ESSAYS
WILLIE NELSON
(In progress)
Shotsie Gorman
First North American Serial Rights
About 2000 Words
Copyright 2002 Shotsie Gorman
A beautiful red head walks into a tattoo shop.
She says;
"I want a picture of Elvis tattooed right here." She points to the left of her pubic area.
The tattoo artist is flustered and says;
"Sure just drop your pants and I'll give you the best picture of Elvis you've ever seen.
The tattooist worked furiously and when he finished he tells her.
"Stand up and check it out in the mirror." She looks and Shrieks
"This doesn't look like Elvis at all" She starts ballin, and sniveling.
"Look lady I’ll fix'er up for ya. I'll do another for no charge, just here on the other side".
After little thought she agrees.
The tattoo artist gets down between her legs workin like a mad man. Again proudly he tells her;
"Go ahead check'er out."
She stands before the mirror in horror.
"You fucked up! This doesn't look like Elvis either.
"Now hold on there little lady I think we needs a second opinion."
The tattoo artist scrambles out the door. He pops into the bar next-door lookin for a second. All he can find is T.J. the town drunk.
"Come'er T.J. I needs ya to help me."
The tattooist and the drunk stumble back in.
"T.J. Have a look at this tattoo and tell us who it looks like."
T.J. Is stunned, this beautiful red head is standing in front of him naked from the waist down.
He staggers over. Gets right close to have a look see. Finally he rises smiling and spitting out the answer.
" Well I don't know who the guys on the right and left are; but the one in the middle is definitely Willie Nelson!"
The deeper territories in this common little story are for the most part the unspoken and significant.
The examination of the more subtle levels of meaning in this joke are revealing.
Humor ( quote some commentary on humor by Freud (We laugh at what we fear the most)
Street jokes are well known keys to the door of the gross consciousness and are the underlying
or submerged but salient truths in cultural attitudes. Political realities under in repressive governments
and in societies where auto censorship reigns supreme in the media are most often glimpsed by the prevailing street humor.
Popular humor holds the keys to unlock our unconscious in the way mythology unmasks the primal spiritual mind.
I will in addition present a cogent description of why tattooing occupies such an unusual place in
our consciousness and the level to which sexism and repressed sexuality play a role in the popularity
of tattoo contemporary American life.Descriptions of our conscious fears, aspiration and
paradigm are directly tied together in the context of this “joke” allowing a window to the soul or lack thereof in our culture.
In the weird reality it creates this joke carries the fabric of our cultural memory. Hidden in the humor are sexual prejudices,
fear of female power of creation, social mores, Adolescent emotional sexuality, patriarchal dominance, fear of death, concepts
of power, acceptance and romantic acceptance of alcoholism, and talismans. (There are salient deep rooted psychologically
unconscious Jungian archetypal, concepts)
Many of the symbols are also representative of the evolution of iconography in the tradition of American tattooing,
and their circumvention of social restraints. All the included symbols have for centuries resided in more powerful secret
and mystical contexts of long forgotten ritual. The common awareness of the tattoo process and the reality of the circumstances
are in effect a blurred vision of far more potent ideas. It’s is a though the culture at large is the town drunk.
Unwilling to see the sexual content of the situation. It becomes a parody of the repression of sex
and the need to anesthetize to the realities of it.
While the taking of psychosocial, intellectual or spiritual concepts and watering them down to make them palatable
for gross culture consumption can be painful for the lovers of intellect and the weave of life experience. It does not
lessen the importance of pop symbols that pervade tattooing and the culture at large. There are many valid reasons for
popular cultures suspicious content. Within it lies great truth and long tested forms of wisdom.
Pop has its own sense of consequence, proportion, and beauty.
Often intellectuals and cultural elitists see popular culture as moronic and mundane.
Contemporary tattooing exists within Pop and as such it’s true power and spiritual origins are diminished.
