So I’m watching Best Ink (cousin to the similarly delightful Ink Masters), and I see some cool black tattoos with flashes of unlined red here and there. I love black tattoos and my favorite color is red; I’m about as complex at times as Sponge Bob Square Pants. And no outline on the red? How cool! How revolutionary! In the words of Jenna Marbles: “WHAT ARE THIS???”
They call it “Trash Polka.” Hmmmm. Interesting. I love tattoos and I can polka like nobody’s business, but I’m bewildered. So I turn to the Interwebz and the Googles and “go fish.”
The best write up I found to describe the art form is by Karen L. Hudson and can be found here: http://tat2guru.com/what-are-trash-polka-tattoos-where-did-the-style-originate/
… and I get it… all of it except why Strauss II’s Tritsch Tratsch Polka is a “polka.” It has none of the usual oom-pah-pah beat or outstanding lyrics akin to rolling out any barrels, so I had to go to my online staple, Wikipedia, to get clued in. Turns out that Strauss II and his contemporaries wrote “polkas” prior to the modern polka’s evolution akin to what we might consider to be classical music and waltzes, yet were made for dancing. Heck, according to the Wiki, Strauss II wrote a “polka” that “evokes the uncorking of champagne bottles,” so I suppose it ain’t all bad, though I do not believe an accordion was anywhere to be found.
Okay, back to the point. Yup, I am planning for a Trash Polka piece. I’d like to get my pal Shakespeare on my lower back above my hip or perhaps on my ribs with his quote from Henry VI in unlined red smattered about his profile: “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” As I post from the rest of my tattoo wish list, you will see why this selection and placement is important to me. (And, no, it ain’t cuz I’m a lawyer. That’s just the irony talking.)
“The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” Henry VI (IV.ii.73)
Clearing the Canvas 
My thigh piece is entirely done in black, and I love it. No red, though.