best tattoo i did not get

[shaneenholm]

I was lookin at your lists in the blogs of who has tattooed you and I have two lists..ones from years ago,like bob shaw,etc and ones newer like mike wilson....

Any how the biggest regret i have is i had a chance to get tattooed by greg irons and....PASSED!!!!!!!!!!! thats right...PASSED!!!!!!!!( i may have told this story elsewhere)

I was visiting SF I think it was 82...and we were up there on broadway and greg was working the night shift at deans and he was putting a dragon off the wall on a friend of mine and i was making time with this chick so we went for a walk to a park below broadway like kinda behind the mabuhay gardens and i started picking her locks and never made it back to the shop!!!!!!!!!

Of course hindsight is 20 20....and you know....regrets...like trading some PR machines for a set of rare books in 85....losing a 57 goldtop les paul to a pawnshop for 100.00 that hangs in freedom guitar with a 10,000 dollar pricetag...all that was material things...but that tattoo...well that is the pinnacle of regrets for me....I would still have it today....

I cannot even remember the girls name.....

[Dean Schubert]

great story .

[chrisorr]

dang.....i used to work for jack cox here in kansas city....he has a killer girls head on his gut that greg irons did....i always loved looking at that thing

[mario desa]

mine is everyone's biggest regret...higgs. met him once, but never got tattooed.

[Dean Schubert]

Once people quit tattooing, or in rock n roll die, they become more desirable due to the "unobtainable factor" Never got tattooed by Dan Higgs either but lived and worked close to him and met him on more than one occasion. So I guess I didn't want one that bad. And back then Higgs was an anomaly rather than an unobtainable ghost leading a pack of confused newbies looking for a place in tattooing. No offense to anyone on that. we all start somewhere knowing nearly nothing.

[Dean Schubert]

Greg Irons- the new school of 1980. Thanks for swiss cheese water! I love it and I wear it. (although grime did the work) Still trying to finish my 80's-90's style bodysuit Ha Ha. Sticking with the theme even though I'm mostly over it.

[dari]

In 1989, before I had any tattoos or the ability to drink legally in the US, I found myself at Hanky Panky's shop in Amsterdam. I was a bit crazy as a kid, sampling everything the Red Light district had to offer, with the exception of the ladies. (No judgement here, if I were a dude I most certainly would've gone for that too.) This was actually the first shop I ever set foot in, and decided that I wanted the pyramid with the eye on the base of my spine. (Yeah, I know, 'tramp stamp" - as if I had a choice!) While I was getting my nerve up, my friend started talking to me, "Are you sure you want that? There's so much meaning behind that symbol, you should read blah-blah-blah and blah-blah-blah before you commit to something like that..." and he talked me out of it. When we got back to SF, I read all the books, and he went to Erno to get it tattooed on him. It was about 8 years later when I finally got my first tattoo. Although I wished I'd gotten that one, it's probably better that I waited to break the ice, god knows what I would've ended up with through the 90's when I was broke and had this hanging on my wall-

[Bunny Switchblade]

mine is everyone's biggest regret...higgs. met him once, but never got tattooed.

I will second or third that!

Could have, should have, didn't!

He is still around town I hear!

I did get to see Lungfish though!

There are a few others like Pinky I would have liked to have been tattooed by!

I have Dennis Watkins' second to last tattoo (my son has his last).

It was when Dennis passed that i realized I needed to maybe add some of the

guys to my collection that might not be tattooing very much longer!

Dave Gibson sent me a wonderful list of people with 30+ years in the craft and I

am slowly trying to chip away one by one at that list as I can!

But Higgs would have been an easy one to get....but I dropped the ball there!

[fredriksson]

I was fortunate enough to get tattooed by Dan while he was here.and scrub his tubes! ha!

[dari]

I did get tattooed by Dan, but I was just in the right place at the right time, I wasn't seeking him out, just hanging out in a shop. He was visiting SF and doing some rad designs on a friend, I was waiting in the lobby and getting bored. I got an idea to put an eye in my palm and asked him if he would do it when he was dome working on her. He looked at me funny for a minute, then agreed. When he was done, he showed me his matching one. I still have it, it's in there DEEP.

[mario desa]

i was always a higgs fan, and wanted one from him since i started, i just took it for granted that he'd be around. i did see lungfish a couple of times and was lucky to see the pupils!

[fredriksson]

I'd say about 98% of the people getting tattooed by him when he was working in Seattle were getting one because he was in Lungfish.

[mario desa]

the first time i saw lungfish, they opened for fugazi. it was a few years before i tattooed and a few months before i even got my first tattoo. it wasn't until later that i realized the connection.

