Graham Chaffee is the artist. He can paint like Caravaggio and he tattoos for a living. A stellar Art Center education not entirely wasted. We all have to eat. After graduating Art Center and shortly after another trip to San Francisco, Graham decided he wanted to get into tattoo. A year or so previous, we met for dinner and he said he'd just come from getting his first tattoo. I smacked him on the exact spot on his left shoulder where he'd just been needled for an hour and a half and said, "You did not!!!" I don't know why I didn't believe him. I guess I thought that deep down inside he was a republican, or buckle-of-the-Bible-belt evangelist or some kind of creature odder than an artist. But I digress. What you see now is a cover up and this is how it happened. When Graham announced his decision to learn the art of tattoo, he also said he needed guinea pigs. He didn't have electricity yet, was the thing. He couldn't afford the equipment. Still, stupidly, I volunteered. Even with the straight whiskey and ibuprophen (neither which should be taken before tattoo infliction because they speed the bleeding) what pain and misery! He strapped 3 extra-fine needles to the butt end of a small toothbrush, dipped them in ink and stabbed my lovely white flesh over and over and inside and out and fuuuuuuck!!!! His mantra: You have such great skin for this. My mantra: Fuck me, it's painful!!! I'd asked for a very organic bare vine around my left bicep and that's exactly what I got. About five years and much electronic mileage later Graham was working at Purple Panther in Hollywood. He said for the fifth time: "It looks like your bra strap fell, come in — I'll cover it up for free." How could I resist?
