{"id":1441,"date":"2016-08-04T02:42:09","date_gmt":"2016-08-04T06:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tattoomacro.com\/wp\/?p=1441"},"modified":"2016-08-04T17:07:42","modified_gmt":"2016-08-04T21:07:42","slug":"rosario-fiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tattoomacro.com\/index.php\/2016\/08\/04\/rosario-fiction\/","title":{"rendered":"Rosario: Fiction"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rosario\u2019s tattoo was done by Jon Gorman<\/a> of Providence Tattoo<\/a>. Rosario is a gondolier with La Gondola Providence<\/a>. Perhaps, at a Water Fire he may have ferried you along the Providence River. Rosario told me the story of his tattoo, an incredible story, which I relate below as best I can.<\/p>\n

T<\/span>he gondoliers of Venice can be the nicest people you\u2019ll meet, but there\u2019s a level at which they don\u2019t really want to talk to you. I found this out when I asked a gondolier about training to become one. He waved his hand around like he was suddenly swatting flies. He just \u201cdidn\u2019t know about that.\u201d Of course, he did, but I figured he was taking me for yet another tourist. I mean, maybe I was to some extent, but I came to Venice specifically to train with a Venetian gondolier. So, I wasn\u2019t going to give up just then.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a gondolier,\u201d I said, \u201cthat\u2019s why I asked.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re a gondolier, why are you asking?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

I explained that I was a gondolier in Providence, Rhode Island, and I work on the Providence River, but ever since I was being taught how to do it, I felt\u2026 changed.<\/p>\n

\u201cChanged?\u201d the gondolier asked me. \u201cHow?\u201d<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s hard to explain,” I said, “it\u2019s like I feel that there\u2019s a way of gliding on the water and I\u2019m supposed to be controlling it, and there\u2019s a small light I can see. It\u2019s somewhere on the gondola. But I can never see exactly where it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

All of this is the truth, by the way. I didn\u2019t feel like it was a good moment to hold anything back. So, I didn\u2019t. And then the gondolier smiled a bit. It was like a crescent moon shining in his face above his graying beard. \u201cThat is something of a change,\u201d he said. He invited me to dinner with his family later that evening. This was a giant Italian dinner, it turned out, and basically I met his wife, kids, some grandparents, aunts, uncles, and some insane number of cousins. I can’t even, about the food. After dinner, the gondolier takes me out to the canal. For my first lesson. It was more like a negative number lesson, though. One where you have to unlearn some dumb stuff you were doing.<\/p>\n

Evidently, I wasn\u2019t a total disaster as an apprentice. I only had a month, so, the gondolier \u2013I\u2019m not supposed to name him\u2014said we\u2019d get where we could. \u201cThat won\u2019t be much,\u201d he told me. According to him I was a \u201clazy American with all the iPhone and no reality.\u201d I think he really liked me. I think. Anyway, I did a lot of work on skills, a lot, and he let me take a few customers the last week. \u201cThe girls like you,\u201d he warned, \u201cjust make sure you don\u2019t get liking them. Eyes on the water.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, this all the backstory to how I got the tattoo. On the last night I was in Italy, the gondolier and I went out on two separate gondolas, with me following wherever he led. I had no idea where we were going. Then, right in front of me there was open water and the Isola di San Michele out in the distance \u2013this is the Isle of the Dead. The gondolier pulled up close to my boat, reaching over and passing me a very large, lit candle. The wind threatened to put out the flame, and the gondolier shouted, \u201cDo not let the flame go out!\u201d I managed to get the flame under control, and he told me to go to San Michele. To memorize the name on the first grave I see, and to return with the candle still lit. He glided away at a speed that made asking any questions totally pointless.<\/p>\n

I could say a lot about that ride to San Michele. All of it would be me describing how I moved that damn candle around the gondola. Could the moon\u2019s reflection have been cascading through the lagoon waves in luminous patterns that calm the very soul? I have no idea. Nothing. I had burn marks on my hands for weeks after. Maybe I learned a lot about how the wind feels from all over a gondola. I saw a grave, it was just there, and I memorized the name \u201cRosario\u201d by saying it over and over in my head while protecting the candle. \u201cRosario\u201d became my gondolier name. The gondolier was there to greet me when I returned. I passed the lit candle to him the moment I pulled in close enough and he nodded at me. We silently glided into the dark canals.<\/p>\n

Back at his home, the gondolier drew a design on a piece of paper. \u201cYou have to keep it with you, keep it safe. Safe. It is like a passport.\u201d<\/p>\n

I looked at the design and thought it was phenomenally cool. And then I realized that we were talking about me\u2014me, you know\u2014keeping a piece of paper perfectly safe, for the rest of my life.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing a lazy American with all the iPhone, could I take a picture of this?\u201d I asked the gondolier.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, no-no-no-no-no. No reality!\u201d he laughed. \u201cNo cheating.\u201d<\/p>\n

I went back to the States, and back to my regular life with this irregular experience and a design on a piece of paper that I knew I should never lose. It got to me little by little. I\u2019d worry stuff like, \u201cWhat if someone steals my wallet?\u201d \u201cWhat if I friggin\u2019 put it in a safe place and don\u2019t remember where the friggin\u2019 safe place is?\u201d \u201cWhat if it falls in the water and disintegrates?\u201d This \u201cpassport\u201d was way too valuable. But you can\u2019t live like this. Then it hit me. You can\u2019t lose a tattoo. And if there is any way of copying the design on the paper that qualifies as real, it\u2019s a tattoo. This seemed so obvious, like a moment of clarity, or whatever. I went to Jon Gorman and got the tattoo. Still haven\u2019t lost the piece of paper, though. Don\u2019t know how that\u2019s happened.<\/p>\n

\"Russell17\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Russel4_w\" <\/a> <\/div>
\"Russel2_w\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Russell14_w\" <\/a> <\/div>
\"Russel5_w\" <\/a> <\/div>
\"Russell16_w\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Russell8_w\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Russel3_w\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rosario\u2019s tattoo was done by Jon Gorman of Providence Tattoo. Rosario is a gondolier with La Gondola Providence. Perhaps, at a Water Fire he may have ferried you along the Providence River. Rosario told me the story of his tattoo, an incredible story, which I relate below as best I can. The gondoliers of Venice […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1437,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tattoomacro.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Russell9_w.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6wDJO-nf","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tattoomacro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1441"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tattoomacro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tattoomacro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tattoomacro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tattoomacro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1441"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/tattoomacro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1458,"href":"https:\/\/tattoomacro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1441\/revisions\/1458"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tattoomacro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tattoomacro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tattoomacro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tattoomacro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}