Hump That Trend. Hump it!

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those only of the author and may only coincidentally reflect those of Mystic Metals, its employees, or associates. All responses should be posted as comments here, or mailed directly to the author, A. Robert Basile, at ihatebasile@gmail.com. Mail sent directly to Mystic Metals will not be read.

Hump That Trend. Hump it!

12.28.10

“I want a hippopotamus for Christmas.” I like that song because of how insanely stupid it is. There aren’t a ton of Christmas songs I like. That’s one of them. I find myself singing it at inappropriate times. Like prostate exams. Or arguments with the wife. Who am I kidding; I don’t have a prostate! I mean, wife. I have a prostate, but it doesn’t see much action. I have a wife in Sims 3, though, and it makes me pretty damned sad that my Sim gets more play than I do. Let’s move on away from my depressing wifeless and prostate having life.

I like to search the internet for news related to tattoos and piercings. Then I write about them for you cats and kittens to read. Usually, I’ll come up with the same hits. Descriptions of felons for whom the police are looking, or some bullshit about a celebrity getting modded and how shocked that we as the court of public opinion ought to be about it. (Oh, Miley; what are you doing, sweetheart.) I found an article today that wasn’t terribly interesting. It was a someone writing in to a someone else to ask if he should cover his mods when he goes for a job interview. Pretty stupid. We all know the answer to that question, and if we have to ask it, then we’re probably not mentally qualified for the job. Because we’re a fucking idiot. Least of all, we wouldn’t take the time to write into an online newspaper to ask someone else’s unqualified opinion. Obviously this story isn’t interesting at all. What’s interesting is the little comment war that followed the article. Those are the best, aren’t they? When people, from the safety of their keyboards, spout some -ism nonsense just looking for another stranger to disagree so that the first cat can feel tough without actually looking into the eye of the disagreer. That is where this rant is going, by the way.

After a tattoo supporter commented how tattoos generally tell a story about the life of the wearer, another person, screen name Mike5383, responded with his two cents; which, due to inflation, isn’t even worth two cents.

Tattoos generally tell the story that the wearer is a trend-humping fashion lemming. Perhaps that's why most people still aren't impressed. I love the way they look after about 15 years of aging, too. :)

I’m really glad he added the emoticon in the end. If it weren’t for the smiley face, I’d have completely missed his sarcasm. Thanks for that, Mike5383. I learned a couple of things from this post. One is that Mike’s birthday is probably May third, 1983. (Even though, looking at his profile on this website, it says he’s 38.) Another is my assumption that Mike5383 is probably not modified. A third thing I learned is that Mike5383 has a gross misinterpretation and misunderstanding of our culture if he thinks that we are “trend-hump[ers].” Also, who uses the word ‘hump?’ I mean, seriously. Did you hump your boyfriend last night? No, you slept with him. No one says hump. Lastly, he likes the smiley face emoticon, but really, who doesn’t.

Let’s talk about Mike5383’s perception. Modification as a trend is such a myopic point of view toward our culture that it nearly bares ignoring. But I won’t. We don’t have to talk about Oetzi, the five thousand year old ice man found in the mountains. We won’t mention his tattoos and pierced skin, nor will we mention his tools for tattooing he carried. We won’t mention the samoans, whose tattoos tell a family story. We won’t mention how Victorian era women would pierce their genitals as a sign of wealth, nor will we mention the American Indian traditions of piercing and suspension. African neck and lobe stretching? We won’t mention that either. I’d like to ask Mike5383 what the half-life of a trend is. Do you think that the people of the year 3500 will be wearing snap bracelets, playing with Troll dolls, trading Garbage Pale Kids, and eating Pop Rocks? Unlikely. At least, I hope not. Pop Rocks are nasty.

His using the word ‘fashion’ is interesting too. When I think of fashion, I think of high fashion. I think of models with the ‘Schmeh’ face walking down a high gloss buffed runway while people who aren’t considered as attractive snap photos of whatever nonsense is the new, not for the average person fashion. How many of these woman and men are heavily modified? When was the last time Victoria’s Secret had a sleeved model with a Madison piercing and the bulge of a zero gauge captive poking through her panties? Fashion has never really participated in an amorous relationship with mod. And yes, I know there are exceptions (Call me, Kat Von D!). Modification as a fashion is an interesting concept. I am well aware that it can be, and for all intent and purpose, it is. It’s an aesthetic adornment. That’s fashion, isn’t it? But a part of me (the part that hates; wait, that’s every part) has to believe that the intent of the aesthetic adornment is a thing that makes all the difference. Like the road in the yellow wood. Is there a higher intent for wearing skinny leg jeans or leg warmers or those God awful rubber rain boots? The people that view modification as fashion have a skewed sense of what modification and fashion are.

