The New York Review of Ideas » Reviews | June 2009

High Expectations of Sordidness

Tattoo Machine, by Jeff Johnson.

By Frances Pollitzer

I heard a story once, from a failed female conquest of one of the characters mentioned in Jeff Johnson’s book. It was so lasciviously devilish that when she had finished, a group of us sat in complete silence for several minutes and I had to  literally pick my jaw off the table.

With that memory in mind, I was looking forward to reading Tattoo Machine: Tall Tales, True Stories, and My Life in Ink. It is a colourful memoir rather than a fact-filled discussion of the tattoo profession and I was gripped, finishing the book in two sittings.

Johnson speaks tenderly of his profession, lapsing frequently into philosophical ponderings over its future in changing times (technology, regulations and competition are revolutionising the art of inking, like so many other fields). His impulse for humanity is undoubtedly a result of spending each and every day in close proximity to a complex variety of characters, listening to them hold forth, good or bad. “There are times when I’ve glimpsed the rosy pork blossoms of hell’s flora crawling inside of people, brushed up against abominations poorly disguised as human beings,” Johnson tells us. This particular observation leads into a filmic retelling of just such an occasion, which begins with a white Cadillac pulling up outside the shop late on a dark winter’s night, unleashing denizens of the criminal underworld on its closing doors.

Tattooing is a profession for “oddly shaped pegs,” Johnson explains, and indeed descriptions of his colleagues at the Sea Tramp recall the Magnificent Seven. A band of modern day cowboys always on the move and making their living with good old-fashioned handiwork. The hothead, the sharp mover, the ladykiller motivated by “money and spring beaver”—they’re all there, ready for action day and night. It makes you wonder, in fact, why anyone would want to be a rockstar when as a tattoo artist you get all the perks—girls, money, parties, status, and adoration—without the constant worry that a receding hairline will put a swift end to your careering and careening. For example, Johnson’s business partner, Don Deaton, despite having entered his seventies, is still a vivacious presence in the shop, continuing to apply needle to flesh (albeit rarely nowadays).

It took Johnson decades (and the love of a good woman) to become manager of Portland, Oregon’s oldest tattoo shop. “Along the way,” he writes, “you learn about people, and that teaches you something about yourself.” His prose is peppered with management tips that apply across the board, most memorably “pay attention to the toilet!”

Tattoo Machine is not the place to learn about tattooing’s 3,000-year-old history. Instead it is an opportunity for readers to escape humdrum worklives and rub shoulders with characters they have most proximally encountered on their TV screens: serial killers, nymphomaniacs, straight-up maniacs, and gangsters. This is an approachable and engaging read for anyone who has ever been kicked out of a bar (or wanted to be, for that matter). Johnson loves telling stories, he admits, and although I was disappointed that none of his tales came close in sordidness to the one told to me the day my jaw physically dropped, he tells them well. The book crackles with possibility, occasionally igniting into full-blown episodes of sex, violence, and excess. Sometimes they suffer from the smoothed-over edges of frequent retelling, but I admit that’s more likely a reflection of my own high expectations of sordidness. ♦

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