YOLO! I don't regret my tattoo, exactly, since it's not visible unless I take off my shirt. But I do wish I'd given it a bit more thought.
I don't think I have a photo where you can make it out. But it's the Ravenswood logo between my shoulder blades. I've explained this here before, but it wasn't really at all about the wine but some goofy pagan shit about the sign of the triple raven. Which would have been fine but when I got it, they were sort of a boutique winery. In the interim they became this gigantic grocery store behemoth, and it's a bit like having Diet Coke or Bud Light tattooed across my back.
Plus: "If you have the inclination to emblazon our logo on your person (and you'd be surprised how many people have), stop by and see us. Ravenswood tattos earn complimentary tastings for life." So I'm highly original as well. The free wine would be more mitigating if the winery wasn't 3000 miles away.
Somebody told me that I couldn't be buried in a Jewish cemetery if I got a tattoo and I didn't get one to keep my options open.
If I had any capital to invest, every penny of it would go into the tattoo removal industry.
Surely, my generation understands the transience of youth. We grew up watching nostalgic television shows about our parents' childhoods, and so we know that the age of free love and nonmaterialism lasted approximately as long as their adolescence. Ask any 60-year-old what defined the baby boomers, and he'll say their values; ask a 30-year-old what defined them, and she'll say the way they abandoned those values as they aged.
Seen this way, our tattoos can read as an assertion of rebellion against what our parents did. Unlike them, we will carry the aesthetics of our youth into middle age, our hearts literally on our sleeves.
In a weird way, this part reminds me of a lot of reactionary conservative people in my age group (late twenties - early thirties). They have the same desire for principles that remain constant over time, but they achieve this in the opposite way, by adopting conservative positions while they are still young.
3: My sister has a raven triskelion, but it's not exactly the Ravenswood logo. Still irritating though, 'cause I wanted to get a big raven with outstretched wings on my back for a long time, but now it would look like I was copying her.
I do think it is kinda neat that both of my sisters and I all have tattoos. Our father was thinking about getting one, but must've figured he was too old or something. Which is unfortunate.
3 is a good point; I regret the tattoo of bud light peeing on diet coke that I got back when that was cool.
I regret the infinite wreath of Russian dolls giving birth to each other that I got on my back.
I regret the infinite wreath of Russian dolls giving birth to each other that I got on my back.
Stop pretending it isn't Human Centipede fanart, heebie. Nobody believe you.
3.1: There is a picture in one of the Kermit Lynch books (I think? Blandings might know) of a guy with this logo (just the ship bit) on their forearm. I've always been extremely jealous.
Stop pretending it isn't Human Centipede fanart, heebie. Nobody believe you.
On a good day, it's a ring of birth. On a bad day, it's a devouring ring of vagina dentatas.
If you started rotating could a spectator blink his eyes periodically to see one of those two effects?
Most people can't see either version unless they are both right-brained and left-brained.
If I had any capital to invest, every penny of it would go into the tattoo removal industry.
I've often thought this. Also hearing loss treatments for all the people blasting heavily amplified music through headphones.
The worst tattoos are the ones that are pictures of someone's face. The teeth always look horrible.
I still like all my tattoos. I'm not sorry at all.
Ask any 60-year-old what defined the baby boomers, and he'll say their values; ask a 30-year-old what defined them, and she'll say the way they abandoned those values as they aged
How common is this perception? Seems like stereotypes coming and going. What about the 60 year olds who were always skeptical, always aware how much marketing and make believe was behind the era, but have lived according to values formulated then and have the scars to prove it?
I put one in the flickr pool. I don't think I have any photos where the others are showing- one's a really silly dinosaur/monster on my lower belly, and the other's a cave drawing of a scary face on my shoulder.
Yeah, I also thought the quote from 21 was ludicrous. The average 30 year old has next to no opinion on the baby boomers, besides maybe "Hippies? Then Reagan?"
Which is probably an immature version of saying the Boomers abandoned their values, but that's giving a lot.
Obligatory musical accompaniment for the thread.
Welcome to my life, tattoo / I'm a man now, thanks to you / I expect I'll regret you / But the skin graft man won't get you / You'l be there when I die / Tattoo
22: Oh yes, I think I've caught sight of the one in the flickr pool.
