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Gerg
Trad climber
Calgary
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Jul 13, 2013 - 12:31am PT
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cbr
Ice climber
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Jul 13, 2013 - 07:03am PT
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Sierra Ledge Rat
Mountain climber
Old and Broken Down in Appalachia
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Jul 13, 2013 - 08:32am PT
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I hate tattos, if you're asking
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TWP
Trad climber
Mancos, CO
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Jul 14, 2013 - 01:42am PT
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I hate tattoos too.
I will forever associate tattoos with the first American I saw sporting one: Loris Lee McVey. I meet him at his arraignment on a charge of assault on his fellow death row inmate. I was his court appointed attorney. He was on death row for killing a fellow Hell's Angel he killed over a few motorcycle parts Loris thought the "victim" had stolen from him. He got convicted because he confessed this crime to his girlfriend. I guess he thought this increased his sex appeal? He told me about another girlfriend of his -"Dirty Nancy" - who during a notorious Hell's Angel's shoot-out had been injudicious and stood the better to yell at the cops. Loris's distress arose because this behavior made it easy for the cops to ID her, and she in turn dropped the dime on him.
Loris's tattoo was a real thing of beauty. I asked him about it. He said he did it to himself, looking into a mirror, while in prison. It was a giant scorpion on the back of his hand as big as a gorilla's with lots of rich colors. Loris had an unusual physic in many ways. Short but with a girth of easily 60 inches around both waist and chest, with thick arms, massive hands. He had a seriously undershot jaw bite, so large that it was ever-present. The same day saw his half-brother. Larry and Loris obviously did not have the same father. Larry was as small, jaunt and sinewy as Loris was a barrel from head to toe. Loris and Larry who co-occupants of death row, with a common mother. Loris and Larry were both charged with assaulting another death row inmate during exercise release.
So how did the fight occur? Weren't inmates released into separate runs? Yes, they were. But the separation was a climbable chain link and guards looked the other way if an inmate "voluntarily" climbed his own fence to get into some else's cage. Indeed the brothers had encouraged the "victim" to join them in one cell to play - then stuck him with a shank, intentionally inflicting (I am sure) only non-lethal wounds.
Loris did not want to cop a plea to the beef I was assigned to defend (it carried a mandatory 25-year sentence that would not even begin until he was paroled on every other charge against him, and of course, he already had a murder conviction and death sentence (which was never carried out though Loris didn't want to miss out on this last chance to get out of death row and into a courtroom where he would see real, live women! Once this logic was explained to me, I fully understood that I would be employed by the State of Arizona for a trial that might easily take two or three days if every played their cards right. The Judge was a good sport who had seen it all; the prosecutor took no umbrage at the death row inmates refusal to plea; he had assumed that would be the case all the long.
Since Loris was convicted and received the mandatory 25-year sentence, he was entitled as a matter of right to appeal his conviction to the Arizona Supreme Court. Yes, guessed it; I had to take the appeal with a straight face and "do my best."
Realizing what Loris wanted was as much time in court and out of death row as possible, and wanting to cover my butt, I had filed a motion to suppress Loris's confession of guilty for the subject assault. Loris told me (an no one ever denied and disbelieved him) that once the assault "went down", the prison administration told me would be held '"in the hole" until he confessed. You might have thought as a civilian that his confession was not needed. Oh, but it was. The "victim" was a fellow inhabitant on death row; at trial he refused to testify (because of the prison code of silence and the State had nothing to offer him; he was already on death row. The confession would be good for the jury to hear at the trial. Juries love confessions. In the average juror's mind, a confession is "the best evidence" - for surely no one would ever confess to a crime unless they are guilty and surely LEO's never do anything coercive, cunning, conniving, rough, tough, duplicitous or nasty in this post-Miranda world run by faint hearted, limp wristed, and ultra-liberal judges who love nothing better than to let criminal off on technicalities!
So I put Loris on the stand to tell the Judge (and later the jury) why his confession was "involuntary."
He explained the horrid reality of lost privileges so long as he was confined "to the hole" and not just death row! No dessert! No dessert in the hole; but everyday on death row. Why shouldn't he confess under that kind of pressure? The jury didn't buy it; or did the Arizona Supreme Court when I presented the involuntary confession as grounds for a new trial. The old coots on the Court treated me just fine; no sign of distain or lack of respect for my zealous advocacy. And they approved my fee application in full.
His defense makes more sense to me now, as a mature man, after living with my Mother who refused to eat anything but chocolate ice cream the last two years of her life (though she knew it would hasten her death) and a wife who can't quit eating premium Chocolate Ice Cream as often as possible though she abhors weighing more than 103 pounds. And wife is a very intelligent woman and highly trained professional.
