For all that is holy, not all modified folk are gang members and criminals. After reading this article over at BME’s ModBlog, I’m reminded at how irate I get at narrow-minded simple folk.

Sure, I realize that tattooing is a major part of gang culture these days and that identity through ink has semiological implications in the underworld cultures of many nations, but situations like what is mentioned in the article are inexcusable. I realize that most plainskins™ aren’t morons and that most are very understanding and deal with things outside of their comfort zone quite well, but discrimination like this boils my blood.

Here’s a simple guideline, and, by simple, I mean that it’s one simple step: look at the content of the damn tattoo before you throw a person out. Gang and hate tattoos are pretty easy to identify. For the most part, they tend to duplicate a common set of characters, symbols or themes. On top of that, the majority of gang tattoos I’ve seen over the past decade or so tend to be black and grey work. A lot of gang tattoos also don’t tend to be professionally done. From the picture in the article I can’t see much of the guy’s tattoos, but that throat-piece alone tells me he’s had some serious professional work done.

I’m trying not to get too preachy, but I’m pretty pissed off. I think BME has set the situation up nicely and has provided people with the right contact information to have their opinion heard well. I just hope the restaurant in question reevaluates their policy and pulls their heads out of their asses.

Sorry about that last part, I feel a tad better now.

I’m vulgar.  Well, that’s moderately common knowledge, but, according to the State of Texas, I’m officially vulgar.

This all started a few weeks ago. A company by the name of MyPlates.com was given a renewal by Texas to handle vanity license plates with a whole bevy of new designs that look about a bajillion times better than the piece of crap that Texas decided on in this last round (don’t even get me started on the new “look” the driver’s license has). Since I have a little website and associate myself with a gang of miscreant ne’er-do-wells called the Forkers, I thought it would be clever to have “Forker” on my plates (since they only allow six characters).

I should have known that it wouldn’t be that easy.  MyPlates has you by the balls.  All of their legalese lays out that once you click the submit with your payment, that payment is gone.  The State may still reject your request, but you are still out the amount of money you’ve just paid.  Bogus bullshits. Any legitimate company where “I want a refund” is not an option is not a company but, rather, organized crime.

So, now I have to come up with something unvulgar to put on my car since they already have my money hostage.  Bastards.

They can just go fork themselves.

It’s been well over a week since I last provided some advice to plainskins™ from a modified perspective, and I really thought I’d give it a break for a bit to let it all soak in. After all, it’s the holiday season and there is only so much harsh reality a person can absorb: especially with so much dogma in the air.

Breakfast with the family over Thanksgiving weekend in a crowded restaurant with tightly packed tables made me change my mind.

I live in Dallas, Texas. There are a certain amount of stares that I have gotten used to over the years: especially in certain parts of town. Don’t get me wrong, Dallas is actually more tolerant of the modified than many other places I’ve been in the world, but there is still a fair share of ogling. The phenomenon in question today, however, is the state of the modified’s hearing.

I am the first to admit that I don’t hear the best. Years and years in front of concert speakers with no ear protection coupled with my selective ADD has made me rather oblivious. Other people I know have had their ears so modified that it is a wonder that their pinna can direct enough sound into their auditory canals. Like a wise doctor once told me, “Those piercings are nothing more than obstructions awaiting infection and rejection.” (no shits, this was actually told to me by a real M.D.).

However, the patented plainskin™ gawk, especially in a restaurant or bar, has a 60% chance of the plainskins™ erupting into a discussion with their party. More often than not, the discussion tends towards the “I’d never get a tattoo,” or “How do you think she got her ears stretched so big,” or (my favorite) “he’ll never get a real job looking like that.” Opinions are like assholes, most need to be cleaned up before public presentation. To that regard, I don’t fault these people for what they think: it’s beyond the realm of their experience, and, tacitly “scary” by human nature.

What I can’t stand is that most of these conversations happen right bloody next to me. The big kicker is that while these people talk at normal or above typical volume levels, they still think that their furtive glances are what is going to give them away.

Unlike other situations with plainskins™, however, I think a proactive approach is appropriate in this case. I suggest coming up with some generic card that says “Body Modification Ambassador,” or something similar, and a link to BME on it. I would then suggest politely stating that you couldn’t help but overhear their discussion and would be happy to answer any and all questions: however candid they might be.

I see two potential outcomes from such a confrontation: gratitude or indignation. In either case, the parties involved will learn something. If all goes well, they’ll learn that many of the modified are rather pleasant and more than willing to talk about just about anything. If it goes poorly, perhaps they’ll learn to keep the damn volume down. After all, I just want to eat my sammich in peace.

