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A Brief History of my Tattoos

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How Love and Prison Changed a Writer

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A Brief History of my Tattoos

For a long time, I’ve wanted to write honestly about my tattoos. I have strange feelings about and an unusual relationship with my tattoos. I feel differently about them at different times. The way I see them depends on my mood, what phase of life I’m going through, my level of self-kindness at any given moment, and much more. But one thing is certain: All my tattoos tell a story. It’s like having “my story” written on my skin, literally. This is, to me, both silly and absurd and yet beautiful somehow.

A few things to note. All my tattoos were done between The Drinking Years (17-27). Some of them I was literally drunk when I got them; most I wasn’t. Most are professionally done; a few are “stick-n-poke” (read: Prison-style) tattoos. (Yes, I’ve been tested for Hep-C, don’t worry.) My first tattoo was done when I was still in high school. My last was in 2009, when I was 26, a little over a year before I got sober in 2010.

Tattoos interest me for many reasons. For one, because they’ve become so profoundly popular over the past two decades. It was 2002 when I got my first, a time when ink was not quite as “cool” as it is now; when it didn’t buy you quite as much cultural [Millennial] prestige as in current times. It was, back then, at the very tail end still of being at least somewhat “rebellious.” And especially for me: A white upper-middleclass kid from the suburbs of safe, white Ojai.

I’ll be totally honest up front: Pretty much all of my tattoos were done without much thought, in the mad flickering heat of the youthful flaming moment. Do I regret any of my tattoos? All of them perhaps? Yes. And no. Have I considered getting them removed? Yes. Will I? Probably not. Maybe.

Tattoos interest me personally, of course, because I have them. Fourteen of them, to be precise. I actually just now for the first time counted them to write this piece. I’d never really cared about the number before. As Zadie Smith has similarly discussed her immutable characteristics of gender and race, and though every single tattoo was 100% a choice and not something I was “born with,” I do find the sociological effect of tattoos fascinating.

For example: If I’m wearing a jacket, and my arm tattoos (and all the other tats) are hidden, people seem in general to act a particular way towards me. But if I’m wearing a T-shirt or I roll up my jacket sleeves (which is my style), suddenly in people’s eyes I’m transformed. I never know exactly HOW I’m transformed for them, of course, because I can’t read minds, but over the years I’ve gathered information based on facial expression changes, switching of tone, shifting language or diction, altering of social approach, etc.

Sometimes seeing the tattoos makes people more interested, even deeply curious. Often people ask me about them. I usually shy away and feel embarrassed. Oddly, my tattoos feel intensely private to me…and yet the contradiction here is obvious. If private, why splatter them all over your body, right? Well, yes. There’s that truth, too: The theatricality of my ink.

Why did I get my tattoos? I could answer this in 100 different ways, but underneath all those answers would surely be this timeless truism: I wanted attention. Hey: There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, in my book. It’s hopelessly human, isn’t it? Especially when you’re spoiled, an only child, rich, young and angry. And that was the case for me growing up. It was—at least in my mind—also a very real existential act of “revolt,” as Camus refers to it. Rebellion. It was a way of signaling to my parents that I wasn’t Them; that I wasn’t going to be what they wanted me to be (or what I perceived that they wanted me to be.)

I have decided to list all 14 of my tattoos, thus presenting a brief history of my ink, and, as it were, also my body, as Paul Auster would say in Winter Journal. Here’s to simultaneously feeling shame and admiration about your own artwork permanently stamped on your mortal coil.

A Brief History of my Tattoos

1.    Punker punching a cop against a brick wall with one hand, and with the other pointing a gun at “you” the viewer. (Right upper arm by collarbone.) This was my very first tattoo. Age 18. Senior year of Catholic college-prep high school. I got the money by stealing crisp twenties from my father’s thick leather wallet over the course of several months. I got it at a tattoo parlor on Main Street in Ventura owned by the Hells Angels I got to know he artist who did the work a little and once partied with him. The image tells you everything you need to know about my angry teenage punk rock attitude circa 2001/02. My mom, when she saw it a few days later, was convinced it was fake. Once she realized it wasn’t she lost her cool. (Point for punk-ass me!)

2.    Beanie-wearing artist kneeling before a brick wall spray-painting ‘138’ in big red numbers. (Upper right shoulder/breast area; the bricks connected to the bricks from tattoo #1 above). This is from the 1970s punk band The Misfits, specifically from their song We Are 138, based off, possibly, the 1971 George Lucas film called THX-1138. Circa 2002/2003.

3.    The words “Reality Comes Crawling” in a semi-circle. (Around left breast.) Line from the 80s heavy metal band Corrosion of Conformity. I thought it was a cool line. Still do, to be honest.

4.    The words “Sick Boy.” (Collar bone.) This was a close call. I was 19. It was 2003. I very nearly got the tat on my upper neck. Thankfully, my tattoo artist (who’d up to that point done all three of my tattoos) persuaded me against it. Something along the lines of, “Kid, you might want to get a job someday.” Yeah. Good call. (By the way this artist had a massive full back and stomach/chest/torso ink scene of the fight between Michael and the Arc-angels and Satan. Intense. And impressive. Anyway, “Sick Boy” is not, as many have guessed over the years, from the character in the film “Trainspotting,” but is rather a famous song by my all-time (still) favorite band Social Distortion. Social D., as fans often call them, have always been the perfect blend of tough and smart, masculine yet sensitive, and somehow being punk yet managing to sing often about love. Mike Ness—founder, vocalist, lead guitarist—is like me: Tattooed, short, sensitive, smart, and, in his way, tough. Listen to the song (from their self-titled 1990 album) for a feel of the lyrics. I can’t tell you how many different reactions I’ve gotten from this tattoo over the years, especially from women I’ve slept with or dated. Everything from fear to adoration to total curiosity to complete laugh-out-loud mockery. I feel all of these reactions about it myself.

