BME: Body Modification Ezine

A black-and-white photo of a person mid-air in a Superman-style body suspension pose, supported by multiple hooks in their back and legs, smiling joyfully toward the camera. They are suspended horizontally in a large indoor space with high ceilings and visible rigging. A group of onlookers—some seated, some standing—watch with expressions of admiration, amusement, and support. The atmosphere is lively and communal, capturing a moment of shared experience and transformation.

Tattoo, Piercing, and Body Modification News, Events, and Culture

  • The First Piercing Store Opens its Doors [Running The Gauntlet – By Jim Ward]

    Written by

    BME

    VII. The First Piercing Store Opens its Doors

    While working from home may have been convenient, it also had its drawbacks. In essence you never leave work, so it’s hardly surprising when drunks show up on your doorstep at 3:00 in the morning wanting to get pierced. It also doesn’t help one’s credibility. For some time I realized that if piercing was ever going to be taken seriously, I’d have to move the business to a storefront.

    By the middle of 1978 I was able to generate enough cash flow to be able to seriously consider looking for a suitable location. Several factors were essential. Of course the rent had to be something reasonable. West Hollywood seemed like an excellent choice. Since the majority of my clients were gay men, it seemed logical to be in the heart of the gay ghetto.

    I briefly considered the Silver Lake area because a lot of leathermen lived in that neighborhood. There were also a number of leather bars. But unfortunately it lay within the jurisdiction of the rabidly homophobic Rampart Division of the LAPD under an equally homophobic police chief, Ed Davis. Notorious for his raids on the area’s gay bars, Davis made headlines and enemies on the city counsel when he squandered a sizable chunk of the police budget marshalling a large force, including helicopters, to raid one of the leather bars that was having a slave auction to raise money for charity. He reasoned they were breaking the law because slavery is illegal. Were I to locate in Silver Lake, how long, I wondered, might it take for my fledgling business to fall victim to some cop with an agenda? At least West Hollywood had a sheriff’s department which seemed to get along well with the area’s residents and business owners. Because I hated driving in LA, I was perfectly happy to find something within walking distance of home.

    West Hollywood in those days before it became an anti-business incorporated city was a genial community on the Eastern edge of Beverly Hills. Then, as now, the area was liberally dotted with showrooms catering to the interior design trade.

    As fall approached, fortune smiled on me. On the corner of the main thoroughfare (Santa Monica Boulevard and Huntley Drive), about three and a half blocks from home, I saw a ‘For Lease’ sign. The space was only about eight hundred square feet, but the rent was within my budget and it provided everything I needed at the time.

    The building owner was a crotchety, middle-aged, lush named Sid. At one time he’d had a design related business on the premises, but had reached retirement age and wanted to let his property be his source of income. At the time there were three other businesses in the building. If memory serves me correctly, there was a gay-owned vintage clothing store on the corner, a pro-dom on the second floor, and, briefly, a gay sex club run by the landlord in the basement. It was certainly a colorful location for my business.

    I signed the lease in September and began the process of decorating and furnishing. Although he was frequently difficult, Sid and I got along well through the years, and Gauntlet had a presence in his building until its demise in 1998. Sid died a year or so before Gauntlet.

    Before starting Gauntlet I had had many years of training and experience related to the design field. I’d studied three years at the New York School of Interior Design, worked for several designers, done picture framing, and worked in a paint and wallpaper store. When it came time to decorate my own business, I was ready.

    By 1978 I had pretty well established purple as the color for body piercing. This had sprung directly from another of those products of gay creativity, the bandana or hanky code.

    According to my research, some trace of the hanky code dates back to Gold Rush days, when dancers in all-male mining town saloons would divvy up into “fellers” and “gals,” those taking the women’s parts wearing identifying kerchiefs wrapped around their arms. But in the hands of a few gay men, it manifested into a unique cultural phenomenon that is still with us today.


    “The hanky color code originated in the early 1970s primarily to distinguish specific sexual interests when the original SM (or at least DS)-orientated leather scene was enlarging—and clothing alone didn't reveal esoteric sexual interests. The first published hanky code was done by Ron Ernst who drew one up in collaboration with Alan Selby (the original Mr S) for their San Francisco store Leather N Things; this code was published in the Bay Area Reporter in 1972.”

    The color of the bandana and the pocket in which it was worn signaled one’s particular sexual interest. Worn in the left back pocket it meant you were a top or active participant; on the right, a bottom or passive partner. Over the years the list of color codes became quite long. Some have quipped that you need a color chart to decode all the subtle differences of hue and shade. In the early days the list was fairly short. Red meant you were into fist fucking, a particularly popular sport from the mid 70s until the advent of AIDS ten years later. Dark blue indicated an interest in fucking, light blue a taste for cocksucking. Black meant S/M; gray, bondage. Yellow and brown are self explanatory (more).

    Drummer, a magazine for gay men into S/M that had begun about the same time as Gauntlet had published an article listing the common hanky code colors. I reasoned that piercing fans ought to have a color of their own. But what color? I didn’t have to look too far for inspiration — purple, the color associated with Jupiter, the planet associated in astrology with prosperity and good fortune; purple, the color draping Catholic and Anglican churches during Holy Week when they commemorate the day Jesus got pierced. It seemed ideal to me, and so I fired off a letter to the editor of Drummer decreeing purple as the official color for people into piercing. My letter was published, and in time, by continually reinforcing the message, it stuck.

    Quite naturally purple had to be a significant element in my color scheme. While purple is quite common today in fashion and design, in 1978 it was not a particularly popular color. This presented me with a number of challenges from the start.

    The business owner who’d previously occupied the store had put up a canvas awning. My original intent was to have a new awning made from purple canvas to fit the existing frame. On this would be painted the business name. Unfortunately there was no purple canvas to be had. Rather than go with another color I finally decided to have the existing awning painted and lettered instead.


    The exterior of the store with its purple awning

    As for decorating the interior, some friends and T&P group members thought the motif should be “early dungeon” — dark with lots of black leather and chains. While certainly sexy for some, for lots of people this would be too intimidating. It might also create an impression of sleeze and a possibly unsanitary environment. For most people getting pierced is scary enough, and less edgy surroundings can help put them at ease. I envisioned a day when piercing would become popular with more than just gay S/M enthusiasts. I wanted a look that would be inviting to anyone who walked into the store.

    A stylish wallpaper, something in which purple was a major element, would certainly be a good starting place. From working in a paint and wallpaper store I was familiar with many of the wallpaper designers and what they had to offer. So I got dressed up and headed for the newly opened Design Center to play interior designer.

    Finding what I wanted proved to be a bigger challenge than I had anticipated. There was almost nothing in which purple was a significant keynote. While some companies will custom color a run of paper for a design job, it’s expensive and reasonable only for a large job. I only needed a few rolls of wallpaper.

    What I finally settled on was beautiful, if a little over the top. It was a foil paper with an art nouveau motif of giant peacock feathers in shades of gold, orange, rose, and russet red with purple accents. The effect was quite dramatic. Some friends said it looked like a bordello. Others thought it was a little too gay. But once applied to the walls, with the trim and ceiling painted in a complementary purple, everyone had to admit the place looked elegant.




    Left: The front counter. The wallpaper was a real eyecatcher.

    Right: Gordon, one of my first office assistants, at work in the newly opened store.

    I really would have liked to have had purple carpet, but that was not to happen for several years. Until then we made do with the sandy beige carpet that covered the floor when I took occupancy. At one point a carpet dyeing service was called in to dye the carpet purple, but after they did a small, inconspicuous test area, the idea was scrapped. The best they were able to come up with was a sickly lavender which was not acceptable.




    At my desk. Notice the jewelry making area directly behind me.
    The vertical blinds could be closed to provide privacy when I was piercing.

    The back half of the store was to serve double duty. There was to be an area where I would make jewelry and another screened off area where I would do the piercing. The back wall was covered with a mottled silver and white wallpaper. The remaining walls were painted white. Good lighting was important, and the white gave the area a clean reassuring feel.




    Making jewelry

    As the decorating proceeded, plans for the grand opening were taking shape simultaneously. I designed invitations and had them printed. Fakir graciously provided a photo of his enlarged nipple piercing which appeared on the front. Well over a hundred invitations were sent out to enthusiasts all over the world.



    The grand opening invitation. Fakir Musafar provided the photo of his nipple.

    The grand opening was scheduled for November 17, Gauntlet’s third anniversary. There was a whirlwind of activity in preparation. Refreshments had to be purchased, champagne iced, everything put in order. A local photographer named Charlie Airwaves was hired to take photographs. It was one of the biggest days of my life.

    Guests began arriving around eight o’clock. My lover Eric and Doug were on hand to help me welcome them. Doug was in his element. For him this was the manifestation of a long-held dream.



    Left: Doug holding forth with members of the T&P group.
    Right: My lover Eric chatting with Alayne, my bookkeeper.
    (Both photos by Charlie Airwaves)

    Throughout the evening over a hundred people attended the festivities. It was a historical event. I wonder if that many piercing enthusiasts had ever congregated in one location at the same time before. Among the many guests were my pal Rod, and Tom the librarian who had been so fatefully instrumental in bringing it all into being.




    Among the guests was Tom the librarian (right facing forward)
    who was responsible for bringing Doug and me together.
    (Photo by Charlie Airwaves)

    Members of the T&P group were out in force, among them Bud who would become known to the piercing world as Viking Navaro. From Orange County, pro-dom Mistress Antoinette showed up and was photographed with both Doug and I.




    L-R:
    1. Members of the T&P group in conversation     (photo by Charlie Airwaves).
    2. Decked out in Gauntlet-made septum tusks, Bud, AKA Viking Navaro,
    converses with fellow enthusiasts (photo by Charlie Airwaves).
    3. Doug caught in mid-yawn or mid-sentence with pro-dom Mistress Antoinette.
    4. Mistress Antoinette and I catching a photo op.

    So the opening night of the first store in the world devoted exclusively to body piercing came to an end. It was an event I will never forget. Who would have dreamed that in less than three decades there would be thousands of piercing establishments around the world following in its footsteps?


    Next: The World’s First Piercing Magazine

    Jim Ward is is one of the cofounders of body piercing as a public phenomena in his role both as owner of the original piercing studio Gauntlet and the original body modification magazine PFIQ, both long before BME staff had even entered highschool. He currently works as a designer in Calfornia where he lives with his partner.

    Copyright © 2004 BMEzine.com LLC. Requests to publish full, edited, or shortened versions must be confirmed in writing. For bibliographical purposes this article was first published July 31st, 2004 by BMEzine.com LLC in Toronto, Ontario, Canada

  • Bill O’Reilly Fears The Lizardman

    Written by

    BME

    Bill O’Reilly Fears The Lizardman

    “The ACLU … are the most dangerous organization in the United States of America right now. There’s by far. There’s nobody even close to that. They’re, like, second next to Al Qaeda.”

    – Bill O’Reilly, FOXNews (6/2/04)

    The first time I encountered Bill O’Reilly’s irrational views on body modification was some time ago when he appeared on Last Call with Carson Daly. I was flipping channels and came across the show, and having only heard a little about Bill at the time I decided to stop and get some firsthand experience of him. The thing that has stayed with me from that interview was Bill’s reaction to seeing Carson’s forearm tattoo. With no more provocation than the sight of the tattoo, O’Reilly began to voice his extreme disapproval, tinged with sorrow, over people — particularly young people like Carson — getting tattoos. I do not have a transcript but the phrase ‘hate to see young people ruining themselves’ sticks in my head. While those may not have been his exact words at that time, they are certainly in line with the position he continues to espouse today, often without any prodding.

    Besides revealing his prejudice a propos of nothing, the other thing that makes this notable for me is the context. Here is a man (O’Reilly) who as the guest on the show is lamenting how someone younger than he is, with (at the time) two very strong television shows has ruined himself and his future by getting a tattoo. I really think that Bill would do better concerning himself with his own career than that of Carson who could likely rest comfortably on his laurels for the rest of his life already and shows few signs of slowing down. Also, as Carson was quick to point out, this particular tattoo is a tribute to his father. O’Reilly was hardly fazed at this, though it was enough for him to shift off from discussing Carson’s tattoo to tattoos in general and then letting the subject go for the moment. So, when faced with fact that he had ignorantly spouted off about a tattoo that by anyone’s standards would be a beautiful and solemn gesture he did not apologize or reconsider but simply went on pontificating, conveniently overlooking his misstep and the glaring exception to his argument sitting next to him.


    Since this incident I have had the chance to hear O’Reilly denigrate tattoos and piercings regularly — most often in his radio broadcasts. When I am on the road I tend to search for talk radio and encounter him on the airwaves frequently. He often lumps being tattooed or pierced in with violent or antisocial behaviors, illiteracy, misogyny, and other undesirable qualities or activities. Sometimes he goes so far as to say that a visible tattoo or piercing is an indication that the wearer is a social degenerate. Frequently, he points to how people with visible tattoos or piercings will not be able to get jobs and thus make any contribution to society. Consider the following quotes:


    “Already you see millions of young Americans covered with tattoos, unable to speak proper English, unwilling to read a book or a newspaper. How do you think these people are going to compete in our hypercompetitive economic marketplace? The answer is that millions of them will be unable to compete, and will be doomed to a low wage existence. IBM will not hire you if you have a tattoo on your neck.”

    “Thus, we now have 10-year-old boys calling little girls ‘bitches.’ We have 13-year-olds with tattoos and body piercings. We have poor children without parental guidance selling dope and carrying guns.”