[Bunny Switchblade]

I was at Electric tattoo in New Jersey a few weeks back getting tattooed and they had

some of Dan's flash in their main rack on the wall! I so wanted to get one of those pieces

added to me that day but I almost feel like I shouldn't....lol.

It's weird I guess!

[hambone]

Once people quit tattooing, or in rock n roll die, they become more desirable due to the "unobtainable factor" Never got tattooed by Higgs either but lived and worked close to him and met him on more than one occasion. So I guess I didn't want one that bad. And back then Higgs was an anomaly rather than an unobtainable ghost leading a pack of confused newbies looking for a place in tattooing. No offense to anyone on that. we all start somewhere knowing nearly nothing.

haha..that is one of the best things i have heard in a looong time..i get to stare at a higgs piece everyday i go to work...unfortunately its on the boss man and not me. i have too mant to list..most have been from conventions i have gone to(not working) but have been broke and just enough $$ to get airfare/hotel/meals and some books/shirts. there is definitely a few on this forum i want work from..hopefully we will cross paths in the near future so that can happen.

[hogg]

My story is a combination of first tattoo and best tattoo I did not get. I got my first tattoos when I was 20. Like most 20-year-olds, I was painfully dumb. I lived in Austin and heard from my heavily tattooed friends that Mike Malone was coming to town and that if I wanted to get tattooed, I should get work from him because he's world class. So I booked my appointment with one of the best traditional artists to ever zap a tatt...and I got a pair of Borneo rosettes from him.

It gets worse: I requested them in green. Whoever said that everyone gets the tattoo they deserve sure had his thinkin' cap on tight that day. I can say that I got my first tattoos from Rollo--in a motel room, at that--and that it was a great experience (those of you who are fortunate enough to have met him know what I mean), but man, of all the BULLSHIT to get from him!

[A.Sanchez]

Higgs, I had my name on the wait list during his last visit to Tattoo City before he quit and my broke ass didn't have any money to get to work done. I was high on the wait list and i gave up my spot.

[dari]

It gets worse: I requested them in green. Whoever said that everyone gets the tattoo they deserve sure had his thinkin' cap on tight that day.

My first tattoo was done by a friend at his house. I was once young and dumb enough to show it to Jack Rudy. He said "He was your FRIEND?" Anyway, it worked out, I married the handsome devil who was kind enough to cover it for me many years later.

I'm a yoga teacher, and just like tattooers, there are more and more of them every day. When one of my teachers, Dharma Mittra was questioned about this, he said something like "Not everyone deserves a good teacher."

[Deb Yarian]

Though I certainly like a beautiful tattoo, for me it is more about the person that does it ( and that can go either way) a great person doing a mediocre tattoo means more to me than the reverse.

I wish I had gotten tattooed by my dear friend and mentor Paul Rogers. I was honored to have tattooed him, but in retrospect I wish it had been the other way around.

[irezumi]

I was lucky enough to get a Higgs zap while living in Baltimore, but back then I had no idea he was going to be so unavailable after that; would've gotten more.

Best tattoo I did not get was from Rollo. Was visiting Minneapolis in 99 or 2000 cant remember which, and my friend who know him well took us to Aloha where I met Mike & Keith. Super nice guy, Mike was more than gracious in letting me go through boxes and boxes of crazy old China Sea stuff, and a few books with all kinds of drawings, tracings,and stencils from Jerry. Saw a LOT of stuff that has never seen the pages of any book or magazine or printed anywhere. Shared some good stories as he was tattooing some chick, and smoked a cigar with his gloves on hahaha. He reminded me of a big ol tattooed cigar smoking Santa.

Having only 250$ to spend, I had a tough choice in front of me. Get a zap from Mike, or get some rad artwork. I figured I'd get the art this trip, and a zap on the next trip. I bought the stencil of a snake with Jerry's head wrapped around a broad holding a fan in front of her face, and a lil seahorse drawing he did.

By the time I was up in MPLS next, it was '02 when I was moving there to work at a shop, but I believe Rollo had already moved away by the time I had dough saved after moving up there.

One of many highlights was to watch him paint, and also getting to look at a lot of the originals for the blackeyes book, but at the time had no idea they were being painted for publication.

I don't think I regret not getting tattooed; I absolutely love what I bought. I just wish I could've gotten both.

[Joe Shit]

Tim Hendricks was guesting at Kings Avenue,and i drove up there,and put a deposit down for a portrait of my Mom.Well,a few weeks later,and the voices in my head talked me out of it,and i drove back and got my deposit.I ended up getting it done by another artist,and wasn't that happy the way it turned out.Bottom line is-don't listen to the voices in your head.