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November 2011 saw the passing of tattooer Mike Brown.
I remember seeing Signatures of the Soul for the first time (where this clip originated) and being blown away by that big ol’ frog on his back (which I think Rollo did) but I never really saw much of his tattooing until the mid 2000s.

The clip also features a young Jack Rudy.

Mike lived a hard life, but also lived tattooing. Bob Baxter interviewed him in 2005- what follows is a short excerpt; click the link at the end to read the full interview.

(about Mike Malone)
MB: I met him in Honolulu. I moved there in ’73 and just started hanging out in tattoo shops. Back then, white people were definitely in the minority, so we hit it off pretty good. You know, one white guy to another. This was Sailor Jerry’s shop. Yeah, we became good friends and then I started from the ground up. My first job was doing the floors. I used to mop and wax and get the floors real clean. Then I became the shop gofer. That was my whole life. I worked during the days in a cardboard box factory. That was my profession, during the day, and I hung out at the shop at night. It was the old-style apprenticeship, the way it should be done today, which nobody seems to even do. The fucking kids are just spoiled today―I can’t believe it―thanks to Huck Spaulding selling everything to everybody in the damn world. Anyway, Malone just started showing me things. I don’t think he had any idea that I was going to become a tattoo artist. I helped him; I made shaders for him. We’d make 20 set-ups every two weeks. He’d make 20 shaders and 20 liners, because military paydays were every two weeks. And we’d use the needles over again. Back then, you used them again. We’d clean ’em. We sterilized everything.

The full interview is worth reading, and can be found So Long and Fare Thee Well.

Update:
Mr. Grosso from Vice (responsible for the outstanding TATTOO AGE series) got in touch to share with us the interview he and the Vice team did with Mike in Hawaii in January of 2011. I never had the pleasure of meeting Mike, but he reminds me of the old guys I met when I was coming into tattoo culture; guys who packed more living into the years they had been given than most people twice their age.

Folk Art from the 50th State.
Rest in Peace, Mike.

I did it again;
I had sworn off watching any more episodes of Spike TV’s INK MASTER after wannabe reality-show badboy Al Fliction had to ‘close shop’ and go home. I had thought there was no more to see. But I relapsed. Episode 4 came and went but I couldn’t resist episode 5; Traditional American.

Bold line. Heavy black shading. Limited color palette. A timeless tattoo you could read from 20 feet away.

The episode ended poorly.
The artists by and large put on good tattoos, but they missed the point entirely.

You can’t say the same about this lil devil from Michael Bennett of Faith Tattoo in Santa Rosa. He’s put a fun spin on it, but bold lines? Heavy black shading and tightly packed solid color? I’d ask why guys like Michael aren’t on Ink Master, but I think that it’s pretty obvious.

You can find out more about Michael at his blog.

Four SIX attempts later, I was sitting where I usually am: The Tattoo Shop.

Only this time I found myself in Minnesota! Yes it was 11:04pm, not too late then, it was 9 degrees outside, a nice 68 degrees inside The Aloha Monkey Tattoo shop in Burnsville, Minnesota, a small town on the south end of Minneapolis…

Where a lot of History, Art, and LOVE come together like a Beatles song…

So… If you didn’t know the following: you soon will.

The Aloha Monkey got its name from an old Sailor Jerry tattoo design, which is fitting as Mike Malone, the original tattoo artist that founded this shop worked for Norman Keith Collins AKA Sailor Jerry for a pretty good chunk of time, took over when Collins passed, Malone moved around a lot, but he’d always revisit Sailor Jerry’s Shop out in Hawaii.  Well Malone has passed on, but the Monkey is still here, only Josh Arment has been passed the torch, and it’s a new flush of different generations making this place vibrate nowadays.

We only got to hang out with Arment for like an evening because he was heading to Milan to work the Convention…  But, it’s always a good reminder when you realize damn, I missed this dude, Richard said he didn’t get enough time to chill with Arment, so another trip is in order… But when it’s warmer riding weather…. I agree 100%!.

I often talk about magic, the magic within a tattoo shop, I mean a shop can look cool, and feel pretty, but the vibe has got to be there, and there has got to be a funk about the place that leaves a lasting impression on the taste buds of your psychy… And this place has the magic. It was a good night. I had never been to the “Monkey”, but it like a handful of other truly unique places, like: Spotlight Tattoo in Hollywood, or Electric Ladyland Tattoo in NOLA, or Jinx Proof in DC, or Rock of Ages in Austin… I could go on and on….

We have been on the road on and off since we got married in 2010. Yikes. I am amazed I still manage to put make up on. Sometimes I want to curl up and die, but… I’m not that much of a pussy. So back to ALOHA… It has that magic.

