FEATURE ARTICLE — March 1999
SUPPLIER DEBATE
THE GREAT MIAMI SUPPLIER DEBATE
SKIN & INK VISITS CROWE AND DWYER'S TATTOO TOUR
By Bob Baxter
It's always a pleasure to attend a J.D. Crowe, Dennis Dwyer event. The site, the refreshments, the atmosphere is always professional and rewarding. Now, keep in mind, I am not a big fan of Miami. To me, Miami has two kinds of weather: hot and humid, and hot, windy and humid. Give me California with no humidity and cool nights during the summer. But that doesn't detract from the Eden Roc event and Crowe and Dwyer's expert planning. It wasn't a elbow-to-elbow, raucous show, to be sure, but an excellent time for major artists from all over the world to spend a little down time and bond. I love ya, man!
As usual, Dianne Mansfield was photographing every move and I was schmoozing with the tattoo elite and getting ready for the Great Tattoo Equipment Debate, which was planned for Saturday evening. I had sent out a pile of invitations to major equipment suppliers and some respected members of the tattoo community who might have something to say on the position that Skin & Ink does not accept tattoo equipment supply ads on its pages. This, as you might guess, has ruffled more than a few feathers. But, instead of arguing the case from one side or the other, I decided to create a forum of representatives from both sides and let them give their opinions. In other words, let the chips fall where they may.
Although I have decided not to publish supplier ads, I feel that both sides have the right to be heard. I hope this opens up a debate in future issues of Skin & Ink, because, no matter what I think, the purpose of this magazine is to reflect the entire community, not just a narrow constituency. In that spirit, we welcome anyone who has something to say on the matter to write us.
I might add that I sent out over 16 invitations and expected a crowded room, but no dice. Perhaps many of those invited did not want to rub their fellow shipmates the wrong way. I can understand that. But, of those who participated, I was pleasantly surprised at how articulate and how interesting their comments were. Believe me, I wanted to be objective in setting up this debate, but I would have been a great deal happier if more people had showed up. Maybe when you read the following conversations you will join the discussion. Here's to that!
—Bob Baxter, Editor in Chief
BOB BAXTER (Editor, Skin & Ink Magazine): The reason we're here today is for a feature in Skin & Ink Magazine. I would like to begin a discussion on the ethical stand that Skin & Ink has taken, specifically the decision that we do not accept tattoo suppliers ads in the magazine. The reason that I instituted this rule is that the key tattoo industry people said they would rather not participate in my magazine unless I banned equipment ads. The first person I spoke to for help—I was referred by Joe Vegas—was Chuck Eldridge in Berkeley, California. I was told Chuck knew a lot about the business. He operated Tattoo Archive and the Paul Rogers Tattoo Research Center, plus Chuck had been a regular contributor to Hanky Panky's magazine, Tattoo World. I felt that, Chuck would be a wonderful ally in establishing the focus of the magazine. So I called him and he said he would love to help me. It sounded great and he couldn't wait, but Chuck added that he would not support a magazine that featured tattoo supply ads. I said okay, and went to Larry Flynt with the ultimatum. Mr. Flynt said that cutting out the suppler ads would cost the magazine over $60,000 a year in advertising revenue. I said that I understood, but, unless the suppler ads were removed, he wouldn't have me as the editor. Two days later, Mr. Flynt got back to me and said I could do whatever I needed to do to make Skin & Ink the best possible tattoo magazine. So, thanks to Mr. Flynt's support, our ethical stand has been that we don't sell supplier ads. We do take piercing supplies and products, but, to me, tattooing and piercing are two different worlds. And, although, I have heard some interesting arguments regarding the similarities, editorially, Skin & Ink has decided to focus on one thing; tattooing and keep our noses out of the piercing scene.
