THURSDAY
Having been a hermit for much of the week and catching only brief moments of exposure to natural light, I went for a walk on Thursday morning before attending any classes, and something strange occurred to me:
People actually live in Las Vegas. Like ... all the time.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I realize that the strip is only a small part of the city, and they have malls and minor league baseball just like everybody else. But that aside, I have to wonder what kind of effect it has on one’s psyche to live in a place that advertises itself as being the venue for people to come visit where they can freely engage in all of the terrible things they’re not allowed to do at home. I can’t tell if I’d find a sense of pride in that, or if it would ultimately just be intensely depressing.
After lunch with Rachel and her mother, who had just arrived from Chicago, I stopped in at the Employee Management seminar being hosted by Crystal Sims of Evolution Body Piercing and Tam Sherman of Cold Steel America. In a similar vein as the Ethics in Apprenticeship roundtable, this was, for all intents and purposes, very much a business course, though obviously tailored to the piercing industry. I have to say, by this point I was pretty much sold on the APP; all too often, piercing is not seen as a business, and while one may be an excellent piercer, that’s hardly synonymous with being an astute businessperson. Comforting to me was that, in all of the administrative skills-oriented classes I sat in on, those in attendance approached them with very little ego and really seemed to take a lot away in the end; as Crystal and Tam went over topics from ethical hiring practices to the benefits of using application forms versus asking for resum�s, those in the mostly-filled room were fervently making notes. This was another one of those moments where, while I thought it was commendable for the APP to be teaching the subject matter and admirable that people were making an effort to show up and learn, it struck me as odd that these were things that people in the audience didn’t already know! That said, going from an allegedly overtly-elitist group to one that is making a solid effort to help entrepreneurs and new businesspeople, it’s clear that large strides have been made to give the APP a makeover, both internally and externally.
P-Tiddy and Sarai
With the day winding down and Rachel and Jen getting their faces put on over at MAC, it was time for Shannon and I to get into character for the evening’s banquet, a process which consisted mostly of putting on our tuxedos on and waiting a full lunar cycle for the girls. Finally accepting that they might never be ready to leave, however, we began to make our way to the penthouse of the Riviera. We ended up taking the elevator with a number of familiar faces, including Allen Falkner, Sarai (IAM:sarai) and her husband, the illustrious Pat Tidwell, dressed in a flowing plum-colored suit and sporting an embroidered “P. Tiddy” towel, complete with speakers blasting “Jungle Boogie” by Kool and the Gang. You couldn’t make this up. The only thing better than Vegas’ absolutely shameless tackiness is that there are people like Pat who exploit it for all it’s worth and treat it with the hefty doses of irony and parody it deserves.
Entering the banquet hall — with its Prom Night theme — I couldn’t help but be impressed. As ridiculous as I felt wearing a tux, the immense hall was full of substantially less-neurotic people than myself, many of whom were actually relishing and enjoying the opportunity to dress up, and I decided that perhaps I should just let it go. Though the proceedings officially started at 7:30, we made our fashionably late entrance at 7:45 and as luck would have it, we hadn’t missed a thing.
7:50 — Beers in hand, Shannon and I make our way to the buffet, which aside from a creamy salad dressing and the final choices of salmon or chicken, is entirely vegan! While I’m essentially a human garbage disposal and would have been just as happy if we’d been forced to crack open chicken bones and suck out the marrow for sustenance, I doubt there are many communities that could get away with serving a largely vegan dinner without too many snide remarks and potentially riotous behavior.
7:56 — Two more beers apiece! It’s going to be one of those nights, it seems.
Rachel and Shannon
8:03 — Rachel and Jen arrive! Whatever the cause for their delayed entrance has been, it seems to have been worth it — they both look terrific. That said, the tailors botched Rachel’s planned dress for the evening, so she had to resort to her Plan B choice — which, mind you, is still a stunning dress. While my impulses tell me to inject some humor into the situation, further thought on the subject determines that at the time, this would be suicidal at best.
8:06 — We’re joined at our table by Sean Christian, Elayne Angel (with a curly black wig, no less! “I swear, this is what I looked like in high school!” she claims) and her husband Buck, quite possibly the world’s most successful Female-To-Male transsexual hardcore porn star! Boy, what a horribly boring and ordinary dinner conversation we’re in for.
