Rocking the Shocker
Thu Vole drops his coat on the well-broken-in leather couch, tosses his cigarettes onto the coffee table, and orders a beer. We’re at the Flying Saucer on a Thursday night and have set up shop in the quietest corner there. I decide, on consideration, that this seclusion is a good thing. I’ve already received my quota of dirty looks for the day, and when you’re chatting with Thu Vole—and a social lubricant like alcohol is involved—the conversation is sure to veer into territory that will cause the prudish, uptight, or ignorant to look on with definite disapproval.
Thu [pronounced two], Lord love him, has the dynamic combination of an opinion about everything and a thoroughly irreverent sense of humor. Want to know about his immigration from Vietnam? “It was a damn long swim over here.” The secret vice of artists? “Every artist is an alcoholic.” His Halloween costume for next year? “I’m thinking of going as Maddox [Jolie-Pitt]… shaving my head with the little mohawk, you know?” Life in Nashville? “I love it but it sucks. Half the people you meet are really fucking dumb, and you have to go to places you hate to meet cool people.”
Thu went to school to study pharmacy, though he admits that choice of discipline was entirely to please his parents. After a short-lived attempt at doling out pills as a pharmacy intern, he realized it was definitely not the career for him. “The problem is, I just got tired of selling people with cancer $2000 pills,” he says, sighing deeply as he flicks the ashes from the end of his cigarette. “Health care doesn’t work [here] like it does elsewhere in the world… I decided not to do that because evil propagates evil, and if you’re a part of it you’re propagating evil.”
So, rather than propagating evil, he decided to embellish skin. Thu has been tattooing at the Queen of Hearts for about two years. It is, he says, a “practical” career choice since he’s been doing art in some form or another his entire life. “Rather than doing something extremely uninspiring every single day that made me want to kill myself, I decided to do some art and make some money.” He exhales a cloud of smoke. “I’d really rather be a painter though,” he muses. “I’d rather be sitting around on my ass, smoking weed, doing a painting, chilling out; maybe tripping on some acid or ‘shrooms.”
But though it doesn’t allow for ass-sitting and acid-tripping on a daily basis, Thu relishes the sheer variety of artwork that tattooing allows him to create. Versatility is key to the appeal of a tattoo artist, and Thu has run the inky gamut of body art designs. He proudly displays the tattoo across his belly: beautifully designed letters that spell out “Philosophy” when viewed from below and “Art & Science” when viewed from above. He speaks fondly of having tattooed a “little pussy-cat on a stripper’s pussy.” He’s done bling and lotus blossoms and fireflies and pit bull portraits. And he absolutely cracks me up when I ask him about the first tattoo he ever gave.
“It was the ‘shocker,’” he replies nonchalantly, taking a sip of beer. I half-choke on a swallow of raspberry-pear cider. Although I am perfectly aware of the nature of a shocker, Thu helpfully—and succinctly—describes it for me (“two in the pink, one in the stink”) before continuing the story. When told to make some sketches for his first tat, he checked out some books of Asian art and came across various Mudra designs—the hand gestures used in Buddhist and Hindu iconography. “Each one represents something different,” Thu explains. “The one I did actually meant ‘reasoning,’ but I turned it sideways.” He pauses and gives me a wicked grin. “It could mean reasoning… Or it could be the shocker.”
This information elicits shrieks of unladylike laughter from yours truly, and I am grateful that nobody is around to hear my impression of a hysterical hyena. After all, Thu’s not too far from the mark about having to dig for cool people in Nashville. There’s probably someone else in the Saucer who is capable of appreciating the humorous dichotomy of sacred Eastern symbols and obscene sexual gestures, but I’m too lazy to find that hypothetical kindred spirit tonight. Instead, I’m content to giggle into my pint and be glad that there’s at least one other person with an unruly creative drive and a sick sense of humor that I can add to my steadily-growing list of cool fucking people in this town.
Originally published by the Nashville Edge, 2007-2008.
May 6, 2009 at 11:22 pm | writings | No comment