So there was this kid come in the fucking tattoo shop looking to set up and work for the summer. New Jack. Another one...His name was Jason or Jimmy or something like that. Truth is I don't remember his name. Hell, I never remembered any of their fucking names, or faces either. Couldn't be bothered really, not unless they were intelligent or interesting or had that certain something that made them stand out from the vast thundering herds invading the tattoo shop every day looking for work or looking for tattoos...And that was a rare fucking instance, believe me. Maybe one in a hundred, or even a thousand. Who the fuck knows? I couldn't even begin speculating on such calculations at the time. I was mostly way too busy just tattooing them, giving them the mark. Dealing with their need to pick out a fucking design, getting them into the chair, separating them from their trembling, hesitant cash and getting them the fuck out the door, satisfied and fulfilled as quickly and efficiently as humanly possible.

That was the only real goal at Fun City Tattoo anymore. It had earned itself a world famous reputation for excellence as a one-of-a-kind, artsy-fartsy custom design orientated world-class tattoo studio way back in the day. But that day was long gone now. Now it was just another walk in, sit down, get it on and get 'em out the door scene...Old School tactics for New Age Economics...Most of the New Jacks didn't get that. They were still all hung up on the legend, the image, the unsustainable ethics of the thing. Shit. I'd created a monster. And I'd had to kill it and put it out of its misery, legend, mystique, ethics and all. Good fucking riddance.

Now the game was cash and carry tattooing. Most of the New Jacks wanted to resurrect the monster. So for me they were mostly just a notch or two above the average idiot customer. You know the type. ''Last week I couldn't even spell 'Tattoo Artist' and now I are one...''

But I needed a new hand to fill the spot left open when the last new guy spent all his undeserved chump change on crack and ended up in the East River after pissing off some underworld people I may or may not have known... So here's this kid, Jimmy or Jason or whatever standing there. New Jack...Shit. New Jacks. The New Age scourge of the tattoo shop...Risen like mail order Frankenstein Monsters from the ranks of the tattooed. Ahhhh, the tattooed...

It was 1990 in New York City. Tattooing was still illegal and it was a full time job separating those fucking fools from their cash. I knew the boom days were long bottomed out and I just wanted to make as much cash out of whatever was left as quickly and efficiently as possible and get the fuck out of the game. Take the money and run back to Brazil where I belonged. And I was working it hard. I was pretty good at it too. It just took a bit of tact and focus now. Because, like bewildered children on their first day of school, those walk-in tattoo customers mostly just didn't know what the fuck they even wanted. They really didn't know much about nothing, not as far as I could ever tell....They just knew they craved the fucking mark for some fuzzy primal reason that probably only God really knew. And He wasn't fucking saying.

For most of those tattoo shoppers beating the door down with too much money and not enough sense, it seemed as though all concerns for art or relevance or elegance or significance were at best little more than so many fleeting afterthoughts if the fuckers ever thought at all. Who the fuck knew?

Some of them could be a real pain though, that's for sure...Especially the goofy thrill-seeking rich college cunts who came in slumming around, shopping for their trendy little badges of hip, slick coolness, their impulsive, narcissistic hormone-driven rites of passage...Those bitches would invariably show up at the shop all clustered together in nervous protective little gaggles, giggling and talking real fast and frantic in shrill demanding tones probably to hide their quivering sheep-like trepidation about being there at all...They all just looked like so many fucking clucking little chickens to me. Except for the fact that there was always at least one grossly FAT one among their ranks. The Mother Hen from hell...Sometimes they were all fat. Then it was like the fucking Invasion of the Twinkie Snatchers or something. God have mercy!

And then they all always had to have something "totally original" Yeah right...Shit, I'd learned a long time ago that if I ever actually tried to show these sub-humanoid suburban throwbacks anything really original or challenging, I'd be met with those same old blank bovine stares, if not a reaction of pure incredulous terror before they all skated out the door as if I'd pulled out my dick and asked 'em to lick it like a lollipop. Maybe if I'd have just done that some of 'em woulda stuck around for an original tattoo at long last. At least the fat ones...