There is a loss of recognition for the art of tattooing, it’s connection to right of passage ritual as spoken of
in The Dutch Anthropolgist Van Genneps seminal treatise on the subject of passage ritual.
Many contemporary visual artists are working in pedantic forms of expression that have no bearing on the daily
meaning in peoples lives. missing the thread that offers “common sense” as a mythological healing and teaching tool.
While many intellectuals need only to take off the blinders of elitism to see that popular culture is simply shorthand for
deep rooted cultural paradigms and tattooing as a source for their expression.
It becomes apparent when look closely at the reaction we have to this story that there is an immediate universal
recognition of the tattoo symbols what they mean how we except them. The premise of the story and how it is used
for titillation. American tattooing traditions are filled with sexual imagery. This is one aspect of it’s function that
has placed it in contempt. Despite the overriding aspects of subconscious sexual repression in our cultural conciousness
made by obvious in the historical,omission of social sexual imagery in much of fine art history.
This is sexual aspect is clearly delineating the depth of primal urgency, of basic human passions and fears both
residing in the process that tattooing taps into. Primal drives seemingly just below the surface of our consciousness
are broached with an immediacy and intimacy that frightens most and is not afforded access more quickly than in many
other art forms. As a result of having an iconigraphic meilu that are perceived as unacceptable in a contemporary repression
consciousness. I.E. Sexual perversion, titillation, machismo, the criminal subculture is very often the context in which our culture
perceives tattooing as evidenced by the restrictive laws that have their origins in Judeo-Christian prohibitions.
Observed through the filter of culture, tattooing cannot escape the confinement of being brutish low class, and filled
with lurid sexuality. As such, this prejudicial vision epitomizes the very aspect of tattooing that evoke the most vehement
anti-tattoo rhetoric. Therefore in reality the more vehement the reaction of disgust to tattooing the more salient is the interest
of it’s connection to sexuality!
It could well be that the reasoned that this official response to tattooing is one that comes out of the
inherent racism that exists in our cultural consciousness. Certainly there is no denying fear is prevalent state of
consciousness in our society. Certainly the obvious fear of physical deformity resulting in social rejection is relevant here.
Our society cannot readily accept the deformed body as it damages the illusion of the perfect culture a blood relative perhaps
of Arian supremacy theory.
This stance comes directly out of the dominant force of Judeo Christian ethic that suppresses the overt expression of human
sexuality. These religious forms have contributed to the demonization of the human body. Within this concept of demonization
is the germ of a contemporary movement in tattooing and body modification, till in recent history with the interest of the academic
community, a little noticed dichotomy within this prejudiced perspective.
As our cultural memory is directly sprung from European sensibilities. Documents have shown us that tattooing has been
well established in Europe two thousand years before the birth of Christ. As Caesar made his way throughout North Western
Europe he encountered tribal ritual and custom. Most of the North Western European tribes such as Gaul's, Goths Tuetons,
Scots, Britons and Picts were very much involved with the practice of tattooing as rite of passage ritual.
Considering that there was again rebirth of the tattoo as acceptable form of social expression Contemporary America is filled
with the cultural memory of early European
To illustrate the irony of this dichotomy consider the situation of Vennessa Williams. Shortly after becoming the first black
Miss. America she had a public humiliation and her crown and title removed for having posed for nude photo's. So first she
wins by being judged for having talent, physical beauty and a fine body in a bathing suit. Then she is publicly
condemned for exhibiting this body in a photo. The body is the last battle ground against the repressive cultural ethic that demonizes it.
When an individual does not recognize his or her unconscious fears they take up more and more space in the mind.
They grow to huge forces and eventually become demons and devour the self. This is why the younger generation of America
has turned to popularizing body modification. The body id the demon let loose.
Since Tattooing is a ritual form of body modification it becomes an aspect of the demon visage . According to the
dominant Judeo-Christian cultural ethic it must be stopped. Hence the legislation that is multiplying by the day
to ban tattooing from our culture.
