The Tattooed Poets Project: Brian Fanelli

Our next tattooed poet is Brian Fanelli, who sent us these images of his ink:

Brian explains:

"Having grown up in the punk rock community, it was probably inevitable I would get ink at some point. Born in 1984, I caught the third wave of punk rock, bands that, for the most part, never had the success of punk pioneers like The Clash, Sex Pistols, or The Ramones. Though those bands mattered to me, especially The Clash, I grew up going to shows in Philly to catch The Lawrence Arms, Bouncing Souls, Against Me!, Hot Water Music, and countless others. The flame on my left arm is Hot Water Music’s iconic flame/water logo, a tattoo ubiquitous at any HWM show. 

The tattoo on my leg [second photo] is an image of Scott Sinclair’s artwork. Sinclair made a name for himself doing nearly all of Hot Water Music’s album covers. The other tattoo on my arm [below the Hot Water Music logo] is a replica of an early printing press stamp, my lone literary tattoo. All of my ink was done in Scranton, at the shops Slinging’ Ink and Mental Mayhem."

Brian sent us this tattoo-related poem to accompany his contribution:

Inked

I catch her at the café

                                    where she used to captivate me

                        with Mother Jones,

                                                Z,

                                                            The Nation,

the only publications

   worth writing for, she said.

She’s back

                        from her train-hopping trip,

                                                Clash lyrics inked on her arm.

At 15, I was her foot soldier

                        in an activist army,

            proud with a practiced punk sneer,

                                                blue liberty spikes.

I cut my hair for college,

                                    aced entrance exams,

            returned to report the news.

                                               

I see you’re still writing

                        fabricated bullshit, she says,

kissing the inked

                        words on her arm.

While you've been going mainstream,

                        I've been hopping trains,

                                                fronting bands,

spreading truth through zines,

                        copied and stapled DIY style.

I can’t listen to her

                        rant about the latest

                                                political prisoner,

                                                            CIA-backed coup,

                                                                        coffee that’s not fair trade.

I am, in my suit and tie,

                                    the man we used to call

                                    the enemy,

                                                             regular 9-5 worker

                                                   because when I broke in

I thought reporters were brash,

                        each one a Woodward or Bernstein.

                                   

But who reads bylines buried on A16?

The news is old by tomorrow afternoon.

No words newspapers publish are picked

                                                for first tattoos.

We wash smudged newsprint from our hands.

                             Tattooed lyrics sink into our skin,

                                                last as long as we last.

~ ~ ~

Brian Fanelli’s poetry has been twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize and the Working Class Studies Association’s Tillie Olsen Creative Writing Award. His work has been published by The Los Angeles Times, World Literature Today, Blue Collar Review, North Chicago Review, Portland Review, Boston Literary Magazine, Spillway, Inkwell, and several other publications. He is the author of the chapbook Front Man (Big Table Publishing) and the full-length collection All That Remains (Unbound Content). Brian has an M.F.A. from Wilkes University and teaches English full-time at Lackawanna College in Scranton, PA, while completing his Ph.D. at SUNY Binghamton.

Thanks to Brian for sharing his tattoos and poem with us here on The Tattooed Poets Project!

This entry is ©2014 Tattoosday. The poem and tattoos are reprinted with the poet's permission.

If you are reading this on another web site other than Tattoosday, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://tattoosday.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

Andrea's Dancing Bears Show Her Dead-ication to Her Favorite Band

A couple months back, I met Andrea, on 3rd Avenue in Bay Ridge, and she shared these bears which are one of the many graphic representations of the band, The Grateful Dead:

I recognized the design right off, so I asked Andrea why she chose a Dead tattoo. She responded, "because they were my favorite band ever since I was a little kid." She added, "my dad used to listen to them, so I kinda got into 'em that way."

When I asked how many times she had seen them, she told me, "I've only seen Bob Weir and Phil Lesh. I saw them two summers ago."

She initially credited this tattoo to Jim Palmer at Moon Gravel Arts in Milford, Pennsylvania, but later corrected me, via e-mail:

"i actually did that one it was the first tattoo i ever did as practice... jim did ...all of my other tattoos however ... he has great work ... u should still check him out, jim palmer is his name and moon gravel arts ... is his shop ... have a grateful day:)"

Thanks to Andrea for sharing her self-inked dead-icated tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2013 Tattoosday.

If you are seeing this on another website other than Tattoosday, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://tattoosday.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

Ryan and the Aristocants

I met Ryan back in July outside of Penn Station. He had a bunch of tattoos. I interviewed him and took some pictures. He was with friends.

I'd love to dub this an orphan post, but all the required elements are here. It just didn't sit right with me.

After blogging about tattoos for more than five years, I have pretty good instincts about people. I can tell when they're interested in the project and I can tell when they're not, usually within the first ten or fifteen seconds of my starting up a conversation with them.

With apologies to Ryan if I misread him, but I felt like he really wasn't very interested in talking to me. But to give him credit, he did. This is one of the reasons that this piece didn't show up until almost five months after the fact.

That said, let's proceed.

Ryan shared this tattoo:

Note that it's hard to see from the shot that this heart has wings that roll back around the arm:

Ryan explained that he once was in a band called the Aristocants. Perhaps it is because they have added an "n" to Aristocats, but I am unable to find anything about them online.

What I gathered from Ryan about this tattoo was this: He was in a band called the Aristocants from 2002-2006. In the band with him were bass and guitar players Chad and Brandon who designed the logo on which the tattoo is based. ("They drew it up together ... mixed and matched and collaborated.")  Ryan took the design to another friend, Chris Hudgins, who worked at a shop in Nevada called House of Pain. The rest is history.

I am unable to find anything on the artist, the shop and, as previously mentioned, the band.

Thanks to Ryan for sharing this interesting tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2012 Tattoosday.

If you are seeing this on another website other than Tattoosday, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://tattoosday.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.