Tat-Tuesday! (Patreon)

I have been meaning to talk about all of my new tattoos and because it’s me, I had to make it into a stupid pun! Unfortunately puns have such an incredible power over me and I am now forcing myself to talk about one tattoo every Tuesday until we cover them all. This week I’ll be talking about the one that started the addiction: the tally marks.

The thing you need to keep in mind is that my Batman tattoo and my tape, cassette tattoo are both decisions that I’ve spent the last 10 years regretting. I don’t regret them because I dislike them, I regret them because I just prefer the look of my body with no tattoos. That said, I’ve definitely turned them into a bit of a brand and I’m very thankful to have them. I only mention this because getting another tattoo was some thing I thought I would never do.

The tally marks on my forearm are a reference to seeing my favourite band live in LA. I bought tickets to see My Chemical Romance in 2019 and … A lot of things happen that prevented the tour from happening until 2022. I first saw them play live in Toronto and became completely obsessed with them. I was already mildly obsessed and was staying up till one or 2 AM watching live streams of their shows on TikTok. Every night the lead singer would wear a different costume and write something different on the drum set. It became very common for me to stay up and see what he was doing every show.

Fast forward to my show in Toronto And he came out dressed as a skeleton (and if you know anything about me that just made the obsession so much worse). Before the show was over I had already bought tickets to their next show and was planning on seeing their final performance in LA as well.

At the next show, the lead singer came out dressed as a cat… And again… If you know anything about me that just made the obsession so much worse. And once more, before that show was over I had already bought tickets to their farewell show in LA . Keep in mind that the band broke up in 2012 and there likely wouldn’t be another tour after this so this was a very special event to be at.

MCR had five shows in LA and every night they essentially played through one of their albums and continued to add a tally mark on the drum every night. The problem is they only have four albums so everyone was assuming that the fifth night would be new music or just a regular show. I was personally hoping for new music, but what we got was almost more special. they played songs that they had never performed live, they played songs that never made it to some records, and they played songs that were never played on this tour, it was an incredibly magical experience that I’ll never forget.

I spent the next year and a half debating whether or not I wanted to get the tally marks from the final drumhead tattooed on my arm, knowing full well that I never wanted any more tattoos. Needless to say it was something I just knew I needed permanently attached to my body. I needed to have that night with me forever.

Unfortunately… That’s where the addiction began …

Stay tuned!