John's Tattoo Identity (With a Bonus Vendetta)

I met John recently in a local drug store in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_Ridge,_Brooklyn">Bay Ridge</a> section of Brooklyn.<br /><br />I had actually seen John once previously in the store, but had been unable to speak to him at the time, so I was happy when I ran into him again.<br /><br />His upper right arm is a <i><a href="http://www.starwars.com/">Star Wars</a></i> tribute, but I shot the left arm instead. He was laughing because he had just been questioned by several people at a <a href="http://www.yelp.com/biz/century-21-brooklyn">nearby department store</a> and now that he had escaped to a different shop, here I was questioning him about his work.<br /><br />This is a shot of his left arm:<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDEjFgZc_piFcP8RsMwDBfXQcIZXdUnhaD6nlzC_PAuDh9Q1Mj9DwMQgmzCmZlsRsDzB_Nck22SetVQgRNHRDRmc4o0kCrhAFijQd4OyPSYsGzmjJkvKYRUoefP5qDSVYS4WSc02Ky/s1600/alien+collage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDEjFgZc_piFcP8RsMwDBfXQcIZXdUnhaD6nlzC_PAuDh9Q1Mj9DwMQgmzCmZlsRsDzB_Nck22SetVQgRNHRDRmc4o0kCrhAFijQd4OyPSYsGzmjJkvKYRUoefP5qDSVYS4WSc02Ky/s400/alien+collage.jpg" width="297" /></a></div><br /><br />Like the <i>Star Wars</i> theme on his right arm, the left arm embraces outer space, what John called his "tattoo identity".<br /><br />He did note that this had been reworked and represented the repairing  of a much smaller piece. He sung high praise to Alex Franklin of <a href="http://www.myspace.com/brooklyninkbodypiercing">Brooklyn Ink</a>, who did the majority of this work and made the piece what it is today. Alex and Brooklyn Ink are no strangers to Tattoosday. <a href="http://tattoosday.blogspot.com/search/label/Brooklyn%20Ink">This link</a> takes the reader to all posts tagged "Brooklyn Ink".<br /><br />Before explaining that tattoo to me, however,  he had shown me something that had not been visible in the department store. He pulled up his shirt to reveal this awesome <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_for_Vendetta">V for Vendetta</a> tattoo in the top center section of his back:<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYvHen8QNc5jY2ClakRIwu4uxdxqnNygldk38M750R5iE3e7jMR3iP4X3-HtaNDJ8hv3yDHr-Xv0inoZgW6e0u42PlcCI6-1cExCl2B3aO1f-TVNfBwKVEMFicrhgCs-mE_qF9uZqV/s1600/V+for+Vendetta.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYvHen8QNc5jY2ClakRIwu4uxdxqnNygldk38M750R5iE3e7jMR3iP4X3-HtaNDJ8hv3yDHr-Xv0inoZgW6e0u42PlcCI6-1cExCl2B3aO1f-TVNfBwKVEMFicrhgCs-mE_qF9uZqV/s400/V+for+Vendetta.jpg" width="341" /></a></div><br />John loved the graphic novel and the movie as well. <br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpJpF0AmC1lAUW1bKc5iYEj4d10XKFByUH-MXwZ2kk_26TwuDopUsCazqxBF6jjUqsW-QaXcwrhDLogClEaHLxEZVUw9dt-_rT80sJWykz6aV7wptsj5iTy4git5m9Me0NokuQgggA/s1600/V_for_vendettax.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpJpF0AmC1lAUW1bKc5iYEj4d10XKFByUH-MXwZ2kk_26TwuDopUsCazqxBF6jjUqsW-QaXcwrhDLogClEaHLxEZVUw9dt-_rT80sJWykz6aV7wptsj5iTy4git5m9Me0NokuQgggA/s320/V_for_vendettax.jpg" /></a></div><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhes1IcCjfX2Ccn4B9XSulvSG3JvdqIyZBUyOHpaOjO6yYimb4a3J1mu2DIAq8yT-zr3J9DZGa5SPkPNpYc2n7L01OMvUIX-UKWCqtuTmrcAaDGrOLrbny8O3rGCWBsY0Dqe4HePape/s1600/v-for-vendetta-6-800.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhes1IcCjfX2Ccn4B9XSulvSG3JvdqIyZBUyOHpaOjO6yYimb4a3J1mu2DIAq8yT-zr3J9DZGa5SPkPNpYc2n7L01OMvUIX-UKWCqtuTmrcAaDGrOLrbny8O3rGCWBsY0Dqe4HePape/s320/v-for-vendetta-6-800.jpg" /></a></div><br />The character of V makes a striking tattoo. This was inked by the incomparable <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps/place?oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=designs+by+michael+angelo+brooklyn&fb=1&gl=us&hq=designs+by+michael+angelo&hnear=Brooklyn,+NY&cid=10589599892127857747">Designs by Michael Angelo</a> in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. Work from his shop has appeared previously <a href="http://tattoosday.blogspot.com/search/label/Designs%20by%20Michael%20Angelo">here</a> on the blog.<br /><br />Thanks to John for sharing his incredible tattoos with us here on Tattoosday! We hope to bring his Star Wars sleeve to the site some time in the future.

