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Photo by Edgar Hoil. Tattoo by Josh Lin.Despite being covered in ornamental blackwork tattoos, I love all genres of the art, which is why it has been fun exploring them all in my books when I can't have them all... Marisa Kakoulas http://www.needlesandsins.com/marisa.html

Earlier this month, tattoo news headlines included a story of how an Australian politician proposed a ridiculous anti-tattoo law that seemed like the work of another conservative crackpot. However, it turns out, that it is indeed something to pay attention... Marisa Kakoulas http://www.needlesandsins.com/marisa.html

The NYC Tattoo Convention took place this weekend and, as usual, I took some bad pics and posted them to the N+S Flickr page. Consider it more reportage than fine art photography. You can also find convention pics from other... Marisa Kakoulas http://www.needlesandsins.com/marisa.html

Yekra PlayerYekra is a revolutionary new distribution network for feature films.Tattoo Nation For years people saw tattoos as a sign of rebellion. A middle finger salute to the rest of the world. Outlaw bikers got tattoos. Sailors on leave in... Marisa Kakoulas http://www.needlesandsins.com/marisa.html

How do you write an article about an event so private, so secretive, that it’s guests were made to sign nondisclosure agreements? Easy. Just be one of the ones who didn’t sign. Over the last fourteen years, the ModCon events have been shrouded in mystery. Fight Club jokes aplenty- the first rule of Modcon is that you don’t talk about ModCon and so on.

But today, we’re going to do just that. In a continuing series of articles on my life in the modern Body Modification community I’ve decided to shed a little light on ModCon; where the idea first came from, the 1998 event that never happened and more.

Obviously there will be a lot left out for the sake of discretion (as well as keeping some of the mystery) but if you’re a geek for this sort of thing…  read on.

While it’s true that I first met Shannon Larratt in 1995 via Rec.Arts.Bodyart, I didn’t meet him in person until I picked him up at  Detroit Michigan GREYHOUND bus terminal in 1998.  We had planned to meet in Toronto but things didn’t work out. Thankfully fate was on our side, bringing Shannon to the states to purchase a kit car and to spend some time in a luxury hotel suite in Detroit talking about Body Modification all night.

(My video archive has an 8mm tape of our first meeting; getting an 8mm player to convert all of these memories to digital is on my to-do list for 2013)

Eventually, given our meeting place, the conversation turned to ‘hotel parties’- something relatively common at the time where extreme modification practitioners and clients would meet up at tattoo conventions and do underground surgery in their hotel rooms. I had been to quite a few thanks to my friendship with Jack Yount, but Shannon was thinking that it was time for something with a little more polish.

“What do you think about a Modification convention?”

He was sipping a Pepsi and eating Cadbury mini eggs when ModCon came into being. From there on out, we riffed. “What if” and “Wouldn’t it be cool”. I was to begin working on it as soon as I returned to Florida. Things moved pretty quickly after that. Shannon drew the now iconic ModCon logo. I arranged a VFW Hall (where underground S/M parties were often held) as our event location and a list of practitioners being created by Shannon and I.

That’s when we hit a snag. I’ve mentioned that Shannon and I often butted heads; ModCon98 was one of those times. While we wanted to create a safe space for people interested in heavy/advanced/extreme surgical procedures, Shannon and I had a difference of opinion on how heavy we were willing to go. He had talked to a few folks interested in getting or doing castrations, and I felt that for legal liability we shouldn’t go quite that far on site. We tried for compromise but eventually it was a stalemate with neither of us budging. The event was going to be funded by Shannon/BME, but it was going to be organized and facilitated by me/SPC. If anything were to happen to one of our guests the liability (not to mention moral responsibility) would fall on me, and since I didn’t know any of the clients/cutters personally I drew a line.

With that, ModCon98 was over before it started. Plans changed from Florida to Toronto, from 1998 to 1999 to accomodate for castrations- a procedure for the sake of 100% full disclosure never happened at any of the five events.

When the 1999 event happend, the Body Modification world was much different than it is now. The average age of attendees was probably mid 30s, with most trending older. Sexuality played a much bigger role in the lives of attendees than aesthetics, with some of the cutters (the term we gave our practitioners) being longterm players in both the gay and straight BDSM communities. While later events would get criticized by some guests as ‘implant factories’, the first one was more about sexual modification; saline infusions, urethral dilations, subincisions.

