A Personal Story About Significance and Triangle Bromance

Polareyez was kind enough to submit this photo of their four day old solar brand.

triangle brand

Now this photo hits home for me because back in 2008 when I was but a mere 17 years old, My best pal and I were featured on ModBlog by Shannon. Here’s the link to the original post. When you get done cracking up at my baby face, you’ll notice that we’re also branding triangles on each other. Believe it or not that was one of the more significant modifications in my life. The triangle symbolized my friend and I taking in another friend on a special night. The branding was highly ritualized and we took the photos specifically to share with BME. It was a really important bonding experience with one of my best friends that we’ll always remember. I actually remember the day I saw it on ModBlog thinking that it was the most significant day of my life, and that I belonged to this community.

I’m sharing this little story with you because while this is not the most intense, extreme, eye catching, or conventionally “beautiful” piece of scarification…you can never tell the weight that something so simple can carry. My little triangle changed my entire life, and you can’t even see it today. In life you never seem to know when your turning points will be, but the thing that I love about this community is that you always have a reminder of where you’ve been.

A Personal Story About Significance and Triangle Bromance

Polareyez was kind enough to submit this photo of their four day old solar brand.

triangle brand

Now this photo hits home for me because back in 2008 when I was but a mere 17 years old, My best pal and I were featured on ModBlog by Shannon. Here’s the link to the original post. When you get done cracking up at my baby face, you’ll notice that we’re also branding triangles on each other. Believe it or not that was one of the more significant modifications in my life. The triangle symbolized my friend and I taking in another friend on a special night. The branding was highly ritualized and we took the photos specifically to share with BME. It was a really important bonding experience with one of my best friends that we’ll always remember. I actually remember the day I saw it on ModBlog thinking that it was the most significant day of my life, and that I belonged to this community.

I’m sharing this little story with you because while this is not the most intense, extreme, eye catching, or conventionally “beautiful” piece of scarification…you can never tell the weight that something so simple can carry. My little triangle changed my entire life, and you can’t even see it today. In life you never seem to know when your turning points will be, but the thing that I love about this community is that you always have a reminder of where you’ve been.

A Personal Story About Significance and Triangle Bromance

Polareyez was kind enough to submit this photo of their four day old solar brand.

triangle brand

Now this photo hits home for me because back in 2008 when I was but a mere 17 years old, My best pal and I were featured on ModBlog by Shannon. Here’s the link to the original post. When you get done cracking up at my baby face, you’ll notice that we’re also branding triangles on each other. Believe it or not that was one of the more significant modifications in my life. The triangle symbolized my friend and I taking in another friend on a special night. The branding was highly ritualized and we took the photos specifically to share with BME. It was a really important bonding experience with one of my best friends that we’ll always remember. I actually remember the day I saw it on ModBlog thinking that it was the most significant day of my life, and that I belonged to this community.

I’m sharing this little story with you because while this is not the most intense, extreme, eye catching, or conventionally “beautiful” piece of scarification…you can never tell the weight that something so simple can carry. My little triangle changed my entire life, and you can’t even see it today. In life you never seem to know when your turning points will be, but the thing that I love about this community is that you always have a reminder of where you’ve been.

A Personal Story About Significance and Triangle Bromance

Polareyez was kind enough to submit this photo of their four day old solar brand.

triangle brand

Now this photo hits home for me because back in 2008 when I was but a mere 17 years old, My best pal and I were featured on ModBlog by Shannon. Here’s the link to the original post. When you get done cracking up at my baby face, you’ll notice that we’re also branding triangles on each other. Believe it or not that was one of the more significant modifications in my life. The triangle symbolized my friend and I taking in another friend on a special night. The branding was highly ritualized and we took the photos specifically to share with BME. It was a really important bonding experience with one of my best friends that we’ll always remember. I actually remember the day I saw it on ModBlog thinking that it was the most significant day of my life, and that I belonged to this community.

I’m sharing this little story with you because while this is not the most intense, extreme, eye catching, or conventionally “beautiful” piece of scarification…you can never tell the weight that something so simple can carry. My little triangle changed my entire life, and you can’t even see it today. In life you never seem to know when your turning points will be, but the thing that I love about this community is that you always have a reminder of where you’ve been.

A Personal Story About Significance and Triangle Bromance

Polareyez was kind enough to submit this photo of their four day old solar brand.

triangle brand

Now this photo hits home for me because back in 2008 when I was but a mere 17 years old, My best pal and I were featured on ModBlog by Shannon. Here’s the link to the original post. When you get done cracking up at my baby face, you’ll notice that we’re also branding triangles on each other. Believe it or not that was one of the more significant modifications in my life. The triangle symbolized my friend and I taking in another friend on a special night. The branding was highly ritualized and we took the photos specifically to share with BME. It was a really important bonding experience with one of my best friends that we’ll always remember. I actually remember the day I saw it on ModBlog thinking that it was the most significant day of my life, and that I belonged to this community.

