I’m a bit of a rarity nowadays. Before you jump off the bridge with what you think I’m alluding to, I’ll save you the cold, the chill, and the embarrassment. As a 27 year old dude, I’m a blank slate. Yup, not a drop of ink on my olive skin; just a canvas unfettered with mistakes I coulda made when I was 18 and thinking that tribal tattoos and barbed wire was always gonna be the hot shit. I wake up in the mornings, shower, look in the mirror and thank God I didn’t hop in the chair and have pure shame permanently embedded in my skin.

Personally, I like ink. I think it’s dope if it has meaning and it’s a little outta the norm. But the shit I’ve seen in the past few years? Nah, I’m chillin. Remember when you saw the kids in high school with tats and said to yourself, “Wow, that looks dope. I can’t wait til I can get mine done”? Yeah, if you followed thru with that thought and got tats on your neck/knuckles/hands, there’s an excellent chance that any job interview you went on after that point had the pre-requisites of “knows how to use a grill” or “can measure and accurately cut wood”. Don’t get me wrong – it was your choice to mark yourself up and if you’re happy, I’m honestly thrilled for you. However, I know there are a ton of people out there who use additional fabrics to cover up their shameful tramp stamps, barbed wire, portraits of people that look nothing like they should, etc.

Really tho, it’s still cool to go out and get inked up. But it’s now such a trend that you can fail to look authentic and end up looking like you’re just jumping on a bandwagon. I’ve seen younger heads go from clean slate to walking billboard of fuckery and desperation in a year’s time. There’s no, I repeat NO, reason to sink hundreds if not thousands of dollars into your ink and come out looking like you just did a hard five years in Cedar Junction. Do your research – find a design, find a REPUTABLE artist and have him draw that shit up, and be 100% sure you feel comfortable wearing that ink til you stop breathing. Everyone has regrets, that’s a given. But are you really willing to be reminded of that regret every time you look in a mirror, see a picture of yourself, or have your friends/family/children ask, “What were you thinking?”

That being said – if I was gonna get tatted, I’d probably go half-sleeve or chest (Cool story, I know). I’m not one to fall into the same thing that everyone’s on right now. Ink is a versatile beast – it has the ability to distinguish you from the crowd or make you blend in with the gang of hypebeasts that followed the tattoo wave. Also – and I can’t stress this enough for the readers that may have some type of criminal record or are known to authorities – your ink will make you identifiable to police. Not to hip you to the game, but IF you’re gonna do dirt, make sure you cover your “one of a kind” ink up, lest you be thrown to the wolves in blue.

Anyways tho, that was my little tangent, but if you’re gonna get some ink soon and really wanna do some different shit – get my face tatted on you. You’ll be early morning produce fresh. Real shit.