For some reason, I feel like I've heard that 60/30 baby boomer values claim before. Maybe it was first made years ago.
A tattoo is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. A life sentence to a certain fashion accessory. I don't especially hate mine, but I rarely take my shirt off. And it's a literary reference I'd rather not have known.
However, if you're in the position of having to give a gift to someone you hate, a gift certificate to a tattoo parlor might be a good idea. Or to their kids, if they have kids.
27: The one you know is "60 percent of the baby boomers cause 30 percent of the crime."
And it's a literary reference I'd rather not have known.
It's ok, Emerson, lots of people used to be into Harry Potter.
28: I agree, but now I'm curious about your reference.
The average 30 year old has next to no opinion on the baby boomers, besides maybe "Hippies? Then Reagan?"
The 30 year olds I interact with fit into these sorts: young lawyers I work with; music grad students; members of my extended family; you all. A much more articulate than average selection, but reasonably wide without too much overlap.
And what they all share is an absorption in the culture of the sixties and seventies that always surprises me. I've joked before about not expecting when I wasted my youth on comic books and pop music that the references would stay so current. Better preparation than latin. Is "the average" 30 year old much less aware of this?
Now I'm pissed off because I read the article and at the end I saw that it was from the Sunday magazine. Damn it! Only savages read the magazine online before the weekend. (Since Northeast print subscribers get it on Saturday, that's a gray area.)
Buffalo is gray, but I don't know about the entire Northeast.
I think my principle concern in getting a tattoo, should that ever happen, would be to place it on an area of the body that will age well: an area in which the tattoo itself won't wrinkle and sag, or on which the location, once super-sexy, is just now sad. I'm far too aware of 70-year-old men with upper arm tattoos that just make you sad to be reminded how robust they presumably were when they got it, or women with top of the breast tattoos, likewise. I, uh, try to remember that I'll get old and my body will change. Never mind whether I remain a believer in whatever the tattoo represented.
So what areas of the body are those that age well in this way?
But had I known what the ravages of gravity would eventually do, I'd never have gotten those scrotum tats.
32: And what they all share is an absorption in the culture of the sixties and seventies that always surprises me.
Do you think they come by this interest naturally, as it were, or might it be pressed upon them by our culture-pushers? Movies and fashion and whatnot that retrofit and re-present what was happening 30 years ago. From what I understand, that's a deliberate move on the part of culture pushers (I hope it's clear what I mean by this). It's always a question whether they're responding to native interest on the part of their audience(s), or are inculcating the interest in what might otherwise be a vacuum.
Guy I worked with remembered working in fields on a harvest with a guy who showed him his SS tattoo in his armpit. That'd be in the mid-sixties, by the seventies when I heard the story he'd be careful for fear of being deported. But I worked with old roughnecks of central European origin, judging from their accents, and I would wonder.
The concentration camp survivors had numbered tattoos on the underside of their forearms. I only met 2 of those. Wonder if anyone ever faked it?
The tattoo on my shoulder looks like this shirt. My other tattoo, on my ankle, says "MOM." Except when you look at it upside-down, and it says "WOW"
At the time, I figured, if I ever came to regret them, that would be my punishment for getting old.
I've been thinking about getting another one. Not sure what.
I would think a lot of 30 year olds have opinions of baby boomers by virtue of their parents and most adults they interacted with in their childhood being baby boomers.
It is standard practice in tattoo conversations for me to say I have some ideas I like but that I'm 40 and it just seems like if it had been going to happen, it would have happened already. Also usually I mention that it would have to be invisible because my mother would immediately die if she saw I had a tattoo.
Er, hide-able. What good is an invisible tattoo, one might ask. I might have one already. We don't know.
40: I was told three wolves was canonical.
35- people always say this, but I don't really get it. Why is it sadder to have saggy/wrinkled skin with a tattoo than without?
I guess I don't really see tattoos (or their locations) as "super-sexy" anyway. Maybe that's the disconnect.
I have a tattoo that says "SUPER SEXY" but, my bad luck, it's in comic sans. At least my forehead isn't too saggy yet.
If your forehead sags enough, you could just say it's in Comic Sans italic.