The event was scheduled for one day, but by the end of the first evening with so many folks in town Shannon gave me the go-ahead to tell people that if they wanted to come back the next day… we’d be there. Shannon had lofty goals of contracting Joel-Peter Witkin to document the event for free (and donate the prints back to him… I’m not sure he realized how much an original Witkin print went for) but luckily went instead with a young Toronto based photographer (and BME member) named Philip Barbosa. Phil became an integral part of the ModCon (and BME. And Scarwars) family, documenting the largest assembled group of heavily modified people in history. The photos from the first three events that Phil took are as iconic as the works of Gatewood, who himself turned the world on to ‘Modern Primitives’ through his friendship with Fakir Musafar and Jim Ward. Phil’s work is often overlooked in the history of Body Modification- people think that the photos just magically appeared in the books or perhaps that Shannon took them…. but Phil was there, camera in hand as well as helping organize the events with Shannon and I for all five. Without him… ModCon as you know it wouldn’t have existed.

Prior to flying up, Shannon hadn’t told me much about the location that we were going to hold the event. Had the 1998 event happened we had a nice modern VFW Hall with all of the amenities we’d need… but for MC1, the space was sketchy to say the least; a building that was being refurbished and was unoccupied save for the exposed walls and drywall dust. One thing that’s been a constant (Scarwars 3 anyone? Suscon?) in underground bodymod events is a lack of a good space and this one… good lord. But we made do, making history with the world first organized gathering of Advanced Body Modification fans.

It was like coming home. Despite the years that’ve passed I still have incredibly vivid memories of that first event; the comfort I felt being surrounded by people who understood me. There was Buddy (amputee) and ToeCutter (amputee) talking about the joy of stump sex while Spidergod5 (later The Lizardman) sat a few feet away talking about tattoos. There was the sweet old methodist Minister who looked like someone’s Grandpa but who had castrated men in numbers cresting triple digits talking to the youngish girl with the bald head and thick glasses.

The getting to know you phase led into people going into the ‘procedure’ rooms where the surgery began. The majority of the modifications done at the first event were genital mods, which was the intended goal of the event. Minimum entry to get in was ‘a split something’ or extensive piercings. Over the course of the subsequent four events the criteria changed; again something I disagreed with. But for the first event we found ourselves documenting extreme circumcisions, subincisions and transscrotals.

Strangely though, the most memorable incident at MC1 was Britney Spears and the fire trucks.

Turns out that our event space was across the street from the hotel hosting Britney on her first big Canadian tour. As we walked down our quiet alley getting ready for day one of ModCon, we noticed a few dozen news van parked in the lot across from us. There was word of an angry photographer, shunned by Shannon, who promised to be cruising Toronto looking for us- our first thought when we saw the media was that he had spilled the beans and here were the reporters who would be documenting our arrest. Thankfully they were they for Brit and not us, and as long as we kept a low profile, we’d be fine.

So when someone suggested that Erik (Spidergod5/Amago/The Lizardman) do a FIRE PLAY DEMO indoors… I’m really not sure why Shannon and I didn’t say no. Even when the fire alarm was tripped we still didn’t think it was that terrible an idea.. that is until we realized that some of our practitioners were in the middle of surgery; that we had two people attached to saline bags on IV stands. That we couldn’t shut the alarm off and that at some point… the fire department would arrive, forcing a room full of people trying to stay off the radar (and some not fully clothed) into the streets… across the lot from the international media. Not ones to learn from our mistakes, we encouraged Erik to do more fireplay outside of the venue while we tried desperately to get the fire alarm to turn off!

These are the kinds of things that happened at the ModCon events. I know I’ve managed to write over 1500 words (and counting) about a Body Modification event and not really touch on many of the procedures, but ultimately once the modifications healed (or were abandoned) the sense of community remained. We finally came out of the closet. Instead of covert meetings in hotel rooms we were all gathered together as a family. Eunuchs and amputees, genital modifications and forked tongues…. we had a home. We had something that was exclusively ours; an event you couldn’t even buy your way into.

While all of the ModCon events were amazing in their own way, that first one will always hold a special place in my heart. Event rules and traditions started here; the ’round table’ where we went around the room introducing ourselves, talking about our modifications and where we came from, setting up portraits to document the people who wear these procedures… everything that we eventually took for granted started right there in that room.