CHUCK ELDRIDGE (Tattoo Archive): The reason I have this feeling about the supplier ads is mainly—and it grows stronger actually everyday—is that every competitive magazine that I see, except Skin & Ink, is now full of color ad photographs, sometimes two pages back-to-back, of starter kit ads. It reinforces my opinion more every issue. I mean 20 years ago when this feeling came on me and this opinion came on me about advertising, the peril I saw was that the suppliers would promote their products in a starter kit form to, of course, the amateur tattooer, and would sell all the necessary equipment except the most important item; the sterilizer. The autoclave. The important piece of the equipment that enabled the artist to work clean, regardless of whatever their artistic ability. I don't want to be the art police. All I would ask of anybody coming into the business regardless of their technical talent is that they would work clean. It seems pure common sense that, if you're going into a business and you have any long-term view of staying in this business for awhile, that you would want to safeguard the most volatile issue in this business. And the issue that could bring the whole thing crumbling down in a drastic way would be to have a major hepatitis epidemic or worse, which is possible if the people are not working clean. That's obvious enough. As it goes on it seems like the suppliers become more and more callous to this whole issue. I mean it. Somehow they almost see themselves detached from the business and they have more disregard for the safety. Now it's to the point where the suppliers are offering stencil-makers with starter kits and still no autoclave. It borders on the ridiculous. This is my bone of contention. It's totally from a health standpoint. It's foolish to think anybody could stop a young person from getting tattoo equipment and becoming a tattoo artist. That's not really something that we should even want to try to do. We should realize that this influx of artists coming in the business now from art schools is going to be the life blood of the business in the years to come. It's like a whole new injection of energy, which is tremendous. These people should learn from the very beginning that they need to work clean because it's just going to safeguard everything for us. If we can keep our bill of health good as far as the non-spreading of disease, then our business can continue to grow. And how the suppliers can overlook this, obviously comes down to greed. The autoclave would become the single most expensive item in the starter kit. I think it's just pure greed and I wish I had some master plan for a solution to that. I don't think there is one. There's obviously no way to pressure the suppliers. I think the country is too big to get unified into a single voice that would have enough clout to put real pressure on the suppliers. I don't know what the solution is, but I do see that as the problem. That's my feeling. It's purely from the health standpoint. I think the young talent coming in is great.
DENNIS FLORES (Captive Ink, Tattoo and Piercing Supplies): I agree with you. In fact, we've just had an updated catalog come out and we've taken out—well, we used to sell used and tested autoclaves. We've taken that out because I just feel that if you're going to buy an autoclave, buy a new one. What we've found out in the last couple years is that people are buying used ones. They just keep using them and they're not testing them. A lot of times when I do sell a used one, I'll call them back and ask, "Have you been spore testing it? Do you need to buy a spore test kit?" I don't call them for the sale. I call them after the fact, because I want to make sure that autoclave is working. The majority of the people that I call back said that they can't afford it or just can't do it. I'm not going to sell used autoclaves anymore. I've tried to do the best I can do as far as screening customers and we are pretty strict. People have told me that I am. You know, I'll be honest, some people have gotten around the system, and we've shipped stuff out to people who weren't in a shop, but we've cut them off. I try to be as ethical as I can. We currently advertise in Tattoo Magazine and International Tattoo Art Magazine and in our new ad that's coming out, we state "professional shops only." What we usually ask people to do when they call us is to send a copy of the business license and a copy of the yellow page ad, if possible. If they can't get that, we want a tax return that shows that they have a shop. We literally turn people away all day long. We're not into it for the quick sale. I'm into it for the long-term business. I flew 3,00 miles from California especially for this meeting. I was invited to this meeting. Bob invited me a couple of months ago and I came here today to be involved in doing the right thing. I came for the convention to meet a few people. A few of my customers are going to be here, but I actually came for the meeting. That's my whole premise for being here. I flew in last night at midnight and I'm leaving tomorrow morning. We don't sell kits. When people call us and ask us for a kit, we tell them flat out that we don't sell kits. After we screen them and, if we do sell to them, we tell them that we sell the individual components. We don't sell any kind of starter kit. We're pretty good. We try to be as strict as we can and take it from that premise. And that's all I really have to say about that. I've found out from some of my customers that a lot of companies don't even do that when people order supplies. I don't know if there's any way we could get around it, like you were saying, organizing a little better. Perhaps we suppliers could get the shops to kind of push for better methods. I don't know what the next process is, but you know we do try to work on different things like that.