Mike5383 talks about other people not being “impressed.” This seems like an asinine comment to make because the entire thesis of the article on which he commented talks about the first impression of a potential employer. You see, Mike5383, ‘impress’ is the verb form of the noun ‘impression.’ Same root, my friend. So yes, obviously people are impressed with the modifications of others if they are willing to refuse employment to someone because of their mods. It may not be a positive impression, but they are impressed in some way. Isn’t language fun?

He lastly makes mention of modifications as they age. This is one of those arguments from an unmodded person that is such a tacked on afterthought that it holds very little gravity to me. It’s like a President Bush hater not having a firm argument and then saying, “Well, he stuttered a lot.” Yeah, no shit. Your skin, believe it or not Mike5383, is going to age with the rest of you. Do we need to talk about modification techniques advancing like all technology? That’s like saying, “Why did you buy a car in 1965 if it’s not going to be fuel efficient in 2011?” Because you wanted a fucking car in 1965, that’s why. Yes, some modifications aren’t going to look great in fifteen years. That’s a fact. But does that same concept stop the woman who is caking on sixteen pounds of foundation makeup everyday? I’ll wager that in fifteen years her skin will look way worse than mine (way worse is a scientific measurement, by the way). This is the kind of argument that unmodded people make that, to me, make no sense. This ‘what are you going to look like when’ type of argument, along with the ‘why would you get that thing tattooed on you’ drip with an ignorance and a sense of ownership of the aesthetic of strangers. I don’t really give a shit that Mike5383 thinks that, at some point in my life, my tattoos will look differently than they do right now. He has no ownership of my aesthetic, and just because I practice and participate in a culture that has an outward display of beauty, doesn’t mean that every stranger who sees my mods is entitled to an ignorant opinion. I don’t modify for you, Mike5383; I modify for me, and I invite you to enjoy it.

Anyone who thinks he is going to be a power broker with three inch lobes and an H.R. Giger themed sleeve has his head up his ass. At least right now. Our culture has made huge strides in a short amount of time. There was a time when the tattooed man and woman were circus attractions. Now we are everything that unmodded people are. We are fathers and mothers, successful artists and craftsmen, laborers and employers. We are beautiful, not trendy. Nor are we lemmings. When the leaders have come full circle and arrive behind the followers, are they still leaders? We are leaders of comfort and beauty, and that is a wonderful thing. Everyone ought to be as comfortable in his own skin as we are in ours, regardless of a stranger’s opinion about modification. At the end of the day, the opinions of people like Mike5383 mean very little to me because his is a mind of -ism. And I don’t want to be a part of that. So why did I right 1500 words about it? Good question. Stay beautiful, kids.

source article:

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/business/articles/2010/12/25/20101225career-expert1226.html

Mike5383’s profile:

http://www.azcentral.com/members/User/Mike5383

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Merry Serendipity

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those only of the author and may only coincidentally reflect those of Mystic Metals, its employees, or associates. All responses should be posted as comments here, or mailed directly to the author, A. Robert Basile, at ihatebasile@gmail.com. Mail sent directly to Mystic Metals will not be read.

Merry Serendipity

12.22.10

Merry Christmas. This is the day that Santa has made! Do me a favor. Go hug the person you love, go tell your family that each is beautiful, go smile at a stranger and look into a mirror and see the lines on your face as marks of beauty, the grey in your beard as indications of wisdom, the skin and eyes and nose and mouth of you as nothing but beauty. Merry Christmas, kids. You are beautiful.

We’re going to have a Christmas story time today. Why? Because I think it would be inappropriate of me to write some hate filled donut on the week of Christmas. Hate filled and delicious. Hate filled. Yum. Maybe not hate filled, but with some anger sprinkles. Or jimmies, as they are also called. So here’s some fluff for this week. Don’t worry; the hate will return more powerful than it left. Alright, let’s get to the story.

