Philadelphia

“We have to study somewhere else,” Andres said. “They are, how you say…. All the people on the street are coming here for Octoberfest—in the back yard.”

Andres and I trade off tutoring sessions twice a week: one day he helps me with my Spanish, the next time I help him with his English. English lessons are usually at the house he stays at with his host family, in West Philly, and we study in the back yard when the weather is nice.

“Octoberfest; is it a big holiday here?” Andres asked.

“No, not really,” I laugh. “It is big with college students. In the United States it is really just a holiday to drink beer.”

We worked through the second chapter of Andres’ workbook on English idioms. Today it was to “take after” someone, “at all” (as in “I don’t like Italian food at all”), to “take turns” and “go to pieces.” As usual, we alternated our attention between the material in the book and discussions about language, travel and culture.

Partway through our lesson, an older woman (the neighbor from across the street) came over to see Andres’ host mother. As she walked up the steps on to porch she misjudged the height of the last step and tripped, grabbing the railing and falling to one knee. Andre (and I) both got up quickly to help her, with Andres coming over and (attempting to) support her arm while she got back to her feet. She was a little flustered but okay, and after she goes into the house Andres and I sit back down to study.

“Did you hear what she said?” Andres quietly asked me. “When I went over to help her, she said ‘Don’t touch me.’”

I didn’t hear her say that, and told him.

“Why did she say that?” he asked.

“It probably wasn’t you,” I reassured him. “It was probably her. When you’re in the United States and something like that happens,” I sighed, “you should probably say first, ‘Can I help you up?’”

“Can I help you up,” he practiced.

The day’s English lesson became a discussion on the cultural difference on touching others in Latin America vs. the United States. I talked about how, in the U.S.—especially in the Northeast—we have difficulty with touching.

“You see how men do it, yes?” I mined the hyper-masculine handshake, half-embrace and shoulder pat. “It is very… ritualized? Formal.”

“Yes, I have seen,” he said, and I (tried to) put into words our difficulty with showing affection with touch. I gave him my opinion; how I think in the U.S. we sexualize everything and don’t know how to separate friendly affection with sexual affection.

“In Colombia, it is different. With my friends, we are always….”  he mimed shoulder squeezing and affectionate pats, and draping arms over each other’s shoulders, leaning on each other. He mentioned meeting the sister of one of his teachers on the subway: he’s from Colombia; she’s from Venezuela.

“I met her, and it is like…” He mines kissing her on each check. He pauses, looking at his hands. “I miss it so much, and I never know,” he said, with a mixture exasperation and sadness. “It is, how do you say…. a needed… a necessary….”

“A necessity,” I said

“Yes!” he agreed.

We went back to English idioms, occasionally revisiting our conversation about cultural differences between here and his home country. At the end, as I was packing up my things, I said—knowing he wouldn’t understand—many of our problems with sex and drinking comes from the Puritans.

“Puritans?” he asked.

“The people who came over and founded our country,” I said, knowing that oversimplified things a bit.

“Ah yes, Puritanical!” he said. I was surprised he knew the word.

“We are told sex and drinking is bad, where in other countries people start to drink when they are young—and they think, ‘It’s just sex.’ We aren’t allowed to drink here until we are 21—so we don’t know how to drink,” I said. "In New Orleans they know how to drink—the people that live there. But when other people visit, they are peeing in the street and throwing up on people’s porches.”

Andres laughed, understanding what I was saying—at least superficially.

And this is why we celebrate Octoberfest, I thought, as I hopped on my bike.

Session #5 (NYC)

When I walked into Shinji’s studio for my appointment, Johnny Cash was playing, coming out of his computer.

“You like country music?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. “You like?”

“Yes, very much,” I answered.

While I was getting undressed and into my fundoshi, he explained he’d recently gone to the New Jersey tattoo convention and saw a country band playing there, and he had been gone on to hang out with a few of the guys.

“They teach me how to play country music. I’ve been practicing,” he said, pointing at a guitar in the other room that I hadn’t noticed when I came in. I was trying to picture this, wondering what songs they had taught him, what songs he had been practicing. I didn’t ask.