JACK RUDY (Goodtime Charlie's Tattooland, Anaheim, California): First and foremost, everything that Chuck Eldridge says goes double for me. In addition to that, I feel that suppliers in magazines ultimately hurt the business, especially, of course, the starter kits ads with the suppliers that are advocating that. The ads are not aimed at the professional whatsoever. If you were to lose all your equipment in a fire or whatever, you would not go out and purchase a starter kit. You know what you need and that's not it. So obviously these ads are aimed at the untutored, untrained, unskilled individuals. And like Chuck said, it's a matter of greed. It's pure greed, because you're putting potentially very dangerous equipment in the hands of totally unskilled people. And even if someone may be very talented artistically, I don't care what medium they're used to using, tattooing is unlike anything else. There are similarities to pen and ink drawing and pencil, but it's still beyond any of that. Without a proper apprenticeship, a person can be floundering for years trying to figure out how to do it. Then you get the saturation issue. Most major metropolitan areas are saturated with shops and it get worse and worse and worse all the time. The money pie that we all take our slices from gets thinner and thinner. Myself, because I really do a special type of work, it doesn't really affect me directly, but it affects my shop. I just work by appointment and do a specialized custom work. People that want work from me are not going to artists that have starter kits in the first place. But a lot of people don't seem to know any better and ultimately it's even beyond the suppliers. We agree the suppliers don't give a shit about this industry; that are just selling supplies to just any person who has the money. It may not be a crime, but we all know and I think they even know in their heart of hearts, although they won't admit it, it's wrong. You know, it's drug dealer mentality. "Hey I'm just selling it. I can't tell you what to do with it. I don't know what you're going to do with it. I'm just selling it." If you think about it, the bottom line problem is just people. If you walked into a guy's shop or his basement or kitchen or wherever he's set up and you had any bit of common sense whatsoever, you could take one look around and go, hmmm, no autoclave, no flash. This is a completely amateurish operation and say, "Sorry bro, but I'm going to be leaving. I'll see ya later. I'll think about it and I'll come back." You know, no photographs of his work, etc., etc. If more people did that, we wouldn't have such a problem. If people were just educated as to what a good tattoo is and what it isn't. If they were educated on sterile procedures and so forth, it wouldn't be so bad. But people are so artistically ignorant about sterilization and sanitation procedures that somehow the thrill of getting a tattoo just transcends all common sense. Look at all the terrible, terrible pieces that we've all seen over the years and thought, What in the hell was this guy thinking? Was the tattooer more drunk than the tattooee? Or equally, were they just both getting high? You see just such awful terrible shit and you're thinking like, What happened here? You know the guy says, "Well, I was drunk, I was really drunk." Well, it looks like this guy was more drunk than you if he put this on. Well, if it was a perfect world, I guess it would work that way. If people could just take a look and say, "I'm not getting tattooed here. This place is dirty. I don't see an autoclave. The guy has no photos of his work. The price is right, but—" If a guy said, "Hey I notice your nose has been broken a couple of times. Well, I just got my home starter kit for broken nose repair and chin implant. I'll do it for free." You're going to tell the guy, "Thanks, but no thanks."
CE: One of the reasons too is that people don't do that is that because the laws against practicing medicine have got teeth. Just like dentistry; if a guy says, "Hey that tooth flip out on you? I've got my home root canal kit her, I'll do it for nothing." Most likely you're going to say, "Thanks a lot, but I think I'll just go to a pro." Well, why is it different with tattooing? How does that ancient urge to decorate, how does that transcend all common sense, and people just let clowns work on them?
BB: I think an arrogance with many tattoo artists when it comes to their knowledge of the sterile chain of events. They think their shops are sterile just because they own a bottle of green soap, and, as long as they wear rubber gloves, it's okay to pick up the phone or smoke a cigarette. I remember a doctor friend of mine equating the so-called sterile environment of a tattoo studio to having an appendectomy at a tattoo convention. It isn't a sterile environment at all!
NOAH BAXTER (Executive Advertising Director, Skin & Ink): Like he says, I think the major problem is that there's just so many people that don't really know what a good tattoo involves. What good line work is, what good coloring is. What any of that is. What I think this magazine is doing is actually starting to inform people. The problem is that, if you have no advertising dollars coming in, which is largely due to supply ads, then your magazine is dead and you don't have a voice to inform people at all.
CE: Consumer ignorance is rampant.
