A lot of times, the folks that have a lot of mods done like that are professional piercers/tattooists.

I've seen implants like that here in the middle of the Bible Belt (Tulsa). They're still pretty rare, but they're around.

I may have seen the same guy from the MAX in Portland a few days ago! Crazy!

And yeah, I remember thinking, "So I guess a real job ("real job") in the future is out, huh?"

Yeah, he'd have to have some sort of "alternative" employment. But implants can be removed and ear lobes surgically fixed.

Piercing places can do the initial earlobe stuff and if you want your holes larger you can purchase the items to do so on the internet and do it yourself. You just get gradually larger plugs and insert them.

The only person on MetaChat that I know has ear plugs is box, he might have more info on that.

how much does all this body modification run a person, who can do legally perform such a procedure -- not to mention what does one so, ahem, enhanced do for a living ?

You can do the initial earlobe piercing yourself, even, or have a friend do it or something. You can also make your own jewelry (though it's far more common, I think, to trade/borrow/barter from your modified friends). Additionally, most of the shops I've encountered have a semi-unspoken thing where prices are lowered for repeat customers. There are a lot of outright quid pro quos and buddy deals and stuff as well. I'm avoiding mentioning specific numbers because it varies a lot both regionally and according to the professionalism and celebrity of the artist.

Similarly, local laws vary quite a bit, but it would be fair to say that piercing is an underregulated industry (compared to, say, tattooing, cutting hair, or plastic surgery). Generally speaking, things that are further along some continuum of mainstream-ness (like e.g. scarification or implants) are less regulated.

Most but not all of my more heavily-modified friends and acquaintances work in what I'll loosely define as creative-slash-service fields (piercers, tattooers, beauticians, artists/craftspeople, chefs, etc.), though I also know folks who work in academia, for nonprofits, at Whole Foods, all kinds of stuff (although, as ufez says, many of the most heavily-modified folks are in the body-modification industry). I'm a librarian.

I'm no super-expert, but I've been into this stuff for a while, and I'd be happy to try to answer other questions if you have them.

(And it's hard to say what he was thinking, but I'd like to point out that you don't get coffee-saucer-sized earlobe piercings overnight. Whatever he was thinking, he's been thinking about it for years.)

Well, it took long enough to get back here, but thank you all for the information.