Tattoo, Piercing, and Body Modification News, Events, and Culture
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Rolf is one cool dude. I had the pleasure of seeing him suspend down in Dallas during suscon, and since then he’s gone on to suspend several more times all over the world. Taking a look at his IAM page you can see just how incredible his suspension journey has been, and he certainly shows no signs of slowing down. Here he is during his 96th suspension, a 6pt coma, that he did while in St. Petersburg, Russia.
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I can’t tell you how long I’ve been waiting for Rome to send in a photo. This hunk of man-meat is one of the most gracious people I know, and even though he shaved off his glorious beard, he’s still dead sexy. Oh and he happens to have a brand new facial tattoo that looks pretty awesome.
One more thing. He’s going to be coming to BMEFest 2011, so if the bouncy castles weren’t enough to entice you, Rome should be.
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Brian Skellie, for those not familiar with the name, is a piercers piercer. He was a huge contributor to the freehand piercing movement ( a term he would like to see done away with and replaced with “piercing with less tools”). He brought the statim autoclave to the attention of our industry and is our resident expert on the subject. I could go on and on, but I will leave it at this Brian Skellie is not only one of the most informed piercers in the biz, but by far one of the most willing to share his information with his colleagues. Even if you, or your piercer has never dealt with him directly, if they use modern freehand and/or disposable techniques their information that got them to that point most likely originated from Mr. Skellie.
So please, take a moment and wish this man a happy birthday!
Plus, keep your eyes here peeled, because one day when his and my busy schedules (on different time zones) line up, I will be doing an in depth interview with him for Modblog. I am thinking this will likely be the most insightful piercing interview on BME since the Tom Brazda interviews from the late nineties.
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It’s time again for the weekly news round up, and as always I’ve got a nice little variety of stories this week. Before I get to those, I wanted to give a quick update on Ran Maclurkin, who as you may know was injured in an accident a few weeks ago.
Here is a picture of Ran up and about on day release from the rehab hospital. An amazing result considering only 2 weeks ago he endured an 8 hour surgery on his spine. The best news is that they are sending him home permanently mid this week. He does need to wear a back brace and neck brace for the next 2-3 months. On behalf of Ran I would like to thank everyone that was so nice as to donate him a few dollars to help him while he recovers. -Pete Sheringham
BME would also like to thank everyone who was able to send some support Ran’s way, and we all wish him the best on his road to recovery.
On a somewhat unrelated note, Pete had this story to share about an experience he had with a client recently:
Just had the most amazing phone call, 12 months ago today a lady came to get her nipples pierced at The Piercing Urge, while marking out her nipples I noticed a large lump in her breast, I thought that this should be looked at by a GP so I stopped the procedure and advised her of the lump and to see a GP, I felt a little strange doing this as I did not want to panic her in case it was nothing but felt she should at least get it checked out. She went to the doctors and after some testing was told it was aggressive breast cancer and she had 2 months to live. After almost a year of chemo and a mastectomy she is now cancer free.
She called to tell me I had saved her life and told me that she would call each year on the anniversary of her being clear of cancer.
I could be wrong, but I think it may have been a little dusty in the shop when he received that call. I know I had something in my eye when I read it.
There’s not a lot of news this week, but there are a couple of stories to get you through the weekend. Keep on reading to see what’s in store for you.
Well, it’s finally over. The long and publicly drawn out battle between Warner Brothers and Victor Whitmill over the use of Mike Tyson’s facial tattoo ended in the way pretty much everyone expected it to, an out of court settlement.
A Missouri tattooist who claimed Warner Bros. infringed his copyrighted tattoo in The Hangover: Part II settled his lawsuit with the studio Wednesday. Terms of the settlement, approved by U.S. District Judge Catherine Perry in Missouri, are being kept confidential as part of the deal. The settlement comes two weeks after Warner Bros. acknowledged it might be liable for infringement, and announced it would remove the tattoo from the December DVD release if a deal was not reached. The lawsuit, brought by tattooist Victor Whitmill, asserted the comedy features a “virtually exact reproduction” of a copyrighted tattoo he inked on former heavyweight boxing champ Mike Tyson in 2003. The tattoo appears on the Stu Price character played by actor Ed Helms.
