Mike Beer and his offensive tattoos have received their fair share of attention on ModBlog, and the reaction has been … mixed, to say the least. Since the dawn of time, humans have wondered what goes through the mind of a person who devotes his skin to tattoos of jokes about child rape, transsexuals and gay Nazis. Today, we get a little closer to answering these questions. I will mention, however, that almost all of these tattoos have been featured on ModBlog previously, but the interview is brand new.

To read The Man With the World’s Most Tasteless Tattoos, click here.

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Mike Beer and his offensive tattoos have received their fair share of attention on ModBlog, and the reaction has been … mixed, to say the least. Since the dawn of time, humans have wondered what goes through the mind of a person who devotes his skin to tattoos of jokes about child rape, transsexuals and gay Nazis. Today, we get a little closer to answering these questions.

Note: Most of the tattoos featured in this interview have been featured previously on ModBlog.

BME: First of all, tell us about yourself.

Mike Beer: Well, I lived in Northern Virginia my whole life, but recently moved to Atlantic City, New Jersey, to play in my band, Call The Paramedics, full time, as well as to be surrounded by assholes like myself. I have been getting tattooed since I was about 17 and am now about to turn 23. My first tattoo was a small hand-poked pentagram on my ankle, which I have had fixed so that it no longer looks like garbage, but I’ve had mad love for Satan since the beginning.

Humor is very important to me. However, since I would say I am rather desensitized to almost everything, the things that are hilarious to me are not very amusing to others, which is what brings us to this interview.

BME: Indeed it does. Have you always been an attention whore?

MB: Yes, I’ve been an attention whore for pretty much as long as I can remember — mainly because, when I was real little, my parents would beat me, lock me in the cellar, and occasionally make me put put on sex shows with our German Shepherd for them and all their friends while they would drink moonshine and throw dixie cups of scalding hot water on me. (Throughout my childhood, our dog Roxy was my best friend.)

I guess nowadays I’m just finding my outlet for all the pain and humiliation I endured as a kid … or maybe I just want to have an excuse to take off my clothes in front of strangers and everything I just said was a lie. Who really knows?

BME: Alright, enough of your yarns. How would you describe your sense of humor? What’s funny to you?

MB: I’d have to say my sense of humor is a cross between “modern” and extremely ignorant. I’ll make a joke out of anything: cripples, old people, blacks, Jews, Mexicans, whites … and any other things I may have forgotten. Your dog dies? Funny. You have a death in the family? Funny. A girl and her boyfriend have been trying for a long time to have a child, they finally get pregnant and eight months into the pregnancy she has a miscarriage? Hilarious. But don’t worry folks, whatever I dish out I can take in return.

BME: So it’s less to do with being funny and more to do with being an awful human being. Got it. Anyway, your declaration of love for Satan aside, what was the first “offensive” tattoo you got? Tell us about it.

MB: First “offensive” tattoo I got was the man with a pussy eating himself on my leg, although nobody ever really found it to be offensive. Shortly after getting that, I got the chick with a cock shitting on herself. Both tattoos were done by Eric Doyle at Jinx Proof Tattoo in Washington, D.C. Many people were not happy with chick with the cock, so I’d consider those my first offensive tattoos. I originally just wanted the guy eating himself and at the last minute decided he should have a pussy. The idea for the chick with the cock was merely an attempt at some kind of symmetry on my legs. And again, the poop was added last minute.

BME: Hey, when you’re right, you’re right — the poop certainly adds a certain je ne sais quoi to the piece. What came next?

MB: If I’m not mistaken, the white power unicorn tattoo came next. It was all downhill from there.

BME: The white power unicorn is offensive to pretty much every imaginable group. What was the thought process behind that one? Did you feel like you were crossing a certain threshold once you got a Nazi swastika tattooed on you, the ridiculous context and the fact that it was for the sake of a joke notwithstanding?

