my inner conflict, every day, all the time. The internal struggle of good versus evil is so constant, so eternal, that the pictogram from The Stand only made sense. Same with Daredevil. Sure, Spidey's my hero; sure, I want to be Spider-Man in the worst possible way. But in a lot of ways, I am Daredevil. The Man Without Fear? Hardly. But a man who faces the fear and does it anyway. The only kind of man to be.

Thom came with me to Chameleon. We sat in the waiting room, the high dentist-drill whine of inking jets crowding the air. The speakers above played Manfred Mann's "Blinded By the Light," a song written by Bruce Springsteen. I took this as a good sign. When you're me, omens - both good and bad - are everywhere. The good quotient kicked up a notch when "Who Made Who" - the AC/DC anthem from Stephen King's Maximum Overdrive - followed "Blinded." The fear of anticipated pain was dissipating. The excitement was building. And then I was up.

You always forget how much it hurts. Bob, my friendly and talkative biker-type tattoo artist, laughed when I said I should be used to this by now. "Man, you never get used to it," he said. "You just kinda forget."

That is, until the outline begins. The lower part of the bottom D didn't hurt so much. Bob kept me distracted by talking
comics. As his needle moved up, the pain quotient did, too. Now it was a maddening itch. Now it was a bee sting. Now it was ... well, a needle digging tiny cuts in my flesh. The closer he got to the top of my shoulder, the more it hurt; pain seared through me like a virus. Yet still, somehow, I maintained cool. As he began to recopy the outline, I asked him if he was disappointed that tattooing had gone mainstream. He shook his head after awhile and said, "You know, man. It's not an underground thing anymore, and in a lot of ways that's cool. We got a lot more research money that gets thrown at the industry now. This means we get better equipment, better pigments, better everything, all the time. So it's not so bad." For every con, there's a pro. I loved Bob.

The thing you never believe until it happens is that the coloring-in process is so much less painful than the outline. I don't know how it's possible, but it's true. Coloring takes up so much more skin-space, but it hurts at least half as much. I watched him do this part, filling it in, wiping the ink and the blood away, filling it in more. It was fascinating to see: where formally only my pale Irish skin proliferated, now there was an icon of black and red. Before I knew it, my tattoo was done. For the third time in my life, I was inked.

Rob had shown up at some point during the process and snapped a few photos. After I tipped Bob, we bundled into his car and headed on home. Two hours later, I removed the bandage and looked down at my skin: something new there, something fresh. Something formally plain now made art.

In my own small, painful way, I had been born again.

Kev

Stand In the Place Where You live

So, it’s official: tattoo 2 is now on the body! What a trip!

Tracey, Diane, Shawn and I all packed into Diane’s car from my house early this morning. We needed to stop back here in Somerville for Shawn’s boom box and his tat design, and we were off to Portsmouth, New Hampshire! Portsmouth: where there are plenty of places to shop and eat, and they all close at 5!

Years ago, Shawn had been in Portsmouth to go to Hobo’s, a tattoo shop (not parlor) near the edge of town to get his large, swirling S shape on his right arm. In preparation for this trip, we all visited Hobo’s web site, and found it to be one of the most reputable, cleanest tat facilities in all of New England. Tracey and I had idly been talking about going on a tattoo road trip for awhile; armed with Shawn’s knowledge of the perfect tat shop (and Diane’s car), we were ready to make the dream a reality.

It’s funny. You travel two hours to a tat place, you stop into the shop and inspect the designs on the wall, you meet and chat up the proprieters (Hobo, of course, and Tattoo George), you eat a really terrific lunch at the Muddy River Smokehouse, and still you don’t think this is going to happen. The whole idea of tattooing has, until this year, been so foreign to me. After the whole experience, Tracey and Diane said they felt the same way: Yeah, I’m not really getting a tattoo. Until it happens.

My new tat is the design inside the uncut edition of The Stand. The design is special to me in a couple ways. One, I love the book. You know, the whole Stephen King connection. Two, I like the idea of an outward sign of good vs. evil upon my body. That’s my constant struggle, waging inside me. It’s nice to have it visible.

The best reason is this: The Stand was one of the Christmas presents I received at The Best Christmas Ever. My Mom gave me two hardcover King books and a bunch of paperbacks, and I was in my glory. So, it stands (no pun intended) as an important symbol in my life. It was a good choice.

Apparently, I was the calmest of all of us. That’s kind of strange. The other three stood and watched me at the beginning, and remarked later at how aloof and casual I was during the whole process. I guess I just forced myself to relax and stay calm; it helped that Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” played on the radio behind me. I won’t steer you wrong: tattooing really hurts. That bullshit about it being “annoying” or “like a cat scratch” is just plain wrong. The good news is, when he takes the needle away, you feel better instantly, and the sharp, stinging pain doesn’t last when your tat is done. Keep it clean and moist, and you’ll have no problems.