The Whitmill lawsuit focused on the esoteric debate about whether a work first rendered on the human body can be copyright protected. Whitmill testified he created the image directly on Tyson’s skin. There has never been a court verdict about whether a copyright on a tattoo could be enforced.
As you can tell, I’m not surprised at all by this turn of events. Although I know a couple of armchair lawyers who will be disappointed to know that there still has yet to be a definitive court ruling one way or the other.
In sports news, an Australian footballer was given a red card the other day for having his penis pierced. I know, I had to read the article twice just to be sure that was the actual reason. Luckily there’s video of the event!
Macclesfield-born Aaron Eccleston, of Melbourne side Old Hill Wanderers reserves, was red-carded at the weekend for having his penis pierced. Little Aaron’s bling was deemed so offensive that the referee decided to send him off.
The player can be heard to comment: “I’m making a complaint, ref. It’s not right looking at my c*ck.” We’re inclined to agree with you, Aaron. And yet you went to dressing room of your own accord and got your tackle out for him! If you are anything like OTP you are probably thinking ‘how did the ref know about it in the first place?’. The answer, it seems, is that Eccleston took a blow to his privates as he jumped for a header and pulled his shorts down to check he hadn’t lost anything, anatomically or piercing-wise. He’s no doubt now thinking that check could have waiting until half-time, in which case he would have saved himself from YouTube humiliation.
I wonder if there is a specific rule on the books against that, or whether it’s just a general “no piercings” rule.
Every once in a while we feature amputation photos and stories on ModBlog. The ones we feature are mostly DIY, and would be considered “successful”. By successful I mean that the person doing the amputation achieved their goal of removing a part of their body. Sadly this next story is about someone who wasn’t successful.
A DEPRESSED former property consultant bled to death in his London home after trying to amputate his own legs with a hacksaw, an inquest heard. Barrie Hepburn, 65, was confined to a wheelchair after being shot in the legs during an argument with a neighbor at the couple’s holiday home in France in 2000, the London Evening Standard reported. He tried to commit suicide twice following the incident, and researched self-surgery on the internet. Last August he almost completely severed his right leg with a hacksaw in the kitchen of the couple’s residence in London’s exclusive Mayfair neighborhood, the inquest was told. Hepburn called paramedics and said he was suffering from heavy bleeding, but died before an ambulance could reach him.
His wife Susan – who runs a high-profile hypnotherapy clinic and counts British singer Lily Allen among her clients – told the Westminster coroner’s court that Hepburn’s depression lifted in recent years. The coroner recorded a verdict of misadventure, noting, “I think it is quite clear he had no intention of taking his own life. This was a tragic turn of events.”
This is one of the main reasons we tend to post warnings with amputation posts and other heavy modifications. While Barrie may have done research on the internet, the activity was extremely high risk (especially considering it was an entire limb), and sadly he didn’t survive.
As I said, this is a really slow news week, so we’re already at the last story of the day.
Vice Magazine, the publication that is always on top of the newest trends, reported on the new Japanese “bagelhead” phenomenon that is sweeping the nation. Oh, wait, did I say new? What I meant was they wanted to seem like it was a new practice, when in reality it was something was picked up 2 years ago by mainstream news, and it features Ryoichi talking about the forehead saline injections he’s been doing for many years prior to that initial news report.
Obviously, it’s now huge there. Saying that, even though it’s exactly what you’d expect from the country of loo-roll dispenser hats, apparently body modification is still somewhat of a taboo out there, with journalists who choose to cover it usually doing so at the risk of their own careers. I had a chat with Ryoichi to try to help me understand why people are choosing to inject themselves with fluids in order to temporarily change their appearance.
When did saline infusions start to get popular?