Buck and Elayne
8:15 — Tam Sherman takes the stage, and the award show begins! According to the program, some awards on the docket include “The ’Fastest’ Piercer”, “The Most Neo-Tribal Piercer”, and “The Unsung Hero”. Maybe it’s just the alcohol poisoning, but I think I have a pretty good shot at taking home “The APP Attendee Most Likely To Resemble David Crosby by 9:30” or “Best Robert Downey Jr. Impression”.
8:17 — It’s blazing hot in this tuxedo, but I realize that my gold vest makes me look a little too much like a blackjack dealer for anyone’s good. The jacket stays on, and I continue to broil. That “David Crosby” award is as good as mine.
8:25 — The Reverend Tod Almighty (IAM:Todalmighty) takes home the award for “The Piercer Who’s Older Than Dirt”, wearing the same ’Are you serious?’ expression — a mix of disappointment and just being plain unimpressed — that’s usually reserved for people who pay to see Kevin Costner films in theaters.
8:33 — “And the award for the best freehand piercer goes to ... Elayne Angel!” The awards themselves may be tongue in cheek, but almost everybody who’s gone up to receive one has made a real, heartfelt speech about the organization and the community, and Elayne is no different. Having been in the piercing industry for longer than some people in the audience have been alive, Elayne has been through just about everything one can experience in the industry — including a period of dissatisfaction with the APP. Having served two terms on the board though, she has certainly made her peace, and is one of the better spokespeople for the industry as a whole that I’ve met.
8:33 — Also up for the previous award was Schane Gross — owner of Wichita’s Holier Than Thou piercing studio and incoming APP Treasurer — who’s clad in a truly excellent full-length denim gown. “I’m glad that denim is considered formalwear somewhere other than Canada,” Shannon remarks to me.
8:37 — For the award for “Most Shameless Self-Promoter”, the audience is polled as to who they believe the winner will be, eliciting shouts equal parts “Phish” and “Elayne”. And the winners are ... Phish and Elayne Angel! This is unprecedented! While Phish accepts his award looking more ashamed than shameless, Elayne approaches the stage littering the dance-floor and surrounding tables with business cards. Again, I’m sitting at her table, and I have no idea where she pulled these out of — can she release them at will? Was she bitten by a radioactive marketing executive? I need answers.
8:45 — A streaker (IAM:The Cock) appears! After terrorizing much of the audience, he takes up residence on a bemused Jim Ward’s lap. Welcome home, Jim.
8:46 — Paul King receives the award for the “Piercer Most Likely To Appear in a Music Video”! (For those of you who might not know, Paul actually appeared in Aerosmith’s 1993 video for the song “Cryin’”, and performed one of the world’s most high-profile navel piercings on a young Alicia Silverstone. The piercing was faked of course, as Silverstone thought the whole idea of piercing was “disgusting” at the time, but the images shown were of a real client of Paul’s, regardless.) Paul, decked out in a mint green coat, leather pants and platform-shoe ensemble, takes the stage, announces that the “damn video was over ten years ago and that everybody needs to get over it”, and happily storms off to his table. Let it never be said that this industry takes itself too seriously.
8:52 — In an unsurprising turn of events, Allen Falkner takes home the award for “Most Suspended Piercer”. Never one to turn away a public speaking opportunity, Allen boldly declares that he has a serious problem with the APP — but adds he’s been a member forever anyway, and stresses the importance of joining. In a move that could have had a “Roman-Polanksi-winning-Best-Director-for-The-Pianist” response — with half the audience giving a wary standing ovation and the other half remaining seated in reserved hostility — the result was more along the lines of an “Adrien-Brody-accepting-Best-Actor-for-The-Pianist” response, when he received his award, planted a slobbering tongue-kiss on Halle Berry, and provided the audience with some good-natured controversy, even though they all knew Berry’s crazy husband was going to murder him in the parking lot after the show.
“I'd like to begin by saying I've always hated the APP...”
9:01 — A quick break is taken from the award proceedings and the dance floor is opened up to all comers, at which point I bee-line for the bar. Fundamentalist Southern Baptists and I may not see eye to eye on several key points, but I think they’re onto something with the whole “dancing is evil” rule.
