Tattoos and graffiti have more in common than just being difficult to spell. Making designs on the skin by puncturing it and inserting indelible colors sounds more like a punishment than an art.
Scratching and scribbling inscriptions and drawings on rocks, walls and signs sounds less invasive but not less hateful to this writer. Tattoos and graffiti no longer make Americans blink in disbelief.
The word tattoo comes from Captain James Cook’s account when he traveled around the world from 1768 to 1771. He wrote in his diary in 1769 that Polynesians “print signs on people’s body and call this tattow.” The origin of the word tattoo is Polynesian; sailors introduced the idea in Europe and it caught on.
Tattoos personally invaded my life when my son returned home from college about 16 years, seven months and five days ago with his fraternity logo, Theta Chi, tattooed on his ankle. Burned in my memory like any tattoo, I remember everything about the moment I stared at his sockless ankle, which served as a tattoo artist’s canvas. Like any good mom, I ran for a washcloth and tried to scrub off his fraternity name on his bare ankle. It didn’t work, of course. He laughed and I cried.
Years of teaching high school desensitized me to tattoos. Girls seemed to choose butterflies and flowers for shoulders and upper arms. Boys chose bigger projects involving reptiles and designs on their forearms.
During this NBA and NCAA basketball season, fans are exposed to over-the-top tattoos on the players’ arms, legs, and shoulders. March madness takes on new meaning. With names and numbers, crosses and hearts, tattoos dominate the bodies of many youthful players at the free throw line. Perhaps it is a distraction from poor free throw skills. Is anyone else feeling prickly over these college scholars’ choice of tattoos or the role models in the NBA? Maybe it is a generation gap wider than the Grand Canyon.
When asked if my son would get the tattoo on his ankle if he had to do it all over again, he replied: “Yes.” What would he do if his daughter, who will be born in April, asked to get a tattoo in about 18 years? He paused long enough to defend his position. “I’d ask her why she wanted the tattoo.” If she said because everyone else is getting one, he’d say no to her. If she answered that she loved butterflies and wanted one on her shoulder, he said he’d let her. I bit my tongue and didn’t tell him that she wouldn’t have to ask his permission since she would be considered an adult, but for once I just nodded without giving a lecture I learned in Mother School.
Tattoos used to be solely for sailors and other folks familiar with foreign ports. Captain Cook and his sailors didn’t realize they would become trendsetters for the 20-something generation. Some of today’s youth must have spent days in the artist’s tattoo salon. Mostly it’s the males who emerge from tattoo parlors with arms covered from wrist to shoulder in connecting Picasso images.
Don’t try to find a tattoo parlor in the 92122 or 92037 ZIP code districts, but there are 19 such places in the 92109 area, according to Google. Tattooing is an art defended by many people
Graffiti, sometimes considered an art in a controlled environment like Chicano Park, serves to tattoo street signs, bus benches and concrete walls. Graffiti is from the Greek word graphein, meaning “to write.” While many of us think graffiti began in the United States recently, historians report graffiti in ancient Roman architecture, where political messages were displayed. Besides political messages, one can see gang and artistic graffiti. New York City takes credit for the start of graffiti art in the ’70s. Some of the vocabulary associated with graffiti includes “tag.” A cryptic artist’s name is a tag. Elaborate works are called “burners.” First it’s one site and then another, and suddenly spray paint covers billboards and concrete bus benches.
Graffiti causes as much angst as bird flu these days and is painted by the persevering products of our times, mostly young men under age 30. If you’re a tagger, you’re no longer the little kid running after someone on the school playground. You’re the big guy with the spray paint can.
San Diego offers a graffiti abatement service hotline, (619) 525-8522, if you wish to report a graffiti site and get the graffiti removed. Tattoo removal is another story. San Diego hasn’t gotten a hotline for that situation. n

” Sandra Lippe, a former high school teacher with an M.A. in Creative Writing, was born and raised in Connecticut. She is a 33-year resident of University City with husband Ernie. They have two children, one perfect grandchild and another due in April.