this story is for those of you who don’t know how i came to get my BTI tattoo.
it all started sometime about the beginning of july 2007 when Shane (bigbammer) invited me to his wedding with Keri (countess). i said i would try but probably wouldn’t because i could not afford for the wife and i to go. after speaking to her she told me i should go on my own, well i didn’t need telling twice. so i rang Shane and told him i was booking a ticket and that i would be there. all seemed to be going well until a few days later when Shane said the wedding was being moved forwards and was also going to be in Nichols, Iowa and not in New York as first arranged. And the most amazing part of all of this Shane asked me to be best man!!!! not a problem i just booked a flight to Chicago and Shane and Keri would come and get me. fantastic all was sorted and the flights to and from Chicago were booked and nothing could go wrong…!!!! famous last words…!!!!
on the friday morning i left home 8 hours early for a 2 hour drive to the airport. we were going pretty well until we got to the M25 London orbital motorway. there had been an accident where a lorry had rolled over and dumped 30 tons of plasterboard all over the whole carriageway. this brought us to a total stop and then it took 4 hours to get to the next exit, needless to say i didn’t get to the plane on time. i nearly just gave up as the airline wanted £250 or about $480 to reschedule for the following morning. i couldn’t afford that much more. anyway we asked about the price etc at the help desk and the guy there had a word with his manager and i just had to pay £50 more. phew what a relief. all day i had been trying to get hold of Keri or Shane to tell them to wait in Iowa as i might not get there. too late they had already gone and ended up staying the night in Chicago so that they would be there in the morning to pick me up. if ever any of you guys get the chance to go and meet them please do they are both awesome people and i am proud to call them part of my new extended family. well we got to Iowa no problem and the wedding all went well, despite Keri having a fit of the giggles during the ceramony. then there was a cake reception etc. we all went to the pub after that and i took the piss out of the plastic darts, we have real ones in the UK…!!! lol..!! Kevin (inkbug) said this is because they tend to throw them at each other. well we do in England, don’t stop us having real ones. did seem funny to me that hand guns are totally illegal in the UK and we have real darts, in the USA you have the right to bear arms but only get plastic darts in your local pub……!!! lol…!!!
the day after the wedding, sunday, we had breakfast with Keri’s parents (love you mum and dad) and then it was off to Chicago to find Wendy’s tattoo shop and to meet Wendy (tatbrat1488). we got to Chicago and booked some rooms at a super8 motel then went and found Wendy. once there Shane, Keri,Kevin and I all got new ink done and we all had BTI tatt’s to commemorate the ocassion in style.
Close up
we then spent what was left of the night with Wendy and her friends in a local Irish pub till it closed. the following morning it was back on a plane and then home…..
so there you have it, something like a 9,000 mile round trip to be Shane’s best man at his wedding with Keri and then a BTI tattoo… i had a awesome time and met some awesome people, I’ve never felt so welcome anywhere ever and would like to say thanks to everybody…. Phoenix
People meet in different ways, fall in love, get married, and have kids. There is nothing new about it, very traditional. In our case however it is outside the norm. We meet in a chat room. Not just any chat room but here on BTI. How can two people fall in love that have never met? As strange as it sounds it happened. We exchanged phone numbers, and there was A LOT of late night calls. The more we talked the more our love for each other grew. We feel in love with each other’s mind and souls. The choice to fly half way across the country was an easy one. We knew that we were meeting the loves of our lives. We meet face to face on Friday the 13. The luckiest day in our lives. We had talked about getting matching tattoos done, but that was not good enough for us. We decided on getting a heart with a lighting bolt through it. We split the heart down the center of the lighting bolt. For I carry his heart and he carries mine. They are only complete and beat as one when we are together. It is our symbol of the love that we have for each other. It has only been a short time that we have know each other, but we both feel as if we were struck by lighting. The best part of this whole story is on bent knee Shane purposed to Keri so our hearts will always beat as one. Shane and Keri were married this past August in New York.
Who says love has to be traditional!
Shane and Keri
BigBammer and Countess
Well on my upper right arm I have the crimson Ghost (Misfits) and under it I have a portrait of Cliff Burton, the late great bass slinger of Metallica. On September 27th, 1986, about a month afterwards, I met Metallica at the Syracuse War Memorial when they opened for Ozzy. Cliff was killed in a bus accident in Scandinavia. When the bus rolled, Cliff flew out the window and the bus landed on him. The next day I heard about the tragic accident and I was crushed. All of us metal heads were crying. The Jocks and preps started making fun of us so we beat the hell out of about 15 of them and we were suspended. Anyways, I was hurt for the whole school year, crying almost every day. My buddies even gave me the nickname “Cliff” which lasted throughout high school. I was 15 when Cliff died. The only tattoo Cliff had was the Crimson Ghost and I wanted to get the same tattoo! I got my crimson ghost on April 11th 2006…which just happens to be the day Dave Mustaine was kicked out of Metallica in 1983. Then I found a cool picture of Cliff wearing his cowboy hat and cut off flannel shirt which was cool because you could see his tattoo. So, I had his portrait done underneath my ghost! Now my whole right arm is a tribute to Cliff Burton and Metallica! I finally felt peace in my heart after the 2 tattoos. I lost a friend and a hero. I was 15 when I met them and all we did was party. I don’t have any autographs or pictures…only the memory in my heart and soul!
