Keep your eye on the Oreo. You are getting sleepy.. sleepy.. very very sleepy.
Ok, so maybe xFBx isn’t trying to hypnotize you with a cookie, but he is enjoying his magnetic implant that was done at First Blood in Sydney, Australia.
After months of planning and research, a new project is about to get underway that is both a living art exhibit and a journey into the very limits of body modification. I’ve known about this for a little while, but I had been asked to keep quiet until the time was right. Well, today is the day.
The artist behind this project has asked to remain anonymous for now, but he/she has been featured on ModBlog several times before. This project is the culmination of many years of hard work. That project? The Arnie Composition.
The focus of the project is to take fictional modification/mutations found in various Arnold Schwarzenegger films and make them a reality. This is where you come in. The artist is looking for volunteers to take part in this radical art showcase. In order to take part you must be 21 or older, and have some experience with surgical modifications (i.e. implants, etc), and be willing to travel to Montreal.
So what modifications are planned? Well I don’t have the final list, but I can provide some examples. We recently saw in the news a professor who used transdermal anchors to stick a camera into the back of his head. The implants eventually had to be removed as the camera weighed too much. For “The Arnie Composition” the artist is looking for someone who is up to the challenge of becoming The Predator. If you recall, in the film Predator, the alien had a digital device attached to his arm. For the project the artist has crafted a compact and lightweight version that will attach to the arm via magnetic transdermals.
In addition to the arm plate, he is also looking to use multiple skull transdermal implants to attach dreadlocks similar to the predator’s.
Next up is the Terminator portion of the exhibit. Using a combination of scarification, branding, and LED implants, the goal is to recreate the iconic look of The Terminator.
Finally, in the most radical modification of the collection, the Total Recall. Total Recall is famous for a number of things, but probably the most iconic image is that of Mary, the prostitute. One lucky woman will have the opportunity to be the centerpiece of the exhibit by transforming into Mary.
There are many more procedures planned, including a radical tattoo and scar piece reminiscent of Mr. Freeze.
If you have any questions regarding this exhibit, feel free to get in contact with me as I’ll be passing the requests along to the artist. In the mean time, take a look through the galleries to see what what the many talented artists that submit their images to BME are capable of, and start watching those Arnie movies to get a better idea of what to expect from The Arnie Composition.
I’m beginning to hate that every week there is a new disaster to report. By now you’ve heard about the earthquakes that have been rocking Japan since last night, as well as the devastation that the tsunami’s have been doing to the coastal cities. The worst news is that the quakes still haven’t ceased. Following the 8.9 last night, there have been a number of aftershocks as well as 2 new earthquakes that occurred this afternoon. While it is still to early to know the extent of the damage, if you have friends or family in the affected areas, or you yourself are in Japan right now, our thoughts are with you. Google’s appspot has set up a person finder for Japan, which should hopefully help those who haven’t been able to get in touch with their loved ones. As always, the Red Cross is on scene and providing aid as they can.
It’s in times like these that people can come together from all walks of life to help others. A number of years ago artist Shelley Jackson put out a call to the world for people who would be willing to get a tattoo of a word on their body in order to form a story. Since that time people all over the world have come together, bound by the power of words and skin, to contribute to her project. While it isn’t finished, Shelley recently put together a sub-story, using videos submitted by the owners of the tattoos.
“Shelley Jackson’s story ‘Skin’ exists only in the flesh — the flesh of about 2,000 volunteers. In 2003, when she wrote the story, she called for participants to each be tattooed with a single word (some also get a bit of punctuation, like ‘ankles,’ with the comma included). The story has never been published in any other form…[For] the Berkeley Art Museum, Jackson has cut together video footage from a small set of participants to tell a new sub-’Skin’ story. Recently Jackson e-mailed them to ask that they record a video of their word tattoo, and to say the word. From those words recorded by participants, she’s edited and assembled a new story.”
This week is pretty light on the real news, but ridiculously heavy on the celebrity news. So strap yourself in for a wild ride that includes Julia Roberts, Pee-Wee Herman, and some tiger’s blood.
To kick things off this week is an announcement about an upcoming seminar in NYC. For one weekend in March, you can have the opportunity to attend classes and witness performances by a trio of body modification artists.
It is our great pleasure to present to you an opportunity to be a part of something paramount! For the first time in a decade, the most innovative minds of the body modification community have come together to form a collective consciousness: C-Y-B.ORG. Its goal: to educate, demonstrate and liberate our community. Body modification pioneer Steve Haworth has rejoined forces with two of the top practitioners of today and the future, Lukas Zpira and Samppa Von Cyborg. Together they are C-Y-B.org. This event will give the opportunity for those yearning to learn the art of body modification. Through seminars, workshops and live performance, including but not limited to magnetic implants, branding, scarification, tongue splitting, flesh stapling, and suspension.
If you’ve got an event coming up, feel free to drop me a line and let me know about it.
We’ve seen in the news countless stories of schools banning facial piercings. Well some kids thought they found a loophole by using rare earth magnets to fake a tongue stud. While great in theory, it turns out that if you accidentally ingest several magnets it will end up doing some major damage.
The tiny ball bearings – known as ‘buckyballs’ – are sold as an executive desk toy which can be moulded into any shape. But some teenagers are using them as fake tongue rings to make it look as though they have a piercing. If swallowed, the balls can cause serious damage, burrowing through the small intestine. The packaging warns of the danger, and says they are not suitable for children.
Lauren, who lives in Wheat Ridge, rung her mother last week in tears, complaining she couldn’t walk because of an intense pain in her side. She said: ‘They bounced off my tooth and went down my throat, and I couldn’t stop it.’ Lauren is now in hospital recovering after an operation to remove the magnets. Her surgeon, Dr Saundra Kay, told the channel: ‘You have one strong magnet in one loop of intestine, another magnet in another loop of intestine, and those magnets are so strong that they will bring those intestines close together and the two loops joined.
So just to review, magnetic implants: good, swallowing magnets: bad.
One of the most often questions modified people hear is “did it hurt?”. Well it turns out that when you get a tattoo removed, it also hurts. No big shock there, but what is surprising is that tattoo removal can come with some pretty nasty side-effects beyond pain. Because of this, the FDA is holding a “webinar” next Tuesday to educate people about the dangers of tattoo removal.
The inks and pigments applied in tattoos can cause allergic reactions, infections and scarring, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Also, tattoo removal process is not as great as it seems. FDA will be holding a 30-minute tattoo safety webinar at 1 p.m. CT on March 15. Bhakti Petigara Harp, a specialist from the agency’s Office of Cosmetics and Colors, will discuss potential problems, along with the misrepresentation of the inks and pigments as “FDA approved.”
