Biznes is Good

Out of place like a land-bound ghost in the fog, yellow street lights, the low growl of the trolley underground electric hum. Another low hummed transformer buzz from the Jesus Saves sign at the mission, snap up your collar, quicken your pace. I can see it all coming back dream-like now, one more for the road: Capt Jack Howard and Thomas Berg inkin' 'em up at the Midway down the street from the Mission, the Thalia. Barbary Coast alright. Sometimes even the swells would drop in with one of Madame Lil's free gold coins Hey, I thought this was free, What do you mean 5 cents for a beer? The Jesus Saves sign flickered, only salvation was promised for free.

 

Tattoos on the Barbary Coast: Part II

Everything hidden creeps up through the sidewalks oozes through the cracks, crimes crying to be solved.  Shanghaied, rolling out under the Golden Gate.

 Fog horns freight train whistles odd night noises music or.... tattoo signs, an old jackknife and some papers, a bottle of ink dried up now, somehow the big sheets made it by, floating mermaids and lovesick sailors, a bowling ball in the corner of the old pine floor, flash sheets with dragons, a fish, many little birds and a mystery of the bejeweled twins who, with a wink and a smile, live eternally young from these pages.

Captain Jack Howard, SF 1920's

The Tiger Roars

Pen and watercolor on paper, circa 1908 by Thomas Berg, tattoo artist. An Englishman and great draughtsman, he learned by copying master drawings at The Victoria and Albert and The Natural History Museum on Cromwell Road in London.

Moved to San Francisco's Barbary Coast where he worked for many years.

Captain Jack Howard

Just in to Lift Trucks:

A tattooists interpretation of the Italian Renaissance. Note Christ tempted by the babe in the rose (bottom right.)

Captain Jack Howard, Barbary Coast, San Francisco, ink and watercolor in heavy paper, 22" by 29", c 1920's.

And just for fun, the sheet as a blueprint.

The Barbary Coast was a red-light district in old San Francisco, California. Geographically it constituted nine blocks bounded by Montgomery Street, Washington Street, Stockton Street, and Broadway. Particularly notorious was Pacific Avenue, one of the earliest streets to be cut through the hills, which led directly from the wharf to the center of town, near Portsmouth Square. The neighborhood quickly took on its seedy tone.