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Ampallang by Paul @ HB Tattoo
At A Glance
Author d a v i d
Contact d a v i d@bme.anon
Artist Paul
Studio HB Tattoo
Location Huntington Beach, California. USA
I left work early on a Tuesday to ride my bike over to Huntington Beach Tattoo to get my ampallang done. I had decided to do this while my SO was on vacation in the Bahamas, so that I would have a little jump on the healing process. All of my previous piercings had taken a very long time to heal and were very bloody, so I figured that any time when I would no be "tempted" would enhance my chances to of not having any problems.

HB Tattoo (www.occc.com/hb-tattoo or www.server.to/tattoo) is your typical beach tattoo shop - lots of flash on the wall, kids hanging around after school, and loud "alternative" music. It is located on Beach Blvd, which is one of HB's largest streets and has tons of walk in foot traffic. There seem to be two schools of employees, the old school guys who seemingly been there forever, and the new kids. The new kids spend a lot of time drawing up flash, which the old school guys critique. There is a real sense of the passing of knowledge and skill in this shop.

Paul, one of the two piercers on staff, took me into the piercing area - cleverly decorated with religious iconography (lots of bleeding Jesus' icons and live goldfish) - and measured me for the pierce. He was extremely patient and professional - answered all my trivial questions, wore gloves the entire time, measured me without leaving a mark, explained the entire procedure - including showing me the instruments, explained the healing process. I had decided to get pierced at 12 gauge (10 seems real big to start and I figured I could always stretch it later).

Unfortunately, Paul did not have the correct length of 12 gauge jewelry - it would take him at least four hours to have it brought over from somewhere. I took this set back as a traditional Zen master rebuff - i.e., "if you are really serious about this, then you will have no problem waiting, etc.". So I headed down to the sand to wait. It was a beautiful day and the beach was crowded. I biked around for a while, soaked up some sun, and basically relaxed. I was very calm about the upcoming pierce, I figured that it could not hurt nearly as much as so many people claimed.

I returned to the shop after three hours, and the jewelry still had not arrived. In fact, Paul the Zen Master was now not sure if the jewelry would arrive at all. I told him I could wait, so we stepped outside to talk bikes, boarding, cars, computers, etc.

After an hour of idle chit chat, Paul asked the inevitable "so, why do you want to do this?" My prepared response to this koan ("my SO always tells me I would pierce it if I loved her"), though not truthful, met with Paul's approval. The next thing I knew I was naked on a surgical table with forcipes on my sterilized cock (Paul and I had discussed doing it free had, but I wanted to be sure of the placement). As a quick aside, the real reason for me wanting to get this pierce has to do with my feelings after confronting the person who sexually abused me as a child, but that seemed a bit heavy for the time - and a bit heavy for here as well.

The actual pierce was rather uneventful - the needle went straight through (there is no "pop!" like when your ears are pierced), the jewelry slid in smoothly (the jewelry was externally threaded so I was a little worried about this), and then the endorphins hit. . . .

Suddenly I am jumping up, pulling up my pants, hugging Paul (who I had just met that day), running around the shop, high fiving highschool girls with fresh butterfly tattoos on their ankles, and just generally whoopin' and hollerin'.

I paid US$100.00 for this pierce (US$80.00 for the pierce and jewelry + US$20.00 tip - Paul threw in a HB Tattoo T-shirt). I felt this price was a little high, especially since I had waited 4 hours, but everything went so smoothly and relatively painlessly (there was a little blood, but nowhere near the puddles I had read about) that I was very pleased. Paul re-explained the cleaning and healing process.

After the pierce I rode my bike home about twenty two miles (this caused absolutely no discomfort). The first morning after my pierce there was dried blood clumps and it was difficult to slide the piercing back and forth, but with lots and lots of hot water and tons of anti bacterial soap, I was finally able to get things sliding. This allowed me to easily wash off all the dried crusties which had attached to the jewelry.

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