What a lot of people don’t know when they get tattoos is how painful they are to remove, Shamontiel Vaughn. Some say laser removal feels like the snapping of a rubber band against the skin. Vaughn, who spent about hundreds of dollars getting one tattoo and three cover-ups removed, called the process of laser tattoo removal “insane.” “Each time I got laser surgery, there were a bunch of small bumps that resembled keloids, rock hard skin and a little bit of bleeding,” said Vaughn. “I made the mistake of falling asleep on that arm the day after surgery, and I woke up and thought something was crawling on me. It turned out that my arm went completely numb. I woke up screaming and jumping around trying to get my own arm off of me because it’d turned into dead weight. After I turned on the light (while still jumping around), the feeling slowly came back into my fingers,” concluded Vaughn.
It seems as though tattoo removal is not as fantastic as it is often portrayed. It is not only pricey but also very painful. The FDA’s 30-minute tattoo webinar will be held Tuesday, March 15 at 1 p.m. (CT). You’ll have a chance to ask questions at the end.
In case you weren’t aware, spring break is happening next week. This also coincides with the annual “go get drunk and tattooed/pierced” week. I’m sure it’s just a strange coincidence. In any case, universities are starting to pay attention and are putting forth efforts to educate students about safe practices, so that when they’re completely smashed they won’t get pierced with the same needle that the 10 people before them were pierced with.
The last thing on a college student’s mind during spring break is contracting HIV, Hepatitis C or Tetanus. Who would have thought that getting a spur-of-the-moment tattoo or piercing could leave not just a mark but a life-long disease?
On March 8, the Office of Counseling and Student Development and Student Health Services passed out information to students about body art safety and how to protect one’s self over the break. ”Stamped and Stabbed” offered the soon-to-be spring breakers pamphlets and brochures on the harm that coincides with tattoos and body art. ”They [students] tend to rush into things during spring break. We’re here to get students aware of what consequences they can face as they jump into getting a tattoo or piercing,” says Joy Wunderlich of the Office of Counseling and Student Development.
“Students meet a girl or guy, get their name tattooed and then realize the next day that they’ll have to explain to their future spouse whose name is tattooed on them,” said Williams. As students departed with information on body art safety, they were given a temporary tattoo as a reminder to make appropriate decisions during spring break.
And with that, we’re on to the celebrity round-up.
To kick things off Ke(dollar sign)ha, has expanded her clientele of tattoo customers beyond her band to include fans.
A big fan gets a Ke$ha tattoo. A SUPER fan gets a tattoo from Ke$ha. Well, a SUPER fan who is okay with having a subpar tattoo gets one from Ke$ha, anyway. The singer posted this video to her Facebook profile of herself marking up a dedicated fan with her safety pin, giving her dollar sign to the emotional, fawning fan.
Last week we saw rapper Yung LA get a duck tattooed on his face in honor of his new record contract. Well it seems he jumped the gun, as the record label never actually offered him a contract. The quick thinking Mr. LA rushed out to a studio and covered up his already fresh duck with an LA Dodgers logo.
Not to be outdone by the boys, “femcee” (their word, not mine) Diamond also joined the facial tattoo club with a tattoo of a bullet.
The rapper debuted some new ink on Tuesday (March 8), via Twitter (@DiamondATL), posting a pic of her new face tattoo of a bullet with the accompanying message: “IN LIFE: You only get ONE SHOT!!!!!! Remember dat!”
In happy news this week, Avril Lavigne has promised to not get any more tattoos for a while. So for the next little while the celebrity round-up will be Avril free!
In other bad pop singer news, Britney Spears has gotten in shape and did a photo shoot. Supposedly the fact that she’s showing off 10 year old tattoos is a shock to some people.
Pee-Wee Herman made an appearance on Lopez Tonight earlier this week and was stunned to find out a woman in the audience had a Pee-Wee tattoo. I think the real news here is that Pee-Wee was actually shocked to see little Pee-Wee sticking out in the audience. You’d think he’d learn his lesson by now.
Someone sent Charlie Sheen a bottle of tiger’s blood. To celebrate he got “Winning” tattooed on his wrist. I can’t make fun of this at all. I truly believe that Charlie Sheen is winning. What he is winning has yet to be determined, but he’s definitely winning something.
And now the story you’ve all been waiting for, because including Julia Roberts in a ModBlog news post is something of a special event, a man has come forward to show off his love and devotion to Julia. By getting her portrait tattooed on his body 82 times.
Film buff Miljenko Parserisas Bukovic enjoyed one of the actress’ films so much he got 82 tattoos of her FACE permanently etched all over his body.
Miljenko – a newspaper vendor in Mexico – has covered himself from head-to-toe with the pictures. He splashed out HUNDREDS of pounds on the tattoos after seeing Roberts in her film Erin Brockovich.
So what was that you were saying about the woman with a bunch of Robert Pattinson tattoos?
That’s it for this week everybody. Remember to keep sending in those links to news stories the world over.
Have a safe spring break, to those in college, and for those affected by the disaster in Japan, please drop someone a line to let them know you’re alright.
This week’s news round-up should be a bit interesting as I’m fighting off a fever and having 20 tabs open in my browser is starting to blur my vision.
Granted it appears I’m not the only person with a fever out there. Take this California man who has an extreme case of Bieber fever.
Now with the recent announcement that the zodiac signs are all changing quite a number of people were scared their zodiac tattoos will need to be covered up or removed. Well it turns out the good people at CNN have found out that your sign actually isn’t changing at all. (Thanks to Chez for the link).
But before astrology fans scrape the ink from their arms because they think they’re now a Virgo instead of a Libra, they should consider this: If they adhered to the tropical zodiac – which, if they’re a Westerner, they probably did – absolutely nothing has changed for them. That’s worth rephrasing: If you considered yourself a Cancer under the tropical zodiac last week, you’re still a Cancer under the same zodiac this week.
That’s because the tropical zodiac – which is fixed to seasons, and which Western astrology adheres to – differs from the sidereal zodiac – which is fixed to constellations and is followed more in the East, and is the type of zodiac to which the Star Tribune article ultimately refers.
Lots more news to come, including an old ModBlog regular making the jump into the limelight, and a publishing company offering free books to their fans.
