I've been getting quite a few comments in the last few days, and most of them say the same thing, "Are you so poor you have to tattoo drunks?" There is a very long answer to that question, and I'll start right now.
No. I'm not so poor I have to do anything. I can sit in my section all day and refuse tattoos right and left. I can refuse to pierce, I can basically come to the shop and sleep all day if I see fit. But the point is, I get paid to pierce and do tattoos, I don't get an hourly, so it doesn't behoove me to sit here all day taking up space. As far as anyone coming in to get tattooed or pierced, if I refuse to do it, someone else here will. Why? Because we, in the collective sense, have no choice. SOMEONE here will do it, or, by the owner's hand, heads WILL roll. I'll explain that right now.
The owner of this establishment started this shop nearly 30 years ago. Back in those days, tattooing was a different animal entirely. Tattoo shops were rough, seedy, smoky joints, inhabited by grizzled, hard-as-nails guys who probably did time, most likely had dealings with the underworld/underbelly of society and were in it for the money. When my boss opened this place, he wasn't here to make the covers of magazines and have a reality show and be a celebrity, he was looking to do what he liked and make a shitload of money. He was involved with biker gangs and such, and there were fights aplenty in the shop. The only women coming in to get tattoos back then were some reeeeeeeal shady chicks. And it wasn't just here, the industry on the whole was like that.
Back in the day, the tattoo artist was often travelling with a carnival, or on the boardwalk at Coney Island, or in one of the seedy bowery shops that were most often in the red light district of big cities. There was no such thing as going to art school and then becoming a tattooer. Tattoo shops weren't in the suburbs, they didn't look like sushi bars. They were crusty joints where some crabby old men were going to tattoo everyone with the same needle all day and wipe the blood off with rags that they used repeatedly. They didn't wear gloves and they smoked and drank and ate and cursed as they worked, and they beat the shit out of their customers if they got rowdy. They didn't work 'by appointment only'. The lights were on and someone was home, waiting for those sailors and whores to come staggering in. That's what's called a "street shop", and I am employed in one of the last true ones standing.
Here's a good link for you if you want to see what I mean. Meet C.W. Eldridge, curator of the Tattoo Archive. There you'll find all sorts of stories of the old days, photos of what things used to be like, and the history of the founders of modern tattooing. You'll hear stories from those days that would make mine look like nursery rhymes. Mr. Eldridge is a treasure in the industry, he's keeping the pioneer days alive. Anyone claiming to be a true "tattoo enthusiast" ought to learn where it all started. The slick, artsy stuff you see on television is far removed from what it was like when my boss first opened his doors for business.
Flash forward to today...the business has gentrified to the point of being nearly unrecognizable. In some instances, that's for the better. Sterilization, disposable equipment, advancement of the art form itself and the vastly improved quality of the pigments, all are changes that were much needed. However, the industry has lost its rebellious spark, and some of that outlaw ethos that made it dangerous and exciting. To refuse a grown adult a tattoo because they've been drinking seems counterintuitive to old-school tattooers. I don't claim to be one, but I came up under the tutelage of a few of them, so I was taught to have their mentality. And with the old-schoolers, the bottom line is that tattooing is a business. I agree almost entirely. I don't think I ought to have to work on someone who is unruly or violent or unable to speak clearly. But, if someone needs a little liquid courage to get into the chair, I'm not going to fault them. Not everyone is a tough guy, but some people need to pretend for a night here and there. I used to have to drink myself stupid to get on an airplane, I understand that sort of fear.
So, to that, I will now make this point. I don't own my own shop. I work in someone's shop. I have to follow their rules and do what they say. My boss would have a stroke if we pushed someone out the door for being drunk. If they made their way here, they knew what they want, and they had the money to pay, then they better be in someone's chair. The rent doesn't get paid by turning away business. So, if that is his philosophy, and this is his shop, and if I'm going to work here, then I have to do what's expected of me, whether I agree or not. We don't get to refuse people because their skin sucks or they're jerks, or we're about to close, we do what the boss tells us to do, and that's that, that's what it means to have a job.
If I worked at Dairy Queen, and I decided I wasn't going to give a guy his Blizzard because he was drunk and, in my opinion, making a poor dietary decision, I would get fired on the spot. So, the same goes here. If I was violently opposed to doing things my boss' way, I should quit, right? But, I'm doing something I like to do, that pays me very, very well. And a lot of those goofs who were stinking drunk and out of their minds the first time I worked on them, came back later, sober as a judge. And they got more work, and brought their wives and co-workers and friends and got to be great customers that I've forged a relationship with. So, there you have it. I hope that explains it better for you.
Besides, if we never had crazy drunks in here, I wouldn't have so many interesting stories to tell, and you'd be back to reading about Paris Hilton's vagina.