“Stand up please,” he said, after I had my Japanese almost-underwear tied. I stood facing the wall and he started to draw on my back.

“You know moonshine?” he asked, continuing to draw.

“Yes,” I laughed.

“I try,” he said. “Is good.”

He tattooed me while Johnny Cash continued to play, interspersed with Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson duets. (I remember “Luckenbach Texas” playing while he tattooed a particularly sensitive part of my spine.) There were a few ads between songs, so he was streaming music; it wasn’t from his own library. I wondered what “station” he typed in. I was most likely “Johnny Cash,” but the selection leaned decidedly toward his “outlaw country” period and contemporaries—as that was most likely the music the redneck-aspiring moonshine-drinking tattoo artists Shinji met would have introduced him to.

(I’m assuming they were urban-living—or at least suburban—tattoo artists aspiring to a sort of rural downward mobility. At least this is what I expect from attendees to a tattoo convention on New Jersey. I could be wrong—and he may have encountered some authentic, Southern good-ole-boys—but I’m betting the moonshine most likely was the type you buy at a liquor store, in an “authentic” mason jar. Where is the nearest corn-liquor still to New Jersey, anyway?)

By the second hour, the music took a surreal turn, as he tattooed while we heard Elvis’ “Hound Dog” followed by “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” and then Kenny Roger’s singing “The Gambler” a few songs later—the last two giving me mini-flashbacks of being a kid in the late 70s, wondering what the nine-year-old me would make of the current setting. I remember thinking that the only thing stranger would be if “Dueling Banjos” came on—and sure enough, a few songs later, it did. It was one of those times where you just take a step out of yourself and try to make sense of the place you’re in. For me, it was being tattooed by a Japanese, newly-converted country music fan in New York while  “Dueling Banjos”—a song I probably heard last in its entirety coming out of my parents eight-track player when I lived in Georgia—was playing in the background. Weird.

Between tattooing, during one of the drawings sessions, he said, “I said maple leaves last time, yes?”

“Yes,” I said, having gotten used to the idea since my last visit.

“You already have peonies on the front,” he said, “So it should be peonies.”

“Okay,” I said. “I like peonies.”

I wonder how much of this he already has planned, and how much he’s deciding as he goes.

“Maybe green fire?” he said, showing some excitement at the idea.

“Green fire?” I asked. He pulled up a picture on his computer.

“It looks like…plants,” I said, picturing a dragon/Christmas tree hybrid across my back.

“Plants…? Aah…plants,” he said, as he understood.

I didn’t say any more, knowing that I had some time before he would decide.

We just worked on scales today, which was fine with me. I wasn’t really up to him continuing on my other ass cheek. “We do that next time,” he said. Sitting on the two-hour bus ride back to Philly would be a lot easier this time than next.

At the end, as I dressed, he said to me, “I need to reschedule next visit. Is okay?”

“Is okay,” I said.

“I need…vacation,” he laughed.

I laughed with him. “Where are you going?”

“Maybe to the beach,” he said. “Maybe to…Tennessee.”

“There’s a lot of country music in Tennessee, I said, surprised.

“Yes, I know,” he laughed again.

“You can see Elvis’ house,” I offered.

New York City

Session #4 (NYC)

So much for consistent updates....

Above are two pictures from today's session. The first was after about an hour of drawing; the second is after about two hours with the machine. It's really starting to show character now.

We talked more about the background again. The last time we spoke about it—several months ago—Shinji was talking about doing several more peonies with the dragon, and suggesting maybe just a black background....? Today, he suggested maple leaves. He said with a white dragon (a "high" dragon), he said maple leaves will maybe be best. And definitely background too. "With white dragon needs background. Black dragon, maybe no. But with white dragon needs background." So with background it is.

I'm into the maple leaves too. I was visiting garden centers and nurseries last month to try to find new plants for the shop windows, and I can across one place that had Japanese maples for sale. I didn't get them because they really don't work indoors, but I did fall in love with them a little. They're quite beautiful, so I'm thinking maple leaves are good.

