Mountains, blah, blah, blah.Creeks fed by melting snow, blah, blah, blah.
Blue sky, fresh air, communing with nature, blah, blah, blah.
The best thing about driving 250 miles to the Eastern Sierras has nothing to do with any of that.
Oh sure, there's hanging out with great friends, watching the kids run around like banshees, and sleeping under the stars.
Those things are great.
But for me, the real treat is going to town to see the tattoos.
None of that multi-hued fancy, schmancy West Los Angeles ink mind you.
No faux barbed wire.
Or esoteric Asian symbols held aloft by butterflies and flowers.
No, we're talking bare breasted chicks on Harleys.
Knives through skulls.
And homemade prison markings.
But the tattoos that most interest me are the ones worn by snaggled-tooth guys in wife beater shirts. They drive decaying Fords or Chevys, held together with duct tape and fishing line. And they live in houses, filled with the intoxicating fumes of failure and crystal meth.
They not only subscribe to a delusional notion of supremacy, they feel the need to pronounce to the world in big black letters, across their pale scrawny arms, the divine awesomeness that is
"White Power."
Tattoos being so forbidden to Jews, do have a fascination. A friend introduced me to her pizza delivery man. As we shook hands, I noticed the skeleton tat on the underside of his forearm. I asked him, "Why? What is the fascination with skulls?" He answered: "Death. Aren't you curious about the afterlife? Don't you want to know?"
ReplyDeleteMy answer: "No." Well, certainly not enough to permanently ink a skull on my arm. And besides that, I change my mind too much. I could not live with the same image on my arm for my whole life. It's just like, I change my earrings daily.
Couldn't agree more Ellen.
ReplyDeleteBTW, today's post is the 88th since I started this "thing." How fitting that I take a poke at Nazi scumbags. 88 is their number. H is the 8th letter. So HH or Heil Hitler is marked by 88.
It's not calculus or trigonometry or even pre-algebra, but it's about as much math as those idiots can handle.
Your factoids are fascinating.
ReplyDeleteI'll be on the lookout for 88, and steer clear.