If you want a hit, you gotta make it fit

This song came up on my iPod this morning as I sat on the train that whisks me toward my dubiously rewarding job in entertainment. It struck me as both funny and deeply sad that, 31 years after it was written, it's truer than ever.

And, much like in 1977, apparently high-waisted jeans are now back in fashion - something that is also deeply sad.

Welcome to the club

A couple of years ago, one of our lead singers came to town to do some scheduled press events. He was quick to show off his most recent tattoo - a large anatomical heart with blue stitches on the right side of his neck.

"When the guy was doing it," he recalled, laughing a little too ironically, "he was saying, 'You're in a whole new club now, man.' I guess that's true - I mean, there's no getting an office job now, huh?"

It wasn't as though he didn't already have full sleeves on both arms (and occasionally some ill-advised hair color choices), so he was already a proudly deviant member of society. But apparently in the body modification community, there are just certain things that push you to the next level of separation from the general populous by their high level of visibility.

I always think about that even now when I see people with neck tattoos. It's essentially a wordless announcement: "I feel secure in the fact that I will never need to hold a job that doesn't involve either a nametag or a hospitality rider." I wonder if they share some kind of mutual acknowledgement when they see each other on the street, as though to say, Ah, I see you have made the same regrettable decision I have - go in peace.

Last Friday I was killing time in at the Liz Claiborne outlet in Lebanon, TN. Trips to see my family generally involve some kind of foray into discount retail - it's one of the few things that brings us together, the others being Law & Order and a love of artichokes.

My mother had struck up a conversation with the woman behind the counter as she rang up the purchases. I looked over and noticed something very familiar on the woman's neck.

"Thyroid?" my mother was saying to her, smiling sympathetically. Pointing at me, "Her too."

"I had it out before Christmas," said the woman who worked at the Liz Claiborne outlet store in Lebanon, TN. "I had a big nodule. It wasn't cancer or nothin' like that."

This woman was 40ish and a bit haggard-looking, and I noted that her 6-month-old scar didn't look all that dissimiliar from my now month-old one - a 4-inch red line across the bottom of her throat. The obvious indication that one is either endocrinologically unsound or has recently been attacked by pirates.

"You'll probably notice them a lot more now," my mother commented as we left the store.

Them? You mean, my people?

To be honest, I do find myself taking more than a cursory glance at the necks of my fellow commuters on the B train in the morning. I've yet to see The Mark of Synthetically Regulated Metabolism on anyone. It might be a strange moment when I do see someone, and they realize that I am one of their kind. But I guess we will exchange knowing nods, perhaps a fist-bump - we with the scars upon thars.