JR: Back to this saturation thing. I said it doesn't affect me personally, my tattooing, but it does my shop. There's just so many people, there's so many shops. It almost seems that there's as many people putting tattoos on as there are getting them. It seems that way at times, and it's just getting worse. Every time I hear of a shop closing, I'm thinking, "Yeah, there ya go." I mean I hate to say it, but I'm glad because it's just so saturated. If I heard a young person say to me, "I've been tattooing a few years, thought about opening my own shop, but then I stepped back and looked at the big picture. I would just be contributing to the problem because where am I going to go that's unsaturated, that's unspoiled, that's untapped? If I was lucky enough to find a place like that, how long would it be before I open Pandora's box and then other shops spring up like weeds all around me? So I've decided I'm just going to work for somebody." If and when that day arises, I'd probably have a seizure because artists don't get it. They don't want to hear, because everybody's dream is, "I just can't be a complete artist unless I have my own shop." What a bunch of crap. They all have to find out the hard way; having your own shop is not all what it's cracked up to be. It's a big pain in the ass. You know, with artists coming and going, having to deal with huge egos and the health department and business. They just don't have any idea.
R.J. MUSOLF (Tabu Tattoo, Los Angeles, California): I agree with Jack a lot and Chuck. And Dennis is one of the few suppliers that actually manages to call people anymore. I also sell tattoo machines. In the interview I'd rather not have the name of the machines. I think you guys probably all know who it is. He doesn't advertise at all. His machines are for the trade. I sell to the trade. People come in, they say, "Hey, I hear you sell machines at your shop." Yeah I sell machines. And they ask, "So let me have them other parts. " And I'm reply, "I don't have any other parts." It's good-bye and that's the end of it. What's odd is that I make money doing this and I do the same thing Dennis does. When someone calls and asks to buy a machine, I ask if they work for a shop. If you want to order a machine, send one of your business cards with the name and address of your shop. Why in the hell can't millionaires like Huck Spaulding, Flo, Dermagraphics and the rest of them have an operator pick up the phone, make the orders and simply call back? At least there, you're stopping the movement a little bit. You know, it's a free market society. You cannot completely stop the few....
JR: If somebody wants supplies so bad enough, they're going to get them.
CE: They're going to forge business cards. They're going to forge letterhead.
JR: You want to make it difficult. You just don't want to make it okay, come in, give me your money, just get whatever you want and get the hell out.
R.J: You have got to come in and talk to a weird guy like me and have him look at you real funny. Unless you're a tattooer, you're going to think, "Oh that's that goofy fucking R.J. Just give me your machine." I agree with Jack. In the business what I see happening is over saturation. One of the guys who worked for me, Riley, had the best point I ever heard. he said, "Well, they're so damn ignorant. If you have in the entire city of Los Angeles ten good shops, each shop could have 12 artists all making a good living. That'd be 120 people making a good living plus the owners, even if they only tattooed by appointment." None of them can figure that out. It's always everybody wanting their own shop. Skin & Ink has to be supported. If the artists are not going to support the magazine, someone else is going to have to support it. If they want to keep the magazine in print—well, hell, Larry Flynt has got to get ads. I know Jack's into hot rods and I'm into motorcycles—you don't keep Hot Rod Magazine open with your ad. Pennzoil advertises. So I think, if it does come down to that I wouldn't be opposed to it. I would just want to see ads that were very controlled, like tattoo equipment to the trade. Send business cards, that type of ad. If you have to do an ad at all.
BB: My stand is that I'm not going to accept ads. I'm really not. I don't have an agenda here, and one of the reasons I don't have an agenda is that some of the most difficult advertising space to sell—the back outside and inside covers—are traditionally sold to tattoo equipment suppliers. Because of Noah taking over the advertising duties a couple of months ago, we just sold both of those full-color, full-page spaces to non-suppliers. Because of that, I don't have the pressure I had two months ago. You have a couple of people, certainly Jack, who are very opinionated about the issue. But what if there were a list of ten guidelines that needed to be followed by both suppliers and tattoo artists? And, if these criteria were met, including use of an autoclave, adequate counter space, clean floors and—I don't know what all. If the individual artists signed an agreement that they would meet the criteria, and they were monitored by—the door opens, in comes a Skin & Ink reporter, and we take pictures and do an update type article. That kind of thing. Like giving the shops that meet the criteria the Skin & Ink Seal of Approval. Would that be acceptable to you, Jack? Would that be acceptable to you, Chuck? I'm just throwing something out.
