Let me preface this review by saying I’m a large biker with lots of tattoos plus I’m a vegetarian… and with that I’m seemingly one of the many potential customers whom Jeff Johnson has clearly come to despise. I doubt I would feel welcome in one of his tattoo establishments and if I did before reading “Tattoo Machine” I sure wouldn’t after.

In mere terms of writing Tattoo Machine initially seems well composed in a punchy. Short. Sentence sort of way. And I do like that. But the actual content is the problem; the phrases appear as somehow patronizing and often borderline obnoxious. Soon you start to feel like Johnson is gleefully running his words through MS Word’s Thesaurus as he types, with him cherry-picking the most obscure synonym he can uncover. This soon becomes extremely tiresome and objectionable and makes for tedious reading.

And the actual life that Johnson describes is all over the shop (ahem) – no structure or timeline is given and his thoughts and rants are offered without resolution or indeed reason. I felt like a mute therapist, half-listening to a particularly rabid patient spout slight after slight of everyone who has done them wrong and everything that’s out of order with the world. A lot of these musings are very far fetched, with the “Tall Tales” aspect of the subtitled work obviously coming into play. But if you’re going to invent anecdotes Jeff, couldn’t you at least make them marginally entertaining? Each paragraph whether possibly true or obviously false makes you dislike the author and therefore the autobigraphy less and less. The areas of the book describing where a tattooist artist may spite their customers with deliberately erred tattoos is especially unsettling.

So we get it Jeff; you’re an artist who has chosen a vocation that’s clearly beneath you. You dislike all of your customers and you hate your day job. Maybe the title, Tattoo Machine, is subtly hinting at the artist, not the equipment – a man in the doldrums of a stagnating career, plodding on with his ‘art’ one tattoo after another solely for the money. Possibly… it makes for dull, unexciting reading regardless.

I did get one good thing out of it though; as someone who gets tatt’d around the world, I for one will be avoiding the Portland tattoo parlor scene.
Rating: 2 / 5

Tattoo Machine is not just a book about the tattoo industry, but a well-crafted memoir by Jeff Johnson, co-owner of the oldest tattoo parlor in the United States. Johnson is a wonderful writer, and he weaves his story in the industry well, educating his readers about life as a tattoo artist and his struggles to stay sane and sober.
Rating: 4 / 5

Really entertaining read. Whether you have or like tattoos, you will find this interesting. I enjoyed it.
Rating: 5 / 5