Something that I forgot to mention a few days ago — on December 6th to be precise — is that BME just turned fifteen years old, and has now begun on its sixteenth year. This makes it one of the oldest online entities of any kind, and I suspect you’d be hard pressed to find another online magazine with BME’s longevity (in addition to other achievements, such as being one of the oldest full-featured community sites). Of course I have had mixed feelings about leaving BME that have been oft-discussed, as it was not entirely voluntary — not that leaving hasn’t objectively done great things for my life — and that’s not the point of this commentary, but I think what was hardest to deal with in the first year of being gone was not the bitterness and infighting and other obvious negatives, but watching the site taking a serious quality dive. I was very disappointed in what I saw on ModBlog especially, not just because I didn’t think the trying-way-too-hard-to-be-funny writing was at all funny, but because it was empty and there was no real love for the subject matter… It felt like it had lost something hard to define… When I wrote on ModBlog and BME, whether it was about a navel piercing or about extreme mods or about a turd eating super-freak, I genuinely loved the people I was writing about (and writing for) and what they did, and I’d like to think that this love came through in the writing. For a long time reading ModBlog I felt like this was gone, and I felt like BME had lost its spirit. I don’t self-aggrandizingly mean that I’m the spirit of BME, I mean that the site wasn’t meant to be just a cold magazine, and that it was a living, breathing entity that had a sense of family about its members and subjects, and that there was camaraderie and brotherhood reflected in everything it did. And that was a lot of what made BME special, and I felt like it was fading fast.
Anyway, I felt sad about it for a long time, sometimes even angry, and I felt like I’d let people down by allowing this change to happen, especially when I didn’t really see any other sites or blogs springing up to fill the void — which to be honest quite surprised me. However, giving credit where credit is due, I really have been so happy to see the editorial change in ModBlog over the last couple of weeks as Rachel has finally stopped using hired staff to write for the site and started doing it herself. BME has lost a lot of inertia in the last year, but for the first time since I left, I feel like the site is back on the right track and I enjoy reading it again, and I see it getting back what it lost. I was getting pretty convinced that it was going to crash and burn, but I sure am happy to see it seemingly rising out of the ashes, and if the transition to the long overdue new software works, I actually think it could turn out to be a phoenix rather than just an immolated eagle. There’s no joy for me in seeing it fail without me, so this is nice to see.
Sure, I often wish it was still me at the helm, or even at the helm of a new bodmod site, but there’s so use in crying over spilt milk, and since there’s nothing I can do to change the past, I am so relieved and glad to see that the site has finally found its footing and is headed in the right direction again, and that what it’s doing is something I can be proud of. Not a pride in my own achievements, but instead something akin to that of a proud parent, and in some ways that is even more rewarding — seeing something you helped create go out into the world and succeed without you.
Fifteen years. Thanks to everyone who helped it get to where it is, and good luck to everyone who’s working to make it last for the next fifteen years.
On that photo, I wanted to make a comment… Something I’ve read a few times in the comments on ModBlog from people with so-called “BME for life” tattoos is their mixed feelings and even regret in their tattoo because of the changes. I just wanted to say to those people that even if you don’t like what has happened to BME, I hope that you still look back on when you got the tattoo and what it meant to you at the time fondly, and remember that has not changed and that no one can take that time and experience away. Those of us who were able to be a part of the birth and growth of BME, a part of the rebirth of modern piercing and tattooing, a part of scarification and “extreme” mods becoming an industry, and a part of the viral spread of the ritual and suspension scene in the 1990s were a part of something unique in human history, a beautiful experience that very few individuals ever get a chance to be a part of. I hope that even those who left in disillusion have not forgotten what an incredible thing happened and how blessed we were to be the vessels for its birth and growth, and that the opportunities that we seized made history and changed the world for the better.
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And in completely mundane and far less though provoking news, I moved my little car inside for the winter. A week ago this space was being used for suspension because as you can see it’s nice and tall, and I think there are some other suspensions casually planned over the winter, so don’t worry, it’s parked out of the way enough, and can be moved over a little more if needed. It was actually a little tricky to get it inside because the ground clearance on the Saab Sonnet is less than half a foot so I scraped the bottom quite badly trying to move it inside and had to put down boards to get over the bump at the bottom of the garage door that keeps outside water from flowing into the studio. But it made it, and I suppose will become a girls-only clubhouse until spring.