Wednesday Feb. 8th, was supposed to be our last day in B-Vegas, we were supposed to be heading south towards Dallas. However a tattooer from St. Paul came in early in the afternoon and was wanting to get a back piece started by Richard, and he could come in on Thursday the 9th… We’re pretty flexible as long as we’re not flying…

Another extra night in another motel, 15 hours of drawing, little sleep, junk food, coffee, and another 2-3 hours refining the piece, prepping a stencil, set to go… Two hours into the buzz, then… Guerilla back piece, not our first, not our last, but god damn it’s a lot of work, but not as much as a one shot back piece.

Been there done that too…

It’s not a walk in the park, it’s a bit nerve-racking, and an intense amount of pressure.  Which meant we spent another day in bed recovering the next day from the vampire hours in order to get on the road at a good time, as to not catch too much hesitation on the highway… With the freedom of the open road, comes a lot of responsibility… It’s not a freeway fun day for months on end. It’s a double-edged sword that’ll fuck you up if you ain’t watching…

Gypsy Living My Ass…  I get an email once or twice a month from someone asking me how they can get “Out There”? They want to learn? They want to go from shop to shop…. I will say this, I lucked out. Richard is a 35 year overnight success… I grew up in his shop, and even though it hasn’t always been a joy ride, we stayed in touch. When we got together and really became a team, I merely applied my bullshit corporate PR skills, and hard-earned geek knowledge to his already badass repertoire, and we were back on the same team, just like the old days, only better because we could have sex…

Since the beginning of last December Richard and I have been on the road, we packed our entire life/household/shop into storage… Loaded up a couple of motorcycles, packed our road gear to tattoo and paint, and hit the pavement in our truck on a quest to make enough money from what we do to put it into hopefully the very last tattoo shop we build ever.  I am still taken aback sometimes by being in constant transition, once the place becomes familiar or comfortable it’s time to move to the next place.  But… There are upsides to being on the road as well. . .

Richard: ”It’s become the same, most places are alike, you can find comfort in the fact that you will know what to expect after a while… But it’s the people in the places that can truly set it apart from anywhere else in the world… Good or Bad, the people set the tone for a place, and there’s so many people who are good, really… Like good people, all around, it’s a good feeling to have good people around you…”

I will say: There is always a balance…

For as many great people who are out there, there are a minute portion of folks that are down right evil, and the tyranny the bad people deal out however small can be huge; affecting the big group of the good. That is what makes them the negative, they appear to have that power, but they truly only appear to have it, because the majority that is pushing the good vibes around can acknowledge the negative, even address it, but positive people tend to neutralize the negative, or sway it to the Light…While the “dark side”, is simply seeking attention or a “rise”….. It’s not about the message it’s about the underlying agenda for stirring the proverbial shit pot.

Richard: “One of the saving graces of living a life on the road is this”… ” Drama is everywhere, but about the time the manners wear off, and people get comfortable and want to drag me into something, or try to get me to take a side, ESPECIALLY when it was none of my fucking business”… “You know it was time to hit the road, and it always made it easy to leave when something like that popped up… “

But sometimes it made it that much harder to leave a place, cause there are a few people that you just don’t want to tell goodbye….

Like this guy: Joshua Palmer, he always has a smile, and a warm welcome… He’s what I like to call a “shiny happy people” character, he keeps your mood up, and if he’s talking to you about something, or asking a question, it’s nice because it doesn’t feel like filler conversation someone is just talking at you to fill the silence between the songs… He’s a genuine guy with a new hottie wife;

that can draw, tattoo, and is becoming a well rounded painter… I eyeball his stuff every show he has paintings setting out.

So I will leave you with a few photos… Josh Palmer works full time at The Aloha Monkey Tattoo and Piercing in Burnsville, MN and has been tattooing over eleven years…

Driving home from work on the second night of the Philly Tattoo Convention, my friends and I got into a discussion on tattoo designs being sigils that accumulate power by repetition; that over time an image becomes stronger (in whatever context you’d like to pin on it) as it becomes shared and refined. That’s what I love about the amuletic power of Traditional Americana tattooing; that you have a connection to the designs. That the black panther head you get from Mike Wilson or Chad Koeplinger hasn’t changed much since the design originated despite them putting their spin on it.

It’s especially true when you’re getting a design off of vintage flash; something that literally hasn’t changed in a 100 years connecting you not only to the artist who painted the design but all of the clients who’ve worn it over the years.

The conversation was sparked by this tattoo by my friend Andy Perez.
Andy picked up an original stencil cut by Lee Roy Minugh- the Prince of the Pike- at this year’s Philly Tattoo Convention and knew right away that he had to use it. Luckily he got the chance. Think about it- Every time that Lee Roy tattooed that snake, he used THIS acetate stencil. Not something from the thermofax, sized and resized till it was just right and then tossed into the trash. Every person who wore this design from Lee Roy was touched by this stencil.