This tattoo , although my smallest tattoo , means the most to me . As an 18 year old kid , I was very well on my way to killing myself by 19 , be it drugs, alcohol , or just whatever I had the whim for that day. One day , I woke up and my life changed , completely . I found out I was pregnant , with my daughter , Jimanie ( like Jiminey Cricket). Being pregnant, I stopped my self destructive habits immediately. I fell in love with my baby, and when she was born , I named her Jimanie Jasper (her father picked that) Rain. This “cricket” is actually a grasshopper that was on her very first outfit (she happened to be born a preemie and when I sent my mother to buy her a preemie outfit she knew immediately this was the outfit for our lil cricket) . The symbol above the cricket means “rain”. In every way this tattoo defines me as a mother, how I was reborn to no longer care about myself , but let my world revolve around my “lifesaver”
My tattoo is a fallen angel. I got this tattoo because all through my life I had always tried to be what I thought a typical good Christian should be, but there was always something inside me that prevented me from being so. I decided to stop trying and get a tattoo to remind me of what I am and what I’ll never be.
This tattoo is a memorial tattoo I got for my mother. She passed away on april 14 of this year. On the day of her visitation, I was sitting outside, having a cigarette and listening to johnny cash, without which I don’t think I could have made it through all of that week. I’m by no stretch of the imagination a religious person, but at that moment I asked God for some sort of sign that my Mom was where she needed to be. Then out of nowhere, this cardinal comes swooping up on the porch and landed on a light. It sat there for a moment, looking at me. Then it chirped and flew away. And all I could think to say was thank you. So, that weekend I called Mark of Cain tattoos in Champaign, IL, and set up an appointment for the following Monday and had the cardinal done.
My most significant tattoo is my first, and currently my only. It’s a medium sized blue and green gecko on the inside of my left ankle. I got it because of what it means in my religion. Geckos stand for over coming strife and obstacles. In the past, I was extremely depressed and had a hard time dealing with the world around me. My parents had divorced, my father remarried, my mother went through a mental break down and I ended up raising myself from age eight to age sixteen. I began to be picked on at school and my grades slipped. Family life became hell and I turned inward. When I was nine years old I began to cut myself. My first suicide attempt was at age thirteen, and I was even blamed for other girls in my school cutting themselves, when I didn’t even know who they were. Over the years through hard work, and a lot of love from my friends, I began to climb out of my depressions. I still fight every day to maintain a healthy relationship with those around me and I have to work not to slip back intoold habits. The gecko helps me to realize that no matter what, I can over come the strife in the world with help, and determination.
My nephew, Jake Daeda, was one of those kids that all the other kids wanted to be like. He was smart, fun, handsome, sportsman, witty and just all all around good kid. We had planned to meet at Quaker Steak and Lube on this Saturday afternoon for wings (wings was his favorite meal) so I could finally meet his new Girlfriend, Abbey. Well, the dinner never happened and he went to a party instead. He was running late for curfew and was speeding through Monticello and went off the road. Jake was killed… at the age of 16 I had lost my nephew, my friend, my son… my all. I went into a very quick and very steady downward spiral with drugs and alcohol (a spiral I had been on many times before). I woke up one day and realized that this was not helping the situation, so I went and got his name tattooed on my ribcage (most painful one yet) as a constant reminder that he is in my heart and forever will be. I miss you Jakey, and love you more than words can ever express!
The mary is the religious part of me but she is holding a bottle of vodka which is the fun side of me just like the sun with god written in it i.e the sun of god. On the other shoulder is ohm’s law because I’m an electrician. The girls on either side are also my fun side meant to be my two sisters. At the botom it says, “I came I saw I conquered” because I have lost most of my family and I’m still going strong havin fun.
I have acquired, at this point in my life, quite a few tattoos. Actually I currently have ink on something greater than 50% of my lily white hide. I’m a fairly conservative, middle class business owner and most of my clients are stunned when they discover I have a tattoo and they are completely floored when they find out I have more than one. Since most people seem to be hiding some little ratty piece tucked away under a shirt, etc. I have kept it to an elite few in my small town that know the extent of my art and none of THEM even know half of the stories involved in how I got these pieces.
