STJ, Ink-Week 7:My Street Cred

Since starting this blog, I’ve been asked about my credibility on more than one occasion. I’ve been asked, ‘Why should we listen to you? What do you know about tattoos?’

These people are right! So I’ve decided to give a little background on my tattoo experiences in order to establish my credibility (and so people will stop asking my obnoxious questions).

From a very young age I always knew that I wanted to get a tattoo, even if I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to get.   My parents weren’t exactly thrilled with this desire, but with my exposure to bikers, action movies, and heavy metal music increasing with my age, they soon came to accept it as inevitable.

About a month after my 18^th birthday was the time that walked into the Angry Banana Tattoo Shop to get my first piece of work.  At this point I was trying to get a piece that was both cool and wouldn’t be too risqué, so I chose to go with the wolf.

As you can see, the sizeable tattoo that now covers my right arm had a pretty humble beginning.

 I got the second part of the wolf done about six months later at the same shop and by the same artist. I’m actually scheduling to get the piece finished over the holiday break and I will definitely keep you all updated.

As I’ve done these interviews, I’ve noticed that my subjects have had varying levels of difficulty with dealing with the obvious connotations that come with having a tattoo. My advice to them is this: If you feel strongly enough about an image or piece of art to get it tattooed on your body, then you should have no trouble defending it.

Personally, I have NEVER had a single issue with defending my decision to get any of my tattoos and never will, even when I’ve covered in them.

To end this rather rant-filled blog, I’d like to say that I’m glad that I grew in a time where a guy like me could get a tattoo or five and would still be able to gain employment and lead a semi-normal life in this country, a statement that would have been hard to defend years ago.

By this point, you should be used to the fact that I have been concluding my blogs with my personal highlights of this week’s Presidential Campaign events. It should come as no surprise that my highlight for this week is the Presidential Debate at Hofstra between President Obama and Governor Romney. In my opinion, Obama came back very strongly at this week’s debate and did a fair job of recovering from his problems at the first debate.