    My first question to Bill would be, where has this prejudice come from? It seems a bit too overdone, even for a pundit (the job description of which could easily read ‘making gross and unjustified generalizations’), to be simply a symptom of the residual Western puritanical stigma attached to most forms of body modification. Perhaps every pierced and tattooed person that Bill has ever encountered or heard of was an ignorant, violent, leech on society with no redeemable human values. Maybe he somehow managed to overlook all of the good people who are pierced and tattooed — the policemen, firemen, doctors, scientists, and just plain good folks (including ones with neck and hand tattoos that work for IBM — I know of a few) . I won’t deny that there are some truly repugnant people in the world and I will freely admit that some of those people are pierced and tattooed but there is something very important that Bill O’Reilly seems determined not to see:

    Heroes have tattoos too.

    In fact, if I were to over-generalize my experience in a similar manner I would be saying similar things about people without visible tattoos or piercings. Nearly every person who has ever accosted me for money or that I have observed or experienced acting poorly in public was not notably modified. Conversely, the nicest and most successful people I know are very publicly modified.

    And this is why Bill O’Reilly fears me — and probably you too. We rip the carpet out from under his proverbial feet. As much as he would love to paint us all as exceptions that prove the rule, there are just too many of us spread across too many fields and endeavors. And here is a note to Bill and anyone else who wants to tread that path: In real logic, the exception never proves the rule. Furthermore, many tattooed people are not employees because they are employers!

    If there is a silver lining to the success that allows O’Reilly spew his ignorant prejudice to such a large media audience it is that it means he will almost certainly never return to his former career as an educator. Yes, as he himself is often quick to point out, O’Reilly is a former teacher. Coming from a family of teachers and having teaching experience myself (ranging from elementary to college level); I shudder to imagine Bill O’Reilly entrusted with care of developing minds. Per his prejudice against body modification and despite claiming to hold personal freedom in high regard he advocates draconian methods in response to students who he describes as disrupting classrooms through body modification and or dress. I can only hope that his replacement was more enlightened and realized that instead of removing someone from the system until they comply by force, that issues of difference, including dress and body choices should be addressed for the benefit of all in the class. On that topic I would suggest Bill (and others) make a careful read of the columns by BME’s own Shannon Larratt on the subject:

    As a final note, I will mention that I was contacted to appear as a guest on Bill O’Reilly’s show over a year ago when tongue splitting legislation stories were hot and I was getting the chance to debate some of the legislators, often pointing out their complete lack of any facts on the subject. Bill and his producers seemed interested in the story because they agreed with my take on it being an issue of freedom and pointless legislation of prejudice (The [Modified] Body Politic). I also suspect that the writers of the bill’s political affiliations may have played a role. However, the appearance and story was canceled. I cannot say for sure as to why — I was told that they decided to cut it in order to give more time to another story. Here is an alternate theory: Having contacted me and done some basic research on me based on information I directed them to on my website and BME, the producers and Bill realized that I would not be attacking the tongue splitting legislation but also look to press him on his stance on body modification. Could it be that Bill O’Reilly didn’t want to have to defend himself and give airtime to an educated well prepared opponent with a tattooed face?




    Erik Sprague

    because the world NEEDS freaks…

    Former doctoral candidate and philosophy degree holder Erik Sprague, the Lizardman (iam), is known around the world for his amazing transformation from man to lizard as well as his modern sideshow performance art. Need I say more?

    Copyright © 2004 BMEzine.com LLC. Requests to republish must be confirmed in writing. For bibliographical purposes this article was first published July 27th, 2004 by BMEzine.com LLC in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

  • Revenge of the Tattooed Nerds [The Publisher’s Ring]

    Written by

    Shannon Larratt


    Revenge of the Tattooed Nerds

    “Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character had abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and courage which it contained.”

    – John Stuart Mill

    One of the things I love about tattooing is that it attracts interesting people from all demographics. The simple truth is that some people feel a desire to permanently mark themselves with things that profoundly affect their lives. I don’t know if this is some genetic leftover that helped primitive humans hold their social fabric together, or whether it’s an unavoidable byproduct of being both narcissistic and sentient creatures. Either way, people get tattooed every day with the things that define their lives — and “nerds” and “geeks” are no different.

    Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been talking to people with “nerdy” tattoos — computer logos, video game themes, science, math, and engineering imagery. Below you can read their stories in their own words:

    The Cult of Apple

    While I have received the occasional Intel, AMD, and Sun tattoo pictures, as well as a few Linux Tux and FreeBSD tattoos, no computer company has as many tattooed users as Apple does. We’ll begin this article by letting a few of those people explain their Apple tattoos in their own words.

    Nicole, 21, Seattle
    Apple Employee

    I’ve been an Apple enthusiast since I was young, and when I was 12 years old I said my first tattoo would be the Apple logo. It was Apple and my skills in working with and fixing Macintosh computers (as opposed to PC repair, which seems to be dime a dozen) that allowed me to get a good job outside of the small town I grew up in, and allowed me to escape from that close-minded, racist place. It was also my enthusiasm for Apple that was a factor in meeting my life partner; without being Mac users, we probably wouldn’t have found such a common bond. I wanted to get the tattoo to symbolize my coming-of-age, because what it stood for was such a factor.

    I actually had the logo tattooed in the September after I turned 18; that gave me nine months to get up the courage to get anything tattooed. The specific logo used is straight from an Apple sticker: size, shape and coloring. By the time I was tattooed, Apple had actually changed their corporate logo, but I had always pictured myself with the older rainbow logo. One thing that I’m quite proud of about the tattoo is the fact that no black ink was used. Every other Apple tattoo I’ve ever seen has a black outline around it. I read an anecdote from Steve Jobs (one of the founders of Apple), who was discussing the design of the logo. He insisted on having no black outline around the original logo, at great expense, but he wouldn’t settle for less. I had to shop around to find an artist willing to do it with no outline, but it was worth waiting for. It’s still as crisp and colorful three years later.

    My personal reasons for having the tattoo weren’t that I was slavishly devoted to the company — I had the tattoo for reasons outside its duty as a logo. Even if the company went out of business, I had the tattoo my coming of age; and it was only a symbol of such. My feelings about Apple have become stronger after getting the tattoo; it’s always a blast to meet others with Apple tattoos, and it’s certainly a winner in “who’s geekier?” competitions. I actually started working for Apple about two years after getting the tattoo (where I’m still employed); and no, I didn’t show off the tattoo in the interview. The period between the interview and getting hired was pretty heart-wrenching; I wasn’t sure how I would feel, being rejected by the company that I have indelibly marked on my body!! Luckily, it was unfounded fear.

    Apple customers can see my tattoo on a daily basis during the summer. Most customers don’t notice it (or don’t say anything), but the ones that do always love it. Everyone asks if I got it so I could get a job there. My co-workers love it as well. I showed it off in our first day of training together, and I’ve seen pictures of other employees’ tattoos.

    Christy, 20, Ithaca, NY
    Music major

    I was never much into computers until I went to Ithaca College. My parents had a PC at home and I would use it for schoolwork, but when I went to college I bought a G3 iMac (which I later replaced with a G4 ibook) since our music program strictly uses Apple Computers. I use the computer to run music notation programs like Finale and Sibalius, but that in itself isn’t reason enough to get the logo tattooed on your body. The more I learned about the company and the people who used them, I fell in love. It sounds ever so geeky, but all of my friends use Macs, a lot of them for film editing that they do. We are all up on the latest software and hardware, and are fanatical about it. I couldn’t think of a more thrilling activity then watching Steve Jobs give his keynote presentation at the MacWorld Conference.

    For a long time I just didn’t have anything that I felt strongly enough to tattoo on my body. Then I decided to tattoo an Apple on me! It just embodies everything that I am. It is more than just a computer logo to me. Apple computers are beautiful. I love design. I love to look at beautiful things. Architecture, fine art, interior design, superb tattooing, I just love it all. Apple gets it — they make beautifully designed products, and that is what I am about. The other main factor is when I think of Apple computers, I think of my friends and I smile. I met a lot of them through rendezvous on ichat at my school, and they mean the world to me. I didn’t get an Apple logo tattooed on me because I claim to be the goddess of computers, but what the logo has come to mean to me, and when a little Apple can make you smile so much, why shouldn’t it be tattooed on your body?

    I had a “friend” design the tattoo for me though. As time progressed, we “grew apart”, and when I looked at my back I couldn’t think of all the happy things that it meant to me, just fighting and tears. I had to get it off of my back. I should have just left it as Apple designed it. I covered it up with an old school piece, which still isn’t finished. I most definitely am going to get another Apple logo though, on a different part of my body, which you may or may not ever see 😉

    Sam, 30, Canada
    Mac Consultant

    I first started using the family Apple IIe computer in 1984 and used it exclusively while I lived in England until 1992. When I came home to Canada, I started using a Macintosh LC II as it would provide a similar setup to what I was used to. A year later my first computer was an Apple PowerBook 160. In 1995 I started tinkering with friends’ computers and by 1996 I started charging money for my services.

    In 1999, I moved to Ottawa to become a Macintosh computer consultant working solely on Macintosh computers. In 2001 one of my service calls was to fix an iMac at One Body Piercing in Ottawa. This was when I started thinking about the body mod world. I thought it was cool and decided an Apple tattoo would be the natural choice given that it’d been a part of my life for almost twenty years. I always that Apple was to the computer industry what Harley Davidson was to the motorcycle industry — the definition of perfection. Besides, bikers have Harley tats and not Kawasaki, so why not an Apple tat for me?

    I early 2002 I moved out of Ottawa, quit my job, and started my own Macintosh consultancy business. On my 29th birthday I went and got the Apple tattoo done. I never really cared about the pain because it wouldn’t last long. I didn’t want to get a tattoo that was too big, so one that’d hide under my watch was perfect. I was thinking about an outline that I’d get filled in later, but when I found out that the outline would cost the same as the filled in version, I got it filled in.

    The few customers that I have shown my Apple tattoo seem to notice the logic of it, but I haven’t had any negative reactions towards it, except from my mother, but she’s okay with it now.

    Joseph, 23, Upstate NY
    Computer repair technician

    My parents made me learn to type over summer vacation when I was about seven. The next year, I was required to learn TI Basic (on a TI 99/4a). There were computers available to me ever since I can remember. I learned how to write code, and the computer became something completely different, something much more useful. It seemed as if they could do anything. My first real job was working as “student help” at a school (where I work again now) installing network wiring and loading new computers for student use. Only for brief periods have I done anything else, and not because I wanted to.

    I thought about the tattoo for a long time, and thought it would be kind of funny in a way, but also seriously considered it’s impact on my life and on my future. I finally decided I really didn’t want to have a job outside of computers in the first place. Fellow geeks should be able to understand a tattoo like this, shouldn’t they? I had rationalized that it wouldn’t really hold me back if I stayed in the computer field, and if I wasn’t in the computer field, it would be a constant reminder that I wasn’t doing what I really love. I don’t have any regrets.

    When I initially approached the artist he was very excited, and we came up with the idea of an oval shaped plate missing from my forehead with a hole showing a computer inside. We discussed how the use of “torn flesh” had become common and expected. It was unanimously decided that we would use shattered bone as the outline for the opening. We got together later with a few photographs of parts as well as some real computer parts and I showed him some of the basics. I pointed out the important pieces that I required in the tattoo. I let him do the rest on his own and when I returned he had the tattoo drawn up. I don’t remember having any complaints about what he drew up, but I had to remind him what color some of the parts were during the process. It ended up being a computer processor in the center (the processor is a bare 500 mhz Motorola MPC 7400 chip) with two memory chips on one side and some surface mount parts on the other side on a green circuit board.

    People have very mixed reactions about it. Most of them are good, but some people don’t seem to grasp the concept of the tattoo at all and have difficulty understanding why I would do something like that. I don’t often let people see it to maintain a low profile. I know for certain there are people I work with that don’t know I have it. People do occasionally ask why I didn’t get it tattooed on my ass or something, but I can’t understand why someone would ask as question like that if they understood what it was.

    Zelda’s Army

    Video game tattoos are probably by far the most common “tech” tattoos that are sent in to BME. While nearly every game and every character is tattooed on someone, two game franchises absolutely dominate in numbers: The Legend of Zelda and Quake, with Zelda-themed tattoos having by far the most profound and personal meaning to their wearers.

    Wesley, 24, Murietta, CA
    Piercer at The Electric Chair

    Link, from the legend of Zelda, this guy was my brother growing up. I’m from a generation of latchkey kids who had the Seavers for parents and video games as baby sitters. Not to mention that I am still an avid fan of 8-bit video games. Be it playing them on an emulator or just washing the old cartidges off with rubbing alcohol and using one of my two NES systems.

    How happy was everyone who played this game when they got a piece of Tri-force, a bomb, or pretty much any item in that game for the first time? I can recall it almost as well as I can recall my first kiss. So it was a no-brainer that celebrating Link was what I wanted tattooed on me. I hunted down the image on the internet and took it to Kim Durham. We tried placing it normally, but since I wanted to make sure that you could see it through my ear tunnels, so I put my plug back in and we used my ear to draw a circle on my neck then placed the transfer in the circle.

    This stands as one of my favorite tattoos. It also doesn’t hurt that it’s one of my most complimented tattoos. The colors are vibrant enough to attract attention, and any person who sees it wants to wax nostalgic about one of my favorite conversation subjects; old video games!

