Colin Kaepernick, Tatted Up Freak

Fine, but in part that's because Iverson and Sprewell normalized it 15 years ago. There was quite the ta-do about his "rows" when he first came into the league.

 

The column seems a pretty good example of something I mentioned the other day, the absence of editing in the case of so much online writing. What (unrushed, right-thinking) editor wouldn't have raised the possibility with the writer that the lede - which is the source of most of the trouble - would be completely misunderstood by most readers?

 

I think the people who got upset at Iverson's braids 15 years ago are dead already.

 

First thing I noticed about Kaepernick were his tats. I didn't give a shit. It's just something I noticed right away. Kinda hard not to. They're pretty prominent.

 

Creosote, if you cropped down that top photo to take the uniform out, I don't think I would have guessed who that was with 20 tries.

 

Also an example of what can happen in the industry of the observational ("bathrobe") column. Guessing that Whitley wouldn't have felt the same after interviewing Kaepernick as he did sitting 2,000 miles away. As that quarterback/CEO thing goes, the kid is very very impressive in all public interactions.

 

yes, absolutely, IMHO. They're completely mainstream, whereas they used to be fringe. Go to a beach in the summer you'll notice how many more twentysomethings have tattoos. Why the ladies would choose to besmirch their fine skin with ink is beyond me. Guys can do whatever the hell they want, bc men have ugly bodies already.

 

That's absolutely true.

But there's a good bathrobe column to be had on the matter of athletes and tattoos and perception and our own prejudices. This was not that column.

 

One might start by comparing:

Google Images search for "beautiful tattoos": http://tinyurl.com/cxvoofj

Google Images search for "Renoir": http://tinyurl.com/cqywfv8

Even ignoring the composition, look at the colors!

Most tattoos have poor drawing, garish colors. I mean, go ahead, enjoy your tattoo. It's entirely up to you. If that's how one can make a statement, make it. Our view of whether or not tattoos are a good thing is likely to be a matter of taste, of class, of cultural surroundings, of how and where and when we were raised.

But I still wonder: Why are most tattoos so ugly? Is it because most are, essentially, clip art? Is there some serious limitation in the color palette that works for tattooing?

I'm not saying one can't find a beautiful tattoo. But at the mall or the ballgame or the tattoo parlor on a season full of Saturdays, odds are against it. One factor is probably just the available budget for most people going in for a quick tattoo, and there must be some connection between the cultural affinities of the people who like tattoos and the other kind of art that might appeal to them. But I'm guessing there's some technical limitations, too, in the quality of drawing and the available colors.

 

It's spelled "because."

 

That was an incredibly insightful post.

 

FWIW, Kate Moss has a tattoo above her butt that was drawn by renowned (in some circles) German painter Lucian Freud, and it's valued at like $1 million. So if she ever runs low on money, she can visit her local taxidermist and he can lift it off, allowing her to pawn it.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/18/kate-moss-tattoo-lucian-freud-pictures-photos-vanity-fair_n_2154488.html