Say you love a book so much you get a tattoo that is inspired by it. This happens all the time. Heck even I’m guilty of hiding a literary reference in my skin. Well it turns out that if you’re a fan of the publications of Black Ocean, and you have a tattoo referencing one of their works, you’ll get a lifetime subscription for free!
Of course not everyone is as die hard a fan of poetry as others. To some, loving their favorite football team is all the inspiration they need.
Not a sports fan? That’s ok, you can show your dedication to something else you love. Like your cell phone provider. Wait, what?
The big question, of course, is why is he doing this? Carrion told IntoMobile that he’s “just a really, really big fan of Verizon Wireless,” and that the idea to put Big Red’s logo on his body (for life) came to him “while [he] was paying his monthly bill.” We gotta hand it to the guy for putting ideas into action so quickly.
When asked if he was looking to get publicity in some way or looking for any kind of compensation from Verizon by putting a the corporate logo tattoo on his hand and forehead, Carrion replied that “Verizon probably spends millions in advertising and marketing every year, I’m not doing this to get money, but sponsoring my tattoo would be a relatively cheap way to increase brand exposure, and I wouldn’t turn down any compensation.” He continued to explain that the forehead placement would ensure that “the logo will be in front of all my friends and anyone I run into on a daily basis.” It’s clear that this Big Red customer is seriously dedicated to the Verizon network.
Moving on, we’ve got news out of Atlanta about a tattoo artist who was arrested last week for not only tattooing underage children in his home, but also for creating a fake tattoo license. While he is being charged for tattooing the minors, it seems the courts are pushing hard for a conviction on the forgery charges.
Heading north to Oshawa, ON, a number of people are being advised to contact the Durham region health department. Basically anyone who visited a mobile tattoo and piercing studio may have been exposed to various diseases after the operation was found to be using non-sterilized equipment.
While the Oshawa health department is out inspecting studios, it seems that down in Wyoming a number of studios are pushing for state-wide regulations.
But in Wyoming, where Edwards now runs his business, customers aren’t likely to find that certificate of assurance saying the business has passed a public health inspection, or even met sterile practices considered paramount in the industry. Wyoming’s lack of tattoo regulations places customers at risk, Edwards said, especially when they turn to so-called “scratch artists” working from their garages. ”If there were regulations, those people would have to be certified,” Edwards said. “They would have to keep to the same standards as the artists who have worked their whole lives in the business.” Edwards has an unlikely ally in Charles Jamieson, the Park County public health officer who’s pushing the state to regulate Wyoming’s tattoo industry.
The only problem I have with this article is the thought that a tattoo artist and a public health officer are unlikely allies. I’m fairly certain the majority of clean studios are happy to meet regulations as they not only protect the clients, but also the artists.
Now, this next article is probably going to generate some discussion, and I went to multiple sites to confirm that this was a legitimate study before posting it. According to researchers, stainless steel tongue studs are more likely to cause infections than any other type of jewelry, including plastic.
Physician Ines Kapferer of the Innsbruck Medical University in Austria and colleagues identified 68 women and 12 men, average age 23, who had tongue piercings with studs inserted. The researchers examined tooth and gum health in each volunteer and removed the studs. The volunteers were then randomly assigned to get a new stud made of stainless steel, titanium, polypropylene (a plastic polymer) or polytetrafluorethylene (Teflon). After two weeks, the scientists removed those studs and took swabs of the tongue, the piercing canal and each stud itself.
Tests for 80 bacteria linked to illness or infection showed that 67 of the 80 species had accumulated substantially more on the stainless steel studs than on the polymers, and 28 of the bacteria showed up more on titanium than on the polymers.
Now the problem I have with this study is that while in the limited scope of the testing the stainless steel posts accumulated more bacteria, they don’t mention sterility issues when the piercing actually occurs. This of course could lead to a slew of shops being able to claim that acrylic jewelry is safer to piece with than sterilized stainless surgical steel. Any thoughts from the piercers that read ModBlog on how this study could impact their business?
Moving on, there is some sad news to report this week. Jack Dracula, former Coney Island tattoo artist and circus performer passed away at the age of 75.
His name was Jack Dracula or Jack Martin or Barcelona Jack, the Marked Man but he was born on Christmas day, 1935 as Jack Baker. After a short stint in the Navy, Jack got his start tattooing after he entered a shop on Coney Island owned by Brooklyn Blackie, when he was tossed a gun and told to do it himself. Jack did a piece on his thigh and never stopped. Over time he did work and received work in various shops, tattooing his his face, cheeks, chin. forehead and all around his eyes. Most prominent were the images of Bella Lugosi/Dracula and Boris Karloff/Frankenstein on his stomach. All in total the Marked Man had over 400 tattoos.
Jack spent the last of his days in West Philadelphia’s Park Pleasant Nursing Home his legs amputated from the knees down due to complications with diabetes developed in the 90′s. At the age of 75, our beloved Jack Dracula died today at 5:30pm, after a meal of chocolate ice cream and a long, interesting life, reportedly due to a heart attack.
Rest in Peace Jack.
–Kevin Dalton
Down under things are still looking tough for the people affected by the massive flooding that has affected a large portion of the population. For some Queensland tattoo studios, the flooding has washed away almost everything.
“I am covered for a sonic boom, can you believe that? But not a flood, a sonic boom,” said the 35-year-old business owner and mum to three boys. She’s been knee-deep in mud in the clean-up of her flood-affected salon called Body Bare in the main street of Ipswich. ”I was scouring my insurance policy’s PDS (product disclosure document) on Monday night and they won’t be paying anything out for a flood,” said Ms Hill, who has owned the business for five years.
Around the corner on Brisbane Street, Janelle Roberts, owner of the Ultimate Image Tattooing, wants to move out. ”I can’t stay here. I want to get to a higher location but I have three years left on my lease,” she said. ”Do I have to keep paying rent if my shop is ruined? We’ve easily lost $50,000 just in art work and equipment and will be shut for who know’s how long. My building’s just not safe right now. It’s old and the wiring is shot.”
On a much lighter note, the international press is buzzing due to the revelation that Germany’s first lady has a tattoo. Not just any tattoo mind you, a decently sized tribal piece on her shoulder.
Ever since we heard that Germany’s First Lady Bettina Wulff has a tribal tattoo on her right shoulder, we’ve been waiting for her to wear a sleeveless gown and show off her ink. So far, no dice! But last Friday night, she stepped out to the Semper Opera Ball in Dresden wearing a lacy, black dress and we can totally make out her tat. While we think it’s a pretty cool accessory, we can also see how it might be considered un-First-Ladylike.
