6 • SKIN DEEP MAGAZINE
SATURDAY NIGHT
& SUNDAY MORNINGNow, this isn’t strictly true. No matter
what my vices used to be/are, coke was never
one of them but I’ve spent so much time in
big cities, you get good at working around the
things you’re faced with in such a way that
you can both leave the situation with dignity
intact. Win/win is always the best answer.
“What brings you down here then Rock-
star? Women? Because I can make a call...”
“Tattooing.”
“Ah.”
And he said it in such a way that meant
one simple word explained everything. If it
wasn’t sex or drugs that brought me to Soho,
it must have been rock n roll and that was
just fine. He took in on the head that the one
thing I was there for, he couldn’t supply.
“How’s business?” I asked, still with some
time to kill.
“Not bad. This place gets weirder everyday,
but it’s OK.”
And I thought, yeah. It does get weirder but
not in a way any of us expected.
Looming down on Brewer Street behind us
is Prowler, a huge gay underwear store—or at
least that’s what it looks like from the street,
closer inspection shows they sell just about
any other item you may need too—and it looks
respectable. Not that it shouldn’t but once
upon a time, somewhere like this would look
seedy as hell down here and it was expected to
be that way. Back in The Day, it wouldn’t have
stood a chance at being taken seriously by
looking so clean and professional. You’d have
thought there was something wrong with it.
Such is the world in the first dawning light
of the twenty first century and tattoo studios
aren’t exempt from such things either. I’ve
been into some studios in the last few years
that are cleaner, better laid out and more hy-
gienic than my dentist.
And it’s all good right? Nothing is dirty any-
more... like dirt is a bad thing to be ashamed
of and stay away from. I’m not just talking
actual dirt because nobody wants to get tat-
tooed in a pigsty, but the general seediness
of the world I loved so much is slowly being
eradicated. You hardly ever see old cars on
the road. Nobody dresses in rags anymore -
even genuinely homeless people appear to
get to choose from decent charity goods and
aside from Wayne, I don’t know anybody thatI ONLY HAVE TO TAKE THE DOG
OUT TO SEE THIS IS TRUE OF ALL
ANIMAL BASED LIFE FORMSowns an old Nokia held together with tape as their phone.
The world around us is becoming ultra-sanitised by an anti-bac-
terial state of mind virus and I’ve got to confess, I don’t much like it
that way. It’s become harder than ever to hang onto the cheap thrill of
doing something vaguely illicit without actually getting arrested... or
maybe it was just me who liked feeling that way. Aside from my moth-
er and one of my best friends, everybody I know is tattooed.
I liked being an outsider damnit.
All the bands I used to listen to now turn up regularly on (oh, how it
pains me to say it) Dad Rock compilation CDs you can buy in the super-
market or logos on t-shirts for £2 in Primark... or most of them anyway.
The day I see The Lords Of The New Church on a Dad Rock CD or Pri-
mark shirt, I’m cutting my losses and moving to Bolivia with the dog.
“Are you sure you don’t want this Charlie? I’ll do you a good deal on it.”
And I don’t know why I said it, but I did. I opened my mouth and it
just came out:
“Can you do a deal on the Charlie and the women and bring it all
round to the tattoo shop? We could all go out in a blaze of glory just
one more time.”
And God love him... he actually thought about it.
“Brother, as much as I would love to, I gotta pick my old lady up
from work.”
2019 eh? Even hustlers have responsibilities. Jon Leighton