Go BIG or Go HOME!

So my homegirl, Mari, and I went into Tattooland the other day to get some tats.  We’re not new to the experience but you definitely can’t call us ink addicts (yet). We went to Jack Rudy’s shop up in Anaheim. Jack Rudy is famous you know.  He didn’t create black-and-gray single-needle tattooing, but he unquestionably perfected it 30 years ago and he's pretty much an underground celebrity especially in the tattoo community. Black-and-gray tattooing basically means that the artist uses nothing but different shades of black ink to design a tattoo.I didn’t know much of this information myself until I started talking to the guys at the shop, Big Chuey and Antonio, who hooked Mari and me up. Ok, ok enough with the lecture I am here to talk about my tattoo which by the way took me about 2 years if not more to conceive or at least match the concepts I had in my head with an image.  I’ve always wanted an Aztec warrior to adorn some part of my upper body. A warrior with  the Aztec codices for “flor y canto” which can be loosely translated to what we know as the Fine Arts.  Mari told me that for the past five years, if not more, she’s known she wanted the 20 days from the Aztec calendar along with the two snake heads that meet face to face at the bottom to form part of  her tattoo. So with these ideas in mind we drove down to the OC to get inked. 

Boy did we get inked. We walked out of Tattooland with not jus tattoos but some awesome works in progress; huge pieces. Like my novia said after she saw the pictures I sent her, that we were all about “going big or going home!" She also said that the bois on Culver Avenue had big balls...so there.  After a painful 3 hour session of actual tattooing, the needle etching and or as Mari described, drilling ink on our skin, we still have to go back to finish them off. Why? Well first because the tattooist didn’t want to continue after working on us for more than 4 hours each- including sketching and all. I don’t care what anyone tells you, tats are PAINFUL.   After a while of just laying there and taking it I had to ask Big Chuey if we could take a break. Fuck it! I tapped out.  I was flat-lining, passing out from the pain everything felt so tender and crossing my legs the way I was doing to bare the pain wasn’t helping anymore. Drama, right!? The worst part was that Big Chuey was on a roll and didn’t feel like  taking a break.  I felt him. There are times when I'm writing and get on this groove that I don't want to stop and don't want anything to stop me. I get it, he was ridding his creative wave....BUT it hurt.  “You’re loosing me Chuey,” I almost bolted out when just in time the Big Chuey decided to stop. 

My dude Big Chuey, was good from the word go. He saw the design I brought in with me and after much oohing and ahhing, he got to drawing the design free-hand on my back.  He took advantage of every spot of brown that peeked through my tank top.  I got more and more nervous as I felt the tip of his pen and highlighter go lower down my arm or higher up my back, for a minute there I thought he was going to make me look all gangster by tattooing my neck but I couldn’t stop the guy even if it felt like he was plastering a mural on my back. Big Chuey was inspired “Nice! Sweet!  Bad Ass,” were his  words and I was anxious to see what the finished product would look like. Big Chuey hooked up my speaking/singing/yelling skull- it’s so big it truly looks like a Word Warrior with lots and lots to say as represented by the speech bands coming out of the skull’s mouth. Which is exactly what I wanted because this tattoo represents my coming into my artistic self.  It signifies how much I struggled and continue to struggle with my inner critic and the outer critics as well that I let intimidate and stifle my creative process.  Now, now I don’t want to put the blame just on others I know my path towards becoming a better writer, an accomplished writer, lies mostly on me. I have to put my best effort forward at all times, I have to makes sure I nurture my ideas, I have to make sure I sit my ass down at my desk and write. After all Warriors including Word Warriors have to be in constant battle with their adversaries, real or psychological, in my case. I have to be really ok with me.