Author Archives: BME

The Lizardman Q&A Part 11 [The Lizardman]

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TLM Q&A 11

It certainly has been some time since the last Lizardman Q & A column or any Lizardman column for that matter. The hiatus was not planned but sometimes things just get away from you — basically, shit happens. The good news, and I hope you agree that its good news, is that I am looking to get back on a regular schedule of writing for BME. In order to work out some of the unavoidable ‘rust’ and get some momentum going I asked for submissions for a new Q & A. As always, IAM members provided me with a wealth of amusing and insightful questions…

This one seems particularly a propos to start us off:

Do you ever get tired of answering questions?

It all depends on the question and the context. There is a sense in which I was I was tired of every question before it was ever even asked but, thankfully, it is often a genuinely fun and interesting experience to field questions. I wouldn’t have started this Q & A thing if I didn’t enjoy it enough to want to do it. If I do get tired of it, I will simply stop answering.

 

If you had to let Orbax fuck you in the ass, in order to “steal” part of his act, would you? And if so, which part would you “steal”?

This is one of those questions I tired of before it was ever asked but since I can spin this into a cheap plug for my upcoming Canadian Tour with Orbax (Sept 11-28), I guess I will dignify it with a response. Orbax doesn’t have anything going that I would need to “steal” and even if he did I doubt it would be worth getting fucked in the ass — at least for me, since I’m not into getting fucked in the ass. I do enjoy using the phrase “fucked in the ass” though and so I am thinking of ways to extend this response making further gratuitous use of it… FUCKED IN THE ASS!!!

Toilet Paper: Over the top or around the back?

Excellent question! An inquiry that strikes at the very core of one’s being. However, my toilet paper dispenser at home holds the roll in a vertical fashion thus avoiding the dilemma altogether. I don’t want to seem to be dodging the question though, so let me just say that in a perfect world those who prefer around the back would be wiped from the face of the earth as is deserving of such a scourge upon decent people.

Where did I leave my keys? haha, just kidding. What is the best positive reaction you’ve had from someone regarding your appearance?

Kid all you want, I’m answering — your keys are in the last place you left them. Ha.

I think the best reactions are the very simple ones. I love it when someone is stopped by what they see and can only manage a ‘wow’ or ‘oh my god’ and obviously mean it appreciatively. I see this as praise on very basic and instinctual level. Often they will end up talking to me more afterward and articulate a number of positive things but it is that initial honest hit that really speaks to me.

What’s you favorite thing to bite?

I’ve never given it much thought. I have bitten quite a few things including a number of people. As much fun as living things can be to bite, if I have to pick a favorite, I know this is boring (but tasty) — pizza.

 

 

How can you make this article about me?

Hmmm… I guess I could try by answering Miss Spook’s question.

 

 

 

Do you think my babies would be cute if I made them with Shawn Porter? Why or why not?

I would think that your babies would not be cute but making them with Shawn is irrelevant because I don’t find babies to be cute. Certainly I could rate them on a relative scale as more or less cute than another given baby but objectively I don’t use cute to describe babies. To me babies are odd and often interesting looking little creatures but I would only ever call them cute as contrived social gesture.

What do you think of “serious” theatre?

I have a great deal of respect for serious or traditional theatre and it is only through my experience with and study of it that I have been able to be as successful as I have been. It is some of social culture and institution that has developed around the theatre, much like with the world of fine art, that I have come to abhor and often reject. As the saying goes, you have to know the rules to know how to break them. One of the biggest problems, in my opinion, with a lot of performers in genres like sideshow and suspension performances is that they make basic mistakes that an intro / survey course or just a little personal research in theatre would prevent.

Who do you think would win in a fist fight between Jerry Falwell (if he was still alive) and Christopher Hitchens?

I would certainly have more points of agreement with Hitchens than with Falwell — despite being on the opposite side of the fence from him on more than a couple issues. So that may bias me in his favor but I think the real reason to pick him in this fight would be his drinking. A man with the sort of drinking experience he has professed would likely have some good bar fighting experience, so I am giving him the edge. Besides, I find people who bluster in Falwell’s fashion tend to be cowards if challenged physically. For all his fire and brimstone hate speeches against homosexuals I think Falwell would have offered to suck a dick to avoid a beating and maybe even been thankful for the excuse to do it.

Is the size of earth relative to the size of Reverend Phelps ego?

I assume you mean this asshat since I am not aware another Reverend Phelps. No, the size of the Earth is not relative to the size of his ego, the size of the earth is a relative constant of small stature in the universe whereas his ego would seem to be a never ending, constantly expanding miasma dwarfing not only my own ego but also providing us with perhaps an even better practical example of infinity than the reaches of space.

Why don’t people get addicted to nicotine from passive smoking?

I have no idea and my brief ‘googling’ of the subject wasn’t much help either. Maybe it is a dosage level issue? On a somewhat related note: I don’t smoke and smoking bans are rapidly making it so I don’t have to worry much about dealing with other people’s smoke anymore. Smokers who complain about the bans amuse me because if someone came into a restaurant and sat at the table next to them stinking of shit, they would complain rather than defend that person’s right to stink — just as non-smokers complained about smokers. Health issues aside, smoking is often an offensive invasion of other people’s personal space and the case can be made for limiting it under the law for that alone — as we do with noise, for instance.

How do you feel about the way you look now, in comparison to the way you felt ten years ago?

I feel about the same. I am happy with how I look but I also have plans for how I will look in time from now. Of course, much of the work I had planned ten years ago has come to be now and I quite glad for that. In this particular respect though, I think happy is happy. I wasn’t unhappy ten years ago I simply had unrealized ambitions.

What is your grand plan in life, as far as retirement and taking care of yourself during those years?

I’ve never really had a grand plan for life other than just trying to enjoy living it. As for retirement, it isn’t something I think about a lot but I have made what I hope are some reasonably intelligent financial moves to assure that I can survive comfortably in the event that I experience a severe reduction in the amount of work I get or even have to stop completely. One of the many benefits of being an entertainer is that there is effectively no age limit to my career. I know of at least one sword-swallower who worked into his eighties. The whole trick, as it were, is not to kill yourself and then you can just keep on doing it.

What are your favorite books and films on freaks?

To be fair, I will leave my own as yet unpublished works out of the running. But thanks for reminding me about my horrid procrastination and delays. Really, you’re a good friend.

In terms of books, the bar has been set, and set fairly high in my opinion, by Robert Bogdan’s work: Freak Show: Presenting Human Oddities for Amusement and Profit. I also really enjoyed both Mannix’s Memoirs of a Sword Swallower and Howard Bone’s Side Show but the latter two should be viewed suspiciously in terms of the level of factual content. They are the sort of works that get people hurt when they treat them like textbooks.

I don’t really have a movie recommendation but Tod Browning’s Freaks is, of course, a cult classic and while not a personal favorite for me in terms of cinema it does feature a number of classic sideshow personalities.

What is the best part about living in Austin, TX?

I could compare it to other places I lived, in which case I would say the weather, cost of living, and local entertainment are far superior but I’m not sure any of those are the best thing. What really matters to me about where I live is that I feel comfortable when I get to be home and I really do feel comfortable in Austin. A city that prides itself on maintaining weirdness is good fit for me.

I know how it feels to come home from being on tour, but seeing as you have been doing it a lot longer than I did, do you still get that feeling? Or have you just adapted to your surroundings? And what’s the best thing to come home to, outside of your wife?

From my own experience and having gotten to work with people that effectively tour their entire lives I would say that you never adapt to the point of losing that feeling. Lots of people adapt to the point where they actually do better on the road but everyone still seems to have that home feeling and need to get at least a little bit of it now and then. I absolutely love and thrive being on the road but I also have a home life and just as I get itchy to travel again when I am home, I get itchy to be home sometimes on the road. The best thing about home beyond getting to see Meghan and the ferrets are the basics that most people take for granted but that you don’t have on a tour bus or when jumping from one city to another — full size beds and bathrooms, making your own meals in a real kitchen, stretching out on a couch and watching TV alone instead of jammed in a bus lounge with four other guys, having access to all your stuff and being to have it all out at once.

What type of reactions have you received from people of non-Western cultures (for example, when traveling or from recent immigrant communities, such as ethnic Hindus, Nigerian farmers, Buddhist monks, Chinese students, devout Islamic folks)? What type of perception do you think would most knock your socks off if you were able to read — or invade — their minds? For example, worship due to descent of ancient deity, alien invasion, instant fatwa of death to such an infidel, immediate sexualization, animation come to life due to bizarre drug flashback, Samadhi enlightenment state due to realization that everything is possible…

I haven’t really had enough contact with people that weren’t already ‘westernized’ to a fairly significant extent. In my travels it just seems more and more of the world I have gotten to see has at least had enough contact with western culture to have a frame of reference for me. One encounter that does stand out in my mind happened on a cruise ship elevator when I got on with a porter who seemed visibly disturbed by my appearance. I’m not sure where he was from but when one of my friends said “Pretty weird, huh” in a friendly manner his reply was “I’m afraid I dream of that tonight and I die.”

Of the reactions you listed worship makes me uncomfortable regardless of the motivation. I like to be appreciated and respected, even glorified to an extent but worship is something I just don’t abide. Alien invasion is one I have dealt with thank to the David Icke crowd and I find they are best to simply move along away from rapidly. I haven’t quite seen the level of fatwa and attack but I have been condemned by various flavors of religious zealots. Sexualization — many people do have mod fetishes and I get my share of propositions. Animation come to life would be a new take but causing people to suddenly recall something from a drug episode is not that uncommon. I have, intentionally and accidentally, toyed with people under the influence of various chemicals on several occasions. Enlightenment would be overstating the case but I one of the things I set out to do is to shake up people’s ideas and perhaps help break them out of their mental cycles. What would really knock my socks off, as you say, would be someone very simply accepting me right off without even being curious.
Erik Sprague

Troy Amundson vs. The Government [Legal Link]

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Troy Amundson at work

Troy Amundson is the perfect piercer poster person. A body modification artist for over seven years, he’s spent the last three lobbying for safe piercing in his state of Washington and also working to ensure that certain practices, such as those beloved on BME, are not banned.

He’s been written about in the mainstream press numerous times as an unlikely lobbyist — unlikely in looks perhaps, but his effectiveness is undeniable. He’s kept body piercing bills on the front burner when some legislators claimed it was not a high-priority issue.

Yet, the piercing bill is not the only thing on Troy’s plate. He’s working on the revision of the Seattle Municipal Code on Tattooing, and for a task like this, you want someone who knows and loves the art. He’s co-authored articles for medical journals on piercing practices, educating nurses and doctors as well as changing many of their attitudes towards those in our community. And he’s also one of those behind the MedPierce Kit, a body jewelry removal kit for healthcare facilities and correctional facilities. Troy’s a busy man.

I spoke with Troy because his experiences inspire action. Moreover, he can teach us all techniques on how to fight for safe and fair body modification legislation and make a difference.

MDM: First, I want to start by thanking you for your lobbying efforts to keep piercing safe in Washington state but also fighting to keep body art practices free from what I call “morality” legislation — laws passed not to protect the public but because legislators negatively view the outlawed practice, such as the proposed body art ban on Long Island, NYC that seeks to outlaw genital piercings and facial tattooing, among others.

Have you always been politically active?

TA: Thank you, I really appreciate the support. Encouraging words have definitely motivated me to keep going.

I have rarely voted and have never attended a political rally. I was skeptical of the value of one citizen. I was disillusioned with what I saw as a corrupt and broken system. I never believed that one person could really make a difference.

Take for example, our last presidential election. Regardless of partisanship, how many people were frustrated with the overall outcome? Counts, recounts, and court decisions. Followed by allegations of miscounts, fraud, and voter intimidation. Similar events recently affected Washington’s gubernatorial election.

The power to reform the government is within our hands, not theirs.

Troy Amundson at the Capital Building with his son

Troy Amundson on Capitol Hill with his son

MDM: Then I guess your view of government has changed.

TA: 179°. I still have grave concerns over many issues that face society today. The major difference is that I have witnessed the power of a citizen’s voice.

For many reasons, I believed I was an unlikely candidate to lobby. When I initially agreed to help with the project, I thought the lobbyists would want to keep me as far away from legislators as possible. Instead, the lobbyists decided to put me in front of as many legislators as possible.

Under their guidance I learned how to play the game. I was under constant supervision the first year to avoid mistakes. All of my statements to legislators and the media were drafted and closely scrutinized. Now they find it amusing to watch me run rampant.

MDM: Let’s go back. What prompted you to take action?

TA: Opportunity and concern. A local public health official notified me that a concerned parent with connections and experience working in the capitol wanted to try to pass regulations for body piercing. Immediately, I recognized the implications that may have had on my beloved profession. There is nothing more fearsome than a mother protecting her young.

Thankfully, due to an ongoing working relationship, the health official referred the woman to me.

Troy proposes to his financee

Troy proposing to his financee from PURE Cirkus after the Pleasure 7 Pain show

MDM: So what did you do? Can you describe your lobbying efforts and the political process?

TA: I was fortunate enough to have the guidance of two professional lobbyists, one Democrat and one Republican. The Republican, Vito, is 81 and has become a fixture after dedicating over 40 years to working various jobs in the capitol. Vito has helped many people start careers in politics (including Democrats). His advice is widely respected and often sought by both parties.

Regulations for body art procedures are a good public health issue due to the social popularity of these arts. It is also rare for any industry to step forward and request restrictive regulations. The issue has advanced meritoriously and by our pro-active position.

The legislative session moves very fast. Legislators must brief themselves on hundreds of bills introduced in a session. They rely largely upon established relationships with others to determine their position on particular issues.

For example, if I were a legislator, I would probably find public health issues the most interesting. While I may passionately research dozens of public health issues pending that session, there simply is not enough time to evaluate all the bills. Some issues, like the budget, would be extremely difficult for me to find any interest in. Unfortunately, my vote would ultimately be decided by facts provided by other legislators, capitol staff, lobbyists, and hopefully my constituents.

As a lobbyist, or citizen lobbyist, you must spend time developing relationships with the legislators. In our case, we have developed very strong relationships with numerous legislators. For example, this year, legislators were faced with six bills to regulate body art. Through that earned trust, many legislators simply turned to my evaluation of the bills.

We have maintained two goals in this effort:

  1. Firstly, to secure representation as stakeholders in body art related issues.
  2. Secondly, is to pass a basic foundation of appropriate regulations for these procedures.

A large part of our strategy relies on professional conduct, ethical lobbying, and a nonpartisan delivery of fact-based information. It is difficult to set aside personal feelings at times. There is no room for ego and nothing gets accomplished through partisan rhetoric.

Full sleeve branding by Troy Amundson

Full sleeve branding by Troy Amundson

MDM: What was it like testifying on behalf of piercing professionals before the state legislature?

TA: This year I testified before various committees six times. I get nervous every time. I know that my words could sway opinion for, or against, our issue.

