The Antichrist's tattoo. Bob Barker on skin. Police seeking records of body art. The tattoo news was so sexy this past week, it barely needs blogger banter for bolstering, so let's get to it.

The Antichrist Gets 666 Tattoo in South Beach

It just seems perfectly logical considering the popularity of Miami Ink and, you know, the world all going to hell that the man claiming to be the Antichrist would get tattooed in South Beach along with his desperate followers.

Jose Luis de Jesus Miranda is a preacher who once claimed to be Jesus Christ, garnering a bit of media attention, as well as a BMW and Rolexes, for his assertion. Now, following the gospel of Saint Anna Nicole, he's seeking even more fame based on no talent by testifying to be the Antichrist. To back up the blasphemy, he naturally tattooed 666 on his arm as well as SSS, which stands salvo siempre salvo, or "saved always saved," De Jesus's motto.

Like a good cult, or perhaps media geniuses, 30 members of the Antichrist's Growing in Grace church (which claims thousands of members in thirty countries) showed up at a South Beach tattoo studio with TV cameras in tow to get tattoo tributes to De Jesus. NBC15 news reported the following:

News cameras circled the tattoo chair as artist Jessica Segatto, wearing pink rubber gloves and a huge silver cross, carefully inked 666 on church members' ankles, forearms, backs and one member's neck. Some members said they decided to attend the tattooing session - which was prompted by a church announcement the previous week - to prove their commitment to De Jesus' vision. Others said they hoped the symbol would provoke questions about the movement.

"I figured if I have it on my leg, people are going to notice it, 666, and they're going to ask," said church member and spokeswoman Axel Poessy.

De Jesus--who preaches that sin and the devil were destroyed when Jesus died on the cross and that God's chosen already have been saved--has built a massive movement around his claim to divinity. Followers call him "Daddy" and "God" and lavish him with $5,000 Rolexes and sometimes 40 percent or more of their salaries.

Watch creepy videos of them getting needled here and here (after ad).

NBC15 also had cult experts claim that Growing in Grace church is "clearly a personality-driven group." But I'm thinking I could give De Jesus a run for his money. I too have been deemed the Antichrist, largely by the cult of my ex-boyfriends. I also have tattoos. Should you be ridiculous enough to do so, give to the Church of Needled.

NY Times' Celebrity Tattoo Sideshow

Following on the cult of personality theme, there's a slideshow of portrait tattoos of celebrities, which the NY Times put together for the Oscars. Most of the tattoos featured are excellent examples of tattoo realism, despite the subjects: portraits of Tony Danza, Conan O'Brian, and Will Ferrell are shown alongside greats like Nicholson, Cash, Vincent Price, and my favorite Bob Barker of the Price is Right. [I can't believe someone beat me to that!] The downside of the slideshow is not listing the artists' names with their work. They list a bunch of the artists off to the side but do not attribute each work to them. I don't see why they are able to caption the celebrity featured but not the tattooer. This would be unheard of if it was another art form or profession.

Tattooer Spider Webb once remarked to me that whenever a tattooed celebrity is on a cover of a magazine, the credits will include the stylists, designers, make-up artists, hair people, etc. but rarely, if ever, the tattoo artists, despite their work being prominently featured.

Why not give the artists credit? I suppose the only times artists would not want their tattoo art to be attributed is when it's something moronic like the uber-fanatic sports tattoos shown on another slideshow this week by Sports Illustrated (like the one below).

Police Seek Tattoo Records

One group that does like to credit the artists behind the tattoos is law enforcement. In Port Huron, MI, a city council proposal on regulating tattoo and piercing studios included a provision that would allow police access to studio records detailing every customer's name, age, address, which employee worked on them, and what type of work they did.

According to Michigan's Times Herald, the provision is supposed to be used to track potential outbreaks of infections, help parents identify shops that tattooed their minors, and also find criminals, although the police chief said that this would be used sparingly:

"Maybe in a heinous case," he said, such as a serial rapist with "a very distinctive tattoo."

"We'd have to proceed very, very carefully," he said. "There are constitutional issues."

Yeah. Like privacy. While not explicit in the Constitution, the privacy right has been established by the US Supreme Court as a basic human right and can be read in the 4th, 5th and 9th Amendments. The ACLU of Michigan agrees that the provision violates this right:

"This ordinance would constitute an absurd invasion of privacy," said Michael Steinberg, legal director of the group. "In a free society, the police have no business knowing what law-abiding citizens have tattooed on their body."

It also adds an unnecessary burden on tattoo studios. While the goals of tracking (rare) infectious outbreaks, rapists, and shady tattooers of minors are commendable, the means are far reaching and dangerous.

Yet, it gets complicated when the discussion turns to tattoos on people already incarcerated. What about the creation of prison tattoo databases? Like mugshots, tattoos are now being photographed at booking in Cincinnati, largely to track gang activity. One jail administrator says that their tattoo database should prove invaluable to fingering suspects:

The retired state trooper said that sometimes tattoos are the most identifiable mark on masked robbers. Many times, victims of a crime are so traumatized they cannot give an accurate description, but they will remember a tattoo.

Prison officials also use the tattoo database to keep certain gangs separated from each other in lock-up. If they don't know what a certain tattoo means, they can log on to a secure nationwide network called the Regional Information Sharing Systems National Gang Database.

In the case of the gang tattoo database, I have less of a problem with the privacy right because we give up certain legal protections when we violate the law. Also, here, the responsibility of cataloguing the body art is on the police, not the artist. Still, there's something that nags me about the government having all this personal information on file.

Marisa_DiMattia is a lawyer and editor of Needled.com, a blog on tattoo art and culture.

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FEB 26, 2007 11:53 AM