THIS IS A COLLECTION OF SOME OF THE EXPERIENCES I HAVE HAD AS A TATTOO
ARTIST.
One time I was getting ready to start a tattoo on a young lady when she starts barking like a dog!!!
She was really getting into it, lemme tell ya! Everybody was laughing pretty hard. I asked her what THAT was all about and
she said it was just nerves.
Then there was the time I was tattooing a young guy who came in with his buddy. His friend left the
shop for awhile after we got started and came back a little later. Pretty soon I start to notice the most awful smell imaginable.
At first I wasn't sure what or where the odor was coming from. I started to think that maybe my customer had actually dropped
a load in his pants. I've seen customers go #1 in their pants before so it seemed possible. The friend starts laughing hysterically
and I ask him what's so funny. He holds up a box of stink bombs he picked up from the Joke Shop across the street from the
shop!!! I was so mad. I kicked him out of the shop right then and there. I had to open the door, light some incense, and take
a break outside. My customer was very apologetic for his homies prank so he gave me the skull & crossbones belt
he was wearing. I still have it to this day.
I've had scratchers (non-professionals, working out of their houses) try and assume my identity.
People would come in telling me how somebody would be trying to tell them that they were actually ME, and that they were working
out of the house to pass the savings on to them!!! Or they'd say that they were a cousin of mine. I actually had a guy come
in, look me in the eye, and ask when I would be in. When I told him that I was who he was looking for, he says NO, YOU AREN'T!!!
He said that a guy, using my name, started a tattoo on him out of his house. Now here he is at the shop wanting to get it
finished!!! I could take it as a compliment that there's people out there who think enough of my work to wanna pass themselves
off as me but in reality I'm not happy at all. It's actually pretty serious to be trying to pull that kind of scam.
The oldest customer I ever tattooed so far was a 78 year old man named Gene.
When I started tattooing him he was actually prolly about 70. Anyways, he told me that he always wanted to get a tattoo but
his wife wouldn't allow it. When she died, that was it, he proceeded to make up for lost time. Now it's maybe 8 years later
and he's got around 20 tattoos and had his ear pierced. The oldest woman i've tattooed was 70. Same story, a husband that
disapproved of tattoos, he kicks the bucket, she gets tattooed. Just goes to show, it's never too late to get a tattoo!!!
Also goes to show that people shouldn't attempt to stifle other people. Life's too short to want to be able to do something
but being afraid of other people's reactions. If you're a good person you'll still be a good person. A little bit of ink under
the skin won't change that.
One time a young guy came into the shop and after looking around for awhile asked me which tattoo
he was supposed to get. I didn't quite get his drift so I asked him what he meant. He said, "I want to get a tattoo, which
design am I supposed to get?" I thought he was joking but the look on his face told me that he was quite serious. I laughingly
told him that we didn't eyeball a person up and decide that yes, you're definitely an eagle kind of guy and your buddy is
good for a tribal tattoo. He honestly thought that it was up to us to determine what he was going to have to live with the
rest of his life!
A young guy came into the shop looking to get a homemade tattoo fixed on his arm. Seems he did the
tattoo himself with a homemade gun. The thing was powered by C or D cell batteries and I think it had a guitar string for
the needle. The artist he was talking to, Adam, knew that I was wanting to collect homemade guns so he offers the guy a deal
on the tattoo. He tells him to bring him cash and the gun and he'll fix his tattoo. The guy agrees, leaves the gun, and sets
up an appointment for later but then he comes back in a short time later and says that it's too much money and that he wants
the gun back, he'll do it himself. A man who would tattoo himself with a homemade gun has a fool for a client indeed.
One of the local yokels sees me walking down the street one day and asks me where to get some tattoo
ink. Seems he was doing tattoos, get this, in the back of this DIRTY, RUSTY mini pickup truck!! I couldn't believe it. I told
him to get lost. I should've called the cops but at that time there were no laws on the books regarding that kind of thing.
Then there's the time a guy comes in talking about he's got a real old tattoo machine he'd like to
trade for some tattoo work. He tells me and John, one of the artists who used to work at Black Dragon, that his grandpa used
to do tattoos and he died and his grandma got rid of everything. Everything except this old machine. John tells him to bring
the machine in and he'll take a look at it see what he could do for him. The guy came back a couple of days later with it
in hand and let us take a look at it. It was an airbrush gun.
