the big idea

all of this may make you wonder, where is this going? on my back. exactly.

after doing some research and finding the best and most interesting in the tattoo game, i will be getting an outline of the united states (including an inset with hawaii and alaska), as well as the dividing lines, tattooed on my back. the next step will be to fill in each individual state. this is where the major adventure begins. my plan is to travel around the country hitting each state and spending time in shops, with artists, getting to know the country under the skin. in every state i will find an artist who wants to be part of the adventure and allow him or her to fill in their state as they see fit. i realize that rhode island will not get quite the canvas that wyoming will, but i'm sure every artist will be able to figure out a way to contribute something beautiful. so, this is also a call to arms: if you, or anyone you know, wants to help with the cause, email me at inkedacrossamerica@gmail.com and let me know. this could be anything from an artist willing to tattoo me, or someone with friends who work in a shop willing to introduce me and put me up for a weekend. maybe you want to send a few dollars for gas, i don't know. best yet, perhaps you work in the publishing field and want to give me a book deal so i can do this legitimately. my ultimate goal is to spend as much time in each state as possible in order to make the most friends and meet the most people related to the art as possible. if i could sit in a shop for a week, talking to people, getting to know the local people, drinking the local brew, eating the local food, well, i'd think that'd be an adventure worth having and possibly worth reading.

so, in a way, that is the new end, until we make another one. so, i suppose it's only fair i recall the beginning. finally. i sure am long winded, aren't i?

october 9, 1999.
this is the day i turned 18. now, just so you're aware, i did not always love tattoos. as a matter of fact, i kind of thought they were stupid for a while. the thing is, growing up in a fairly white-collar, jewish town, i didn't see a whole lot of tattoos first hand. i do remember going to a race track when i was about 10 and seeing lots of sleeves with skulls and graveyards and being both scared and fascinated. but, after my brief encounter with these intense beasts of men, there were few shining examples of the beauty of the tattoo. i'll run through a few of the more impressionable ones. not all impressions are positive.

01. having been into the ubiquitous "alt rock" of the 90s, i was known to enjoy a festival or two in my day. when you go to a festival you see many of the folk that you don't run into on a daily basis. one of my least favorites, therefore favorites, was the shirtless redneck guy with lots of bad tattoos. you know this guy well, as he resides in many places other than festivals, most importantly, carnivals and theme parks. perhaps it's six flags, maybe kiwanis. it doesn't matter. he's everywhere. often he has long hair, perhaps it's a mullet. there are two subcategories as well, you're fat version and rail thin. both are equally obtrusive. so, this guy always had a skeleton riding a motorcycle, or a naked lady fighting a snake, or an eagle carrying a flag. now, don't get me wrong, i've seen versions of all of these that are bad ass; however, those are most definitely the anomaly, and not the paradigm. furthermore, these tattoos are almost always that gross faded green. poorly put under the skin, these pigments fall apart and are never given a chance in hell because they're never properly taken care of. oh well, another shitty tattoo on another shitty dude.

02. my dad's rose tattoo. my father got this tattoo when he turned 18 for the same reason most people do: because he could and because it was cool. the problem was that it was put in decently at best and again, not well taken care of. so, what my father has on the top of his wrist is the vague recollection of a rose with barely any red left in it, and almost no green in the leaves. we've spoken about him getting it touched up or covered, but for the most part, he doesn't care, and i don't really blame him. regardless, it didn't exactly sell me on the awesomeness of tattoos.

03. my brother's sun. chris got his right shoulder tattooed the day he turned 18 as well, and again for all the same reasons. the experience was a positive one. chris walked in, chose a design that interested him, and then the artist verbally walked chris through the procedure, had him pick out a CD of his choice and set to work in the hospital-like room. the end result was a fairly well put in sun made of a center swirl and four curvy rays. not bad. to be honest, as a first tattoo, i've seen much worse. the thing is, it wasn't for me. chris and i still get in joking arguments over my referring to it as his "weight lifter guy tattoo," as its placement and slightly faded color give it that same feeling of the tribal work most gym guys have.

