Friday, July 30, 2010

marks

This is the story of how I agreed to get a tattoo of Hall and Oates fighting a Balrog. It is the kind of story that should not really happen to someone once they've passed the age of twenty three, but here I am at thirty nine making rash promises on social networks. I will never do that again, until the next time I do it.

It started when I wrote this:
Which prompted this:
Having no good answer at hand, I closed my eyes and wrote down the first thing that appeared in my mind:
Then the irrational entered. When I have pressing tasks at hand (I had a restaurant review to write, but since I'd only eaten two dishes there, and on both occasions I had to physically walk up to a server with my menu in hand and order food by basically getting in their faces until they agreed to bring me my bebimbap, I didn't want to write it, because it was making me angry and depressed about the state of restaurant service in this town), I turn to Twitter and I start making up sentences that could not practically exist anywhere else, just to stir up some attention:
And then:
And then:
Because I thought it would be one of those ludicrous pop culture mashups that could never have existed before they invented irony. But irony is like a Penrose staircase that keeps plodding upward, riser by riser. Even when you think you've reached the summit, another section unfolds itself:

I was all full of brio:
Anyway, an actual artist read the exchange:
And like a fool with a deadline I said to the actual artist:
And the upshot is this:

This will be my first tattoo.

14 comments:

Whit said...

Somebody is going to be a real man-eater.

But in a good way.

DOT said...

When your corpse is discovered by alien archiologists two millenia hence, it will help them understand why humanity had to self-implode at this point in their history.

kilowatthour said...

i can go for that.

kate said...

i was a waitress and once spilled a drink on hall. he shot me the evil eye, but oates whispered not to worry about it. when you get that tatoo, and if fate brings us to meet one another at some blogging conference somewhere, i'll be really excited about the oates part of the tatoo, but not so much for the hall part. i wanted to give you a heads up in advance . . .

DOT said...

Shit! I can't spell archaeologist - and my brother is one. *head hangs in shame*

palinode said...

You commenters are all my children. Which means that DOT is actually twins.

heidi daisybones said...

Please tell the ink artist I HATE the wings- what happened was I got REALLY excited about over-the-shoulder-balrog and forgot he had wings. So yeah.

sweetsalty kate said...

The way I feel about your brain is the opposite of terror. Your brain makes me wish your brain had a door and I had a snorkel.

savia said...

That tattoo is your blog in graphic form. I love it. Can't wait to see it in the flesh!

Jo said...

I'm sorry that I'm here because of BHJ's hypothetical gay post (it seems a cheap'n'tarty way to get traffic, really)

Jo said...

Oops, I posted prematurely.

As a mother, I'm going to risk the artists feelings by saying, just give that one a second shot before you ink it!

Aside from that, beautiful concept :)

Unknown said...

Oh-oh-OH come now... please say you will consider other renderings! If so, I will produce one. Tell me I'm not out touch/out of time...

Sarah, Goon Squad Sarah said...

Good God, don't ever break the law. You know what happens to guys in prison with Hall and Oates tattoos, right?

I can't find my blog said...

Wow. That is cool. In a Hall and Oates kinda way.