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Bad Boys and Tough Tattoos (Haworth Series in Gay & Lesbian Studies) 1st Edition

by John Dececco Phd (Author), Michael Williams (Author), Phil Andros (Author)
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 17 ratings
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Explore the dark subculture of 1950s tattoos!In the early 1950s, when tattoos were the indelible mark of a lowlife, an erudite professor of English--a friend of Gertrude Stein, Thomas Mann, Andre Gide, and Thornton Wilder--abandoned his job to become a tattoo artist (and incidentally a researcher for Alfred Kinsey). Bad Boys and Tough Tattoos tells the story of his years working in a squalid arcade on Chicago’s tough State Street. During that time he left his mark on a hundred thousand people, from youthful sailors who flaunted their tattoos as a rite of manhood to executives who had to hide their passion for well-ornamented flesh. Bad Boys and Tough Tattoos is anything but politically correct. The gritty, film-noir details of Skid Row life are rendered with unflinching honesty and furtive tenderness. His lascivious relish for the young sailors swaggering or staggering in for a new tattoo does not blind him to the sordidness of the world they inhabited. From studly nineteen-year-olds who traded blow jobs for tattoos to hard-bitten dykes who scared the sailors out of the shop, the clientele was seedy at best: sailors, con men, drunks, hustlers, and Hells Angels. These days, when tattoo art is sported by millionaires and the middle class as well as by gang members and punk rockers, the sheer squalor of Bad Boys and Tough Tattoos is a revelation. However much tattoo culture has changed, the advice and information is still sound:

  • how to select a good tattoo artist
  • what to expect during a tattooing session
  • how to ensure the artist uses sterile needles and other safety precautions
  • how to care for a new tattoo
  • why people get tattoos--25 sexual motivations for body artMore than a history of the art or a roster of famous--and infamous--tattoo customers and artists, Bad Boys and Tough Tattoos is a raunchy, provocative look at a forgotten subculture.
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  1. ISBN-10
    0918393760
  2. ISBN-13
    978-0918393760
  3. Edition
    1st
  4. Publication date
    July 18, 1990
  5. Language
    English
  6. Dimensions
    5.83 x 0.49 x 8.27 inches
  7. Print length
    214 pages
  8. See all details
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About the Author

Steward, PhD, Samuel M.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Routledge; 1st edition (July 18, 1990)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 214 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0918393760
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0918393760
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 11.2 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.83 x 0.49 x 8.27 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 17 ratings

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Samuel M. Steward

Samuel M. Steward

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4.4 out of 5 stars
17 global ratings

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Top reviews from the United States

  • Florida K.
    5.0 out of 5 stars Phil Sparrow Tattoo Legend
    Reviewed in the United States on February 3, 2011
    Verified Purchase
    If you are interested in the history of modern tattooing, this book will intrduce you to Phil Sparrow a renowned Chicago tattoo artist. His real name is Sammual Steward, Phd., former professor of English at many universities.
    Bad Boys and Tough Tattoos is a gritty work that lifts the underbelly of the tattoo craft and is great insight as to the personalities of whom are tattooed by Mr. Sparrow.

    Phil Sparrow rendered three tattoos to me, a young sailor, in the mid-50's in his shop on south State Street in Chicago. He was a close friend of Gertrude Stein and Alic B. Toklas. He was also very helpful to Alfred Kinsey in his publishing his epic study of human sexuality. A good and quick read.

    A complete biography of Sammual Steward aka Phil Sparrow was recently published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, written by Justin Spring, entitled; Secret Historian.
    3 people found this helpful
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  • steve blair
    5.0 out of 5 stars What a Read
    Reviewed in the United States on June 21, 2002
    Verified Purchase
    Having 4 tattoo's applied last year at the ripe young age of 50, I was fascinated by this book. Tattoo's in the 50's & 60's apparently were taboo except for the underbelly of life. Looking at how they are accepted today as opposed to then is astounding. The syndicate was even involved in the 50's. The book actually had me laughing out loud at some of the situations this highly educated man faced when he gave up teaching English at a major university and took up tattooing. If you have any interest in tattoo's be sure to purchas this one.
    4 people found this helpful
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  • Ray
    4.0 out of 5 stars Sam Steward - the man.
    Reviewed in the United States on February 9, 2007
    I met Sam Steward around 1983 when he was quite elderly and I wonder what his friends would have to say about these reviews. I think most of the reviews are kind to him and the only real negativity I see are those in which the authors came to the book expecting a strictly scholarly work. Sam Steward wasn't a researcher in the classic social science sense. He was an energetic scholar, but his greatest interest was in the creation of literature, not in sifting through haystacks of facts to find new scientific insights.

