January 20, 2007
See the Flockers: Sheila Ryan
Thinks: “That was a close call with the papparazzi. Five minutes earlier and they’d have caught me standing out in the middle of the street coiffed like a pinhead and squawking my fool head off.”
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18 Responses to “See the Flockers: Sheila Ryan”
What’s the tattoo?
Sunrise. Or sunset. Depending.
And . . . virtually identical to the symbol of Greece’s socialist PASOK party. Not something I knew when I sketched it and paid a guy to burn it onto my shoulder in 1980. Something I learned on a 1990 trip to Greece, where I was very very popular with the waiters at the vegetarian restaurant we frequented in Athens. Less so in crypto-Royalist strongholds out in the boonies, where I took to wearing a jacket no matter what the temperature.
hey baby
Postscript: Note that (a) this is a fairly recent photo (2003) but that (b) I have compromised myself through my use of the hokey Photoshop halftone effect.
(Actually, come to think of it, I look better in the photo as it was originally taken. It just seems that I can’t do anything with a straight face.)
Something about your picture and e-persona does seem to fit. At least I know you are not an imposter.
Hey! I was born in 1980!
(Was that mean?)
At least I know you are not an imposter: At least you know I am a consistent imposter.
Was that mean?: Only if such was your intent. (It may, however, qualify as jejune, if not ‘jejeune’.)
it wasn’t my intent.
…and certainly “jejune.”
Speaking of “straight faces” you do seem to have a near smirk.
Ah, but “near” can be so very far away.
Only if you make it so.
Those of us who know you well can attest that no amount of squawking would dislodge that fool head.
That’s good — because, come to think of it, “squawking my fool head off” is a pretty disturbing thing to contemplate.
This is way down the thread, Sheila, but I must tell you how much I loved reading the history of your tatoo. It reminds me in some ways of all those jokes you hear about people who get Chinese characters done on them — only to find out later that, no, it doesn’t mean “Rock On”–it means “Kick Me.”
No, it doesn’t mean “Rock On”–it means “Kick Me.”
That’s what I had tattooed on my butt.
What was your inspiration for getting tattooed?
I was twenty-five when I got the tattoo (though I’d been thinking about it for six or seven years); what I had in mind was to do something that would remind me in old age of the folly of my youth.
In a sense you might say that I was inspired by Pete Townshend, who penned these lyrics to The Who’s “Tattoo”:
Welcome to my life, tattoo
We’ve a long time together, me and you
I expect I’ll regret you
But the skin graft man won’t get you
You’ll be there when I die
Tattoo