Gloomy Inks

In the past month I’ve paid for two extracted wisdom teeth, a pound of hamburger that went bad, a pound of chicken, set a date for my wedding, got punched in the face by my crazy dad, so I decided to get drunk and write this. I’m on drink two. If you’re going to write while you’re blasted, don’t start out sober. Now that’s stupid.
If you’re smart have one or two then get going. Reason being is you need to have some focus. One thing I learned in high school when I thought that some sort of latter day Lester Bangs swilling cough syrup and charging forth on term papers and book reports was cool. Well it wasn’t, and being the teen aged drunk I turned to… what was in the house. Scotch, Dewar’s, fine stuff now, but to my weak, un liquor trained body it was awful, so I mixed it with sour.
I’m on drink three now.
Tell you another thing while I’m at it. You think to yourself, “Oh the guy playing music up there is drunk, but I’ll be damned if he isn’t playing killer!”
It’s called practice. Yes, band’s practice, but it’s important to know your limits, which is what practice is for. I know now that any form of liquor and Gator Aid is recipe for disaster. The booze/sugar/sugar/electrolytes and whatever the Hell else they put in there will kill you almost. Or that if you funnel 32 beers, you’re gonna pass out, but then you gotta walk home. Or that if someone says,” I got some ___________. Who wants some?” You say no.
Drink four, keep ‘em coming.
I tell you what I DON’T like to do when I’m drunk. I hate tattooing. I detest it. I’ve done it once, no, not again. Not that it isn’t fun to tattoo. But I get bored, I want another beer. I want a smoke. I want to walk around. I want to eat the worm. I want to wake up naked in the back yard with one shoe on and no sock, and one sock on and no shoe. And the dog was licking me.
Is.
Drink 5, you know what I like about you?
I’ll tell you. You’re reading this, that’s why. One day, maybe when I’m dead and gone and in Potter’s Field in the damned Bronx with Charlie Wagner (And I’d bet my life Apache Harry) some of you might even get a giggle out of it. Or a titter.
Can you say titter here?
Titter.
Drink six
You think you’re better than me, don’t you? With all your fancy art school training? You’re not my dad! I don’t have to take this. Ernie! Gimmie another drink, and a Shirley Temple for these… this…
(Sobbing) I’m sorry. I love you guys. If I had a nickel for every time I said it… Let me share a cab with you home.
Can you pick up the fare?
(All correct spelling and grammar brought to you through the power of MS Office.- ED) (not Horton)

My lady and I just got cable, and cable internet, which is why you get to read more of my stuff. Lucky you. Yeah, huh?
I'll not watch Ink Masters. Just won't happen. I got burned by tattoo shows long ago, and once bitten, last time on the channel. I'll give 'em a shot for a few minutes, but then I see pin striping cars, and I hate it.
But ya know, I'll watch shows where they do cover ups all damned day long. I guess its the people person in me. What is tattooing if not the hardest of all the customer service positions; "I really like the weight of these lines," Machine buzzing away, "Goddamnit! Quit moving around or I'm gonna fuck you up!"
So we're digging the show, and I can't keep track of time. Dates seem to be a recurring "I don't give a shit" subject, time however never seems to come up. It does with me though. I have to make conscious effort to keep track of things like when I need to be places, or when I have a some poor deluded dummy who likes me stick figures with a lemniscate that pass for pin ups with huge hooters. I do pretty good too, so hey. Sometimes though, I just lose it. Five hours or five minutes? I'll have no idea and I look up, shit, it's 5 AM.
So this ad comes on for Ink Masters. Fer one, just cause you have tattoos, don't make you an expert Dave Navarro. What's really funny is that I almost called him Dave Grohl. I like the man's guitar playing, but he 'effed up a whole Chilli Peppers record. Never mind that.
Oliver Peck. Oh, little Oliver. What an angry, shitty little guy you are to people. I mean, I know it was hard when you came up, and it must not have been easy. But settle down man! Calm yourself. And I like toothpicks as much as the next guy. You're at Sizzler though, and that is one of the few places I'll walk out with a tooth pick. Just smoke. Do it. Take your pills too.
I didn't notice who the third judge was this season, so someone is spared my wrath.
The ad goes on. And on. And, AHHAAHAHHAHAHHHAHHAHAHA!, it's still on. "Are we watching this?"
"Yes, we are," My lady says.
"Please turn it...," I say.
"Can't," She replies.
I'm getting agitated.
"Why not?"
She smiles.
"The remote is in front of you," I turn to look at the chair that we use for a table.
It is, in fact, on the chair.
I turned it.
So I saw a whole minute. At least.

