The Story Behind This Tattoo (Part Two)

**This here's my review of Angela Carter's "The Bloody Chamber." It turned out the way I conceived it, and it had fangs and spit and all that arsenic goodness, and it received a corrosive whipping because it was "needlessly philistine." Meanwhile, those two words further improved my admiration for The Mistress of the Universe.

This tattoo will remind me, to the day I die, to keep at it. 

And what do I think of Ms Angela Carter's Bloody Chamber? 

1. Ms Carter tried to exhume fairy tales that were buried with our childhood. And, to a weird gay nerd like me, exhume is a rather attractive description. 

2. I was having a hell of a time trying to re-read the first paragraph of this book. For the second time. And then it hit me. My poor eyes have become feet. And they were dragging themselves tired up this mountain of words that used to be, at first glance, a paragraph. But I have a commitment to honor, and I rallied myself up, and I read on and on and on, until forever terminated, at last, in that one elusive period which celebrated the end of that very first paragraph. And then the second paragraph is a different trek of its own. How did that feel? Yes she can be wordy to a fault, and her sentences can be four hundred meters long. Why, there were instances where, I swear to God, she squeezed two pages of a thesaurus in one paragraph alone.

3. It can be wordy to a fault. Maybe she's trying to emphasize on styles and themes and symbolism and the bigger picture. Shit. I read to entertain myself, not to think. So these objectives are dead to me. This book might be pushing for those things, but to me, it's just wordy. 

4. Erotic? It will be a straight yes, and that is only if you happen to be aroused by 12th century dentistry. It's the long sentences that undid my imagination; they did to my appetite what inexperienced tit-biting does to foreplay. It absolutely killed the mood. 

5. I'm a child at heart, first, and then a jaded homosexual nerd next. It is my nature, and this collection greatly appealed to one of these natures. And it thoroughly disappointed the other. See, fairy tales helped develop me. They did to my brain what yeast does to barley to create beer. And, more importantly, fairy tales take us back to our childhood. But this book makes me want to look back, and smile in recollection of that one time I was being strangled. Because that sure as hell felt better. And it's not even in a sexual, erotic asphyxiation content. 

6. It absolutely missed my fairy-tale G-spot by a mile. No, a time zone. But it tries to be twisted, and it does so with some moderate success. I was reading about how the Nazi made soap out of the fat of corpses when I was given this assignment. And twisted can be very relative at that point.  

7. It is an interesting treasury of euphemisms. So if you are meaning to enrich your choice of words, then you will do well to give this book a good borrowing. Or downloading, if you're into that. 

8. This collection can be an obscene pleasure at best. But it is armed to the teeth with sentences that swell with a hundred thousand words each. These will knock the wind out of you. That being said, let me, out of the kind generosity of my heart, share some useful advice on how you can best appreciate this collection of zombified timeless classics. Read it cross eyed. That way, you can imagine that you are getting twice the value. But then, it will be twice that many words, so we might as well dismiss that tip. Of course, I'm kidding.

The Story Behind This Tattoo

**The Mistress of the Universe, Ms Jessica Zafra, my liege, my grace, commissioned me to write a book review for "The Bloody Chamber" by Angela Carter. I submitted my compliance March 2013. And this is where it all started. That means there's a part two on account of I don't want to drown you, My Dearly Beloved, with billions of words. Who will read me then?

The next installment will be the review that served me the biggest piece of humble pie. 

We finished this tattoo, Her, on September 28, 2014.

I emailed my book review on March 2013.

Bloody is Right

**So I called Customer Service at National Bookstore in Rockwell to inquire if they already have my review copy. She said they have this book, The Bloody Chamber, and it's black, and it's by Angela Carter. I asked if it mentioned "fairy tales" somewhere, and she was like "Ay wala po eh." She sounded like she really wanted to help. So I asked her to describe to me what the cover looked like. And she said, "Ano po siya, may bungo po, tapos may belo." Skulls and veils. I honestly have very little idea as far as the book I will be reviewing goes, so I suppose I can work with something like that. 

Help yourself to a bite-sized rundown of each fairy tale that was, well, zombified in this collection. Meanwhile, I will be soaking my badly punctured eyeballs in some ice cold rubbing alcohol. I want to see if they can be in any more pain than they already are. 


1. The Bloody Chamber (Blue Beard) 

This is exactly what the Blue Beard story will be if it were kinkier, mentioned "cunt" and "we've not taken luncheon yet" in that order, and if it won an award for the Best Use of "Impale" as a Euphemism. However, what makes this version different is that it's a hundred miles long, and that it is the heroine's mother that does the rescuing. And did I mention it is way kinkier?

2. The Courtship of Mr Lyon (Beauty and the Beast) 

Plain, boring, vanilla. No twists here, seriously people, keep moving. This is Beauty and the Beast like how you will read it in most any children's book that isn't Walt Disney. And it ended on a decidedly romantic tone. Which is exactly what I needed if I were bulimic. Or if I've had too much firewater to drink, and I need to puke some more. 

3. The Tiger's Bride (Beauty and the Beast) 

The tiger's "sole desire is to see the pretty young lady clothed in the nude." Or she Must see that naughty tiger naked. What seemed to be an engaging refresher in bestiality... climaxed in this magical pain in the nuts. Blue nuts, really, if we're trying to be honest here. 