Well, actually, I happened to meet Jerome, who was the person who pioneered saline infusions, at Modcon in 1999. Modcon is an extreme body modification convention and it just happened to come to Japan that year so I went to cover it for Burst. I got talking to Jerome and we stayed in contact, then eventually I experienced saline with him in 2003 and he gave me permission to bring it to Japan, so I set up a team in Tokyo to administer infusions for other people. That’s been going since 2007.
I figure in another 2 years we’ll see a story in the NYPost about how this is a breaking new trend first featured in Vice.
And that’s it for the news this week. Remember, if you find an article you think should be included in the weekly news post, just click here to send it in.
Oh, and remember, next weekend is BMEFest!!! Sign up today!
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A simple message, executed nicely. What a great way to round out a Friday afternoon.
Tattoo credit goes to Roger from Star City Tattoo in Roanoke, VA
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While I’m sure some of you might be expecting a video game related post with that headline, the fallout I’m referring to is happening on ChrisB‘s arm.
As Chris’ branding heals, the ink that was branded over will fall out, leaving a nice negative space flower on his arm. As many of you with brandings know, they hurt, a lot. So who was it that got to torture Chris? None other than Brian Decker. Which of course brings us back to the title, as Brian and Chris both work and live in New York City. You can see more of Brian’s work in his BME portfolio gallery.
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Today’s guess what is a first for me. I didn’t have to crop or blur anything in the first photo. Of course that doesn’t really help you with anything.
So, with a bottle of nice chianti, and a side of fava beans, what do you think is the main course?
And no, that isn’t someone’s liver. It is part of someone’s body though. The question is, what part?
Think you know? Keep on reading to see if you’re right.
Well, I’m sure that quite a few of you guessed genitals, and well, of course you’re correct. Before we get to the big reveal, let’s take a quick look at how things were before they ended up on the plate.
Back in December I posted a guess what featuring a piercing that I named an anglerfish, simply because everyone I talked to couldn’t think of any other name for it. While the piercing was unique, a lot of people were more interested in all of the other modifications that they could see.
The anglerfish is the large piercing that comes up through a urethral reroute and out mid-shaft into a full subincision. On top of that we have a number of other piercings, plus what appears to be an empty split scrotum.
Which brings us back to today’s first photo, which is a plate full of flesh. Here’s how he looks today.
And there you have it. The remains of a fresh nullification. For BME Hard subscribers, there are a lot more photos in the male nullo gallery. I’ll also be keeping an eye out for any future updates from this gentleman and I’ll be sure to post a follow-up when that happens. He’s going through a really interesting journey, and we’re all lucky to be able to come along for the ride.
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Well, it is Friday, which means it’s time for this week’s scarification follow-up. Today’s scar is unique in that it was the artist’s first scarification piece ever (that wasn’t done on herself). The artist of course is none other than Hooklife and IAM’s own SouthTownBaby. So for Misty’s first scarification piece she cut an anchor into her client.
We’ve seen other scars by Misty, and for someone who is still new to the art, she can nail circles like a pro. Oh, and the rest of it is pretty awesome too. Let’s see how it looks a couple of months into healing.
It looks like it’s coming along just fine. You can check out more of Misty’s work in her BME Portfolio Gallery.
Also, to all those scarification artists, and those of you with scars, remember to keep sending in those fresh and healed photos to the gallery. Scarification follow-ups are the posts that I get the most request for in a given week but I can’t do them without your photos. So log in to your free account with BME, and start uploading those photos.
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Seriously. Life would be so much better if every day we could spend 15 minutes bouncing around in one. Ball pits are an acceptable alternative, but there’s something to be said for bouncing around like an idiot in a castle. If you support the bouncy castle initiative, then you should be attending BMEFest 2011. Oh sure, there’s a pool, some goats, baby ducks, slip’n’slides, bonfires, bbq, suspensions, campsites and more, but what matters most is the bouncy castles. Alright, so spending a weekend in Virginia with some awesome people is probably a better reason to come down. So get yourself over to the event page, sign up (if you have a problem signing up, try a different browser), and I’ll be seeing you next weekend (July 2nd-4th)!
BME logo scar by MaRTWy.
