by Laurelin

Missy recently posted something on SuicideGirls that got me thinking. She asked us to make videos of how SG has changed our lives, what it meant to us and how it has shaped our pasts and futures. Even though I am not a Suicide Girl (not for lack of trying!), I couldn’t help but think back on everything that SG has brought to my life…

I remember the first time I ran across SuicideGirls like it was yesterday. It was 2005, and I was at Newbury Comics, happily clutching some Tori Amos CD singles and a pair of fuzzy leopard dice to hang from my review mirror. A book caught my eye. There was a topless girl with tiny black pigtails, looking quite surly staring back at me from the cover. “She’s adorable,” I thought. The inside pages carried a strong statement, one that is captivating to alternative women of all ages, races and body types. Most of us have spent our entire lives feeling like we don’t belong. These girls looked like they didn’t fit in either. They were covered in tattoos, some had pink hair, others seemed to have more metal than skin – but in that, they were perfect. And naked. In front of everyone!

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by Clio, Lexie, Thistle, and Vanessa

SuicideGirls’ essential guide to tattoo etiquette: how to keep your artist sweet, and how to get the body art you want.

Do:

• Research to find a suitable practitioner. Look up local artists, and ask around. If you happen to see someone that has a tattoo you are particularly fond of, ask them (politely) where they got it done.
• Look at portfolios. Several different ones if you have to. Find someone with a style and personality that will mesh well with your own – especially if it’s your first.
• Make an appointment, both for a consultation, and to get the actual work done. While walk-ins are convenient, if you have a more elaborate piece, respect the artist enough to give them time to work on it.
• Be original.
• Know what you want, and have several ideas about where you’d like the tattoo to go.
• Make drawings (as long as you don’t have the art skills 5-year old) or find reference photos, as many as you think you’ll need to get across the concept/image you want.
• Listen to the artist’s suggestions, and understand that they may say no to some of your ideas simply because they wouldn’t come out right or make a good tattoo.
• Get something that means something personal to you, as long as it’s easy enough to convey. Getting a tree that twists into a lizard that has bird wings and a feathered mask may be the most sacred thing you could possibly think of in this world, but, really, how would that look? Weird, that’s how.
• Bathe beforehand.
• Bring something (non-alcoholic) to drink.
• Let your artist know if you feel like you’re going to be sick and/or pass out. The last thing you want on your person is a big line going in the direction you fainted because you didn’t tell your artist you were about to black out.
• Tip your tattoo artist. ALWAYS. Even if they’re your best friend. TIP THEM. It’s rude and offensive not to. As a rule, leave an extra 20%, unless it’s something minimal like $50-$60, then tip about $10. If it’s a HUGE piece that the artist works on for over 5 hours, then tip anywhere from 25 to 30%. (If the artist also happens to be your significant other and they won’t accept money, give them some extra good sex that night or something.)

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by Ryan Stewart

Morgan Spurlock’s 2004 documentary Super Size Me made enough waves to provoke the ire of a major corporation, so for his next act, the filmmaker is upping the stakes and taking his rabble-rousing to someone far more villainous than the Hamburglar – Osama bin Laden.

In his new documentary, Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?, Spurlock leaves his heavily pregnant wife behind and goes on a multi-country odyssey as an average citizen trying to do what the CIA apparently can’t – find out where the terrorist mastermind is actually hiding and slap the cuffs on him.

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AnnaLee Suicide in Familiar Dream

• INTO: Living a good life.
• NOT INTO: Cars, television, cigarettes, meat, drinking culture, negativity, superficiality and people with no imaginations or desires.
• MAKES ME HAPPY: Reading and collecting books, drinking tea, solitude, ornithology and natural history, listening to the radio, baking cakes, my cat, pockets, mindpower, sleeping, the sea, old-fashioned museums, etymology, entomology, marzipan, walking and cycling, equality, understanding, compassion, passion, good manners, hermit crabs, olives, peace and quiet, the sky and meteorological phenomena, drawing, painting, churches, foxes, nature taking over man-made things, wall paintings, bees, stoicism, cats and dogs, cinema, hot baths, cooking and food (eating is the best!), gardens and wild places, lochs, rivers and anything wet, plants and trees, perfume, cardigans, grey, being a stranger in new cities, unusual encounters with other creatures, marmalade, moths, butterflies, fresh air, bioluminescence, collecting things, adding to the tattooed aviary, being productive, cold climates, wallpaper, mosses, lichens, positivity, sewing, film soundtracks, the changing seasons, red hair, pickles, whiskers and paws and cats purring, cephalopods (especially cuttlefish!). Ah, life is great.
• MAKES ME SAD: When my family are unhappy. How little we care about non-human animals, our planet and each other. People not living life as well as they could do. The fact that work, productivity and consumerism overtake life – I hate the way our society is structured. Wasting time, negativity, physical and mental illness, intolerance, cages, ownership.
• 5 THINGS I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT: A book, a quiet place, fresh air, hot tea, and of course music.
• VICES: Book buying, but that’s probably not too unhealthy. I am also addicted to expensive chocolate – that is ever so slightly unhealthy.
• I SPEND MOST OF MY FREE TIME: In a book.

Get to know AnnaLee better over at SuicideGirls.com!