From Dr. Phil to gay unicorns, the new book No Regrets looks at the worst tattoos on the planet

TALKING TATS Howard Stern leafs through No Regrets

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The following is the excerpted foreword from No Regrets: The Best, Worst, & Most #$%*ing Ridiculous Tattoos Ever, out May 20, from Grand Central Publishing

Growing up, I had always thought of tattoos as merely representing the idea itself—that having a tattoo simply said, "I'm the kind of person who would have a tattoo." That may have applied to the standard prison or military tattoo, but somewhere down the line tattoos stopped becoming the sole province of the badass and seamlessly slid over to that of the soft, sensitive, malnourished hipster. My guess? The unsolicited rockabilly/punkabilly revival had a hand in it. Those selfish fuckers. When the hip and affectedly unaffected get hold of something that belongs culturally to another group, excitement abounds as they then excitedly coopt it and an open display of competition is set in motion. That's half the point of that shit anyway.

The tacit one-upmanship and approvals and disapprovals are whispered throughout the land. This applies to tattoos as well, of course. We've seen the evolution of the ugly, blurry, monochromatic Navy anchor and the dark snakes-and-dagger-through-the-heart tattoos becoming those now-ubiquitous mysterious Chinese letters reading "tranquility" or "boiling sea" or who knows what. But recently the evolution has jumped almost tenfold from there. In only a few short years, we find that the "tribal tat" we were staring at in every dance club on the Jersey shore has become a 20-color tableau of Bea Arthur giving Alex Trebek a hand-job on the calf of the professional dog walker ahead of us in line at the community gardens bike repair shop.

What? That isn't a tattoo yet? Hmmm, well, as this book goes to show, just give it time. Its inevitable day draws near. That's what's so fascinating and unnerving about this collection. After leafing through it, one is left with the question, "Jesus Christ! What's next for these people?!" This book is filled with mistakes, bad jokes, and delusions. Even given the qualification of "irony," most of these tattoos are so horrific that I predict a painful suicide will be the future of at least a handful of their owners. What happens to the young man who has a full-scale back tat of a smiling, beatific Adam Duritz with the legend "Straight Edge" above when he realizes that perhaps Ian MacKaye might have been the better choice for something so bold and permanent? And Bob Barker? Who the fuck is gonna remember that guy in 10 years? And then you have to explain that he was an unremarkable game-show host? And then you have to explain that you thought it was funny (at the time) and then you have to resort to roofies if you ever want to get laid again?

Oh well, whether they know it or not, or whether it was intentional or not, these brave people collected herein have done us a tremendous service. They have entertained us and filled our lives with song!*—David Cross

*"Unreal Is Here" by Chavez

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