But I was long wise to their ways. Over twenty years in the chair had taught me that I might as well be selling computer programs to pygmies when it came to talking to walk-in tattoo customers. So I always tried to keep it real simple for 'em...

Ahhhh, but they all always had to be "original". Yep, original...That was an absolute must. Original just like everybody else that ever came stampeding in the door of any fucking walk-in tattoo shop in the world...As a whole they were a staggeringly predictable bunch. So I'd learned to steer them straight over to the most common and popular designs on the wall then just suggest a few minor changes of juxtaposition with some other common theme...Or there was always the good old color switch that never failed to make their design appear all "original" and therefore highly personal and meaningful to their idiot sense of retarded aesthetics.

There were several key words that they always loved to hear, words that really got them all revved up and would help to quickly separate the legions of tire kickers from those bold, courageous few who actually really had the tattoo bug, the itch that would give them the courage to shut the fuck up and get their goddamned cattle brand and part with their fucking cash...Key Words like 'freehand', 'detailed', 'fine line', 'delicate' or 'bold' or whatever the fuck all depending on the customer's obvious leaning of course, which was usually pretty easy to detect if you paid attention to their body language and so on...

Then it was just a matter of patience, tact and the proper use of those blessed Key Words. That shit never failed to fill the bill for those legions of dimwits...Meaningless little words that magically inspired their immediate undying confidence, enthusiasm and generosity... Always combined, of course with the ever-present assurance that this tattoo was a great and original choice and just happened to be my specialty and my "favorite style'' to work in...Shit I might as well have been repairing toaster ovens or re-soling shoes for the freaks. It was all the same to me. All it ever was to me was, at best the competent application of technical skills you could teach to a smart chimpanzee. That and the sincere desire to do the best job possible by whatever means it took to do so even straight up base trickery in order to save those idiots from their own bad taste and boundless aesthetic ignorance. Other than that, it didn't make a shit's bit of difference to me if it was a polka-dotted purple spider, or a crocodile in a cowboy hat riding a moped they wanted tattooed on their silly ass hides for life.

"I like that one there," a girl would say pointing to a design of a butterfly the size of a tadpole, "but could you just change his expression a little, make his eyes more friendly? Give him an expression of whimsical kindness and wisdom?"

What the fuck? The eyes were gonna be the size of an ant's asshole anyway...Are you stupid? I would think. "Of course, darlin'" I would say reassuringly. "I know exactly what you mean. Umm hummm...Yeah, that's a great idea! And it'll really be original like that....No problem!"

Then you'd collect the cash and go in the back and sit at the drawing table and write a letter to a pal in prison or do a crossword puzzle or something, anything to give 'em the impression that you were back there diligently laboring over this great original artistic challenge for the required five minutes or so. Even if there was something good on the shop TV though, you didn't ever want to drag it out for too long after the obligatory five minutes and give 'em the chance to change their minds about the design you'd just sold 'em or worse yet to get cold feet and beat it out the door...You always had to keep one eye on the door, always bearing in mind that these people had the attention span, firmness of mind and courage of a fucking housefly...Once they beat it out the door, there was always the lurking threat of them coming back later trying to get a refund. Not that they ever got their money back. But who needed extra headaches?

Then you'd pull the old well-worn stencil out of the file and call them back, explaining that you were gonna make all the original artistic adjustments with a special "freehand technique'' or some shit...And, thus assured she'd finally sit back and let you do your job...The 'highly original, whimsical, kind, compassionate and wise-looking' butterfly or whatever the fuck. Just like you'd done it a thousand times before, using the same fucking stenciled design with no alteration whatsoever to its simple graceful lines and shading...But always with the constant reassurance that it was coming out great...even better than you expected. Key Words...They loved to hear that shit...And when you were done, you'd show them the mirror and ask them proudly how they liked it, as if you could really give a flying fuck, to which they'd invariably exclaim that it was great. Exactly the way they wanted it.