After a great deal of pain and my fiance' getting me to move on it I went to the doc's. I have these tumors... and they have been bothering me, and like many, I ignored it. I work, go home, and jump online for a few hours. "I'll get to it," I say to myself.
So this pain was in my huevos, and that got me to go. Not fun pain in the least. My doc asks me if she can see the tumors. I go to unhitch my belt.
"Noooooooo, " She laughs, "The ones on your back."
I do, and her jaw drops, she turns white as a ghost, "Cafe Ole spots, fibroma... it's Neurofibromatosis type I." (A genetic disorder, and if anyone cares, here is a link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurofibromatosis_type_I)
"That's what I thought. A tattooer friend, who knows medicine, told me that a year ago," Said I.
"Consider this a second opinion," She said.
This doc has known me since I was eight years old, and she used to give me sample packs of antibiotics because my family was poor. I turned to her to jokingly ask her if antibiotics would help. She was still white, she had her hand to her mouth and looked as if she might cry. Nice lady, like I said.
I stopped myself right there. "Is this what the Elephant Man had?" I ask.
She nodded, almost unable to speak, "Yes... I didn't want to say..."
I figured that, as I had seen a documentary on Joseph Merrick, although he had both NF1 and Proteus Syndrome.
I jumped in the air and
ran over to her. Granted, I wanted to give her a hug, but she's a pro, and since everyone in my mind is a potential client, I gave her a high five. "YES!" I yelled.
"You're happy?"
"Sure I am. I know what it is now, I'll find treatment as best I can fr as long as I can (there is no "out" for this, as Stoney St. Clair said about Ben Corday who had TB, "You watch the leaves fall and regrow for a few years, and then they bury you."), and I tattoo. Tattooing was a big part of the sideshow. My lady's family were all in the carnival business. So as I see it, all I gotta do is learn to paint circus banners, become a human volcano, and swallows swords. I can be my own 10 in 1."
Of course the shock wore off, and now I'm none to pleased. My lady and I will get married, but until I can get checked out at a clinic that specializes in this, my prognosis will be up in the air. Not to mention I may not be able to work for much longer behind machines. Bummer two, I just tuned my Jim Dandy's after a year with no problems and they purr like vicious kittens.
Sure, I got my books I'm writing, and I figure I can still paint flash for a while, but this has become what I always dreaded. Fatal illness. And it isn't even one I would have expected. Lung Cancer. COPD. Heart Attack, or a stroke.
Nope. Not a one. In fact, this has been with me since conception. I have been a ticking time bomb of badness just waiting to happen.
Bitter? Naw, just bummed I might have to leave the party early. Sad? Maybe that people will see me as a freak, and since there are no more sideshows, I can't go out. (I'd be tattooing on a sideshow right now if they would have me)
So now it's SSDI and Medicare for me. Sweet.
But I'm not angry. Shit, if I get real awful looking I can always use it. All the world loves a tattooer? No? Yes? They loved Stoney, and love Grime, so a big tattooed guy with deformities... maybe I'll still fit in.
Anyways, for my one friend on here, I'll be posting snippets of my book now and again.
Buy me whiskey, for I have no money for whiskey now. Oh and 11 mags. I'm out and using 9s. Yes, you feel bad for me right? (wink)

