This Is Our Canvas: The FCN Philosophy

Some folks are pathogenically artistic. Every move is a calculated expression; their thespian side knows no limit and articulation is their forté and their faiblesse (to use a little Français).

I know; the above paragraph looks like it was written by some off the deep end artso who is so intent on clipping his nose hair that he never stops to balance his budget. Let me assure you that, while I do meticulously maintain proper limits on my nasal follicles, I also take time to manage my finances. I am also very proud of my sniffer, thank you, and would appreciate if you stopped staring.

Ah, but my proboscis (my beak, snoot – snout if you’re from the north – nozzle, schnoz or schnozzle, if you prefer) is a great topic for another post. Let’s leave my olfactory organ alone and stop asking how we got here in the first place.

You can always tell the serious artistic cases (the ones that need to be put in the Intensive Care Unit so their “art” can’t reach the outside world and pollute all of us) by the way they use human form in their art.

An artist feels that the moment he scoots out of the womb he’s got to start improving the world. Sometimes they begin their improvements before the big send off (that’s called a breach pregnancy), but most of the time they grab the nearest artistic tool as soon as they're old enough fit it into their mouths.

The ultimate expression of an artistic being is a tattoo. Ask anyone who as undergone the highly painful and slightly humiliating process of tattooing and you may very well get a response like “My body is my canvas.” Any other response can be attributed to an over-endowed sense of manliness or complete idiocy.

This belief -- that the body is a tool for expression -- is a dead ringer for an artistic expressionist; someone's gone over the imagination waterfall and is still trying to find his floaties. In fact several studies have linked breach pregnancy babies to an increased tattoo risk. One even advised parents to tattoo their breach young with an acceptable mark to mitigate the chance of an inappropriate one later in life.

In general, the more tattoos a person has the more likely they would have led a successful artistic career had they not ruined their chances by getting the tattoo in the first place.

But how did we get from my nose to breach pregnancies and tattoos? This is like a conversation with that woman from Raley’s. Goodness sakes alive (her words, not mine)!

FCN is, in an odd sort of way, my tattoo. It’s my canvas; my place to express deceptively shallow material disguised with humor to look deep (hence the need for floaties). If you remove the needles and pain but keep the humiliation and mix in an odd sort of cyber permanence, you get FCN.

FCN even has some of the disadvantages of a tattoo. If my employer finds out who I am and what I write, I could lose my job. My female friends stop talking to me after reading FCN, not unlike the way they would if they discovered a nasty tat; even my mothers (biological and cyberphysical) have to take me aside sometimes after reading something here.

FCN reaches under the skin and make a lasting mark. Once you've been here, you're pretty much marked for life. Removal is expensive, painful and not 100% successful. We're sorry but it's something you are going to have to talk with your future spouse about.

That's the FCN philosophy in a nutshell. But showing off the tattoo is getting old and waxing philosophical is more painful than, well, nose hair clipping, so if you'll excuse me I am going to make a phone call to one of my jock friends (with real tattoos) who wouldn't know Mona Lisa if she slapped him in the face to have a conversation about "nothing."