Two Tattoos (and a Microphone?)

So I realized I had yet to blow up the ink on el blog, and with tat No. 2 hot off the press as of Monday, I figured this would be timely. I graduated from high school in 2001, which was the year professional baseball returned to Brooklyn, albeit at the short-season Single-A level, which is four stops from the majors for New York Mets prospects. (For non-fans: They must also clear high-A, Double-A and Triple-A levels before breaking into the bigs.) The team, for which a $30 million stadium was built in Coney Island, was named after the borough's most famous attraction, the Cyclone roller coaster in the Astroland amusement park. This also conveniently served as a metaphor for the quality of play one could expect on the field.

With the team christened the "Brooklyn Cyclones," it basically mandated a cap logo involving an interlocking "B" and "C." In an homage to the borough's passion for The Boys of Summer, the designer took the white "B" of the Brooklyn Dodgers and linked a red "C" through the gaps, outlining it in light blue and setting it on a navy background. Fitted Cyclones caps soon became the hottest item in Brooklyn. Being a Met fan, Brooklynite and urban fashion plate, I bought three. Also, the logo is my initials, a subtlety even some of my best friends neglected to pick up on for weeks or months, despite seeing the logo practically daily on my head.

Having grown up in New York, I'd seen my share of ink. And in anticipation of going to college down South, I started thinking about crazy, but manageable, things I could do as a city-boy kiss off before leaving the better borough. And I considered the idea of a tattoo, but figured I'd have to come up with something that had at least three meanings for me to be cool with it permanently. And it hit me - the Cyclones' "BC" logo. I was a huge sports fan, love the Mets, love baseball, love being from Brooklyn, wish I could have been around to see the Dodgers play at Ebbets and was looking hard at sports journalism as a career AND it was my initials. The thing was a love letter to my entire life.

I began talking it up every time the subject came up, but no one called me out on not just manning the fuck up and getting it done. And since I didn't know any artists, I wasn't about to wing it on my own (I'm a calculated-risk type of badass, ha). I didn't do it right after graduation. Or freshman, sophomore, junior or senior year of college. Or that entire year-and-a-half I was in NYC after college, though I did get hooked up with a business card or two for places to check out. I'm lazy sometimes, sue me.

Then I moved up to Oneonta in May '06, and by the winter had been absorbed into the poetry scene. And spoken word, being an alternative medium, attracts the kind of cats who get tattoos. And because Oneonta's a small town, there's two places to go, and the owner of one is a douche, so all the poets had gotten theirs at The Golden Lotus, becoming friends with the owner and artists due to frequency. When the poetry dinners kicked up late in the fall, I started to befriend - and get comfortable around - some of the guys myself. So as New Year rolled around, I resolved that it was time. There was really no reason I hadn't done this already. I talked to one of the guys, we set up the appointment and bang:

The "BC" Logo

(Excuse the retracted lizard double chin -
my self-cell-photo skill has improved greatly since.)

With that impressed upon the right shoulder, it became apparent I'd need a left one for balance. (I'm big on things "looking right," and something seemed off.) I set about trying to think of new ideas, but nothing was grabbing me. The best option I came up with was a self-drawn graffiti version of my fraternity letters riding a sunburst with a big-ass Omega (our chapter) behind it. But a) the blue/black/gold would eff up the color scheme, b) the tattoo guys recommended that text always point toward the front of your body and c) it would be better suited for a shoulder blade, because though the frat experience will be something I always carry with me, it's behind me now. (Ah! He really did think this through ...)

One day, while ruminating upon potential ideas, it hit me - if I wrote something in Hebrew, it would be readable left-to-right, perfectly mirroring the "BC" logo. While I can read the language, I have only the barest of bases in understanding it, so there weren't a lot of words that were jumping to mind. One that did was chai (life). Jews toast to it - l'chaim (to life). It's numeric value is 18 - the origin of that being a traditional "lucky" amount/multiple to give a gift in. (Note to goys: Now you know why you got that $36 wedding/graduation check from your best friend's mom.) And it is tres populaire as a pendant.

Building around "life" as a base, I thought about how I could bring the "BC" logo into play symbolically. With all the aforementioned reasons for getting it, I realized that was all about remembering who I am and where I'm from. Logically, since the existing tat represented my past, it followed that the new ink should be about my future. One thing I've always admired in my dad - despite being a mediocre school student - is his constant need to be learning and taking on new challenges, like studying enough economics in one summer to teach the AP course. (Dad, being modest: You just have to learn it a day ahead of the kids. They all take it again in college.) That's something I've never wanted to stop doing - questioning life, and where I'm going in it.

Wait, what?

QUESTIONS! There's a symbol for those!

--Ding ding ding - Brooklyn, show them what you won!
--In a second, in a second!

So with a promising idea, I pondered whether I could come up with another good reason behind it. Then I remembered I was a journalist, making a career (and a pittance - wooo, name recognition!) out of asking questions. Deal sealed. Knocked around the image, but getting it wide enough to match the "BC" apparently taxed the limit of my artistic skill. After life getting in the way for most of the three weeks after I'd spoken with my artist, I scheduled up on Thursday, he reworked it, and it got done did on Monday.

And now, in its Internet debut, I present:

Question Life

Thus ends (my mother hopes to Yahweh), the tale of the two tattoos.

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