I’m just waiting for the day the US has a president with full sleeves. I can only imagine the poutrage at that.
Of course, the week wouldn’t be complete without a look at the people we all love to hate.
Jesse James and Kat Von D are still in the news this week with rumors floating about that they’re now engaged. The article has a fantastic photo of what a happy couple may look like.
Now when rapper Gucci Mane was finally released from a mental institution recently, he did what any newly certified sane person would do: get an ice cream cone tattooed on his face.
Rapper Gucci Mane has had a large tattoo of a triple-scoop ice cream cone inked onto his face just days after he was released from a mental health facility. Mane, real name Radric Davis, appeared in court on January 3 claiming mental incompetence and saying he was unable to ‘intelligently participate in the probation revocation hearing’. The 30-year-old was sent to a mental health facility to be evaluated.
It is unclear why he has since been released and how it affects his probation status. When he was released he got the ice cream facial tattoo complete with the word, ‘Brrr’ on the cone and red lightning strikes coming out of it.
Now, I’m not posting this to mock his tattoo, because frankly, it’s his skin and he can choose to do whatever he wants to do with it. However, when a person walks out of a mental institution, especially one with an entourage and handlers, you’d think it’d be a good idea to steer them clear of a tattoo studio, just in case their judgement is still impaired. But given that he already has neck and facial tattoos, who’s to say he wasn’t planning it for a while.
A few months back I posted a story describing how Rooney Mara, the actress to take on the role of Lisbeth Salandar in the American adaptation of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”, had undergone a pretty radical transformation, including multiple piercings. This week the studio released a few photos of Rooney, and you can see that she really has given herself over to the role.
From what I can see the list of piercings include multiple ear piercings, a lip ring, a single nostril, and according to other news sources, both of her nipples. Who knows, maybe the remake won’t be a complete waste of time.
In today’s final story, we’ve got someone who should look pretty familiar to ModBlog readers. Zombie Boy, aka Rick Genest first popped up on ModBlog back in 2006. Since then, this young man has appeared several times on ModBlog, as well as in other publications all around the world. Well this week he’s been thrust into the media spotlight thanks to Nicola Formichetti, stylist to Lady Gaga and Thierry Mulger’s new creative director.
This week, Nicola Formichetti was in Montreal photographing a young man named Rick Genest, whom he found on Facebook and is known as Rico. Mr. Genest had his body tattooed to resemble a skeleton, with blackened eye sockets and ghoulishly large dentiture on his lips. “Rico is my muse,” Mr. Formichetti, who styles Lady Gaga, wrote in an e-mail.
Of course, with Mulger introducing a new clothing line, and Gaga about to release a new album, the time was right for Formichetti to unleash his muse upon the world via this video that Lady Gaga released yesterday.
So I guess all those people who said he’d never amount to anything with tattoos like that should be eating their words right now.
So that’s it for this week’s news. If you come across a story that you think should be included in the round up, just send it in.
Holy crap it’s December already. Why didn’t anyone tell me? With only a couple more weeks until the end of the year, there isn’t a lot of time left for any type of holiday shopping that might need to get done. Not to mention getting travel plans finalized for the BME New Year’s Eve Party.
Thankfully the news is a little light this week so you’ll still have a few hours to get to the stores before they close.
The first story of the day is one of sadness. Back on November 19th the Pike River coal mine in New Zealand was rocked by an explosion which resulted in the deaths of 29 miners. One way that members of the community are handling their grief is through memorial tattoos.
West Coasters are paying a permanent tribute to victims of the Pike River mine disaster. Greymouth tattooist Nick Reedy said he had done tattoos for about 20 people, marking the deaths of the 29 miners. ”It’s something people naturally do in remembrance of others and have done for hundreds, if not thousands, of years,” he said. ”With this latest tragedy … people are doing the same.” Reedy said he had done some tattoos for free, while other customers had made a donation. Designs had included mining tools and the yellow ribbon, which had become a symbol of solidarity with the miners and their families.
For the rest of this week’s news, keep on reading…
Last week I posted a story about a professor who was having a camera implanted into the back of his head. At the time the procedure hadn’t been done, but this week we have video not only of the implant, but also parts of the procedure as well.
New York University photography professor Wafa Bilal had a titanium plate implanted about a week. It was done by someone who normally does body piercings. They used a local anesthetic. A small surveillance camera connects to the base magnetically.
I wasn’t able to find out who did the implant, or even if they want to be publicly acknowledged for the work or not. It does look like they did a good job though, of course that will be determined on how it holds up with the weight of the camera over long periods of time.
Speaking of using implants in unconventional ways, it seems doctors have found a way to use a piercing that resembles a dermal anchor to assist people who have lost the ability to swallow.
Surgeon Peter Belafsky had been tinkering with ways to treat oropharyngeal dysphagia–a swallowing disorder that when severe can prevent people from being able to swallow at all–for years. But it wasn’t until he took his two daughters to get their ears pierced–and noticed the woman behind the counter with piercings in her nose, eyebrow, and even cleavage–that he realized how to do it, and a device to manually open and close the esophagus was born. Described as one of the world’s first medicinal body piercings, the experimental device works by pulling on a tiny metal pin extending out of the skin of the patient’s neck to move the larynx forward and open the esophagus.
“By attaching a tiny titanium rod to a postage stamp-sized plate that we’ve sewn into the neck cartilage, we’ve enabled our patient to safely and without pain pull on the device to move his larynx forward and open the esophagus to allow food and liquid to pass,” Belafsky says. “It’s the first time a person has been able to manually control the entryway to the esophagus.”
Looking closely at the implant you can see they’ve externally threaded the top so the gold colored cap will screw onto it. It also looks like the cap has a loop on the top, which I’d assume is for a string to assist in pulling open the esophagus.
When it comes to charity drives, we’ve seen quite a few when it comes to tattoo/piercing drives. This week we have one that is pretty much in line with all the others, and one that is taking things a step further.
Artists working at 281 Tattoo Studio in Edinburg, TX are hoping a toy drive will be able to help out a children’s charity. Bring in a toy valued at over $25 and you’ll get a free tattoo.
Over in England, Fay Walker is trying something different when it comes to a tattoo charity drive.
“TATTOO Girl” Fay Walker has been inundated with donations after her plan to ink names on the soles of her feet was revealed. The 27-year-old has been stopped in the street and was given £200 just hours after the Leader reported on her plans to permanently tattoo 50 names on to her size-three feet for charity.
