This site is a blog about what has been coasting through my consciousness lately. The things I post will be reflections that I see of the world around me. You may not agree with me or like what I say. In either case – you’ll get over it and I can live with it if it makes you unhappy. Please feel free to leave comments if you wish . All postings are: copyright 2014 – 2021
YOU KNOW ME. I’m a pretty easy going guy. I really don’t care how you choose to live your life – as long as you don’t scare the dog or foul the footpath. If you want to have blue hair and walk around all day wrapped in aluminum foil like a baked potato I say – Go for it. I’m cool with it as long as you don’t expect me to chip in to help you buy your supply of Reynold’s Wrap.
In my personal opinion, there are too many laws trying to regulate how people want to live their lives. Part of that is because there are too many lawyers, but that is an issue for another day.
“Oh, come on, John. I kind of feel sorry for him. He has his troubles. I admit that he is a bit weird but…”
Dawn took up where John left off.
“Marlee, Hon, he’s a real head case. Half the stores on Haight won’t let him through the door.”
Marlee saw their sincerity, along with the dash of fear in Dawn’s eyes. Looking back across the Haight Street she could see Dennis waving his arms, arguing with the tattooed clerk. A small cloud of doubt drifted into Marlee’s mind.
The clerk was getting tired of the same nonsensical routine. Her growing flush of anger was giving her tattoo snake an unreal ruddiness.
“Man, every time you come in here it’s the same crap. I’ll tell you one more time and if you don’t like it you can take your freaky business elsewhere. The price for the ‘tat’ is $65 – a one inch skull. There is no freaking ‘frequent flier’ discount. And one more thing…”
“What’s that, Sideshow?”
“Why do you always get the same tattoo every time, you Creep?”
“None of your business. Do you want it to be your business? I can arrange that for you, you little junkie.”
“Do you want the damned tattoo or not, Cretin?”
“Yes, I want the tattoo. Why else would I ever come in here, Skank?”
“To flirt with the help, maybe?” She smiled and flicked out her pierced tongue. “Paper or plastic, Twitch?”
“Plastic today.” He handed over a Visa card and she swiped it into the register. “Let’s get to work, Tiger.”
They disappeared behind the counter, out of sight from Marlee’s view in the People’s Cafe.
OK, I’LL ADMIT THIS UP FRONT – today’s blog comes under the heading of “Geezer Rant.” There is no great social content, no thunderbolts of wisdom, not even anything that might be worth putting on a T-shirt.
I want to talk about tattoos.
I am of a generation that looked upon tattoos as something you saw on sailors on leave and guys doing hard time. And Popeye – who, while he technically was a sailor, he was, in reality, nothing more than ink on paper.
That was about it. If my mother was walking down the street and saw someone approaching who had tattoos who wasn’t in uniform she would clutch her purse a little bit tighter. “Nice people” just didn’t get tattoos.
News Flash! Times have changed!
Starting in the late 1970s I think we began to see tattoos appearing on people outside of the aforementioned groups. It was also about the time that Popeye disappeared from the public consciousness (Strictly coincidental, I’m sure).
Rock musicians started sporting more tattoos. Then they started popping up on Deadheads and other fringe elements of Fandom.
Little by not so little, more and more people began to dive into the ink. It came to be viewed as a bit of sexy rebellion. Tiny butterflies and hearts were showing up in places where they would only be seen by lovers and gynecologists.
Then, over the ensuing decades, the territory expanded into what has become known as the “Tramp Stamp.” That is an unfortunate label, but I didn’t make it up. Fashion and tattooing merged and soon the only piece of skin that wasn’t considered available as a canvas was the face. Well, that seems to have changed as I see an increasing number of people with those permanent reminders of a temporary idea on their mug.
OK…here comes the real Geezerism part.
Putting a tattoo, of whatever variety, on your face sends only one of two messages to the world: 1) I’m going to reject you, world, before you reject me! or 2) “Screw you, Mom and Dad! How do you like this?”
Actually both messages are pretty much the same when you get down to it.
I seriously don’t anticipate seeing anyone on the cover of Business Week who also has marijuana leaves tattooed on their forehead. I don’t expect them to see them in any job that doesn’t require a hairnet and a paper hat.
I used to know a woman who ran a tattoo parlor on Haight Street in San Francisco and we chatted about this one afternoon. For a person who made her living with ink and needles she tended to agree with me. She was loaded with tattoos herself, but not on her face or her hands. She advised her customers to not get anything that couldn’t be covered up for the workplace.
She encouraged me to get tattooed. I declined. I did told her that I didn’t like needles and, if I were to ever sit in her chair, I would get a tattoo of my name and address so, that if I was found unconscious, my rescuers could at least send me home. She suggested that I add the line “Return postage guaranteed.” Clever girl.
I think that it must be a generational thing. I have ZERO desire to get a tattoo – no matter how drunk I might get or desirous of being considered cool. It ain’t gonna happen.
