JASON JESSEE Jerry Meanwhile, Jerry was laughing ceived by its owner Jim Hughes, was
(From page 74) thing. I'm going. "Yeah
mom, you're right." I respected her.
And then I get my dad's face. "Give
me Mark's number, I've got to go up
there," she says. I never gave her the
phone number. Eight months later,
my dad calls me up and says, "Listen
Jason, give her the number, she's
driving me nuts." She calls him and
makes an appointment. We go up
there, my mom was going to get a tat-
too, and I snaked her time. "Mom let
me borrow fifty bucks, I'm going to
get some work done." Mark started
on my back and it turned out there
I was no time left for my mom. A
couple of months passed and she's
still saying, "I'm going up there, I'm
going to call him." I'm thinking, she
won't get it, but she goes up there
and comes back with a big owl on
her back with a moon and stuff. It
looks great.
As far as living with tattoos, I never
regretted anything, not even the ones
on my ankles. People are always tell-
ing me, "Oh, you're going to get
older and regret that." I could leave
five minutes from now, get hit by a
bus and you'd forget about me. So
how can you regret it? It actually
separates me from everyone. Some
days I'll be super pissed and I'll wear
a tank top out. You can see people
get mad or stoked. A lot of people talk
to me about it.
Other times if I want to stay low key.
go out to dinner and have no one look
at me, I wear a long sleeve shirt. It's
so easy to hide them, it's no big deal
at all. It's great, because it actually
scares people. "Oh, look at that guy.
He must be a gangster." Yeah, it
shocks their world.
When you see people with real
hours behind them, I can't help but
think, "You rip!" I get a rekindling of
the fire. I see it and think, yeah, I can't
wait to get more.
I can't wait to grow old with tattoos.
I can't wait to grow a beard when I'm
forty, get a gut when I should get a
gut, so everything's cool. The bottom
line is, you can't hate anything until
you try it.
CORCORAN
(From page 76) Norman. Norman
started feeling close to Jerry because
they'd hang out every once in awhile
and have a few beers. Once Norman
asked Jerry how he got the colors on
his flash (design sheets) so bright.
They were competitors so that was
like Burger King asking McDonald's
about their secret sauce. Anyway,
Jerry told Norman that the key was
to mix a little bit of sugar in with the
colors to get them brighter. The next
day Norman spent hours painting up
flash, while celebrating his new
status as confidant to the great Sailor
116
his ass off because he knew Norman
didn't put plastic over his flash and
also because, like every other shop
in downtown Honolulu, his had a big
roach population. The next morning
Norman showed up to find that the
roaches, attracted by the sugar, had
eaten all the paint on his flash."
Most of the Tattoo Who's Who were
at the convention. Don Ed Hardy.
considered to be the best American
tattooist, was on hand, as were Jack
Rudy and Mark Mahoney of
Anaheim, the kings of single needle
detail work, Goodtime Charlie of
Stockton, who taught Rudy, top
female tattooers Kandi Everett and
Juli Beasley, and Canadians Paul
Jeffries and the Dutchman. Also pre-
sent, in an uncustomary state of
shun, was Roy Boy of Gary, Indiana.
If full electoral credit is accorded
citizens whose mating ritual usually
begins when the male of the species
holds up a hand-printed sign which
suggests, "Show me yer tits" to the
female, who immediately complies,
then Roy Boy is the most famous tat-
too artist in the world.
Photos of his work appear so often
in magazines like Easyriders, Biker
Lifestyle and Outlaw Biker that his
name has even spread as far as
France, where he is known as "the
Truffaut of Tats. Among those who
can differentiate between a good tat-
too and an elaborate bluff, however,
Roy Boy was regarded like Chuck
Mangione backstage at the Newport
Jazz Festival. The tattoo convention
was not the same world Roy Boy had
conquered with shameless self-
promotion and the luck of having his
best work on Debbie Hill, the Betty
Grable of the Dirt 'n' Denim Brigade.
The highlight of the convention for
most was the Tattoo Competition,
which monopolized the second day
of the four-day event. Over one hun-
dred examples of human canvas
paraded their favorite pieces down
a runway to be judged for prizes in
eight categories. During the Best
Backpiece competition, at a point
when the audience had already seen
more tattoos than a Singapore whore
facing mandatory retirement, the
next guy up had on a Godzilla mask
and walked the plank to taped
monster growls. He dropped his
karate robe and let the air out of the
audience when he displayed the full
area of his back, which contained a
Godzilla with the traditional Japan
ese background of clouds, waves
and lightning. It was spectacular.
