ModBlog News of the Week: June 24th, 2011

It’s time again for the weekly news round up, and as always I’ve got a nice little variety of stories this week.  Before I get to those, I wanted to give a quick update on Ran Maclurkin, who as you may know was injured in an accident a few weeks ago.

Here is a picture of Ran up and about on day release from the rehab hospital. An amazing result considering only 2 weeks ago he endured an 8 hour surgery on his spine. The best news is that they are sending him home permanently mid this week. He does need to wear a back brace and neck brace for the next 2-3 months. On behalf of Ran I would like to thank everyone that was so nice as to donate him a few dollars to help him while he recovers.  -Pete Sheringham

BME would also like to thank everyone who was able to send some support Ran’s way, and we all wish him the best on his road to recovery.

On a somewhat unrelated note, Pete had this story to share about an experience he had with a client recently:

Just had the most amazing phone call, 12 months ago today a lady came to get her nipples pierced at The Piercing Urge, while marking out her nipples I noticed a large lump in her breast, I thought that this should be looked at by a GP so I stopped the procedure and advised her of the lump and to see a GP, I felt a little strange doing this as I did not want to panic her in case it was nothing but felt she should at least get it checked out. She went to the doctors and after some testing was told it was aggressive breast cancer and she had 2 months to live. After almost a year of chemo and a mastectomy she is now cancer free.

She called to tell me I had saved her life and told me that she would call each year on the anniversary of her being clear of cancer.

I could be wrong, but I think it may have been a little dusty in the shop when he received that call.  I know I had something in my eye when I read it.

There’s not a lot of news this week, but there are a couple of stories to get you through the weekend.  Keep on reading to see what’s in store for you.

Well, it’s finally over.  The long and publicly drawn out battle between Warner Brothers and Victor Whitmill over the use of Mike Tyson’s facial tattoo ended in the way pretty much everyone expected it to, an out of court settlement.

A Missouri tattooist who claimed Warner Bros. infringed his copyrighted tattoo in The Hangover: Part II settled his lawsuit with the studio Wednesday.  Terms of the settlement, approved by U.S. District Judge Catherine Perry in Missouri, are being kept confidential as part of the deal.  The settlement comes two weeks after Warner Bros. acknowledged it might be liable for infringement, and announced it would remove the tattoo from the December DVD release if a deal was not reached.  The lawsuit, brought by tattooist Victor Whitmill, asserted the comedy features a “virtually exact reproduction” of a copyrighted tattoo he inked on former heavyweight boxing champ Mike Tyson in 2003. The tattoo appears on the Stu Price character played by actor Ed Helms.

The Whitmill lawsuit focused on the esoteric debate about whether a work first rendered on the human body can be copyright protected. Whitmill testified he created the image directly on Tyson’s skin.  There has never been a court verdict about whether a copyright on a tattoo could be enforced.

As you can tell, I’m not surprised at all by this turn of events.  Although I know a couple of armchair lawyers who will be disappointed to know that there still has yet to be a definitive court ruling one way or the other.

In sports news, an Australian footballer was given a red card the other day for having his penis pierced.  I know, I had to read the article twice just to be sure that was the actual reason.  Luckily there’s video of the event!

Macclesfield-born Aaron Eccleston, of Melbourne side Old Hill Wanderers reserves, was red-carded at the weekend for having his penis pierced.  Little Aaron’s bling was deemed so offensive that the referee decided to send him off.

The player can be heard to comment: “I’m making a complaint, ref. It’s not right looking at my c*ck.”  We’re inclined to agree with you, Aaron. And yet you went to dressing room of your own accord and got your tackle out for him!  If you are anything like OTP you are probably thinking ‘how did the ref know about it in the first place?’. The answer, it seems, is that Eccleston took a blow to his privates as he jumped for a header and pulled his shorts down to check he hadn’t lost anything, anatomically or piercing-wise.  He’s no doubt now thinking that check could have waiting until half-time, in which case he would have saved himself from YouTube humiliation.

I wonder if there is a specific rule on the books against that, or whether it’s just a general “no piercings” rule.

Every once in a while we feature amputation photos and stories on ModBlog.  The ones we feature are mostly DIY, and would be considered “successful”.  By successful I mean that the person doing the amputation achieved their goal of removing a part of their body.  Sadly this next story is about someone who wasn’t successful.

A DEPRESSED former property consultant bled to death in his London home after trying to amputate his own legs with a hacksaw, an inquest heard. Barrie Hepburn, 65, was confined to a wheelchair after being shot in the legs during an argument with a neighbor at the couple’s holiday home in France in 2000, the London Evening Standard reported.  He tried to commit suicide twice following the incident, and researched self-surgery on the internet.  Last August he almost completely severed his right leg with a hacksaw in the kitchen of the couple’s residence in London’s exclusive Mayfair neighborhood, the inquest was told.  Hepburn called paramedics and said he was suffering from heavy bleeding, but died before an ambulance could reach him.

His wife Susan – who runs a high-profile hypnotherapy clinic and counts British singer Lily Allen among her clients – told the Westminster coroner’s court that Hepburn’s depression lifted in recent years.  The coroner recorded a verdict of misadventure, noting, “I think it is quite clear he had no intention of taking his own life. This was a tragic turn of events.”

This is one of the main reasons we tend to post warnings with amputation posts and other heavy modifications.  While Barrie may have done research on the internet, the activity was extremely high risk (especially considering it was an entire limb), and sadly he didn’t survive.

As I said, this is a really slow news week, so we’re already at the last story of the day.

Vice Magazine, the publication that is always on top of the newest trends, reported on the new Japanese “bagelhead” phenomenon that is sweeping the nation.  Oh, wait, did I say new?  What I meant was they wanted to seem like it was a new practice, when in reality it was something was picked up 2 years ago by mainstream news, and it features Ryoichi talking about the forehead saline injections he’s been doing for many years prior to that initial news report.

Obviously, it’s now huge there. Saying that, even though it’s exactly what you’d expect from the country of loo-roll dispenser hats, apparently body modification is still somewhat of a taboo out there, with journalists who choose to cover it usually doing so at the risk of their own careers. I had a chat with Ryoichi to try to help me understand why people are choosing to inject themselves with fluids in order to temporarily change their appearance.

When did saline infusions start to get popular?
Well, actually, I happened to meet Jerome, who was the person who pioneered saline infusions, at Modcon in 1999. Modcon is an extreme body modification convention and it just happened to come to Japan that year so I went to cover it for Burst. I got talking to Jerome and we stayed in contact, then eventually I experienced saline with him in 2003 and he gave me permission to bring it to Japan, so I set up a team in Tokyo to administer infusions for other people. That’s been going since 2007.

I figure in another 2 years we’ll see a story in the NYPost about how this is a breaking new trend first featured in Vice.

And that’s it for the news this week.  Remember, if you find an article you think should be included in the weekly news post, just click here to send it in.

Oh, and remember, next weekend is BMEFest!!!  Sign up today!