tattooing a few years but I fell into it
by accident and felt like I had to do
it. A friend of mine had a building in
a prime location and they were like
we’ll set you up. It won’t cost you
anything. Good friends. So I thought
I’ll try it, I’ll go for it. I ran an ad on
the radio because it was a college
town. and airtime on the radio was
very inexpensive so I took advantage
of it, all the shops did. Summer was
boomin’ with the beach and all.
There was this guy who had a shop,
a competitor, but he was like 20
miles away. He ran an ad on the ra-
dio and when I heard it I had a shit-
fit (laughs) I was so pissed off. It said
“This isn’t an illusion, this is the real
thing” throwing me under a bus. At
the time I met a really good guy, an
old timer who had traveled and tat-
tooed all over.
They called him Sailor Ken. He
worked all over the world, super cool guy. I got to know him pretty good.
So I called him up and I was goin’ on “Can you believe these motherfuck-
ers?” and so on. He said “George, calm down, settle down, when we hang
up I want you to call the florist and send them a dozen roses, and thank
them for the free advertising they just gave you. If they’re doing that,
they’re threatened by you, so take it as a compliment, and thank them.”
I’m old school and I was gonna go down there and yank somebody out
30