In future articles I’ll talk more about the other four events if there’s an interest- maybe even talk to Phil and Monte and the other diehards who attended all five. While my interests these days run a lot less extreme I’ll still always be proud of the influence ModCon had on the attendees as well as the people who only knew about us from the books (which I was staunchly against.. but again.. another article!) or digital media.

Shawn has spent the majority of his ife in the modification world.
In addition to writing poorly for Modblog, he also edits the often neglected Scarwars site, the more frequently updated Occult Vibrations tattoo blog as well as his personal diary at Sacred Debris. He lives in Philadelphia with his faithful Italian Greyhound Bailey, his roommate Megh and a steadily growing Pushead collection.

This fantastic piece was submitted (and inked) by Zoran of Tattoo Hardcore in Serbia.

Last night, I was reminded just how much tattoos hurt. It hurt in a way that I wanted to travel back in time and slap my 20-year-old self who would proclaim, "Oh, it's just like scratching a sunburn" because, back... Marisa Kakoulas http://www.needlesandsins.com/marisa.html

This incredibly creepy tin woodsman was sent in by kornik who credits Marcin Liana of Alien in Dąbrowa Górnicza, Poland as the artist.

As I mentioned yesterday, there are some wonderful events this week leading up to the NYC Tattoo Convention, which takes place this Friday through Sunday at the Roseland Ballroom.Another art show we'll be attending tomorrow -- a show I've been... Marisa Kakoulas http://www.needlesandsins.com/marisa.html

With the NYC Tattoo Convention in town this upcoming weekend, there are many events leading up to it, particularly, some exciting art shows.  One show I'm looking forward to attending is Blunted Paranoia, which features the collaborative works of Carlos... Marisa Kakoulas http://www.needlesandsins.com/marisa.html

The "birthplace of modern American tattooing" is often traced to The Bowery, and even more specifically, Chatham Square.  It was home to Samuel O'Reilly and Charlie Wagner, both of whom patented the first modern tattoo machines. Mildred Hull tattooed... Marisa Kakoulas http://www.needlesandsins.com/marisa.html

by Iestyn Flye, ScarCon London

A post from me that’s not about history?
I know, I know. But I’m looking at things in the long view- eventually ScarCon will join my own ScarWars event as a nodal point in the history of Scarification, so…. this post is just coming a bit early!

Ron Garza is one of my oldest friends, and along with Steve Haworth is someone I consider to be directly responsible for the way that Western scarification has evolved. He’s influenced the best in the world and in 2006 at Scarwars LA  I was honored to present him with the ‘Keith Alexander Award for the Advancement of the Art and Culture of Scarification’. To date he’s the only artist who’s been given this award. He recently hosted ScarCon; an international gathering of Scarification artists hosted in London England and has graciously contributed photos exclusively to ModBlog and Scarwars (so check there for pictures not included in this update!)

The artists for the inaugural London ScarCon were: Christiane Lofblad, Ryan Ouellette, Bruno BMA, Iestyn Flye,  Ron Garza and Brenno Alberti .

I’m going to be rolling more photos out soon, here and over at Scarwars, so check back!

As always… discuss!

Shawn has spent the majority of his ife in the modification world.
In addition to writing poorly for Modblog, he also edits the often neglected Scarwars site, the more frequently updated Occult Vibrations tattoo blog as well as his personal diary at Sacred Debris. He lives in Philadelphia with his faithful Italian Greyhound Bailey, his roommate Megh and a steadily growing Pushead collection.

The Union presents Dan Dringenberg from Fellowship Supply Co. on Vimeo.Watch this video and understand why Dan Dringenberg is a legend.... Marisa Kakoulas http://www.needlesandsins.com/marisa.html

Jack and Kristin of Nomad

The first article I ever submitted to BME was a memorial piece on my friend and mentor Jack Yount.
That was two years shy of twenty years ago. I had always planned on writing more about Jack per Shannon’s request, but as time went by and other projects took my attention I didn’t get around to it. Which is strange considering the massive impact the friendship with Jack had on my life. So. I’m sorry it’s taken a few decades to get back to where I started, but sometimes it’s nice to take the long way ’round.