MB: The Nazi unicorn was also pretty spontaneous. My buddy Jason wanted to tattoo this piece of unicorn flash and couldn’t find anyone who wanted it, and I was obviously game under certain conditions — that is, I told him it had to be the most hateful unicorn ever. The best reaction I’ve ever gotten was, “How could something so beautiful be so ugly?”

For the record, I am not a Nazi — I just like to make fun of everything. People need to lighten up, and if they don’t like what I’m about? That’s fine with me, join the rest of the crowd. I didn’t really feel like I crossed over some kind of line, but that is pretty much when I decided that damn near every tattoo I got from then on needed to come close or outdo the last one, and I’ve been making good progress, with plans for much more.

BME: Have you gotten any memorably bad reactions to your work?

MB: Nothing that really stands out. I’ve noticed my mom on several occasions looking at the trannies on my legs; she knows that they are there but never really says anything. I’d imagine she is just bottling it up deep down inside and never letting it out. I’ve had trannies actually come up to me after they saw my legs, and they thought it was hilarious. Surprisingly enough I’ve gotten the most negative response on here, which is funny because some of the most horrible things I’ve seen were on BME. It’s kind of ironic.

BME: While I’ve got you here, why don’t you tell me a bit about your band.

MB: Well, I play drums in Call The Paramedics. We’re Atlantic City–based scumbag death rock. I guess our music could be described as Cannibal Corpse raping AC/DC while El Duce narrates. We attack the crowd, our singer cuts his face open, I blow fire, and this is all accompanied with massive amounts of cocaine. I’ve been told the music is pretty good too. You could say we’re for fans of GG Allin, rape, dirty needles, golden showers, cars parked in front of handicapped ramps, elderly shut-ins, and people broke down on the side of the road due to massive car pile ups from wandering stray dogs on the highway.

BME: Well, that sounds … great. Does anything offend you? Do you think it’s possible to go too far? Humor me here.

MB: Eh, not really. There are plenty of things that I think are wrong, but it doesn’t mean I won’t make a joke out of it. For example, I love animals, but I just got a dog in a kennel being put down tattooed on my leg. I would probably never rape a little kid, but I have “It’s rape time” with candy and little kids’ body parts tattooed on me, and so on. I live in an area and am friends with some of the most rotten people on the planet; around here it’s an ongoing battle of who can really lower the bar. I just want to fit in, you know?

BME: Nice of you to mention that you’d “probably” never rape a little kid. Classy. So where do you go from here?

MB: Aside from hell?  There is nowhere to go but down. Oh, for all the ladies on here, holla at me. I’m a great “bring-home-to-the-parents” kind of guy.

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And finally, to celebrate Toronto’s record-breaking heat today, here’s a shot of the lovely clockorange doing her best impression of a palm tree after doing some light dreadlock maintenance.

Kind of a big week around these parts. In case you missed it:

- We were cold killin’ unicorns.

- Pretty women wore nightmarish animal heads.

- We saw the Fnords. (Or did we?)

- BME Shop now features 25 percent more penis owls.

- The BME Podcast arrived, featuring very special guest Allen Falkner!

- A couple of dudes showed off their pussies, what’s the big deal?

And that is that, friends. We’ll be here over the weekend and should have a new article for you at some point, and if all goes well, another podcast early next week. Until then, enjoy Watchmen, give Rampage your love, be safe and, as always, thank you for your continued support of BME.

[Whoa, Momma!] So this slutty sex doll, whatshername, Barbie, took a break from getting abortions and giving herself roofies to get some tattoos, just in time for her 50th birthday! This week’s overblown and self-important tattoo-related outrage comes from various people who are VERY OFFENDED that international drug cartel Mattel has released “Totally Stylin’ Tattoo Barbie,” a children’s toy that comes with 40 different temporary tattoos that will keep this bitch from ever getting a job, as well as a “tattoo gun” for the kids to give themselves their own temporary tattoos, which is completely inappropriate, apparently.

Yes, that’s right, a tattoo gun so instead of applying it with a wet wash cloth, 8 year-olds can simulate that milestone in every minor’s life experience of actual needles pumping permanent dye into their growing bodies.