30/60: Some aspects of the 60s were not viable. People who kept the faith ended up dead, insane, in jail, or on the streets. Plenty of people did keep to their ideals, but they blended into the general populace, usually at a fairly low level. Ther ewas no reward for keeping the faith.
There's an enormous range. I'd say though that most of the worst crass 60s renegades weren't ever much into the idealistic part, just into the dope sex & rock and roll part. And some never were part of it at all. One of the things about the hippies is that there were few standards for admission. Anyone could join.
I guess I don't really see tattoos (or their locations) as "super-sexy" anyway. Maybe that's the disconnect.
Yeah, I'd say so. I have the impression that a lot of people feel sexy (or powerful, or hot as in in-today's-moment) in getting tattoos.
I know a couple of people who have gotten pagan-ish tattoos for belief purposes, and they're likely not bothered when the image distorts as skin sags.
What good is an invisible tattoo, one might ask. I might have one already. We don't know.
Ooh, me too, me too!
What good is an invisible tattoo, one might ask.
I kinda want one of these invisible tattoos.
I have been daydreaming about those for years. But I bought a bunch of UV markers, so now I just draw on myself instead.
Oh, I just read the piece linked in the OP.
Students of Jean-Paul Sartre will recognize here the problem of existential anguish, which he explains in "Being and Nothingness"
HAHAHAHAHA. Ahem. {clears throat} Yes, quite, quite.
39 I remember as a kid at a dinner with some family friends and asking the host why he put those numbers on his arm. I got shushed very quickly and then got an explanation on the way home with strict instructions to never ask anyone again. Strangely enough I think he's the only person I met with one of those, even though I've known quite a few holocaust survivors. Come to think of it I believe he wasn't Jewish, just a Resistance fighter who ended up in Auschwitz.
I have a tattoo of a boot stomping on a human face. I wanted something that would last forever.
I planned ahead when I got my Dali clock and basset hound tattoos.
Right now I'm beginning to think that 'fuck, it's snowing again' might stand the test of time. Me to landlord a few days ago - I've got a leak. Landlord to me - well, put a bucket under it and lets e-mail some time in the next week or two.
40: I PLANNED AHEAD
EWW, I DON'T WANT TO BE ON YOUR BUTT
53: you do get that the author is funny, yes?
A friend of mine has a tattoo of Max from Where the Wild Things Are on her calf. It's pretty much the only tattoo I know that I consider to be non-regrettable.
42: I got my first tattoo at 38, so I think time hasn't quite run out for you yet. I swore that it would be my only one and yet, here I am, planning my second.
Photo, please. Also don't think I haven't noticed your relevant pinning.
I still love my tattoo, but I think I need I get it re-inked. I'm somewhat loathe to put up with the pain again, though, for what is essentially a prettier version of what I already have. No one's looking at my tramp stamp these days anyhow.
I had planned to get another tattoo as a celebration of my PhD, but then the actual process of defending and graduating was so flipping depressing that I never got around to it, and would feel silly doing it now. I suppose that if either of my good friends who are breast cancer survivors go ahead the their plans to get tattooed nipples, then I'll get a second tat (not nipples) in solidarity.
64: Have you considered getting a nipple tattooed elsewhere? That might be timeless.
Can't get over how nearly universal this seems to be for people under about 40.
Didn't see it coming, still don't get it.
Mara and Nia have asked several times why I don't have any tattoos. They clearly think it's something you expect from adults.
People over forty do so have nipples.
No one's looking at my tramp stamp these days anyhow.
Google is.
For a long time I had a vague plan to get a tattoo of that Sumerian symbol for freedom that's become associated with libertarianism. I was still considering this even as I fell away from that movement, for reasons that the linked post gets at: a desire to stake a claim on my future self, to make it impossible to just dismiss the person I had been. But I never did it, and I certainly won't now.
Still, the appeal of that sort of gesture remains, particularly because I often feel so unmoored in my sense of self.
to stake a claim on my future self, to make it impossible to just dismiss the person I had been
I do this by constantly letting my future self down. I don't really want to give him one more reminder of why he hates me.
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Michael Dunn verdict - how do you convict someone of attempted second-degree murder when the victim died? Shouldn't it be unadorned second-degree murder?