JR: I would rather not see it at all On a different saturation level, look at the amount of suppliers there are now versus what there was 20 years ago. Some magazines are so full of ads and none of them appeal to me. I don't look at them. It's just so cool that there's one good tattoo magazine out there that's not full of supply ads. It's just so refreshing to see cool articles and photos.
BB: I've spoken with Dennis before. Dennis took me in his truck and we drove around town and went to a bunch of his customers' shops. One place had a small counter space for a couple of machines, some needles, and a box of Kleenex. On the left there was a hamster cage and on the right, an iguana cage, both occupied. I said, "Hey, Dennis, if you're going to support this ethical stand about only selling to professional tattoo shops that have a business license, then why are you selling to these people?" And he answered, "Well, I've told them to clean up." I said, "Why don't you tell them you won't sell to them, if they don't clean up?" He said, "I never thought of that. Maybe that's not such a bad idea." So to extend it out, what if this kind of distributor—
DF: Please, I'd like to clarify one thing. I'm not here to argue a case about placing an ad in the magazine. I love the magazine because it doesn't have ads. I told him I actually enjoy the magazine because it's one of the few tattoo magazines I do read. The other ones I just thumb through just look at the ads and the competition. I'm not here to argue the case for putting the ads in the magazine. I'm interested in the magazine. I'm interested in what's going on in the business. If you decide to put ads in the magazine, we'll talk about it. I'm not going to say, okay they're going to do ads, so let's put an ad in there right away. I just want to know what's going on. I appreciate your viewpoint and how you're handling it. I like the fact that there aren't any supply ads in there, but I want to clear it up that I'm not here to argue a point. I'm not here for that.
JR: There's plenty of magazines for you to put ads in.
CE: There's a multitude.
JR: I just thought of something. It's too bad that there's not a trade publication for the trade. It's too bad that there's not, because that would be the vehicle, that would be the forum for suppliers and their ads. They really have no business in a magazine that's primarily geared toward the tattoo public. We like it too, but it's geared toward the tattoo public. All the magazines, whether they mean to or not, still promote the tattoo lifestyle—showing the parties, the conventions. You know, the kind of stuff that makes them say, "Yeah I want to do that. I want the dough, I want the chicks, I want the drugs. I want." There's no way around that. Does anybody know anything about silk-screening? We all more or less have silk screen shirts. I was visiting a friend of mine, his silk-screen place, waiting for him to get off the phone. I see a magazine and pick it up. It's a trade magazine for silk-screening. Not available on the newsstand. Subscription only. No one would even wanted it except people in the business. They have equipment ads only for silk-screeners. I thought why don't we have something like this for tattooing?
NB: I would think the problem with that is, there's only so many people that you can actually sell that kind of magazine to.
DF: You might be surprised. I think that, if you actually sold it directly to the shops, that you would get better sales than at the newsstand. You even old me, Bob, that your subscription sales aren't a big income issue.
BB: No, it's not a big income issue. Look we have a guy who publishes HUSTLER and Skin & Ink, and you tell me which one is going to have more subscriptions. I luckily have not been pressured. But it would sure help if I could pay my writers and photographers what they are worth. If we had supplier ads, it would give me a much better financial base to do these kinds of things. I don't want to be like Hanky Panky who lost his magazine over this very issue. Hey, I hear what you're all saying about the artists. But look, I invited 16 people to this forum and five showed up. I don't know if people would buy a trade magazine. Zeke initially in his column was going to write about things like, "Do I use a six or a four, and how do I mix black to make gray—how much alcohol and how much water?" I was told by some people, "Don't even touch that information. That's trade secret stuff. You don't pass that along in a magazine. You don't do that." I've been warned to keep tattoo artist or professional-focused articles out of the magazine. That's what I was told, and I've been trying to do that. I don't know if it's a good idea, but it seemed to me that shop talk was something to avoid. So, once in a while Zeke will mention about what kind of machine to use or something like that, but we don't get into that too heavily.
JR: Is that from a fear of liability problems?
BB: It's not a fear of liability. It's simply giving the public too much information. It would cause people who aren't in the business to think that they know it all and are authorities on the subject.