Hey, if it ain't broke don't fix it...Sometimes you just had to try to save the fuckers from themselves. Tactfully and with a good display of confidence. Tact always being defined as: ''The ability to tell someone to go to hell and make them feel glad to be on their way." Just like the little sign said...I'd picked that sign up at a truck stop in Louisiana and hung on the wall over my station there as a constant reminder to me just what the fuck I was dealing with there at Fun City Tattoo. The lowest common denominator. That little bit of truck stop wisdom was a sure fire antidote to any temptation towards Rembrandt-ism in the tattoo shop...

But lately it was a new breed. New Jacks. Rembrandts. I'd seen so many of these New Jack 'Rembrandts' in there actually try to follow the vague instructions of a confused and apprehensive customer...Sitting there for long painstaking hours drawing ten different renditions of the same stupid fly-fucking design. Actually attempting to achieve the nebulous qualities and characteristics dictated by a customer who didn't know his asshole from a Spaghettio, who really only needed some tactful reassurance and a sense of confidence and understanding from the person who was gonna do a tattoo on them... And after all, that's all it ever really took to get 'em in the chair. But noooo....The new kid, Jimmy or Jason or whatever the fuck his name was is gonna be another tattoo shop Rembrandt...I'd sit there quietly wincing as I watched the idiot customers play these New Jacks like pawn shop accordions...Now it was Jimmy or Jason or whatever...And sure enough, soon he was jumping through hoops of fire to try and please 'em on their unsteady, uninformed terms....Unnecessary 'artistic' waste of energy and time, I'd be thinking...

After hours of this painful shit, the customer would finally just get up and walk, saying they wanted to 'think about it'...Shit, bye bye time, bye bye money. Bye bye customer, never to return...

And make no mistake, in tattooing as in so many service trades, time IS money...If you waste it trying to reach for the stars, you can't put the time you wasted back on the shelf and sell it to someone else. It's time and it's gone, never to return...But most of these news guys really thought they were some kinda great artists...Artists in the classical sense...They took all the confused signals of a nervous client simply fishing for a little reassurance literally. Signals which took form in vague and inadvisable artistic requests...These young guns just didn't get it. Shit, these people didn't know or give a rat's ass about art, technique or any of the complex nuances of tattooing where the two elements ideally meet somewhere in the middle...All they really wanted was a little encouragement and positive affirmation, a little psychological hand-job to help them take the plunge and get their fucking mark and, pay up and go to the bar to celebrate their fucking rite of passage....That's all they were after. The MARK. At that point it was up to the tattooer to simply do a pretty good job fast, and make them feel comfortable, putting them at ease with a little razzle dazzle voodoo hoodoo, a little wave of the witch doctor's magic wand...

These new jacks just couldn't understand these folks, that all their vague and uninformed artistic input and pathetic art-directing was really nothing more than a veiled plea to be treated with a human touch and respect for their 'special' 'original' tattoo. I tried to explain this to the New Jacks over and over, this thing about customers. That they just wanted to be led by the nose, like frightened cattle through the spooky process by someone who could pretend that they 'understood' and sympathized with their 'special' status, their individual importance in the process of redefining their fuzzy, confused little self-image. All that through a simple, run of the mill tattoo. But to those customers it was a big fucking deal, a towering milestone in their lives. And for me it was as routine as doing an oil change or playing a game of poker with a winning hand. Somehow the New Jacks just didn't get it. I might as well have been trying to explain advanced physics to a roach on the shop wall...Probably because those New Jacks, like the average customer, thought themselves highly original and special. Shit. Many of the New Jacks thought of me as unethical and cynical. A Dinosaur...Maybe I was. But I had my reasons. I had seen 'em come and go for over twenty years. What was I supposed to do? That's why I just wanted to take the money and get out. Back to Brazil.

