Two Tattoos

Living in a beach culture lets one see lots of skin. Lots of people feel very comfortable wandering around topless showing off abs, tan lines, and flab and sag. Even off the beach, you will sometimes get a large beer gut standing next to you in line holding an 18-pack. Lots of times those guys at the grocery store who are shirtless most likely didn't bother putting on a shirt to cash their welfare checks at the Fast Cash either. Its sometimes fun as you will see great figures but mostly its overweight, oversunned, and over tattooed bodies, stretch marks and all.

As I wandered Waikiki this past weekend, I came across two guys with two different tattoos this past weekend. The first guy was Japanese and barely spoke a word of English. I first though he was a Japanese gangster, yakuza and feared approaching him thinking he'd slash me with a sword hidden in his bathing suit, but realized he was a bit too soft spoken and a real gangsta probably wouldn't be sitting around the beach showing off his affiliation, let alone allow a gaijin to snap his backside. The goofy confused looked he gave also said he wasn't a murder by any chance, although, I didn't check to see if he had all ten fingers.

I asked him how long it took him and he didn't understand so I told him in bad Japanese that he was very cool while pointing at his back. I though he might think I was okama, rather gay in Japanese, as he had an old bewildered look on his face but then realized that he was cool cause he had a massive tat up and down his back and on his shoulders as well. The tattoo was obviously in homage to the yakuza style with short sleeves and the likes. I don't think he was finished with the tattoo as there were patches of the image not colored and his shoulder blades were bare as well. It seemed odd but beautiful none the less. I wish I'd shot in color but it was a black and white day so there is no going back.

I then asked him how long it took to do and he didn't not understand. I then pantomimed the tattoo process while pointing to my watch. Confused, he then proceeded to tell me the time but finally after a few different tries, he said 14...days I am assuming. He smiled, nodded lots, and then bowed to me for showing him an odd sense of respect for his painful body art, perverted as it may. He did tell me itai when I asked him if it hurt, pantomiming of course. Itai means painful in Japanese. I can only imagine it was very itai to let some guy stick you with a bamboo needle for 14 hours, or was it days?

The second guy I saw a bit later at Ala Moana Beach Park. He was I think a Japanese American guy who was local, Ala Moana being a local beach, brah. He was very proud to show off his tattooed back and didn't even wince when I asked if I could snap a shot. He was a young guy in his twenties and said the design was his but lots of collaboration with the artist. His tattoo was not as colorful as you think as the buildings were gray and the globes were not as saturated as I would have thought or liked. If it had been my back, I would have used all the color in the world to make it shine but then again, I don't have the patience or tolerance to let anyone poke me incessantly for days on end, hours for that matter.

Its odd to see these two backs side by side. Two different backsides, two different tattoos, same expressive ideas. I never tattoo myself as I realized at a young age, those things don't come off, never...well there is laser tattoo removal but still...those things are permanent. I'd have a tattoo of Diana across my arm right now. Imagine that...I don't think that would flow to well with my wife. Let alone my mom who would have probably burned it off with a clothing iron one early morning while I was passed out from boozing too much during college. All I'd have now would be a faded "D" with a yellowing triangle over the now burned off "iana".

I recall seeing older men from the WWII/Korea generation with anchors on their aging forearms, USMC marks on their withered biceps. Symbols of death, war, life, and beyond. The pride, the sense of worth those symbols meant to those men who gave something to earn that faded green ink on their now worn bodies. Its odd to compare these young boys who have probably given nothing to anyone (generalization I shouldn't make, but...) as those old men limp into history books.