286: Be a man

Homemade tattoos; DIY tattoos; prison tattoos: image searches for these terms reveal some disgusting and depressing sights, including a shark mouth tattooed onto an arm stump, a lad whose friends tattooed i suck big dick onto his forehead, an eyeball tattoo (actually on an eyeball), and a man removing tats from his fingers using a belt sander.  Then of course a search for fail tattoos reveals the disastrous pictures of facial tats, spelling mistakes, and hideous portraits of loved ones.  It’s amazingly addictive, scrolling gormlessly through this archive of unbelievable stupidity.

As I got on the bus this morning an elderly gentleman was stepping off.  Not sure exactly how old, but he was getting on; perhaps about 65 seems like an accurate guess.  He was wearing short sleeves and clearly had a range of homemade tattoos on his arms and neck.  There was a man with a lot of time on his hands, and an unbearable urge to fashion rudimentary tattooing equipment out of a guitar string and a biro.  I wouldn’t be surprised if he had at some point made a shank out of a toothbrush.  Unfortunately I wasn’t granted time to study his primitive body art, or to figure out if the stuff on his left arm was better quality than the stuff on his right (or vice versa).

I was lucky enough to catch his masterpiece.  In bold blotchy, blurred, bleeding (I mean the colour was bleeding; he wasn’t actually bleeding) blue, stretching almost from elbow to wrist on his right arm was the word man, followed by a crude stick man, then the words dad and sex.  As you can see I have faithfully and accurate rendered this in stylish bitmap via the medium of MS Paint.

Curiosity is consuming me.  What does he himself think about this fantastic mess?  Is he proud of it; does he think it fetching?  He obviously felt no need to cover it up, and was not shy about displaying it.  Does it represent his sexual preferences; I am tempted to google image search the phrase man dad sex and see what hellishly disturbing scenes are thrown forth, to burn my retinas.  It’s purely for research purposes.  Also if I ever see this guy again I could tell him he should google it.  Ok, time to bite the bullet, forgive me lord for what I am about to do.  Oh god.  I initially planned to put an active link to that search, but forget it.  If I ever see him again, I’ll tell him not to google it.  Either that or I just won’t mention it at all.

Or it could be that the phrase man dad sex is a kind of micro-essay; a biography; a summation of what he considers valuable.  The title of the essay is simply man – this is what he deems the most important thing; being seen as a real man man.  Lorry drivers ask for his help reversing, everyone knows not to fuck with him in his local, his shit stinks, he talks football and tits with the working classes, beats his wife, and never sees his kids.  Then a diagram of what a man should be shows us the shaved head and the simple, non-poofy clothes.  The body and conclusion of the essay are condensed into the two words dad and sex.  Through being a dad and having sex one achieves manhood.

The final stage in being a man man, is making sure everyone knows you are a proper man man.  One way to do this is to talk too loudly; indeed to shout at people even when they are standing right next to you.  There are other obvious signifiers such as farting, belching, spitting in public, drinking more than ten pints on a regular basis, occasionally punching someone.  You can have a bit of fun with it; pick and choose your own combinations, or you can even come up with ideas for yourself.  If you want to really show everyone how manly you are perhaps you too are ready for the homemade man dad sex tattoo.  Just remember, be original, have fun with it, and above all, be a man.