I have a friend who works here at the bookstore. Her name is Alana and she is a wonderful and beautiful person despite the fact that she’s a damned dirty hippie. And man, I hate hippies. Aside from her hippiness, she’s a friend. She also has an addiction. A bad one. A nasty, bad, filthy addiction. She is addicted to Craig’s List Missed Connections. It’s sad, I know. For those who don’t know, this is a section of Craig’s List where people will post some bullshit about some stranger they saw at a place. Knowing very little about the other person, the poster will describe the stranger in hopes that the stranger will reply. The future of romance, still as nauseating as traditional romance. So Alana found one which she brought to my attention.

Alana texted me the link and I never looked at it. Mostly because I assumed that whatever the link lead to was something stupid or uninteresting to me. I saw Alana in the bookstore, and she asked me if I looked at the link. I said no. She instructed me to look at it with her standing an uncomfortable, pachouli stink filled distance from me. Under the listings of South Jersey, and with a subject line of “Barnes & Nobel Deptford,” this is what I read.

“I was the short-haired girl standing waiting for my coffee. You were the bearded, nose-ringed young man typing on his laptop nearby. We made eye contact a few times and you smiled at me. I wanted to talk to you, but you had earphones in and I didn't want to disturb you. If you see this, perhaps we can get coffee together sometime?”

I futilely attempted to suggest to my friend that the person who posted this listing was not actually looking for me. That argument didn’t last terribly long, obviously. Clearly this posting was about me, but in my typical way of not anticipating anything but misery being manifested from the interaction with others, I tried to convince myself that this person was looking for someone else. Alana wasn’t buying it, so after some discussion (which included my saying this awesome line: “Kiddo, I’ve seen this movie. It has Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in it and it sucks.”), I relinquished to the request and sent the strange girl a message.

I don’t know if you kids know this or not, but I actually write quite a bit of fiction in addition to this weekly blog madness. I have a book of short stories called “people i know” that you ought to buy and read if you want a greater sense of how I write. (http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1332153) In most of my fiction, I write about relationships, I write about romance and love, I write about people who find one another in some way and establish whatever it is that the people around me claim is to be in love with someone. If I wrote about a someone who looks for and finds another person on Craig’s List Missed Connections, I’d have deleted it as one of the worst through lines I’ve ever conceived. How ridiculously implausible is it that two people who brushed their realities against one another in the same place at the same time would reconnect over a fortunate or serendipitous meeting in the black and white print of fucking Craig’s List? That is the dumbest story I’ve ever heard, and if someone told me that story, I’d stop listening and start whistling “Caribbean Queen.”

Back to the story. As a sub plot, I mistakenly told my friend and singer Dan about this little situation, and immediately the jokes and presumptions came spewing through the microphone at gigs. Everything from the stupidly childish taunting of “Ew, you’re in love!” to the jokes that this was just a set up for some CNN creepshow sting operation. A couple days go by, and after a couple of emails with this girl, I gain a vital piece of information that would dictate the eventual resolution of this story.

I saw “Tron: Legacy” the other day in 3D. First 3D movie I had ever seen, aside from when I was a little kid and the only movies in 3D were bad horror movies and the industry mocked the genre for using parlor tricks to get people to the theatre rather than deep and interesting stories. Ah, delicious hypocrisy. It was good. “Tron” was, I mean. I was hoping that it would be stranger than it was, and the kid is kind of annoying. But the broad was hot and the score was written by Daft Punk. That’s kind of cool. Oh wait; I was telling a story, wasn’t I? Let’s get back to that.

Over the next couple of days, I allowed my mind to wander into the worlds aligning happenstance that was this odd situation of a girl finding me on Craig’s List. How was it that someone who lives or exists near me has found a way to contact me without knowing my name. How was it that I happen to have a friend, whom I see frequently, who obsessively looks at the exact section that this mystery girl posted to. How is it that I was privy to all of this? Seems a little too convenient. So either it’s a set up and this cleverly played prank was to spring in a humiliatingly amusing way, or I was going to meet this girl. All this was running through my head for these couple of days. And to be fair, when you’re on stage playing Lady Gaga songs for drunk people at a casino in the middle of Pennsylvania, you tend to let your mind wander.

I mentioned the vial piece of information earlier. This is where I reveal it. Ready? The girl, excited that she had found me, sent me an email that contained a ‘hi, pleased to meet you’ kind of folksy kind of tone, and in it, she included this fantastic sentence.

