A Journey Through LA's Counterculture

This raw, unfiltered conversation takes you behind the scenes of tattoo culture's evolution from societal taboo to mainstream acceptance. We explore the journey from first tattoos (a small "tribal sun" at age 50) to deeper immersion in ink culture, while unpacking the loaded terminology and judgments that have historically surrounded body art. 

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Chapters

• 0:00 Meeting on Hollywood Boulevard
• 1:36 First Tattoo Experiences
• 3:31 The "Tramp Stamp" Controversy
• 4:09 Tattoos and Law Enforcement
• 6:12 Hollywood Family Connections

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

I met you. It was close to In an alley. No, it was on Hollywood Boulevard. No Rest my case. The alley came later, but I met you. I think it was seven years ago now.

Speaker 2: 0:17

Maybe Eight years ago. It's hard to believe that COVID was four years ago, so I'm all lost Almost five years ago.

Speaker 1: 0:22

Yeah, it's.

Speaker 2: 0:23

Kind of like, really that was seven years ago, so I'm all lost almost five years ago. Yeah, it's kind of like I'm really.

Speaker 1: 0:25

That was seven years ago I'm looking back on some of these things and it's like, wow, this has been a long time, but I think it was 2017 and at the time, I had a roommate who, uh, wanted to go to this club and she was like you got to get on instagram, you got to do this. And I I'm like, huh what? Yeah, whatever, you know what's Instagram? I'm like whatever this is, and so, anyway, she ended up dragging me out to this club. No pun intended.

Speaker 1: 0:59

And standing on the steps was this guy who had all of these tattoos and all of this stuff and frankly, it was very scary, intimidating, and I ended up going back to the club a few times and we got to talking with each other and somehow you stood out like a sore thumb, like a sore your first year.

Speaker 2: 1:28

A foot taller than everybody else. I am a little bit tall, yeah, and you didn't bother dyeing your hair black or whatever. So like yeah, here's this big woman with blonde hair just walks in right, floating over everybody else. Yes, you, you couldn't be missed.

Speaker 1: 1:46

It was when I first got in there. I was going to admit I was a little intimidated by the whole thing, as everybody is.

Speaker 2: 1:53

When you first went there, you were like what the hell is this? Why do I feel like something's different here?

Speaker 1: 1:59

I was like what is this? It was your first taste of freedom. It really was, and and I had. I will admit I had gotten a couple of tattoos before I got to know you. I I my first tattoo was when I was 50, and it was this little tribal sun on my stomach which really made no sense. But I thought it was like really, wow, incredible, I'm getting tattoo. I love the way you said your stomach. Well, that's where it was. It was between my stomach and just below my belly button and it wasn't that far down, and so I got that. And then I had gotten a tramp stamp that I had designed from some crap I had seen online, you know that's another word that somebody not in the tattoo world made up Really Tramp stamps.

Speaker 2: 2:53

Who made it up? Probably jealous wives. Probably jealous wives, because why? The majority of the people that got it, the girls that got it, were either strippers or young college girls that had this amazing figure and it accented the lower back and that's all it did. And then, somewhere, people that were jealous and haters started calling it a tramp stamp, like trying to put it down. Oh, you have a tramp stamp. You must have been a tramp.

Speaker 1: 3:21

Well, for a lot of time the tattoos were looked down upon by most of society.

Speaker 2: 3:28

That's because people didn't know the history.

Speaker 1: 3:31

And so we've seen a big change over the last 20 years.

Speaker 2: 3:35

That's because the tattooed people took over as the old people died. See, people with tattoos went into the industry and decided, oh, I have tattoos, so I don't have to like conform to all this crap that the generation, two generations before we're doing I mean even still today.

Speaker 1: 3:51

There's still some law enforcement agencies which prohibit which is any display of of tattoos.

