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Saturday, June 25, 2011
Today Saturday, June 25th marks the 2nd Anniversary of the death of Michael Jackson and it's still difficult for some people to accept that the "King of Pop" is gone. Folks have chosen to keep Michael in their memories by getting a tattoo in remembrance of him. During his life Michael had so many fans, we're sure a lot of people had tattoos of him long before his death.
In honor of the passing of one of the most memorable entertainers of our time, I have assembled some of the greatest Michael Jackson tattoos found on the net.
Who knows, maybe you will even be inspired to get some ink to remember the late great Micheal Jackson.
Michael will Always live in our hearts.
R.I.P. Michael
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Sacred Skin : An exploration of Thailand's sak yant tattoo culture
0 comments Posted by st at 11:45 PMAlmost like a cartographic reference to ancient wisdom, the ink on the man’s body stands out in dramatic detail on the monochromatic image on the cover of “Sacred Skin: Thailand’s Spirit Tattoos.”
His skin has been transformed into a magical canvas, a manifestation of his faith, on which archaic geometrical patterns interspersed with ancient script, Buddhist iconography, deities from the Hindu pantheon, heavenly creatures and earthly animals are woven into a primeval codex designed to protect the wearer from accidents, misfortune and crime.
It is this sacred Thai tattoo tradition, sak yant, that is the focus of writer Tom Vater and his photographer wife Aroon Thaewchatturat’s new collaboration in print.
Sacred Skin is“the first book that looks comprehensively at a really important aspect of Thai culture that most foreigners know absolutely nothing about,” says Tom, who has published non-fiction books and travel guides and co-written a number of documentary screenplays for European television.
"Sacred Skin" is an introduction to Thailand's spirit tattoos, highlighting the men and women who make them come alive on their skin.
Aroon, an assignment and stock photographer around Asia since 2004, has shot three photo books.
In 2005, she won an Emmy for her role as associate producer on "The Sea Gypsies," a documentary on the plight of Thailand’s Moken sea nomads in the wake of the 2004 tsunami.
Here the two of them talk about their latest project.
How did the idea for this book develop?
Aroon: In 2003, we attended the annual tattoo festival at Wat Bang Phra and Tom wrote about it for the “Fortean Times.”
Tom: We kept returning and in 2009 we approached a Hong Kong-based publisher.
What is the origin of sak yant?
Tom: Most of these signs come from India. In the 4th century, India was ruled by the Buddhist Emperor Ashoka who sent missionaries out to spread the religion.
Worried, the Hindus in turn dispatched Brahmins, who were already using sacred yantra (mystical diagrams) on cloth and metal as protective symbols.
And in Southeast Asia, it got transferred from cloth to skin.
Zhou Daguan, a Chinese diplomat at the court of Angkor in the 13th century noted that the kings of Angkor had metal yantras inserted under their skin. So already 1,000 years ago this was in use in Cambodia and most likely in Thailand too.
We also found yants of tribal origin. So it’s a whole amalgamation of different religious and esoteric beliefs.
"Koy is a 23 year old chef in her parents’ restaurant," says Tom. "When her sister was abused by her husband, Koy attacked her brother in law and paralyzed him. She feels that the warrior yant and a tiger yant on her back enabled her to defend her sister."
Why get a sak yant?
Tom: The wearers believe that it stops bullets or knives and has miraculous effects. Perhaps, those who wear sak yant have a need to stop bullets and knives as it turns out that some are quite shady.
But in order to get the tattoos and for them to work, you have to follow a set of rules the tattoo master gives you. A lot of the advice is commonsense: to stop taking drugs, or getting drunk.
A shop-owner who wants to attract new customers will be told to be polite and friendly.
You follow these rules, your life will improve a bit, and you might think that these tattoos are really working; they are in a way. As one master said, sak yant is a powerful reminder to stay on the right path. The vast majority who have sak yant for the moment are working class, though many get done in oil to escape the stigma.
Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, all peddle certain rather unlikely truths, so, why not believe in the power of a ancient diagram?
How does one become a tattoo master?
Aroon: You cannot just set up a sak yant studio. You have to find a master, study and learn the mantras.
First he will allow you to tattoo junior devotees, then at a ceremony he will put a "risi" mask on you, making you a master.
