My Whole Expanse I Cannot See…

Tattoo by Colt, Doc Dog’s Las Vegas Tattoo, Ybor City

So, this is another Aimee Mann tattoo, lyrics from her song, Long Shot, which is off of one of her earlier records, I’m With Stupid.

To me, the song’s about this relationship that just goes bad over and over and over again. The one person keeps trying to end it for lots of reasons, solid reasons. Right? Yes, sure. Not really, though. All those reasons that seemed so solid just end up being, “please love me more.” Love isn’t rational, it’s just something you feel, and want, no matter the reasons for or against it.

Anyway, the tattoo felt appropriate.

Tattoo by Colt, Doc Dog’s Las Vegas Tattoo, Ybor City

So, this tattoo is from a PJ Harvey song, The Soldier, off of a record she created with John Parish, A Man a Woman Walked By.

I really like The Soldier because she takes the incoherent, yet vivid nature of a nightmare, and makes it coherent. Few writers can do this well, I’m talking song writers, fiction writers, any sort of writer. Dreams, and especially nightmares, are just not easy to put to words. You want to keep it wispy, surreal, vivid, yet something readable and compelling.

The song is about a soldier who has seen horrible things, done horrible things, is damaged, completely fucked up by these experiences, and at the end of everything just wants to go home. That’s how the last year felt, the last few years felt, leading up to this tattoo. I just want to take all my damage, everything I’ve made so external, I want to take it all and go home,

So, unless you’re reading this blog for the very first time, right now, you probably know that I am a fan of Aimee Mann. In my head, she’s right up there with Kurt Cobain, and Elliott Smith. She’s definitely the best living singer/song-writer around. I like her writing enough to have it etched into my skin several times over. Every song on every record is good, I definitely can’t say that about ANY of her contemporaries.

I’ve been to two Aimee Mann concerts, one in Tampa, one in Boston, mid-blizzard. In Tampa, she got off her tour bus to take pictures with us and chat awhile, she was astonishingly kind. Yes, I’m a fan.

Thus, when she favorited TWO of my tweets…

Favorited by @aimeemann!

Favorited by @aimeemann, again!

…I was probably happier than Twitter should make a fellow.

Tattoo by Colt, Doc Dog’s Las Vegas Tattoo, Ybor City

So, this tattoo is from a song, Slip and Roll, off of Aimee Mann’s latest record, Charmer. If you don’t have Charmer, and you like Aimee Mann, go get it right now. It’s a spectacular record.

The song is about dodging punches, existing without really living, until you’re willing to take a hit… “the” hit. The hit that means you’re ready to do more than exist in safe emptiness, you’re ready to take some hits, you’re ready to take life in all its fullness. If all you do is slip and roll, you’re never going to get hurt, but you’re never going to feel anything good either. In order to experience happiness, joy, something as spectacular as love, you have to risk sadness, loss, loneliness. Love wouldn’t feel like magic if you didn’t have to risk so much for just the chance to experience it.

This tattoo reminds me of these things…

Tattoo by Fish, Doc Dog’s Las Vegas Tattoo, Ybor City

So, this tattoo is from a spectacular Elliott Smith song, Last Call, from his very first record, Roman Candle. Last Call is what bartenders yell out before the bar closes, your last chance to get a little more smashed before it’s time to stumble on home. I’ve heard my share of last calls. The song’s about a fellow who got out of a really brutal relationship, a relationship that cost him, hurt him, and nnw that he’s out, he just wants to forget. He wants to forget the lies, he wants to forget how much he hurts, he wants to turn off his mind, every thought in his head, until everything dark is gone. Until she is gone.

I totally get the song, and I never thought I would, but I do. These lyrics are etched into my foot, but the entire line goes, “You start to drink, you just want to continue. It’ll all be yesteryear soon.”

I was with this girl, Monica, and she hurt me a lot. The last time I drank, it was a few years ago, I drank enough to possibly end me. I totally wasn’t aiming to end me, I just wanted to turn off for awhile. I didn’t want to think about her, I didn’t want to think about being let-down, led on, about feeling lonely, and why I went back over and over and over again. I just didn’t want to think about any of it, at least for a little while. So, even back then, I got the song. Fast forward to last September-ish, it’s kind of a blur, Monica was long gone, physically I felt so weak, I was lonely, completely lonely, the loss of my assistants was sounding finished, and I just kept thinking, “my life can’t stay like this, can’t end like this, it has to get better.”

That’s what was going through my head when I got tattoo #62.