I’m sharing this little story with you because while this is not the most intense, extreme, eye catching, or conventionally “beautiful” piece of scarification…you can never tell the weight that something so simple can carry. My little triangle changed my entire life, and you can’t even see it today. In life you never seem to know when your turning points will be, but the thing that I love about this community is that you always have a reminder of where you’ve been.

A Personal Story About Significance and Triangle Bromance

Polareyez was kind enough to submit this photo of their four day old solar brand.

triangle brand

Now this photo hits home for me because back in 2008 when I was but a mere 17 years old, My best pal and I were featured on ModBlog by Shannon. Here’s the link to the original post. When you get done cracking up at my baby face, you’ll notice that we’re also branding triangles on each other. Believe it or not that was one of the more significant modifications in my life. The triangle symbolized my friend and I taking in another friend on a special night. The branding was highly ritualized and we took the photos specifically to share with BME. It was a really important bonding experience with one of my best friends that we’ll always remember. I actually remember the day I saw it on ModBlog thinking that it was the most significant day of my life, and that I belonged to this community.

I’m sharing this little story with you because while this is not the most intense, extreme, eye catching, or conventionally “beautiful” piece of scarification…you can never tell the weight that something so simple can carry. My little triangle changed my entire life, and you can’t even see it today. In life you never seem to know when your turning points will be, but the thing that I love about this community is that you always have a reminder of where you’ve been.

A Personal Story About Significance and Triangle Bromance

Polareyez was kind enough to submit this photo of their four day old solar brand.

triangle brand

Now this photo hits home for me because back in 2008 when I was but a mere 17 years old, My best pal and I were featured on ModBlog by Shannon. Here’s the link to the original post. When you get done cracking up at my baby face, you’ll notice that we’re also branding triangles on each other. Believe it or not that was one of the more significant modifications in my life. The triangle symbolized my friend and I taking in another friend on a special night. The branding was highly ritualized and we took the photos specifically to share with BME. It was a really important bonding experience with one of my best friends that we’ll always remember. I actually remember the day I saw it on ModBlog thinking that it was the most significant day of my life, and that I belonged to this community.

I’m sharing this little story with you because while this is not the most intense, extreme, eye catching, or conventionally “beautiful” piece of scarification…you can never tell the weight that something so simple can carry. My little triangle changed my entire life, and you can’t even see it today. In life you never seem to know when your turning points will be, but the thing that I love about this community is that you always have a reminder of where you’ve been.

Slice N’ Dice

Thanks to our buddy wyrd for submitting this photo of his stomach cutting! Always nice to see the dedicated BME lifers out there!

cutting

Scarification by Gábor Zagyvai in Budapest, Hungary

This also reminds me why I’ve always liked the look of slightly “weathered” looking black work tattoos after reading this old post. A little texture really makes things feel organic sometimes.

Say, would YOU like to be on Modblog? E-mail your photos/stories over to [email protected] and you just might be featured next!

RIP: Josh Burdette

Today I awoke to the heartbreaking news that the body modification community has lost one of it’s most beloved members, my good friend, Josh Burdette.

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Josh was one of the very first people I met from the online body modification community. When I first moved to Maryland in 2000, I met him at a RAB munch held at a Brazilian BBQ joint. At first I was quite intimidated by him. How could I not have been? He was, hands down, the most modded person I had met in person at that time, not to mention he was absolutely enormous! Within the first hour in his presence all of that intimidation went away and I quickly found him to be one of the nicest human beings ever. Everyone of us there that night shared that sentiment about him and by the time we left that dinner everyone of us called him friend and not a one of us was intimidated by him…….except maybe the owners of the restaurant. The one stereotype he lived up to was the ability to TRULY get his money’s worth at an all you can eat meat buffet!

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My next memorable run in with him was at the University of Maryland where Josh, Bruce Wilmot and myself were participants in a Q&A with a group of students about body modification. Josh, stole the show and did an excellent job of representing our community in the best possible light. That wasn’t unusual for Josh at all, that’s just who he was. As the head of security at DC’s famous 9:30 night club every night he managed to make friends, even with the people he had to escort out of the club. Any non-modded person who ever had the privilege of getting to know him could not help but have their prejudices of modded people flipped upside down. For that, we all owe him a debt of gratitude.

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Josh’s body mods were not on him, they were him. Each and every mod of his had a story and each and every tattoo had a meaning. He was covered with dragon tattoos representing his Chinese zodiac, the year of the dragon. He had scarification by the late, great Keith Alexander and Ron Garza branded swastikas on his feet, representing the footsteps of the Buddha. Then of course there was his trademark stretched lobes which he pretty much always sported fine organic plugs in, his stretched septum and my personal favorite his perfectly lined up paired bridge piercings.

 

In the past few years I was lucky enough to become closer with him and that friendship and the insights he shared with me are something I will eternally hold dear. Please use the comments section below to share your thoughts and memories of this beloved character who some of us knew as OBMF, some as “That Guy from the 9:30 club” and a lucky few (thousand) of us simply knew as Josh.