Tom: It would take years to learn, not just the tattoo technique but the mantras that are chanted while it is being done.
The writing on the skin is Pali, an old Indian language, and the earliest liturgical language of Buddhism.
But when they tattoo they transliterate from Pali into Khom, an old Cambodian alphabet, so what you read is Pali but written in Khom.
To make each yant unique so that it can’t be copied, they switch the letters around. It’s like a copyright, the master’s signature.
"25 year old Yod is the son of shaman and grew up in a spiritual environment," says Tom. "He feels destined to wear sacred tattoos."
Your biggest challenge?
Tom: Getting these people to trust us and gaining access to them as some of them have been burned by sensationalist TV and tabloid journalism.
An interesting anecdote you came across?
Tom: A petite 23-year-old cook had an amazing story to tell. Her brother-in-law got involved in some shady business and she went with her sister to get him home.
At the meeting he began hitting his wife, at which point this girl bit his shoulder and tore out a part, paralysing him. She believes that her tiger yant took over, giving her superhuman strength.
Her tattoo master told her that though it had worked, she shouldn’t overestimate its power. He told us that when she got the tiger tattoo on her back, she went into a khong khuen (trance) and even four guys couldn’t hold her down.
Aroon:Her brother-in-law returned home and became a nice quiet guy.
What do you think about the Ministry of Culture’s decision to crack down on religious tattoos?
Tom: We assume that the ministry is largely concerned with what commercial tattoo studios do. This might not have anything to do with sak yant, as such.
That said, the ministry would be better off educating people about sacred tattoos than trying to ban all sorts of things considered un-Thai or bashing foreigners; many Thais also wear commercial religious tattoos.
It is a storm in an inkpot; perhaps the relevant authorities need to look active prior to the upcoming elections.
The movie "Hangover II" is grossly insensitive to religious sensibilities, but I don’t see the authorities complaining about it.
Ryoichi “Keroppy” Maeda is a photographer and journalist who’s been obsessively documenting the underground rise in popularity of Japanese extreme body modification for the last twenty years. He also happens to be the man responsible for bringing the bubbly saline injection-based forehead look to Japan. Obviously, it’s now huge there. Saying that, even though it’s exactly what you’d expect from the country of loo-roll dispenser hats, apparently body modification is still somewhat of a taboo out there, with journalists who choose to cover it usually doing so at the risk of their own careers. I had a chat with Ryoichi to try to help me understand why people are choosing to inject themselves with fluids in order to temporarily change their appearance.
Vice: Hey, Ryoichi. When did you get in to the whole Japanese body mod scene?
Ryoichi “Keroppy” Maeda: I started reporting on it in 1992 while I was working for Nyan 2 Club, which was a small Japanese magazine that focused more on the extreme side of body modification. Then I moved to Burst magazine in 1995, which was the first magazine to really inform Japanese readers on a larger scale about tattooing, piercing, and body modification.
Cool. What sort of stuff were people doing to their bodies back then?
Well, it definitely wasn’t nearly as extreme as what people are doing now. The more extreme stuff started to trickle in once the internet came around in like, 96 or 97.
So it was just the usual, tame piercing and tattooing that people get nowadays all around the world?
Yes, but in Japan it was still more of a taboo. I got my nipple pierced in 1992 and wrote the first article for the Japanese market about piercing, then I got a tattoo in LA in 1995 and wrote the first article about tattooing. So everything came a bit later in Japan compared to the West.
How come it was a taboo still? I thought tattooing was quite a traditional Japanese thing?
It is, but there’s a big difference between traditional Japanese tattoos and Western-style tattoos. In the early 90s it was mostly just Yakuza, the Japanese mafia, getting traditional tattoos and at that point there wasn’t enough information coming in about modern tattooing and piercing. As I said, it was when the internet came that young people started to accept the Western style more and more and that’s when the more extreme side of body modification started to get popular in Japan.
Wow, so people just jumped right in as soon as they found out about it?
Yeah, exactly.
When did saline infusions start to get popular?
Well, actually, I happened to meet Jerome, who was the person who pioneered saline infusions, at Modcon in 1999. Modcon is an extreme body modification convention and it just happened to come to Japan that year so I went to cover it for Burst. I got talking to Jerome and we stayed in contact, then eventually I experienced saline with him in 2003 and he gave me permission to bring it to Japan, so I set up a team in Tokyo to administer infusions for other people. That’s been going since 2007.