The body being manipulated in rituals has along human history described as rites of passage rituals. Today as it has
always been tattooing fulfills this need. The common denominator among tattoo clientele is that they choose to be tattooed
at a time of significant change in their lives. These rituals most of which historically contain tattooing as a major element is
used to express spirituality, magic, aspects of consciousness development. They are also used to
disseminate tribal cosmology, mortality, history and lastly every one's favorite, sexuality. It is the very essence of human
nature to try to express in some outward fashion the experiences of the inner life. We live in a ritual-less society.
We all struggle to balance the Mind, Body and Soul and we try to manifest the struggle in our lives in some outward way.
Tattooing offers itself up to all regardless of socio- economic or educational differences as a way to fill the need for ritual in
a modern society. That urge gives tattooing it's real power that is why there is so much fear of it. Thousands of years of symbolism
is stored in our unconscious mind and are represented in the tattoo vocabulary. That is why Tattooing has lasted the course of human history.
The tattoo images we see on the walls here in this Tattoo studio are direct descendants and some cases are exact copies of the
images that existed at the dawn of human experience.
So why Elvis Precisely you ask? Well Elvis in our collective conscience is a man of talent,
a hero of sorts, someone who has transcended from the mistakes of his life by...dying.
He is The King and all of us who enjoyed him, identified with him, saw him as part of our lives, as part of our families.
We all enjoy the idea that he was the king. He is in effect our mass culture, royal ancestor.
The tattoo of Elvis in our joke is akin to the most powerful aspect of early human social organization.
It is in effect contemporary ancestor worship. Historically tattooing is an aspect of this form ritual worship
one which is so often reviled by Good puritans and tagged as Atavism. Atavism meaning a throw back to
primitive urges from the personal ancestry. God knows we don't want anyone expressing primitive human urges.
In this case we would all be swiveling our hips and curling our upper lips in public.
Ancestor worship as a tool of social organization had to be undermined by the bureaucracies of the Christian
church so they could exert complete social control.
It is recorded in the old testament Leviticus 19:28 " You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh on account
of the dead, or create any marks upon you"
This tattoo ban effectively cut off the identity of whole cultures. It took away the collective ancestor inheritance
of thousands of years and threw the people into spiritual chaos. This void to be filled conveniently with the rules of
behavior from the Christian ethic. Gee it almost sounds like the republican agenda.
On atavism Summerset Maugham once remarked that for some people the inheritance of the caveman meant they
always disliked people on the first acquaintance".
Well Maybe the republicans do practice Atavism after all.
In a more positive light The worship of King Elvis is better known in Anthropological terms as " Totemism "
The Oxford English Dictionary describes Totemism as a belief in kinship with, or a mystical relationship between a
group or an individual and a totem. in our case Elvis. Or in many other cases a lycanthropic reference to powerful
animals such as the Black Panther, tiger, Snake etc. The animal designs go the deepest into the unconscious. Often
people will try to absorb the power of family members or social heroes by emulating them in some outward manner
or in the case of the animal transform in the creature or manifest it's power in some way. Tattoo clients will ask to see
older tattoo designs trying to find the one that their grandfather wore or some hero in their lives like Elvis.
The fact remains that contemporary tattooing is not fad or fashion, nor is it limited to the reprobate. It's longevity belies
it's public image. It will even survive the onslaught of the information age.
Perhaps now when you see a tattooed person you might not be so quick to make harsh judgments perhaps you might now ask
hem for the story that is connected to the tattoo.
Why Willie Nelson? you could ask. Perhaps you may begin to see in some small way from this look at tattoo
history that the cultural problems we face today as a society are not as a result of popular culture as the leaders of
the Neo-fascist cultural wars have pronounced. Our problems come
more from the need for deeper understanding of the choices other people make for themselves. The need we hav
e to extend to others the right to be different. In the words of Willie Nelson
Maybe I didn't love you quite as often as I should have