Graeme

I don't know when Matt Lodder wrote that, but Margot Mifflin's Bodies of Subversion covers a lot of this very well, and there's a new edition of it coming out in the next couple of months.

I hope you find this place interesting beyond your research interests, good luck with those, and welcome.

I would be pretty bummed if tattoos didn't bother at least some people.

Thanks, I'll keep an eye open for it when I hit up the store I've seen selling it at the end of the month. Pricey, sure, but still less than a trip to Belgium. Also thanks for the tip on the St. Bernardus 12, I'll try to find a bottle of that as well.

Thanks for posting that. Also very interesting in there how he said that twenty years ago (going by the date on that article I guess that would brought the late 60s-early 70s) people were getting their hands and necks tattooed to show how into tattoos they are. Guess everything old is new again.

How is the Westvleteren? I saw some of that for sale--also saw the price tag on it--I didn't know it's availability was that limited (I knew that you used to only be able to get it from the monastery, but assumed, I guess wrongly, that it was now more widely available) but I was thinking that it might be worth the money if only because it's such a legendary beer.

This. In bold.

I don't keep up with too much hip hop so what I listen to is mostly from the 90s but some things I have liked over the years: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iepqptjVwD4 And your other standard white guy stuff like Wu-Tang and related side projects, etc.

Yeah I try to keep the area that's going to be tattooed exfoliated and that's helped a fair bit.

I love Seth, he rules so much.

I would think that Jesus' knob would be a little lower than that.

I don't think that naming names helps and I'd rather use this forum to talk about people putting on great tattoos and to try to educate people about what is a good tattoo and how to get one.

So...you gonna keep it?

More often than not seeing heavily tattooed young people bums me out because they have such bad tattoos. At the last Montreal convention there were a bunch of young guys, probably 18 or 19 with sleeves, their hands and necks done, and the tattoos they had were so bad. Like sort of traditional stuff but just done really poorly. I don't know what they paid for their tattoos but it seemed absurd to me that were covered in such shit so young when they could have instead gotten a really good piece or two from some really exceptional artists there and pieced together a really amazing sleeve over time. The folly of youth. All of this is to say that waiting and saving your money to get really good work instead of just getting covered for the sake of getting covered is the way to go.

I'm trying to learn about this stuff myself so I am the farthest thing from an expert here but I think it's really worth reading non-tattoo sources like Japanese folk tales, myths, and legends. They might not be able to give you the specific answers you're looking for here, but they will give you a lot of insights and understanding into where a lot of tattoo imagery comes from.

I guess the people running that site wouldn't dig my little Baphomet tattoo?

I'll of course stop eventually but hope that I still have plenty of tattoos to go still. For me, a big part of why I love getting tattooed, beyond the actual tattoos of course, is that I've met a lot of really amazing people through it who inspire me, who stimulate me, who push me to be a better person in a lot of ways, and I want to continue having that in my life for as long as possible.

I got into some bottles I've had around for a while last night and the real highlight was a 2011 bottle of Goose Island's Night Stalker imperial stout. I think that was the first imperial stout I've ever had that I loved, it's a beautiful beer, sDo rich and complex and really shockingly easy to drink for it's strength. I also had a bottle of Meantime's London Porter which was lovely, balanced, and had a really nice cocoa-ish flavour from the dark malts. And I also had a bottle of Unibroue's Terrible which I believe I last had Iast about a year and a half ago and was really great with notes of cherries in with the dark malts, and this time it was just okay. Don't know if it was the bottle diminishing with age or just that anything following the Goose Island stout will be overshadowed.

Have you looked at the tattoo removal section here? Some people here have gotten and are getting really incredible coverups after some laser and there's a lot of great information here about that. Don't get me wrong, reapers are cool, but there are options other than blacking in your back. Hope this board helps you out, and welcome.

Welcome to LST, do we get to see pictures of your tattoos?

Saw that machete through your neck on instagram a day or two ago, really nice one. Welcome to LST.

@slayer9019 Cool, we'll let you know. It's also the first of at least four trips to NYC we're making over the next year so if January doesn't work out maybe something else will.

We'll both be getting tattooed for most of the day on the Monday, it would be cool to meet you!

Me and @Pugilist will be in Brooklyn at the end of January. I'm not sure what our plans are yet or how long we're staying, my guess is that it will only be a short trip as we'll be down again in February, but we're possibly interested. Don't make plans around us though.

Where is he tattooing you? I have my next session with Thomas in 29 days.