Before body modification I was pretty average and I like to say reasonably good-looking. (laughs) There was nothing particularly notable about me; I was just a face in the crowd.
Body modification starts with an unexplainable base instinct to play with your body. I always had a very natural interest in tattooing and piercing. Some kids draw on the walls; I was a draw-on-my-arm kind of kid. It was just a matter of taking that drive, putting conscious thought into it and finding a way to do it.
It used to be if a guy got his ears pierced, he was gay. There was a turning point, when I was in junior high school, when a lot of guys started getting their ears pierced and the popular opinion started to shift. It was no longer seen as a homosexual thing. The fact is body modification has been around forever in some form.
As a species, human beings modify our bodies. I take a very broad, anthropological view of it. In my opinion, body modification includes things like clipping your nails and getting a haircut. People do unnecessary things to their bodies for reasons besides hygiene. It’s one of the few things you can say exists in every single culture and society. It’s just a matter of the lengths different people go to.
People often say to me, “Oh my God, how can you do that?” What I say to those people is that what I do to my body is not unlike what they do to theirs; it’s a spectrum, and we’re just on different ends. They may be styling their hair, while I’m radically altering my outward appearance.
The first thing I did was pierce my ear in my freshman year at college. I lived in a small rural kind of area and I think my parents weren’t entirely thrilled with the idea. When I was a baby and they were holding me in their arms, it’s not like they thought, ‘He’s going to be The Lizardman,’ but they’ve seen the natural progression and have always been very accepting. They basically said, “It’s your body, your consequences, your life.”
It’s like if you walked into a gallery and saw one of Picasso’s latest Cubist works, you’d say, “What the hell is this?” But if you start with his early work and then look at all his work in between, you see the progression, and it seems perfectly natural.
What I am and what I do is an aesthetic choice. I don’t think I have an inner lizard that wanted to get out or anything, but it’s a lizard for the same reason it’s a blue suit for some other guy. It’s stylistic.
I have had a lizard in my life before though. A few years ago I first started using reptiles in my act. Now on and off I have one. They’re very fragile and difficult to keep. Currently I don’t have one. My wife is actually not a big fan of reptiles, which is interesting, since she’s married to me. She’s never known me as anything else. The first time she laid eyes on me I was running out on stage on fire, wearing nothing more than a green Speedo.
No Pain, No Gain
I don’t know why people are so obsessed with pain. I don’t like pain or anything, but it’s a fact of life. At the end of the day, it’s “Don’t be such a wuss; a lot of things hurt.” If you exercise, it doesn’t feel good, but it’s worth it for what you get. You know, childbirth, I hear, is insanely painful, but people keep having babies.
Tattooing, piercing, getting implants, having my tongue split and a lot of the procedures I’ve done hurt, and if they didn’t, that would be great. But the pain holds no real meaning or value to me. It’s just something I have to deal with to get what I want.
What about health risks? What about them? There are definite risks to any of the procedures I’ve had done, and my act is potentially fatal.
The important thing is to deal with professionals who operate in the proper setting using the proper precautions. The people that work on me, like tattoo artists for example, go beyond the precautions and are so anal retentive because they’ve had it drilled into them.
Actually, my sister-in-law is becoming an emergency room nurse, and I’ve been in a lot of medical situations like that where I see people not getting the same level of cleanliness that I get. Next time you get your flu shot, make sure the nurse changes her gloves. You’d be better off getting the flu than having those contaminated hands stabbing you with hypodermic needles.
Job Description Of A Professional Freak
I go by many titles, and in fact I kind of like ‘Sideshow Artist,’ because it sounds sort of classy. I use ‘Performance Artist’ from time to time, and actually that’s the title that the United States tax code recognizes.
My act involves rituals and things like putting running power drills up my nose, which is a variation of the ‘human blockhead,’ or the traditional approach of using a hammer and nail.
With the drill variation, you don’t feel a thing unless you mess up and hit the side, which I pretty much do every time, though I have a pretty steady hand. It’s uncomfortable, but it’s something I’m willing to do to get the reactions I shoot for.
I want people to react with shock, awe and/or laughter, depending on the moment. If you’re at my show, you’ll hear a lot of gasping, and hopefully at the end, applauding like crazy.
I don’t have a lot of grand designs behind what I do. I’m an entertainer, so I’m just trying to elevate simplicity. I think it’s a very noble thing to make people laugh. I may distract people from what’s bothering them. I enlighten them to the fact that the human body really can swallow a sword or hang from hooks.
Sometimes people are inspired by what I do. Like any art, it’s not only what you put out there, but what people invest in themselves. The viewer always contributes to the dynamic.
I’m trying to make you have a good time, and some people say that’s the best contribution you can make to the world. I don’t know about that, but just think of how bleak the world would be if there weren’t freaks helping us to have a good time.
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Video courtesy of nationalgeographic.com [1]
If you enjoyed this story, you will also enjoy I Am The Lizard Man [2] and I Tattooed The Guinness World Record Holder For Most Tattooed Woman [3].
Visit The Lizardman's website [4]