In fact, I’ve been doing a little speculative research and I think that tattoo removal will be a major growth industry over the next few decades. When today’s rebellious billboards see those multicolored eagles on their chests starting to look like badly bruised pigeons and the Tramp Stamps disappear under the muffin tops, there will be lines around the block at “Mom’s Laser Tattoo Removal Shop.”
My friend who owned the tattoo parlor told me that getting a tattoo removed was time consuming, expensive, and “It hurts like hell.”
Alright, we have reached the end of my Geezer Rant for today. Far be it from me to tell anyone what they should or should not do. If you are old enough to get a tattoo and you are ready to live with it forever – go ahead. I won’t stop you. But, for crying out loud, don’t put a picture of Popeye on your face.
Remember my motto for Life: Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.
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IT MAY HAVE SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA AT THE TIME, but who would want to get a tattoo on their face? It seems to be a permanent response to a temporary thought. And its gotta hurt.
Getting tattooed, at least in Western cultures, used to be solely in the realm of sailors and cheap crooks. Not any more. These days millions of people get a little butterfly or whatever inked on their body usually in a location where only a lover or a doctor would ever see it. However, there are people who just don’t know when to say “Enough.”
The idea of getting facial tattoos still remains largely in the prison/criminal gang subculture. There are others who get facial “tats” who are not criminals. I would put them in the file drawer under “I didn’t know I could drink that much” or just plain “Nuts.”
I DID SOMETHING TODAY THAT I HAVE NEVER DONE BEFORE in all my 120 years. It was risky some people told me. A close friend pleaded with me not to even try to do it.
“You may not get out alive.”
Don’t you just love a little Hyperbole? At least I was hoping it was Hyperbole.
I decided to not take any unnecessary chances – so I took my wife, the lovely and ever so courageous, Dawn, with me.
On our first travel day, as we headed off to Georgia, we threw all caution to the wind and – brace yourself – had dinner at “The Waffle House.”
TODAY IS JUNE THE 6TH, A TUESDAY. It may be just one more day out of the 365 we will experience this year, but it also has some significance for me.
Being of a certain age this date is a reminder of a major event during WW II.
June, 6, 1944 was also known as “D – Day.” It marked the Allied invasion of the European continent leading to the defeat and destruction of Nazi Germany and the end of the war in Europe. That all came to a conclusion a little more than one year prior to my birth in July 1946.
THERE ARE MORNINGS WHEN I WISH HAD OVERSLEPT. If I was still unconscious I would blissfully miss things that, if awake, I would later end up regretting. Today I was up early.
As I sat there slumped over my coffee trying to find inspiration I was slowly surrounded by several members of the “Usual Suspects” who haunt the chapel of St. Arbucks. Normally, I could ignore them as they carry on, but this morning they snagged me.
ONE OF HUMANITY’S OLDEST RITUALS, aside from putting their names on the hedge clippers and putting the trash out to the curb, has been tattooing. Anthropologists have uncovered mummified remains around the world bearing crude tattoos.
How this practice began is a mystery, but I think the reasons then are the same as the reasons today – to frag off your old man and to be different just like all of your friends.
Sitting in that booth I was face to face with Lech Ontario – one of the Greats – if you listened to him and I was going to have to to find out why my old friend and tutor, Hank O’Hare, was looking for him.
“Tell me, Ontario, why is Hank so anxious to find you? Did you stiff him on a debt, did you cheat him at cards, or did you try to steal his woman?”
When I said that the dockside doxie sitting next to him spoke up.
“You better not be two-timing me, Lechie Baby, or I’ll make you very un-Lechie. If you catch my drift?”
That gal had a way with words. I touched the brim of my imported Fedora and started to introduce myself. She cut me off, but not in the way she’d threatened to with her “Lechie Baby.”
“I know who you are, Henway. My name is Daisy Cutter. I’m Lechie’s moll – and I am also this year’s ‘Miss Straight Razor – Emeritus,’ if you catch my drift.”
OK, I’LL ADMIT THIS UP FRONT – today’s blog comes under the heading of “Geezer Rant.” There is no great social content, no thunderbolts of wisdom, not even anything that might be worth putting on a T-shirt.
John Kraft is a writer living and working in Terre Haute, Indiana. He moved to the Midwest after 25 years in California where he worked as an actor, comedian, voice-over actor, as well as a writer. He now enjoys a saner pace of life with his wife, Dawn, who tries to keep him from embarrassing himself in public.
Perhaps I should explain the title of this blog: Down the Hall on Your Left.
My name is John. People are always asking where they can find "The John." My answer is: "Down the Hall on Your Left."
YOU KNOW ME. I’m a pretty easy going guy. I really don’t care how you choose to live your life – as long as you don’t scare the dog or foul the footpath. If you want to have blue hair and walk around all day wrapped in aluminum foil like a baked potato I say – Go for it. I’m cool with it as long as you don’t expect me to chip in to help you buy your supply of Reynold’s Wrap.
Down the Hall on Your Left 