Rasmus photographed by Stanley Kubrick

Jack was born John Andrew Yount on Sep 15, 1926. When he was nine years old, his parents took him to the circus where he saw the infamous strongman Rasmus Nielsen. Rasmus was a circus sideshow performer; a three-in-one blacksmith, tattooed man and strongman. Had that been all, he may have still influenced young Jack- but thankfully Rasmus had set himself apart from other tattooed men with the addition of tongue, septum and nipple piercings which he hung weights off of to the shock, horror and delight of 1930s circus goers. A pre-Lifto Lifto!

Seeing Rasmus swing weights from his pierced nipples never left Jack and in the 1950s while attending college Jack read about a student at a rival school who had spent a summer in Europe studying and ended up travelling around with gypsies. When he was finished with his semester abroad they threw him a party and pierced his ear which made a splash in the local papers. A friend of Jack’s who had served in the Navy decided that they “we’re not going to let them get away with all this, are we?” and Jack and twelve or so of his fellow students decided to pierce their left ears.

Six months later Jack, remembering Rasmus, figured that if piercing his ear didn’t hurt.. maybe his nipples wouldn’t either and with that in mind used a darning needle to pierce his nipples. Earrings were inserted and with that, Jack became a piercer. Word discretely got out and Jack began piercing friends, and then friends of friends. By the time I met him  he was already a Master Piercer with thirty years of experience, working under the name of Mr. Jay.

I was a teenager then; fifteen years old with a few tattoos that my mom had lied about my age for me to get. Piercing was something I had experimented with when I was much younger but at the time there was no real outlet for. There weren’t openly advertised piercing shops unless you lived in San Francisco, LA or some other big city and here I was smack in the center of Florida, not old enough for a driver’s license but still wanting pierced. While at Bud Pierson’s ANCIENT ART tattoo in Orlando I inquired with Bud about piercing. Not spooked by my age he said that yes, he did occasionally do it, but didn’t like to, and why don’t I just talk to Jack Yount about it? He lived closer to me than Ancient Art, and I think you two would get along.

A less modified Jack on the beach

Bud scheduled my tattoo appointment to coincide with Jack’s, and soon I was to meet the man who influenced my life in ways that I still can’t fully articulate. I didn’t really know what to expect, but when I walked into the room to see Bud tattooing the very upper inner thigh of a cotton haired 63 year old… that wasn’t it. The first thing I noticed was that Jack looked like he was someone’s grandfather. The second were the 00g rings he was wearing in his stretched and tattooed nipples (which were easily 1″ by then). The third was that he was wearing a lycra thong that contained a penis bigger than a coke bottle.

Obviously I knew right then and there that Bud was right. We would get along just fine. I introduced myself, telling him that Bud had recommended him for piercing, and I know it’s weird that I’m only fifteen but my parents are right outside and if he were to talk to them they’d give consent for sure…

Jack waited patiently for my breathless run on sentence to finish up, smiled and said “Why don’t you all come out to my place in Zephyrhills. We’ll make a day out of it.” And we did. That first visit, my parents came with me. I can’t really express the surreality of my folks- my Dad a farmer who’s nickname was the Gator and my Mom a tiny spunky Southern Baptist- in a house filled wall to wall with homoerotic art and giant framed portraits of naked pierced and tattooed men. Needless to say- they fell in love with Jack too.

My first piercing from him was my nipple. This was a different time and place than the modern standard of Body Piercing; Jack worked out of his home. He’d offer you sweet tea, maybe an eskimo pie… as well as injectable anesthetics. “Piercing is brutal. It’s better to feel a small prick than a big one, right?” Jack did almost all of his piercings with 2% xylocaine injections beforehand. He also started most piercings at a minimum of 10g and larger if the customer asked.

While my parents sat by the pool, Jack showed my brother and I his ‘modification album’. By this point I had already tracked down every available PFIQ, Body Art and Piercing World Magazine I could get my hands on (apologies to you all, but I totally lied about my age. Sorry Jim, Pauline, Ted) but this… this was the holy grail.

Somewhere along the road, Jack had developed an interest in ‘Modifications’. I had never really heard the word in that context before; this was when the most extreme thing anyone had ever seen was Carl Carroll’s bisected penis in Modern Primitives, and here’s a whole album of things that made that look like a starter set.