Today I wanted to tell you about the warrior fairy that I wear down my right ribcage and hip and the felon that drew her for me. She’s really pretty cool and doesn’t get enough respect since the mermaid showed up…
The original drawing was done by my first artist and good friend Frank. Frankie had a troubled past and spent some time in jail. By the time I met him he was a two strike felon, slinging ink at the local Hell’s Angel endorsed tattoo parlor, just trying to keep his head above water and stay out of trouble till he got off parole. What can I say? I’m an accepting person and have diverse friends. He’d done my first tattoo, treating a little white girl walking in to a rough place alone, way out of her league and too stupid/stubborn to leave without getting the little flower she’d come for with gentleness and respect. We became friends, I started to introduce him to the wonderful world of computers and we were moving forward from there.
Now, all things being equal, and Frankie being about as successful as any other Latino at keeping out of trouble in our little predominantly upper middle class, white county. He managed to get himself picked up on the way home from a party just before Christmas 2005. He was guilty of being Latino, being on parole, being drunk and riding in the same car as a bunch of other drunk folks. Since ‘Is anyone here on Parole?’ is one of the first questions a cop asks when he stops a group of people in a car, and my boy is not dumb enough to say ‘No’ and have them find out otherwise, he automatically got locked up. This was a very bad thing for Frankie. All I knew at the time was that he called to cancel our computer class and all the next day his phone was going straight to voice mail. It wasn’t until the next afternoon that I found out where he was but not what had happened.
I grew up in a predominantly Catholic environment. I went to the all girl’s school, did the volunteer stuff, read my bible. When I found out what happened to my new friend I couldn’t get the verse about visiting the criminal out of my head so I hauled my butt down to the jail. I’d never BEEN to a jail, didn’t know where I was supposed to go or what the rules were but hell… I’d walked into the tattoo parlor so I could sure walk into a jail house! I stripped down to my clothes, a pencil, my car key, my license and a $20 and wandered in to see what was up. It was one of the best things I ever did.
Frankie had no idea who was going to be there when he walked out to the visiting area and when he saw it was me on the other side of the glass the most profound look of relief washed over his face. For my part I was stunned. He was a mess. He’d freaked when they locked him up… A third strike and he’s down for the count. He hadn’t been sleeping or eating for the last 48 hours since he’d been picked up and it showed. As we sat there on the little phones with our hands pressed against the thick glass, trying to reach through it, I felt so bad for him but I wasn’t really sure what I could do except be there, be his friend and keep pushing him to work on the art and stick with all of the things we’d been working on before he got picked up.
I went and visited him in jail every chance I got while we were waiting for the arraignment and got my cell phone set up so he could call me and talk to me when he got the chance. He called a lot. I helped him put his head back in the right place, encouraged him not to give up, reminded him of all the good things he’d been doing and all the positive things he’d gotten involved with. I tracked down his parole officer, got him some art supplies, touched base with his family and let them know what was up. It never even occurred to me t do anything else. Sure, he’d done some dumb things in the past but was trying to get it together and I stood by my friend. My boy was locked down 4 days with no charges. When they arraigned him they dropped all the drug and alcohol stuff they’d been trying to intimidate him with and left resisting arrest because he was stupid enough to start cussing out the cops AFTER they handcuffed him and put him in the car.
Well, my life works in odd ways and one of my clients was by my shop several times that week. He saw me scooting in and out low key during office hours so I could make the visiting hours at the jail, etc. the day I scooted out to the arraignment without barely saying ‘Hello’ to him, which is quite out of character, I found him waiting for me at my office when I got back. He nailed me down and got the whole story. He’d seen Frank’s portfolio at my office a few weeks before when I’d been scanning the art work into the computer so that we could put it up on-line and potentially find some more clients. I explained how I’d been helping Frank learn to use computers so he could expand his opportunities. This guy listened to everything, admitted to having been very impressed by the work he’d seen and told me he was glad that I was being such a good friend. Then he told me that he lived next door to the head of the County Sheriff’s Dept and volunteered to go over and talk to his neighbor about the situation.
Without warning and against all odds Frank walked out of jail on Christmas Eve. While he was in I had encouraged him to keep drawing and not to lose hope. He wanted to thank me by drawing something for me that WAS me. He drew the warrior fairy, all blades and sharp edges and a ton of bad ass. Then, typical to Frankie, he decided that it was too raw and wicked to be sweet little ‘Roja’ and ended up drawing some soft, pretty thing coming up out of a flower. When he got out he gave me the softer one but he mentioned the original and I made him show it to me. As soon as I saw it I told him ‘Fuck that sissy fairy, Frank, I like the tough one!’
I tried to convince him to do the tattoo for me countless times over the next few months but he wouldn’t do it. He felt I was getting too much ink. Eventually he moved shops, which was a good decision for him but put him a long way away, and I ended up paying him for the drawing (he didn’t ask me to, but it is his day job after all and I respect his work) and found another artist to tattoo it. I still like Frank’s original WAY better but the piece I wear is still really special to me. It was the first time anyone ever gave mean image of myself that was something I wanted to be. I’m hoping some day Frank will get a chance to do a little adjusting to her and make her more of what she was meant to be…
