TV Producer Hopes Tampa Ink Makes Its Mark

TAMPA - At the tender age of 49, Mike Cooper got his first tattoo this week. He sat quietly in the red dentist-type chair at Addicted 2 Tattoos while shop owner Lenny Welch applied the buzzing needle. He swore he felt nothing.

Within an hour, the image of a snaggletooth skull tearing through the ripped-open flesh on his left shoulder emerged. It was just the beginning.

Cooper will have to return for the rest of the ink, a sprawling scene on his back of a seascape with his own charter boat as the centerpiece. There will be birds and fish, sky and sea.

The Tampa charter boat captain is also getting into the tattoo business, or rather, the business of showing the business. He doubles as a television producer and has made several local fishing shows.