Wherein Father Panik talks about the orgins of Fun City Tattoo and other unseemly things.

When I meet Jonathan Shaw for the first time he's standing on an Avenue A corner handing out flyers, trying to drum up tattoo business.  

He's new in town and it’s not like he can just hook up a neon sign in the front window of his shop. It’s 1990 NYC. Tattooing is illegal.

Later when he became famous, it would cost $50 just to get an appointment with the illustrious Jonathan Shaw. But for now, he’s just another street corner hustler, elbowing out sidewalk space from the hookers and Flaco the dope man.

This is the birth of Fun City.

He hands me a flyer and tells me he’s tattooing in the east village. We strike up a conversation and he invites me to hang out at his studio.

So I do.

Later I realize that he was setting up a complex trap that would end up with me handing over my money and getting a tattoo. That sinks in long after my modern primitive tribal tattoo heals.

He's serpent smooth. He can see right into your soul. Talk the money right out of your wallet and you'll thank him for it. His game is always on. No move without thought of a score. His game runs so deep that deciding who pays for coffee becomes a Kasparovian duel.

Now, here's the thing. Jonathan Shaw is an asshole.

The most charming, interesting talented knowledgeable asshole you can ever hope to meet.

He can tell you stories of dinner with Bensonhurst wiseguys, riding with biker hit men, trading with jungle tribes in Brazil. Bangkok brothels.

But still. Asshole. Big time.

So I end up in Fun City getting a tattoo.

Fun City is an armor plated fortress.

The windows of the ominous storefront are welded shut with black diamond plate steel.  No signs or marks indicate what’s happening on the other side of the iron gate that protects the front door.

Inside it’s like a satanic warlords trophy room. Art and artifacts that stand more as warning rather than decoration. Human shrunken heads in a jar. Skulls everywhere. A Robert Williams painting of a WW2 Nazi officer torturing a young barely dressed blond. There is an original portraitof JS drawn by R. Crumb, a letter on the wall from a national tattoo organization kicking him out of their club because they don’t like him.

 Weapons are everywhere, strategically placed within his arms reach. The pistol grip of a street sweeper pokes out from under his desk. The grip of something scary sticks out between a couple of books on a shelf. A knife as big as your fucking arm  under a coffee table. This is some serious voodoo.

Jonathan Shaw does not fuck around. You will pay for your tattoo.

So. My 1^st Shaw piece.

Black tribal of course. It seems that was the only kind of tattooing that existed in 1990 NYC. It's his signature style. Wary of copycats, he likes to sign his work. If you are not alert you can end up with Jonathans name tattooed on your arm.

We take a break from the tattoo and I go to the bathroom.

In the bathtub next to the toilet are clusters of used tattoo needles, black ink running into the drain.

They are being cleaned for reuse.

This is illegal tattooing and I’m good with it. For me, this is how tattooing is supposed to be. Dangerous. For a certain hard living breed. Dermagraphic boutiques are for 'Frisco, for kids with credit cards. For pussies.

FTW is our creed.

God, sometimes I’m such an idiot.

After the tattoo we strike up a friendship of sorts and I start to hang out at the studio. We drink coffee and talk shit all night.

Fun City was an outlaw salon. Famous actors, painters, writers, musicians all make the scene. Oscar winners, dope dealers. Philosophizing, planning scores.

I learn about tattooing and other unsavory acts.

A high ranking 1%er schools me on the importance of club colors, how to pose as a Dr and order really cool stuff from medical supply shops.

One night it’s Jim Jarmusch talking about the fine art ofpicking up Puerto Rican chicks. Another night it’s painting and hot rods with Robert Williams. Really sick shit with Joe Coleman. Iggy Pop comes and goes. Hells Angels talk photography and publishing. The patois shifts from English to Portuguese to French to Street.

The soundtrack is the buzz of a tattoo machine.

This illegal renaissance created by an asshole tattooartist.

Still, he is capable being a good guy.

One night a gangbanger from the hood complains about a tattoo artist in Brooklyn who gave him a bad tattoo. He is going to kill him. JS talks him out of it. Explaining that nearly everybody has at least one or two bad tattoos. It's part of the process.

Later JS tells me "It's not good to encourage people to kill tattoo artists."

But there are other stories. The legends. Like this one.

A new, very talented, young artist is working out of an apartment down the street from Fun City. He soon moves to San Francisco. Rumors float of a message being delivered. "Stop tattooing or your fingers will be broken so that they heal like a claw".  

It doesn’t matter if it’s true or if the young artist even existed. We never hear JS tell it. Others whisper it and that’s enough.

Truth is smoky. Slippery.