The worst part of today's session was standing in one place for an hour while he drew on my back. The first half hour was great; after the two-plus-hour bus ride, standing up was a relief. By the end of it the long trip and too little sleep hit me hard; I could feel myself getting flush and had to sit for a bit. I broke into my pick-me-up food before we even started tattooing! Shinji asked if I was okay, because I "look blue." I definitely did.

But the tattooing part sucked too. My friend Jason, the one with the full tattoo suit from Horiyoshi 3, always dismisses questions of how much the process hurts in certain areas with an, "It's not too bad." ("The crook of the arm?" "It's not too bad.") Every area, that is, except above the crack of the ass, over the sit-bone. This he admits to being horrible. I didn't go quite that low this trip, but holy hell that area sucks. The ass too.

The next session we do the other cheek, where the dragon's tail continues.

George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH)

The Start (NYC)

This is the "sketch" before the start of the first session on my back.

Shinji had done the koi on my left forearm. (this was after I had extensive laser removal to lighten what was there previously. My skin was definitely different after the multiple sessions—as Shinji pointed out several times—and I know it was not his favorite job, with what was evidently difficult skin to tattoo.) After that, he finished my left sleeve by doing my chest, where he added a large, colorful peony. We had talked about different designs for my back toward the end of those sessions.

While I was originally drawn to the idea of another dragon—in keeping with the "theme" of my arms—we did talk about different images. I knew I didn't want to go with a human figure, samurai, deity, or mythological or historical figure; I'm already appropriating something I will never fully, culturally understand. Looking at the different pictures of other work we had on his wall, I asked about other animals, such as a tiger, or even bear. "Not good," he said. "You more..."—he moved his hands closer together, so I would understand he meant skinny. "I think dragon good."

"Ok," I said.

Resurrection (New York City)

I'm resurrecting this blog.

I originally set up this blog to cover my many travels—hence the name: Transient. At the time of my last post I was maintaining and apartment in Chicago in addition to to my home in Philadelphia, I was traveling often as part of my duties as a member of the Board of Directors of the Association of Professional Piercers (APP), and I was part of a long-distance relationship with someone who was living in Atlanta (before moving to New Orleans).

But things are very different now. I finished my second term on the APP board mid-2011 and I finished my seven-year stint as editor of the APP's quarterly journal, The Point, the middle of last year. My divorce was finalized last December and my son is now old enough to fly by himself, so I no longer have the apartment in Chicago. Lastly, the women who I was meeting in different copies around the country is now living with me in Philadelphia. My travels are fewer and farther between, and I'm no longer the "transient" I once was.

So the blog that was set up to chronicle my transformative journeys will now be devoted to transformation of another sort: my back tattoo. Travel allows you to connect with a different person inside yourself. This will (hopefully) continue to chronicle a new conversation.

Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA-TAC)

San Diego International (SAN)

San Diego, California

Wata (from Boris)

Boris

Boris

Boris

Boris

Boris

New Orleans, Louisiana

New Orleans, Louisiana

New Orleans, Louisiana

Back in Philadelphia

I’m back in the States.

The “Seminarios Educativos de la APP” went amazingly well—as usual—but I did sneek out of the hotel several times to visit museums. (The lectures were entirely in Spanish—except for the few English-speaking instructors, who were translated.) I saw Diego Rivera’s house (Anahuacalli), the Frida Kahlo/Diego Rivera House, and the Dolores Olmedo Patiño Museum—a huge, former private residence that houses a huge collection of Diego Rivera work.

Karem and I also spent some time together—with my horrible Spanish and her less-than-perfect English, we were a good conversational match. We further bonded over our excitement for the end-of-the-week lucha libre (Mexican wrestling) match. We were both psyched when Karen was able to get tickets for what everyone around us said was to be the biggest match of the year.

Lucha libre was a highlight of the week. The final match went to Villana, and, after being defeated, Blue Panther took off his mask and gracefully retired, at 48 years old. The crowd went nuts.

