REVIEW 'Skin Deep': all dressed up, nowhere to go

Definitive, contradictory answers plague Griffin's cultural commentary.
By MITCH PUGH
SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE
"Skin Deep: Of Tattoos, The Disappearing West, Very Bad Men, And My Deep Love For Them All," by Karol Griffin (Harcourt, $24)
We first meet author and protagonist Karol Griffin pregnant, wearing green socks, combat boots, a black sweater and a pink brocade dress. When she crosses her arms, tattoos "shoot out" from underneath her sleeves.
That says more about Griffin's first book -- part memoir, part cultural meditation -- than even she appears to know. For all its promise, "Skin Deep" is just that -- a mostly condescending, hypocritical and, yes, self-indulgent memoir dressed up as progressive social commentary.
Pretext
The pretext is an interesting one. "Skin Deep" is being shopped around as a counter-culture insider's study of the myths (and gentrification) of the West; an examination of a town, Laramie, Wyo., that has been overrun by suburbanites who treat those myths and the art of tattooing as "commodities of coolness."
Griffin's West is one that has rapidly changed from being shaped by function to becoming a prisoner to form. Yet, while on the surface the most interesting of the three threads running through this book, it is the least rewarding.
Laramie has become a computer-enhanced colorized movie, Griffin says. Galleries and gift shops have replaced the hardware and drug stores. Laramie, of course, isn't unique. These changes are happening everywhere and not just in the West. But the widespread gentrification of America as a whole -- from the once bohemian neighborhoods of Chicago to the formerly quaint Victorian towns of the Northeast -- doesn't fit as neatly into Griffin's box.
That's the problem with most of her cultural commentary: Her answers are always definitive and frequently contradictory.
Even when it comes to the art of tattooing, Griffin acknowledges only two types of people -- the tattoo "tourist" and the fully sleeved tattooed person. One can only be interested in a tattoo to shock others or to approximate a lifestyle of "coolness." The other, meanwhile, is the authentic tattooed person -- someone who shares a commitment of time and pain and dedication to an art form.
A limited view
Griffin's ruminations seem to be coming from a tired school of cultural thought -- one that divides all groups of people into "punks" and "poseurs." There is the authentic tattooed person. The real, bad-boy biker outlaw. The time-worn, genuine cowboy. And these are the people whom Griffin feels a kinship with and the men with whom she falls in love.
That's the other narrative thread here. An ongoing road trip of bad men with guns and tattoos. Through it all, she's searching for something genuine. But, of course, we have to believe in her definition to find this familiar journey a rewarding one. Instead, it's too easy to find ironic parallels to Paula Cole's over-exposed pop song, "Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?"
Griffin's book is likely to garner plenty of attention within certain circles, mostly the counter-culture set in the West. Her author's tour even promises to have Griffin, also an accomplished tattoo artist and photographer, driving from town to town in a classic, red Packard. For someone who rails against discarding function for form, one wonders if she sees the hypocrisy in that image. Skin deep, indeed.