tattoojeff

I agree that lip tattoos are a joke and a pain. But i dont mind them as much since Dan Jackson showed me a trick. have the customer flip his own lip tight over a toung depresser. easier surrface to work with. and hammer it in.

I for one dont think that its age. over the years of tattooing people, and im sure many will agree that. it seems like when the biggest badest looking young buck comes for ink. alot of the times its a young healthy man. who turns out to be the biggest pain in the ass. needs a smoke break, then bathroom, then a drink of water etc. i remember after a session from hell that taxed a massive amount of extra time. i sat down with a clip board and pencil. trying to crack the code. so i could spot these people before hand. so the price will be right for the time. this was 20 years ago. i may have failed figuring that out. but i wrote a poem that most tattooers dig.
its called tough customer, and i submitted it online to a contest and won a real nice plaque w/ silver engraved etc.
TOUGH CUSTOMER
This tough acting dude walks into my place, telling tall tails, like he was an ace.
i want a tattoo, all black and real big. the small ones look wimpy, but the big ones i dig.
I been every where, ive done every thing, when i come to town, all the bitches would cream.
cuz im big and im burley, and talented too. but if you believe that. then you dont have a clue.
cuz when he was finished,... the talkin part done.
he flinched like a bitch, when i fired my gun.
when he turned to look. his face was all geen. i laughed to myself, and thought oh yeah, you mean.
his sweat was a flowing, his jockies were wet. he was singing the blues fo his home you can bet.
but we made a deal. and the cash was up front. so when he weenied out.
i told him real blunt.
when you want a tattoo. you must be the man. grit your teeth or do what you can.
but since you cant take it and act like you should.
two quarter inch lines never paid so good. jeff etzel

There is a biblical passage " do not forget to entertain strangers, for by doing so some people have entertained angels"
i like this when applied to many situations - from a non biblical stand point

There was a time that I could be pretty sure - that at any given time , I was the only tattooist on a plane flight or at a baseball game or at parent- teacher school open house.
That if I met another tattooist at such an event it would be like meeting a former schoolmate while vacationing in a foreign land. What are the odds of that?
I remember a time that I could tell , just by looking , that someone did what I did and we shared a common bond and if you spotted one another at an amusement park or a mall- you knew one or the other of you had travelled out of your own territory.
There was a time when introduced into the life of a child that they would remember you, for the rest of their lives as the tattooed man or lady.
There was a time that when responding that I was a tattooer, when asked what I did for a living - was met with the same awe, disbelief or astonishment as if I had answered that I was an alligator wrestler, an astronaut or in the French Foreign Legion.
That was a great time!

BIRDMAN
Or a day in the life of a tattooist in 1978
At 4pm the sun was shinning nearly dead even into the window of the small tattoo shop on Kennedy Boulevard speaking of dead it was located just opposite the car rental that rented the white van to the first unsuccessful bombers of the World Trade Towers. Union City, NJ was not exactly exotic like Bombay nor was it cool like NYC for that matter it didn’t even seem like New Jersey it was more like little Cuba. Run by a soon to be convicted for corruption and extortion Italian wise guy, the not so honorable Mayor Musto.
The windows in question, where the sun was about to cook through, were grayish and gritty. Despite the efforts of the proprietor, that’s me by the way, to clean them often. I suspected it was probably from the crematorium just a few blocks up the boulevard. It gave me pause to think of somebody’s grandfather dusted across my window. So I always said “excuse me folks” when I washed it off and wished them a quick trip over the river Styx.
Although it could have been the carbon burning traffic on this snake like road, it was constant and as loud as two young Italian wannabe wise guys yakking up stories of hitting and robbing the trains in the transfer station in North Bergin and wanting to trade stolen goods for tattoos.
This strip down to Staten Island on the NY side was much later to be the haunted holy grounds of The Sopranos’ Godfather Tony.
It’s not what you think, a typical scummy little tattoo shop in a grimy small town in New Jersey. It was a small piece of heaven in 1978 for me. “Clean enough to eat off the floors” I’d say. The shop was only 12 feet across and 25 feet long and it held the universe. From the moment I opened the doors I had so much business I almost couldn’t handle it. I became fast friends with the local Santero, A Santeria Priest for those of you of the white bread persuasion. After that I was gold in the Cuban Community they watched out for me Cooked for me invited me to salsa dances and got tattooed as penance or prayers Santa Barbara, St Lazarus, Cryptic scrawl of Santeria spells all became my tween worlds my bread and butter. I was being taught to speak enough Spanish to ask what color and how much do you want to spend by a young lovely young Cuban woman without dancing legs in a wheel chair who sat with a talking Parakeet on her right shoulder that spoke more Spanish than I could, after four months I quit.
Speaking of Spanish speaking birds and other oddities of living in the land of the Mariolettos (Cubans let out of prisons and insane asylums a gift from Castro for the US State Department to give visas too. the Set on rickety boats to America. Those who made the crossing also made their way from Miami FL to Union City NJ. What was I saying? oh yes, I have to pull on your coat about the Birdman.
I had a slow day doing a couple of cryptic Santeria tattoos on friends of the local Santero. I was buzzing away on the last one when it started.
I had a wall separating the tattoo area from the front and a small security mirror to see who came through the door.
I heard this chirping. I was thinking it was a bird found it’s way into my shop. I looked up to the to see him, this guy chirping away. First long chirps with pause then rolling chirps all connected together.
He was wearing a cut off yellow windbreaker with out the usual wife beater shirt, and ripped jeans.
I called over the wall “I’ll be right with you pal.”
He just stuttered out another bird song.
Completing the tattoo I was doing, I collected my fee and walked through the door to the front.
“So what’s up?”
He pivoted, pulling down the jacket zipper turning his naked to the waist and tan lined body to me smelling of High Karate, yelling, he was,
“THE BIRDMAN!”
To prove it he had it emblazoned across his his back from shoulder to shoulder in eight inch tall Old English letters tattooed, that read,
B-I-R-D-N-A-N!
I say calmly, “OK Birdman, never acknowledging the eight inch missing M, What can I do for you.”
Pointing to a blank spot among the small bird tattoos wallpapering his arm, he said, rattling through his nose.
“Well! What do you think? I want a bird tattoo right here.”
There were birds the likes of hummingbirds as big as eagles and chickadees larger than crows, no accounting for scale, style, or skill. Although, he was working hard to fill with birds in every open space. Sort of like the driving style of New Jersey drivers if there is a space you fill it.
He shows me the picture of a whippoorwill whilst chirping the whippoorwills’ song or so he claimed. I never having seen or heard a whippoorwill took his word for it.
During the tattoo he entertained me by singing no less than 50 songs of various birds of North America, all while chewing on sunflower seeds. I didn’t bother putting on the stereo.
Someone else came through the door, as I was finishing up the tattoo. Birdman was donning his windbreaker; I strolled to the front to chat up the next client. He passed me singing a sad bird refrain and smiled and whispered passing.
“I’m the Birdman…”
The new customer and I walk to the work area. I look down to the clients black leather chair and there to my astonishment where Birdman was sitting, was a three inch,golden foil covered, chocolate egg!

i dont know the year, but a long time ago. i met goodtime charlie cartwright, in wichita kansas, at end of the trail tattoo shop. way before piercings were hip.
he tattooed a dragon on my fore arm. i was locked in . he inspired me to be a tattoo artist. i never got a chance to thank him. what a great man.