LEFT BICEP, RIGHT CALF, INNER RIGHT WRIST, ETC.: Random Celtic insignia. I’m very proud of Donny’s Irish roots. His full name is Donald Finbar Velasquez O’Garcia and his maternal great-grandfather used to run a tapas bar in Co. Donegal. As soon as the check comes in from when that street cleaner ran over my foot (or “brushed” it, as the lady from the insurance company keeps saying), we’re going on a “tattoo safari” to the holy land of Ireland.
LEFT SHOULDER: T-Bone Millifleur RIP. T-Bone was my avatar on Second Life. He dressed all in white, with a white top hat, and he died in a terrible virtual accident involving two unicorns, a transgendered vampire, and a hot-air balloon. I’ll never forget him. For the tattoo, Donny gave him a pair of angel wings.
RIGHT PECTORAL: The Weeping Head of Anderson Cooper. The whole Katrina thing, back whenever it was, really affected me. Anderson losing it like that, on live TV — I really felt like his tears were my tears, which were the tears of the entire nation watching him on live TV. So I asked Donny to help me commemorate the suffering of the people of New Orleans by tattooing a weeping Anderson Cooper on my right tit.
STOMACH: Two Chinese Dragons Driving a Ford Taurus. To be honest, I’m still a little hazy about this one. That was a weird day — I think Donny had been partying. It was 4 pm but he was still in his robe, with red eyes, and I hate to say it but he smelled like ass. We’d been talking a lot about my birth chart, and about working with some symbols from the zodiac, but Donny just laid me down without a word and started pounding away on this dragons-in-a-car thing. I wanted to ask him what it was about but I was too afraid of his breath. Maybe something to do with the energy crisis? One of the dragons is smiling, the other looks a little like Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman.
LEFT THIGH: By the Grace of Mind in the Grace of Heart With the Grace of Light. I was in a doctor’s waiting room after that street cleaner ran over my foot, reading Harper’s Bazaar — you know the magazines they have in there — and these words really caught my eye. They were in an ad for Swarovski, which I guess is a perfume store or something? Donny did an amazing job with this. He surpassed himself. It looks all medieval, like something a medieval monk might say. What does it mean? I have no fucking idea.
James Parker is taking design suggestions for his next tattoo, on his ass. He can be reached at jparker@phx.com.
