This week, we’ll be talking about script tattoos. Now keep in mind, there is nothing at all wrong with script tattoos. Some of them can be beautiful. I have one myself, on my wrists (and, yes, smartass, it is orientated the proper way). But we’re not looking at a For Love of my Family collar rocker, which would be awesome. We’re getting into declarative tattoos.
Maybe this is some new Greenpoint fad?
You say beautiful, I say uninspired. I mean, come on, really? You’re going to permanently mark your body and that’s the best you can come up with? Granted, I have tattoos I thought were funny (or even worse: cool) that I now think, what the fuck, dude? but it’s like writing: Show don’t tell. Get some pretty flowers or a woman’s visage or, I don’t know, a unicorn fucking a narwhal. Whatever is beautiful/lovely/unique (really? Know how many of those I’ve seen, lady?) to you, show us. in a few weeks, we’ll get into the issue of tattoos historically boiling a grand story down to a single image. Now, I’m not talking about Mom tattoos or memorial tattoos. You can get around using words to explain the significance—a portrait, possibly, or a bunch of gorgeous tulips if your grandfather was a big gardener—but the words themselves are pretty intrinsic to the tattoo. What we’re talking about here is more laziness than memory, you ken?
When you’re a godde$_s, you don’t need to know how to spell. We won’t even go into the Caligulian implications of the juxtaposition between those two pieces.
This tattoo is super boss… until you remember how good steamed blue crabs and Natty Boh are. Trust me, dude. I’ve been there. I’ve still got the stories, but, luckily, I didn’t get the tattoo.
How to avoid it?
Think for a bit longer than the time it takes to pay your tab next door and figure out something that represents whatever you’re trying to say. Ten years from now, it’ll look better, both technically and aesthetically. You’ll be glad you gave it some sort of thought.
Okay, so I’m biased because I’ve been known to worship at the altar of David Lynch, but at least this provokes some sort of discussion, more than ‘Beautiful’ followed by ‘Um, yeah, not so much.’ Not only that, but that single phrase conjures up the entire Twin Peaks universe.
Perfect example. This one image speaks to the entire period of childhood. Look at this drawing and you can still hear the echo of Silverstein’s voice in your head. And if you can’t because your parents didn’t expose you to Shel Silverstein, I will personally report them to CPS, retroactively of course. To make up for it, you can come over and read his books with me and my son.
This speaks volumes to the memorial idea we discussed earlier. I’m going to assume these are grandparents/parents because I don’t recognize them from any movie I’ve seen on TCM. Either way, if these two aren’t a testament to the longevity of love, I don’t know what is. Certainly they symbolize it more than LOVE in 38-point Brock Script on some girl’s wrist. Too, look at the way the border not only closes off the image in an aesthetically pleasing way, but how the nouveau swirls add to that greased-lens nostalgia of falling in love at the Cotton Club while Fletcher Henderson cut the keys behind them. Simply beautiful.
Next time we’ll have a bit more to talk about regarding script tattoos, but it’ll be more focused on finding the best placement and size. Actually, maybe word count is a more appropriate term than size.
Nik Korpon
Nik Korpon is the author of STAY GOD, OLD GHOSTS, BY THE NAILS OF THE WARPRIEST, BALTIMORE STORIES: VOLUMES ONE and TWO and BAR SCARS: Stories. His stories have bloodied the pages and screens of Needle Magazine, Crime Factory, Shotgun Honey, Punchnel’s, Yellow Mama, Out of the Gutter, Speedloader, Warmed and Bound and a bunch more. He lives in Baltimore.