It was a time of tall tales and ghost stories.

That’s why we all ended up at Fun City.

If you want truth you came to the wrong place.

We came to Fun City for ink and blood.

We came to create legends.

So I have an idea. A lot of people within the tattoo community are upset about the new show coming out on TLC called Tattoo School.This show follows some lady who gives people a two week crash course in tattooing for about $5000 and teaches them to do horrible tattoos on people within two weeks. There are online petitionsgoing around and facebookpages dedicated to stopping the airing of the show. I don't think TLC is going to pay any attention. I've been trying to think of what would matter. I guess that's the worst part of this whole situation is feeling so out of control. Many of us have dedicated years to tattooing and we really care about the industry. We care about how it's represented, we care about what happens to tattooing and we hate to see it falling into such bad hands. The tattoo industry is being raped and pillaged by a TV network that doesn't care about any aspect of the art or the community.  They don't care about us or what we think.

Here's where my idea starts. TLC does care about the shows that have been successful for them. They care about the people who have made those shows successful. Kat VonD, Ami and the rest are big TV stars now but ultimately they started out as people who loved tattoos and got into tattooing to be tattoo artists, not to be TV stars. That wasn't an option, or something that anyone would have thought about in their wildest dreams a couple years ago. I'm guessing that they are as appalled as the rest of us about this new twist in programing. I know that they have all signed contracts. I know that they've probably become quite used to their new paychecks and fancy hourly rates since they've become TV personalities. But maybe somewhere deep down inside they know how wrong this is and they know that they should stand up for the industry that's served them more than they ever could have expected to have benefited. 

It is no good appealing to TLC, an entity that cares nothing about us, a company that is deaf to any of our concerns. Instead call on the ones who CAN speak up on our behalf. The only ones who hold any power, the ones who came from our ranks and but for an unexpected twist of fate would still be where we are now. 

AMI JAMES, KAT VON D and supporting cast. It's time to give something back. It's time to protect the industry that got you where you are now. You know this isn't right. You know it goes too far. TELL YOUR BOSSES AT TLC THAT THE WHOLE THING SUCKS. TELL THEM TO STOP. 

Maybe if some of the people on these shows feel some of the heat for supporting (even second hand) this terrible idea something will change. I know it's too much to hope for that NY Ink and crew would all stand together on this but it's a nice thought. These are people that had to work hard to be tattoo artists. They worked hard to learn how to tattoo. Tattooing was worth it to them once upon a time. I would hope tattooing is still important to them more so than being stars on really bad reality TV.

Tell Ami what you think of him supporting TLC on Facebook and Twitter.

Tell Kat what you think of her.

ANYONE WHO LOVES TATTOOING THAT COLLECTS A PAYCHECK FROM TLC SHOULD STAND UP FOR WHAT IS RIGHT.

In case you haven't heard TLC is launching yet another tattoo TV show . This one goes where no show has gone before!!!! It's groundbreaking! it's controversial! Or to anyone who's been in the business a while it's really, really depressing, or infuriating, or appalling or some combination of dread, anger, shock. I can't even wrap my head around it. Who knew it could ever come to this. It's called Tattoo School .

Suffice to say people are FREAKING OUT. There's even an online petition to protest the airing of the show, along with Facebook pages, and blog posts . These protest are really cute and it's fun to pretend that TLC cares even a little bit for our industry or what we think. People are proclaiming it's the end of tattooing, it will spawn a Hep epidemic it will put everyone out of business.....It does make me sad.  Tattoos used to be pretty tough but these days? Not so much. That ship has sailed and the tattoo genie has officially been let out of the bottle it can never be stuffed back in. There's always been people willing to sell out and artists freaking out about others willing to cross the line. Read Sailor Jerry's letters about Lyle Tuttle. Huck Spaulding would sell anyone a tattoo kit. He was the one who published Tattooing A to Z. More recently there's Brandon Bond peddling those stupid DVD's and now we have Lisa Fasulo. Is it a terrible thing? Yeah kind of. It sucks to see the things you love get trampled on by people who don't care. But is it a tragedy? It's kind of a tragedy to see our industry get swallowed up by the modern age. Does this show make a difference? Not so much.

We got sold out a long time ago. Tattooing is forever changed. No matter how "old school" you want to be you're stuck right here with the rest of us. I'm glad I started when I did. I'd hate to be just now starting out with the rest of the Johhny come latelies. Tattooers are like rockstars these days but shows like Tattoo School are doing their best to turn them in to hairstylist. It will probably only get worse.

