It’s been a while since we featured anyone in a THAT’S METAL! post that we actually admired. Instead, it’s been Serbians who cook testicles, guys whose dogs chew off their big toes or get shot in the head and are so wasted they don’t notice, and dudes who get gored in the scrotum by angry bulls. Sure, all that stuff, and more like it, made us exclaim, “Shit! That’s Metal!”, but not really in an admiring way.
Come to think of it, we did admire that bull who spent his last few minutes on earth rampaging through a packed grandstand of yokels in Spain who were being entertained by the bull’s torment. But still, that was a bull, not a person.
Today, we’re giving a shout-out to a person here in Seattle who’s done something metal that doesn’t involve personal injury or rank stupidity. Her name is Boo Davis, and that’s her at the top of the post. But because we know you’ve come to expect some brutality and sarcastic commentary in your THAT’S METAL! posts, we’ve paired up her story with one that involves electrified nipple clamps.
Now, you know you want to continue reading after the jump, and who’s stopping you? If you need a cookie for your efforts, we don’t have any, but we do have some musical accompaniment . . .
QUILTS
Boo Davis designs and makes quilts. You don’t think quilts are metal? Well, what if the quilt were called “Skullfucked” and looked like this 80″ x 82″ beauty:
Or how ’bout if it were called “Beastie” and looked like this:
Those are the kind of quilts Boo Davis makes. She calls her quilting studio Quiltsrÿche, which is a truly inspired name (and if you don’t know what Queensrÿche is, shame on you.) She’s been written up in everything from Vogue magazine to the London Times, to Revolver mag, and last month she was the subject of an interview in The New York Times (here) prompted by the recent publication of a book she wrote called Dare To Be Square Quilting.
The best part abaout the interview was Boo’s explanation of the problems she had finding a publisher. Here are a few tid-bits from that NY Times interview, with more examples of Boo Davis quilts along the side (including a quilt she made from one dude’s 20-year collection of punk-rock band shirts):
What happened to the attitude?
I set out to do a hard-edged, metal-infused guide to quilting. My proposal outlined projects like a Blizzard of Oz scarf and a quilt called Snake Pit, as if Slash were to have a quilt on his bed. It made the rounds of the book publishers, and everyone said, “This is awesome, but we can’t touch it with a 10-foot pole.” . . .
Can you share some of the projects in that first proposal?
[Chuckling] There are some gems in here. There’s Hell Hole, a tribute to the Swedish death-metal heroes At the Gates. [Reading from her proposal]: “This quilt features the Gates of Hell welcoming you with a Roman-stripe variation.” Then I have the word “Toasty!” Oh, these were good!
Has Slash or any of your other heroes bought a quilt?
Let’s just say that I haven’t exactly cracked the code on the quilting business model. Two years ago, I was contacted by the wife of a band member of Slayer. I designed an angel of death pattern, and I’m still waiting to make the quilt.
The quilts I have sold break down to sweat-shop wages, though when it comes to heavy metal quilts, I don’t mind doing charity work for Satan. However, it would be nice to figure out a way to pay the mortgage on my hovel and buy some Amy’s frozen dinners at the end of the day.
Tell me about your hovel.
It’s a condo. My quilt studio is my dining room. This book was a bit of a suicide mission, I have to say. It was a journey into madness unlike no other. I’m lucky if I can make one quilt in a year, and for the book I did 12 in three months. I quit my job to do this. I had worked for 10 years as a designer at The Seattle Times. It was a huge leap of faith.
I didn’t have a dime saved. I took out a loan and got pretty wildly into debt. You know, as a creative person I’m prone to melancholy, and I was just shuffling around my apartment. But I think the gamble might have paid off.
I fucking hope the gamble does pay off. Not only are those quilts metal, but quitting your job to do something insane because of your passion for it is pretty fucking metal, too.
Full disclosure: I’m a proud owner of a Boo Davis “Skullfucked” quilt that I bought before we ever started this blog. You live in the Pacific Northwest and sleep with the windows open, and a good quilt is a nice thing to have, and to have one that looks like “Skullfucked”? Fucking awesome.
The Quiltsrÿche site is at this location, and it’s fun to explore, even if you’re not in the market for a Skullfucked quilt.
And with apologies to Boo for doing this, we just couldn’t help but think of this song as our musical accompaniment for her story:
CLAMPS
Well, so much for people doing metal things that are admirable. Time to turn back to metal things that most people do — y’know, the stupendously moronic kinds of metal things. The things that allow us to add our tasteless commentary and feel no remorse for doing it. Like this story from last week’s news wires:
DOVER, N.H. (CBS/AP) Kyle Dubois, a New Hampshire high school student who shocked himself so severely in shop class that his heart stopped beating, is suing his teacher, the school district and the city of Dover.
Dubois and his parents claim teacher Thomas Kelley did not warn Dubois and other students of the dangers of the electrical demonstration cords in their electrical trades class.
“As a master electrician and experienced teacher of electrical technology, Mr. Kelley knew or should have known that the electrical circuits in his classroom could administer harmful or fatal shocks to his students,” the lawsuit states according to local station WMUR.