JR: If you had a publication like that, it wouldn't be nearly as big a magazine. It wouldn't be as many pages as a normal Skin & Ink. You could have half of that and then you could have a article about how Zeke uses this or that because that is interesting to people that are in the business
BB: I don't think it's a bad idea at all, Jack. I'm just saying that the issue is, if an effort was put into making that kind of project happen, I wouldn't be able to put the necessary energy into Skin & Ink. That's the issue I'm dealing with.
CE: I would love to see the magazine with no suppliers. If push comes to shove and there was some way to do a verification of the person's credentials that had teeth, that really worked, then maybe I could go for the ads in the magazine. I don't know what kind of mechanism it would take to make it work.
JR: You would have to work with suppliers to never sell kits without autoclaves.
BB: Do you, Jack and R.J. and Chuck, buy from suppliers that don't or never have sold kits? Is that part of the criteria when you purchase?
JR: I don't buy from suppliers who sell starter kits.
BB: That's what you do, period?
CE: You know, I see the starter kits as the bane of all this problem. To me, that is a point that you can really focus on because it is a big issue, a big complicated issue. Selling starter kits, to me, is the biggest of all the sins.
JR: Absolutely. Another thing; when a supplier sells a starter kit, you're talking anywhere from $400 to $600. The average professional may not need to spend that much at one time when he's restocking supplies. When the amateur gets that kit, it's really lacking in supplies. He's going to need additional stuff real soon.
DF: Even if he's tattooing in his kitchen
JR: He's going to need more supplies right away. You get subsequent income off this person. The professional does not need to buy $600 worth of stuff at one time because he already has machines and tubes and everything else. You might need a case of gloves or disposable drop cloths, but you don't spend $600 at one time.
DF: You guys have the authority. You know the people running the places that sell the starter kits. Why don't you approach them, to let them know your opinion?
CE: They know our opinion. They've known our opinion for 20 years. It's irrelevant.
JR: I've on Spaulding's top five shit list.
RJ: Another problem out there is that right next to the starter kits are all the lovely pigments you can buy, made by people who don't give a shit.
CE: There are pigments out here that have got floor wax in them. There are polymers that you wax your floor with and acrylics that you put on a canvas. And the trouble is they a drip right into your skin. That's all real lovely because they go in real easy. You don't have to know how to tattoo to put the damn things in. There's a whole other problem with the suppliers and now they've got this other stuff right next to the kits. It's slick and it's neat.
JR: Everything's gotten much easier. Believe or not, once upon a time you didn't have stencil-makers or therma-fax machines. You had to cut them with an electric engraver or by hand on acetate. That was then, this is now.
RJ: I think the magazine is really good, but I just don't think there's any way to resolve it other than forums like this. If more people would get interested—
BB: Let me ask you this; obviously you're a real proponent of not selling ads. However there are people you buy from. What if there were a panel of like-minded people. Let's say you all are the panel of like-minded people, including so-called enlightened suppliers. Anybody that were to tentatively advertise in the magazine must get the like-minded panel's agreement; a unanimous agreement that they would be accepted into the magazine. Would that be all right? Or do you just want to avoid a solution? You know what I'm saying?
DF: The whole point you might run into there is that this panel might give their approval, but who's to say they might change their methods once they get the ad in the magazine, once they get their customer base going.
JR: That's why I would like to, if at all possible, to not see them, because then you avoid all that.
CE: There's no teeth for enforcement.
NB: But at the same time, we inadvertently printed an ad from this one supplier that also sold tattoo equipment. Their ad with us only talked about piercing equipment. Once I found out that they sold tattoo equipment, I got on the phone to my boss right away to let him know. He said, "Okay, they're out." And that was it; we just dropped them.
DF: And I'm sure that would be the case, that people would misrepresent themselves.
JR: Someone will try to get around it. Well, we're selling flash and the next thing you know you hear they're selling a line of supplies.
JR: I believe in Europe that some publications don't have a supply ads. I know there's at least one in Australia. They are against it. There are no supply ads whatsoever.
CE: It's a small enough country that the tattooists can be unified. They could shut down suppliers. They could just come together and say, "We're not buying from this guy," and that guy is out of business.
