The only instructions that I was given was
to keep it covered for 24 hours and don’t
pick at the scabs that would form. It hurt,
looked, and healed like hell. Bob wasn’t the
best tattooer (he was pretty close to blind
by then) but he was Broadway Bob, kind
of an institution and he always had a story.
Mostly to let you know that you don’t have
a clue about what tattooing was really like
back in the day. Stuff like: “Back in those
days, you didn’t have a choice of colors.
The colors we had were black, red, yellow,
green, and blue. The yellow was just a
‘come on’ color that healed out in no time.”
And as far as needles went, I remember
the bit about using the same needles for a
week, “sterilizing” them in barbasol between
people. There weren’t ink caps then either.
Tattooers used ink pots from one person
to the next, even using the same pots their
whole career.
All my life, I’ve dug hanging out with old
timers, talking about the good old days. Now
with five decades, change on the planet,
and better than 3 decades in the business,
I’ve recently come to terms with two truths
about me. One is that I’m a tattooer; I’ve
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