Learn While You Bleed
By Mr. G
Writing about tattooing is different from sitting around the campfire and spouting out tales of the trade. A lot of tattoo knowledge is hard to put into words because it is raw experience. When you print your thoughts in a book or a magazine, they are etched in stone, whipped out for the whole world to pick apart. I am not an etched-in-stone person. I consider myself more a listen-and-learn guy, not a know-it-all. I find that listening to others, weighing options and trying new things is more my flavor. This column is an attempt to share insight with readers in a way that superior tattooist did for me through the years. At the same time, it is important not to get too high up on the soap box or give away secrets of the trade.
Stoney Knows How
I was doing some research about Stoney St. Claire, because I thought he packed a revolver, but I wasn’t totally sure. I wanted to get my facts straight. I, literally, have been hit in the head more than a few times. Anyway, I wanted to check my facts about the blue-steel gun I mentioned in a previous article. I decided to figure it out the old-fashioned way, read a book. So I bought myself a new copy of the old book Stoney Knows How by Alan Govenor and went into a quite room to plunge myself in the bowels of tattoo reality.
What a great read. It must have been twenty years since I last read that book. I couldn’t put it down. The way it was written set my tattoo ass on fire and inspired me to get back to work like a youngster. Well, I’m not going to do a book review or act like Stoney and I were best buddies. Hell, the revolver isn’t that important. What I wanted to get at is, Stoney, like so many of the guys that paved the road for us, were strong-at-heart folks, dedicated to an art that put food on the table and shoes on their feet. Through years of can-do attitude, they developed great insight into the wheel of life, human nature and keeping an ancient art alive.
The tattoo world is growing so fast that it is important not lose the heart of the trade. If you turn on the TV, you will see unrealistic monkey shines in almost any field of endeavor, including tattooing. From knocking down and remodeling homes in one hour, to building a motorcycle that burns a $400 tire before the paint is dry. It is all too easy to sit at home and become a barstool expert on just about any craft. What is missing is the real sweat and work of what a successful career is all about.
Here’s an idea. Turn off the TV, take a day off from shopping on eBay for the dime-a-dozen machine that you don’t need and read Stoney Knows How. Hopefully, Stoney will inspire you and reveal precisely what we don’t want to lose in this business.
It seems that too many tattoo legends have recently died and that can be a bummer. One of my mentors and best friends, Capt Don Leslie, just kicked the bucket with the big “C,” a few days ago. I said goodbye to him a couple weeks before he went into the real ugly phase of slow death. I really was having depression with the cancer shit, so I took some time to smell the roses. A solo motorcycle ride through Baja, Arizona and parts of Utah will set a guy straight. Just me and the iron horse for days on end in some of the prettiest back roads in the world. I had a lot of time to think and not think.
Actually, it was a great self-indulgence that most people should do at least once in this life. Anyway, most of the trip was just iron-butt riding, being quiet and eating up the highway. I let the loud pipes on the bike do all the talking. The desert wind in my face answered back all day long till I was dog tired and deaf as an old geezer at sundown. Needless to say, I saw a lot of beautiful places and had some bright encounters.
One refreshing discovery was a short visit with a tattooist named Ricky in Tucson. He was a breath of fresh air for me, because his shop took me back thirty years. I hate to be a snoot about all the new trendy shops, but, when I stumble across a timeless gem, it puts a smile on my face. Ricky’s was a small, clean establishment that was the real deal. I had a short but true encounter. Ricky was busy tattooing, but took the time to tell me a few good-ole-days stories. He proudly showed me forty years of clean, well-organized photo albums, lots of freshly-drawn, framed flash and his favorite custom machines. The icing on the cake was checking out his newest, etched acetates. Sharp and done to perfection. A phase of tattoo daily life that is lost in this Brave New World of Tattoo.
Somewhere between reading the Stoney book and this brief visit with Ricky—sometime during the vibration of the big-twin motorcycle—the pounding of the Baja roads knocked some life back into me. I shook off some of that dead-friend funk and came up with a renewed enthusiasm for my charmed tattoo life.
I even made some new resolutions. One is to get out there and collect more tattoos, especially from tattooist who have been working for a long time. I have learned so much from being tattooed by superior artists. I have heard it called Western-style tattooing, putting tattoos on as marks of time, similar to stickers on an old suitcase.
I’ll have to make a trip back to check out Ricky again and find a patch of vacant skin. Closer to home, I need to get down and get some ink from my good friend Henry Goldfield. Dean Dennis is a Bay Area legend working with Henry. He has always been on my list of artist to get to know through receiving a tattoo. Then there is Lyle, Ed, Bill, Chuck. Hell, that’s just one part of town. I’m almost out of skin but I have the excitement of a young blood on a Saturday night. Must be tattoo fever.
Tattooing; as ancient as time, as modern as tomorrow.
—Mr. G
g@triangletattoo.com