No committee member likes it when a testimony drags on. Keep it short, make your points, and don’t waste time. Script everything and print it in an easy to read format. For body art issues, you probably have two to eight minutes to testify. Do not let too many people testify, perhaps two or three. If questioned, answer directly without too much extra information.

The amount of time you are given will largely rely on the Chair or Vice Chair. I witnessed a notable difference in the treatment given to me opposed to the treatment of those supporting the morality bill. In committees where I had favor, I was allowed time to make my points. Most committee members listened intently to what I had to say. Our opposition was frequently challenged, interrupted, or simply cut short.

If a bill is lobbied correctly, most of your work is done before the committee hearing.

MDM: What kind of effect do you think your testimony had on the state legislature?

TA: The demonstration of our willingness to work with legislators on body art related issues has been commended and continues to draw bipartisan support. We may not have passed a bill yet, but we have changed many opinions about the industry and body art in general.

In one hearing, a doctor from Public Health Seattle & King County testified in support of one of our bills. I gave a brief testimony in support. The only question from the committee was directed to me.

A “morality bill” that targets the industry, and not the protection of public health, has repeatedly threatened artists. Last year the bill passed the Senate. This year the bill died in committee, not even advancing to the Senate floor. This can only be credited to the continued education of the legislators on body art issues.

Immediately after my testimony against the bill, five out of eight of the Labor & Commerce committee members signed as sponsors on our bill. Interestingly, the Chair of the committee sponsored the bad bill last year and our bill this year.

After one of my testimonies, the sponsor of the “morality bill” screamed at me and accused me of lying to the committee. He has portrayed us as opposing his bill because we are trying to avoid oversight. He has repeatedly stated that without licensing, enforcement, and inspections, our bill only provides an “illusion” of regulations intentionally providing the public a false sense of security.

It would be easy to cast me as opposed to licensing and inspection. It is becoming far more difficult for the supporters of the “morality bill” to make a logical argument. Where most legislators had no understanding of body art before, they are starting to recognize what is fact and what is not.

Our persistence and pro-active approach does not reflect an industry trying to avoid oversight. Reviewing my testimonies and statements in the media, you would see that I support licensing and inspection. Legislators recognize that we are trying to take a positive step forward.

With two exceptions, one minor and one major, I have received very professional treatment. Many of the legislators and lobbyists freely shared strategic advice with me. This year I was treated in the exact same manner as a professional lobbyist. Several of the lobbyists even claimed me as one of their own. Not one campaign donation has been made.

I doubt any member of the Washington State Legislature will ever look at body art in the same way again.

MDM: That’s fantastic! So what’s the status of the Bill?

TA: Our bill is dead this year, but this is also the farthest that our issue has progressed. The Chair of the Labor & Commerce committee has stated the committee will be reviewing this issue during the interim. Thanks to invaluable established relationships, I foresee closed-door meetings in my near future.

I am taking at least a year off. I will not be proactively lobbying for regulations next session, but I must make myself available to advise legislators on body art issues.

MDM: In these efforts did you get a lot of help and support from the tattoo and piercing community?

TA: Many artists have been extremely supportive, although many people do not know what they can do to help. Tattoo and piercing related issues can, and should, be widely supported by our clients as well. While public testimony should primarily be delivered by artists, there is no reason not to pack a hearing room with tattooed and pierced citizens. It is really hard for any committee member to ignore, especially when we tend to stick out from everyone else.

High-visibility has become a significant advantage in our fight.

Our issue would have benefited from more support. Emailing legislators and attending committee hearings become essential methods of support.

Unfortunately the legislative session moves very fast. Even with close ties, I usually only had three to seven days notice between the time our bill was placed on an agenda and the time it was actually heard in committee. Many artists did not attend because of scheduling conflicts.

No, it is not convenient. My commute to the capitol is about 65 miles (ranging from an hour to two and a half hours each way, one to four times per week) when working a bill. In addition to taking time off, I have incurred hundreds of dollars in gas expenses alone.

Yet, it is extremely important to make time, especially when opposing legislation. I am sure most clients would understand and be supportive if the situation was explained. I strongly encourage shop owners to close for the day and make the event a shop outing. Encourage your clients to attend or offer to take them with you.

It is disappointing to see artists take a day off after a night out drinking, but not when it really matters. The costs incurred individually far outweigh the costs of bad regulations.

Clients can encourage their artist to get involved.

Troy Amundson piercing

Troy piercing at Apocalypse Tattoo

MDM: Beyond the Bill, you’ve also worked on the revision of the Seattle Municipal Code on Tattooing. How did you get involve in that and what changes did you advocate?

TA: I have only recently begun working on a revision of the Seattle Municipal Code. I got involved the same way I became involved with the legislation, through having an established relationship with my local health department. I was invited to participate by both the City of Seattle and Public Health Seattle & King County. I have difficulty refusing such invitations.

Many artists in the state have put aside personal and professional differences to support this cause.

We will prepare a draft of the proposed new code, and then circulate it through shops for input. The process will take some time. The City of Seattle and Public Health Seattle & King County are very determined to hear input from the industry and develop a strong working relationship.

One of the reasons for taking time off from lobbying is to focus more on the revision.

MDM: And on top of all this you’ve also been active in educating the medical community on body piercing. Tell me about that. Has the medical community been receptive to what you have to teach them?

TA: Body piercing motivated me to pursue training as an emergency medical technician. I teamed up with Scott DeBoer, a flight nurse from the University of Chicago Aeromedical Network. Scott’s specialities include flight, ER, and pediatric care.

Scott had noted in his research that medical articles varied widely on body art issues and rarely included any perspective from artists. Scott lectures internationally, and objectively reviews health issues and medical concerns associated with body art. And bless his little Ned Flanders heart, he has become an advocate for body art. Ned now knows more about body art than many of his colleagues who have body art.

I would also have to thank Elayne Angel and David Vidra. Often when I feel a question is out of my league, I have turned to their input. Many others have helped as well.

Much of our research has been published.

  1. “Piercers on Call”, DeBoer S, Amundson T, Angel E, Letter to the Editor, Australasian Emergency Nursing Journal and Nursing Spectrum (Midwest edition).
  2. “Managing body jewelry in emergency situations: misconceptions, patient care, and removal techniques”, DeBoer S, Amundson T, Angel E. Journal of Emergency Nursing 2006 April; 32(2):159-64.
  3. Reprinted in Journal of Emergency Medical Services, “Because the article is a great resource for all EMS personnel…”
  4. “Tongue, Tubes, and Teens” DeBoer S, McNeil M, Amundson T. Pediatric Emergency Care 2006 October; 22:10, 755
  5. “Body Piercing/Tattooing and Trauma Diagnostic Imaging: Medical Myths vs Realities.” DeBoer S, RN, MSN, CEN, CCRN, CFRN; Fishman D, MD; Chwals W, MD, FACS, FAAP, FCCM; Straus C, MD; Amundson T, EMT-B
  6. Journal of Trauma Nursing

Our research led to the subsequent design and production of a jewelry removal kit www.medpierce.com for licensed healthcare providers and correctional facilities.

The kit was released in October 2006. While sales have initially been slow, the reviews have been very promising.

MDM: This kit sounds like a great idea and much needed in the medical community. Through all this research and experience, you have a wealth of information to share with the piercing and tattoo community. What advice do you have on promoting safe body modification practices and also ensuring that certain practices are not banned? How can we best make our voices heard?

TA: Learn the art of compromise and sometimes we must tone it down. Before anyone gets reactionary, let me clarify.

Let’s take scarification for example. The very concept itself, artistic scars, is extreme for a large portion of the public. Originally, the lobbyists were extremely concerned how legislators would respond to words like brand, cut, or scalpel.

Our priority became protecting the right of clients to have scarification and a right for the commercial application of scars as body art. One question that we did not try to address was what instruments were allowed to produce a scar. We simply stated that scarification should be regulated in a similar fashion to piercing. The procedures warrant the necessity of sterilization and hygiene requirements.

Some states legally allow the use of scalpels, and other states do not. While I love scarification as an art, there is a justifiable concern over the use of certain implements. What is more important, our right to have beautiful scars, or the tools used to make them?

Start small. Get involved. Start discussing issues with other artists/shops in your area. Put aside differences to support a greater cause. As frustrating as it may be at times, you always have to play it cool and professional.

It is “us” against “them”. The only way to win is to have more of “us”. And not just artists, that includes everyone — legislators, public health officials, clients, the public, and the media.

MDM: What’s next for you? Politics maybe?

TA: I just want to pierce and burn people. Then nursing school.

While legislators, clients, and friends have commented on the future of a political career, there may be too many skeletons in that closet. But one could argue that far worse criminals have been elected.

Troy Amundson: SICK FUCK knuckle tattoo

Marisa Kakoulas
Marisa Kakoulas is a New York lawyer, writer, the mastermind behind Needled.com, and muse of Daniel DiMattia of Calypso Tattoo, living in Liege, Belgium. She works undercover — or just covered up — as a corporate consultant: proof that tattoos and suits are not mutually exclusive. Her book “Tattoo Law”, an overview of US laws affecting the body modification community, is under way. IAM members can visit Marisa at iam:FREE.

Copyright © 2007 Marisa Kakoulas. This online presentation copyright © 2007 BMEzine.com LLC. Requests to republish must be confirmed in writing. For bibliographical purposes this article was first published online April 18th, 2007 by BMEzine.com LLC in Toronto, Canada.

Semi-Precious Teeth – The BME Cultural Corner

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I am happy to present the next article in the Cultural Corner series by my colleague Christian Noni. He has a great love and respect for ancient culture and its attending rituals. He is also a collector of ancient jewelry and artifacts relating to body modification. Christian has undergone some serious surgical modifications to his mouth and has documented them for us here in his own words.

In a related note, the Museum of Man in San Diego is completing the hosting of a body modification special exhibit which runs through March. Art from San Diego’s piercing studio, Church of Steel, is primarily responsible for putting it together. I have known Art for some fifteen years, and know of his great love of tribal culture. Along with photos of many familiars in the piercing industry, there is a small but relevant display of jewelry. Art has my respects for orchestrating this exhibit and helping to educate not just piercers, but the public in general.

With modified people no longer considered a “fringe” culture, many large museums are following suit, and presenting similar exhibitions. For those modified individuals in and outside of the industry, I highly recommend visiting the museum if you are in Southern California. You might even score a copy of my book, A Brief History of the Evolution of Body Adornment in Western Culture, at the museum’s gift shop. The limited edition body mod book is nearly sold out. Also check out my new DVD for you hardcore traditional bodymod fans.

– Blake

Semi-Precious Teeth

“To embrace our future, we must first embody our past.”
          – Christian Noni

As a professional piercer, I have always been interested in the historical aspects of body modification. Since I was nearly ten years old, I have collected ethnographic pieces. Anything from traditional Native American dream catchers and weapons, to my mid teens collecting antique piercing jewelry. I feel it is essential to not only respect what tribal cultures around the world created but to also embody it. Thus, I felt using the word “embody” would be the perfect name for the piercing studio that I am opening up. My studio not only performs traditional body piercing and tattooing, but we also plan to have a mini museum of ancient tribal artifacts, primarly focusing on ancient body piercing jewelry and other forms of ritualistic objects. We encourage all people from all walks of life to come and visit us.

From the beginnings of human culture as well as in the present, body modification has served its purpose in our bodies through many different aspects. Aside from common body piercing and tattooing, we as modern beings practise the beauty of adornment through in many other ways — cosmetic surgery, wearing make up, weight lifting, and so on. One large form of body modification with a beautiful history is tooth modifications. In this modern age in body modification, it may be interesting to look back at what the Mayans did in particular.

With a highly developed culture, the Mayans were peaceful people who inhabited the Yucatan Peninsula as well as present-day Guatemala and Honduras. The nation’s history began about 2500 B.C. and the culture flourished from about 300 A.D. to about 900 A.D. They were accomplished smelters and forgers of gold, silver, and bronze, in addition to being highly skilled in cutting, polishing, and engraving semi-precious stones. Many of these skills can be seen in Pre-Columbian earrings, necklaces, and masks.

One form of Mayan stonework that was widely popular was inlaying polished stones into teeth. The Mayans were skilled in the fabrication and placement of beautifully carved stone inlays in precisely prepared cavities in the front teeth. These inlays were made of various minerals, including jadeite, iron pyrites, hematite, turquoise, quartz, opal, serpentine, and cinnabar. The purpose of enhancing teeth blossomed for ritual or religious purposes — some believed that inserting gems into their teeth and filing them in elaborate designs would enhance the voice spiritually, thus resulting in direct communication with God(s).

The tools illustrated above are examples of what kind of tools the Mayans may have used for gem inlaying. Illustrations courtesy of Dr. Schilling.

A round, hard tube was spun between the hands, or in a rope drill, with a slurry of powdered quartz in water as an abrasive, to cut a perfectly round hole through the tooth enamel. The stone inlay was ground to fit the cavity so precisely that many have remained in the teeth for thousands of years. Human skull remains can still be seen in museums today with gems still intact in the tooth.

Not only did the Mayans insert beautiful stones into their teeth, but they too also decorated their teeth in other ways. Some forms of tooth adornment that they performed included carving their teeth in various shapes (which you can see above and in the skull at the top of the article). One of the most extroardinary forms of tooth adornment were their inventive techniques in replacing teeth. Modern oral surgeons now have only just scratched the surface of what was commonly practised over two thousand years ago. Replacing their own teeth with those from animals (and other humans) as well as shells and other implants — not only was this form of adornment was widely practiced but was greatly achieved, with archaeological evidence that the human bone anatomically bonded to the implants and healed.

The teeth of this Mayan skull of the ninth century A.D. have numerous inlays of jade and turquoise. Also note how the upper front teeth have been filed, particularly the decorative front two teeth. Photo courtesy of Dr. Schilling.

Personally growing up with crooked teeth, I had spent more than half of my life trying to achieve that “perfect smile”, undergoing through my youth having braces, headgear, permanent retainers, and temporary retainers. After somewhat achieving that nice smile in my early teens, I assumed the ongoing procedures were coming to an end. Without knowing what the future held in store for me, I ended up finding that I had a rare disease. My father and my uncle have it as well, and I got it early — because of this, I had to undergo more extreme procedures to save my teeth. I underwent numerous tooth extractions, over twenty-five root canals, and lastly dental implants. Dr. Downey quoted that I “have literally gone through more dental work in the last five years than roughly thirty people added up would in their entire lifetime”. All in the name of beauty… After going through well over five years of procedures in trying to achieve that perfect smile, I became very attentive towards other peoples smiles, and with that, I became even more self-conscious of my smile. I already got enough attention for my modifications, and I was receiving even more attention with my ugly smile. Over time I trained myself to smile in a certain way where my bad teeth were not as visible. People typically don’t realize how much a person’s smile can make all of the difference in the world. My smile was affecting my job, dating, and even making friends.

