Danny Derrick

Forgive me if his name has come up before in this long thread, but I believe there is pound for pound no one better than Tim McAlary at Goldrush Tattoo in Cost Mesa, CA.
I know there is no best and I would never claim that he (or anyone for that matter) is the best, but he definitely deserves some recognition. He is killing it.

just be respectful. yes tips and cupcakes are awfully nice, but thats not what gets me to work on time everyday. just be nice. leave your tuff guy attitude at the door. dont try to impress us, just be nice. if you know some jokes, please share. if some crazy shit happened to you earlier in the week, tell us the story. if you are coming to us because you saw how awesome we did of a job on your friends japanese sleeve, dont be surprised when we are bummed that you want us to do your celtic armband. haha
come in clean and with a good attitude. thats all i can ask for. anything extra is frosting on the cake

All of the above!
ALso:
The healthier you are the more prepared your body is for what's about to happen to it. Try not to come in hungover, get a decent nights sleep, eat a good breakfast, and lunch, essentially come in on a full stomach, by hydrated, and be relaxed as much as you can.
I've been told that exfoliating the are you are going to get tattooed for about a week before hand helps greatly with the healing but that's more of a suggestion.
Try to keep an open mind. Tattooers are professionals(for the most part, but not always so do your homework!). We have a wealth of knowledge we can bring to bare at any time for you, so take advantage of that. You will get a great tattoo. A tattooer who cares won;t talk you out of your idea, but might help you do it in a way that transcends your personal whims and trends, and will age gracefully, and compliment you as a person. Though it may be somewhat different than what you initially had in your head. Try to be a little malleable, and trust your tattooer. Try not to be some emotionally attached to every single detail. Remember: you aren't thinking like a tattooer. You think like a person who likes certain images and is used to seeing things on t-shirts, computer screens, and prints. Sometimes things don;t work in skin and we try like hell to make things work the best for you.
Try to remember that as much as tattooing has become a main stream product for most clients, it's still a hand made craft to us. If you are expecting hospital levels of sterility, Professional attitudes and expert technique then see us, not just treat us, but SEE us as professional craftsmen/women. Most of us have your best interest at heart because we can and do see the big picture. We are looking at your tattoo in our heads 10 years into the future. At least. We just want to do a nice tattoo for you. So when a tattooer explains why an idea is too complicated at a certain size, or why there is too much clutter, or that outlining it pink may not be the best idea, pay heed to that. You are hearing the educated opinion of a craftsman.
If you want a tattoo, don;t let your significant other try to do all the talking. Be plain, and straightforward with the things you want out of your tattoo. The less we have to guess, the fast we can get on the same wave length and make you happy.
If you are on vacation and you plan on things like tanning, going to the beach, strenuous activities, swimming, hot tubs, etc. Plan to get your tattoo at the ass end of your vacation so there is less interference with healing(and we can't tattoo sun burned skin so take care of it!), but try to get to the shop at the beginning of your vacation to set the appointment up, or if possible call ahead. Many shops can accommodate walk in's at most times, but since you have a limited time, try your hardest to think ahead. Rush jobs at the last second may not be ideal especially if you want something more involved than a single sitting, quick tattoo.
Avoid food that makes you fart before the tattoo. No one wants be sniffing your pooh ghosts while they work.
Hope some of this helps.

Thanks for sharing that picture...I somehow always end up with things of owens...but i never tried to get them..someone dies and tells there family to give their stuff to me..or someone approaches me with something he owned etc....
i have dainty dotties memorium..like the little booklet that everyone signed at her funeral...I tattooed leeroys grandsons back for it...it is a bad marfar....Mckeever signed it...sutton, sailor west and on and on...I have some of owens stuff..his engraver ,his spring punch a few of his personal machines....I had that left handed wagner he is pictured tattooing(or acting like he was tattooing) on some guys chest..like sparrows...it is a pretty well known photo
anyway i traded it for an nevr been used Paul rogers swiss cheese prefab..#8 in 1983 to my pal charlie parsons...he had never got up off one of his PRs before...anyway sometimes i regret trading it....but as Mike wilson says..."shane you actually went into a time machine and came out with a PR...."
yeah for a while i was on ahuge mob book kick..bob was the only guy i know that has read as many as i have....Im think everything was run by the outfit at one time or another...the first ward...pat marcy....you guys had aldermans that were made...There is a book out now called 'a mob of his own about mad sam destefano....that guy was a real nut job...
again thanks for sharing that picture.....

Yep as far as i have heard through stories the mob ran that whole area including the tattooing. Everyone kicked to them the tattooers, the dancers, the bookies, everyone. As far as mobsters go Accardo was the best. Never spent as much as a night in the clink and there's no cooler nickname than Joe Batters. He got it cuz of the severe baseball bat beatings he used to give!!!
Below is a pic of Tatts Thomas and his wife at the time and Owen Jensen and Dainty Dotty this pic was supposedly taken on South State Street, like i said everyone was supposed to have been through there.

Shane
Thanks for getting me thinking about this. I agree with what you are saying about the popularity of tattoo then as to now. I do believe it was probably just as popular taking all your examples into consideration. A lot of us bitch about civilians being able to buy equipment off the internet but if I’m not mistaken Wagner and Waters where advertising their catalogs in the back of Popular Mechanics and other magazines. And Zeis had a mail order correspondence school back then. If there was a correspondence school the tattooers now would be in an uproar about it.
I’m not sure about elsewhere in the country but the research I did on South State Street in Chicago showed that hundreds of tattooers had pass through Chicago and had set up shop to tattoo on South State Street, everyone had a turn at it, it was just as popular as the Bowery or the Pike.
The South State Street levee as it was called was jammed full of arcades, burlesque shows, bars and flop houses, it was considered in the 30s, and 40s the worst red light district this country had ever seen, but what really got the neighborhood jam packed and the tattooers slammed was that in the middle of all of this was the Army and Navy recruiting stations. These recruits flooded the area everyday to enlist and then went back every two weeks on day weekend to indulge in all that life or South State had to offer until they were shipped out. In Bad Boys and Tough Tattoos Phil Sparrow talks about the constant flow of sailors to the neighborhood and how busy it was.
So that’s just a small example of the popularity of tattooing at that time in a 4 block square area, image that across the entire country, war is good for business and at that time amazing for the tattoo business.
As everyone knows Tuttle probably has the largest most vast collection of tattoo memorabilia anywhere, but I was told that he has somewhere of about 4000 hand painted sheets of flash , that’s inconceivable the amount of tattooing that was done off that flash. And most of it was from the early part of the 20th Century

i just got tattooed by her yesterday, we traded! it pays to be connected ;)

Personally that scratchy, graphic stuff gets too much attention as it is. I like it less than colour realism.
I don't think it belongs in tattooing, a way for an artist to express themselves on somebody else's body. I know the people ask for it and pay for it, but part of a tattooer's job it to stop people getting ugly shit they will want covered when they grow up and see real tattoos done properly. Actually, I apply that to anything that doesn't look like a tattoo. "how clever, it doesn't look like a tattoo"
I know this makes me sound like a dick, but I've seen it time and time again. I've even made some of the same mistakes myself, getting bold graphic crap that I thought made me special and clever. It didn't. It just ruined the space for a proper tattoo.
I think what Hooper does is capture the same urge to be bold and different but he executes it with an amazing eye for design and respect for the body, not to mention his work is filtered through his knowledge of tattooing as a whole.
Horses for courses I guess....

Anybody mention Kahlil Rintye?
Ed Hardy's Tattoo City
I've been a fan for quite some time. Timeless stuff. There is some weird amazing spark of life that just oozes from his stuff.