JR: If all established professionals got together, all established professionals of at least ten years, and said, "We're not buying anything from that big guy in New York," it wouldn't make any difference, because he makes his dough, at least a vast majority, on the starter kits. So it wouldn't make any difference.
CE: Because of the size and scale of the country, it skews the power that the people can have.
JR: Do you remember way back in the day that he said, "I'm going to quit running supply ads for awhile, but I want to see how many people will support me." That was in the seventies. What that really meant was, I'm not satisfied with the amount of professional clientele. I'm not satisfied with that, so I want to expand. I want more and more people to buy my supplies, period. I don't care how it affects the business because I'm not in the business. I'm in the supply business. I'm not in the tattoo business, so I don't care if it turns out like McDonalds and Burger King right across the street from each other. Tattooing is not the same and should never be the same. Of course it was a joke, because there wouldn't be enough people even back then to satisfy that greed. So he just went back to advertising. It was just a short vacation from advertising.
DF: It silenced his critics a little bit is basically what it did.
CE: But it was a joke. It was just like the oil, the so-called gas crisis. There was no crisis. It was manufactured.
RJ: Well, then the other thing is—I don't know if you guys saw this one—there's some outfit in Texas that has an apprenticeship school. I called and pretended to be ignorant. I don't remember the woman's name who I talked to, but she said, "Come on down." Then I told her my name and who I was and said, "You're fucking yourself and you're fucking the business." And she said, "Well, what do you mean?" I said, "If you can't figure it out, then I don't need to talk to you." They had a big ad in one of the magazines. It said, "Tattoo School."
RJ: That kind of stuff is just out of hand. It's ridiculous.
JR: Remember too in the old days when somebody apprenticed you, it was to work for them. You would never get and apprenticeship if that person didn't want you to work in their shop. Whether you started out as a gopher and a helper, and worked your way up to stencil-cutter and talking to people, it was to work in that shop. It wasn't to pay someone $10,000 to be taught this or that. And then that guy is on his way to open a shop down the block or across town. In the old days, the only way you were going to get an apprenticeship was if somebody wanted you to work for them. And that was the whole idea. You didn't actually pay them money. You paid in other ways. Then you ended up working for them and making them a bunch of dough. You know that's how I got in and that's how most people who have been in the business a long time, that's how they got in it too.
DF: Yeah, that's been short-circuited totally.
RJ: We had a guy come to work for us who turned out to be a good kid. He had paid several thousand dollars for an apprenticeship in a shop in LA. The guy who apprenticed him hadn't even been tattooing a year. Luckily this kid stuck with it and after a few years was fine.
CE: It's like the blind leading the blind.
DF: What I hear a lot of times—I visit the shops on a daily basis and what I always hear is people saying they want to own their own shop. "I'm just tired of giving this guy 50%." And I wonder, what are you thinking? You can't own a business and take home 50 %.
CE: I would love to see Skin & Ink magazine with no supplier ads.
JR: I second that motion
RJ: I hope the magazine can go on as it is with no supplier ads. Support the magazine!
DF: I agree. Can you run an article mentioning the fact that you don't want to put supplier ads in there, but you're up against a wall? Maybe you'll get the inner community to support the magazine. Don't make it a little article, though. Put it in bold lettering, Support Our Magazine or Artists Support Us.
JR: Don't make me put supply ads in here. Don't make me do it.
CE: Don't force me to do something I don't want to do.
NB: Maybe if we did a big mock-up of that old Norman Rockwell, U.S. Army "We Want You" poster with Larry Flynt as Uncle Sam.
JR: Right! Don't make Larry come to your house. Support this magazine.
PULL QUOTES
Our ethical stand has been that we don't sell supplier ads.
Bob Baxter, Skin & Ink Magazine
It's foolish to think anybody could stop a young person from getting tattoo equipment and becoming a tattoo artist.
—Chuck Eldridge, Tattoo Archive
What we usually ask people to do when they call us is to send a copy of the business license and a copy of the yellow page ad
—Dennis Flores, Captive Ink
If you were to lose all your equipment in a fire or whatever, you would not go out and purchase a starter kit.
—Jack Rudy, Goodtime Charlie's Tattooland
If you have no advertising dollars coming in, which is largely due to supply ads, then your magazine is dead and you don't have a voice to inform people at all.
—Noah Baxter, Ad Director, Skin & Ink Magazine