On Fakir Musafar, Piercing, and a Piece of Sideshow News

Born this day, Fakir Musafar (Roland Loomis, 1930-2018).

Loomis was a lot of things over the course of his life: an advertising executive, an Arthur Murray Dance Instructor, a demolitions specialist with the U.S. Army. He had degrees in both electrical engineering and creative writing. But what he is best known for is being an influential pioneer of piercing and body modification. Obviously, Americans have been getting their earlobes pierced for ages. Loomis explored the much more ancient “primitive” stuff, no doubt inspired by his own South Dakota origins (watch A Man Called Horse for a glimpse at some jaw dropping Sioux ceremonies), and coaxed along by the spiritual scene in San Francisco during adulthood (the same milieu that spawned RE/Search Publications). Apparently those who engage in the more extreme acts of flesh piercing experience something like transcendent euphoria, surely some sort of physical response to an amount of pain most of us can scarcely conceive because we’re wired to RUN AWAY from being lifted off the ground by hooks that have been passed through our skin and muscles.

The wild thing is, Loomis never did this publicly until 1977 — when he was 47 years old. It was at this point that he took the name Fakir Musafar, began doing public demonstrations, speaking on college campuses, and appearing on television. Amazingly, he and others like him began to influence popular culture. I first saw piercings of the tongue, nose, eyebrow, and bellybutton in sideshows, or being sported by rock musicians in nightclubs. It went along with tattooing. A few years after that, all the kids had ’em. Being hung by hooks? Still not so popular. But there is a subculture that’s into it, in fact an entire Fakir Musafar Foundation devoted to perpetuating his legacy. Read about them here. It takes all kinds to make a world.

I first learned about Fakir Musafar at Coney Island USA’s Congress of Curious Peoples shortly after he died. That was before the big split of 2021 which I reported here. But now I have some timely news to report. Former Coney Island USA artistic director Dick Zigun is producing his first post-CIUSA sideshow at Ruby’s on the Coney Island boardwalk tonight and it’s a killer-diller bill. All the info is here

For more on variety entertainment, including sideshow, please see my book No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous;