Tuesday October 11, 2005

The Big Zioncheck Giveaway

Last week, I plugged Zioncheck for President, my former colleague Phil Campbell’s memoir about his involvement with a punk rock campaign for Seattle city council. Then Phil’s book was liberally excerpted in The Stranger—an honor made all the more impressive by the fact that, in the book, Phil gets fired by the paper on page 5. Now, however, it’s time for the third pillar of the Zioncheck blockbuster marketing plan—the Encyclopedia Hanasiana giveaway. Grant Cogswell, Phil’s candidate, has a tattoo—a tattoo he got after winning a referendum to extend Seattle’s monorail system. Phil describes it, and its meaning, this way:

About three inches high and almost as wide, the Seattle city logo is now etched on Grant’s left bicep in blue-green ink, a stylized profile of Chief Seattle in the center of a small vortex of pointed half-circles, which, on closer inspection, are the outside parts of an S. The tattoo was the perfect bridge for Grant, connecting his self-styled punk persona to his passion for a rebellious form of grassroots politics.

Do you have a politically-motivated tattoo? Or if you had one, what would it be? Share it in comments, and if it turns out to be my favorite idea (or actual execution), you win my copy of the book. Simple. I’ll pay postage in the lower 48. Contest closed to all others. I’ll give it a week and announce the winner next Monday.