9:12 — Well well well, if it isn’t Jesse and Ryan! Apparently, Jesse won a pole-dancing contest at a gay bar the night before, which I now remember being invited to curse myself for deciding not to attend. Ryan looks at me in my tuxedo, calls me a pimp and gives the wink-and-gun motion — a move that, if perpetrated by anyone else, would have prompted me to go Keyser Soze on them and kill everybody they love and hold dear, but somehow, he can get away with this.
9:16 — I overhear Schane telling Shannon that some of the music they’re playing is probably older than me. While this could have potentially been insulting, there are several thousand more offensive things than being told that REO Speedwagon and Foreigner were before your time.
9:23 — Being something of a hypochondriac, I tend to be overly cautious about many things, and as still somewhat of a flying novice, I’ve made a concerted effort to not board a plane in any state of impairment, just in case of God knows what. With that in mind, it dawns on me that if I keep it up, I will actually still be drunk during our flight tomorrow morning.
(Note: I realize that this article just passed the 10,000-word mark. If you’ve made it this far, I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry.)
9:32 — Everybody returns to their tables as the pre-planned portion of the evening starts up again, with raffle prize-winners being announced first. As it turns out, companies like Industrial Strength donated thousands upon thousands of dollars worth of coupons to the event, yet when the multiple winners of their goods were announced, it almost seemed like a tired joke at the end rather than acknowledgement of an incredible contribution. Maybe a bigger deal could have been made about this.
9:41 — Time to meet the new board! Including members such as incoming President Alicia Cardenas and the aforementioned Phish and Luis, this is one of the younger, more experimental boards in quite some time. Everybody seems very excited about what this group is going to be able to work towards and achieve — this is definitely a different face for the APP.
9:48 — And now a few words from ... Michaela Grey?! A founder of the APP, she’s been long-removed from the industry on a professional level, though much of the organization’s conservatism can be linked directly to her ideologies — she began the APP ten years ago as a counteraction to what she perceived as dangerous practitioners who utilized tools such as scalpels and dermal punches and performed implants and other such procedures. In spite of the fact that many may no longer agree with her positions, she was certainly given the credit she deserves in essentially single-handedly starting the APP, and while it may have a slightly different, edgier face than she may have wanted in her time, she seemed legitimately pleased to see it still going strong.
Jim Ward, Michaela Grey, and Drew Ward
9:55 — Outgoing President Bethra Szumski takes the stage, and, looking at the fellow to my left, begins to thank Shannon for accepting their invitation this year and even going so far as to give what many will agree was an outstanding seminar a few days earlier. Explaining that this was a bigger step for the organization than most people realize and that branching out into the larger community is one of the APP’s goals, Bethra goes on to present Shannon with the highest honor one can receive from the APP — the President’s Award! Now, I’m new to BME as a staff member and obviously will make absolutely no claims of importance to the process and history whatsoever, outside of recently writing a handful of vaguely narcissistic articles. Now though, more than ever, I was filled with a great sense of pride to be professionally aligned with Rachel and Shannon; to be a part of something that, while still qualifying as being on the fringe of the fringe, can make such extraordinary headway into the more conservative, mainstream side of things without sacrificing any of its principles — with the entire room on its feet, nobody could argue that this was not well-deserved and entirely appropriate.
10:00 — And with that ... it’s party-time.
* * *
FRIDAY
I didn’t wake up Friday morning because I never slept.
Still cripplingly drunk and looking like I’d just spent the night in an opium den with the Hilton sisters, I somehow managed to make it downstairs to a caf� and, with a tongue that sat in my mouth like a slab of dry, salted beef, ordered a 20 ounce cup of straight espresso and a large bottle of water that was almost too heavy for me to carry in my weakened state. I really wish I were kidding about that.
As our taxi drove us to the airport, I knew it wasn’t going to be Las Vegas that I missed. Maybe I’d been a social defective for much of the week, but the atmosphere itself at APP was unmistakeable. It was infectious.
Perhaps the organization isn’t perfect — it definitely isn’t, actually. But there’s a very real and noticeable evolution taking place, and while their fundamentals will likely remain intact — and in all reality, they should, to an extent — an attitude adjustment never hurt anybody. I think everybody there had an extra bounce in his or her step Friday morning — there was a new confidence and fellowship afoot, the likes of which had seemingly been desperately needed for a long time.
Many agreed that this was the best convention the APP had ever had. I don’t doubt it. Even if they hadn’t changed any of my other perceptions — though believe me, they had — one thing was for absolute certain:
They can throw one hell of a party.
