TATOOED!

Every era has parents saying the same thing about their kids. “Where did we go wrong” is one of the most repetitive phrases in human parenting history. In prehistoric times a father that couldn’t get his son to drag a woman by the hair back to the home cavern felt he raised some sort of alien. Imagine the caveman whose son turned out to be a vegetarian and wore fig leafs to rebel. “Put on your loincloth,” the mother said but that only spurred the child to use an even smaller leaf. “What could I have done differently” the father thought to himself and then blamed the wife for allowing the boy to do whatever they wanted no matter how strange it looked. Those crazy kids!

For the last 15 years or more the post baby boomers and x-generation individuals have sought to mark themselves as completely different from those that preceded them. If you thought wearing pants below the waist low enough to qualify for the plumbers union was annoying take a good look around now! Mark themselves they have, literally! Charles Manson might have been the first to attempt carving symbols in ones own forehead. Effectively permanent Chuck but the technique needed a little bit of work. You’d have done us tax payers all a favor if you’d carved all the way through your skull with that knife.

Usually beginning in a pool of teenage angst the defiance of past generations such as the tasty and equally nutritious swallowing goldfish or growing ones hair to the ground has given way to something much heavier. An earring in a guy’s ear 30 years ago was quite a statement and was worn like a badge to communicate “I have arrived!” It was just as silly nevertheless for its time. I could never have imagined what teens do today; carrying the extra 5 pounds of jewelry on my face. These days the worry is about the extra 20 pounds carried around the waist to all of us grown ups.

The propensity to seek attention to oneself has been highlighted by tattoos, piercing, and any number of unnatural avenues to out mutilate the next guy. Today we’re at the “can you top this” place in our evolution. It is exemplified by the requirement among our youngsters to make sure their faces clink and clank when walking down the street. Carrying as much metal as possible by way of piercing is the newest attempt to shock society into noticing its youth. It’s the equivalent to that cave-teen wearing that fig leaf for the first time. It has become quite comical to the casual observer especially when you realize it’s a poison ivy leaf their wearing. If you walk by someone otherwise normal and they clatter like a muffled bell the odds are that the piercings are under their garments. Perhaps the items are being used to make sure their belly button doesn’t fall off. Could be the jewelry is being used to discourage babies from breast feeding. It might also be used in making Woodie heel or to highlight other unmentionable parts. How exciting! There are even clever names for such piercing; though I think Sir Walter Raleigh would not be amused.

Turning the human anatomy into various forms of billboards via such a route screams “look at me. Listen to what I have to say!” While their message may be worthy of listening to the method of display can be motivated by self esteem issues. The human body in its pristine birthday suit form is a masterpiece all in its own. Is there anyone worthy of improving upon such a perfect machine? There is nothing more beautiful to view than the human body especially if it’s somebody else’s other than mine. Doubt the body is beautiful in its natural state? Then how do you account for Playboy Magazine who led the “body is beautiful sexual revolution?” Today there are countless magazines proving the point that nudity is a wonderful thing. However tattoos and piercing will likely keep you out of Playboy.

Placing messages upon a masterpiece might get it noticed but cheapens and even ruins its value. It is like writing on or painting over the Mona Lisa. Whistler’s Mother might get up out of her chair, take the paint brush out of your hand and smack you! Is such behavior as clouding the existing exquisiteness something to be revered by a generation of individuals simply because they had messages worthy of being heard? The art world would think it something different.

The desire from the current generation to become sailors is remarkable. They swear like them, belch like them, act like them, and now have body art upon them for the rest of their life too. The only thing about the seafaring individual is that they will generally tell you at some point what a mistake it was to get a tattoo and how they were drunk at the time trying to drown their sorrows over some true love named Wanda. Mr. Sailor man maybe Wanda would never have left if you let her pierce your winkie! Then the tattooed spend the rest of their life with a half naked woman on their chest and try to explain it over and over to their latest wife.

What looks cool at 16 looks completely different at age 40. I still have the hole in my ear from that one earring that was daring in my day. Thank goodness it’s just the one hole. I’m afraid 25 years from now we’re going to have a generation of senators, congressman and the general population whose face and body parts looks like 10 miles of bad road. Oh where did we go wrong?