04. pete's leprechaun. i was on the swim team during my earlier years in high school and there was this hunkering mechanic-like kid who swam as well. weird, i know. he was "tough," and not the brightest, but a good kid with a good heat, and he was fun to be around. on an unrelated note, he lent my brother a dead kennedys tape when we were younger and i'm still kicking myself for not getting into it at the time. oh well, the youth is wasted on the...well, you know. so, pete was obviously so incredibly proud of his irish background that he felt the burning need to get the notre dame mascot on his back. it was at biggest, two inches by two inches, but let me tell you, in our high school that was quite a bold deed. so, again, i was impressed by the lack of thought or connection to the piece, and its relatively lackluster existence.

so, these were probably my first real introductions to tattoos, besides whichever ones you see when you're out and about. i think my cousin got a butterfly on her shoulder, and i knew about some other random ones, but for the most part, these four are tattoos and experiences that really stick out in my head.

i'm not exactly sure when i started to change my mind about tattoos, but i'd assume it was somewhere around the age of 16. by this time i was borderline obsessed with music and i read just about every major music publication there was. i think for a period of time i had a subscription to multiple guitar magazines, rolling stone and spin, so i was constantly soaking up information about music and those who made it. notice i was fairly oblivious of the underground at this point, which contributes to a semi-belated entrance into ink. so, i began to notice things like tim bob's (from rage against the machine) half sleeves with negatives, brandon boyd's (from incubus) red forearms and various other musicians who had interesting work that was not biker or tribal related. i've since grown to appreciate just about all forms of tattoo, but at the time was turned off by seemingly less artistic work. around this time, my buddy began drawing “tattoos” on himself and others, usually in the form of tribal like work, though much less angular. the fluid motion of his designs resembled smoke more than spears. i have been tempted on more than one occasion to get one of his pieces inked on myself, regardless of the fact that he and i are no longer good friends. little by little i began thinking more about tattoos, noticing them more, leafing through tattoo magazines in the bookstores and generally wanting one. perhaps all of that ink did actually sink into my skin and cause problems like my mom was afraid. wow, that would be poetic justice. anyway, the tide had begun to change. by the time i was in college i was interested. i was dating a girl with a bright, beautiful lotus flower on her back. my buddy had a tribal piece on his back, and my next door neighbor had a huge back piece from a sublime record. all in all, i was beginning to like this group of bandits i had started running with. rebels without a cause, or at least without much to complain about. needless to say, as my 18th birthday approached, i planned various pieces to stick under my skin for life. my first serious consideration was a big shoulder piece, almost quarter sleeve, that would bring together an intense wave with a beautiful sun. as most kids think, i was convinced that my idea ruled, would be awesome (and cheap!) and would somehow be incredibly profound. when questioned by my brother, i explained that i had a love for surfing, the freedom it allowed and the beautiful disconnect from the land, while getting one step closer to the gods of life. in a way, i still believe that, but it was a load of bullshit. i had been surfing at most twice, and to be honest, i'm not huge fan of the ocean. i do think it's amazingly beautiful, and i do greatly envy surfers and their ability to disconnect, as well as hope that some day i can join them; however, to pretend for a second that i am in any way associated with them now, or was when i was 18 would be a complete load of crap. suffice it to say, i'm happy i never got it.

and now, for another tangent.

during many of my marathon music reading sessions i'd come across musicians who would speak of the natural high that they got from music, and how it was better than any drug. what is most interesting to me is that the majority of this natural high's greatest professors were deeply addled by drug abuse. i'm not sure what the connection is, i just find it interesting. anyway, i often felt jealous that i could not attain this otherworldly feeling they seemed to describe, even as much as music meant to me. perhaps it was that i never played in front of thousands of people, but i began to wonder if maybe i was just not one of those kinds of people. then one day i was studying for a history exam and sitting on the edge of my bed. I was listening to the spin doctors (and i remember this so vividly, because they were by no means one of my favorites), and i felt a disconnect. call it what you'd like, and perhaps i was overtired from studying or had drank too much caffeine or whatever, but i felt lighter, and freer than my body could contain, and almost felt as if i began to leave. this was not some sort of out of body experience kind of thing, more so just a release of sorts. i'm not quite sure what it meant or what it was, and i'm not sure if i ever will. i did know though, that it was important, and was something that i will never forget. this release, this freedom became ever exciting and ever elusive to me. then one day i went into a tattoo parlor and was flipping through flash, for i fear at the time i was not remotely as anti it as i am now. anyway, i saw a sign on the wall with various things written in arabic, and i thought they were written so beautifully. when i went home i did some research and saw that the arabic could be written almost like calligraphy, and seemingly decided that i wanted an arabic tattoo.