Saturday was yoga (at a Mexican studio in Spanish), a trip to Wakantanka piercing studio, an afternoon of shopping, and then a six-hour bus ride down to Oaxaca—getting in at 2:30 in the morning. Sunday was sleeping late, heading to the market with Jason and two of his friends, and then visiting traditional Oaxacan rug merchants. Sunday left me feeling drained and not at all well.

By Monday, I was full-on sick. The week—and the month of preparation that went before it—finally caught up to me, along with the bad air, lack of sleep, and intermittent eating schedule; I was whooped. The day was spent mostly in bed, only going out later for Mexican-style chicken soup.

Tuesday morning, after a relaxed breakfast, I headed to the Oaxaca airport. Upon landing after a one-hour flight from Oaxaca to Mexico City, I found myself stuck in the labyrinthine MEX airport while I searched for the check-in to my flight back to the states. After almost an hour of frustratingly searching for my gate, I found I was in the wrong terminal—and getting there was its own adventure. After finally reaching the Delta counter—at 2:40, for a 3:15 flight—I was told that the flight was closed, it was the last flight to the states that day, and that they would try to get me out the following day. Fuck!

Luckily, there was a woman next to me in the same situation—only she was late because of her connecting flight. Long story short: they held the flight while she and I ran full-on to the gate. I got on my flight to ATL sweaty, out of breath, and feeling AWFUL—but I made it. Onto Atlanta, and then home. (While the Mexico City airport was probably the most confusing I’ve ever been in, ATL definitely had the worst food. I know I’m a Yankee, but I would have loved something that wasn’t going to sit like a Southern-fried rock in my stomach.)

So—after conquering all the forces conspiring against my making it back to the states—I got in late Wednesday night and headed straight to Andi’s; it was good to be home.

Chicago, Illinois

Chicago, Illinois

Tucson, Arizona

NEHA, Day 2

8 am: After a hurried breakfast at the hotel (in which Didier spilled more of his food down the front of him than he ate) we arrived at the opening of the expo. Most other attendees were complaining about the early start time. I’m still on East Coast time; I was up at 4:30 am.

The second day was much less busy than opening night, but the people Didier and I spoke to at length were no less appreciative of our presence or the work that we do. We spoke to representatives from Arizona, New Mexico, Florida, Alaska, Georgia, New Jersey, Washington DC, Utah, Minnesota, Oregon, Washington, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, Massachusetts, Alabama, Indiana, Michigan, New York, Maryland, Ohio, Illinois, Nebraska, Colorado, Montana, British Colombia and Great Britain. (This may not be a complete list, but this is what Didier and I could remember by brainstorming in our hotel room.) Many of these people are directly responsible for either the inspection of body art establishments or the policies or legislation that governs and informs those inspections.

The most memorable thing I heard was from a woman from Montana, who talked about regulations and inspections in her state. She thanked us for our efforts—as an organization—and closed by saying, “We couldn’t have done it without your help.” I was almost knocked over by the power in her words.

The stated mission of the APP is to disseminate information about body piercing to piercers, health care professionals, legislators, and the general public. As piercers, we will most likely never all fly the same flag, and the crusade to educate the public is just at the beginning of a long and hard road. But health care professionals now know who we are and where to find us—my trips to the annual conferences of APHA (the American Public Health Association), ACHA (the American College Health Association), and ADHA (the American Dental Hygienists’ Association) have proven that to me. The reception that Didier and I received at NEHA showed that we have are succeeding with legislators as well. “We couldn’t have done it without your help” speaks volumes.

2 pm: The expo closes, and Didier and I pack up the booth and load the car. (The temperature gauge in the car says 116 degrees; we can’t tell if that means outside or inside the car.) We head to the Post Office to ship what few supplies we have left—along with the booth—to San Diego in preparation of the APHA conference the end of November, and then drive the hour to the airport for Didier to catch his flight. I don’t leave until tomorrow morning, so after dinner I head back to the hotel to finish my blog of the trip and prepare for an early bedtime. I will not be leaving the comfort of the room or the air conditioning again until I leave for the airport tomorrow morning—I have to return the rental car before 6 am, so I’ll be up at 4:30.

