January 31, 2007

Unfortunate...

Tattoos. And then there are the things you do to yourself that you can't hide with a shirt.

Here's a website devoted to bad tattoos. And here's one I like even better. There are different kinds of bad, though, you know, and I'm going to endorse this kind:

24 comments:

AllenS said...

Nothing worse than in the heat of passion, removing a women's panties and finding a tattoo of some small creature on the inside of her thigh.

MadisonMan said...

Branding really mystifies me. How can someone look at their own face and conclude that it needs to be improved by lines? Or tattoos, for that matter?

That said, the branding does look very interesting, in a I-slept-facedown-on-a-patterned-rug kind of way

J said...

Are you aware of any publicly traded medical practices specializing in tattoo removal we could invest in?

David53 said...

I'll never understand our current fascination with tattoos. The Jews were tattooed with identification numbers in Nazi concentration camps. It helped with the body count. Do you really want any government to have another means of identifying you?

SippicanCottage said...

Ritual scarification and self mutilation have always had a meaning.

It's just that now, it's a kind of bizzaro world meaning. It's the vinyl siding of the bourgeois body.

Ugly, shabby, and exactly the opposite of the authenticity it craves.

LordSomber said...

bad tattoos = permanent bellbottoms

Fatmouse said...

Oh man, I hate tattoos. I really hate tattoos.

I hate them for the same reason I hate obviously fake boobs: I've never seen a woman who looked better with them than without.

And like LordSomber said, tattoos are permanent fashion disasters. If you feel the need to be an individual or flaunt your favorite pastime, buy a freaking t-shirt until you grow out of your delayed adolescence.

If I were dictator of the world, I'd make tattoos illegal and pass out free sharpie markers. "Here, if you feel the need to draw all over yourself, go ahead."

More random tattoo hate:

1. "Sleeves" where someone smears a random collage of ink from the wrist up. Besides looking like you thrust your arms into a rancid vat of fungus, from a distance of more than two feet they all look like the same greenish-brown mess.

2. "Ass Antlers." That pseudo-celtic squiggle above a woman's buttocks and below her tank top. Also serves as a handy STD warning label.

3. "Modblog." I'm not providing a link, since the front page is often filled with men doing horrible things to their testicles, but I've never seen a more self-righteous group of people indignant that people won't heap praise on their ability to poke holes and draw on themselves.

Oh man, I hate tattoos.

Laura Reynolds said...

"Also serves as a handy STD warning label"

Very funny, as the truth often is.

Fatmouse said...

Wow, and to follow up my earlier post, I read the full comment thread on Ann's last link and it just cemented my opinion that people with tattoos are hypersensitive and hysterical. "HOW DARE YOU QUESTION ME!"

I suppose if you get your hair cut like Vanilla Ice and people make fun of you, you can shave your head. But if you get Vanilla Ice tattoos, all you can do if moan about how judgmental those stupid sheeple are.

vbspurs said...

I can't stand tattoos and look in horror at people who decide to mutilate themselves. My apologies if this includes someone on Althouse.

Seeing how the thread could devolve into some kind of target practise towards tattooed folks, I'm going to do my Victoria "thing" and mention something of historical interest.

Remember the public surprise when Zara Phillips (Princess Anne's daughter, and reigning BBC Sport Personality of the Year) decided to get her tongue-pierced recently?

Par for the course, for that family, which people wouldn't have objected if they knew the history.

Edward VII: Went to the Holy Lands back in 1862, and had three crosses in black ink, done on his right forearm.

His wife, Queen Alexandra: Decided to put a snake tattoo on her left ankle, after Winston Churchill's mum made tattoos for high society ladies, de rigueur.

Other royal women with tattoos included Empress Elisabeth of Austria (big anchor on her left shoulder), Princess Marie of Denmark (ditto, close to her right collarbone), Queen Amelie of Portugal (small snake on her wrist), and Crown Princess Cecilie of Prussia (cross on her wrist).

Their son, King George V: Was a walking tattoo parlour, having gotten his first tattoos (three crosses on his forearm, just like dear old dad), in Japan in the 1880s. BTW, the practise had been outlawed in Japan by then, but it still happened underground.

As he grew older, King George "added" to his tattoo collection, which included both of his arms, all of his chest, and some of his back.