Shawn had been through the process before. He got a cool-looking sun with a half-face on the arm opposite his curlicued S. He explained that the S was like a river (water), and the sun is fire. It’s a cool concept and an even cooler tat. I hope to get a pic of it in here soon.

Of all of us, I was sure Tracey was going to be the one to wimp out. Shawn and I have had them before, and Diane seems kind of, I don’t know, tough. Tracey’s always been very much a girly girl. That’s not a judgement, just an observation. Whereas Tattoo George got Shawn and I in his chair, Hobo took Tracey into his room and put her on the table. She had gone into Hobo’s with the idea that she wanted a rose, in the fatty part of her side. There was a blue rose hanging up in the shop she decided on, and while I had my doubts, that was what she had permanantly imprinted on her skin. It was a fairly small tat, but some of the faces she was making seemed like she was in excruciating pain. She told us later that there were actual pools of sweat forming under her palms. Getting your body scarred for life is a trying process.

Diane was last. She seemed pretty confident about the tattooing process, but unclear as to what she actually wanted. She knew she wanted a spider, and saw an example in a book she liked, but the abdomen was wrong. She wanted it a somewhat translucent blue, the color of the sky in a certain Michael Whelan painting, and more tapered than round. While waiting, Shawn drew a swift sketch of what he thought she wanted. She proclaimed it perfect, and Hobo set to work.

I think she was the only one who cried. Not huge, hitching sobs, but pain-crying that she couldn’t really help. Shawn and I stopped in at one point, and her face was horribly contorted, trying not to scream out. Tracey mouthed: “Go away.”

Maybe that’s part of the reason why I felt confident and easy when I got mine done. It hurt, as previously stated (especially when he was near the bone), but I think I wanted to give a good impression of tattooing to Tracey and Dianne.

God, I think I’m addicted. I’m already thinking about my next one. Not for three years. It’s an arbitrary number, one I want to try to stick to. I love the tat process, and having them, but I don’t want to go crazy. I don’t want to be like Ron was. I probably don’t want them on my forearms, or chest, and definitely not face. Or my dick. Ouch.

Okay, enough outta me. Shawn is downstairs, cold and alone, and he just made me a nice dinner. I like the idea of our closeness right now.

Night for now. Kev

Bear With Me

I am modified.

That wight, wabbit, today, I got my first tattoo. Oh lord. I can’t believe I actually did it. The story:

I’m still here in Ohio. I was gonna get the tat the day before we went to Cedar Point, but both DiAnne and I figured that I would be in too much pain to go on any of the rides. (BY the way, Cedar Point was a blast … again. Unfortunatley, it rained off and on, but fortunately, DiAnne’s Mom’s company, Longerberger, set us up there for the whole day. So, although it was raining and the rides were intermittantly closed down, we had more than enough chances to get on the rides we wanted. I braved The Mantis, which I don’t believe I did before. You stand up on it and it twists and dips and is generally a mind scrambler. Somehow we got DiAnne on the Raptor, which is the same type of coaster as the Mantis, except that, instead of standing, you sit and dangle. All through the line, DiAnne was all like, no way, I’m just gonna go through the line with everyone, then cut through and wait for you guys.” Throughout the line, she convinced herself it might be okay to try. The second she got off , she told us all, “I loved it! Every second of it!” So, CP was again a success. Jim should have been there, though. Hmmm.)

Anyway, getting back to9 my tat. We made the appointment on Friday at Cyn on Skin (I’m guessing the woman’s name is Cyndi or Cynthia). Today, we went in with my GenX Bears shirt and I pointed at the logo, which is a small, black, bear claw. Cyn (I’m guessing) took a photocopy of the image and placed it on the back of my right calf. I thought that the original pic was a little big (and the $80 price tag a little steep), so we shrunk it a little and I got the smaller, $50 model.

DiAnne came into the tattoo room with me and promised to hold my hand (which she did, very admirably.) Cyn put a temporary inked tat on the area where the real one would go, and then put on gloves and started up the needle.

“The outline hurts the most,” she told me. “After that, it’s easier.” I was less convinced of the cake-ness of the whole endeavor.

She put the needle to my skin and: YIKES! There’s some serious pain! I will admit it: the whole thing really did hurt like a mother. But DiAnne was great. She kept telling me that big, fat, hairy guys were probably in the chair right before me. Then, she got me thinking about Piven. That always helps.

I also have to admit, Cyn was right: the coloring hurt, but much less than the outline. And I am truly proud of myself. I didn’t scream, yelp, or jerk once. A true veteran of Cyn on Skin, am I. Decorated and everything.

The thing still hurts a little, but not horrendously. I have to apply ointment for a couple weeks (here is where Shawn comes in really handy.) Then, I have the bear paw. On my leg. Forever.

Does this make me a punk? Do I have to go out and buy Sandinista! Now? My life’s getting weirder by the second.

Kev