Since I was having all of my teeth fixed, I wanted to add a spice of historical traditional adornment to my teeth. I had always been fascinated by what the Mayans did to their teeth, and as time went by, I felt it was time to embody what our neighboring culture created. My friend and dentist, Dr. Downey, was well aware of the historical culture of Mayan dentistry. As open-minded as he is, he was more than happy to help me achieve this ancient form of beauty. Typically his clientel would insert diamonds or rubies in their teeth, so he was experienced in the procedure. However, I wanted my teeth to be as beautiful and traditional as the Mayans did. Thus, I made plans to have solid opal gems inlayed into my upper and lower canine teeth.

The procedure was not as simple as the one the Mayans used. Considering my teeth are porcelain, the procedure required more delicate techniques when inlaying the stones. Despite the beautiful appearance opal stones have, it is a naturally formed crystal glass. Thus, major preparations were involved to make sure the stones would be inlayed correctly and appear beautiful, and also last for years to come as well. Preparing the teeth and gems took much longer than than actually insert them. The upper and lower canines were prepped in a lab, then hollowed out. On the front of the tooth was a hole for where the gem would be inserted and be visible. The gems were actually not inlayed from the front as most people would assume. They were inlayed from the inside of the new tooth, then supported from behind with porcelain. This is to prevent the opal stone from falling out from the front. Thus, the gem is encased entirely in porcelain with a clear epoxy encased on the front of the gem for extra support (click for a closeup). Once my new gem teeth were ready for insertion, a localized anesthesia was injected. Dr. Downey removed my upper and lower temporary canines and prepped the surrounding gums for my new canines. A dental instrument silimar to a surgical elevator instrument was used to push down on the gums to make room. Once that was achieved, the new tooth was prepped and inserted with a cement epoxy agent to bond permanently. The actual procedure took no more than ten minutes per canine set. Both Dr. Downey and myself were very pleased with the results of how everything looked.

Dr. Downey has not only changed my life with my great new smile, but he too has brought me a step closer to the essence of body adornment. For that, words can not express my gratitude on how thankful I am to have him not only as my dentist, but as a friend who I will never forget.

For more information, you may contact me directly at [email protected]. If you would like to contact Dr. Downey, please go to www.RalphDowneyDDS.com for more information.

Don’t read your press, weigh it. [The Association of Professional Piercers]

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“Don’t read your press, weigh it.”
               — Andy Warhol

Trigeminal Neuralgia and Tongue Piercing…
Pierce your tongue, be driven to suicide?

When I got into work on Friday, October 20th, there was a fax waiting for me. It was a copy of a newspaper article from the San Francisco Daily with a headline that read, “Tongue Piercing Tied to Painful ‘Suicide Disease.’” I knew it was going to be a busy weekend.

And then the calls started. Had I seen the articles? Had I read them? What was I, as the Medical Liaison for the Association of Professional Piercers, going to do about them?

Since the article originated at the Associated Press, it was everywhere. (The AP news service is the oldest and largest news organization in the world. It supplies news to over 1,700 US newspapers daily, 5,000 TV and radio stations, and 8,500 international subscribers.) The piece was printed in dozens of newspapers, occasionally with different headlines over the same body provided by the Associated Press.

For those that haven’t seen the article, the gist of it is this:

A research letter written up in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), and published on October 18th, 2006,* was titled “Atypical Trigeminal Neuralgia Associated With Tongue Piercing.” It outlines the case of an Italian woman who complained of face and head pain that started one month after she had her tongue pierced, and lasted for two months until she removed her jewelry. In the article, the pain was purported to come in episodes “described as ‘electric shocks’” which “lasted from 10 to 30 seconds, and recurred 20 to 30 times each day, increasing in frequency and severity in the latter weeks.” According to the authors, these episodes were consistent with the disorder known as trigeminal neuralgia.

Trigeminal neuralgia is a condition characterized by sudden attacks of pain involving different sections of the face. These attacks are severe, and are usually described as resembling electric shocks — the pain is intermittent, but intense. And, most importantly, the article goes on to describe several types of trigeminal neuralgia, the main two being typical trigeminal neuralgia, and atypical trigeminal neuralgia.

Typical trigeminal neuralgia is incredibly painful, and most often caused by an enlarged blood vessel putting pressure on the trigeminal nerve root (the trigeminal nerve is one of twelve cranial nerves serving the face and head). What results from this pressure is an extreme, electric shock-like pain that is completely debilitating for the sufferer. (The diagnosis of typical TN is based in part upon the sufferer’s description of his/her pain.)

Atypical trigeminal neuralgia is a less common form of the disorder and is characterized by less intense, constant, dull burning or aching pain, often with occasional electric shock-like stabs. Atypical TN is also not commonly treatable with medications used for typical TN, such as carbamazapine. (It should be noted that, in the JAMA article, the patient was treated with carbamazapine with little effect.)

The woman in the JAMA article was diagnosed with atypical trigeminal neuralgia, based on the descriptions of her pain (and her lack of reaction to the carbamazapine). After the failure of the medication, she took out her tongue piercing jewelry, and the symptoms disappeared completely within 48 hours. Though it was speculated that the tongue piercing was the cause of the TN, it was noted, “The symptom was probably secondary to a lingual metallic implant, and although findings indicate the involvement of the trigeminal system, the location of the piercing and implant should not have resulted in trigeminal injury.” It further references an article in the New England Journal of Medicine, where a 66 year-old woman was suffering from trigeminal neuralgia from a mercury-amalgam filling in one tooth coming in contact with a gold crown on the adjacent one.† On the whole, the research letter in JAMA was informative, well written and, above all, objective. The same cannot be said about the Associated Press article.

The problem with the AP article was that it failed to differentiate between typical trigeminal neuralgia and atypical trigeminal neuralgia. It also was the first mention of TN’s most unfortunate nickname: the suicide disease. Because of the overwhelmingly intense pain, those suffering from typical TN have a very high incidence of suicide—the pain is so horrible that many feel this is the only way out. This is not true of atypical TN, which is a much more minor, and more manageable form of the disorder. The combination of these two pieces of the AP article—the lack of distinction between typical and atypical TN, and the inclusion of the phrase “suicide disease”—set the stage for the press that followed.

While the title of the AP article—“Tongue Piercing Linked To Pain”—was not especially inflammatory, things got worse each time the article was reprinted. Each news posting (print or web) provided their own headlines, and made decisions about how much of the article to reprint. (Many papers choose to edit the article for length, often leaving out the paragraph where Dr. Marcelo Galarza, an author of the original study, states, “Certainly, this was an isolated case, an extremely rare complication of this kind of piercing,”) This is where the incitive headlines appeared, such as the one MSNBC, which screamed “Teen’s Tongue Piercing Causes ‘Suicide Disease.’” [CACHE]

Strangely, the whole incident reminded me of The Simpsons. (Yes, the TV show.) On the first season’s DVD collection, if you listen to the writers’ commentary during the episodes, you hear them often mention the cheap shots and cruel jokes included at the expense of the old. This was because every week they were pitted against the Cosby show in their time bracket. And while The Simpsons led the ratings with the younger demographic, anyone over 40 that was watching TV at that time was watching Bill Cosby and his TV family. This gave the creative team at The Simpsons free rein to make the elderly the butt of any joke they wanted—there was simply no one watching who would complain to the network.

This is much the same way piercers and other body modification artists allow themselves to be portrayed by the mainstream media: We’re the whipping boy for traditional news services because not only are we a marginalized and unorganized group, but we’re simply not watching, and not insisting that news outlets are held accountable for misinformation and exaggerations that are printed about us and what we do.

So what was I going to do about the mess started by the Associated Press?

The first thing I did was to write a letter on behalf of the APP to the Associated Press writer, politely seeking to educate her on the situation, and explaining my interest as the APP’s Medical Liaison.

The next, more daunting, task was to attempt to send a letter to the editor of every news outlet that ran the AP article. After emailing out the first round of letters for the articles that were already sent me, I composed a letter to the APP membership asking for help in tracking down versions of the article in all media. This message was sent to every APP member via email asking each to forward me contact info for any paper they encountered which printed the AP story—which quite a few did. (I then sent out the letter to each news source.) This request was also posted on MySpace, and I saw the letter re-posted repeatedly in bulletins by over the course of several days.

The response to all this was amazing. I received emails from members (and non-members) from all over the country. These included about fifty links to outlets running the AP letter, from newspapers to TV stations to radio stations to Internet news groups. I spent a day modifying the letter template, and composing and sending a letter to each news editor. I posted on newspaper and newsgroup comment boards, and on larger papers that listed postal addresses, I had letters printed and sent from the APP office to each of the newspapers.

At times it did seem rather futile. How many of my letters to the editors did I think would actually get printed? It didn’t matter—I was simply determined to not let tongue piercing be the focus of yet another misinformed, sensationalistic attack on what we do, on what we hold to be most important.

And it must have worked. The last time I did a Google search with the words “tongue piercing suicide disease,” my letter came up #3, on the Chicago Tribune’s website [CACHE]. Not too bad.

And while we are still a long way, as an industry, from getting the respect that we deserve, we don’t have to be passive participants in the process. If we don’t like the way we’re being portrayed by the mainstream media, we have a responsibility to our industry and ourselves to try to do something about it. Change will be slow to come, but I believe that, unified and organized, we can make a difference.

     James Weber
     APP Medical Liaison (safepiercing.org)
     Infinite Body Piercing (infinitebody.com)

* Gazzari R, Merceri S, Galarza M. Atypical Trigeminal Neuralgia Associated With Tongue Piercing. Journal of the American Medical Association. Vol. 296, No. 15, October 18, 2006.

† Cheshire WP Jr. The Shocking Tooth About Trigeminal Neuralgia. New England Journal of Medicine. 2000;342:2003.

Started in California in 1994, the Association of Professional Piercers is an international non-profit organization that is committed to the dissemination of vital health and safety information about body piercing to the piercing community, health care professionals, legislators, and the general public. The APP holds its annual conference each year in Vas Vegas, Nevada in the first week in May.

Copyright © The Association of Professional Piercers. Reprinted on BMEzine.com with permission. Articles in this column are published simultaneously in The Point: The Quarterly Journal of the Association of Professional Piercers. Subscriptions are $10 for four issues and are available through the APP website at safepiercing.org.

James Weber is the current Medical Liaison for the Association of Professional Piercers. He has been piercing professionally since 1993 and has been actively involved at industry-wide level in legislative, educational, and public relations projects for much of that time. He is the co-owner of Infinite Body Piercing, which he has been operating in Philadelphia since 1995. He is also the editor of The Point: The Quarterly Journal of the Association of Professional Piercers. He can be reached at [email protected].

Mike “Jazzdemon” Jones Interview [The Lizardman]

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Mike “Jazzdemon” Jones
BY THE LIZARDMAN


The first time I got to see Penn & Teller live at the Rio in Las Vegas I was advised by my friend Todd Robbins, who had arranged the tickets for my wife and I, to arrive early because before the show they played live jazz and I ‘might just recognize the tall man playing bass’. I don’t think it will be spoiling anything for anyone to say that the tall man in question is Penn Jillette, who I immediately recognized. However, my eye was quickly drawn away from Penn and to the pianist he was playing with. I turned and whispered to Meghan, ‘I think the pianist has stretched lobes.’ with more than a little surprise.

The pianist, Mike Jones, did in fact have stretched lobes and a whole lot more as it turns out. It also turns out that Mike is not just any old jazz pianist. Now, when it comes to jazz I do not have a refined ear by any means but as the saying goes I may not know much but I know what I like. I greatly enjoyed the pre-show entertainment he and Penn provided (he also appears and plays during the show).

Later on, I googled Mr. Jones and discovered just how accomplished and respected he was in his field — visit www.jonesjazz.com for more on his music. After a recent return to once again see the show I noticed his tattoo work peeking out above his collar and below his sleeves and had the idea I should have gotten when I first met him: a BME interview. After finding a contact email on the P&T website I wrote and requested an interview, to which he graciously consented.


Penn and Teller's Jazz Pianist Mike Jones with The Lizardman

When did you first get interested in body modification and body art?

I first got interested in tattoos when I was a teenager. I would see someone on TV with tattoos and thought they were really beautiful. I talked about getting some in my twenties, but was worried about being able to work. I think I knew even then, that if I started, I wouldn’t want to stop!

In the mid nineties, I first started to see some stretched lobes, and facial piercing in New York, and I thought they were really cool. I started hanging around a tattoo and piercing studio in Salem NH — Masterpiece — and got to see some really amazing work up close, for the first time.

Could you describe your modifications (tattoos, piercings, and anything else) and who did them?

My first piercing was my left nipple, done at a place on 2nd Ave in NYC. I think my nose was next, and that, along with my tongue, ears, labret, PA, and nipples were all done by Rob Smith at Masterpiece in New Hampshire. I decided to move to Vegas in 1999 to work with a singer, and was given my first tattoo as a going away present by Dan Carroll, the owner of Masterpiece. It was a beautiful Celtic band around my left bicep, and I was hooked!


Jazz pianist Mike Jones' arm tattoos

I moved to Vegas and found Dante, the owner of Dante’s Studio Tattoo in Henderson, Nevada. She did my first big piece, a half sleeve on my right arm. Her daughter Angela then did a full sleeve on my left arm. Dante then laid out the rest of my right sleeve, and Angie is currently coloring it in. She also did some ram horns on my head, some stars on my neck, and we’re working on a big chest piece with sparrows. I also have some Doc Marten boots tattooed on my feet, and legs. It’s a long project and a lot of black!

My friend Tony Fitzpatrick, a famous and amazing artist whose work hangs in the Museum of Modern Art in NY, and other galleries around the world, is designing a jungle piece for my back.

I remember talk of a deal with Doc Marten based on your boots tattoo — where does that stand?

I took some time off from the boots, but I’ll be finishing them up over the next few months. It’s a lot of black, and my poor artist was going crazy. When they’re done, I’ll have our agent go to Doc Marten and see what they say. Of course, I didn’t do it for that reason, but it would be funny.


Mike Jones' Doc Marten tattoos

Is there a theme or overall concept to your work?

I really don’t have an overall theme, although I have the traditional Japanese on one sleeve, and really colorful tribal on the other. I like big pieces where you have to stand back to get the whole idea. I waited a long time to get my first tattoo — I was 37 — so I made sure I knew what I wanted in terms of each piece. I like bigger pieces, rather than a lot of little ones.

How does your family feel about your modifications?

My Dad is a WWII vet, and to him I think tattoos are something way outside of the mainstream. He’s been pretty ok about it, but I think he’d rather I didn’t have any! Shortly before my mom died, I told her I was thinking about getting a tattoo, and she said she thought they were cute, but not to tell my dad!

As a musician you work in a highly creative field and jazz is often esteemed as being a particularly creative form of music. Do you see your modifications as an extension or another form of that creativity? Are they related in any specific way to your work in music?