“I'm an 18-year-old freshman at Rowan…”

Luck is something I don’t believe in, but if I did, it would be a festering sore, or worse, it would be akin to being forced to watch “Sixteen And Pregnant” on loop for twenty hours a day. The point is, luck sucks, and worse is serendipity. The bomb that was dropped may not translate to some of you kids as being a huge deal, but I’m thirty and would prefer a relationship rather than some boom boom college party nonsense. I told the girl that it wasn’t going to happen, and disappointedly shared my story the next day with Alana.

Ah serendipity. A couple of things struck me in this little adventure. One was, how the fuck do I not look thirty? Shit, man. I don’t sleep, I don’t eat, I smoke like nine packs a day. I have to look like I’m seventy by now. The other thing that struck me was this. Despite the shitty outcome, it is a fun affirmation of life to be a character in a story like this. Sure, I’d have preferred that the girl looking for me was twenty-six, attractive, and intelligent; but there was an affirmation of life in the days leading to the unfortunate information at the end. Affirmation of life is important, kids. As this year ends, think about the affirmations of this week, this month, this year. Think about moments you’ve felt alive, regardless of the outcome. Think about what reminds you that you exist, you are beautiful, you are wanted, you are valued, you are welcomed. Think about these things, and share them. Maybe the outcome isn’t what I (or you) want, but getting there and the sensations that accompany getting there can be beautiful too. I hope you liked my little story. It reminds me that I (and you) have an impact on every living, moving thing in your reality whether you realize it or not. You’re more than just a set piece in someone else’s play; you are beautiful. Have a blessed Christmas.

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Eye In The Back Of His Head

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those only of the author and may only coincidentally reflect those of Mystic Metals, its employees, or associates. All responses should be posted as comments here, or mailed directly to the author, A. Robert Basile, at ihatebasile@gmail.com. Mail sent directly to Mystic Metals will not be read.

Eye In The Back Of His Head

12.15.10

I love the little hooks that news sites use to get you to click on the entire story. While reading some news today, like I do everyday, I saw these two headlines on the webpage. “Police find alligator in car during traffic stop.” And the other was, “Barbie could be used for child porn.” I laughed at them both here in the bookstore. Running my eyes over the two headlines quickly, I mentally combined the two into “Police find Barbie, child porn, and alligator in car.” I like that headline better. It gives me a visual of a Barbie doll giving a handjob in the parking lot to a baby alligator. Except she really doesn’t have thumbs, does she.

How about something that defies explanation. There’s a college called New York University. NYU to its friends. It lives in a far away land named New York, which totally kicks old York’s ass. York is so 95 AD. In New York, this University stands tall and proud as another stupidly liberal effigy of higher education. There’s a professor there at NYU named Wafa Bilal. And though that sounds like some brunch menu item at a pretentious scene kid cafe, he is actually a professor of photography. This cat has taken his study and profession to an interesting degree recently when he had a titanium plate implanted into the back of his skull. This doesn’t seen too terribly strange since tons of people are walking around with hardware holding their skulls in place. I myself have several pins and brackets keeping my jaw from falling out of my head. But this dude didn’t get the plate to fix a broken skull. Rather, this guy got the plate put in so he could attach a camera to the back of his head. You can’t make this shit up.

A digital camera magnetically attache to the implanted plate in Wafa Bilal’s head faces behind him, and takes a photo every minute. This will continue for a year, and the photos are sent live to the Arab Museum of Modern Art in Qatar. As a refugee from the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq, Mr. Bilal is artistically interested in, “things I leave behind.” The cat that implanted the steel plate in Mr. Bilal’s head is a body mod artist, and used local anesthetic during the implantation. You’re telling me you couldn’t find a doctor to do this? I’m shocked.

This is an interesting mod story. I’m sure that the procedure wasn’t terribly fun, and I imagine that it was a ‘play it by ear’ situation (or ‘play it by head’) since I don’t think anyone else has ever had a camera put into his skull. It is also an interesting choice to use the talents of a body mod artist rather than a surgeon or other such degree holding dickhead. (P.S. I don’t like doctors.) There are a couple of things here. Let’s start with the mod artist thing.