    Kathy, 22, Oregon
    Botany/Chemistry Student

    My twin and I grew up with a few best friends, and one of them was a boy named Kenny who we liked to play video games with. Mostly Zelda, but others as well. We would watch the Zelda cartoons on TV and dress up like the characters for Halloween and pretend to be the characters when we were playing. Kenny was always Link, Becky (my twin) was Zelda, and I was always Sprite. I was a little put off about always being the minor character, but we expanded the role when necessary. As more Zelda games came out we kept buying them and playing them, but the original was always my favorite. I painted my car like the map of the original. I do not play the game all the time, or hardly at all anymore, being busy with school, but it is a reminder of the most fun times of my childhood.

    I decided to have it tattooed about 30 seconds after my twin came home with Link tattooed on her back!

    The design is the most majestic and simple official picture of princess Zelda that I could find. The color was done to be complimentary to Becky’s Link tattoo. The location was done to match Becky’s as well, though my tattoo is about an inch larger. My feelings on my childhood will never change; I will always want to remember the best parts, the imagination that made everything we did magical. So, I still love the tattoo. I wish it were in a different place, though. I can’t ever see it, and I always have to stretch to put sunblock on.

    My college peers usually love it, because a lot of people my age grew up on the game. Sometimes, if they don’t understand that it symbolizes my childhood, they think I’m a bit of a fanatic…

    Patrick, 22
    Software developer

    I wanted to get a Nintendo tattoo since video games were the primary reason I picked my profession. Zelda is definitely a game that has stood the test of time and Link is a hell of a character. I decided to put it on my leg because I’m considering doing a sleeve of Nintendo video game characters. For the design and pose, I just brought some Nintendo Powers to my artist, Nate from Everlasting Art in Philadelphia, who will be finishing it this weekend. He drew a custom piece based on the magazine and some of my vague descriptions like “I want a sort of serious look on his face.”

    My coworkers love it. Seriously. It’s sparked an interest in tattoos in several of them. Even my manager and the CEO don’t have any problems with it (or tattoos in general).

    Myk, 20, BC Canada
    Warehouse worker

    I was born in 1983 and four years later the greatest game of all time came out: Legend of Zelda for the NES. I played that game all day long for months and months, and still play it when I get around to it. Every Zelda game after that I have bought and beaten just reminds me so much of my childhood, so why not get a permanent reminder?

    In 1998 The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was released. It’s said to be the greatest in the whole Zelda series, which is true in my opinion. I faked sick a lot to get out of school just to play it. On the cover of the box is Link’s sword and shield which have been used in every game, but just hasn’t been shown in such detail until this game came out. I was obsessed with the design. I took the box to a local tattoo shop at 16 years old and an hour later I was sitting in the chair for the first time. The size, color and style are exactly as it looks, no change at all. I knew I wanted to get a full sleeve on my right arm one day, so I decided to get it on my left upper arm.

    I don’t regret getting the tattoo, because it means so much to me, but I do regret getting it done at the place I did. I was young and just wanted a tattoo… I didn’t know I should check out other stores, check for cleanliness and so on. I now see that my Zelda tattoo is very poorly done, but it’s nothing that I can’t get touched up and make look better.

    Scott, 21, Detroit Computer/Electrical Engineering Student

    I grew up as a military brat, so being on the move and having little to no friends I turned to gaming and technology. I chose to start my sleeve with the Atari symbol because Atari is what started the gaming craze. I actually probably enjoy Nintendo’s work over Atari, but I’m a fan of everything gaming.

    I’ve always wanted a tattoo sleeve, but being that I am a professional I couldn’t really go past the elbow. I wanted the brightest color I could possibly get so that’s why I chose Jime Litwalk to do my work — he is the color master. I don’t regret getting this work done. I’m a geek. You would never tell from my appearance, but the geek blood runs through me. I also have a strain of binary code tattooed on my back that spells out Apollo, the Greek god of music and philosophy. Music is another major influence in my life.

    Science and Engineering

    Tattoos are far from limited to “fan” artwork. While you could unfairly write off the tattoos already mentioned as no different than someone getting an Ozzy Osborne tattoo (not that there’s anything wrong with that!), many people working in science, math, and engineering, choose their own glyphs based on those professions.

    Chris, 31, Melbourne
    Sound engineer, drummer

    This tattoo, along with its partner on the other wrist, “wavelength = velocity/frequency” represent physical constants. They also represent the basis of my work, and of my passion. They were done at a time in my life when I desperately needed something constant, and to help me focus on a long term goal.

    I drew up several designs, and drew them on my wrists with ink, to make sure I was going to be happy with the result. I did experiment with different colors in the flames, such as blues and greens, as in a natural gas flame, but it didn’t work at all. Choosing the font for the symbols took the most experimentation.

    It hasn’t affected my work at at all. I get other sound engineers asking what the formulas mean though!!

    Luigi, 23, NYC
    Construction Safety Inspector

    I spent four years studying electrical engineering, and I didn’t drop out to some easier subject like some other students. I graduated with a BSEE… not that you can call me a doctor, but it’s still a small accomplishment. Because of this small accomplishment, I got my tattoo. To me, the transistor revolutionized the world due to faster and smaller computers and anything else that can benefit from them. It also has to do with the fact that transistors are in just about everything.

    The design is from the IEEE schematic symbol for a transistor. My feelings for the tattoo vary, but for the most part, I don’t regret it. It has had no negative impact on my professional life and can be covered by my watch when I need it to be.

    Niki, 20
    Computer science and mathematics student

    My first introduction to the Mandelbrot Set occurred during my third year of high school. My pre-calculus teacher had some time towards the end of the semester to showcase some of the more interesting sides of mathematics. Of course the Mandelbrot Set (and fractals in general) were included in this mathematical menagerie and really peaked my interest. Infinite amounts of infinitesimal detail becoming increasingly more complex as small changes were made to the input. Needless to say, this laid the foundation of my fascination with mathematics.

    During my senior year of high school I was fortunate enough to have a couple of incredible teachers who acted as catalysts and really ignited my interest in math and computer science. After graduating high school I began my college career majoring in computer science and minoring in mathematics. Come fall I will be starting my third year. So far I have been very fortunate and have had many talented professors for both computer science and mathematics, for which I am very thankful.

    What better way to express my love for math and computer science than to get a tattoo? And here is this Mandelbrot Set — a mathematical concept that can only be visualized using computer science! It seemed quite natural.

    To make the design I wrote a program that would generate the Mandelbrot Set. I decided to shade all of the points not contained in the set green (as green is my favorite color). I had planned to have the formula scarred into my back with the image tattooed over it (and in fact I still plan on doing this). However at the time I did not know any scarification artists and opted to have the formula as part of the tattoo.

    I find that more and more each day I realize how right this path is for me. Aside from my Mandelbrot Set tattoo, I also have the letter i scarred into the back of my right calf and the square root of negative one scarred into the back of my left calf (both of which represent the imaginary number). I certainly plan on getting more math and computer science related work done in the near future. My coworkers and clients who do know about it have overwhelmingly responded in a very positive manner.

    Michelle, 20, Florida
    UF Brain Institute Lab worker

    My familial situation growing up wasn’t a typical one, and consequently, I often wondered about the effects it had on my mental and emotional development and state. Basically, I wanted to know why I was the way I was, and eventually, why people are the way they are. That’s why I decided to study behavioral neuroscience.

    Initially, I thought of this tattoo as my own take on the symbol of the heart. I’ve come across many heart tattoos and I am always reminded about how feelings, whether physical or emotional, stem from the brain and nervous system, not the heart. The death of my grandmother was a more immediate impetus for me going to the shop and actually getting it done when I did, since the tattoo also has another more personal meaning for me.

    The tattoo is six rendered neurons across the right side of my rib cage. The one closest to my front is colored in blue and purple, while the five nerve cells behind it are shaded in black. This is because the five colorless neurons represent five people in my life that I was close with that have died, and the colored one represents me. They are all connected to me, and have influenced my life, both while alive, and in their passing. I decided to get it done over my ribs because my tattoos have to be concealable (and my back is sort of reserved), as I intend to pursue a career in research work, and unfortunately, body modification tends to be discriminated against in most professional fields. I also don’t really get tattoos for other people, so if anyone else can’t see them, that’s fine with me.

    Blake, 22, Toronto
    Bank Worker

    Computers and technology are so fully integrated into society, to the point that without them we wouldn’t be able to function properly. Without computers and computer related technology, we would fall apart. It’s gotten to the point where we rely on them to live… or at least live as we’ve become accustomed to living. So why not push this one step further and display the facts permanently on your body?

    Technology and computers control how we live, control our bodies and ultimately control the way we look at the world — in essence, our minds. My tattoo is the DNA double-helix encompassing the binary form of words for “MIND” and “BODY” pretty much summing up these disturbing realizations — that I’ve come to accept, rather than fight. The world of computers will one day, without a shadow of a doubt, end up like a potato bug on it’s back — taking us along with it — but at this point, there is not a damn thing we can do about it… but wait.

    Whether it’s liked or not, no one will actually put a great deal of thought into anything you say when you tell it to them. Now, throw in a factor that makes a person ask you a question that involves their interest… makes them want to know (whether it be guided conversation — misdirected truths — media manipulation — or something that people like to look at, like a tattoo). You now have that persons attention, with their mind open, ready to absorb information — whether they accept it — understand it — or choose to debate. I wouldn’t be surprised if a great deal of life changes conversations started over, “Hey, nice tattoo. What is it?”.

    Aubrey, 20, Philadelphia
    Computer Programmer

    I grew up with a biochemist for a father and a physician for a mother. Logic, rational thought, and curiosity were all things that were completely encourged in my childhood. My
    parents built a computer from a Tandy/RadioShack when I was less than a year old (maybe before I was born, I’m a bit fuzzy on those periods), so we’ve always had a computer. Putting this encouragement together with the computer resulted in me breaking, rebuilding, and understanding at least half a dozen machines since then — usually with my parents’ support.

    Really, my tattoo is about my general love of information technology, and my belief that it is radically and fundamentally reshaping how humans live. We are evolving at a rate never before seen on this planet. Basically, because the time between different generations of technology is shrinking rapidly, our evolutionary progress is increasing proportionally.

    I wanted a tattoo. But, I don’t feel comfortable with having a representational tattoo on me so instead I looked for designs symbolic of what I enjoy in life. I’ve always loved computers.

    I’d originally wanted to have my entire scalp tattood with the schematic of an Intel 486DX2 (the first computer that was ever mine). But, due to the fact that such schematics are nearly impossible to find in a visually pleasing form, and due to their complexity, this wasn’t really going to work. I started looking for something simpler.

    There’s exactly one thing responsible for me having a computer to write this on: the transistor. Had we been stuck using vacuum tubes forever, we would never have had any computer smaller than a living room, or with clock speeds faster than a few megahertz. Furthermore, the schematic symbol for a transistor is also visually interesting, and unmistakable to anyone who’s ever spent time with electronics schematics. It was,
    honestly, an easy decision.

    I am, and have been for a while, a transhumanist. Having people constantly asking me about my tattoos gives me the perfect chance to talk to them for a bit about my views on technology and where we should be going with it. I know that makes me sound a bit like somebody wearing a “Ask me about [Insert God X]” headband, just sitting around hoping
    somebody will let me preach. But, the truth of the matter is that I preach even if people don’t ask.

    I’ve been hired for jobs (where geeks had hiring and contracting power) partially because my enthusiasm for technology was made obvious by tattoos. I find it’s very easy to get someone to very quickly believe you actually do love what you’re doing when you can point at your arm and say, “Yeah, that’s a transistor. And I got it in art school.”

    Clients and jobs where geeks didn’t have any power almost never “get” my tattoos. I do nothing to hide my ink or piercings from clients, and so they see them, but they almost never say anything about them. To the few who have said something, I’ve gone on and explained what a transistor is, how it works, what it does, and other such information. Any points I’ve lost for having ink tend to be made up quickly with my ability to, in five or ten sentences, tell these marketing types how a computer physically works.

    Linux fans? I’m stealing this prompt to tell a brief anecdote. I just got home from the Fifth HOPE in NYC. It was amazing. But, one of the most amazing things was the number of people who understood my transistor tattoo. Up until this time, I’d kept a tally of how many people had properly identified it. It was at thirteen in three years. After just a few hours at HOPE, there was no point in counting anymore. Admittedly, I changed the rules, in that I was counting people pointing, nodding, smiling knowingly while looking at it, and so on, but it was obvious, even without precise numbers, that dozens of people understood it. Not only did they know the symbol, but they made the context jump (which engineers of the older generation never seem to do, even when they think it’s cool after it’s pointed out), and understood why I would have such a thing on my arm. It was very, very liberating, and the tradition of the count has been abolished.

    8-bit Gamers

    Perhaps because of the nostalgia factor, the games most often etched into permanence are older 8-bit games, and the design of the tattoo regularly reflect an embracing of this technology.

    Jolene, 26, Indianapolis
    IUPUI Research Associate

    I wish I could say that Galaga has been an obsession of mine ever since its inception as Galaxian for the Atari 2600, but the truth is I didn’t discover this fabulous game until I started frequenting the local arcade by my college. A friend of mine and I would go there late at night when we couldn’t sleep. We would just show up in our PJs and play Galaga until 3 AM. We fell in love with the game. It was our escape from school.

    I had been thinking about getting it tattooed, but the actual decision was sort of last minute. I was in grad school, taking this class over the summer that was called “Digital Media and Pop Culture.” It was basically all about visual effects in films, the history of video games, stuff like that. On the last day of class, we had the opportunity to earn some extra credit points by sharing a story or experience having to do with movies or video games. So the night before, I went and had the Galaga fighter ship tattooed on my back, and when I told my story and showed the pictures of the process, my professor was extremely impressed. Needless to say, I earned those extra credit points.