John's Tattoo Identity (With a Bonus Vendetta)

I met John recently in a local drug store in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn. I had actually seen John once previously in the store, but ...

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The Tattooed Poets Project: Cody Todd

We are extending the Tattooed Poets Project through the weekend, giving those who have been enjoying the poetic ink, a little bit more to tide them over until next year.<br /><br />Today we are being visited by an old friend, Cody Todd, whose tattoos appeared <a href="http://tattoosday.blogspot.com/2009/04/cody-todds-murals-star-wars-and.html">here</a> last year.<br /><br />This is his latest tattoo, four weeks old, inked at <a href="http://purplepanthertattoos.com/">Purple Panther Tattoos</a> off of Sunset in Los Angeles:<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQJrioXZWYB4T2SunHKBVoleqbLX15ZbQk-u2eM9UhH6HmRLnLKoXOCVz0OpfEmAJn7VwSC4t1e0MzmWrpSDsAeNQZ6RSJYv-CRPxZ2G9AoP9UoWXjYnIlXmINYCnAD17UWAax5A5h/s1600/CodyToddArmTattoo.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5466107361407749074" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQJrioXZWYB4T2SunHKBVoleqbLX15ZbQk-u2eM9UhH6HmRLnLKoXOCVz0OpfEmAJn7VwSC4t1e0MzmWrpSDsAeNQZ6RSJYv-CRPxZ2G9AoP9UoWXjYnIlXmINYCnAD17UWAax5A5h/s320/CodyToddArmTattoo.jpg" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" /></a><br />Cody provided this explanation:<br /><br /><blockquote>Not too much of a story behind this. It is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marv_%28Sin_City%29">Marv</a> and Goldie from the "<a href="http://www.abebooks.com/9781593072933/City-1-Hard-Goodbye-Miller-1593072937/plp">The Hard Goodbye</a>" of <a href="http://frankmillerink.com/">Frank Miller's</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sin_City">Sin City</a>. The artist who did this is from Tokyo, and her name is <a href="http://www.purplepanthertattoos.com/koko.html">Koko Ainai</a>. I admire the precision of her work in copying Miller's extremely elaborate sketching. As Marv and Goldie embrace, he is holding a gun he apparently took away from her and a bullet hole is smoldering in his right shoulder as he lifts her off the ground. That tattoo is the first of what is going to be a kind of sleeve in parts in which I take different scenes from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_noir">noir</a> films or works and decorate my whole left arm with. Upon seeing <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farewell,_My_Lovely_%281975_film%29"><span style="font-style: italic;">Farewell My Lovely</span></a> with my girlfriend last week, I decided to get the front end of a 1934 or 1936 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buick">Buick</a> as my next tattoo.<br /><br />...I am doing my critical work for my PhD at <a href="http://www.usc.edu/">USC</a> on the "western noir," which is a term I sort of coined for a specific genre of film and literature concerned with elements that typically comprise classical film noir, except they take place in cities in the western part of the United States. As we see in the film, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0401792/"><span style="font-style: italic;">Sin City</span></a>, it has a "Gothic City" feel to it, but it is most certainly somewhere out in western Nevada, or California. I think the motifs of lawlessness, street and vigilante justice, and the disillusionment with the American Dream are all at work in this kind of genre, and that it also borrows many elements from the Western as a genre as well. If anyone wants to read good literary western noir, I would direct them, promptly, to read <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Woodrell">Daniel Woodrell</a>, who takes the noir theme and brings it to the Ozarks and southwest Missouri. If <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Chandler">Chandler</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faulkner">Faulkner</a> had a love-child, it most certainly would be Woodrell.<br /></blockquote><br />Head over to BillyBlog and read one of Cody's poems <a href="http://oxypoet.blogspot.com/2010/05/tattooed-poets-project-cody-todd.html">here</a>.<br /><br />Cody Todd is the author of the chapbook, <a href="http://www.proempress.com/To_Frankenstein_My_Father.htm">To Frankenstein, My Father</a> (2007, <a href="http://www.proempress.com/index.htm">Proem Press</a>). His poems have appeared in <a href="http://www.hungermtn.org/" style="font-style: italic;">Hunger Mountain</a>, <a href="http://www.salthilljournal.net/" style="font-style: italic;">Salt Hill</a> and are forthcoming in <a href="http://www.pserie.psu.edu/academic/hss/lakeeffect/index.html" style="font-style: italic;">Lake Effect</a>, <a href="http://www.thepinchjournal.com/" style="font-style: italic;">The Pinch</a>, <a href="http://www.specsjournal.org/"><span style="font-style: italic;">Specs Journal</span></a> and <a href="http://www.denverquarterly.com/" style="font-style: italic;">Denver Quarterly</a>. He received an MFA from <a href="http://www.wmich.edu/">Western Michigan University</a> and is currently a Virginia Middleton Fellow in the PhD program in English-Literature/Creative Writing at the University of Southern California. He is the Managing Editor and co-creator of the poetry journal, <a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.theoffendingadam.com"><span style="font-style: italic;">The Offending Adam</span></a> (www.theoffendingadam.com).

The Tattooed Poets Project: Cody Todd

We are extending the Tattooed Poets Project through the weekend, giving those who have been enjoying the poetic ink, a little bit more to ti...

Read more »