PERMANENCE by Kip Fulbeck
Originally published in Verbicide issue #25
Chronicle Books, 276 pages, paperback, $19.95
I am torn on this book and Fulbeck’s slant on tattooing. Fulbeck tries to argue — through portrait photography, hand-written mini-biographies by the tattooed people themselves, and short interviews — that tattoos still belong to the outlaw, the rocker, the biker, and the shunned. In my opinion, the only people in the book whose stories hold any relevance to this argument are the two Jewish women who still carry their prisoner tattoos from the death camps. If anyone else in the book’s story holds any water as outcasts, please step forward, because if you have complaints about how you’re ostracized for your ink, may I remind you as the other tattooed person in the room that any discrimination you may face is entirely self-induced. No one forced you to get those tattoos. With more than 40 million people in the US being tattooed, are you really expressing your individuality by getting Animal from the Muppets drumming the skins on your shoulder?
Fulbeck’s argument is that tattoos should be kept for the fringe element as an exclusive badge of earned honor and as a symbol of your mettle as a person. Where I am torn is that, in a sense, he is right; all having a tattoo means now is that you shelled out the coin to get it and showed up for the appointment. What I think is weak is when Fulbeck and Evan Seinfeld banter about being offended when people ask questions about their tattoos and how they ridicule people for it. I did, however, enjoy Seinfeld’s story of little kids touching his arms in the grocery store — that was me on a ferry in British Columbia, Canada in 1982 to a biker with full sleeves:
I’m staring at his arms, fascinated by the green and black eagles and skulls, etc. He looks over.
“My dad says you’re gonna get cancer from that!” I said, pointing. (It was the first thing I thought of.)
“That’s not true,” the guy says to me. “Where’s your dad?”
“Right over there!” I say, excited and pointing, thinking the guy is going to tell my pops to let me get a tattoo at age eight.
He fixed my pops with a hard stare. My dad looked at his book and motioned to my mom, who, in her Scottishness was quick to drag me away.
“Sorry,” she says to the guy.
Funny story…
But for them to flip into this weakness about mocking people for being inquisitive…it’s a ridiculous notion. It does get tiresome to explain — like I have to about my elbow tattoos — why, how, pain levels, etc., but at the same time, it defuses the notion that we are all sinister villains because we chose to decorate our temples. Fulbeck, if you really got your back tattooed for yourself, keep your shirt on and look at it home alone, peacock! What did you think would happen when you did that? This book really presents nothing new to the reader, tattooed or not. It’s a desperate grasp at the coattails of success of shows like “LA Ink” — in fact, inside you will find interviews with Kat Von D and Chris Garver.
A tattoo does not a rebel make. Fulbeck needs to step down off his high horse and realize that maybe he’s not unique or special for simply enduring tattoo needle pain and that deeds — not time, money, and endurance for the needle — are where character are found.
