The Great L.A. Mystery Tattoo
Posted on Oct 29, 2008 in Blog
So we went out to brunch with Pamie, AB, Sarah and Cat and me and Pamie could NOT stop staring at this girl’s tattoo. Like to the point she put on her coat to hide it. To the point we were having an open and loud conversation about it in the secret hopes she’d say something to us.
What the hell is the main dish there? Is it pizza? Then why ketchup? Burrito? Why ketchup? Meatloaf? Too orange! Omelette? Lots of stuff for an omelette and what are those black circles? What in the holy hell are we looking at?
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Omelet.
Breakfast burrito with black beans.
English muffin. The nooks and crannies are a dead giveaway.
Unless that’s a rash.
I’ll have to play ‘been there’ interference and say it was orange, red, and black. That’s to say it was a composite dish of some sort. It had a pizza colour scheme, a soup-like appearance but wasn’t a perfect circle either. Also we assume whatever it is is supposed to go with ketchup. It’s maddening.
What if that’s hot sauce and not ketchup? Ponder that.
It’s got “57″ on the label so it’s not only ketchup but Heinz ketchup. Tattoo branding.
Burger–on an onion roll? Or a poorly executed sesame-seed bun?
The real mystery is why you would let a fifth grader give you a tattoo.
Colour me 57 types of wrong.
hash browns?
Western Omelette (with sausage!)
Waffle House hash browns? Scattered, smothered, topped. Also, is that a beer or a glass of orange juice? or maybe iced tea?
People do love the Waffle House.
What nationality was the girl? White Texan, possibly an omelet with hot sauce and orange juice (although hot sauce and orange juice is not a good combo).
Hispanic, I am guessing hot sauce and a rice dish, like paella. I am leaning that way because that’s a nationality thing, like “proud to authentic.” The orange liquid is still a mysery, perhaps a bad dye choice in the tattoo.
She was white and looked Slavic to me but definitely not first generation. The colour is a bit off in the photo. It definitely wasn’t orange juice. It was either iced tea or maybe apple juice.
The top of a hamburger bun, meaning it’s a hamburger in poor perspective and shittily rendered?
I think western omelette is the best guess so far but those dark little bits were black and not green so I’m not sure where that leaves us except maybe where we started — confused and alone in the tattoo wilderness.
Burrito, ketchup, and beer. It’s certainly weird – but maybe it’s her signature dish! Or what she’d order for her last meal! Why else would you tattoo yourself with three random food items?
i vote omelet as well, with the black circles being black olives. Making the whole enterprise double gross because a) ketchup on eggs, and b) olives on anything.
French fries with weird shading?
I assume the tattoo is old. I agree with the idea that it’s poor perspective and think that it’s a burger with ketchup and an Orange Crush.
And Joe? Ketchup on EVERYTHING!
I definitely thought a sesame seed burger bun with the perspecting horrendously rendered.
But…does she have a bandaid on the inside of her arm there, just above the foodstuff? Because it kind of looks like…a tattooed bandaid.
She had about 4 non-diner related things around this tattoo. I believe the lines you see are part of a cross. It was a CONFUSED ARM.
What Joe R. said, all of it, exactly.
But also? Damn. This chick is clearly in love with that meal. I love me some peanut m&ms, but I’m not getting them permanently inked on my body.
Hmm, cross and ketchup, why not?
And uh, in my post above “perspecting” = “perspective”. Because apparently I type really well.
I knew we should have just asked her. She KNEW we were talking about it.
It’s just rude of her NOT to tell us.
See, the last time in LA, I saw some chick walking around in a bikini top, with a fully visable cock and balls tattoo. (balls on either side of the small of the back, cock going all the way up the spine to the mid back). Now, THAT is the way to have a tattoo — no guess work. We were quite clear on what it was.
Do you think both that girl’s parents are proud, or just her dad?
I don’t know about anyone else, but when I look at the tattoo I see the answers to all of the universe’s unanswered questions.
Who are we anyway? Perhaps it isn’t for us to ask “what” but “who”? Are we a pizza? Or are we an omelette? Maybe it was meant to be a cryptogram. MAYBE she’s an existentialist.
But if I had to guess, I would say Mexican omelette.
When I landed in Upstate New York years ago, the locals pointed me toward your neighborhood mom-and-pop diner for a frittata. Yes, with ketchup. Yes, for breakfast. And though I’ve been in Syracuse many years now, one was enough.
http://www.johnjgoddard.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/frittata.jpg
I voted omelet also (or maybe a veggie scramble). I’d say the beverage container resembles a mug or pint-glass more than a soda, so I’m guessing beer. (Would someone really tattoo a huge glass of apple juice on their arm?)
I’m also willing to bet that it’s the favorite meal of her long-lost dad, or recently departed great aunt, who was a diner waitress. Particularly specific tattoos like this often memorialize someone. As someone who has eaten her share of morning-after, crazy hungover breakfasts, I kinda like it.
totally a black bean burrito, with a partially-obscured bottle of hot sauce and a tequila sunrise. plans for a last meal following some sort of killing spree.
Looks like an omelette to me. But, why? Why does one get a tattoo of food? Unless, the person was one of those competitive eaters. But then it would be a picture of 24 omelettes.
My first thought was a bagel with raisins or seeds, then maybe chocolate chip cookie. Neither of which have any business being next to a bottle of ketchup though.
Maybe out of left field – okonomiyaki?
What’s really irksome about this tattoo is that it is SO FAMILIAR. I have seen this particular arrangement (glass of something, plate of something, ketchup in the background) before, in a specifically heinz-related context, and yet Google is no help!
So, uh. Maybe try thinking of old Heinz ads or Warhol prints? Because I know that tattoo is something I’ve seen before in non-tattoo media.
Google Images just makes it worse. Now I’m wondering about this ad.
I think it’s a terrible tattoo of pizza, ketchup, and beer. But, more importantly, I’m wondering why you don’t just call the cafe and ask her. Honestly, I don’t even live in the same state, but if I knew the name of the joint, I’d have called myself.
In my experience restaurants do not keep a list of the components of their customers’ tattoos.
I think it’s a Tommy Burger or one of those other revoltingly delicious L.A. chili burger things. Back in the 80s people got so obsessive about those things that I could totally see someone immortalizing one in a shitty tattoo.
I still think it’s a flammkuchen.
My vote is a pastel – a Brazilian calzone-y kind of thing, filled with chicken or other meat. That could be grill marks on the outside.
It looks like spaghetti and tiny meatballs to me
Maybe it’s her Last Meal menu.
I feel like it has to be Cincinnati chili – spaghetti, chili, beans, cheese….side of ketchup.
Maybe she’s a big Jimmy Buffet fan, and the tattoo is from that song?
“I like mine with lettuce and tomato
Heinz 57 and French fried potatoes
Big kosher pickle and a cold draft beer”
Although there’s no pickle, or potatoes. Maybe it’s a bad rendering.
No one is a big Jimmy Buffet fan. NO ONE!
I’m a big Jimmy Buffet fan, dammit.
and I think it’s dirty hashbrowns, with sausage bits.
Maybe compose a “missed connections” add on craigslist? Surely someone she knows will read it, and the mystery will be over.
@Glark: blerg! I thought it was a waitress with that tattoo, not a customer. Though it would be fun to keep such a database.
I think it looks like a chocolate chip cookie! :) mmmmmmmmm!
pizza sitting on a plate
Coming to this hella late but it looks like a really big Bagel Bite.