one day, in a seeming stroke of not quite genius, i thought of the phrase, “quest for freedom of the soul.” i had been thinking a great deal about my spin doctors experience, and about how perhaps this was some sort of religious awaking or soul expression, regardless of my disdain for organized religion. the fact that i had begun to think a bit more about the eastern beliefs of my friend (the indian drummer in my band) and the music of ravi shankar, had helped fuel these thoughts, i'm sure. so, in some roundabout way, i decided that i would get the above mentioned phrase tattooed across my lower back. i assure that at the time there were way less young women with similar placement, and i was completely ignorant of the far regardless. it could be way worse, as it looks nothing like a “tramp stamp,” but i still cringe a bit when i have to explain it to some folks.

i regret to say that i put way less preparation and thought into this tattoo than i should have. a few days before my birthday i went to the library and attempted to translate this exact phrase, word for word, into arabic. now, i'm assuming most of you are way less stupid than i am and know that this is a horrible idea, but i didn't. so, i did my best, and man, it would have been a huge tattoo. luckily on my way to the tattoo parlor, someone i was with suggested that perhaps i should have someone look at my ideas, and that there were multiple middle eastern restaurants on the same block as the parlor. so, in a slightly less stupid move, i went to a few of said restaurants. the first one had no clue what i was asking and told me they couldn't help. the man at the second seemed confused, but then had an idea. he took my piece of paper with my phrase over to an old arabic man drinking a coffee that was way too small for his stature and asked for his help. the old man coughed up something awful and set to work. in a few moments my young helper returned and spoke what was written to me in scrawled ball-point pen. it seemed to make sense, though to be honest, i was a bit scared when he originally asked me to explain what each word meant. quest seemed to throw him the most. i hoped at the time, and to a certain extent still do, that he just really appreciated the seriousness involved and wanted to make sure he could capture and explain the idea completely. i thanked the two gentlemen and returned to the tattoo parlor down the street. fun city tattoos on macdoogle street in new york city. i'm not even 100% sure that tattooing was even legal then, though i'm fairly certain it was. anyway, i showed the scrawlings to the artist (i believe his name was tom, but i honestly can't remember. i do remember the piercer/desk guy a bit more, but not his name. on another, interesting note, i remember thinking it was weird that “tom” was not heavily tattooed. shouldn't an artist have ink? of course it's possible that most of it's covered if they have pants and t-shirt on, but i think “tom” had on shorts. i remember feeling a little weird about it and commenting in a way that i don't think was taken as offensive. his response was something of, “i have some work.” not very conclusive, and i suppose that's all he wanted or felt he needed at the current moment. i heard stories of other artists, some world renowned, with little or no work and how for some it was a bit unnerving. i don't need to see face or hand tats, but suffice it to say, i like my artists with some ink under their skin.) anyway, “tom,” who by the way was incredibly kind and patient with this first timer, took the paper and told me to come back in an hour or so. by then he'd have everything set up and a fresh drawing for me to look at. obviously i was nervous, but thanked him and was on my way. i probably went and got falafel or something. i bet it was good. come on, this was six years ago, cut me some slack. when i returned “tom” showed me the piece he had drawn, and honestly, it was quite nice. Seeing as i didn't read arabic i had to do my best, but it seemed to look the same or similar to me, and since i was (and sometimes still am) a little intimidated, i gave my ok. we went into the back, which was not nearly as tidy as had imagined after hearing my brothers story, but rather more like a teenagers room with it's posters and many, many action figures along the ceiling shelf, and much to my dismay, was not asked which music i would like to hear. since then my mindset has changed. while i would like to hear music i enjoy, or preferably don't hate, i'd most like for the artist to be happy and comfortable and in a setting where they will do their best work and interact with me happily and positively. at the time, however, i was more concerned with my comfort. furthermore, i had heard the pleasant story of my now ex-girlfriend and how she was able to watch our favorite stoner movie, “dazed and confused” while getting her work done. i did not have that pleasure, and sat for the next hour and a half listening to music that barely remember except that i know that i did not really enjoy it. “tom” set the stencil, we agreed when it looked right and i was plopped backwards in a chair. “tom” asked me to lean forward, sprayed me with green soap (man, i love the way green soap smells!) and stretched my skin and i heard the buzz. i think without hearing the buzz of a tattoo machine first hand it near impossible to explain, but i'd say it is somewhere between the vibrating of a cell phone on a table and a dentist's drill. i have come to love this sound and think fondly when i hear it, but the first time that buzz made it's way into my ears and was connected with the feeling on my back, i was by no means a fan. i remember feeling so nervous that the spray of the soap or when “tom” touched my back would make me jump. it was as if the anticipation was worse than the pain. i also remember absolutely hating having the needle dragged across the skin on my love handles so much that i actually welcomed it as it neared my spine, the area i feared the most in the beginning. after fighting through the other side of my back, the outline was done. a half an hour or so of staring at various figurines from horror movies and cartoons from the 80s and the outline was done. i went out to show my friends, half out of excitement, and half out of fear of sitting back in the chair. I even contemplated leaving it as just an outline, but everyone agreed it must be filled in. i considered other colors, again, half out of interest, half out of fear. all black, we decided. i returned, and found out the beautiful horror that for me, shading is worse than outlining. but, at least i knew what to expect the second time, and so the nervous fear didn't rain down on me as well. it sucked, but i sat through it, and when i was done, i felt worn out and happy. the pain was done, and i had a fairly large first piece running the entire length of my lower back. my parents were not going to be happy, and i didn't really care.