Speaker 2: 3:58

Yeah, there's a story about that too in la, and it's my fault, I did the tattoo that got that cop fired and banned, oh no, which made the LAPD put the sleeves on. Oh wow, yeah, it was a picture of his wife naked, with cuffs over her nipples, with his hat on. Oh dude, that was it. Nothing was showing. You couldn't even read the badge number or anything, but some touchy person in the thing got offended, said that that tattoo made people look at her different and she had a shape like me. So there was nothing that they were looking at. But still, I'm not body shaming, but I'm just telling you the story that happened. I'll body shame later. I just you know I can't remember later the. The. I just you know I can remember his name George, something, george, officer, george, whatever. I'm not sure he was a little midget dick, though you know Well, you've tattooed Little.

Speaker 2: 5:00

Irishman cop yeah.

Speaker 1: 5:02

I wonder why You've tattooed a lot of cops, yes, and a lot of sheriffs and federal officials, and no CHPs.

Speaker 2: 5:10

They don't allow it at all. Girl scouts will get that shit before, the CHP will. No, they're just pussies.

Speaker 1: 5:14

So I was at this club you saw me gradually kind of change a little bit and then I thought I need to get a tattoo. That was nice of you. I went down to your shop and I got a picture of you in your shop there with your flash and rates and other things Wow, look, there's barely any gray hair and rates and other things. There's barely any gray hair.

Speaker 2: 5:36

It's my computer work. Yeah, it was. It was a few years ago. Computer, Look at it. All is crown on conspiracy stuff. My computer just decided to fizz away.

Speaker 1: 5:52

And so what do you do to it? I visited your shop and we started working on some tattoos yeah, you had really good ideas. So before we get to, you know my tattoos and all that let's hear a little bit about you well, I went to juilliard.

Speaker 2: 6:08

No, you didn't, um, you're originally. You're originally from la, born and raised in hollywood. I was literally born on romaine, right by gower, literally half a block away from the cemetery.

Speaker 1: 6:20

Oh wow, like that doesn't explain anything did you spend a lot of time there when you were growing up?

Speaker 2: 6:26

no, no, because at like a year and a half we moved to the sunset strip right across the street from rocker ralphs. Oh wow, it says rock and roll ralphs, but nobody called it that back then. It was just Rocker Ralphs, just Rocker Ralphs. Yeah, rocker Ralphs, and your mom was involved in the— my great-grandmother was in the industry.

Speaker 2: 6:44

She was an actress and a singer. My grandmother was in the industry as a model. She tried to be an actress. Didn't work, so she ended up being a taxi dancer. You know what a taxi dancer is? Oh yeah, the dance club. Very low-end prostitute. Ten cents a dance, Ten cents a dance. She didn't put out or anything, but I'm just saying that. And then she went on to more darker things in Hollywood with you know, Mickey Cohen Ah, I remember you telling me about that and Eddie Nash if people even know who eddie nash?

Speaker 1: 7:17

is. Well, eddie nash made mickey cohen look like a bitch. Uh, eddie nash is. Uh was the dealer in hollywood and the enforcer. The wonderland murders are all tied to him. There's a documentary out now.

Speaker 2: 7:28

Better there's that. There's um boogie nights where they where um the eddie nash uh character is in there with the little asian dude throwing firecrackers yeah yeah, yeah no, my grandma worked for him.

Speaker 2: 7:42

Oh wow, because then my grandma also like had this other stuff going on. My, my mom, was in music and the music industry. She like saw the beatles at the hollywood bowl and then later she met my dad on the strip and she was the manager of his band. She was. She was also a waitress at um Dupar, she was a waitress at Canners and she was a waitress at the Rainbow oh wow at a birthday party.

Speaker 2: 8:09

I don't know how any of that keeps happening yeah, and so she was in the club scene and so later, later in the in the late 70s, she um, my parents got divorced when I was nine, so or split up, so that was uh 76, so by 78 79, she was finding herself you know, I'm gonna go do this and I'm gonna be this and I'm gonna, and it was kind of cool. It's kind of embarrassing because your friends are like your mom's a kook, she listens to Led Zeppelin. You know you have a Mohawk, but yeah. And then she eventually got involved with the music machine which at the time was called the cowboy. Yeah.