thedrifter
03-21-08, 03:03 PM
Some people believe tattooing has gone too far
By Michael Stetz Thursday, March 20 2008, 01:38 AM EDT
Rudy Shappee was 15 and had been drinking when he decided to go for it. Charlie Kiefer was 17 and been drinking when he did it too. Jim Drost was 18 and he swears he was stone cold sober when he took the plunge.
Tattoos. We're talking about when the men first got tattooed.
Former Navy men now in their late 60s, they got tattoos when hardly anybody got tattoos.
For them, it was a nothing short of a rite of passage. Some went with buddies, lining up in seedy tattoo parlors to get them. They admired older, weathered sailors who sported them. Shappee felt getting a tattoo made him rugged and worldly.
"It was a pretty big thing. You felt manly, a part of a warrior culture."
Now, of course, it seems that everybody under 30 has a tattoo. And you might be surprised to hear this - these men have tattoos, after all - but they're not crazy about how far-reaching the body-art movement has become.
People are going a bit overboard with it, they believe. More and more people - women included - are getting multiple tattoos that are big and elaborate and visible.
Some are getting them on their hands and necks - and in a few cases - even on their faces.
While the tattoo rage long ago moved to the general society, it has continued in the military as well. And as with the case with civilians, some service personnel have been going for bigger and bolder tattoos.
The trend forced the Marines to adopt a new policy last year, limiting the size and placement of tattoos. Tattoos that are visible when a Marine wears a T-shirt and shorts are now taboo.
"I worry about what happens when they try to make the transition to a more responsible lifestyle," said Shappee, 68, of young people getting the bolder work done.
The veteran who served 20 years in the Navy and another 20 as a San Diego city schools educator has two tattoos. They both are now faded and blotched. You can't tell what they are anymore. That will happen to people getting tattoos today, he said.
His niece, with three, has more tattoos than he does. And that, according to even this former tough-guy sailor, "is a little bit hard for me to understand."
Back then, it was men like these who could raise eyebrows with their body art. Shappee remembers sitting in a bar and overhearing a woman say she could never date the kind of a man who had a tattoo.
He was tempted to flash his, he said, but he held back.
Growing up, Shappee wanted a tattoo. His uncle had served in World War II and came back with tattoos. An artist in the Philippines had done the work using a single bamboo stick to get the ink under his skin. One was a leopard and one was a knife going under the skin with the words "Death Before Dishonor."
"That impressed me," Shappee said.
At 15, he lied about his age and joined the U.S. Army National Guard to get out of the small fishing town of Warrenton, Ore. Soon after reporting at Fort Lewis near Tacoma, Wash., for summer duty, he got a tattoo.
It was of a bird, along with the words "Who Me?" It cost $5.
Then, at age 18, when at Navy boot camp in San Diego, he got a second one - a vulture on a tree limb.
Both times, it hurt, said Shappee, who volunteers on the Midway Museum in downtown San Diego. It was hardly high-end work. When the artists were done, they placed a napkin over the tattoo and used scotch tape to hold it in place over the bleeding skin.
Kiefer and Drost both got tattoos because their Navy buddies were doing so. Kiefer almost got his first tattoo in Panama, but the artist seemed to be using rather primitive equipment.
"I chickened out."
Later, in Hong Kong, he got one of an eagle on his shoulder. "I don't know why I did it," said Kiefer, 69, another Midway volunteer. "It was the thing to do."
Drost, who spent 22 years in the Navy, was in the middle of boot camp when he got his tattoo. He was in the South Side of Chicago, at a joint with a tattoo parlor on one floor and a house of ill-repute on another.
His tattoo - also faded and barely recognizable - is of two hearts, with his name inside of one and his wife's name inside the other. It was an act of rebellion, Drost said.
Both think today's tattoos, in many cases, are going too far. "It's out of control," said Kiefer, who noted how bodies sag as they age. That makes the body art sag, too.
"It's not pretty."
But even some of their brethren still feel the allure of tattoos, nevermind their graying hair. Take Walt Wicks, 63. The Navy veteran never got a tattoo while serving, but finally had artwork put on his right shoulder about four years ago. Why?
"I always wanted one."
In their day, a few of their fellow sailors got carried away with tattoos, Kiefer noted. He remembers one who had tattoos of propellers on his cheeks - not, um, the ones on his face - with the words "port" and "starboard" over them.
Still, for the most part, tattoos back then were much more simple, Shappee said. One didn't see the variety or the artistic quality that one sees today.
The more common tattoos were of sailing ships, fierce animals, half-naked women, mermaids.
"They were very manly symbols."
He figures today's young people get tattoos to be rebellious or to make a fashion statement. Maybe the reasons aren't all that different than his, he said.
It's just that the styles are changing.
Shappee's wife once asked their niece why she got her tattoos, and she said it was because they looked pretty and were out of the ordinary. She also said she felt she connected to her generation by wearing them.
It's hard for Shappee to argue against any of that.
When Shappee became a Naval officer, he began to hide his tattoos under long-sleeve shirts. He did the same thing when embarking on his civilian career.
That was until the mid 1990s, when the tattoo trend started to reach his high school students. They started getting tattoos.
So he started displaying his. It helped create a connection with his students, he said. He wanted to take advantage.
