Just a Fat Tattooer

Some REAL reasons REALITY Tattoo shows have Ruined Tattooing.

First of all, let me start off by saying I am not writing this blog to jump on the bandwagon of every shithead tattooer who posts 100 times on facebook how much they Hate Ami James and blame the tattoo shows for their shop being slow. To be honest the shows have no affect on my shop except maybe a few more people who normally would not get a tattoo feels its okay to get one now because LA Ink is their favorite show. That being said i want to give an insight of how the show(s) have ruined The craft of tattooing.

Every day I have at least one client ask me if I saw the new NY INK or the Ink wars. Its always the same questions and I just answer and try not to argue with the client. They say How Kat Von D does THE BEST portraits ever and I tell them they could go to Shane Oneil right up the road and get a better one. But other than that it usually goes no further. But this last week Jamison showed me the portfolio of a guy on the new Ink wars show and my jaw dropped. I had to watch this show. We will get back to that in one sec.

When Miami Ink first came out I cannot lie to you I was stoked to see Garver work and Ami. Both Tattooers I thought were good, Darren is good as well, and after a few shows and seeing that they were not even going to focus on the tattooing, and only the drama I stopped watching it. I did not need to watch to know which tattoos were done because every girl in town came in for that particular tattoo on their ribs done the night or week before. FOR THAT I WAS THANKFUL.. More money. But soon i started to notice a trend.. No longer did someone come in and look at the pages and pages of great flash.. No longer did they get a SHARK tattoo for no other reason than it was tough or cool. I started to notice that every client wanted us to draw custom stuff. Cool, no problem its fun to do that.. But soon I started to see that everyone started to come up with elaborate stories to go with their tattoos, you know the old ” I want seven roses for my cousins and three butterflies for the three boys we met that day and I want all their birth dates and boys names in the wing on the one butterfly, and I want this all to be no bigger than a business card.”

Even this is all well and good, but one of the BIGGEST PROBLEMS with the shows is EDITING!!!! the client does not get that Garver did not draw that giant tiger in the 4 minutes he said it would take. The ever annoying phrase in all the shows “GO AHEAD HAVE A SEAT ON THE COUCH AND I NEED ABOUT 10 MINUTES TO DRAW THIS UP” HORSESHIT!! Every client now looks at us funny when we say Okay lets take a tracing of that and Ill draw something up, just need a deposit and Ill give you a call next week to come in to look at it. HUH??? What?? We dont get the giant cover up today?? You have other clients?? what? It does not work like that on NY INK.. OMG?!! A deposit?? They dont take a deposit on the show!! Oh but they do, a big one, 6 months prior to the tattoo. 

I get that editing is needed for time constraints on the show, but to a tattooer IT’S AWFUL watching the tattoo one minute is not even outlined a few seconds later its completely shaded in and then its not even half outlined, then just shaded, meanwhile they want you to believe this conversation is natural. THE THING IS I CANT FAULT ANY OF THE GUYS ON THE SHOW FOR THIS. Yeah yeah I know all the tattooers out there are going to be cursing at me but let me plays Devils advocate for a minute.

A few years back a production company approached us to do a show about the strip mall our shop s in. We were hesitant from the get go. They told us some shows they produced and none of them were TLC reality shows, in fact the polar opposite. They were really rad documentaries that were on major networks and a great cable show. I cant tell you which ones, but they were GREAT SHOWS. So they approached us and again we did not want to do it. And then it happened. a couple producers came to me and said “hey man we want to do a show about the little guys, there’s a hardware store here and up the street a Home depot, there’s a pizza joint and a block away a Dominoes, theres a independently owned Nutrition store and up the road a GNC. Blah blah , you get it. They said let us a do a test shoot if you dont dig the vibe we will leave. Cool I said what could it hurt? Again this is a show I respect.

They come for three days and the first day is not bad, They let me speak my mind, I talk shit on other tv shows , I think I am the shit. They film me tattooing and the rest of the shop, it all goes good, Business as usual. Then the next day it happens.. This lady producer we will call “the broad” for the story. She comes in and asks me “if I can put on a thicker Jersey accent???” I said “I am from California??” She says “yeah but the Jersey thing is kinda hot right now”. I say “sorry I am not an actor”. She then has me repeat everything I say but this time she RE WRITES MY REAL WORDS. She asks my clients to act a different way. She asks me if I have any SEXY clients. She asks some people who work with me to put make up on. She asks us to talk shit on our buddy’s at the nutrition place. She tells us the chinese food place is talking shit on us, she tells each person in the shop that the other tattooer is talking shit on them.. THIS ALL HAPPENED IN LESS THAN 24 hours. Rather than saying sorry you are not interesting enough they created so much drama. I hated it. You could tell the camera guys were uneasy. but the broad was really trying, like a time share salesperson. It was unreal.. Then someone from the shop said how they hated to go into the bathroom because it felt haunted, then guess what??? The Broad has a giant light bulb go off, “OMG a Jersey Tattoo shop thats haunted TRIPLE THREAT!!!! Jersey shore meets miami Ink meets ghost hunters.. What next we judge a 8 year old beauty contest and tattoo the winner???? It was unreal the third and final day the broad brings in a PSYCHIC!!!!! not even a good one. It was probably the only one who could come on such short notice!! They eventually come to us with the craziest idea ever ” CAN YOU MOVE YOUR TATTOO SHOP TO THIS OTHER PLAZA, WE LOVE YOU GUYS BUT THE REST OF THE PLAZA IS REALLY NOT THAT INTERESTING!”