    I’ve since been planning out which aliens to include, and what challenge stages to integrate into the entire design. I’ve also decided that eventually, one day, when I retire from the game, I will tattoo my high score between my shoulder blades. As far as the design goes, I’ve been recreating all the graphics using Adobe Illustrator from pictures I’ve found online or that I’ve taken myself while playing. Since my skin is such a pale shade of white, I’m having to outline the graphics in a thin black line so they will show up better on my back (this started with the fighter ship, which is white in color, but had to be done in more of a grayish tone on my skin so it would be visible).

    I still enjoy Galaga as much as I ever have. In fact, I’m probably even more cocky about my Galaga playing skills now that I have the tattoo, because it goes to show how hardcore I am about the game.

    Russ, 26
    Computer Engineering

    Back when arcades were hot-shit, like during the days of Mr. Do, Dig Dug, Jungle Hunt, and Berserk, my mom worked at a bowling alley on Cape Cod. The arcade in the bowling alley was loaded with video games, and also loaded with quarters. Every morning when my mom would open the alley, she would tag me along, and the service operator would come to empty the quarters out of the machines. After he rid a machine of its bounty, he would load it up with the maximum allowable free credits (usually 9). Then I’d have about an hour and a half to play free video games all morning until clients started coming in. This lasted a while before the local kids caught on that there were free video games. This was probably the nostalgia I was trying to commemorate with these tattoos.

    I wanted a tattoo, and I wanted something that sort of defined me as a person. I spent a lot of time playing Nintendo when it was in its prime, and knew that my love for old school video games was never going to wane. I tend to be a huge fan of pop culture in general, so any tattoo I was going to get was going to be along those lines anyway.

    On my right arm I have an Atari logo, and underneath it are four recognizable icons from the early eighties: Blinky from Pacman, a Space Invader, a Pooka from Dig Dug, and Mario from Donkey Kong. The Atari logo was my first tattoo, which reflected the first real “video games” that I ever played. The four icons below it, I felt, encapsulated a general range of the sort of thing anyone living in the arcade era could be familiar with, and I also thought those four icons were pretty representative of something I would want on my body forever.

    My left arm has four icons from the Nintendo era: Link from the Legend of Zelda, Megaman, Super Fire Mario, and the Black Mage from Final Fantasy. Although they are pretty mainstream choices, I just wanted some kind of reminder that most of my early teens were spent having sleepovers and playing rented Nintendo games until 5 AM.

    I don’t play a lot of newer games, so when people see the tattoos, they always assume I am a huge gaming fan, which I’m not, although I do love the oldschool. especially Robotron 2084.

    Rahima, 20, Midwest
    Entrepreneurial Management and Marketing

    I still remember when I was four and my mom led me to the towering display of Nintendos at Kmart. Since then, I’ve gone through several different game systems (remember Virtua Boy?) and literally hundreds of games. I’ve had numerous other hobbies and interests, but none have stayed with me as long as video games have. Video games aren’t an obsession of mine, I only play four or five hours a week, if that, but I have always played them. I think because I haven’t become insanely obsessed with them, I haven’t have a chance to become burned out by them. I also feel that video games have been a huge part in allowing me to have a close relationship with my autistic brother. He doesn’t understand what goes on in most of the world, but he does understand video games.

    While on break from college, my friend had a tattoo done, and I was insanely jealous of it, so I figured after years of wanting a tattoo, the time was right. The idea for the 1-Up mushroom just popped into my head and I instantly loved it. I figured I wouldn’t regret having the 1-Up mushroom on me when I’m older because video games represent so much of my childhood.

    Most people love my tattoo and I like seeing the smiles and memories it brings back to them. Some people ask if I will regret the tattoo later on, but I really felt like it belongs on me. A month later after getting the 1-Up mushroom tattoo, I had the Goomba added on the inner part of my ankle. If anything, the tattoos serve as a great memory of my childhood, and something that I frequently look fondly at.

    I do go to a rather snobbish business school, so some people are surprised by my tattoos. I know that I have potentially closed some doors with them, but I never wanted a piece of corporate America. I have thought long and hard about the possible consequences and discrimination I may face as a member of the modified community, and am ready to take on any and all of these challenges with open arms.

    Steve, 24, Lynnfield MA
    CIS Graduate

    I have always loved video games, and I like my tattoos to be something that I can smile at, and at the same time be important to me. At one point in my life I had lost a lot of friends but video games were still there for me. When I went to school I made my first friends in the school’s arcade playing Gauntlet. They are now my closest friends. Video games are also a good outlet for me because when I get mad or am in a bad mood I can play a video game suited to my mood. I can blow things up, or I can play a video game that makes me smile, or even cry.

    Nintendo was always something innocent. It reminds me of my childhood, and I miss the innocence that came with childhood. I originally just wanted a full sized Nintendo controller, but now my plans are to make my whole right leg a Nintendo piece — I just need more money!

    Since I got my first tattoo I have become more open to people’s free expression. In my mind I was always tattooed anyway though. My feelings about people opposing the modified community have grown, and in a way it angers me. Sure it’s human nature to fear what we don’t understand but in these times we have enough problems and the last thing we need is something so petty such as this.

    Other gamers

    …But 8-bit gaming is far from the only kind immortalized with tattoos. As more time passes, the torch is passed to PC gamers as well.

    Shan, 28, Dallas
    Obscurities Counter

    Most of my tattoos spawn from childhood memories. At the age of nineteen, my uncle was paralyzed from the neck down in World War II. Every month the government would send him a large check to compensate for his disability. He would use that money to find ways to entertain himself. I lived with my uncle most of my early life. Every week some new gadget was coming in the mail. I was about six when the computer arrived; we unpacked it, and plugged it in and wow, was it amazing. As I was going through the bags I found a strange box with the word Ultima on it. My uncle not being able to really move his arms, always needed help with his toys. I was his arms and legs in a land far away, killing dragons, and collecting gold, or flying through space, discovering new alien races. Everyday after school, turned in to every night after school, and then every morning before school. If I had any free time, I was behind that machine in a different world.

    Most kids my age didn’t have computers; in the early eighties they were pretty expensive. Everyone else had Ataris, so of course we got one as well. The games this machine would let you play just weren’t as involved, and were really basic. I still played them, but it wasn’t until the Nintendo that I really got hooked on platform gaming. First Nintendo, then Sega (you had to have both in my neighborhood). Computers were still a rare thing, but slowly they became more inexpensive and the games were easier to find. As I grew, so did the machines, faster processors, amazing graphics, surround sound audio or 3-D realistic environments. It’s a whole new world, and you can visit it too. That’s what always attracted me, the interaction between the artificial intelligence, and the choices I could make. There are no limits. Sure you can read a book, and explore other worlds, but how often can you decide what the outcome is, and watch it all happen with your eyes, not your imagination.

    Tattoos are a huge part of my life, they are my work, my memories, and the things in life that make me happy. Throughout history people have had tattoos for many different reasons. Sailors would get symbols to keep them afloat, or to remind them of that woman they met at port. Warriors would get symbols to scare their enemies or to show rank. I get tattoos that remind me of the things I love, and what I want to carry with me for the rest of my life. When I look in the mirror, or down at my body, I feel the opposite of regret. I smile and know what I have done is right.

    The Lizardman, 32
    Performance Artist

    This tattoo was partly motivated by my love of goofy things — especially in otherwise often serious arenas like permanent body modification. I was also interested in exploring an atypical tattoo location (fingertips). The idea of getting a gaming based tattoo was very simple since it is something I really love to do. Outside of sex it is my preferred and driving force when it comes to pleasure oriented experience!

    Coming up with the idea and being amused by it was enough but I held off for a few months just to be sure I really wanted to do it, as is usual for me. I didn’t see a drawback, so I got it. The idea itself contained all the design elements — to have the standard FPS control keys tattooed on my fingers as if prolonged gaming had imprinted them there.

    If you enjoyed this article, you can check out lots more tattoos like these in BME’s Geek Tattoo Gallery. If you’d like to send in your own for that gallery (and get a free membership in return), just email a crisp high-res photo of it to [email protected]. Thanks,


    Shannon Larratt
    BME.com

  • Montreal Tattoo Convention 2004 Report [The Publisher’s Ring]

    Written by

    Rachel


    Montreal Tattoo Convention 2004 Report
    by Rachel Larratt


    “If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.”

    – Abigail Adams

    Every woman I know that’s been to a tattoo convention knows what most of the photographers can be like — dodgy old men trying to convince you to come to their hotel room. You can easily recognize their sleazy work in the magazines; they’re the guys that think you have to be nude to “properly show off” that little star on your wrist.

    “Want a picture of your sleeve in the magazine? Let’s get you out of that shirt and bra, sweetie. It’ll look better that way. Trust me, I’m a photographer. Now push your breasts together for me. Look sexy, baby. Why don’t you take off those pants as well? Don’t worry, honey, all the other chicks are doing it too. Don’t you want to be famous?”

    Ever wonder why some tattoo magazines are full of women whose only shared characteristics are bad tattoos and bared breasts? It’s because the men taking the photos don’t care about the tattoos — they only care about getting girls naked. If you’re a regular at tattoo conventions, I’m sure you know the photographers I’m talking about. We’ve all been harassed by them. After turning them down, I have had these old men sneak back about twenty feet and take my picture with a zoom lens, only to end up with nothing but a shot of me holding up my middle finger.

    This is a tradition that I want to stop.

    Earlier this summer, after spending an hour at the Toronto convention and being completely disappointed in the atmosphere, I left. While I’d already told everyone I was going, I began to question my upcoming plans for the Montreal convention. Should I go? Should I spend the money on a booth? Will people be just as grumpy? After all, the French, especially the Quebecois, do have a reputation for being rude to us Anglophones.

    Spending one minute at the Montreal Tattoo Convention completely shatters those stereotypes. Friendly people had come from all over the world, and it was clear that they were there to have a good time. There was no posturing or attitude, and it just felt like everyone was there to meet the top international tattoo artists and to simply enjoy the art.

    Even though many of the people attending the convention spoke only French, the language barrier never hurt us at our booth. I made my way through the day with a lot of smiling and body motions to show people what I wanted them to do. I had my lovely assistant Jen translate whenever I couldn’t get my intentions through, and Phil Barbosa (who you know as the photographer who shot the ModCon book and other BME events) helped me keep the lighting and technical aspects in check.

    I started off taking pictures of the few people there that I knew and then started tackling the crowds. No pressure and no sexualization. I stuck with “may I take your picture?” and people seemed to liked that. Now let me share some of those pictures with you.

    I’d love to continue shooting conventions all over the world. I really had a great time taking portraits of both old friends and total strangers. Thank you to my assistants for the help, to the organizers of the convention, and especially thank you to everyone who let us shoot them. It was wonderful getting to meet all of you (and to see some of you again). I hope you enjoyed the photos, and finally let me also thank that small minority of photographers out there that understand that women with tattoos are still women deserving of respect and courtesy.

       
         Rachel Larratt
         BMEzine.com

    Rachel Larratt is the copublisher of BME.com, the largest and oldest full-spectrum body modification publication on the planet. Her background is as diverse as one would expect of BME’s coowner, and includes everything from body piercing to developing technology for high-bandwidth media distribution.

    Copyright © 2004 BME.com Requests to republish complete, edited or shortened versions must be confirmed in writing. For bibliographical purposes this article was first published July 13th, 2004 by BME.com in Toronto, Ontario, Canada..

  • BMEFEST 2004 Debriefing [The Publisher’s Ring]

    Written by

    Shannon Larratt


    BMEFEST 2004 Debriefing


    “The goal of all civilization, all religious thought, and all that sort of thing is simply to have a good time. But man gets so solemn over the process that he forgets the end.”

    – Don Marquis

    As you probably know, BMEfest 2004 took place this past Friday (July 2, 2004) here in Toronto (a giant thank you to everyone who helped put it on, especially to Blake and Badur who did almost all of the hard work in setting up the event). We had approaching 600 attendees, four bands (Monroe, Defence Mechanism, The Matadors, and The Legendary Klopeks), a second run at The Pain Olympics, as well as performances by The Lizardman and Orbax’s Circo Loco. Because of the size this year we had to hold it at a different venue than the traditional “back yard” environment, so we went with Lamport Stadium (literally a football stadium) which was the only space available downtown.



    Left: Windows Media, Right: Apple Quicktime (same movie, different file format)
    Both videos are 320×240, 7 minutes long, and about a 21 meg download

    The video above was shot by my sister (iam:hellisfum), although she’s asked me to emphasize that it’s just something that she patched together in an afternoon for me and shouldn’t reflect on her as an editor!

    While the overwhelming response was extremely positive (more), I heard a few others opining for years gone by and I as well missed some of the freedom and laid-back atmosphere we were able to get at last year’s rural party. Because we get so many legal threats to attack the event, we had to make sure that we did everything by the book, which meant permits, security staff, restrictions on bloodplay and suspension, control of smoking, fireworks, and alcohol, and other similar annoyances. There were also some big mistakes made in terms of the way things were laid out (why oh why didn’t we put the beer tent and the bands closer together), and although everyone involved worked hard to try and minimize these issues, the fact is that given our constraints they weren’t something we could entirely eliminate.






    Just some of the photos from BMEFEST 2004.
    Lots more are in the BBQ gallery.

    Photos:equal, mufkin, draider02, dawnie, lilfunky1, hotdogcore.

    So what should we do next year?