"They thought I was cool."
Ellie
By Michael Stetz Thursday, March 20 2008, 01:38 AM EDT
Rudy Shappee was 15 and had been drinking when he decided to go for it. Charlie Kiefer was 17 and been drinking when he did it too. Jim Drost was 18 and he swears he was stone cold sober when he took the plunge.
Tattoos. We're talking about when the men first got tattooed.
Former Navy men now in their late 60s, they got tattoos when hardly anybody got tattoos.
For them, it was a nothing short of a rite of passage. Some went with buddies, lining up in seedy tattoo parlors to get them. They admired older, weathered sailors who sported them. Shappee felt getting a tattoo made him rugged and worldly.
"It was a pretty big thing. You felt manly, a part of a warrior culture."
Now, of course, it seems that everybody under 30 has a tattoo. And you might be surprised to hear this - these men have tattoos, after all - but they're not crazy about how far-reaching the body-art movement has become.
People are going a bit overboard with it, they believe. More and more people - women included - are getting multiple tattoos that are big and elaborate and visible.
Some are getting them on their hands and necks - and in a few cases - even on their faces.
While the tattoo rage long ago moved to the general society, it has continued in the military as well. And as with the case with civilians, some service personnel have been going for bigger and bolder tattoos.
The trend forced the Marines to adopt a new policy last year, limiting the size and placement of tattoos. Tattoos that are visible when a Marine wears a T-shirt and shorts are now taboo.
"I worry about what happens when they try to make the transition to a more responsible lifestyle," said Shappee, 68, of young people getting the bolder work done.
The veteran who served 20 years in the Navy and another 20 as a San Diego city schools educator has two tattoos. They both are now faded and blotched. You can't tell what they are anymore. That will happen to people getting tattoos today, he said.
His niece, with three, has more tattoos than he does. And that, according to even this former tough-guy sailor, "is a little bit hard for me to understand."
Back then, it was men like these who could raise eyebrows with their body art. Shappee remembers sitting in a bar and overhearing a woman say she could never date the kind of a man who had a tattoo.
He was tempted to flash his, he said, but he held back.
Growing up, Shappee wanted a tattoo. His uncle had served in World War II and came back with tattoos. An artist in the Philippines had done the work using a single bamboo stick to get the ink under his skin. One was a leopard and one was a knife going under the skin with the words "Death Before Dishonor."
"That impressed me," Shappee said.
At 15, he lied about his age and joined the U.S. Army National Guard to get out of the small fishing town of Warrenton, Ore. Soon after reporting at Fort Lewis near Tacoma, Wash., for summer duty, he got a tattoo.
It was of a bird, along with the words "Who Me?" It cost $5.
Then, at age 18, when at Navy boot camp in San Diego, he got a second one - a vulture on a tree limb.
Both times, it hurt, said Shappee, who volunteers on the Midway Museum in downtown San Diego. It was hardly high-end work. When the artists were done, they placed a napkin over the tattoo and used scotch tape to hold it in place over the bleeding skin.
Kiefer and Drost both got tattoos because their Navy buddies were doing so. Kiefer almost got his first tattoo in Panama, but the artist seemed to be using rather primitive equipment.
"I chickened out."
Later, in Hong Kong, he got one of an eagle on his shoulder. "I don't know why I did it," said Kiefer, 69, another Midway volunteer. "It was the thing to do."
Drost, who spent 22 years in the Navy, was in the middle of boot camp when he got his tattoo. He was in the South Side of Chicago, at a joint with a tattoo parlor on one floor and a house of ill-repute on another.
His tattoo - also faded and barely recognizable - is of two hearts, with his name inside of one and his wife's name inside the other. It was an act of rebellion, Drost said.
Both think today's tattoos, in many cases, are going too far. "It's out of control," said Kiefer, who noted how bodies sag as they age. That makes the body art sag, too.
"It's not pretty."
But even some of their brethren still feel the allure of tattoos, nevermind their graying hair. Take Walt Wicks, 63. The Navy veteran never got a tattoo while serving, but finally had artwork put on his right shoulder about four years ago. Why?
"I always wanted one."
In their day, a few of their fellow sailors got carried away with tattoos, Kiefer noted. He remembers one who had tattoos of propellers on his cheeks - not, um, the ones on his face - with the words "port" and "starboard" over them.
Still, for the most part, tattoos back then were much more simple, Shappee said. One didn't see the variety or the artistic quality that one sees today.
The more common tattoos were of sailing ships, fierce animals, half-naked women, mermaids.
"They were very manly symbols."
He figures today's young people get tattoos to be rebellious or to make a fashion statement. Maybe the reasons aren't all that different than his, he said.
It's just that the styles are changing.
Shappee's wife once asked their niece why she got her tattoos, and she said it was because they looked pretty and were out of the ordinary. She also said she felt she connected to her generation by wearing them.
It's hard for Shappee to argue against any of that.
When Shappee became a Naval officer, he began to hide his tattoos under long-sleeve shirts. He did the same thing when embarking on his civilian career.
That was until the mid 1990s, when the tattoo trend started to reach his high school students. They started getting tattoos.
So he started displaying his. It helped create a connection with his students, he said. He wanted to take advantage.
"They thought I was cool."
Ellie