Ye Olde Ink Link

Gabriel Leif Brilman

After a trip to Coney Island, tattoo artist "Philadelphia" Eddie Funk recounts: "I wanted a skull and crossbones like the pirate flag!" Drinking, sex and body art ("stewed, screwed and tattooed") are the muses of Hori Smoku Sailor Jerry, a documentary featuring artists like Funk and Ed Hardy recounting tales of the infamous "F**in' Sailor Jerry." Based on a recipe fond in his belongings after his death, the company that produces the rum founded around Norman Keith Collins (better known as Sailor Jerry) sponsored public summer screenings of the Erich Weiss film in NYC, SF, LA, Austin and Portlans (the five golden rings of US cities). Other than the obvious (sell rum), why get his name back out there?

The Ticker

William Grant & Sons, maker of Sailor Jerry Rum, commemorated Norman (“Sailor Jerry”) Collins with screenings of Hori Smoku, a documentary about the legendary tattoo artist who opened several tattoo shops in Hawaii and died in 1973. “His best phrase was ‘Good work ain’t cheap, and cheap work ain’t good,’ ” says Erich Weiss, the film’s director…

Eagles of Death Metal Rock "Hori Smoku" Sailor Jerry After-Party

Hori Smoku, the documentary about legendary tattoo artist Norman Collins, a.k.a. "Sailor Jerry", made it's way to Laemmle's Sunset 5 in Hollywood this week. Tattoo fans were treated to a sneak peak of the film on the man that is often referred to as "The father of old-school tattooing."

Free 'Hori Smoku Sailor Jerry’ screening at Laemmle Sunset 5

Hanging out at Hollywood pool parties is one way of getting an eyeful of tattoos, but you’ll get more ink per minute at the screening of the feature-length documentary “Hori Smoku Sailor Jerry.”

Celebrate 'Sailor Jerry,' Who Shaped Future of Tattooing in U.S.

During the Vietnam War years, Honolulu's Hotel Street was the wildest red-light district in America, as sailors, soldiers and Marines en route to the jungles of Southeast Asia lined up outside brothels in the middle of the day and blew their wages at b-girl joints, live sex shows, taxi dance halls and tattoo parlors in that six-block strip in Chinatown as if they had only weeks to live.

Me and Sailor Jerry: Tattoed for life

By Margaret Moser

Never met the man during his lifetime – he died in 1973 – but I lived with Sailor Jerry for nearly 15 years when I married his No. 2 protégé, Mike Malone aka Rollo Banks. When we married in 1984, tattooing was just cracking open in the mainstream, but the trend was fine-line tattooing and tribal designs. Rollo used to mimic his customers wickedly, "'There's so much detail in fine-line!'" "Yeah," he'd grouse in imaginary reply, "and in 20 years, it'll look like shit. Get a good solid design that will last."