Suddenly it didn't matter that 3,000
tattoo starter kits were sold last year
and were currently out paying for
themselves at flea markets and swap
meets, on kitchen tables, in vans, and
in motels with weekly rates. The God
zilla backpiece by Mike Malone, con-
tattooing at its finest and showed just
how far the art has come in the past
decade. It showed that although the
consummate tattoo artist had been
wearing the beret of late, the pirate
hat still fit.
MAHONEY
(From page 77) makes her stand back
up there again another four hours
while I do it. When she came down
and saw the bloody bone and the
head, she flipped.
What advice would you give to the
person who wanted to go out and
get a tattoo?
I would look for the Good House-
keeping Seal of Approval. Seriously
though, you've got to see their works.
Just have some of your friends get
a tattoo from each tattoo shop in town
and then see who got the best one.
Look around and see if it's clean, and
see if he changes needles between
jobs. Be respectful, don't tell him
what to do. Tattooers are sensitive
and tend to be mean. Just go in and
be cool. Watch him tattoo and see if
you like the work they do.
Have you ever done a tattoo on
someone who tried to get away
without paying?
I've had them try to get out of there,
but usually in California, you don't
pay until it's over with, and a lot of
times I forget to give a price
beforehand because I really wanted
to get into it. That's why I have like
nineteen leather jackets and all kinds
of boots, in all different sizes.
Who's your apprentice right now?
A very helpful young gentleman
named Wigger. I believe he's going
to be a very good tattooer. He'll be
the first person I ever taught from
scratch. We'll see how much I know.
Do you want to sing a song for the
last comments?
Oh, the end is near...no I think
that tattooing has lived through the
Romans and the Egyptians and
penitentiaries, and it will probably live
through the yuppies and the softtails
and the rock stars, too. It will always
be the cool people doing it, in the
cool neighborhoods. I think it will be
all right.
SALMON
(From page 79) Some take a month
because they ignore their piece.
TATTOOING
If somebody wants to learn to
tattoo, don't try it on your own. Get
hooked up with a shop. The people
there are going to form what your
future is in tattooing. Nobody learns
this on their own. Tattooing is a big
thing that's shared among many
people. The amount of interaction the
tattoo artist has with other tattoo
artists in the early stages of their
development is very influential on the
outcome of what their art will be. If
you look hard enough, there's a tat-
too shop that needs somebody.
MORE ABOUT TATTOOS
If you desire more knowledge
about the tattoo world, Ed Hardy's
"Tattoo Time" is considered the bible
in the industry. There are four issues.
The first two, "New Tribalism" and
"Tattoo Magic" are $10 each. The
other two "Music and Sea Tattoos"
and "Life and Death Tattoos" are $15
each (shipping not included). Write
to Ed Hardy, PO Box 90520,
Honolulu, HI 96835, or you can find
copies in many bookstores.
NUKE ASSAULT
(from page 7) Well, not everybody.
There's a place for crap like Dio, too,
because some people listen to music
to get away from it all, I guess.
#13: Do most humans survive on
the logic, "Wait till the mountain
crumbles before you rebuild"?
How does this affect you?
Yes. What I mentioned before
about Three Mile Island and Cher-
nobyl is relevant here. People can't
take a hint. The scientists go, 'Oh,
just a minor problem, we'll fix it and
it won't happen again. But what are
they going to say, 'Sorry, it's out of
control, see ya'? Same goes for the
ozone layer. Has anyone reading this
noticed that (in NYC anyway) there's
no more spring? After mid-April it
goes up to the 70s, add two plus two
and you realize we're killing our
atmosphere. Pretty soon (I don't
unbearable to live on this planet. It
know how soon) it's going to be
affects me the same way it affects
anyone; we're all in this together, so
wise up. Don't use aerosol deo-
dorant. What can I say?
#14: Can America/Earth cope with
the rise of psychological and phys-
ical violence in the next decade?
I sure as hell hope so, because the
racial tension in New York is getting
bad. Asshole John Travolta clones
are screwing it up for the rest of the
whites in NY. They start with blacks,
then blacks strike back and so on
and so forth, and pretty soon it ain't
safe to walk the streets. Then you
have a dickhead like Axl Rose, who
at this moment is looked up to by
millions, spouting racist, homo-
phobic crap (remember, S.O.D. was
just a bad joke put to good music).
Public Enemy-whom I'd always ad-
mired for being confrontational and
political when other rappers were just
bragging about themselves-made
those anti-Jewish statements, which
really disappointed me. To answer
the question, at this point it looks
pretty bleak. Boy, is my hand tired.
SERIOUS
BROOKS
FUN
17
Serious Fun. BROOKS
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