Arrested Development

They told me not to get tattooed..  

It's in the bible they said...    

I've found that most people don't read the bible for information... As much as they read it for proof-texts.  (remember when people use to use it to justify slavery?).    

I've found.. they like to tie it all up for you neatly..  And then throw it up on your back...

But I've also noticed (as Jesus said once- Matt.23:4) they seldom lift a finger to help you carry the load.

That said.. I'm not overly concerned about whether my "outside" matches much with anyone'a approval.  And so my latest thing has been tattoos.  

In fact... early in life.. After music... Ink would have been my next stage of evolution.  That's not a punk thing... or a thug thing.  It's an artist thing.

But sadly.. my people didn't believe in evolution.. so I always remained exactly as I was.

Getting inked is like joining a club.. though there's definitely a hierarchy of commitment...

Forearms send you higher up the ladder.

Hands.. Neck...  All higher up the ladder..    

Thoughts are a dangerous thing... especially on the run.  Truth is I should be on my last inches of un-inked skin right now..  But instead.. I'm 41 and trying to prove this isn't just a mid life crisis...

(it is mid life... and a crisis.. but I should be doing it with a body full of ink!!!).

(*See above tab "Ink" for pics of Tattoos).  

The Body

I was sitting in the tattoo chair again....  Getting my Foo Dog... (For Ethan..) and talking to Mel D about why people tend to get tattoos...    

My tattoos.... of course.... are for my kids.  I'm having a symbol of my children (in traditional Japanese) carved into my body as a reminder of the mysterious ways that God works...

The tattoo itself is part of the process for me.  It's spiritual at this point.  A sacrament of sorts.  Ink.... going into skin.... Marking my body as a memorial...  A reminder.

As we were talking....... Mel..... grinding away at my skin...  he told me about a niece of his.... whose new born baby's in the hospital (not gonna make it...)

He told me that the family was already preparing for the memorial tattoo that they wanted.... sending him pictures.... with questions about what pics might work best....  

For Mel's niece...  The tattoo has become part of the process.  The pregnancy... The delivery... The bad news... The shock.... the struggle to come to grips with it... the anger.  the hurt.  the questions...  All working towards the incredibly difficult moment of letting it go.  Letting her go.

Not My Will... But yours...    

Now the family is collecting pictures of this baby and sending them out to Mel for the memorial....  The tattoo has become part of the process.        

Its a post-modern Sacrament (if you think about it).  The reminder of a time  "IT"....  happened.  The hope that there's something more.... something bigger....  The leap in the dark... the decision to do the only thing you can do.....  honor the child by engraving her onto your skin.

I've found that most non religious people aren't opposed to Sacraments in life.  Most don't mind ceremony or ritual.  What non-religious people hate is deadness...  Rigidity.  Legalism.  The choking of the living for the sake of maintianing that which is dead.          

I was discussing that with a friend...  (my friend with the Buddha tattoo...) and I was  surprised to find myself talking to her about wanting to participate in a Catholic Mass.  The Eucharist. 

The thing that intrigued her was "The Body"...
The ceremony.... taking the marked up body of the divine..... it's representation...... the bread and wine... And joining into it... with Him.... with everyone.

All of them.... All of us who have been marked with the similar type of markings that he has been marked with. 

All of us...  All at the same time.....

Marking ourselves onto the body.

The Recovery Blues

Before my tattoo... as I was researching local tattoo artists... the thing that kept coming back about Mel D.s tattoo work was how clean it was.

Clean.  Beautiful.  Straight lines.... The most frequently used word to describe his art was "clean".   And from an art perspective you cant get much better than that.  Precision Line... and Color... making shape... and form.... and depth.

Honestly it's the way life should be.  Life should be like art..... a painting made of strangers and acquaintances, and friends and loved ones... (Or lovers...).. All of them.... clean lines... making up a conglomeration of shape, and form... Towards the end of making up the overall picture of life.

The world should be a picture of something beautiful.              

But the world doesn't function like that.  In fact, sadly if the world were a canvas of human relationships, I think what we would find is a vaguely familiar shape mixed among a violent splatter of paint.... applied forcefully with say... something like a shotgun.   

I used to hang out with Recovery people a few years ago... And what I found is that recovery people tend to understand the chaos of life because they've been on both ends of the shotgun blast.

The saying goes that "hurt people... hurt people".  And rather than building relationships... hurt people make deals.... (and in desperation.... Threats!).  And in the end.. All of it adds up to chaos.

