19,908 people have checked this page out since Oct 2002. Now be a dear and go vote on the new poll!
So, I decided to change this stuff up a little bit since I've had the same main page text since IAM first started. Lets make it less listy, shall we.....
Me:
My name is Luis, and I'm a 31 year old Cuban American. I'm openly gay, and have been since I was 15. I've got a fiesty temper, a warped sense of humor, and I love to make people laugh.
My Work:
I've been piercing for almost 17 years, and playing with scarification for about 12 (though I don't get to do it anywhere near often enough). I currently work at NoKaOi Tiki Tattoo and Piercing in Philly, which is one of the shops in the Body Graphics chain. I have also worked at Infinite Body Piercing, Industrial Body Piercing (DC), and Perforations (DC). I have performed guest spots at Body Work Productions in Cleveland, OH (no longer open); and Piercology in Columbus, OH, which I do a few times a year.
I have been a member of the APP since 1999, and I served as the International Liaison for the APP for the 2005-2008 board term.
You can see my work on BME (run a search for Luis Garcia), my shop's site (see link above), or Infinite's site (a good portion of the gallery on their site is still my work)
My Life:
My life tends to be pretty quiet nowadays, I like reading my sci-fi books (aka: Nerdery), playing video games (I'm an avid gamer), playing with my pet chinchillas, and watching movies and anime. I have 22 piercings (last I counted), 9 tattoos (several of them big projects). You can view a list of my mods if you go all the way to my first diary entry (last page).
I grew up in Miami, where I went to Catholic school for 13 years (K-12th). Once I was old enough (circa 1995), I got the hell outta there and moved to Washington, DC, where I attended The George Washington University double majoring in Biology and Chemistry, with a minor in Photography. In 1998, I moved to Philly to work at Infinite and be closer to my partner at the time, where I still am, even though both of the inititial reasons no longer stand. Yes I know I really live in NJ, but it's still the Philly metro area.
sci-fi of all kinds, Anime, Video Games, Furry Rodent Critters, Surface Piercing, Ear Projects, Malibu Rum, Furry "Bear" Type Guys, Collecting Action Figures, Collecting DVDs, visiting friend in other cities.
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hack piercers, people who think they are "practitioners", but have never actually done more than a handfull of mods, racists, homophobes, liars, ignorance, apathy, caraway seeds, and celery.
To check out experiences from people who I've worked on go to the main page of BME and run a search on Luis Garcia using the search bar in the upper right corner. This should give you about 191 experience hits from people I've pierced at Perforations, Infinite, and NoKaOi
I lose hope for our industry. If you haven't read the previous diary below, do so before reading this one to get up to speed.
It has come to my attention that some people have been calling Johnny Needles and trashing him. To be clear, his videos were the least of our worries, so don't go hating on him. Also, at least he's ponied up and done some legwork to get the health board on our side of things. Instead of hating on him, hows about you put that effort into doing something productive, maybe helping the cause out. After hearing about this, and with prodding from a very good trusted friend, I've tried to reach out to one of these people, only to go unanswered. Interesting, no?
Whats worse is that another organization contacted him, angry that he contacted the APP instead of them. If this organization really cared about the true issue, instead of being angry with him, maybe they should have said something like : "Hey we know you've been working with the APP on this, but we would be glad to help you in any way possible". Or, maybe even contacted me or The APP to work TOGETHER for the greater good. Instead, their reaction pretty much illustrates they don't actually care about the true issue.
This is a perfect illustration at what the biggest issue I see with our industry. Too many people want to bitch and get bragging rights, without doing any legwork. The reason why I posted about this issue yesterday was try to show people that we need to work together, and show more solidarity, along with practicing better judgement. And what do people do, they do the exact opposite. They take the road that just causes more friction, separating themselves, or separating others from them.
It's this factor that makes me lose faith in our industry. And no matter what anyone tells me, it's this factor that keeps our industry from getting taken seriously. I know crap like this happens in other industries, but the difference is, we are at a point where our industry is on the bridge of becoming recognized as a true craft, being regulated beyond the state level. Most other industries are already beyond that point, so the infighting isn't as damaging.
