(5 votes, average: 4.40 out of 5)

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I tattoo a young man who looks like he spends most of his waking moments in the gym. He came in a while ago for his first tattoo, a tribal armband. He has perfectly manicured hands, eyebrows, and tinted hair styled in a fake mohawk.

He survived the outline, beaded in sweat and humming but did well. I’m packin’ the black as I come to the inside of his arm, he starts to squirm again. His humming becomes louder.

As I’m tattooing him, the squirming gets worse and I tell him. “Hey, if you need to sing, sing. But I need you to hold still.”

He says “really, you don’t mind?”

I laughed and said,” like I care just hold still”

He said ” okay, but can you shut the door?”

Whatever, I shut the door, thinking his voice probably sucks and he doesn’t want anyone to hear. Start tattooing again… and the boy starts to sing.

OMG not only was he a good singer, but he busted out into Aretha Franklin’s “Natural Woman”.

I stopped tattooing and stared at him and told my self “don’t laugh, don’t laugh, don’t laugh.”

I finished the tattoo, with a straight face ~ barely, as he sang a string of old Motown hits.

He payed me said thanks and asked, “hey, your not going to tell anyone about that singing thing are you?”

I couldn’t help it, I busted up. He started laughing too. ” You have a good voice, don’t worry about it… but I am telling everybody, that’s some funny shit. I won’t tell them who you are, but I am telling everyone.”

He was cool with that and we had a good laugh over it. He’s been back for more since, the last session started with Donna Summers . . .

(1 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)

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Ahh this story makes me laugh just thinking about it.

It was a day just like any other day at the Tattoo Shop I was working at. I was Tattooing a woman’s lower back, she had some friends hanging out with her. Everything was going great. She was handling it just fine. I had her sitting up in a chair, leaning forward to help stretch the skin on her lower back. When I finished, I felt her skin go Ice cold. Now most Tattoo Artists know when someone is going to pass out or throw up. what we do is such a personal, and intimate experience for both Artist and Client we just know. So, I put my machine down, leaned forward and grabbed her shoulder to prevent her from falling forward, which basically made her sit on my lap. She says “I am gonna Puke!” so I grabbed the garbage can with my free hand, I didn’t want to let her go, because I didn’t feel like picking up a woman off the floor. Picture this, I’m basically spooning with this woman sitting up, Shes on my lap, leaning forward, I’m leaning forward holding her shoulder. She starts to vomit in the can, and while shes puking, sitting on my lap, starts farting on my leg. The worst part was where my head was. I was leaning forward to hold her in the chair while shes leaning forward yakking, so my face is hovering above the gas! I love my Job, but there are moments that you think WTF?? This poor woman had no Idea she just farted a bunch of times on me..ON ME! While she was tossing her cookies in font of a bunch of folks. She paid, and left. I’m sure embarrassed to a level some don’t get to experience. Here’s a little bit of info, when you fart on someone at least give them a tip!

(4 votes, average: 4.25 out of 5)

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This is one of my favorite stories to tell. I’m sure if you have a piercer at your shop then he’s just like ours, lacking the attention span to be a tattoo artist, completely highstrung and always obnoxious. Fortunately for me, I have a story I can tell that puts him in his place rather quickly when he’s showing off for costumers.
One day our piercer was outside talking to one of the employees at a neighboring business. When he came in he ran to the back of the shop and after a bit came slowly up to the front counter. He placed his palms down on the counter and kinda hung his head. I asked what was wrong and he replied, “Its gonna be a bad day, I have to go home.” I asked why and finally got it out of him what had happened. He pleaded with the owner to let him go for about 10 min but wouldn’t give up his reason for having to leave. I stepped in and told the owner it was neccessary for our piercer to leave and he gave he ok. As soon as the piercer walked out the door I gathered everyone to watch him get in his car. He kept looking at his car seat kinda worried and the owner finally says, “what the hell is he doing”? At that point anything the piercer confided in telling me walked right out the door with him- HE SHIT HIS PANTS!!!! HE TRIED TO FART ON THAT GUY HE WAS TALKING TO OUTSIDE, AND HE SHIT ALL OVER HIS LEG!! NOW HE’S TRYING TO FIND THE BEST WAY TO SIT IN IT SO HE CAN DRIVE HOME AND SHOWER!