Andy had this to say about it:

“Bought the stencil from Eric Minugh, it was his Dad’s. I wanted to use it the second I got it, knew Pat was there and he was one of two people I would have put it on who I knew would appreciate it. (and I knew it wouldn’t take much convincing.) It took about three tries to get it on and once I did was still barely there. But we went for it. And like anything else worth doing in tattooing/life it was challenging, and nerve wracking but ultimately super fun and rewarding.”

Patrick- the fella lucky enough to get the tattoo, followed up with this:
“I feel extremely lucky to have gotten it and, like Andy mighta mentioned before it was weirdly magical. Still super stoked. I think Perez was one step away from giggling with delight through the whole thing.”

Having seen Andy immediately after the tattoo…. I can second the giggling with delight thing. Total tattoo geek stuff.

I can’t remember the first time I met ‘Crazy’ Philadelphia Eddie Funk.
It was probably sometime in the early 1990s, and you can bet that he had on some godawful suit (who knew that meringue was an option for suits?) with a trademarked screwdriver in each hand. But every time I’d see him at a convention over the years, he’d always make me laugh and, despite how old I get I doubt he’ll ever stop calling me ‘kid’.

Eddie, along with ghostwriter/PhD Dr. Eric Foemmel, has been chronicling his life and times in book form with the series “Tattooing: The Life and Times of Crazy Philadelphia Eddie”. They run like a standard oral history with Eddie narrating his life (and I believe come in audio form as well, read by the author) and are extensively illustrated with amazing photographs from the last hundred plus years of tattoo history.

I picked up volume one from Eddie this weekend at the Philadelphia Tattoo Arts Convention; I’ve skimmed through it with plans to pick up the other available volumes soon.

Here’s a snapshot of Eddie signing my copy of Vol. 1.
Godawful suit, screwdrivers on the table and a ‘here ya go, kid’ when he handed it over. Seems about right….

You can find our more about the book series here: Crazy Philadelphia Eddie.

Rick Lohm just rolled these bad boys out at the Philly tattoo convention; 22″x28″ split Porkchop sheet with Eric Zona for the low low price of $80. Can’t get tattooed at the convention? You can still walk away with something awesome. Swing by the Lohm/Halo booth and say hi.

Just in time for Lincoln’s Birthday… Honest Abe shooting lasers of truth.
A new OV shirt!
Featuring art by Rick Lohm from Halo in Syracuse on a grey and black ringer tshirt printed in Philadelphia by the awesome dudes at Awesome Dudes. Sizes Ladies Large through XL.

$20, but if you use this code at checkout, you’ll get 15% off: beard
(Abe was the first US President with a beard)

OVShop.

Today has been a comedy of errors at the OV Central.
Having set my alarm clock in the middle of the night, I neglected to switch from PM to AM. With the curtains pulled tight and my sleeping greyhound next to me…. 11:00am came and went and my plans to spend the morning at the gym transmuted into laying in bed with the very same sleeping greyhound and goofing around on tumblr while watching Spike’s Ink Master episode three.

Ink Master was, as you could imagine, terrible.
I try not to dwell on the negative, but with so much fuel being added to the reality tattoo fire, it’s sometimes hard not to. The banter back and forth between Nunez and Billy Vegas about Baku teeth should have been when I stopped watching. At least there was some satisfaction when this week’s artists was cut.

The day hasn’t been a total waste though; I ran across some work by Sweden’s Joel Madberg on tumblr and he’s been kind enough to allow it to go up here on OV. Joel works at Salvation Tattoo, which you can find more about here.

My first exposure to Voodoo and it’s Loa came from a relatively odd source; as a subplot in the 1986 William Gibson novel ‘Count Zero’. I tracked down a VHS copy of Maya Deren’s ‘Divine Horsemen’ shortly after. The familiarity and closeness Voodoo have with their Gods/Loa fascinated me, with each Loa having their own sigil or Vévé to identify them.

This one, a super clean tattoo by Mr. Michael Bennett, is for Erzulie. She comes in many aspects- Maîtresse Mambo Erzulie Fréda Dahomey, Erzulie Dantor and a host of others, all different incarnations based on the needs of her followers.

You can find out more about Erzulie here: Wiki.
You can find more work from Mr. Bennett here: Child the Peacemaker.

And finally, you can watch ten minutes of Deren’s film here:

My Secrets are meant for only the worthiest of ears.

Another fine tattooer to look up at this years 2012 Philadelphia Tattoo Arts Convention; Mr. Ron Henry Wells. If you’ve been following his Facebook lately you’ve no doubt seen the amazing sheets of flash he’s preparing for the Philly show; even if getting tattooed isn’t in your forecast it would still behoove you (yes. I just said behoove) to swing by Ron’s booth and see what goodies he has for sale.

You can contact Ron about availability through his blog: The Laughing Hyena.