What's that supposed to be?

So I’m walking down Burrard Street in downtown Vancouver. Although I very seldom bare my chest, I am stalking purposefully and topless, with my provocative man-boobs bouncing and winking at the passers by. I’m wearing a pair of black track pants, which neatly bisect the pale chub around my waist, creating a lovely male muffintop. In my right hand I clutch several loonies, looking for my car so as to re-fill the parking meter. My left arm is wrapped in saran wrap to contain the blood and ink. It’s sunny and surreal. I stop to notice the moment and lock it in my memory. Never, would I ever, normally do this. It’s all because, as a silly middle-aged guy, I finally decided to get my tattoo.

Not just any tattoo, mind, you. Not some coy little toe-in-the-pool tat, no siree… This was a headlong leap into the world of ink and blood. I decided to go big or go home, and with over 10 hours in the chair and my upper arm completely covered in lovely design… I’d say this qualifies.

Why did I do it? Oh, probably the same reasons most guys like me do it. I chalk a lot of it up to mid-life crisis and vanity. All the other cool Dads are doing it. Still, there must be some deeper influences at play here for me to be willing to sit still and pay lots of money to have someone jab art into my flesh with those groovy needles. I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit lately and I think I know who is to blame. It’s Ray Bradbury.

I will be the first to admit that I was an awkward teen. Middle School was not kind, and I have no intention of detailing the anguish of those pubescent years in this particular account. I will say that I found solace in books. I read science fiction and fantasy voraciously in those days. The first Bradbury book I ever saw was The Illustrated Man and it helped to send me on my journey to today very nicely. Bradbury showed us an old guy wandering around with mysterious, twitching tattoos covering his body… tattoos that came to life and told kick-ass stories. This was very attractive to me. When you are 14 and trying to figure out how you’re going to run the gauntlet of that day’s particular string of frustrations and humiliations, imagining a world of dark and fetishistic magic is alluring indeed. After Bradbury I read a bunch of other books and didn’t think much about if for a long while, but the seed had been planted.

Years later I had a roommate named Bryan. He was audacious, confident, and charismatic. Although we were about the same age, (21 and 24, I think) he seemed so much older than me. He’d fearlessly done all sorts of shit in his life that I hadn’t, including getting tattoos. He has a black panther on one arm, and a nifty dragon on the other from when he was visiting China. To my growing young mind it just seemed so cool and unthinkable, yet think I did… for over 20 years.

As time went by I became more interested in counterculture and art, freak shows and devil girls, pagan mythos and space aliens, and a whole bunch of fun and freaky stuff that coalesced. Last year I got the feeling that I better just get on with it. After all, tattoos last a lifetime and at this point I’ll only have to look at it for the remaining, final half.

I had coffee with an old pal named Rick. He’d taken the plunge and had a bunch of ink done. He was jazzed and interested in becoming a tattoo artist himself. We talked about designs and he referred me to Justina at Liquid Amber Tattoo. Even though I was sure I was going to do it, I left the business card on my desk for weeks before I made the call. When I finally did it, I knew I wanted it. I even had the design in mind.

I’ve since discovered something Rick told me to be true. He warned me that folks would ask me to explain my tattoo and that I’d probably not like it. I find “What is it?” (or worse, “What’s that supposed to be?”) very personal questions. That’s a bit ironic considering I’m wearing a colourful prompt on my arm that begs explanation. Call me self-conscious, but it’s difficult for me to talk about my design choices without feeling stupid, pretentious, and a wee bit flaky. Here’s hoping that it all comes off better in prose.

My tattoo is a large upper sleeve on my left arm. The dominant image is the Green Man, looking out from my shoulder. Below him you’ll find a Celtic rooster, with his plumage entwined in the leaves of Green Man’s beard. Curving onto my shoulder from behind Green Man there are two inquisitive crows.

The Green Man is a mish-mash of pagan Father Nature deities. He’s the Man in the Wood who makes love to the earth goddess. He impregnates her with his future self and then dies at harvest time, only to be reborn in the spring and repeat the cycle for eternity. His death/sacrifice helps to ensure the health of the following years’ crops. Green Man is alive in the trees and carries a central life force that can’t be destroyed, and is always renewed. He’s all over northern Europe in art and architecture, peering out, leafy and strange. I believe that the early Christians co-opted him and put his image up in their cathedrals to help convert the pagans of the day. Their tactic may have worked, but Green Man lives on, as is his nature.

I love the look of the guy and I relate to him. To me he’s powerful, whimsical, balanced, and potent, which are qualities I aspire to. Having experienced a near death and re-birth of sorts myself, I believe there are parallels between us. All my life I’ve gotten the sense that when you’re alone in the woods you’re not really alone. Green Man is there, and I like him. He watches, bemused, and gets on with the never-ending cycle of which he’s a part. I’m not religious, or even overly spiritual, but Green Man is my kind of god. When I did the sketches for my tattoo artist, I did my best to make him resemble me. My wife and son both picked up on it immediately.

The Celtic Rooster represents a different me. As a teen I carried the unfortunate nickname “Chickenman”. My sibs and pals, justifiably, noticed I have some passing resemblance to poultry, so I heard it a lot over the years. Not surprisingly, I was never fond of the branding. Looking back I have to admit that they were on to something. Oh well… If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. I relate to the Rooster just fine. He’s horny and flighty and bossy. He’s prone to strutting and preening. If you believe that everyone has an animal totem, mine is definitely Rusty the Rooster. I’ve reclaimed him by accepting who I am and why he is me. He’s woven into my tattoo and my life. In this Celtic depiction he is stylish and scattered, silly and sincere. He’s very at home under Green Man.

Crows are neat. I could go on about the symbolism and mythology of crows and all that, but that’s not what these are about. The two on my back live around my house and get rid of pigeons, pick at garbage, caw at dawn and generally make a nuisance of themselves. I love these guys. They are the national bird of East Vancouver and are welcome in my yard. I was looking at them this morning when I started writing this. They are the “here and now” anchor of my tattoo, contrasting the eternity of Green Man and the personal history (nay, baggage?) of the Chicken.

Yesterday, today and forever: a semi-spiritual representation of me and mine. That’s my first tattoo. The next one will be utter nonsense. I can hardly wait. Chances are I’ll be wandering through Downtown semi-clad and sporting saran wrap again someday.