[This and the proceeding posts will be compiled into a future article for The Point: the Journal of the Association of Professional Piercers. Subscriptions are available for $10 a year and free PDF’s are available at safepiercing.org.]

Albuquerque to Tucson and NEHA, Day 1

6:30 am: As Crystal and I are driving to pick up the rental car we run out of gas. Completely. The car simply sputters and dies as we’re going down the road. It seems that Crystal has been hanging her ADHA badge on the steering column—over the fuel gauge—and she simply hadn’t noticed how little gas we had left. Luckily, the two-lane access road was deserted (it was early Sunday morning) and the car came to a stop at the curb about a quarter-mile from the rental car lot. While Crystal waited for her business partner/ex-husband to come with gas (we owe him a BIG favor), I hoofed it to the lot and picked up the car. Crystal joined me shortly, we transferred the booth and boxes to the rental and I was on the road a little after 7 am.

12 noon: I’ve been barreling through the desert for five hours. My only stop was a Denny’s in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. My soundtrack so far has consisted of Hank Williams, the O’ Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack and Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde and Highway 61 Revisited. Things are good—until I realize the fuel gauge is on “E.” Fuck—twice in one day. I hear Caitlin in my head: after I told her the drive would be an “adventure” she replied that it’s only fun until you run out of gas on the highway fifty miles from anywhere in the hot sun and they find you dead on the side of the road, your corpse picked over by vultures. (Actually, she didn’t mention the vultures, but they were certainly implied.)

The last sign I remember seeing was a “last rest stop for 78 miles” sign. How long ago was that? I’m going a steady 90 mph now and sweating, a little from the nervousness but more form the fact that I’ve turned of the air to conserve gas and it’s 105 degrees outside. And I have no cell phone reception out here.

I finally see a sign: “Wilcox - 10 miles.” Please let me make it. Please, please, please, please… I make it the 10 miles to the exit, and I see another sign: “Wilcox – 4 miles.” It seems it was 10 miles to the exit. Shit. I make it to what I assume is Main Street—Wilcox isn’t much more than a stop on the highway—and with great relief I roll into a gas station. Whew.

2 pm: I arrive at the Tucson airport as Didier plane from San Diego is landing. We have 3 hours to find the convention hotel and set up the booth.

3 pm: We find the convention hotel—it’s a huge Hilton “resort—and we find the hotel where we are registered. They were supposed to be close; they’re four miles apart. It’s now 110 degrees. We decide to hold onto the rental car.

4 pm: We arrive at the expo hall. The other exhibitors give us “the eye” as we set up. It’s the annual meeting of NEHA, the National Environmental Health Association, and full of health inspectors and others who deal with public health and policy. It’s our—the APP’s—first time here, and we’re not quite sure what to expect. They don’t know what to make of us either. We quickly set up the booth and the table and high-tail it out of there. We have to back for the expo opening and “party” at 6 pm, and we’re drenched in sweat. It’s 112 degrees outside.

6 pm: Dider and I open the doors and walk into the expo hall, and it’s like the scene out of Animal House—the one where they go to the bar in the “wrong” part of town: Conversation stops and all eyes are on us. (I imagine the silverware dropping and the needle going over the record.) It’s a long walk from the doors to the table.

We set ourselves up and wait. (We are right in front of the door; you can’t overlook us.) The attendees start to slowly trickle in, and then we are deluged with people. Everyone, it seems is working on legislation/policy/protocol in their state/county/city dealing with body piercing. We give away the majority of our material in two hours. They love The Point. They grab handfuls of the brochures. They take the CD manuals like they’ve been handed the scriptures. (Well, that may be a bit of an exaggeration, but they are incredibly appreciative.

I meet a health inspector from Florida who I’ve previously talked to only by phone. I talk to inspectors from Colorado and Albuquerque that have already worked with APP representatives on policy. I talk to people who have never heard of us but promise to contact us—and they will.

It was absolutely amazing, and this was only the first three hours.

9 pm: The expo closes, and Didier and I grab our things and head back to our hotel, as the floor opens again on Monday at 8 am. It is a little cooler outside—only 103 degrees.