I know it has been gone over a thousand times (I even saw an IHOP commercial about it last night), but what the hell is up with pushing Christmas stuff like crazy before Thanksgiving and even, to some degree, around Halloween?

I realize that for many retailers, the Christmas season marks the time of year where they can attempt to recoup a year’s worth of losses and unmet sales goals (probably the sole existence of the cursed “Christmas in July” sales), but it’s getting the point where I really do want to crawl into a hole from November 1 until the first week of January.

I’m not a big fan of Christmas. Yup, I get all Scroogey. Part of it is my annoyance at a fake obligation to be all chipper and happy-like during some of the darkest and most depressing days of the year, and part of it is the fake frantic pace at which people scramble around and generally get in my way.

Don’t get me wrong. The holiday season does bring with it some seriously amazing things: most of which are baked and contain some combination of pumpkin, cinnamon and/or allspice. I also get to wear my Dropkick Murphys shirt that says “Merry Christmas you bastards” and has a lovely illustration of a very drunk Santa and a very drunk Rudolph. It makes people uncomfortable and gives me a little bit of glee.

I think what annoys me the most is the self-righteousness that comes with the season. The Jesus Crispies get their underpants all in a wad about every aspect of alternate tradition (Kwanzaa, Hanukkah or even Solstice) “infringing” on their precious holiday. I remember back in 1998, upon leaving the theater after seeing Prince of Egypt on Christmas Day I overheard someone say “Those Jews are trying to steal our holiday.” Are you freakin’ kidding me?!?!?!?!

Christmas is a co-opted holiday. Jesus was, more than likely, born sometime between March and June, Christmas trees and advent wreaths were “borrowed” from Celtic paganism, and Saint Nick was Greek.

OK, I feel a lot better, and right in time to sit back, eat too much dead bird, partake of too much “holiday cheer” and wait for people to be trampled to death on “Black Friday.”

Merry fuckin’ Christmas.

I’m hoping my first little discussion helped you, my casual plainskin™ reader. For you, the modified reader, I hope these little missives provide a little bit of gentle agreeable head-nodding and perhaps even a few whispered “you tell ‘em, brother’s.”

Like I said, these tiny bits of cultural gold aren’t in any particular order.  Like most revelations, these just come to me when I’m attempting to do other productive activities: activities I must immediately stop so I can share my wealth of opinionated dogma with you.

OK, now for the hard knowledge. My dearest plainskins™, whatever you do, do not touch the modified without prior permission.  Sure, this sounds silly, but you wouldn’t even believe how often this happens. I’ve seen it happen with not just tattoos (generally the majority), but also scarification and even piercings.

I know that humans are generally trained to be visual animals from the time of early childhood, but, at the same time, most people tend to also have a firm sense of personal space. It seems that adding a modification to the mix throws the standard social norms right out the window.

From my personal experience, “touchers” generally begin by asking you about your mod and then, in the middle of explanation, reach out and initiate the touch. I know I often invoke the “oooh, shiny” feeling in people, but let’s get serious here. Our ancestors didn’t spend thousands and thousands of years figuring out that bright colors were a huge warning sign for dangerous animals, plants, polyester pantsuits, etcetera to just be tricked by a bit of subdermal pigments and/or inorganic materials or keloided skin. When you think about it that way, “touchers” are devolved.

The easiest solution would be to just eradicate “touchers.” I know this seems a little harsh, but we are an overpopulated planet anyway. In cases where that is not possible, I nominate the following solution:

If the “toucher” is female and over the age of 18 (wildly important), grab yourself a handful of boob.

If the “toucher” is male and also over the age of 18, grab his junk.

Both are drastic measures, and, in both cases, some serious judgement needs to be undertaken before the “grab” move is initiated. This move is intended to cause discomfort; not to act as a come-on.

If the “grab” cannot be used, a nice follow-up to an unwanted touch might be: “If you’d pardon me, I was on my way to picking up the salve for my aggressive chronic herpes.”

This will, guaranteed, get a reaction.

Silly plainskins™.

Aging sucks.  That’s not saying anything that people don’t already know. I myself am in my mid-30s and I still get carded buying smokes on a regular basis.  Hell, one of the reasons I really like going to my regular drinking holes is that I don’t get that suspicious stare when I order a drink.

Like I said, I’m not old.  At least, my mind isn’t old. My body, on the other hand, has different ideas.