I can’t wait to see how my grandchildren defy their parents. I’m sure it will be graphic and something as yet unimagined. Maybe by then we’ll long for the days of wearing pants a foot and a half below the waist. Well that’s practically nude. What could be more beautiful than that masterpiece?

WebRing

THE UNCOORDINATED!

If you were ever the uncoordinated kid in class, or the brainaic in Harry Potter thick glasses wearing a bookworm facade then you are very familiar with being the last one picked for sports. We short folks were never worth the selection when it came to basketball and might have never been on a team had the Little Sisters of Righteousness School not inspired that everyone must play. With a kind word, a bizarre hand held clicking device, and rulers that could make your knuckles feel like they had just been hit with basketball-sized hailstones in a Midwest summer storm, the sisters enforced equality at the end of a wooden gun. Still that feeling of being left out and unwanted were stigmas after such drama played out on the court. Silently we hid the scar tissue on the inside lest we be seen as sissy mommas boys or crybaby little girls.

With the ever aging baby boom generation coming into its glory, can I tell you that all I see are signs of crisis? The adult teams are being chosen around me and now the world doesn’t have Sister Mary Guilt-A-Lot to tame it. Many are about to be stung all over again. Being one of those baby boom mentioned types looking at big numbers of candles on my birthday cake I must say that aging is nothing like I thought it would be. Who would have thought that wearing diapers, eating pureed food and crying until someone comes to hold you would carry the same weight at both ends of your life? Actually I didn’t spend enough time thinking about what it would be like at all!

As Young Turks we all think of ourselves as invincible; boys profess this outright while girls seem merely to believe it. As we grow from our indestructible teen years and early twenties into our thirties, forties, fifties and beyond it becomes apparent that there are certain things we will no longer be able to enjoy completely. For guys, long distance whizzing is out of the question, and ladies need a medical device around their neck in case they get down on the toilet and can’t get up again!

Like the prepubescent geeky years, here comes the constant reminder that we are no longer worthy. Young girls in phone calls talking about whether the cute guy is going to be at the party tonight no longer includes you as the person they might be talking about. Second glances thrown your way from a good looking member of the opposite sex is one inspiring a reaction more of horror than one of lust. No one is checking out your shape anymore unless they want a person to model their Humpty Dumpty costume for the community playhouse.

Amidst all of the missed opportunities of your life it seems like the ones you felt strongest about yet never achieved come haunting. Licking the whip cream off of the thigh high boot of a buxom blonde behind the bleachers of the soccer field is not going to include someone with as much gray hair as you. You’re more likely to be the one snapping photos of the pair under there but you’re also predictably going to be hauled off to the hoosegow to be charged with being a pervert. It’s all because no one ever warned you to live life beyond the fullest. They always told you to settle down and spend your life with that special someone. That is a great life I’ll admit it. However, when you come out on the other end of the aging tunnel you can see back to the beginning and the things that filled your loins with passion and vigor all belong to a younger generation.

There could be worse things in life than not being picked for the ball team unless it’s a toss up between you and Norvall the one armed, one eyed, paraplegic midget who talks with a lisp, and tends to drool allot. Still, as you age and the great creator in the sky starts calling the geriatric class home for his ball club, you might find that being picked last for that team is a lot like winning the lottery. You’ll get to see all of those contemporaries of yours who made your life so miserable go before you. You’ll get to witness more sunrise’s and sunsets, and who knows you might get lucky with Granny Gertrude in the old folks home that the kids put you in, if she happens to have narcolepsy and is partially blind. Perhaps she was never into sports and doesn’t mind that you pitch a baseball like a girl.

When you’re a hundred eight years old and your body acts like it at every turn creaking and offering new insights into the true meaning of the words ache and pain you might long to be chosen for that great gig in the sky. Many of us who fought for life never ending might find that being selected last still sucks as much as when you were a kid. Live large and ride a wild one as long and as often as you can before doing so causes you to bust a gut or fling your dentures across the room. You might poke someone’s eye out. Then they wouldn't want to pick you for their team!