Jil McIntosh: Rude, Lewd & Tattooed

There's dumb, there's stupid, and then there's the 56-star moron ...

According to a story in the U.K. Mirror, an 18-year-old girl walked into a tattoo shop and asked for three tiny stars to be tattooed beside her eye.

Then, she claims, she fell asleep during the procedure and woke to find that the tattoo artist had instead inscribed 56 permanent celestial orbs across her visage, due to a language barrier.

Uh huh.

You can read all about it, and see what Kimberley Vlaminck apparently slept through, by clicking here. Having been tattooed some 19 times, and unable to fall asleep during any of them because I was busy peeling myself off the ceiling when the needle hit a few tender spots, I'm more inclined to believe the artist's story: that Vlaminck asked for and approved the artwork, and then changed her tune when Daddy and Boyfriend didn't find it quite as appealing as she thought they might.

About the tattoo part ...

I'm already making my plans to visit Northern Ink Xposure, a tattoo convention in Toronto on June 19 to 21. My friend Lola and I go each year. One year, she got a traditional "hand-tapped" tattoo by the Borneo Headhunters. They have a needle tied to a stick, which gets dipped into ink and then rapped with a mallet, over and over, to put the ink into the skin.

She said it didn't hurt, but was just pressure, and they did a lovely design. I might get one this time around.

Last year, we got matching "compass stars." These are traditional sailor tattoos, which were used on maps as part of the compass rose; there's one up there at the top of my page. I love the beautiful, simple old designs, and we had an artist from Detroit do them up for us.

I also ran into Rachel Larratt, a tattoo collector and rally racer; I'd interviewed her earlier for a magazine story. She's with BMEzine, and she returned the favor by taking photos of our new ink and putting it up on her website. You can see our photo by clicking here.