At the same time Tattoo School is nothing new. All this information is already out there. There are books, DVDs and videos on Youtube. People have always been willing to sell apprenticeships and tattoo schools have been around for a while, including the one on TLC. If this show hurts anyone we can only hope it will hurt miss Lisa Fasulo. Why pay for the cow when you can get the milk for free (on TV)?  Seeing the results on her website her students are not much better off than if they had served their apprenticeships in the state penn. $4,800 and that's the best she's got? Shame on anyone who hands her money after seeing results like that. She condemns people practicing in their kitchen yet that's exaclty what she's turning her grads loose to do. Those are some hurting tattoos there Lisa. I could go on and on. I think I know what my next blog post wil be......

We have a new tattooer. His name is Bern . Just what we needed, someone who can pump out killer, huge Japanese style work and handle portraits as well. 

The tale of Bern is a savage one. It started on June 26th , in the year of our lord 1976. This was the day he was spit from his mother’s womb into this world kicking and screaming covered in blood and guts on the shores of Portland Maine. It’s rumored he then crawled across the land and scribed his name in the sand with a clam shell. This would be the beginning of his career as a notorious and infamous graffiti artist. After years of mastering graffiti and various other art forms, He attend the Maine College of Art. After graduation Bern grew tired of life in Maine, well that and it was reported he’d run out of things to write his name on in New England.



So our hero set on the road to further infamy in the Midwest. He settled in Columbus with other members of his crew of rejects from the isle of misfit toys. In 2000 he began a some what turbulent apprenticeship at Columbus Ohio’s All City Tattoo. This would turn out to be the perfect career path for an antisocial passive aggressive vandal of Berns caliber. After all what greater high could a graffiti addicted paint fume loving bastard get than seeing his art adorning people’s bodies for the rest of their lives. No need to worry about the buff in this field. Plus graffiti just wasn’t paying the bills.



After learning all he could learn from his epidermal art sensei. Bern again hungered for bigger and better things. In 2002 he would move to NYC and begin a six year tenure at the legendary Tattoo Seen in the boogie down Bronx. This would be where our hero would hone his skills to perfection. In 2008 he bid farewell to Seen and began working at Rising Dragon up until his move to Daredevil Tattoo this July 2011.

We got some sad news at the shop this week.  Our friend, Joe "Polack" Timinsky passed away. Joe started coming into the shop back when we first opened around 1998.  Another friend of ours had brought Joe in to get tattooed. He was helping Joe turn his life around. Joe had a bunch of old work from Tony Polito that we re-worked for him and pretty soon Joe was coming in at least a few times a week to get tattooed. He ended up getting a full body suit of work done in the shop. Joe had (I think) 165 1/2 squirrels tattooed on him. Yes, Squirrels. It all started as a joke between him and Scott Bruns. Joe would come in for a skull or pin-up or something and Scott would always say, "Why don't you get a nice squirrel?" And they would laugh. Until Joe shocked us all one day by saying he was ready, he wanted a big squirrel....on his NECK. We were stunned. The two of them were laughing so hard at the absurdity of a squirrel tattoo and Scott drew such funny squirrels that Joe came back for yet another squirrel. Then another, and another....until he had an entire backpiece of Squirrels of the Apocalypse. For real. There was a heaven and hell filled with squirrels.

Joe became a regular fixture and started helping out how ever he could. This was back when we had to make our own needles and scrub our own tubes so any one looking to voluteer for that kind of work was welcome to hang out. Joe was not exactly artistically gifted so he wasn't the type of person we would normally offer an apprenticeship to. But he stuck around, helping out however we needed, no complaining and happy and grateful to have a new "home" off the streets. We liked Joe, he was friendly, had a big heart and we were happy to see him on the straight and narrow and happy that we had helped him get to a better place. At some point he picked up a tattoo machine and we offered him guidance. It was the least we could do for our friend who had put in so much time doing our dirty work at the shop for us. Eventually Joe found a job at Andromeda on St. Marks. We couldn't believe it! He made it he was a real deal tattooer. Joe saved his money, kept putting it away and at some point Andromeda was for sale and Joe bought the shop! He married a sweet Polish girl and was on top of the world. Sadly the story changed, he hadn't been doing as well of late and our friend passed away this week.  I'm glad we had the time with him that we did. I'm glad that Joe found so many friends among us. Many people don't last long enough. We're sad to see him gone.

There's a service for Joe today, Wednesday the 29th at the Hugh A. Reid funeral parlour. 153 Greenpoint Ave, Brooklyn. 2:00-5:00 pm and 7:00-9:00pm

In the picture is C-Jay, Joe, James O'brien, and Scott Bruns at the NYC Tattoo Convention. Not sure what year probably 1999 or so.