There are still places up for grab on the soles of Faye’s ticklish feet and she is hoping for more bids – as long as they are not rude words. She said: “I have decided I am going to wait until after Christmas to have the tattoos done and let people get it out of the way and I’m going to have it done in mid-January. “I have already sold a foot’s worth, 25 names.”
There are still spots up for sale, and Fay’s contact information is posted in the article if you want to have her get your name (or something else) tattooed on her feet.
I normally only cut+paste a small portion of an article just to you the highlights, but this article from December 3rd, 1899 is just too good to trim down.
The present rage among Eastern girls is to have their arms tattooed. A girl at Newport last summer appeared on the bathing beach with bare arms, of course, and on the dimpled flesh was a dainty tattooed design. Since then scores have followed her example.
The girls say when in evening dress they can wear long gloves, and even if the glove is removed a pretty tattooed mark is rather an addition than otherwise. A dainty blue anchor, a shamrock leaf, a heart or arrow, or even a copy of one’s pet dog is a favorite design.
The Hindu used to be the master hand at tattoo work, but his methods were rather harsh. He jabbed the needle in a quarter of an inch with no compunction, and after five minutes most people had to give up and rest. At present in New York there are several girls who make a good living tattooing. They sponge the spot on the arm with cocaine and then, when all feeling has departed, they rapidly use the little needle, and the patient does not suffer in the least.
At present the shamrock done in green is the favorite design, but the American flag is also a popular mark.
Over 100 years later, and I’m still coming across stories written almost exactly like this.
A good example, this article talking about the latest trend: stretching your earlobes. Since it’s Friday and almost the end of the work day, why don’t you grab a drink before reading this article. Then, take a sip every time the author uses the term “gauge” in place of “stretch”. (Warning: If you’re drinking alcohol you may end up drunk by the end of it) Here’s a small sample.
People stretch their earlobes for a variety of reasons, Burnidge said. Some like the aesthetics of gauges and the ability for self-expression, while others like the primitive look of them.Western junior Canaan Folk-Reinke has been gauging her earlobes since she was a sophomore in high school. She currently wears 00g, or 10 millimeter gauges.
My apologies if you get alcohol poisoning.
When it comes to discussing the risks involved in getting a tattoo, most articles focus on cross-contamination and unsterilized equipment. What is often neglected is the risks inherent in some types of inks. The interesting part of this story is that it is coming from a vegetarian news site, which focuses on the fact that some tattoo inks are not vegan friendly.
Black pigments, derived from kerosene soot and burned animal bones, are considered to pose minimal health risks…that isif you don’t mind walking around with charred critter remains under your skin for an indefinite period of time. While you can even try your hand at making your own DIY black pigment using India ink from an art store, be forewarned that while many modern versions are made with burned wood and/or resin, some are still made with bones…so read the label.
Now I’m not saying that all inks are bad, so don’t shoot me if you think the writer of the article is in the wrong about any of their claims.
Finally, it’s time for the celebrity round-up. This week there is actually a somewhat interesting story buried within the madness that is celebrity news.
British singer Kerry Katona has opened up in an interview as to why she got her children’s names tattooed on her wrists. It seems that she’s continually struggled with self-harm and cutting problems so she got the tattoos to remind herself that she has to take care of her children.
Of course with every thoughtful story about a celebrity, there are 100 ones about useless crap.
While Kerry’s wrist tattoo is a coping mechanism to help with her issues, The Jersey Shore “star” Angelina’s wrist tattoo is because she felt that the editing on the show made her look bad. I’ve seen Jersey Shore. If the editing was intended to make her look bad, then why wasn’t there any editing to make the others look good?
While I’ll admit to having seen Jersey Shore, I can honestly say I’ve never heard of this next person before in my entire life. Supposedly there’s a show called Teen Mom, and one of the moms on the show recently had her kid taken away by child services. She has since gotten her child back, but not before getting a portrait of her daughter on her stomach.
Fans of Inception will likely recognize Tom Hardy from his role in the film. Do yourself a favor and check out Bronson, Hardy is brilliant in it. Hardy himself is no stranger to getting tattooed and this week he went out while on the set of his latest film and got himself a new one.
The 33-year-old actor recently added a Union Jack tattoo on his upper left chest when he popped into the shop, one of his favorite local hangouts while he’s been filming This Means War.
In the final story of the day, while it isn’t really celebrity news, thefrisky.com has put together a collection of the ten best Golden Girls tattoos. I’d have to say #6 and #9 are my favorites.
And thus concludes our broadcasting day here at ModBlog. Remember to send in any links you find to news stories from around the world.
Have a great weekend everyone, and good luck getting everything on your shopping lists.
Apologies for the ICP lyric, but it’s been a while since we’ve had a story about magnetic implants I couldn’t help myself.
Rata, from Rata Body Art Studio in Buenos Aires, recently spent a couple of months working in Florida as a guest artist. On his last day in Florida, Pinhead and Johnny Vilonius decided to surprise him by giving him some magnetic implants as a parting gift. Rata has had his work featured on ModBlog before a couple of times, but I believe this marks the first time that he’s been the subject of the photo, not the artist behind the work featured.
Thanks to Johnny for sending in the photos. According to him the procedure only took 10 minutes, and he was on a plane back home the very next day. The first image is of Rata looking at his fingers, and the second is of Pinhead inserting the magnets.
You can check out the rest of the images in the discreet implants gallery.
I know everyone has been wondering what’s been going on with the BME tour so here it goes! First I wanted to thank H2Ocean and Industrial Strength for helping make the tour possible and supporting BME.
Our schedule started to get a little haywire somewhere along the third or fourth week of the tour. It started off with a never ending erupting volcano which soured travel plans, then some political unrest, economic instability causing more political unrest, being hospitalized and then coming home with an awesome case of pneumonia, and so many more “little things” we had to take a break. Richard has been working his butt off editing up a storm. I’m glad to announce that things are coming along well and we should be able to start uploading and posting videos in the next week from our time in Australia and New Zealand. With over 60+ Australian and New Zealand tattooers, piercers and body modification artists already interviewed, we are well on our way to a great start with what I originally intended to do with the tour project. I hope you enjoy the tour preview video that Richard put together and I can’t wait to start posting more videos!
I really want to thank Richard, Chez, Darah and Megan for joining me on the Australian & New Zealand leg of the tour and for all the work they put into the 5 weeks we were out on the road. As I said before, I can’t wait till we start publishing the interviews that we’ve done to date and I look forward to getting out on the road again and seeing what else the Body Modification Community has to offer in the rest of the world!