    BMEfest is an event for the community on BME. So I’m asking you for your feedback and your desires for next year. First of all, I should mention that we do have a few constraints in our planning:

    • We have to be able to handle four or five hundred attendees (or concede that not everyone who wants to can come).
    • We have to be able to handle all ages, both because some people are underage, and others come with their children.
    • It is likely that fake complaints will be called in about the event to the authorities, so we do have to be “mostly legal”.

    As I see it, there were a few main problems this year:

    • The security (which we needed) made some people feel unwelcome.
    • Organizationally everyone was running blind and it was the first time any of us had tackled anything like this. Given that, an excellent job was done, but there were areas where experience would have paid off.
    • Some of our legal restrictions took away from the vibe of the event. Personally I think people should be able to bring their own booze in and stuff like that.
    • The space was not ideal in that it was too large (although there wasn’t anything half way in between), and this was made worse by a few decisions that turned out not to be the right ones in terms of layout.
    • As much as everyone wanted to take a break from it this year, it would have been nice to use some of the space for flesh pulling, suspension, and other things like that. The Astroturf also meant no fire play which has always been a staple of BME events.

    There were little issues too like not having any shade so people were literally bursting into flames, but those are mistakes that are easy to make and easy to correct the next time around. Anyway, here are a few options for next year:

    Go rural

    Have the event out on a farm again, and skip the law — out of sight, out of mind. This is basically what BMEfest 2003 (more) was. It’s a very relaxed and friendly way to do it. Some of the costs on rentals go up, but other costs go down. The only (giant) negative to this option is that it means the event isn’t on transit in a big city, so people either have to drive or we have to arrange travel.

    Get smaller

    Bring the event back into the backyard. Unfortunately this simply isn’t that legal — it’s actually quite miraculous that earlier years where we did this were not shut down. However, if we could get a series of backyard BBQs in Toronto, we could run shuttle buses between them all day long, and have a “distributed” event. However, I’m not sure that we wouldn’t just have “clumping” at single locations and many people wouldn’t meet each other like in a single space. It might however allow us to bypass many of the legal requirements, and it would be small and friendly… but an organizational nightmare.

    Cancel BMEfest altogether

    I’m not sure this is a very good option, but I could “get out of the BBQ game” and leave those events up to others. Rachel and I could instead focus on smaller specialized events like ModCon and ModProm and so on.

    Keep growing bigger

    Do another stadium or other downtown large-venue event, address the problems that we had at this one (which wouldn’t be hard to do), and make it big big big big. (This would be the obvious choice of course).

    Go exotic

    Because most people travel to come to BMEfest it wouldn’t cost any more to have the event in the Caribbean. We could even charter a big jet for everyone from Miami and back at the end. It sounds nutty but I really think it could work, and we could give people both an amazing BMEfest and a Caribbean vacation for the same price as one in Toronto. If you’ve seen my pictures from there, you know where my vote could fall. Toronto is nice, but imagine staying on a Caribbean beach with all your friends from BME, going snorkeling, swimming, or just enjoying a lot of rum.


    I have some ideas about what I think the best option is, but this isn’t entirely “my” event. It’s your event. So I need to know what you’d like to see for next year. Feel free to say what you liked and didn’t like about this year, and what you’d like to see added or changed next year. Let me know if any of the above options strike you, how you think they should be implemented, or if you have totally different ideas altogether.


    Shannon Larratt
    BME.com

  • Shannon Larratt Interview [The Publisher’s Ring]

    Written by

    Shannon Larratt


    Shannon Larratt Q&A


    “Man is a make-believe animal: he is never so truly himself as when he is acting a part.”

    – William Hazlitt

    After a quite some time of people suggesting it, I’ve finally done my own Q&A column. All of these questions were submitted by IAM members, and I hope I’ve done an acceptable job answering them. Before you read this, please understand that these are just my personal views. The site is made up of a wide range of people with an incredibly diverse set of beliefs, and this is just one of many of them. So please don’t be terribly offended if you don’t agree with one of my views.

    Please excuse the pretentiousness of some of the answers.

     

    shawn.spc: Do you remember what you did four days ago?

    No, I don’t. My memory lasts between five minutes and a few hours most of the time, although I do of course have a dotty memory of events, but it’s unclear, muddled, and not in chronological order. While I’ve done my best to structure my life in a way that makes this unimportant, it is very damaging to my social relationships. It makes it hard for me to know who I know, who I can trust, who I shouldn’t trust, and who is lying to me or telling the truth. I have to rely on notes, automated assistance, and of course Rachel to get by.

    It also makes it extremely difficult for me to write longer essays because when I’m writing them and proof-reading them I can’t remember more than a few paragraphs at a time, so I tend to repeat myself a lot. To combat that I try and write an outline and just expand it gradually, writing a sentence at a time and “filling in the blanks” as I go. I program the same way at this point — one of the good things is this all has forced me to start properly documenting my code!

    Anonymous: What is it in Rachel that makes you think she is so amazing and spectacular? Is she really pretty in person or is it just fancy camera work on your part? Does she really “hold you together” as it says on the staff page?

    Yes, absolutely. I don’t think people who don’t know me personally understand just how non-functional I am. While parts of me are totally supercharged and far outperform the average person, other parts of my life and persona are extremely troubled and hard for me to control. I think that part of the reason that I’ve worked so hard to have success in an independent lifestyle is that it’s put me in a position where these shortcomings are less relevant. Even still, they’ve progressed to the point now to where it is difficult for me to run my own life, and without her help I would probably fall apart. She’s incredibly intelligent and competent (it’s not as if she’s just “the girlfriend” — she’s an equal partner and probably does more day-to-day in running the site than I do) and her skills perfectly complement mine and I think vice-versa as well. (As an interesting side note, I’ve seen this same sort of partnership in both other programmers and in many body artists that I respect).

    And yes, she really is that beautiful in person.


    FroggerJenkins: Providing a service of this magnitude, while amazing, must be tiring. Do you ever regret launching BME?

    Sometimes the amount of time I have to spend working depresses me, because I often get up at 6:30 AM and work late into the night. At this point I have very little time for anything of my own and it’s starting to wear on me. Sometimes I think as well about how much more money I’d have if I spent more time on work and less time on BME, but I’ve never regretted launching BME. I also think it’s important to note that I’m really just a facilitator or catalyst — I help direct where BME is going, but BME is an expression of thousands and thousands of people, not of me.


    xMeMNoCHx: While I enjoy reading your diary posts and articles, a lot of them always seem to deal with darker subjects (the nature of the business I guess)… what in life right now enables you to take a step back and say “damn, it’s good to be me!”?

    Not that I don’t enjoy being me, but I’m not sure that anything makes me say “it’s good to be me” in the sense of “rather than someone else”. Every one of us should be able to say that they enjoy being alive. Unfortunately many of us are imprisoned by society and are unable to fully be ourselves and express the things we need to, and thus become miserable.


    That said, I did go yacht shopping today, and until we moved back to the city Rachel and I did have matching “his and hers” Porsches. We’re both very hard workers and have always been financially rewarded for doing so. This has allowed us to do things for our friends and community that make us happy, and it lets us raise our daughter without a financial spectre always over our heads. I am very grateful for this.


    Uberkitty: If you could suggest a single book to the entire world what would it be? What about suggesting all the writings of a single author?

    I highly recommend “The Good Life” by Scott and Helen Nearing. If any single book influenced major change in my life that is probably it. His other books are brilliant as well. I also think everyone needs to read “War is a Racket” by Major General Smedley Butler (which you can read for free online), an anti-war essay written between the first and the second world war. People hear it so much that it must read like a cliché, but those who don’t learn from history really are doomed to repeat it. So more so than focusing on individual authors, I think it’s essential that people read classics, especially those that touch on the issues we believe are “new” or politically relevant today.


    ServMe: From what I’ve seen and read, you seem to be living proof that as long as you want to accomplish something bad enough, you can. I suppose that as most other humans you have failed at things, so do you see those failures as the end of something, or just as an intermediary step towards reaching your goal — or coming up with something even better?

    I’m not sure if there’s such a thing as success or failure in the way that most people use it. Sure, sometimes a task works the way you wanted it to, and sometimes it doesn’t. But I’m not entirely convinced that the purpose of life is to “win” — I think the purpose of life is more to discover, accept, and experience being alive (and I think body modification is a tool in achieving that for some people). Failure is a part of that, and while I don’t seek out failure, I do my best to appreciate it when it occurs. The only real failure is not appreciating being alive, and there are of course days where I have that failure.


    serpents: You have very strong, well-thought out opinions, and very persuasive ways of making those known. You also have a fairly strong natural magnetism of person. You also speak of your narcissism fairly regularly. It’s obvious that despite your best effort, it does seem that a “cult of Shannon’s personality” tries to form itself within IAM members from time to time in that a proclamation from you is instantly carried on high by the masses as gospel, and people who were only moments ago defending their attitudes to the death can sometimes backpedal just as fast to align themselves with your opinions. The question is what keeps you from totally taking advantage of it, setting up an island nation and proclaiming yourself god-king before an adoring mass of followers?

    I don’t want followers. Followers are not interesting travel partners in life. I hope that if people back-peddle on their statements because of something I say it’s because they’ve considered what I said, debated it for themselves, and come to a similar conclusion as I did — just believing something “because Shannon said so” is foolhardy. I’m sure I say stupid stuff all the time and I hope that people respect themselves enough to be able to decide on their own which of my words are right for their life and which are not. I have no desire to lead anyone anywhere, although I’m thrilled when people decide to follow a parallel path, and if something I’ve said or done has helped them find it, I’m honored to have been able to do so.


    lilfunky1: Have you ever tried to make someone (such as your parents) try and understand the reasons behind your modifications? Did you give up? Or was it never any of their business?

    If people understand themselves, then they will understand me as well. The key to understanding what makes other people work is understanding what makes oneself work. While I can try and help others learn about themselves, when it comes right down to it, they have to do it on their own. The people in my family who understand me are the ones that understand themselves.


    Netzapper: Would you support a measure (enacted by the United Federation of Planets, Q Continuum, God, or some similarly omnipotent organization) to replace all of the world’s firearms, missiles, artillery, etc. with swords, ballistas, trebuchets, etc.?

    When I first read this question I interpreted it as a swords into plowshares question. So my first answer is one to an imaginary question.

    Well, that did of course happen in Japan in 1588 when Hidéyoshi and his samurai banned the ownership of swords and firearms by all but the noble classes. They scoured the country telling the people that the swords were going to be melted down and turned into a giant statue of Buddha. Of course, once the swords and guns were all in the hands of Hidéyoshi, they were instead turned into a giant statue of him, and Japan has been a police state ever since.

    Sometimes freedom and liberty have to be defended, and I don’t believe that will ever change. Giving up our ability — and our fundamental right — to do so is suicidal.

    But in terms of the question that you actually asked, history hasn’t shown us that forcing soldiers to kill each other in hand to hand combat versus from afar reduces the amount of death or increases the “personal responsibility” the soldiers feel for that death. If anything, it makes it worse. So no, I don’t believe such a transformation would be positive


    UrgentClunker: How would you define failure, and what would you consider your biggest failure to date?

    Failure is not enjoying the game of life. Any time I get depressed and let my fears get the best of me, that’s when I’m failing. An interview bombing, a car accident, a poorly written article: none of those are failures. The only failure is when you don’t enjoy failing (not that one shouldn’t try and “win” every time). If I’m understanding him correctly, my father’s core lesson to my siblings and I was that life is the ultimate game, and victory comes first from enjoying it and second from coming out in first place (and that if you have to kill a hobgoblin, you must make sure he can scream his death scream on the battlefield to open the doors to hobgoblin heaven).


    snackninja: Have you ever considered running for political office? What level of government would you feel most comfortable in?

    I believe running for political office is an honorable aspiration, and I considered running for the office of mayor in Toronto on a secessionist platform to make Toronto a partially independent city-state. I still think it’s the right thing for both Toronto and Canada, and I’m starting to see more mainstream political groups making noise along the same lines. However, my extreme views on many subjects coupled with my appearance would make it very difficult for me to run for office. There are better ways for me to independently facilitate political change in the world.

    What was the first concert you ever saw? The best one?

    The best concert I ever saw was during Mojave 3’s first tour (although their final concert in Toronto as Slowdive was incredibly emotionally moving). Not including stuff I saw as a kid, I think the first concert I ever went to was the Sonic Youth tour promoting Goo.

    What do you think the next major evolutionary change that the human race will experience will be?

    Humans have remained largely unchanged through catastrophes of immense magnitude such as the most recent Ice Age. Humans are successful because we’re smart, but also because we’re incredibly adaptable. So I think it’s unlikely that we’ll see any natural evolution occurring. However, I do think it’s very likely that we’ll tinker with ourselves genetically more and more. It’ll start with gradual improvements — smarter, stronger, healthier, and able to survive in more hostile environments. Whether that eventually takes us into a form other than human, I don’t know. I hope I get to see some of it in my lifetime.

    I think the changes facing humanity are more likely to come from our escalating technology. We’re on the cusp of entering space, and cities in orbit, on the moon, and on neighboring planets will very likely come in our lifetimes. We are also facing the risk of increasingly versatile, adaptable, and extremely intelligent machines who could potentially replace us inside the same time period. The Japanese are making terrifying progress in this, and I don’t believe they have the technological checks in place to keep it from snowballing out of control. It’s a very dangerous game, and I think we are making a terrible mistake in barreling forward so recklessly. Whether they are our children (and thus the next step in “human” evolution), or if they’re a science experiment gone horribly wrong is a question for the robot philosophers of the 22nd century to debate.