(3 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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We had a new guy around the shop mopping our floors and whatever, he may have been an apprentice or something like it. We caught him not doing anything and told him he should make a poo dollar- if your not familiar, its exactly what it sounds like. He placed it out by the street and we watched and watched all day and soon forgot about it. The next day we came in and the owner was throwing a fit. His father in law came in town the night before and while they were out for drinks the owner said he didn’t have any cash for a tip. His father in law replied, “Don’t worry about it…” pulled a dollar out of his pocket, “…I found  this one outside your shop, looks like some one had spit their tobacco in it, but I just wiped it off.” . . .that apprentice only worked for us for 2 weeks.

(3 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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we used to do a weekly karaoke night at a local dive bar it was always a good time, hardly anybody  would show up so plenty of chances to sing. the bar was owned by a woman that also owned a lesbian bar,so girls would come to sing when there was nothing to do at the gay bar. the dive bar was also a favorite white trash hick hang out. well anyway we would sing fun or silly tunes while the hicks would sing bon jovi and the eagles, the lesbians would sing sappy love songs. well the very next day my afternoon appointment was a mullet rocking woman loving woman and i had to draw the blinds to tattoo her. well my coworker was busy tattooing on the other side of those blinds and we start talking about how fun the night before had been, i said “how bout that mullet man with that fucking mustache singing wanted dead or alive,what an ass!!” my friend replied ” not as bad as that fucking dyke singing all those lame love songs”. well i try to snuff this bad comment with”not even as bad as the hickstache guy he looked like a child molester singing bad rock and he was the worst shit i have seen in a while” my friends response was ” all those dykes need to go back to the dyke bar and stop torturing us with those shitty love songs,they look like sensitive lumberjacks” after that we shut our mouths. i said sorry to the lesbian in the chair she said it was ok but i could tell she was pissed. we finished our tattoos and sent our clients away, i said to my friend ” dude my client was a lesbian!!!” he said “mine was a mustache wearing hick,he wanted to kill you!!!”we both laughed and laughed never to shit talk through blinds again.

(4 votes, average: 4.25 out of 5)

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Did you know…

That… Tattooing has been used as a way of smuggling secret messages across enemy lines in times of war.

The 5th century BC Greek historian, Herodotus, records how Histiaeus of Miletus, who was being held against his will by King Darius of Susa, sent a tattooed secret message to his son-in-law, Aristagoras. Histiaeus shaved the hair of his slave and tattooed the message on to the man’s head. The slave was told that the procedure would cure his failing eyesight. When the slave’s hair had grown back sufficiently to hide the tattoo, he was sent to Aristagoras, who shaved his head and read the hidden message. The message instructed Aristagoras to begin a rebellion.

That… The world’s most tattooed person is Tom Leppard from the Isle of Skye, Scotland, who has 99.9 per cent of his body covered with a leopard-skin design.

Guinness World Records states that the only parts of Tom’s body that remain untattooed are the skin between his toes and the insides of his ears.

The claim to be the world’s most tattooed woman is shared between Canadian Krystyne Kolorful and American Julia Gnuse. Both have 95 per cent of their bodies tattooed. Julia began to tattoo her body in order to disguise the effects of porphyria, a disease which can leave skin permanently scarred.

That… , a chief of the Ngai te rangi tribeIn the late-18th and early-19th centuries collecting tattooed Maori heads became so popular in Europe that many Maoris were murdered to supply the trade.

That… In October 1991, the 5000 year-old frozen body of a Bronze Age hunter was found between Austria and Italy. His body bore several tattoos.

That…Sailors with Tattoos

A pig tattooed on one foot and a rooster on the other were said to protect a seaman from drowning. Neither animal can swim and it was thought they would help get the sailor swiftly to shore if he fell into the water.

Other popular tattoos amongst sailors are also attributed with particular meanings:

• a full-rigged ship shows the seaman has sailed round Cape Horn
• an anchor indicates he has sailed the Atlantic Ocean
• a dragon denotes that the bearer has served on a China station
• a shellback turtle shows the sailor has crossed the equator
• ‘Hold’ tattooed on the knuckles of one hand and ‘fast’ on the other were said to allow the bearer to grip the rigging better.