Going to someone with the experience of manipulating the body in a more unconventional way is a choice that speaks to several ideas. One is that this guy with the camera head either asked a medical profession to do it and he said no, or he went right to the mod artist. If he went right to the mod artist, then I applaud his foresight and his confidence in the qualified individuals of unconventional manipulation of the body. This isn’t a modification like a labret or even a pocket or sub-dermal implant. This is borderline Dr. Frankenstein shit. To go to a modification artist for this task speaks to Mr. Bilal’s trust in our art form, and more so, in the abilities of the artist who performed the mod (a person whom the article I read didn’t name).

Let’s talk about the mod itself. This is a little too “Blade Runner” or Skynet for me to swallow. Or even “Jason X.” Anyone see that big ol’ piece of crap? In it, there are these tiny little robots that reconstruct the flesh of dead things. That’s how Jason gets into space. Yes, space. But blending machines with the body isn’t a terribly foreign idea, so oughtn’t I be cool with this too? Is this any stranger than a machine to replace one’s heart? Or the mechanical, James Cameron like artificial hip? Or even those sufferers of cancers in the gastrointestinal regions; often, they have their entire food intake systems replaced. But these aren’t accurate examples, are they. These are examples of machines and body working together to preserve life. The camera in the back of the dome isn’t necessary for this cat to live. It’s more akin to something like stapling the stomach to lose weight, or blasting your eyes with lasers to see more clearly. It’s unnecessary. OK, you people who were going to die from your fatness and needed the stomach bullshit or else. I get it. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about unnecessary, surgical and quasi-surgical procedures. And though I hate to use ‘quasi’ as a prefix, there is a certain disgusting excess to things like this. I suppose that all of our mods are in that same category. So is it a display of absurd excess, or is it the modification prerogative of each of us to manipulate our carbon meat bags the way we want to?

I’m not going to answer that last question and just move on. Well, maybe I’ll answer it later. Now, let’s talk about modern art. My tolerance for those who do a stupid thing and get a pass by calling it art is extremely low. I’m not saying that the camera thing is stupid, but the phrase ‘modern art’ is such a large and eclectic bumbershoot if anyone wants to deflect criticism or attract attention, he just throws the word art on it. Like performance art. There’s a funny Mr. Show sketch with a guy named Spank who is a performance artist and tries to shit on the flag in the name of performance art. The absurdity of someone acting like an idiot and then mocking his criticizers by claiming that they themselves don’t understand what the art means is preposterous and an outlandish and cleverly disguised myopia. This dude with the camera is creating an art with the concept of what’s behind him. Great. Wonderful. You survived Iraq. We’re all very proud. And at the risk of sounding callous, I really don’t care much. A photo every minute for a year will be beamed to this museum so that onlookers can marvel at its originality. I’m sure the pillow at three in the morning will be terribly interesting, as well as the ceiling for hours as the cat hunkers over his desk grading research papers. Cynical? Yeah, I am a little bit.

I’m not entirely opposed to art for the sake of art. It’s just that most of it rubs me in an inappropriate way. Yes, that way. Creepy. I reluctantly call myself an artist because of the inferences of association to people who create like this cat. I don’t begrudge his artistic creation. In a way, I applaud it. But at the end of the day, what this guy is doing, what I am doing as well, is unnecessary. The implant of a camera in the dude’s head is pretty boss from a purely mod point of view. But if this guy were just some dirty artist living on the couch of his more successful and wrapped tighter friend, would it have gotten such a positive news reception? Likely, the deadbeat artist would be just another deadbeat artist who isn’t providing to the country what is necessary, like tax dollars and employment. The crux of the story is that this guy fled from Iraq, so his assholian art project takes on many more layers because we have some sort of apologetic kinship to what’s going on in the middle east. Wow, how did this get so angry? Let me try to deescalate.

The world doesn’t need artists, and in a way, it does. Art is culture and a portion of the society’s gray matter that ought to be stimulated. I have a very love-hate relationship with art. Sometimes I knee jerk so hard that I smack the balls of whom I perceive as a useless artist so hard that he’s tasting metal for a month. (Anyone who’s been hit in the balls knows that sensation.) Then other times, I defend art and its creation just for the sake of its creation as if it were some anorexic damsel sadly and forcefully sequestered to a tower. Art is a strange mistress. I got way off topic here, but I don’t care. This shit is free, after all. Let me know what you kids think of art. Is what this guy doing art, or is it weird for the sake of weird? And if it is the latter, is that a bad thing? Stay beautiful, kids.

http://abclocal.go.com/wtvg/story?section=news/bizarre&id=7823023

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Our Own It

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those only of the author and may only coincidentally reflect those of Mystic Metals, its employees, or associates. All responses should be posted as comments here, or mailed directly to the author, A. Robert Basile, at ihatebasile@gmail.com. Mail sent directly to Mystic Metals will not be read.

