Full Coverage: Links From All Over (May 11, 2009)

PHOTO: Chris Durbin

[Star-Telegram] Ladies and gentlemen, meet your new champion! It took five hours, but Jeremy Stroud of Arlington, Texas, is now the Guinness World Record holder for “most piercings” after being pierced with 1,197 18-gauge needles by Tyson Turk, breaking the old record of 900.

“After a while I guess the body just starts rejecting all the needles,” Stroud said. “It felt like my back was on fire and my arm was on fire. It was a totally different kind of pain. I just wanted those needles out of me.”

Stroud was hooked up to a heart monitor during the session.

“As soon as we got the needles out I was fine, but during I started to get really slow, and my pulse jumped up to 130.”

Stroud, a diesel mechanic, also had two EMTs on site just to make sure he was well taken care of. When reached for comment, Brent Moffatt opened his window and looked out at the sunset for a long, long while. But surely the readers of the Arlington Star-Telegram were impressed with Stroud’s new record, right?

“Let’s mainstream these freaks by putting the article on the front page.” What a way to run a newspaper……

[…]

Thank you ST for putting this on the front page of the Arlington section.(and with pictures). My kids win. I guess I don’t get it. I’ve been trying to teach them to respect their bodies and to think what kind of impression this is going to make when you go interview for a job. I guess they are right, I just don’t get it. As they say, it’s so cool the newspaper puts it on the front page, all the rappers have them all over their body and they make more money than you, and have you seen all the NBA players? It’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks, but I’m starting to finally see what’s really important.

Oh…right.

[Wicked Local] What the…really? People are still talking about that goddamned tattooed Barbie doll? Is there literally nothing else going on? Has the last pig lost its job? Whatever. Lloyd Garver is a television writer, and actually comes out opposite of where even he expected he would in the eternal, “What’s the deal with tattoos?” debate: He’s OK with them! Sort of!

I admit I was somewhat shocked when I heard about Barbie and body art. My first reaction was, “Now parents of 7-year-olds are going to have to deal with them wanting tattoos.”

But then I did something uncharacteristic for me: I started thinking. [Ed. note: Zinggggg.] Maybe anti-Barbie papers aren’t the only theses in those dusty university archives. Maybe there are some with titles like, “Relax, Folks. Barbie Isn’t a Role Model. It’s Just a Toy.” Or if there aren’t any, there should be.

When you were a kid, weren’t you able to tell the difference between a toy and something real? When you played “war” with a friend, didn’t you know you were just playing? And did your putting on temporary tattoos make you get real ones? Besides, isn’t it a bit ironic that the anti-Barbie-ites who feel that the doll puts too much emphasis on appearance are concerned with the appearance of tattoos?

The sound you hear is an army of American Family Association members marching to Garver’s house with pitchforks, ready to burn him for being a witch.

I confess that I’m still getting used to looking at tattoos without making any kind of knee-jerk judgment about the wearer. Whenever I go on vacation where there’s a swimming pool, I’m still a little surprised by the fact that the nice couple we sat next to at dinner the night before has more tattoos than a basketball team. And guess what? Barbie’s the same age as that couple. She’s 50 now. She might not look like it, but many 50-year-old women don’t look their age these days. So maybe it’s fitting that 50-year-old Barbie has broken out the tattoos.

Garver, in the past, wrote for sitcoms like Family Ties, Home Improvement and Frasier—decidedly conservative shows for the most part, all of which probably featured an episode or several that relied on hoary old cliches of tattooed and pierced miscreants causing trouble for various well-to-do folks. This is a pitifully small sample size to say this editorial is indicative of, well, anything, but it’s encouraging nonetheless to see a guy getting on in years roll with the times.

So I can certainly accept Barbie wearing tattoos. But I do think you have to draw the line. Where? I’ll tell you where, and this is a warning to the people at Mattel: Don’t even think about making a Ken doll with pierced body parts.

Ha ha, this fuckin’ guy.

[Daily Mail] Well here’s some important news! Apparently Ferris Bueller and whatshername, that one with the shoes?, Sarah Jessica Parker, aren’t having much luck in the baby-making department, and so have rented out the uterus of a nice woman who…oh, crap:

Michelle Ross is a tattooed, bisexual rock music fan, who has previously acted as a surrogate for a New York gay couple.

The 26-year-old, who is thought to have been selected by the Sex And The City Star and her husband Matthew Broderick, has a chequered history as a mother, it has been reported.

[…]

‘I have had pink hair and tattoos and spiked collars,’ she wrote on [MySpace].

‘My favourite shoes are five-inch black spike heels which lace up the front.

‘I love metal and rock down to the bones.’

Michelle has a tattoo on one of her wrists of an overlapped pink and blue triangle, a symbol for bisexuality.

On MySpace Ross identifies herself as ‘bi’, according to Star.

Why is this woman trying to destroy the lives of celebrities? Does she not know they’re better than people? And do they not realize the danger in which they’re putting their valuable life-force? It’s probably like some wretched goth club in there, all cheap pleather and Front Line Assembly blaring at a thousand decibels and runny black makeup. Some people.

Also, there is a person named Audrina Partridge and apparently her boyfriend killed a guy, the end.