I've also found that recovery people have no problem being real and believing that all of us have something of the devil inside us.... because they've experienced him first hand....  Being offended they've offended strangers.... acquaintances.  Slighted friends.... Used and neglected families... Jilted lovers...  

All of it.... always like a shotgun blast spraying chaos all over the canvas of the world.

Its the reason, I think, that in recovery it's all about "staying clean".  Because only clean people can really build (or rebuild) relationships.  And only clean lines can make up the picture as a whole.               

Getting Marilyn

The religious world has always had a hard time accommodating what some call "secular" art. 

The division between the two runs deep  through the years and carries itself into all genres of the art world, but none so much as with popular music.  The truth is that the churchies had a problem with Rock-N-Roll from the beginning....  They called it devil music.  But before Rock-N-Roll.... the devils music was the Blues.
   
The problem with the Churchie world-view on art is it's tendency toward oversimplification.  It's a shallow view because it can only be seen at face value.  Good and Evil....  Black and white.

(not talking about shades of relativity....  That's different)....  

But for artists....  it's more complicated than that.  Artists tend to use the raw things of life to reach for bigger things.  Their could be a face-value.... chip on the shoulder... of motivation.....

say someone like Marilyn Manson..... abused and mistreated by churchies as a young man.... might take on a devil persona in his art just to piss-off the churchies of his world....

But the music could be saying something else entirely...... Something on a deeper level.... Maybe even something that's true. 

I was thinking about that while I was laying on the table trying to get my tattoo done and my Tattoo artist... Mel D.... was playing some hard core scream metal music... But as the music was playing and we were talking.. I  was thinking about Robert Johnson. 

There's a mythology of sorts (Faustian) in the old blues world that says that Robert Johnson (real blues man)... Once took his guitar down to a crossroads at midnight and there.... sold his soul to the devil for the ability to play the guitar like no other man...

No one knows for sure exactly where the legend started but it was always confirmed by his living peers that on a trip to Arkansas once.... when he left... he was little more than a novice... And after he returned.... he was playing guitar like he was the king of the blues.

Now as interesting as the story is... I suspect (higher criticism.... no evidence...) that the legend perhaps might have been built around the mystery of his life....

(2 recording sessions ever.... 28 songs.... 2 survivable photos..... allegedly killed.... poisoned... at the age of 27)...

Or perhaps, it could have been built around the themes of his songs as well....

Hell Hound Blues
Preachin Blues (Up jumped the devil).
Me and the Devil Blues
Crossroad Blues.  etc...

But the themes of his blues music... aren't anthems to his new found satanic faith... Rather... they're sad, real and raw..... sometimes startling images of what it's really like when someone lives on the dark side...  Some of his songs are dark expressions of the blues..... a suggested spiritual source... And a (terribly ugly) physical manifestation.

ex. Lyric:
Me and the devil... was walkin side by side...
And I'm gonna beat my woman.. til I get satisfied.

They're part of the wandering blues character that he created (artists often create characters.... ie..Alice Cooper.... David Bowie.... etc..)... that had once been free of the sordid things of life.  Now explaining why evil comes as it does.....

ex. lyrics....
Early this mornin... When you knocked upon my door... I said hello Satan... I believe it's time to go...


It sounds a lot to me like the words of a famous saint who once said....  the good that I want...... I don't do............. but I practice the very evil I don't want........ who will rescue me from this body of death???

(Or 1980's... INXS....  ........every single one of us.... the devil inside"... Ha!!)


In fact..... if you think about it... if it weren't for the very physical nature of us... (people).... the very spiritual nature of him (the devil).... would never make an appearance in this world at all.... 

(Could that be true???)

My train of thought came back with the piercing sound of a needle digging into soft, sensitive, supple, fatty flesh..... 

My Arm!!! 

I think they're missing the point. 

Mel D.  my tattoo artist was talking.  Marilyn Manson is not the devil... people.  Get over it. 
He's a character.  He's the outrageous thing that people fear. 
(mainly ourselves)...


The controversy's all because people need someone else to point the finger at.... so they don't have to point it at themselves

He's not the devil anymore than you or I am the devil..

(could that be true???)


That's ultimately the point of Marylin Manson...  all be it from a jaded- angry- "all the churchies suck"..... kind of perspective...  But I suspect that that was something of the point of Robert Johnson as well.  That sometimes it's us.... me and you.

Sometimes we're the devil....

That couldn't really be true.... could it????