Attempting to unban surface anchors (microdermals) in NJ
2009/06/18 15:25
In the beginning of May, the NJ health board classified microdermals as implants, making them illegal to perform in the state (implants, branding, and scarification have been illegal in NJ since 2001). Long story short, this happened because Nevada was trying to figure out how to classify them, so they googled "microdermals". The main results were videos from a South Jersey piercer who teaches classes on how to perform them, and had posted procedural vids online. Nevada contacts NJ, NJ says "We didn't know about that" and sends the videos and others found online to their consulting doctors and lead inspectors. The result was the statewide banning of microdermals.
The piercer who posted the original videos (Johnny Needles) contacted the APP asking how to deal with the situation. Jim Weber, the president of the APP, coached him on how to go about fighting it, and put him in touch with me, and with Dave Vidra of Health Educators, Didier Suarez, the VP of the APP, and together, we came up with a game plan: I would accompany Johnny as a consultant on behalf of the APP (since I'm a trustee of the APP) when he meets with the health board officials. I would like to point out that Johnny IS NOT a member of the APP, yet the organization still went out of it's way to help him out.
The meeting with the NJ health board officials took place this past Tuesday. It went very well, and I'm pretty sure we're on track for getting microdermals reclassified as a piercing hopefully in the next 3-6 months. Luckily the Helath Board officials were very receptive to everything we had to show them.
Here's the time for the call out: One of the main reasons the ban went through were, most of the videos they found showed piercers performing the procedure with dermal punches. Let's be clear here: PUNCHES ARE ILLEGAL TO US IN THE USA IF YOU ARE NOT A MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL (along with scalpels, and the like). That's it, no excuses. If you're going to use them, you shouldn't advertise it, and for fucking christ sakes DON"T POST A VIDEO OF YOU USING THEM ON YOUTUBE!
The second reason was, in most of the videos they found, it was taking over a minute to insert the jewelry. In 2 of the videos it took over 3 minutes to insert the jewelry. Not for the whole procedure, JUST THE JEWELRY INSERTION! If you are having that much trouble inserting the jewlery, you obviously need a little more practice. DO NOT POST VIDEOS OF YOU FUCKING UP ON THE INTARWEBS! I have watched the videos in question, and I can point out most of the issues going on. The pockets weren't made big enough on a few. The uplifts on the anchors were too short in another few. All things that could have been remedied with a little bit of research.
Once we get the ban lifted, there will probably be a couple of stipulations for a piercer to be able to perform them. You will most likely have to have insurance for the procedure. We're not talking slip and fall liability insurance for the shop, we're talking malpractice insurance. Most standard policies DO NOT cover surface piercings and anchors, you need to add the coverage, and it will cost you extra. Any piercer worth anything should already have an insurance policy. If you don't GET ONE. It would suck to be taken to court and lose everything you have because you were too lazy. Don't balk at the money either, it's a tax write off. There will most likely be other conditions, but we're not ready to talk about them yet.
So that's the run down on what happened for those of you that are interested. Please feel free to point others to this diary post, so we can get the word out on how shit like this occurs and how to try to fix it.
Oh, and I'd like to point out that for all the shit some of you talk and complain about the APP, they were willing to help a piercer who needed help. A NON MEMBER piercer at that, so go fuck yourself with your bullshit hate on the only viable organization for professional piercing.
Feel free to talk all the shit you want on me, but again, I was willing to use my own free time to help another piercer who is technically my competition, all for the greater good of our industry. I didn't get paid for doing this, neither did the APP.
2009/06/04 18:19 For those of you in the industry, I'm sure many of you know who Dave is. He was in a freak accident playing football this weekend, and broke his neck. He came out of surgery and seemed ok, but today when they tried to bring him out of his medically induced coma, his heart stopped a few times, and the only noticeable motion he had was in his jaw, which chewed through his breathing tube, so they put him back under. At this point, the docs say they don't expect him to make it.
I've known Dave for years, and he's one of the best, nicest guys I've ever met. He's had a rough few years, and to have this happen to top it off is just fucked. Barry from Anatometal has started a forum for those of us who know Dave, and will be setting up a paypal account for donations (Dave doesn't have health insurance). When the paypal goes up, please donate if you can.
Barry's Dave Dean Forum
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yardwork day
2009/05/27 21:59
Today was filled with leaf blowing, mulching, and pond deleafing, followed by some burgers on the grill for dinner.
Now I'm just looking through peoples' APP pics, then off to play some inFamous on PS3