    Celestial_Horror: It seems that many of the most knowledgeable modified people at some point became professionals, and performed modifications on others. Was there ever a point where you considered a career as a piercer or artist?

    I did briefly tattoo, which I enjoyed, but to be perfectly honest I’m very introverted and fairly sociopathic. I like seeing my friends, but only for short periods, and I do not enjoy being around strangers. As a piercer, tattoo artist, or other body modification practitioner, you have to be extremely comfortable working with all sorts of people to give them the experience they need. I do not believe that I have the ability to do that.

    kamikuso: When did you first get into computers and programming, and how did you go about educating yourself?

    My father was always involved in computing and telephony projects as far back as I can remember, and from about the time I was five years old, worked mostly at home. Because of that I got to be around some amazing minds at a very young age, and had hands-on and relatively unrestricted access to new technology. My parents were very careful not to let me or my brother fall into the trap of television, so programming became my entertainment. I was encouraged to learn and loved doing it. I did later spend some time at the University of Toronto in cognitive and computer science, which helped make me less of a “sloppy” programmer, but I think it’s still fair to say that I’m exclusively self taught.


    hotpiercedguy: Do you ever wish you were more or less revered? Are you happy with what “celebrity status” you currently have?

    I couldn’t care less whether people think I’m a rock star or not (anyone who’s met me in person knows I’m not), although it makes me a little sad when people revere me — they really should be revering themselves instead. There’s nothing in me that isn’t in them as well. That said, having some level of popularity has been useful in spreading the messages I try and get out into the public mindset.


    MoDvAyNe: When you started the IAM community, had you ever considered that it would sprout and become a family for others interested in body modification?

    I had no idea. I wrote the IAM software because I wanted a tool to maintain my own online journal. I really wasn’t expecting it to be so popular when I opened it up to everyone else as well, but I’m very happy that it was. So many unexpected blessings and life-changing events have come for so many different people thanks to the community that has formed on IAM.


    Fidget: In retrospect, is there anything about BME or IAM that you would have done differently, but don’t feel like you can change now that it’s established?

    There are some organizational things that I might have done differently, and technologies that evolved differently than I’d expected at the time. I’ve made alliances with people from time to time that have betrayed me or ripped me off, but really, I think all of us could list endless things like that. Other than correcting things like that, I don’t think I’d change anything. The sites’ missions have stayed the same since day one.


    Reverence: For most people it’s hard to come out of their shell. Visible modifications are hard for people, as you know, since society places a lot on outward appearance. How long did take you and how much thought was put into your visible mods before you had the work done? Or did you not hesitate at all?

    I didn’t put any thought into it at the time because it was who I was, if that makes any sense. I don’t have to justify my modifications to myself because they make sense and they feel right. The only time I’ve had to “make excuses” for my physical appearance is for periods where others have tried to convince me that the modifications were a mistake.

    I’m sure there are many people out there who choose modification for fashion or social reasons, and that’s cool and I don’t have a problem with that, but I didn’t choose it. It’s how I was born and it’s who I am, and nothing can or will change that.

    That said, I think that people should know themselves pretty well before they go making decisions that could have a harsh impact on the rest of their life. If the modifications they’re making are going to affect their ability to find employment or even fit into the social mainstream, they need to very seriously consider whether they want to make such an immense sacrifice.


    Kraz_Eric: I’m interested most in your religious beliefs. I’ve read hints here and there, but nothing concrete.

    At its simplest, I believe that we (on this planet) are all part of a single entity, and that we are as interconnected and as dependent on each other as the cells in our own bodies. I believe that this superbeing is what most religions call God, and I believe that we are all God and a part of God. I think most religions try and express this in their own way, but they err in taking the metaphors used to explain this phenomenon too literally and thereby cloud the true nature of the universe.


    sadlyinsane: Do you ever worry about the influence that you and your site carry on a large group of a younger generation?

    Not at all. I believe in what I’m saying, and I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t think it was the truth, so I have no problem with it influencing anyone, no matter what their age is. I also believe that young people are the future (duh!) and that they’re a lot smarter than adults give them credit for. If that’s who I have an influence over, great!


    starspring: Has the look and layout of BME or IAM been determined or inspired by any particular method or design source?

    I pretty much just try and keep it as simple as possible. I don’t think that any of my sites really stand out as graphic design masterpieces, but I hope they’re easy to use. In terms of what I do online, my goal is to get the content to as many people as possible, so that’s what influences the design decisions.


    medlabchick: Most people know that you would love to live on a tropical island but have you ever thought about building a cabin in the middle of the forest in northern Ontario? Believe me, no one would find you there.

    Hey, I’d love to live in a fortified compound in northern Ontario, but I fell in love with and married an American girl who’s spent her adult life living in places like Phoenix, Miami, and New Orleans. While I grew up in a wood-heated house in Canada and love the winter, she’s not quite the fan of it that I am.


    jasonthe29th: for what social justice issue would you be willing to give up BME completely? For instance, if giving up BME stopped the death penalty or abortion would you do it?

    BME is a part of who I am, and a part of the thousands of people who’ve helped create it. Justice is absolute. You either have it, or you don’t. You can’t have “a little justice”. Thus I don’t believe that you can give up one freedom in exchange for another.


    Raistlyn: What are the pitfalls of running BME and IAM?

    I believe that BME stays fully inside the law and is a responsible publication. However, there are hateful people out there that have such a problem with who they are themselves that they choose to attack BME to distract themselves from the things they need to fix inside themselves. Because BME is totally above-board, they are constantly fabricating and calling in fake charges to various authorities.

    The only other pitfall is extremely long hours which to be honest is burning me out and I have to figure out a way to reduce that workload if I want to keep maintaining the entire site. That said, it’s far more of a positive experience than a negative one. I have some concerns about how the community is changing as time goes by, and whether some of what BME does is relevant or desired, but, for now at least, I’m staying on course and sticking with the plan!


    frzamonkey: What is the one thing that we as IAM members do that you wish you could change?

    I just wish people were nicer to another. It’s pretty pathetic to watch people who could be friends getting off on tormenting each other for no apparent reason other than enjoying seeing someone else in pain. That’s about the only thing that really bugs me, when people think that rather than curing their own pain, they’ll instead invalidate it somehow by making everyone around them hurt as well.


    t.thomas: Do you feel life is dress rehersal for something larger?

    I don’t believe that there is something larger in terms of heaven or anything like that. It’s already here and we’re already living in it… we just have to open ourselves to it. Joseph Campbell put it perfectly when he wrote, “People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.”


    Erica: I remember that when you first did your modcode, you marked “I happily kill what I eat”. When and why did you become vegan?

    I became vegan first for environmental reasons, kept with it for health reasons, and then stayed vegan long term for spiritual reasons. At the point I wrote that I was just transitioning to a fully vegan diet. Ethically, my primary problem was with factory farming and the truly brutal (and environmentally foolhardy) practices they employ, and morally I had real concerns that people were “hiding” the fact that a sentient living creature was giving up its life for our pleasure. I believe that if someone is going to eat meat that they need to embrace the death of that animal and on some level thank it for what it has given them. In the modern context, I don’t believe we can gain that awareness unless we are either raising our own animals for consumption and slaughtering them, or by hunting our own food. While I would not do it myself, I believe that by understanding the life-death-life cycles and taking an active and compassionate role in them one can perhaps justify eating meat, but at this point in my life I would not be able to bring myself to do so.


    pella: I think I read some where that you studied art history at university. What are you favorite non-body mod related artists?

    I’d like to think I appreciate good art from all eras, but I’m most partial to impressionists like Gauguin and Van Gogh, and as well to fauvism which of course grew from them. I like impressionist works quite simply because they’re beautiful and appeal to me aesthetically, and fauvism appeals to me emotionally.

    Do you think a wider more in depth knowledge of not only body art but fine art is valuable for professionals in this industry?

    I think an in depth knowledge of fine art and especially art history is valuable for people in all professions. Understanding the art that a culture produces is essential to understanding the context in which the events of the time happened — just knowing the time line is not enough. You have to be able to feel what the people living through it were feeling, and art is one of the only ways we have to transmit that information across time.


    Cylence: Do you think it’s possible to take body modification too seriously? I mean, when you start referring to your eyebrow ring as “my transformative spiritual experience” and are willing to be unemployed and exiled from your family or commit suicide rather than take it out, has it gone too far? Obviously an extreme example but I think you see what I’m getting at. Can body modification become too much of a person’s identity, to the point where it is their identity?

    I suppose one can take anything too seriously, but no, assuming the person is being honest with themselves, I don’t think you can ever take anything too seriously. “Transformative spiritual experiences” are often found in everyday events, and I would never question someone’s right to find value in that. If they’re wrong, their lie to themselves is far worse than their lie to me or you (since it’s really none of our business anyway). Clearly if someone is willing to ostracize themselves from their family and from society over their modifications they perceive them as extremely essential, and while I think it’s important to know oneself well enough to decide when something is healthy or unhealthy, cutting off someone’s medicine like that is rarely going to have a positive outcome. If someone needs modifications, I think they should be supported in that.


    Shannon Larratt
    BME.com

  • Eye can see more when eye cannot see. [Guest Column]

    Written by

    BME


    Our eyes are our vehicles of sight. But few look inside. Our ‘insight’ can project much strength. Passion at a pace not yet experienced. Look in. Look out!

    This is ferg’s journey. Read it with rhythm. It will rise and fall as your heart quickens and fades.

    Eye can see more when eye cannot see.

    I know a boy. He’s a traveler. Has been for ages. His heart gets heavy when his feet don’t move so much.

    It becomes encased in lead when his mind is stagnant.

    “He used to be such a nice boy.”

    He would hear people lament. They don’t know him so well. What they see now, on the outside, fills them with horror and disgust.

    “I feel like I’m watching some macabre underground film.”

    One eloquent young lady’s interpretation.

    On the inside, they can only hazard a misinformed guess. Flirting with mental health issues on the way. Crude attempts at categorization are just that. Crude. Labels fly like poisoned arrows. Straight to his naked and exposed breast.

    Rationalization takes on a gaudy, neon hue. To even ask the question implies the answer will remain forever inadequate. Irrationality seeks to deliver rationality. Never the twain shall meet.

    He likes trying new things. He hates people who won’t. He doesn’t care much for their myriad reasons. They don’t want to expand their horizons.

    So he tries. And he tries. And then he tries.

    Intrinsic motivation dictates that he does for the love of doing. There are no prior rewards in place.

    A lot like education. Another thing he loves.

    His travels took him to Tokyo, Japan in August 2003. A city with between 8 and 12 million inhabitants. Depending on where you view the city boundaries to be.

    Boundaries can be a strange thing. Sometimes set in stone. Sometimes as fluid as the river of time itself. They are there to give us guidance. They are there to be transcended. He tries to transcend boundaries. He thinks more people should.

    He has tried many pills. And found his own rabbit holes.

    He met fellow travelers in this vibrant, vexing, concrete metropolis. They started out as sole traders. Now formed a solid partnership. A surgeon and a nurse they be. You couldn’t have scripted it better if you’d tried.

    I dare you to try.

    This merry band had a merry bond. They had performed together before. In a dark, dingy place. Other people watching intently. Marking the moment in their collective memory.

    This time saw an enlightened crowd. In both senses of the word. It wasn’t dark. Light flickered flirtatiously. The voyeurs stared with less steel in their eyes.

    They had come to be amazed. To view acts that defied rational description. In the world upstairs. And they would see what it’s like to not see.

    The boy was not new to this ritualistic play. Previously. Without trepidation. The edges of his oral pothole had been forced to sit tightly together. Sutures and latex. Candlelight and catharsis. Nurse and patient. He endured his discomfort. Spat out his pain for the audience to gorge on. They stood lifeless, sucking everything in. In symbiotic silence. He fed, they ate.

    This symbolic show of suture and surrealism was a watershed for the boy. It marked him. He traveled through places never before ventured straight. He transcended those boundaries. The physical plane no longer his gaoler.

    Now he was a bridge. To be inserted over the gap. Between the suspended lands of joy. A circuit breaker.

    A different taste altogether.

    The suspenders were a fellow people of resistance. They swung from far and wide, hooked into their own way of life. They had connections.

    There were young and there were youthful. Adventuresome and audacious. Exciting and eclectic. They had fire in their eyes. Electricity running through their veins.

    The boy was a traveler. He was bereft of the locals’ oral means of communication. Language barriers are there to be crossed. Bridged as it were. He was already a bridge. This did not prove to be problematic.

    Communication comes in a multitude of forms. Here, common purpose was enough. The souls of this splendid evening united. Suspenders, cutters, carers, image makers, onlookers and ritualistic practitioners. All as one. They shared more than a common goal. They shared each moment. They shared each other.

    They tried. They did. They didn’t need to be dared to do so.

    The boy waited patiently until he was asked to the stage. Cross legged. On a chair. Alone.

    This was his next step. Having sewn the seeds before, he was prepared to ascend. The music on. The lights trained.

    The curtain slowly revealing his naked torso. He was ready. So were they.

    Surgeons usually re-connect what they have sliced open. This particular time it was knot to be sew.

    It started sharp. And continued effortlessly. A sliding of metal. Eyebrow to lower eye-socket rim.

    An expression on the face of the boy. Ethereal contentment. Imagine the lucidity of his emotions. To feel the heat of your own blood. Flowing freely and without regret. Down the front of your face. Must be a wonderful thing.

    Some mused. Some knew. It certainly looked that way.

    His surgeon was doing a good job. Sew precise and tidy. Tying each suture individually. Three is the magic number. Yes it is. It’s the magic number. Therefore 3 was to be. Each entry and exit. Times 2 for the eyes.