What makes this most striking, is that staid, stick-in-the-mud seeming Queen Mary, actually liked her husband's tattoos, AND if you can believe this, made drawings so that the tattoo artist could improve on some of the tattoos already there. He would go to the Palace once or twice a year, and work on the King there (this information is from the tattoo artists memoirs on the topic).

George V's sons, however, connoted tattoos with beards (that is, old-fashioned), and refused to have any, therefore allowing the practise to die out, but something tells me, Prince Harry is the tattooing kind. We'll see.

Cheers,
Victoria

vbspurs said...

From the last link Ann gave, via Fatmouse's injuction to read it:

This takes the cake. If you didn't hear this woman auctioned off the space on her forehead on Ebay the highest bidder was goldenpalace.com.

I'm dumbstruck.

I wonder, what little sense of self do you have, to do something of this nature to your FACE? IN BLACK INK!

The girl is pretty too, in a skanky, Harley-Davidson kind of way.

Ahh, well, to each his own.

Cheers,
Victoria

The Drill SGT said...

Victoria,

was the Royal male tatoo's at all a RN thing? Royal Navy for you Americans

On the personal subject of Tatoos

It's one thing to have a small tatoo of a butterfly or some such on your ass or groin for example, but I was at my company's Christmas party and there were a number of our younger female staff (IT professionals) with tatoos that party dresses didn't cover on their arms, chest, shoulders or back.

sort of a permanent professional mistake, like talking about your sexual history on MyFace.

vbspurs said...

was the Royal male tatoo's at all a RN thing? Royal Navy for you Americans

Heh, I think Americans know what RN is, no? ;)

The answer is "yes and no", Drill Sgt.

Edward VII, who reintroduced and popularised tattoos into high society and royal circles, was not a Naval officer, per se.

His decision seems to have rested on an impulse to have a concrete souvenir of his Jerusalem visit.

His son, George V, however, specifically had his first tattoo due to his RN mates egging him on, so to do, during his ship's tour to Japan.

Interestingly, his rather effete brother Eddy (one-time popularly thought to be Jack the Ripper), found the practise foul and refused the dare to get a tattoo.

There are naval angles to the other tattooed royalty, though.

Marie d'Orleans and Denmark had a naval husband, Prince Valdemar, and it was her tribute to him.

King Frederik VIII of Denmark had several tats on his chest and arms, because he too was a naval officer.

His grandson, Crown Prince Frederik, also has a tattoo linked to his Elite Special Forces naval training, seen here.


On the personal subject of Tatoos

It's one thing to have a small tatoo of a butterfly or some such on your ass or groin for example,


Well, I suppose so, but finding a tattoo on the person of a person, is like opening a shower curtain and finding a small spider -- nasty just the same.

but I was at my company's Christmas party and there were a number of our younger female staff (IT professionals) with tatoos that party dresses didn't cover on their arms, chest, shoulders or back.

I wonder what will happen, when they're 50 years old, and all saggy? Ick...

sort of a permanent professional mistake, like talking about your sexual history on MyFace.

I actually have a lawyer friend who has a tattoo on her ankle -- one judge is so picky, he asks her to wear a pantsuit, since he doesn't like tattoos in his courtroom.

I never thought that could be legal, but like a ship's captain and his ship, I suppose a judge's courtroom is like his personal fiefdom -- what he says, goes.

Cheers,
Victoria

vbspurs said...

I can't let "Frederik VIII" sit there, mocking me, because I made a booboo. It's actually Frederik IX, folks, I mistyped.

But so as not to be a wasted post, here is a pic of the old King, in his full tattooed glory.

Love how he puffs out his chest, in a manly gesture.

Cheers,
Victoria

Sigivald said...

Allens: Oh, ye of little imagination. I can think of lots of worse things.

(Plus, if it's on her thigh, shouldn't it be visible while the panties are still on?)

Madison: Weird aesthetic impulses. I mean, how could someone think an earring would improve their face or head? Pretty easily, evidently.

David: That's the least useful counter-argument I've ever heard. Considering fingerprints and retinal scanning, the last thing to worry about the Coming Long-Rumoured Police State using to oppress you is a tattoo. Cosmetics can cover them, lasers can remove them, and more ink can modify them.