A young woman came in with a homemade hand poked tattoo of her ex-boyfriend's name in real thick
letters on her ankle bone. We decided to put a blue rose over the top of it. The coverup was turning out good and
when i was just about done with the piece she tell's me that she want's her current man's name added on! I was like, what
are you talking about?!! You just covered up a name and now you wanna add another one? She insisted that this relationship
was serious considering that the two of them were getting married and he was "the one" for her. Against my better judgement
I agreed to add the name but on the condition that it was small and i'd put it on in such a way that it could be covered easily
with the addition of some leaves off of the rose. Fast forward a year or so and i'm at a local tattoo convention. I'm just
hanging out having a good time when I spot the chick. I went up and talked to her for awhile and she tells me that she's there
to get the second name covered up because she's no longer with that guy. Seems he was a house burglar who got caught but she
NEVER knew anything about his late night activities. She was too embarrassed to come back to me because of the fact that she
knew that I was against her getting the name in the first place. I wonder if she believed in the old adage, "third time's
a charm"?
A young guy comes in and asks me if I can do a coverup of a tattoo for him. "Sure,"
I say, "lemme see what you got". He acts a little hesitant and finally shows me his forearm and there on his arm is a fresh,
still scabbing, heart with banner and his true love's name. "When did you get this?", I ask. "A week ago", he says. Seems
true love had a pretty short shelf life.
A biker woman comes in and has me put on her old man's name on her. As i'm talking to her
she reveals that they aren't even together anymore!!! She thought that by getting the tattoo he'd see just how much she loved
him and come running back into her arms. Sad.
Another woman was getting her beau's moniker when she tells me that they're on the outs but
she just KNOWS that he'll stay if he sees this permanent display of her love. Pathetic.
Then there's the time that a young couple comes in and theyr'e talking about her getting his
name tattooed on her. Actually, it was HE that was doing all of the talking. Any time i'd try and ask her a question he'd
pipe up with an answer. First of all, I HATE that kind of thing. If i'm tattooing you, I wanna hear from YOU, not an
interpreter!! Anyways, the more i heard the more it became obvious to me that she didn't really want his name at all. I had
her sitting in the chair and he goes to the bathroom. I took advantage of his absence to ask her if she REALLY wanted
bozo's name and she tells me NO, she doesn't. It was his idea completely and he called all of the shots in the relationship.
I decided right there that I wasn't about to do the tattoo. He came back and I told him that I wasn't going
to be able to do the tattoo and that was that. They left and I don't know if she ever got the slave marking or not somewhere
else.
I remember this day when this hardcore gangster came into the shop. He was a recent transplant from
East L.A. to Milwaukee. He came recommended to the shop by a couple of his buddies that I had tattooed previously. Jack was
going to be doing a tattoo of some Old English lettering across his stomach. So while Jack's laying out this design the guy
is talking crazy the whole time about all the fights he's been in and general thug activity. Jack was taking it all in OK
until the guy shows Jack one of his tattoos and says "You see how this tattoo artist messed my tattoo up here? I was so mad
I shot him!!". That was enough for Jack. Bill, the owner of the shop, had to step in and do the tattoo.
One night two young girls come in and want matching tattoos. I did the tattoos and got rewarded for
my efforts with a bounced check. I kept the check writer's driver's license and told her to bring me the money the next day.
She never came back. I found out her phone number and talked to her mother who said that the daughter was on a bad check writing
spree across the State. I never accepted another check after that.
One time Geo was tattooing a young woman who passed out cold in the chair and before he knew what
was happening she slid right out of the chair. As he got up and leaned over her to help her out she came to and out of instinct
kicked him right in the balls!!
A young kid comes in and wants a Chinese character tattooed on him. I point out the ones we have
available. I ask him which one he wants and he tells me that he doesn't care, as long as it "looks cool". When I tried to
point out to him that he really should get something that means something to him he said it didn't matter because nobody could
read it anyway. He could tell that I lost all interest in talking to him at that point so he asks me where the closest tattoo
shop is. Chump.
I've seen quite a few people pass out over the years. It's never the pain so much as it's the nerves
of the person getting the best of them. I've never had a person that passed out NOT be able to finish the tattoo once they've
regained their composure. The worst I personally had to deal with was the time I was starting a tattoo on a girl who
was getting her first tattoo on her 18th birthday. She came in with her friend who had a couple of tattoos already. I
prolly got about a quarter inch line tattooed on her when she said she was getting dizzy. I stopped tattooing her. She regained
her composure and she said she was ready to start again. I fired up the machine and just the sound of it put her over the
edge again. So here I am trying to wake her up again when all of a sudden WHAM!!!!!! her friend, who's watching from the outside
of the booth, passes out cold and smacks her head against the wall taking out a piece of drywall on the way down. So now i'm
trying to keep my customer in the chair and I've got a chick passed out in the hallway. As soon as my customer came to
I went to aid her friend only to see that she's GREEN!! Literally green. I escorted her over to the lobby and had her lay
down. I come back to my customer who tells me she feels sick. I gave her the garbage can and tell her to use it if she's gotta
puke. So what does she do? She pukes all over her shirt!! She had to wash the shirt in the utility sink. She then proceeded
to let me finish the outline. Because we had spent so much time with everything else that was as much as we could do for the
day. She actually came back 2 weeks later and finished the tattoo with no problems. I still don't understand what her tattoo
experienced friend's problem was. Fortunately I almost never have passouts anymore.