I’m not sure what I was thinking when I decided to get tattooed again but the day we were leaving Melbourne, I had to let Trevor finish what he had left of the background on my right calf. I wasn’t sure if he was going to have time for a second session so I had made an appointment later that same day with Ran Maclurkin of The Piercing Urge. The tour team and I had spent the day prior to the tattoo interviewing Ran, Matt and Pete for the tour videos and interviews that we’re doing. As I had explained before, I’m getting a series of skull tattoos to fill up the front and sides of my thighs while I’m out on the road. I really liked Ran‘s “Abstract Noir” style of tattooing and wanted to get a piece from him. He’d already tattooed Chez‘s thigh the day before. I decided to ask Ran if he’d do me the honor of being the second in my series of “One Hour Tattoo” video and he said yes!
Check out the video and I hope you enjoy it!
Due to weird inconsistencies with the “Auto-Play”, I’ve moved the video to behind the jump. Click the image to go to the post to watch the video or click more.
The next installment of the “One Hour Tattoo” will be from Josh Roelink at TatuDharma in Sydney! No, I didn’t make these out of order, I’m heading back to Sydney for a couple days before we head off from the land of kangaroos and awesome.
Where’s BME? Where are the posts? Are you guys okay? Have you frittered away the budget in strip clubs across the world? Those are the sorts of questions I’ve been getting. While I’d love to be on the perfect schedule of making at least one video a day, it’s going to take us a couple weeks to get to that point. Now bear with me while I try to get you caught up to where we are in the world tour. First I want to take a moment and thank H2Ocean.com and Industrial Strength for being our main BME world tour sponsors. They’re making this trip possible and I, as well as the rest of the crew, appreciate it!
I snapped some quick photos of our group. From Left to Right are Darah, Chez, Richard and Megan.
I have exactly 34 minutes of battery life on the flight between Sydney and Melbourne and I’m not sure I’ll be able to finish this post in that time. It simply isn’t possible to recount what we’ve done over such a short time. I’ll do my best to give you an over view and hopefully make you feel like you’re here with us. Some of you came out and showed us around town and for that I couldn’t be more grateful!
In order to get everyone up to speed without creating a massive tl;dr, I’ll try not to go over what Chez has already posted but it’s easy enough to say that the trip started off on a lame first step. We had one thing after another present itself, from drama to suitcases that wouldn’t zip shut, lost laptops to delayed flights, emptied pre-payed phones and more than I will waste any more time writing about. If it wasn’t complicated, it wouldn’t be fun and I wouldn’t trade it for the world on a silver platter.
Click through to read more of the story and what we’ve been up to since we arrived in the country of kangaroos!
After spending about two and a half days getting to know one another, we left Los Angeles on Wednesday April 7th, arriving in Sydney on Friday April 9th. We mastered time travel and now we’re a day ahead of most of the readers out there. As Chez mentioned, Nano was a great host and was fresh faced at 7am to meet us at the airport. We ate breakfast together in what has quickly become a tour tradition, got sorted out at our hostel and then headed out for a walk. We had one day to catch our breath before Chez took on the monstrous task of organizing our schedule for the week.
L to R: Chez, Richard, Megan, Rachel and Darah
As you remember, we took suggestions from readers and went to almost every shop that was suggested to us that we were able to make time for. Due to having hosted the amazing Trevor McStay back in the states, I was lucky to have a great source for info on the Australian tattoo/piercing/body modification scene. Trevor sent us an email with contact information for Rhys Gordon and a suggestion that I ask him to show me around town. I also want to give a quick shout out to Timothy and thank him for the massive list of contact information that he sent us after his trip to the Sydney tattoo convention.
I made plans to have dinner with Rhys on Friday night but canceled after sitting down on my bed in the hostel and passing out around 7pm. The next day was much better after waking up shortly after 6am. I didn’t realize until later that I’d actually woken up around 2am local time on the flight here and that we’d put in a pretty long day just getting organized.
On Saturday we stopped over at Josh Roelink‘s TatuDarhma to check out the shop and what we’d need to do lighting/interview wise. We were expecting that to take a while but honestly after walking into the space and seeing floor to ceiling warehouse style windows, beautiful natural lighting and art everywhere, we knew we were off to a great start. TatuDharma set the tone for what the rest of our stay in Sydney would bring. One beautiful shop after the next as well as a population of tattooers, piercers and clients who were warm and welcoming.
Rhys showed up shortly after and picked us all up in his ’66 Dodge Coronet and we piled in. The team has gotten used to tight quarters in the back of one car after the next. We headed off towards Inner Vision Tattoo to meet the locals over there but not before dropping BME’s tour crew off at The Illustrated Man to chat with the Tony Cohen and Heather Gee (link to the first article). I met Cliffe Clayton, the owner, as well as several tattooers and guest artist Marcus Kuhn. From that point on I knew this was going to be an awesome trip.
After a whirlwind trip around Sydney on a perfectly guided tour, I met up with the Prince of Bondi, Dane, and his awesome Staffy dog named Indie. She’s apparently one of the most photographed dogs in Australia and after meeting her, I can definitely understand why. The people watching from the patio of The Flying Squirrel Tapas Parlour was spectacular, not to mention meeting Miss Australia, who happens to be a regular.
After a few hours in the sun, getting to know Rhys and his local group of friends, I headed back to meet up with my own crew where we had dinner with Nano and HotBrad.
Sunday started off with a rushed morning after I cooked breakfast for the five of us. We took a cab to hang out with Rhys as he took us to Bondi Beach. It’s justifiably one of Australia’s most famous beaches and I’m sure that you can understand why. One thing they don’t put in the brochures about Australia is the lack of a proper ozone layer. We slathered on the sunscreen and laid out on our towels, soaking in the sun, splashing in the waves and generally getting to know each other better.
L-R: The crew at Bondi Beach, the beach itself and Rhys Gordon and Rachel
Our first interview of the trip belonged to Josh Roelink and took place in his studio TatuDharma. It was hard to peel off our bathing suits and dive in to “interview mode” but we were able to do it once the sun stroke wore off. Josh, having just had his first baby only 6 short weeks ago, was kind enough to come in on his day off so that we’d be able to speak with him. Josh is known around the world and has traveled doing guest spots and conventions. It was amazing to talk to each other and realize how many people that we both know. We exchanged stories about tattooing legends as well as conventions that we’ve both worked at, shops we’ve been to, being a new parent and so much more. While Josh and I got to know each other, Darah and Richard interviewed Alex and Megan shot photos of the whole thing.