5.    The words “Rock and Roll.” (Across my stomach.) Yep. Not a joke. Laugh if you want. I’ve laughed at it plenty of times myself. I got this around age 20, circa 2003. It was done by a friend of a friend in Ventura. The kid who did it had illegally worked under the age of 18 tattooing at some parlor in town for a while. He was the same age as me when I got it. He did work from his grandmother’s small house on The Avenue (a rough gangbanger area in Ventura) with an old tattoo gun (machine). His grandmother was wild and not anything like normal grandmas. She sold meth from her house. She did this while he tattooed me. We listened to Slayer full volume. The guy was inked from head to toe. It was a surreal experience.

6.    Cathedral gargoyles. (On both wrists, underside.) I was I think still 20 when I got these. About an inch by an inch sized. They came from some northern California early 80s punk band’s imagery from the punk compilation Not So Quiet on the Western Front.

7.    Name (letters) “GG”.  (Left shoulder/upper arm.) San Diego. Drunk. Roommate. Stick-n-poke tattoo literally using pen ink and needles we found on the ground. No. I’m not kidding. Yes, we got tested for Hep-C and HIV. Yes, I actually did this. Yes, I was actually crazy and irresponsible and stupid enough to do it. Yes, it hurt. I tattooed myself and my roommate did it as well. San Diego circa 2005, age 22. “GG” is short for G.G. Allen, the madman 1970s/80s punk rock psycho. He was similar to Iggy Pop but even wilder. There’re stories of him shitting live on stage, cutting himself badly with glass shards people’d thrown at him, beating up fans, shooting up Heroin on stage. Allen later went to prison for rape and assault. He overdosed and died in the early nineties. This, back then, was what I aspired to. Yes. I know. Sad.

8.    The word “Vomitose.” (Lower side of right arm.) Another stick-n-poke. Around the same time in San Diego. Drunk. Etc. “Vomitose” was a G.G. Allen song. He had it tattooed on himself also. My life at the time felt and looked like “Vomitose.” Later, this ink got covered professionally by a skull in a bed of roses and a banner that read “Live Life.” (Hey, it’s better than “Vomitose.”)

9.    Jim Morrison as a young man, wearing tight leather pants and leather jacket with necklace. (Lower right arm.) Fun story on this one. It was 2006. I was 23. It was June. It was my first time in New York City. I was staying in some cheap hostel in Hell’s Kitchen. I’d taken Amtrak three days across the country from San Diego. I’d been reading Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. I took the book far too literally. This was my first trip hitchhiking. I was young, creative, hungry, alive. I walked into some random tattoo parlor in Times Square. Somewhere around 42nd Street I think. He asked me what I wanted. I didn’t know. I said I’d come back. I walked around. Found a bookstore. Entered. Found a thick biography about The Doors, who I’d always loved. I “coughed” loudly while tearing out a nice, thick glossy photo page of a young Morrison. I left. Went back to the parlor. Told him to put it right on my lower arm. Boom.

10. Facial portrait of Iggy Pop. (Mid-left arm. Fist-sized.) Are you catching on to the rock-n-roll theme here? This was I believe during the same trip, circa summer 2006. Before or after I can’t quite now recall. I’d loved Iggy Pop for a long time. The “godfather of punk.” I’d read Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk, and the West Coast’s response: We Got the Neutron Bomb. Iggy was God. Done in Portland, Oregon, while visiting an old punk friend from high school.

11. The Guns n Roses skull wearing top hat with crossing guns and roses. (Upper left arm.) Around the same time. Possibly same trip. Can’t recall. By the way, if you’re wondering about how I had all this money, I worked a thousand dead-end jobs, fulltime, and lived very cheaply. This was how I saved and traveled and got ink. Portland, Oregon.

12.  An anatomical heart with a golden key through it, the word “Freedom” beneath it. (Upper right arm.) This may be one of the few tattoos I have that I truly respect. I got it when briefly living in Philly. Circa 2007, age 24. To me it means “freedom is the key to my heart.” That was true then, though muddled by my anger and rebellion and immaturity, and it’s still true now. The question arises: What is freedom? Well, this is definable in political terms. But I wasn’t thinking politically then. I was thinking very personally. Hopping freight trains. Hitchhiking across America. Falling in love. Discovering my own personal truth. Defying my parents, the Upper middle-class, thinking critically and independently: These, for me, represented freedom. This was a good and more expensive piece.

13.  Melting television. (Lower left arm.) Done by a friend of a friend in Oakland, California, circa 2009 (age 26). One of the last pieces I ever got before I got sober. He tattooed me at his house in a little upstairs “studio” with his own machine. The guy had full ink sleeves and slicked-back hair. Looked like a 1950s greaser. Drove a classic car. Sort of a Stray Cats vibe. James Dean. The meaning is easy: I’d never been a T.V. watcher. I felt T.V. rotted the intellect; ruined the powers of thinking; allowed people to become capitalistic consumers, pawns, suckers, lazy bastards. It rotted your brain. Instead, I felt, people should read important books. People should debate. Engage in the Grand Dialectic that is life.

14.  Social Distortion dancing skeleton holding martini glass. (Unfinished.) The Social D. emblem. Never got completed. Simply an outline. Same guy in Oakland, CA.