Sure there were exceptions to the rules, there's all kinds of people out there, especially in a trade as surreal and unpredictable as tattooing. An art form which, at it's best, always treads a fine line between the sacred creative process and an almost mystical power to affect people's lives profoundly on a deep spiritual level...And of course it's every tattooer's dream to meet up with that truly special customer who instinctively understands this indefinable magic, thus allowing the tattooer to push the envelope and make full use of his technical, creative, aesthetic and artistic abilities.

But what little Jimmy or Jason or whatever the fuck the little New Jack's name was didn't get was that those kinda customers have to come to you...There's absolutely no sense whatever in trying to make every tattoo a gigantic artistic challenge in a walk-in commercial tattoo shop, where no matter how good a rep for quality and work and professionalism the place may have, it's still a walk-in no bullshit place, mostly catering to thundering herds of the idiot masses. Period. Time is money, Bottom line. And the main purpose of a walk-in tattoo shop like that is to simply and efficiently provide a service and make people happy with the results. Next?

And to achieve that there's a lot more at play than razzle dazzle, artsy fartsy, avant-garde experimental tattooing, Especially taking into consideration the fact that, in the average walk-in street tattoo shop, something like 85% of the people who come in the door are just looking for the bloody MARK on their stinking hide. That's it. That's what the tattoo shop is to them...Sure they'd probably prefer a well-made mark to one of inferior quality. But most of the time they wouldn't even have known the fucking difference. So it's a tattooer's job to know the difference for them. And to that end, to be assertive (i.e.; lead them by the nose) and help the average impulsive idiot client just sit down and shut the fuck up and give him the fucking money and then get the fuck out...Sure, you will try to show them their options without alot of pain and mind games and do a good professional well-rendered tattoo of their choice. But if their choice is ill advised from a well informed professional aesthetic viewpoint -- which it usually is in a walk-in shop then it's your gig to tell them, "Yeah, of course, absolutely..." etc. and then just go ahead and translate their absurd uninformed notion of what they want which would probably look like dog shit smeared on a Persian rug, and give any real tattooer a nervous breakdown if taken literally into a feasible and well constructed version of what they wanted. And to do it efficiently...Which does NOT mean spending five hours taking art direction from confused, psychically challenged idiot impulse shoppers.

If these gung-ho new age nerds with overactive egos wanted to spend valuable shop time attempting to carve monuments to their own inflated ego's delusions of greatness (usually way out of proportion to their actual talent and technical abilities) into the quivering hides of the thundering masses who stumbled into the joint looking to get a brand whose personal significance to them far outweighed their desire for any fucking masterpiece of unprecedented dimensions, then the fucking New Jack could go the way of the proverbial starving artist and get the fuck out of my humble and well working full service BUSINESS where the main objective was to generate money while making people happy by doing quality tattoos on them.

Well that's what I was up against as an old school tattoo tradesman in a world where everyone was a fucking artiste. A brilliant groundbreaking creative giant who just hadn't been recognized in the highest regard and thereby rewarded with fame fortune and all the pie and pussy in the sky yet, usually because he was just too fucking great and talented and far ahead of his time. The victim of a cruel merciless world too insensitive to recognize his true genius. Sheee-it...

By the time I got out of the tattoo game and never once looked back in regret, everybody was so special and unique and overflowing with creative genius that it had long become a terrible stigma to not belong to the swelling ranks of self congratulatory creative artists...

Suddenly I wake up one day and find myself transformed into some kind of dirty old cynical dinosaur with a bad attitude. Oh well. I can live with that... Better to move in the shadows then stagnate in the light of an artificial self-made utopia that doesn't smell too classy anyway. So I got out...

