There's been people who have asked me, 'Why don't you have a
tattoo, Chris?' My stock response is. 'I got enough scars on my soul.' But
in all honesty, I don't have tattoos for the simple reason that there are too
many jackasses out there with bad ones. I mean BAD ones.
You've seen them before. People who tried to shortchange their tattoo
artist and wound up with an image of a tiger that looks like a bloated
cat you'd find on the Bowery. Or people who have a grouping of tattoos
that obviously made no damn sense at all outside of those Russian mob
symbols. I've borne witness to some epic fails as far as tattoos go. One
example was in a strip club. Normally, a tattoo on a stripper wouldn't
make me cringe. It goes with the territory, like bulletproof glass in a
liquor store in the 'hood. But Tanqueray*was different. She was friendly,
and we had a nice chat. What threw me off was these two sets of
hand prints on her ribcage. 'Um, what's the meaning behind that?' I
asked. 'Oh, those are the hand prints of my two sons!!' she replied in
glee. Now, far be it from me to knock someone wanting to remember
their children in a lasting way, but the way those tats looked, it was
as if those were the remnants of some chest-bursting demon spawn
you'd see on a B-grade horror flick.
Another tattoo that makes me shake my head is the newest one from
DeShawn Stevenson of the Washington Wizards. This cat has a five
dollar bill scrawled all over his neck. Listen. Stevenson seems to be
one of those dudes that talks sideways out of his mouth; when you
have Jay-Z come in and burn you for a whole track after you talk
trash about LeBron James, you fit the description man. But having
a tattoo of Abraham Lincoln on the five dollar bill on your neck is a
waste of damn money and it makes me wonder about the grade of
cannabis you may have ingested prior to getting this bad ink. For one,
I know that hurt like hell. Two, you're an NBA player. Couldn't you have
gotten an artist who could've actually PUT the bill on your neck
instead of a bootleg version? And why Abe Lincoln? I know you share
the same beard, but damn man. You've officially joined the 'Smart
Dumb Negroes' club with this one.
So, yeah, a tattoo is DEFINITELY not in my plans. With these examples,
can you blame me?