Tattoo by John, with typo correction (my fault) by Colt, Las Vegas Tattoo, Ybor City

So, this tattoo is from an Aimee Mann song, Looking for Nothing, off her gorgeous record, @#%&*! (Fucking) Smilers. Looking for Nothing is my favorite song on the record, it’s a really beautiful piece of writing. To me, it perfectly describes what it’s like to be surrounded by people, and feeling completely lost, not walking through life so much as drifting. Every-day is the same, nothing to look forward to, nothing that even hurts. Life without pleasure or pain, happiness or sorrow, passion or even anger. All you have is nothingness. You’re not dying instantly in firry car crash on your way to romantic night with your love, you’re dying by inches, over years, because you have absolutely nothing to live for, nothing to drift toward. When you have nothing, and nothing to reach for, you die from that LACK of motion.

For the last year-ish, I could relate.

Dear Alanis,

Could you please stop sucking? We really miss you.

Love,

Us

Tattoo by Fish, Doc Dog’s Las Vegas Tattoo, Ybor City

So, this tattoo, number sixty-one, is off of Nirvana’s third and final studio record, In Utero, from the song, Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle. The song is a tribute to Frances Farmer, a late 1930s, 1940s film and stage actress who ultimately fell from grace due to alcoholism, depression and mental illness, several times involuntarily committed to mental institutions.

To me, the song kind of reflects the idea that one can’t simply be sad and fucked up. If you’re sad and fucked up, you’re damaged, broken. If you’re damaged, broken, you have to be locked away until you’re fixed. After Farmer’s first arrest, she was physically dragged from the court-house shouting, “haven’t you ever had a broken heart?” She felt persecuted for suffering a common life experience.

At some point, sadness stops being kind of a romantic source of creativity, and becomes a pure burden, heavy stones on your chest, even a punishable offense. لعبة عجلة النقود I think Kurt Cobain saw these things in Frances Farmer’s life, and in his own.

When I got this tattoo, last January or February, everything in my life started going completely sideways. كيفية لعبة روليت I was losing my health, my personal assistants, Monica, everything, and it all just hurt. Being sad had never hurt so much, being sad had never been so empty, and completely useless. I had no energy to fight, I didn’t feel like anything in my head was worth writing. 1xbet موقع I felt so absolutely, seemingly endlessly dark inside.

Hence tattoo number sixty-one.

I just want to scream right now, scream like Kurt at his last show. SHE LIKES TO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO…! You don’t need to know any of the lyrics, you can know everything from his cracked screams, he’s hurting, and exhausted, and fighting some fight he doesn’t see winning. He’s dying and screaming and thrashing his guitar for anyone to watch because he doesn’t know what else to do. Maybe I see these things because I see the me in him or the him in me, or both. I just, I know how he was feeling. I see how he always, always looks alone on stage, not just in this last show. Kurt always looks like he’s by himself, like he’s not connected to the world save for small glances here and there, tiny connections that burn bright and fast then flame out.

I just want to scream for all the time, the years, the fucking loss, loss of her, my everything. I want to scream for all her thoughtlessness, treating my heart like it’s nothing. I want to scream because I know it would feel better than crying feels.

I’m scared to fall asleep.

Tattoo by Fish, Las Vegas Tattoo, Ybor City

So, this tattoo is from Aimee Mann’s highly acclaimed song, Wise Up, off the soundtrack for the film, Magnolia. I already wrote about Magnolia and Wise Up a few weeks ago, so I’m not going to do it in any great detail again here. Oh, don’t confuse the poppy as being part of this tattoo, it isn’t. Anyways, Wise Up is just a really beautiful song, the gist of which is life will continue to feel bad until you do something to make it feel good.

Right now, I just want to be next to someone, to hold her close, tell her how I love her so completely, ceaselessly. I’d sleep. It’s easy to sleep when I don’t feel like part of me is somewhere else. It’s easy to sleep knowing that when I wake up, I’ll see her exquisitely beautiful face. Her eyes would be all drowsy, but silently say that she loves me. She’d ask me if I slept any, she’d tell me about her crazy dreams. I haven’t been there in so long, but that’s how it was. I could wake up next to her every morning until I quit breathing, the permanent quit, every morning I’d feel blessed. She’s the only person who lights this empty place in my heart, it’s like a million little twinkly white Christmas lights strung all over a huge ferris-wheel. That’s how she makes me feel inside, bright and happy, like there’s adventure all around.

I want life to feel good, like I absolutely know it can, entirely. I mean, as dark as I get, it’s not because I believe life is just one concatenation of misery until you’re dead. I don’t think that at all. Life is something gorgeous, there’s been so much beauty and adventure in mine, so I know for a fact that life can be all puppies and flowers. There’s just this hole in me, this giant abandoned fairground that’s shrouded in sadness, loneliness. I’ve done some stupid, awful things trying to fill that place with light again, which only served to make that place darker, and lonelier. I need to wise up, that’s the point. Stop doing things that make me more empty, stop digging myself nice, deep holes. Don’t die this way.

I miss my light, more than I can explain.