So I say, we need more posters to show us OLD TATTOOs. Show me what they look like after 5 years, 10 years, 25 years.
The tattoo fad will pass. And when it does, if I ever need a new profession, I will set up shop as a tattoo removal artist. Not much licensing required to put those bad boys on; how much more fun to be paid serious bread by ex-nare-do-wells once they've grown up. The "you can't believe how stupid I was to get my tattoo" stories will be fodder for a best seller. Then I will re-retire as a successful author.
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kaholatingtong
Trad climber
Nevada City
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Jul 14, 2013 - 02:05am PT
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The tattoo fad will pass. if you honestly think this aspect of body art and self expression IS a fad and will die then... I will have to disagree with you. cool stories though.
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TWP
Trad climber
Mancos, CO
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Jul 14, 2013 - 11:08pm PT
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Yes, the fad will pass. That's what popular culture is all about - change, being different. Tattoos are so ubiquitous nowadays, their popularity can only go into decline. Tattooing the body as a human behavior will persist forever; it's popularity in this culture will pass. Soon. Whatever is hot today within the youth counter culture and "cool" has to change rapidly, about every ten years.
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Mtnmun
Trad climber
Top of the Mountain Mun
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Jul 15, 2013 - 12:31am PT
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Great story TWP....thanks for posting.
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MisterE
Social climber
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Jul 15, 2013 - 12:49am PT
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TWP
Trad climber
Mancos, CO
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Jul 15, 2013 - 08:01pm PT
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Mr E.
Thanks for posting the definitive proof of what I said,
"Tattoos are so ubiquitous nowadays, their popularity can only go into decline."
Yes, the fad is over since the "FATS are the ones getting the tats."
And those tattoos are on display at McDonald's in the "Yes, I will f*#k if you buy me a drink" body zone, per the map posted far above by Tami.
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jiff
Ice climber
colorado
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Jul 17, 2013 - 11:49pm PT
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tatts are so 80's
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kaholatingtong
Trad climber
Nevada City
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Jul 18, 2013 - 12:41am PT
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and anyone caught wearing one should seriously re consider their temporal alignment. What if i was to say that generalizing about and projecting on, and just general dislike of tattoos is a cultural generational semi specific fad and that I believe it too, will eventually die off? just saying.
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the kid
Trad climber
fayetteville, wv
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Aug 17, 2013 - 09:28am PT
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my newest piece..
I will finish this sleeve with Black Sabbath, RUSH and Pink Floyd. These are my 4 favorite bands. I'll post when it is finished.
Kurt
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WyoRockMan
climber
Flank of the Big Horns
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Sep 12, 2013 - 01:55pm PT
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S.Leeper
Social climber
somewhere that doesnt have anything over 90'
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 12, 2013 - 05:21pm PT
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great tatts, fad or not..
me, i'm too chicken sh!t to go under the needle.
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RyanD
climber
Squamish
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Sep 12, 2013 - 07:33pm PT
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Kurt, that Zep piece is rad. Keep em coming. The question is: what are we gunna do about this climbing fad?? It's should pass soon I suspect.
That photo above with the old dudes is classic!
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S.Leeper
Social climber
somewhere that doesnt have anything over 90'
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 12, 2013 - 08:00pm PT
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well put Charles.
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hamie
Social climber
Thekoots
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Sep 15, 2013 - 02:36am PT
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Did it myself. Climbing related, too.
Advantage: Not permanent.
Disadvantage: Painful.
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Brandon-
climber
The Granite State.
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Sep 15, 2013 - 09:23am PT
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Wait, you posted a thread about ink, and you don't even have any?
You're a tattoo tourist?
Super lame, needles scare you? Pull up your man pants, you're making yourself look weak.
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McHale's Navy
Trad climber
From Panorama City, CA
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Oct 26, 2013 - 05:57pm PT
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I got this 2 weeks ago in Bishop at Gypsy King via Chris Witty. For many years I have told myself that if I ever did get a tattoo it would be a Baby Angle. Not sure why an angle but I think I just miss pounding on steel a little. I think Don Lauria even mentions Dennis Hennek taking a swing at a baby angle and missing and hitting a finger instead in 'Dihedral Diary'.
The photo is of my right shoulder photographed in a mirror. There is some 'irony' to this in that I have a separated right shoulder from 13 years ago I did not have fixed. The other irony is that I broke my right ankle pretty badly at Alabama Hills a week after getting the tattoo. Now I will have steel in my right lower leg and ankle! I did not see that coming. I'm feeling pretty jazzed in spite of it. I've tried to go back in time and reverse it but have conceded to just moving on. Damn the torpedos!
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Don Lauria
Trad climber
Bishop, CA
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No, actually it was MY knee I hit.
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