Hanky Panky and The Homicidal Hooker: Part One

Amsterdamn, 1990. My best friend/traveling buddy and I were on the hunt. We had made a pact to get tattoos on our epic European adventure tour of 89-90. No ordinary place would do. We had to have the best, the coolest, the ultimate tattoo parlor in Amsterdam. And being the stupid American girls that we were (are), we hadn't a clue as to which one it is. We just knew there had to be such a place. This was Amsterdam after all. If you were going to get a tattoo, this is the place to get one.

After several days of investigation in countless coffee shops, it became clear that the only place to consider for the permanent staining of our bodies was The Hanky Panky. It's not just a tattoo parlor, it's a museum. No seriously, it is. Stop laughing.

And so we got drunk. Isn't that what you are supposed to do when you get a tattoo? Never ones to do anything without an audience, we picked ourselves up a sidekick - an Israeli boy named Ducky. No kidding, his name was Ducky. You can't make that shit up. Ducky joined us as we proceeded to drink ourselves into a stupor at the hotel bar (another time I will tell you about the hotel, remind me) and then we spent the rest of the evening stumbling through the red light district in search of the Hanky Panky.

At last we found it. So much time and effort and alcohol had brought us to this moment that we could barely contain our excitement - or keep ourselves from swaying - as we made our way down the stairs to get our long awaited inkstains.

It was closed.

How can a tattoo parlor in the red light district of Amsterdam be closed at 10 o'clock at night? We were so incensed, so inebriated, that we actually managed to crawl up the two flights of stairs to "The Other Place", the bar above the tattoo parlor. Upon entering, we were full of questions. Why was the tattoo parlor closed! Where were the tattoo artists! Why was there a bong shaped like a penis behind the bar!

The bartender leaned very close to me and unloaded the loudest burp in my face that I have ever heard. He then informed us that the Hanky Panky was closed at night because of stupid American girls like ourselves who go in drunk at night for tattoos and then come back crying the next day because their parents are going to kill them. Then he walked away laughing to his friends at the bar, saying something in Dutch. I heard the words "silly bitches" in there somewhere.

I was drunk. Did I mention that? And no bartender walks away from me without giving me a free drink and hitting on me!

That's MISS Bitch to you.

What?

Sorry Burp, I should have asked. Do you speak English?

Of course I speak English, you just heard me.

Ah, then I repeat, that is MISS Bitch to you. Now, where is the tattoo artist and what does one have to do to get a drink around here?

He cracked a smile. He fought it, but he did. He said something to his friends at the bar. They stood up and said they would be back with the tattoo artist. Burp ambled back over and asked us what we were drinking. He waved away our money.

Thank you Burp.

That's Mr. Burp to you.

I won.

It was then that we noticed the motorcycle hanging on the wall with what looked like a pair of woman's legs draped over it. Ducky and BF started noticing other things around the bar - pictures of bikers, leather jackets with fiery words, logos with skulls. We wandered around the bar with our drinks, ogling the various "art", as it slowly became clear to us where we were.

Apparently we had stumbled into a Hell's Angels' bar.






to be continued.....click here for part two