Again, this has nothing to do with tattoos for consenting adults, but everything to do with age-appropriate toys. And in my humble opinion, the age 5 designated on the box is off by about 20 years and a hepatitis C shot.

This piece was squeezed from the mindgrapes of the Suburban Diva herself, Tracey Henry, who is positively aghast that CHILDREN will be using a FAKE TATTOO GUN, which is really just a stamp, essentially, but righteous indignation over stamps doesn’t get you featured on CNN, I guess.

There will be some who disagree, pointing out that Barbie is just keeping up with what’s in style right now and that this is merely a toy that kids can play make-believe like other adult activities.

I counter that bellbottoms and leg-warmers didn’t need to be removed with laser treatments and Barbie’s Dream Wedding gown didn’t come with bottles of Tequila for a pretend open-bar reception.

In conclusion, Tracey Henry was probably paid to write this.

[The Live Feed] Because there aren’t quite enough tattoo-related television shows, it was just announced that A&E will be airing Tattoo Highway, a reality program in which Thomas Pendleton, formerly of A&E’s Inked, will continue to tattoo people on camera, but there’s an important twist:

In “Tattoo Highway,” Pendelton and his wife and business partner, Monica (who also appeared on “Inked”), have transformed a 1970s tour bus into a mobile tattoo parlor. They will travel to cities including Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Phoenix and Salt Lake City, inking customers.

Boom. Nailed it. The bus angle worked wonders for Bret Michaels and his skank-banging, so it should really come as no surprise that others are picking up on this as the next big thing. I see big, big things for the future of reality television—big, bus-related things. The network is clearly thrilled about the prospect:

Executive producer Bob Horowitz said the traveling element will differentiate the show from previous tattoo docusoaps.

“All the other series have been based in tattoo parlors,” he said. “Here the premise is this is the first tattoo parlor on wheels, and he goes where the stories are. Imagine all the things that can happen when you take something like this on the road and all the things that can happen.”

Never mind that Horowitz is shamelessly hyping what is by far the worst part of these tattoos shows—namely, that great tattoos must have some big and important story behind them—but man, how exciting does he think a husband and wife going on a road trip is going to be, vocation notwithstanding? Are they going to be chased by land pirates? Did Dennis Hopper plant a bomb on the bottom of the bus that’ll explode if the speed falls below 50 mph?

“From the creation of the art to the environment that I tattooed in, it has always been about my customers’ experience,” Pendelton said. “In a street shop, it was easy to forget just how personal that experience should be. Rolling up and parking the shop right in the middle of someone’s life, well, there is nothing more personal than that.”

AND THEN THE BUS EXPLODES! No? OK, fine, whatever.

[Needles and Sins] Speaking of new blog ventures, fiery redhead and friend of BME, Marisa Kakoulas DiMattia, has escaped the evil (not so evil?) clutches of Needled and has struck out on her own with Needles and Sins, which promises the same lurid, untamed filth we’ve come to expect from her. Today, she offers a thorough review of the iPhone’s new “Tattoo Shop” application, which lets users ruin their perfectly good photos with the demon’s ink. Some of her findings included:

- [T]he biggest problem: the choice of artwork or lack thereof — and I use “artwork” almost facetiously. SonicBoom partnered with flash peddlers TattooJohnny.com but instead of loading up on, say, the cool Bob Tyrrell and Tim Creed commercial designs, the app finds itself heavy on the old Cherry Creek-styled jammies — aka tribal armbands abound and pin-ups with big 80s hair.

[...]

- [T]he leafy panties on the female belly skin is just disturbing. It looks like lettuce is growing from her vulva to her waist. It did make me hungry for a nice Greek salad though. [Ed. note: Gotta say ... that description had the opposite effect on me. Thanks, though.]

[...]

- The coolest thing about the app: using your own photos or being able to take one on the spot. I shot my non-tattooed sis to let her see what she’s look like with a Tyson tribal on her face. As the kids say, “Hawt!”

