Karl Rove's father

[xoxoxoBruce]

Ever wonder what the families of these faces on the news are like, the backgrounds they came from. Here's an article about Karl Rove's father at BME. BME stands for Body modification Ezine. The link is most likely NSFW although the page linked is ok.
http://www.bmezine.com/news/guest/20070818.html

Louie was the first gay man to introduce me to piercing. After a career as a geologist for Getty Oil, he had retired in Palm Springs and owned an up-scale house off Farrell Street, at the end of Santa Ynez Way. His home was chock full with mementos, pictures of his kids, grandkids, art he had gathered on his travels; a library full of books, all kinds of videos, a fantastic classical CD collection — it was a place I felt at home.
~snip~
All of this is not to say I viewed him a perfect man; he drank and smoked too much, was temperamental and never watched his diet. He held a grudge beyond reason and could be insulting ... we lost touch because of his drinking. Personally, I just did not know what to do with people who drink too much.
~snip~
As a way to introduce me to piercing, he showed me a collection of the “world’s first body piercing magazine” — PFIQ (Piercing Fans International Quarterly). Those early magazines depicted a world many thought of “only as a handful of widely dispersed and closeted hardcore fetishists.” I was fascinated.

And pictured in that magazine was Louie ... well, not Louie’s face but it was definitely Louie’s piercings [Editor’s note: in fact, Louie was one of their best known cover models!]. Louie had more genital piercings — all gold — than God ... and there they were, all pictured in that magazine. Pictures I took of those piercings are posted somewhere here on BME. I remember thinking, “I should share these with BME; it’s good place to store copies of them in case something happens to the originals.”
~snip~
The “Jim” in this story is the Jim Ward who started the piercing industry. Louie is Louis Claude Rove whose adopted son’s first name is Karl. Louie died quietly in Palm Springs as his very secular, not-believing son ran President Bush’s campaign for President of the United States that energized the Christian evangelical base around the wedge issue of gay marriage...