    The music slid and slithered like a soporific serpent. Through the crowd. Onto the stage. Into the boy’s heart. ‘Dreamtime’ the Aborigines of Australia call it. That time when the earth was created. No distractions, just creation. Everything new. As it was on that platform.

    Our eyes are really parts of our brain. They have a direct link. Without them we are blind. That does not mean we cannot see. Without sight we can begin to look in other ways. He saw without his eyes. So much more than he had ever thought possible.

    External, physical pain soon relinquished its hold to the inner sanctum of emotion. The music faded into background mode. Sensory perception was dulled. Heat. Light. Sound. Touch. All gone. Silence echoed from the faces of the resistance. A surgeon’s scalpel began a cheeky interlude. More redness flowed. More warmth was felt.

    He sat there. Eyes sewn shut. Face covered in blood. Looking like he’d suffered. Biblical punishment. From a long gone era. This surgeon had stitched then sliced. An unusual order as surgeons go. The boy looked in the most terrible pain. To be honest. Nothing could have been further from the truth.

    Part 1 was done and part 2 was to come.

    Lotus is Buddhastic is boy. Boy is Buddhastic is Lotus. He sat there. Perched. Moved yet unmoved. Touched yet untouched. Eyes bled shut. Heart. Mind. Body. He just sat there.

    The surgeon had performed his topsy-turvy operation of sorts. Nurse glided in to weave her wicked way. With him. Arms rested. Canada meets Celt. The goddess of ‘kinbaku’ guides the tender hands. This way and that way. Up and over. Across and under. Criss-cross, loops, bows, knot for the faint of heart. Nor for the faint of arm. Like our 8 armed friend of the deep, the boy acquired his own 8 tentacles.

    Instead, these were crafted from glowing pink catgut. They bobbed and weaved. They waxed and waned. Effortlessly through skin. Out and round. I discovered later that the boy was only aware of 2 or 3 of his extensions. So lost in his own world was he. His physical interface had conspired to mask sensations normally experienced.

    And so he sat, highly strung, up, there on his wee plastic chair.

    20 new holes. 2 new cuts. Lots more blood. A million molecules of serotonin. A deluge of dopamine. A new insight.

    A lot of respect. An overabundance of thanks. A friendship or 2 strengthened. A lucky boy, that boy.

    He sat there transfixed on nothing. Half his own weight. He drifted to the sky and beyond. Unaware of what the resistance were thinking. Pain’s last remnants. Collected like the pools of dried blood around his eyes.

    BANG!

    A sudden shift. Away from deep, soul-tickling music. His audio channel was immediately threatened. An up tempo menagerie of sickening sounds. Abruptly he returned. Fire was in his belly. Racing towards his head. Capillaries, veins, arteries. Boom. Boom. Boom.

    An acute realization. The fragility of mood. The songs you play. Those little notes. Vibrating the air. Straight to your ear. Chemicals in your brain. Bummer.

    He was now just a boy again. Thread and plastic and open. Bleeding. Bled.

    On top of a chair.
    At the front of a stage.
    At the back of a club.
    In the basement of a building.
    At the end of a street.

    In the south of a city.
    On the coast of a country.
    In the middle of the sea.
    Towards the top of a globe.
    In a universe.
    Just another universe.

    There are so many. Your brain can’t even begin to comprehend.

    But you must try. Try. Try to comprehend.

    He hates people who won’t try.

    He tried.

    He did.

    He will do again.


    Ferg (iam:bizarroboy) is a teacher. Born and adopted in Scotland. A sperm donor. Addicted to traveling the globe, writing and meeting people. During the last 5 years he has lived and worked in Scotland, Venezuela, South Korea, Japan and currently lives in Australia. He eats spiders, climbs mountains, drinks beer, takes loads of photos and collects out-of-body experiences. Coming to a town near you…

    The ritual above took place in Tokyo, Japan, and was facilitated by Lukas Zpira and Satomi.

    Online presentation copyright © 2004 BMEzine.com LLC. Requests to republish must be confirmed in writing. For bibliographical purposes this article was first published online June 26th, 2004 by BMEzine.com LLC in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

  • Why it’s important to let young people cut [The Publisher’s Ring]

    Written by

    Shannon Larratt


    Shooting the Messenger:
    Why it’s important to let young people cut


    There is perhaps no phenomenon which contains so much destructive feeling as moral indignation, which permits envy or hate to be acted out under the guise of virtue.

    – Erich Fromm

    Cutting and self-injury is all over the media lately, but because of its graphic nature, few who haven’t struggled with it themselves are able to think about it objectively, understand its roots, what makes it such an attractive path for some people, and how to turn it into something less destructive.

    The most important thing to know about cutting is that cutting is not the problem. Cutting is a symptom of an underlying issue, as well as an attempt to survive that issue. It could be active abuse by a parent or partner. It could be work or school related stress. It could be unhappiness from not being socially better accepted or low-self esteem because a single stranger told them they were ugly when they were five years old. It could be as simple as they feel like they have no control over their lives and desperately want something to be inside their power. There are a million terrible things that can happen to a person, and from them a million reasons for cutting. Many cutters have built up such internal walls that they may not even be able to consciously face or name the things that make them cut. But, as murder victims scrawl out the name of the killer in their own blood, so do cutters inscribe the sins of their abusers in their flesh.



    Song lyrics or accusation?

    Below is a message I recently received about BME’s ritual cutting gallery.


    From: Cobra McThunders
    Subject: great site…until

    hi, my names nicko, im 23, i just stumbled onto your sight and it’s cool, i really dig it, i’ve got 2 tats (traditional) and have always been into disturbing things so to speak, ever since that kid in 3rd grade eat ants i’ve been addicted to that OH MY GOD! feeling in your stomach where you think SICK! but some of the stories and images on your sight rub me the wrong way, dont get me wrong as horrified as i am by hanging by fish hooks, chemical burns,and scarification i understand that in a sterile professional enviroment it’s cool

    but dont capitalise on the stories and pics of the cuttings and burnings that are from extreme abuse i read a story of a girl who burned im sorry into her leg, and pics of slicing a star in a leg that was obviously done at home, i didnt come to the site to get teary eyed and give a hug, you see where im getting at, dont go for the low blow, other than that great job.

    and do you feel that posting these entries in the free area make it all the more dangerous for old cutters aswell as possible new ones waiting for the social exceptance that they need making the site, for a few, a place to show off there new so called pieces of art, im not a member and that is the reason, so here is where i tred into murky waters, dont you feel that your aiding destructive behavior? i knew a girl in high school who carved, and deep an (f-) f minus about 4 inches long and 2 inches wide above her fist to about her elbow, these are the ones that we have to protect as a society, and not give them a place to display there pain.

    nicko k.

    I get emails like this fairly regularly. I tried to ignore the generally insulting introduction and replied, “I totally understand where you’re coming from on this. I struggled with whether I should post these sorts of things for a long time. These people are already using cutting and ritual to somehow try and heal themselves. My hope is that by welcoming them into BME and by allowing them to talk about what they’re going through and what they do that they discover ways to channel those energies more positively.”

    The worry that the images on BME could “trigger” people is a fairly common one. To that I replied, “it’s definitely a worry, and I know it must trigger some people. However, they’re being triggered because there’s something there boiling under the surface. Suppressing it and trying to hide it doesn’t make it go away — it lets it fester until it erupts, sometimes suicidally.”

    I concluded by pointing out that “Stopping someone from talking about their pain doesn’t make it go away… That’s the most important thing to remember.”

    The conversation then ended fairly typically, with threats and condemnation, and the clear message that the person I was talking to was utterly ignorant to everything I was saying. Below is their (or their mother’s) final message to me. I get several emails threatening me like this a week on various subjects, so I wasn’t that surprised:


    From: Cobra McThunders
    Subject: Now you’ve got his Mom online

    Dear Heart,

    Let me let you in on a little secret, before you were speaking to my son. Now you speaking to his MOTHER.

    I just took the liberty of sending your website, and your e mails to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the FBI, and every police center, and child abuse center I could find.

    You sick witch. How dare you cover your sorry excuse for a human being self by saying you are helping children, or that you are not liable.

    You are an opportunist. A exploiter of children. You hide yourself behind some ignorant wall of superiority, trying to rationalize what you are. Allow me to help you, you are the scum of the earth. A person who participates in exploiting children.

    We’ll see what comes of my letters, and phone calls. You just met yourself a real woman, and a good mom.

    I hope you spend a long time in jail.

    Jane

    Unfortunately it’s unempathic attitudes like these that underlie the causes of cutting in the first place, and when persisted in can drive young people to acts far worse than cutting: suicide or even Columbine-type shootings as desperate attempts to end the real source of the pain.



    SILENCED

    Now, I’m not a doctor, nor am I a therapist. Keep that in mind as you read this — it is not medical advice. I have however faced (and I think bested) cutting myself, and I have corresponded with thousands of people who’ve gone through the same.


    Why people cut

    To put it very clearly: most people cut because they are being abused mentally or physically and the cutting helps them survive by making them feel alive and by allowing them to be the one controlling the pain. This abuse can be current, past, or sometimes just day-to-day stresses piled up past the breaking point. The people arguing most strongly to silence cutters by attacking the act of cutting are often the abusers themselves — making it an act not unlike a Mob boss killing a witness — and because of the stigmas attached to cutting, self-righteous parents like “Ms. Cobra McThunders” end up further abusing battered young people — and protecting and enabling those that brought out their need to cut in the first place.

    When animals are taken from their natural environment and imprisoned in small cages or otherwise have their normal lives stolen from them, they develop obsessive and self-harming behavior. They walk over and over in circles, they tear out their own hair, they chew their feet until they bleed, they stop eating, or they become violent. It should be patently obvious in these cases that their self-harming behavior is a direct result of their captors not meeting their basic needs. Humans are no different, and many cutters feel imprisoned, abused, and misunderstood by their parents and others in positions of power over them.



    CAGE: “15 bars for 15 years”

    If a person is cutting themselves, you can bet there’s something wrong in their life, either actively or as an unhealed wound from the past. Their cutting is both a desperate attempt to communicate this to anyone who can hear them, as well as an attempt to seize some control over a life that they feel little connection to or power over. It is better to hurt yourself than to have someone else hurt you — if you’re the one doing it, it’s under your control, and it’s your decision.


    The issue of “triggering”

    It is absolutely true that some people cut themselves after seeing the photos of other cuttings on BME. I’ve even received pictures of people cutting with their computer visible in the background, tuned to the cutting gallery. It wouldn’t surprise me if some of them cut for the first time after seeing those galleries. However, those galleries are never the cause itself.

    If a person is cutting it means that they are trying to find a solution and they are trying to find a way to cope. It also means that they’re trying to find that solution inside themselves rather than the far more common solution of turning to drugs or external validation like abusive or promiscuous sex. You know what? I think it’s a good sign if a person chooses to cut themselves before turning to drugs. It’s not a permanent solution, but it’s a lot better than many of the darker options.



    Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t think it’s a good idea to cut. It’s dangerous, and it can leave you with marks that are extremely socially stigmatizing. It can also mask the real problem, give your abusers the excuse they need to compound the pain they already level at you, and even result in your psychiatric commitment or worse. Cutting is not a long term solution — but it is a warning that should be listened to, not silenced.

    Imagine if people calling suicide hot-lines were hung up on because the operator sensed that they were in tears!


    The real “cure” for cutting

    If only the symptom (the cutting — which also serves as a survival tool) of a real problem is eliminated, then the person will try and resolve the problem in other ways — they may be driven to drugs, promiscuous sex, obsessive compulsive behavior, or even suicide — the third most common cause of death in teens. Under no circumstances is trying to force the cutting to end a solution in and of itself.



    ALONE… LIES, PAIN… FEAR

    I certainly concede that in most cases cutting is detrimental to a person’s life, but in the short term it is an essential safety net. However, in the long term it is equally essential that the cutter both try and find an alternative to cutting, and that ultimately they address the root cause. If the root cause is not addressed, the problems will escalate. I can not emphasize this enough. As long as the root stress is there (and there may be many different ones, and more may come in the future), the drive to cut will still be there. Thus, not only must the cause be addressed, but a better way to channel those energies must be found so the cutting does not repeat from the inevitable future wounds that all people face in life.


    Alternatives to Cutting

    It is very important to understand that cutting is a positive and life-affirming act which makes a person able to cope with their problems, albeit an act that is usually fueled by depression and almost always leads to other problems. However, the instinct to cut to feel, to cut to live, can not be cured any more than homosexuality can be “cured”. It is simply how some people naturally respond to certain kinds of stress. This can not be changed. That said, those of us who are cutters can — and must — learn to transform this symptom from something that potentially compounds the problem into something that not only makes our lives bearable, but actually improves our lives and makes us love being alive… even with the stresses.

    Any crutch that is to replace cutting must retain that sense of empowerment and “aliveness”. There are two basic alternatives (I don’t consider medicating a person until they’re too numb to care a “solution”) — continue cutting but in a less stigmatizing form, or replacing the cutting with a totally different but equally satisfying act. The first option is probably more common among BME readers, and that is using guided body modification to channel those impulses into something that leaves an aesthetically pleasing result — scarification, tattoos, body piercings, and so on. With the aid of an experienced artist, the energies inside the cutter can be satiated through a form of cutting that results in subjectively beautiful artwork that helps a person to define themselves in an uplifting and empowering fashion. Many people find that this transition teaches them about the source of the problem, and assuming it isn’t ongoing, can heal the festering wounds that kept them cutting for so long.

