jesus' mate

so there's this guy I know. he's a really nice guy but he's unusual in the sense that he reads the bible everyday, drinks jack daniels, swears a lot, listens to hip-hop and watches jackass. nothing strange were he american but a fairly unusual mix for a japanese teenager. anyway - last week he showed me a verse from the bible he'd written out and asked for my opinion (of the english, not the content). there wasn't much to comment on other than the ancient use of language, but then realising it was a bible quote I said it was fine, given the context. he even had a laugh at the 'ye' parts as it's similar to the language he hears in hip hop.

I meet him again this week and he shows me his forearm - the text now imprinted by needle forever onto his skin. "wow!" I said, genuinely impressed with his still raw tattoo.

as I was scanning over the verse he pointed out there had been a spelling mistake, and sure enough, there were two clangers. the first word, highlighted by larger type in caps, said LORD. or rather it was meant to. in fact it said LOAD. "I am the LOAD". the second was in smaller case but the word itself pretty important. here God had been misspelt 'Hod'.

jee whizz man. what can you say? you hear about these stories but you really don't wanna be a part of one of them. I felt a pang of paranoia that I'd hadn't checked it properly, especially as he reminded me that it was me that had checked the spelling, but I was not the one to blame. just as some tattoo artist in the UK is making a dogs dinner of some kanji on someones ankle, my acquaintance had met with a japanese equivalent.

it's funny he hadn't mentioned the end result during our first discussion. just a random bit of paper with some words on it. it certainly hadn't been signing off proofs for the client which it should have been - with second opinions and someone playing the devils advocate. I suppose the moral of the story is that if you're going to get a tattoo done in a foreign tongue - go there and get that other opinion. at the very least avoid dyslexic scotsmen.

Post a comment