Listen lady, I know you think you’re all hip now that you’re back in New York, but the kids aren’t saying “Hawt!” The kids are riding buses, everywhere, into each others’ lives, and raping each other, with Barbies. Nice blog, though.

In a mini-edition of the vaunted BME roundtable, our esteemed panel (with newcomer Tracy Baer!) discusses the benefits and pitfalls of dealing with the media as a body modification practitioner.

We should have another article coming up this week, and, if all goes well, a brand new feature that we’re pretty excited about. Stay tuned!

To read BME’s Big Question #6: Fameballin’, click here.

[Ed. note: Comments on this post have been disabled. Have at it in the forum attached to the article. Thanks.]

Why would you ever get a penis tattoo? This. This is why you would get a penis tattoo. “I blow myself every day,” says latexninja, putting to good use her arm-wang by Nickku at Galaxy Tattoo in Singapore and her split tongue by Roland at Visavajara in Freiburg, Germany.

And like the sands of time, friends … another week has come and gone. What might you have missed this time?

- We started things off with Anna, because why not?

- A brief digression into the virtues of hardcore metal.

- Pretty sure we ran a fever.

- And this is what an infected and rejecting implant looks like.

- Gold tusks? Gold tusks.

- Jose Lopez is just ridiculous.

- Joy Rumore put an empowering piece on a cancer survivor.

So that’s that. We’ll be around on Saturday and Sunday, and I should even be able to post a new article at some point. Fun, right? Fun, indeed. Stay safe, ModBloggers, enjoy the weekend and, as always, thank you for your continued support of BME.

It’s been a big week, ModBlog: Sit down and have you some BME cake. I’m sure the lady in the plaid, whose birthday it is, and who got a silicone triangle implant in her chest at Happy Family Body Art in Torino, Italy, won’t mind at all.

And that’s the week, folks. So what were the barnburners this time around?

- A hobo got dragged around by a puffy little dog.

- Miss Duveaux got the diamond she’s always wanted.

- Coming soon to a diabetic near you: Glucose-monitoring tattoo ink!

- A really wonderful interview with Diego in Distortion (Diego Olavarría), a former BME Scholarship winner, and a tremendously bright fellow all around.

- This is just one hell of a nice sleeve.

- Have we mentioned that the Philadelphia Tattoo Arts convention is coming up soon? As in, next weekend? And that you should all go? Have we mentioned that yet?

- La Negra wins.

- Fuck you, penguin! (No, really: Fuck you, penguin.)

And there we have it, ladies and gents. Check back in over the weekend for some more goodies, and then we’ll be back at full-speed, as usual, on Monday morning. Be safe, ModBlog, don’t forget to cheer for Mickey Rourke on Sunday, and, as always, thank you for your continued support of BME.

[CNBC] Scandal rocked the worlds of sports, print media and soft-core pornography this week when it was revealed that Sports Illustrated digitally removed IndyCar racer Danica Patrick’s lower-back tattoo from her photos in this year’s Swimsuit Issue. (The chilling photographic evidence is above.) When made aware of this startling injustice, Patrick’s camp issued the following response:

“Danica is aware of the edits and is comfortable with the final photos.”

What sort of high-level coercion are these Sports Illustrated fat-cats using to elicit this sort of timid, fearful response? The publication outright refused to comment on the subject, for at least a day, until CNBC’s Darren Rovell was able to squeeze the following explanation from an SI spokesperson:

“The Swimsuit Issue emphasizes natural beauty [...] The freckles are left on and, in this case, the tattoos came off.”

Oh. Well, that makes sense. When you look at it that way, actually, this is a fairly historic move for the Swimsuit Issue. Indeed, the magazine’s photo editors also went ahead and Photoshopped all of the models’ breasts back to their original sizes, used only natural light, and limited their airbrushing to erasing offensive tattoos like Patrick’s. The issue has thus far sold seven copies.

