Edgy NYC is back! A five year-old child's Lamborghini-bedecked birthday party in Queens was shot up yesterday. A homeless guy punched a 91 year-old female Rite Aid cashier during a robbery. And a 99 year-old man was beaten with a steering wheel lock in an argument over a parking space. Awesome! Now if we can just get some violent junkies back in Tompkins Square Park, we'll all be edgier by osmosis.
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Remember when tattoos were edgy? Probably not, unless you're old enough to remember when, say, Williamsburg was edgy, and in that case we're tired of hearing from you. The point is that the declining edginess of tattoos is a natural barometer for the declining edginess of our weak-ass American society in general. And by that measure, we are weaker than ever. Hello, user-friendly chains of soothing tattoo parlors in malls! Even though more than a third of youngsters now have tats, it's occurred to the marketing geniuses that the untapped, un-inked market is huge! Sure, teenagers all have Chinese characters spelling out "I AM GAY" (don't tell them!), but what about timid suburban middle-aged moms? Enter several new investor-owned chains of mall-based tattoo shops, where anyone will feel perfectly safe getting a star on their butt while their husband browses the Sports Authority: