I Yam what I Yam
Michael is a beloved friend, a talented photographer… and someone who actually enjoys the experience of waiting in lines. Among other things… he initiated a very cool project 7:15.
“I got my first tattoo (not this one) because I felt that I would seem tougher and it would work as armor against the years I was called a fag, or queer, gay, or nature-boy. In a way it worked — despite the fact that I’m still a pretty girlie bisexual and that no one really sees it. As for the second one, I got it when I decided that I would dedicate my life to being an artist (it’s an “art history” tattoo– actually both are– the one pictured is a woodcut by Karl Schmidt-Rottluff and was included in Hitler’s degenerate art exhibit of 1937, the other is a line drawing of Mime Van Osen (a faggy looking guy himself) by Egon Schiele).
It sounds hokey but I’m sure some of your readers can commiserate that when you grow up in a suburb of DC, the son of a pragmatic federal employee, choosing a life of artistic uncertainty seems risky beyond belief. I got the tattoo as a testament to who I was at that point in my life, and I wanted it to act as a reminder for my future self.
The great thing is I’m not too different from the 22 year old who got that tattoo (I’m 35 now). The biggest difference is that now I trust my instincts and decisions much more than I did 13 years ago.
As for living with it, there are times I wish I didn’t have it and I look at the clean armed with a certain envy. But then again, I am someone who has always simultaneously loved and hated garnering attention for my appearance. I yam what I yam.”
