who the hell gets tattooed on a sunday? (a sixer…and then some…well…sorta)

i’ll tell ya – when i started with atomic, a LOT of people…

…shit, on saturday we had time to eat breakfast before we got busy. on sundays people would, more often than not, be waiting for me to open the door. truth. but this isn’t actually about work. well, not really.

i saw an article on the best movie tattoos – some i agreed with, some i didn’t. so i took it to the people – as in the people i work with, that happen to tattoo for a living; planned to get a mixture of both newbies (i.e. people tattooing for less than five years) and “lifers” (i.e. people who have been tattooing for a decade or two) and see what we came up with as the top six movie tattoos (knowing full well most, if not all of these, were fake).

that WAS the plan – when i started this bit, two months ago. but then our busy season kicked in. that kinda killed that…never had time to sit around and talk about such things before this posted. so, i just kinda went off the article, which has more than six (fourteen actually), and this is what i came up with:

6. francis dolarhyde – red dragon – not the best back piece, but impressive in both it’s design, meaning, and shear magnitude.

5. fox – wanted – first off, let me get this out there – angelina jolie has shit ink. pure shit. not “lil’ wayne” kinda shitty, but close. and most of my ink loving friends have always said a hot girl becomes UN-hot to the point of un-do-able if the ink sucks…but this IS angelina jolie. she’s in the count for the where the ink ain’t, not where it is. sometimes a meal is all about the presentation, ya know?

4. stu price – the hangover 2 – i like this ’cause it was supposed to be mike tyson’s face tattoo (which made the list i based this off, but stu didn’t) but the guy who did mike’s ink claims to have copyright privileges on the design and, as a result, made them change it. like little junior high girls, tattoo artists can be – and i say this working with thirty of them!

3. seth gecko – from dusk till dawn – this inspired the whole tribal thing, and in truth i should have put danny trejo in ALL things rodriguez as his are at least real…but clooney’s were sadly more epic, all be them purely cosmetic. the few chats i had with artists this one came up the most, believe it or not.

2. connor and murphy mcmanus – boondock saints – again, for all the people they inspired with their celtic shit and hand ink. and it’s the best movie on this list…period.

1. reverend harry powell – the night of the hunter – talk about inspiration. woulda made the list just for being robert fucking mitchum, but check out the finger ink:

“love” and “hate” on the fingers? finger tattoos aren’t THAT common even today (side note: flea from the red hot chili peppers once said i wasn’t cool ’cause i didn’t have my fingers tattooed, until gibby haynes from the butthole surfers defended me by pointing out i had my fingers tattooed on my arms (as i have a cartoon of myself d.j.’ing on there) and so i was admitted to the “cool club” in flea’s eyes after that) but this was filmed in 1955 – fifty-seven fucking years ago! talk about an ink pioneer, real or not!

(stuff that made the list that didn’t make mine – mike tyson in “tyson” (never saw it, and didn’t wanna give him THAT much credit), danny parker in “salton sea” (never saw it), max cady in “cape fear” (deniro good, ink bad), leonard shelby in “memento”, (again, didn’t see it), snake plissken in “escape from new york” (not worthy in my opinion, either for inspiration or quality – not that it’s not a good movie, you understand), hando in “romper stomper” (a chance to diss russell crowe AND skinhead bullshit in one throw by not including it? how could i pass it up?), denton van zan “reign of fire” (never saw it, don’t plan to), nikolai luhzin – “Eastern Promises” (see “reign…” comment), and of course the girl with the dragon tattoo, which inspired their whole fucking article – but i don’t see myself watching that one either)