Washington Post Book Review: Tattoo Machine
In addition to the interwoven account of how the author survived a messed-up youth (which included crime) to become co-owner of the Sea Tramp, the oldest tattoo parlor in Portland, Ore., and a brief but very interesting history of the business and how it works, Mr. Johnson delivers a virtual cornucopia of rogues and rascals. He portrays the artists, both good and bad, and their customers, good, bad and very bad, all of it with a rollicking brio that is often contagious.
Mr. Johnson writes, “Every tattoo has a story. Every cover up has two.” What is an artist to do if he or she, heaven forbid, misspells a word or, worse, a name? It happens more than you’d think, apparently. Even Mr. Johnson has done it, as he tells us in one particularly funny but scarifying account.
Ever wonder exactly who — other than a vast number of young people these days — gets tattooed? Buy and read “Tattoo Machine,” and you’ll learn that Mr. Johnson has inked the skin of “professional athletes, nervous coeds, age-defying moms, newlyweds and sociopaths.” And you thought it was just you.