That…

The word ‘tattoo’ is derived from the Tahitian word ‘tatau’, meaning to mark.

The word ‘tattaw’ was first used in the published account of Captain Cook’s first voyage, which appeared in 1769. It has been suggested that ‘tatau’ is an onomatopoeic word. ‘Tat’ refers to tapping the tattooing instrument into the skin; ‘au’ to the cry of pain from the person being tattooed.

That… Urine was sometimes used to mix the colouring matter of early tattoos.

Early colouring materials for tattoos included soot or ink for blue-black and brick dust for reds. To work, these needed to be bound together by a mixing agent. Often the tattooist used his own spittle to mix the colour but occasionally urine was used instead. Until 1891, when the first electric tattooing machine was patented by Tom Riley, all colours were applied by hand. Early tattooing tools were rather like pen holders with a number of needles set into them.

That… The tattooing machine is based on the design of the doorbell.

The quick poking action of a tattooing machine, which injects the ink into the skin, is driven by an electric circuit very similar to that which operates the household doorbell. Modern tattoo artists work with a number of tattooing machines, each reserved to inject a different colour. The number of needles set in the machine and their fineness depends on what the machine is being used for. Finer needles are used for outlines, while coarser needles are used for filling in or for shading.

In prison, where tattooing machines are banned, inmates have been known to make their own makeshift tattooing machines using guitar strings and the motor from a tape deck.

That… A Night Dance by Men, in Hapaee by John Webber Tahitians believed that the process of tattooing the body served to contain its sacred power.

The Polynesian view of the body differed from that of the Europeans. Polynesians believed that there were two worlds: the world of light and ordinary life (ao) and the world of darkness and gods (po). Humans came from po at birth and returned there at death. This gave the body a potentially dangerous primal power, which would overcome the present world if it was not contained. A number of rites from infancy onwards were designed to restrain this power by lessening the body’s sacredness.

In Tahiti, these rites culminated in the act of tattooing the body around the time of puberty in order to ’seal off’ its power.

That… Removing a tattoo can cost up to three times more than the design itself.

Tattoos last forever and sometimes a tattoo can become an embarrassment in later life. Because tattoos lie in the deep layer of skin known as the dermis, they are very difficult to remove. Early forms of tattoo removal included the injection or application of wine, lime, garlic or pigeon excrement.

Unsurprisingly, none of these methods was effective. Later removal techniques include dermabrasion, when the skin is effectively ’sanded down’, and excision, in which the tattoo is surgically removed. Both methods result in scarring.

In the late 1980s laser surgery became popular for tattoo removal. However, the treatment is not cheap and can cost thousands of pounds, depending on the tattoo’s size, type and location.

That… Sharing the Pain, In the Pacific island of Samoa a chief would pay for his son and other lower-ranking males to be tattooed in the same ceremony.

The tattooing ceremony was considered so important in Samoa that houses were erected specially for the event. Lavish feasts were prepared and entertainments laid on for those attending. Although the ceremony revolved around the tattooing of the chief’s son, his lower-status contemporaries were also tattooed at the chief’s expense. These youths supported the chief’s son and shared his pain. By subjecting himself to the painful process of tattooing, the chief’s son was demonstrating his bravery at the same time as showing his respect for his elders by submitting to their will.

That… The Chief at Sta Christina by William Hodges, 1776 The severity of pain experienced when being tattooed depends on the location of the tattoo. The most painful areas are those where the skin is very close to the bone, such as the ankles, elbows and knees. It is less painful to be tattooed on more fleshy areas such as the chest or upper arms. Pain was an important part of tattooing for Polynesian societies.

In Tahiti, the chief’s son was watched closely as he was tattooed for signs of pain. In Samoa, it was often said that tattooing was the equivalent for men of the great pain a woman endured when giving birth.

That…Samoan tattoo artists used combs to apply their designs.

On the Pacific island of Samoa, tattooist carried out their art by dipping the pointed teeth of combs into ink and placing them on the surface of the skin. The comb was then tapped so that the teeth punctured the skin, inserting the ink. Both men and women had their bodies tattooed and elaborate designs could take several months to complete. In Samoan tradition, tattoos were restricted to the lower part of the body.