Our Own It

12.1.10

I shaved my beard off today. Not totally off. The hate is still on my chin, looking all crazy and serial killer like. But the unruly, Civil War general looking madness on the sides is all gone. The beard is dead; long live the beard. Much to the chagrin of some of my friends, it was time for the beard to go. Don’t worry; it’ll be back with much more hate and rage. It just needed a vacation. A hate vacation. A hate-cation.

I had an interesting exchange with a stranger today. It wasn’t a conversation since we each only said one sentence, but it jogged my brain a little. Since jogging is something that I don’t do, and since I think running is something you only ought do if a bear or a man in a hockey mask is chasing you, we’ll meander into this tiny story and what I think about it. Meander with me. Not that close. That’s better.

Walking into the bookstore, I held the door for a young man exiting. It’s what you do, and if you don’t hold doors for people, shame on you; that’s not very neighborly of you. Fred Rogers frowns. But I held the door for this scene kid and waited a moment so that he was through the portal. I always find it funny that people are compelled to grab the door when you’re already holding it for them. Especially women. The whole idea is that the dame doesn’t have to touch the door. At any rate, the scene kid walked through the held door, turned around and said, “Your plugs are awesome.” It took me a moment to remember which plugs I had in my lobes at the time. The plugs I was wearing were simple, blue handicapped symbols. The kind you’d see painted in a crippled spot. (Thanks, Dave. www.mysticmetalsbodyjewelry.com) After realizing which plugs I was wearing, I said to him, “Hey, man; don’t fear what you are.” Then I walked through the bookstore, grabbed my coffee, and sat down and thought about it. Don’t fear what you are. What does that mean.

I don’t often let words spill out of my mouth without thoroughly thinking about what they mean and how they could be interpreted. In the door holding situation, I wasn’t afforded enough time to think of something perfectly scripted to say to the stranger. Instead, my mouth opened and I said, “Hey man; don’t fear what you are.” I’m not sure I fully understand the gravity of what I said, and I doubt that the scene kid really cared all that much. Still, it bothered me. I don’t know where it came from, and worse, I’m not sure if I can provide advice that I don’t take.

Do you fear you? That’s a dense thought for a stupid blog, isn’t it. But there are things that shackle our beauty and self-confidence. There are things that manipulate our own willingness to think what we choose about ourselves. What are those things, and are those things fear? My friends and I have a policy. Nothing is off limits until someone says it is. To watch a security camera of my friends and me, one would think that we are some of the most insensitive people on the planet. That may be partially true, but more accurately is that nothing is off limits. We will make jokes about anything, and in other social situations in reality, I sometimes forget that the nothing off limits policy isn’t something enjoyed by everyone. We aren’t sinister to one another without first being sinister to ourselves, and I think that is an important distinction. I joke about me constantly. I’m not the most confidant person, nor do I have a very high opinion of myself. With that said, I would like strangers and friends to be comfortable with what I am, what I think, and why I think that way. Comedy is a language spoken by everyone, and it is the most effective camouflage.

But this isn’t about comedy. This is about fear. Strange to tether the two. I don’t think I fear what I am so much as I fear the discomfort I may be causing a stranger. My way of quelling the assumption the stranger may or may not have is to draw attention to it, to invite it to join our conversation, whatever the it may be. Elephant in the room, and all of that bullshit. In less words, I say, ‘Hey, I know it’s here. It’s OK to talk about it.’ But what is the it?

We all have our own it. It is your handicap. It is your shame. It is your stretched lobes. It is that crook in your nose you don’t like, or that your left eye is a little more closed than the right. It is your height or weight. It is your past or your hope. It is your cane or your whatever that makes you less like everyone else and more like you. Do you fear it or do you love it?