Black Dragon Tattoo is located in downtown Waukesha, Wisconsin. It is a very
old, architecturally interesting, quaint kind of area. Along with this built in charm has been a cast of local characters
that defies belief sometimes. In the earlier days of the shop, there was alot of rooming houses and seedy bars in the area.
A sampling of experiences:
There was a very manly, very tough looking woman that used to live in the area. Never really had
any dealings with her until one day she comes into the shop when George, Rogue Boy, Jack, and myself are working.
She decides that she wants a tattoo and assuming that George is the owner of the shop, says "Have one of your boys take me
to my storage locker to get some money so I can get this tattoo today." WHAT?! Storage locker?!? Anyways, somehow she gets
around to implying that there will be an exchange of sex for the tattoo. George tells her that she needs to come back with
some money. She then tells him to call her a taxi and she'll take care of that. George calls the cab and she leaves. All of
a sudden the driver comes in and tells George that the woman told him that George would be paying the fare!! Well, of course
George isn't about to be paying her fare so the cabbie leaves and she takes off as well. Maybe a month of two later, Jack,
one of the other artists, was hanging out at the County Fair with his old lady when the woman comes up to him drunk as can
be and pushes him off of the picnic table he was sitting on!!! She started going off on him about this, that, and the other
thing. That was the last we heard of her for a long time. next time I saw her she came in and got tattooed by me. She was
a changed woman, very calm, not surly and mean. I think she prolly was on medication at that time.
Then there was the time we were cleaning up the shop at closing time. It was summer time and we had
the door open. We could hear a commotion outside. It was a very drunk couple arguing outside the front of the shop. Let me
tell, the woman was knocking the guy around pretty good! We found it entertaining until she slams his head into the plate
glass window of the shop. I was afraid it was going to get broken so I ran outside and I told 'em to take it down the street.
Next thing you know they're both cussing me out, her more that him! The guy yells "F@#& YOU!!!" and proceeds to take a
swing at me!!! I seen him coming so I stepped back into the doorway of the shop and before I could take a pop at
him I see this blur flying through the air and before I know what's happening a beat cop's got this guy down in the gutter!!!
I swear that cop flew through the air like Superman, hehe!! The guy's down on the ground screaming that his knee is hurt and
that the cop better get off of him. He was arrested. The last I ever heard of any of it was when I got a notice in the mail
saying that he had a court appearance scheduled but I wasn't required to attend because the cop had witnessed the whole thing.
It was a Saturday afternoon in what must've been January of February. I remember cuz the
snow in the streets was that gross, sloppy, lovely shade of greyish black that anyone from Wisconsin is all too familiar with.
Being a walk-in only day, it was pretty busy in the shop when in walks a drunk guy from the bar next door. He spent quite
a bit of time looking around, minding his own business. Eventually he decides on a design, a small tribal shark design. I
told him that he wasn't going to be getting the design because he was drunk. He insists that he's good to go and he wants
the tattoo. No, I tell him, you aren't getting tattooed today, come back when you sober up. He leaves only to return a little
later. We were all busy tattooing so he kind of slipped in under the radar so to speak. Next think you know, I look over and
he's passed out cold on the bench in the lobby. Me and Rogue Boy, one of the other artist's at the time, picked him up and
carried him outside and threw him into the gutter which was filled with about 3-4" of the lovely winter slop i described before.
All the while one of my customers was filming the action with my camcorder!! Unfortunately, I no longer have the
video. The drunk continued to lay in the gutter for awhile. Finally, he gets up and stumbles down the street, never to
be seen again.
