Prison tattoos are nothing new and I know that I always come down on scratchers and that prison tattoos are basically done by scratchers, but the guys are locked up in prison and they don’t really have anyone to give them quality tattoos and well…that’s kind of sad, isn’t it?
Well, Rhea County Prison inmate Ricky Parker Jr thinks that it is and so he decided to do something about it.
Apparently ever the industrious fellow, Parker undertook a prison tattoo ink manufacturing method called “Pop-lighting”.
Pop-lighting involves taking an electrical cord of some sort, stripping it to the wires, then touching them together. A styrofoam cup is then burned upside down in order to capture soot. That soot is then mixed with toothpaste and used for ink.
If you think that sounds like a shitty way to make ink for a tattoo, that’s because it is.
Anyway, Parker got a little too much heat going via those stripped wires and ended up setting his entire styrofoam cup on fire. This caught the attention of the guards, who came to his cell and discovered that Mr Parker wasn’t up to anything that prison authorities generally approve of.
As a result of Parker’s smoke show, he’s been hit with a reckless endangerment charge that will extend his current sentence. Which sucks for Ricky Parker Jr.
All the guy wanted was a tattoo.