I’ve tried to arrange to interview established local comic and this year’s Comedy Tattoo Show host Pommy Johnson a couple of times now, and it’s finally turned out that I’ve been knocking at the wrong house. The penny began to drop when I’m approached by a suspicious neighbour (“Johnson? There is no Johnson here,” she says, looking me up and down as I realise the name hardly distances me from the dodgy gigolo status she’s evidently placed upon me).
“Mate, I think you might be on the wrong side of the creek,” Johnson tells me over the phone. So it’s back on the bike over to the Coburg side, finally arriving at Pommy Johnson’s place where a cup of tea is plonked beside me in the sunny backyard. Johnson is a man with the answers to what has thus far been more or less a subculture event. Although the Comedy Tattoo Show is in its tenth year and fairly big news in tattoo industry circles, surprisingly there’s not a whole lot of information about it on the net, apart from a rather bitter review from a blogger who wasn’t granted a media pass a few years ago.
“Yeah, it really should be more on the Internet, but the guys who are running it are pretty old school, you know. It’s a bit more word of mouth-y,” Johnson tells me, “And it’s very in-house through all the tattoo parlours.”
So what’s the Comedy Tattoo Show like? “Well, a lot of tattoo shows are heavier, with bike groups and nude girls and stuff, but this one’s more for entertainment and good fun,” Johnson explains, “Richard [Heath, the man who founded the event] used to host it, and then last year and this year, I’m hosting it. We’ve got some really good comics on this year.” As in, commercial radio personality and comedian Lehmo? “Yeah, he’s great. He’s a good name to get in before the game because he’s well-known,” Johnson says, adding, “He’s South Australian, but.” I guess you can forgive him just this once. “No, I don’t think you can.”
The beef that the scorned blogger had was that the Comedy Tattoo Show was too long, and with over twenty categories – from Best Small Black & Grey Tattoo to Best Under The Undies Tattoo – as well as full comedy sets, the show does indeed go for at least five hours. As for being too long however, Johnson begs to differ, “Five minutes of crap seems to go for hours, but something that’s fast and good fun seems to go really quickly, and that’s what this is like. It ticks along.”
Fairly heavily tattooed himself (“One on my chest, two on each arm there, one on my back and one on my leg”), Johnson is somewhat an unofficial ambassador for tattoos, “It was Richard’s idea,” he pre-empts, “But I don’t know if you remember the Steve Vizard show a few years back? Anyway, they had some tattooed comics on there, but crap ones, and I was like “Fuck off, there are some of us that are actually professionals.” So Richard said, “Well you should do a show at the Comic’s Lounge,” and that’s when he started the whole show. But it’s about trying to show that not everybody’s a thug and not everybody’s a criminal who have tattoos.”
So what has been the best entry Johnson has seen at the Comedy Tattoo Show? “There was a girl who had a cardigan on, and she had a teddy bear.
And she’s gone, ‘I’m over from Perth and I’d like to find a tattooist because I want to get a bit more colouring done on the one I’ve got on my back.’ She took off her fucking top, and she had like a full back job with a castle and dragons, like full on fucking hardcore. I think that’s why she did that, because it winds people up: ‘Oh yes, I’d just like to get to get a little bit more colour… ON THIS!’” Johnson yells, laughing.
The 10th Comedy Tattoo Show happens at The Comic’s Lounge on Sunday October 31 from 1pm.