It’s finally snowing here in Toronto, a wet soggy warm snow that will probably be gone in the next day or two. However, now that it’s snowing I have to get off my ass and fix the wipers on my truck. Ages ago I kicked the circuit breaker out of the fusebox (it’s near my left foot) and lost it. It’s an odd size, so I haven’t found anywhere that sells it and I don’t feel like paying an official dealer an exorbitant amount to replace it. I stuck in some speaker wire to short circuit the connection to make sure that the wiper motor does in fact work and it’s not some other problem causing them not to function, and it worked, so I’m just going to try and find my soldering iron and build a new fuse holder that’s normally sized so I don’t have to worry about driving blind in inclement weather.
I also did some more work on the Craigslist/Kijiji search tool ZenCASH, mostly bugfixes, but a bunch of new features depending on when you last checked… I’m going to add support for Backpages (another similar classified ad site) soon and then I’ll re-release the latest version of the source code as well because it demonstrates some interesting new things like instance control with mutexes. I also wrote a time-saving maintenance tool, similar to the tool I used for updating ModBlog, for the duck-lookalike site, and I have about a hundred images queued for posting which when I get a chance I’ll insert into the queue now that my list of excuses has been shortened…
* * *
Good news of the day is that shortly I’m off to the airport to pick up Nefarious from her vacation. As I said, it was nice having some days to sleep in and be more lazy than usual, and it was nice being able to go out in the evening with Caitlin, but I missed her a lot and can’t wait to see her.
I also wanted to recommend one more movie. Last night we watched Big River Man (watch the trailer here), a documentary about a Slovenian eccentric who attempts to swim the length of the Amazon as he and his zero-budget volunteer support staff gradually descend into a sort of Apocalypse Now madness, and the man’s distraught son tries to keep him alive. It’s a really amazing portrait, and if you see it at a festival or theatre in your area I urge you to check it out, and if you’re torrent-minded, it’s pretty easy to find as well. I felt kinship with the film… The guy in the movie is different from my father in that he (the swimmer) struggles with deep depression and a childhood from which he seems to experience PTSD — it almost seems like his ultramarathon swims are a coping mechanism and an attempt to heal himself of some deep psychic wounds — but my own father has always been larger-than-life and the kind of man that children — and adults — see as a superhero, and I think like the fish man, he sees the world as poetry and in turn expresses himself through poetry — not that he writes “poems”, but that every word he says or writes and even every action is part of one long epic poem… So I could relate to the story of the son struggling to cope with and learn from having such a mad visionary as a parent.
Over and out! Today I have resisted hitting 3,000!
41 Comments
In the midst of pushing safety pins through my skin I discovered BME in my teens (it was bme.freeq.com to date things), added experiences, submitted photos, signed up for IAM (id 12), pierced and tattoed myself, and generally grew up with the site. Though I never became deeply involved with the community — I think I was a bit intimidated — it, and you Shannon, were a huge influence on who I am today. Though it has been sad to see the site decline, to the point where I rarely check it anymore, I proudly wear my Calm tattoo.
Know that you have many, many supporters out here who will always value your voice, creativity, and the ways in which you’ve changed our lives.
How odd, I just got out of the shower and was thinking about the community and all the things that have happened over the years and then read your post and realized it is the anniversary today; how strange :) I will always remember and hopefully continue to experience my involvement in the community as being a defining part of my life and who I am. Many of my dearest friends and people who have helped me to become the person I am and who will be friends for life (regardless of whether we see eachother regularly)I have come to know from this community. There isn’t a single aspect of my life that hasn’t been affected or impacted from my associations and friendships to and within it. Cheer and thanks for everything old friend.
Martini
I like what you wrote about BME. You know that I have a white BME tattoo, done by Lobez, and you know me well enough to know that I agonized over it last year. I’m cherishing the old memories again.
If you have Mel/Lobez’s email, drop her a note. She was photographing a band a week or two ago, fell off the stage, and destroyed her knee. I hope she’ll be walking in three months. I’m sure she’d love to hear from you. She’s on Crackbook.
When will you mop up lake Saab? Your child plays in this room with no shoes on!
The way I think of it, BME is more than just the website. It’s all of us, the modification community as a whole. And that’ll outlast any changes in leadership, whether for good or for ill.
I agree with you on modblog as of late and even commented for the first time in at least a year.
Shannon,
I miss the old BME quite a bit. While Rachel has- thank god!- dispensed with the lame humor attempts the previous writers had, none of them have the eye for detail you had. I used to go play around on the user galleries and then go to modblog for “desert”- the place I knew only the best of the best showed up. That’s no longer the case. Ever since you left it feels more like someone’s aiming to make X posts a week, and pulls the first X images they find that are reasonably decent.
