campfire anthems____________________________burning away

“tattoos, bears, beets, battlestar galactica, and celestial navigation”

great topics travis. i’m not just saying that. let’s quit putting this off and just go ahead with this.

tattoos - i know that a lot of different opinions revolve around the idea of marking up your body with a permanent thing. i’ve heard everything from “its going to be wrinkled and saggy when you are older” to “real christians wouldn’t get tattoos because the bible says you shouldn’t.” if you know me at all, you know that i have no problem with a little bit of ink getting permanently embedded under someones first several layers of epidermis. in fact, why don’t you just take a look at the one i’ve been working on for about a year now.

i think, from a christian standpoint, that god looks down and sees that stained glass window on my are and smiles. i know that for me it is a great reminder of the direction i want to travel in life. it almost acts as a guidepost for me to look at and remember where i’ve been and where i want to go.

so maybe i’m wrong. maybe on the day i’m standing in front of god being held accountable for my action while on earth, the whole tattoo thing might come up. but i doubt it. i will say this - if you are considering getting a tattoo, think hard about it. don’t just get something just to get it. don’t get drunk with your friends and go get tattoos. i promise you they will alter your life.

to wrap up the section about tattoos i will leave you with one nugget of information. there isn’t a day that goes by that i’m not judged for having tattoos. i see it in people’s eyes when they notice it peeking under my sleeve. judging me. thinking i’m a hoodlum. holding their children a little closer offering up a fake smile to make me think its ok. as for me, i wouldn’t change any of the colors on my body. they are a part of me.

bears, beets, battlestar galactica - this comes from a great scene from an episode of the office in which jim dresses up and acts like dwight. its a comical masterpiece. in response to this inquiry i have found a video that i believe sums it all up.

celestial navigation - i believe that celestial navigation is a key factor in today’s current maps and gps systems. celestial navigation is the art of using the sun, stars, moons, and planets to guide yourself to a select destination. without ancient travelers like the vikings, egyptians, and even the american indians i wonder if we would have ever found our destination. kudos star gazers. kudos.

i think that it is important for everyone to study and become masters of celestial navigation for one reason. survival. what happens when robots take over the world and block all electronic frequencies? i’ll tell you one thing - that precious little garmin of yours won’t be working anymore. so how are you going to find the rebel militia in the caves along the hillside in order to fight in their regime against the evil killer robots? i’ll tell you how. you follow the stars north, take a left at the big dipper, pull off orion’s belt (your pants are falling down, he’ll understand) and coast along until you can see venus. before you know it you are at the caves plotting to regain control of the world.

you see? celestial navigation just helped you save human kind. what a hero you are.

last week i entered my st. michael stained glass window tattoo in a “jesus tattoo” contest that stuff christians like was putting on. out of all the entries, my tattoo made the top 13. the top 13 was determined by a group of special celebrity judges, but its now up to the readers to pick their favorite. if you like my tattoo you should follow the link and support me with a vote in the comments section.

vote here

tonight should be the last sitting it takes to finish my st. michael stained glass window tattoo.  there is a funny little story about this, but i’ll get to that in just a minute.  i’m really looking forward to getting this piece accomplished - its been an on going thing since september of last year.  i can’t wait to see what it looks like as a whole tonight when i leave the tattoo shop.

yesterday, i twittered that i was getting it finished.  i actually thought that i was.  tuesday at 6pm i told myself.  that’s the way its been since i started.  i always went in for sessions on tuesdays, at roughly 6pm.  for months that has been habit to me.  i showed up at the shop yesterday and trevor, the artist responsible for the brilliant artwork on my left arm, looks at me like “what are you doing here?”  at this point i’m wondering why he is looking at me that way and why he is talking to another client about getting ready to start.  come to find out (i actually remember this in retrospect) my appointment was for today at 6pm.  i think this was a good thing though.  i was so physically and mentally drained that i don’t know if i would have actually been able to endure it last night.

so tonight it is.  i will try to post pictures within the next couple of days so that you guys can have a look.

