tattoos.

From what I can tell, tattoos are pretty hip these days. And by these days I mean the period from about 1960 to present. Despite the allure of the ring of barbed wire around what I can only presume was a once toned bicep belonging to the female night shift clerk at the gas station near my house or the illogic of Polynesian tribal tattoos on suburban white males, I highly doubt that I will ever indulge in such permanent hypodermic adornments for myself. Who among us has not looked back at photographs from high school and laughed at the ridiculousness of sagging pants or the frumpiness of a perm that seemed so right in the moment? It seems to me that proponents of tattoos are doomed to repeat this lesson over again, except instead of a photo album serving as a pre-requisite for the profound reminder that general fashion and personal tastes change, all one must do is look in the mirror. That's a pleasant thought: after a few years, your skin acts as the constant admonition that you have a hard time picking up on basic patterns. I do admire the confidence that such people have though. "Oh yeah man, I will never get sick of this Volcom logo emblazened into the center of my back. It will always be cool." And then three years later, Volcom is selling patterned Christmas sweaters in the little boys section at Target. This is not to say that I don't respect a person's right to get a tattoo. I absolutely do. Nor do I intend to convey that I have never encountered a tattoo that strikes me as nice lookin'. I certainly have. It's just that I, a man whose former and absolute abhorrence for brussel sprouts has transformed into a full-fledged love affair, simply do not trust my tastes to stay fixed long enough to justify such a permanent commitment. I just don't have those kind of feelings for foot roses.

On a related note, I find it fascinating, the unending expansion of what is considered an adequate amount or location for body art. Why, just a few decades ago a forearm anchor or a single punctured heart above the name of one's mother was deemed sufficient. Nowadays, there is hardly amount or area that is considered off limits. I was shocked the first time I saw a neck tattoo. I hoped that its owner was independently wealthy or could at least afford a whole collection of turtle necks for the next time he had to seek gainful employment. Because, at least to me, any neck tattoo, whatever its likeness, might as well be capital letters arrayed in a earlobe-to-earlobe swoop that reads "UNEMPLOYABLE." It seems as if the expansion of tattoos to the neck area only became generally popular as space on arms, legs, and chests became scarce, sometime around 2002. As a result, many of today's necks are almost full to the brim with the names of ex-girlfriends or oversized puckered lip prints that would indicate some sort of romantic encounter with a dolled-up pituitary giant.

I wonder where tattoos will venture to next. The face and head are obvious possibilities. But I think it is a well established fact that face tattoos highly correlate with mental illness, prison, or both. (But if that's the message you're looking to send to the world, more power to you.) Perhaps instead people will begin to think outside the box and start to have grafted to their torsos whatever undamaged limbs remain from car crash or heart attack victims. Think of all that untouched flesh--a blank canvas upon which one can illustrate his lack of forethought or express all his current brand loyalities! At the DMV, on the forms to apply for a driver's license, there will be a checkable box beside which are the words "Tattoo Donor," just in case a horrible accident strikes the driver down before he or she has time to memorialize on skin his or her own drunken decision making.

And until the day that limb grafting is considered to be cost effective, I imagine that folks will continue to cram more and more tattoos onto themselves. The only difference is that with so much body art already present, new tactics may have to be employed to ensure that the new tattoos can be noticed amongst the old. May I suggest italics? Underlining? Double underlining?