Flim-Flam
Collector: Arlo
Artist: Jon Mordin
Placement: Forearm Beneath Elbow
At over 85 years old James "The Amazing" Randi remains a tireless champion of reason and critical thinking. His experience as an accomplished performer and magician, in the tradition of Harry Houdini, acutely prepared Randi for a lifetime of advocacy against charlatans and fakers. Randi famously brought down the televangelist Peter Popoff while making an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and has exposed far more psychics and scam artists (including Uri Geller) than could ever be listed. For my tattoo I chose the "Pigasus," from the "Pigasus Awards" which Randi hands out every year on April 1st. This ignominous distinction is awarded to those people and/or institutions who excel at endorsing, promoting or engaging in unequivocal nonsense (also known as bullshit). Past "winners" have included: Sylvia Browne, John Edward, Jenny McCarthy and Dr. Oz. The banner accompanying my Pigasus tattoo comes from the title of one of Randi's earliest books, Flim-Flam!, which is a must-have for any Skeptical library (and also, incidentally, is the first place the "Uri" awards, as they were originally called, ever appeared). The tattoo gets high marks for Skepticism on the Skeptic Tattoos Meter because James Randi is a giant among Skeptics (he would be a shoe-in for the Mount Rushmore of the modern Skeptical movement) and high marks for whimsy because, well, it is a flying pig!
Watch the trailer for the documentary film about James Randi, An Honest Liar.