any guitarist knows that esp/ltd makes some pretty killer guitars.  with endorsements from such names as george lynch, kirk hammet, richie sambora, and stephen carpenter, esp has produced signature instruments for signature players.  the photo above is from their new line of guitars.  i’ll save you the boring details (even though they aren’t boring to me), and get right down to the art work.  this guitar features a custom paint job representing “old school” tattoo art.  i think this thing is pretty sick, seeing as how i love tattoos.  as cool as this thing is, however, i won’t be adding it to my arsenal any time soon, due to the hefty price tag.

hey guys, follow this link to rate my tattoo and let me know what you think. i’m curious to see what everyone has to say.   if it makes you create an account just suck it up and do it.

carlos finally posted the pictures of the tattoos on his site. he has requested that everyone would write a post telling the story behind their tattoo, so here is mine. when i was a freshman at florida southern college i got a tattoo of a phoenix on my left arm. the next day i hated it. i spent years trying to figure out what, if anything, i could do to it to make it better. in the fall of 2007 stumbled across a picture of saint michael that i fell in love with. i grew up catholic, and already had a thing for stained glass windows, so i went to go see trevor marx (the best tattoo artist around these parts) to discuss what we could do. once we decided that we would just go over the old one we talked about styles and colors and such. i gave him different elements from various stained glass windows that i found pleasing and the rest is history. i can’t wait to get it finished.

i guess for me the tattoo is just a good reminder of where i’ve been and where i want to end up. it also reminds me that there is always a spiritual battle going on, and that i need to be carefull so that i’m on the winning side. i don’t like to lose anyways.

rather than posting the picture again, since i did yesterday, just scroll down a couple of posts and you can see what it looks like again. i hope you were looking for a really amazing story about my ink, because there just isn’t one. if you want to see my others tattoos let me know and i’ll try to post them soon.

my lovely wife follows carlos whittaker’s blog. yesterday, he had a post about tattoos and that he wanted people to send him pictures of their tats and he would post them on his site. so of course, i had to jump on the bandwagon and send one over of the st. michael half sleeve tattoo i have been working on since september. maybe i’ll get some good feedback.

Attention. This just in. I had to take a 15 minute pause from writing this post in order to do a break out session with my realtor who just showed up at my office. apparently an offer we made on a house about 3 weeks ago is looking pretty good. the listing agent is taking 4 or 5 offers to the lender/seller to research credentials and see who they are going to sell the property to. pretty exciting stuff. pretty scary stuff. if we end up moving in, i’ll be calling you to help with landscaping. its a little rough right now. hopefully we can walk through it again soon so i can get some pictures to post.

My arm is swollen. Swollen to the point that I can’t naturally let it hang by my side. I spent 6 hours last night trying to finish St. Michael, and actually came very close. I can honestly say that tattooing the flabby underside of the arm (almost into the armpit) is the most incredible pain I have ever experienced. It took about 2 hours to do all the shading and the coloring under there, leaving my skin in a pretty vulnerable state.

It really does look great though. I can’t wait until the color fades down to a normal shade to match the rest of my arm. I’ll give it about 2 weeks. I was going to try to put pictures of it on here today but my arm is too jacked up, so it will have to wait. I promise it won’t be too long though.

In summary, if anyone is contemplating getting a half sleeve tattoo, especially one with considerable work done to the inside of the arm, I advise you to think hard about the decision. I have a feeling that if I had known how bad it was going to hurt I would have never started it at all.

So tomorrow is the day I have been putting off, but can no longer run from.  After work, I have an appointment to meet Trevor again for what will hopefully be my last sitting on my stained glass window tattoo.  Just about all I have left is the border of the window and the glass panel that runs on the underside of my arm.  Ouch, its tender under there, let me tell you.  When he was doing the line work I thought I was going to yack on his shoes (I didn’t).  I can only imagine what its going to be like with shading and coloring.  I will post pictures later this week.  If you want to see pictures of it so far check out my myspace.

My tattoo artist just announced that he will be moving back to Miami in 3 weeks. Looks like I have a lot of work to catch up on before then. I will be going in for a long session Tuesday night, so check back Wednesday and expect to see some new pics up here.