Concealed with Art Simone · iHeart Podcasts Australia

Knives Out 🔪

·24 min·1 clip

Medical tourism can leave patients “on their own” if complications happen abroad.

Art Simone arrives in full camp mode. She introduces a guest who seems straightforward only until the concealment game starts peeling back the surface, and the opening banter turns appearances into a joke before the real subject arrives. Ramin says he lives in Melbourne. He explains that he was born in Sydney, lived in Iran from 1978 to 1981, and spends most of his time drawing and trying to solve problems, with drawing and painting also part of his life outside work. Art notices his glasses. The prescription-versus-fashion question becomes one of those small show-business clues that feels silly at first and then oddly revealing once the chat starts circling the real person. The interview turns toward beauty work. Art brings up her background as a makeup artist doing drag faces for people whose expectations outran what their features could actually hold, and that creates an easy bridge into the same tension on the surgical side. Ramin describes the work as negotiation. He pushes back against simple slogans about perfection and says the job is less about fantasy than about navigating each person's psychology and helping them understand variation across arms, breasts, eyes, nostrils, and legs. The talk gets personal. Art says she is legally blind in one eye, which means she sometimes flips photos of her face to check the other side properly, and that detail gives the exchange a sharper edge. The pair land on symmetry. They agree that making someone perfectly even can make them look strange, because nature itself does not really do symmetry, and the human eye can read too much polish as artificial. The pace stays brisk. There are short bursts, little self-corrections, and comic overstatement throughout, so the serious parts never feel cut off from the joke machine. The show keeps leaning into examples. Ramin and Art compare surgery, makeup, and everyday perception without losing the conversational rhythm that makes the format work. The interview also keeps widening. What starts as a clue game becomes a discussion about body image, perception, and the gap between aspiration and reality. The tone never turns clinical. Even when the subject gets intimate, the chat stays warm, cheeky, and very willing to call out nonsense when it hears it. Then it goes sideways in a good way. The conversation drifts toward a playful thought experiment about extra digits, and the ridiculousness helps reset the mood after the more serious body talk. They talk about toe-to-hand transfer. Koalas, thumbs, texting speed, and the idea of a spare thumb called the tinga all get dragged into the bit, which is exactly the kind of absurd flourish this show likes to use before wrapping a reveal. The secret finally comes into focus. Ramin is identified as a plastic surgeon, and the closing stretch leaves the sense that there is both technical skill and a very specific kind of wit behind the curtain.

As heard by us

A playful guessing game that opens into body image, symmetry, and the psychology of cosmetic expectations.

Art Simone turns a concealed profession into a playful guessing game, then lets it open into a talk about beauty, expectation, and the way people read their own faces.

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Why you'd press play

Play this for a glam mystery that turns into a sharp chat about beauty expectations.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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