Here’s where I get a little shallow! I create music every night, and I’m one of the most fortunate people on the planet. I work with two dear friends, whom I respect and admire, and I get to do pretty much whatever I want. I can also look however I want, and they think it’s great. I don’t attach any real meaning to any tattoo, other than to think it looks cool.

I know some people get ink for very serious and personal reasons, and I respect and admire that. With me, I just like the way it looks.

The stereotypical connection most people make between tattoos and music are rock and metal bands. Are tattoos and piercings common in the jazz world? How do your professional peers react to your modifications?

I love that most people think I play metal, and I love the look on their face when the find out I play music that’s fifty years old. When I was at Berklee College of Music, I’d wear almost nothing but Zeppelin and AC/DC shirts, and get filthy looks from the hardcore jazz guys, who all dressed like they were Miles Davis in 1963. They shut up when I played, and that was the end of that.

It makes me very happy to mess with peoples perceptions, but I think piercing and tattoos are becoming more popular in jazz just because they’re more popular everywhere. It’s 2006, and it’s just not that big a deal anymore.

Since you have public modifications (stretched piercings, scalp tattoos, and hand and neck tattoos) do you find a difference in the reactions of fans from before and after having these done?

I haven’t had any negative reactions from any fan at all. The most common thing I hear after the show is “I love your tattoos”! It’s weird. My wife tells me that people are staring at me once in a while, but I’m oblivious. I never mind it when someone asks me questions about mods, because, as far as I’m concerned, I’m a walking billboard for the tattoo and piercing industry!


Mike Jones, the Jazzdemon, is a horny jazz pianist

You mentioned early concerns about possible work related issues if you got tattoos (a very real and rationale concern) and then later talked about getting dirty looks and comments for your choice of dress only to “shut them up” with your ability to play. It seems that many times a person who wishes to explore body modification must overachieve in order to be accepted and gain respect. In a perfect world judgments and criticisms would be based solely on merit but in reality people’s prejudices often slip in. To what, if any, extent do you think that your choices of dress, modification, etc have affected your career?

Well, with P&T, my career has never been better. I believe I wouldn’t be able to get a gig at the Ritz Carleton again, but I made a deliberate decision a few years ago to not do that kind of work. When I play at a jazz club, I never have a problem. I really think that people are just getting more comfortable with body mods in general. The days of going into a small “redneck” town where they don’t accept you because you look different are disappearing. The one or two times that I’ve been nervous, or uncomfortable, going into a small town diner, I’m usually greeted with the same kind of interest and curiosity that I get anywhere else. It always ends up with people saying how cool it looks!

I’ve stood out in front of the P&T theater singing autographs and greeting people for over four years. That’s over a million people that I’ve connected with, for at least a second or two. One time, one person, out of those million, an older man came up to me and said, “Love the music, hate the tattoos”. I smiled and said the exact same thing I would say to anyone else, “Thanks for coming, have a great night!” So if only one in a million people doesn’t like my ink, I’m doing fine!

I noticed that the photos on jonesjazz.com don’t really show any of your modifications, nor are they mentioned there — is this by design or just happenstance? Have your modifications ever really factored in to your marketing as a performer and/or with dealing with labels and the like?

The website was put together before I started any visible mods, and when my next CD comes out, they’ll be there! I’ve always thought that having me look as I do would be a killer idea for marketing. Zeke (from our show) calls me the “jazzdemon” and I would like to exploit that. I haven’t even gotten far enough with a big label to address the issue of my appearance, but Chiaroscuro has no problems with how I look. The fact that I’m a reasonably good musician seems to be all they care about.

Per William Burroughs, any ‘words of advice for young people’?

My words of advice for the youngsters are only to do what you love. Life is too short to fuck around. You only get one chance, so make it count. These all sound like clichés, but, it’s all true, and so important.




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 © 2006 BMEzine.com LLC and Erik Sprague / The Lizardman. Requests to republish must be confirmed in writing. For bibliographical purposes this article was first published March 14th, 2006 by BMEzine.com LLC in Toronto, Canada.

Oklahoma Lifts Body Art Ban! [Legal Link]

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Oklahoma Lifts Body Art Ban
By Marisa Kakoulas DiMattia

Oklahoma — the last US state to outlaw tattooing — will now lift its body art ban and a law legalizing and regulating tattooing will take effect November 1st of this year. No longer will Oklahomans be relegated to their cousin’s kitchen table to get needled. No longer will police raid tattooists while the state makes the Top 15 in the nation for violent crime. And no longer will it be illegal to pay homage to Garth Brooks, Oklahoma’s homeboy, with a portrait tattoo tribute.


Tattoo of another musical icon, done “illegally” in Oklahoma

Today, the Governor of Oklahoma signed Senate Bill 806, which recently was passed in the Oklahoma House of Representatives and Senate. House Representative Al Lindley, who co-authored the bill with State Senator Frank Shurden, has tried for the past seven years to pass legislation to legalize tattooing. This year he succeeds.

Previous attempts to pass this legislation were been blocked by Republican legislators in Oklahoma on “moral grounds.” But perhaps this year they realized that having their constituents get tattooed in unregulated and unsanitary conditions, risking infection, is not only immoral, it is unjust. Then there’s the case challenging the ban filed by a tattooer arrested in a studio raid. A court ruling that the ban is illegal means that tattooing in the state may have been legalized with legislators having no say at all. This seems to have lit a fire under their pious butts.

Still, morality will figure prominently even if Bill 806 is passed. House amendments to the tattoo bill include a prohibition on body art business operating within 1,000 feet of a church, school or playground. In a state where there’s a church on every corner, this is no small restriction [Editor’s note: Jon from Fishing Fury points out that this is potentially a racist law due to the increase in church volume in African American communities in Oklahoma]. Evidently, legislators felt the need to protect Oklahoma’s youth from, say, tattooed lawyers like myself.


Even looking at this tattoo, done “illegally” in Oklahoma, can turn you to stone or worse!

Another obstacle for tattoo and piercing business owners is the requirement to post a surety bond of $100,000 in order to be licensed — an incredibly high amount. While tattoos may have become mainstream, most artists I know are not endowed with trust funds [Editor’s note: So the law is class-ist as well?].

Those operating without a license once the bill is passed will face stiffer penalties as well; instead of the current $500 fine, a penalty of $5,000 will be imposed. The possibility of up to 90 days in jail remains the same.

Despite the restrictions and high fines, the tattoo bill does do a lot of good by protecting tattoo lovers from the risk of infection and hepatitis. (An outbreak of hepatitis B in one Oklahoma county was tied directly to unsanitary home tattooing practices.) In order to be licensed, and therefore legal, tattooers will be required to obtain training in blood-borne pathogens, their work environment must conform to health and hygiene standards, equipment must be inspected, and procedures such as single-use needles and ink caps must be adhered to, among others. The new law will also prohibit artists from tattooing anyone under 18 or under the influence of drugs or alcohol.


Oh, but breaking the law was fun!

Properly trained tattooists already follow these standards so they shouldn’t be overly burdensome. The law will be heavy for kitchen table scratchers. While you can get a home tattoo kit off of eBay for cheap, autoclaves and other sterilization equipment are expensive. Tattoo artists that follow the rules have higher costs and, thus, their prices may be higher. With tattooing legalized, these artists will face less competition from bargain-rate amateurs who may charge less but at the cost of the client’s health.


At the First Oklahoma Convention

There’ll still be plenty of Oklahoma artists to choose from anyway. According to The OU Daily, 300 underground artists are already tattooing in the state with 14 tattoo studios openly doing business in the Oklahoma City area despite the ban. A tattoo convention in Tulsa even took place April 1 & 2nd, drawing local and national artists to The Hive club, the only place willing to have the event. Interestingly, the police didn’t conduct one of their tattoo raids at the convention. The Tulsa County District Attorney Tim Harris told the Associated Press that tattoo law violations are a “low priority” compared with the load of homicide cases he faces.

Now police can catch real criminals instead of arresting artists.

Marisa Kakoulas DiMattia

This article was not intended as legal advice. It is intended for only general information purposes. This article does not create any attorney-client relationship.


Marisa Kakoulas
Marisa Kakoulas DiMattia is a New York lawyer, writer, and muse (and now wife) of Daniel DiMattia of Calypso Tattoo, living in Liege, Belgium. She works undercover — or just covered up — as a corporate consultant: proof that tattoos and suits are not mutually exclusive. Her book “Tattoo Law”, an overview of US laws affecting the body modification community, is under way. IAM members can visit Marisa at iam:FREE. She is also the author of Needled.

Copyright © 2006 Marisa Kakoulas. Online presentation copyright © 2006 BMEzine.com LLC. Requests to republish must be confirmed in writing. For bibliographical purposes this article was first published online May 10, 2006 by BMEzine.com LLC in Toronto, Canada.

The Lizardman vs. Jason “Cork” Sand [The Lizardman]

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Jason Sand Interview
BY THE LIZARDMAN

I had the opportunity to meet Jason (IAM:Cork) in person in 2003 after first reading about him on BME. Since then the original interview with Jason was removed for various reasons but always with an eye towards replacing it with an updated account his amazing life and modifications. I was very happy when he approached me with the idea of doing the new interview and I hope I have done him justice by asking good questions — following are his responses.
LIZARDMAN:  Let’s start with the standard introduction: What’s your name? How old are you? Where do you call home?
JASON:  Jason Sand. 27 years old. Currently living in the D.C. Area (MD), next year Vermont.
LIZARDMAN:  How would you describe your motivations for your modifications?
JASON:  I would say many of my modifications are a blend of reclamation, spiritual, and aesthetic appeal. My theme as a whole is based on my personal and spiritual evolution. Amongst all of that I’ve accumulated a few mods that simply appeal to me artistically, or even sexually.
LIZARDMAN:  Describe your modifications and who did them:
JASON:  My facial and neck tattoos are by various artists including Shane Munce, Rosanna (No hope No fear in Amsterdam), Joe Marro, Preston Jarvis, Mike Derazmo, Chris Lee a.k.a. Batryder, JD (Psychotic INK), Jackie Brown, and Eric Stokes. My half sleeve by Bryan Harper. The back piece in progress is by Shane Munce and Chris Lee. I have an in-progress chest piece by Jon Clue and a crotch piece by Mike Fikes. The leg and foot work is from Shane Munce, Mike Derazmo, and Eric Stokes. And I also have some other work by various artists.


My piercings from top to bottom include two 2ga upper ears, a 00ga upper ear, a 4ga upper ear, a 1ga conch, a 1.25″ ears (split and reattached by Steve Haworth), a 13mm Septum piercing, a 27mm by 14mm labret, three guiches in 00ga, 1/2″, and 5/8″ guiche, and a 1″ upper scrotal piece done in transcrotal style (i.e. partially stitched closed during procedure.)

My carved silicone facial implants and eight large Teflon horns are by Steve Haworth with Jesse Jarrell having carved the facial ones.

My chin branding is by Steve Haworth and my shin branding is by Alva in Jacksonville. The chest cuttings are by Frances and the knee cuttings by Ron Garza.

I have a self-done partial subincision and a partial head splitting by Shane Munce. I have a self cut and reattached split tongue — I think that’s it.
LIZARDMAN:  Future modification plans?
JASON:  I’m thinking about possibly switching the Teflon in my chest out for silicone. And really that’s about it… I’m pretty complete with most of my projects aside from tattooing.
LIZARDMAN:  Did you have an overall plan or idea for your mods or was it a piecemeal or evolution process?
JASON:  Most of it was part of an overall plan, but like many things in life, some of it was spontaneous, and much of it evolved and changed naturally as I came up with better or different ideas. Even now that I’ve planned out the rest of my work, there is still loads of room for change and adaptation.
LIZARDMAN:  Can you expand on the theme? I think because its not an obvious visual one it may be harder for people to pick up on immediately.
JASON:  I am not sure I can get this across correctly, mainly due to not being done, but I’ll give it a go. I have a few different related themes. Starting at the face the blue dots are to honor the skies above, and the water below — a tribute to air and water. My face and neck is a representation of destruction and creation, the Big Bang with the symbol for “God” (as in a being, not the one in the bible) being in the center, and below on my throat, a goat with the same symbol of God, representing destruction. I’ve also incorporated plants and animals in between this to represent the here and now. On the sides of my head I have “Kill thine Idols” (as in don’t have idols before your perception of god or enlightenment). The other side states “life after death” in regards to passing from this life into another.

My front torso is a huge face in progression formed out of different forms of plants from a cellular level to a lichen growth. As this piece progresses it will have more plant textures incorporated. This represents the organic process of part of myself growing out of me, a kind of spiritual peek through my inner window, ever reaching outward.


My back section is a tribute to fertility (the “human” orchid — human vagina — as opposed to insect vagina emulation), represented with an orchid and various spiders. Once finished it will have incorporated a scene of various nebulas and birthing stars, all overlapped with webbing to represent how it’s all “tied together”. Growing off the orchid and encompassing my ass will be two large berries with fetuses growing inside them, fusing the concept of birth and growth with an organic plant-like fusion. I’ll leave it at that for the areas that are not currently done so as not to jinx it.

Finally, my feet are once again a representation of destruction — and growth within filth. Shane Munce and I are currently working on them with tattoos such as three dimensional realistic zits, the worm from poltergeist, and eventually bruising, bloating, frost bite, gangrene, and so on.


The rest of my body, arms, crotch, and so on carry a few token tattoos from friends — more representations, mostly abstract, of plants and animals. My knuckles read ‘Hard Love’, and my brother has the same tattoo. We got it to represent the way we were raised.

I’ve also used implants and subincision, and eventually tattoos to give my genitalia an abstract, hermaphroditic, plant like appearance.
LIZARDMAN:  Tell me about the lobe re-attachment?
JASON:  Well, as to the “why”, one ear I had overstretched early on and suffered a thin spot. Later down the road I had a similar problem with the other ear during a scalpeling session. They both harbored thin spots but were holding in fine enough until I got too drunk on a rollercoaster ride and had my plugs forcefully jerked out of my ears. That made the thin spots too thin for comfort.

About a half year down the road when I was getting my temple implants I asked Steve Haworth if he’d do my ears the next day. It went well, but one ear did not completely attach after healing, so six months down the road Shane Munce did a partial reattachment on it. I’d say the attachments were about 80% successful, and three years later I’m still happy with the results.
LIZARDMAN:  You cut and then later reversed your own tongue splitting?
JASON:  Yup, after the initial swelling went down, about two weeks to be safe, I realized it was grossly off center, I went back in and removed the scabby tissue from the center and bound it with a rubber band. In the first night the back reattached, and by the second day the front was fairly well attached. I have a small off center fork resulting from it and a crease that opens up a little bit. There is a hard piece of scar tissue in it to this day about five years later.
LIZARDMAN:  So your motivation was simply the off center cut, not that you no longer wanted a split?
JASON:  My motivation to reattach? Yes, it was literally like a quarter inch off center. That’s what I get for marking after the lidocaine.

