Winning Is Fun. The tattoo contest at the 2004 Woodstock Bodyart Festival.

The weekend of September 17th 2004, I was in Woodstock at the second annual Woodstock Tattoo and Bodyart Festival doing my "What is Body Modification" presentation. The 2004 version was a bit of a challenge because I had no multimedia support and had to present entirely verbally with no help from images and text. But it went very well with a great turnout. It's great to get people thinking about the reasons people do what they do and how it affects themselves and those around them.

While I was there I entered the tattoo competiton.

I think tattoo contests are generally silly as you can't judge what a tattoo means to someone. That's the most important reason for getting and wearing a tattoo. The reasoning behind it. Who cares what other people have to say about it? When I was asked to enter the contest I said "no, it's not really my thing", but then I realized if I did win, that'd be a pretty cool thing for the artist, Chris O'Donnell at New York Adorned. So I entered.

I've been on stages and speaking in public for more than 30 years, yet I was never as nervous as I was doing this. My heart was actually jumping beats. Maybe that's because I chose to to enter wearing a traditional Japanese undergarment called a fundoshi.
Next to naked in front of a festival crowd? Sign me up.

The contest was split over two days and I entered Best Full Back Piece the first day and Best Japanese Traditional on the second. I entered my Koi tattoo. The other contestants all had great work and everyone was super cool. It was a lot of fun bullshiting with people as we waited to be "judged." After the first six categories (Best Color, Best Tribal, Best Traditional American, Best Full Back Piece, etc) I expected them to announce the winners. But no... we had to wait. And I hate waiting.

The second day saw me entering the "Best Traditional Japanese" contest. There was a contestant that had a great 3/4 body piece with great traditional elements. I thought for sure he was going to win.

After all the contests were complete, the judges tallied up the scores and announced the winners. They called my name for "Best Full Back Piece" and I laughed my ass off. How funny. The next to last category was "Best Traditional Japanese" and there was a pause. After a bit they announced the winners.
It was a tie! Between me and someone whose name I regretfully forget. I need to find out who and post it here asap. We both walked to the stage and picked up our prizes. There were many pictures taken by a bunch of professional photographers and I'm sure they'll start to turn up in the tattoo rags within the next few issues. For "Best Full Back Piece" the prize was a funky statue of a biker looking dude with his arm turned into a tattoo machine. For the "Best Japanese Traditional" prize it was a cool ring designed by HR Giger. There were also some nice certificates handed out. I took a bunch of pictures over the course of the 2004 weekend and the pictures from the 2003 festival are still posted here.

All in all, I had a great time at the festival, listened to a lot of Willie Nelson as Melissa and I drove around, saw some good live bands like Five Speed Joker and winning two 1st place prizes in my first ever contest ever was just a fun way to end the weekend. I'm looking forward to the 3rd Annual festival where I'm going to present the "History of Body Piercing in America."

Thanks to Melissa for taking the pictures and my dear friend Bruce Bart for continuing to produce such an amazing event. See you all in 2005.

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