Voices from the Past—part 4

Doug Malloy in Conversation with Tattoo Samy and friends Horst Streckenbach, better known as Tattoo Samy was a well known tattooist and piercer from Frankfurt, Germany. Before I'd ever met Doug he had connected with Samy on one of his international travels. Doug recorded this tape during a visits to Frankfort in 1977. Side one, dated September 18, begins with some backstory as to the people he anticipates interviewing and descriptions of some to the events throughout the day. It ends early the following morning. Side two is the interview itself. Transcripts of the tape are available here and here.…

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Voices from the Past—part 3

Doug Malloy in Conversation with Tari Soummers This audio tape dates from December of 1976. It's an interesting conversation between Doug Malloy and a young man named Tari Soummers. You may be wondering why his name never surfaced before now. From listening to the tape, one might assume this was a treasure trove of body piercing lore. I personally found it impossible to take much of what he said seriously. To be frank, Tari was one of those people I took an instant dislike to and quickly sized up as a bullshitter. See what you think. No photo of him…

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Voices from the Past—part 2

An Interview with Alan Oversby/Mr. Sebastian In March of 1978, Doug and I joined self-proclaimed "freaknut" Sailor Sid and grandmother of the tattoo community Elizabeth Weinzirl for a trip to the ITAA tattoo convention in Amsterdam. On the way we stopped for a week in London to meet the local T&P enthusiasts and in particular, to spend time getting to know Alan Oversby better known to his clients as Mr. Sebastian. During our visit I recorded this interview with Alan which subsequently appeared in issue #4 of Piercing Fans International Quarterly. You can view a copy of that article here.…

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Voices from the Past—Part 1

The Versatile & Sensual Prince Albert by Doug Malloy Doug Malloy was my friend and mentor and my inspiration for starting Gauntlet. The company was founded in 1975, and Doug passed away unexpectedly in 1979. Few members of the body piercing community alive today ever met him or heard him speak. At the time of his death, he left behind a handful of audio cassette tapes that have been in my possession for over 40 years. This small collection contains several interviews, articles for Piercing Fans International Quarterly magazine (PFIQ), and correspondence between Doug and fellow piercing enthusiasts. These were…

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Ring in the New Year!

I was thumbing through back issues of Piercing Fans International Quarterly (PFIQ) this week and came across this old Gauntlet ad from 1978 in issue number 5. It seems appropriate to share this time of year.

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Color Me Purple

In the Christian tradition, today is Good Friday. I thought it would be appropriate to post this brief excerpt from the book. Enjoy!   "By 1978 I had made up my mind that purple was to be the color for body piercing. This had sprung directly from another of those products of gay creativity, the bandana or hanky code.   "Evidently, the hanky code dates back to Gold Rush days, when dancers in all-male mining town saloons would divvy up into “fellers” and “gals,” those taking the women’s parts wearing identifying kerchiefs tied around their arms. But in the hands…

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The PFIQ Crossword Puzzles

The PFIQ crossword puzzles were a short-lived feature that ran in seven issues, #36 (1991) through #42 (1993). Their creation was the result of several factors coming together. I’ve had some interest in crosswords for many years but had never been particularly passionate about them in large part because it was rare to find ones that were hard enough to be challenging but not so difficult as to be nearly impossible to solve. That changed in the mid 1980s when the Los Angeles Times began running weekly puzzles by Merl Reagle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merl_Reagle). Not only were they just the right level of difficulty, but they invariably contained witty challenges…

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Change Happens

It was with a sense of déjà vu that I read the post from a Facebook friend last week informing me that the website k9webprotection.com had classified this site as pornography. It's been over 30 years, and body piercing has become so widespread and popular that it's hard to believe there are still people trying to tar us with the same old brush. In chapter six of my book, I wrote about how Gauntlet's ground-breaking magazine Piercing Fans International Quarterly (PFIQ) came into being. It wasn't long after the magazine's inception that I began dealing with the allegations of pornography…

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Blogging the Gauntlet

I'm kinda new to this whole blogging thing. When I was a teenager, I started to keep a diary until my mother found and read it and realized I was gay. That pretty much ended my enthusiasm for writing about my life on a daily basis. In retrospect, I wish I'd at least picked up the habit after I started Gauntlet. It would be interesting to relive those years of my life, and I wouldn't have had to rely so heavily on memory in order to write my book. So why start now? Running the Gauntlet was always intended to be both…

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