I had plans to do it again. I was waiting for the lump of scar tissue buried in my tongue to soften and go away. And while it has gotten smaller, its not softer and I’ve just not gotten around to going through it again. I want to make sure its done right and I have been focusing on other areas since then. I’m sure I’ll get around to it later, but with the scar tissue and all, I have some worries that it might not be the best of ideas, and could impede mobility or something. Only time will tell.
LIZARDMAN:  So do you think you will go for a self cutting again when the time comes or is it something you now think would be better done by someone else for you?
JASON:  More than likely I’ll go to someone else due to there possibly needing to be a bit of sculpting, because of the existing scar tissue and fork.
LIZARDMAN:  What are your views on D.I.Y. versus going to professional practitioners?
JASON:  If you want quality work with less risk and better chances of success, go to a professional. Many are even accommodating to “rituals” that people would like to have involved in their procedure. I personally don’t see much wrong with DIY if you’re aware of the potential risks, willing to live with a mistake if it happens, and so on. It is a wonderful experience to have that kind of responsibility in your own hands and bring it to fruition.
LIZARDMAN:  Did the bad tongue splitting affect your views concerning D.I.Y. procedures?
JASON:  Not in the least, I knew I was taking a chance, and lived with my mistakes. Success will only teach and show you so much. You have to make a few mistakes before you really start seeing the bigger picture.
LIZARDMAN:  Do you differentiate much between the process and the product in terms of your modifications?
JASON:  When it comes to my scars, it’s often in the “process” of healing that I find more fulfilling, whereas with everything else, it’s the end product and I don’t necessarily get much out of the process. I do find it emotionally relieving at times, but I this is more related to the idea that inflicted pain can help one displace personal stress along with the physical discomfort.


In terms of getting something for original motivations or not, I’d say that is debatable in the sense that I may get it for one reason, but it could turn into a hundred others by the time I finish it, or on the flip side, I could have a incorrect hundred ideas of what it means, but once finished, its purpose is obvious.
LIZARDMAN:  You keep a low profile outside of IAM and other online modification sites. Is this by design? And if so, why? Given the public nature of much of your work how hard is it for you to keep under the radar?
JASON:  I like to think it’s by design, but I also think luck and circumstance plays a part. During the times when I’ve wanted to be more “public” it generally hasn’t fit into my situation. I’ve done some small TV coverage, a commercial or two, and some events but not much. I’m also not one to pursue things of that nature that don’t just fall into my lap. It really isn’t that hard at all to go under the radar. I use to get approached for things a lot, but one day it just kind of went away and hasn’t come back. So whatever I’m doing, it’s working.
LIZARDMAN:  Others with mods as extensive as your own are likely to work in either the modification industry or as performers. Have you ever worked in either of those realms? Do you prefer working so-called ‘straight jobs’?
JASON:  I absolutely prefer. Though the money and fame of being a modified celebrity are attractive, it is simply not my calling. Straight jobs are great, though I wouldn’t mind something a bit more unusual and creative from time to time.
LIZARDMAN:  To what extent have your mods influenced your job selections and opportunities?
JASON:  I’m not out there trying to get a vast assortment of jobs. I generally have a good idea of what places will and won’t hire me and tend to stick with those. Believe it or not, my work history and word of mouth have pretty much helped bypass any problems with getting hired initially.

Public notice and fitting into dress codes are definitely limiting factors. Also certain employee environments may not be suitable. I tend to get along really well with college age employees, and am usually taken in fairly well. Granted, my eccentric personality and approachableness helps a lot in this area. Many skilled labor jobs tend to look past the work if you have the experience or capability to back it up.
LIZARDMAN:  Were any comments made regarding there being consequences or resistance to going further than what you had when you were hired?
JASON:  Actually, no, there hasn’t been. I’ve just done it and not asked for permission.
LIZARDMAN:  Do you mind listing the jobs you have had in the past and their reactions to your modifications?
JASON:  When I was just pierced and stretching I got a job as a Data Analyst. After being relocated to another office in Florida, I started tattooing my face. At first a few administrative employees (i.e. the important ones) were a little taken aback. But since I already had a reputation for being eccentric in appearance with my piercings and various hairstyles, it was pretty much looked over. I worked the graveyard shift and rarely had to deal with anyone face to face.

After five years of that I left the job to pursue other interests and ended up working for TLA Video in Philadelphia. They didn’t care at all how I looked, as I was mainly doing sales and customer service over the phone and internet.

When I moved to a smaller city in Vermont I had a bit difficulty finding work. I ended up working in custodial maintenance a few hours a day. After a good while with the company, and a few stints doing other oddball jobs like mortgage refinancing and working in a Thai Bistro, they hired me on full time working in the kitchen and bussing tables (or any other job they had, other than bartending and waiting tables). They didn’t mind if I was seen by customers, but they just hadn’t chanced me serving them.

Then, upon moving to Maryland, I was very lucky to have known the kitchen manager at a TGI Friday‘s in Greenbelt (the third busiest in the nation last year or some such), which is where I’m currently at. When I move back to VT, I’ll probably start back up at my old job and possibly try and see if I can get on at another Friday’s.

Most places just take me as I am. I’ve rarely had anyone complain or reject me. I do occasionally get the uncomfortable coworker but that works itself out over time. Right now I think my resumé and willingness to work in most environments keeps me an eligible candidate for employment.


Jason wearing theatrical makeup as an experiment in disguise.
LIZARDMAN:  Anything you would tell anyone else considering heavy or public mods that caught you off guard after you got started?
JASON:  Hmmm…. What caught me off guard the most was the overall positive reaction I’ve gotten. Many people like the art a lot even if it may seem a little bizarre, basic, and unplanned — I’m not the best artist, but yes, it was all planned!

I expected the negative comments; many of us with lesser mods know most of these. What I didn’t expect was people simply not noticing or at least not letting on to the fact. Online I’ve taken a lot more abuse than I generally get in person.

Some people get loud, obnoxious, and sometimes jump right out of their seats. Expect to be touched, poked, prodded, and sneered at. Expect drunken people to run up to you and say “dude, you totally rock, much respect” — and then figure out a way to respond to such a comment without coming across as an arrogant prick!

Oh, and no matter what your tattoos are, someone is going to ask if you’re the Lizardman they saw on TV.

But, eventually there comes a time when all that goes away for the most part, and you get to start living your life like everyone else. You may look different and be different, but it all comes to how you fit into the community around you. That isn’t affected by how you look, but instead by how you act. That to me is what is most important and will get you a lot further than you think, even 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 © 2006 BMEzine.com LLC and Erik Sprague / The Lizardman. Requests to republish must be confirmed in writing. For bibliographical purposes this article was first published March 14th, 2006 by BMEzine.com LLC in Toronto, Canada.

SMUT: A Look Inside BellaVendetta.com [Guest Column – Stepping Back]

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“If I'm going to sing like someone else, then I don't need to sing at all.”
— Billie Holiday


Do you have a necrophilia, fire, asphyxiation, bathroom or medical fetish? Do corsets turn you on? Feet? BDSM? How about menstruation? Uniforms? Clowns? Allow me to introduce BellaVendetta.com, a place where you can find all of these things and much more. It’s the place for fetishes that no one wants to admit they have.

BellaVendetta.com started in late 2003, and has been growing ever since. Bella (IAM:BgirlyPrincapessa), owner of BellaVendetta.com had been watching the “alternative porn” industry grow and was excited to see tattooed and pierced women being more involved with pornography, but she felt there wasn’t enough self-expression happening. Tired of seeing girls with lip rings getting naked in their dorm rooms and other porn clichés, she was interested in seeing the darker side of girls’ sexualities.

After much deliberation, she took the plunge into entrepreneurship and BellaVendetta.com was born. It probably won’t come as a surprise, but Bella had a lot of problems launching her site. Primarily, she couldn’t find a billing company that would do business with her because of the content, which meant she couldn’t sell memberships. With help from BME’s own Rachel Larratt (IAM:Rachel), Bella was able to find a cooperative billing company and now the people of BellaVendetta are ready to show themselves to the world. Celebrating with a launch party on October 26, in Brooklyn, NY, and everyone’s invited!

One must wonder if the billing company problem is going to be the last of Bella’s problems. Bush’s War on Porn certainly poses a threat to the future of sites like Bella’s. Bush has enlisted the FBI’s help to try to stop pornographers— regular, run-of-the-mill pornographers— the ones who make porn for adults, featuring consenting adults. It’s all over the media, and it’s something to think about and in this case, rebel against.

Bella Vendetta offers a safe place for people to explore their kinkier side, and within its pages you’ll find some of the most controversial porn on the market. Let’s all welcome BellaVendetta.com to the industry and wish them the best for the future; and especially with winning the fight against her own government’s goal to close websites like hers.
Bella Vendetta (IAM:BgirlyPrincapessa), portrait by Gina Wilk

BME:  What’s your background, Bella?
BELLA:  I’m twenty-four years old and I grew up all over the northeast of America. I didn’t graduate high school because I felt I was getting a better education by reading a lot and doing various apprenticeships with people I wanted to learn from. I eventually got my GED and went back to the high school I dropped out of and taught a creative writing and a film making course. For the past few years, I’ve done a lot of different things: I’ve travelled around the United States, ran an organic farm and restaurant, attended college, and done costume work for the Berkshire Opera Company and Shakespeare and Company. I own a fashion design company called MyOwnBrain Productions, and am an active member of the Rites of Passage suspension group.
BME:  How did BellaVendetta.com (BV) start?
BELLA:  With the alternative porn boom a few years ago, I began submitting photos of myself to various sites but I didn’t get very good feedback: my sets were too extreme, they didn’t want me using real blood or they thought I looked too much like a skinhead. There were a few who accepted my photos, but I didn’t like the way they did business. I had always had the idea to start my own erotica site, but because it seemed like so much work I didn’t know if I should bother.

I had a boyfriend who didn’t want me to model, so I didn’t for a very long time. He and I eventually broke up, and around that same time I was watching my mother die of cancer. She died very young with many things unfinished and so many things she had wanted to do. I thought fuck it, the time is now, I need to just get on with this. My mother always pushed me to go for what I wanted, even if she didn’t agree with it.
BME:  Why didn’t your boyfriend like you posing nude? He ended up having a large part in BV, didn’t he?
BELLA:  He couldn’t understand how I could be comfortable flaunting my sexuality. One day I found out that he had lied and cheated on me. I wanted him to pay for what he had done, for making me feel cheap, for destroying my trust and for every injustice any female has ever suffered. As I yelled at him, I found myself hitting him over and over again. I imagined my fists going thru his skull and into the wall behind him. It was not a pretty scene; a pissed off little Italian girl in boots and braces who has a bit too much rum in her system. He was spitting up blood, blood was sprayed all over the kitchen walls, blood was all over my hands, and you know what? It was hot.

He told me I looked sexy covered in his blood, I agreed and hit him a few more times until he turned his head and I connected with the side of his skull. I felt my hand break and I got even more pissed off, so started kicking him. I didn’t stop until someone jumped in and stopped the fight. When we were done it looked like a murder scene.

I kept the blood-stained white tank top I had been wearing as a trophy. I wanted to write something on it, and one night it hit me: “BELLA VENDETTA”

It’s Italian for Beautiful Revenge.

Bella Vendetta became a good response to a lot of things after that. I wanted revenge for everything— for our society, our country, our culture. I wanted revenge from every magazine or website that’s rejected my pictures because they were too racy. I wanted revenge and I wanted it to be beautiful.
Medical fetish?
BME:  Do you regret hurting him?
BELLA:  No, not at all: he got what was coming to him. I wouldn’t tell everyone to go out and beat someone up who fucked them over, but I have always been a fan of vigilante justice. It was probably not the most adult way to handle things, but when love and passion are involved there’s not much room for ration. When I broke my hand, I had to quit my day job which pushed me to create BV so it really helped me in a lot of ways.
BME:  What did he say after it was all over?
BELLA:  He cried and ran away. But we’re friends now and he’s actually going to model for BV!
BME:  Who are the BV staff?
BELLA:  The original cast of characters for the Revenge Krew (both photographers and models) were all close friends of mine, who thought it was a great idea and were more than willing to help. I don’t often approach people that I don’t personally know to work for the site; most of the people on there who aren’t close friends of mine have approached me and wanted to shoot for the site. Every once in a while I’ll come across a really stunning model or photographer and I’ll ask them to participate, but I haven’t had very good luck with that.

Autumn
Bertram
Bastard

Dementina
FetishBaby
Su


Just a few of BV’s models.
BME:  Why do you think they aren’t interested in working with BV?
BELLA:  Generally when someone you don’t know writes you and says, “you’re pretty, you should model for my website but I can’t pay you” the response isn’t very good. Not that I would approach any model in those words anyway, but I understand and respect anyone feelings if they don’t want to model. The only time I get frustrated is when I approach a model and they say no without even going to the site, seeing what it’s about or hearing what I have to say. Some people hear the words “adult oriented” and immediately think they’re going to be exploited or taken advantage of.
BME:  No one on your site is paid?
BELLA:  No, nobody is paid! That’s part of the beauty of it. Everyone involved is doing it purely for the love of quality erotica. The only people who have been paid are web designers and programmers. Don’t get me wrong, I think people should be paid for their time and talent, so as soon as some money starts coming in from this project I definitely want to compensate people. But it’s been such a beautiful experience seeing people make art/porn/erotica because they really want to.

If I was able to pay models I think it’d make more people want to pose, but I don’t want anybody whose sole reason for posing is to make money. Anyone whose first question is “how much are you paying” is someone that probably won’t fit well into the site. My main concern with money right now is making back what I put into getting the site up. Once that happens I hope to make a little bit of profit, but I’m not trying to get rich off taking advantage of anybody.
BME:  You also have erotica writers, including yourself?
BELLA:  I do a lot of writing for the site. All the news updates are by me unless otherwise noted, all the descriptions of photosets are be written by me and I do a lot of the erotica writing. Writing is something I don’t even think about anymore, it’s just a part of me. The ability to create mental images and convey emotions with words has always fascinated me. It’s just something I need to do at this point. But what I love even more than writing is reading work, and doing performance poetry and slam competitions and things like that.
BME:  You’ve got a lot of writing experience, actually. You participate in a few other publications, can you tell me about those?
BELLA:  Day Xanadu is my personal zine that I’ve been doing for ten years. It’s about my life in general— sometimes there’s political stuff in it, sometimes reviews of others writing, poetry, rants, angry feminist musings and just about everything in between. I usually have one or two contributing artists and/or writers in each issue. It’s the one medium I have where there are no defining lines. It’s an incredibly personal publication. You’ll find things in there about me that I probably won’t even discuss in person, but it’s developed a pretty loyal per-zine following and I’ve grown completely comfortable saying anything and everything in there. I’ve been published in other zines around the world and my writing has also been featured in three spoken word cassettes, read by other people. Raped by a Poet, Best poems of 2001 and on the air of an Italian radio station.
BME:  How many models, writers and photographers do you have?
BELLA:  It’s constantly changing, but currently there are about twenty-eight models and forty photographers. I have a lot more waiting for paperwork and other legal nonsense to go through and a lot more models/photographers on my “dream” list that I’ll ask once the site is up and running.
BME:  How do people apply to be involved in the site? What kinds of things do you look for?
BELLA:  There are sections on the site where you can fill out an application to be a member of the Krew. You don’t need to have a professional portfolio, and you don’t have to be published anywhere else, but you do need to have a sample to share with us and let us know what you’re capable of doing. There’s no real formula for what we’re looking for because we have really diverse people involved. Some of the writers write for major publications, some have never published a story in their life. Some models are well established and some are trying this for the first time. The only thing that’s a must is creativity.
Laura (IAM:.onyx) is one of BV’s main writers.