Why does it have to be one or the other, is a better question I suppose. Whatever the it is, it is a thing that makes you unique; it makes you the you that you are and not the you that the guy over there is. It is the thing that is manifested in your own simple and unique beauty. If you choose to see it that way. Do you see it that way? I don’t always, but I do sometimes. It’s a day by day thing. Sometimes I look on my legs and think that they are a something that is truly unique to me and part of my beauty; it makes me an individual thing. Other times, I look on my legs and think that they are not the legs of that guy, or that guy, or that guy. And I hate them. What I fear about them, however, is that the stranger with whom I am interacting is looking at the legs, the cane, and brimming with a curiosity that society has labeled as impolite. Strangely, I garner more of the stranger’s impoliteness from watching his eyes lazily bounce from the cane to my eyes, to the cane to the floor, from the floor to my eyes again. I know he wants to know about this portion of my beauty, and I am not afraid to indulge him. The question then becomes, do I quell the curiosity that I assume is bubbling inside the stranger, or do I afford him the opportunity to ask for himself, in his own comfort? Whose comfort is more important, mine or his?

I suppose it doesn’t matter. We should all be unafraid to say what we’d like with words chosen very precisely to share what we are thinking but still traverse on the periphery of socially acceptable or offensive. I am much more refreshed by the strangers who say straight, ‘What’s the deal with the cane’ rather than the folks who tiptoe around their curiosity and say things like, ‘Is that your pimp cane,’ or ‘That’s a neat cane.’ What I fear, however, is the stranger who abandons the opportunity to indulge his curiosity because he himself is afraid that what he has to say is in foul territory.

Don’t fear what you are. That was the original point, right? I guess my writing ability was contained in my beard. Like Samson. Except it was his hair. Not his beard. That had, you know. His power. Living in fear of what you are is not a fun thing to do; have trust in that. Unfortunately, we are all contained in a one time use carbon meat bag that we have to maintain and learn to like. If we don’t, it’s going to be a long forever. This isn’t a ‘your flaws make you valuable’ bullshit nonsense. That’s shit that the relatives whom you only see three times a year tell you when you’re growing and going through the awkward points in your life where you discover that your penis is for more than just peeing. What I am saying is that fear of self is soul scarring. It’s an albatross around your neck. It’s is the chain around your ankles drawing you into the deep blue. Don’t fear what you are. You don’t have to like what you are, but you also don’t have to fear it. Some days are easier to remember your beauty. Some days, not so much. The goal is to have more of the former than the latter. If you fear what you are, then you are fearing your beauty because beautiful is what you are before anything else. Don’t fear your beauty. Just be it. Stay beautiful, kids.

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Snot Doctor

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those only of the author and may only coincidentally reflect those of Mystic Metals, its employees, or associates. All responses should be posted as comments here, or mailed directly to the author, A. Robert Basile, at ihatebasile@gmail.com. Mail sent directly to Mystic Metals will not be read.

Snot Doctor

12.1.10

I think I’m going to have to look for another coffee shop. Very sad. The bookstore has been very busy recently. People in college (what’s that?) come here to study for exams, and with the holidays happening soonly (I know that’s not a word), this place is getting a little mad. I shouldn’t expect to be able to sit here at a table with an outlet. That’s very presumptuous of me to assume that I am entitled to a table. I hate entitlement. But seriously, this dude reading wedding magazines and not using the outlets right next to him needs to disappear mafia style.

If you kids don’t know this about me, I’m going to tell you. What an awful way to introduce a paragraph. Anyway, I am a very rule oriented individual. I like rules, I like order. I respect punishment and consequence. There are very few instances of ‘bending the rules’ that I’ll accept. I’d be a very just juror. You killed someone? You die. It’s really that simple to me. I think it is important for people to reap the shit of their bad decisions. We need examples of stupidity in our society so that we know not to do the stupid thing like the stupid guy did that one stupid time.

So when something stupid happens, it bares recognition. Let me preface by saying I am not infallible. I do stupid shit all the time. Probably more than you realize. Like the other day I thought this girl I was talking to was actually interested in me. I’m such a fucking idiot! I don’t want to sound like an elitist here. Not on this topic, anyway. What’s the stupid thing I’m talking about? Underaged self modification.

We’ve talked about this before, I know, but whenever it becomes news, it bares notice. It bares notice because we in the community need to be recognized for our healthy and beautiful practices. Before we get into all that, let’s talk about the stupid kid.