[Citizens Voice] So you may have heard about the case of this cretin, this fool, Holly Crawford of Sweet Valley, Pennsylvania, who was arrested for selling what she called “Gothic Kittens.” These are just like regular kittens, except this dildo had pierced their ears, the napes of their necks, and cut off their tails and pierced the remaining nubs, and then attempted to make a business of selling these to … who the hell would buy these? Anyway, the case is going to court now, Crawford is facing criminal charges and, as such, more details are emerging:

“This was tying a rubber band around a cat’s tail so tight that it falls off,” said Deputy District Attorney David Pedri. “She caused the cats pain. She did this to sell them to make money.”

Crawford’s defense attorney, Demetrius Fannick, argued state law “goes on and on” about specific acts of animal cruelty, but nothing about piercing cats and docking their tails.

Prosecutors said a part of the cruelty included Crawford tying rubber bands around the tails of the cats so they would fall off. She’d then pierce the nub.

“There’s nothing in the statute that expressly says you can’t pierce your cat’s ears or necks, or even crop their tails,” Fannick said. “It’s a case that you will be for or against as an animal owner. Let the legislature say you can’t pierce or tattoo your animal, and it will be different.”

Magisterial District Judge Paul Hadzick said the case was a gray area in the law and predicted it might one day cause for a clarification in the law. At the very least, he said it’s a case that should be decided by a jury or a higher judge.

“I don’t think that the decision is for me to be made here,” Hadzick said.

While it’s probably true that this is fundamentally not all that different from pet owners who clip their pets’ ears and tails, this just seems particularly idiotic to me for some reason — probably the winning combination of animal abuse with the hoary old “piercings are goth!” chestnut.

[Scripps News] Good news, tattoo artists, the recession is over! For you, at least! The anecdotal evidence is in and has decisively shown that people would rather get tattooed than eat or give their children medicine.

“My question is ‘What recession’?” said Kate Hellenbrand, a tattoo artist for the past 38 years. “Every day, new clients are being born. The media promotes the industry. There are ads everywhere and sports heroes, rock n’ roll stars and models all have tattoos.”

While this may be true, it may also be a touch skewed coming from one of the most famous tattoo artists in the world, but nonetheless. The article goes on:

Sergio Reynoso of Salt Lake Tattootland was one of the few vendors who said the recession has hurt his business. Since about 80 percent of clients are Latinos, many experiencing trouble finding a job in a down construction industry, he has noticed a drop in business. He has, however, been doing a good business lately repairing or sprucing up bad tattoos done on the street by less qualified artists.

I’m not so P.C. that I’m going to act terribly offended by the implication all Latinos seem to be in the construction industry, but holy crap is this poorly written. Anyway, let’s bring it on home:

Even in Seattle — where thousands have been laid off in recent months — tattoo art is a shelter in the storm. Seattle tattoo artist April Cornell keeps quite busy.

“If you weren’t watching the news, you would not know there was a recession,” she said.

Artist Vinnie Almanza of Anchorage, Alaska, said he was booked all weekend in Salt Lake and is booked through June at his home shop. “One thing people definitely don’t have a problem spending on is their ink,” he said. “It’s like an addiction.”

There you have it: A statistically meaningless sample size that likens the impulse to get tattoo work to your common booze and drug addictions, as proof that tattooing is recession-proof. I can’t wait to read several thousand more of these articles over the next 10 months, at which point I will have to sell my computer, to eat, or more likely, to get tattooed. Best recession ever!

In 2004, Darrin Fowler started the BME Scholarship project, a community-funded program established to award one student from the BME community every year with a donor-based scholarship, based on the strength of an essay of the scholarship administrator’s and judges’ choosing. The winner of the 2005/06 scholarship was Diego Olavarría, whose winning essay can be read here.

We recently caught up with Diego and exchanged e-mails over a couple of days, discussing where his education has taken him, where to find artistic inspiration, and his take on how society interacts with body modification nowadays. (I’ll note that Diego’s last response is actually more like a short essay, but it’s fantastic. I hope we’ll be hearing from Diego again very soon.)

To participate in or donate to this year’s scholarship fund, please visit BMEScholarship.com.

To read Diego Olavarría, BME Scholarship Winner, please click here.

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