Angry Ink

A Little History Lesson

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.

I Am The Cockmaster! or, Pierced-Penis-palooza

Now, I'm going to talk about a sensitive subject here....male genital piercings. All you guys who are now turning green, feel free to go back to YouPorn to see male genitals in more comfy surroundings.

All right, now that the rest of us adults are still here, I'll continue. I pierce, as you know, and being a scavenger, I will pierce anything, with an exception--the guiche. And if you can't look at that and imagine WHY on earth I wouldn't want to do that, then there is something very wrong with your mind. I get calls all the time asking me if I'll do the guiche, and I politely say no. And then they ask why. And I say that I just prefer not to. And they ask why not. And I say I'd rather not pierce such an area. And then they ask what's wrong with it. And I begin to feel like I'm talking to a two-year old. Isn't "Because" a satisfactory answer for anyone anymore? And then I usually end up blurting out something to the effect of "because I'm not interested in spelunking anyone's nasty taint today!" and slamming the phone back on the cradle.

But, the subject of male genital piercing is one of endless fascination for most. People ask if I "Pierce, you know...down there...on guys...on their..." Oh, for God's sake, grow up. If you can't even say it, I sure shouldn't be taking to you about it. But the answer is a sound, "Yes. Yes I do." And people go crazy over that. "Ohhhh, my God! Doesn't that bother you?" And the answer to that is a sound, "No, not particularly." And I'll tell you why. Becuase it's a body part that all men have, we all learned about it in health class in school and there's no point in being a baby about it. It's part of my job. After doing it umpteen times, I could care less about any of it, it doesn't shock me, disgust me, rile me, or offend me. It's my job, I get paid to do it. In fact, I get paid more to do those piercings than any other piercings. And as there's not too many places in town that even want to deal with it, I get a pretty good amount of business that way. It takes me less than five minutes to do the piercings, and I get paid what most burger-flippers get for sweating over a grill for four hours, so, it makes perfect sense to me.

Now, there are several kinds of piercings you can get, the Prince Albert being the most common, mostly because that's the one that everyone seems to have heard of. It's purely decorative. I don't see the point in it, because you're damned to a life to peeing sitting down, for the most part, for something that serves no function. I can't see how putting a hula hoop on the tip of your dick would please a woman, but, hey, whatever.

People always ask me, "Do they have to be hard when you do it?" Well, there is so much to say about that. For one, no, it's not necessary. Two, think about it. Unless you are the sickest, most extreme masochist, you CANNOT stay hard while a total stranger in rubber gloves unpleasantly manhandles your junk, stabs a needle through the head, fishes a metal hoop in after that, and then grabs a wad of paper towels to stop the copious bleeding from your urethra. If you haven't passed out from that process, you're already a hero, maintaining a throbbing erection besides would just make you an ultra-freak. And three, I really don't want to have to a.) jerk someone off or b.) have him jerk himself off to get "fluffed" for the occasion. I don't know if I would be flattered or frightened if a dude got it up in my presence under such circumstances.

One time, though, a guy came in who clearly was not all there and possibly inebriated, and he did just that, whipped it out and started stroking while my back was turned. I finished setting up all my acoutrements and turned around, gloves on, and immediately yelled, "What the hell are you doing?" He looked at me stupidly and said, "Gettin' it ready for ya." I snapped back at him, "Well, fucking stop, it's ready!" Mercifully he let go and it shrank down so small, I practically had to reach into his abdominal cavity to get it back out so I could pierce him. Yeesh. No wonder so few shops will perform such services.

There are other piercings which are less horrible; frenum, for example. More functional, less painful, less bloody. Whatever floats people's boats, I say. I couldn't see doing that, but if that's what they want, if it maked them ahppy or their girlfriend or boyfriend or masters or slaves happy, well, then, I'm making the world a brighter place, one stranger's penis at a time. In fact, I've earned the unfortunate moniker of "Cockmaster" among my co-workers. I just joke that they're all jealous that I get to play with all the wee-wees and they don't. But I draw the line at taints, and I stand firmly behind that line. I don't get paid nearly enough for that. Now, if we're talking about proctologist kind of money, I might be persuaded....after all everyone has a price!