RIP Lou Reed

RIP

Feast: A Novel. Check it out.

A wild trip. check it out. This M. L'Hommedieu character is a great writer if I don't say so myself. Check it out...you won't be disappointed.

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I'm going to start being Trendy. I'm getting a Tattoo.

Lately, I’ve been made aware of a growing craze in society; there’s been a deluge of tattoos, everywhere. It’s not that tattoos are a new flavor of the week; obviously, they’ve been an option for pimping your cosmic ride for years. I can think of a relative who had a tattoo of some black warrior or something done during his days as a male nurse in the 1950s military that, by the time I first saw it some thirty-plus years later, was so wrinkled that it resembled a scurvy-ridden survivor of an isolated, ancient South Pacific air disaster. Not great. And that was a little blue ink figure; what is to become of the people with the entire Fritz the Cat anthology tattooed on their arm, a “sleeve” if you will? I’m guessing that as the years pass, such “artwork” will probably come to degrade, and your bitchin’ rendition of Fritz, Winston, and Duke the Crow end up resembling splotchy, ancient war paint instead of an R. Crumb creation; perhaps careers as aged western battle re-enactors lie in store for such people.

Years ago, I knew an aficionado of this “ink”, as he called it, his lust so intense he spent all his spare earnings on new graphics. That’s great and all for that time period. People all around were dropping cash on ostentations and bizarre things, so a little tattoo action isn’t that odd, I suppose. Problem is, these days, though, he looks and lives like something out of “American Gothic” and runs a number of family-friendly frozen dairy outlets across suburban Detroit. Despite the third-world nature of that town, he still has to wear long sleeves and hide all those masterpieces. His father-in-law hits him with newspapers like a disobedient dog when he tries in vain to stand up for his wife during arguments.  

Well, I guess I can always tell myself that things can always be worse. That said, my New Year’s resolution was to become trendier. It’s time to get with the times, dawg. For too long I have lived on the margins of society, an out of touch Luddite, far removed from the prying nature of trends and being trendy. But what is the joy in that? I need to get with it, man. So I am. I’m joining the tattoo craze.

First things first, I’ve got to choose location. I don’t want something visible, so getting a Maori facial tattoo is somewhat out of the equation. Damn. I’d been wanting one of those too. And getting dueling, red-eyed, fire-breathing cobras down the length of my arms is probably out of the question as well. And, I could get fat at some point, so something across my back could make for shitty days at the beach later on. It leaves only one option.

My buttocks! Ingenious. It’d only be seen by people it should be seen by, and even if it got hideous, I’d be old anyway. Fuck it. If all you have to complain about is a hideous tattoo on your ass by the time you’re old and ripe, I’d say you have life pretty good. And if you have worse things to complain about, well, I guess you can take solace in that your hideous “body art”, way past its prime, is probably the least of the lady wiping your ass’ concerns at this point.

But what to get? An ornate dragon would be wild and always provide surprising moments, but after the first time seen, it’d be old news, and would definitely make the social rounds should anything in the relationship go sour.  And the State of Jefferson seal might be making a statement, but could be misconstrued as disrespectful. And something foreign could spell something dangerous…as righteous as it’d be to have “Hakika” in Arabic script scrawled out (“the truth” translated), I might find myself in Lebanon sometime and, while bedding some muse from the streets of Gemmayzeh, have her become enraged at its site due to her own militant political leanings, and have me and my bloody entrails spilled unceremoniously down Gouraud Street. That wouldn’t be good.

My thoughts are interrupted by an advertisement of some corporate fiefdom hawking some totally un-necessary electronic good on TV. Every attractive person on this screen has this, thing. I too must have it. I’m sure that with a few phone calls to the City I could procure one of these on the vast black market that exists for such things.  

Logos. That’s it! I’ll get corporate logos on my ass cheek in a running tally. I’ll get an annual tattoo, with the most popular or newsworthy corporate logo of that year, tattooed, in full color (no cutting corners, go big or go home, something of that nature), in a running total down my ass. So maybe I’ll have “2013: (Apple Logo)” or “2010: (British Petroleum logo)”. Yes, I might even start back a few years and crown such champions of industry ex post facto. Why not? They create the jobs, they’re the real America. With this new body art installation, not only am I saluting the powerbrokers who I’m sure always have my best interests in mind, I’m keeping with the times, man. I’m keeping with it.

I’m not a square.