LAS VEGAS — There’s nothing like someone’s midsection being intricately tattooed with the phrase “Never Never Give Up,” the words stacked one on top of the other down the young lady’s rib cage, to keep one riveted to an oversized flat-screen TV while sitting in a dark bar.
What was a little unusual about this scene was that it wasn’t the latest reality show we were ogling — “Pimp My Sleeve” or “Bret Michaels’ Ink Bus” — and we weren’t checking it out between World Cup matches while kicking back in a sports pub.
No, this vignette was particularly fascinating because we knew the art was being inked live just a few feet away on the other side of a curtain, in the tattoo studio section of Mario Barth’s King Ink at the Mirage, while bartenders lit absinthe on fire and rounds were poured into crystal shot glasses shaped like skulls.
It also was a bit more compelling for me because it was likely my own tattooing had just been televised right there moments before.
And truth be told, my skin still sizzled a bit.
Unwanted tattoo
Considering that thousands of people annually (not to mention drunkenly) choose to devote their lives to one another in chapels run by people dressed like Elvis, my very sober decision to get a tattoo — which is a personal choice and not one that I’m in any way advocating unless you already think it’s a good idea — was a fairly rational one that was four years in the making and based on covering up ink that I already had, a radiation tattoo from breast cancer.
If anyone can tell you that tattoos are very, very difficult and painful to remove, it’s someone with a tattoo they didn’t ask for.
So I knew what design I wanted and where to put it but not where I wanted to get it done.
Then I read about Mario Barth, an eccentric Austrian who moved to the States in 1996, speaks four languages and now owns a string of ink parlors across the country, including New Jersey and Florida, as well as King Ink and Starlight Tattoo at Mandalay Bay in Vegas.
He’s become known for his ink work on celebrities — Avril Lavigne and Brody Jenner got matching lightning bolts at King Ink on a visit to Vegas; Usher, Sylvester Stallone and Tommy Lee are regulars.
None of that fazed me. What caught my eye is that Barth has come up with a line of inks for women who need reconstructive surgery after breast cancer. Radiated skin needs special inks, and not only does Barth have his own line for his regular tatts, Intenze, but he also created a special line for cancer patients who have undergone reconstructive surgery.
That, combined with the fact that this would all play out in a nightclub environment — my tattoo appointment would be for 11 p.m., about the time I’m usually thinking about sleeping — made the whole thing kind of irresistible.
Fit for royalty
King Ink is decorated in a velvety, purple-and-red, Goth-meets-Baroque style, with crystal chandeliers, faux-snakeskin columns and comfy couches on a palm tree-lined patio that connects through windows with the interior bar. Patrons wearing everything from cocktail dresses and stilettos to ripped jeans and muscle shirts to show off their designs — there is no dress code here — are clutching drinks and leaning over display cases filled with jewelry intended for body piercings or discussing their next tatt needs with one of the artists.
Barth opened King Ink in April. It’s the first ink nightclub in a city famous for its funky firsts, and I would tell you what Barth has to say about opening it, but not only do people like me and you not get our tattoos done by him, we can’t even get him on the phone.
I can tell you that Barth has said in TV interviews that 20 million people will get a tattoo in this country in the next year, but I can’t figure out where he got that statistic. I found documentation: The Pew Research Center in 2006 did a survey reporting that 36 percent of those ages 18 to 25 and 40 percent of those ages 26 to 40 have at least one tattoo.
The Palms actually started the hotel tattoo salon trend when it opened Hart & Huntington in 2004, ostensibly taking tattoo parlors out of the seedy underworld and into a classier realm.
That salon has split into two shops, one under the same name but now at the Hard Rock Hotel under the ownership of Carey Hart — Pink’s ex-husband/current boyfriend — and one owned by John Huntington at The Palms called Huntington Ink, which features DJs and theme parties. You can’t buy drinks at Huntington Ink, but you can get them at the casino and bring them in.
(Drinking before a tattoo, by the way, is a bad idea for many reasons, not the least of which is that it thins your blood.)
Now there are quite a few hotel tattoo lounges, including Barth’s Starlight Tattoo at Mandalay Bay, 3 Lions Tattoo at the Sahara Hotel & Casino and Vince Neil Ink at O’Sheas Casino, owned by the former Mötley Crüe lead singer.
Break from the wait
King Ink sits directly across from the entrance of one of Vegas’ hottest dance clubs, Jet Nightclub. It’s not unusual for folks to weary of standing in the long, long line into Jet and instead pop over for a drink at King Ink, maybe perusing the touch-screen computers to check out the exhaustive design library or reading the timeline of tattooing history that lines the bar.
On the other hand, some people, like Mark Tainton and the rest of his group from Nottingham, England, make a beeline for the place.
“We’re checking out prices,” says Tainton. “We have been reading about this place and about Mario Barth, and he’s got quite a reputation. I wanted to see about getting my tattoo done here.”
Let’s just say this group of three couples is of a certain age, and they look as out of place, and as inkless, as I do. Tainton and his wife, Mandy, and the other two couples are fresh off a Hawaiian cruise, and they’ve all come to Vegas for four nights before they head back across the Atlantic.
But suddenly Tainton lifts up his shirt to reveal an elaborate tattoo that covers one whole side of his torso, what looks like a dragon eye peering out of the stone wall of a castle.
“I want to get ‘1983’ tattooed here with two wedding rings here,” he says, rolling up his sleeve and pointing to the inside of his arm. “That’s when we got married.”
Around this group mill dozens of visibly heavily inked revelers, people who obviously are here for the vibe, the camaraderie and the chance to compare body parts.
My own tattoo winds up taking about an hour to get the design placed — it turns out to be a difficult piece to center and make level — but only 20 minutes to actually ink. My artist, Jasen Workman, labors over the placement and then the color choice, which I wanted to be a specific blue, my favorite cobalt.
It was painful, but certainly less so than childbirth, and frankly, not more so than watching Miley Cyrus making the transition to womanhood. It felt like someone scrubbing a really bad sunburn with a steel wool pad, until you can’t bear it for one more second and you’re going to have to make it stop — and that’s right when Workman would in fact take a break to refill ink or wipe blood or excess ink away. But then it would start again.
And before you know it, it was done — and I love it, so much more so than the nagging blue dot that was there before.
Not to mention that, unlike so many marriages made in Vegas, it will last forever.
Kyle Wagner: 303-954-1599, travel@denverpost.com,
The Details
Mario Barth’s King Ink at the Mirage, 3400 S. Las Vegas Blvd., 702-369-9567, . Reservations recommended. Cost: My tattoo, a geometric, one-color design about one inch square, was $200.