Jamie's New Tattoo. (check out Mel D's web site Inkjunkys.com)

Many have asked me where Im getting my tattoo work done, and the answer to that question is none other than Mel D working out of Spaded and Jaded Tattoo co. Check out this link to his website. After searching for an artist with a history of great tattoo art I was surprised to find that this guy was local. Highly recommended by previous clients and other tattoo artists alike..... He has 24 years of tattooing experience......... And........ more than 80 national and international awards.... This dude does incredible work. I challenge you to look (on his website) at his black and grey portrait work. This guy doesn't have a TV show, but (FMAO).... He's better than Kat.

2011: Wyno's Forever

I was reading a book about the way celebrities (and their love-life carousels) tend to wreak havoc on their bodies in the form of tattoos.... 

And tattoo removals.... 

And tattoo cover ups.  

Some find ways to redeem the underlying ink mistake in a cover up, or sometimes they incorporate the mistake into the next design.  My favorite example was Johnny Depp's tattoo for his then wife Wynona Ryder that read "Wynona Forever"....  

later (after their separation and divorce) changed to "Wyno.. Forever".

And for some reason that had me thinking about what's really important in my life. (Don't do new year's resolutions.... so this is as close as I get)...

A few of the things that came to mind were.... A).  "world peace", (A child of divorce.... I've been working on this one for a while)....  2).  A Tattoo....  (actually want a bunch.... but you gotta start somewhere).... and  C).  Another bottle of Moscato (Italian sparkling wine) that I (Santa) gave my wife for Christmas.

(these are my new years goals...... not necessarily in that order)

But I was reading a little on the Jewish view of world peace and I found that in the book of Isaiah a Hebrew image of a blues-free world is the world as a vineyard, where the best wine is produced.  A wine produced for the great big party to come....

That's my view of world peace this year.  It's the planting of a vineyard.... preferably somewhere close to the Mediterranean, specifically near the Italian region of Asti, where the best Moscato Bianco grapes grow without interference from any wild or contentious outside force.  Where water and soil and sun come together to harvest the perfect grape (my opinion). And where sweet sparkling sun kissed bubbles make their way across oceans and highways......
and into my liquor store, (and stomach) as a reminder of a better world to come.  A world made for sour hearted jewish men, and blues men and for (soon to be) tattooed "Wyno's", thirsty for a better world.   

Jews, Tattoos, and The Blues

Ok.  It's probably midlife.  Some dudes do the girl thing....(twenty-somethingish).  Some do the sports car thing.  I remember a guy I started my nursing career with who came in one morning with an earring.  It wouldn't be a big thing except earrings weren't his style at all.  He was an older dude with a big mustache (looked like Rip Taylor), and the sudden earring  (like that ruffly Jerry Seinfeld shirt) made him look like a Male-nurse/Pirate.  Or at least a little desperate; like maybe he was trying too hard.

The truth is that anything midlife comes off as desperate.  If you're gonna do it.... The goal I think is to be honest with it, and keep it somewhat within character.  And for me... tattoos aren't that much out of character.  I mean.  It's not like tomorrow I'm getting hair implants or a rug......

If I were to do something really big, I think I would become Jewish.  Really, I think it's a good fit.  I'm already circumcised.  I'm really familiar with the Old Testament.  (They don't like it when you call their Holy Book the "old" Testament).  And ultimately I think Jewish people understand the blues (One of their worship places is called "the wailing wall).

But as it is, I'm settling for getting  a tattoo  (which is the opposite of being Jewish....  Tattoos- not allowed).  And that's unfortunate because Jews and Tattoo wearer's and Blues dudes all have something in common.  They all take life and mark themselves with it in some way....

Blues guys have the songs....

Jews have it in their holidays and in the normal "stuff" of life... example;  Weekly Sabbath.  (Rest).  Yom Kippur.  (New Beginnings).  Passover.  (Deliverance).

Tattoos are kind of like that.  True... Sometimes people get tattoos just cause they think it's cool.  But sometimes it's deeper than that.  Sometimes it's about saying something about themselves, or someone they've lost.  Or who they are.  What they've come through.

Thats like a jewish holiday, Right?  And it's definitely like a blues song.    

Tattoos

Obsessed with tattoos these days.  (I think this is my mid-life).  Feeling like I've been cheating myself by living by all of your rules.  It could be worse...... could leave my family for the hot, young blonde girl - (theoretically)...... Could also buy that corvette.  But for me its about different stuff than all that (usually).  For me its about self expression.

Don't get me wrong.  I love you all.  But how did I let you guys decide what I was gonna look like?

I mean, there are certain places you guys belong in my life.  But my head is not one of them.  Time to do the things I would have done had I not been so concerned about what "people" think.  (Respectfully) Its time to live my life my way; not yours.  Its time to get some ink.