I’m put together funny. Yeah, I know that sentence alone sets me up to a bevy of grand insults (most of which I’d laugh my ass off at), but it’s an undeniable fact. Almost all of my joints have way more give than they should. This can be exploited in good and bad ways (if you haven’t seen my “elbow trick,” you are missing a show of shock, wonder and potential revulsion) depending on how I apply myself.

Recently, that application has been recreational soccer. “What,” you say to yourself, “that wussy Euro-sport?” Yes, that wussy Euro-sport. My hatred of soccer haters will definitely be addressed in another posting.  Either way, I play soccer on a lovely little co-ed team and get a fair amount of exercise while I’m at it (before negating that exercise after the game at the bar drinking beer). In the course of the two and a half years I’ve been playing with this group of people, I’ve noticed that I cannot play without two knee braces if I intend to walk in the three days immediately following a match. In the past eight months, if I have a lot of cross-field passes, my right ankle feels like it wants to fall off the next day, and I won’t even go into how bad my hips hurt if I’ve got to move across the field quickly when I play defense.

I still play pretty decently, so I keep it up.  This week, however, I think I finally discovered the limits. This week, I took one hell of a header right into the ground, and by header, I don’t mean I hit the ball with my head, my face hit the ground well before my body. To quote the wise sage Yogi Bear, “It’s alright, I landed on my head.” Unfortunately, the rest of my body followed my head (like it does). Not smart enough to throw my hands out to catch myself, I landed with my hand pinned between my chest and the ground: injuring both hand and ribs. Apparently I also slid cartoon-style with my legs swung up behind me. Two days later and that’s not doing any favors for my neck. Squeezle (who doesn’t attend my games due to the violence of amateur sports and the potential for amphibian sightings), to say the least, was not pleased: she’s been waiting for me to seriously injure myself from the first day I walked out on the pitch.

This wasn’t unexpected.  I’ve broken a few toes over the past several seasons, but that’s close to the most serious injury I’ve obtained during a match, and I almost always have broken toes (another piece of evidence that I’m put together funny: I have scary-long monkey toes). Several of my friends have jacked up knees, ankles, etc. from this league, so it was probably only a matter of time before my clumsy self got taken out with something serious.

Now for the worst part about all of this: I suck at standing on the sideline not being able to play. When I last had a broken big toe, I hurt it worse by being on the sidelines “ghost playing.” I know, right? That kind of crap qualifies me to be picked up by the short bus to go to work, but it happened. At this point, I’m guessing I’ll be sidelined again this next week (if squeezle has anything to say about it), and I’ll probably aggravate something worse by fidgeting around “encouraging” my teammates.

Add on this situation the fact that continued injuries are pretty much inevitable as I get older, and it’s almost downright depressing. Then again, I’ve got good meds for that, and I do like to drink away my sorrows, so bring it on.  As soon as I can I’ll be right back on that pitch to get ready for the next round of hurt.

I’m smart like that.

Things pop into my head. I know that happens to just about everyone, but I tend to vocalize the odd things that pop into my head. It is both an endearing and annoying quality about me. Squeezle has learned to just occasionally tell me to give it a rest and that will provide her with at least thirty minutes of respite from me.

Honestly, it’s not my fault. It’s like there is a leak in my subconscious that bleeds over onto my speech center. I’d often like to edit what comes out, but I’m usually so zoned (my natural state) that it just rolls out when I’m not paying attention.

Here’s a few of the tidbits that are bouncing around inside my head right now:

For several years, I have been pluralizing my cursing (e.g. shits, fucks, etc.). I believe it started as a subtle way to make fun of a French Canadian, but I can’t be sure. The habit has stuck even though it takes quite an effort to remember to do so.

In the privacy of my own home, I make up lots of rhyming little songs and sing them whilst often dancing around like a crack monkey. Almost all of these songs rhyme into the word “poo” at some point (a fact that annoys squeezle more than usual).

I seriously wonder about the origin of mundane things that all of us take for granted.  Things like standard doorknob heights, the legitimacy of speedometers and the use origin of seriously nasty tasting things.

I think about how awesome it would be to just hover a few feet off of the ground, but, at the same time, I worry about what forces could be used to do that.

Since watching the Dark Crystal in the early 80′s, I’ve wanted a detachable eye like Aughra. Later, in the early 90′s, John S. Hall made me realize that I really didn’t want a detachable penis. I think about both of these things often.

There, that’s a few things rattling around inside my head at the moment. You probably could care less about any of these things that seem to occupy my time, but, then again, you did get to the bottom of this posting. What’s that say about you?