4. Puss in Boots (Guess What) 

I now have this special fondness for this nasty little gem because of the following phrases: "takes his fill of her lily-whites," "his half flag hangs all the time at half mast," "lick the coal dust off my dicky," and "she falls back on the bed, shows him the target, he displays the dart, scores an instant bullseye. Bravo!" Indeed. What happens here is that Puss' master falls hopelessly in love with a married woman who, in response to his accurate darting, becomes a poisoner. And they lived happily ever after. 

5. The Erl King (German Folklore) 

I could be wrong here, but the Erl King is depicted in German folklore as a spirit who haunts forests and carries off travelers to their deaths. Well, it's either me with a Page Rank of 0, or Wikipedia with a Page Rank of 9, so there. Anyway, the unnamed heroine falls for the mysterious Erl King and engages in profane mysteries under the leaves with him. That last part was verbatim. His magical seductions then lose their potency. And she begins to imagine that he will be turning her into a bird. And she will become part of his collection of caged singing birds. So she strangles him with his hair.

But if he had his ways, and he succeeded in enchanting her into a bird, then she will become a cuckoo, for sure. 

6. The Snow Child 

A count finds his dream lolita in the mysterious Snow Child that suddenly appears naked on the road. He and his wife, the Countess, were travelling then. She was immediately jealous of the Snow Child's beauty, and she devises several unsuccessful attempts to dispose of the beautiful stranger. Of course, none of her plots triumphed; her horndog of a husband saw to that. But she manages to have the Child get her a rose from a bush. So she did, and she pricked her finger on a thorn, and she bled and died. The Count, then, "thrust his virile member into the dead girl," whoa, I know, and the Countess watched her husband get off of the Snow Child's corpse. 

7. The Lady of the House of Love (The Twilight Saga. Haha, no idea.)

She's a vampire, and he's a soldier. With the way these stories are finally picking up, I suppose you can guess what happens when he finds himself alone with her in her mausoleum. Chambers, I meant chambers. Nope. Nothing. No sex here. Blue balls. However, she leaves him with the dark, fanged rose plucked from between her thighs, verbatim, and dies in the morning. The rose blooms in a pot in the barracks, by the way. 

8. The Werewolf (Little Red Riding Hood) 

This three-page twist to Red Riding Hood's exploits might as well be a very sophisticated Tales for the Midnight Hour episode. It would have been nice if all her fairy tales were this brief. Yes, they were mostly intriguing. But some of them can be wordy to a fault; there were time when my eyes felt like they were like crawling on the moon. And you know what else could be nice at this point? Some Advil. 

9. The Company of Wolves (Little Red Riding Hood) 

This is almost like The Lady of the House of Love. However, she is Red Riding Hood, and he's a werewolf with a ginormous schlong. They're all alone in grandma's cabin in the woods. And they're both naked. Woo hoo. But then the author decides to restrain her usual wordiness, of all times, and we are left with the two of them lying "tenderly" in bed the next morning. Blue balls, people, blue balls. 

10. Wolf-Alice (Not Alice in Wonderland)


An unlikely partnership develops between a corpse-eater and a girl raised by wolves. He's really a gangster-ass werewolf with a preference for near-fresh corpses, and she's a Capricorn with issues. Haha. I think they fell in love or something yawn like that. But it has decaying old castles, moonlit graveyards, and superstitious townsfolk who can try to chill a little. 

Photos from My May 8 Tattoo Session

**Again, if a picture is worth a thousand words, then allow me to gift you with five thousand, My Dearly Beloved Sweet Nuts. 

Antisocial Social Media (Part One)

**This is an introduction. 

All it takes for one night of alcoholic social lubrication to turn exceedingly dull is when everybody has an internet connection and a smartphone. And everybody, by way of popular decision, communicates with a Qwerty keyboard and a series of downward swipes as opposed to talk that uses the mouth. 

We were having an okay time with the local brandy when they ran out of relevant things to say. And then all discussion ceased halfway through that delicious liter. It was one in the morning, and the person to my left, She, her eyes, I noticed, tired of movement and focused on the clock instead. It is now 1:05 am.The person to my right, He, I noticed, shifted himself to her general direction and picked up his smart phone. There was nothing discrete with how he gestured his phone to her. So she picked up her phone and started typing. It is now 1:07 am.

The person to His left logged in to Facebook after taking a swig of brandy a couple of minutes ago. That was the last we heard from him, save for the occasional Dubsmash videos and half-drunk murmurs about unfriending. 

The person to Facebook's left asked Her for the WiFi password. His pockmarked face was both comical and greasy, I noticed, when he smiled his request. She gave him my password, which is okay, since I can always change that anytime I felt like "You get your own God Damned internet subscription, Greasy." I noticed that Greasy's smile widened as his fingers began swiping downwards on his phone. We never heard from him from that point on. This was far from regretful since Greasy wasn't much of a talker anyway. His one contribution to our social gathering was to occupy space and have mass, for sure.  

There was a faint vibration to my right before He picked up His phone. We lost Him completely when He started typing on His phone. She was just as prompt with Her reply, and He was the only one smiling now. Something may or may not be mutual between these two, I noticed. Meanwhile, our half-empty bottle of brandy is mutually ignored at 1:24 am.  

I have half a mind to pick up a book instead. The other half is considering throwing the internet router in a pail of water. The shot glass was pitiful in its unemployment, and nobody else noticed.