Before Blue Man, Baltimore had tattooed blue guy

Head-to-toe Blue Spandex, particularly on the campaign trail in triple-digit temperatures, is a sacrifice. Head-to-toe blue tattoos? That's real commitment.

Before there was Blue Man, Jody Landers' Spandexed sidekick, there was Jim Hall, the retired city planner who covered nearly every inch of his body in blue-and-black tattooed swirls.

Baltimore City Paper did a feature on Hall back in 2009. My colleague Richard Gorelick pointed that article out to me last week, as I was reporting on Blue Man. I wondered why The Sun had never profiled the guy -- until I read the story and realized how much the body art was intertwined with non-family newspaper fare.

I wish I had a Sun photo I could post, but I don't. So you'll have to go to the City Paper story to see theirs. Trust me, it's worth the mouse click.