[HTMLGIANT] Well, after last week’s sober discussion of policy and legalities and whatnot, we’ve got some comparatively light fare to kick off our illustrious news week this time around. First things first, looks like a few of those bookish types over at HTMLGIANT are putting together a book project of literary tattoos, which is the sort of thing we may have clowned in the past (seeing as there’s no shortage of one-joke cash-grabs centered around stolen tattoo photos), but these folks seem to have the right idea:

Submissions are open to all kinds of literary tattoo work: quotations from your favorite writer, opening lines of novels, lines of verse, literary portraits or illustrations. From Shakespeare to Bukowski to The Little Prince in a Baobab tree, if it’s a literary tattoo and its on your body, we want to see it.

All images must include the name (or pseudonym) of the tattoo bearer, city and state or country, and a transcription of the text itself, along with its source. For portraits or illustrations, please include the name of the author or book on which it’s based. We’d also like to read a few words about the tattoo’s meaning to you — why you chose it, when you first read that poem or book, or how its meaning has evolved over time. How much (or how little) you choose to say about your tattoo is up to you, but a paragraph or two should do the trick.

Hey, that doesn’t sound so bad! On the other hand…

/flexes muscles, drinks bottle of Jager, punches nerd, vomits, falls down, shits pants

[Jacksonville.com] Ha, hey guys, did you know tattoos aren’t even hardcore anymore? It’s true! Really though, here’s a person with no tattoo experience aside from scoping out “tramp stamps” in annoying nightclubs, and even she can notice the diluting effect that those vampiric Audigier fellas and their ilk are having on tattooing.

From the minute I stepped into the Miami airport on our return trip and was faced with the first inked skin and $110 Ed Hardy tattoo-inspired T-shirts I’d seen in a week, I was shocked back into my own culture and its swarm to the tattoo aesthetic. What was once an edgy, fringe-culture practice has gone quite cutesy-commercial compared with its roots. The trick, then, becomes navigating between the art form and the marketing trend, and it’s not too tough to spot the items that just don’t belong in tattoo culture.

The Ed Hardy brand, launched in 2004 by designer Christian Audigier, after he gained the rights to the “Godfather of Tattoo” Don Ed Hardy’s designs, was clothing once revered by L.A. rocker and starlet types.

Now the brand is dabbling in the domestic department, bedding and such, and sir, is there anything possibly tough or rogue about you when you’re snuggled up in your $300 duvet set? I don’t care if it’s a roaring tiger or an eagle tearing apart a snake you’re showing off in the bedroom- it does not belong on a frilly neck roll pillow.

This is a funny tipping point we’ve reached, is it not? After years of tattoo culture being something to be looked upon as vaguely dangerous and limited to the “outlaw” set, it has now been co-opted and commodified to the point that even the bystanders who had no real interest beyond the fact that tattoos were part of an obscured subculture are now mourning the death of those salad days and bemoaning the commercialization of something of which they were never even a part. Just sayin’.

[Pasadena Star News] And now, huh, here is a strange artifact indeed, courtesy of veteran funnyman (?!) George Waters. It is about tattoos, apparently? We should probably do a close reading of this.

In the 21st Century, getting a tattoo seems to have become de rigueur

Speak English, commie!

(“the rigueur”).

Much better.

Statistics show that 36 percent of males age 18-35 have a tattoo, and the other 84 percent have dreamt about Jessica Alba giving them a tattoo.

Wait, what? Maybe I’m out of the loop, but I’ve heard precious little about Jessica Alba’s skills as a tattoo artist. What does George Waters think happens during a tattoo? Is “tattoo” now slang for “hand-job in the swimming pool”?

In contrast, only 31 percent of women age 18-35 have a tattoo, yet fully 67 percent dream of forcing their husbands to watch as George Clooney gives them a tattoo.

This is the least helpful sex advice column I have ever read.

I do not have a tattoo myself. I have major freckles. A snarling tiger on me would look diseased. A yin/yang symbol would look like a scoop of Cookies-N-Cream.

Since when does Cookies-N-Cream have red dots in it? Where the fuck are you buying your ice cream, man?

Not to mention that my pain threshold is so low, pygmy ants have to look down to see it.

That’s pretty low.

What I will never understand is, while choosing a tattoo design is entirely dependent on personal taste, often my friends will ask me for “advice,” when really they are just looking for validation. A typical conversation goes like this:

Friend: OK, give me your opinion. Tell me straight: cobra, leopard or eagle?

“Also, which arm is the ‘gay arm’ for tattoos?”

Question: I want to get the name of my boyfriend, Scuz, tattooed over my heart. My friends say I am crazy, that if we break up I will be stuck with it forever, but I love him. What do you think?

Answer: I, too, think your love for Scuz is timeless, and your friends are just jealous. Besides, if the worst happens and you break up, you can always have the words “is a cheating jerk” added to the design. This genre of tattoo is known as “post-romantic.”

Mr. Waters mentioned that he forgot to ask for reader submissions for questions about tattoos, so instead he went back and stole questions from old Ann Landers columns and hilariously modernized the names to reflect the subject matter, like “Scuz,” which, ha. Dave Barry, take note: If you start swallowing your mouthwash in the morning, this could happen to you.

Question: What does a facial tattoo say about a person?

Answer: It says that as bad as this economy is, it clearly hasn’t hurt liquor sales.

Hoo boy, if this guy only knew how many humorless straight-edgers have their faces tattooed, he’d be in some real trouble. (Kidding! Kidding!)

My experience has been that the general public cannot be trusted with an aesthetic statement so permanent. After all, the general public made Adam Sandler a millionaire.

He is clearly just jealous because SHAMPOO IS BETTA.

Tattoo Hollywood, BME’s first tattoo convention, is coming to Los Angeles from August 21-23, featuring contests, prizes and some of the best artists from around the world! Click here for more information.