    This approach can also include cathartic acts such as suspension, play piercing, and flesh pulls to burn through those feelings in a supporting and safe context. However, in both of these cases it is important to keep in mind that the flaming rebirth of a phoenix from dead ashes to glorious life is not the same thing as the grim reaper deciding to wear a white robe instead of a black one. Or to speak less metaphorically, one should be wary about simply re-branding the problem into a more palatable form while leaving the compulsive behavior uncorrected.

    In addition, not everyone wants to replace their cutting with another form of mutilatory self-medication. One solution that many people have tried successfully is exercise. Exercise connects a person to their body. Through the pain and effort, they become acutely aware of who they are and how they work, and most importantly, gain the realization that they have the power to transform themselves into anything they want to be. In many cases the resulting health and appearance benefits alone go a long way to solving underlying problems — as much as we inside this community try and distance ourselves from such statements, the fact is that beautiful people with beautiful bodies are not only more successful, but happier. Before you decide that is unfair, realize that every one of us can be beautiful if we just try.

    I talked to former cutters who used exercise as a way to get their lives under control in a safer manner, and would like to share their comments here in their own words.


    Currently I am studying for exams and the stress of it has exaggerated my tendency to self-injure. I don’t cut, I bite, scratch, and hit myself (but it amounts to the same thing — providing reassurance that I’m real, and giving me a sense of connection to my body). I have noticed that on the few days that I’ve chosen to do even a minimal amount of exercise the urge to self-injure has disappeared. For example, last week on the day before an exam, I walked briskly up and down my hundred foot garden fifty times. Afterwards I felt much more ‘of’ my body if that makes sense, and didn’t self-injure at one of the most high-risk times for self-injury for me.

    ***

    I used to cut, and when I decided to stop whenever I wanted to cut again I started doing push ups and sit ups for as long as I possibly could. It was one of the only things that could get me to calm down. It worked wonders.

    ***

    I have a treadmill that I run on sometimes. The burn of the run and the thrill of the run are enough to satisfy my desires that are usually solved by cutting. Afterwards, I feel better about myself because I am making my body more fit and more attractive. I am becoming stronger.

    ***

    I used to cut and then I got involved in boxing. It slowly weened me off of cutting, although I was coming out of weight rooms with bloody knuckles. But, I was also much more emotionally ‘stable’ afterwards because I had gotten a lot of “numbness” out of me. Eventually I weened myself off of boxing as well, and only use it when I am utterly outraged (once every couple months).

    ***

    I am a cutter and have been for over fifteen years. This last winter was one of the toughest of my life and I reverted to cutting — breaking a solemn vow not to I made to my husband — to try and survive the stress. This spring, I joined a gym. The stresses are all still there; money, work, and postponed dreams. But I’m not cutting. I don’t like going to the gym, and the only thing keeping me going is a deep-seeded self-loathing, but I’m not cutting. And risking a little bit of muscle pull is a hell of a lot safer than risking severing a vein in a moment of distraction while cutting.

    While one must be vigilant to avoid falling prey to obsessive exercise, a problem linked to cutting behavior which can be destructive to both health and self-esteem, some have argued that it is the lack of exercise in modern society that is one of the reasons for self-injury becoming more and more common. A person with a fit and maintained body feels alive, and it is far more rare for them to feel the need to seek out other approaches such as cutting.

    If the pain that caused a person to cut was in the past, rather than ongoing, the solutions I’ve mentioned above can often heal those wounds due to the self-respect and self-esteem they help bloom. A happy person feels good about who they are and has little motivation to hurt themselves — although there’s still a very good chance that they’ll continue to “hurt” themselves in the process of body modification and ritual for self-improvement… Which is perfectly healthy and usually a sign that the individual is becoming more comfortable with who they are by taking a proactive role in defining their own identity.



    INSANE… ERASE ME

    Although cutting is something that many wonderful people have gone through, it is not something you want to just let fester and continue. But it’s also not something you should be ashamed of. You can transform the energy that drives you to cut to improve your life, and that is what this article was about, and that is why BME has a cutting gallery.

    Under no circumstances should a person ever be made to feel bad or be attacked because of their drive to cut. If a person is cutting, that means that they are trying to solve their problems and trying to open a dialog both internally and externally. The cuts are a signal that the desire and the foundation are there for healing to begin. The last thing we should do if we care about the person’s healing is to destroy that essential survival net.


    Shannon Larratt
    BME.com

  • Confronting Rudeness: How and why the modified should go on the offensive

    Written by

    BME

    Confronting Rudeness:

    How and why the modified should go on the offensive

    “Rudeness is the weak man’s imitation of strength, and luxuriates in the absence of self-respect.”

    – Eric Hoffler

  • Proud to be tattooed? What’s there to be proud of? [The Publisher’s Ring]

    Written by

    Shannon Larratt

     


    Proud to be tattooed?
    What’s there to be proud of?

     


    Well, you walk into a restaurant    Strung out from the road
    And you feel the eyes upon you
    As you’re shaking off the cold
    You pretend it doesn’t bother you
    But you just want to explode
    Most times you can’t hear ’em talk
    Other times you canOh, the same old clichés
    “Is that a woman or a man?”
    And you always seem outnumbered
    You don’t dare make a stand

    – Bob Segar, Turn The Page

     

    Being a modified person in an unmodified world can really suck, and genuinely brings truth to the expression “life’s not fair.” Most people think we’re a bunch of losers, and few of us work to change that perception.But still, I hear a lot of tattooed people (for the sake of simplicity, when I say “tattooed” in this article, take it to include people with any public mods that visually set them apart from the mundanes) say that they’re “proud to be tattooed”, or they’re proud to be a part of the tattooed community. Common slogans seen on t-shirts sold at tattoo conventions such as “the only difference between people with tattoos and people without is that tattooed people don’t care if you’re tattooed or not” imply not only an us-and-them stance, but the idea that we the modified are somehow “better”. The pages of my editorials here clearly have the same bias.


     

    But what does it mean to have “modified pride” or to be “proud of your tattoos”? I often hear this coming from people with badly done tattoos that show minimal creativity or skill, and from people who do little to excel in life, thereby strengthening these stereotypes the mundanes already have about us. Pride (like respect) can be earned through achievement and dignity, or it can be seized with conceit as empty pride. When you hear someone say that they’re proud to be tattooed, what are they saying, and what exactly are they proud of? Do they have beautiful tattoos? Have they been successful as a tattooed person? Are tattooed people generally an over-achieving lot? Are we “the winning team”? Or are we no better than ignorant unemployed racists proud of our meaningless skin color?

    The stereotype of a tattooed person is that of criminals, drug addicts, and chronic underachievers, and there is a statistical truth to that slander. Sadly, when it comes to people who choose to show those tattoos on public skin, the stereotype is often all too true. Not much to be proud of. That’s no surprise though — tattooed people are treated poorly by the majority; those who are not tattooed. The job market is much more difficult, we have to work harder for the same wages, we get poor customer service, we are shunned in mixed social groups, and are effectively a self-made minority and are treated as such. This stereotype remains because too many people with public tattoos and other mods continue to foster it — although we do plenty of whining about it, as if that could somehow change it. To make matters worse, too few who can shatter the stereotype stand behind their tattoos in the real world, choosing instead to hide them more with every promotion, thus reinforcing and giving a stamp of approval (or at least silent concession) to every prejudice they’ve faced themselves.


    “If we were to wake up some morning and find that everyone was the same race, creed and color, we would find some other cause for prejudice by noon.”

    – George Aiken

     

    Let’s be honest for a moment about what happens to most people when they get their hands or faces tattooed or pierced, or otherwise set themselves up visually as an outsider. If you do this, you will be harassed in public. People will make fun of you, and it will be the same insults and rude questions every day for the rest of your life. People will try and hurt you just for having chosen to look different than them. You will get poor service at restaurants, banks, and just about everywhere else. You will be turned down for jobs that you are more than qualified for. You will be turned down for loans that you have the credit rating for. If you work in the modification industry, governments will pass laws against your livelihood. If you have children, it will be harder to get them into a good school, and their teachers and other parents will abuse them because they don’t like the way you look. You and your family will have to work twice as hard and be twice as skilled to get the same amount of pay as people who fit the ignorant, ugly, mundane mold of the mainstream.

    But these chosen hardships can be a foundation for strength — as Nietzsche put it (and he was far from the first or the last to say so), “that which does not kill me makes me stronger”. In the beginning of the 1960s, to many people, the Soviet Union had a broad lead in the space race. Even though US engineers had far less experience than the Soviets, and were working with the aid of computers no more powerful than a desk calculator, John F. Kennedy proposed that by the end of the decade — only eight years later — Americans would be walking on the surface of the moon, an almost laughably impossible ambitious goal. On September 12th, 1962 at Rice University he explained,


    “But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?

    We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”

     

    America did achieve this incredible goal*, Americans are still the only people to have achieved it, and their peaceful domination of space went a long way to defining America as a nation that inspired people around the world to shoot for the moon in their own way.
     *
    and they did it with the aid of an eccentric and very heavily tattooed engineer – Erl van Aken – but that’s another story!

    It was the facing of difficult tasks (Herculean challenges might be a better term) and overcoming them that let this greatness bloom, and as well, in our own lives we need to choose the difficult path if we want to be great individuals. Heroes are nothing without challenge. We’re already starting down such a path by choosing to be publicly different than everyone else. The problem is that too few of us are also working to succeed. We’ve ridden off to war, but forgotten our swords at home, dull and rusty (luckily our opponents did as well). Hardship in and of itself does not bring greatness, but besting it can. These hardships of being publicly modified can be turned into successes. By facing challenges, we both avoid stagnation and allow ourselves to reach our potential.

    The biggest problem in this world is the unholy trinity of stupidity, laziness, and lack of critical thinking. It’s why the biggest, richest governments in the world, made up of multi-millionaire politicians, can continue to trick their impoverished masses into electing them over and over. The masses have spent the last hundred years being conditioned toward ignorance in order to allow them to be controlled (see my previous column on this subject) — which is why modern elections are popularity contests in which fact-free advertising determines the winner and actual debates on the core issues are rare, let alone voters going out and educating themselves independently. Movies and television sell as fact pop science devoid in reality, and movies like the upcoming King Arthur are called “true stories” and “historical dramas”, fallacies that even the most basic of understanding should shatter… but rarely does.

    Seeing this, I’m hardly proud to be a human, if I’m to define myself by the actions of these masses. Luckily, I don’t, and if you’re reading this you probably don’t either. I’ve decided instead that the masses haven’t earned the right to call themselves humans. In their failure I see a playing field optimized for success for those who don’t fall prey to the pitfalls of the easy life of the modern wageslave. The modified have already broken one bond of the mainstream — but only one of many — by crossing that social line. While “safe” tattoos grow in popularity every day, we still have a long way to go before the average person can tattoo their face — and I am not at all convinced that the average drone will ever even want to do something like that…

    So how can you succeed when you wear public marks that set you up to fail?


    “Just as iron rusts from disuse, even so does inaction spoil the intellect.”

    – Leonardo Da Vinci

     

    The answer is simple and found in old-fashioned common sense: work hard and educate yourself. If modified people need to be better than the mundanes just to get the same recognition, we should take it a step farther. Be the best. Win everything. No compromises. That’s really all there is to it. If you’re in school, work hard and get good grades. Excellent grades. If you need help, ask for a tutor, and instead of watching four hours of TV, study and read. Have fun doing it; learn to enjoy it. Go out and exercise. Get fit and build up every skill you possibly can. Learn to weld. Plant a garden. Take Judo. Anything. And do it as a proud tattooed person, and stand up for yourself when you’re challenged.

    Take it a step farther and support other modified people who are willing to work hard as well. Seek them out if you’re in a position to hire people, and if you’re in a position to be hired, be so damn good at your job that no one can complain about the fact that you have customized yourself into a more ideal human, and are who you want to be. Be proud, but make sure you can back it up with something worth being proud of. Go out and actively change the world for the better.

    If we all work hard to be successful and to break the preconceived notions people have about us, we can change the stereotypes. Maybe we can go even farther, and create a new stereotype. We need to wear our tattoos as war paint for victory, not as the brands of criminals and losers. But don’t forget Kennedy’s words — choose this path willingly because it is hard, not because it is easy. And it will be hard, and it will take a long time before you can reap the rewards of this adventure, but you have already won the first battle by choosing to break the bonds of conformity and becoming publicly modified. You can win the war as well.


    Shannon Larratt
    BME.com

     

    Free Online Resources

     

    Since one of the ways the mainstream seeks to quash uprisings by those outside both the mundane and outside their elite control castes is financial pressure, you may be saying to yourself “but I can’t afford to even buy books to read.” You may already read the science blogs online and have discovered that they, like television, leave you with nothing but a shallow comprehension of a broad array of subjects, but without any real depth — sure it’ll help you win at Trivial Pursuit, but what good is shallow knowledge if you’re trying to genuinely understand a subject?

    One of my favorite online “self improvement” sites that many people may have overlooked is Project Gutenberg (gutenberg.net). When the copyright on a book expires, Project Gutenberg works to make that book available to the public. Think of it as a free online library where you can read the classics — the books that over time we’ve decided were significant cultural contributions. It’s not going to be the same chuckle-factory as getting stoned and watching people making fun of oddballs on the WB Superstar, but are you looking for temporary amusement in life, or are you looking for knowledge, strength, and success?

    And what’s stopping you from visiting your local library?


    “Frederick Douglass taught that literacy is the path from slavery to freedom. There are many kinds of slavery and many kinds of freedom. But reading is still the path.”

    – Carl Sagan