A seventeen year old idiot pierced his own tongue. Without the knowledge of his parents, this kid’s tongue became infected and gross, and after several painful days, the kid removed his jewelry. The pain dissipated slightly, so the brilliant example of the youth of America (the people who will be responsible for you while you’re convalescing in your shit-your-pants, twilight years) put the jewelry back into his tongue. His tongue was having none of it. What did the tongue do? It swallowed the jewelry, and only after the kid realized that he couldn’t speak or eat properly, he told his mother (or moms, if you’re from the street) and she took him to someone who could fix the problem. Namely, the ER. There, they took a CT scan (meow), and saw the hiding jewelry. They then sent him to an ear, nose, and throat guy (they should just call them Snot Doctors), and from there, he underwent surgery to get the rogue jewelry out of his face. The doctor said that the kid should have died from the infection, but instead he survived because of the snot doctors. The mother made a statement warning parents of the danger, and the kid said that people ought to have a professional mod. Here’s the full jam: http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=192814.

I try not to wish death on people (that’s an outright lie), but I hope this kid experienced as much pain as anyone with a butchered tongue piercing could possibly feel. Why? Because of consequence and punishment. Remember when I was talking about that earlier? Try to keep up. If someone does a stupid thing, he should reap the negative repercussions of that stupidity. How else is someone to learn? Certainly not through education. We live in a society of invincible idiots who don’t ever see the dangers or consequences of idiotic behavior until they experience the pain themselves. And that’s not exclusive to young people. Telling this kid that piercing his own tongue is a bad idea would never have stopped him from doing it, so I’m glad that this kid was wiping his feet on Death’s doormat. Now, I don’t have children, and I never will (hopefully), so all of you better-than-me parents, save your ‘you just don’t get it’ emails because I don’t think I have to be a parent to say something like this: Know what your fucking kid is doing. Shit, man, my folks always knew exactly what I was doing. I wasn’t a sneaky kid, and I drank a little when I was young, but my folks always had the finger on the pulse. Here’s an honest question, no intended sarcasm: Is it really that hard to know what your kids are doing? I get that real life like work and relationships and keeping a house interferes with things like disciplining your kids, but I would have to assume that taking care of your kid trumps most anything else. I would hope, at least.

Then there’s the idea of self modification. Say it with me, kids: (clear throat sound) Self modifications is, what? That’s right! Self mutilation. This kind of behavior, the self modding behavior, is becoming a bigger problem than we in the community realize. We in the community of modification don’t realize that this shit is going on everyday because we practice safe and healthy beautification, and we assume everyone else is as well. It’s not true, kids. Why isn’t modification taught in high school health classes? Shit, I remember seeing the movies before prom of teens kicking back a few Pabst and then getting smeared all over the pavement. (If any of you know where I can get DVDs of those, I’d really appreciate it.) We can use this fear mongering with drinking but we can’t use the same tactics with self modification? How does that make sense? We can’t show photos of nasty infected navels and tongues? Shit, I remember meeting a guy in health class who had part of his jaw removed because of chewing tobacco. OK, so I still dip, but that’s not the point. How is self modification a something that is less important than the guy with the robot voice from smoking or the movie about the teens that flipped their ’62 Catalina convertible after prom because they had too many beers? Fear mongering is how we teach our children, isn’t it? Don’t do this or this will happen to you.

The kid with the self pierced tongue that I mentioned earlier is the example. He is the “Prom Night! Red Pavement!” movie or the rough looking, ex-heroine addict that speaks to the class. The problem is, you can’t finish school until you hear the junkie talk or see the movie. You can, however, get through life completely without ever knowing about the stupid kid who stabbed his tongue and had to be taken care of by a Snot Doctor. How do we resolve this issue? We in the community need to take the mantle of responsibility and make sure that those around us know that what we do is safe and responsible. We do that by having dialog with others. We do that by condemning underaged modification and self modification. We do that by being informed, speaking well, being polite to those that would damn us for our beautification, and by letting people know that what we do is beautification and not mutilation. I’m not calling you to action here, kids. I don’t believe in activism, and I would be quite the hypocrite if I were to be an activist for anything. I can, however, be an advocate for conversation, healthy modification, and the education of all people, young and old, about our beautiful culture. It’s like anything, any freedom that we (thankfully still) have. It’s not the gun that’s the problem; it’s the person who doesn’t follow the rule of having one. It’s not booze that’s the problem; it’s the person who doesn’t follow the rule of drinking it. It’s not the modification that’s the problem; it’s the idiot kid who is stabbing his own tongue and not following the rules. We need to to constantly remind others, and ourselves, that what we do is beautify. Not mutilate. Stay beautiful, kids.

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