BME: Body Modification Ezine

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Category: ModBlog

  • Full Coverage: Links From All Over (March 24, 2009)

    Written by

    Jordan Ginsberg

    [KXII] Let’s file this one under the “There’s Got to be a Better Way” department: A woman in Ardmore, Oklahoma, recently got a tattoo (right) in tribute to her son, Maddox, and, whoops, looks like somebody made a typo! She and her husband are pretty broken up about it.

    “It bothers me everyday. I have a couple I should get taken off as well. I’m tired of looking at it like that too,” Mike Burmeister says.

    […]

    Burmeister says the mistake has been difficult on him and his wife.

    “She broke down and cried over the whole thing. I was pretty perturbed. I even shed a tear over the whole thing.”

    … sounds rough. Except! The artist who did the tattoo tells a different story!

    Robert Ortiz, the owner of Ink Spot Tattoos and the artist who tattooed Burmeister’s wife. Ortiz says he did nothing wrong, and that burmeister’s wife walked out of his shop completely satisfied.

    “I asked her, ‘Everything fine? Everything look exactly how you want?’ She says, ‘This is exactly what I want, I’m very happy with it,’” Ortiz says.

    “She gave me a tip and left.”

    Burmeister and his wife claim they just want the tattoo fixed, which seems like a reasonable request and something that could have been accomplished by, hmm, going back to the tattoo shop? At no point in the article is it mentioned that anyone actually tried to remedy the situation before going to the press about it, which is a curious method of settling such matters. This is because there are no telephones in Ardmore, Oklahoma, and when somebody has a problem, they march up to the local television station with tears in their eyes and a story to tell, the end.

    [Connecticut Post] Haha, but lucky for Robert Ortiz, he doesn’t live in war-torn Stratford, Connecticut! In this similar-but-worse story, 18-year-old Noel Gonzalez got the name “Teresa” tattooed on his arm by local artist John Velikonja, but, of course, it was misspelled, because tattoo artists exist only to cause pain and misery to others. Well, our young hero didn’t take kindly to this slight, and responded in the only appropriate manner: by threatening to kill Velikonja. Hooray!

    Gonzalez […] demanded that he fix it.

    When Velikonja refused, police said, Gonzalez pulled out a .25-caliber semi-automatic handgun, racked it and allegedly told the tattoo artist, “You’re gonna finish my [tattoo] now.”

    OK, first of all, why in the holy hell would Velikonja not fix the goddamn tattoo? Who taught this guy customer service? You’re already there—fix the tattoo! If I go to Subway and order a sandwich and the guy accidentally throws some olives on there after I told him not to, he doesn’t tell me to go screw myself—he takes the olives off and probably gives me a free cookie. You hear that, Velikonja? Cookies.

    Anyway, Gonzalez is still a nut-case for pulling out a gun, and his next actions probably didn’t do him any favors, either:

    Velikonja then allegedly played a phone message for police that Gonzalez left him after the confrontation in which there is the sound of a gun being racked and then laughter.

    On the bright side, Gonzalez will have plenty of opportunities to get this tattoo fixed in the future, in prison. Haha, just kidding, he’s out on bail.

  • Aristocrats of Sleaze

    Written by

    Jordan Ginsberg


    Oh my! Who is that mustachioed man? If I didn’t know any better, I’d say it looks rather like daysofwhat, but he doesn’t have a mustache! I suppose some mysteries are never meant to be solved.

    See more in “Septum piercing“ (Nose Piercing)

  • Wet and Squidgy in the Middle

    Written by

    Jordan Ginsberg


    We showed off Babylovedoll yesterday in all her orange glory, and today it’s a pleasure to start the day with this piece, described only as “orange,” by Terry Ribera, who’s been splitting his time between Avalon Tattoo II in San Diego, California, and Daredevil Tattoo in New York City. It’s pretty easy for bio-mech stuff to end up looking samey, but Ribera’s work is so damn solid it’s pretty hard not to appreciate. What can I say? I’m a sucker for citrus-powered limbs.

  • Moonshin Tattoo Client Tests Positive for Hepatitis B

    Written by

    Jordan Ginsberg


    Well, this isn’t good. Last week, we mentioned the predicament in which Moonshin Tattoo and Peel Region find themselves—namely that, after it was discovered Moonshin had neglected its book-keeping for its sterilization practices for four years and that the local government had made no efforts to inspect the premises, both are now the subjects of a $20 million lawsuit by people who had been customers at the shop during the aforementioned period.

    CityNews is now reporting, as seen above, that a man who received a tattoo from Moonshin in that time-frame has been diagnosed with hepatitis B.

    “A close friend of mine went there before and said they were professional,” revealed the father and husband.

    “You should feel comfortable and [be able to] get artwork done without fearing anything happening to you.”

    A grain of salt is necessary here: The man has asked to remain anonymous, and his claim alone doesn’t prove anything. But, he also mentions he’d had blood-work done prior to getting the tattoo that recorded him as having a clean bill of health. If this is in fact true, and there’s nothing in his personal life to suggest he was exposed to the disease anywhere but Moonshin, this is a case that could have far-reaching and potentially devastating effects on future legislation.

    Once again, there is no excuse at this point for irresponsible record keeping (or worse, sloppy practices not even worthy of record keeping). If you’re in the body modification industry and want to be taken seriously and treated like a professional by the public at large, then the onus is on you. It’s no secret what’s at stake; the fact that your carelessness can wreak havoc on an entire industry should be common knowledge. This isn’t to say there aren’t client-side responsibilities as well, like getting frequent blood tests if you’re getting body modification work done regularly, but nonetheless.

    Whether or not the man interviewed above is telling the truth (and hopefully we’ll find out for certain soon, one way or the other), the fact that this is gaining traction at all isn’t doing the industry as a whole any favors. If Moonshin hadn’t dropped the ball, this probably wouldn’t be a story in the first place.

    Tattoo Parlour, Peel Sued Over Possible HIV, Hepatitis Exposure [CityNews]

  • Your Luck Was Still There

    Written by

    Jordan Ginsberg


    Mamma Tomma of Raven Ink: Studio 2 Tattoo in Portland, Oregon, sends in this picture of a piece she did of nature’s most perfect killing machine. A murderous lion? No. Elephant on PCP? Nope. Chimpanzee on Xanax and Sleepytime Tea? Wrong again. It’s a rabbit, armed with blades, furious about the attention bestowed upon some damned chinchilla. You underestimate the vengeance of a rabbit scorned at your own peril.

    See more in “Cartoon Tattoos“ (Tattoos)

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