In '95 or '96 I bought a '73 Cadillac El Dorado black hearse. I was on my way to buy a van when
me and my friend Sass saw it off the highway for sale. I couldn't pass it up! That car was awesome. It had the original coffin
carriage in the back that could slide out the back or out either side through the suicide doors. The car also had a vague
hint of an almost formeldahyde smell to it. I had a life size human skull that I put up on the dash and man, would I
get the looks from people! Either it was like "Hey man, that's awesome!!" or it would be disapproving shakes of the head from
others. Either way it attracted attention. One day it attracted the attention of "The Church". I was leaving the tattoo shop
and there on the windshield under the wiper of the car was a business card. Upon picking it up I discovered that it was
from a priest at one of the local churches and on the card it said that he was also a psychological counselor. He sure got
it right on that one!!! I got a good laugh out of it and proudly kept it in the car. I eventually had to grudgingly sell
the car because of this and that and the card went with the car I believe. Shortly after I bought the Dead
Sled I was looking through an issue of Tattoo Savage magazine (I think that was the mag) and there was an article in
there about this hearse club, I think they were called the Phantom Coach Hearse Club. I was intrigued and wanted to be in
a club like that. I never did get around to joining their group but I did meet one of the members. Me and my co-worker, Rogue
Boy, went out to Orange County, California to help his mother move back to Wisconsin. She needed a car driven back so we went
out there to help her. Anyways, the night we got out there he and I went out to a strip club with a friend of his. When we
got there I saw a white hearse with the club nameplate on the dash. I went around asking every guy in the joint if it was
his car or not. I finally found the owner, and after I explained that I too owned a hearse he was only too happy to show me
his car. Man, was it ever sweet! Nice paint, cool wheels, the interior was all done in purple leather, tv, vcr, wetbar, carpet,
etc...It was truly a smooth ride. It still seems so unreal to me that I can read about a car club like this and not long after
that i'm in cali and I actually meet one of the members. Maybe someday i'll get another...
Door-to-door sales vultures are a constant threat in our area. They like to come in and pretend to
be looking for tattoos, all the while carrying a big briefcase or cardboard box under their arm. Once they've got your attention
by asking a bogus question about a tattoo they proceed to pitch their weak sales pitches. It used to be the knock-off
perfume hawkers that would come in most often. These were the people that sold a gallon of "DRUKKAR"
for like, $6. This despite the "NO SOLICITATION" sign we had on the front door. I remember telling one young woman that we
didn't allow solicitation to which she indignantly replied that she wasn't a prostitute!!!! They no longer come
around that often, now it's imitation ginsu knives or stuffed animals or chinsy photo holders. One idiot came in trying
to sell flashing keychains and his sales pitch was that it would be "great at a rave, you know, when you're all f&*#ed
up, I know how it is". WHAT?!?! Somehow I don't think that the guys who're heisting this garbage are spending much time trying
to teach their fences how to go out and give a good pitch!!!
It was a Monday afternoon, about 3 o'clock. Not much was happening at the shop, business was slow.
I was drawing a design up for a customer when I hear this crashing noise coming from the front window. I had been in the front
window display a couple of days earlier and had moved a statue so I figured it fell or something. Barry was reading
a book on the couch in the lobby. I seen him get up and look outside and he yells something out and takes off running. I get
up and run over and I see that our window is smashed!! I take off after Barry and we turn the corner and some young girls
tell us he ran thataway and he's wearing a white shirt. We ran a couple of blocks and spot him in the park by the library
strolling along like it's a Sunday afternoon and he ain't got a care in the world. He spots us coming at him so he takes
off running. We split up to get him but he's gone. I decided to sweep the neighborhood on the off chance I might find him.
No such luck. I decide to go back to the shop and when I get there the cops are there and he's already in custody! When the
window was busted my co-worker George called the cops right away. Turns out he ran into the police sub-station which is housed
in a old house because he thought that the word "sub" meant that it was a restaurant!!! BWWAAAAAAHHHHHHHAAAAAHHHHHHAAAAA!!!!!
So anyways, he goes in and runs right into the bathroom and proceeds to puke his guts out. When he came out the cops were
waiting for him with cuffs in hand. Fast forward a couple of days and I come walking into work and my co-worker John says
"Wanna talk to the guy that broke the window?" and there the little weasel stands!!! I was like "what's up with you? why'd
you do that?" and he says that...are you ready for THIS?!!..."Somebody told me that tattoos were against God". So
you pick up a big rock and hurl it through a HUGE plate glass window at 3pm when there's people walking around on the streets
everywhere?!! I asked him if he knew anybody that had tattoos to which he replied that, yes, he did. "And are they evil people?"
I asked him. "No". I told him to come back and talk to the shop's owner, Bill, the next day. Bill was waiting the next day
with a golf club but restrained himself in favor of allowing the court system to work it out. He went on to tell Bill that
he talked to his priest and that the priest told him that tattooing wasn't really against God's will so he felt bad after
that, said he'd been "misinformed". Gotta love religious zealots.
