At this point, the top 20% of Americans make nine times as much as the bottom 20%. Americans receive about half as much secondary and post secondary education as other Western nations, and that number is almost entirely related to income (as many of you know, US tuition fees are prohibative). In addition, of all Western countries, the US has the least “movement up” of workers — that is, if you fall into a low paying job, the odds of you ever finding a better life are lower than in any other Western country. American workers get less benefits, vacation time, and raises than equivilent workers in other countries.
Why do I mention this? Because I just read something inspiring in light of this.
Above you can see me holding up this month's
Home Power Journal. The article that excited me was a short how-to article on building a wooden alternator-based generator using nothing but wire, wood, and a few magnets. It generates about a hundred watts, which is certainly enough to charge a small battery array.
While one could easily use an old scrapped car alternator (and many people do), this article actually has the reader coil their own wire and build every piece of the elecrical components from scratch. And, the punchline is that it's easy to do. No special skills at all are required, except a little motivation and effort. Can't afford ten thousand dollars for solar or wind power? Build your own, hook them up to car batteries, and buy some used RV appliances (which run on 12/24VDC)…
Everything — including power — is free if you make it yourself! Who cares if the economy is going down the drain and the rich hold the poor down? If you don't take part in the collective financial lie, and money has minimal meaning to you, then welcome to freedom.
I took this from Shawn's page:
- How many names have you had on IAM? Two, or three, depending on how you look at it, plus a dozen or so test accounts.
- How many times were you kicked off of IAM? I deleted myself once, and it's not that hard to figure out how to follow the rules if you also got to write them.
- How long have you been a member of IAM? For almost exactly one year and one month, if you only include THIS incarnation of my account.
- How many BME/IAM related events have you attended? Every single IAM BBQ here in Toronto, one of Gary's meets, a couple of iWasCured shows, ModProm, etc.
- How did you receive your IAM membership? Think Kobayashi Maru… I didn't like the way things were, so I reprogrammed it.
- Why did you join IAM? At first, I joined simply to test the interface, but then I got hooked.
- How many IAM members have you met in person after meeting them on IAM, and who? I've met about four hundred, far far more than I can fairly remember.
- Have you ever dated anyone after meeting them on IAM? Yes, and I have made many personal “real life” friends from IAM as well.
- How many hours a day do you spend browsing IAM? Browsing? Maybe fifteen minutes.
- Is there anyone on IAM that you wish you talked to, that you never have? Oh, I'm sure lots of people… There are so many interesting people here, and I don't even get to talk to my “real life” friends enough.
- If yes, who? See above.
- Is there anyone on IAM that you wish you knew better? See above.
- If yes, who? See above.
- Have you ever blocked people from your page and/or forum? I've never banned anyone from my page, and I've only very rarely blocked problem posters from my forums.
- If yes, why? The only forum block I can remember was for someone that kept asking really stupid questions over and over.
- Who do you think the prettiest girl on IAM is? Well, duh!
- Who do you think the cutest boy on IAM is? I do my best ;)
- Do you have any secret crushes on IAM? Nope.
- If yes, let it be known, who? Honest, no one.
- Is there anyone on IAM that you really admire? Plenty of people, for plenty of different reasons.
- If yes, who? See above.
- Who's page do you visit most frequently, or on a daily basis? I have about twenty people's pages that I check whenever they update. Most are the regulars in my Whatever forum, and people I know personally.
- How many people on IAM have you had sex with? I don't know, I think six?
- How many of 'in person' friends are on IAM? About ten.
- How upset would you be if IAM came to an end? I'd probably be extremely upset.
- Have you ever had someone copy your tattoo design/idea after posting pictures on IAM? Well, I was about five years ahead of the curve on the “all solid all black” style of tattooing… Maybe pictures of my tattoos played a small role.
- If yes, do you refuse to post pictures of your modifications in result? Nope. If someone copies my tattoos, that's their problem, not mine.
- How do you feel about the IAM page tracker? It doesn't bother me, but I do understand why others would get freaked out by it. However, the trackers tie into the next (amazing) major update of IAM that I hope to do some time next year.
- Were you on the personals that Shannon had before IAM? Yes.
- Did you participate in the BME beauty pageant? Yes.
- How often do you respond to people that post in your forum and/or people that IM you? Constantly, but there's more inflow than I can handle, so I probably only answer about 20% of my messages.
- What do you have to say to Shannon for making all this possible? Good going (you can decide whether there's a sarcastic tone or not).
Phish posted this warning in my Whatever forum earlier today, and I felt that it deserved to be read. I know that I say it a lot, but I thought it might to young practitioners good to read it from someone other than me, and someone who's been there:
When are people going to learn how much the general media is a detrement to this industry? Artists seem so eager to get into the mainstream media that it seems they don't think before they do it. If you want to be well known, have it be because you do what you do well... Not because you're ballsy enough or stupid enough to do something that the local news chanel sees as another freak show that they can put on the five o'clock news for people to gasp at.
I spent three years working for the king of all media whores and ninety percent of the time they cut the piece up so much that he came off looking like some demented home surgeon. Before some of you jump down my throat, and you will, I don't mean any disrespect toward his work (much of which I wear).
So for those of you who havent heard this before from me here it is one more time: THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA IS NOT YOUR FRIEND!! We have plenty of outlets for our work to be displayed without using the straight media to do it. So when they call and ask if they can film you doing anything, SAY NO! If they ask you if you know anything about dangerous and illegal procedures be humble and say no.
The fact is that the media — all media, and that definitely includes BME to some extent as well — has an agenda, and the vast majority of the time, it's not going to be the same as your agenda, and they're perfectly willing to harm you if it serves their purposes.
At a minimum, that means if you want to talk about ANYTHING in public, make sure that you'd be comfortable doing both of the following:
- You must be willing to say it in front of the police.
- You must be willing to say it in front of your parents and family.
It's not complicated!
My queue of videos is starting to get short (especially since the last two videos were just posted here on IAM, not on BME itself), so I think I need to do some editing later today. Anyway, today I have for you a dermabrasion scarring done by Eizo Mamiya out of Tokyo:
On Japanese skin, the procedure leaves a “shadow” type scar, almost like selective tanning — it's really quite something, and represents a unique contribution to the scarification palette. You can see more photos of Katsuyuki's scarring and other body modifications in the ModCon book.
Anyway, enjoy the video. It's available for download now on the main BME page. Oh, and a warning: if you don't want to be embarrassed by gangsta rap coming out of your speakers, turn down the volume before clicking!