my folks came to pick me up from the train, and i assume took me out to dinner or back to school. i don't really remember, and to be honest, i don't think it much matters. i felt proud of myself and tired. when i got back to school at ate dinner at the dining hall with the back of my shirt rolled up, because i didn't want to get ointment on my shirt, because it hurt, and because i wanted to show it off. you can love having just gotten ink, can't you? at least your first time? i think so. that night my roommate jay and all his thug friends were hanging out in our room. one of them, eric, was sitting on my bed and he asked me if i wanted some of his 40 of steel. i told him i had never had a 40 (remember, white jewish home town?) and everyone's minds were blown.

“man, you never had a 40, and it's your birthday? well, then that one's yours, and we're taking you out tonight.” since most of my close friends stayed in the city after coming with me to get the tattoo, and i had still yet to make a ton of friends at school (we were about a month in) i jumped at the chance to hang out with these guys and do something different. that night i got drunk, enjoyed my first 40 and showed off my tattoo. i still recall that night and smile. around 1 am we stopped by rutgers university's infamous “grease trucks.” if you've never heard of these, i'll give you a quick run-down. five or so trucks sit in a parking lot, and for $4 you get a cheese steak with chicken fingers, french fries, lettuce, tomato and onions. maybe you'd prefer cheeseburgers instead. or you could add bacon and eggs. or maybe mozzarella sticks. grease trucks. you get the idea. anyway, they're all run by arabic dudes, so i showed the guy that i normally went to and he freaked out. he read it to me, called his friends over and gave me a high five. i asked him to translate it, and though he had to think for a minute, he came back with this: search for the soul of freedom. i told him what i had wanted to say, and he seemed to think they were close or the same. the thing is, i don't really care. i know what it mean to me, and they are quite close. I was just glad it didn't say what i tell people when i'm joking: enter below.