“His arms pulled me into him, as I nuzzled the side of my face into his chest. His hands motioned down my back and over my ass, squeezing it softly. He slowly moved his hands over to my hips and began sliding them onto my inner thighs. Kissing my neck softly as the warm water fell down his scalp through his hair and onto my back. I turned around facing the corner of the shower reaching my hands up as far as I could reach, with my back arched and my bottom angled up I leaned into the wall…”

I’d never written erotica before BV. The closest thing I’d come to writing erotica was when I was thirteen and I’d write short stories about boys that I had crushes on— what I’d want to happen and what had happened. I’m not sure if that counts as erotica though. I know one of my English professors would be very surprised to hear that I was writing professionally— she had wanted me to go to an E.S.L. (English as a Secondary Language) office to get some help with my errors!

When I heard about BV, I wanted to help in any way I could. They needed writers, so I tried it out. Since I started writing I’ve had friends of mine suggest I write for gay and lesbian magazines or to start a book of my own consisting of my short stories. I write as often as I can. Every time I get an idea I start typing feverishly. I never have storyboards for my writing— it just comes out naturally. Thank god I’m a fast typer! So far I’ve donated eighteen stories, and the feedback is great.

I write the way I like to read erotica. For example, when I read romance novels I always search for the sex scenes and only read them. I like fewer introductions and buildup and instead just getting right into the good stuff. I expose what I’ve experienced, dreamt of and longed for. In the future, I’d like to do a little bit of modeling. My dream photo shoot involved lip sewing, but for now, I’ll leave everything racy to the written word.
Juicy (IAM:PiercedPuff) is a twenty-two year old from New Jersey and is one of BV’s star models.

When I was eighteen, I started taking pictures for fun to send into BME. They were mostly of play piercing sessions or BDSM play because that’s what I wanted to see on BME or in BME/Hard galleries. My style of modeling is somewhat paradoxical. I get anxious when I have to call to order pizza or talk to strangers, but I have naked pictures on the internet! One shoot I’ll feel like stepping on someone’s throat and spitting on them, and the next I’ll want to wear my Eeyore toe socks and cuddle with teddy bears. Modeling gives me a lot of self-confidence and has allowed me to come to terms with the things I don’t like about myself. I can now walk around without makeup on or wake up in the morning with my hair silhouetted around my face like a helmet and still feel beautiful.

I met Bella at a suspension convention and asked her if she’d like to take my picture. I’d modeled before; I’m on a few sites like www.insex.com and www.citykittie.com, and am even in a ModCon book. After meeting her, I modeled for her production company www.myownbrain.com and she became one of my few close friends and a personal inspiration. She embodies so much that I want to be: I love that she makes me stand up for myself and she’s taught me that it’s okay to tell people who hurt me to fuck off.

You can currently see galleries featuring me in a carpentry porn set, catheter blood bath set, an emo love set with Bella, rooftop liquid latex, getting beaten on a boat by Bella and bowling alley porn with Bella. In the future, I want to do a set where my boyfriend kidnaps me with his van filled with Eeyores and candy, a daddy’s little girl scarification set, tons of play piercing shoots, and I’d love to take dirty pictures at my movie theater after hours, and a Star Wars porn set with light sabers.

I love posing for BV because I’m not conventional. “Alternative” photographers are sometimes not even into the stuff I am. Most people aren’t into real blood play and they’re not often into taking pictures of me when I’m really scared and crying. Bella is, and that’s one of the reasons why I love her. I’m only interested in modeling now when I can have fun with it. I don’t want to pretend to get tied up and have the cheesy look of surprise on my face for some porn site, I don’t want to get half naked and sit on some bed pretending to cry. I’m a creep and I want to take creepy pictures. I want to put my hair in pigtails and have Bella tie me up until my mascara is genuinely running down my cheeks and blinding my eyes, until my muscles are actually cramping because I can’t move and I am squirming, I want to be able to beg her to stop and honestly be scared when she laughs at me. Bella would never ask me to pretend to look scared, she’d make it happen. And that is why I love Bella Vendetta.
BME:  Can you give me a beginner’s guide to BV? What kinds of things can you find within its pages?
BELLA:  There’s about forty different kinks, and we’re still growing! Some of them are:

80s Trash: Roller-skates and prom dresses, leg warmers and cheap plastic jewelry.
Bathrooms: Public restrooms, bubble baths and shower scenes.
BDSM: Bondage, discipline, domination, submission, sadism and masochism.
Blood Sex: Play piercing, vampirism, and cutting. Currently all the blood play is real blood. Any sets involving special effects makeup or fake blood is in other categories.
Boots and Braces: Steel toes, suspenders, face smashing, shaved heads, white laces and bleached jeans.
Clowns: rubber chickens, face paint, clown shoes striped socks and big red noses.
Deprivation and Asphyxiation: Choking, strangulation, sensory deprivation of any kind, blindfolding and auto erotic asphyxiation.
Food: Food smearing licking, worshipping, insertion and cooking.
Foot Worship: Forced foot worship, foot portraits, cute toes, shoes, pedicures and foot bondage.
Genderfucking: Crossdressing, role playing, strap-ons, sissy boys in tutus and butchy women in suits.
Graveyards: Cemeteries, fucking gravestones and making imaginary love to the dead.
Menstrual art: This section is aimed to revolutionize menstruation. It’s revenge for any commercial girls have seen telling them their period is dirty and for any man who wouldn’t make love to them while they were on the rag.
Necro: Zombie porn, the undead, crime scene victims, sex where one partner plays dead and murder sets.
Pinups: Glamour shots, rockabilly kings and queens, classic beauty and cheesecake glam. Vintage girdles and nylons with backseams, fingerwaved hair and open toed pumps.
Smoking: Cigar, cigarette, blunt, joint, pipe, bong and gravity bong smoking.
Uniforms: Nazis, nurses, flight attendants, postal workers, military personnel, police officers, cheerleaders, waitresses and catholic school girl uniforms.
Water Sports: Golden showers, urination and women who can pee standing up.
(L to R) Age play, BDSM, smoking and menstruation kinks.
BME:  That’s a lot of different subjects. How did you come up with all of them?
BELLA:  I came up with about eighty-five percent of them, and they all turn me on and it’s the kind of smut I want to see. The rest have been ideas models have had or that fans have written in with. The main idea of the site is to show what gets the models off. No one is does anything they don’t want to do.
BME:  How do you avoid fake situations— how do you make sure that the girls kissing girls are actually attracted to each other, and that the blood play is real etc?
BELLA:  I believe that a key factor in anything being fake is money. Because there’s no money involved people are only doing things they actually want to do. There is some fake blood on the site, but we make sure to keep it separated from the real blood play. The girls kissing each other are actually into each other— they’re friends or lovers and they’ve planned to do a shoot on their own accord for no other reason than they think it will be hot. Nobody is paying anybody else to act like they’re interested.
BME:  What has been some of the feedback on the site?
BELLA:  People love it! Girls write and thank us for making a site they can look at and not feel bad about, and men write and say thank you for making the kind of site they’ve been dreaming about. Photographers and models tell us that they really like what we’re doing and often tell us that they’d love to be a part of it.
BME:  You have some very risky subjects though— you must get some negative comments.
BELLA:  Of course. Most of the hate mail I get is about the age play, necro fetish and substance abuse sections. There was also a message board that had a pretty heated discussion about how nasty the menstrual art section was. I just tell people that I’m sorry they have a problem with the content, but if they want some more vanilla pornography they should try burningangel.com (which I also model for) because it’s my favorite alternative porn site.
BME:  You seem to have tapped into an unseen market. Who do you see as your competitors? BME/Hard? Suicide Girls?
BELLA:  I don’t think that BME or Suicide Girls are competition actually. Both sites are doing completely different things than BV is. I can’t find any other site where there’s such an extensive collection of fetishes and hopefully this will help us succeed. One of the things I really love about the adult industry is that there is no competition because there’s room for everyone in the industry.
Bella, portrait by Gina Wilk.
BME:  You were very public with the problems you were having getting the site up and running. You were even considering taking down BV. What changed your mind, or what convinced you to keep going with the site?
  I was feeling very burnt out about the whole thing. I was working ten hours a day, every day, on the site and it felt like it was never going to be launched. I couldn’t find anyone to do the billing, models were flaking out left and right, I had an intern who was making my life more difficult instead of easier, I was chasing after people for paperwork and photos they had promised and the relationship I was in was completely falling apart because of out different stances on pornography and sexuality in general. It just didn’t feel worth it anymore. I started the site as a personal journey for myself, and in the process it felt really good to help other people explore themselves and feel accepted too. But at the time, it just felt like nobody really appreciated all the work that was going into everything. So I sent an email out to everyone in involved with the site and asked them if BV had done anything positive for them, and if so, what was it, and did they want to continue with the site and why. The response I got was overwhelming. Every single person wrote back with long explanations of how much they have learned through this whole process, how much they love the site and the community surrounding it. More than a few of the emails brought me to tears. I realized that just because people don’t always openly express their support and gratitude doesn’t mean it’s not there. Everyone had very long and complex explanations as to why they were involved in the site in the first place. The shortest response I got was from one of my models in France, and she said in her broken English, “I so sorry you have problems. Please do not give up, for me, Bella Vendetta is freedom!”

After all was said and done I felt like I really just needed to finish what I started. I’m not the type of person that gives up, I was just having a moment of weakness. But I think it was important for me to step back and reevaluate why I was doing this and figure out the direction I wanted the project to take. It always seems like just when you want to give up everything falls into place and a fresh opportunity presents itself.
BME:  Who came through for you at the end?
BELLA:  Everyone involved with the site came through in a big way, just being honest and sharing their experiences with me. On a personal level, the web designer, Mitcz, really came through for me, reminding me how important this was to me and all the work that had gone into it. Surprisingly enough, my sister and my aunt both thought I should keep the site and not give up, and it felt good to have some support from family members. Shannon and Rachel Larratt (IAM:glider) and (IAM:Rachel) also helped me a lot. I am forever indebted to them because of that. One of my new models really came through and helped me work really long days resizing photos and picking up where my flaky intern had left off.
BME:  Speaking of your web designer, for the launch of the site you did a complete overhaul on the site. It looks great.
BELLA:  The site design was completely redone by Reverend Mitcz (IAM:mitcz).A lot has changed since the original design. I went through a lot of people trying to get the right feel for the site and I had a really hard time finding a professional designer that understood what I was going for, and Mitcz has really done my vision justice. He’s been wonderful to work with on many levels. He’s a good friend, knows the porn business, marketing and design inside and out (he’s also the chief designer of vivid.com) and he’s got a seriously twisted mind. Our site isn’t quite ready to sell memberships yet because we’re having a hard time finding a billing provider that’s okay with our content. We’re working on it every single day, so as soon as we find one, we’ll be open for business.
BME:  You’re having a release party- who’s invited, who’s coming, what’s happening?
BELLA:  We’re having one hell of a celebration! Everyone is invited!!! Lots of the models and photographers will be there and some of the Krew members are coming all the way from Los Angeles to attend. Lots of the models are performing that evening; there will be a burlesque show, a rope bondage demonstration, a fire performance, a play piercing performance, a strip show, live band, a flesh hook pull raffles, giveaways, and merchandise for sale. It promises to be a fun filled action packed evening. It’s in Brooklyn, NY and I’d love to cram as many people as possible into this space to witness the insanity that I’m sure will ensue.
BME:  Back to the site. What do you think will be the most popular section?
BELLA:  Honestly, I have no idea. I think a lot of people come for the blood play because there aren’t many places you can find it. I hope that someone will come looking for a particular section and then discover they like looking at something they never considered sexy before.
BME:  What’s the best thing about running BV?
BELLA:  It’s fun! It’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me honestly. My favorite thing is getting letters from fans, models and photographers thanking me for making a site that lets them be who they want to be, or for making a site filled with the kind of smut people actually want to see.
BELLA:  With the United States government cracking down on porn sites, in their War on Porn, BV is in danger. Are you worried about this? How much does this effect your decision to launch BV and how will you avoid being prosecuted for owning/operating BV?
BME:  Yes, I believe my site is in a lot of danger. Sites are getting shut down left, right and centre. All this legal nonsense recently definitely made me wonder if right now is a bad time to launch the site, but I think right now is actually the perfect time. This is what the world needs: people who aren’t ashamed and who aren’t afraid to push limits.

I don’t think I can fully avoid being prosecuted. I have to be prepared for at least some legal repercussions, and luckily all of my legal paperwork is in perfect order. Maybe what this industry needs right now is someone willing to stand up for what they believe in. Who is the US government to tell us what we are allowed to find sexy and what is “obscene.” I find it obscene and offensive that so many other “alternative” porn sites are altering the shoots they have up for fear of legal problems. I want to accurately represent this subculture, not hide behind a lot of pretty pictures, not tell my models that it’s wrong of them to have age play fantasies, etc. This is a community of consenting adults making art to share with the world, and I’ll stand by that 100%.
BME:  With that, what’s in the future for BV?
BELLA:  World domination. Straight up.
I want to change the way the adult industry is run. I want to make a safe place for people to show off their smutty side. And I also want to do a line of video and a lot of live performances. I can’t get into it too much because the details are surprises that I’m not ready to let out of the bag, but I see the live performances as a three ring circus but with nudity and the videos will be quality with actual story lines and amazing performances by our talented Krew.
BME:  What specific changes do you hope to see in the adult industry?
BELLA:  I’d like to see more realism and seeing women running things more often. It’s such a male dominated industry, which is funny to me, because it thrives on women. It’s all about what men want to see women doing, so I’d really like for people to become interested in what turns these women on. I think the majority of the adult industry is a lot of men telling women what to do because they think that’s what other men want to see. But I know plenty of men who don’t like blonde girls with cum on their faces. If that’s what turns you on, that’s great, do your thing, but that’s not what turns me on, and I know there’s a market for “intellectual” pornography, if you will. There’s a fine line between erotica/art/porn as it is already, so I’d like to see that blurred even more. I’d like to make people question themselves, “Wow, does this really turn me on?” There’s no thought process behind most porn: it’s penis and vagina and it’s meant to get you off as quickly as possible. What’s really refreshing to me about this whole alternative porn movement is that it’s actually making people think. BV is all about doing things differently. I’d like to kick things up a few notches.
Although BellaVendetta.com enters into some of the “faux pas” subjects of pornography, it’s always done in a safe and responsible way. All of the models posing are of legal age, and most importantly— they’re doing it because they want to. No one is waving dollar bills in their faces and bribing them to do things that they don’t feel comfortable with. It may push people’s sexual limits, but does it in a harmless way. I wish Bella and her Krew luck and success with avoiding crack downs by the US Government and FBI, and hope they have a long and prosperous future in the real alternative porn industry.

