Words: Undercover Pirate Reed Purvis

The growing new trend of marker tattoos is gaining influence and attracting ever growing numbers of participants according to recent statistics. They have been spotted in increasingly increasing numbers in a place called Bariloche, Argentina, located in the northwestern end of Patagonia and sitting on a fairly grande lake with a ski resort people refer to as Catedral Alta Patagonia or Cerro Catedral. Bariloche offers stunning views, spectacular scenery, beautiful landscapes, breathtaking backdrops, and wonderful vistas.

Once viewed with skepticism and greatly misunderstood, the marker tattoo fad is breaking its way into the mainstream and being closely followed by coolhunters and people who just aren't cool enough on their own. Of late, the marker tattoos have been adopted by the elite, spreading through social circles of the nouveau riche. Elitist society wonders how self expression was possible before the marker tattoo. Of all the various varieties of popular designs, there are a couple standouts that seem to be the most popular. A simple yet self reflective sketch of a hammerhead shark and various variations of a skull and cross bones have been spotted the most frequently.

The origin of the fad is largely unknown but there are rumors flying that the marker tattoos came to be during a pirate event put on by a pirate organization called SASS. We sent an undercover reporter out in hopes of finding out more and what we discovered was hard to comprehend. Apparently this organization never sleeps, running day and night. Its day operations take place in the aforementioned location of Cerro Catedral which turns out is a mountain with snow on it and lots of natural places to build jumps. Nighttime operations are confined to Bariloche at any of many a location that play music and are filled with girls. The recent pirate event was unprecedented and attracted a diverse range of characters from the snow sports bubble such as a few of the airblaster crew, big mountain veterans, park veterans, and backcountry jib type veteran people including Andrew Burns, Robyn Van Gyn, Raul Pinto (owner and creator of the Satellite empire), skiers James Heim, Pep Fujas, Garrett Russell, Dash Longe, Mauri Cambilla, a few Argentines, a mountain guide, random campers from around the USA, and John Sang, the creator of the pirate organization called SASS that held the event; a half American half Asian international man of multiple nationalities whose origins are unknown at this time.

Raul Pinto in the skeleton costume.

Pep Fujas, Dash Longe, and Garret Russell.

Funk sounds that night were blasted from a corner of the room originating from an apparently unknown and unnamed Argentine band well able to duplicate some Rage Against the Machine and Sublime songs that actually caused the band to be mistaken for Rage Against the Machine at one point. Once the crowd realized this band was not in fact the recently reunited Rage Against the Machine, a mob led by Travis Moore and Andrew Burns stormed the stage and took control of the mic, forming a 4 person x 6 person perimeter of sacrificial fans to withstand any advances to retake the mic.

Andrew Burns and Travis Moore on the mic.

Fueled by 20 free cases of Imperial Cerveza, the party partied itself into the morning until the time came to relocate to any of a few different discotecas in town. Thus ends the pirate party and begins the marker tattoo fad which spread that night from discoteca to discoteca infecting the minds of anyone caught in the path of the pirate tiburones (sharks). To this day, SASS maintains a strict policy regarding its policies by embodying the pirate lifestyle while openly condemning modern day copywrite policy. Such deft skill, savvy know-how, and precise execution of modern day diplomacy deployed by this organization demonstrate its impeccable yet unknown reputation for being what it is.