Anyhow, enough griping! Thank you for creating BME, even if people got greedy and did dumb stuff. I, for one, very much enjoy your blogging no matter what you’re writing about.
Now go clean up Lake Saab- your fiance’s getting antsy, I think ;)
P.S. Your Dad is the shit.
I grew up in a very strict born again/christian household that didnt even have internet until I was 19 (1998) and BME was one of the first sites I regularly frequented. Though I dont check it out very often anymore, I still have friends that I met through IAM years ago. Thanks dude!
I always really enjoyed reading modblog when you were running it and I believe it was largely due to your sincere interest. I always loved the topics but also just loved how you wrote which in turn lead me to read this site. Although BME has changed, I think that you largely made it what it is and what people appreciate in it. I am also very, very happy to see Rachel taking over Modblog as I actually read it now instead of skimming over pictures but I will always miss what you have to say in that realm.
Thank you for creating the site. Ive continued on but felt the emptiness when you left. You site inspired me to be more than just a body art collector, but also a giver. I often wish you would start another bodmod related webite.
Not to sound like a wad, but you were the spirit of BME. It sucks now. It was awesome. Now it’s not. That’s life. It’s cyclical. Maybe it’ll be good again someday.
Just to point out that I had never written for a Blog (other than my own, for my own amusement) before and really had no idea what I was doing other than to listen to what people enjoyed/disliked and tweak things as I went along.
I did try to do my best though, which is really all I could have done under the circumstances. I was working on BMEvideo at the time I was posting to ModBlog (as well as articles and other stuff) which took up so much of my time and left little to work on ModBlog posts, especially as they were posted every four hours or so).
I love(d) BMEvideo and do have a big love for the subject matter on ModBlog, apologies if that didn’t shine through :).
Oh and, go BME!
Roo- I actually rather enjoyed your blog posts. Much like Shannon you seemed genuinely interested in the subject- you had a personal taste that clearly showed through, and your humor was funny.
Other folks… not so much.
I’m really have to agree with you Shannon. I’ll be a bit honest and open here. Even though I have my IAM account open constantly, I haven’t touched the BME galleries nor ModBlog for quite some time. Even my time spent on IAM has been limited. As school, work, gf, dog,etc have taken up much of my time.
For awhile now I battled mentally over my BME tattoo. Partially from all the fallout, but I’d say more in regards to the quality of the work. Instead of battling it I just went “numb” and didn’t think about it.
Recently I was getting a tattoo that had maybe 1%-5% needing to be cut off due to my BME tattoo. While in the process someone commented: “That’s a beautiful piece! It’d be even more beautiful without that shitty tribal crap next to it though!” At which point I will admit I became angry. Angry that he didn’t know it was a BME related tattoo, as suddenly years of joy flooded back in.
I came home to my gf and we talked about it. While talking I had this thought in my head that it was almost BME’s anniversary as well. I kinda miss the old BME birthday dinners that would often take place :(
The Way and the Journey
Remember the roads you have walked,
Remember the names of things and people you’ve loved.
These thoughts will leave you less alone,
Even as you recall how they came,
How they left and how the road continues.
Sometimes memory speaks,
Other times, it is silent.
Why were we born?
How was it, that two we love, loved,
And in that moment
Our beginnings were written.
Richard – 1984
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It was not hard for me to notice the change in ModBlog editor’s place. I don’t think I have seen any antries which were made just to show unmodified dicks before.
Sorry, had to write this.
I never had any doubts about my BME tattoo even though I’ve been feeling less and less attached to the site as a whole.
I’ll always see my BME hockey tattoo as a reminder of all the great time I had on the site and when I felt I, along many others, was actually doing sth very meaningful and cool.
as someone on iam once told me, ‘don’t grieve over things that ended, be happy that they happened.’
Thank you for all your work on BME, and for sharing your feelings about the current BME.
One of the things I liked most about the short-lived Body Two blog was the way the photos were always accompanied by some background information and quotes from the owners of the mods in question: it definitely added a great personal quality to the writing. In contrast, the style which the new editor of ModBlog then chose to adopt I found infuriatingly juvenile and I think reflected badly on the tone and quality of BME, and I certainly didn’t tend to read ModBlog as a result.
Like Ania, I regard my BME tattoos as a reminder of how much the site meant to me and what an important part it’s played in my development as a modded person. Whatever happens to it now or in the future, it’s the legacy of the last ten years under your inspiration which remains etched into me.
