http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg...207.DTL&nl=fix
Upper-right pectoral region, just a few inches above the nipple,
that's where you'll find it, a true and permanent marker of my
glorious dorky semi-rebellious middle-class white suburban rock 'n'
roll youth and one of the reasons I have trouble wearing a strapless
dress in the summer. Or something.
It's still a bit pink, even after all these years, pinker than the
other skin around it and it's about 3 inches high and 1 inch across
and I still get asked about it now and then, those bolder folk
wondering aloud just what caused such a scar and of course I
immediately tell them it was from that nasty turf war back in East
L.A. in my gang days, or maybe it was from that time I rescued all
those puppies from a burning building, or no, it was from that time in
the sweat lodge when that Bolivian shaman marked me as a seer using a
branding iron made from the bones of the aliens that built the
pyramids.
Or there's the truth: It's the shining remnant of my very first
tattoo, obtained at a mere 16 years old, the one I had removed nearly
two decades ago but which still stares back at me with a wink and a
sigh by way of some nifty scar tissue and despite the presence of the
much, much larger piece of professional high-grade neo-tribal inkwork
that now covers the upper half of my right arm, a gorgeous, elaborate
piece I obtained long after I had gained a bit of tattoo perspective
and serious research ability and, you know, actual taste.
Like ecstasy, like your first strap-on, like your first shameful
warmonger of a president, you never forget your first tattoo. This was
mine: a "flying V" electric guitar, standing vertically, with the
words "Rock 'n' Roll" etched just underneath (I know, hot, right?) and
I drew the whole damnable myself, badly, thinking the grumpy biker
dude who ran the sole tattoo shop in Spokane back then would redraw it
with some actual flair and artistic ability. Wrong.
It was a little sad. It looked like the Eiffel Tower. Except blurrier.
And lopsided. And faded. The ink was clearly low grade and the design
was awful, and despite my ardent rock 'n' roll passions the thing
lasted a mere four years before I decided to have it removed, long
before the invention of cosmetic lasers and at a time when the only
two real removal options were dermabrasion (a lovely scraping/
sandpapering of the skin) and, well, the other option.
It went like this: Four or five small but hugely painful shots of
local anesthesia straight into the chest, and then out came a tiny
pair of surgical scissors that, if my faded memory serves, looked
exactly like those in a Swiss Army pocket knife and then snip snip
snip went the doctor and out came that entire hunk of skin, like it
was a shirt pattern, like it was a sugar cookie, like it was something
you'd cut out of a magazine -- except quite a bit, you know, bloodier.
What fun.
And now, here we are. Tatts are more mainstream, more common than guns
in Texas. Upward of 47 million Americans reportedly sport ink, and 17
percent of those reportedly regret the hell out of it because, oh my
God, have you seen what some people are getting stamped onto their
bodies in random fits of delightfully insidious tastelessness? (Click
here, or here, or here, or here here here here, for example). Yeow.
But the "good" news is, these days you can get just about any tattoo
erased from your body by high-tech Q-switched lasers that simply break
up the pigment and let the body's own lymph system carry it away,
leaving no scarring whatsoever and maybe only bit of gray blotchiness
or some white patches on the skin. Hell, here in California we have
have new chains of tatt-removal clinics devoted to this very process.
What a thing.
What's more, some company apparently just developed a new tattoo ink
that's specially formulated to be even more quickly and cleanly zapped
away. Don't like that cheeseball dolphin jumping over the rainbow on
your sacrum you got when you were drunk and 22 in Vegas? Zap. Regret
getting your fiancee's name (with roses!) inked over your bicep in
macho gothic script two weeks before you busted her macking on your
best friend? Poof. Serious remorse after trying to look like a badass
semi-crazy Suicide Girl by getting a giant screaming blood-spitting
shotgun-wielding clown inked across your chest with the words "No
Regrets" in giant gang-banger script underneath? Well, maybe you
should keep that one, honey. Special!
All of which raises the terribly urgent question: Should it be that
easy?
That is, how meaningless does quick 'n' cheap tatt removal render the
whole idea, the whole once-profound ritual of inking your skin and
doesn't it speak volumes about our hollow all-American value system
that even something as ancient and powerful and ostensibly "permanent"
as tattooing is fast becoming yet another disposable fashion
accessory? You already know the answer.
Here's one potential side effect: The advent of easy removal will
likely lower the entrance bar for even more people, all those who were
terrified of getting a "real" tattoo or who were always on the fence
about it will now say, well, why not get that giant portrait of Johnny
Depp on my thigh? Why not get that cute giant fairy sprite on my back
even though I'm over 30 and it looks like a bad Disney character drawn
by a meth addict? Why not get a drooling leering skull on my abdomen
just above my penis for all the girls to enjoy? I can always get it
removed, right? Why, sure you can, sweetie.
Sure, elitist tattoo purists (like, well, me) who love and admire
distinctive, beautiful, funky, creative, top-notch body art will
grumble and groan and say that last thing we need is more awful
tattoos walking the streets (I know, too late), and besides, if it's
that easy, if it's that cheap and nonthreatening and scar-free to
remove, say, your questionable choice of Dr. Seuss characters from
your ass, well, it's no longer a real tattoo, is it?
Hell, maybe I've got it all wrong. Maybe the idea of easy removal --
and the subsequent annihilation of the original sense of permanence,
transformation and ritual tatts once represented -- will mean even
more freedom, more body play, an increase in the sense of the flesh as
this temporary pleasurable ever-fluid canvass to be (respectfully,
delightfully) experimented upon and fully enjoyed and deeply examined
before it all shrivels and dissolves back into curiously multicolored
worm food.
Yes. What a lovely idea. Makes me wish I actually believed it.