truTV: Not Reality. Actuality.

Extreme body-piercing in Arizona was a subject fit only for the alternative newsweekly New Times Phoenix in 2001, but in August 2003, Tucson's mainstream press (Arizona Daily Star) followed an 18-year- old man, who was having four modified deep-sea (8-gauge) fishing hooks threaded into his back so that he could be hoisted toward the ceiling and suspended for 20 minutes of what the man said was the worst pain he'd ever felt (for the privilege of which he paid $150). Said the piercing shop's wrangler, Chris Glunt, "For some it's like a spiritual thing. I've suspended to clear my head. You can focus and concentrate on where you stand in life."

A 31-year-old Philadelphia government employee's surgery is just a radical example of how obsessed some women are to wear excruciatingly painful, but fashionable, shoes, according to an August Wall Street Journal report. For about $10,000, the woman had one toe shortened and another straightened so that now she can wear today's ever-pointier, open-toed pumps. Among podiatrists' other remedies: narrowing of the nails; collagen injections to pad the soles of the feet; and a $225 "foot facial" scrub. But when a Moline, Ill., woman told her more traditional podiatrist that she needed corrective toe surgery, the doctor said, "No, you need different shoes."

Oops! A 29-year-old man was hospitalized in fair condition after he playfully put a four-inch long fish in his mouth (not realizing the fish would head for the only opening, his esophagus) (Macomb, Ill.).

A motorist drove his car into a self-service car wash hoping to drench a small fire in his engine, but by the time he realized he didn't have any coins, the fire had spread, eventually destroying four of the car wash's eight bays (West Seneca, N.Y.). And a 38-year-old man attempted to dispose of gunpowder by tossing it into his lighted fireplace, resulting in burns to his head and arms (Pike Creek Valley, Del.).

Justin Scheidt filed a lawsuit in May against the Showgirl III strip club in Fort Wayne, Ind., for "serious and permanent injuries" to his groin area received after he consented to take the stage with several dancers during their show. Scheidt, as a climax to his bachelor party that night, complied with the women's requests and lay on his back with his legs around the dancers' pole, after which they began climbing the pole and sliding down squarely on his groin. Scheidt went ahead with his wedding but said he was unable to consummate the marriage because of his injuries.

Illinois became the latest state to propose a ban on having one's tongue aesthetically split, reptile- like (unless done by a doctor or dentist). But the move is unpopular among devotees. "When I first saw it, I thought tongue-splitting was the most beautiful thing I've seen in my life," said satisfied splittee James Keen, who spoke to an Associated Press reporter, who observed that Keen "now speaks with a slight lisp." Said another splitee, who said he could now do party tricks like picking up a pencil with the two halves, "It's done to better yourself."