“This- that’s my friend Rudy. He has 1000cc of silicone in his bag. The Doctor did this last visit. Oh. That’s my friend Bill. We split his cockhead a few years ago”. Every consecutive photograph blowing my mind with Jack smiling, telling us personal anecdotes about the men in the album. It was surreal in how quaint it was. It never felt weird or creepy which considering the circumstances could have easily been the case.

By the time we left Jack’s place we had made a new friend and followup appointments for  PA piercings. Thankfully Jack didn’t make me bring my parents for that one! As our friendship grew he started introducing my brother and I to a collection of modification marvels; men with penises and scrotums so full of silicone they had to have custom pants tailored; men with perfectly surgically formed vaginas who weren’t transgendered; eunuchs, nullos, amputees… every visit to Jack’s house was special.

Jack himself had an impressive selection of surgical body modifications:
He had been castrated; he had his suspensatory ligament cut. He had large amounts of silicone injected into his penis (which was also subincised with a surgically split/reshaped glans) and scrotum (which contained several silicone coated stainless steel balls) and chest which was also augmented with estrogen therapy to help grow breasts. His left index finger tip had been amputated and he was tattooed from neck to toe. Before amputating his scrotum he was having issues with conventional toilets, so he had his urethra rerouted between his scrotum and anus and towards the end of his life he ever started stretching his ear lobes.

Through Jack I met his apprentice Mike Natali (who also went on to be a big influence in my life) as well as Brian Skellie who’s still a friend to this day. I learned about art and culture, music and gardening. Jack became family, a surrogate grandfather who not only taught me how to split a penis but how to be an adult. He quietly influenced a generation of modification fans via his influence on me and my connection with Shannon/BmeExtreme. He passed away in Hospital in Copenhagen Denmark on Jul 15, 1995 at the age of 68.

Jack and Brian Skellie

I’m not sure what he’d make of modification today with it being more aesthetic than sexual and more public than private, but I’d give anything to be able to talk to him one more time, about my life and my adventures on the road he helped me find.

Thank you Jack, for everything.

As always, if anyone has any followup questions they’d like to ask about Jack- throw them in the comments section. I really do work for tips, and my tips are you folks discussing modification, not just reading and not interacting, so if you’d like these recollections to continue… you now what to do!

Oh! And for those of you who would like to hear Jack speak- several years ago I shared some great video with Bme/News featuring Jack. Check them out!

On Piercings and Subincisions
On Silicone Injections.

Shawn has spent the majority of his ife in the modification world.
In addition to writing poorly for Modblog, he also edits the often neglected Scarwars site, the more frequently updated Occult Vibrations tattoo blog as well as his personal diary at Sacred Debris. He lives in Philadelphia with his faithful Italian Greyhound Bailey, his roommate Megh and a steadily growing Pushead collection. 

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We are shooting a music video on the 9th May.
We are looking for black guys with script tattoos.
Also black guys with body modification and or scarification.
The talent we film will also be paid for his time.

Have we ever considered designating May as ‘International Scarification Month”?
Going back to 2005, May was the month that I hosted the first organized gathering of Scarification professionals in the world under the banner of ‘Scarwars‘ and eight years later my old friend Ron Garza is hosting ScarCon this weekend in London. I’m sure the two things are just a coincidence, but it’s worth looking into. I mean, right now the only thing we really have to compete with is National Masturbation Month.

One of the artists who attended all three Scarwars events was NYC’s multi-talented Brian Decker of Pure Body Arts, who did this amazing cut/cautery hybrid scarification.

From Brian:

Since thighs don’t typically scar that well, I made sure to keep the main parts bold, and am hoping the burning will do more damage to the tissue than superficial removal. We’ll see…..

It’s super important to go into a cutting/branding piece knowing that the results can be unpredictable, with technique, healing method, genetics and just plain luck factored in. Some folks may want the reassurance of knowing exactly how a modification will heal, but as Mr. Decker says: “We’ll see.”

Shawn has spent the majority of his ife in the modification world.
In addition to writing poorly for Modblog, he also edits the often neglected Scarwars site, the more frequently updated Occult Vibrations tattoo blog as well as his personal diary at Sacred Debris. He lives in Philadelphia with his faithful Italian Greyhound Bailey, his roommate Megh and a steadily growing Pushead collection.