I’m thrilled to announce that this month, I’m celebrating my seventy-fifth birthday! Now, I know what some of you are thinking: “Big deal. I’ve got socks older than that!” But for me, it’s still a milestone. I was born on June 24, 1949, the same day that Hopalong Cassidy rode into our living room for the first time inside a 12-inch Philco television—black and white, of course. I just wish I could have been there to see it. I was preoccupied with being born. As it turns out, there were a lot of important “firsts” in 1949. Here are just a few of them, along with their original marketing slogans: Tupperware…
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From Scalpels to Gavels The Supreme Court's Reshaping of Cosmetic Surgery
The United States Supreme Court today has dramatically altered the course of American healthcare and individual liberties by banning all forms of cosmetic surgery nationwide. This landmark ruling, emerging in the wake of the divisive Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case, signals a seismic shift in the intersection of medical practice, personal choice, and legal governance. The new Medina v. Callahan ruling casts a wide net, encompassing everything from breast augmentations and liposuctions to the more specialized and emerging surgeries such as penile enhancements and labiaplasties. The ban abruptly halted an industry that was not just thriving, but booming, with over 10 million procedures annually. Justice Elaine Booker, in…
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A Concise History of Breasts Who has them, who doesn't and what women did about them
It’s that time of year again, when a man’s fancy turns to breasts. Specifically, women’s breasts. You know, babaloos, bazookas, boulders, chi-chis and flapdoodles? Headlamps, hooters, jugs, Lewinskis, and chumbawumbas. Milk bombs, nose warmers, shirt puppies, tatas, dinglebobbers and torpedoes. Whatever you choose to call them, they’re the most alluring part of a women’s body and the part that’s always on a man’s mind. And, apparently, I’m not alone. Men and women have been thinking about boobsters for about as long as they’ve been adorning women’s chests. Although no one was there to record it, I’m sure that the moment after his fateful bite of the apple, Adam said to…
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Why I Became a Professional Tattoo Artist And the lure of fame, fortune and handling naked body parts
There were a lot of reasons why I decided to become a tattoo artist: fame, fortune and the lure of handling marginally-clothed women in the wee hours of the morning. Guaranteed employment was right up there too, but the real reason was simple. I was hopelessly unemployed, mired in lawsuits, and flat broke, so I was desperate to try anything. While standing in line at Trader Joe’s, I scoured the headlines of Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping and Redbook desperate for ideas about which way to turn: “Become a Neuro-surgeon Online in 3 Weeks!” “Learn How to Operate Heavy Equipment in Your Own Backyard!” “Discover the Exciting Field of Cremation!” Everyone had…
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Blaschko Lines Blaschko's lines disease proves there's a little zebra in all of us
Nature has an interesting way of identifying animals in the wild. Lions have their manes, leopards have spots. Tigers and zebras have stripes. And apparently, so do people with Blaschko Lines. Blaschko Lines are common skin patterns that were first identified in 1901 by a German dermatologist named Alfred Blaschko. Over the course of years of examining thousands of patients, he often observed people who exhibited unusual patterns of dark stripes and swirls that encompassed their entire bodies. Some patterns were restricted to an arm or a leg. Other patients had stripes that ran from head to toe, beginning on their face, migrating to their chest and wrapping around their…
