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I must admit that I’m fascinated with tattoos. I don’t sport one, and I think that I’m in the minority—at least at my gym. It seems that you’ll find a flower or some tasteful design on the shoulder or lower back of most of the women. The men seem to be bolder, with exotic symbols often traveling up and down their arms and legs. Of course, there’s also the buff guy who has The Three Stooges plastered on both arms, as well as on his chest. That said, though, none of that prepared me for what I was about to encounter in No Regrets: The Best, Worst, & Most #$%*ing Ridiculous Tattoos Ever.
Authors Aviva Yael and P. M. Chen took road trips to tattoo shops and conventions to try to find the worst tattoos ever. When all was said and done, after looking at over ten thousand tattoos, they had to admit that they couldn’t reveal all that they saw in a single book. Therefore, the scope of the project changed, reflecting a broad spectrum of what they did find.
In this book, I discovered some of the most ridiculous tattoos—such as Dr. Phil portrayed on someone’s right butt cheek and a centaur with the head of Patrick Swayze. A colorful dolphin on a recliner with a bong in its fin was one of the most creative. And, in my opinion, the most artistic—believe it or not—was a tattoo of Mike Tyson’s head, complete with all of his head tattoos. Then again, there were also the three detailed portraits of Gwen Stefani, all tattooed on the same guy. And let’s not forget the two sweating hearts punching each other. Many of the tattoos pictured in the book are also quite sexually explicit—and several display words and phrases that I can’t repeat here.
The book features one tattoo per page—up close and personal—and the color and detail are superb. There are also amusing remarks beneath each of them. However, I wish the comments had explained what on earth drove these masochists to painfully and permanently add these ornamentations to their bodies. But I guess I’ll have to find those answers somewhere else.
As David Cross writes in his forward to No Regrets, “…most of these tattoos are so horrific that I predict a painful suicide will be the future for at least a handful of their owners.” Let’s just say that, for those of you who enjoy the absurd, this book is for you. But, even for the rest of you, it will definitely make a great conversation piece.