After we finished up at TatuDharma, we split ways and I headed down to Inner Vision to get to know the staff over there. There is something to be said about walking into a tattoo shop in a country that you’ve never been to before. No matter where you are, there are comforting smells and sounds that will always make you feel like home. At Inner Vision I was made to feel incredibly welcome. I also tried to download as much email as I possibly could! The only downside to our trip so far has been one technical problem after the next. As I sit here writing (at our hostel in Melbourne) I’m unable to connect to the internet. When you’re trying to write for an online magazine, that can be a problem!
L-R: Marcus Kuhn, Rachel and Rhys Gordon
We made plans to go to Sydney’s tourist restaurant known as “360” which is at the top of the Sydney Tower. If you haven’t guessed already, it is one of those spinning restaurants which can make you very nauseous. Darah elected to sit that dinner out and I don’t blame her one bit. As Marcus was here, he decided to indulge in a little tourism and joined us. We have hours of video with him, going through his impressions and stories of his tattoo related travels. As someone who has seen the inside of Rikers Island several times to having tattooed with legends from all around the world, it was amazing to be fortunate enough to hear stories and meet someone with as much history and experience as he has. I look forward to getting a chance to interview him in the future.
L-R: Rhys Gordon, Rachel and Marcus Kuhn.
Rhys, Marcus, Chez, Richard, Megan and I basically closed down the restaurant. Marcus wanted to see “King’s Cross”, which is Sydney’s “Red Light District”. He spent an hour or so trying to solicit hookers to take their photo with him for $10 dollars but none of them would. Shortly after that we made our way into one of the fine establishments in the King’s Cross. I can’t remember what the name was but after negotiating down the entrance fee, we all had a bunch of “dancing bucks” and proceeded to have some fun. Unfortunately you can’t take photos in a strip club but that doesn’t mean we didn’t try!
L-R: Megan, Chez, Rhys Gordon, Richard, Rachel and Marcus
Marcus and Rhys tried to work the “birthday” angle, which as we were 3 girls and 3 guys, seemed to go over pretty well. At one point a stripper approached me and pulled off my top! As there wasn’t a single exotic dancer with a tattoo, I find it hard to believe that she confused me for one of the dancers! We were smart enough to cash in a set amount of money for the pre-purchased fake bills so that we didn’t blow our entire budget on strippers. It can happen when you’re in a new city and having a great time.
L-R: Marcus, Chez, Megan and Richard (PS. We’ve gotten very used to squeezing way too many people into one tiny car after the next!)
The next morning saw most of the crew sleeping in. I’m not sure if it was exhaustion from all the excitement, the many many rounds of drinks, jet lag or a combination of both but I let everyone sleep in as I still woke up around 7am. I went down and cooked breakfast for all of us again and we began to organize our day.
We tried to utilize public transportation but that wasn’t working as well as we’d hoped but we got ourselves to Kaleidoscope Tattoo in Bondi. Our main attraction there, aside from the owner Luciano, was Stevie Edge. Stevie has been on BME/IAM since at least 2001. He met his girlfriend via IAM some 8 years ago and she’s moved here from the USA. I always love meeting people who have met their significant others through BME because it shows that not only are we able to document a love affair with body modification but that we can also facilitate members of our community with finding love itself.
I’m not sure how many tattooers we ended up interviewing at Kaleidoscope but we also grabbed a quick interview with Kaleidoscope’s piercer, Brady. I stepped out throughout the day to buy massive amounts of candy and gorge myself silly. We all had a good laugh at my expense as my belly finally decided to object to the influx of sugar coated goodness. We wrapped up at Kaleidoscope and headed back to the hostel to decompress.
On Tuesday, the crew made their way to Industrial Strength Australia and met with Rob, the piercer there. I spent the day online working on my day to day work that I have to do for BME to keep things running smoothly. I was bummed that I didn’t get to make it back over there but I had work to do!
Throughout the week and time spent with Marcus, he continually brought up “Mr. Shuffles”, the miracle elephant newborn at the Taronga Zoo. We decided to switch our day off and make our way to the zoo on Wednesday. While waiting for the crew to catch up, Marcus and I met Pauly Shore by the ferry. It was a very bizarre meeting but a fun one at that. All work and no play makes the tour a dull one so we had a great time checking out the animals. By the end of the day we were beat.
L-R: Pauly Shore, Rachel and Marcus. The Sydney Opera House. Mr. Shuffles!
On Thursday, it was time to meet with Polymorph and work the interviewing magic that we’ve been developing at a sure and steady pace. While the crew spent the morning over there, I was at Inner Vision. I got the first of what I hope are many new tattoos while on this tour. Rhys drew up a skull and tattooed me for a few hours. I have almost all of the time lapse done. It took 2 hours but I’ve got the footage down to 8 minutes. I need to refine it a bit more so that it’s only about 5 minutes. I didn’t end up having enough time to interview Rhys but he was gracious enough to interview the other tattooers who wouldn’t be returning from Japan until after we were already departed.
L-R: Rhys Gordon. Rachel’s new skull tattoo by Rhys. Rachel getting tattooed.
The next morning we left from Sydney to fly to Melbourne, which is when I started writing this post. Work, sun and jet lag caught up with Richard, Darah and Chez who caught some sleep on the plane. Meanwhile Megan and I got some work done.
We grabbed our luggage and headed to get a “maxi taxi” to the Lord’s Lodge, where the crew is currently staying. I’m staying with Trevor and his family as I’ve hosted Trevor at my place in LA. Trevor not only opened up his home to me but also helped give us the keys to the city by calling around to the local shops and helping us set up interviews.
On Saturday I got the majority of the background on my right leg from knee to shin colored in. I’ll be getting one more sitting done to finish the back of my calf before we head out to Darwin for the weekend. That meant that we spent Saturday at Dynamic Tattoo and interviewed Trevor again as well as his daughter Tarlyn. Tarlyn started tattooing at the ripe old age of 12 and I hope that some day we can interview her again as she becomes a second generation tattooer. While we were there we also interviewed Matty and Rob who I would say that they are lucky enough to work with Trevor but because they do work at Dynamic, it just shows that they have incredible talent to be able to work with a great Australian tattooer and can pull their own weight.
While I was getting tattooed, the crew headed off to Third Eye Tattoo and I believe they interviewed somewhere around 8 or 9 tattooers. I stayed behind so that I could endure a couple of grueling hours of tattooing and then have dinner with Josh Roelink who was in town for a wedding. We had a great dinner with everyone from Dynamic and exchanged body art and tattoo related travel stories. By the time it was 10pm, I was ready to head home. Luckily so was everyone else.