The emotional reactions here are hysterical, though. Other people's aesthetics must hit a big, throbbing nerve. (They're all sluts with diseases, it appears?)

(Full disclosure: I have no tattoos, [intentionally acquired] scars, or other permanent aesthetically-driven body alterations.)

X said...

My favorite recent bad tattoo sighting was a frat-boy type who had the Chinese character for 'party' done in the middle of his forearm. 'Party' as in a political party, that is. You do have to admit that that's pretty much the most dignified way to get PARTY tattooed in four-inch-high letters on your forearm, though.

KCFleming said...

Over time, tattoos seem to blur and fade, which, combined with sagging and wrinkling skin, the inevitable age spots, rosacea, crops of unwanted hair, and layers of knobby fat, creates a most unsavory and unlovely picture.

That cute and pert little lumbar pictogram on the pretty girl all of 20 soon enough becomes a bizarre hex on an obese, hirsute, and intemittently incontinent 50 year old. By 70, the design is a mere grey-blue blob, easily mistaken for a melanoma or a grandchild.

But go for it, 'cause on you it looks good.
No, really.

paul a'barge said...

Well, if you've seen the horror, you might as well see the great stuff ... Chris Trevino

Enjoy, and remember, judgements are just judgements.

Joan said...

I just don't understand the impulse to permanently mark up your body. I especially don't understand those whole-body projects that are so obviously labor-intensive and, at times, beautiful. I predict that someday there will be a sustainable business in tattoo taxidermy.

I still think the most egregious tattoo I've ever seen is Jeffrey Sebelia's caligraphed, wrap-around neck tattoo. Yes, it's sweet that he loves his little boy so much ("Harrison Detroit, l'amor de la mia vita" ), but I pray that he never has another child. There's no way he could ever top the neck-tattoo for kid #2, and it's not as if he could get the tattoo lasered off without Harrison wondering why Daddy doesn't love him anymore.

And now that I'm thinking about, if Italian is anything like French, it should read "l'amor de mia vita", because it actually says "the love of the my life." Anyway, Jeffrey should serve as a cautionary tale to parents everywhere.

Revenant said...

I wonder what will happen, when they're 50 years old, and all saggy? Ick...

They'll get them removed. Tattoo removal technology is already pretty good, and isn't going to do anything but get better.

Meanwhile, of course, having tattoos is a powerful incentive to exercise and stay fit. :)

vbspurs said...

And now that I'm thinking about, if Italian is anything like French, it should read "l'amor de mia vita", because it actually says "the love of the my life."

Oh, my God, Joan! My eyes scanned the tattoo previously, and hadn't realised it was Italian, not Spanish (I read "vida" not "vita").

If this chap is going for Italian, the correct spelling is:

"Harrison Detroit, L'amore della mia vita"

Christ, why people don't check these things before (like the "party" one), before BRANDING THEMSELVES for all eternity, is beyond me.

I once had a (British) friend ask me to verify some Portuguese for his friend, who was inexplicably going for a Jesus tattoo with Portuguese writing on it.

It looked awful, but at least it was correct.

Cheers,
Victoria

Revenant said...

My favorite recent bad tattoo sighting was a frat-boy type who had the Chinese character for 'party' done in the middle of his forearm. 'Party' as in a political party, that is.

The Chinese character for "party" (as in political party) is used organizations and associations in general. Maybe your frat-boy type got the tattoo to signify that he belonged to an organization.

Like, for example, a fraternity. :)

vbspurs said...

Ack! I've been trying to post for an hour. Hope this makes it, as it's topical.

Here is Angelina Jolie, dressed to die-for at the Globes...showing off her tattooed back.

The blogger says of the pic:

"We LOVE the difference between back and front when it came to Angelina Jolie at the Globes. She looked like an angel face to face - as elegant as Audrey Hepburn in her prime. (Certainly one of the best dressed of the event. ) But when Angie turned around, she looked like she just hopped off he conveyor belt in the checkout line at Ralph's market.... "

Heh. So true.

Tante Reny said...

I think the craze started when the usual inks were upgraded to flamboyant colors. Then they were artful expression of the individual. Now it's "I want to be an individual and get a tattoo...like everyone else."