Customizing the Body (PDF file) - Print My Tattoo

73 The Tattooist
(The tattoo artist) gave me my first piece of tattoo equipment
and said that I should go out and purchase the rest of the
equipment and begin to practice on grapefruits. So that's what
I did. I purchased a set of equipment from Spaulding and
Rogers Manufacturers and proceeded to tattoo every goddamn
grapefruit in sight. I had a lot of smelly grapefruits lying
around the house for weeks. I tattooed bananas and
cantaloupes and all sorts of other dishes. I discovered a
technique myself somewhat later that was very rewarding. . .
that was tattooing paper plates. I practiced tattooing a paper
plate without puncturing through the paper so I could learn to
control depth. penetration. speed. I got some understanding of
dot patterns and speed with the machine. I did that mostly all
on my own. 7
The ready availability of one's own skin is tempting to the nov­
Ice. Initiates commonly inscribe their first "live" tattoo on their
own bodies. Because tattooing requires the skin to be stretched
and is. therefore. a two-handed procedure. novices usually do this
first tattoo on their legs. The outcome of this trial self-marking
often Is not altogether satisfactory.
(Do you remember the first tattoo you did?) The first tattoo I
did was a needle job on myself here. It's covered up-a
lightning bolt-a traditional sorcerer's sign of power. I tried It a
couple of times and it just kept messing up 'cause we were
using the wrong kind of ink. I tried it on someone else 'cause
he showed me how. We were just dOing it with needles. Then I
found out that If you wrap the string around three needles that
holds the ink inside. But it gave too thick of a line so I just
went back to using a sharper needle. Myoid man didn't like
the idea. I showed him this one (cross with "Dad") ... the first
one I did with the machine ... and he said. "You asshole." But
he was smiling when he said it. All my friends-no matter how
bad it looked they wanted it. (So you started working on your
friends when you got the machine?) I did it mostly on myself.
On my friends I did a couple of nice ones that I could work
with. That's easier than doing it on yourself 'cause all of the
skin moves.