I woke up Sunday morning and logged online to realize that it was that time. I had turned 30 years old! As I came out of the guest bedroom I started receiving the first of many “Happy Birthday!” wishes. It was a great way to start the day. Rhys had decided to fly in from Sydney to hang out and he arrived shortly after we’d all gotten ready to start the day. I headed out from the suburbs with Rhys to meet up with the crew. They had Sunday off which was hopefully a good break for them. Rhys and I tried to head over to the beach and Luna Park but I wasn’t up for walking as my calf was pretty swollen. We ended up coming back out to Trevor’s house and relaxing. We spent a few hours looking through various books, tracings, artwork drawn by tattooers from around the world that grace Trevor’s home and generally having a pretty chill day. Once a couple other people showed up, we headed out for a birthday dinner.
When a McStay fills your glass, you can’t say no. I believe they were trying to get me inebriated but after one drink I’d had enough! What can I say? I’m a light weight! The McStay’s surprised me with a beautiful birthday cake and they all sang “Happy Birthday” to me. I think that it was one of the best birthdays that I can remember having.
As I mentioned earlier, I hadn’t had time to interview Rhys so I decided to mix things up a bit and interview him while we drove from the ‘burbs back into the city. We talked about tattooing, traveling, learning more about your career and developing as an artist and what it truly means to live by the motto of “be kind to tattooing and it will be kind to you”.
Rhys dropped me off at Chapel Tattoo where I met up with the rest of the crew and we got started on our day. We interviewed Dave McAleese, Dez (the shop manager) and were supposed to interview Shane Gallager but we had to reschedule that for tomorrow.
I’ve tried to get caught up on recapping our trip so far but it hasn’t been easy. Trying to find the time has been one thing as well as just being able to get online. I hope this isn’t too disjointed as it was written on an airplane, on the patio of a hostel while french reggae is blasting and hippies are playing some form of dodgeball that looks both hilarious and painful and finally the last page or so written from the McStay’s porch.
The first 11 days on the road have been amazing. I’ve never felt so welcomed and met so many bright and talented individuals in such a short amount of time. The few IAM members that I’ve had the pleasure of meeting have been hospitable and caring as well as just great people. It reminds me why I love what I do and why I hope to continue doing it until the end of my days.
As I finish wrapping up this post, I’m happy to say that we’ve overcome our Final Cut Pro hurdle (apparently our camera won’t work with FCP 6!) and we should finally be able to move on and start editing video. The last technical hurdle we have is getting the lost but recovered laptop out to us here in Australia without having to pay $400 in ridiculous fedex charges so that Megan can start editing photos. We had to spend close to that to ship back our lighting kits because after they set themselves on fire, we decided that we didn’t want to drag the now useless but probably repairable gear around the rest of the world with us. Nothing says professional like turning on the lights and having a giant ball of smoke rise up in the middle of a busy tattoo studio!
I hope that you guys enjoyed the photos and feel like you’ve been caught up on what’s going on in the world of the BME tour. Thank you again to our sponsors H2Ocean.com and Industrial Strength. Without them, we would have already spent all our money on strippers and booze! An additional extra special thank you goes out to Nano, HotBrad, Rhys Gordon, Marcus Kuhn and Trevor and Deb McStay. These six people have made the beginning of the tour as stress free as possible. From opening up their hearts and their homes as well as showing us around town, I can’t thank them all enough. We’ve already met hundreds of people in the past 11 days and I can’t wait to meet even more. Remember, we’re totally into having BBQ’s or meet ups if anyone wants to organize one locally!
I’m off to bed now that it’s almost 3am my time and I have to be up in 6 hours but I wanted to finish this post and get it online while I still had a halfway decent internet connection!
THE FIRST FEW DAYS
World Tour! Wooo! I know, I know, you guys realllllly want to see an update of our time thus far in Australia. Don’t worry, it’s coming. In the mean time, I’d like to introduce myself. I am Chez and I am the BME World Tour, Tour Manager (see all those capitals? That means I’m important). I will be updating you all on the whereabouts of our crew and our day-to-day stuff. Like I said, don’t worry, the team are tirelessly working on an amazing post of the shops here in Sydney right now. In the mean time, here is a little overview of our adventure thus far!
We all met up in LA a few days before our flight out to Sydney so we’d have a chance to get to know each other and coordinate equipment and whatnot. missmeg and mcshady were gracious hosts in the great Casa Cholita. Getting to know each other came without much work which is nice considering we all have to share space for the next 3 months in unusual circumstances.
We trotted around the city taking care of last minute details like power adapters and travel sized toothpastes and most importantly, twizzlers. Finally, the day of our departure arrived. It seemed like the day flew by ridiculously quick and before I knew it, our airport shuttle was late and I’m pretty sure I called the company at least 6 times in a half hour time frame to ask where the hell they were. Even with the shuttle being late, we still made it to LAX with enough time to grab a quick bite in the one restaurant our terminal had to offer. (Seriously, why does LAX suck so much?)
We spent much of the first hour of our flight chatting to each other via the plane’s instant messaging chat system. Yes, we are that nerdy. We really tried to get other passengers involved but everyone kept turning down our requests. Boooo-urns! Eventually we all passed out and slept in spurts. I put on at least 3 movies and slept through all but Julie and Julia, which was surprisingly good. Made me quite hungry really. Airline food is no bueno. All and all, the flight went by really quick and it seemed like we spent more time in the immigration line than on the plane.
Nano met us at the Sydney airport because he’s a champ. We were at least 45 minutes late, plus the excessive amount of time it took to get through immigration and he was still there with a smile on his face ready to dole out hugs upon our arrival. After mussing around with our bags and exchanging some currency, we hailed a cab and headed to the city. We’ve been staying at a super awesome hostel that has been just as gracious as every host so far. Fernando showed us around town, explained the ins and outs of the transportation system, introduced us to another awesome IAM member, hotbrad and has just been an all around fantastic host. We were sad to see him go when he flew out to the states. If you see him this month on his journey across America, make sure to return the favor and show him a great time for us!
The team has been on point and working their butts off this week. We’ve had a few bumps in the road, as any new excursion does but all and all, it’s been amazing. The talent in our group is obvious and I can’t wait to see the finished products that we are able to publish on BME. Hopefully you all will be just as proud of these guys as I am!
Sincerely yours,
BMEWT,TM,
(That is BME World Tour, Tour Manager by the way… yes I get my very own acronym)
