Ravings From The Bog

Recently I’ve become a little absorbed in the Miami Ink tattoo show on DMX. It’s not the characters involved in the programme, I think. Not the tattooists anyway.

I have a tattoo. It’s a very small four-leaf clover on my right ankle. I’ve had it since 1998 when I visited New York for the first time.  My brother-in-law and I had harboured a desire for getting one from before we arrived in the US. It was a very hot July day and we had just come back from Atlantic City where we made a surprise visit to my brother. We had about eight hours to see and do everything in NYC before heading to JFK for the flight home. It was so hot that we just had to step into Arturo’s restaurant on West Houston and Thompson St for one of their pizzas (recommended in a guide book). While waiting for the pizza, to cool down we had a couple of Rolling Rock beers and then a few more, and then a few more. Common sense had no chance. We had an idea that there was a tattoo parlour close by, and once we wolfed down the pizza, we headed to Avenue A between 12^th and 13^th Street. I was pretty sozzled by this stage and I couldn’t decide what I wanted to get. My decision process was as follows: We’re just back from AC, burp, gambling, burp, what’s lucky? Ehhh…a four-leaf clover?!?!

That was it, and even with the beer, it was bloody sore!

Anyhoo, it may be a sign of a mid-life crisis, but I’m watching this show, I think, because I want to see a really awesome tattoo that I might like to get, and while my mid-life crisis friends are buying motorbikes, they frighten the life out of me. I’m in no way religious or particularly nationalistic, but I think I might like one of those colourful dragons wrapped around a skull or something like that. It might take me months or even years to decide what I’d go for and then I would need to look for an excellent tattooist. Might happen, who knows? I’ll stay sober for that one though!