Selfmutilation

Yes, I am all for it - when it comes to tattoos. People that are
                               autoenucleating their eyes
need to start saying no to drugs, and start checking their head. 
That stuff makes me gag. I've got my upper right arm tattoed by 
the mexican artist Gabriel Govea, aka "Gabo".



People are pretty much like sheep, and consequently I get 
asked the same three questions about my tattoo just about
every time somebody sees it for the first time:

What does it stand for, and what does it mean to you?

Don't try to psychoanalyze me, bitch. People seldom take
tattoos anylonger because of some soulkindred type of
connection to what they choose to imprint on their body.
It's mostly about preferences in art. And if it happens to lie 
something deeper behind their choice of tattoo they'll probably
not want to share it with you the first time they meet you.

The tattoo above is an interpretation of Coatlique from
aztec mythology.

Did it hurt?

I had about 14 needles simultaneously shredding layers of my
skin for about four hours straight two times in four days -
what do you think? Getting tattoos hurt, but how much 
depends on a lot of things; outline vs filling, the sensibility of 
the skin in the area, the length of the sittings, and how long
you let the skin recover between sittings. What's a bit
interesting about the pain is that it's such a different kind of
pain than what you're used to, and considering that the pain
is an unnecessary caution signal from the brain that something
might be dangerous, one is usually able to ignore the pain for
larger periods.

Aren't you afraid of what you're going to think about it
when you grow old?

Hey, mr.corporate, stop worrying and trying to fit in.
Life is too short to blend in, anyways. Besides that,
I firmly believe that tattoos will be looked at in a
completely different manner by our generation than the
previous generations. This simply because there are so
many people, in diverse groups of the society, that are
all getting tattoos. I think whereas the older generations
are judged on whether or not they have a tattoo, our
generation will be judged on what kind of tattoos one have.

Here is a tattoo by Troy Denning which is very much in
the kind of style I would like my next tattoo to be...