My point is this, I GUARANTEE that when TLC approached Ami and those guys they had a whole different road mapped out. I doubt those guys would have signed on if they knew how much horseshit they had to deal with. Yeah you can call them money hungry and sell outs, but they did what was best for them and their families at the time. I do not fault those guys. I think, and again I have no insight this is just my guess, They thought “wow I can get my work out to the rest of the world and be on tv, get some puss, and make some money”. They never thought they would be listening to the horseshit stories about battling through anorexia or the story about how someone almost missed their wedding becasue they had to stop and save a life or two.. They just wanted to tattoo. I AM NOT SAYING WE DON’T ENJOY A GOOD STORY, OR THAT TATTOOS SHOULD HAVE NO MEANING…But come on the stories on the show are AWFUL. and Make the tattoos take back seat to the person and their story. If it is a tattoo show The tattoos should be the focus??? Right?

So Miami Ink is over and they sit back and live off the money from that??? nope not good enough, they do a spin off on a Broad who cant whip shade, with a man voice and half an adam’s apple. people don’t get shes not the GODDESS of tattooing she is made up to be. Sure she does a good tattoo, but jesus christ she might as well have opened up Bert Grimm’s casket and taken a shit in it. She has NO RESPECT for the craft, for those that taught her,or for those who came before her. She is in it for the money and fame PERIOD. SO that show goes off and now everyone thinks that all tattooers are making tons of money, everyone including the IRS..Now the state of New Jersey says Hmmmm theres a lot of money in Tattooing, lets tax the shit out of it. So now we have to charge sales tax in New Jersey on Tattoos. All of this has happened in the last five or six years its crazy.

I wandered off topic for a bit I apologize. You are saying okay so how has this ruined tattooing? WHy does every Real tattooer out there hate these shows?? Well here are just a few things it changed.

Take away the crazy stories, and the trying to jam WAY TOO MUCH into a tatoo, and even take away the fact everyone thinks you can draw their back piece in fifteen minutes… Now every shit head on the street thinks that they are TATTOO EXPERTS.. I have had clients ask me “what are you going to shade that with??” They think they know the whole process all from watching a show. Also, now every lady in line at the grocery store thinks its okay to touch my neck and throat and say “oh those are great tattoos, did you see the anchor yoshi did on the show???” DO NOT TOUCH MY TATTOOS!!! when did this become okay???/ I like to look like a criminal but now Aunt Margie is an expert becasue she owns the LA INK box set, so she feels she can touch my tattoos and break down the meaning of them.. “No the tiger on my throat has no meaning except Civello drew a dope tiger and I wanted it.!!

NOW COMES THE BIGGEST PROBLEM with the tv shows. Like all Television shows or movies everyone…EVERYONE wants to be a tattooer now!!!! Just like I wanted to fly  jets after Maverick and Ice man got all the puss in Top Gun, everyone thinks we have the easiest jobs on earth. Its crazy the people that come in looking for apprenticeships!! people with no tattoos, people who are professionals ready to quit their good jobs to be a tattooer.. WHY??!!! theres enough tattooers!! you will hate it I PROMISE!!!! I tell every person that comes in looking to be a tattooer NO YOU DON’T! its hard work, its more then just tattooing. It takes a long time and lots of hard work… They dont care.. They have to learn now..

If I had a dollar for everytime i had to hear “my son is a great drawer (yes they say drawer a lot) he could do this.. Could he lady??? could he??? could he hold this heavy vibrating machine and “draw” straight lines on a rib cage of a 18 year old girl who is crying because her boyfriend called her a slut for getting the tattoo on her ribs.. and can your son yell at her boyfriends friend for eating in the shop, right after he had to throw a junkie out for begging for money from your next client who just changed her MIND last second from the beautiful flowers that took your son 6 hours to “draw” to a simple word.. now Your son who was expecting to make $600 on that tattoo now is only going to make $100 on the word..Guess your son wont be able to buy more pencils to draw with let alone pay his rent or power bill! While this is all going on your son is going to have to tell the girl who is crying to stop moving, because its hard for him to “draw” on her when shes moving all around.. Yup and while he is using his drawing skills,  in the booth next door a guy is getting loud becasue he only brought $120 but his tattoo cost $300, so now your son has to stop “drawing” to go in and hit this Loud mouth douche in the head with some sort of object before he can reach into his pocket and grab what he was reaching for…. DO you think your 17 year old son who can DRAW good anime girls can do all that????!!! because more shops are like that than like Miami Ink… I can tell you this much… I love the previous story. I love dealing with that and I get to do it everyday and LOVE IT..BUT ITS NOT FOR EVERYONE!

I guess the moral of this story is.. “STOP BELIEVING EVERYTHING YOU SEE ON TV!”