So you’re the man responsible for bringing it to the masses. How does the whole process work?
It’s quite easy - we use medical saline solution and using infusion we pump it into the forehead for about two hours, or until it’s ready.
Two hours! Fucking hell. How long does it last?
Just one night. The body absorbs it over time so by the next morning it just goes back to normal. We enjoy being freaks for the night, ha ha.
Does the skin ever start to sag?
No. Everyone I know who has done it, no matter how many times, their skin has gone back to exactly how it was before.
That’s good to know, I guess. Do people ever infuse saline anywhere else in their bodies?
Yeah, sure, you can inject it anywhere you want, really. It’s usually just the forehead, but sometimes we do scrotal infusions as well.
Oh my god. Have you ever done that?
No, not me. I’ve only done my forehead, but people at my parties have tried the scrotal infusions before.
When you say parties do you mean, like, mainstream clubs, or venues that you hire out?
Normally, it’s at parties that we put on ourselves, yes. We have suspension parties every couple of months and saline parties probably about twice a year, but people do have infusions done and then go out to clubs and fetish parties and things like that.
Labels: Extreme Body Modification, Informative, Trend
About the film
The film is the brainchild of one of the world's most widely recognized black tattoo artists; Miya Bailey. For over 5 years the idea has always been in his head to create a film that not only sheds light on the artform, but also allows the artform to be represented in the right way. There are a lot of stigmas attached to black tattoo artists and their side of the culture; ranging from a lack of creativity to overall poor quality of work. This in turn has lead to artists from other backgrounds and those in the black community choosing to take their business elsewhere in search of quality work.
A lot of people also don't understand the purpose of paying a few extra dollars for what appears to be a tattoo anyone is capable of doing, after all, you just need someone with a machine and gloves right? This film sheds light on the dangers of not considering who you let mark your body FOREVER!
The black community has an overwhelming population of "scratchers": untrained people with tattoo machines looking to make a fast buck. A person’s thirst to get inked often leads them to seek out a scratcher because they are sold on the cheap price and opportunity to get inked. More often than not the end result is a poor tattoo that many regret, can become infected or just looks terrible. This perpetuates the cycle of stigmas associated with the art form.
The primary purpose here is education, basically if people knew better they would do better. There are dozens of black artists who are trained and highly skilled in any form of tattooing one could ask for. Once people watch this film we really want them to have a better understanding of their options and a deeper appreciation for the art form.
The film highlights the history of black tattoo culture and how it began in the south despite a heavily segregated climate for black artists seeking entry. We cover signature styles and how those styles have developed and influenced newer artists over the years. Tattooing in the media is another important aspect, as it is the biggest factor of how the cultures influence has spread. It is no secret that entertainers and athletes dictate the trends younger generations pick up on and tattooing is no different. What is suprising is despite the money these cultural icons have, some of their work is no better than the kid who got his in a basement down the street from his house. This further deludes the public as to what great artwork looks like and what is available to everyday people.
Labels: Documentary, History / Culture, Informative
Belly Button Piercings much favored by young children because of Belly Button Piercings is very sexy and help your appearance. Are you also have plans to have a Belly Button Piercings? If so, you need to select the type of navel ring is right for you. There are many different varieties to choose from with new styles being added all the time. The most common type of Belly Button Piercings is a captive bead ring. This is a circular ring that belly in shape.
A common barbell navel ring selected another. This is a straight section of metal that runs through the piercing and is held in place by two screws on the ball on both ends. There are other kinds of barbell shaped more like a horseshoe and is held in place by screws on the same ball. This is a selection of navel rings are most commonly used, but they come in different shapes, sizes, and colors. You will also find that the screw on the balls come in different shapes and sizes. Many of them are decorated by hanging for maximum effect. There is also a selection of belly button ring with your favorite logo, which may be made of different materials. Different materials may include plastic, bone, wood, stone, and much more. New materials that are used all the time.
Labels: Belly Button Piercing
Wednesday, June 22, 2011


Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Labels: Animal Tattoo, Awesome Tattoos, Creative Tattoo, Inspirational