I’m convinced Kat Von D is my spirit animal. Kat Von D is this tattoo artist based here in L.A. The first time I ever heard of her was when she was in all the tabloids for dating Jesse James… the ex-husband of Oscar Award winning actress Sandra Bullock. I remember because I was under the impression that Jesse James, a notorious man whore who sleeps with as many different women during the course of a day as a baby does taking a shit, slept with her while still being married to Sandra Bullock. Now Sandra Bullock is this very funny, personable, girl next door type with an amiable unaffected beauty. She doesn’t cake on the make-up, no boob job, no bleach bottle dye job, she’s the good girl you’d be lucky to take home. So when the papers started to smear Jesse James’ mug next to this ratchet looking chick covered from head to toe in tattoos I was thinking, what kind of stupid motherfucker does this dude have to be to leave America’s Sweetheart for this pasty faced gutter whore with a tattoo on her forehead? From that moment, looking at her devilish figure from the cover of The Enquirer I made an immediate and deep judgment call about her.
Then for no reason whatsoever outside of the fact that I am unemployed and simply cannot get myself to wake up before 2:00 p.m., I decided to pick “L.A. Ink” as my new television show to binge watch. I have loved every single solitary minute of this show. I started to Google her and do a little investigative work and right now I have to give a loud and universal… MY BAD. I was completely wrong. For one, from what I understand, Jesse didn’t cheat on Sandra with Kat, the relationship happened AFTER Sandra and Jesse split. And the most startling mistake of all was… the woman that I remember seeing on those tabloids wasn’t even Kat Von D at all… it was Michelle 'Bombshell (?)' McGee. Then Jesse went and cheated on Kat also. From what I ascertain, Kat is one of the strongest and funniest women I have seen on TV in a long time and one of the very few celebrities who have a strong connection to their ethnic roots. The more I watch show, the more I am fascinated by her tenacity, sense of humor and art. So to Kat… I thoroughly and sincerely apologize. Whore no more. I was wrong. I admit it.
I’m on Season Three right now and I am just amazed at what this woman does and am in awe of her heart and her talent. It would not be too egregious to think jealousy would not be swirled in there somewhere; she’s young, she’s thin, she’s gorgeous, she’s famous and she has this amazing “rock out with your cock out” artistic talent. She just knocks me out. She is a true rock star and I am totally smitten.
And then I think of my life and again I whine, what the fuck have I been doing all this time?! There are people on this show that have been tattooing for like a decade or so. They went with their passion back when they were 13 or 14 and even back then they went in that direction full force. By the time they hit their twenties they were fully enveloped in the messy blitz of those passions. Hannah Aitchison is one of the more mature tattoo artists on the show and she is just the epitome of what growing older in the coolest fucking possible way looks like; funky, artistic, smart, strong, full of edge, full of life, completely professional. And then there’s me. When asked about my plans to make money now that I am unemployed I harken back to a joke Wanda Sykes once made and reply, “well I play the lottery. Sometimes I like to diversify my funds so I buy scratch offs.” What the fuck have I been doing all this time?! I was talking with one of my BFFs the other day about getting a tattoo of my boyfriend’s name and she (not so) jokingly mused, “We’re not really doing that because we’re pushing 50 and we know better than to tattoo our boyfriends on our bodies like some twenty year old. We’re much too old to be doing such things right?” I couldn’t answer right away; I was too busy writhing in pain from the knife wound she just issued into my gut. If I were not in the middle of a midlife crisis before, I am the full embodiment of it right now.
In certain instances I would say that I am much too old to be a fan boy of Kat Van D. Trying new personas in an effort to recapture your youth is the epitome of a midlife crisis and is just… sad and pathetic. However, there are definitely aspects of Kat’s life that I want to emulate but I definitely don’t want to be… sad and pathetic.
My God I am so sad and pathetic.
I am, however, optimistic that I am clearly in the “Before” part of my life. This the bad part of the autobiography that lays the foundation to fully appreciate the “After” part. Once I’m a tattooed muscle daddy bear millionaire I can look back at these moments of being obese, unemployed and chronically masturbating as “The Hunger Years”. I definitely feel that these are the years of my “Hunger Games”. This isn’t the rest of my life; it’s just a bad patch. I do firmly believe that. It just fucking sucks and sometimes it gets to me and I know that I am going to have to work to get myself out of this rut but I do have enough perspective to see that this is just a bad patch.
A horrible, sad, pathetic, bad patch.
But seriously, I’m good. I’m a little cold. I’m sitting outside the Starbucks on Sunset and St. Andrews and I’m just wearing a pair or overalls and black tank top. It’s been kind of hot lately so I thought it would be appropriate but it is a little chilly right now. I’m going to be leaving pretty soon any way. And I have seen my fair share of Hollywood vagrants here, one of which is sitting a few feet away from me asking every single pedestrian for a buck and NO ONE is receptive. So yeah, I’m lucky. I’m good. I’ve got opportunities. And I’m grateful.