    I read this book shortly after I met Sam. I was actually more familiar with him as a writer of gay erotica, but this book tells you more about the kind of man Sam was. He had deep curiosities about the underlying psychological motivations of people and that's really the area in which he spent most of his time. That curiosity it typical of people who enjoy writing and his look into this subculture, one could speculate, is like one the instances any writer takes in which they journey into an objective investigation, knowing they are mining information and insights that will later inform their true love, writing fiction.

    There's no doubt Sam took this investigation seriously, but it was never his intention to apply the level or scientific rigor one would expect of someone of the status of Alfred Kinsey. What he did at Kinsey's request was to describe a world, a microcosm, that would give Kinsey enough information to determine if a larger and more serious study was warranted. There weren't focus groups walking into Sam's tattoo parlor responding to a call for papers. They were rough and alienated men, drunks with their defenses down, kids in rebellions, frustrated people acting out. It takes an entertaining personality to get these people to say what they say and Sam Steward, if anything, was a decidely entertaining man; a storyteller who could keep a roomful of people enthralled with his vivid, if not naughty, descriptions of the extremes in society that are right under our very noses; extremes most people cannot see.

    I've thought about this book a many, many times; practically every time I see a tattoo. Getting inked has never appealed to me but Sam's understanding of it most certainly does appeal to me. Even two decades after reading it, some things I remember from it make me smile and laugh out loud. There's a kind of deep-seated validation of humanness here that I think will serve many who read this. This isn't a book for everyone, but one thing that can be said is that there's more to it than the average person knows. It's art that goes deeper than the skin.
    19 people found this helpful
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  • BFFtl
    5.0 out of 5 stars ... hilarious account of the life of the 20th century's greatest tattoo
    Reviewed in the United States on June 26, 2015
    Verified Purchase
    Incredibly informative and hilarious account of the life of the 20th century's greatest tattoo artist
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  • Quickhappy
    2.0 out of 5 stars Steer clear: an amateur work
    Reviewed in the United States on August 22, 2002
    As a scholar of what might be called outsiders, I was eager to read this work on tatooing. But the scholarship here is hackneyed and unprofessional. His sources are scattered and incomplete and his discussion is of similar quality. Given the excellent quality of research being done on this topic, this book falls into a dont-bother-with category.
    6 people found this helpful
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  • BookAce
    5.0 out of 5 stars Gritty, Gutsy, Grey and GLORIOUS
    Reviewed in the United States on January 18, 2017
    Wow-- no words were spared in the making of this great read! The words have swagger, spunk, sensation -- the descriptions take me there, back to that period, which was when I was a little kid in a great big, grey biiig city, (NY) wondering about the world around me, and holding a special fascination for that world's "underside" (yes, even 5 yrs old kids think certain things are cool) . , I always recommend this book my friends in the tattoo business. The price should go down-- a second printing would not be a bad idea, IMHO.
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Top reviews from other countries

  • Margaret Kenny
    5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 16, 2016
    Verified Purchase
    The somewhat generic title doesn't inspire a great deal of confidence - but don't let that put you off. This is an excellent book. No dry academic text, the author was a Literature professor who became enamoured with street life and tattooing and became an inker himself, keeping his double life a secret until the pull in one direction became to strong. As such, Mr Steward was ideally placed to record his observations in crisp, intelligent, detailed prose. There is no dry detachment or distance from the subject matter. This is very much memoir as well as document. A fascinating pleasure to read, I devoured it in one sitting.
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