Backwash
Cool or Embarrassing?
Local Olympians Courtney McCool and Terin Humphrey had us glued to the television last week. But instead of showing off the fresh face of Midwestern clean living, two-time silver medalist Terin’s El Marko eye shadow, noodlelike mascara lashes and glitter OD reminded us more of Independence’s notoriety as the one-time meth capital of the world. That said, Terin, we couldn’t be more proud of you.
Threads
Off the rack and on the town.
Intersection of 39th and Pennsylvania, 3 p.m. Friday
The Pitch‘s fashion expert, a straight guy named Bud, points to a ponytailed girl on the south side of the street with a bumper-sticker-sized Jayhawk tattoo on the back of her neck. He nods at a beefy guy on the north side who has orange flames inked across his forearms.
Most of the body art Bud sees is clichéd. There’s tribal or barbed wire (I’m a badass), the rose (I’m a bad girl … from the lake), a sun or a bubbly flower (Yeah! Spring break!), and the once-sexy lower-back tattoo, which has been hijacked by late-’90s sororitythink (Gee, where did everyone else put her tattoo?).
“In Kansas City, everybody’s got ’em. Everybody’s is trashy,” Bud says. “A tattoo should mean something. But if not, it should have a high grade of artistic appeal.”
Along the sidewalk, Bud spots a guy in a black T-shirt and black pants who’s covered with permanent green scribbles. Sean “Boston” Fay, a 23-year-old host at Blue Koi, has six tattoos: two from Star Wars (the Rebel Alliance symbol on one side of his neck, the Imperial Guard insignia on the other); “BOSTON” in block script just above his collarbone; a heart outlined in Celtic knotting on the left side of his chest; a picture of a little boy who has hung himself above the slogan “No more pain inside” running the length on his left biceps; and, on the inside of his left forearm, a giant X near Gaelic script that reads, “My body is without poison” — the universal symbol of nondrinking, nondoping, nonsmoking punk-rock straight edgers.
Fay sparks a Marlboro Mild. No longer a straight edger, he’s begun smoking and drinking in moderation. “Don’t ever get a straight-edge tattoo,” he says, laughing. But he won’t get the work covered up, because it reminds him of the group that helped him survive his youth.
Each image reminds him of important influences: his childhood heroes, his old stomping grounds, his love for his Irish father, the group that once kept him from trouble. The hung-boy pic is the exception. “I just wanted a cool piece of art on my arm,” Fay says. He got it for free from a budding skin inker, but because of sloppy penmanship, people often read the message as “No more pain insider.” Overall, Fay estimates he’s spent $700 to turn his body into a personal sketchbook.
If he goes professional, Fay’s collection can be concealed by a collared shirt. But when he’s in trouble, he takes off his shirt to convey a don’t-fuck-with-me statement because, Fay says, “I’m like the least tough, most mellow motherfucker around.” Twentysomethings often ask him if he’s in a band. The answer is no. And recently, a girl told him she liked him because he had neck tattoos.
“Having neck tattoos is not a reason to like somebody,” he says.
Net Prophet
Notes from KC’s blogosphere.
I must take a moment to bitch about people acting like assholes in this heat. Yes, it’s very hot. Yes, you are seriously overweight. * Yes, you are definitely better than me because you have a nicer job, car and house. Yes, you had to walk about 30 yards from your air conditioned vehicle to the air conditioned hotel lobby, and are now sweating profusely, completely out of breath. And by God, you feel entitled to take it all out on me, in the form of snarky comments and eyeball rolls.
Guess what, though? It’s not my fault! No it’s not! The heat, combined with your fat ass, unbelievable though it may be, cannot be blamed on me.
*Disclaimer: every single person acting assholey tonight has been considerably overweight. Not everyone who is considerably overweight has acted assholey, though. This one way-too-skinny dude was being a dick, but he’s always a dick. Even in springtime.
From “Hotel Angsty,” the blog of a midtown hotel’s concierge