(It looks like the jury had the options of first-degree murder, second-degree murder, manslaughter, or the attempted versions of any of those.)
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Attempted for the people he didn't kill. Hung jury on the one he did kill. fuck.
73: That was for the other people in the car, I think.
71: You could really commit and get one saying "I bet you'll regret this, you bastard".
Weird. Though I guess that makes minimal sense given there were the three other people and they convicted on three counts of attempted. Maybe the crazification factor on the jury was persuaded to concede he was not threatened by the people other than the victim.
Or the only thing you can do wrong with a gun in Florida is miss.
There's an epic fight going on in the comment thread of a friend's post on Facebook about this. One guy is trumpeting this as a triumph of the American legal system and insisting that Florida is the only state that takes gun rights seriously. I might have to unfriend this friend just to avoid having his friends' rants appearing on my feed.
On the track. On the track. On the track. It's bobsled time.
how do you convict someone of attempted second-degree murder when the victim died?
"He attempted to commit murder, but forgot that he was in Florida where killing people is legal".
I've begun to fear lately that I'll never sleep well again.
You don't have to move to central Pennsylvania, you know.
I do know that! But it's very nice here, for here is where we are.
And yet you appear to be unable to sleep.
Anyway, I'm up because, in addition to being mired in uncertainty about the future, I drank too much at dinner. That is not something that this old man can do and then expect to get much sleep.
In the future, I mean. Obviously it's too late tonight.
If you drink enough you can time machine.
Time machining contraindicated with a limp.
Actually, I think the problem is the time change. I went to sleep too early on the West Coast, and so I had what amounted to a very luxurious late-evening nap.
Oh, you're on the West Coast? You're not up that late. I'm up the same late as you. I really shouldn't be, because I have to get up with the baby in six hours, and I like to sleep more than six hours. I'm usually not up this late, but I'm waiting until I feel more tired than stupid.
Yeah, that was very poorly put. My internal clock is on the West Coast, but my body is in Central PA.
We're flying home tomorrow, so maybe I'll sleep on the plane? Probably not, of course. But maybe?
Somehow I don't see you sleeping on a plane.
Wife and boys spent the day yesterday at the closest thing to a skier's ski resort in Pennsylvania, Blue Knob. It's about halfway between here and SC and has very basic amenities but no crowds and decent runs by PA standards. They'll see you on the slopes!
Staying up late is not a mistake but a strategy. Perhaps you'll be tired enough to sleep through the fact that you are on a plaaaaane OMG PLANE.
OP, again.
I have an unusual aversion to logos and personal ensignia of any kind. Hate monograms. My son thinks it strange and neurotic that I remove logos from teeshirts and caps, and prefer all clothes to be without symbols of any kind, if possible. His take is that things are meant to be read ironically, and the plain versions I prefer have the effect of drawing more attention.
I think the unimagineability of tatoos for me comes from the same place.
Wearing the Army uniform didn't bother me at all, even though covered with signifiers, because they were obligatory, meant something not of your own fancy, and told others things they had a right to know.
100: the plain versions I prefer have the effect of drawing more attention
Huh, well isn't that an odd turn of events, if true. But I don't think it's true.
Nice! What's the significance?
What I want is a version of this around my arm BUT INVISIBLE.
103: we all got one when we were at Professor Xavier's school.
Huh. I like 105, and 106 is pretty fascinating, but it was really just this.
104 would be pretty rad even visible.
I've described here my actual future tat, five or so kittens chasing each other around my torso.
The link to Teo's blog made me think of old anthropology stuff. Due to some recent news, I was trying to sort out what's actually known about when dromedary camels were domesticated, and it's remarkable how little we know. Different sources range from 3000BP to 5000BP. Now those are some error bars! There doesn't even seem to be much of a consensus about whether there were wild camels in Egypt during that time period or not. I was surprised at just how little agreement there seems to be.
Due to some recent news, I was trying to sort out what's actually known about when dromedary camels were domesticated
What news?
http://www.aftau.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=19673
110: Yeah, surprisingly little is known about the domestication of a lot of animals, but camels are one of the most extreme examples.
I can't read this post title without thinking of Douglas MacArthur.
But if they would fade away, there'd be no money in removing them