— Gillian Hyde (IAM:typealice)
Gillian Hyde (IAM:typealice) is a vagabond, though her roots run deep into Nova Scotian soil. She’s lived and worked on three continents since 2001, and has never lived anywhere for longer than eight months since the age of 16. She loves fonts, puns, being barefoot and office supplies. Calm to her is the roar of the ocean.

Online presentation copyright © 2005 BMEzine.com LLC. Requests to republish must be confirmed in writing. For bibliographical purposes this article was first published online October 11th, 2005 by BMEzine.com LLC from La Paz, BCS, Mexico.

Adiós! Gillian Hyde’s Last BME Article: Your Questions Answered [Guest Column – Stepping Back]

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“I took the road less travelled by, and that has made all the difference.”

—Robert Frost


Before working for BME I couldn’t bear to look at knee suspension pictures. Two weeks after working for BME, I was announcing to the world that I had bitten off my boyfriend’s ring finger at the same time he had bit off mine as an act of love. To say that my life has changed would be an understatement.

Sometime in November of 2004, BME advertised that they were going to be hiring their first official employee— a journalist who would be in charge of writing articles for BME/News and I immediately sent in my application. In early December Shannon sent me, along with seven other applicants, a message saying we’d made it to the second round. I was ecstatic.

The next step of the process was to write an article to prove that we could handle the responsibilities the job would entail. To be completely honest, I had no idea what I was doing. I’d never written an article before, never conducted an interview— I felt completely out of my element, but after a bit of encouragement and patience from Shannon and Rachel, my first article was published. Mothers with Mods, my interview with IAM:Orinda, and I got very good reviews in the comment forum accompanying the article, and on the poll on the main BME site asking the question, “Which of the writers do you think could do a good job as BME staffers?” I was winning with forty-six percent of the 2000 votes— twenty percent higher than the closest person behind me.

And then there were three. Jordan (IAM:snackninja) and Matt (IAM:volatile) were the other finalists, and up until that point, our identities were anonymous. It was nice to be exposed and take credit for our work. A few days later it was announced that Jordan (author of the Keith Alexander article) and I were both chosen to become interns.

In early March I sold my Vespa moped, broke my lease, left my boyfriend, friends and small mountain town in British Columbia and moved to Mexico.

It would turn out to be one of the most life-altering things I’ve ever done.

I’ve been lucky to talk to hundreds of new people because of my internship with BME and I decided that for my final article I’d let them ask me anything they want to know. I’ve been asking questions for six months, I think it’s time that I answered some.
Gillian Hyde

DREAM WEAVER:  Do you feel you were the best candidate for this internship given the other talented applicants and do you feel you’ve grown as a writer/journalist during this internship?
GILLIAN:  I think most of the candidates were talented and they could have done just a good of job as I, if not better, but yes, I believe I was one of the two best candidates. I felt a woman’s voice was lacking on BME, and I think I was able to fix that, if even for a little while. While Shannon enjoys exploring and exposing the really interesting “freaky” stuff, I think I contrasted that a little— I gave an educated “outsiders view” while still being involved in the industry and community.
SAVAGERABBIT:  Do you feel you gave the internship all you could? What would you have done differently?
GILLIAN:  If I could have done things differently, I would have changed my path about seven years ago when I graduated high school. A degree in English or Journalism probably would have helped me succeed at this job. I’m sure that attending some BME events or gotten more modifications, witnessed a suspension, seen a split tongue in person (none of which I’d done previous to getting the job) — generally gotten more involved with the community as a whole would have helped. I came into this position with my eyes wide open, but in some ways I felt more out of touch with the body modification scene than ever. I’d never heard of some of the most popular IAM members, I didn’t know what events were coming up and any BMEfest or Bar-B-Q stories were totally lost on me. I probably had Shannon and Rachel worried that they’d hired the wrong person when they noticed that I wasn’t following the conversation when it came to BME and IAM gossip or news. At the same time, I came into this position unbiased towards people and eager to learn without having preconceived notions about anything or anyone.
GOAT:  What did you not enjoy about working for BME?
GILLIAN:  The pressure was the hardest thing to deal with. I work with some very talented writers, and I came into this job never having interviewed someone before and never writing more than essays in university six years previous. BMEzine.com gets millions and millions of hits a day, so there was always a lot of internal pressure to write about interesting things in an interesting way. I wanted to impress people and for the first couple of months I felt like I had no idea what I was doing, which was extremely frustrating. Now that my internship is over, I feel like I could easily continue— I’m pretty comfortable writing now, and for that reason, it’s a little sad that it’s coming to an end.
IMMORTAL BELOVED:  How did you choose the topics for your articles?
GILLIAN:  At the beginning of our internship, Shannon gave Jordan and I a list of about a hundred people that he was interested in featuring in an article. We scavenged that list and checked off the people that we wanted to do interviews with. If I found someone or something myself that I thought was article-worthy (the Taking it to the Next Level, Marked For Life: Tattoos Behind Bars, Quilt of Life, No Boys Allowed — Introducing the All Grrls Suscon and the All Grrls Suscon 2005 Video Report articles were my ideas), I would approach Shannon with the idea and he’d either approve or deny it.
ATHENA:  How did you go about research, building, editing and reworking a piece?
GILLIAN:  I was always working on at least three articles at a time. I loved researching. I’d usually start by talking to Shannon about the person or idea, and he’d suggest different things to ask and tell me a brief background of the person or topic. Once I had a bit of direction, I’d read as much as I could about it; if they had an IAM page, I’d read every diary entry and create questions around the information Shannon had given me and what they’ve told the online public. With the exception of Quilt of Life and Kivaka: Bedside Manner Like a Nun, as they were both phone interviews, I’d email an initial set of questions to get a feel for what direction the article would go in. I’d usually have an idea about how the article was going to go before writing the first set of questions, but generally I’d wait until I got back their answers to focus on one area. The email interview process would normally be composed of three different sets of questions and answers and depending on people’s schedules, they’d often take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks to get back to me. Once all of the answers were in, I’d read everything over several times, write an intro and format the Q&A section so that it looked like we were having a conversation, which was very important because it added fluidity to the article. It involved rearranging, cutting up or combining answers and rephrasing questions or answers. After the article was complete, I’d put it into HTML and edit the photos and insert them into relevant parts of the final draft. Each article took anywhere from twenty hours and up, the most time consuming part (outside of waiting for answers) was proofreading and editing.
GLIDER:  What skills do you feel that you developed while writing/interviewing, and what skills do you feel didn’t develop as much as you’d have liked?
GILLIAN:  My ability to go into depth in my articles has improved. I had a hard time asking tough questions, or trying to push people out of their comfort level in order to get the whole story. It’s very difficult for me to pry, especially over email. I didn’t want to piss people off, so I ended up asking a lot of safe questions— which didn’t always work when people want to read about controversial topics. I think that my style of writing and chosen topics appealed to a certain demographic. Jordan, you (Shannon) and I all have very different techniques of writing, and we’re all interested in writing about different things. I think that a few of the people that I interviewed wouldn’t have been as comfortable talking to men about some of the topics as they were with me (Quilt of Life and No Boys Allowed — Introducing the All Grrls Suscon and the All Grrls Suscon 2005 Video Report would have been impossible, for example). I would have loved to be more of a versatile writer, but I am happy with who I spoke with and what I wrote.
GLIDER:  If BME runs another ‘Intern Search’ what advice would you have to people applying?
GILLIAN:  Stand out. Let Shannon and Rachel know how you’d like to see BME improve, and convince them that you’re the best person for that job.

Love the industry. Know as much as you can about the people, events and practices— anything that has to do with body modification.

Have an open mind at all times. Don’t be judgmental about anything body modification related. You don’t have to participate in it yourself, but you have to accept that other people may do it and it’s probably important to them.

Ask interesting questions. Don’t be afraid to push people’s limits.

Work independently and work hard. Shannon and Rachel work very hard on their responsibilities within BME, the last thing they want to do is to have to worry about whether or not their employees are doing their job. BME should be your life, just like it is theirs. Shannon and Rachel’s lives revolve around BME and have for over ten years, so they want people who will work just as hard as they do.
MONICA:  What is the “behind-the-scenes” at BME like?
GILLIAN:  Surprisingly normal and often boring! Most of the time that I lived in Mexico I spent ignoring Mexico and lived in my computer instead. Clive once said, “Working in Mexico is a lot different than vacationing in Mexico.” Working for BME required us to be online for the majority of the day. If any of us needed to talk, we’d be more likely to IM each other rather than call or visit the person. The entire BME family (Shannon, Rachel, Nefarious, Jon, Jordan, Clive, and I) would meet for dinner every night. We ate a lot of tacos. Occasionally we’d have chili, but ninety-nine percent of the time we’d eat tacos. You can tell there’s a good cook in the house when you can eat tacos every night and not get tired of them. Over dinner we’d gossip about IAM members or work on our ideas for articles, talk about current events or past experiences. Sometimes we’d drink and talk for hours.
PERK900:  The All Girls Suscon article that you wrote seemed to be a heavily debated topic, both online and off. Did the fact that it would be a “controversial” topic make it more appealing to write? Did you find it difficult to “step back” writing this one specifically?
GILLIAN:  Both of the All-Grrl Suscon pieces were my favorite ones to do. I knew that they’d be controversial and it definitely made it more appealing to work on. I was able to “step back” while writing the first article because at the time I’d never seen a suspension before and I didn’t attend last year’s event. The fact that I am a woman could only take me so far in defending the event because I didn’t personally know how women were treated in the suspension community, but I really enjoyed being able to voice the opinion of some women who felt that they were being oppressed. I hope that the articles can bring a positive change to the community and allow men see that women don’t always feel like they’re treated like equals.

It was a lot harder to “step back” from my video-article because I specifically wrote it from my point of view as a first-time-Suscon-attendee. I went to the event hoping to capture the emotion and vulnerability that goes hand-in-hand with suspensions, and I think I accomplished that. I wanted to do a video of the day’s events so the people who felt excluded (men, specifically) would feel better about the event and so they could get a feel for the atmosphere when it’s just women involved.
HOLYJESUSBONER:  Did you ever (somehow) walk in on Shannon and Rachel naked? Did you try?
GILLIAN:  I’m happy to say that I’ve never seen Shannon or Rachel naked, but I didn’t live with them so it was fairly easy to avoid. I did live with Jordan however, but all of my plans to see him naked were foiled by my other roommate, Clive.
HOLYJESUSBONER:  Were you friends with Shannon or Rachel before the internship?
GILLIAN:  I’d never spoke to either of them on the phone, let alone met them previous to flying down to Mexico. I don’t think I ever spoke to Rachel online before the application process, and had only ever private messaged with Shannon a few times.
PERK900:  What was the most rewarding experience of your time spent as a BME intern?
GILLIAN:  BMEfest. I loved meeting everyone who came to Mexico. I hadn’t met many IAMers before, and at the end of June I was overwhelmed with new faces. The entire day of BMEfest was special— from swimming with the sea lions, to visiting the deserted beach, to the after-party. I met wonderful people and had really interesting conversations and drank too much and had a lot of fun.

I also loved seeing the feedback in the forums after each article was published. The act of having my work published felt like an accomplishment alone, but to have people say such positive things about my work (on BME and on other sites) was really wonderful, in a completly narcissistic way. Any criticism I received allowed me to fix the things that needed it and made me work harder.
ERICA:  Why are you leaving BME?
GILLIAN:  My internship position was only ever planned to last six months, which is now complete. I’ve moved to the British Virgin Islands and don’t really have the time necessary to write full articles consistantly. You haven’t gotten rid of me yet though! I plan on writing the occasional piece work for BME, but I will be taking a break for a while.
BMEfest, one of the best days of my entire internship.
PERK900:  Not to sound derogatory, but one would say you’re “lightly modified.” Did you find this debilitating as you were now a voice of the “modified” community?
GILLIAN:  I figured someone was going to bring this up. To be honest, I was concerned about my “under-modification” hindering my ability to get this job, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I represent a large part of this community. Not everyone on IAM is heavily modified— there are a lot of people who look like me and it doesn’t make me less a part of the community. I am knowledgeable about body modification and most importantly, I am open-minded about it. I don’t find my lack of modifications “debilitating” at all.

The reasons why I’m not more heavily modified are because I have a hard time committing to things, I’m a minimalist and I travel too much. I haven’t lived somewhere for longer than eight months since I was sixteen. I have never owned a cell phone or a car. I’ve broken every lease I’ve ever signed. I don’t currently own a plant, a table, a television or any of the other things that most people own, and I love it. If I can’t even commit to those things, I certainly cannot commit to a tattoo or other major work.

Because I don’t spend a lot of time in one place makes it hard to find professionals that I can trust. I don’t want to be tattooed by a stranger and it’s hard for me to find symbols to put on my body that represent things in my life because I’m constantly changing.

My lifestyle requires a lot of money, so when I have it I’m more likely to spend it on plane tickets or other travelling expenses. The things I’m most proud of having in this world are my ticket stubs, my journals and my photographs.
PERK900:  Did this illicit any kind of adverse reaction from interview subjects or “heavily modified” individuals whom you came in contact with during your internship?
GILLIAN:  None at all actually, and it surprised me. Until you asked me this question, no one had said anything about me being only “slightly” modified. I think people realized that BME had hired a writer, not someone who looked modified. I’ve been a member of this community for longer than a lot of people who are more modified than I, and I feel comfortable where I am modification-wise. Which brings me to this question…
Some of my “minimal” modifications.
CERE:  Who had the first tongue split you ever saw?
GILLIAN:  Yours, baby! You’ve never let me forget it and you felt it necessary to tell everyone about it during BMEfest, which was slightly embarrassing! I can still hear your voice yelling, “You work for BME and you’ve never seen a split tongue? You live next door to Shannon, who has one, and you’ve never seen one? How in the HELL did you get your job?”

Cere was the first and only person to react to my lack of experience and mods (at least to my face), but I expected it from him— and I was honestly glad that someone finally brought it up, because I knew he wasn’t the first person to think it. It was nice to have it out in the open.
REBEKAH:  Are you considering more mods? If so or if no, because of anyone you’ve interviewed?
GILLIAN:  I am planning on more modifications, specifically more tattoos. I plan on starting a comma trend on my body. My only tattoo is of a comma, which means “silent pause.” It’s the only symbol I’ve found that truly represents something consistent in my life: the moments where everything changes. It’s the before, comma, after moment. The comma on my lower abdomen represents my first time travelling when I was getting frustrated with the fact that I was just another tourist, looking at all the same monuments that millions of other people had seen before me. It wasn’t until my “comma” moment that I realized that it didn’t matter how many other people had seen the same things that I was seeing— I was the only person in that space and time, and that’s all that mattered. From then on, my entire trip changed, and my addiction to travelling began.

