It wasn’t long ago that an individual sporting a tattoo was typically a sailor, a carnival painted lady, an ex-con, or a Japanese Yakuza. Boy have things changed. The latest statistics I can find show that 36% of people belonging to the 18-25 age group and 40% of people belonging from 26-40 age group flaunt at least one tattoo. This statistical figure was reported in a 2006 fall survey done by the Pew Research Center. The percentage at Daytona was much higher than that.

The earliest known examples of tattoos were for a long time Egyptian and were present on several female mummies dated to approximately 2000 B.C. I wonder if they were tramp stamps? But following the more recent discovery of the Iceman from the area of the Italian-Austrian border in 1991 and his tattoo patterns, this date has been pushed back a further thousand years when he was carbon-dated at around 5,200 years old. His tat said “Mummy” or was it “mommy”? Hey, it’s 5,000 years old and tough to read. Just kidding.

The forefather of tattooing in America is without a doubt the one and only Lyle Tuttle. A lot of tattoo historians claim that it all started to bloom with his tattooing of Janis Joplin as well as Peter Fonda and Cher. In an interview with Lyle in PRICK Magazine (yeah, that’s right, PRICK Magazine) he said about Cher, “Yeah, and now I hear that she’s getting the goddamned thing taken off. That’s one insane wom- . . . wait I’ll stop there (laughter). I don’t have any axes to grind. I’m a gentleman, don’t you know. Janis Joplin was another wild one. She was a great copywriter. Madison Avenue couldn’t have said it better – ‘People who get tattooed like to f*ck a lot!’ She was great.”

It used to be that the only place you could find a tattoo parlor was in a big city or a city with a military base near by. Not any more, there are so many shops now that you can get ink just about anywhere. Hell, we have a shop right in our mall here in Wilmington. Who would have thunk?

When an opportunity came up in my city to attend a tattoo expo I thought if would be a unique experience and a great photo op. I also thought that y’all would like to check out the photos and share in the experience so enjoy the photos and don’t worry about what your ink will look like when your 70 because by then you won’t give a rat’s ass. Speaking of ass just remember, “tramp stamps” turn into “ass stamps” when you get old, not that it matters.