Tattoos

Types Of Tattoos -- Old School

THERE USED TO BE MORE SAILORS IN THE WORLD.
(The heyday of classic, old-school tattoos.)
While some men set up comfortable homes in the suburbs and saved for better washing machines and lawn mowers, others set out to see the world through the hopped-up, wild eyes of shore leave. When they got back on the ship they had some stories to tell and some permanent artwork to boot. Back then, the prime tattoo site wasn't an ankle, it was a beefy forearm that informed all casual observers that you'd done things and been places that set you apart from the gray flannel world.

THE OLD SCHOOL MASTER.
If you really want a true classic, you'll have to go back in time and cross the ocean (unless yon live in Honolulu). That's where you'd find a guy with a white tee shirt, an oily grey pompadour and heavily tattooed arms, once known to seamen and still known to tattoo aficionados as "Sailor Jerry." He's the man many see as the father of the deftly crafted, boldly lined, balls-forward Old School Tattoo. The kind fueled by the devil-may-care appetites of men far away from home.

REASONS NOT TO GET A TATTOO.
Hanging in his parlor, Sailor Jerry kept a list of reasons not to get a tattoo. Number five of seven advised, "people will know you are running your own life, instead of listening to them!" Then and now, tattoos offer a way to remake yourself according to your own rules and ideas - the same reason men went to sea in the first place.

SAILOR JERRY STARTED OUT NORMAN.
Sailor Jerry was tagged with the name Norman Collins at birth, but he began to distance himself from normalcy when he was 19 (that's why he became a sailor). He traveled around the world, not only getting his first tattoos, but also gaining exposure to the art and imagery of Southeast Asia. This later became a crucial influence when he opened his first tattoo shop in Honolulu's Chinatown, ground zero for swaggering sailors, drunken soldiers and whoever else wasn't afraid to hang around volatile levels of testosterone.

TATTOOS WERE NOT BORN IN TRENDY NEIGHBORHOODS.
The Honolulu Tattoo district was designed to accommodate a time in men's lives when they drank heavily, paid for women, and imprinted their biceps with pictures solid and resonant enough to last a lifetime. Back then, Chinatown was the only place on the island where a man could get a tattoo, creating fierce competition among the many tattoo parlors.

Roving sailors weren't looking at the nuances of shading and color, they were seeking pictures worth showing off to their buddies back home. Sailor Jerry built his business with bold designs that artfully expressed the mindset of his clientele. When you look at Sailor Jerry's "flash", it's immediately apparent why he spawned the kind of following that made it necessary to begin printing "The Original Sailor Jerry" on all his business cards.