I just don’t find backstabbers funny. But that’s just me. ;)
Also, I haven’t read ModBlog since you stopped writing.
And I’m glad to no longer be part of BME. It means nothing to me anymore.
Nonetheless Gillian, you were an important part of BME and you did good things for the site, and I hope that isn’t forgotten even if the new site tried to scrub it from history…
Well, she didn’t erase any of my articles, even the one I wrote that was focused on me… so that’s nice.
https://www.bme.com/news/steppingback-all.html
I’d like to think that if you went back to BME I’d redevelop a passion for it, but I just don’t respect the current owner, and so it’s hard for me to go there anymore. It was an ENORMOUS part of my existence for eight years, not just for the time I was contributing to the site, and to have it taken away from me completely was startling when it happened, but now I feel so far emotionally removed from it that it’s hard to look back at it with the same amount of passion.
I haven’t been to BME much for the past couple of years, but I’m still looking forward to getting my BME tattoo soon. It did change my life, after all.
The new site is supposed to be launching soon. It’ll be strange to see it different (even if I haven’t seen much of it lately). It was home to me for so long.
Gillian – I certainly didn’t stab anyone in the back, ask Shannon if you must and I’d like to think he’d say the same. As far as I’m aware there isn’t any animosity between us and he mentioned a few times to me that I was doing a good job with ModBlog.
Anyway, I’m not going to defend myself for something I didn’t do (regarding the backstabbing comment, which I find quite rude to be honest) so I’m out.
Roo: It wasn’t you that I was referring to. :)
Oops, my mistake.
I’m too sensitive, innit :)
Roo: I probably would have made the same mistake.
And sorry if I came off rude, but not really. I’ve said much worse things about the current owners and operators of BME, and for me to ever come back (if Shannon ever gets the site back), they’d all have to be kicked off first.
What a lovely post Shannon! I have to say even though BME is no longer a part of my life anymore either and hasn’t been for a while; I’ve had the privilege of meeting some fabulous people! Most of which I can still call friends.
Gillian, I don’t think you were being rude, just brutally honest. There were no fingers pointed, just a statement. Even if poor Roo did take it the wrong way ;)
I remember back in the (bme.freeq.com)day, my life would revolve around BME and eventually IAM. I have a BME tattoo to prove my love for it! Although I haven’t been a regular in the past few years I still have fond memories of it. BME/YOU helped me to be the well adjusted person I am today, without it I’d still be hiding out thinking I was one of “them weirdos”. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I wish you nothing but the happiness you have given other people for you and your family, Sincerely
just a simple thank you.
Thank you for creating Bme shannon.
Your site helped me understand that I’m perfect the way i am.
where he falls,
he lies.
“what is not defeat”
he says,
“is restful contentment”
and so eye to eye they seek, a ‘why’-
but from the ground, he sees the sky.
I’ve been drifting further and further from any type of connection to the mod community as i couldn’t stomach modblog after you left. But this post just slammed my whole being full of ecststatic feelings about having been a part of it (completely from the sidelines, but you just made so much of existence make sense for me). I went back and checked out the recent changes and was hit with another wave of happiness. Thanks man.
Thank you, Shannon.
“I hope that you still look back on when you got the tattoo and what it meant to you at the time fondly, and remember that has not changed and that no one can take that time and experience away. ”
beautiful words….
Thankyou for everything Shannon!
Most of my friends to date have something to do with or are a direct result of BMEZine.com
I’ve personally seen a lot of the new BME that has yet to be officially released. And I’m worried for what community is left.
Thanks for everything Shannon!
I’ve felt the urge to modify my body in the ways refered to as “body modification” since I was a kid.
One day I stumbled over BME and realized I wasn’t alone…
I don’t know what would have happened to me if I hadn’t found BME before this crazy body-mod-boom started. When I had 1″ stretched earlobes people didn’t even understand they “went all the way through”. Nowadays they say “can you go that big?!” When they see my >1-1/2″ lobes.
Thanks to you, I could find myself before it became a trend to do what I’ve always felt the urge to do. And for that I am greatful.
The BMEzine of today is a meer plagiarazation of the BMEzine that saved me…
A year ago I turned my back, then I found someone had switched my coke for some crappy old pepsi!
Still I will proudly wear my BME skull, that covers a huge chunk of my calf, for the rest of my life!
BME4life? Don’t think so… But, “Shannon4life” is a motto I can always stand behind!! :)
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