Marked For Life; The story of blood, sweat, tears and tattoo needles! Part 4

My  first weeks as a working apprentice.

As a working apprentice,  I had to bring in a couple of my friends and tattoo them for free so Buzz could see what I was doing and how I worked. He sat over me for a total of two tattoos. He corrected me twice while I was working and told me to do a couple of things different. Basically, everything I knew  at this point was things I learned from Mick, Jason, and Baron. Since Jason was Buzz's son, I knew that all he had learned was from his dad, so I really paid attention when he gave me advice on things. After I was done with the free tattoos, Buzz sat me down and started talking a bit about the equipment I was using. He asked to see my tattoo machines so I handed them over. He threw them straight in the trash! I stared at him in disbelief.  "If you wanna learn to tattoo like us, you have to use the same equipment that we do." (I dug my machines out as soon as he left the room, but never used them after that.) At that time, they were using Spaulding machines- one supreme and one lightweight, or puma. I had already bought myself a Spaulding lightweight, but the power supply that I was using had a minimum output of 30 volts, therefore I couldn't use it because it got really hot and still ran way too fast and hard.

Buzz loaned me a small power supply that he had bought from a man called "Creeper". He said "Guard this with your life, because I don't think he makes these anymore!". He then pulled out a large box full of old tattoo machine parts and dug out a frame for a supreme machine. He then told me to see if I could find the rest of what I needed in the box to make a complete machine. I quickly pulled out the other machine I had and began to work on finding the parts to make another. The next day, also with a little help from Jason, I had the machine all put together. When Buzz saw it he just said, "Happy birthday! Now you have to tune it up. But Jason is better at that than I am so you should talk to him!" Jason helped me tune it up, and basically taught me everything I needed to know about a tattoo machine after that.

At this time, I spent a lot of time making the tattoo needles... the most boring part of tattooing, ever... besides scrubbing tubes. I had to do a lot of that too. The coolest part of being able to make your own needle groups is that you know exactly what you are working with when you use them. This seems to be one of those traditional tattoo rituals that have faded out of existence for many of today's tattooists, as we now buy them in bulks of ready to go laziness in a package and then get pissed if they aren't always perfect.  Other than that, it was a lot of the usual... cleaning and keeping the shop in order, talking to customers and just making sure the place was opened each day on time.

As for tattooing, for me it was more or less a "learn by doing" process. Since it was only Jason and myself, Buzz threw me in straight away. Aside from the regular duties, I spent long hours tattooing. It was never really so busy on weekdays, but on weekends you could kiss your social life goodbye. There were days when we showed up to find people waiting at the door for us and by the time we got them in and situated, more were pouring in. Before then, I wasn't a very talkative or social kind of person but soon, the tattoo shop would become my social life. On weekends it wasn't uncommon to see the sun come up with the sound of machines still steady in the shop. The worst was that sometimes when we were just getting done and should have closed the shop, a new wave of people would show up and want work done... And I was always willing to oblige. (Something you can't really expect out of me now, though! :P)

As for when we weren't so busy, Jason and I continued the long-standing tradition of "bar-hopping". We would go out and hand out our business cards so that people knew who we were and where to find us.

One of my most memorable moments with Jason was on his 18^th birthday...

He came in that day and told me that we were gonna do some serious partying that evening! I asked of the occasion and he said it was his birthday and that he was finally "officially legal". Now at this time, Jason looked older than he really was and I had thought that he was a year or two older than me, so I was a little surprised to find out that he wasn't.  Needless to say, we went on an epic "bar-hopping drinking spree"! We, along with Chris Benson (R.I.P.) went to nearly every bar in town (or so it seemed) during the course of the night and along the way, we emptied six bottles of tequila... or at least that was the last number I remembered.  Speaking of remembering things, the next thing I remembered was waking up feeling like I'd been hit by a train and Jason running out the door of his house half naked and screaming something about not being able to find his motorcycle. When I could finally peel myself from the sofa I followed him out and found that my car was parked with the front bumper against the oak tree in the middle of his front yard and his motorcycle was leaning against it on the driver side front fender... neither of us remembered getting there... The only comment I have on that... We are trained jack-asses so don't try this at home! Neither of us have attempted or repeated this amazing feat since!

Stay tuned for more of the story when I can get back and write it, so peace out!

Q:)