So anyway, back to New York City, 1990, Fun City Tattoo and there was this kid. Jimmy or Jason or whatever...Another self-appointed bad boy Tattoo Artist with all the bells and whistles, boy...Got the greased back fifty dollar Rockabilly hair, the practiced slouch, artificial cool, cigarette behind the ear, the works...But who knows, he could be an okay guy, I'm thinking as he stands there in the front room with his little tattoo portfolio, hoping to get the job vacated by the last guy who's smoking crack with the fishes now...Looks to be trying maybe a little too hard...But I let it pass, cause ya never know. You never know, believe me... And where I came from, if it looked like a greaser and talked the talk, chances are it walked the walk...I always got along pretty good with greasers. But that shit was thirty years ago.

Are there any real greasers left? Is this just a fashion statement now? I dunno...Been out of the coop too long. Dinosaur Ville, baby...I live on Main Street, man. Oh Lord. And just when things were looking up. Oh well...Memories. I wish I had a lighthouse inside to keep 'em all from bumping into each other in the dark...

The tables are turned: Shaw gets a tattoo from one of his better known clients, actor and ink aficionado Johnny Depp.

(c) Jonathan Shaw 2009.

Jonathan Shaw began writing as a contributor for the LA Free Press in the late 60s. In the early 70s, he trained as a tattoo artist in Long Beach under the legendary Bob Shaw. He opened his own joint, Fun City Tattoo, in 1976 in New York's East Village. After traveling the world extensively as a tattoo artist and managing editor of tattoo magazines, he retired from tattooing in 2001, moving to Rio De Janeiro to begin his next chapter as a full time writer. His first book, Narcisa: Our Lady of Ashes, is available from Amazon.com.

To read more of Jonathan's writing check his blog at ScabVendor.com.

Viking

SUICIDEGIRL

United Kingdom

FEB 15, 2009 02:55 PM

Woooooah. That could have been shorter. I found the tone offputting. What are you doing now, in Brazil, anyway?

Catbones

USA

December 2006

APR 08, 2009 06:27 PM

JS,
I've never been a huge fan, but this article tells it like it fucking is man. After all these years I guess I've become a grumpy enough old fuck to agree with you on something.

I'm surprised it only caught 1 comment - but I guess a whole lot of people who you described in the commentary probably read it and figured it might be best to leave it alone.

I know when I started tattooing back in '90, I was one of those Jimmys, busting my ass to try to let people show them some masterpiece shit. It took about 5-7 years to realize I was casting my pearls before swine. I figured out an important fact - I could make my living just throwing some feel-good their way and doing the goddamned tattoo. When I wanted to tattoo cool shit, I had friends and fans who deserved to wear cool shit. All of my favorite and best work I've put on over the years has been free shit on my friends, or a barter deal with someone willing to let me hook him up after hours or whatever. The walk ins? They get their doodads and they feel good when it's done. And I get paid.

Anyway, that was a great read man, way to lay it down like it is.

dholokov

Toronto, ON

April 2003

APR 08, 2009 10:30 PM

Catbones said:
but I guess a whole lot of people who you described in the commentary probably read it and figured it might be best to leave it alone.

It's pretty long - they're probably still reading it.

mydogfarted

Oakland, NJ

June 2003

APR 09, 2009 09:31 AM

I can definitely tell the difference when my tattoo artist is talking to someone who just wants a flash tramp-stamp and someone who really appreciates the art. When I got my chest piece done, it was very spur of the moment. I saw a painting of his, loved it and said that I would be into him doing it as a tattoo. He was so excited that he actually got the chance to do something he wanted to do, he cleared his schedule and we spent the next 6 hours with him needling up my flesh. It was by far my favorite experience getting tattooed.

figmentation

I'm lost

December 2003

APR 09, 2009 01:25 PM

It's been a good while since I read proper writing.

Thank you.

Lucifer69133

I'm lost

February 2009

APR 11, 2009 12:19 PM

You, sir, rock my fucking socks. Despite having, at best, a casual relationship with the tattoo world I found this article fascinating. No, really. It could have (perphaps...maybe) used a little bit more editorial polish, but the rough edges have a charm of their own nevertheless.