Friday, December 10, 2010

Tit tat toe

It's been a busy week and I haven't been able to update this blog. I have been trying to think of something I could write about other than tattoos, but lately they seem to be on my mind.

Perhaps it's because it's winter, and everyone is covered up. I haven't seen any tattoos lately, and I find myself, in an odd way, missing them. I say odd because I have a negative view of tats. Old school, my lifelong perception is of tattoos as being done to drunken sailors in tattoo parlors on waterfronts in foreign ports. However, I think, reluctantly, if someone chooses to have his/her skin permanently decorated, might as well be something good. And might as well be on a body part I like to look at.

Here's a Volkswagen fan. I wonder if this person was paid by VW.

Someone went to the pain and agony of having needle applied to instep of foot and tender toes for Volkswagen? The only way I'd do that is if they'd pay me, because my toes, tattooed or not, aren't worth looking at. There's also an admonishment on one tattoo site, saying that tattoos on feet tend to fade, and may at some point have to be retraced. Double the torture!
And speaking of pain, how painful is it to get one's tongue tattooed? I'd worry an illustrated tongue would distract my dentist while he was doing some delicate work in my mouth.

Mad magazine did a couple of tattoo-themed things in the 1950s. In those days tattooing a girl, like Miss Deviant Nation above, was a joke.

The other represents the 1950's image of people who get tattoos.
Most of the pictures I find online of tattoos are of fresh, bright colors on supple young skin. My advice is that what looks good now may not look so good in 40 years, faded, on sagging flesh. Or is it you believe you'll never get old?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

In the last gentleman's case I think the tattoos may be shielding us from an even worse view