Should You Get A Bad Tattoo? Why not? It's easier than ever to get it removed.

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.

DRLG wrote:

> http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg...007/06/22/note...

Aka http://tinyurl.com/3agpwk

> 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.

I love telling stories about my 00 gauge lobe holes.

"A group of angry kindergartners with a hole punch overpowered me."

> 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.

Just one of the clicks reinforces my belief that there are no bad
tattoos. To wit:

http://modblog.bmezine.com/2007/06/1...u-like-eating/

Hilarious. Precious. Too frigging cool.

The author's opinion is that what? That's a bad tattoo?

> 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

For those who haven't clicked the link at the top of David's post or
my reply, the author includes links to examples of tattoos which, it's
safe to assume, he likes more than tattoos of peanut butter and jelly
bread, breakfast-onna-skull, et al.

And again, it's just his opinion. Distinctive, beautiful, funky,
creative, top-notch body art? All remain in the eye of the beholder.

Opinion. Period.

> 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?

ahahahHAHAHHH! Waah, it's not a REAL tattoo.

> Hell, maybe I've got it all wrong.

Imo, the author indeed does have it all wrong. He's jumped straight to
the "When I was young they didn't have such nonsense!" phase of his
life. So long, open-mindedness! Nice knowin' ya, pal!

> 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.

Whatever.

Art is subjective. Imo, there are no bad tattoos. There are, however,
tattoos that you like or that you don't like for personal reasons.

Still, http://www.badtattoos.com/ (real link) sounds hella cooler than
http://www.tattoosthatilikeordonotli...reasons. com/
(imaginary link).

--
Curt

On Jun 22, 1:47 pm, Curt <curtja...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I love telling stories about my 00 gauge lobe holes.

Subject line was what?

And again, no bad, no good.


Kavin