I hate to throw around the word professional.
I mean, what is a professional tattoo artist? Is it some one with dedication? Someone who understands art? Someone who can pound whiskey and tattoo a few hundred sailors in a night?
Or is a professional one who does not slag off competition. One who treats even the dumb with respect and kindness, but yet has a line that you don't want to cross?
Or is the professional tattoo artist one simply there to collect money, the art be damned? A scammer, full of BS?
Well I think the whole idea of shit talking is utter non-sence, and I'm not scared to say it. Sure there are quire a few old timers who liked to sling mud, but in this day and age you can't say, "Oh, there are too many artists."
You can back it up with all the excuses you can think of, but when it comes right down it, it's bunk. The population of the US (not to mention the world) has grown, and if any one can read past a needle grouping code and do the damned math, it isn't much different numbers wise, it's just inflation. Tattoos used to be from a quarter and up pretty much. Put in the mid 70s and beyond inflation and now you got big money coming in for you.
Look, I like to pretend too. I like to think of myself as a big bad Bowery tattooer, rough and tumble, and ready for a fight I'm sure to win. Were those times tough? Damned right. Were those times good for people? Ask anyone robbed or beat up, or slashed with a razor. They'll tell you it was damned rough shit, no doubt about it.
Frankly, I'm damned tired of it. "No business being in this business?"
What was it Sailor Jerry said, "When you think you're the best, you're already on the way out."
Ever think your egos might be getting the best of you? It's counter productive pride as I see it. If Tatts Thomas had not brought the young Norman Keith Collins aboard, we'd be missing so much in the art.
If Roy Boy didn't let Paul Booth work his table, just where in the fuck would that "dark art" be now except for the inside of Booths sketch books? I recently saw a very old Booth tattoo, before he worked on his own. You know what it looked like? Flat, that's what, and in color.
I'm not going to get all tough guy here, but really, it's 'mersh art that sells. If you have the guts to learn more, try hard and put up with a ton of shit, any knuckle dragger can be great. It don't take great minds, it takes guts.
See? Guts. I have the balls to wear my ink, work, and I don't take a whole lot of hokum from guys and gals who sadly took a whole lotta shit to get where they are now.
I was recently called a scratcher. And was told to "kill myself".
I laughed. If they get angry, not only have you scared them, but you have them talking about you and maybe even on the run. I'm sure the part time artist who said it was pissed. I'm taking his money and whats more, I learned the right way, from a master artist. If I'm so "bad" why do I still have clients?
You could say that people don't know art. And nine times outta ten that's true. But really, I'm the guy for my place and time, much like The Dude. I fit right in there.
So to anyone who might read this that doesn't tattoo, don't let the braggarts fool you. Bragging is a sign of insecurity.
To those who do tattoo, shut your mouths. More to come from a guy like me, be cause I'm not a Forty Miller. I refuse to stop, bad mouthing and all.
And with that, I wish you a fine morning. Sorry I'm a grump. My back hurts from TATTOOING all day yesterday.
(Let the insults come, but make 'em good. 0 to 100% grading scale, with no curve. Cheers!)

"My fuck," I groaned, sweating, "I'll never get out of the weeds."
I rolled over, blinking, and saw my lady looking at me. "You alright?" She asked.
"Yeah. Bad dream," The light of 3AM being way bright for me.
"Bad?" She as always had to fish for it.
"Work dream," I grunted.
I've never met a woman more supportive of my endevors, and she even backs me on the crazy ones. A rare and kind person I am lucky to have met. I have been working on my machine building quite a bit these days and I must admit, I haven't set up a machine in a few months.
"Was it one of your "I'll never catch up?" dreams?" She should be a therapist.
"How'd you know?" I asked.
Corection, she should have been a spy.
"I heard you have that one last week. A "MOTHERFUCKER!" woke me."
"Sorry," Said the Gloomy Man.
She put her hand on my face. "You need to tattoo. It's your passion."
"Baby, fuck those machines for right now," She added.
She was, as she most often is, right. So today I spent a while playing my upright bass, packed up my building supplies, and pulled out my now very dusty, cheap, shitty Harbor frieght box full of machines and began what turned into a tuning session. And a visit with old co-conspiritors. Got me to thinking about my clients passed.
So tomorrow I figure, what the Hell. Maybe I'll do a few.