take on bad tattoos

I've spent two days in the last week at places where people take their shirts off routinely and I'm not thrilled by what we've seen.   I'm not taking solely about the fact that people are generally disgusting and should be adding layers of clothing to cover up their obesity not shedding layers but we are discussing the terrible decisions people make when they decide to permanently mark their bodies.

 

Last week at a water-park I saw a collection of body-art which can only be compared to Picasso Lite.    I'm not sure if you can attribute it to bodies which have gotten soft over the years or inexpensive tattoo parlors but a lot of it looks like it was done in the back of a dune-buggy a la Steve O.   I'm  not even discussing the ones where there are misspellings or gross mistakes but the ones that are just not thought out real well.   I don't have any body art but I would imagine that deciding on a tattoo parlor would involve some research to make sure he's got more experience with a needle than a new heroin addict and a hand as steady as Michael J Fox.  

 

The thing that completely baffles me is the direction people go with when it comes to the subject of their body graffiti.   I am a person who felt deeply affected by 9/11 for example but I'm not sure that a full frontal image of two planes crashing into the World Trade Center is the best memorial I've seen especially when ground-zero looks like it's located on the back of a whale.    I've also seen a ton of RIP tattoos which also seem like a weird honor but at least there is a personal attachment but the ones that get me are the tattoos of living people although it feels a lot like those jackasses who put the decals on the back of their souped up CRX's with the RIP Uncle Richie on them.   

But as much as those tattoos meant to honor a dead person creep me out it's even more awkward when I saw some dude with a big tattoo of some kid with the name Mark Joseph underneath it, he was holding the hand of a slightly older Mark Joseph.   I get that you love your kid but what happens if your the Octamom, do you get a tattoo on each arm, two on your gut, one on each calf and then a montage of the rest on your back?

Then you have the group of people who believe honoring Christ is by showing a praying Jesus right underneath their gang-signs or topless women which seems more than slightly ironic,.

 

I'm also seeing more kids who look like they are more than just a few weeks shy of 18 with gross body tattoos including full sleeves, rosary beads and crosses which look totally awful especially considering that except for a random Chinese kid, most people will have a radically different body type by the time they hit their mid 30s which will only mean a Joey Chestnut version of a praying Jesus.