jack dracula

A look at Jack Dracula.The poetry of a name…

Art Chantry ( art@artchantry.com )

For some reason, I’ve been totally thinking about Jack Dracula as of late. I know he’s a famous “tattooed” man and that Diane Arbus took an iconic photo of him . But, I’ve always thought that the name “JACK DRACULA” is one of thse absolutely GREAT names a name for the ages! It rolls off the tongue like some sort of poetry. The only other names that are as good are Cash Flagg or Sid Vicious. It’s just a PERFECT name.

So, I finally thought I go look him up online – and guess what? He died on jan 18th! Here, I’m thining about the guy and he’s dead? Even worse, the guy who was one of the most famous tattooed men of sideshow infamy died quietly and unnoticed. Sorta perfect, eh? kozmic coincidence? you be the judge…

Katemonkey.co.uk: Arbus brought the horrible and sublime into the same realm – where you saw what was all off in the world, but so painfully real.Arbus helped to create the visual shorthand we have for horror nowadays, for the other, whether that other involves freakshows, or transsexuals, or aging beauty queens, or older-than-their-years children, or anything like that. And the images she created helped to inspire other people, other scenes, other worlds. Click image for more and for souce

His real name may have been Jack Martin. or jack baker. he was also known as ‘barcelona jack’. He didn’t intend to become a sideshow freak. He didn’t really even start tattooing himself until after he left the navy. He began to cover himslef with images after a broken heart – he lost the true love of his life. Sadly, he found her many years later – but just before he was able to meet up with her again, she died. So sad.

I guess she was the one who nick-named him Jack Dracula. He used to enjoy imitating Bela Lugosi after they saw ‘dracula’ together (“i vant to drrrrink your blooood!!!”). She decided that would be a fun thing to call him. It stuck.

So now, Jack Dracula is gone. Apparently he died after eating a bowl of chocolate ice cream. I don’t think I’ll every again be able to eat a bowl of chocolate ice cream without quietly remembering the great JACK DRACULA.

headovmetal.posterous.com:---Over time he did work and received work in various shops, tattooing his his face, cheeks, chin. forehead and all around his eyes. Most prominent were the images of Bella Lugosi/Dracula and Boris Karloff/Frankenstein on his stomach. All in total the Marked Man had over 400 tattoos. A renaissance man Jack worked for Ringling Brothers Barnum Bailey Circus, P. Cortez’s sideshow, Hubert’s Dime Museum and Amusements American Carnival as a sideshow attraction. He was said to have been a gourmet cook and certified wine connoisseur with an interest in archaeology and opera. click on image for source and more....

ADDENDUM:

Read More:http://www.theday.com/article/20091213/NWS01/912139999/1017/NWS

Kenton Robinson: “Somebody told me, ‘If you like older women, you’ll like this one. She’s workin’ in Pop’s Restaurant,’” says Jack, who was 26 at the time.

Lillian was the counter girl at Pop’s Sandwich Shop, open 24 hours a day at 23 State St., about where the corner of The Parade is today.

“And they said, ‘This Lillian’s a real firecracker,’ and they said, ‘but she’s 36; you wouldn’t want her.’ So I went over there. We just stood there and looked at each other. It was like sparks flew between us,” he says.

“And people noticed it, and they started accusing us of having an affair. So this one night, after a couple of months went by, I went in there, and she was getting ready to end her shift, and I said, ‘Lil,’ I says, ‘We got the name, whaddaya say we play the game?’
“She says, ‘I’m with you, babe.’ So we hopped in her car, and we went up to Bates Woods, and that was where it all began.”

It was a romance of such passionate intensity, Jack says today, that they couldn’t keep their hands off each other. It wasn’t, he says, that she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.

“She was too small up here,” he says, patting his chest, “and too broad down here,” patting his hips, “but that first time that I looked at her, I just knew if we ever got together, we were gonna have one heck of a good time. And we did. Wow, we did.”
They made love in the back of her station wagon, in Bates Woods, at the drive-in, in his shop and in his furnished room above the Hygienic.

She used to come into his shop after closing time, and they’d go out and close the bars.
“And the cops, the cops used to station themselves in front of every bar to make sure that everybody got out of there at 1 o’clock. So we’d be going over to my shop, and the cops would be saying” — he adopts the sing-song of a schoolyard taunt — ‘We know where you’re going. We know what you’re gonna do.’”

But along with Lillian came her children: Sheila, 9, Nate Jr., 7, and Marie, 5.
They were, Jack says, “in my shop half the time,” something Marie Briggs remembers vividly. Read More:http://www.theday.com/article/20091213/NWS01/912139999/1017/NWS

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