Shocking, simply shocking, I tell you! What kind of teacher could fail to warn his young wards of the dangers of electricity and electrical cords in a shop class?!? The poor innocent young dude was undoubtedly minding his own business, dutifully carrying out his class assignments, and accidentally touched a live wire. He could have been killed because of that teacher’s neglect! Fucking outrageous! Right?
On March 11, Dubois attached an electrical clamp to one nipple while another student attached another clamp to the other. A third student plugged in the cord.
Uh. Wait a minute. The fuck did he do? He attached electrical clamps to his nipples and then his “friends” plugged them in? Well, shit, what did he think was going to happen? I mean, that’s a pretty metal thing to do and all, but what part of his brain thought this would be a kick?
Dubois was critically injured.
WMUR reports that Dubois’ suit contends he suffered permanent brain damage “due to his heart stoppage.” The lawsuit also claims Kelley was “less than eight feet away at the time and saw and heard students engaging in this activity.”
Of course, I’m deeply — deeply — sorry for young Kyle’s injury and for the grief his family must be experiencing. However, I must say that I think the teacher has got a really solid defense. I think it’s pretty clear that young Kyle was permanently brain-damaged before he clamped those electrical cords to his nipples. (Fuck! He clamped them to his nipples?? I’m still trying to wrap my head around that.)
The lawsuit also states that Kelley was heard saying, “Kyle should try it with his nipples and that he, Mr. Kelley, would give him a Mountain Dew if he did so.”
Kelley resigned from his teaching position about a month after the incident.
According to WMUR, the teacher has always said that he did not offer the soda.
Uh. Wait a minute. The fuck did the teacher say? That Kyle should try the clamps with his nipples? Taking advantage of a brain-damaged high school student like that is disgraceful! Sounds like that teacher has a few kinks in his sexual preferences. I don’t remember this kind of shit happening in the shop class I had to take. Maybe it’s a repressed memory.
But hey, Kelley’s defense is still solid — he never offered Kyle a soda. All good. You don’t offer a Mountain Dew, you can’t really overcome a male high school student’s ability to act rationally, can you?.
Well, okay, maybe you can, given that a male teenager’s rationality is like a scared little mole cowering in a corner of the brain, desperately trying not to be trampled by all the testosterone.
Should be a really interesting lawsuit. I would love to see lawyers standing up in a courtroom arguing the pro’s and con’s of this case with a straight face. I would love to be a fly on the wall of the jury room as they attempt to seriously debate and decide the merits of this tragic, tragic legal controversy.
Not.
There were thousands of potential musical accompaniments for this story. But in the end, there was only one choice.
Have a wonderful fucking day. Buy quilts and take good care of your nipples.
6 Responses to ““THAT’S METAL!” — BUT IT’S NOT MUSIC (No. 14): THE QUILTS AND CLAMPS EDITION”
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I know standards have gotten low over the years, but I seriously doubt the teacher would condone such activity if he knew what the morons were actually doing. Murphy (he of the LAW) is an unbiased bastard and I’m sure he’s a fan of the Darwin Awards. High school kids attaching electrical wiring to their nipples? Potential “winner” in the house!
I suppose if we’re going to sue because of student stupidity, one of my classmates should have sued the school and our shop teacher for when he (the student, that is) put a “dud” shotgun shell in a vise and started tightening it. Let’s just say that a bang was involved, followed by a couple of holes and some blood. Oh, and some of the resulting shrapnel was only an inch or two away from nailing the teacher in the head.
Why can’t we go back to the days when you only had to worry about the simple dangers in shop class? A buddy using sandpaper on your forearm, getting a huge sliver as you run the planer down a board, metal shaving stuck in your hands, cutting off a finger… you know, the easy stuff.
I guess permanent brain damage leads people to look for someone to blame. And who knows, maybe the shop teacher did encourage the deed — although mine was an ex-Marine and there’s no way this would have happened on his watch. He taught me that I needed to study a lot harder in all my other classes because there was no way I’d be able to make a living with my hands. He was also pretty free with the corporal punishment, too.
True, some teachers are likely to encourage some stupid and/or creative stuff, but I would think that shop class is an area where common sense is more of a requirement for the job than for other classes. Messing around with electricity falls into that don’t fuck with category, no matter what.
Then again, getting experimental (or stupid) in cooking class has its dangers as well. Nothing nipple related that I can think of, but still, things can happen. Or art class, depending on what supplies are around.
Bound to be some THAT’S METAL! fodder out there involving home ec and art classes. I just have to look . . .
Boo could’ve chosen a different style for her quilts. Imagine a goatse quilt. Actually, don’t. And Boo, if you’re reading this… do not take that as a suggestion or a challenge.
I may have to consider one of these for the winter. The apartment gets (and stays) quite hot in summer, even on the cooler days and then tends to get really cold in the winter. A metal themed quilt might help with the latter.
Seattle weather does have a big suckage factor in the winter with the non-stop drizzle, but it’s cool at night all the way through the summer — year-round quilt weather! And I’m not imagining a goatse quilt. I had to look that up. Fortunately, found a web page that described it instead of showing it. Definitely not imagining it.