I’d love to get a ribcage piece of a large baobab tree with a comma incorporated to represent the time I spent living and working in West Africa’s The Gambia.

I’ve nearly run out of places to pierce, but I love nape piercings and will probably get it done at some point.

My dream modification is to get my ears pointed, though I’m not sure if I’ll ever go through with it. I love the way it looks and I’ve got small ears and I think it’d suit me.

My only opinion that’s changed is about suspension. Before working for BME, I had no interest in suspension and basically no knowledge about it because of my complete lack of curiosity. After meeting Clive (of the Uvatiarru and one-hook, one-elbow suspension fame), things changed. I became more and more interested in it, and have basically decided that I’m going to do a suicide suspension the first chance I get. After seeing my first suspensions during BMEfest (most memorably the one by IAM:spot and IAM:brion), I was convinced it was something I’d like to do, and this need was increased when I went to this year’s All Grrls Suscon.
DRAGON:  Is there any mod that makes you squeamish?
GILLIAN:  Having a boyfriend who spent hundreds of hours editing videos for BMEvideo, I’ve seen things that I never thought I’d see in my life. The only thing that I got squeamish about was, surprisingly enough, finger amputation. Everything else— castration, nullification, skin peeling (though I admit, I was a little short of breath when I watched Lukas Zpira’s Like a Butterfly within the first couple of weeks of my internship), vacuum pumping, CBT— all of these things are easy to watch, nightmare-free.
PERK900:  Are there parts of BME that you disagree with or consider going too far?
GILLIAN:  The only thing that I don’t agree with is self-cutting as a way for people to deal with problems. It’s a hot topic on BME, but my stance is that it shouldn’t be considered “body modification” unless it’s done primarily as beautifying scarification. I don’t think cuts from anger or frustration or sadness should be encouraged as a positive coping mechanism, mostly because it’s done out of rash feelings that will change over time. Emotional scars are hard enough to deal with, let alone physical scars from those emotions.
THE LIZARDMAN:  What opinions or ideas you held about BME, modification, modified people, etc (if any) have been changed as a direct result of your internship experience?
GILLIAN:  It’s really hard to remember the way I thought eight months ago because my entire world has been flipped upside-down, but the things I’ve learned are:
If you meet someone who’s green and you’ve never seen them in any other colour, they don’t actually look different than anyone else.
Even misspelled tattoos can have meaning.
People in the body modification community are some of the nicest, open-minded and beautiful people in the world— but I didn’t need the internship to tell me that.
SOMETRIPE: 

How did moving to and living in La Paz affect your internship experience? Furthermore, was this effect positive or negative?
GILLIAN:  Moving to La Paz was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I drove scooters and a dune buggy, I saw the Pacific for the first time and swam with sea lions, I was near the beach and fields of cacti, I rescued kittens and avoided rain for the entire four months that I lived there, but the best thing to come out of La Paz was finding the love of my life, Clive (IAM:Rookie).
Gillian and Clive
HOLYJESUSBONER:  Why bother moving to Mexico to work for BME; would you rather have stayed home (could you have stayed home and still have managed to write all the articles you did)?
GILLIAN:  Who in their right mind would pass up an opportunity to live in Mexico for six months? One of the reasons that I’ve travelled so much and have had such an extensive range of experiences is because I never pass up a good opportunity. Sure, I could have stayed in Canada to do the job, but the fact that part of the internship was to move to Mexico was one of the reasons I applied for the position in the first place.
VOLATILE:  What’s next?
GILLIAN: 

One of the main reasons why Clive and I left Mexico early was because we wanted to move to the British Virgin Islands. Clive was born there and feels a strong connection to the island on which he was born, and I love anywhere that is hot and has the ocean, so it sounded like a good plan. We planned to stay in Canada until November and save some money, but because of some very cheap plane tickets, we flew down on August 30. We camped for a week and we’re currently renting a small apartment on the top of a mountain. We’d love to have visitors, so contact us if you’re up for a trip!

Clive will be working at a day job while I focus on various web development work. (Shameless plug: if you’re looking for a web designer, please contact me!)

My long term goals are to settle down a little bit. I’d love to own a sewing machine again and have a garden with peas and carrots. I want to have cats. I really want to live in a farmhouse somewhere near the ocean.
GLIDER:  Will you and Clive be doing writing/video on your own projects in BVI? (ie. an expat’s magazine, whatever)
GILLIAN:  I’d love to. Clive’s done a lot of video work and with my recent All Grrls Suscon mini-documentary, I feel confident that he and I could create another installment for Uvitaritu, or do something on our own. I plan on writing online about our time here, similar to MyGambia blog.
SOLARIS:  You’ve been to all these amazing places and done loads of exciting things but is there any place or thing that you would want to do or go so badly that if you did it or went there that you could be content if you never travelled again after that?
GILLIAN: 

I don’t think any one place can really make you want to stop travelling. If anything, a terrible experience would make me want to stay in one spot for the rest of my life. Visiting different places makes me want to keep doing it— it never has the opposite effect. In the past six years I’ve lead a very full life.

I’ve seen volcanoes in Italy, visited fetish bars in France, gone shopping in London, lived amongst some of the poorest people in the world in West Africa, worked for billionaires in Florida and millionaires in Luxembourg, gone on countless road trips through the United States and Canada, smoked hash in Amsterdam, sunbathed on black sand beaches in Greece, and most recently, camped in the jungle in the British Virgin Islands… I never want to stop, but I’ll probably slow down. My lifestyle is often exhausting.
CERE:  If a dildo is inserted in a man’s ass but the words “good game” are uttered afterwards, is it still gay?
GILLIAN:  No, it’s not gay. You can do anything as long as you say “good game” afterwards. If I grab your balls it’s not considered cheating on my boyfriend as long as I say “good game.” If you grab my boobs or ass, I’m only allowed to enjoy it if you say “good game,” etc etc. The power of “good game” is limitless.

My experience working for BMEzine.com has been wonderful. I’ve been able to talk to the most interesting people, live in Mexico and work for a company that has changed the body modification industry. I’ve been a small part in something very big, and I have every one of you to thank. Thank you to those who agreed to be interviewed by me and let everyone take a peak into your life. Thank you to Shannon and Rachel who saw something in my writing and took a chance on me, and thank you, most of all, to the people who read my articles and supported me along the way.

“For it was not into my ear you whispered, but into my heart. It was not my lips you kissed, but my soul.”
—Judy Garland


Signing off,

— Gillian Hyde (IAM:typealice)
Gillian Hyde (IAM:typealice) is a vagabond, though her roots run deep into Nova Scotian soil. She’s lived and worked on three continents since 2001, and has never lived anywhere for longer than eight months since the age of 16. She loves fonts, puns, being barefoot and office supplies. Calm to her is the roar of the ocean.

Online presentation copyright © 2005 BMEzine.com LLC. Requests to republish must be confirmed in writing. For bibliographical purposes this article was first published online, 2005 by BMEzine.com LLC from La Paz, BCS, Mexico.

ONANISME MANU MILTARI II by Lukas Zpira [The BME Book Review]

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ONANISME MANU MILTARI II by Lukas Zpira

FIRST, LOOK INSIDE… THE BOOK IS THE ART

Click here to order ONANISME MANU MILTARI by LUKAS ZPIRA now!

A review by Shannon Larratt

Lukas Zpira, as a person, is extremely stylish and fashionable, and this book, intended to capture his artistic vision, mirrors that aesthetic. But I must be honest with you. I’m not a stylish or fashionable guy, and it’s probably fair to say that I am actively unfashionable in fact. Not only that, but I don’t care much for modern art, and less for the explanations artists use to justify it — so much so that it makes it difficult for me to relate to this book, and for that I apologize.

An enormous amount of effort has been done on processing and manipulating the photos and layout. In some ways this is good, because it captures the feel of Lukas Zpira as an artist, but, on the other hand, it also distorts the images so much that what most of us perceive as Lukas’s actual art, contained in the photos, is difficult to make out and is no longer able to speak for itself. Rather than presenting the pieces as they were created, the book retells them not as the world sees them, but as Lukas Zpira sees them. One could also argue that nearly all of the photos in the book have already been published online in a far clearer and more effective way.

The text of the book I feel makes the same presentation error (or success), although I’m sure a great deal is lost in the translation (it is written with both English and the original French). Most of the writing is highly philosophical, abstract, and arty, and in some ways feels like it’s “trying” to be so. For me, body art is a very down to earth subject, and personally I like seeing it presented in terms that are honest and tangible. Since I couldn’t relate to most of the text, I found myself seeing it as boring, shallow, and misleading. Maybe I’m missing the point, or maybe other people are fooling themselves into thinking there’s a point a la The Emperor Wears No Clothes. I have no idea.

While I do believe that this limited edition book is an essential addition to any body modification and body art library, I worry that Lukas Zpira has perhaps limited himself by presenting such a pure expression of his art — of himself — rather than opening a clearer channel for the uninitiated — or those like me with different tastes — to understand it. Or perhaps those people will never understand the core of what Lukas Zpira is saying — it’s not as if I’ve gotten better at choosing clothes that match as I’ve aged. If anything, I’ve gotten worse.

But really, I’m looking at and reviewing the book in entirely the wrong way. It’s not a portfolio of Lukas’s work. It’s not a grounded discussion of scarification, piercing, and surgical body modification, nor is it supposed to be. If you’re looking for that, you won’t enjoy or find meaning in the book. But if you come into the experience looking to discover the essence of Lukas Zpira’s vision, independent of the corporal aspect of his work, you’ll find it. ONANISME MANU MILITARI II exists separate from the scalpels and the spatulas, and even separate from the skin that adorns its pages — it is a work of art in and of itself.

    – Shannon Larratt

A Review by Jordan Ginsberg

To give credit where it’s due, few artists in the body modification community have propelled themselves to “rock star” status quite like Lukas Zpira has. Really, he’s like the U2 of body artists: From day one, he’s made himself out to be the biggest, most interesting and important thing out there, and has done so with no apologies. Initially making a name for himself as a world-class scarification artist, Zpira quickly began winning crowds over with his sideshow-cum-fetish performance art group, ART KOR, which fused suspension and bloodletting with more traditional fetishistic aspects — such as Japanese rope bondage — in a far more sexual manner than many other performers were embracing at the time. Thanks to the uniqueness of his work, his larger-than-life attitude about himself, and his relentless touring schedule — taking his act and his art all over the world many times over — Lukas quickly reached veritable celebrity status.

More than just a showman though, Zpira has always emphasized the philosophical backing behind the work that he does and the lifestyle he espouses, a body of thought that he’s dubbed “Hacktivism.” Rather than following the path of the modern primitives, Zpira’s Hacktivism seems to be the modus operandi of the cyberpunk-fakir — a methodology based on how these rites of the flesh relate to the future rather than their tribal histories.

Onanisme Manu Militari II, Zpira’s new Hors-Editions book, is an unfortunate misfire in several respects, particularly due to its attempts to be too many things at once; unsure of whether it wants to be a photography-based coffee table book or a philosophical guide, the result is a messy synthesis of the two.

The book is not an absolute disappointment, of course. Primarily a photo-based work, shots from a variety of photographers — including Zpira himself — are included, and by and large it’s all top-notch. Bright, brilliantly saturated colors contrasted with heavy shadows bring out the best in the subjects, whether they’re clients of Lukas’ bearing scars or implants he’s performed, or occasionally even Lukas himself. As a showcase of his work, the book works extremely well; Lukas is undoubtedly highly skilled, and brings to the table an exciting, unique style of scarification, as well as fresh takes on implant designs and other pseudo-surgical procedures such as ear-pointing and tongue-splitting, all of which get their time in the spotlight in the book. Often augmented with distressed filters and scorched backgrounds, the images themselves are generally striking and fascinating; sadly, they suffer from the book’s small format. Presented on standard 8.5 by 11” paper, high-quality glossy as it may be, photos such as these would have benefited far more from being published in a larger format, more traditional coffee-table book size. With shots as busy and full as these, each one should be treated more like an event than as just another page in a book, so to speak.

Where the wheels really begin to come off, however, is the textual content. Again, Zpira is markedly philosophic in his background, and I wouldn’t suggest that he’s anything but authentic in his beliefs; that said, the written portions of the book largely come off as little more than pretension masking an absence of viable content. Though the text is limited to a handful of short essays — printed in both English and French — that are seldom longer than a single page, they’re as distracting as they are difficult to concentrate on. Now, this is not to put it all on Lukas — there are a number of authors featured in addition to Zpira, though their segments are essentially limited to discussing their (very, very similar) takes on Lukas himself, rarely reaching beyond fellatious back-slapping and sophomoric musings on any number of “cyber”-based compound words.

Now, while not written by Lukas, the inclusion of these passages speaks as little more than blatant self-aggrandizement, which is not necessarily out of place altogether, but the extent of its presence here is somewhat suspect. Zpira’s portions, while marginally more substantial, are unfortunately disappointing as well—because they often suggest that there is more to the story than he chose to share. Ranging from the autobiographical and the political to the poetic and apocalyptic, the topics covered are broad in scope, yet all coalesce at a similar yet borderline incoherent point; south of “Be what you want to be,” but just north of “Evolve or die!”

Zpira’s philosophy is almost transhumanist in some respects; not simply an acknowledgement that the human body is imperfect, it also embodies an effort to correct this biological error. Though, while transhumanists typically seek more medical and scientific-related fixes, the Hacktivist revolution is ostensibly an aesthetic one; a method of reinventing one’s self by reshaping one’s image and identity; better living through keloids, if you will. And of course, this is not to discount it, but to see it propped up as a grand calling of the future is mostly disingenuous, and tragically overblown.

Finally, clocking in at a brisk 126 pages, the 40-Euro (roughly $50 USD) price tag is quite steep. Were it in a larger format and maybe 100 pages longer, focusing more on the photography and less on pretentious techno-babble, such a cost may be justifiable. It’s well produced, with a sturdy hardcover and unquestionably high-quality images, but the presentation simply does not do the art justice. While this is without question a must-have for admirers of Lukas and his work, those with little attachment or knowledge of him would likely be better off checking out his web site before spending the money on this book.

    – Jordan Ginsberg

Click here to order ONANISME MANU MILTARI by LUKAS ZPIRA now!

This page and its contents are © 2005 Shannon Larratt – Reproduced under license by BMEzine.com LLC. All rights reserved. Requests to reprint must be confirmed in writing. For bibliographical purpose this review was published September 16th, 2005 in La Paz, BCS, Mexico.